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knew we were going to have to fix that we didn’t want to do in-season. Some of that is people issues, some of it is the way we do things. That’s why we decided to experiment in the first year, to figure out how to make ourselves better for next year. We have a new set up and some new people, especially in engineering. We’re going to have a really strong line up. Hopefully we won’t have the same overheating issues with the powertrain being more efficient. We’ll be a very different team next year.”
The team will also take a different approach to the revolving list of drivers, settling instead on two permanent fixtures. “We always wanted to have one car that was the mainstay,” Andretti explains. “That was supposed to be Franck but then JEV came in for the rest of the year. The other car, we were going to bring in other drivers to get some experience, evaluate them. From that standpoint it went to plan. We have a different philosophy for next year. We want to go for the championship and we need stability in the team with the drivers.”
Swiss driver Simona de Silvestro, who drove for the team in London, has been signed for the second season. While Vergne has been reported to be the team’s other driver, Andretti simply says: “We don’t have JEV yet. We’re not ready to announce our second driver.”
American driver Scott Speed, who had such blistering performance in Miami, could be in contention for the seat. “Scott did a very good job,” Andretti says. “We really like him. He does a great job in global rallycross. We’ll just have to look at the schedules for next year and see how many conflicts there would be.”
The Amlin sponsorship deal is big news. It brings an influx of cash, which will help the team secure the stability it needs. The deal brings more than just greenbacks, however. Amlin proved particularly adept at social media marketing in season one (a critical factor in Formula E’s Fanboost feature) when the company was the title sponsor of the Aguri team.
Little is known about the breakdown of that relationship, but Andretti is keen to point out there was no underhanded dealing going on. “They approached us,” he explains. “We said we’re interested but didn’t want to get in the way. We don’t steal sponsors. But the more we talked, the more excited we got because of the way they activate. You know they’re really behind it and they’re trying to make it work. If they’re doing that, they’re going to get results. A lot of companies don’t understand that. They think if they put their name on the car, everything is going to happen. These guys get it.”
The American team boss has been impressed at the development of the series so far and is convinced that great things lie ahead. “They get a Grade A for what has been done,” he says. “The quality of the drivers and teams gives the series real credibility. And you have to remember: these cars are babies. Five years from now, they could be doing 200mph and going twice as far. The technology is there if the rules open up.”
For now, however, Andretti is looking only as far ahead as next week. “I hope the motor works properly. If it’s reliable, which it should be, we should be strong. After that, the main challenge for the season is the same challenge that we have every day: we go out there and try to beat our competitors. Hopefully we’ll win races, a lot of races. The championship is the goal. It’s going to be tough but I think we’re up to the challenge.”As they have for decades, Americans are moving toward cities and jobs. And now more than ever, they are willing to settle for less square footage in return for a carless commute, convenient access to shopping and entertainment destinations, and that hard-to-define quality called “place.” Fewer want to own their own home, and many more are looking for affordable options.
These trends, which apply across a broad spectrum of the population, are shaping demand for housing, according to panelists at ULI’s Housing Opportunity Conference, held in Seattle in March.
What is outside—on and off the premises—counts at least as much as what is inside the home itself. Car-free access to parks, cafés, and transit—it all adds up to time and money saved, as well as a desirable way to live.
Add edgy design—as well as affordability —and the result is a perfect housing match for millennials. Also known as generation Y, they are age 18 to 35. Now that the recession is passing, members of this generation are moving out of their parents’ homes and making up a growing share of new households. But what they need and want is different from what their parents sought.
Millennials are saddled with student debt; they are delaying having children; and they are less interested in mortgages and the route to wealth-building traditionally offered by homeownership. The preferences of 20-somethings are defining an emerging housing type called micro-units—which measure under 400 square feet (37 sq m)—and developers and designers of market-rate housing are putting their minds to how to provide them.
Millennials have some things in common with members of other generations who just want interim housing or a foot on the ground in the city. These desires cut across age and class, applying equally to workers on the move and executives who have families in outlying areas but want to stay near the office on weeknights, says Robert Pantley, manager at Natural and Built Environments, a real estate firm based in Kirkland, Washington. “They are not just looking at the house, not just looking at the unit; that was the old way of making housing choices,” he says. Instead, the focus is more on location—a place providing convenient access to the workplace, as well as to a complete urban neighborhood with places to eat, meet, and enjoy life.
Thinking Micro
Though smaller than a studio or one-bedroom apartment, the micro-unit is able to meet basic housing needs, thanks to a number of innovative strategies. In the Seattle area, a typical version of the micro-unit is a four-unit suite with a shared kitchen. Because the units are rented individually, the zoning code counts all four units sharing the suite’s single kitchen as one, making the project a “boarding house,” in the language of the last century. Typically, a manager is on site.
Plenty of models for the micro-unit concept exist in Europe and Asia, implementing the basic idea of consolidating living spaces into smaller square footages. Great design and small luxuries can be part of the package, along with lots of on-site amenities like community gardens, dog-bathing facilities, and party rooms, according to Pantley. One key to making micro-units work is providing strategic luxuries like high ceilings, durable materials, and high-quality fixtures.
From New York City to Seattle, however, urban neighborhoods are wary about the construction of micro-unit developments in their midst, says Kaye Matheny of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. They fear the return of the historically maligned single-room-occupancy unit, associated with poverty and overcrowding.
Despite this resistance, the demand for one- and two-person apartments—even very compact ones—is expected to far outstrip supply. New York City has actively promoted the form, organizing a pilot micro-apartment project based on a design competition called adAPT NYC, Matheny says. The winning project, My Micro NY, located in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, is under construction: 55 units ranging in size from 250 to 370 square feet (23 to 34 sq m).
New Paradigms for All Ages
In retirement communities, baby boomers are redefining the market, says Helen Foster, principal of New Orleans–based Foster Strategy. The watchwords are play, exploration, friendship, and balance, she says. Units are designed to provide universal access regardless of the mobility of either the resident or his or her guests, and to be on trend and provide high-quality aesthetics. And because boomers tend to want to mix with people of all ages rather than be isolated in age-qualified communities, projects are targeting a wider mix of residents.
“Igniting a new ageless paradigm” is the goal of Rancho Mission Viejo, a master-planned community in southern Orange County, California, says Paul Johnson, the community’s senior vice president of community development. In addition to lifestyle attractions like trails, spas, and health-conscious restaurants, the project provides a mix of housing types and amenities that promote easy, at-will connectivity and intergenerational contact.
Sustainable and Affordable Housing
Sustainability is a shared concern among all housing markets, and one in which taxpayers can make good investments, according to conference participants.
Architect jv DeSousa of Workshop8, based in Boulder, Colorado, presented his project, Paisano Senior Housing, as a model of sustainable housing. Development of the project—located on an unlikely site between a highway and a stadium near the border crossing at El Paso, Texas—was helped by an $8.25 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 green communities initiative.
With a construction cost of $268 per square foot ($2,885 per sq m) and $203,000 per unit, the housing at Paisano Senior Housing was not inexpensive to build. But the sustainable features—including use of renewable energy—will translate into savings of $691 per year for a typical one-bedroom unit.
Housing affordability in general is a primary concern among buyers and housing policy analysts. One group getting squeezed out of the housing market—especially in high-demand employment centers like Greater Boston—is young, working families. According to members of a panel on “Lessons from Massachusetts,” which included planners and officials at different levels of government, when the local Metropolitan Area Planning Council collected data as part of regional planning, it found that the Boston area was losing population in that group in particular.
Though residents were worried, jurisdictional divisions among the more than 100 separate Boston-area townships made it difficult to gain any momentum toward making housing more abundant and affordable to these families. Simple revisions of codes and policies, such as defining any building with two separate units as multifamily housing and making new housing more convenient to schools, were proving impossible to obtain, according to Lisa Alberghini, president of Planning Office for Urban Affairs, a nonprofit housing developer.
But when the Metropolitan Area Planning Council partnered with the state, they were able to produce a campaign of outreach and education, leading to general recognition of the importance that housing opportunity for young families plays in the long-term success and competitiveness of Massachusetts, according to panelists.
Gregory Bialecki, secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, says the region and the state are on track to achieve net positive migration and the goal of producing 10,000 multifamily housing units per year between 2012 and 2020. The production of multifamily housing is now trending steeply up, from 519 units in 2011 to 2,752 in 2012, based on permits issued.
The Whole Package
Panelists affirmed that when it comes to making smart investments, housing never stands alone. Housing costs cannot be decoupled from transportation costs—especially for the working poor. Location counts, and locations near transit are key drivers of the market, as are family finances.
For the homeless or those threatened with homelessness, housing is a platform that supports lowered health risks and health costs, and this translates into long-term savings for taxpayers, says David Fleming, director and health officer for public health for Seattle and King County.
There is increasing and even bipartisan consensus that housing policy must recognize the value of community. Fleming says the importance of housing is not just a matter of breaking up pockets of poverty; it also involves access to education, healthful foods, and other important elements of a high quality of life.
One policy guide on affordable housing is to make analysis of the health impact of projects part of decision making, says Jane Graf, president of Mercy Housing California, a nonprofit housing provider. A growing body of data, much of which continues to be gathered through Medicaid innovation grants, supports housing that is sustainably constructed and near essentials like a healthful food supply, open spaces, and services.
Conference-goers also learned some ways that limits on smart investment—from outdated zoning codes to sustainable design innovation barriers—can be broken. New recession-based restrictions on capital investment in housing can also be overcome, says Barry Zigas, director of housing policy for the Consumer Federation of America. He called for stability and standardization in mortgage finance and access to long-term fixed-rate financing. Zigas also notes the need for a greater abundance of private, risk-bearing capital. “Securitization is a way to bring capital into this market,” he says. A new guarantor owned by the government—similar to Ginnie Mae—might be a worthwhile approach, he says.Looking for news you can trust?
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Last week, Donald Trump made a firm commitment to change how Washington works. “If I am elected president, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, DC,” he said. “The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests, or surrendering, really, the last scrap of independence to the total and complete control of people like the Clintons.” A few weeks earlier, he was more explicit, saying that if he were elected president he would have “no problem” banning lobbyists from working in his administration.
But when it comes to winning the presidency, Trump has no problem relying on the influence peddlers of the nation’s capital. With his campaign facing severe organizational challenges, Trump has turned to DC lobbying insiders for a crucial task: pulling together and running the Republican convention in Cleveland, where he is expected to claim his crown as the party’s presidential nominee.
Trump’s embrace of lobbyists started in a big way in March, when he hired Paul Manafort, an uber-lobbyist who has specialized in representing strongmen, dictators, and warlords, including Somalia’s Siad Barre, Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, and Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Manafort was enlisted for his expertise in rounding up convention delegates—a task he had managed for previous GOP candidates—and he has since been promoted to campaign chairman, displacing Corey Lewandowski.
Manafort is not the only lobbyist on the payroll of the Trump campaign. Doug Davenport, a former lobbyist with Manafort’s old firm, the DCI Group, is working with Manafort. At DCI, Davenport represented Burma’s military junta. His job now is to oversee a team of eight Trump campaign whips riding herd on unruly Republican delegates. (In 2008, the news that Davenport had worked for Burma’s authoritarian leadership led to his resignation from John McCain’s presidential campaign.) One of Davenport’s whips will be Mike McSherry, another DC lobbyist whose clients include Airbnb, Alcoa, and Hyundai. Also working on Davenport’s whip team is Bill McGinley, a DC-based lawyer who is not currently registered as a lobbyist but wrote a chapter of the American Bar Association’s Lobbying Manual, according to his biography. Two other former lobbyists who worked with Manafort at one of his earlier lobbying firms, Michael Conforti and Patrick Brady, are also on the campaign’s convention squad and have been handed the mission of managing relations with state caucuses. Both have been connected to gambling companies.
The influence of Washington lobbyists extends beyond the Trump campaign’s ranks. Several big-name insiders have been recruited by the Republican Party to help organize and run the GOP convention. DC lobbyists will be in charge of making sure that Trump’s coronation in Cleveland goes smoothly—that the program proceeds without a hitch, that floor flights do not derail the convention, and that chaos does not interfere with Trump’s big moment. Larry Harlow, the son of legendary Washington fixture and lobbyist Bryce Harlow, is on the convention’s payroll at $10,000 a month, according to financial disclosure forms filed by the Republican National Committee. Harlow’s lobbying shop currently represents the American Medical Association; it previous worked for oil and energy companies, such as ConocoPhillips and Entergy. The filing doesn’t state what Harlow is doing for the convention, but he has been the director of official proceedings at the last three GOP presidential conventions.
Also on the GOP’s convention team is Bill Harris, a longtime DC operative who once lobbied for the US Chamber of Commerce and Quest Software Inc, and who served as CEO of the 2004 convention. The RNC has hired Wiley Rein, the powerhouse lobbying and law firm, to handle legal issues related to the convention. Wiley Rein represents many corporate clients, including AT&T, Verizon, 21st Century Fox, and CBS’s parent company.
The growing team of lobbyists working for Trump shows that certain parts of K Street—an important piece of the GOP establishment—are happy to jump on the Trump train. This is no surprise, since helping a GOP nominee is likely good for their business. Yet the message Trump sends by retaining and depending upon these guns for hire is that his outrage against the mercenaries who toil for corporate clients and special interests is highly selective. Trump is quite willing to embrace members of Washington’s money-grubbing, special-interest elite class, as long as they advance one particular interest: him.About
More As revealed to
Marshall Vian Summers
on June 11, 2008
in the USA About this Text What you are reading in this text is the transcription of the original voice of the Angelic Assembly as it spoke through the Messenger Marshall Vian Summers. Here, the original communication of God, which exists beyond words, is translated into human language and understanding by the Angelic Assembly who watch over the world. The Assembly then delivers God’s Message through the Messenger, whereafter it is transcribed and made available to you and to all people. In this remarkable process, the Voice of Revelation is speaking anew. The Word and the Sound are in the world. May you be the recipient of this gift of Revelation and may you be open to receive its unique Message for you and for your life. Order the book Volume 4 > Life in the Universe > Chapter 1
You live within a Greater Community of intelligent life in the universe. It is vast, encompassing the entire spectrum of evolution—the evolution of technology, the evolution of societies and the evolution of spiritual awareness and ethics. It is vast and incomprehensible. It is the greater environment into which humanity is now emerging. Humanity is emerging into this environment not from its brief forays into your local solar system, but from visitations that are occurring in the world now and which will increase in the future.
This greater environment into which you are emerging is a physical reality governed by physical laws, the laws of nature that you are aware of. Do not concern yourselves here with the possibilities of other dimensions, for that will not be your need and concern. It is this greater reality in which humanity has always lived and in which your world has always existed that must become your focal point now.
Many people have speculated on the possibilities for life in the Greater Community, what that might be like and how life would evolve into more sophisticated realms and societies. Today, as in the past, people project their hopes and their wishes upon the meaning of life beyond the world, hoping that other races will be more enlightened, more sophisticated and more elevated than the human family has been and is currently. And, of course, there are many fears projected into this larger arena of life—fears of terrible beasts, terrible invading nations, destruction, attack and so forth.
But, as always, reality is very different from expectation. The reality into which you will be emerging will be the focus of this series of teachings—a reality that you can understand from your own experience of living in the natural world and from your own experience of living within the evolution of human society.
The great difference, of course, is both the complexity and the vastness of this Greater Community and the fact that it is inhabited by races of beings that are very different from humanity, not only different in form and appearance, but different in intelligence and awareness and different in ethics and values.
This will be hard to deal with, and this is where your hopes and fears may arise. But you must recognize that humanity has now reached a point of world development and a threshold where it will be facing Great Waves of environmental change and difficulty in the world. Here your encounter with intelligent life from the Greater Community and the reality of the Greater Community itself will become ever more important and central to your well-being and to the kind of future you will be able to create.
There is a very great shift here, a very great shift from a human-centered world to a Greater Community reality. Because you have lived in isolation and have evolved in isolation for so very long with only very infrequent and largely unrecognized visitations to the world from various races in the past, you naturally project your values onto the prospect and the notion of intelligent life in the universe. As a result, some people feel or believe fervently that the universe is inhabited by human beings who have evolved beyond conflict and deception and that the values that you hold here or that you aspire to are universal in nature. The fact that this is not true and that it represents a dangerous set of assumptions and beliefs is something that you must face at the outset.
The other difficulty is that you are not preeminent within this Greater Community though you have established preeminence within your own world. Within the Greater Community, you are but a beginner. You are standing at the beginning of your development, unaware and possessing assumptions and beliefs that will not be true. You have great disadvantages and are vulnerable to persuasion and deception from various races, both in the future and from those who are indeed intervening in your world at this time. Your isolation has given you a naiveté and has not prepared you for the challenges and the opportunities that the Greater Community itself will present.
There is no one in the world who could teach you about the reality and the spirituality of life in the universe. There is no one who has this awareness or who has this experience. As a result, the communication and education about this must come from God and, secondarily, from those very few races who are aware of your existence, who will support your emergence as a free and self-determined race and who will be called by God to assist you in this most fundamental and necessary education. You have allies in the universe though they are not visiting your world, for humanity is not ready to establish relations with other nations in the universe. Humanity does not have the maturity and is not united, strong enough or discreet enough to engage meaningfully and beneficially with any race in the universe.
This is not a time where Contact is required. It is a time where preparation for Contact is required. And this Contact will take a great deal of time. It will take time because an education of this magnitude will not come quickly. Many people will resist it, deny it or avoid it. This education will not come quickly because humanity must now concern itself ever increasingly with the Great Waves of change that are coming to the world and that are here already—environmental degradation, the depletion of your fundamental resources, the loss of food production, the scarcity of water, the dramatic effects of a changing climate and a heating world and the ever-growing risk of competition, conflict and war between groups and nations over access to the remaining resources.
This will become a dominating focus and concern, both for average people in the world everywhere and for nations and governments as well. However, to meet these immense and unprecedented challenges, you will need Knowledge and wisdom from beyond the world. Here it is not technology you need as much as it is the will and the commitment to unite for the preservation of this world as a habitable environment for the human family and to cease your endless conflicts to prepare to engage with intelligent races in the universe, many of whom will not be here to support you. Meeting the Great Waves of change, establishing the necessary human cooperation and the cessation of human conflict along with the preparation for the Greater Community represent the great and fundamental needs of humanity. If these great needs are not sufficiently recognized and addressed, then everything else that you will attempt to create for your own benefit, either personally or for the benefit of humanity, will prove to be insufficient, and great travail will come to the world.
Your education about the Greater Community must come from God. It must come from God to be pure and to be wholly beneficial for you. And it must come from God because only God knows fully the nature, the reality and the purpose of the human family. No foreign power or race could really know this, even if they studied your behavior and your transmissions. The communication must come from God, and that is exactly what is happening.
The teachings that you are about to read concerning the reality and the spirituality of the Greater Community come from God, for there is no one in the world who could know the things that will be presented here. And there is no foreign power in the universe who could communicate what humanity really needs with thoroughness and complete knowledge of human nature, purpose and reality.
Accept then that God has sent a New Message into the world to prepare humanity, both to face the Great Waves of change that are coming to the world and to prepare for the reality and spirituality of life in the universe and all of its difficulties and hidden opportunities. This is an education that you cannot give yourself. It is an education that you could not receive in any university or center of learning in the world. It is a communication that you must listen to with your heart as well as your mind. Your mind will be confused by many things that are presented here, and many of your ideas will be challenged and shown to be incorrect or inadequate. Your mind may reject this great teaching and preparation. It may object for reasons both rational and irrational because your mind does not know the mind of God. Your mind only has fixed notions about life in the universe. Yet it has not experienced life in the universe.
That is why you must receive this teaching and education about the reality and the spirituality of the Greater Community with both your mind and your heart. Your mind will struggle with the ideas and perspective presented here, but your heart will know. You will know because it is God speaking to you, educating you and preparing you. Through this education and preparation, God is giving you greater strength, greater security and a greater protection that you will need in order to face the challenges within your own world and the challenges that surely exist beyond it.
Many people claim to have knowledge of the universe, but how can they know? They have been trapped on the surface of this one world—believing, hoping and speculating; trying to comprehend past revelations and prophecies or trying to project their understanding into realms far beyond their experience or awareness. Complex theories may be established. Prophecies from the past may be attempted to be fulfilled in current times. But these must all prove inadequate, for humanity is without education regarding the larger universe in which you exist and which you will have to face increasingly, both now and in the times to come.
It is wise then to accept your limitations. It is wise to put yourself in a position to be a student, to be a listener and a learner so that you may receive fully the revelations that will be presented here—the revelations born of a New Message for humanity, revelations that will provide for humanity a new way forward into a very difficult and uncertain future.
Those who will receive and accept this challenge of learning about Knowledge and wisdom in the Greater Community will be the great beneficiaries, not only for themselves personally, but for the entire human family. They will be the ones who will be in a position to educate and to prepare others. This will require vision, courage and great objectivity, for this education must speak through and beyond your hopes and your fears. For they can only cloud the vision that you must now have.
Accept that you do not know what life in the universe is like, how it exists, how it interacts with itself, what to expect regarding visitation to your world and what to understand about the visitation that has already occurred here. Accepting this limitation gives you the greatest opportunity and possibility to see beyond your current limits, to see beyond the confines of this world and to see beyond the confines of human interactions. For now you will be considering and facing interactions of a very different nature with intelligences that are very different, who think very differently and function from very different assumptions about life than you do or that humanity as a whole does.
This is a preparation that will make all the difference in determining whether humanity’s initial engagements with life in the universe will be beneficial or will be detrimental. Much wisdom must be brought to bear here, for you are the stewards of a beautiful planet that is greatly valued by others. But you are weak stewards, and you are conflicted amongst yourselves. And you are rapidly depleting the wealth of this world, a world that is so rare and valuable in a universe of barren planets.
You do not yet see your vulnerability here nor the importance of maintaining this world, maintaining your self-sufficiency, maintaining the world’s climate and maintaining its natural balances. Do not think that you can travel to other worlds and find places like this. They are very rare, and they are always occupied. This understanding will give you a greater sense of responsibility, for real education must always imbue you with a greater sense of responsibility— responsibility not only to learn, but to act and to serve.
Humanity now is on a reckless course. It is destroying its self-sufficiency in the world. It is endangering the natural balances that have given humanity such a beautiful and splendid world in which to evolve and to live. This is hazardous not only for your future in this world, but also hazardous regarding your relationships with other races in the universe. Through this series of teachings that you are about to experience, you will be able to learn about this, to see its implications and to understand this reality in order to have a real sense of it. This recognition of life in the universe is possible because you were born with a Greater Community awareness. This awareness gives you the ability to empathize and recognize certain realities about life from beyond this world. This is a recognition that exists far beyond your intellect, your thinking mind, which has been cultivated and established through cultural conditioning and your worldly education.
Recognizing that you have a connection to life in the universe is very important here and will be part of the exploration within these teachings. Without this deeper connection, the universe would be too awesome, too immense, too complicated, too difficult and too threatening. It would produce only insecurity and confusion for you. But speaking to the deeper part of you enables you to gain recognition and a sense of your destiny within the Greater Community itself. For regardless of the difficulties that you face in your own world and the difficulties in establishing proper and wise engagements with races from beyond your world, there is the fundamental reality that the human family has a destiny in space. You have a destiny to engage with other races, a destiny to grow and, with the proper education and understanding and with your own native wisdom, the possibility of being a free and self-determined race in a vast and difficult universe.
Accept this challenge, recognizing as you do that there is something within you that gives you the ability to respond to the revelations that will be given here. This ability exists beyond your intellect, beyond your ideas, beyond your fixed notions and beyond anything that you have yet learned in the world. It is mysterious because it is born of God. It is born of a Greater Reality of which you are a part.
Not everyone will be able to see this and know this. And it is important even at the outset that you accept that many people, even those you are very close to, may not be able to see, to know and to respond to this preparation for the Greater Community. But that is all right. It is given now for the first to respond. If you are amongst the first to respond and amongst the first to be genuinely educated about life in the universe, then you must accept this challenge—even if others do not respond, even if others are fearful or doubtful, even if others turn away. Not everyone is at the same point in their development, education and awareness.
Therefore, do not think of everyone responding. Instead, think of you responding and learning. Higher education is not for everyone at this moment, and this most certainly represents a higher education. Therefore, prepare yourself to receive. And if you hear things that you do not understand, then be patient, for in the course of these revelations We will repeat things many times and describe things in different ways to give you the greatest opportunity to see, to know and to recognize the immense environment of life that exists beyond your borders and of which you have always been a part.
Next Chapter: A Brief History of Visitation to Earth – Extraterrestrial TechnologyADVERTISEMENT
1. At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen (Vintage, $17).
Two mercenaries fly a plane into the remote Amazon jungle and are then hired to bomb an indigenous village. One of them decides to join the villagers instead, and when he parachutes out of his plane, he lands in their midst as a god...
2. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage, $16).
A former professor living on a Tennessee River houseboat ekes out a livelihood selling his catch, then drinks away his profits with Knoxville's misfits and miscreants. McCarthy's prose is ancient and exact and mythic, and his portrait of America's underbelly in the 1950s is shocking in its depiction of human degradation.
3. Thieves of State by Sarah Chayes (Norton, $17).
Chayes' thesis here is both radical and incredibly obvious: Corruption is the common denominator among societies where radical Islam is ascendant. ISIS, the Taliban, Somalia's al-Shabab, and Nigeria's Boko Haram all gained footholds, we're told, because they promised to eradicate the corruption of despotic regimes. If this is so, corruption should be our target, too.
4. Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne (Scribner, $17).
This book recounts how the Comanche, through extraordinary fighting and survival skills, succeeded longer than any other Native American group in blocking white society's intrusion on their land. Central to the story is Quanah Parker, a mixed-race war leader whose white mother was captured by the Comanche as a teenager.
5. Radical Hope by Jonathan Lear (Harvard, $21).
How does a society survive the complete collapse of its economic and ethical systems? Lear, a philosopher and historian, explains how the radical vision of Chief Plenty Coups saved his fellow Crow from physical and spiritual annihilation in the 1870s. This is one of the most profound and exciting books I have ever read.
6. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (Harper, $30).
This exhilarating book retells the 2 million–years-long story of humankind's evolution, right through industrialization. Harari is implacably literal, refraining from both political correctness and any pro-Western or even pro-human bias. The scope of his inquiry is astonishing.
— Journalist Sebastian Junger is the author of The Perfect Storm and co-director of the Oscar-nominated war documentary Restrepo. His new book, Tribe, posits that PTSD is caused less by trauma than by the individualist culture veterans return to.Dive Brief:
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced plans to convert its entire 2,200 bus fleet to zero-emission buses by 2030.
The LA Metro announced last Thursday it was awarding contracts for 95 electric buses and charging infrastructure for two of its bus service routes.
The move to electrify part of Los Angeles' public transit system coincides with Southern California Edison's proposal to expand its electric transportation charging system within its service area.
Dive Insight:
A significant front in California's battle to reduce carbon emissions is the transportation sector. In 2016, Gov. Jerry Brown rolled out an action plan to put 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025, as one way to meet a suite of greenhouse gas reduction programs under the California Air Resources Board.
LA Metro will hire a consultant to develop a plan to convert its remaining 168 bus routes to zero-emission buses.
Putting more electric vehicles on the road is key to solving several existential problems for utilities. California utilities are battling many familiar issues facing the sector nationwide: stagnant load growth, flat power sales and increasing penetration of renewable energy.
EV growth could help resolve those issues. In addition to growing power demand, electric vehicles can be used for demand response programs and avoid costly infrastructure upgrades. It's also another money-making opportunity. Utilities have proposed to ratebase charger systems, and can collect a rate of return on these projects.
SCE filed plans in January to expand its electric vehicle infrastructure system, planning to spend $553.8 million on a five-year charging buildout. The plan includes a pilot program in which SCE will install electric charging infrastructure behind-the-meter and provide a rebate toward installing these stations.
The buildout will also benefit LA Metro's goal to electrifiy its transportation sector, one of the biggest carbon emitting industries in the country. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in January that power sector emissions dropped behind the transportation sector for the first time in four decades.
However, the push by utilities to own charging infrastructure could set off a debate similar to ones over who owns behind-the-meter assets, and how they will participate in the EV market.(written from a Production point of view Real World article
Violent emotions sweep the Enterprise when Ambassador Sarek comes aboard to finish a long diplomatic mission.
Contents show]
Summary Edit
Teaser Edit
Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan is called aboard the USS Enterprise-D to fulfill his latest diplomatic duty, a treaty with a mysterious race known as the Legarans. Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Commander William T. Riker are in a corridor and Picard says that he was tongue-tied the first time he met Sarek briefly at his son's wedding. Riker asks Picard if the rumors that Sarek will be retiring after these negotiations are true, and the captain confirms that it's unofficial but true, and the successful negotiations with the Legarans will be considered a perfect way to end an exemplary career. They enter the transporter room and Sarek's aides, Ki Mendrossen and Sakkath, are beamed aboard. Mendrossen advises that Sarek is not a young man anymore and though Sarek may wish to attend the events that the Enterprise has prepared for him, he says that it is ill-advised because Sarek will tire too easily. He must be ready to negotiate with the Legarans when the Enterprise arrives at Legara IV. Picard says that they have readied a Mozart concert for him. Sarek and his wife, Perrin, are then beamed on board the Enterprise by Chief O'Brien. He introduces his wife, who, like his first wife, is Human. Sarek tells Picard he wishes to visit the conference room intended for the Legarans, contrary to Mendrossen's wishes. Mendrossen interjects to say that he should rest, but Sarek is insistent on visiting the conference room, telling Picard they worry about his health too |
poor and the elderly. The Progressive Caucus's plan would (by its own claims) balance the budget by 2021 by cutting defence spending and raising taxes, mainly on rich people. Mr Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not. I'm not really sure what "courage" is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards. For 30 years, certainly since Walter Mondale got creamed by Ronald Reagan, the most dangerous thing a politician can do has been to call for tax hikes. Politicians who call for higher taxes are punished, which is why they don't do it. I'm curious to see what adjectives people would apply to the Progressive Congressional Caucus's budget proposal. But it's hard for me to imagine the media calling a proposal to raise taxes "courageous" and "honest". And my sense is that the disparate treatment here is a structural bias rooted in class.
Class bias is likely one of the reasons why proposing steep cuts to anti-poverty programs for seniors gets you labeled "courageous" while proposing something like The People's Budget gets you ignored. Being considered "serious" and "courageous" in our political discourse seems to have very little to do with the degree of academic analysis behind a proposal, with the degree of political risk involved in the proposal, or even your proposal with getting write-ups in ultra-serious media outlets like "The Economist." It is, instead, how closely your proposal for altering public policy aligns with policies that, while unpopular overall, are favored by the wealthiest Americans.
Paul Ryan's budget certainly fits that description. The People's Budget absolutely does not. That isn't the only reason for the disparity in coverage between the two budget proposals—The People's Budget did get only 77 votes, after all—but it is one of the reasons.HOUSTON — Global oil markets are flooded with cheap crude, and concerns about climate change are growing louder. The last thing the world seems to be craving is the discovery of new large oil and natural gas fields.
But such fields have been found in the last month. And two of them are in the United States — one in Texas and the other off Alaska.
The new finds, while still preliminary and in need of more testing, could further cement two realities of the energy business: oil prices could stay low for a long time, and oil companies will keep seeking to increase their reserves for future production.
The discoveries have been hailed by the oil industry, even though companies have largely cut back on exploration over the last two years in an effort to reduce costs as oil prices fell from over $100 a barrel to roughly $50 a barrel. Along with that enthusiasm is the view that prices will recover by the end of the decade.Companii
Vasile Deac, proprietarul fabricii de mobilă Făgetul Deac din Baia Mare, judeţul Maramureş, un business de peste 10 mil. lei (2,2 mil. euro) în 2016, spune că are dificultăţi în a găsi forţă de muncă pentru că absolvenţii de liceu nu vor să lucreze pe salarii de 1.500 de lei net, ci preferă să trăiască din ajutorul de şomaj de 250 de lei pe lună şi din banii părinţilor.
„Tinerii absolvenţi de liceu nu vor să se trezească la ora 5 dimineaţa pentru 1.500 de lei. Mai bine stau acasă pe un şomaj de 250 de lei şi pe banii părinţilor. Generaţiei noi nu-i place să muncească. Toată lumea se aşteaptă la salarii mari fără să ştie să facă chestii elementare. Din cei care vor să îşi continue studiile, toată lumea vrea IT, nimeni nu vrea să lucreze în industrie, că noi nu putem oferi salarii de 3.000-4.000 lei. Industria mobilei este pe butuci, nu pentru că nu am avea comenzi, ci pentru că nu avem oameni calificaţi“, a declarat pentru ZF Vasile Deac, administratorul companiei Făgetul Deac, prezent la târgul de mobilă BIFE-SIM 2017.
Fabrica de mobilă Făgetul Deac produce circa 6-8 camioane de mobilier lunar, respectiv mese, uşi, ferestre, scări interioare dar şi alt tip de mobilier, care ajunge în proporţie de 90% la export în Olanda, Norvegia, Germania, Israel şi Franţa. Restul de 10% reprezintă comenzile de mobilier primite din România, compania neavând magazine de desfacere. Compania Făgetul Deac a fost înfiinţată în anul 1991 şi este deţinută de Vasile Deac. Anul trecut, Făgetul Deac a înregistrat un profit net de peste 55.000 lei (12.000 euro), rezultate obţinute cu ajutorul a 129 salariaţi, potrivit datelor publice.COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – The Colorado Rapids have acquired 23-year-old attacking midfielder Carlos Alvarez from Chivas USA, trading midfielder Nathan Sturgis to the Los Angeles-based club in exchange. Alvarez has made 40 appearances in his two MLS seasons, and was the second overall selection in the 2013 MLS SuperDraft.
“Carlos is a dynamic, attacking player who gives our roster further depth and balance,” said Paul Bravo, the Rapids VP of Soccer Operations. “He has a bright future and we’re excited to add him to our group. We would also like to thank Nathan for his professionalism and contributions over the last two seasons, and wish him the best with Chivas.”
Alvarez has made 11 appearances so far in 2014, starting seven matches, and in his MLS career has two goals and three assists. Before joining the league, the LA native played four years at the University of Connecticut, scoring 20 goals and adding 42 assists in 82 games. In his youth career, he was called into camps for both the United States and Mexico Under-20 National Teams.
Sturgis, 26, came to Colorado ahead of the 2013 MLS season in a trade with Houston that involved Omar Cummings. He had four goals and an assist in 25 matches in his first season with the Rapids, and had one assist in six games (four starts) with Colorado in 2014.
The Rapids will host the Columbus Crew this Friday night in a match presented by HealthONE at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, with limited tickets still available by calling 303-825-GOAL or clicking here.
TRANSACTION: Rapids acquire midfielder Carlos Alvarez in trade with Chivas USA, in exchange for midfielder Nathan Sturgis.A new import tax imposed by Hamas on commodities entering the Gaza Strip has left local merchants fuming, with some threatening to stop importing food products into the Hamas-controlled Strip altogether.
On Saturday, members of Hamas’s parliamentary bloc Change and Reform approved the National Solidarity Tax law, imposing a new levy on “non-basic” commodities such as meat, fruits and vegetables, clothing, and electronics. Flour and medicine will be exempt from the new tax, Hamas parliament member Ahmad Abu Halbiya told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency.
“The purpose of the law is to ease the suffering of the poor in the Gaza Strip,” Abu Halbiya said, explaining that the percentage of the tax will be raised gradually, eventually reaching 10% in some cases. “Residents will not feel it,” he asserted.
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The United Nations declared a humanitarian emergency in Gaza last July, reporting over 100,000 displaced residents in January. Gisha, an Israeli NGO dealing primarily with the humanitarian situation in Gaza, said last month that over 70% of Gaza residents are in need of humanitarian assistance, with 57% of residents having suffered nutrition insecurity on the eve of Operation Protective Edge last summer.
Israel, for its part, has dramatically increased the number of trucks allowed to enter Gaza with foodstuffs, reporting a projected threefold increase in 2015 compared to 2014. Some 3,000 Gaza merchants currently receive permits to enter Israel for trade.
On Sunday, local businessmen expressed fury over the new government move, at a meeting with Hamas parliament members organized by the Gaza Chamber of Commerce. According to Palestinian daily al-Quds, many claimed the money collected was earmarked for Hamas civil servants, unpaid for months, rather than the Strip’s poor.
Abu Halbiya acknowledged that Hamas’s 40,000 employees will indeed be the main recipients of the new tax revenue.
“The civil servants of Gaza haven’t received regular salaries in over a year,” he said. “The Strip cannot function without civil servants, who are the pillar of every state. Therefore, they will get the largest share of the revenue in an attempt to improve their monthly income. Hence, instead of receiving 30% of their salary, they will receive 50-60%. Those earning NIS 1,000 ($253) will receive their entire salary.”
Yet the Gaza merchants remained unconvinced.
“These cost three and a half shekels,” said one merchant in a video report by al-Quds, holding up a pair of slippers he imports. “You want to tax it two shekels? That makes no sense. Make it one or two agorot!”
Another merchant told Watania Media Agency that he will not be able to import fruits and vegetables if the government decision goes forward. “Let them find us a solution and end this story,” he said.
But as emotions overflowed in Gaza, Hamas parliamentarian Jamal Nassar said he couldn’t understand the merchants’ rage.
“The [price] increase falls on the consumer, not on you,” he told the audience. “So why this vicious attack?… None of you is affected; it’s the citizen who is. If I am bad to the citizen, let him not vote for me.”CLEVELAND — Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Thursday said he was happy with his decision to not address the GOP convention this week, in the wake of Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzCornyn less popular than Cruz in Texas: poll Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington MORE’s controversial appearance.
"I think you can all understand why I didn't show up to speak at a convention, by the way, after what you saw last night," the former presidential contender told a breakfast with Buckeye State Republicans.
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Cruz, a Texas senator whose primary bid also failed against Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE, now the party nominee, on Wednesday night declined to endorse Trump at the Republican National Convention, sending the event into chaos.
Trump said the snub was "no big deal" in a late-night tweet, but campaign officials spent Thursday morning on television networks attacking Cruz's decision not to endorse.
Kasich has also not endorsed Trump after the bitter GOP presidential primary. He emphasized Thursday that he was still focused on helping campaign for Republicans, including Sens. Kelly Ayotte Kelly Ann AyotteBottom Line US, allies must stand in united opposition to Iran’s bad behavior American military superiority will fade without bold national action MORE (R-N.H.) and John McCain John Sidney McCainGOP lobbyists worry Trump lags in K Street fundraising Mark Kelly kicks off Senate bid: ‘A mission to lift up hardworking Arizonans’ Gabbard hits back at Meghan McCain after fight over Assad MORE (R-Ariz.).
Kasich acknowledged his Trump convention snub has created some awkwardness for state party officials.
He mentioned Matt Borges, the state GOP chairman, remarking, "I have personally made his job more difficult."
Democratic Senate candidate Ted Strickland this week cited Kasich skipping the convention to knock incumbent Sen. Rob Portman Robert (Rob) Jones PortmanAddressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win Texas senator introduces bill to produce coin honoring Bushes GOP Green New Deal stunt is a great deal for Democrats MORE (R).
Portman is one of the GOP's most vulnerable senators this year and endorsed Trump shortly after Kasich ended his own bid.
"Portman does not have the courage that John Kasich has," Strickland said.
The governor also touted the fact that Cleveland this week has been largely calm with just a handful of tense moments involving protesters and police. Most expected many rowdy protests at the convention.
"We think at the end of it there will be economic gain and job creation that will come from this," Kasich said.
Kasich exited the event Thursday morning without taking questions.
Portman also spoke at the breakfast, praising Mike Pence Michael (Mike) Richard PenceVenezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump 'And the award for best political commentary by an Oscar nominee goes to...' UN nuclear watchdog: Iran maintains compliance with 2015 pact MORE's speech Wednesday night, the Indiana governor's first as vice presidential nominee.
"I believe we are more unified than ever after this week," Portman said.
—This story was updated at 9:33 a.m.When I was growing up in the Philippines, my grandparents did cook—dishes like adobo with soy sauce, and pork blood stew. But when I came to the US, we ate a lot of junk food. My parents were divorced and my mom and stepdad worked long hours. We used to go on these Costco trips where I'd buy junk food. You name it, I probably tried it. I ate a lot of packet noodles, and discovered this canned cheese that came in a whipped cream dispenser, which you have on crackers. At Qui, we make our own version now, but we use two-year-aged, cloth-bound Cabot cheddar.
My first cooking job was at Orange Julius, making smoothies and hot dogs—an interesting combo. I was 15, still at school, and did not know what I was doing. I got in trouble a lot when I was young. I'd be sneaking out, going to buy weed, going to rave clubs in DC.
Finally, my mom said, "You can't stay here," so I ended up with my dad down in Houston. That was my first real exposure to the food scene—it has a huge Vietnamese population—and it opened up my mind. I don't know that I loved Texas to start with, but I eventually fell in love with Houston.
I was so broke. A buddy of mine said, 'I can't really help you out with cash,' but he gave me 500 pills of Xanax. That was my start-up fund.
As an art major in college, I was waiting tables to make money, then started selling drugs before I realized I was a bad drug dealer. I woke up one morning and there was dog shit all over the floor; people that I didn't know were passed out in my house. I started wondering, What am I going to do with my life?
Back then, Austin had the shortest and cheapest culinary program, so I decided to move there with a friend who was a DJ. I was so broke. A buddy of mine said, "I can't really help you out with cash," but he gave me 500 pills of Xanax. That was my start-up fund.
Photo by Nicolai McCrary.
Austin was not a food town, at least not then. I basically wanted to gain my cooking chops before I moved to the big city. All of my chef idols had come from or cooked in New York, but every year Austin somehow charmed its way back into my life and more opportunities opened up for me.
While I was training, a friend introduced me to Tyson Cole [owner of the Japanese restaurant Uchi], who became my mentor. I worked one month for free, then was paid $7.50 an hour. I spent all my money on cookbooks, knives, and World of Warcraft. That was my whole life as I was coming up the ranks. I started at Uchi as free labor, and ended up as chef de cuisine. At Uchiko [the sister restaurant], I was executive chef, and was working until 9 or 10, then going to the food truck I set up at East Side King for 11. We'd be there to 2, 3 in the morning. I definitely was not sleeping a lot.
As for watching Top Chef, I can't—it gives me anxiety. At 1 AM when I get home, I don't want to get stressed out over somebody else's kitchen.
I was already going to open my own restaurant when I went on Top Chef. I had the investors for this place, but it launched me in a different direction and meant that people who would not otherwise know me would know who I am. It made a huge difference. As for watching those kind of foodie shows, I can't—it gives me anxiety. At 1 AM when I get home, I don't want to get stressed out over somebody else's kitchen.
I still don't know what my food is. I'm learning just as much from every one of my cooks as I am from myself. Japanese food drew me because of the aesthetic, and the pursuit of perfection. I look at chefs I admire, and chefs I work with, and like to think we create a situation where we can provoke some new ideas. Normally people build a menu, then build a kitchen around that menu, and a restaurant around that kitchen. Here at Qui, I wanted a blank canvas. There's a bit of Texas in there, a bit of me, and a bit of my chefs.
I tend to say to my suppliers, "Just give me what you are excited about." Here in Texas, the seasons are crazy. You might get something for a week and then the weather turns. At the moment, I love any kind of peppercorn and using calamansi, a Philippine citrus that's like a key lime or a kumquat.
What does it matter, as long as I'm passionate about what I cook and what I eat? You are not going to make everybody happy all the time.
For years, I stayed away from Filipino food. And for a long time, I didn't cook dinuguan, a pork blood stew, because everyone's grandma's stew tasted better than mine. But then one of my farmers brought me some warm pig blood and I wanted to do something with it. Some people are scared of it; but if you cook it right, its creamy and it doesn't taste iron-y at all.
I learn a lot from trial and error. I have made some things that were not good enough to put on a plate. It usually happens when I start experimenting with a new ingredient that I don't know how to cook—peculiar parts of fish, or offal—but for me it's all about the experimentation.
I'm 34 now, but I don't really know about getting to the top. The food scene is so pretentious; Michelin stars, all that stuff. What does it matter, as long as I'm passionate about what I cook and what I eat? You are not going to make everybody happy all the time.
My mom is definitely more proud of me now than she's ever been, though I don't know if she likes what I cook. I know my dad doesn't. He'd rather have a steak with french fries or something.
As told to Laura DixonCity officials, Virgin Group owner, Sir Richard Branson, broke ground on the new Virgin Hotel to be built on Music Row.
Both the mayor and Branson said they were excited for the opportunity to open a new 240 guest room hotel on the square between Division Street and 17th Avenue South.
The new hotel will be 200,000 square feet with restaurants, bars and a rooftop pool.
The road leading to the point where metal pierced dirt was not without some protest. In 2014, a mansion from the 1870s was torn down, seemingly overnight to people who are from the area. The home on 1 Music Square West was no longer considered historic by the city after it was gutted 50 years earlier.
Now, some locals are also weighing in on the hotel, still with mixed reviews.
"I'm not happy. There's too much going up in this town already," said Ray Schipani from Bobby's Idle Hour. "Music Row is Music Row it is what it is. And it's getting destroyed. It's all about the mighty dollar."
Schipani is a musician who often plays at the Music Row bar. He says traffic is one of his concerns.
Another musician, Sam Cooper, said it's likely the Virgin Hotel will add to the area's success.
"The plus side to me is, I'm really am a fan of the head of Virgin Records, Richard Branson. He's a music guy and he's a risk taker. He's done a lot of really unconventional things that have set him apart from most of the billionaires," Cooper said. "It's nice to see that somebody like that has their eye on Nashville and Music Row. I'm a hoping that it will be a good marriage."
Construction on the hotel will take two years.favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite
Every prediction of the direction of fascist ideology proposed by Ward Churchill has 'become reality."
There is no mystery why his reputation and ability to publicly speak with Public confidence In His words destroyed by Hit Man Bill O'Reilley working for The Knights of Malta.
G7 brings Ward Churchill to Winnipeg this weekend
This one’s for all the locals: given you are reading this, you may well have heard of Ward Churchill. Churchill is one of the most outspoken Native American activists and scholars in North America, and a leading analyst of indigenous issues.
Ward Churchill will speak at the newly established Rudolph Rocker Cultural Centre (located on the 3rd floor of 91 Albert Street) on Saturday April 28th at 7 PM on the topic of colonialism at home and abroad in a lecture entitled Colonialism: Past, Present and Future. Admission is by donation, and a question period will follow his talk.
Churchill earned international infamy in 2005 when Fox “News” personality and far-right mouthpiece Bill O’Reilley launched a smear campaign against him that resulted in Churchill’s life being threatened, his home vandalized and his career as Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado jeopardized.
In the subsequent climate of political correctness, the University of Winnipeg Student Association, in collaboration with the University of Winnipeg Aboriginal Student Council, revoked their invitation for Churchill to speak (without explanation) on campus in 2005.
Apparently, neither academic freedom nor excellence are on the agenda for the U of W, despite the fact that there has been a mass international mobilization of academics to Churchill’s defense against the myriad smears and allegations against him in this character-assassination campaign, a partial list of whom appears at the end of this post.
Thankfully, independent and clear-headed factions within each University — the University of Manitoba History Department, and CKUW 95.9 FM at the University of Winnipeg — along with G7 Welcoming Committee Records, refuse to succumb to the destabilization campaign that’s been leveled against Ward, instead favouring free public discourse of the nature one would expect to reign supreme in a democratic society.
Here’s but a partial list of academics and Individuals standing in solidarity with Ward Churchill (see here for more on his defense against the witch hunt):
Noam Chomsky, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kathleen Cleaver, Senior Research Fellow, Emory Law School; Lecturer, African American Studies, Yale University
Jim Craven (Blackfoot), Professor of Economics and Chair, Business Division, Clark College
Carrie Dann (Western Shoshone), elder and activist
Elisa Facio, Assoc. Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder
Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice, Princeton University
Jennifer Harbury, attorney, author and human rights activist
Evelyn Hu-Dehart,Director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University
Moana Jackson (Maori), attorney and professor, Auckland, New Zealand
Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe), activist and author
Barbara Mann (Seneca), author and lecturer, University of Toledo
Dr. Russell Means, Esq., Oglala Lakota Patriot, activist, author and attorney
Glenn T. Morris (Shawnee), Professor of Political Science, University of Colorado - Denver
Natsu Taylor Saito, Professor, Georgia State University College of Law
David E. Stannard, Professor of American Studies, University of Hawai’i
Haunani-Kay Trask (Kanaka Maoli), Professor, Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai’i
Sharon Venne (Cree), attorney and author, Edmonton, Alberta
Robert A. Williams, Jr. (Lumbee), Professor, University of Arizona Law School
Michael Yellow Bird (Arikara-Hidatsa), Assoc. Professor, Indigenous Nations Studies, University of Kansas
Jesus H. Chris / April 23, 2007
- January 19, 2019After 2007-2019 (12 years) Ward's projection is confirmedLegal news for Vermont motorcycle accident attorneys –Two people were hurt after a driver and two girls ignored crosswalk rules.
Driver at green light lets girls cross street into oncoming traffic. Motorcycle hits one.
Burlington, VT (www.NewYorkInjuryNews.com) – Two people were injured Monday, April 19, 2010, after a driver stopped against a green traffic light at a cross walk to let two girls cross the street, causing a collision between an oncoming motorcycle and the two pedestrians, as reported by www.wcax.com.
According to police reports, two girls were on the side of the street, waiting at the crosswalk on North Avenue by Farrington Trailer Park at approximately 6 p.m. A vehicle, in attempts to aid the girls on their journey, stopped against the green light and motioned for the two girls to go ahead.
The two girls took the driver up on his offer and went for it. Upon doing so, a motorcyclist traveling in the opposite direction of the stopped vehicle hit one of the two teenage girls.
The motorcyclist was 21-year-old Jimmy Huynh of Burlington. He was thrown from his motorcycle and thus sustained minor injuries. The 13-year-old girl who was hit by the oncoming bike was thrown to the ground and sustained non life-threatening injuries.
Authorities said the driver of the vehicle who stopped against the traffic light for the girls, which caused the chain of injurious events, fled the scene. As of Tuesday, April 20, 2010, there was no new information on the possible identity of this erroneous driver.
This incident has Vermont officers reminding pedestrians and drivers alike that rules for the road are there for a reason: to prevent completely avoidable accidents.
Legal News Reporter: Tara Monks – Legal news for automobile accident lawyers.Sunlit Youth was recorded all around the world, in Thailand, Malaysia, Ojai, and Nicaragua. Why?
RYAN: We tried to shake things up a lot when we were working on the record, and wanted to see what would happen if we were writing in different environments and locations.
TAYLOR: Thailand and Nicaragua are especially interesting because they book-ended writing for us. Thailand was the first big trip, at the end of 2014, and kicked off a lot of the record, and was the first time the songs were really starting to come together. Nicaragua was at the very end of writing. This whole writing process has been an evolution for us, to chase the excitement of writing music, and connecting to that kind of “pure essence” of finding something inspiring, and pushing ourselves outside of what writing songs as Local Natives has been in the past.
In Nicaragua, we wrote about ten songs in about eight days. It used to take maybe six months to do something like that. It was just follow the inspiration, and follow the joy of making music together. If something wasn’t working, we moved on, and that process helped this explosion of prolific creativity, where we wrote more like 50 songs for this album, instead of in the past where we had done maybe 18. And Nicaragua was probably the least hard that we worked: it was a casual environment and atmosphere. You just wake up and go to the beach, and just enjoy being in this place, and then you can focus on writing some music in the afternoon.
RYAN: We would record as we went more, too. I can point to a bunch of songs on the album that are like, “Oh, the guitar track is from our rehearsal space, but the drums are from Thailand. This vocal was sung into an iPhone in our hotel room,” or whatever. It’s just all pieced together from all these trips, and for us that’s new. Rather than just slogging it out in our rehearsal space, we were able to take from everywhere.Search Favourites Tali'Zorah vas Daft Punk Jesscookie 712 ME3: After the Black *SPOILERS* Sketch-BGI 1,529 COMMANDER SHEPARD amirulhafiz 287 Advertisement Advertisement Tali's Limbo kiffKewitzz 308 photo I-Zet 1,031 Omega - Nyreen Kandros calicoJill 670 Mass Effect 3 - Baby Reapers PepperBug 1,007 Engage AdamBurn 6,938 Dragon Effect AndrewRyanArt 8,891 The Highest of Fives Sin-Vraal 543 Eve of War Scotchlover 770 Mass Relay - Mass Effect 2 iGamer 16 Mass Effect : Earth Wallpaper iamsointense 14 Mass Effect M97 Viper Sniper Rifle Prop zanderwitaz 101 I Believe You Have My Cereal GSJennsen 39 To Catch a Predator: Citadel ImperatorAlicia 535 Asari Adventure Becky-channn 274 Nihlus SecondDream 31 Tali'Zorah and Legion BoyGTO 1,225 Dextro Force Laminated-TeabaG 476 Mass Effect: Garrus Nightlyre 841 C-Sec Break Room Rules (69 rule challenge) greenmamba5 135 The Fallen GuardianoftheForce 368 Mass Effect - Quasar Interactive Game (Flash) CSPhoenix 29SkorcherX Wrencher
Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Eugene, OR Posts: 267
So I did a bit more research and then stumbled upon something that would actually be worth putting some money into.
Behold... The beginning of my M50 swap.
So this came out of a wrecked 1992 325is. Looks like there is a hole in the "non vanos" cover. I am really hoping the cam and valves are not all rusted from condensation and moisture getting in. I will pull the valve cover tomorrow and assess the situation.
Also picked up the steering rack off the car.
And nabbed an E21 Brake Booster.
So who wants to sell me an E34 Oil pan, dipstick and oil pump pickup?
Got a pretty good deal on everything, cost me $450 for everything you see, plus another $50 just in gas to drive 200 miles (round trip) to pick everything up. Well... bit of a change in plans. I was doing the math on what it was going to take to "freshen up" the ol' M20B27 and do the 325i head swap. It was going to be expensive... Like approaching $700 bucks, if not more.So I did a bit more research and then stumbled upon something that would actually be worth putting some money into.Behold... The beginning of my M50 swap.So this came out of a wrecked 1992 325is. Looks like there is a hole in the "non vanos" cover. I am really hoping the cam and valves are not all rusted from condensation and moisture getting in. I will pull the valve cover tomorrow and assess the situation.Also picked up the steering rack off the car.And nabbed an E21 Brake Booster.So who wants to sell me an E34 Oil pan, dipstick and oil pump pickup?Got a pretty good deal on everything, cost me $450 for everything you see, plus another $50 just in gas to drive 200 miles (round trip) to pick everything up.The fictional portrayal of our Solar System has often included planets, moons, and other celestial objects which do not actually exist in reality. Some of these objects were, at one time, seriously considered as hypothetical planets which were either thought to have been observed, or were hypothesized in order to explain certain celestial phenomena. Often such objects continued to be used in literature long after the hypotheses upon which they were based had been abandoned.
Other non-existent Solar System objects used in fiction have been proposed or hypothesized by persons with no scientific standing, while yet others are purely fictional and were never intended as serious hypotheses about the structure of the Solar System.
Vulcan [ edit ]
Vulcan was a hypothetical planet supposed to revolve around the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, invoked to explain certain irregularities in Mercury's orbit. The planet was proposed as a hypothesis in 1859, and abandoned not later than 1915.
"Vulcan's Workshop" ( Astounding Stories, June 1932), short story by Harl Vincent: a penal colony is located on Vulcan. [1] [2]
, June 1932), short story by Harl Vincent: a penal colony is located on Vulcan. "At the Center of Gravity" ( Astounding Stories, June 1936), short story by Ross Rocklynne: two people are trapped inside a hollow Vulcan. [3]
, June 1936), short story by Ross Rocklynne: two people are trapped inside a hollow Vulcan. Vulcan is part of the Solar System in the Captain Future series. In Outlaw World (1946) it is discovered that it is hollow and inhabited inside.
series. In (1946) it is discovered that it is hollow and inhabited inside. Mission to Mercury (1965), science fiction novel by Hugh Walters. During the return of the first manned flight to Mercury, a crew member notices a dark spot moving across the Sun. Since the spot is between them and the Sun and appears to be moving to the naked eye, it can only be the previously-hypothetical Vulcan; it must be moving rapidly and extremely close to the Sun.
The name "Vulcan" has been used for various other fictional planets, in and out of the Solar System, that do not correspond to the hypothetical planet Vulcan. The planet Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise, for instance, is specified as orbiting 40 Eridani A.
Counter-Earth was a hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with Earth, but on the opposite side of the Sun (hence Earth and Counter-Earth would always be invisible to each other). The idea of a counter-Earth has never been a serious scientific hypothesis in modern times.
Books [ edit ]
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Other [ edit ]
Mage: The Ascension (1993), role-playing game: A planetoid called Autochthonia exists in the counter-Earth position in the game's cosmology. This is the location of The Computer which is central to Iteration X, the cybernetic convention of mages.
(1993), role-playing game: A planetoid called Autochthonia exists in the counter-Earth position in the game's cosmology. This is the location of The Computer which is central to Iteration X, the cybernetic convention of mages. Sailor Moon musicals (1993–2005): A planet called Vulcan along with its moon, Astarte is said to be on the other side of the Sun.
(1993–2005): A planet called Vulcan along with its moon, Astarte is said to be on the other side of the Sun. Antikhthon (Greek for 'Counter-Earth'), a piece of music by Iannis Xenakis
Phaëton [ edit ]
Phaëton is a name given to a supposed planet existing in the past between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, which no longer exists, having become the Solar System's asteroid belt. Proposed not long after the discovery of multiple asteroids at the beginning of the 19th century, the idea that the asteroids were fragments of a single planet was gradually abandoned over the course of the middle decades of the 20th century in favor of the conclusion that no planet had ever accreted in the region of the asteroid belt in the first place.
In fiction, various other names were given to the same or similar concepts.
Trans-Neptunian planets [ edit ]
This article is about fictional planets beyond Neptune. For historical speculation about hypothesized real planets, see Planets beyond Neptune
This article is about fictional planets beyond Neptune created for various works of fiction. For discussion of the portrayal in fiction of real and fictional sub-planetary objects beyond Neptune, see Trans-Neptunian objects in fiction
This article is about fictional planets in our Solar System named "Planet X". For fictional extrasolar planets named "Planet X", see Planets in science fiction § P
Fictional planets in our Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune have been employed many times as settings or references in science fiction. Following the general reception of Pluto as the ninth planet of the Solar System in 1930, a hypothetical additional planet was sometimes called a "tenth planet". Since 1992, a very large number of objects have been found beyond Neptune; all the objects in the following list, however, are purely fictional. Common names for trans-Neptunian planets in fiction include Planet X, after a planet once believed to lie beyond Neptune, and Persephone (or Proserpina), after the wife of Pluto.
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Animation [ edit ]
In the anime series The Vision of Escaflowne (1996), there exists an invisible (from Earth) third member of the Earth-Moon system, called Gaea, on which the majority of the story takes place. The Earth, which is visible in the Gaean sky along with the Moon, is referred to as the "Mystic Moon".
(1996), there exists an invisible (from Earth) third member of the Earth-Moon system, called Gaea, on which the majority of the story takes place. The Earth, which is visible in the Gaean |
, Jeff Fritz. "The school has a code of conduct that clearly would apply here, yet despite Albert's attempts to have the school do something about it, he just got turned away every step of the way."
DeSanto, a Hillsborough resident who was 25 at the time of the incident, questioned whether O'Reilly would have been treated differently were he not a scholarship athlete.
"I've come to the conclusion that the administration acted improperly on this in order to avoid bad publicity and to protect O'Reilly, ultimately at my expense," he said.
A Rutgers spokesman, E.J. Miranda, declined to comment on the claim, citing privacy protections under the Family and Education Right and Privacy Act.
"As a general rule, and respecting student privacy interests and FERPA legal obligations, the university does not comment on matters involving student discipline," Miranda said.
O'Reilly, a resident of Northvale in Bergen County, did not respond to an email sent to his university account. His father, Michael O'Reilly, said in a telephone interview that a simple assault charge against his son was dropped and that John O'Reilly pleaded guilty only to disturbing the peace, a disorderly persons offense.
"Look, it's an 18-year-old kid in his first semester at college. What do I say?" he said. "I don't know why this is news a year and a half later."
The father said he was unaware of the extent of DeSanto's injuries.
The suit does not name Rutgers as a defendant, though Fritz said suing the university remains "under consideration."
O'Reilly, a graduate of Northern Valley Regional High School and a double major in criminal justice and labor studies, is a starter on the university's baseball team and ranks among Rutgers' top pitchers.
According to the lawsuit, the altercation with DeSanto unfolded around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2014.
DeSanto, a former standout baseball player and academic All-American at Raritan Valley Community College, said he was returning to his room in the south tower of Lynton Towers on the Livingston campus when he saw O'Reilly, beer in hand, open a janitor's closet and pull out a hose.
Clearly intoxicated, O'Reilly began spraying the hallway with water and threatened to turn the hose on DeSanto, who told the ballplayer he didn't want to be sprayed and to put the hose away, the lawsuit states.
DeSanto said O'Reilly backed him into a corner, prompting the smaller man to push O'Reilly away.
Infuriated, the ballplayer told DeSanto, "If you put your hands on me again I'm going to give you the worse (sic) concussion you ever had," according to a report written by an investigator with the Rutgers University Police Department.
Both the lawsuit and the police report state that O'Reilly then grabbed a wall shelf and repeatedly raised it over his head, as if he was going to strike DeSanto. A witness told police he managed to take the board away from O'Reilly, the report says.
Moments later, as DeSanto was returning to his dorm room, O'Reilly came up behind him, wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him off the ground, the lawsuit states.
The action injured the bones in DeSanto's neck and exacerbated a head injury he had suffered in 2009, while a student at Ramapo College. In that case, DeSanto was duct-taped to a chair and pushed through a hallway of his dormitory in an event known as the Dorm Olympics, according to a published account.
The injury occurred when DeSanto's head smashed into a cinder-block wall. In 2013, he reached a $375,000 settlement from the state.
In the suit against O'Reilly, DeSanto said the attack resulted in new migraines and a feeling of constant pressure behind his eyes.
DeSanto, a senior double majoring in political science and information technology, said he was unable to finish out the semester and missed two more semesters as he underwent surgery and recovered from the injury. He returned to the university this spring.
DeSanto said he still doesn't know why O'Reilly targeted him. The two had known each other for about a month, he said, and did not have any previous conflicts.
"I'm still unsure why," he said. "I was completely sober in my dormitory hallway and returning to my room to go to bed."
Staff writer Keith Sargeant contributed to this report.
Mark Mueller may be reached at mmueller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJMueller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.By JAKE NUTTING
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman ruffled some feathers two weeks ago in Tampa Bay and even with the Tampa Bay Rowdies when he, unprompted, mentioned in a radio interview with WDAE 620-AM that Major League Soccer was “intrigued” by the idea of a new stadium for the Rowdies where Tropicana Field currently sits.
The suggestion understandably miffed Rowdies Owner Bill Edwards, who quickly released a statement reaffirming his commitment to expanding Al Lang Stadium up to MLS standards using private money. Edwards has spent many months and a lot of money selling the local community and MLS on the idea of Al Lang as the home of a potential Rowdies MLS franchise. He doesn’t just want to be one of the four expansion groups to make it into MLS, he wants to be one of the two groups announced at the end of this year. To do that, Edwards’ group has been focused on demonstrating confidence in a single plan and location.
Kriseman’s comments also drew the attention of local media, spawning Tampa Bay Times columns from Tom Jones and John Romano. Both columns threw cold water on the idea of the Rowdies moving to the Tropicana site and, without much compelling evidence, cast doubt on the viability of the Rowdies’ MLS bid.
Below is a portion of Unused Substitute’s interview with Kriseman this week in which he expands on the Tropicana Field speculation. He explained how the Tropicana Field site came up in his talks with MLS, gave some insight on the league’s feelings toward the Al Lang expansion plan, and offered up why he believes the idea of two potential sites for the Rowdies wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for MLS.
US: What sense have you gotten from MLS about the Al Lang stadium site and the Rowdies’ proposal for that location?
RK: Certainly (Don Garber) is familiar with the stadium location and recognizes our downtown waterfront, and where the stadium sits on the waterfront, is probably one of the most scenic and beautiful locations for a stadium and one of the most beautiful waterfronts in the state of Florida, if not the country. Having a stadium on that site, I think he knows that visually, when you’re televising games, is going to show and play really well on a TV screen. At the same time, when we were showing him some of the data from our presentation to Major League Baseball, he saw what the future of the Trop site could potentially be. At first he said, “Wow, and the Rays haven’t already committed to that yet given what you guys are talking about doing there?” He was a little surprised that they were even considering being somewhere else. That was when he first mentioned to us that if the Rays decided that wasn’t the site they wanted to be at, it was worth looking at, even if there was an Al Lang site. That Trop site would allow for a larger facility that could allow more world class, World Cup type soccer events to occur.
US: So this idea has never gotten to a serious level then? It was just a note of interest Don Garber took in just the potential of the site?
RK: I was very clear with him that as far as I’m concerned, first and foremost, it’s the home of the Tampa Bay Rays for as long as they want it to be there home. Until we knew what the Rays decision is, we weren’t willing to consider anything else there. If the Rays were to decide for whatever reason that location isn’t the best place for them to be, what I communicated to the commissioner was, I would like to see an MLS franchise in St. Pete. If Al Lang is the site for that franchise, I’m very happy to have it there. If MLS were to say, we think that a better location would be on the Tropicana Field site, then I’m certainly willing to have those discussions too because we would really like to see MLS in St. Petersburg.
US: I’m unsure of the timing here. I don’t know what the timeline for the Rays to make their decision is, but MLS will be making a decision in the next 8 or so months. So I’m not sure the timing with the Tropicana site would work out for the Rowdies and MLS.
RK: We had a three-year agreement with the Rays in which they had three years to do their due diligence and look at all the different options available to them in the Tampa Bay area. That’ll expire in 2018. Having said that, you’re right. MLS is gonna be making some decisions. But I think they know, and certainly based on the presentation which I’ve seen that the Rowdies made to them, they know they’ve got a facility that they could, if they were to award a franchise to St. Pete, that they could move in to. So my expectation would be that whether it was at Al Lang or Tropicana Field, I don’t know that that would prevent them from making their decision to award a franchise here. (Garber’s) said there are some communities that have made presentations where they had great ownership but they didn’t know where they were gonna put a stadium. So that was a real challenge for that ownership group. Then there were other cities that had stadium sites, but had no ownership group so they had to go out and find an ownership group. We don’t have that issue. We have an ownership group, we have a stadium site. The only question we have is whether that is the stadium site that the team ultimately chooses and uses or is there a different site. That’s a decision that can be made by the team and the league once the franchise is awarded I would certainly hope.
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PrintJust in the last half-year, Los Angeles has banned pot shops, unbanned pot shops, relied on the federal government to crack down on pot shops, and now they're working on a sort of backdoor revival of their 2010 ordinance regulating the shops: yesterday the City Planning Commission voted to give "limited immunity from enforcement" to medical marijuana clinics that "have been in operation since September 2007, have registered with the city, pay taxes and agree to limits on hours of operation and location," according to the Daily News (they also must be more than 1,000 feet from things like schools and churches). That'll cover something fewer than 182 shops--the same number that would've been grandfathered in under the 2010 ordinance. However, these shops are only protected from local crackdowns--the state and the feds can still bust in whenever they please. The measure now goes to the City Attorney for some tweaks and the City Council for approval.
Meanwhile, there could be two pot shop measures on the May ballot, according to KPCC: "One proposal would allow an unlimited number of clinics to operate, as long as owners have registered with the city. A separate plan would allow the original 182 shops to remain open and would permit collectives of six patients." It's uncertain how either of those might affect the new city rules.
· Planning Commission backs limited immunity for L.A. pot shops [LADN]
· This is Your Medical Marijuana Ordinance, Los Angeles [Curbed LA]One thing we horse owners have plenty of is horse hair, especially as your horse sheds out.
Who knew that this hair is now considered a renewable resource that can be used to help absorb the crude oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico? A San Francisco-based charity, Matter of Trust, collects hair to use in home made booms that are used to absorb oil. Apparently hair is ideal for this purpose: the ridged texture that helps hair soak up natural skin oils also makes it effective at collecting crude. Matter of Trust uses hair from people and animals to create hair mats. They also create booms by stuffing pantyhose with hair.
Matter of Trust is appealing to hair salons, pet groomers and individuals to donate hair to the cause. Anyone interested in donating should follow these instructions:
Set aside a designated box (salons usually reuse a box in which shampoo was delivered)
Line the box with a plastic garbage bag so hair/fur can’t slip out
Ideally, donate shampooed hair (but certainly don’t include filthy hair / fur)
Any length hair is fine.
Every type of hair is fine (straight, curly, all colors, dyed, permed, straightened…) but only HEAD hair, please!
Every type of fur / waste wool is fine.
Sweep in all clippings, JUST HAIR, but please NO OTHER GARBAGE (gum, metal clips, paper cups, wrappers…). Remember volunteers (sometimes young students) have to stuff this hair into booms and don’t want to feel garbage or anything sharp.
Tie the top of the bag and tape the box shut.
We also accept washed, used (even with runs) nylon stocking donations in a separate bag, please.
We also accept other “natural fibers” horse hair, feathers… again, please, no other garbage or contaminants in with the hair/fur/ wool fibers…
Mark the boxes DEBRIS FREE HAIR / FUR or NYLONS.
The mailing address for hair, fur, wool… clippings and nylon donations are being emailed out to everyone who signs up. We are emailing in WAVES, so as to control the flow and not overload smaller warehouses along the coast. We are currently seeing about 500,000 pounds come in from all over the country, every few days. And volunteers are learning how to make a mile of boom a session!
Here is where you can sign up: ExcessAccess.com
AdvertisementsThe death of The Guy
by Quijano de Manila
His Death Was Not His End But A Transfiguration –From Folk Hero To Folk Myth.
March 18, 1961–HE HAD skipped a friend’s party the night before to attend a sudden conference; and coming home from the party, to which she had gone ahead, alone, Mrs. Magsaysay found him in his bedroom looking so tired and worried she didn’t press her inquiries as to why he hadn’t followed.
But when he woke up the next morning he was his old self again, jaunty and jovial. They had breakfast together, and talked of the trip he would make to Cebu that day. He was leaving at noon. She urged him to rest all morning. When she looked for him later, he had vanished. He was nowhere in the Palace. She called up this place and that and finally located him in a house within the Palace compound. He had been visiting his in-laws, the Corpuses.
She reproved him when he came back: “I thought you promised to rest all morning?”
He said he had been rehearsing his speeches for the Cebu visit and couldn’t do so in the Palace, with people popping in and out all the time.
She watched while he had a haircut in a hall off his bedroom. Standing behind him, she could see his face in the mirror, his eyes restless as a little boy’s over this enforced moment of stillness.
“Will you see me off at the airport?” he suddenly asked, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
“If you want me to.”
“Yes, do come.”
She was rather amused at the request. A despedida for an overnight trip? In the bedroom, the two valets who were to perish with him were busy packing. He kept telling the barber to hurry up. She always paid the barber for him, had a ten-peso bill ready in a pocket.
They had lunch with a young nephew. The children were in school or in their rooms. Teresita, the eldest, just engaged, was sewing her trousseau. Jun, the the only son was at his classes. Mila, the younger daughter, had a stove in her room and liked to cook meals for her gang. Whenever she prepared a special dish, she sent a portion to the presidential table with instructions that her father was to sample the dish and give his comments on it. He always sent back word that it was delicious, whether he had found it too tough or too salty.
The family got together only on Sundays, when it was the rule that the children were to come to table for breakfast, lunch, and supper. In the evening, they gathered in his room, just the five of them. Teresita gave him a neck massage. Mila strummed a uke. Jun played the hi-fi, putting on his father’s favorite records. His father and mother had a special favorite that summer: Que Será, Será —the song to which they had danced on their last wedding anniversary. Only afterwards would she realize the significance of that song’s gaily grim lyrics. The children complained that Sunday was the only time they could have their Daddy to themselves.
So, on this March day, a Saturday, his last day in the Palace, he did not have his children with him as he lunched with his wife, his last meal with her. He told her about the movies he had ordered for showing at the Palace that night: a Tagalog picture and a Hollywood drama for her, an action movie for himself. He always asked for one, whether he was there to see it or not. He loved action pictures and before he became president, dragged his wife to small neighborhood cinemas where the audience was as rowdy as the folk on the screen and where he could stomp and shout unashamed during chases and fist fights.
“Three movies for tonight,” he told his wife now, “but don’t sit through all of them. You may be cross-eyed when I come back.”
She smiled drowsily. She had been feeling drowsy all through lunch, could hardly keep her head up, her eyes open.
He finally laughed at her: “No, you better not see me off at the airport. You’re sleepy. Go take a nap.”
But she accompanied him down the stairs to the car, her arm around his waist. She told him his waist was slimmer.
He patted his belly proudly: “Yes, no more paunch. I must keep it this way.” When they reached the car he said: “If you’re asleep when I arrive, I’ll wake you up.”
“Even if you didn’t,” she cried very sarcastically, “I would wake up!”
He had never learned to move quietly, on tiptoe, with stealth. She always knew when he was in: the floor seemed to shake with his movements. He was, she says, “pagpag,” very heavy-footed. He didn’t walk, he strode. He didn’t open a door, he burst it open. He didn’t enter a room, he stormed into it.
He laughed now at her sarcasm, kissed her and got into the car. It was about half-past noon. That was the last time she ever saw him. He was wearing slacks, one of his gaudy polo shirts and a jacket; and his brown face, after some three years of the presidency, looked almost as lean as the face of that very thin, very tall mechanic she had fallen in love with some 25 years before.
After he had gone, she had her nap. Then she drove to Tagaytay with a group of friends and spent the afternoon in a cottage on a hilltop. In the group was Chiming Hernández, whose husband, Gregorio Hernández, the education secretary, had also gone on that trip to Cebu. Mrs. Magsaysay noticed that her friend Chiming was moody, almost melancholy. She sat at a window, chin propped on hands, watching the sunset on Manila Bay.
“The sun is so red,” she kept saying. “Why is the sun so red?”
Mrs. Magsaysay said the sun didn’t look unusually red to her. Driving back to the city in the evening, she saw the skies radiant with moonlight and fleetingly thought it would be a safe night for flying.
After supper, she sat down for the picture show but did not, as her husband had advised, sit through all the movies. Before retiring, she took a spoonful of a tranquilizing liquid. Nevertheless, she could not fall asleep at once. Annoyed, she rose and, this time without bothering to use the spoon, gulped down the tranquilizer from the bottle. “Now,” she thought, “I should be able to go to sleep.” But her slumber that night was troubled, though she had not been worrying about her husband’s safety.
In the South
He had arrived at the airport at around one in the afternoon, had changed into gray trousers and a pastel blue barong before boarding the Mount Pinatubo. At two minutes past one, his plane took off for the South. There were 27 persons aboard and he had to sit on a bunk. When his guests complained of the heat in the plane, he said he had had the air-conditioning removed from the presidential plane to avoid public criticism. “We’ll all just have to sweat it out,” he said. He added that he had named the plane after the highest peak in Zambales, where he had operated as a guerrilla during the war.
At a quarter past tree, the plane landed in Cebu City and, to the roar of guns and of a multitude burned black by the March sun, he descended and began the ten-hour tour of Cebu City that was to be his last public appearance.
His first words to the Cebuanos were about corn, for the South was then suffering from a shortage of its staple cereal. He promised them that 20,000 tons of corn were arriving from America to relieve the shortage.
Then he drove through packed streets decored with festive arches to the house of the elder Osmeña, to salute the former president and his wife. From the Osmeñas’ he went to the archbishop’s palace. After a chat with Archbishop Julio Rosales, he prayed in the chapel. The pictures taken of him there show him looking strangely pensive, though the strangeness may only be because we are so used to seeing him in action. People with him noted that he tarried, on his knees, in the chapel long after the others had risen and that there was an odd look of peace, of relief in his face when he emerged –as of “a man who had moved from darkness into light.”
At five that afternoon, he was at the University of the Visayas, to be made an honorary doctor of laws. It was dusk when the ceremonies started. Suddenly the lights went out and stayed out for a quarter of an hour. He stood in the darkness, on the platform, and no one came to lead him away. Afterwards the superstitious would say that they had felt it as ominous: that sudden darkness at a moment of glory.
Then he went to another school, the University of Southern Philippines, to speak on parental love and against neutralism. He still looked fresh but his baro had wilted and he hurried to the residence of a labor leader to change into a suit with tie and to eat supper. He was delighted with the menu: vegetables and dried fish, and his host gave him a pabaon: a package of the dried fish he had enjoyed so much. The dried fish would later be found scattered over the wreckage of his plane.
At eight that night, he was at the University of San Carlos, where he had the biggest audience of all during his Cebu City speaking tour. About two hours later, he was at the house of Governor Manuel Cuenco, for a brief chat. Then he proceeded to the residence of Serging Osmeña, then mayor of the city, with whom he was to have dinner, the last one of his life. As he sat down to eat, someone noted that there were 13 at the table.
He still had two engagements: at the Patria Recreation Hall, which was being inaugurated, and at the Club Filipino, which was holding a veterans forum. It was past midnight when, escorted by the two Osmeñas, he returned to the airport to take the plane back to Manila. He declined their invitations to stay the night in the city; he said he had an important conference in Malacañang in the morning.
The Mountain
As the list of passengers was read out, it was noted that he was No. 13. He grinned, shrugged his shoulders, said goodbye to the Osmeñas and boarded the plane. At about a quarter past one, Sunday, March 17, the Mount Pinatubo took off for Manila carrying aloft 26 very tired and sleepy people, only one of whom would reach the city alive. Ahead, just ten minutes away, a dark bulk in the moonlight, soared one of the most tragic mountains in Philippine history: Mount Manúnggal.
Manúnggal is a mountain range curving like an arm just north of Cebu City. It’s such an obscure mountain, Cebuanos themselves say they had never heard of it until the accident put its name on the front pages. Its peak rises about 3,000 feet above sea level. The lower slopes have been deforested by kaingins; the upper slopes are steep, ending not on sharp peaks but on rough plateaus. From the center of the range springs a river, the Balamban, which winds all around the mountain and its base and then flowds through the western part of Cebu island into the sea.
Ten minutes after it left Cebu, the Mount Pinatubo confronted Mount Manúnggal and was flying toward the central plateau of the range, which is the source of the Balamban. The plane had lost altitude –from “metal fatigue,” according to investigation– but could have cleared the mountain and flown safely beyond it but for a giant tree standing on the summit.
The tree, an ibalos, is about fifty feet tall. The plane must have been flying about 45 feet above the summit, high enough to clear the mountain range –if that ibalos tree had not been standing right in its path. And it was against that tree, not the mountain, the the Mount Pinatubo crashed.
As plane and tree collided, the passengers inside were hurled against or out of their seats and the tree sliced off one of the plane’s wings. This wing was found near the foot of the tree. The crippled plane itself dropped much further down, about a hundred feet down the slope, which explains survivor Nestor Mata’s sensation of “hurtling down a black bottomless pit.” When the plane hit the ground, it exploded and burst into flames.
The fire –so intense it melted metal and fused bodies into an almost solid lump of coal– raged most fiercely nearest the fuselage but spared the tail and cockpit. The passengers seated nearest the fuselage –there were apparently seven of them, including the President– were burned beyond recognition, were turned into a single mass of charred flesh. The President was identified only by a wristwatch and ring embedded in the black mass.
About 14 other bodies, also horribly burned, were thrown out of the plane by the explosion and scattered lower down the hill. A few feet away was another group of bodies that had been only partially burned.
Two of the pilots, General Benito Ebuen and Major Florencio Pobre, were apparently hurled forward, still strapped to their seats, against the engines. The first had his skull broken; the second had his head ripped off. A security officer, Major Felipe Nunag, seems to have survived the crash, though wounded in the head, and to have crawled out of the wreckage and some distance down the slope, quite a trip for a man who was dying and must have known it. His was one of the few bodies found intact.
The only survivor, reporter Nestor Mata of the Herald, may owe his luck to the fact that he was thrown out of the plane at the very instant it hit the ground. He had been dozing, was jolted awake by a flash –“like thousands of flashbulbs popping at one time” –felt himself flying, and heard the deafening boom of an explosion. He blacked out. When he came to, he found himself lying under tall trees, among twisted bits of metal. He smelled burning flesh and saw in the distance the awful conflagration and the bodies strewn around it. But it may have been his own flesh he smelled, for he had been burned from head to foot.
Several people dwelling on the mountain looked up that night and saw its peak ablaze: a splash of red in the white moonlight. Some had heard an explosion. But the hero of the rescue operation, Marcelino Nuya, who lives near the peak, only some 800 feet from the crash site, neither heard the explosion nor saw the mountain top on fire that night. All he had noticed was that the droning of a plane overhead late that night had suddenly stopped.
The Rescue
Marcelino Nuya, in his early 40s at the time of the disaster, was born in the lowland town of Compostela but has lived most of his life on the heights of Manúnggal. He was then the teniente of the mountain’s topmost barrio, though barrio is hardly the word for settlements of bamboo and cogon huts separated from one another by long lonely stretches of hillside, only patches of which are cultivated. Nuya’s house is more substantial than the others; its roof is of cogon but it has wooden walls and flooring. The house is 2,000 feet above sea level and beside it is a mountain spring that yields cold water.
Nuya is short and stocky and, though unschooled, has the courtesy and percipience of people who live close to nature and have studied it. That March night, he and his wife had sat up waiting for their eldest daughter, who had gone to a barrio dance. Up in the mountains, too, young people go dancing on Saturday night. When the daughter arrived, she had friends with her and they sat around a while longer chatting. It was long past midnight before Nuya and his wide got to bed. Before they fell asleep, they heard a plane roaring directly overhead. It sounded very close, as though it were flying very low. Suddenly the roaring stopped. In the stillness, Nuya and his wife wondered what had happened. “Maybe it fell,” she said. He listened but heard no crash, no explosion. So he went to sleep.
He was aroused from sleep early the next morning by a neighbor crying that the mountain top was on fire. Nuya went out to look and saw that the blaze was not a kaingin. He decided to climb at once to the peak. With him were his two sons and the neighbor. They were followed by Nuya’s white dog, whom he called Serging, after the mayor of Cebu City. The press would later discreetly change the name of the dog to Avante. It was the dog’s barking that lifted Nestor Mata from despair, giving him the strength to push himself up from the ground, lean against a tree and cry out, “Tao! Tao!”
The dog ran toward the voice, followed by Nuya and his companions, who had to hack their way through the thick foliage and the undergrowth. On an old clearing now covered with cogon, huddled against a tree, they saw something that looked hardly human, hardly alive. It was black and bloated from head to foot, with monstrous ears and denuded skull and wounds that reeked of the grave’s corruption. As they stared in horror, it limply lifted one black arm and gestured toward the burning plane and from its black mouth came sounds that seemed to them gibberish. Mata was talking in English and Tagalog, strange tongues to these mountain folk.
Yet they understood when he cried: “Help me, I’m in pain!”
Nuya spoke to the neighbor and the neighbor lifted the burned man and heaved him over his shoulder. The swollen flesh crushed like fruit and foul juices streamed out.
“Put me down! Put me down, please!” screamed the agonized Mata.
All that day they carried him down the mountain, on a hammock, to a village where passed the buses for Cebu City. In the village were newsmen who knew Mata well, but when they saw the heap of carrion in the hammock they could only gape aghast and ask, “Who are you?”
Late that night, the lone survivor reached Cebu City and the nation at last knew what had happened to the plane that left Cebu at past one that morning and seemed to have completely disappeared in the skies.
The Long Wait
Mrs. Magsaysay had risen early that morning, to prepare for mass. As she combed her hair at her dresser, she glanced at the newspaper that had been slipped under her door. On the front page she could see a large picture of her husband with garlands of flowers around his neck. She thought happily that he had had a nice welcome in Cebu and she said to herself: “The Osmeñas persuaded him to stay the night.”
She went down to the chapel with her children. During the mass, she noticed that someone had approached one of the Palace aides and was whispering in his ear. The aide rose and left the chapel. When he showed up again, she was having breakfast with the children. He said there were people who wanted to see her: the Pelaezes, the Manahans, the Manglapuses. When they were shown in they all looked so solemn she at once felt sure they were going to ask a very big favor.
“Have you people heard mass already?” She asked. “Have you had breakfast?”
She ordered more coffee for the visitors. Manny Pelaez sat down beside her and thoughtfully stirred his coffee.
“Well, what was it you wanted to see me about?” she prompted.
“It’s so hard to say,” he said.
“Nothing’s hard if you try,” she laughed. “Say it –and I’ll let Monching know.”
At last he got it out: “The President’s plane was due back at half-past three. It’s long overdue.”
Her eyes flew to the clock on the wall; it was almost nine.
“So he did leave Cebu City last night?”
“Yes, at about one.”
“Maybe he stopped off somewhere.”
“Maybe. There’s really no cause for alarm yet.”
She saw her children silently rising from the table and going off to their rooms. Raul Manglapus approached her. “Let’s go and pray,” he said. Suddenly she began to weep but allowed herself to be led to an altar in another room. But she could not concentrate. She looked around and said, “This is not my room. I want to be in my own room.”
During the next four days she would not eat or drink anything and would lose four pounds. There was a cruel rumor that afternoon that the plane had been found, that the President was safe, and she would emerge from her room looking hysterical with joy. But that night the grim news arrived from Cebu: Nestor Mata had said the plane had crashed and that, as far as he knew, there were no other survivors. By then, a great crowd had collected on the Palace grounds and the cry went up: “We want the First Lady.” Mrs. Magsaysay was told she would have to make an appearance, to instil hope in a populace that still refused to believe her husband was dead. She went out to them and told them that she, too, like them, was still waiting for him.
And many, though four years have passed, are still waiting for him. Even as the news of his death was being flashed to the nation, the word was already going around that the Guy was not dead, that he was merely hiding himself for a while, but would eventually come down from the mountain to lead his people anew. The holocaust on the mountain top was bound to kindle the popular imagination, for mountains and folk leaders are closely associated in folklore. One thinks of Moses vanishing into the smoke and fire of Sinai until his people believed him dead; of Elias disappearing from Mount Carmel on a chariot of fire; of Bernardo Carpio, whom an earlier generation of Filipinos believed to be hiding on a mountain, too, from where, in the fullness of time, he would descend to led the people out of bondage. Today, four years after he died, the Magsaysay legend has attained the stature of myth and may in time become for us Filipinos what the Lincoln myth is for Americans.
The Bereaved
In spite of the news from Cebu, Mrs. Magsaysay and her children stubbornly clung to the hope that rescuers sent to the crash site would find survivors, the President among them. That night, Jun Magsaysay kept vigil at his mother’s bedside. She had been given one injection after another to put her to sleep until she rebelled and cried out: “I don’t want to be put to sleep! I want to be conscious! I want to know!” And, anyway, the injections eventually had no effect. They could jab her arm till it bled; no kind sleep blacked out her grief.
So she lay sleepless that night and heard her son walking back and forth, back and forth, crackling his knuckles and moaning, “Daddy, Daddy — what happened to you? What happened to you?” She called to him and bade him lie down at her side. “No, I can’t sleep,” he said. “Just lie down,” she told him, “and rest.” But the boy refused to lie down, continued to pace the floor, crackling his knuckles and groaning.
Of his sisters, the younger one, Mila, had collapsed and was being kept in bed by her friends. The elder sister, Teresita, had gathered all her young relatives and the household help in the chapel and had been leading them in prayer all day and night.
Hope died out the next day when a younger brother of the President was flown to the crash site and identified the remains. A report was wired to the Palace and Jun Magsaysay was delegated to break the news to his mother. The moment he entered the room, biting his lips and pale with shock, she knew what he was going to say.
Before he had finished speaking, she flung her hands to her head and uttered a scream that rang through the Palace and froze the blood of all who heard it.
“Monchi-i-ing!” she cried –and fell backward as her son ran to catch her.
Her daughters were summoned to her room. Mila rose from bed but had to be carried |
2019, it could mean that the NRW government will not have as much input on the subject as it currently does with the advisory board model. Court spokesman Gudrun Dahme said: 'If the plaintiffs win, then, at the end of the day, some other Islamic religious education would emerge rather than the one we have now.'
2. Rotherham rape victims speak out for the first time; Channel 4 characterizes the rapists as "men"
One victim of a Muslim rape gang was tried for "racism" for discussing it:
3. Man Who Came to Aid of Underage Girl Attacked in Berlin ‘No-Go Zone’
A 20-year-old man was severely beaten by a group of seven young men in Berlin’s troubled Alexanderplatz area after he tried to defend a 14-year-old girl from harassment. On Wednesday evening, the 20-year-old noticed an 18-year-old attempting to get the number of a 14-year-old girl in the vicinity of the Alexanderplatz metro. When the man saw the young girl wanted nothing to do with the 18-year-old he intervened, but was set upon by the teen and six of his friends who beat him, Die Welt reports. The gang fled the scene but two of them, both under 18, were arrested at the nearby metro station. The 20-year-old was taken to hospital but was discharged with only minor injuries. The violent incident is just the latest at Alexanderplatz, which some have said is turning into a no-go zone due to the frequent violence and high level of crime from primarily migrant youth gangs. [...] Only this year have members so the German press used the term in their publications. Last month, Die Welt referred to a troubled area in Cologne as a “no-go zone“, though authorities in the country have warned for months of the emergence of areas where German laws are hardly enforced.
4. Retired French Foreign Legion general calls on patriots to act
5. Migrants turn Italian street into battleground with makeshift weapons
6. Toronto city councillor wants to ban use of any municipal property, including streets, to certain groups
7. Self-proclaimed imam “said it was OK to EAT non-Muslims as he groomed followers”
8. Germany: Persecution of Christians by Muslim Migrants Moves from Asylum Homes to the Streets.
After several reports showed that Christians were being systematically persecuted in German asylum homes, the problem has now moved from the homes to the streets. Gottfried Martens, the pastor of a free church in Berlin, claims that while over the last year or so asylum homes have become much safer for Christians, he has seen the persecution of Christians, especially converts from Islam, continue, Die Welt reports. “Many who were in refugee shelters a year ago now have private homes,” Martens said but claimed that attacks on Christians now occurred on the streets or at metro stations. Over the past year across the country, there have been several attacks on Christians including the murder of an Afghan woman in Prien am Chiemsee which police believe had a religious motive behind it.
9. Imam in Denmark gets suspended sentence for anti-gay remarks
An imam has been given a two-week suspended jail sentence for making public remarks against homosexuals, whom he compared to pedophiles. The city court in Viborg, 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest of Copenhagen, said Thursday that Mohamad Jammal had violated Denmark's penal code in newspaper interviews in June 2016 following the attack at Orlando's Pulse gay nightclub, where 49 people were shot dead. Many Muslims consider homosexuality to be sinful.
10. ISIS hacks Swedish radio station, broadcasts recruitment song for 30 MINUTESVote: Was Evans right to leave Silence-Lotto? "Cadel brings a wealth of experience in the Grand Tours to the team," BMC Racing Team co-owner Jim Ochowicz said in a media statement.
‘‘Our team will have multiple chances to measure ourselves against the greatest teams in the world. We are pleased that we will have the opportunities to send out our most successful riders, now including Cadel Evans, to tackle these challenges.’’ As well as Evans, which is a major signing coup, BCM Racing has recently recruited former world champion Alessandro Ballan, US champion George Hincapie, Karsten Kroon and Marcus Burghardt. A two-time Tour de France runner-up, and a disappointing 30th in the race this year, Evans said his goals were the same as ever.
"I look forward to working with a new team, in a new environment, towards my same goals; honouring the rainbow jersey at the highest level of the sport, and ultimately at the highest step of the Tour de France podium,’’ the Australian said. "Obviously, I would like to do better than my two second places at the Tour de France.’’
BCM Racing sports director John Lelangue said he believed the new team was so strong that it would gain the necessary wildcard entries to join in the biggest international races of 2010. "We have a plan to go to the biggest races, including the Grand Tours. That includes the Tour de France," he said. "This will be possible since our sporting level has greatly increased in standard."We calculate the area-weighted mean of 80 globally distributed, high-resolution proxy temperature records to reconstruct global surface temperature during the last deglaciation (Methods and Fig. 1). The global temperature stack shows a two-step rise, with most warming occurring during and right after the Oldest Dryas and Younger Dryas intervals and relatively little temperature change during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Bølling–Allerød interval and the early Holocene epoch (Fig. 2a). The atmospheric CO 2 record from the EPICA Dome C ice core12, which has recently been placed on a more accurate timescale13, has a similar two-step structure and is strongly correlated with the temperature stack (r2 = 0.94 (coefficient of determination), P = 0.03; Fig. 2a).
Figure 1: Proxy temperature records. a, Location map. CBT, cyclization ratio of branched tetraethers; MBT, methylation index of branched tetraethers; TEX 86, tetraether index of tetraethers consisting of 86 carbon atoms;, alkenone unsaturation index. b, Distribution of the records by latitude (grey histogram) and areal fraction of the planet in 5° steps (blue line). Full size image Download PowerPoint slide
Figure 2: CO 2 concentration and temperature. a, The global proxy temperature stack (blue) as deviations from the early Holocene (11.5–6.5 kyr ago) mean, an Antarctic ice-core composite temperature record42 (red), and atmospheric CO 2 concentration (refs 12, 13; yellow dots). The Holocene, Younger Dryas (YD), Bølling–Allerød (B–A), Oldest Dryas (OD) and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) intervals are indicated. Error bars, 1σ (Methods); p.p.m.v., parts per million by volume. b, The phasing of CO 2 concentration and temperature for the global (grey), Northern Hemisphere (NH; blue) and Southern Hemisphere (SH; red) proxy stacks based on lag correlations from 20–10 kyr ago in 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations (Methods). The mean and 1σ of the histograms are given. CO 2 concentration leads the global temperature stack in 90% of the simulations and lags it in 6%. Full size image Download PowerPoint slide
Lag correlations quantify the timing of change in the temperature stack relative to CO 2 from 20–10 kyr ago, an interval that spans the period during which low LGM CO 2 concentrations increased to almost pre-industrial values. Our results indicate that CO 2 probably leads global warming over the course of the deglaciation (Fig. 2b). A comparison of the global temperature stack with Antarctic temperature provides further support for this relative timing, in showing that although the structure of the global stack is similar to the pattern of Antarctic temperature change, it lags Antarctica by several centuries to a millennium throughout most of the deglaciation (Fig. 2a). Thus, the small apparent lead of Antarctic temperature over CO 2 in the ice-core records12,14 does not apply to global temperature. An additional evaluation of this result comes from an objective identification of inflection points in the CO 2 and global temperature records, which suggests that changes in CO 2 concentration were either synchronous with or led global warming during the various steps of the deglaciation (Supplementary Table 2). An important exception is the onset of deglaciation, which features about 0.3 °C of global warming before the initial increase in CO 2 ∼17.5 kyr ago. This finding suggests that CO 2 was not the cause of initial warming. We return to this point below. Nevertheless, the overall correlation and phasing of global temperature and CO 2 are consistent with CO 2 being an important driver of global warming during the deglaciation, with the centennial-scale lag of temperature behind CO 2 being consistent with the thermal inertia of the climate system owing to ocean heat uptake and ice melting15.
Although other mechanisms contributed to climate change during the ice ages, climate models suggest that their impacts were regional and thus cannot explain the global extent of temperature changes documented by our stacked record alone9,16,17. This conclusion is supported by the distinct differences, relative to the temperature stack, in the temporal variabilities of other likely climate change agents (Fig. 3). For example, insolation is a smoothly varying sinusoid that is in antiphase between the hemispheres and sums to near zero globally at the top of the atmosphere (Fig. 3f). Although spatial and temporal asymmetries in albedo could convert insolation to a non-zero forcing at Earth’s surface, it is unlikely to account for much of the step-like structure and global nature of the temperature stack.
Figure 3: Global temperature and climate forcings. a, Relative sea level26 (diamonds). b, Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet area (line) derived from summing the extents of the Laurentide43, Cordilleran43 and Scandinavian (R. Gyllencreutz and J. Mangerud, personal communication) ice sheets through time. c, Atmospheric CO 2 concentration. d, Global proxy temperature stack. e, Modelled global temperature stacks from the ALL (blue), CO2 (red) and ORB (green) simulations. Dashed lines show global mean temperatures in the simulations, using sea surface temperatures over ocean and surface air temperatures over land. f, Insolation forcing for latitudes 65° N (purple) and 65° S (orange) at the local summer solstice, and global mean annual insolation (dashed black)44. Error bars, 1σ. Full size image Download PowerPoint slide
Similarly, although ice-sheet extent and its associated albedo (from ice cover and emergent continental shelves) and orographic forcing decreased through the deglaciation, global ice volume and area changed only slowly or not at all during intervals of pronounced global warming such as the Oldest Dryas and Younger Dryas, and the greatest volume or area loss in fact occurred during intervals of little or no warming around 19 kyr ago and the Bølling–Allerød (Fig. 3a, b). This distinction is particularly notable during the early Holocene, when the temperature stack had reached interglacial levels while nearly one-third of the excess global ice still remained, although we note that any ice-driven warming would have been partly offset by decreasing greenhouse gas forcing (Fig. 3c and Supplementary Fig. 29a). The apparently small influence of ice-sheet forcing on the temperature stack is consistent with general circulation models that suggest its effect was largely confined to the northern mid to high latitudes and was otherwise modest in the areas sampled by our proxy network16,17,18, which is biased away from the ice sheets. Our results, therefore, do not preclude an important contribution to global mean warming from ice-sheet retreat, but suggest that much of this warming was spatially restricted and may be inherently under-represented owing to the lack of suitable palaeotemperature records from and proximal to areas formerly covered by ice.
Unlike these regional-scale forcings, methane, nitrous oxide and possibly dust are global in nature. Because greenhouse gas forcing was dominated by CO 2 (ref. 19; Supplementary Fig. 29a), and because at the onsets of the Bølling–Allerød, Younger Dryas and Holocene the methane and nitrous oxide records have small step changes like those of the global temperature stack, including these greenhouse gases leaves the correlation with the stack essentially unchanged (r2 = 0.93) and slightly decreases the temperature lag (250 ± 340 yr) (Supplementary Fig. 29). Global dust forcing is poorly constrained19, however, and we cannot dismiss it as a potentially important driver of global temperature independent of greenhouse warming. Vegetation forcing is likewise difficult to assess19 and may have significantly contributed to global warming. These uncertainties notwithstanding, we suggest that the increase in CO 2 concentration before that of global temperature is consistent with CO 2 acting as a primary driver of global warming, although its continuing increase is presumably a feedback from changes in other aspects of the climate system.The Northampton Saints team has been announced for Saturday’s Aviva Premiership East Midlands derby against Leicester.
The starting line-up sees four changes from that which began the European Rugby Champions Cup quarter final at Saracens, with Ahsee Tuala, Tom Kessell, Kieran Brookes and Tom Wood coming into the team, with Wood also wearing the captain’s armband.
There are no tickets left in the Saints Ticket Office for tomorrow’s game, although there are a few still remaining through StubHub, the club’s official ticket marketplace, at www.stubhub.co.uk/saints.
A match preview can be heard now in this week’s official Saints podcast, which includes chats with Stephen Myler, Dorian West and Harry Mallinder, while Dusty Hare reflects on his derby experiences while playing for Leicester. Stream for FREE on any device or subscribe on iTunes.
NORTHAMPTON SAINTS TEAM TO PLAY LEICESTER
Aviva Premiership Round 20
Franklin’s Gardens
Saturday, April 16th, 2016
Kick off 5:30pm
15 Ahsee TUALA
14 Ken PISI
13 George PISI
12 Luther BURRELL
11 Jamie ELLIOTT
10 Stephen MYLER
9 Tom KESSELL
1 Alex WALLER
2 Mikey HAYWOOD
3 Kieran BROOKES
4 James CRAIG
5 Christian DAY
6 Courtney LAWES
7 Tom WOOD (capt)
8 Teimana HARRISON
16 Reece MARSHALL
17 Campese MA’AFU
18 Paul HILL
19 Victor MATFIELD
20 Ben NUTLEY
21 JJ HANRAHAN
22 Harry MALLINDER
23 Tom COLLINSA two-part sermon from famous pastor Wayne Grudem.
The part 1 MP3 file is here.
The part 2 MP3 file is here.
The PDF outline is here.
Part 1 topics: (just war and conduct of war)
the commandment to not kill does not apply to killing enemy soldiers in war
government is authorized to prevent foreign countries from harming citizens the same way it prevents criminals from harming citizens
there are examples in the Bible of using military force to stop an aggressive nation, e.g. – David vs Goliath
principles of a just war, and relevant Bible passages, e.g. – just cause, only as a last resort
Moral principles for the conduct of a just war, e.g. – proportionality, combatants vs non-combatants
Can a Christian serve in a just war in good conscience?
What should a Christian do if called upon to fight in an unjust war?
Part 2 topics: (responses to pacificism)
what are the arguments in favor of pacifism?
government can do some things that individuals cannot do, e.g. – taxing vs stealing, punishing criminals vs revenge
it’s wrong for individuals to use force to advance the gospel, but not wrong for government to use force to restrain evil
Jesus loves everyone, but even he will come in judgment one day and use force to punish evil
what about nuclear weapons, nuclear arsenals for deterrence, and defenses to long-range nuclear missiles?
missile defense systems work, e.g – Iron Dome in Israel stopped about 85% of incoming missiles
building defenses does not embolden the enemy to attack us, it deters the enemy from attacking us
“turn the other cheek” means don’t return an insult, but you can defend yourself from physical threats
My favorite part of this two-part series was the midpoint of part 2, when a lady asked him a question about what is behind pacificism. Dr. Grudem runs through all the places in society where the secular left is opposed to authorities judging and punishing bad behavior with force. There are so many examples of this: parents disciplining rebellious children, teachers disciplining misbehaving kids, police catching criminals (lots of that lately!), courts putting criminals in jail for long periods of time, giving murderers the death penalty, using waterboarding on terrorists, and of course pacifism in the face of aggression, e.g. – Iran vs Israel, Russia vs Ukraine. Then another lady asked him why the same people who are so concerned about going easy on violent criminals and aggressive nations are so intent on being able to kill defenseless innocent children in the womb. Good question.32-Piece Makeup Brush Set
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from the didn't-see-that-coming dept
Law enforcement groups, which include the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Metropolitan Police's e-crime unit, believe that more encryption will increase the costs and workload for those attempting to monitor internet traffic. One official said: "It will make prosecution harder because it increases the workload significantly."
A source involved in drafting the Bill said that the intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, had also voiced concerns about disconnection. "The spooks hate it," the source said. "They think it is only going to make monitoring more difficult."
Enforcement groups are also unhappy that the Government's change of plans has left them little time to draw up a response. Lord Mandelson's intervention came two months after the Government's Digital Britain report, published in June, failed to back disconnection.
Those who believe that kicking people off the internet based on accusations of file sharing is an affront to basic due process and civil rights have perhaps an unexpected ally: UK law enforcement and intelligence services have come out against Peter Mandelson's "three strikes and your off the internet" plan. Of course, they're not as concerned about due process and civil rights, as they are about making it more difficult to track down criminals online:So, the government's own plan said no to kicking people off the internet. The police and the intelligence services are saying no to it. Why is Mandelson still supporting it?
Filed Under: intelligence, mi5, peter mandelson, police, three strikes, ukI don’t know how long it’s been since I last posted a ‘Scott Pilgrim’ mash up.
2 weeks? 2 days? 2 seconds?
Either way, this was sent to me and it’s pretty epic, so I hope you’ll forgive me for reposting. I think having done so many of these montages in my youth, I’m endlessly amused, flattered and impressed by editors rejigging our footage.
This magnificent piece is set to the music of Anamanaguchi who did an extraordinary job with the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ video game soundtrack. Indeed their track ‘Party Stronger’ from that score should be on any future party playlist for the next decade.
This 7 minute mash up is soundtracked to the track ‘Mermaid’ from the album ‘Dawn Metropolis’ and is edited by Steven Grant. It gets especially good around the Roxy sequence at the 5.22 mark.
Check it out and hats off Steven. (And Amamanaguchi too of course)
(By the way, this is spoiler heavy, but if you haven’t seen it yet, get the hell out of my house.)President Barack Obama says each of his proposed steps to reduce gun violence should get a vote in Congress — even an assault weapons ban that both parties agree stands little chance of passing.
Senate Democrats dropped the ban from the bill they plan to debate next month out of concern it could sink the whole package. Still, Obama says he's pushing for it.
In his weekly radio and Internet address released Saturday, Obama says the U.S. has changed in the three months since the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn., left 20 first graders and six educators dead. He says Americans support the ban, plus limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines, school security funding and a crackdown on gun trafficking.
"Today there is still genuine disagreement among well-meaning people about what steps we should take to reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country. But you, the American people, have spoken," Obama said.
The White House said Saturday that Obama will make additional trips outside Washington to rally support for the measures, including the assault weapons ban. The White House also said that before Obama left for Israel earlier this week, his push for gun control was among the issues he raised with lawmakers from both parties as he embarked on a concerted effort to reach out to Congress.
In the Republican address, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah says the Senate Democrats' budget raises taxes by $1.5 trillion without doing anything to save entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. He says Republicans want a balanced budget that lives up to the nation's moral obligation to act in the best interest of future generations.
"Republicans recognize that keeping dollars, decisions, priorities and power in the hands of the people is what has made America the greatest civilization the world has ever known," Lee says. "Now is the time to return to that model."
———
Online:
Obama address: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Republican address: www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddressAs FX turns 20, Noah Hawley explains the "fascinating challenge" he had in adapting the Coen brothers' beloved movie.
As FX turns 20, fifteen of TV's top scribes -- from Rescue Me's Denis Leary to Louie's Louis C.K. -- reveal what it's like to write for a network that encourages smart TV (almost) without rules as part of a series that The Hollywood Reporter is rolling out this week. This story first appeared in the May 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
I had a fascinating challenge before me: Create a series that gave you the same feeling you got from watching the movie Fargo but wasn't the movie.
In the summer of 2012, MGM and FX struck a deal to turn Fargo into a TV movie, but there was no writer attached. I got a call from FX saying, "We're wondering if you think this can be done without [Frances McDormand's character] Marge?" By which they meant, "Can you write us a totally new Coen brothers movie set in that same region?"
TV REVIEW: Fargo
I went back to their films and asked myself: What makes a Coen brothers movie a Coen brothers movie? The thing with Fargo is that it wasn't a whodunit -- it wasn't a cop movie. It was a true-crime story that wasn't actually true. I had to play into this idiosyncrasy, which means we meet the criminals before the crime is committed and don't meet the cops until afterward. Immediately I had an image of two men sitting side by side in an emergency room -- one very civilized, the other very uncivilized. Who are these guys? Where does the story go?
I wrote the first script, and FX said they wanted to go straight to series. I had a four-person writers room, and we broke the remaining nine episodes. Then I turned a 115-page outline in to the network and then left to write all 10 scripts myself. Usually, in building a TV series, you only manage to get two or three scripts written before production starts. For this, I had eight, which allowed me to create a highly detailed world in which each element I set up paid off later. [HBO's] True Detective proved that everything in your show is meaningful, whether you intend it to be or not. You have to be very careful about what you put in at every stage of the writing.
STORY: 'Fargo's' Noah Hawley Inks Overall Deal With FX Productions
When I first talked with Joel and Ethan Coen, they asked what I had planned to do about the characters' Minnesota accents. In the film they had become iconic and such a caricature in our culture that I felt we should really underplay them. They agreed. We wanted something that sounded regional without being so exaggerated. Aside from that, they never gave me any notes. They read the first script, liked it, suggested a few lines and jokes, but that was the sum total of their creative involvement. They said: "Look, we don't know television. It's your show -- just go make it."
When we showed them the first episode, Ethan said, "Yeah, good," which I've since learned is a rave review.
Noah Hawley is the creator of and an executive producer on FARGO, which airs at 10 p.m. Tuesdays.
RELATED: Louis C.K. Reveals How to Write, Direct, Edit and Star in Every Episode of a Hit Show (and Not Go Crazy)
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RELATED: Shawn Ryan on 'The Shield' — We Got Away With 'Something Criminal'First, there was a Festivus pole.
Then on Monday the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics group placed a “Flying Spaghetti Monster” among the holiday displays inside Wisconsin’s Capitol.
Any group that submits an application to Capitol police can erect a display in accordance with the First Amendment ban on state establishment of religion, according to the Associated Press.
The student group’s “pastafarian” deity was represented in the rotunda by a poster that proclaims the monster “boiled for your sins!”
“This is the problem of allowing religious symbols to be displayed in government buildings,” the student group wrote on its website. “When the State decided to turn the Capitol into an open forum, they opened the floodgates which the Flying Spaghetti Monster just sailed through. We would much prefer to keep government buildings free from all religious (and irreligious) messages, but if it must be “anything goes,” we hope everyone takes advantage of this opportunity to advertise their own viewpoints – no matter how silly.”
Residents of Tallahassee, Fla. last week also sought to make a political statement about the separation between church and state by erecting a Festivus pole out of beer cans.
Images via Atheists, Humanists & Agnostics at UW-Madison
[h/t Huffington Post]What do you get when Mark Hoppus gets his hands on a couple Neck Deep tracks? Some sick remixes.
Neck Deep hooked us up with the exclusive premiere of their tracks “Serpents” and “Can’t Kick Up The Roots” remixed by Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus.
The tracks will be released on iTunes and Spotify Friday March 18. Check out the remixed and original versions below!
“Serpents” (Mark Hoppus Remix)
“Serpents” (album version) video
“Can't Kick Up The Roots” (Mark Hoppus Remix)
“Can't Kick Up The Roots” (album version) video
“Serpents” and “Can’t Kick Up The Roots” are both from Neck Deep’s international chart-topper Life’s Not Out To Get You.
The band currently shares the cover of this month’s issue of AP and the stage on the Alternative Press World Tour with State Champs.
Don’t miss them live on the following dates:
March 18 – Des Moines Embassy – Austin, TX
March 19 – QuikTrip Park – Dallas, TX
March 29 – Backstage – Paris, France
March 30 – MOD Box – Hasselt, Belgium
April 1- MTC – Cologne, Germany
April 2 – Headcrash – Hamburg, Germany
April 3 – Melkweg – Amsterdam, Netherlands
April 4 – Music & Frieden – Berlin, Germany
April 6 – Schlachthof – Wiesbaden, Germany
April 7 – Kelllerklub – Stuttgart, Germany
April 9 – Rockplanet – Cervia Ra, Italy
April 10 – Legend Club – Milan, Italy
April 11 – Strom – Munich, Germany
April 12 – Arena – Vienna, Austria
April 13 – Dynamo – Zurich, Switzerland
April 14 – WarmAudio, Decines Charpieu, France
April 16 – Guildhall – Southampton, United Kingdom
April 18 – Uni – Newcastle, United Kingdom
April 19 – Beckett – Leeds, United Kingdom
April 20 – Academy – Liverpool, United Kingdom
June 10 – Donington Park – Derby, United Kingdom
June 24 – Jera On Air – Ysselsteyn, NetherlandsThe oldest profession in the world (or the world's oldest profession) is a phrase that, unless another meaning is specified, refers to prostitution. However, it did not acquire that meaning universally until after World War I. Formerly, various professions vied for the reputation of being the oldest.
Earlier sense [ edit ]
The claim to be the oldest profession was made on behalf of farmers,[1] cattle drovers,[2] horticulturalists,[3] engineers,[4] landscape gardeners,[5] the military,[6] doctors,[7] nurses,[8] teachers,[9] priests,[10] and even lawyers.[11]
Perhaps the earliest recorded claim to be the world's oldest profession was made on behalf of tailors. The Song in Praise of the Merchant-Taylors, attested from 1680, which was routinely performed at pageants at the Lord Mayor's Show, London, if the current mayor happened to belong to the tailors' guild,[12] began:
Of all the professions that ever were nam'd,
The taylor's, though slighted, is much to be fam'd':
For various invention, and antiquity,
No trade with the tayler's comparèd may be:
After pointing out that Adam and Eve made garments for themselves, and were therefore tailors, it continued:
Then judge if a tayler was not the first trade.
The oldest profession, and they are but raylers,[13]
Who scoff and deride men that be merchant-taylers.
Acquisition of opprobrious sense [ edit ]
The phrase began to acquire its opprobrious sense in the last decade of the nineteenth century following Rudyard Kipling's short story about an Indian prostitute, On the City Wall (January 1889). Kipling, after citing a biblical reference,[14] began:
Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very-great-grandmamma, and that was before the days of Eve as every one knows. In the West, people say rude things about Lalun's profession, and write lectures about it, and distribute the lectures to young persons in order that Morality may be preserved. In the East where the profession is hereditary, descending from mother to daughter, nobody writes lectures or takes any notice; and that is a distinct proof of the inability of the East to manage its own affairs.
In a scathing article on the morals of the aristocracy in the mass circulation Reynold's Newspaper, 22 July 1894,[15] the reference was repeated:
In ancient Rome, under the empire, ladies used to go to baths to meet a certain class of men, while men resorted thither to meet a certain class of ladies. The ladies belonged to what has been called “the oldest profession in the world", a profession which is carried on in Piccadilly, Regent street, and other parts of London with great energy every night …
In the same year the Pall Mall Gazette[16] reported a speech in which "Mrs. Ormiston Chant … implored us to stand shoulder to shoulder and destroy what Kipling has called 'the oldest profession in the world'".
The phrase was frequently used as a euphemism when delicacy forbade direct reference to prostitution.
Kipling was not the first to employ the phrase "the most ancient profession" in an opprobrious sense. The Irish poet Henry Brooke (1701–1783) wrote:[17]
Of all trades and arts in repute or possession,
Humbugging is held the most ancient profession.
The phrase had also been applied to murderers. In The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries (1875),[18] Charles William Heckethorn, describing the Thugs of India, said:
The hierophant, on initiating the candidate, says to him: "Thou hast chosen, my son, the most ancient profession, the most acceptable to the deity. Thou hast sworn to put to death every human being fate throws into thy hand..."
Residual usage of the phrase in its reputable sense [ edit ]
There is some evidence that unworldly speakers (e.g. of the older generation) or unsophisticated audiences (e.g. in small towns or rural areas) were not at first aware of the phrase's newly acquired meaning. Thus for some time the following could be said in English newspaper reports without apparent embarrassment: “A certain proportion of the cadets were now leaving to enter the oldest profession in the world” (1895).[19] “This gentleman's name often figures high in local prize lists, and he is considered an enthusiast in 'the oldest profession in the world'" (1902).[20] “Mr Petrie heard the voice of God and observed the working of His hand in ways that are denied to most of us. His speech, and especially his prayers, exhibited a rare consciousness of the beauty of holiness, and were fragrant with phrases of singular charm. As you all know, Mr Petrie followed the oldest profession in the world” (1915).[21]
However, those 'innocent' uses of the phrase tended to die out as awareness of the newly acquired meaning increased; as did the appreciation that antiquity, of itself, did not make a profession respectable.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
^ "The farmer, therefore, can boast of being a member of the oldest profession" (Annual Report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, Michigan, 1878). ^ "He reminded his audience that theirs was the very oldest profession in the world" (Bury and Norwich Post, Suffolk, 19 June 1883, p.5. ^ "… certainly we are representatives of the oldest profession of which we have any knowledge" (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Horticultural Society, 1890, p.35. ^ "… we belong to the oldest profession in the world" (The Stevens indicator, vol. 9, 1892, p.167). ^ "I need hardly speak of its antiquity, the oldest profession in the world" (Preston Chronicle, Lancashire, 9 November 1889, p.2.) ^ Speech by Lord Wolseley, Morning Post, 21 December 1895. ^ The Clinic: A Weekly Journal of Practical Medicine, 1875, p.245. ^ Nursing World, vols 21–22, 1898, p.123. ^ The Ohio Educational Monthly, vol 57, 1908, p.294. ^ Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, 1902. ^ "A lawyer, then, is a member of the oldest profession extant; for as he lives upon the rottenness of human nature, the first human crime made room for a lawyer" (Alfred Butler, Elphinstone, vol 1, 1841, p.189). ^ Percy Society, Early English Poetry, Ballads and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages, vol. XIX (London, 1846), p.74. ^ Bitter deriders or scoffers. ^ Joshua ii. 15. ^ Page 4. ^ 12 November 1894, page 6. ^ Samuel Johnson, The Works of English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, vol 17, p.428. ^ (London, Richard Bentley and Son), vol 2, p.324. ^ (The profession of arms.) Speech of Lord |
with their weapon. One by one, the heroes of Elysia attacked the Bringer of Law. As his body and spirit finally yeiled to the assault, Libera trapped his soul and the power she had granted him in the grand altar where he lay. A seal of flames was placed to mark the spot and prevent him from ever breaking free and defying her again. This seal became known as the Fire Emblem.
Having exhausted most of what remained of her power, Libera found herself trapped on the mortal plane. Not wishing to ever again interfere with the proceedings of man, she took the form of a wolf once more and fled, ashamed of the destruction she had brought to her world. Elysia took up the emblem of the Crescent Moon as its national crest in remembrance of Libera and what she blessed them with. Uspal took up the symbol of the scales as its crest, in a solemn remembrance of Adoni-Zedek's law and guidance.
Uspal still follows the original Laws of Man that Adoni-Zedek had blessed them with all those years ago. It is a prosperous northern land, bountiful in natural resources and fertile soil. Today, Uspal is ruled by King Warren, a man famous for his lack of leniency towards those who would break his laws. His society, while somewhat strict, is well structured and organized
Elysia today still values what Libera held sacred, freedom. However, they realized over the years that unchecked liberty leads to chaos and anarchy. While lenient, law and structure does exist and has become more prominent in the recent years under King Raginmund. While Elysia is a beautiful land, it has been suffering. It has found itself overpopulated and struggling with limited natural resources. Worse yet, tensions have been high with Uspal the past 20 years, leading to a cold war.
At this point, anything could spark a war.In much of the world, soccer is known as football and the American president is referred to as The Ameriking. Embrace cultural differences without using your hands with this deal.
The Deal
Two tickets to a San Antonio Scorpions soccer game
Where: Toyota Field
Door time: 6:30 p.m.
Ticket values include all fees.
Click here to view the seating chart.
Games and Dates
Against the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Saturday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m.
Against the Carolina RailHawks on Saturday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m.
Against FC Edmonton on Saturday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m.
Against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on Saturday, June 7, at 7:30 p.m.
Seating Options
$19 for two tickets for sideline east seating in sections 121,122, 128, or 129 (a $36.30 value)
$36 for two tickets for sideline west seating in sections 101,102, 108, or 109 (a $65 value)
The Scouting Report
As the 2014 spring season heats up, the Scorpions are poised to sting, perched in fifth place in the NASL after splitting their first two games of the season with a win and a loss. The club will look to exceed last year’s successful spring campaign, when they climbed to third place with a 6–2–4 record. Matches against the RailHawks and the Strikers—ranked third and fourth in the league, respectively—give the Scorpions a chance to ascend the standings without having to craft a pulley system with the laces of their cleats.
San Antonio Scorpions
Founded in 2010, the San Antonio Scorpions wasted no time digging their pincers into the North American Soccer League standings; in 2012, they finished first overall and advanced to the semi-finals. Yet despite their quick success on the pitch, the Scorpions have arguably made a bigger impact off of it: all profits from the team’s operations go toward funding Morgan’s Wonderland, a colorful amusement park in Longhorn Quarry designed for people with (and without) special needs. The idea stems from team owner, businessman, and philanthropist Gordon Hartman, who builds support for Morgan’s Wonderland via the Scorpions’ “Soccer for a Cause” program. In 2012, the team’s efforts were noticed by Toyota, who committed to sponsoring a new stadium. Completed for the 2013 season, the result of that commitment currently boasts a seating capacity of 8,000 with plans to expand as large as 18,000, so long as fan support continues to grow enough and the chair saplings take root in the concrete.March 11, 2011 is a day that will forever live in Japan’s long history. On that day, a 9.0 earthquake—referred to now as the “Great East Japan Earthquake” or the Fukushima Earthquake—devastated the Tokohu area of Japan, and leveled much of the city of Sendai. For those outside the region, thoughts quickly turned to fears over radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant, a story that dominated the American news cycle for several months following the quake. But on the ground here in Tokohu, over four years later, Sendai is in the midst of a massive reconstruction effort. Signs, monuments and lines scattered across buildings, train stations, and airports show just how high the massive waters flood the city. It’s hard to bring things back to normal.
Located 366 kilometers (227 miles) north of Tokyo, Japan’s “City of Trees” For the outsider, Sendai is a mid-sized urban area operating at a slower place than megacities like Tokyo or Osaka. The local delicacy is gyutan—BBQ cow tongue. For about a million people (as of 2010) it’s home. One of those million or so folks is Yoshitaka “Mickey” Nakazawa, the co-owner of Flat White Coffee Factory. Nakazawa’s professional background ties together both the history of modern Japanese coffee and a celebration of the Tokohu area after the Great East Japan Earthquake. He’s literally helping rebuild this city by fueling it with great coffee, and his work is a window into how for the survivors, in the face of impossible tragedy and disaster, life most assuredly goes on.
In August 1996, Starbucks opened its first store in the very fashionable and ritzy Ginza district in Tokyo. Nakazawa was working in the marketing department of a bank next door. Like so many individuals working in specialty coffee around the world, he got his start at Starbucks. He would also go on to help launch the first Tully’s location in Tokyo, and also worked with Doutor, one of the largest Japanese coffee chains. In late 1998, Nakazawa moved to Auckland, New Zealand, to learn English at a language school in hopes of returning to Japan to help another American coffee chain succeed there. While in Auckland, he fell in love with the flat white and New Zealand’s coffee culture, and fell in with Sierra Coffee, working his way up to barista (although he couldn’t speak English). The lessons learned in New Zealand would influence the rest of his life as a coffee professional.
Back in present-day Sendai, the Flat White Coffee Factory offers an unusually technical menu. Among the expected array of espresso-based beverages and associated drinks (including, of course, the flat white, a rarity in northern Japan), customers can choose their beans based on taste “bitter” or “fruity & mild”. Next, they can choose their preparation method (pour-over, AeroPress, Chemex, siphon or metal cone) and finally the coffee preparation’s temperature, normal or low.
For customers looking to take fresh-roasted beans home, on the day of my visit an astonishing 24 different single-origin coffees were available for purchase. For the less experienced coffee consumer, Nakazawa and his team created a unique vertical drawer system that not only shows customers the beans, but has cupping notes for customers to choose their own preference. While many Japanese roasters may take great pride in their blends, Nakazawa and team prefer to sell single-origin coffees. “They are beautiful,” Nakazawa tells me, “and we want our customers to make their own original blends at home. We can always recommend which coffees they should buy, but we strive for customers to learn about the differences between single origins and choose for themselves.” For the college students, business people, and elderly customers at the cafe during our visit, this is the most innovative coffee shop they have ever seen—they are hooked.
At the time of our visit, we choose two Costa Rica coffees, “Revence” and “El Halcon” prepared via V60. Nakazawa proudly wore a “Pura Vida” Costa Rican t-shirt, reminiscing about a recent sourcing trip. The “Revence” had notes of strawberry, floral, and a syrupy finish. The “El Halcon” had sweet dried fruits and red wine notes alongside milk chocolate and jasmine. Each coffee came with its own info card, yielding information on elevation, coffee verity, facts about the farms, and cupping comments. Flat White Coffee Factory is truly in the business of educating their clientele—important in any coffee bar, but doubly so here in Sendai, a small city recovering from a huge disaster.
When everything gets knocked down, your identity changes; you start anew. Maybe Sendai will never become a major tourist destination, but who knows? The city is rebuilding. There is an exciting, innovative, world-class coffee company here now, educating locals and proudly making a bid to become one of Japan’s best. Flat White Coffee Factory is helping create a new identity for Sendai. This is what rebuilding looks like, and in the hands of Mickey Nakazawa, this place has a beautiful—and very delicious—future to share.
Richard Sandlin (@RDSandlin) is an American coffee professional and Sprudge contributor based in Oakland, California. Read more Richard Sandlin on Sprudge.
Ayuchi Haga Sandlin (@ayuchiiiii) is an environmentalist and graphic designer based in Oakland, California. This is Ayuchi Haga Sandlin’s first feature for Sprudge.The Angels added Albert Pujols to their stable of first base/corner outfield/designated hitter-type bats during the Winter Meetings, leading to speculation about players they might move in a trade. Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports hears that Bobby Abreu would welcome a trade out of Anaheim, though he is not the type to demand one.
“Right now, [Abreu] is a valuable asset,” said GM Jerry DiPoto to Rosenthal. “I have a world of respect for Bobby. I want to make sure he’s in a position to be productive. Right now, we have that ability.”
Abreu, 38 in March, will earn $9MM in 2012 before becoming a free agent after the season. His power numbers have slipped in recent years (just eight homers in 2011), but he still manages to rank among the league leaders in walks and hasn't stolen fewer than 20 bases in a season since 1998. Abreu is also a defensive liability, but the Angels could use him to balance out their right-handed heavy lineup. The only problem is that he's become increasingly susceptible to southpaws in recent years (.238/.319/.279 vs. LHP in 2011).
Rosenthal says a trade is unlikely to happen anytime soon, just because the team wants to see as much of Kendrys Morales as they can before determining if they have offense to spare. He also lists the Mariners, Rays, Orioles, and Blue Jays as clubs that need help at DH, though none have been connected to Abreu yet.SBRotator is out! “SpringBoard Rotator” does what iPhone should be doing from the beginning! It rotates the whole SpringBoard according to your device’s orientation! You flip it to left or right, you get LandScape SpringBoard!
The so-wanted addon is now available and compatible with most of the springboard-tweak applications, such as Infiniboard, Infinidock, Iconoclasm, Shrink, OverBoard, WinterBoard etc.
WinterBoard theming is also supported, as it provides the ability to use a secondary background image called LockBackground-Wide.jpg which will only appear on your landscape mode, keeping your original portrait background on portrait mode.
You can choose the background behavior when in LandScape from settings: Rotate Background (on/off), Rotate and Zoom (prevent’s cropping), Rotate and Crop (just rotates and centers the background, cropping occurs) or ‘Use LockBackground-Wide.jpg’
You may also choose if the icons will be smaller when in LandScape which is highly recommended. Alternatively, you may leave them in 100% size and use Shrink to adjust the icons size.
Get it now and bring your iPhone experience to a new level!
BigBoss Authors: Mark Bruce & Kory Lee
Tags: addon, cydia, rotator, springboard, tweakTexas Rep. Mike Conaway had to get to the bottom of things. Did Russia in any way alter or change a single vote in the November election?
It’s an important question, since the Left has been manufacturing an existential crisis for months, claiming that the election was rigged by President Donald Trump and his nefarious Kremlin allies.
So when Conaway had Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on the hotseat at a House Hearing on Wednesday, he asked directly.
Here’s the transcript:
CONAWAY: “One of our purposes this morning was to reassure the American public with aren’t to the 16 election and also secondly look at what we do in future elections going forward. You said in your opening statement, in your prepared remarks that to your knowledge there was no vote tallying changes, that no one’s vote was voted one way and recorded some other way. Is that still your opinion with respect to the 16 election, that what the Russians did did not affect the actual voting itself?” JOHNSON: “Based on everything I know, that is correct. I know of no evidence that through cyber intrusions, votes were altered or suppressed in some way.” CONAWAY: “You’ve designated the voting system as critical infrastructure. Can you give us kind of a quick snap as to why that was important in your mind? JOHNSON: “It was important in my mind because critical infrastructure receives a priority in terms of the assistance we give on cyber security. That’s number one. There’s a certain level of confidentiality that goes into the communications between critical infrastructure and the department that are guaranteed. And number three when you’re part of critical infrastructure, you get the protection of the international cyber norms. Thou shalt not attack critical infrastructure in another country. There are 16 sectors already that are considered critical infrastructure. In my view, this was something that was sort of a no-brainer and in fact probably should have been done years before. I’m pleased secretary Kelly has reaffirmed it. CONAWAY: “Does that include the parties and infrastructure around candidates? Or is that just the mechanics of voting itself? JOHNSON: “If you read the way I wrote the statement on January 6th, it’s pretty much confined to the election process itself, election infrastructure itself, not politicians, not the political parties.
Facebook has greatly reduced the distribution of our stories in our readers' newsfeeds and is instead promoting mainstream media sources. When you share to your friends, however, you greatly help distribute our content. Please take a moment and consider sharing this article with your friends and family. Thank you.Leonard Nimoy didn't know why the creators of the recent Star Trek-based Audi commercial had asked him to sing a few bars of his hilariously campy song from 1967, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins." "I said, if you want me to do it, I'll do it. I don't know why it's in the spot." Nimoy, who created the role of Spock in the 1967-1969 series Star Trek, told me in a telephone interview that the response to the song "was a complete surprise to me."
Nimoy's internet presence is solid, but it's a fraction of that of his colleagues, William Shatner and George Takei. He runs a "Spock-oriented, Star Trek-oriented merchandise" store called Shop LLAP (shorthand for "Live Long and Prosper") with his granddaughter. "She said in order to build a customer base you have to get on Twitter. I am on Twitter, and I have several hundred thousand followers. Every once in a while I say something about what’s available on the shop, and she does some business. And that’s the extent of my web activity."
In other words, we fans knew something that Nimoy did not: "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" was a quiet internet sensation. It never tore up YouTube the way the Audi video did, but after several years, it's earned 3 million hits. In it, Nimoy sings about the Hobbit character while several dancers dance around him, well, groovily.
When asked about the origin of the Bilbo video, Nimoy explained, "I was doing some recordings in the late '60s, and the producer was a wonderful man who became a friend, who has since passed away. His name was Charles Grean, and he came to me with this idea, and I thought, 'Why not? It was crazy, it was funny, it was charming. Let's do it.' And that's the way it happened."
Singing that song in the Audi commercial is a shout-out to the deepest of deeply geeky fans, and it made us laugh. But for Nimoy, "It just seemed so out of context and so strange. I didn't know many people knew about it or cared about it." But he's read some of the comments on YouTube, and "The response has been wonderful."
The Audi video has had 5.5 million hits in two weeks…which begs the question: Why did the German-based company choose to market their Audi S7 to Star Trek fans?
Andrew Lipman, general manager of Communications at Audi of America, wrote in an email, “Audi viewed this video as an entertaining and creative platform to further connect with fans…. For Audi, the most important component was to make a compelling video that truly resonated with audiences in culturally relevant way.”
That doesn't quite answer my question. When further queried as to why they were targeting the geek demographic, Audi declined to be drawn on this specifically.
But the phrase "Resonating in a culturally relevant way" is interesting because it suggests that Star Trek is so culturally relevant—so mainstream—that by advertising to Star Trek fans, Audi is appealing to their potential customers.
There's a reason for this: Star Trek fans tend to be older and more affluent than fans of other geek subcultures. In a 2010 survey by anthropologist Paul Frazetti, the 41-50 age range had the most fans (34%); the majority of fans (32% of respondents) earned over $50,000.
Unsurprisingly, this matches the demographics of Audi buyers. Scott Keogh, head of marketing at Audi, said in an NPR interview, their customers have "an average age of somewhere around 47 or 48 [years old]."
The reboot of Star Trek is appealing to young fans as well. The second largest number of respondents in the Frazetti survey, 21%, are between the ages of 21-30. As it happens, Audi's younger customer base has been increasing as well. According to business analysts R.L. Polk and Co., "Audi's share of the young luxury demographic has almost doubled" from 6.7% in 2007 to 11.24% in 2012.
That, and the marketing opportunity surrounding the release of Star Trek Into Darkness, are likely the reason that Audi wanted both Nimoy and his younger Spock counterpart, Quinto, the participate in this video. But what compelled Nimoy to agree to poke fun at his image?
Nimoy said, "They sent me the script, and I laughed when I read it. I’m not particularly known for comedy, but I do enjoy doing it. Also, Zachary Quinto is a wonderful actor and a dear friend, and I just thought it would be fun to do, which it turned out to be."
So what's next for Mr. I Am Spock? "I want to be in a Star Wars movie."
Really? "It was the success of Star Wars that launched the Star Trek movies, and here we are coming to a full circle with a J.J. Abrams connection. It would be a thrill to have something to do with the Star Wars movie."
Does Nimoy think he'll be cast? "I don’t know," he said, "but wouldn’t that be a story?"
And what's next for Audi? Hopefully creating another fabulous video for their upcoming 2014 SQ5.
You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and here at Forbes.The last light of the day sets on Mount Everest as it rises behind Mount Nuptse. (Kevin Frayer/AP file)
When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top of Mount Everest in 1953, it was arguably the loneliest place on Earth — an oxygen-deprived desert perched atop an icy, 29,000-foot ladder of death.
Over the last 62 years, more than 4,000 climbers have replicated the pair’s feat, with hundreds more attempting to do so during the two-month climbing season each spring, according to the Associated Press.
Along the way, people have left oxygen canisters, broken climbing equipment, trash, human waste and even dead bodies in their wake, transforming the once pristine peak into a literal pile of … well, you get the idea.
[Humanity has made the moon into a garbage pile, wants to keep doing it]
“The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are not only dangerously crowded but also disgustingly polluted, with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps,” mountaineer Mark Jenkins wrote in a 2013 National Geographic article on Everest.
Sherpas spend time near their tents. (Phurba Tenjing Sherpa/Reuters file)
This week, Ang Tshering, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, warned that pollution — particularly human waste — has reached critical levels and threatens to spread disease on the world’s highest peak.
At base camp, the Associated Press reported, climbers have access to toilet tents with drums that are carried to lower areas and properly disposed once they are full.
“Climbers usually dig holes in the snow for their toilet use and leave the human waste there,” Tshering told the AP, noting that the waste has been “piling up” for years around the four camps, where climbers spend weeks acclimatizing to the high altitude without access to toilets.
The warnings aren’t new. This, for instance, is from a 2012 Washington Post opinion piece by Grayson Schaffer, an editor for Outside magazine:
Everest even has a sewage problem. When base camp’s outhouse barrels are filled, porters haul them to open pits near Gorak Shep. Meanwhile, above base camp, most climbers straddle small crevasses to relieve themselves. The result: The peak has become a fecal time bomb, and the mess is gradually sliding back toward base camp. In 2012, Swiss climber Ueli Steck told me that he won’t even boil snow for water at Everest’s Camp II, because he thinks the lower boiling temperature at that altitude won’t kill germs.
So, how much waste are we talking about? As much as “26,500 pounds of human excrement” each season, “most of it bagged and carried by native Sherpas to earthen pits near Gorak Shep, a frozen lake bed and village at 16,942 feet,” according to Grinnell College.
[You can earn $13,000 a year selling your poop]
As Sherpa Pemba Nima told SummitClimb.com when asked about pollution coming from the Everest base camp, the problem extends beyond the mountain to the watershed below.
“Ohh… awful… Pollution everywhere. Our main water source has been polluted. The dumping site is along the main trail to EBC, sometimes our local animals (yaks) fall into the pit. Even though it has been moved to different location now, I think it takes so many years to disintegrate because of the cold climate the pollution will remain there for many years.”
There are people fighting to clean up the mounting piles of trash.
Dawa Steven Sherpa, who has been leading Everest cleanup expeditions since 2008, told the AP that some climbers carry disposable toilet bags with them at higher altitudes. A group of Nepali artists has collected 1.5 tons of Everest trash — including remnants of a crashed helicopter — brought down by climbers and transformed it into 74 pieces of art, according to CNN.
[One of North America’s rarest mammals spotted in Yosemite for first time in nearly 100 years]
And yet, the Everest Summiteers Association, which has also collected tons of debris from the mountain, estimates there might be as much as 10 tons of trash left on Everest — a figure that is only expected to grow, according to Time.
Last year, the Nepali government instituted a new rule requiring each climber to bring 18 pounds of trash off the mountain — “the amount it estimates a climber discards along the route,” according to the AP. Climbing teams that don’t comply forfeit their $4,000 deposits.
“Each expedition to Everest is required to take a garbage deposit and bring their waste back,” Everest Summiteers Association general secretary Diwas Pokhrel told CNN. “But this system has not been strictly implemented.”
Mount Everest as seen from an aircraft over Nepal. (Narendra Shrestha/EPA file)
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Huge WWII Japanese battleship Musashi has been found, billionaire Paul Allen says
Welcome to ‘Execution Island,’ the surreal death site for Bali 9 drug smugglersSir Martin Sorrell. Flickr/IAB UK Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, the world's largest advertising agency holding group, believes Netflix needs to go down one of two routes (or perhaps both) to be a profitable business in the long-term.
Speaking at The Financial Times' FT Digital Media conference in London on Tuesday, Sorrell said: "Netflix is extremely powerful yet it has not yet achieved profitability — that old-fashioned thing that, at the end of the day, we are all interested in, in the long run."
Netflix reported net income of $24 million in its first quarter of 2015 and EPS of $0.77 (adjusted for foreign-exchange rate changes since last year).
But its expenses are high ($59 million in the most recent quarter, according to the "other income (expense)" segment in the consolidated section in its financial report) as it invests aggressively in international expansion (international losses widened to $65 million in the quarter, from $35 million in the year-ago quarter,) marketing, and content acquisition.
Netflix said in January this year it doesn't expect to generate "material global profits" until 2017.
Sorrell said Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, oversees a production budget of at least $4 billion.
"In those circumstances, it will have to raise its subscription prices — and you can remember what the reaction was like to that last time around — or have an alternative revenue generation operation, one of which will be advertising," Sorrell added.
That advertising may not take the form of the TV advertising model but could include branded content or sponsorships, Sorrell predicted.
Sorrell also suggested the rise and rise of platforms like Netflix would come at the expense of TV at the annual television upfronts this year, where the bulk of TV advertising is bought ahead of time.
After interviewer Matthew Garrahan from the Financial Times mentioned that Viacom's ratings were down significantly year-over-year, Sorrell said: "Upfronts will be affected by the fact that viewing figures you refer to... show declines, not necessarily because of a decline in viewing, but a different type of viewing."
That is the fault of traditional measurement companies not catching up with the change in consumer behavior, Sorrell said, adding that Nielsen, which measures TV ratings in the US, "will not be upset if I say — or maybe they will — that media owners are upset and advertisers are upset."
That's evident if you look at these recent figures from BTIG Research that suggest if Netflix were a domestic US broadcast network, it would be at least the fourth-biggest network, or maybe even No. 2 if you compared viewing hours.The maps we use to navigate have come a long way in a short time. Since the '90s we've gone from glove boxes stuffed with paper maps to floorboards littered with Mapquest printouts to mindlessly obeying Siri or her nameless Google counterpart.
The maps behind those voices are packed with far more data than most people realize. On a recent visit to Mountain View, I got a peek at how the Google Maps team assembles their maps and refines them with a combination of algorithms and meticulous manual labor—an effort they call Ground Truth. The project launched in 2008, but it was mostly kept under wraps until just a couple years ago. It continues to grow, now covering 51 countries, and algorithms are playing a bigger role in extracting information from satellite, aerial, and Street View imagery.
A few of the features that can be extracted algorithmically from Google Street View data. Google Maps
Street View, which launched in 2007, was conceived as a way to improve the user experience by letting people see what the area around their destination looked like, says Brian McClendon, Google Maps VP. "But we soon realized that one of the best ways to make maps is to have a photographic record of the streets of the world and refer back to those whenever there’s a correction," McClendon said.
And as the data collected by Street View grew, the team saw that it was good for more than just spot-checking their data, says Manik Gupta, group product manager for Google Maps. Street View cars have now driven more than 7 million miles, including 99 percent of the public roads in the U.S. "It’s actually allowing us to algorithmically build up new data layers from information we’ve extracted," Gupta said.
Those algorithms borrow methods from computer vision and machine learning to extract features like street numbers painted on curbs, the names of businesses and other points of interest, speed limits and other traffic signs. "Stop signs are trivial, they're made to stick out," McClendon said. Turn restrictions—which directions you can turn at a given intersection—are a big deal for navigation, but they're trickier to capture with algorithms. Sometimes the arrows that tell you which turns are legal are painted on the road, sometimes they're overhead. They can be different colors and sizes. "Lane markers are harder because they're not consistent, but we're getting much smarter about that," McClendon said.
Invisible to ordinary users, information about turn restrictions are built into Google maps. Google Maps
Street signs are a big deal too. Drivers can follow the app's verbal directions more easily if what they hear matches what they see. but sometimes the spelling or abbreviation used on street signs varies. "Matching what's written on the signs is actually a hard and important problem," McClendon said.
Other algorithms extract building footprints and heights from satellite and aerial imagery. The majority of buildings in the U.S. are now on Google Maps. For landmarks like Seattle's Space Needle, computer vision techniques extract detailed 3D models (see below). Google has said that its recent acquisition of Skybox, the high-resolution satellite imagery company, at least initially, is to improve the accuracy of its maps.
Google uses computer vision techniques to extract 3D models of landmark buildings from satellite and aerial imagery. Google Maps
Yet satellites and algorithms only get you so far. Google employs a small army of human operators (they won't say exactly how many) to manually check and correct the maps using an in-house program called Atlas. Few people outside the company have seen it in use, but one of the most prolific operators on the map team, Nick Volmar, demonstrated the program during my visit. (There's also a fascinating demo in this video from Google's 2013 developers conference).
What the operator sees looks similar to the hybrid satellite-map view in Google Maps, but with unfamiliar colored lines and symbols. Roads, for instance, are color-coded according to the direction of travel. Green and red arrows indicate which turns are possible from a given intersection. Volmar deftly clicked boxes on one side of the screen to toggle various layers on and off. Traffic signs captured from Street View imagery appeared and disappeared.
Volmar showed how an operator could fix a road that's out of alignment with the satellite image by clicking and dragging it into place. It looked easy, maybe even fun, and not unlike the process for editing Open Street Map. Volmar and other operators also check out tens of thousands of problems reported daily by Google Maps users and fix them as needed.
Operators can highlight a road (top left) and drag it into alignment with satellite imagery. Google Maps
One map showed road prioritization for a major throughway in San Francisco, with the width of the lines representing the volume of traffic. Google has been using cellphone location signals to map traffic conditions for years, and Gupta acknowledges that location signals could also be a good source of other information, about turn restrictions, say, or one way streets. But he declined to elaborate. "Google uses location in multiple ways, but there's nothing specific I can talk about beyond that," he said.
In addition to operators like Volmar, Google also gets cartographic help from ordinary citizens via its MapMaker program, which launched in 2011 and now operates in more than 220 countries. The goal was to improve Google's maps for developing countries and other areas where accurate and detailed source maps weren't available. "We recruited users to add mapping info where it's important to them," Gupta said. "We provided a tool and good satellite imagery so people could trace on top of it."
Closer to home, people can contribute data on parks, trails, and other places Street View cars can't go. McClendon has mapped the hiking trails at Windy Hill, a popular nearby hiking spot. "I GPS'd my way up that hill and added more precise trails," he said.
Watching the screen as Volmar breezed through the Atlas demo, it was easy to get a sense of what The Atlantic called the "deep map" underlying what you actually see when you pull up Google Maps on your laptop or phone. There's far more data beneath the surface, information not just about the layout of roadways but also the logic of how you'd connect from one to another. Information not just about the shapes of buildings, but, increasingly, what's inside. The maps, it seems, are only getting deeper.We’re big fans of writer and artist James Stokoe. We flipped out when publisher Dark Horse announced Aliens: Dead Orbit at NYCC last year, and we gushed over the upcoming mini-series in our Most Anticipated Comics of 2017 list. Stokoe is one of the most singular talents working in comics today, from creator-owned tales Orc Stain and Wonton Soup to his ventures in licensed properties like Godzilla, with a hyper-detailed, gorgeously colored style perfect for the claustrophobic confines of the Aliens franchise. In advance of convention season, Dark Horse gave Paste an exclusive first look at their ashcan for Stokoe’s Dead Orbit mini-series, which also includes a sneak peek at Predator: Hunters, its 30th-anniversary Predators outing from senior editor Chris Warner and artist Francisco Ruiz Velasco. Based on these preview pages, both series look to lean into the franchises’ horror roots, with dismemberment and terror to spare. Feast your eyes on the carnage below, and be sure to nab Aliens: Dead Orbit and Predator: Hunters when they debut in late April and early May, respectively.
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Cover Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by James Stokoe
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by Francisco Ruiz Velasco
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by Francisco Ruiz Velasco
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by Francisco Ruiz Velasco
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by Francisco Ruiz Velasco
Aliens: Dead Orbit/Predator: Hunters Ashcan Interior Art by Francisco Ruiz VelascoWhat makes a truly scary story isn't monsters or blood and guts, says BioShock creator Ken Levine. It's the feeling that you might lose everything.
To celebrate the occasion of Halloween, Wired.com had the chance to speak with Levine about the horror films that inspired his work on BioShock, the landmark 2007 shooter that dropped players into a destroyed city filled with secrets. With the follow-up BioShock Infinite on the way in 2012, Levine has had a lot of time to think about better ways to connect players emotionally to the game's story, truly raising the stakes.
"The truth is, most horror movies just aren’t very good," Levine said. "And the ones that are good are exceptional films because they tap into things that are very scary. "If you have an expert working in that space, a Ridley Scott or a John Carpenter or a Stanley Kubrick, they have the potential to tap into certain kinds of emotions which are hard to tap into... the very human things that scare us. Fear of loss."
"As somebody who has to write stories in this area, I have a responsibility to dig in a little deeper into what’s making these things tick," he says. "As a viewer... you have to let things wash over you. It’s better just to go into these things like a child and let it take you emotionally and not try to overthink it. As a creator, I have to overthink it."
As his first example, Levine pointed to The Shining, although he pointed out that these elements were more visible in Stephen King's 1977 novel than in the 1980 film by Kubrick. The character of Jack Torrance slowly loses everything: his job, his family, his sanity.
You can't just say, this is your wife, this is |
destruction led to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s study, known as The Torture Report, on the CIA interrogation program.
SHARE COPY LINK James Parlier, who was aboard the USS Cole at the time of al-Qaida's attack off Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000. Here, he speaks to reporters on Dec. 16, 2016, at Camp Justice, U.S. Navy base Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The Senate study shows that not only was Nashiri waterboarded during his 2002-06 Black Site custody, but the CIA force-fed him Ensure “rectally” for going on a hunger strike in May 2004. He also was alternately kenneled like a dog in a cage and hung nude by his arms to the point where a medical officer worried his arms would be dislocated.
Other techniques used on him during interrogations included a CIA officer revving a cordless drill by Nashiri’s head while he was blindfolded, cocking a pistol near his head and threatening to sexually abuse his mother.
In seeking the testimony in December, Kammen referred to a recent book, “Enhanced Interrogation” by Mitchell, a former military psychologist and spy agency contractor in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The book’s subtitle is “Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America.”
In it, Mitchell defends the practice and effectiveness of his enhanced interrogation techniques, and describes how the slight Saudi was too small and slipped from the straps of the waterboard during three sessions of simulated drownings.
He also describes how one interrogator used a “stiff-bristled brush to scrub his ass and balls and then his mouth and blowing cigar smoke in his face until he became nauseous.”
Kammen told Spath in December that, if the judge doesn’t dismiss the case before trial, defense lawyers are entitled to the most graphic possible examples of “what we call torture, they call enhanced interrogation” — maybe “screams, tears, vomit, we don’t know.” Defense lawyers want the details to argue at trial against admissibility of evidence in some instances, and against execution if Nashiri is convicted.
READ MORE: ‘We need to hear from the torturers’BlackBerry said it will report a loss of nearly $1 billion for the second quarter and slash 40% of its global work force.
Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) were halted at about 3:30 p.m. ET and plunged 20% when trading resumed. For the day they closed down 17%. BlackBerry's stock is down 26.5% this year.
The news of 4,500 job cuts came late Friday afternoon, confirming layoff rumors that have been swirling about problems at the smartphone maker. It attributed the loss to a charge it will take to restructure its business as well as an "increasingly competitive business environment."
It also said it will offer just four smartphones instead of six.
The anticipated operating loss is about three times larger than the consensus forecast of analysts. The company is due to report financial results on September 27.
"We expected bad results but the device sales are pretty bad," said James Moorman, analyst with S&P Capital IQ. "I like their strategy of cutting back, but it's kind of late. This should have been done about a year ago."
Neeraj Monga, analyst with Veritas Investment Research, says that BlackBerry made a stunning admission about the lack of demand for its new BlackBerry 10 upon which it has placed so much hope. Normally companies book revenue when they ship products to retailers but Friday's statement said it will instead wait to book revenue from those phones until they're sold to customers.
"It's a bigger flop than anybody thought it could be," he said. "They expect 80% (of shipped phones) to come back."
The company reported last month that it is exploring ways to keep itself afloat -- including a possible sale of the company.
Related: BlackBerry explores a sale of the company
Moorman said the constant drumbeat of bad news is scaring away potential customers, and added that taking the company private would be the best course of action.
"Now with the stock taking a hit, that's more attractive," he said. "Going private takes you out of the spotlight. When you're on CNBC every day talking about a death spiral, that's not good. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy if you stay public."
There have been rumors that Toronto-based investment firm Fairfax Financial Holdings (FRFHF) might be interested in taking the company private. It's already Blackberry's largest shareholder, with nearly a 10% stake.
But Monga said he thinks that time is running out for BlackBerry.
"I do not believe this business can be turned around. I don't think an acquisition is in the offering. This suggests the end is coming pretty soon," he said.
Experts predict that BlackBerry would have a tough time finding a buyer for the entire company, since no suitor is likely to be interested in its hardware business.
But BlackBerry does possess some lucrative patents that could be attractive to a potential buyer or partner. That's a massive advantage in the competitive and highly litigious world of smartphones, and it could be attractive to a big rival like Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) or Samsung.
At least BlackBerry has some breathing room: The company has $2.6 billion in cash. But that's down about $500 million from the previous quarter, a cash burn rate that Moorman described as "shocking."
If BlackBerry's smartphones themselves are a deal-killer, peeling off the company's software business could help gain interest from a number of buyers. BlackBerry's brand has lost consumer cachet, but it still holds a strong reputation for corporate security.
- Julianne Pepitone contributed to this report.If you use CSS in your daily work, your primary goal is probably focused on making things 'look right'. How this is achieved is often far less important than the end result. This means we care less about how CSS works than the correct syntax and visual results.
You may not have realised it, but the visual results of CSS are often an indirect consequence of manipulating hidden properties. Some CSS properties such as background-color have a direct and obvious relationship with what you see. While others such as display remain ambiguous to many of us because the results seem highly dependant on context.
I doubt many developers could describe in simple terms what setting display: block actually does. At best you probably have an intuitive understanding of how properties like this work. That's ok, you can have a pretty good wrangle of CSS without understanding the underlying principles. Although, this might be knowing the solution without necessarily understanding the problem.
If this describes you, that's ok. I learnt how to work with CSS, long before I understood how it worked. I guess that doesn’t make it ok,...but at least you’re not alone!
The underlying features of CSS are complicated and intentionally abstracted, yet we can't be completely unaware of them. Concepts such as the Box Model, Cascade and Specificity will be familiar to many of us. Although they are often misunderstood, knowing a little of how these work can help us write better CSS.
The same can be said for many other hidden parts of CSS. The problem with understanding these better is that the barrier to entry is even higher. It often feels like nothing can be explained in isolation. You need to know everything before you can understand the smallest part of the process.
Because of this I want to attempt to shed some light on the invisible parts of CSS, touching only on what you need to know and hopefully explaining the process in a logical order, so that you can gain a better understand of how CSS actually works.
This is a long article so if you want to skip ahead to one of these sections, I'm totally fine with that:
Overview of the rendering process
When you load an HTML document there is a lot that happens in order for that page to render.
The first step is to parse the HTML document. From this the browser builds a 'document tree'. A tree structure is a way of representing information with an obvious hierarchy like HTML. Elements in a tree can be described in terms similar to a family tree, such as descendants, parents, children and siblings.
You might have heard the term DOM. This stands for Document Object Model. It is an extension of the document tree structure, and is used to store and manipulate information about the content of a web document.
As HTML is being parsed, stylesheets and other resources are fetched. Style declarations are interpreted and resolved through a process known as the Cascade.
During this process the final values of CSS properties are resolved. After calculation these values may be different to what is written in our stylesheets. For example keywords like auto and relative units are assigned real values, and inherited values are applied. These computed values are stored in a tree, similar to elements in the DOM, in what is unsurprisingly called the CSS Object Model or CSSOM.
It is now possible to begin the process of rendering the page. The first step in this process is the calculation of the Box Model. This is an important step for working out the size and spacing of elements, although not their final position.
Less well known than the Box Model is a process called the Visual Formatting Model. This process determines the layout and positioning of elements on the page. It encompases some concepts you might already be familiar with such as positioning schemes, formatting contexts, display modes, and stacking contexts.
Finally the page is rendered.
There might be a few terms in the paragraphs above that you are not yet familiar with. If so, what's most important is to understand that the Cascade, the Box Model, and the Visual Formatting Model are the key steps involved in interpreting, processing and rendering HTML and CSS. I’ve skipped over a lot of detail when describing each of these so we’re now going to look at these 3 steps more closely.
Cascade
The cascade is probably one of the most misunderstood features of CSS. It refers to the process of combining different stylesheets and resolving conflicts between CSS selectors.
The cascade looks at the importance, origin, specificity, and order of declarations to determine which style rules to use.
What you need to know:
Most websites have multiple stylesheets. Typically styles are added with a link tag that references a css file, or with a style tag in the HTML body. Even the most basic page will have default styles provided by the browser. This default stylesheet is sometimes called the user-agent stylesheet.
During the cascade stylesheets are interpreted in the following order:
!important declarations Author stylesheets Browser default stylesheets
Note: I've skipped over user stylesheets here because they are not a common thing anymore and probably wouldn’t factor in consideration for anyone reading this.
After combining these sources, if multiple rules apply to the same element, specificity is used to determine which rules to apply.
Specificity
Specificity is a weighting given to selectors. It's a common mistake to think of this as a single number. It’s actually 4 separate numbers or 4 categories of weighting.
To calculate specificity, count the number of:
IDs, classes, attributes and pseudo-classes, elements and pseudo-elements
For example: #nav.selected:hover > a::before will be 1, 2, 2.
No number of classes will ever have a higher specificity than an ID. When comparing selectors you compare the specificity of IDs first. Only if these match do you compare the value of classes, attributes and pseudo-classes and finally, if still equal, elements and pseudo-elements.
If specificity is equal in every category, the last declaration in the source takes precedence.
Yes! I know I said 4 categories. Inlines styles have a higher specificity than IDs. Although they are technically the first category in specificity calculations you don't typically end up with competing inline styles, so it’s easier just remember that inline styles will always win specificity.
Important note:!important declarations are not factored in specificity calculations but they do have a greater precedence than normal declarations in the cascade.
Inheritance
Inheritance is not part of the cascade but I've included it here because it is often discussed in conjunction with the cascade.
Inheritance is the process where values that apply to an element can be passed on (or inherited) by its children.
You are likely familiar with the fact that font properties, when applied to the body or another container element, are also inherited by every element inside that container. This is inheritance.
Not all properties are inherited by default. Understanding inheritance is key to writing more deliberate and less verbose CSS. Forcing inheritance with the inherit keyword can be incredibly useful.
Note: Some properties are such as border-color have a default value of currentcolor. This means they will use the value set on the color property. This default value is not the same thing as inheritance. Although the color property itself is often inherited so I tend to think of this as defacto kind of inheritance.
The Box Model
Understanding the Box Model is essential and necessary for limiting frustration when working with layout and positioning. It is one of the most fundamental concepts in CSS.
The box model is used to calculate the width and height of elements. It is a calculation step and not solely relied upon for determining the final layout and positioning of elements.
What you need to know:
Every element in HTML is a rectangular box. Each box has four regions defining the margin, borders, padding, and content areas of an element.
By default, when you set the width of an element, this sets the width of the content area only. When you add padding, border or margin to an element, this is added in addition to the width. In practical terms this means that two elements with a width of 50%, will not fit side-by-side if padding, margin or borders are added.
That's it! It’s pretty simple right? So why is this often a source of confusion? Well, you might have encountered a few situations where things seem to behave a little differently…
Fill Area
When you set the background of an element this fills not only the content area but also the padding and border areas as well.
Conceptually we think of an HTML element as a single thing, so it's easy to think that the visual boundaries of an element are equal to its width however this is not the case. Although the visual boundaries of an element include the padding and border areas the width property is applied explicitly to the content box.
Note: Altering the box-sizing property can change this behaviour.
Width Auto
Another source of potential confusion is how width: auto works. A width of auto is the default setting for most HTML elements and for block elements such as divs and paragraphs, auto will calculate the width so that the margin, border, padding and content areas combined all fit within the available space.
In this situation it can feel like adding padding and margins push inwards on the content, but in reality, the width is being recalculated to ensure everything fits. By comparison when setting a width of 100%, the content area will fill the space available regardless of margin, padding and borders.
Box-sizing
The box-sizing property changes the way the box model works. When box-sizing is set to border-box padding and border will reduce the inner width of the content area, rather than adding to the overall width of an element. This means that a width of an element is now the same as its visual width.
A lot of people prefer this, and if you're building a grid system, or any other kind of layout that requires aligning items horizontally, this can be much more intuitive way to work.
Collapsing margins
It can be really confusing when margins collapse unexpectedly and you don't know what is going on. Margins will sometimes collapse when two or more adjacent vertical margins touch and they are not separated with padding or border. A collapsing margin can also occur if the margin of a child element extends into that of its parent and is not separated by padding.
Margins will not collapse if elements are absolutely positioned, floated, or have a different formatting context, as well as in a few other less likely situations.
If you're confused that’s ok. The rules for when margins will and will not collapse are complicated. The main thing you need to know is when elements don’t have padding or borders, vertical margins can collapse.
If you need more detail CSS Tricks has a wonderful explanation of collapsing margins.
The Visual Formatting Model
While the box model calculates an element's dimensions, it’s the Visual Formatting Model that is responsible for determining the layout of these boxes. The Visual Formatting Model takes into account the box type, positioning scheme, relationships between elements and constraints imposed by content to determine the final position and presentation of each element on the page.
What you need to know:
The visual formatting model traverses the document tree and generates one or more boxes required to render elements according to the CSS box model. The CSS display property plays a key role in determining how an element participates in the current formatting context and positioning scheme. Together these pieces determine the final layout and positioning of elements.
This is a complex step and was by far the most difficult to try and summarise. If you don't follow everything that’s ok. Understanding how we manipulate positioning schemes and formatting contexts through the CSS properties is a good start. If you can follow the interplay between different pieces of this model you are doing better than most. At very least you should know that they exist.
Display types
We know that setting the display property in CSS determines the how an element is rendered but it's not immediately clear how this works. In fact sometimes, it can even seem unpredictable.
This is because the display property determines the element's 'box type’. This hidden property consists of an inner display type, and an outer display type which together help determine how the element is rendered.
The outer display type usually resolves to either 'block' or ‘inline’ and is pretty much consistent what you expect of theses display properties in CSS. Technically speaking the outer display type dictates how an element participates in its parent formatting context.
The inner display type determines what formatting context that element will generate. This will impact how its child elements are laid out.
Think of how a Flexbox container works. Its outer type is block and its inner type is flex. Its children can also have an outer type of block, but their layout is influenced by the formatting context of the Flexbox container.
One way of thinking about this is that the responsibility for display is shared between an element and it's parent element.
Formatting contexts
Formatting context are all about layout. They are the rules that govern the layout of elements inside a container and how they interact with each other.
Some formatting contexts can be established directly on containers such as through the use of display values flex, grid or table. Other types such as block and inline formatting contexts are created as required by the browser.
Note: At one time, because of the way it interacts with floats, it was important to understand how to make the browser establish a new block formatting context. Elements with a block formatting context will contain floats. This is not as important today as it once was. In fact it's not even how modern clearfix techniques work.
Positioning schemes
A box can be laid out according to one of three positioning schemes. These are Normal flow, Floats and Absolute positioning. You are probably familiar with floats and absolute positioning because we interact with these more directly when writing CSS. Normal flow is just a name for the default positioning scheme when an element is not floated or positioned.
Normal flow
Normal Flow describes the default positioning scheme and 'in-flow' describes elements that conform to this. You could consider in flow to be the natural position of elements laid out according to their source order and formatting context.
Floats
Float is a CSS property that causes an element to be taken out of the normal flow and shifted to the left or right as far as possible, until it touches the edge of its containing box or another floated element. When this happens, text and inline elements will wrap around the floated elements.
Normally if not set, the height of an element will adjust to fit all of its descendant elements. When elements are floated they are taken out of flow and this means containers will not adjust their height to clear them.
It is this behaviour that allows multiple lines of text, heading and other elements to fluid wrap around floated content. But sometimes this is problematic. Clearfixes and establishing a new block formatting context will causes a container to clear its floated children. This technique has allowed floats to be used for layout which has been a corner-stone of web development techniques for a long time. It's still important to know but this is gradually being replaced with newer layout techniques such as Flexbox and Grid.
Absolute positioning
Elements with absolute positioning are removed from the flow entirely and unlike floated elements they have no impact on surrounding content.
A container with relative positioning allows you to control the offset of descendant elements using absolute positioning.
Relatively positioned elements can also be given an offset but this offset is relative to the element's normal position not another relative container.
CSS properties top, bottom, left and right are used to calculate 'box offsets'. These properties are not two dimensional offsets but allow positioning of each edge, relative to its container’s content box.
Positioned elements with overlapping offsets can result in elements occupying the same space. A stacking context is used to resolve this.
Stacking contexts
Stacking context determines the order that things are rendered to the page. You can think of a stacking context like a layer. Layers on the bottom of the stack are painted first and elements higher up the stack appear on top.
Placing a z-index on an element that is absolutely or relatively positioned is the most common way to establish a new stacking context. But there are a number of other ways a stacking context can be formed including, setting opacity, transforms, filters or using the will-change property.
Some of these reasons are not intuitive and have more to do with rendering performance than developers expectations. It helps to understand that these layers can be rendered separately by the browsers. As a result it can sometimes be useful to intentionally to create a new stacking context for performance reasons.
Setting a z-index has no effect unless a stacking context is established. The higher the z-index the higher up the stack the layer is placed.
One of the most confusing parts about stacking is that a new stacking context can be established inside an existing one. This means you can have layers of layers.
In this situation, it's not always a case of the highest z-index wins.
That's it!
Almost 3000 words and I've only briefly touched some of the important hidden parts of CSS. If you’ve read this in full congratulations and please be sure to let me know, because you deserve some kind of reward!
If you've just read some parts that’s ok too. I hope I’ve managed to clarify something or give a general insight into the processes involved. It’s been a real challenge to explain this stuff in simple terms without sacrificing accuracy. I hope got it right.The grassroots Idle No More movement begun by native and non-native women three weeks ago is expected to erupt across Canada on Friday with teach-ins, protests and flash mob dances.
Jessica Gordon, Sheelah McLean, Sylvia McAdams and Nina Wilson, all of Saskatchewan, may be credited with initiating Idle No More after posting their discontent with federal omnibus budget legislation on Facebook.
But then the outcry spread like fire through social media. By means of Twitter and Facebook, young First Nations and non-First Nations people alike have started a nationwide conversation on everything from treaty rights to youth unemployment, resource extraction and inadequate housing and education.
Editorial: Why 'Idle No More' is gaining strength, and why all Canadians should care
Once the hunger strike by Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence was thrown into the mix, a movement was born. Spence is carrying out her hunger strike, which began Dec. 11, while living in a teepee on Victoria Island in the Ottawa River, between Ottawa and Gatineau, Que.
Attawapiskat resident Charles Hookimaw puts it bluntly: Youth are fed up because “there is no action. There is always a target to do something and when we get to that target, nothing happens. Young people are tired of it.”
Tanya Kappo of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation met with McAdams and they talked about Bill C-45, the omnibus budget bill that alters the Indian Act, Kappo decided they should take the conversation to Twitter. She began with a simple post on Nov. 30, introducing the hashtag #Idlenomore, which has lit up Twitter, and asked people to join her.
And they have. On Friday, demonstrations of support are expected to take place as far away as the United States and Egypt.
“It has been less than a month and look at it,” Kappo said Thursday.
“This has been a lifelong thing for me. It isn’t that one day I’ve woken up and become socially conscious,” says Kappo, a recent law graduate at the University of Manitoba and the mother of three.
Anishinabe writer Hayden King, an assistant professor of politics at Ryerson University, said it’s exciting to see First Nations people’s creativity and voices spreading all over social media.
“Native people like to use Facebook but it has moved to Twitter in a political way,” he said. “It is like a fire and it hasn’t stopped. It keeps raging. … People are talking about it all over the world.”
There are many issues at play, King said. “It is important to note the diversity and complexity of the demographics and concerns. There are a lot of people out there saying lets get rid of the Indian Act and use our treaty to have relationships. … There are urban people saying they want to address missing and murdered women, those that disappear from our streets, or others that want to address racism and education.”
Native people have a history of activism, he said. “History is punctuated by these confrontations that vary in degree from peaceful protests to blockading highways to physical confrontations. This is kind of the latest string in all of them. This just indicates we haven’t been able to get the relationship right yet.”
Six Nations lawyer Aaron Detlor noted the movement “isn’t necessarily cause-specific.”
“It is somewhat of an organic initiative started by an alliance on social media. It is not necessarily a classically, leadership driven undertaking. The people behind it represent a broader, horizontal constituency than what are normally referred to as First Nations political elites,” Detlor said.
There are shades of the Occupy movement in Idle No More, he said — a broad, diffuse, social movement that does not have a specific centre of power or control.
“And that is somewhat consistent with aboriginal decision-making,” he said.
First Nations lawyers behind the movement are frustrated by what it take to work in the Canadian system to bring about change, he said, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “agenda” has helped crystallize this frustration.
“It is the first time it has really taken root that maybe the solution isn’t to work within the normal avenues made available to First Nations, for example, the courts and land claims,” he said.This is from Aquarian, a NJ music and politics magazine.
title: Tool: Things Are Going to Work Out
author: Robert Makin
AQ: What do you think of Hollywood?
MJK: It has its pros and cons.
AQ: Judging by the song, 'Anema,' and the artwork underneath where the
CD rests, which depicts the collapse of the San Andreas fault, it seems
like Tool wouldn't mind if it was washed away.
MJK: Change is coming from everywhere.
AQ: I guess there's not much we can do about seismic changes, but there
is something we can do about human behavior. If the band is a tool, what
purpose does it serve?
MJK: Provide ideas and opportunities that people in our demographic
don't usually get. It just comes down to what matters. I think people
get upset and it becomes an excuse to treat other people a certain way,
but if you really step back, you realize what you've left behind. It's a
foundation that we're talking about. The Hatfields and the McCoys shoot
each other for a reason but they don't even know why.
AQ: I think there's a lot of misconceptions about the band, that you are
angry and negative. While that may be true of the music, is it true of
the band members?
MJK: Well, whenever you try to work through the things that we're trying
to work through, that we're addressing, it ends up looking negative.
Our goal is nonjudgment, nonfiltered acceptance of everything. So much
of our background collectively, especially in the United States, is
denying and suppressing and disowning a lot of negativity and the darker
areas. You can become swallowed up in it. It's cancerous. The goal
should be to define acceptance for everything. To try and consider
every aspect. To try to look into the shadows, as well as the light.
AQ: So in order to not be apathetic, we need to be empathetic.
MJK: Right.
AQ: Does the music serve as a release that enables you to remain
peaceful and positive?
MJK: Music is definitely a higher form of language. It definitely cuts
right straight to the bone without you having to explain it a lot of
times. It moves things on a body level, an emotional level.
AQ: You sound like such a soft-spoken, peaceful person, but when you get
onstage, you're like, totally different.
MJK: There's a lot of energy up there. The sound, itself, is a
movement. If you allow it to enter your body, your body will move with
that music. If you allow it.
AQ: The other dichotomy is that Tool sound very machine-like, yet you
seem like a very spiritual person.
MJK: I don't think we sound machine-like. I think we may be like a
clock. So is the universe. The universe has patterns that pretty much
chime right in with each other.
AQ: So at this point in time, Tool sounds like you do, but at the next
point on the clock, you may sound fairly different?
MJK: Yeah. We just grow with what the four of us are doing at that
time.
AQ: You seem like four very different people that come together as a
unified whole.
MJK: We're not all coming from a spiritual standpoint. I tend to take
off on the metaphysical aspects of things. Adam tends to ground it in
his nonbelief of almost everything. It's like a bridge basically.
AQ: Kind of like yin and yang?
MJK: Yeah.
AQ: When you do get angry, what pisses you off the most?
MJK: A lack of empathy, a lack of compassion. Driving in L.A., the
decisions that people make on the highway toward each other is just so
enraging. It's such an example of people not understanding their
connection with each other.
AQ: Where do you feel that connection has its basis?
MJK: Light and Sound. Everything we see is energy, light and vibration.
The entire universe is operating on just a big frequency. Everything
you perceive, that's coming into your eye is just a combination of shape
and light. We are all of the same substance. Any religion that you can
dig up will tell you that. Every person who's had a spiritual moment
will tell you that. People who aren't into organized religions or even
cultish religions, some kid sittting on the corner taking acid at a Dead
show will tell you that. That's our connection.
AQ: It's really refreshing to see a band attempting to open young
people's minds.
MJK: Well, I think it's just where we're at at this point in time. Next
year, we may not be commenting on these things. If you think of the big
picture, it doesn't really matter, because I think that things are going
to work out anyway. It's going to be okay. It doesn't really matter
what you believe or what you're into. Everybody's having their
experiences and they have a right to those experiences. It's all just
one great big dance anyway.
AQ: The universe runs its course.
MJK: Yeah, it's going to be fine.
AQ: That's a great attitude. About the band, you're very much an
eclectic group of artists. You place a lot of importance on your entire
package: the album art and the videos. The album art for this new album
is just amazing with the moving pictures. I understand the video for
'Stinkfist' is going to be another breakthrough. Comment on the band's
artistic approach to not just the music but everything that surrounds
you.
MJK: Adam pretty much handles all the visual stuff. He's into all that
film stuff. He has his particular outlook on things, his avant garde
take on images. With Danny and my background on ritual magic, sacred
geometry, mythology and architects, we're both kind of infusing those
things into Adam's images. There's a freshness to Adam's intuitive sense
of motion and images, visuals. Then with our understanding of
transcendent and eternal archetypes, you have a very nice balance of
intuitive, intellectual imagery.
AQ: How do your different backgrounds apply to this new video?
MJK: Images just pop up, a lot like the 'Prison Sex' video. People were
terrified by that video.
AQ: The live show is really intense too. Other than the new songs, how
is that going to be different this time out?
MJK: It's a little more visual, but for the most part, it's just four
people doing this ritual dance onstage.
AQ: If I was to say you guys remind me of Pink Floyd, how would you feel
about that?
MJK: That would be a compliment I would think. They were a very
artistic band, but it's dangerous territory, because it pushes into the
prog rock territory.
AQ: I guess that's separate ground, because you have a much harder
groove. Yet on Aenima, you worked with David Botrill, who's produced
King Crimson and Peter Gabriel.
MJK: I think the most important thing is that we evolve. That's what
the album is all about. You definitely have to clear a space.
AQ: What inspired 'Stinkfist?'
MJK: A guy named Stinkfist. He's a very good friend of Danny's. It's a
tribute to him, because he very much embraced life whole-heartedly, a
go-getter. That's how he got the name Stinkfist, because he was the kind
of guy who got his hands dirty. He wasn't afraid. He just kind of
grabbed life by the throat. The imagery of the song is kind of like
stepping through a portal like in the movie Stargate, where James Spader
is standing in front of the portal, a little afraid of what was going to
happen. He's excited as he puts his hand through the portal, he steps
through and it's a whole differrent reality. It's a whole different
perspective or way of seeing things. Every sense just lit up and he was
completely overwhelmed by feeling this way.
AQ: People have a very graphic interpretation of 'Stinkfist.' I don't
know what your intention was, but it's ovbbiously stirred up a lot of
controversy. Is the general interpretation what you had in mind or are
people off base?
MJK: I think that there's many meanings that we really strive for within
the music. There's layers of interpretation. If people want to think
it's about fist-fucking, that's fine. That's where they're at. But if
they really look at it and really look at us and who we are, they'll
understand that we go a little deeper than some write-off song about
fist-fucking. Now they'll dig a little deeper, trying to find out what's
really going.
AQ: Like you mentioned, it's a portal to a variety of experiences.
You're riddled with controversy on this album as in 'Hooker with a
Penis.' What inspired that one?
MJK: That song is again taken literally for what is, which is the fear
that some kid thinks that we sold out. You and I both know that that's
such a silly term, so it goes a lot deeper than that. The album is about
evolution and change and that's one of the songs where that really came
together.
AQ: The Third Eye is a visual theme that runs throughout your albums.
On Aenima, it also takes the form of a song.
MJK: The Third Eye goes back a long way. It's what a comedian friend of
ours Bill Hicks talked about.
AQ: He often talked abbout how drugs open the Third Eye, but is it a
subject that goes beyond the use of drugs?
MJK: In his comedy, that's what he's talking about, but his underlying
context has more to do with unity and our inner connection collectively.
You literally have a third eye in your head. It's your pineal gland and
it is an eye. It focuses light.
People talk about dolphins and whales being more evolved, because they
have a better breathing element. If you do meditation, you understand
the idea of the Prana, breathing in light through the pineal gland. In
mythology, there's talk about how people used to breathe that way, but
over time, they began to breathe more through the mouth. That's the
connection that we've forgotten.
AQ: Is the use of drugs a way to enhance the Third Eye?
MJK: Drugs definitely give you an alternate perspective. Your
consciousness is like a radio frequency. If you turn the dial, all those
radio stations are there simultaneously. You can dial in to hear what
station you want to hear. Consciousness is the same way. Through
meditation, you can alter that, you can come upon an alternate reality.
Drugs is a shortcut to that. The trick is to really understand the
medium you used to get there.
Don Quixote was like that. He was a slave to peyote. He could really
get into this alternate consciousness. His guide was peyote, but he was
a slave. He couldn't get there except through that medium. There's a
lot of people on heroin writing amazing music, but it's a hard way to go,
because you sacrifice your life.
AQ: Do you condone the use of drugs?
MJK: Everyone has the right to their own experience, but it's a hard way
to go. It's a hard decision to make without fear of repercussions. I
don't do them. I used to do mushrooms.
AQ: Comment on how the song 'Sober' isn't about saying no to drugs.
MJK: It's saying why can't we get along? It's about unity.
AQ: This is a tough question, because it's based on rumor, based on the
images in your songs. The rumor is that you're gay. Whether you are or
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of the inevitability and sense in building a giant Wall against whatever age-old threat is perceived to exist outside of America while getting undermined by the true underground psychic infection of fear and ideological change within.
Of course, the best element of literature is being able to apply the metaphorical aspects of it to any age and the fact that if it is truly an excellent, lasting work it can speak to almost any people or cycle of human history at any time. And there is definitely a danger in ascribing one’s current events on something either potentially timeless or endemic of another time: such as the V For Vendetta film adaptation arguably focusing on the George W. Bush administration and Iraq compared to the original comic and its roots in the 1980s Thatcher and Reagan conservative political era. But, either way, you can see the foreshadowing. If Yuggoth is a memetic virus or disease, then the journalist Robert Black is Patient Zero. He not only doesn’t see the unrealities happening around him, the spots of the old world coming into the human one in plain sight – always rationalizing them away – but in his dreams, particularly the one in Providence Issue #3 where language becomes conflated and confused with different terminology and he sees the deaths of the Salem Deep One-human hybrids in concentration camps heralding the Holocaust in Europe and the eventual end of the human world. Robert Black as the Herald becomes the one that transmits the infection to the Redeemer who will go on to spread it all across the world through his literally seminal writings.
So perhaps Yazid and others after him were also infected by the spores of Yuggoth, including those willingly infected in the Stella Sapiente and the different growths in Salem and the Wheatley family: if the latter aren’t already remembered as the people of Innsmouth and the Whatleys…. if indeed they are remembered at all by any human beings at this point. But as I’ve argued in previous articles, Robert Black manages to communicate the ideas of Yuggoth from the Kitab in a way that Lovecraft can relate to, and eventually in a manner in which the rest of the world, especially the Western world, can find empathy.
I will admit, at the end of Issue #12 of Providence, the final issue of the series as far as I can see, there are still parts I have trouble understanding. For instance, Ambrose Bierce is reintroduced as one of the minds in a jar that the Mi-Go harvest and he is a representative in seeing the birth of the Dreamer: of Cthulhu. But there surely were others too that could have been there in some form such as Yazid – even if he is a lake of gas – or Lovecraft, or even Robert himself. Bierce has his own role in the creation of Lovecraft’s world, but he was by far not the only one. However, it should be worth noting and it has been mentioned by a user with the handle That Fuzzy Bastard in the Comments Section of Facts that it might not be a coincidence that a representative from Yith possessed a woman, that the white old man Etienne Roulet has taken over the body of a young black child, and that Merril Brears was left to her own devices after bearing Cthulhu to the cosmos while accompanied by two more white old men: one of whom trapped Agent Barstow, a female woman of colour’s, essence in a jar. Perhaps this can be seen as yet again another painful observation of American history and society.
It is hard to separate the literal from the figurative in a literary text, of course. But I think what cinches it for me is the journey towards the end, or the beginning of this new narrative. The reality rewrite, this retconning making what is happening to franchises like the Star Wars expanded universe pale by comparison, moves past the physical and psychological alterations and right into the cosmic horror. Agents Fuller, Barstow and even Aldo Sax are led off panel by either the terrible old man Orne or the old cannibal Annesley – who gives the reader a terrifying smile past the fourth wall – and they vanish from the narrative entirely. Aldo Sax is particularly of note here: the FBI agent turned serial killer madman who is the one person left unaffected by this changing psychic reality due to the Elder Sign or swastika against aquatic beings such as the Dreamer Cthulhu carved onto his forehead is literally consumed by Annesley: an element of this retroactive new reality.
In fact, both Orne and Annesley, seem to have functions for dealing with “loose-ends,” as it were. Orne acquires and attains the essences of intelligent individuals such as Agent Barstow, while Annesley consumes Agent Fuller and in particular Aldo Sax: the latter for the reasons stated above. However, while these two characters might be this new Lovecraftian ecosystem’s method of dealing with superfluous elements in the new narrative, they are just a microcosm to what is really happening when you can see all of the beings in the emerging Yuggoth as functioning to perpetuate the ecosystem: Azathoth creating the new sky and atmosphere, Yog-Sothoth making the gate to allow them all through, the Mi-Go taking and maintaining key intelligences or “samples” like Orne does, the Yith transferring new consciousnesses and awareness to the Earth, the trapezohedron spreading the biological component of Yuggoth, Shub-niggurath generating new sentient life to dwell in Yuggoth, and Cthulhu dreaming it all into existence with human ancestry of the old and alien mind of the old and new with Johnny Carcosa baptizing him into the water of Yuggoth’s subconscious.
The reader gets to watch the process of a world not being created, but rewritten by the powers that be. The barrier between the reader and this fictional world, as it had in Promethea, thins and the few remaining characters almost become aware that they are characters in a story being rewritten and that all of their freewill seems to be an illusion.
But here is where we get to the Gate of Horn or Ivory argument. It’s the one that exists when discussing the end of Vergil’s Aeneid, and the one I talk about in my Mythic Bios article A Hesitant Hero or the Pause Before the Precipice: Alan Moore’s Miracleman and Virgil’s Aeneid, and it is definitely inherent in Alan Moore’s other works such as Watchmen. What I mean by the Gate of Horn and Ivory is that a prophecy is given in dreams, and dreams are connected to the afterlife. The dream is true if it goes through the Gate of Horn, but it is a lie if it comes through Ivory. In The Aeneid, Aeneas is given a vision of Rome’s glory in the afterlife, but he exists the afterlife through the Gate of Ivory and he seems to hesitate before killing the last opponent in his way to building Rome: with Vergil possibly saying something about Rome in his time. Miracleman seems to stare out the panel after creating a world government with his power and wonders if he’s done the right thing: which is a possible resonance of Alan Moore reflecting on how he might been integral in developing comics revisionism and affected a chain reaction on the superhero genre for the worse. And Rorschach’s Journal may or may not reveal the deception that brought world peace at the end of Watchmen.
At the end of Providence, the last chapter being called “The Book,” Carl Perlman is watching Shub-Niggurath, the Mother of a Thousand Young, begin to spawn her children all across the Earth turned Yuggoth and populate it with more monsters. He has in his hands Robert Black’s Commonplace Book: with perhaps a method of stopping this old new world and saving the human reality. In the end, Perlman is told by Brears that “It’s all destiny. It’s all Providence. Just do what you have to.” It’s that point, over the bridge, that he tears the book in half and lets the pieces fall into the Miskatonic river.
Now, on one hand you can interpret this as a sign of determinism and defeat. There is no freewill. Carl Perlman realizes this and lets the inevitable of malevolence and an uncaring cosmos win: resigning humanity and all sentient life to this fate. It can also symbolize Alan Moore’s apparent retirement from full-time work in comics: not unlike Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest where the magician drowns his books and goes on with his life.
On the other hand, as Dr. Manhattan once said to Adrian Veidt at the end of Watchmen, “Nothing ever ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.” It should be noted that water is a medium between the material and supernatural worlds: and that it can contain objects. It is life. And a river can also be seen as a stream of consciousness. Now remember what Perlman has been saying about literary ideas as spores, and books were burned, and think about the pages of Robert Black’s Commonplace Book, with its observations and recordings from Hali’s Booke and its possible banishing rituals drifting down the water: being carried across the world of the subconscious, of the Dreamlands. Perhaps torn pages are seeds that might germinate, or might not.
There is one other question I’ve had upon finishing reading Providence. I’ve asked myself just how or why is it that Yuggoth changed from the Dreamlands to the narrow reality of human logic and understanding. And then I remembered Yuggoth as a planet and Pluto. Pluto must be a small dwarf planet of eternal winter. Winter is a season of death and stasis, and perhaps I was too quick to say that it wasn’t Yuggoth. After all, if Yuggoth is a process, then perhaps it is also a cycle where dead things dream and afterwards live again in another season. Nothing ever ends. Does Providence illustrate a Yuggoth of our discontent? And are the retroactive growth of new perceptions the same as alternative facts?
I’ve always wondered what would happened if, years ago, Alan Moore hadn’t lost the rest of his script of Yuggoth Cultures based off of H.P. Lovecraft’s poetic cycle Fungi From Yuggoth on a taxi ride. But perhaps that was the result of Yuggoth: beautiful, luminous, fleshly, terrifying Yuggoth. Perhaps, now and forever, it was always just Providence.Airbus: Pilots don't really need windows
A cockpit with viewing screens could go at the base of the vertical tail, and possibly still have windows for seeing to the front and sides of the aircraft. A cockpit with viewing screens could go at the base of the vertical tail, and possibly still have windows for seeing to the front and sides of the aircraft. Photo: Airbus/U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Photo: Airbus/U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Airbus: Pilots don't really need windows 1 / 10 Back to Gallery
Future airliner flight decks may do away with windows and move out of the nose of the aircraft, according to Airbus.
The European airplane maker filed a patent application Dec. 23, published June 26, for a flight deck that relies mostly or entirely on electronic viewscreens.
The first advantage is aerodynamic, since flight deck windows require interrupting the ideal scalpel shape of the nose, Airbus wrote. Also, big windows and the reinforcement required for them add weight to the aircraft.
Putting the flight deck at the front of the cabin takes valuable space away from the cabin, "thereby limiting the financial profits for the airline company exploiting the aircraft," Airbus wrote.
Without the need for windows, the flight deck could move "to an unused zone of the aircraft, and in particular into a zone difficult to configure for receiving passengers or freight," Airbus wrote. One possibility is the base of the tail, where the flight deck could still have some windows. Another is in part of the cargo hold.
Finally, relying more on viewscreens would improve pilots' perception and awareness, by giving a more complete view of what's going on outside the aircraft, according to Airbus.
In addition to the viewscreens, Airbus envisions a system that could project holograms of objects such as storm clouds and ground obstacles, and chart a course around them.
"The object of this preferred version is to immerse the pilot in a three-dimensional universe, at the center of the action," Airbus wrote.
Click through the gallery above to see images from Airbus' patent application.
Hat tip to Flight Club. Read more aerospace news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news. Reach Aubrey Cohen at aubreycohen@seattlepi.com or (206) 448-8362.Going Vegan? 10 Essential Ingredients for Healthy & Easy Plant-Passionate Cooking
The whole world is going vegan, or so it seems. From celebrities to rock stars, athletes to politicians, everyone is seeing the value of eating your veggies. Our mothers would be so proud.
But before you grab that 400-calorie vegan cookie and think it’s better for you, hold on. I don’t want to be a buzz kill but there’s more to living a healthy vegan lifestyle than being kind to animals. Without proper nutrition, you’ll find yourself lacking and throw in the organic cotton towel on the whole plant-based thing.
I would hate to see that happen to you. So, before you dive into vegan cooking, I thought I’d share my top ten favorite ingredients to always, and I mean always, have on hand so I can create plant-passionate meals that are nourishing, balanced, and oh, so delicious. Having these essential ingredients that make life in the kitchen without compromise to wellness will always help maximize your chances for success in our busy, over-scheduled lives. Now, more than ever, we need to be strong and vital.
My Top 10 Essential Ingredients for a Vegan Lifestyle:
Organic Greens
I know what you’re thinking. Salad? Listen to me. A salad is great and I enjoy them daily but I am talking greens here: kale, collards, bok choy, arugula, escarole, watercress. They don’t take hours to prepare and they provide just about all the nutrients we need to live well…from calcium to protein. Keep a bunch of tasty, dark, salad greens in the fridge and enjoy them daily, steamed, boiled, sautéed, in salads or juiced.
Whole Grains
Brown rice, barley, quinoa, millet, and teff are just a few of the powerhouses of nutrition that are the foundation of wellness. These complex carbohydrates give us the energy we need to focus and stay alert in our lives. Their versatility and delicious flavors and textures make them must-haves for soups, stews, salads, casseroles and bangin’ breakfasts. And since 1 cup serves 4 people, you can cook a bit extra to use in more than one recipe.
Beans
Cooking dried beans provide us with not only with protein and fiber, both essential to wellness, they are deeply satisfying and can be used in any number of recipes from soup to salad. Lentils cook in a mere 30-minutes while other beans can take as long as an hour. But don’t panic. You can cook up a big pot of beans on a slow day or evening and freeze them in portioned containers for use later.
Or you can use canned organic beans for real convenience. My only advice here would be to rinse them well and add some fresh ingredients to the final dish you create with the canned beans to bring the dish to life, as the saying goes.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
This heart healthy fat can be used in so many ways that I find it invaluable in my kitchen. From salad dressing to sautéing to yes, baking, extra virgin olive oil is essential in a pantry dedicated to wellness.
From oleocanthal, the powerful anti-inflammatory phenol to antioxidants, extra-virgin olive oil delivers in taste and health.
Take care when buying extra virgin olive oil, though. If the price seems to be too good to be true for what it claims to be, then it is. True extra virgin olive oil will cost you about $17-$20 a bottle and is worth every penny. Those ‘vats’ of oil you see in big box stores claiming to be extra virgin olive oil are simply not. In the case of those oils, you just getting 120 calories a tablespoon with none of the benefits of the real thing.
Organic Berries
Fresh in season or frozen when they are not; berries deliver big time for our wellness. The fact that they are delicious is just the cherry on top. Raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries are full of longevity-producing compounds, rich in fiber and low in calories. They make the greatest, sweetest and most satisfying snacks or desserts. Toss them into breakfast cereals or smoothies, on top of salads, or simply enjoy their lusciousness by the handful. They will satisfy your sweet tooth and keep you from the vending machine!
Non-Dairy Milk
Milk is a big one when transitioning to vegan eating. So many people just adore milk; what are we to do? While different in flavor and richness, fortified almond, coconut, hemp, oat or soy milk can have all the calcium and vitamin D of dairy milk with great flavor, fewer calories and no congestion in your pretty sinuses. Non-dairy milks don’t contribute to inflammation and weight gain the way dairy milk can. Used in baking, soups, smoothies, milk shakes, on cereal or ice cold in a glass with cookies, non-dairy kinds of milk can satisfy just as well as dairy milk, with no downsides to your wellness.
Sea Salt
With salt finding its way back to our cooking, based on the latest research saying we should not be so quick to ditch this valuable seasoning, it’s important to look at the quality of the salt you use. Natural, unrefined sea salt, while the same sodium chloride as table salt is easier on your blood pressure because there are no additives or other chemicals added that inhibit how your body processes the salt. Used in cooking (never at the table), sea salt enhances the flavor of the food you cook, creating delicious, satisfying dishes. And as you transition to plant-passionate eating, it’s important to create great flavor so you’ll fall in love with the food easily. Just take care to use salt wisely. Remember that its job is to enhance flavor; you don’t want your food to taste salty. Its job is to help ingredients to shine.
Herbs and Spices
Use of herbs and spices can turn a simple vegetable dish into a gourmet feast. Used to influence the flavors of any ingredient, spices and herbs are the icing on the cake of cooking. Can you imagine pumpkin pie without cinnamon? Tomatoes without basil? Black beans without hot pepper flakes or cumin? A curry dish without curry. Buy small amounts of a variety of herbs and spices and experiment with various flavors to see what you like. And remember, dried herbs and spices lose their potent flavors after several months, so only buy what you’ll use.
Organic Lemon
You’ve cooked a dish and as you taste it, you think it needs something; Lemon to the rescue. There’s always a bowl of fresh lemons on my kitchen counter. From salad dressings to sauces to desserts to that fresh squeeze of tart, fresh flavor that brings any dish to life, lemons are essential to delicious cooking, vegan or not.
Why organic? If I choose to use the zest, which I often do, I’d rather not be grating pesticides into my delicious dish.
Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate can save the day. Just a few squares can satisfy your sweet tooth big time. And since dark chocolate is loaded with antioxidants and heart-healthy compounds, you can feel good about this vegan treat. I’ve found the creamy richness of dark chocolate keeps me from being tempted by other sweet treats that might not serve wellness as well. There are calories in dark chocolate though (sorry) so you must be a bit mindful when indulging.
One last thing… keep your fridge stocked with fresh or frozen veggies and fruit so you can pull a meal together no matter how crazy your day. A stir-fry dish takes just minutes and serves your health so much better than take-out, even vegan take-out.
– Christina
Find great products and services for your well-being from members of The Wellness Universe!John Cochrane Versus the Keynesians, #23,127
I see that John Cochrane is once again attacking Keynesian economics, giving an “autopsy for Keynesians” in the Wall Street Journal. His central line is that Keynesian economics has been repeatedly proven wrong in the recovery. He sees the U.K.’s turn to austerity as a brilliant success; and the continued U.S. growth, in spite of deficit reduction, as further proof of the failures of Keynesian economics. He tells us that even Greece and Italy are sticking with the euro, rejecting the course of “devaluation and inflation.”
I understand that Cochrane’s polemic is directed at Paul Krugman, but as a card carrying Keynesian, I will take up the defense. First, it requires some serious re-writing of history to pronounce the Keynesians wrong at every turn in this recession and recovery. Going back to the days of Great Moderation, some of us Keynesian types noticed the economy was being driven by a housing bubble long before the beginning of the Great Recession.
I’m not sure where bubbles fit in Cochrane’s world, but in this economy they are run-ups in asset prices that are not consistent with the fundamentals of the market. In most cases they are not of great consequence for the economy as a whole, only for the markets directly affected. However when the market is a massive market, like the U.S. housing market, and the bubble grows to the neighborhood of $8 trillion (@ $10 trillion in today’s economy), it is a big deal. The housing bubble raised residential construction to a record share of GDP. The associated wealth effect led to a huge consumption boom with the saving rate pushed to a record low.
When the bubble burst, there was no component of GDP that would magically replace these sources of demand. The outcome was a severe recession. The real world followed pretty well on this Keynesian’s line of thinking.
Cochrane somehow thinks the Keynesians blundered in believing that the stimulus would set everything right:
“Our first big stimulus fell flat, leaving Keynesians to argue that the recession would have been worse otherwise.”
Well, some of us were arguing at the time that the stimulus was far too small to get the economy back on its feet, so we were hardly surprised when our prognostications proved correct. (Krugman made the same case in a far more visible forum.)
Cochrane then adds:
“With the 2013 sequester, Keynesians warned that reduced spending and the end of 99-week unemployment benefits would drive the economy back to recession. Instead, unemployment came down faster than expected, and growth returned, albeit modestly.”
For my part, I never saw a recession, just weaker growth. The GDP data seem to agree with me. Growth in the first two quarters of 2013 was just 2.3 percent. If we just look at final demand (excluding the buildup of inventories), growth averaged 1.8 percent in the first half of 2013. While the unemployment rate did fall by 1.2 percentage points from December of 2012 to December of 2013, this was largely because of people leaving the labor force. The employment to population ratio did not change over this period. Should us Keynesian types feel embarrassed?
At this point there is considerable research on the impact of stimulus and most of supports the Keynesian story. (Here are a couple from the I.M.F. and a good meta-analysis from my friend Sebastian Gechert. It’s not clear what real world evidence Cochrane thinks we should take as refuting the benefits of Keynesian stimulus.
Cochrane can be given partial credit for a mistaken prediction of some Keynesians:
“Keynesians told us that once interest rates got stuck at or near zero, economies would fall into a deflationary spiral. Deflation would lower demand, causing more deflation, and so on.”
Since all of us card carrying Keynesians are supposed to believe in sticky wages, it is not clear why any ever took seriously the idea of a deflationary spiral. After all, even Japan never saw its deflation rate exceed -1.0 percent for any substantial period of time. Some of us did try to point out that the obsession with deflation was misplaced, as the rest of the Keynesian clan eventually came to recognize.
Cochrane’s view of the U.K. as a success story that vindicates austerity also seems to fly in the face of the data. At the most basic level, the bottom line numbers are not especially inspiring. More than four years into the reign of austerity, per capita GDP in the U.K. is still 3.9 percent below its 2007 level. That’s considerably worse than the 1.9 percent growth in Keynesian (since 2013) Japan and even the 1.2 percent drop in semi-austerity France.
The modest turn-around the U.K. has achieved has been largely on the back of a new housing bubble, with inflation-adjusted house prices again approaching bubble peaks. This run-up is at least in part due to deliberate policy as the Conservative government gave a first-time homebuyers tax credit to boost the market.
Many of Cochrane’s other assertions just fly in the face of reality or deliberately distort what Keynesians say about the world. For example he has a tirade about the evils of debt:
“Keynesians tell us not to worry about huge debts, or to default or inflate them away (but please, call it ‘restructuring’ or ‘repairing balance sheets’). Even the Obama administration has ignored that advice, promising long-run solutions to the debt problem from day one. Europeans have centuries of memories of what happens to governments that don’t pay debts, or who need to borrow for a new emergency but have stiffed their creditors once too often. More debt? Nein danke!”
We have seen a huge run-up in debt since the downturn and yet long-term interest rates are for the most part at record lows. Japan, the most profligate spender of them all, now has to pay a usurious 0.34 percentage point interest rate on its long-term debt. Are we advocates of deficit spending supposed to see our argument refuted by this evidence?
He then complains that we see even wasteful spending as boosting the economy. Yep, that’s true in a downturn, but we would all prefer useful spending. He challenges Keynesians:
“Stimulus advocates: Can you bring yourselves to say that the Keystone XL pipeline, LNG export terminals, nuclear power plants and dams are infrastructure?”
Umm, yes. I don’t know any Keynesians who would dispute that this spending would provide a boost to the economy. The question is how large and at what cost. Sending in troops to raze Wall Street would also provide a boost to the economy. Is that worth the cost? (Okay, that was a bad example.)
At the end of the day, Cochrane can make a political argument. His team has won in convincing governments to go the route of austerity. Is this good? Well, the U.S. is still down close to 6 million jobs from its trend level. Greece is looking at double-digit unemployment for at least the rest of the decade. The story for other euro peripheral countries is not much better.
Why have political leaders opted to put their populations through hell? My answer is that the people who have the money it takes to finance elections, and also who control much of the media, are not bothered by the current situation. After all, the stock market has rebounded, their banks have been saved. They’re doing just fine, even if the average French, Italian, or American worker is still faring badly.
Does that explanation work? I’m open to other stories, but it is the political analysis where Cochrane may have a case against the Keynesians. His attack on the economics doesn’t stand up to the light of day.1973 US film directed by George Lucas
American Graffiti is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy film directed and co-written by George Lucas starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack. Suzanne Somers and Joe Spano also appear in the film.
Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and rock 'n' roll cultures popular among the post–World War II baby boom generation. Through a series of vignettes, the film tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of a single night.
The genesis of American Graffiti was in Lucas' own teenage years in early 1960s Modesto. He was unsuccessful in pitching the concept to financiers and distributors, but found favor at Universal Pictures after United Artists, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures turned him down. Filming was initially set to take place in San Rafael, California, but the production crew was denied permission to shoot beyond a second day.
American Graffiti premiered August 2, 1973, at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, and was released August 11, 1973 in the United States. The film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Produced on a $777,000 budget,[1] it has become one of the most profitable films of all time. Since its initial release, American Graffiti has garnered an estimated return of well over $200 million in box office gross and home video sales, not including merchandising.
In 1995, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. A sequel, More American Graffiti, was released in 1979.
Plot [ edit ]
In early September 1962 in Modesto, California, on the last evening of summer vacation, recent high school graduates and longtime friends Curt Henderson and Steve Bolander meet John Milner, the drag-racing king of the town, and Terry "The Toad" Fields in the parking lot of the local Mel's Drive-In diner. Curt and Steve are scheduled to travel the next morning to the Northeastern United States to start college. Despite receiving a $2,000 scholarship from the local Moose Lodge, Curt has second thoughts about leaving Modesto. Steve gives Toad his 1958 Chevrolet Impala to watch while he's away at college until he returns at Christmas. Steve's girlfriend, Laurie, who is also Curt's sister, arrives in her car. Steve suggests to Laurie, who is already glum about him going to college, that they see other people while he is away in order to "strengthen" their relationship. Though not openly upset, she is displeased with his proposal, which affects their interactions the rest of the evening.
Curt accompanies Steve, last year's high school student class president, and Laurie, the current head cheerleader, to the back-to-high-school sock hop. In one story line, Curt is desperate to find a beautiful blonde girl driving a white 1956 Ford Thunderbird that he sees en route to the dance: at a stoplight, she appears to say "I love you" before disappearing around the corner. After leaving the hop, Curt is coerced by a group of greasers ("The Pharaohs") to participate in an initiation rite that involves hooking a chain to a police car and ripping out its back axle. The Pharaohs tell Curt that "The Blonde" is a trophy wife or prostitute, but he refuses to believe either.
Determined to get a message to the blonde girl, Curt drives to the local radio station to ask DJ Wolfman Jack, who is omnipresent on the car radios, to announce a message for the blonde girl. Inside the radio station, Curt encounters a bearded man who tells him that the voice of The Wolfman is pre-taped from afar. The man still accepts the message from Curt to see what he could do. As he’s leaving the station, Curt sees the man talking into the microphone and hears the voice of The Wolfman, and realizes the man is the actual DJ himself.
Sure enough, The Wolfman eventually reads the message on the radio for "The Blonde" to meet Curt or call him at a number which happens to be a telephone booth. Curt waits by the telephone booth and early the next morning, he is awakened by the phone ringing. It turns out to be "The Blonde" who says she knows him and maybe she would see him cruising the coming night. Curt replies probably not, intimating that he decided to go to college and will be leaving that morning.
The Toad, in Steve's car, and John, in his yellow 1932 Ford Deuce Coupé hot rod, cruise the strip of Modesto. Toad, who is normally socially inept with girls, successfully picks up a flirtatious, and somewhat rebellious, girl named Debbie. John inadvertently picks up Carol, an annoying 16-year-old who seems fond of him. Another drag racer, the handsome and arrogant Bob Falfa, is searching out John in order to challenge him to a race.
Steve and Laurie have a series of arguments and make-ups through the evening. They finally split and, as the story lines intertwine, Bob Falfa picks up Laurie in his black 1955 Chevrolet One-Fifty Coupé. Bob finally finds John and goads him into racing. A parade of cars follows them to "Paradise Road" to watch the race. Laurie rides shotgun with Bob as Toad starts the race. As Bob begins taking a lead in the race, he loses control of the car when a front tire blows, and the car plunges into a ditch and rolls over. Steve and John leap out of their cars and rush to the wreck as a dazed Bob and Laurie stagger out of the car before it explodes. Distraught, Laurie grips Steve tightly and begs him not to leave her. He assures her that he will stay in Modesto.
At the airfield in the morning, Curt says goodbye to his parents, his sister Laurie, Steve, John and The Toad. As the plane takes off, Curt, gazing out of the window, sees the white Ford Thunderbird belonging to the mysterious blonde driving down a country road.
An on-screen epilogue reveals that John is killed by a drunk driver in December 1964, Toad is reported missing in action near An Lộc in December 1965, Steve is an insurance agent in Modesto, California, and Curt is a writer living in Canada.
Cast [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
Inspiration [ edit ]
During the production of THX 1138 (1971), producer Francis Ford Coppola challenged co-writer/director George Lucas to write a script that would appeal to mainstream audiences.[2] Lucas embraced the idea, using his early 1960s teenage experiences cruising in Modesto, California. "Cruising was gone, and I felt compelled to document the whole experience and what my generation used as a way of meeting girls," Lucas explained.[2] As he developed the story in his mind, Lucas included his fascination with Wolfman Jack. Lucas had considered doing a documentary about the Wolfman when he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but he ultimately dropped the idea.[3]
Adding in semiautobiographical connotations, Lucas set the story in his hometown of 1962 Modesto.[2] The characters Curt Henderson, John Milner and Terry "The Toad" Fields also represent different stages from his younger life. Curt is modeled after Lucas's personality during USC, while Milner is based on Lucas's teenage street-racing and junior college years, and hot rod enthusiasts he had known from the Kustom Kulture in Modesto. Toad represents Lucas's nerd years as a freshman in high school, specifically his "bad luck" with dating.[4] The filmmaker was also inspired by Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953).[5]
After the financial failure of THX 1138, Lucas wanted the film to act as a release for a world-weary audience:[6]
[THX] was about real things that were going on and the problems we're faced with. I realized after making THX that those problems are so real that most of us have to face those things every day, so we're in a constant state of frustration. That just makes us more depressed than we were before. So I made a film where, essentially, we can get rid of some of those frustrations, the feeling that everything seems futile.[6]
United Artists [ edit ]
After Warner Bros. abandoned Lucas's early version of Apocalypse Now (during the post-production of THX 1138), the filmmaker decided to continue developing Another Quiet Night in Modesto, eventually changing its title to American Graffiti.[3] To co-write a 15-page film treatment, Lucas hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who also added semiautobiographical material to the story.[7] Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz began pitching the American Graffiti treatment to various Hollywood studios and production companies in an attempt to secure the financing needed to expand it into a screenplay,[2] but they were unsuccessful. The potential financiers were concerned that music licensing costs would cause the film to go way over budget. Along with Easy Rider (1969), American Graffiti was one of the first films to eschew a traditional film score and successfully rely instead on synchronizing a series of popular hit songs with individual scenes.[8]
THX 1138 was released in March 1971[2], and Lucas was offered opportunities to direct Lady Ice, Tommy, or Hair. He turned down those offers, determined to pursue his own projects despite his urgent desire to find another film to direct.[9][10] During this time, Lucas conceived the idea for a space opera (as yet untitled) which later became the basis for his Star Wars franchise. At the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, THX was chosen for the Directors' Fortnight competition. There, Lucas met David Picker, then president of United Artists, who was intrigued by American Graffiti and Lucas' space opera. Picker decided to give Lucas $10,000 to develop Graffiti as a screenplay.[9]
Lucas planned to spend another five weeks in Europe, and hoped that Huyck and Katz would agree to finish the screenplay by the time he returned, but they were about to start on their own film, Messiah of Evil,[7] so Lucas hired Richard Walter, a colleague from the USC School of Cinematic Arts for the job. Walter was flattered but initially tried to sell Lucas on a different screenplay called Barry and the Persuasions, a story of East Coast teenagers in the late 1950s. Lucas held firm—his was a story about West Coast teenagers in the |
system (like Tampa Bay's Jameis Winston, formerly of Florida State) or one who is considered a once-in-a-lifetime prospect (like Indianapolis' Andrew Luck, who also learned his craft in a pro-style offense at Stanford).
The value Taylor brought to Buffalo went beyond his skill set, by the way. He also was smart enough to see the benefit of joining a team that already had a strong defense and an improved running game (Buffalo traded for LeSean McCoy just before Taylor signed). Taylor didn't fear the idea of competing with 2013 first-round pick EJ Manuel or veteran Matt Cassel for a job. As Whaley said, "Tyrod won the job because no matter who was out there with in the preseason -- first-string, second-string, third-string -- he made the other players better."
So far, everybody is happy with how things are turning out. In fact, Taylor impressed his teammates after last Sunday's 41-14 win at Miami by wearing a three-piece suit on the team plane -- after head coach Rex Ryan had given his players the option of wearing sweats or going business-casual. When a teammate asked Taylor why he donned the fancy outfit, he told him, "If I'm going to be the starting quarterback, I'm going to carry myself like one."
It was a comment that told everybody something that more people are discovering about Taylor: He's already learned plenty about what it takes to succeed at this level.
Follow Jeffri Chadiha on Twitter @jeffrichadiha.Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to over 200,000 felons in an executive order that was ultimately struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court. (File Photo)
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's administration released the names of the roughly 13,000 felons recently stripped from the state's voter rolls.
The Virginia Department of Elections recently cancelled their registrations after the state Supreme Court ruled that McAuliffe overstepped his authority when he restored their voting rights.
The list of names was released publicly Wednesday afternoon, said Department of Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortes
McAuliffe issued an executive order in April that restored voting rights of more than 200,000 felons.
But the Virginia's Supreme Court struck down that order last month, ruling that governors cannot restore rights en masse, but must handle them on a case-by-case basis.
Of the more than 200,000 felons whose rights had been restored, only roughly 13,000 had actually registered to vote.
Copyright Associated PressRepublican Presidential contender Ted Cruz was given an earful on Sunday by a young heckler, while speaking at a campaign rally in La Porte, Indiana, according to The Oregonian.
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While sharing his tax plan, the Texas Senator was sidetracked by an interrupting protestor. Cruz stopped his speech to address the preteen, according to a report done by The Daily Mail.
“Apparently there’s a young boy who’s had some problems.”
It was then the preteen protestor retorted to Ted Cruz, “You suck!” Turns out, Cruz was not having it.
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Cruz directly addressed the heckler in front of the Indiana crowd, beginning with, “Thank you, son.” From there, he turned this moment into a lesson about respecting your elders, according to The Oregonian.
“You know, I appreciate you sharing your views. One of the things that hopefully someone has told you is that children should actually speak with respect.”
As a result, the crowd erupted in applause and cheers to Cruz’s sentiment. While the preteen was escorted out of the rally by local law enforcement officials, the potential Republican nominee continued his parental-sounding lecture.
“You know, in my household, when a child behaves that way, they get a spanking.”
The young heckler isn’t the only person who wants to see the end of the GOP contender. In the wake of Tuesday’s primary, Cruz is struggling to boost voter moral in Indiana. As of Sunday, a poll conducted by NBC News, the Wall Street Journal and Marist College shows that Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump leads Ted Cruz by 15 points, according to the New York Times.
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Cruz is definitely aware of the pressure that currently lies on him and his campaign. In a story published by the New York Times, the Republican was quoted saying, “The eyes of the entire country…now rest on Indiana,” while speaking at a religious community center in that state. He went on to list the odds against him, according to a report by the Texas Tribune.
“The mainstream media wants this race to be over. The New York power brokers want this race to be over. The Washington lobbyist want this race to be over…John Boehner wants this race to be over. They all make their decision and they now expect the people of Indiana to fall in line.”
Still, Cruz has been making an effort to rise to the challenge, despite having political pundits and various politicians point out his shortcomings. Last Wednesday, Ted Cruz recruited former Presidential Republican contender Carly Fiorina as his running mate, if he were to receive the Presidential nomination for the GOP, according to the New York Times. While this move hasn’t necessarily given Cruz the spike he would have liked in the news polls, he still has supporters acknowledging his efforts.
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[Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Uzra Zeya speaks to reporters at a news briefing on the latest U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue Friday, Aug. 2, 2013, in Beijing. The United States is deeply concerned about what it sees as a deteriorating human rights situation in China, with relatives of activists increasingly being harassed and policies in ethnic areas becoming more repressive, senior U.S. diplomat Zeya said Friday. (AP Photo/Didi Tang)
BEIJING (AP) — The United States is deeply concerned about what it sees as a deteriorating human rights situation in China, with relatives of activists increasingly being harassed and policies in ethnic areas becoming more repressive, a senior U.S. diplomat said Friday.
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Uzra Zeya said that this week's U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue fell short of Washington's expectations, but that going forward with the continuing talks remained a "vital" part of U.S. diplomacy.
Zeya led the U.S. delegation at the talks Tuesday and Wednesday in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, where she said U.S. diplomats "conveyed our deep concern about attempts to control and silence activists by targeting family members and associates of the activists."
"This is a worrisome trend, and one which we have raised at senior levels with the Chinese government," she said.
Rights watchers have been alarmed by Chinese officials' targeting of relatives of high-profile dissidents including blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who exposed abuses in the enforcement of China's one-child policies, and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned since 2009 on subversion charges after he campaigned for peaceful democratic change in China.
Chen's relatives have been harassed in their rural hometown in Shandong province. Liu's wife has been placed under house arrest in Beijing and her brother recently was sentenced to 11 years in prison over a business dispute, a stiff penalty for what supporters described as a vendetta against the family for Liu's activism.
Beijing has repeatedly rejected U.S. criticism of China's human rights record, saying that Washington is biased against China and distorts the situation.
"A real human rights dialogue should be based on mutual trust and respect, and only such human rights dialogues would be meaningful and effective," said an editorial posted on a news website run by the information office of China's State Council during the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue.
The editorial predicted no substantial progress from the dialogue and no change in the status quo.
Wang Dong, associate professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, said having a dialogue is better than no talks between the two countries, even though there have been no breakthroughs.
"It's a way to increase mutual understanding," Wang said. "Both sides can state their stances on matters with which they are concerned. It promotes understanding and reduces the chances of misjudgment."
The talks have led to more common ground between Beijing and Washington than two decades ago, Wang said.
Zeya said U.S. diplomats highlighted the increasing desire of the Chinese public to speak up about issues such as corruption, environmental degradation and the lack of rule of law, and that the Americans raised concerns over China's tight restrictions on religious freedom and freedom of expression, assembly and association, especially in ethnically Tibetan and Uighur areas.
She said the U.S. urged the Chinese government to engage in dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, or his representatives without preconditions and that her team called into question the pattern of arrests and extralegal detentions of China's public interest lawyers, Internet activists, journalists, religious leaders and others who have challenged official policies and actions in China.
"We know that such actions are contrary to China's international obligation and indeed in most cases China's own laws and constitution," Zeya said.
The U.S. also raised specific cases of individuals who are imprisoned, detained or under house arrest, including activists Xu Zhiyong, Gao Zhisheng and Ni Yulan, several Tibetan, Uighur and Mongolian activists, as well as Liu and his wife. Zeya said the Americans were able to get some information on these cases, but she did not reveal details.
The dialogue "overall fell short of our expectations," she said.
Also on Friday, a Chinese journalist was believed to have been taken away by national security officers for supporting Xu, who has championed building a stronger civil society through his New Citizens Movement. Xu is in police detention on suspicion of gathering people to disturb public order.
Chen Min, a former editorial writer for China's Southern Weekly newspaper whose pen name is Xiaoshu, became incommunicado after he met with national security officers at noon Friday as scheduled, said Wang Gongquan, a venture capitalist and a close friend of Xiaoshu.
Wang said he lost touch with Xiaoshu after Xiaoshu sent an instant message saying the officers demanded he leave Beijing.Imagine RYM with mobile apps, TV, and "scrobbling": Announcing our stretch goals!
30 November, 2015
Update: Since reaching our campaign goal, we have revised our stretch goals downward - we're already $7k closer to the first goal! Read the latest update for details.
In only the 6th day of our campaign, we hit the 50% mark. And we still have 30 days to go!
Conventional wisdom states that the majority of a campaign's funds are earned in the first and last couple of days. However, our campaign has been steadily earning around $2,300 per day since the initial spike and hasn't yet shown any signs of slowing down.
We feel that there's a great chance that we could now exceed our original target, so we wanted to finally announce our stretch goals!
Goal 1: $75,000 $68,000 - Rich API + Mobile Apps August 2016 (API), September 2016 (Mobile apps) Summary: An API is a way for people to write their own programs/sites that interact with Sonemic. Reaching our first stretch goal will allow us to build a much better API. Having a much better API will allow us to make mobile apps. We'll build both if we reach this stretch goal. New API endpoints: Updating your profile Writing/editing reviews Accessing data on albums/songs/films/games Obtaining statistics about your collections/ratings Creating custom charts Accessing notifications
Native Android & iOS applications
Faster and more responsive mobile experience
Rate, tag, catalog, review items
Online and offline access to your catalog, ratings, and reviews
Push notifications for new messages and notifications
Create custom charts and save them for offline access More details
Goal 2: $100,000 $90,000 - Television June 2016 (beta) / August 2016 (release) Summary: Our second stretch goal would allow us to build a TV site. We would focus on detailed data on series, seasons, and episodes. Support for rating, cataloging, and tagging shows, seasons, and individual episodes
Pages for series, seasons, and episodes, with credits and extensive metadata
Custom TV charts, with the ability to find the best episodes/seasons/series by year/decade, genre, language, popularity, and more!
Ability to filter and discover shows by availability on streaming services (e.g. Netflix, Hulu)
Reviews and commentary for both seasons and episodes More details
Goal 3: $125,000 $110,000 - Music, Film, Game, and TV logging (a.k.a "scrobbling") August 2016 Summary: Our third goal would allow us to add support for tracking when you listen to music/watch a film/series, or play a game. We'll call this "logging" rather than "scrobbling"; for example, you'll have a "Music log", a "Film log", etc.
Our approach will be different from existing implementations: your listening and other data will be more accurate/clean, but will require some intervention on your part. We will give you more freedom in manually entering data, and will display detailed statistics about your listening/viewing/gaming habits. We will seamlessly integrate listening data into the rest of the site, such as displaying your # of listens next to a review, in your catalog, etc.. We won't have a "loved/banned" system since we already have ratings. Support for automatically logging your listening data.
Support for importing previous listening data from other scrobbling sites.
Support for manual tracking of films, games, tv shows, songs, and albums.
Ability to manually curate your listening history going as far back in time as you like.
Detailed statistics on your tracked media
Integration with your catalog and reviews (show # of listens within your catalog, next to your reviews, etc)
Custom charts for "most listened", "most watched", etc.
Recommendations based on listening habits in addition to ratings
Additional APIs for accessing/exporting/querying tracked data. More details
Goal 1: $68,000 - Rich API + Mobile Apps
An API is the #1 most requested feature for RYM, and has been in the top two for years. With Sonemic, we are launching a beta API that contains endpoints for searching, as well as managing some aspects of your collections and lists. We felt that this was robust enough to be useful for many applications (such as importing data), but we simply don't yet have the resources to build a full API.
Reaching this stretch goal would allow us to hire additional developer resources so that we could build a richer API. A rich API would be great for 3rd-party developers, and it would finally enable us to implement another top-10 request: mobile applications.
Mobile apps have also been highly requested for years. We've always told users that we can't build mobile apps until we build an API. During the development of Sonemic, we've placed a large focus on ensuring the site works well on mobile phones and tablets, since usage with those devices often accounts for up to 40% of our traffic. However, native apps provide a better experience. They are faster, they can interface directly with the OS to provide things like push notifications, and native apps make it easier to cache and process data offline so that you can have a better experience during those times that you don't have internet access.
With this stretch goal reached, we will have a rich API that will allow us to build these apps. We will focus on the core experience of Sonemic/Cinemos/Glitchwave: That is: rating, reviewing, cataloging, tagging, researching music/film/games, making charts, creating/editing lists, and communicating with others.
What we won't initially focus on for the mobile apps is database moderation (such as fixing mistakes on album pages, submitting album art to an album page, etc). You would still need to use a desktop or the mobile site if you want to contribute to the media databases.
Goal 2: $90,000 - Television
Television, books, and games are the most commonly requested additions to RYM. We decided to make a game site first because it was the most anticipated, and because we thought it had the least amount of representation online - although there are some game databases online, there are none that match RYM's feature set.
We feel that TV is the second-best choice in this regard. There are already tons of book sites - and while we think that our own book site would be a great competitor in this space, we think that TV is the most natural choice to expand after games, especially given that we have a film site already.
Goal 3: $110,000 - Music, Film, Game, and TV tracking (a.k.a "scrobbling")
$110k is an ambitious goal, and we feel this last stretch goal is only possible to reach with significant outside support: that is, from people who are not already members of rateyourmusic.com. That means that it's essential to spread the word about the campaign if you'd like to see this implemented!
Overview
When discussing stretch goals, some people mentioned to us that it would be awesome if they could combine the cataloging/rating/reviewing functionality of RYM with the "scrobbling" functionality of sites like last.fm.
We discussed this internally, and after much discussion and testing, we feel confident that we could implement such features as part of this campaign if we had just a small amount of additional resources. Our implementation would be based on our own ideas about how such a feature should work, and would thus be fundamentally different from other implementations - and we think that's for the best, because if we offer a feature that's already available on other sites, we want to differentiate ourselves and make the best version that we possibly can.
Philosophy
The word "scrobble" vs "music/film/game/TV log"
We're not going to call it "scrobbling", as we want to make it clear that we are not associated with last.fm, and that we are creating our own implementation, our own terms, based on our philosophy. We would call your history of listens your "Music log", your history of watching films your "Film log", etc. And as a generic term for the feature, we'll call it what it actually is: logging.
Structured vs auto-generated music database
If our understanding is correct, Last.fm takes a "submit first, add to database automatically" approach to tracking your music listens. This works on their site because the music database is essentially automatically generated based on scrobble data.
Sonemic would take a different approach. When you submit logging data to us automatically, we would only match what we know is an actual song that exists in our database. Any plays that didn't match would be pending, and you would have to resolve them manually in order for the song to appear in your statistics (they would appear in your list of recently-listened songs, though). Resolving a song involves either pointing to a song that already exists in the database, or adding the song to the Sonemic database yourself. Once a play is resolved, all future plays will be properly filed.
This approach has the advantage of having a clean, correct log of your data that correctly references the music in question. If you log a song by "Nemesis" then Sonemic will know that you like "Nemesis", not "One of 20 different bands that are named Nemesis".
The downside is that you'll have to spend some time going through your pending items and finding the relevant songs or adding them to the database if you want a 100% complete record of your listening.
We feel that this approach is better suited for our database, and is an approach that many people would prefer.
Rules, "cheating", weighting, and manual editing of data
On last.fm, there seems to be a lot of discussion around users who are cheating, about the "30-second listen" rule, and other similar things. At Sonemic, we already have a comprehensive system for detecting abuse, called the weighting algorithm, and we would apply it to logging as well.
That means that on Sonemic, we would allow more manual entry and manipulation of your listening history. After all, it is your listening data. There's no reason not to allow you to tell others that a certain artist is your most listened-to, just because your logging software wasn't working. We would allow you to log listens manually, and log listens that precede the introduction of this feature (or any date in the past!). If you want to construct a history of your listening habits going back to the time you kept them in a paper journal, you're welcome to do that.
To combat manipulation, we would simply rely on our weighting algorithm. This gives users more freedom over what their listening data looks like without worrying about compromising aggregated statistics about such data.
"Loving" vs rating
Challenges
Sonemic already has a 5-star (half-star interval) rating system, which is more comprehensive than a "love/ban" system. If you love or hate something you're listening to, you can simply rate it. If you want to make a list of things you love, you can add songs to a playlist titled "Songs I love." We'll add a rating interface directly in your list of recently-listened songs.
In general, the largest challenge is going to be solving the dozens of minor edge cases that other logging sites have already dealt with and solved (things like strange tags being submitted, untitled songs, etc). This is a natural stage in software development; it will just take some time before the experience is as smooth as it is on other sites.
It should also be noted that it will be difficult for us to get certain third-party apps to add support for logging listens on Sonemic. We're thinking of Spotify on iOS in particular - for Android and Desktop apps, there are simple solutions that allow you to change the host you want to send data to, but in closed ecosystems it might be more difficult
Budgeting
After fees and perk fulfillment, 100% of the revenue for the first and second stretch goals will be dedicated to hiring more development and design help, whether it's in the form of contract work or employees.
$8,600 of the third stretch goal will go toward servers and cloud services, which will be used to provide a "scrobbling" API that is compatible with that used by post.audioscrobbler.com, allowing many existing plugins and apps to work with Sonemic. The remaining funds raised as part of the third stretch goal will go toward hiring more development and design help.
What if we don't fully reach a stretch goal?
If the final amount of funds raised is in-between two stretch goals, the funds will be spent as follows:
Between 50k-68k: We will focus exclusively on APIs first. If we still have resources leftover, we will begin developing mobile apps.
Between 68k-75k: We will place the additional funds into making better mobile apps.
Between 75k-90k: We will cut some of the features of the television site in order to fit available resources, and launch the more limited version. We'll add the rest of the features in a future update.
Between 90k-100k: We will spend this money on general improvement of the Sonemic network, as voted by users.
Between 100k-110k: We will first focus exclusively on the basic music-related goals: import of previous listening data, manual and automated tracking of listening data, and providing statistics on listening data. If we still have resources, we will allocate them towards tracking other media (film/TV/games) and detailed statistics. Any remaining resources will be spent on implementing as much of the rest of the stretch goal as possible.
Next update
This has been a long and comprehensive update - thanks for reading everything! Our next update later this week will focus on our two new Project Managers. Both are really excited about the new song-related features in Sonemic, and want to make sure they are as useful and interesting as possible. So songs will be the main focus of the next update!
Posted by Hossein Sharifi on November 30, 2015.
Discuss this post on Facebook, Twitter, or RYM.Gameplay Edit
Pit fights the monsters of the game with a bow and arrow. The player character's health and the number of hearts is displayed in the top-left corner of the screen. Doors in levels lead to different chambers, such as treasuries or item stores Kid Icarus is an action platformer with role-playing elements.[6] The player controls the protagonist Pit through two-dimensional levels, which contain monsters, obstacles and items.[7][8] Pit's primary weapon is a bow with an unlimited supply of arrows that can be upgraded with three collectable power items: the guard crystal shields Pit from enemies, the flaming arrows hit multiple targets, and the holy bow increases the range of the arrows.[8][9][10] These upgrades will work only if Pit's health is high enough.[11] The game keeps track of the player's score, and increases Pit's health bar at the end of a level if enough points were collected.[11][12] Throughout the stages, the player may enter doors to access seven different types of chambers. Stores and black markets offer items in exchange for hearts, which are left behind by defeated monsters. Treasure chambers contain items, enemy nests give the player an opportunity to earn extra hearts, and hot springs restore Pit's health.[8][9][13] In the god's chamber, the strength of Pit's bow and arrow may be increased depending on several factors, such as the number of enemies defeated and the amount of damage taken in battle.[9][11][13] In the training chamber, Pit will be awarded with one of the three power items if he passes a test of endurance.[8][9] The game world is divided into three stages – the underworld, the over world (Earth) and the sky world.[14] Each stage encompasses three unidirectional area levels and a fortress.[14][15][16] The areas of the underworld and sky world stages have Pit climb to the top, while those of the surface world are side-scrolling levels. The fortresses at the end of the stages are labyrinths with non-scrolling rooms, in which the player must find and defeat a gatekeeper boss.[8] Within a fortress, Pit may buy a check sheet, pencil and torch to guide him through the labyrinth.[9] A single-use item, the hammer, can destroy stone statues, which frees a flying soldier called a Centurion that will aid the player in boss battles.[9][17] For each of the bosses destroyed, Pit receives one of three sacred treasures that are needed to access the fourth and final stage, the sky temple.[8] This last portion abandons the platforming elements of the previous levels, and resembles a scrolling shooter.[8][18]
Plot Edit
See also: List of Kid Icarus characters The game is set in Angel Land, which is a fantasy world with a Greek mythology theme.[18][19] The backstory of Kid Icarus is described in the instruction booklet: before the events of the game, Earth was ruled by Palutena: Goddess of Light and Medusa: Goddess of Darkness. Palutena bestowed the people with light to make them happy. Medusa hated the humans, dried up their crop, and turned them to stone. Enraged by this, Palutena transformed Medusa into a monster and banished her to the Underworld. Out of revenge, Medusa conspired with the monsters of the Underworld to take over Palutena's residence the Palace in the Sky.[19] She launched a surprise attack, and stole the three sacred treasures — the Mirror Shield, the Light Arrows and the Wings of Pegasus — which deprived Palutena's army of its power. After her soldiers had been turned to stone by Medusa, Palutena was defeated in battle and imprisoned deep inside the Palace in the Sky. With her last power, she sent a bow and arrow to the young angel Pit. He escapes from his prison in the Underworld and sets out to save Palutena and Angel Land.[19][20] Throughout the course of the story, Pit retrieves the three sacred treasures from the fortress gatekeepers at their respective fortresses in the Underworld, the Overworld, and the Skyworld.[14] Afterward, he equips himself with the treasures and storms the sky temple where he defeats Medusa and rescues Palutena.[8] The game has five different endings;[21] depending on the player's performance, Palutena may present Pit with headgear or transform him into a full-grown angel.[8][11][22] In the Japanese version, the best ending from the English version does not exist, and instead another bad ending is present.[21]
Development and releases Edit
Reception Edit
Reception Review scores Publication Score GameSpot 5.1[7] IGN 7.0[15] ONM 68%[36] Kid Icarus had shipped 1.76 million copies worldwide by late 2003, and has gained a cult following.[15][37] In 2001 Game Informer ranked it the 83rd best game ever made. They claimed that despite its high level of difficulty and frustration, it was fun enough to be worth playing.[38] The game has been met with mixed reviews from critics over the years. In October 1992, a staff writer of the UK publication Nintendo Magazine System said that Kid Icarus was "pretty good fun", but did not "compare too well" to other platform games, owing in part to its "rather dated" graphics.[36] Retro Gamer magazine's Stuart Hunt called Kid Icarus an "unsung hero of the NES" that "looks and sounds pretty". He described the music by Hirokazu Tanaka as "sublime", and the enemy characters as "brilliantly drawn". Although he considered the blend of gameplay elements from different genres a success, he said that Kid Icarus suffered from "frustrating" design flaws, such as its high difficulty level.[39] Jeremy Parish of 1UP.com expressed his disagreement with the game's status as an "unfairly forgotten masterpiece" among its substantial Internet following. He found Kid Icarus to be "underwhelming", "buggy" and "pretty annoying", and noted that it exhibited "shrill music[,...] loose controls and some weird design decisions". Notwithstanding his disapproval of these elements, Parish said that the game was "[not] terrible, or even bad – just a little lacking." He recommended players to buy the Virtual Console version, if only because it allowed them to experience Kid Icarus "with a fresh perspective".[40] GameSpot's Frank Provo reviewed the Virtual Console version of the game. He noted that the gameplay of Kid Icarus was "[not] the most unique blueprint for a video game", but that it had been "fairly fresh back in 1987". He considered the difficulty level "excessive", and found certain areas to be designed "solely to frustrate players". Provo said that the presentation of the game had "[not] aged gracefully". Despite his favorable comments on the Grecian scenery, he criticized the graphics for its small, bicolored and barely animated sprites, its black backgrounds, and the absence of multiple scrolling layers. He thought that the music was "nicely composed", but that the sound effects were "all taps and thuds". He was dissatisfied with the emulation of the game, as the Virtual Console release preserves the slowdown problems of the original NES version, but has its cheat codes removed. Provo closed his review with a warning for potential buyers: he said that players could appreciate Kid Icarus for its "straightforward gameplay and challenging level layouts", but might "find nothing special in the gameplay and recoil in horror at the unflinching difficulty."[7] Lucas M. Thomas of IGN noted that the game design was "odd" and "not Nintendo's most focused". He thought that it had "[not] aged in as timeless a manner as many other first-party Nintendo games from the NES era," and described Kid Icarus as "one of those games that made a lot more sense back in the '80s, accompanied by a tips and tricks strategy sheet." He complimented the theme music, which he considered "heroic and memorable".[15] In his review of the Virtual Console release, Thomas frowned upon Nintendo's decision to remove the NES cheat codes, and called the omission "nonsensical". He found it to be "not an issue worthy of a prolonged rant", but said that "[Nintendo has] willfully edited its product, and damaged its nostalgic value in the process".[28] Kid Icarus was included in IGN's lists of the top 100 NES games and the top 100 games of all time; it came in 20th and 84th place, respectively.[6][41] The game was inducted into GameSpy's "Hall of Fame", and was voted 54th place in Nintendo Power's top 200 Nintendo games.[8][42] Nintendo Power also listed it as the 20th best NES video game, and praised it for its "unique vertically scrolling stages, fun platforming, and infectious 8-bit tunes", in spite of its "unmerciful difficulty".[43]
Sequels Edit
Notes Edit
^ Light Mythology: Palutena's Mirror ( 光神話 パルテナの鏡, Hikari Shinwa: Parutena no Kagami) [1]Controversial Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes may be "suffering from a mental illness that substantially impairs her ability to perform her duties as a judicial officer," a complaint filed by the Supreme Court of Ohio's Office of Disciplinary Counsel concludes.
The complaint recommends to the Supreme Court of Ohio's Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline that Stokes be ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination.
The 49-page complaint states that Stokes abuses court resources, abuses lawyers and court staff and defendants who appear before her.
The Plain Dealer has previously documented the same complaints about Stokes and written columns about her, including one that noted the Disciplinary Counsel was tracking her.
The complaint does not force Stokes to step down. It represents the first step in the Ohio Supreme Court's process of evaluating the judge for discipline. The report was first made public by 19 Action News Reporter Paul Orlousky.
The Cleveland Municipal Court notes in a statement that the Ohio Supreme Court is a long way from making a final decision on Stokes.
"The full Board of Commissioners will hear the certified complaint and present its findings and recommendations," the statement reads. "The Board's findings and recommendations will be submitted to the justices of the Supreme Court, who may accept, modify or reject them. The Supreme Court's judgment on these matters will be final and until the Supreme Court acts on the complaint, this office will have no further comment."
The complaint was prepared by Lakewood attorney Michael Murman, a special prosecutor to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
The complaint says that since Stokes took the bench in 1995, she has consumed a disproportionate amount of the court's human and material resources "due to her inability to administer her docket in a timely manner, her lack of organization, and her unreasonable expectation that all court employees be at her beck and call."
Among the complaint's findings: Stokes employed 21 different personal bailiffs at 27 different times since 1995, a point made by the Plain Dealer in a 2009 story.
The report also accuses Stokes of prohibiting prosecutors, public defenders and private attorneys from asking questions about courtroom procedure. The complaint then details the stories of a half-dozen attorneys.
Stokes also treated defendants unfairly, the report says, noting that the judge reprimands, expels and places defendants in holding cells for minor infractions such as whispering.
About the call for a mental health evaluation, the complaint says Stokes' behavior "negatively impacted every component of the criminal justice system that has come into contact with."
Though Stokes, who is the daughter of former Cleveland Congressman Louis Stokes, has received poor ratings from bar associations and newspaper editorial boards, she has easily won re-elections.
This story was updated Oct. 22 to clarify that the document containing charges against Stokes is officially referred to by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel as a complaint, not a report.
Read this document on a mobile device »
<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/807140/stokes-10-16-13.pdf">STOKES 10 16 13 (PDF)</a> <br /> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/807140/stokes-10-16-13.txt">STOKES 10 16 13 (Text)</a>Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement British forces could begin pulling out of Iraq by next March, a senior defence source has revealed to the BBC. The UK has been negotiating the legal basis on which its forces can stay when its UN mandate expires at the end of the year. It still has 4,100 troops in Basra but defence chiefs plan a withdrawal over the next year if Iraqi elections in January pass off peacefully. A withdrawal could allow soldiers to be diverted to Afghanistan. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated that almost all British troops should leave Iraq by the middle of next year, with a few hundred possibly remaining to train Iraqi security forces. Previously it had been suggested that troops could start leaving in January. However, the BBC has learned that the process is likely to begin in March - six years after the US-led invasion. 'Significant progress' A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "Significant progress has been made in Basra, a city which has now been transformed thanks to Iraqi, coalition and British efforts. Some troops could eventually be redeployed to Afghanistan "As such, we are now expecting to see a fundamental change of mission in early 2009." The majority of the British troops are confined to Basra air base. The Iraqi parliament may have to vote on any deal to allow British troops to remain in the country beyond the end of the year. It recently agreed a similar deal which allows American forces to remain in Iraq for another three years. US troops are due to pull out of Iraqi cities by the middle of next year, and be gone completely by December 2011. The US is planning to boost the strength of its force in Afghanistan in the new year and is hoping its Nato allies follow suit. BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq "should allow a renewed focus on the multi-national mission in Afghanistan, which is facing a stalemate". She said it would free up helicopters, intelligence assets and eventually troops for the battle against the Taleban.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionThe Big 12 will be live streaming a news conference today at 5:30 pm Central Time regarding expansion. Will the Big |
's views on gay marriage. There are currently no plans to rename the venue.
The recent furore started following Court's open letter to The West Australian, when she declared she would not fly on Qantas "where possible" in protest at its support of same-sex marriage. She then told a Christian radio station "tennis is full of lesbians".
Navratilova responded: "It is now clear exactly who Court is: an amazing tennis player, and a racist and a homophobe.
"Her vitriol is not just an opinion. She is actively trying to keep LGBT people from getting equal rights (note to Court: we are human beings, too)."
In 1970, during Apartheid in South Africa, Court said: "South Africa has the racial situation rather better organised than anyone else, certainly much better than the United States."
Court denied allegations of racism, stating that she had played tennis with compatriot and seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Evonne Goolagong Cawley in South Africa.
"Evonne and I went in there and played for the black people," she is quoted as saying in The West Australian. "I have 35 cultures in my church and I love them all. I think it's very sad and sick it's being brought up now."Plans to inflate exhibition fees from less than $100 to more than $85,000 could be a game changer, distributors say.
Russia is threatening to make it more expensive and difficult for Hollywood to do business in that country, a significant market for Hollywood features. Plans by the Russian government to introduce steep new movie distribution fees for Hollywood and foreign films are causing consternation among distributors and diplomatic missions. And new rules that could affect how widely Hollywood features are exhibited are also causing concern.
A draft law outlining a scheme to sharply increase the cost of obtaining a distribution license from 3,500 rubles ($60) to 5 million rubles ($86,200) was published Aug. 29 by the Russian ministry of culture.
The law, which applies to all feature-length films scheduled for more than 100 screenings is designed to raise money to help support domestic productions. It will apply to all films, but distributors of domestic films produced in Russia will be eligible to apply for full rebates, effectively making it a measure aimed at foreign releases from abroad.
If implemented the law could cost distributors of independent movies as much as $27 million a year, according to some estimates. Hollywood movies, which dominate the Russian market, are better positioned to weather the fee hike, but the measure would still cost them just under 2 percent of overall revenue. Although no separate figures are kept for Hollywood box office alone, last year Hollywood and foreign films accounted for 82 percent of the Russian box office — around $596 million out of a total of $727 million.
"Certainly, if the ministry goes ahead with its plans, there will be no more independent distributors in the Russian market," Sergei Spiridonov, general director of Volga, which distributed (among others) Woody Allen's most recent movie, Cafe Society, told The Hollywood Reporter. "Some will shut down earlier, some may be able to stick around a bit longer, but the end will be imminent."
Last year, Cafe Society, which grossed $2.2 million, became Allen's biggest Russian box-office hit, but other indies collect much less. Pedro Almodovar's Julieta, for example, took in $307,000, while Paul Verhoeven's Elle, one of Russia's highest-grossing indie releases has grossed $280,000.
In the case of big-budget Hollywood movies, the proposed distribution fee could be viewed as the price of doing business. Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, grossed $36 million following its May 25 release in Russia, becoming the top-grossing film of the first half of the year.
But in the case of wide releases, Russia is proposing a further restriction that the Hollywood studios are watching warily. Although no date has been set for when it could go into effect, another new measure designed to protect locally produced movies from Hollywood competition would prevent an individual film from commanding more than 35 percent of the screenings on any given day. At its height, Pirates took 56 percent of all screenings.
To date, the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major studios, has not spoken out against either measure, leaving it to local distributors and exhibitors to lodge protests lest U.S. efforts only exacerbate the situation.
The EU, though, fears that it would no longer be feasible to distribute European movies, leading to a loss of cultural connections with Russia.
Critics say the new exhibition fee law, which is out for public and industry consultation until Oct. 27, threatens at worst to kill the market for art house and independent films and at best to restructure a system where distributors currently buy rights for the entire Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, encompassing Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other former Soviet territories.
"Such legislation would just kill distribution of almost all European and indie movies in Russia," Anastasia Sergeyeva, executive director of Russian distributor Volga, which handles Hollywood independent and foreign movies, tells THR. In the case of foreign independent films, their potential Russian box-office gross amounts are virtually on par with the new exhibition license fee. For example, France's La danseuse, which screened in Canne's Un Certain Regard sidebar in 2016, grossed just $102,200 — and half of that gross went to the theaters showing the film — so the exhibition fee would effectively cancel out any returns to its distributor.
Sergeyeva's fears are backed by figures obtained by the respected business daily Kommersant, which calculates that each major player in the Russian film distribution market will lose an average of 1.7 percent of gross revenue under the new law, but independents, which distribute three-quarters of the 300 or so films released in Russia each year, will lose much more. The newspaper estimates they will pay a total of around 1.6 billion rubles, more than $27 million, equal to 63 percent of their income.
Even the most sanguine distributors of foreign fare in Russia foresee a major upheaval in the way business is done if the exhibition fee goes forward.
Polina Schlicht, managing director of Moscow- and Berlin-based Monumental Pictures, told THR that the new law would put an end to CIS-wide deals.
Schlicht's company has exclusive rights to distribute Fox product in Ukraine and also handles Hollywood independent fare in Ukraine. Its recent releases include Atomic Blonde, A Dog's Purpose and Gold.
"If the law is passed, there will no longer be CIS deals at the film markets," she said. "This will enforce the tendency of the last few years of Russian distributors not being able to pay minimum guarantees anymore for the whole CIS."
She added: "Former Soviet countries like Ukraine will buy even more independently of Russia and producers, and sales agents will need to come up with new pricing in their Russia and CIS sales estimates."
Other distributors of Hollywood fare, such as Moscow's Central Partnership, which is an exclusive distributor of Paramount Pictures movies, are taking a more cautious approach. The company said it would issue an "official statement" after its legal team had completed a review of the draft law.
Hollywood majors with offices in Moscow are taking a similar line: when approached for comment by THR, Universal declined to comment, while Sony, Paramount, Warner and Disney did not respond. However, one source in the U.S. movie industry said that there were concerns about the planned exhibition license fee hike and industry executives were watching the situation closely.
European Union diplomatic missions in Moscow and the EU Delegation have also voiced concerns. A spokeswoman said that although the EU was not taking an official position at the moment, it was looking into whether it breached any international trade obligations Russia has undertaken. They were also "looking at what impact it may have on European film distributors."
A diplomatic source at one EU embassy told THR that there were "concerns over the possible impact" of the new law on "cultural relations with Russia."
The source added that given that few copies of European films are shown in Russia, the steep new distribution fee "could result in huge financial losses" possibly leading to the disappearance of European films from Russian cinemas altogether.Update, October 20: Nigerian Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, MD, and the World Health Organization declared this morning that Nigeria is fully free of Ebola virus transmission. (WHO, Nigeria)
The original article posted on September 23 begins here:
As the WHO Ebola Response Team published dire predictions of the West African outbreak in the New England Journal of Medicine, overnight – including an updated 70.8% fatality rate – the Health Minister of Nigeria reports that his country is completely free of active Ebola cases and have today released the final victim contacts from surveillance.
In a telephone interview last night where he was preparing for a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu, MD, said, "Presently, there is no single case of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria – none."***
Dr. Chukwu provided further details, saying, "No cases are under treatment, no suspected cases. There are no contacts in Lagos that are still under surveillance, having completed a minimum of 21 days of observation."
In the process of tracing contacts of individuals infected with Ebola, anyone showing no symptoms after three weeks of last known contact with a victim is considered free of any potential for the disease.
Rivers State, whose capital city is Port Harcourt, had been home to over 400 contacts under medical surveillance. As of last night, only 25 contacts remained.
"None of them are showing any symptoms. Tonight [Mon 22 Sept] will mark the end of their 21 days of observation and the plan is to get them discharged from surveillance tomorrow [Tues 23 Sept]."
"Nigeria will be as clean as any other country as far as Ebola virus disease is concerned."
Achievement in perspective
PBS TV reporter Fred de Sam Lazaro wrote yesterday from Port Harcourt, "The story of Ebola in Nigeria is an unusual and frankly rare one about things going right somewhere in Africa."
"Nigeria’s achievement truly hits home for a television crew working “in the trenches” of a country the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency describes as “hobbled by … insecurity and pervasive corruption,” added Lazaro, who can be found on Twitter @newshourfred.
His team's outstanding 8-minute report aired last night on PBS Newshour.
Indeed, the disease has now been contained in Lagos, a city of 21 million people, and Port Harcourt, population 1.4 million.
Nigeria is the most populous country on the African continent, with 177 million people, yet only suffered 21 Ebola cases and eight deaths. In contrast, Liberia has just 4.3 million people yet has experienced 2,710 reported cases, with 1,459 deaths (as of 18 September).
Ebola virus was brought to Nigeria when naturalized American and Liberian Ministry of Finance official, Patrick Sawyer, traveled to Lagos for a meeting of the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) in Calabar on July 23.
Sawyer had symptoms of the disease before leaving Liberia and became very ill on the flight, infecting others from ECOWAS who greeted him and at the hospital where he was treated and died two days later.
A contact under quarantine in Lagos for some reason took flight to Port Harcourt, about a seven-hour drive. There, he was treated in secret by Dr. Ikechukwu Enemuo. Both Dr. Enemuo later died.
[Update, 24 Sept: A Twitter follower and another reader have contacted me to stay that the diplomat treated by Dr. Enemuo, Olu-Ibukun Koye, survived and has returned to work at ECOWAS.]
Enemuo infected others, including his wife and sister. Both were successfully treated and recovered. But authorities had to track 477 contacts in the Port Harcourt area.
The need for cautious communication
Dr. Chukwu told me, and has said publicly elsewhere, that one challenge in Nigeria has been preventing stigmatization of anyone under surveillance as well as Ebola survivors.
"Three terms became part of our lexicon: surveillance, quarantine, and isolation." But these need to be clearly explained, said Dr. Chukwu.
"Surveillance is sort of like house arrest. You don't criminalize them. The person is actually a victim, not a criminal. We monitor their movements, the rest of the family are counseled about what contact can and can't be done. We have contact with them everyday. You can imagine what this effort must've been like when we had 300 in Lagos and over 400 in Port Harcourt."
Only when those under surveillance show symptoms – a fever, whether it ends up being Ebola, yellow fever, or malaria – they are put under quarantine.
"That is the first time we are denying that individual the comfort of his own bed. We put him in separately from the isolation ward from those who are confirmed. If malaria, we discharge them to their doctor to be treated for malaria."
Credit to WHO-assigned physicians
The Ebola survivors in Nigeria were not treated with any experimental drugs. Contract tracing and early identification of cases were managed by isolating the patients and replacing fluids and electrolytes. In some cases, blood transfusions were necessary.
Dr. Chukwu had high praise for WHO Director General, Margaret Chan, for sending physicians to Nigeria. "We only knew about Ebola virus through our medical books. We've never seen a single case of Ebola virus until this year. So we needed someone with practical experience who had seen the virus to come and train our doctors what to do and the rest, and then we took over."
"It is important that we let the world know that WHO did well in sending us doctors with practical experience, said Dr. Chukwu. "But we also worked with the CDC, UNICEF, and MSF in managing the disease."
Controlling the outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
Dr. Chukwu said that a major challenge is that the three countries are contiguous and in need of independent, coordinated oversight. The case in Nigeria was different because once President Goodluck Jonathan declared a health emergency, he had the authority and resources to direct the entire national effort.
In an attempt to centralize the West African response, the current chairman of ECOWAS is the president of Ghana and convening a meeting of West African health ministers together with the director of the Nigerian Center for Disease Control.
In the rest of Africa, Dr. Chukwu suggested that Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone (as well as Senegal) could benefit from the expertise of doctors in Uganda and the DRC who have successfully treated Ebola patients. The rest of the world can certainly provide the aid that is starting to grow: emergency mobile hospitals, supplies such as IV fluids and personal protective equipment.
But people in these countries are also voicing a loss of confidence in their own governments as their economies fail and food and clean water are in short supply.
And, particularly with the killing of aid workers in Guinea last week, the international effort must bolster security to encourage volunteers that they can work safely in what are already extremely demanding conditions.
***Update, 25 September: A point of clarification that Nigeria is not necessarily "Ebola-free", by epidemiological definition, this even after President Goodluck Jonathan told the UN General Assembly yesterday that Nigeria is Ebola-free.
In an Agence France-Presse article, Faisal Shuaib, head of the Emergency Operation Centre for Ebola in Lagos, said via email that, "The outbreak in Nigeria can be declared officially over only if there are no more cases after 42 days, or two incubation periods from the last confirmed case."
AFP then added, "Nigeria has not reported any new cases since September 8, the WHO said. If there are no further cases, Nigeria could be declared Ebola-free on October 20."
The title of this post has been updated from, "Nigeria Free Of Ebola, Final Surveillance Contacts Released," to, "Nigeria Free Of New Ebola Cases, Final Surveillance Contacts Released."Search this site Search for: Search
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Email SubscriptionRep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., argued Monday that President Trump should follow through on his weekend threat and cancel all subsidies that federal lawmakers get to buy insurance under Obamacare.
He also said killing lawmakers' subsidies might be the best way to kill Obamacare.
"I think if he moves swiftly on it, I think you'd see a lot of these members and senators, they would want to work to repeal Obamacare very quickly," DeSantis said on Fox News.
Trump tweeted Saturday that if Congress can't pass a healthcare bill, "bailouts for members of Congress will end very soon!"
Trump reiterated the point again on Monday, when he asked why Congress should be getting a break that others aren't.
"If ObamaCare is hurting people, & it is, why shouldn't it hurt the insurance companies & why should Congress not be paying what public pays?" he asked.
If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
If ObamaCare is hurting people, & it is, why shouldn't it hurt the insurance companies & why should Congress not be paying what public pays? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2017
Lawmakers and their aides get a government subsidy under Obamacare in the form of an employer contribution.
"I decline the subsidy," DeSantis said. "It's not right and I don't take it because I don't think it's lawful."
"I think the president would be absolutely within his rights to cancel the Obama rule that conferred this subsidy on Congress," he added.Stella Creasy is the favourite to win Labour’s deputy leadership contest among LabourList readers. This week’s survey, the last before the results are announced this weekend, saw Creasy come top in the deputy leader question with 34% of the vote.
Tom Watson, widely tipped as favourite before tomorrow’s result, came second in the survey with 26%, five points ahead of Angela Eagle on 21%. Caroline Flint, who earned the second most nominations from MPs, received 12% of the vote, and Ben Bradshaw received 8%.
Tom Watson is still widely believed to comfortably finished top on first preferences, with one campaign source telling LabourList last week that the West Bromwich MP is almost certain to win.
However, if this scenario were to be recreated in the final result tomorrow, the race would probably come down to a close final run-off between Creasy and Watson – something many imagine will happen anyway. It is the second time Creasy has seen a lead in our surveys, increasing her share of the vote from 31% last time we asked readers on the subject. The time before that, in June, Tom Watson had held a six point lead.
Walthamstow MP Creasy does see a crossover of support with Corbyn in our surveys – will this be a pattern that is reflected on a wider scale in the final result?
2,999 people took part in this week’s survey. Thanks to everyone who voted.Quarter of school children are bullied, mental health service ReachOut says
Updated
As thousands of young people head back to school for 2017, parents, teachers and students are being urged to call out bullying and "act early" when they see it.
The message from mental health service ReachOut came after it released a survey of 14- to 25-year-olds showing one in four had been a victim of bullying in the past 12 months.
It also found the highest incidence of bullying occurred at school — 52 per cent — followed by the online space with 25 per cent, and the workplace at 25 per cent.
ReachOut chief executive Jono Nicholas said more needed to be done to break down the stigma of being a bullying victim, given the survey found only half of those affected spoke out and sought help.
"We know this is a really big concern for young people and their parents," he said.
'The most important thing to do is to act early': ReachOut
Mr Nicholas said the best way to deal with bullying was to tackle it quickly and head-on.
He acknowledged it was usually difficult for victims to overcome their fears and take that first step, but urged them to do so anyway.
"Often people hope that it will go away, hope that if they're quiet it will magically change," he said.
"The most important thing to do is to act early."
Mr Nicholas said people should first try to remove themselves from the situation, but if that did not work, then speak to somebody.
"Absolutely talk to your parents, or talk to the teachers, and seek a resolution," he said.
"One of the things we're saying to parents is, they should go into those conversations saying, 'We want this resolved'."
Former victim continues to suffer
Former Sydney schoolgirl Isabel, 20, said the bullying she experienced in high school still had an impact on her today.
"It went on over a year — between Year 7 and halfway through Year 8," she said.
"Even today I still have self-esteem issues with regards to my appearance, just from things that were pointed out to me then.
"It really affects your mental health."
If you or someone you know needs help, call: Lifeline on 13 11 14
Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800
MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
Isabel said she was often teased about her appearance, including her braces and the way she wore her hair.
"I felt like an outcast, I felt really alone, I felt scared to turn a corner in case [they] would be there," she said.
"It was really hard — I couldn't really talk to any school teachers because it would make the situation worse.
"[The teachers] would just get those kids in trouble and that made it really hard."
'You don't have to put up with it'
Isabel said she was initially reluctant to tell her parents about the scale of the bullying she was experiencing, but when she did, things changed for the better.
"They made a call on the night to pull me out of the school," she said.
"If you have a good support program behind you and you can turn to it, it makes all the difference.
"Year 11 and 12 was amazing for me."
Mr Nicholas said young people should use counselling services if they found it too hard to speak to family or friends.
"Online services like ReachOut have peer support forums," he said.
"Great counselling like Kids Helpline can be really vital to give young people the support they need.
"We want young people, who experience bullying, and their parents to know that you don't have to put up with it.
"There are things you can do right now to address bullying behaviour."
Topics: bullying, education, mental-health, health, community-and-society, sydney-2000, nsw, australia
First postedDuring Monday's meeting MEPs from the economic committee and regional development committee discuss possible sanctions for Spain and Portugal for not doing enough to reduce their budget deficits. Under the EU treaties and the Stability and Growth Pact, which seeks to ensure sound public finances in all member states, the budget deficit should be below the threshold of 3% of the gross domestic product, or at least declining at a satisfactory pace.
In July the Council said that the two countries had not taken effective action to correct their excessive deficits. This would mean that the countries could receive fines and have structural and investment funds suspended. However, the European Commission recommended and the Council agreed that no fines should be imposed because of the difficult economic environment. Before any decision is taken on the possible suspension of funds, the Parliament needs to be consulted and this is what Monday's committee meeting in Strasbourg is about.
During Tuesday's plenary debate MEPs will look at the progress of reforms in Greece, a country struggling with high budget deficits and an elevated level of accumulated debt.
About the infographic
Our infographic shows the size of the budget deficits or surpluses of EU countries since 1999, the year when the corrective rules of the Stability and Growth Pact entered into force. The data can be browsed by year (with a bubble representing the numbers for each member state for a given year) or by country (showing the data over the years for only one country).
The size of the bubble illustrates how big the deficit or surplus was as a percentage of the gross domestic product, while the colour shows whether the country had a surplus (blue), a small deficit of up to 3% of the gross domestic product (green), or a large deficit of more than 3% (red).
As the infographic shows, once the crisis started in 2008, many countries began running big deficits. This was due to higher social spending because of the rising unemployment, while in some countries banks were bailed out with public money and tax revenue dropped, as the economy slowed down. Many countries have since reined in their deficits, but some are still struggling.It’s been so long since the White Stripes’ Detroit-branded garage rock took America by storm that people might have forgotten that it’s still a breeding ground for good music. With musical hotspots like Ann Arbor—which features Kurt Cobain’s favorite music venue, The Blind Pig— Lansing and Detroit, there’s no reason you can’t see great local every week. Here are a few of our favorite local acts from Michigan. Tell us yours in the comments section below.
12. Bars of Gold
Hometown: Ferndale
Current Release: Of Gold
Members: Ben Audette, Scotty Iulianelli, Nick Jones, Brandon Moss, Marc Paffi
Bars of Gold’s ragged, folk-twinged take on punk might not make sense on paper, but it sounds awesome on the record. Fronted by Marc Paffi, the former singer for Bear Vs. Shark, the band explores the harsher side of mandolins and banjos over drummer Brandon Moss’ booming beat.
“Birds”
11. Danny Brown
Hometown: Detroit
Current Release: XXX
After a mix tape and a rock solid album, Danny Brown wasn’t only Detroit Metro Times’ artist of the year — he was one of the most buzzed-about rappers in the U.S. Although the guy is shrouded in mysterious, crazy stories, he’s got the rhymes and beats to back up the hype.
“Die Like a Rockstar”
10. Little Island Lake
Hometown: Ypsilanti
Current Release: Jawbones
Members: Bob Voorheis, James Truman Garfield, Mary Fraser, Zach Harris, Eric Hurd
Hailing from one of Michigan’s best known folk pockets, Ypsilanti’s Little Island Lake channels Sufjan Stevens with banjo-led songs like “Great White God” and “Zilwaukee.” The band released their debut album, Jawbones, last year and their impressive, slow-building live shows have solidified them as a local force.
“Zilwaukee”
9. De La Montaña
Hometown: Ann Arbor
Current Release: Postmodern Whirled
Members: John Healy, Madison Velding-VanDam
Although De La Montaña just returned from a European tour, the band’s roots are in the University of Michigan college town, Ann Arbor. Fronted by guitarist and vocalist Madison Velding-VanDam and bassist John Healy, the duo mashes ’80s-style synths and electronics with Velding-VanDam’s off-kilter lyrics. The band’s first single —“City Slicker,” which appears on the Berlin-based 33rpm Records— was released after 2011’s synth-soaked Postmodern Whirled.
“Money Hungry Astronauts”
8. The Soil and the Sun
Hometown: Grand Rapids
Current Release: Wake Up Child
Since 2008, Grand Rapids’ The Soil and the Sun has blossomed from a basic two-piece act to an eight-piece ensemble that is producing layered, challenging folk tracks. Sporting elements that made Fleet Foxes and Local Natives’ spacious, moving albums great, the band’s album Wake Up Child is a consistent chunk of songwriting from some talented new comers.
7. Frontier Ruckus
Hometown: Lansing, Ann Arbor
Current Release: Deadmalls and Nightfalls
Members: Matthew Milia, David Jones, Zachary Nichols, Ryan Etzcorn, Brian Barnes
The Matthew Milia-led Frontier Ruckus took Michigan by storm near the end of the last decade with two very solid records, 2011’s Deadmalls and Nightfalls and 2008’s The Orion Songbook. The band’s countless local live performances landed them on alt-weekly covers and made them one of the more beloved local acts in the state. And nationally, they got a bit of attention, too.
“Nerves of the Nightmind”Senator Elizabeth Warren Calls DeVos “Unqualified and Dangerous”
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called Education Secretary Betsy Devos “unqualified and dangerous.”
In a statement released on Friday, Warren is urging congress to reject DeVos’s nomination.
Read the statement below
"I will vote against Betsy DeVos's nomination to serve as Secretary of Education because her nomination is not in the best interests of the young people of America. She has repeatedly demonstrated her contempt for public education, she plans to maintain financial ties that could create conflicts of interest, and she is unwilling to commit to be a cop on the beat with for-profit colleges that break the law and cheat students.
Mrs. DeVos has no record in higher education, but I gave her the opportunity to prove to the American people that she is serious about standing up for students. During her confirmation hearing, I asked Mrs. DeVos basic, straightforward questions about her commitment to protecting students and taxpayers from fraud committed by shady for-profit colleges. But she was unwilling to commit to using the Department's many tools and resources to keep students from getting cheated.
Mrs. DeVos's record on K-12 education has been focused on using her vast fortune to push her own ideology on hardworking families that are just trying to get their kids a decent education in public schools. Not only are her ideas completely uninformed by experience with public schools, but the evidence is clear that her privatization theories are bad for students.
I've heard from thousands of teachers, parents, and education leaders in Massachusetts raising deep concerns about Mrs. DeVos. I hear their concerns, and I share their concerns. This includes a letter sent to me from the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association about Mrs. DeVos's devastating record of promoting for-profit and online charter schools with virtually no accountability or oversight for how well these schools actually serve students and families. Unlike the successful, thoughtful, and innovative education policies we have implemented in Massachusetts with regard to public charter schools, the policies Mrs. DeVos has bankrolled have drained valuable taxpayer dollars out of the public education system in Michigan and left kids worse off.
It is hard to imagine a less qualified or more dangerous person to be entrusted both with our country's education policy and with a trillion-dollar student loan program. Congress should reject Mrs. DeVos's nomination."
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Enjoy this post? Share it with others.While the initial crisis has been resolved, there’s still more fallout to come from the data breach that rocked the Democratic primary last week. In addition a yet-to-begin investigation and a still-pending lawsuit, the repercussions could cause lasting damage to the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and especially Bernie Sanders.
Sanders apologized to Clinton during Saturday night’s debate after rogue officials with his campaign improperly accessed proprietary Clinton data on a shared system administered by the Democratic National Committee. The apology, along with the DNC’s decision to reinstate the Sanders campaign’s access to the data system, which had been cut off following the breach, calmed initial tensions.
But neither campaign is quite ready to let the issue go.
Read this story on msnbc.com.
“We appreciated Sen. Sanders’ apology for the breach of our data at Saturday’s debate, but in the two days since, his campaign has continued to raise the possibility that our campaign may have engaged in similar misconduct,” said Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon. “The Sanders campaign needs to immediately stop spreading this utterly false innuendo.”
Meanwhile, the Sanders campaign is still determined to keep up pressure on the DNC, which it feels unfairly cut off their access to crucial voter data and ignored a separate data breach in October. “We hope the Clinton campaign will join us in calling for a thorough, independent investigation starting from Day One in the campaign to review all possible data security failures that may have occurred at the DNC,” Sanders spokesperson Michael Briggs said Monday evening.
Sanders officials have yet to withdraw the lawsuit they filed in federal court Friday against the DNC, and it’s unclear when they might. They’re also in the process of determining whether their campaign still has any proprietary Clinton data.
Still to come is an independent investigation of the breach, which will likely include interviews with Sanders staffers and a review of their emails. The probe by an outside firm could take weeks to complete and has the potential to reveal damaging new information that could re-ignite tensions.
But even as the issue simmers in the public, the more lasting effects are likely to play out behind the scenes.
For Clinton, the data the Sanders aides accessed includes what Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook called “the fundamental keys of our campaign.” He said it took millions of dollars and thousands of person-hours to assemble, and could reveal secret aspects of their strategy. Even if the Sanders campaign was never able to save any of the data, the staffers who saw that data can’t unsee it, forcing the Clinton campaign to operate under the assumption that at least some of the information was compromised.
The impact is likely even bigger for Sanders, who was forced to cripple one of his most important departments by firing his top data staffer and suspending two others. More suspensions or terminations are likely, according to aides.
These are critical functions performed by people with highly specialized skills and institutional memory who will be difficult to replace – especially with less than six weeks until the Iowa caucuses.
“I think it is fairly devastating,” said Michael Simon, a Democratic data consultant who ran the 2008 Obama campaign’s analytics operation. “I can’t imagine a worse thing happening from a personnel point of view … He didn’t necessarily have the strongest operation anyway, and now it’s sort of been hacked off by the knees.”
Many operatives in the highly coveted data field are already locked into jobs for the rest of the election cycle, and some may be reluctant to work for a rival to Clinton, who is expected to wind up as the party’s nominee. One unaligned Democratic consultant who spoke on condition of anonymity said he heard rebuttals from three Clinton aides shortly after tweeting something perceived as favoring Sanders’ interpretation of breach.
“For the Sanders campaign to experience a need like this for a top level technical talent this close to the election puts them in a difficult spot,” said Ethan Roeder, the Obama campaign’s director of data in 2012. “There are already more jobs for people to do political data work than there are people to do those jobs.”
Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver acknowledged the challenge, but said letting staffers go was the right move. “It’s never quote-unquote convenient to have people leave right before an election, but we’re committed to doing the right thing regardless of the harm,” he said.
He said other staffers will work double or triple duty until they can fill the vacuum, but he insisted that the human capital loss pales in comparison to the temporary data loss that occurred when the DNC shut off their access. “The time between now and the first caucus was shorted by two days for us,” he said.
With their voter file dark, Sanders campaign officials scrambled to salvage one of the last 45 or so days before voters participate in the first contest on Feb. 1. Sanders organizers in Iowa resorted to canvassing lines for the new ‘Star Wars” movie while some in New Hampshire prepared to use old lists of people they had already called.
The breach has underscored how important data is for modern campaigns. Simon compared data to the plumbing and electricity of a house. Roeder compared losing access to data to a smart-phone dependent person losing their iPhone.
“A modern campaign is just a data exercise. Everything they do, whether it’s activity online, or activity offline, like knocking on doors and making phone calls, all the things that campaigns traditionally do, they’re basically making |
Activision Hits Remixed (2006, Activision Deutschland GmbH, Activision Publishing, Inc.) (PSP) Activision's Atari 2600 Action Pack (1995, Activision, Inc.) (Windows, Windows 3.x) Activision's Atari 2600 Action Pack 2 (1995, Activision, Inc.) (Macintosh, Windows, Windows 3.x) Activision's Atari 2600 Action Pack 3 (1995, Activision, Inc.) (Windows, Windows 3.x) Activision's Commodore 64 15 Pack (1995, Activision, Inc.) (Windows) Act of War: Direct Action (2005, ak tronic Software & Services GmbH, Atari Europe S.A.S.U., Atari, Inc., Game Factory Interactive Ltd., Russobit-M) (Windows) Act of War: Direct Action (Collector's Edition) (2005, Atari Europe S.A.S.U.) (Windows) Act of War (Gold Edition) (2006, Atari Europe S.A.S.U.) (Windows) Act of War: High Treason (2006, Atari Europe S.A.S.U., Atari, Inc., Game Factory Interactive Ltd., Russobit-M) (Windows) ActRaiser (1990, Enix America Corporation, Enix Corporation, Nintendo of America Inc., Square Enix Co., Ltd., Square Enix, Inc., Square Enix, Ltd.) (Arcade, SNES, Wii) Actraiser (2004, Square Enix Mobile) (J2ME) ActRaiser 2 (1993, Enix America Corporation, Enix Corporation) (SNES) Actua Golf 3 (1998, Gremlin Interactive Ltd.) (PlayStation) Actua Ice Hockey (1998, Gremlin Interactive Ltd., Konami Co., Ltd., ZOO Digital Publishing Ltd) (PlayStation, Windows) Actua Ice Hockey 2 (1999, Gremlin Interactive Ltd., ZOO Digital Publishing Ltd, zushi games ltd.) (PlayStation, Windows) Actua Pool (1999, Gremlin Interactive Ltd., ZOO Digital Publishing Ltd, zushi games ltd.) (Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Windows) Actua Soccer 2 (1997, Gremlin Interactive Ltd.) (PlayStation, Windows) Actua Soccer 2006: International Edition (2006, Player X Ltd.) (J2ME) Actua Soccer 3 (1998, Gremlin Interactive Ltd., ZOO Digital Publishing Ltd, zushi games ltd.) (PlayStation, Windows) Actua Soccer Club Edition (1996, Gremlin Interactive Ltd., Naxat Soft) (DOS, PlayStation, SEGA Saturn) Actua Tennis (1998, Infogrames Europe SA, Gremlin Interactive Australia Pty Ltd., Gremlin Interactive Ltd., ZOO Digital Publishing Ltd, zushi games ltd.) (PlayStation, Windows) A Cupid's Day (2002, Orisinal) (Browser) Acupwnture (2010, Fourth Dimensional Gaming) (Xbox 360) A Cure for the Common Cold (2007, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) Acutype (1983, Spectravideo International Ltd.) (Spectravideo) A.D. 2044 (1996, Flair Software Ltd., L.K. Avalon) (Windows) A.D. 2044: Seksmisja (1991, L.K. Avalon) (Atari 8-bit) Adagio (2005, Gaping Wolf Software) (Windows) a daily cup of tea (2005, Orisinal) (Browser) Adam Blaster: Atomic Enforcer (2002, PAN Vision AB) (Windows) Adam's Venture: Episode 1 - The Search for the Lost Garden (2009, Iceberg Interactive B.V.) (Windows) Adam's Venture: Episode 2 - Solomon's Secret (2011, Iceberg Interactive B.V.) (Windows) Adam's Venture: Episode 3 - Revelations (2012, Iceberg Interactive B.V.) (Windows) Adam's Venture Trilogy (2013, Iceberg Interactive B.V.) (Windows) ADAM: The Double Factor (2001, Himeya Soft, Inc) (Windows) A Dark and Deadly Path (2006, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) A Dark and Stormy Entry (2001, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) Adarod (1993, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Atari ST) Ad Astra (1984, Gargoyle Games Ltd) (ZX Spectrum) Adax (1992, L.K. Avalon) (Atari 8-bit) A Day at Grandma's House (2010, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Xbox 360) A Day At Work (1999, Epic Banana) (Macintosh) A Day for Soft Food (1999, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser, DOS) A Day In the Life (1985, Micromega) (ZX Spectrum) Add (1979, Code Works, The) (Commodore PET/CBM) The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (1992, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Game Boy, NES) The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (1993, Ocean of America, Inc.) (SNES) The Addams Family (1992, Ocean Software Ltd., Misawa Entertainment Co.,Ltd., Ocean of America, Inc.) (Game Boy) The Addams Family (1992, Acclaim Japan, Ltd., Flying Edge, Inc., Misawa Entertainment Co.,Ltd., Ocean Europe Limited, Ocean of America, Inc.) (Game Gear, NES, SEGA Master System) The Addams Family (1991, NEC Technologies, Inc.) (TurboGrafx CD) The Addams Family (1992, Ocean Software Ltd., Erbe Software, S.A.) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) The Addams Family (1992, Ocean Software Ltd., Flying Edge, Inc., Hit Squad, The, Misawa Entertainment Co.,Ltd., Nintendo of America Inc., Ocean Europe Limited, Ocean of America, Inc.) (Amiga, Arcade, Atari ST, Genesis, SNES) Addams Family Values (1995, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Genesis, SNES) AD&D Dark Sun Online: Crimson Sands (1996, Total Entertainment Network) (Windows) Adder Attack (1983, Mogul Communications) (ZX Spectrum) Addicta Ball (1987, Alligata Software Ltd.) (Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MSX) Addicted to Fun: Ninja Collection (1991, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) Addicted to Fun: Rainbow Collection (1991, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) Addiction Pinball (1998, Infogrames Europe SA, Hasbro Interactive, Inc., MicroProse Software, Inc., Novitas GmbH) (PlayStation, Windows) Addictive (1996, Prism Leisure Corporation Plc) (DOS) Add It! (1992, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) Adian no Tsue (1986, Sun Electronics Corp.) (NES) Adiboo & Paziral's Secret (2003, Vivendi Universal Games International S.A.) (PlayStation) Adibou et les saisons magiques (2009, Mindscape SA) (Wii) Adidas Championship Football (1990, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) adidas Power Soccer (1996, Psygnosis Limited) (PlayStation, Windows) adidas Power Soccer 2 (1997, Psygnosis Limited) (PlayStation) adidas Power Soccer 98 (1997, Psygnosis Limited) (PlayStation, Windows) adidas Power Soccer International '97 (1997, Psygnosis Limited) (PlayStation) A Dinosaur's Tale (1994, Hi-Tech Expressions, Inc.) (Genesis) Adjacent See (2000, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) ADK Tamashii (2008, SNK Playmore Corp.) (PlayStation 2) Admiral Graf Spee (1982, Amsoft, Temptation Software Ltd.) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX81, ZX Spectrum) Admiral: Sea Battles (1996, Megamedia Corp.) (Windows) Ad Nauseam 2 (2008, Cactus Software) (Windows) a dog for all seasons (2005, Orisinal) (Browser) A Dreamland Chronicles Game (2010, SorceryGames LLC) (Xbox 360) Adrenaline (2010, Angry Aardvark) (Xbox 360) Adrenalin: Extreme Show (2006, 1C Company, Brigades) (Windows) Adrenalin Sport-Pack (2005, Aspyr Media, Inc.) (Macintosh, Windows) Adrenalynn (1991, Loriciel SA) (Amiga, Atari ST) Adrenix (1998, Playmates Interactive Entertainment, Inc.) (Windows) Adrift (2010, Wicked Smiles Studios) (Xbox 360) A Dudley Dilemma (1988, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) Adult Film Cameraman (1994, Interactive Girls Club) (DOS) ADV770 (2007, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser, Linux, Macintosh, Windows) Advanced Battlegrounds: The Future of Combat (2004, 1C Company, Deep Silver, DreamCatcher Interactive Inc.) (Windows) Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer (1992, Masaya, NCS Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.) (Genesis, Wii) Advanced Civilization (1995, The Avalon Hill Game Company) (DOS) Advanced Daisenryaku: Doitsu Dengeki Sakusen (1991, SEGA Enterprises Ltd.) (Genesis) Advanced Destroyer Simulator (1990, Digital Integration Ltd., Futura, Leisuresoft GmbH) (Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, DOS) Advanced DOS Quiz (1991, SaltyRain Production) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cartridge (1982, Mattel Electronics) (Intellivision) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Collector's Edition) (1994, WizardWorks Software) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Collectors Edition Vol. 1 (1994, WizardWorks Software) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Collectors Edition Vol. 2 (1994, WizardWorks Software) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Collectors Edition Vol. 3 (1994, WizardWorks Software) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Limited Edition Collector's Set) (1990, Strategic Simulations, Inc.) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Masterpiece Collection (1996, Mindscape, Inc.) (DOS) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin Cartridge (1983, Mattel Electronics) (Intellivision, Mattel Aquarius) Advanced Fantasian: Quest for Lost Sanctuary (1988, Xtalsoft) (PC-88, Sharp X1) Advanced NetWars (1997, Caldera) (DOS) Advanced Pinball Simulator (1988, Codemasters, Codemasters Software Company Limited, The) (Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum) Advanced Power Dolls 2 (1996, Kogado Studio, Inc.) (PC-98) Advanced Rock Paper Scissors (2009, North West) (Xbox 360) Advanced Soccer Simulator (1989, Mastertronic Ltd.) (ZX Spectrum) Advanced Strategic Command (1998, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS, Linux, Macintosh, Windows) Advanced Tactical Missions (Add-On Levels For X-Wing VS. Tie-Fighter) (1998, Micro Star Software) (Windows) Advanced Thinking Skills (1992, Compedia Software & Hardware Ltd.) (DOS) Advanced Trilogie: Kartenspiele (1999, ROM POINT) (Windows) Advanced V.G. (1994, Technical Group Laboratory, Inc.) (PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PSP, PS Vita, SEGA Saturn, SNES, TurboGrafx CD) Advanced V.G. 2 (1998, Success Corp., Technical Group Laboratory, Inc.) (PlayStation) Advanced V.G. (Limited Edition) (1997, Technical Group Laboratory, Inc.) (SEGA Saturn) Advanced Xoru (1989, Castle Technologies) (DOS) Advance Guardian Heroes (2004, Treasure Co., Ltd., Ubisoft, Inc.) (Game Boy Advance) Advance of the Megacamel (1983, Advantage Computer Accessories, Inc.) (Commodore 64) Advance to Boardwalk (1990, GameTek, Inc.) (Commodore 64) Advance Wars (2001, Nintendo of America Inc., Nintendo of Europe GmbH) (Game Boy Advance, Wii U) Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (2003, Nintendo of America Inc., Nintendo of Europe GmbH) (Game Boy Advance) Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (2008, Nintendo of America Inc., Nintendo of Europe GmbH) (Nintendo DS) Advance Wars: Dual Strike (2005, Nintendo Co., Ltd., Nintendo of America Inc., Nintendo of Europe GmbH) (Nintendo DS) ADVAN Racing (1998, Atlus Co., Ltd.) (PlayStation) Advantage Tennis (1991, Infogrames Europe SA, Fujitsu Interactive) (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, FM Towns) Adven'chuta! (1983, MIA) (MSX) Advent (2008, Pi-Soft Consulting, LLC) (iPad, iPhone) Advent Rising (2005, Buka Entertainment, Majesco Entertainment Company, Majesco Europe Ltd., THQ Entertainment GmbH) (Windows, Xbox) Adventsquiz (2000, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) ADVENTURE (2007, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) Adventure (2003, Lobotomo Software) (Macintosh) Adventure (1980, Atari, Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co.) (Atari 2600, iPhone) Adventure 1 (1982, Abersoft, Amsoft, CP Software, Melbourne House) (Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, MSX, ZX Spectrum) Adventure 1: Cavern of Riches (1980, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Commodore PET/CBM) Adventure 2600 Reboot (2009, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) Adventure 2: The Great Pyramid (1980, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Commodore PET/CBM) Adventure 3: Haunted Mansion (1980, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Commodore 64, Commodore PET/CBM) Adventure: 3 Out-Of-This-World Games (1996, Sierra On-Line, Inc.) (DOS, Windows 3.x) Adventure A: Planet of Death (1981, Artic Computing Ltd, Coo Chew Games) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, iPad, iPhone, ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum) Adventure at the Chateau d'Or (2001, Karma Labs Inc.) (Macintosh, Windows) Adventure B: Inca Curse (1981, Artic Computing Ltd, Paxman Promotions Ltd.) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX81, ZX Spectrum) Adventure Book (included games) (2001, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) Adventure Chest (2005, The Adventure Company) (Windows) Adventure Chest 2 (2005, The Adventure Company) (Windows) Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure (2008, Avanquest Software Publishing Ltd., Big Fish Games, Inc, Gogii Games, Mindscape SA) (iPad, iPhone, Macintosh, Windows) Adventure Collection (2010, Digital Clay Studios, LLC) (Windows) Adventure Collection 1 (2009, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection #1 (2014, Daedalic Entertainment GmbH) (Windows) Adventure Collection 2 (2009, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 3 (2009, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 4 (2009, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 5: Femmes Fatales (2010, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 6: Murder & Crime (2010, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 7: Baphomets Fluch 1-3 (2010, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 8: Ghost, Thieves & Fairy Tales (2012, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Collection 9: Haunted Mansions (2012, dtp entertainment AG) (Windows) The Adventure Collection (1995, Activision, Inc.) (DOS, Macintosh) Adventure Collection: Volume One (2008, The Adventure Company) (Windows) Adventure: Collector's Edition - Volume 1 (2009, Got Game Entertainment, LLC) (Windows) Adventure Creator (1984, Spinnaker Software Corporation) (Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64) Adventure D: Espionage Island (1982, Artic Computing Ltd, Sinclair Research Ltd.) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX81, ZX Spectrum) Adventure Elf (2003, Kewlbox) (Browser, Macintosh, Windows) Adventure E: The Golden Apple (1983, Artic Computing Ltd) (ZX Spectrum) Adventure F: The Eye Of Bain (1984, Artic Computing Ltd) (ZX Spectrum) Adventure Fun-Pak (1987, Apogee Software Productions) (DOS) Adventure Game Pack (2008, JoWooD Productions Software AG) (Windows) Adventure Games: 5 CD-ROM Collection (1995, SelectWare Technologies, Inc.) (DOS, Windows 3.x) Adventure Games Bundle (2009, Coladia Games) (Macintosh) Adventure G: Ground Zero (1984, Artic Computing Ltd) (ZX Spectrum) Adventure Hall of Fame (1999, Interplay Productions Ltd.) (DOS, Windows) Adventure II (2007, AtariAge) (Atari 5200) Adventure in Humongous Cave (1992, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Amiga, DOS) Adventure Inlay (2004, GameHouse, Inc., MumboJumbo, LLC) (Windows) Adventure in the Fifth Dimension (1983, A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing) (Atari 8-bit) Adventure Island (1986, Hudson Entertainment, Inc., Hudson Soft Company, Ltd., Hudson Soft USA, Inc., Nintendo Co., Ltd.) (DoJa, Game Boy Advance, J2ME, MSX, NES, Wii) Adventure Island 3 (1992, Hudson Soft Company, Ltd., Hudson Soft USA, Inc.) (Game Boy, NES) Adventure Island II (1991, Hudson Soft Company, Ltd., Hudson Soft USA, Inc., Konami Digital Entertainment Co.) (Game Boy, NES, Nintendo 3DS, Wii) Adventure Joe (2000, Epic Banana) (Macintosh) Adventure Klassiker Vol. I (2012, KOCH Media GmbH) (Windows) Adventure Klassiker Vol. II (2012, KOCH Media GmbH) (Windows) Adventureland (1978, Adventure International, Adventure International (UK), Commodore, Star Craft, Texas Instruments Incorporated) (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Browser, Commodore 64, Commodore PET/CBM, Dragon 32/64, Electron, FM-7, PC-88, PC-98, TI-99/4A, TRS-80, VIC-20, ZX Spectrum) Adventure Master (1984, CBS Software) (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, DOS) Adventure Mysteries Triple Pack (2010, Avanquest Software Publishing Ltd.) (Windows) The Adventure of the Intergalactic Cat (2011, Branching Path Books) (iPhone) The adventure of Tipi (1997, Funsoft) (DOS) Adventure of Tokyo DisneySEA (2001, Konami Corporation) (Game Boy Advance) Adventure Pack (2004, MC2-Micro?ds) (Windows) Adventure Park (2013, bitComposer Entertainment AG) (Windows) Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island (2001, Electronic Arts, Inc., Sold Out Sales & Marketing Ltd.) (Windows) Adventure Plus (2003, AtariAge) (Atari 2600) AdventureQuest (2002, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser) Adventure Quest (1983, Level 9 Computing, Ltd.) (Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Oric, ZX Spectrum) Adventure Quiz: Capcom World / Hatena? no Daiboken (1992, Hudson Soft Company, Ltd.) (TurboGrafx CD) Adventurer Pets (2008, Arrogancy Games) (Xbox 360) The Adventurers (1992, Core Design Ltd.) (Amiga) The Adventurer (1987, Ahoy!/Ion International, Inc.) (Commodore 64) Adventures (1982, Acornsoft Limited) (Atom) Adventure Series (1981, Adventure International, Starsoft Development Laboratories, Inc., Tex-Comp) (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, DOS, TI-99/4A, TRS-80) Adventure Series 13+ (1984, Tex-Comp) (TI-99/4A) Adventures in Math (1983, IBM) (DOS) Adventures in Terror: British Horror Collection (2009, Iceberg Interactive B.V.) (Windows) Adventures In The Galaxy Of Fantabulous Wonderment (2005, Fully Ramblomatic) (Windows) Adventures in Videoland: Rollercoaster (1982, Creative Computing Software) (Apple II) The Adventures of Alice who Went Through the Looking-Glass and Came Back Though Not Much Changed (1986, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) The Adventures of Batman & Robin (1995, SEGA Enterprises Ltd., SEGA of America, Inc.) (Game Gear) The Adventures of Batman & Robin (1994, Konami Deutschland GmbH, Konami (America), Inc.) (SNES) The Adventures of Batman & Robin (1995, SEGA Enterprises Ltd., SEGA of America, Inc.) (Genesis) The Adventures of Batman & Robin (1995, SEGA of America, Inc.) (SEGA CD) The Adventures of Bayou Billy (1988, Konami Industry Co. Ltd., Konami, Inc.) (NES) Adventures of Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet (1990, Hi-Tech Expressions, Inc.) (DOS) The Adventures of Bond... Basildon Bond (1986, Probe Software Ltd.) (Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension (1984, Adventure International) (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Browser, Commodore 16, Plus/4, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum) The Adventures of Captain Becky (2010, Studio DLF) (Xbox 360) The Adventures of Captain Comic (1988, Color Dreams, Inc.) (DOS, NES) The Adventures of Cookie & Cream (2000, Agetec, Inc., Empire Interactive Entertainment, FromSoftware, Inc.) (PlayStation 2) The Adventures of Dangerous Dave & Brutal Bob Part 1: Mole Surfing (2006, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser) The Adventures of Darwin (2006, D3Publisher Inc., D3Publisher of America, Inc.) (PlayStation 2) The Adventures of Death: Episode One - Emo Harvest on the Oregon Trail (2008, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Macintosh, Windows) Adventures of Dino-Riki (1987, Hudson Soft USA, Inc., Rix Soft) (NES) The Adventures of Down Under Dan (1995, Guildsoft) (DOS) The Adventures of Dr. Franken (1993, DTMC, Inc.) (SNES) The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (1999, Mattel Media) (Windows) The Adventures of Fatman: Toxic Revenge (2003, SOCKO! Entertainment) (Linux, Windows) The Adventures of Gilligan's Island (1990, Bandai America, Inc.) (NES) The Adventures of Hyperman (1995, IBM) (Windows 3.x) The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius - Attack of the Twonkies (2004, THQ Inc.) (Game Boy Advance) The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius - Attack of the Twonkies (2004, THQ Inc.) (GameCube, PlayStation 2) The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius Vs. Jimmy Negatron (2002, THQ Inc.) (Game Boy Advance) The Adventures of Jonny Quest (1999, DreamCatcher Interactive Inc.) (Windows) The Adventures of JP and Cosmo: A Friend Indeed (2004, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) Adventures of Keith Night: After a Shadow (2007, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) The Adventures of Lance (1990, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) The Adventures of Little Miss Scatterbrain (2002, EMME Interactive SA) (Windows) Adventures of Lolo (1989, HAL America Inc., HAL Laboratory, Inc., Nintendo of Europe GmbH) (NES, Wii) Adventures of Lolo (1994, Imagineer Co., Ltd., Nintendo UK Entertainment Limited) (Game Boy) Adventures of Lolo 2 (1990, HAL America Inc., HAL Laboratory, Inc., Nintendo Co., Ltd., Nintendo of Europe GmbH) (NES, Nintendo 3DS, Wii) Adventures of Lolo 3 (1990, HAL America Inc., HAL Laboratory, Inc.) (NES) The Adventures of Lomax (1996, Psygnosis Limited, Tomy) (PlayStation, Windows) The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian (1991, Game Crafters) (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS) Adventures of Marshal Marshmallow (2010, Level 13 Studio) (iPhone) The Adventures of Melvin Freebush (1993, Sherwood Forest Software) (DOS) The Adventures of MicroMan (1993, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows, Windows 3.x) The Adventures of Mighty Max (1994, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Genesis, SNES) The Adventures of Mosaika (2013, Fire Maple Games) (Android, iPad, iPhone) The Adventures of Mr. Pratt (2003, Bouncing Fox Productions) (Windows) The Adventures of Mr. Tickle (2002, Global Software Publishing Limited, EMME Interactive SA) (Windows) The Adventures of One Button Bob (2010, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser) The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996, IBM) (Windows, Windows 3.x) The Adventures of Quik and Silva (1991, New Bits on the Ram) (Amiga, Atari ST) The Adventures of Rad Gravity (1990, Activision, Inc.) (NES) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1991, Millennium Interactive Ltd.) (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1984, English Software Company, The) (Atari 8-bit) Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (2009, ak tronic Software & Services GmbH, Big Fish Games, Inc, eGames, Inc.) (iPad, Windows) The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1993, Absolute Entertainment, Inc., THQ Inc.) (Genesis, SNES) The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1992, THQ Inc.) (Game Boy) The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1992, THQ Inc.) (NES) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1990, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) The Adventures of Shuggy (2011, Smudged Cat Games, Valcon Games LLC) (Windows, Xbox 360) Adventures of Sid (2010, CoderSys) (Xbox 360) Adventures of Sid: Xmas (2009, CoderSys) (Xbox 360) The Adventures of Star Saver (1991, King Record Co. Ltd., Taito America Corporation) (Game Boy) The Adventures of St. Bernard (1983, Carnell Software Ltd) (ZX Spectrum) The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun (1996, Infogrames Europe SA, Infogrames Multimedia SA) (DOS, SNES, Windows) The Adventures of Tintin: The Game (2011, Ubisoft Entertainment SA, Ubisoft, Inc.) (Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, Wii, Windows, Xbox 360) Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1989, SETA Corporation, SETA U.S.A., Inc.) (NES) Adventures of TRON (1982, Mattel Electronics, Telegames, Inc.) (Atari 2600) The Adventures of Valdo & Marie (1996, Ubi Soft Entertainment Software, Ubi Soft Entertainment, Inc., Ubi Soft Entertainment Ltd.) (Windows, Windows 3.x) The Adventures of Willy Beamish (1991, Dynamix, Inc., SEGA of America, Inc., Sierra On-Line, Inc.) (Amiga, DOS, Macintosh, SEGA CD) Adventures of Yogi Bear (1994, Cybersoft, Inc., Empire Interactive Entertainment, Magifact) (Genesis, SNES) Adventures with Chickens (1998, Xtreme Games LLC) (Windows) Adventures with Edison (1995, Corel Corporation) (DOS) Adventure Triple Pack! (2006, Razor Games) (Windows) Adventure Value Pack #1 (1981, Adventure International) (Atari 8-bit, TRS-80) Adventure Value Pack #2 (1981, Adventure International) (Apple II, TRS-80) Adventure Value Pack #3 (1981, Adventure International) (Atari 8-bit, TRS-80) Adventure Value Pack #4 (1981, Adventure International) (Atari 8-bit, TRS-80) Adventure Workshop: 4th-6th Grade (2002, The Learning Company) (Macintosh, Windows) Adventure Workshop: 4th-6th Grade - 5th Edition (2004, The Learning Company, Inc.) (Macintosh, Windows) Adventure XT (2007, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) Adventurous Eric (2009, MoFunZone.com) (Browser) Ad Verbum (2000, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser, DOS, Macintosh, Windows) A Dwarf's Story (2010, Try2 Games Ltd.) (Windows) A.E. (1982, Br?derbund Software, Inc., Comptiq, Toshiba-EMI Ltd.) (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, FM-7, MSX, PC-88, VIC-20) Aedis Eclipse: Generation of Chaos (2006, Idea Factory Co., Ltd., NIS America, Inc.) (PSP) AEGIS: Guardian of the Fleet (1994, Time Warner Interactive, Inc., Time Warner Interactive Ltd.) (DOS) Aegis Wing (2007, Microsoft Game Studios) (Xbox 360)?on Flux (2005, Majesco Entertainment Company) (PlayStation 2, Xbox) Aerial Antics (2004, Leadfoot Productions) (Windows) Aerial Assault (1990, SEGA Enterprises Ltd., SEGA of America, Inc.) (Game Gear, SEGA Master System) Aerial Combat 2 (1994, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Atari ST) Aerial Combat ST (1994, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Atari ST) Aerial Kombat 3: The Final Encounter (1995, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Atari ST) Aerobiz (1992, KOEI Co., Ltd., KOEI Corporation) (FM Towns, Genesis, PC-98, Sharp X68000, SNES) Aerobiz Supersonic (1993, KOEI Co., Ltd., KOEI Corporation) (Genesis, SNES) Aero Elite: Combat Academy (2002, SEGA Corporation, SEGA of America, Inc.) (PlayStation 2) Aero Fighters (1992, McO'RIVER Inc., Tecmo, Ltd., Video System Co., Ltd.) (Arcade, SNES) Aero Fighters 2 (1994, SNK Corporation, SNK of America, Video System Co., Ltd.) (Arcade, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD) Aero Fighters 3 (1995, SNK Corporation) (Arcade, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD) AeroFighters Assault (1997, Video System Co., Ltd., Video System U.S.A., Inc.) (Nintendo 64) AeroGauge (1997, ASCII Entertainment Software, Inc.) (Nintendo 64) Aeromathics (1986, IBM) (DOS) Aero Mission 3D (2004, Zapptrio, Inc.) (J2ME) The Aeronautics Quiz MK 2 (1991, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) Aero Racer (2009, Halfbrick Studios Pty Ltd, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.) (PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox 360) Aerostar (1991, Sun Corporation of America, Vic Tokai Corporation, Vic Tokai Europe Ltd.) (Game Boy) Aerostyle (2000, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Windows) Aero the Acro-Bat (1993, Gaijinworks, Metro3D, Inc., Sun Electronics Corp., Sun Corporation, Sun Corporation of America) (Game Boy Advance, Genesis, SNES, Wii) Aero the Acro-Bat 2 (1994, Sun Corporation, Sun Corporation of America) (Genesis, SNES, Wii) AeroWings (1999, Crave Entertainment, Inc., CSK Research Institute Corp.) (Dreamcast) AeroWings 2: Air Strike (2000, Crave Entertainment, Inc., CSK Research Institute Corp.) (Dreamcast) Aesop's Garden (2009, Excalibur Studios) (Xbox 360) Aether (2008, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser, Macintosh, Windows) The Aethra Chronicles: Volume One - Celystra's Bane (1994, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) AETI ProFlight 2000 (2001, Just Flight Ltd) (Windows)?vil (2000, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Browser) Aevum Obscurum (2000, Aevum Obscurum Entertainment, Noble Master Games) (Android, iPhone, Linux, Macintosh, Windows) A Fading Melody (2009, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Xbox 360) A Fairy Tale (2009, Rock Solid Arcade) (Macintosh, Windows) Affili8! (2008, Unknown Publisher(s)) (Commodore 64) A Fi$tful of Buck$ (1985, Ocean Software Ltd.) (Commodore 64) AFL '98 (1998, Electronic Arts, Inc.) (Windows) AFL Finals Fever (1996, Cadability Interactive Digital Solutions) (Windows, Windows 3.x) A Flight to Remember (2009, Unknown Publisher(s)) (iPod Classic) A Flipping Good Time (2011, DigiPen (USA) Corp.) (Windows) AFL Live 2003 (2002, Acclaim Entertainment, Inc.) (PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox) AFL Live 2004 (2003, Acclaim Entertainment, Inc.) (PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox) AFL Live: Premiership Edition (2004, Acclaim Entertainment Ltd.) (PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox) AFL Premiership 2005 (2005, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd., THQ Inc.) (PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox) AFL Premiership 2006 (2006, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.) (PlayStation 2) AFL Premiership 2007 (2007, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.) (PlayStation 2) A Force More Powerful: The Game of Nonviolent Strategy (2006, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, York Zimmerman Inc.) (Windows) A Fork in the Tale (1997, Any River Entertainment, Digital Leisure Inc.) (Windows) Africa (2006, Amigan Software) (Amiga) Africa Gardens (1984, Gilsoft) (ZX Spectrum) Africa Gardens (1984, Gilsoft) (Commodore 64) African Adventure (1997, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) African Desert Campaign (1986, Unknown Publisher(s)) (DOS) African Raiders-01 (1988, Tomahawk) (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS) African Safari (1998, Data Player Ltd.) (Windows) African Safari (1984, Interdisc) (Commodore 64) African Trail Simulator (1990, Positive) (Amstrad CPC, DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum) Africa Trail (1997, The Learning Company, Inc.) (Macintosh, Windows, Windows 3.x) Afrika (1994, Magic Games) (DOS) Afrika (2008, Natsume, Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment Asia, Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated) (PlayStation 3) Afrika Korps (1991, Impressions) (Amiga, Atari ST) Afrika Korps vs. D-Day (2004, Brigades) (Windows) A Frog Game (2009, Entwickler X) (Xbox 360) Afro Ken: The Puzzle (2001, Bandai Co., Ltd., D3Publisher Inc.) (PlayStation) Afro Samurai (2009, Namco Bandai Games America Inc., Namco Bandai Games Europe SAS) (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) After Armageddon Gaiden: Maju Toshoden Eclipse (1994, SEGA Enterprises Ltd.) (SEGA CD) After Burner (1987, Activision, Inc., CSK Research Institute Corp., Dempa Shimbunsha, SEGA Enterprises Ltd., SEGA Europe Ltd., SEGA of America, Inc., Tengen Inc.) (Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, MSX, NES, SEGA 32X, SEGA Master System, Sharp X68000, ZX Spectrum) After Burner 3D (2003, Brodaroda Software |
Sources:
1. http://books.sipri.org
2. http://www.globalissues.org
3. http://www.sipri.org
4. http://static.visionofhumanity.org
5. http://www.pogo.orgFew things are more important on a wedding day (apart from both partners turning up; the ring being secure; and nobody objecting during the ceremony) than the cake. Very few weddings are without such a centrepiece. It's just a shame that so many couples opt for the same traditional, boring designs when there is so much opportunity to impress and surprise the guests.
Here are 30 brilliant examples, to be used as inspiration for your own big day.
1.
Above: A wedding cake fit for an action hero.
2.
Above: An illustration of things to come? Hopefully not.
3.
Above: There's nothing like brutal honesty wrapped in a Portal nod to begin a marriage.
4.
Above: A wedding massacre.
5.
Above: A show of vanity so incredible as to be impressive.
6.
Above: A wedding cake fit for geeks.
7.
Above: The most unappetising wedding cake I've ever wanted.
8.
Above: A work of baked art.
9.
Above: For Stargate fans only.
10.
Above: Good news everyone!
11.
Above: A cake for the Lego lovers amongst us.
12.
Above: Binary deliciousness.
13.
Above: Nothing is safe from Steampunk. Not even cakes.
14.
Above: Not-so-good news everyone!
15.
Above: Yes, that's a cake.
16.
Above: A Mario Kart cake so stunning, it would be painful to eat it.
17.
Above: Disgusting and incredible.
18.
Above: One small step for man, one giant leap for man and wife...
19.
Above: A phenomenal Dali-inspired wedding cake.
20.
Above: The courthouse scene from Back to the Future, as a cake.
21.
Above: Joker's Revenge.
22.
Above: A wedding cake modelled on the Death Star. So romantic.
23.
Above: The xkcd Cake.
24.
Above: A Dungeons and Dragons wedding cake.
25.
Above: A James Bond cake. Even the helicopter is edible.
26.
Above: An edible homage to Scrabble.
27.
Above: iDo.
28.
Above: The true gamer's wedding cake.
29.
Above: I now pronounce you Ghostbusters.
30.
Above: The Gothic Wedding Cake.
This article was written by Shaun Usher, a blogger from Manchester. The views expressed in it are his and do not necessarily match those of Free Dating.co.uk.We’ve all heard of roadside breathalyzer tests when it comes to drinking and driving.
But spot saliva tests for drug use?
That’s the recommendation from two Western University legal experts who have tabled a study on drug use and driving for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Canada.
Western law professors Erika Chamberlain and Robert Solomon claim that while the number of people driving while high on drugs is up, enforcement is lax when it comes to charging people with impaired driving because drug use is often hard to prove.
“You have more and more young people admitting to driving after drug use, not just after consuming alcohol,” said Chamberlain.
“I don’t think people realize that this is a growing problem,” said Chamberlain.
Already used in Australia and some European cities, roadside saliva tests are a quick and easy way to check for drugs, Chamberlain said.
Just like a breathalyzer, which detects the driver’s blood alcohol level, the saliva test would be used to test targeted drugs and the amount in the driver’s system.
While it’s likely going to be a few years before we see roadside saliva tests as frequently as we see drunk driving blitzes, Chamberlain said, drug-impaired driving is not an issue the government can ignore.
“It’s just going to become a greater and greater problem,” she said.
alex.weber@sunmedia.ca
— — —
BY THE NUMBERS
500 — Officers in Canada qualified to conduct DREs.
$17,000 — Cost to train each officer.
2 — Officers in the London police force trained in DRE.
65,183 — Impaired driving charges laid in Canada in 2010.
915 — Of those impaired charges were for drug-impaired driving.
— — —
WHAT’S RECOMMENDED
A roadside saliva test administered by police officers to screen drivers suspected of being high on drugs while behind the wheel.
HOW IT WORKS
The test would be similar to ones used in the Australian state of Victoria, where police officers are able to demand a saliva sample from any driver at the roadside.
The driver uses a swab to provide a saliva sample and if it tests positive for any of the targeted drugs, the driver must accompany police and take a second test, which is sent to a lab to be analyzed.
If that test is also positive the driver is charged.
For the system to work, the government would have to establish a specific amount for each of the drugs targeted that would mean the driver was in fact “high” at the time of the test, because some drugs can stay in a person’s body long after the impairing affects have worn off.
SKEPTICISM
While DREs accurately determine if a person has drugs in their system, the courts remain skeptical about the link between the presence of drugs in a driver’s system and impairment because some drugs can stay in a person’s body long after the effects have worn off.
— — —
ENFORCEMENT NOW
Under the Criminal Code, it’s difficult for police officers to determine if someone is driving while high. If an officer suspects someone is driving while impaired by drugs they can administer a physical co-ordination test before launching a multi-step Drug Recognition Evaluation (DRE), a process designed to reveal whether a driver is impaired by one of the seven classes of frequently abused drugs — depressants, inhalants, phencyclidine, cannabis, stimulants, hallucinogens and narcotics.
— — —
WHO’S DRIVING HIGH?A Columbia, South Carolina sheriff’s deputy can be seen throwing a female student to the ground in video posted online by New York Daily News writer Shaun King.
The footage shows the officer approaching the student at Spring Valley High before grabbing her and wrapping an arm around her head and neck. The student is then seen falling backwards as he flips her over in her chair, before throwing her on the floor and pinning her to the ground. A teacher can be seen standing off to the side during the incident, but does nothing.
The officer can then be heard ordering the student to put her hands behind her back. King identified the officer as Ben Fields, saying that more than a dozen students have told him that they are “scared to death” of Fields.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told WIS-TV that the student was being arrested for refusing to leave class. However, he did not comment on the officer throwing her down.
MORE: S.C. cop caught in school attack being sued for ‘recklessly’ accusing black students of gang activity
A local advocacy group, the Richland Two Black Parents Association, quickly released a statement calling the officer’s actions “egregious.”
“Parents are heartbroken as this is just another example of the intolerance that continues to be of issue in Richland School District Two particularly with families and children of color,” the statement read. “As we have stated in the past, we stand ready to work in collaboration to address these horrible acts of violence and inequities among our children”.
Update, 8:03 pm EST: WLTX-TV confirmed that Fields was the officer seen in the video. He has been placed on administrative duty and will not be allowed to work at any schools pending an investigation.
Watch footage of the incident, as posted online, below.Other approaches from which we have borrowed or to which ours can be compared and contrasted are described in PEP 482.
The type system supports unions, generic types, and a special type named Any which is consistent with (i.e. assignable to and from) all types. This latter feature is taken from the idea of gradual typing. Gradual typing and the full type system are explained in PEP 483.
The proposal is strongly inspired by mypy [mypy]. For example, the type "sequence of integers" can be written as Sequence[int]. The square brackets mean that no new syntax needs to be added to the language. The example here uses a custom type Sequence, imported from a pure-Python module typing. The Sequence[int] notation works at runtime by implementing __getitem__() in the metaclass (but its significance is primarily to an offline type checker).
While these annotations are available at runtime through the usual __annotations__ attribute, no type checking happens at runtime. Instead, the proposal assumes the existence of a separate off-line type checker which users can run over their source code voluntarily. Essentially, such a type checker acts as a very powerful linter. (While it would of course be possible for individual users to employ a similar checker at run time for Design By Contract enforcement or JIT optimization, those tools are not yet as mature.)
For example, here is a simple function whose argument and return type are declared in the annotations:
Note that this PEP still explicitly does NOT prevent other uses of annotations, nor does it require (or forbid) any particular processing of annotations, even when they conform to this specification. It simply enables better coordination, as PEP 333 did for web frameworks.
This PEP introduces a provisional module to provide these standard definitions and tools, along with some conventions for situations where annotations are not available.
PEP 3107 introduced syntax for function annotations, but the semantics were deliberately left undefined. There has now been enough 3rd party usage for static type analysis that the community would benefit from a standard vocabulary and baseline tools within the standard library.
It should also be emphasized that Python will remain a dynamically typed language, and the authors have no desire to ever make type hints mandatory, even by convention.
While the proposed typing module will contain some building blocks for runtime type checking -- in particular the get_type_hints() function -- third party packages would have to be developed to implement specific runtime type checking functionality, for example using decorators or metaclasses. Using type hints for performance optimizations is left as an exercise for the reader.
Of these goals, static analysis is the most important. This includes support for off-line type checkers such as mypy, as well as providing a standard notation that can be used by IDEs for code completion and refactoring.
This PEP aims to provide a standard syntax for type annotations, opening up Python code to easier static analysis and refactoring, potential runtime type checking, and (perhaps, in some contexts) code generation utilizing type information.
PEP 3107 added support for arbitrary annotations on parts of a function definition. Although no meaning was assigned to annotations then, there has always been an implicit goal to use them for type hinting [gvr-artima], which is listed as the first possible use case in said PEP.
Type checkers are expected to attempt to infer as much information as necessary. The minimum requirement is to handle the builtin decorators @property, @staticmethod and @classmethod.
A type checker is expected to check the body of a checked function for consistency with the given annotations. The annotations may also used to check correctness of calls appearing in other checked functions.
(Note that the return type of __init__ ought to be annotated with -> None. The reason for this is subtle. If __init__ assumed a return annotation of -> None, would that mean that an argument-less, un-annotated __init__ method should still be type-checked? Rather than leaving this ambiguous or introducing an exception to the exception, we simply say that __init__ ought to have a return annotation; the default behavior is thus the same as for other methods.)
It is recommended but not required that checked functions have annotations for all arguments and the return type. For a checked function, the default annotation for arguments and for the return type is Any. An exception is the first argument of instance and class methods. If it is not annotated, then it is assumed to have the type of the containing class for instance methods, and a type object type corresponding to the containing class object for class methods. For example, in class A the first argument of an instance method has the implicit type A. In a class method, the precise type of the first argument cannot be represented using the available type notation.
Any function without annotations should be treated as having the most general type possible, or ignored, by any type checker. Functions with the @no_type_check decorator should be treated as having no annotations.
The syntax leverages PEP 3107-style annotations with a number of extensions described in sections below. In its basic form, type hinting is used by filling function annotation slots with classes:
def greeting(name: str) -> str: return 'Hello'+ name
This states that the expected type of the name argument is str. Analogically, the expected return type is str.
Expressions whose type is a subtype of a specific argument type are also accepted for that argument.
Acceptable type hints Type hints may be built-in classes (including those defined in standard library or third-party extension modules), abstract base classes, types available in the types module, and user-defined classes (including those defined in the standard library or third-party modules). While annotations are normally the best format for type hints, there are times when it is more appropriate to represent them by a special comment, or in a separately distributed stub file. (See below for examples.) Annotations must be valid expressions that evaluate without raising exceptions at the time the function is defined (but see below for forward references). Annotations should be kept simple or static analysis tools may not be able to interpret the values. For example, dynamically computed types are unlikely to be understood. (This is an intentionally somewhat vague requirement, specific inclusions and exclusions may be added to future versions of this PEP as warranted by the discussion.) In addition to the above, the following special constructs defined below may be used: None, Any, Union, Tuple, Callable, all ABCs and stand-ins for concrete classes exported from typing (e.g. Sequence and Dict ), type variables, and type aliases. All newly introduced names used to support features described in following sections (such as Any and Union ) are available in the typing module.
Using None When used in a type hint, the expression None is considered equivalent to type(None).
Type aliases Type aliases are defined by simple variable assignments: Url = str def retry(url: Url, retry_count: int) -> None:... Note that we recommend capitalizing alias names, since they represent user-defined types, which (like user-defined classes) are typically spelled that way. Type aliases may be as complex as type hints in annotations -- anything that is acceptable as a type hint is acceptable in a type alias: from typing import TypeVar, Iterable, Tuple T = TypeVar('T', int, float, complex) Vector = Iterable[Tuple[T, T]] def inproduct(v: Vector[T]) -> T: return sum(x*y for x, y in v) def dilate(v: Vector[T], scale: T) -> Vector[T]: return ((x * scale, y * scale) for x, y in v) vec = [] # type: Vector[float] This is equivalent to: from typing import TypeVar, Iterable, Tuple T = TypeVar('T', int, float, complex) def inproduct(v: Iterable[Tuple[T, T]]) -> T: return sum(x*y for x, y in v) def dilate(v: Iterable[Tuple[T, T]], scale: T) -> Iterable[Tuple[T, T]]: return ((x * scale, y * scale) for x, y in v) vec = [] # type: Iterable[Tuple[float, float]]
Callable Frameworks expecting callback functions of specific signatures might be type hinted using Callable[[Arg1Type, Arg2Type], ReturnType]. Examples: from typing import Callable def feeder(get_next_item: Callable[[], str]) -> None: # Body def async_query(on_success: Callable[[int], None], on_error: Callable[[int, Exception], None]) -> None: # Body It is possible to declare the return type of a callable without specifying the call signature by substituting a literal ellipsis (three dots) for the list of arguments: def partial(func: Callable[..., str], *args) -> Callable[..., str]: # Body Note that there are no square brackets around the ellipsis. The arguments of the callback are completely unconstrained in this case (and keyword arguments are acceptable). Since using callbacks with keyword arguments is not perceived as a common use case, there is currently no support for specifying keyword arguments with Callable. Similarly, there is no support for specifying callback signatures with a variable number of argument of a specific type. Because typing.Callable does double-duty as a replacement for collections.abc.Callable, isinstance(x, typing.Callable) is implemented by deferring to isinstance(x, collections.abc.Callable). However, isinstance(x, typing.Callable[...]) is not supported.
Generics Since type information about objects kept in containers cannot be statically inferred in a generic way, abstract base classes have been extended to support subscription to denote expected types for container elements. Example: from typing import Mapping, Set def notify_by_email(employees: Set[Employee], overrides: Mapping[str, str]) -> None:... Generics can be parameterized by using a new factory available in typing called TypeVar. Example: from typing import Sequence, TypeVar T = TypeVar('T') # Declare type variable def first(l: Sequence[T]) -> T: # Generic function return l[0] In this case the contract is that the returned value is consistent with the elements held by the collection. A TypeVar() expression must always directly be assigned to a variable (it should not be used as part of a larger expression). The argument to TypeVar() must be a string equal to the variable name to which it is assigned. Type variables must not be redefined. TypeVar supports constraining parametric types to a fixed set of possible types (note: those types cannot be parametrized by type variables). For example, we can define a type variable that ranges over just str and bytes. By default, a type variable ranges over all possible types. Example of constraining a type variable: from typing import TypeVar, Text AnyStr = TypeVar('AnyStr', Text, bytes) def concat(x: AnyStr, y: AnyStr) -> AnyStr: return x + y The function concat can be called with either two str arguments or two bytes arguments, but not with a mix of str and bytes arguments. There should be at least two constraints, if any; specifying a single constraint is disallowed. Subtypes of types constrained by a type variable should be treated as their respective explicitly listed base types in the context of the type variable. Consider this example: class MyStr(str):... x = concat(MyStr('apple'), MyStr('pie')) The call is valid but the type variable AnyStr will be set to str and not MyStr. In effect, the inferred type of the return value assigned to x will also be str. Additionally, Any is a valid value for every type variable. Consider the following: def count_truthy(elements: List[Any]) -> int: return sum(1 for elem in elements if elem) This is equivalent to omitting the generic notation and just saying elements: List.
User-defined generic types You can include a Generic base class to define a user-defined class as generic. Example: from typing import TypeVar, Generic from logging import Logger T = TypeVar('T') class LoggedVar(Generic[T]): def __init__(self, value: T, name: str, logger: Logger) -> None: self.name = name self.logger = logger self.value = value def set(self, new: T) -> None: self.log('Set'+ repr(self.value)) self.value = new def get(self) -> T: self.log('Get'+ repr(self.value)) return self.value def log(self, message: str) -> None: self.logger.info('{}: {}'.format(self.name, message)) Generic[T] as a base class defines that the class LoggedVar takes a single type parameter T. This also makes T valid as a type within the class body. The Generic base class uses a metaclass that defines __getitem__ so that LoggedVar[t] is valid as a type: from typing import Iterable def zero_all_vars(vars: Iterable[LoggedVar[int]]) -> None: for var in vars: var.set(0) A generic type can have any number of type variables, and type variables may be constrained. This is valid: from typing import TypeVar, Generic... T = TypeVar('T') S = TypeVar('S') class Pair(Generic[T, S]):... Each type variable argument to Generic must be distinct. This is thus invalid: from typing import TypeVar, Generic... T = TypeVar('T') class Pair(Generic[T, T]): # INVALID... The Generic[T] base class is redundant in simple cases where you subclass some other generic class and specify type variables for its parameters: from typing import TypeVar, Iterator T = TypeVar('T') class MyIter(Iterator[T]):... That class definition is equivalent to: class MyIter(Iterator[T], Generic[T]):... You can use multiple inheritance with Generic : from typing import TypeVar, Generic, Sized, Iterable, Container, Tuple T = TypeVar('T') class LinkedList(Sized, Generic[T]):... K = TypeVar('K') V = TypeVar('V') class MyMapping(Iterable[Tuple[K, V]], Container[Tuple[K, V]], Generic[K, V]):... Subclassing a generic class without specifying type parameters assumes Any for each position. In the following example, MyIterable is not generic but implicitly inherits from Iterable[Any] : from typing import Iterable class MyIterable(Iterable): # Same as Iterable[Any]... Generic metaclasses are not supported.
Scoping rules for type variables Type variables follow normal name resolution rules. However, there are some special cases in the static typechecking context: A type variable used in a generic function could be inferred to represent different types in the same code block. Example: from typing import TypeVar, Generic T = TypeVar('T') def fun_1(x: T) -> T:... # T here def fun_2(x: T) -> T:... # and here could be different fun_1(1) # This is OK, T is inferred to be int fun_2('a') # This is also OK, now T is str
A type variable used in a method of a generic class that coincides with one of the variables that parameterize this class is always bound to that variable. Example: from typing import TypeVar, Generic T = TypeVar('T') class MyClass(Generic[T]): def meth_1(self, x: T) -> T:... # T here def meth_2(self, x: T) -> T:... # and here are always the same a = MyClass() # type: MyClass[int] a.meth_1(1) # OK a.meth_2('a') # This is an error!
A type variable used in a method that does not match any of the variables that parameterize the class makes this method a generic function in that variable: T = TypeVar('T') S = TypeVar('S') class Foo(Generic[T]): def method(self, x: T, y: S) -> S:... x = Foo() # type: Foo[int] y = x.method(0, "abc") # inferred type of y is str
Unbound type variables should not appear in the bodies of generic functions, or in the class bodies apart from method definitions: T = TypeVar('T') S = TypeVar('S') def a_fun(x: T) -> None: # this is OK y = [] # type: List[T] # but below is an error! y = [] # type: List[S] class Bar(Generic[T]): # this is also an error an_attr = [] # type: List[S] def do_something(x: S) -> S: # this is OK though...
A generic class definition that appears inside a generic function should not use type variables that parameterize the generic function: from typing import List def a_fun(x: T) -> None: # This is OK a_list = [] # type: List[T]... # This is however illegal class MyGeneric(Generic[T]):...
A generic class nested in another generic class cannot use same type variables. The scope of the type variables of the outer class doesn't cover the inner one: T = TypeVar('T') S = TypeVar('S') class Outer(Generic[T]): class Bad(Iterable[T]): # Error... class AlsoBad: x = None # type: List[T] # Also an error class Inner(Iterable[S]): # OK... attr = None # type: Inner[T] # Also OK
Instantiating generic classes and type erasure User-defined generic classes can be instantiated. Suppose we write a Node class inheriting from Generic[T] : from typing import TypeVar, Generic T = TypeVar('T') class Node(Generic[T]):... To create Node instances you call Node() just as for a regular class. At runtime the type (class) of the instance will be Node. But what type does it have to the type checker? The answer depends on how much information is available in the call. If the constructor ( __init__ or __new__ ) uses T in its signature, and a corresponding argument value is passed, the type of the corresponding argument(s) is substituted. Otherwise, Any is assumed. Example: from typing import TypeVar, Generic T = TypeVar('T') class Node(Generic[T]): x = None # type: T # Instance attribute (see below) def __init__(self, label: T = None) -> None:... x = Node('') # Inferred type is Node[str] y = Node(0) # Inferred type is Node[int] z = Node() # Inferred type is Node[Any] In case the inferred type uses [Any] but the intended type is more specific, you can use a type comment (see below) to force the type of the variable, e.g.: # (continued from previous example) a = Node() # type: Node[int] b = Node() # type: Node[str] Alternatively, you can instantiate a specific concrete type, e.g.: # (continued from previous example) p = Node[int]() q = Node[str]() r = Node[int]('') # Error s = Node[str](0) # Error Note that the runtime type (class) of p and q is still just Node -- Node[int] and Node[str] are distinguishable class objects, but the runtime class of the objects created by instantiating them doesn't record the distinction. This behavior is called "type erasure"; it is common practice in languages with generics (e.g. Java, TypeScript). Using generic classes (parameterized or not) to access attributes will result in type check failure. Outside the class definition body, a class attribute cannot be assigned, and can only be looked up by accessing it through a class instance that does not have an instance attribute with the same name: # (continued from previous example) Node[int].x = 1 # Error Node[int].x # Error Node.x = 1 # Error Node.x # Error type(p).x # Error p.x # Ok (evaluates to None) Node[int]().x # Ok (evaluates to None) p.x = 1 # Ok, but assigning to instance attribute Generic versions of abstract collections like Mapping or Sequence and generic versions of built-in classes -- List, Dict, Set, and FrozenSet -- cannot be instantiated. However, concrete user-defined subclasses thereof and generic versions of concrete collections can be instantiated: data = DefaultDict[int, bytes]() Note that one should not confuse static types and runtime classes. The type is still erased in this case and the above expression is just a shorthand for: data = collections.defaultdict() # type: DefaultDict[int, bytes] It is not recommended to use the subscripted class (e.g. Node[int] ) directly in an expression -- using a type alias (e.g. IntNode = Node[int] ) instead is preferred. (First, creating the subscripted class, e.g. Node[int], has a runtime cost. Second, using a type alias is more readable.)
Arbitrary generic types as base classes Generic[T] is only valid as a base class -- it's not a proper type. However, user-defined generic types such as LinkedList[T] from the above example and built-in generic types and ABCs such as List[T] and Iterable[T] are valid both as types and as base classes. For example, we can define a subclass of Dict that specializes type arguments: from typing import Dict, List, Optional class Node:... class SymbolTable(Dict[str, List[Node]]): def push(self, name: str, node: Node) -> None: self.setdefault(name, []).append(node) def pop(self, name: str) -> Node: return self[name].pop() def lookup(self, name: str) -> Optional[Node]: nodes = self.get(name) if nodes: return nodes[-1] return None SymbolTable is a subclass of dict and a subtype of Dict[str, List[Node]]. If a generic base class has a type variable as a type argument, this makes the defined class generic. For example, we can define a generic LinkedList class that is iterable and a container: from typing import TypeVar, Iterable, Container T = TypeVar('T') class LinkedList(Iterable[T], Container[T]):... Now LinkedList[int] is a valid type. Note that we can use T multiple times in the base class list, as long as we don't use the same type variable T multiple times within Generic[...]. Also consider the following example: from typing import TypeVar, Mapping T = TypeVar('T') class MyDict(Mapping[str, T]):... In this case MyDict has a single parameter, T.
Abstract generic types The metaclass used by Generic is a subclass of abc.ABCMeta. A generic class can be an ABC by including abstract methods or properties, and generic classes can also have ABCs as base classes without a metaclass conflict.
Type variables with an upper bound A type variable may specify an upper bound using bound=<type> (note: <type> itself cannot be parametrized by type variables). This means that an actual type substituted (explicitly or implicitly) for the type variable must be a subtype of the boundary type. A common example is the definition of a Comparable type that works well enough to catch the most common errors: from typing import TypeVar class Comparable(metaclass=ABCMeta): @abstractmethod def __lt__(self, other: Any) -> bool:...... # __gt__ etc. as well CT = TypeVar('CT', bound=Comparable) def min(x: CT, y: CT) -> CT: if x < y: return x else: return y min(1, 2) # ok, return type int min('x', 'y') # ok, return type str (Note that this is not ideal -- for example min('x', 1) is invalid at runtime but a type checker would simply infer the return type Comparable. Unfortunately, addressing this would require introducing a much more powerful and also much more complicated concept, F-bounded polymorphism. We may revisit this in the future.) An upper bound cannot be combined with type constraints (as in used AnyStr, see the example earlier); type constraints cause the inferred type to be _exactly_ one of the constraint types, while an upper bound just requires that the actual type is a subtype of the boundary type.
Covariance and contravariance Consider a class Employee with a subclass Manager. Now suppose we have a function with an argument annotated with List[Employee]. Should we be allowed to call this function with a variable of type List[Manager] as its argument? Many people would answer "yes, of course" without even considering the consequences. But unless we know more about the function, a type checker should reject such a call: the function might append an Employee instance to the list, which would violate the variable's type in the caller. It turns out such an argument acts contravariantly, whereas the intuitive answer (which is correct in case the function doesn't mutate its argument!) requires the argument to act covariantly. A longer introduction to these concepts can be found on Wikipedia [wiki-variance] and in PEP 483; here we just show how to control a type checker's behavior. By default generic types are considered invariant in all type variables, which means that values for variables annotated with types like List[Employee] must exactly match the type annotation -- no subclasses or superclasses of the type parameter (in this example Employee ) are allowed. To facilitate the declaration of container types where covariant or contravariant type checking is acceptable, type variables accept keyword arguments covariant=True or contravariant=True. At most one of these may be passed. Generic types defined with such variables are considered covariant or contravariant in the corresponding variable. By convention, it is recommended to use names ending in _co for type variables defined with covariant=True and names ending in _contra for that defined with contravariant=True. A typical example involves defining an immutable (or read-only) container class: from typing import TypeVar, Generic, Iterable, Iterator T_co = TypeVar('T_co', covariant=True) class ImmutableList(Generic[T_co]): def __init__(self, items: Iterable[T_co]) -> None:... def __iter__(self) -> Iterator[T_co]:...... class Employee:... class Manager(Employee):... def dump_employees(emps: ImmutableList[Employee]) -> None: for emp in emps:... mgrs = ImmutableList([Manager()]) # type: ImmutableList[Manager] dump_employees(mgrs) # OK The read-only collection classes in typing are all declared covariant in their type variable (e.g. Mapping and Sequence ). The mutable collection classes (e.g. MutableMapping and MutableSequence ) are declared invariant. The one example of a contravariant type is the Generator type, which is contravariant in the send() argument type (see below). Note: Covariance or contravariance is not a property of a type variable, but a property of a generic class defined using this variable. Variance is only applicable to generic types; generic functions do not have this property. The latter should be defined using only type variables without covariant or contravariant keyword arguments. For example, the following example is fine: from typing import TypeVar class Employee:... class Manager(Employee):... E = TypeVar('E', bound=Employee) def dump_employee(e: E) -> None:... dump_employee(Manager()) # OK while the following is prohibited: B_co = TypeVar('B_co', covariant=True) def bad_func(x: B_co) -> B_co: # Flagged as error by a type checker...
The numeric tower PEP 3141 defines Python's numeric tower, and the stdlib module numbers implements the corresponding ABCs ( Number, Complex, Real, Rational and Integral ). There are some issues with these ABCs, but the built-in concrete numeric classes complex, float and int are ubiquitous (especially the latter two :-). Rather than requiring that users write import numbers and then use numbers.Float etc., this PEP proposes a straightforward shortcut that is almost as effective: when an argument is annotated as having type float, an argument of type int is acceptable; similar, for an argument annotated as having type complex, arguments of type float or int are acceptable. This does not handle classes implementing the corresponding ABCs or the fractions.Fraction class, but we believe those use cases are exceedingly rare.
Forward references When a type hint contains names that have not been defined yet, that definition may be expressed as a string literal, to be resolved later. A situation where this occurs commonly is the definition of a container class, where the class being defined occurs in the signature of some of the methods. For example, the following code (the start of a simple binary tree implementation) does not work: class Tree: def __init__(self, left: Tree, right: Tree): self.left = left self.right = right To address this, we write: class Tree: def __init__(self, left: 'Tree', right: 'Tree'): self.left = left self.right = right The string literal should contain a valid Python expression (i.e., compile(lit, '', 'eval') should be a valid code object) and it should evaluate without errors once the module has been fully loaded. The local and global namespace in which it is evaluated should be the same namespaces in which default arguments to the same function would be evaluated. Moreover, the expression should be parseable as a valid type hint, i.e., it is constrained by the rules from the section Acceptable type hints above. It is allowable to use string literals as part of a type hint, for example: class Tree:... def leaves(self) -> List['Tree']:... A common use for forward references is when e.g. Django models are needed in the signatures. Typically, each model is in a separate file, and has methods taking arguments whose type involves other models. Because of the way circular imports work in Python, it is often not possible to import all the needed models directly: # File models/a.py from models.b import B class A(Model): def foo(self, b: B):... # File models/b.py from models.a import A class B(Model): def bar(self, a: A):... # File main.py from models.a import A from models.b import B Assuming main is imported first, this will fail with an ImportError at the line from models.a import A in models/b.py, which is being imported from models/a.py before a has defined class A. The solution is to switch to module-only imports and reference the models by their _module_._class_ name: # File models/a.py from models import b class A(Model): def foo(self, b: 'b.B'):... # File models/b.py from models import a class B(Model): def bar(self, a: 'a.A'):... # File main.py from models.a import A from models.b import B
Union types Since accepting a small, limited set of expected types for a single argument is common, there is a new special factory called Union. Example: from typing import Union def handle_employees(e: Union[Employee, Sequence[Employee]]) -> None: if isinstance(e, Employee): e = [e]... A type factored by Union[T1, T2,...] is a supertype of all types T1, T2, etc., so that a value that is a member of one of these types is acceptable for an argument annotated by Union[T1, T2,...]. One common case of union types are optional types. By default, None is an invalid value for any type, unless a default value of None has been provided in the function definition. Examples: def handle_employee(e: Union[Employee, None]) -> None:... As a shorthand for Union[T1, None] you can write Optional[T1] ; for example, the above is equivalent |
. Brookes says the word "sets his teeth on edge", citing "very much so" as another culprit. "We are put in the position of having to agree with people a lot so we search for different ways to express approval and that results in cliches," he says. Then there's the other overuse of absolutely. Things are absolutely brilliant. He's absolutely right. She's absolutely amazing. This is absolutely over.
13. Fail, v. To be or become deficient.
Citation: It amazes me how many nonprofits wait until the last weeks of the year to build a relationship with hopes of getting a donation #Fail
Commentators have been charting the overuse of the word fail for years. In 2008, Slate attributed the fail meme's momentous rise to the launch of Failblog, an assiduous chronicler of humiliation and a guide to the taxonomy of fail. In 2010, Jezebel deemed it one of the five most overused expressions on the internet. "Your inability to finish breakfast at the diner last week was not a "Pancake Fail". Your mascara getting in your hair is not a "Cosmetics Fail", it said. But the word continues to be overused, according to Global Language Monitor, which publishes an annual list of the year's top English words. It says the single word fail - "often used as a complete sentence (Fail!) to signify failure of an effort, project or endeavour" - is the second most frequently overused word in 2013. Is it time for fail to finally fail?
14. Responsible adj. Capable of fulfilling an obligation or duty; reliable, trustworthy, sensible
Citation: I consider myself to be analytical, responsible, dependable, ambitious.
When it comes to CVs and job descriptions, responsible is the most overused buzzword on profiles across the world in 2013, according to professional networking site LinkedIn. The annual study also put "strategic," "effective" and "creative" in the top 10 - but responsible was twice as popular as any other word. Critics say it's an empty word that doesn't fully describe an employee. But as the Atlantic pointed out, the word also has its supporters. "The trouble with responsible is that it (a) is an essential quality, and (b) has no obvious synonyms. Trustworthy? You sound like an exceptional pet dog. Dependable? You sound like a car service, or perhaps a lightbulb. Sensible? You sound like a moderately priced shoe. Mature? Just... no," it says.
15. Anyway, adv.conj. However the case may be; in any case; anyhow.
Citation: Anyway *wanders off mumbling to self* I'm going to clean the car.
Anyway - at the start of a sentence - is another bugbear, even for those that find themselves unconsciously using it. "I find that my most persistent'verbal tick' in writing is saying 'Anyway,' at the start of a sentence. Anyway..." tweeted @mordicai. "Sometimes I'll look at an email and realise I've started every paragraph from the second one down with 'Anyway'. I start every second sentence with'so'", admitted blogger In A New York Minute. Brookes says lots of the uses of the word anyway aren't just unnecessary, but also incorrect. "It's meaningless when 'anyway' is put in front of a sentence which promises to change direction, or suggests someone has finished talking about a subject, but then continues to do so," says Brookes. There's also "anyways".
16. Yeah-no Being affirmative while at the same time covering the opposite possibility. Particularly favoured by sportspeople during game time when it appears as though their team is going to score a point -(in unwords.com)
Citation: Yeah, no, he's terrible @aaron_brenner
The "yeah-no" phenomenon has been around for a while. And not in Little Britain's Vicky Pollard's catchphrase "Yeah but no but yeah but…" sense. As one blogger puts it, this yeah-no is: "When people mean 'yes' they sometimes say 'no, yeah' or 'yeah, no' and when they mean 'no' they say 'yeah, no' or 'no, yeah' or even 'no, yeah, no'." Confused as to whether this means yes or no, or both? You're not alone. But like it or loathe it, the expression has seeped into natural spoken English and the "linguistic atmosphere", according to Brookes. "It's similar to 'you know', 'kind of', 'like' and 'basically', as well as ers and ums in speech - they fill up space before the real stuff we want to communicate comes out," he says. However research by two Australian linguists suggests there is a hidden logic to the way yeah-no, and its less popular sibling, yes-no, is being used. One of the linguists, Prof Kate Burridge, says the phrase falls into three main categories, each determined by context. The literal agrees before adding another point, the abstract defuses a comment and the textual lets the speaker go back to an earlier point. The paper also suggests the most yeah-nos are used by people aged 35-49.
17. Legacy, n. Something handed down by an ancestor or predecessor.
Citation: It is a great legacy from the (Olympic) games and an inspiration to all - Mo Farah
The proliferation of the word legacy has a lot to do with Lord Coe, who made it central to London's 2005 bid to secure the Olympic Games, promising to leave a legacy for elite sport. Since then the word has become inextricably linked to the Olympics. In August 2012, Lord Coe's association with the word became official when David Cameron made him the UK's Olympics legacy ambassador. The government published a 10-point legacy plan. Since then, commentators have claimed London 2012's legacy is everything from sport in schools to more women taking up sport to Britain's biggest snow dome. "It's as if people have to use the word legacy when they talk about the Olympics," says Brookes. "Legacy is one of those words that people grab hold of because they think it has special meaning and power - it's become a bit of a cliche, but it's beloved by politicians and broadcasters because, to use another cliche, it has a feel-good factor and creates an upbeat message," he says.
18. Hipster, n. a person who follows the latest trends and fashions.
Citation: Hoxton hipsters
Hipster has been hogging the limelight for years. By 2007, it was already a "dirty word" for the hipster demographic and those marketing to them, according to Business News Daily. In 2010, Gawker appealed to its readers to help find an alternative. It was to be a single word describing the subculture with the same underlying whiff of insult. After narrowing the suggestions down to a shortlist of five and asking people to vote, it came up with "fauxhemian". The fact that fauxhemian hasn't caught on, and hipster is still being bandied about, suggests they might need to go back to the drawing board. Buzzfeed's The 21 Types Of Hipster You Encounter In London might provide some inspiration.
Image caption In Skyfall, James Bond's gadget guru Q has evolved into a slick computer geek
19. Geek, n. A person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a specific subject.
Citation: Memo to wannabe presidents: hire geeks, not pundits - New Scientist
Geek has been deemed the word of the year by the Collins online dictionary. The word, which was once defined as meaning "a boring and unattractive social misfit", has gradually changed. In 2003, Collins ousted the former definition, opting for "a person who is preoccupied with or very knowledgeable about computing" instead. Then, in September, the dictionary's primary meaning changed again, becoming "a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a specific subject". Geekery, geek chic and geekdom also made the cut. "Under the influence of high profile celebrities such as [physicist] Brian Cox and [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg, the term has increasingly become a badge of pride, and it has also come to be applied to enthusiasms beyond the field of computing," says Brookes. It's a question the Magazine has addressed. However, while the rise of geek slogan T-shirts in Topshop and other fashionista destinations suggests geeks have acquired a new status, others resent its rise. The word "geek" is incredibly overused, tweeted @the_GERV.
20. Iconic, adj. A person or thing regarded as representative of a culture or movement.
Citation: It's an iconic aircraft and will be a big attraction for visitors - East Midlands Aeropark manager Ken Williams
There was a time when the word icon - and thus iconic - was mainly used in a religious context. Now both words are everywhere. In June, writer and poet ME Tuthill did a cursory search of The Boston Globe archives to illustrate the word's overuse. She found "icon" was used 3,410 times between 1980 and 2000 - over 20 years - compared with 6,674 times from 2000 to 2013. Meanwhile the word "iconic" was used 161 times between 1980 and 2000, jumping to 2,976 between 2000 and 2013. Brookes says the words' overuse comes down to laziness. "Now anyone famous tends to be described as either an icon or a role model. It's a way of describing people without having to say why they are special or interesting in a particular sense," he says.
Definitions from the Oxford English, Collins, and Merriam-Webster Dictionaries
You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on FacebookBRINGING Jarryd Hayne back to the Parramatta Eels would have forced the club to pay him $500,000 for five dead-rubber games and cut two key players to fit under the salary cap.
Hayne was determined to return to the NRL immediately after his failed attempt to make Fiji’s gold medal-winning Rio Sevens team.
Parramatta Eels administrator Max Donnelly told the Parramatta Advertiser the club could not afford to bring Hayne to the club in 2016, but offered him the opportunity to return to the club in 2017.
media_camera Jarryd Hayne was a fan favourite among Eels supporters during his time at Parramatta..
Gold Coast offered a more lucrative offer and agreed to let Hayne play immediately, which is why the former San Francisco 49er is now a Titan.
“We couldn’t make the eight and it would have cost $500,000 to $600,000 to have him play out the season,” Donnelly said.
“We were happy to offer him a contract for the next three years worth $2.5 million, but the Gold Coast offered him $2.4 million over two years and the opportunity to play this year, which is something that we couldn’t do.
“The only thing that annoyed me is that he said Parramatta never made him an offer. With every discussion, a verbal agreement is reached before a contract is made.
“Jarryd didn’t help himself, and he alienated himself from a lot of Parramatta fans.”
media_camera Parramatta Eels administrator Max Donnelly. Picture: Brett Costello
Donnelly said the club would have had to cut two players to fit Hayne under the salary cap. Parramatta’s playing stocks had already been reduced during the season as the club released Junior Paulo and Nathan Peats after being found guilty of breaching the salary cap.
Donnelly said the club would still welcome Hayne back if he wanted to return to the Eels after his contract with the Titans expires at the end of the 2018 season.
“I wouldn’t give up hope of bringing him back,” Donnelly said.
“When his contract is up at the Gold Coast he will still be only 30 … but that would be the coach’s decision.”She was holding a seven-month-old baby boy in her hand. He had allergy on his face but his smile will remain in my heart forever. I was shooting for my film at one of the women cells in Gurgaon where I met her. I asked her what happened. "Ma'am I have been coming here since last eight months, but they have done nothing for me. My husband doesn't want to take care of my two kids and me. He used to beat me up every day. One day he smashed my head on the wall. I was bleeding. I ran away and came back to my mother's place. We are very poor. I don't have money to feed my kids or myself. I am at the mercy of my parents," she said, tears rolling down her eyes. Have you filed any case? I asked her. "Yes. Police took my FIR. He was arrested and put behind bars. But then he got bail after some time and has stopped communicating after that. There's a case for maintenance in the court too, but nothing is happening," she said.
Shweta (name changed) is a young mother, uneducated and unemployed. She is from a family of pot makers who earn a bare minimum and stay in Jhuggis (make shift home). She has three younger sisters who are yet to get married. Shweta’s parents did whatever the police advised them to do. While I spoke to her, I realised that the women officials at the women cell were least interested in hearing her plight. I asked her to go to the National Commission for Women, and she asked me "What is that?"
Shweta isn't alone. Many women like her have all the laws made for them, many institutions running for them, but get little relief either by the state or the laws. While these women get quoted as a number under various research studies, they don't get the benefit of the laws made for them.
Aditya (name changed) has been doing the rounds of the police station for the last six months. He and his wife had a love marriage, and everything was beautiful until his wife's parents started overly interfering in their life. He felt like a puppet, being manipulated, emotionally blackmailed and abused too for not being the way they wanted him to be. He tolerated all of it for a long time - his own relationship with his parents suffered, he became depressed, felt suicidal, couldn't concentrate on his job and felt helpless. He finally decided that he wouldn't take it anymore and sought separation. His wife and her family gifted him with Dowry, Domestic Violence, Unnatural Sex, Criminal Breach of trust and many more cases immediately thereafter. In a marriage where he went all out to keep his wife happy, he was accused of committing crimes that he couldn't even think of, let alone doing. He has been presented with two options - pay a hefty amount and settle the cases or face the music for as long as he doesn't pay. No one wants to hear his side of the story, and he has been labelled a criminal though he was the one abused in the marriage.
Shweta and Aditya are two sides of the same coin when it comes to laws made for married women to protect them from marital abuse in India. While women like Shweta run helter-skelter for relief, men like Aditya run to prove their innocence. Both are sufferers, and if we want to bring any new law under these circumstances, it would be highly unfair if we look only at Shweta and not Aditya. Even if we look only at Shweta we need to introspect ground realities for Shweta rather than just saying "we need a law" because, if criminal prosecution of the husband were the only answer, Shweta would have got a response a long time ago!
That some women are coerced into sex against their will and consent inside of marriage in India and also subjected to violence for it is an undeniable fact. When a very high percentage of marriages in India are arranged, we are of course talking about sexual intimacy between two people who hardly know each other. We are also talking about two people who have been brought together by society to fulfil each other's desires, necessities and needs. Sex is a basic human need for both men and women and to deny that without reasonable grounds has been made a ground for divorce under Indian Laws governing marriage.
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Sexual Violence or any kind of violence on a woman in a domestic relationship has been made an offence under the Domestic Violence Act. Cruelty of any nature, whether mental or physical that can cause danger to life, limb or health of a married woman is a crime under section 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), punishable with rigorous imprisonment for three years and also a fine. Not only the husband but his entire family can also be made an accused in these cases. A woman separated from her husband can prosecute him for rape if he forces himself upon her under existing rape laws. So it is wrong to say that women in India have no protection from sexual abuse within marriage, as claimed by those who are spearheading a campaign for bringing a law for marital rape in India.
While passing a law for marital rape would mean nothing more than removing an exception from existing rape laws, that do not allow a husband to be prosecuted for the offence if the wife is above 18 years of age (Supreme Court of India has recently criminalised sex with wife below 18 years of age), its implementation on ground is a complicated reality only feminists can ignore. I say that because of the nature of the cases coming to our courts today where the wife cites any action done or not done by the husband as cruelty with the husband having to face criminal charges for years along with his family. Most of these cases are filed on the basis of the testimony of the wife and her parents alone, without any evidence substantiating the physical or mental abuse alleged, whatsoever. There is very little reprieve available if the husband is falsely accused. It is easy to say that the misuse of law is no ground to not have a law but bringing a law that will have no checks and balances against its misuse will be disastrous. Under amended rape laws, a woman needs no evidence to initiate a case against a man. Her testimony is evidence in itself, and it solely can lead to conviction. It is the man who has to prove that sex happened with consent. Barring cases where there is extreme violence along with sexual assault, if the law is passed, how would courts decide if there was consent between husband and wife or not - her words vs his words?
Take this into account – as per the National Crime Records Bureau, of the 33,000 rape cases reported in 2015, over 7700 were rape cases filed on husbands or live-in partners. Recently there have been cases where women have filed “rape on false promise of marriage” cases on men after 15 or 20 or even 32 years. In such cases, consent becomes a factor of an alleged promise whether made or not. Whatever be the truth of the matter, the man is arrested immediately under rape charges and languishes in jail for months or years without bail. Within few years of rape laws getting amended through the criminal law amendment bill in 2013, petitions have been filed in various courts against the misuse of rape laws. Madhu Kishwar, a renowned social activist has filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi High Court regarding the same, questioning the constitutional validity of the amendments which have made the law draconian and easy to abuse.
A twenty-year-old girl has petitioned the Mumbai High Court, asking for guidelines to ensure that people are not booked under false charges of rape after a love affair turns sour. Even the police in many states have acknowledged the presence of professional gangs who are using rape laws to extort money after threatening and intimidating people with false rape cases.
Even before marital rape is recognised, instances of the misuse of rape laws in matrimonial disputes are coming to the fore. In June 2016, Deputy Inspector General of Police of Meerut Laxmi Singh, issued a circular to the police, cautioning them before adding IPC 376 (rape) or IPC 377 (Unnatural Sex) to cases registered under 498A because such cases were increasing day by day after guidelines were issued by the Supreme Court prohibiting mechanical arrests under 498A.California gasoline prices to surge after Chevron refinery fire
Analysts say prices could rise at least 35 cents a gallon, raising fresh concerns about the toll on consumers.
Chevron officials said they were still evaluating damage at the 110-year-old plant, which processes 243,000 barrels of oil a day into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, accounting for about 15% of the state's fuel-making capacity.
The Chevron refinery fire, which began Monday afternoon, sent up a column of odorous black smoke that could be seen for miles. Nearby residents were told to seek shelter indoors. By Tuesday evening, more than 900 people had shown up at area emergency rooms complaining about respiratory and other problems.
A long-term shutdown could be extremely expensive for drivers, he said. He pointed to a February blaze at a BP refinery in Washington state that left the plant out of commission until May and caused Pacific Northwest gasoline prices to increase about 70 cents to $4.40 a gallon.
"It could get very ugly, very fast," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for the price-watch websites run by GasBuddy.com.
RICHMOND, Calif. — California gasoline prices could surge at least 35 cents a gallon this week as fire damage is assessed at the huge Chevron Corp. refinery here, raising fresh concerns about the toll on consumers coping with a tepid economic recovery.
Smoke and flame billow from a crude oil unit at the Chevron refinery in Richmond,… (D. Ross Cameron, Contra…)
The refinery is one of 14 in California capable of making the state's special blend of gasoline, which is the least polluting sold in the U.S. It's also more expensive to make and is produced by few refineries outside the state.
Wholesale fuel traders reacted immediately by driving up spot prices more than 30 cents a gallon. Most gasoline stations don't pay the spot price, instead getting their fuel under long-term contracts, but the spot price is a strong indicator of where retail prices are headed.
Economists and consumer advocates said the Chevron fire could be a big blow to California consumers who had already begun to rein in their spending.
William Yu, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast, said a prolonged shutdown could knock half a percentage point off the roughly 2% growth rate in the state's economy.
"Consumers will have to bear the burden of higher fuel costs," Yu said. "They will have to cut back on other kinds of consumption to maintain their budgets."
Charles Langley, gasoline project manager for the Utility Consumers Action Network in San Diego, feared that the fire would have "a horrific impact on the households who are struggling and just can't afford another $20 to $30 to $40 a month out of their budgets."
"In this economy, it's the kind of thing that could be a back breaker to poorer households," he said.
Small-business operators are preparing for the fallout.
Roberto Rubio, the 70-year-old owner of Rubio Machinery in Baldwin Park, was already factoring in the possibility that driving his 2011 GMC pickup truck could cost an additional $60 to $65 a month, an expense he could do without.
"It's too much. This kind of thing cannot help the economy," said Rubio, whose business repairing food-service machinery for restaurants still hasn't fully recovered from the recession.
Moreover, he said, he can't pass on higher prices to his customers. "If I raise my prices," Rubio said, "my customers will just look for another repairman."
The fire couldn't have happened at a worse time for the state's motorists, with supplies starting to tighten with a month left in the busy summer driving season, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service.Android-maker’s first own-brand tablet is a sleek, powerful, aluminium-clad slate with only a few shortcomings, but could it really be a workhorse?
The Pixel C is Google’s first own-brand tablet, designed and made via China by Google and is the best Android tablet available at the moment.
The Pixel C joins the Chromebook Pixel - the first piece of hardware designed solely by Google - but instead of running Chrome OS the Pixel C runs the latest version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, making it the first tablet to do so.
The Pixel line is different to the various Nexus devices which are made in partnership with third-party manufacturers such as HTC, LG or Huawei. There, the manufacturer designs and builds the device, while Google sets some of the requirements and provides the software.
Monolithic aluminium
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The aluminium shell is smooth, matt and monolithic in look, with a small hint of colour from the light strip at the top. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
Google uses the Pixel brand to denote its own-brand machines. They all have a couple of things in common: a plain grey aluminium body, black frame around the glass touchscreen and a colour light strip in the rear of the lid that indicates when the device is on and the battery level. The Pixel C is the best made Android tablet to date. It feels solid and reassuring, with the same quality build of the Chromebook Pixel.
It isn’t the most ergonomic of tablets to hold with relatively hard edges, but it doesn’t feel chunky despite being 7mm thick and weighing 517g. It is both thicker and heavier than rivals such as Apple’s 6.1mm, 437g iPad Air 2 and Sony’s 6.1mm, 389g Xperia Z4 Tablet, but it wasn’t too heavy to hold and I didn’t notice it in a bag.
The 10.2in quad HD screen is one of the best I have seen on a tablet with a pixel density of 308 pixels per inch, which is visibly sharper than Apple’s iPad Air 2 with 264ppi, but very similar to Sony’s 299ppi Z4 Tablet. It also one of the brightest, which makes viewing it outdoors easier.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Pixel C has a screen with a 1:√2, the same ratio as A4 and other common international paper sizes. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
The Pixel C has an unusual screen ratio. Most tablets use 16:10 or 4:3 like Apple’s iPad, but the C has a ratio of 1:√2, which is the same as that used by the ISO 216 standard for paper such as the common A4 and A3 sizes. It is a nice halfway-house between widescreen video (16:9) and the more workable squarer screens (4:3), something I think other tablets should adopt, particularly if they are to be used with keyboards.
Stereo speakers are mounted either side of the screen and are decent for a tablet, but not quite as loud or direct as those mounted in the front of the tablet of rivals.
Specifications
Screen: 10.2in 2K (2560x1800) LCD (308ppi)
10.2in 2K (2560x1800) LCD (308ppi) Processor: quad-core NVIDIA Tegra X1 1.9GHz
quad-core NVIDIA Tegra X1 1.9GHz RAM: 3GB
3GB Storage: 32 or 64GB
32 or 64GB Operating system: Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow Camera: 8MP rear, 2MP front-facing
8MP rear, 2MP front-facing Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB type-C
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB type-C Dimensions: 242 x 179 x 7mm
242 x 179 x 7mm Weight: 517g
Lasts a full day of work
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Pixel C has a USB type-C port for rapid charging and adding accessories or connecting to a computer. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
The Pixel C has Nvidia’s Tegra X1 1.9GHz quad-core processor, which is meant to be one of the most powerful available at the moment, and has 3GB of RAM with a choice of 32 or 64GB of storage space.
The Pixel C performed well with no noticeable lag, handling everything I tried to do with it without breaking a sweat. It powered through graphically intensive games, videos, photo editing and large spreadsheets. Browsing was particularly responsive.
The tablet lasted a full work day as a primary machine with enough power to read some comics on the hour-long commute home. If used as a typical tablet it will likely last days, if not a whole week, between charges.
Android 6 Marshmallow’s Doze feature, which puts the tablet into a lower power state when it is not being used and is not moving, means that standby time is excellent, matching Apple’s iPad. You can be assured that if you pick it up having left it on the coffee table for a week it will still have some charge, which cannot be said for most other Android tablets.
There’s no cellular option for 4G networking or room for expanding the storage, which means you’re stuck with what you buy.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google’s Now on Tap is one of the new features available in Android Marshmallow, which scans the screen of the tablet and performs automatic information searches based on what is displayed. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
The Pixel C is the first tablet to ship with the latest version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which behaves essentially the same as it does on the Google Nexus 6P or 5X smartphones.
Google has made only a few small modifications to suit a tablet, the most obvious being the positioning of the back, home and recently used apps buttons, which are no longer placed centrally at the bottom of the screen.
The back and home buttons are placed in the left-hand corner, the recently used apps button in the right-hand corner. It makes using the buttons a lot easier when holding the tablet in two hands either side of the screen. There’s also a good collection of keyboard shortcuts available for common actions, such as copy and paste, when connected to an external keyboard, plus the notification shade now slides down from wherever it was activated from.
Marshmallow is fast, attractive and responsive on the Pixel C and while it lacks a few of the tailored features for the larger, tablet-sized screen that some others have, the way Android apps are designed means most apps scale relatively easily.
Productivity
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The high resolution 10.2in screen with 1:√2 ratio makes word processing and other typical office duties relatively easy on the Pixel C, particularly with a keyboard attached. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
The main place Android tablets lag behind iOS and Windows is within productivity features. Most Android tablets are about consuming media, not producing work – with Sony’s Xperia Z4 Tablet the odd exception.
That means no native split-screen support (something Windows 8 launched with in 2012), not many desktop-class apps for producing audio, video or editing photos and few productivity apps tailored for a larger screen.
Most people will be able to get about 95% of their work done using the Pixel C, particularly if they buy the optional keyboard. There are decent apps available for word processing for instance, including Google Docs and Microsoft’s Word. Chrome on the Pixel C also behaves very similarly to its desktop counterpart, handling most things that you can do in a browser on a computer bar mouse interactions such as drag and drop.
I wrote this and quite a few other articles, including formatting and additional background work required, on the Pixel C without issue. It wasn’t always as fast or as easy as using a laptop, but it was all possible.
Keyboard
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Pixel C’s optional keyboard is one of the best tablet keyboard accessories currently available. It securely attaches to the keyboard with magnets that are strong enough to hold the tablet to the keyboard even when shaken. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
The Pixel C’s optional £119 magnetic keyboard is one of the best keyboard accessories I’ve had the pleasure to use. It’s a full keyboard layout, with decent sized keys and excellent travel. It’s reminiscent of a MacBook Air’s keyboard, which is one of the best.
It holds the tablet in place with strong magnets and at lets you pitch it at anywhere between 90 degrees and flat without falling over. It’s excellent and doesn’t need a kickstand to stay up. It connects to the Pixel C via Bluetooth, automatically switching on when the tablet is attached to the kickstand.
It charges via induction when connected to the tablet covering the screen like a case, meaning you don’t have to worry about plugging it in. It attaches to the back of the tablet when not in use.
I did suffer occasional hiccups in connectivity when using it near a few other Bluetooth devices. A Bluetooth mouse, for instance, caused havoc when placed right next to it, but a phone, headphones, a smartwatch and fitness tracker that all connect via Bluetooth had no effect on it.
The biggest issue with the keyboard is that it isn’t included in the price of the tablet.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The keyboard charges from the tablet when closed over the screen, held in place by magnets. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
Camera
The rear 8-megapixel camera is decent for basic shots, but isn’t anything to write home about and isn’t up to scratch with the cameras on top-end smartphones. The same can be said for the front-facing 2-megapixel camera, which will handle video calling without issue, but won’t create the most flattering selfies.
Price
The Google Pixel C costs £399 with 32GB of storage or £479 with 64GB of storage. The optional Pixel C’s hard magnetic keyboard costs £119. A folding folio keyboard costing £119 is also available.
For comparison, the Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet costs £500, but comes with a keyboard and 4G networking. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7in costs £399 and Apple’s iPad Air 2 from 2014 costs £399 without a keyboard.
Verdict
The Pixel C is the best Android tablet available at the moment. It’s not the lightest, thinnest or cheapest, and doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner, but it has a beautiful screen, is powerful, lasts a long time between charges and has the latest version of Android, which cannot be overlooked.
Google is pitching it as a productivity machine with an optional keyboard, which is excellent and capable of doing “real” work. It is slightly more capable than a Chromebook, and has similar pitfalls. For 95% of people for 95% of the time it will do everything you need, but for the rest of the time you’ll need another machine.
That may change in the future thanks to the USB-C port and third-party apps, which have the capability to do almost everything, but the number of tablet-tailored apps for Android is still very small. Most apps designed for a phone work well, but take advantage of the extra screen real estate.
The Pixel C is a viable alternative to an iPad direct from Google and sets a new bar for Android tablets.
Pros: Android 6.0 Marshmallow, long battery life, excellent, bright screen with 1:√2 ratio, solid build, USB-C, battery check with a tap on the back, great optional keyboard Cons: lack of tablet-optimised apps, not the thinnest or lightest, no split-screen multitasking, no 4G or expandable storage, average cameras, no fingerprint scanner
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Four microphone holes line the top of the 7mm thick tablet. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian
Other reviewsImage copyright Reddit Image caption The decision to ban some Reddit forums was criticised by many users
Social news site Reddit has shut down five of its forums because they were being used to "harass individuals".
The closures follow an announcement in May, when Reddit said it would be enforcing its anti-harassment policy more vigorously.
More closures of other chat forums, or sub-reddits, would follow if they too were abused in the same way, it said.
The action has been widely criticised, with some saying it marks a significant policy shift for the site.
Many Reddit members responded by flooding the site with images related to the banned forums or directing abusive comments to the site's administrators.
Banning behaviour
The closures were announced in a post placed on Reddit, saying the sub-reddits had been banned because they had broken community rules on harassment and the forum's volunteer moderators had not taken action to stop the behaviour.
The sub-reddits directed abuse towards overweight, black and trans people as well as gamers.
The post said Reddit's operators wanted as "little involvement as possible" in overseeing what people said to each other on the site.
However, they said they would intervene when privacy and free expression were threatened or if people suffered abuse.
In a separate explanation, Reddit added that the sub-reddits had not been banned because of the opinions expressed within them.
Instead, it said, those forums had been used to recruit gangs of people who had then subjected someone to sustained harassment.
And this "brigading" had affected the lives of people being picked on, who "worry for their safety every day, because people from a certain community on Reddit have decided to actually threaten them, online and off, every day".
"We're banning behaviour, not ideas," it said.
Other forums that people found distasteful or annoying would not suffer bans unless they too prompted offline action against people, Reddit said.
It encouraged Reddit users to report sub-reddits engaged in sustained abuse.
The announcement and bans sparked a huge debate on the site, with the main discussion thread garnering almost 25,000 comments.
Reddit members who commented said the ban was "horrible", "not well thought out" and a "bad business decision".
Others argued that it was better to keep a "bigoted community" in a separate sub-reddit because shutting that down would mean the abuse would then spill over into other forums.
Commentators pointed out that similar decisions to ban discussions by social news site Digg had started an exodus from that site and ultimately led to its demise.At Al Smith Dinner, Donald Trump Turns Friendly Roast Into 3-Alarm Fire
Enlarge this image toggle caption Evan Vucci/AP Evan Vucci/AP
It was tense even before they started. Reporters tweeted that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump entered the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner from separate sides of the room, and didn't even shake hands (which at this point really isn't a surprise).
But there was hope that Thursday night's event could serve as a comedic salve for the nation following three decidedly nasty presidential debates. The fundraising event for Catholic charities — now in its 71st year — traditionally is a time for the candidates to offer jokes about themselves and their opponent.
Trump |
Dickerson hit his first home run of the spring, but on March 1, manager Buck Showalter wanted to talk about a throw he made from right field.
"That's a big throw, and he's also playing fearlessly," Showalter said. "… The line drive that he caught in front of him yesterday. How many guys in spring training will attempt that ball? He's trying to make the club, and he's wanting to show those things, and he's playing with his hair on fire."
For Dickerson, defense isn't something he focuses on.
"It's not No. 1. We know that's what I can do," Dickerson said. "When I can start to swing the bat efficiently and make a statement with the bat, then that's kind of eye-opening. Coming in, especially last year, I got called back because I can play defense. That's no surprise. But I think the big emphasis is to really to come in and to open some eyes with the bat because defense will take care of itself."
After undergoing left shoulder surgery in June 2015, Dickerson was out of baseball until Orioles center fielder Adam Jones brought him to Dodger Stadium in July of last year for batting practice. He was signed by the Orioles in August and played 15 games for Double-A Bowie.
"I was kind of asking, 'What's he doing in street clothes?' Chris is an impressive athlete; this guy is 6-[foot]-3, 230 pounds with a body fat of six. He's got five tools," Showalter said. "He had some injuries he was fighting his way through and just never got to the point where somebody was willing to rehab him and do all the stuff to get him to this point. So, he was a guy that we really targeted last year.
"Just felt like he's one of those guys that slips through the cracks a lot of time. He was a big contributor for us a couple of years ago. He stays in great shape. The conversation went deeper than that. I told him to get ready to go and we'll see you in the spring. In fact, we tried to push the envelope on it a little bit last spring. He's a piece. He's a piece. He can defend at three positions. He's made three or four plays down here not many people make already. He's a plus runner. He's not afraid to go. He still runs well. He's another depth guy for us, and sometimes those guys work into more of the picture than that."
In 2015, Dickerson played in 38 games for Toronto's Triple-A team in Buffalo before undergoing surgery and then playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic.
"I knew my situation," Dickerson said. "I knew, especially after [2015] and being done early and missing the majority of the season, that I had to come back and still prove that I was healthy and prove I could offer a lot to some teams. So I went to the Dominican, and I rushed it. It's one of those things when you come back, and the first game I made 12 throws from the outfield and that was it. I didn't throw for the rest of the time I was there, and I probably set myself back a couple months. That was my main focus, was to get healthy and get that bat going."
Dickerson re-signed with the Orioles in December because he realized he wasn't ready to stop playing. Last week, officials from the Baseball Assistance Team visited the Orioles and talked about the plight of retired players who have fallen on hard times.
"It's serious. I think it's ironic that when BAT came in here, and they talked about when the game is done, yeah, it's real," Dickerson said. "And you don't have to necessarily be broke, but when you're out of the game and you're done it's like, you have to have some real … there are some serious moments when you kind of look at yourself like, A. How did I get here? And B. What do I have to do to get back? But why did I last this long? So it's about managing the positives with the negatives. But I think, depending on how you look at it, I think there is some light in the darkness.
"I just remember when I sat down at MLB Network behind the desk for the first time, I'm watching these games and I'm thinking, 'This isn't me. Not yet. I'm 33, 34. This isn't me. This is a dream of mine to broadcast and be behind the desk, but this isn't me right now.' And I'm just looking at all these games and I'm like, 'I can still do this, and I can do this well.' But getting back and just working my [butt] off to get my shoulder back and even that, when I got back to Baltimore, the doctor even said, he was looking at the X-rays like, 'You shouldn't be able to throw again.' So it's kind of motivation, not so much to come out here and prove naysayers wrong, but to prove myself right, that I can still come out and play at a high level and be an impact player."
NOTES: Right-hander Chris Tillman threw off flat ground, and that session went well, Showalter said. … Infielder Ryan Flaherty will be out a few more days with a sore right shoulder.Rumu felt very low-key at first. It's a game about being a sentient vacuum cleaner, a robot whose job is to trundle across floors dealing with little household accidents. But as the household AI Sabrina fills you in on more and more of the details beyond your tiny world, as you start to learn about your absent owners David and Cecily, a sense of guilt and dread builds up. Something's wrong here, and it's not the toast on the floor.
Rumu might not have been on your radar, but it’s definitely worth checking out. This is the first feature-length title developed by Sydney studio Robot House, one that caught our eye at PAX Australia this year. I checked in with gamerunner Ally McLean and game director Dane Maddams to ask them about the launch and their future plans.
PC Gamer: How's it feel for both of you now that Rumu has finally released?
Ally McLean: It's been a real rollercoaster for us. Rumu has been such a passion project for everyone on the team—from the executive level down to the contractors who worked on some of the 2D art. It's been such a labor of love and so we weren’t quite sure what to expect when we released it. We knew we had a lot of support. We knew a lot of people responded really well to it when we announced it. But I don't think we were prepared for just the outpouring of emotion that people had for it. Watching people stream it on launch day and seeing people cry...
Dane Maddams: Yeah, a lot of people cried. Ugly cried too. It was something that we knew because we kinda did when we played it, but we didn't expect the level of emotion in the response. It’s our baby and we're so closely tied to it so that’s expected for us, but when it happened like that it was all the more special.
What were the main goals you wanted to achieve with Rumu?
DM: Structurally, we initially discussed the idea from the outset of it being influenced by a lot of the games that we’ve played that we were passionate about—from the point-and-click adventures of the early days, all the way through to recent indie successes that are very narrative-driven.
AM: Kind of like Gone Home and Firewatch.
A big part of the design thought for us was believing your audience is smart, believing that players are smart and that they’ll figure things out. Ally McLean
DM: We started to realize that Rumu set out its own destiny in front of us as a story-driven, narrative game. Initially, we knew how we wanted to tell the story but we didn't know how to best experiment with a lot of different structural mechanisms like puzzles or push-and-pull mechanics. At a certain point through finalizing the story, it told us what it wanted to be.
AM: That's a huge testament as well to Dan McMahon. His script was really so beautiful and he really crafted the characters in collaboration with the whole team. He came in house and worked with us all one-on-one to create something that gelled really cohesively with the way we wanted to tell the story.
Did it change much from the original vision? Did feedback from PAX Aus or other events shape how the game ended up looking?
AM: Not so much with the story. The vision of the story was quite clear by the time we announced it and showed it at PAX. But we definitely really benefited from playtest sessions and PAX was incredibly valuable for us. Being able to see an audience of people drawn to indie sections and are really passionate about the same things as us come and play the game and go in blind, we learned a lot about the way people approach the game. We learned where they might need a little more or a little less prompting.
A big part of the design thought for us was believing your audience is smart, believing that players are smart and that they’ll figure things out. You don’t need to specifically tell them what’s going on. Shows like PAX were really encouraging for that. We found a lot of people were figuring out the gameplay things out themselves but also came away from it with their own theories and guessing what the story could be.
DM: One thing I think Ally and Adam [Matthews, design lead] did an incredible job of presenting at PAX as well was having thoughtful and considerate conversations with people that played the game and finding what boxes are ticked, how it spoke to them and where they encountered issues. A lot of that initial playtesting and responses has been directly implemented into the game.
Were you wanting to make a branching storyline with varied opportunities for players or was it more about maintaining momentum?
AM: When we first pitched Rumu, it had a huge, sprawling, branching narrative. I think—as all indie pitches are when they first pitch something—we were overly ambitious. But when we brought Dan on, he really convinced us that the most important thing was to tell the best version of the story. That’s really what I think we’ve strived to do in the choices that you make in the game as it is.
Rumu was really the spirit of what Robot House wants to create, distilled right down. This is something that looks different, plays different, it surprises people and it has a lot of heart. Ally McLean
It all reveals the same narrative to you but it can be revealed in many different ways and through many different lenses depending on your playstyle. If you’re more suspicious and inquisitive, then you might inspect every item. You might get more insight early on to David and Cecily’s relationship. You might trigger some responses from Sabrina that you usually might not get until later in the game. Ultimately, it’s the same narrative, but it will be revealed to you in different ways.
DM: We did a lot of playthroughs and one of the things that we focused on was having individual playstyles and potentially different areas of exploration that you may not follow if you answer a certain thing in a certain way. The decision was made that we’d follow one storyline and branches of it, within reason, but do it really well versus spreading ourselves across many different narratives and not be able to focus and give it the love and attention that each of them deserve.
Now that Rumu has released, is the studio likely to work on additional content updates and tweaks for support post-release or do you feel it is out in its entirety now?
AM: One of the things we’ve been really blown away by is the sense of community around the game. It’s just a positive, supportive community. We want to be here to support those players in the best way that we can. The reality is that we are a small team and what we get to do in the future really depends on how well the game is received right now. In an ideal world, we would love to be able to create more content or something new within the same realm. But it does depend on the reality of how the game performs, and it is performing well.
As far as Robot House goes, has working on Rumu influenced what the studio wants to work on? What direction do you think you’re heading in the coming months and years?
AM: Not that I can speak on behalf of everyone that works at the studio, but I think Rumu was really the spirit of what Robot House wants to create, distilled right down. This is something that looks different, plays different, it surprises people and it has a lot of heart. I think that is the trajectory we want to stay on.
Rumu is available now on Steam.A life-long automotive enthusiast, Sterling Shriber remains committed to covering the automotive industry, with a particular interest in topics relating to high performance and racing.
Sometimes it’s fun to ruminate on what might have been, and this is certainly one of those times. For a while, we’d been speculating that the folks in Stuttgart were going to give us a model that would slot right below the Boxster. However, we now have confirmation that such a model has now been officially cancelled.
The head of Porsche North America opined on the decision,
“You won’t see anything lower than the current Boxster model. We had many discussions about this in the group, and the decision was made that the time is not right.”
Had it reached production, the Porsche 718 would have been a mid engine car incorporating one of Porsche’s new flat four engines. This would have included a base option with the 2.0 liter turbocharged flat four, upgradable to the 2.5 liter turbocharged flat four, producing 285 or 360 horsepower respectively.
The name 718 hearkens back to the lightweight roadster of the late 50s and early 60s.
The same Porsche executive quoted earlier said that the a sub-Boxster was not necessary, because Porsche was not in the business of offering models usually considered to be entry level, further opining,
“We’re not talking about entry models at Porsche… Our entry model is our pre-owned program.”With the authorisation of an unnecessary postal vote on marriage equality, the public debate has predictably turned into a circus. So it should perhaps come as no surprise that the intellectual equivalent of custard pies are being thrown. False claims by the no campaign that marriage equality would somehow constitute an attack on freedom of speech and set in motion a chain of events culminating in young boys having to wear dresses in schools are as imaginative as they are inaccurate.
The question would perhaps better be phrased as follows: does Australia wish to stop senselessly discriminating against a minority group, or not? Despite the prime minister declaring that he has more important things to focus on than this issue, a yes vote is vitally important for the sake of equal rights as well as the message of acceptance it would send to LGBT people in Australia.
We won't be giving equal time to spurious arguments against marriage equality | Lenore Taylor Read more
Australia, like every other country in the world, has a long tradition of discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, the mental health effects of which are striking. Gay men and women have higher rates of a range of mental health problems including depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse problems and suicidal thoughts and behaviour. These rates apply to young LGBT people too – who are more than three times as likely to have attempted suicide than their heterosexual peers.
These higher rates of psychological distress and mental illness have been well explained by “minority stress” theory. Initially described in relation to the gay community, it could reasonably be applied to any minority group facing discrimination. The theory proposes that LGBT individuals are a disadvantaged minority group and face three additional types of stress not experienced by the majority: the objective experience of homophobic abuse, both physical and verbal; “perceived stigma” or the expectation of discrimination, which leaves people in a state of high alert and slowly chips away at their psychological defences; and the internalisation of negative attitudes or “internalised homophobia”, referring to LGBT people absorbing the negative attitudes around them which tragically fosters a misguided self-perception of inferiority.
Subsequent research has bolstered support for the minority stress theory, linking the three ingredients of this toxic cocktail to high levels of distress and suicidal thoughts and behaviour. So it is clear as day that stigma and prejudice are compromising the mental health of LGBT Australians.
Conservative Christians’ anti-marriage equality lines ‘betray gospel of grace’, says reverend Read more
It is fair to then ask whether or not marriage equality is the antidote to this problem, since it would not necessarily eradicate stigma and prejudice against LGBT people. We can, in fact, confidently say it would have a positive effect on their mental health – an American study found a significant reduction in mental health care visits and costs for gay men in the year after legalisation of same-sex marriage when compared with the 12 months prior. This was true for single men as well as those in a relationship, suggesting it may be the principle of acceptance rather than the actual ability to marry that makes a difference.
Conversely, another study found that US states banning same-sex marriage saw a rise in the number of various psychiatric conditions, with nearly 3.5 times the prevalence of generalised anxiety disorder. So the connection between marriage equality and better mental health in the LGBT community is also clear.
As well as being an equal rights issue, this is a public health issue, as matters of equality often are. One of the primary functions of any nation is to protect and enhance the wellbeing of its citizens. Since the institution of marriage is seen by many as a recognition by the state of the love and commitment between two people, excluding LGBT individuals from such an important rite of passage is discriminatory and perhaps even abusive. The clear evidence of the mental health ill-effects of discrimination against LGBT people should firmly banish outdated policies to the past where they belong.
Why Brexit and Trump make me nervous about the marriage equality vote | Brigid Delaney's diary Read more
Governments are not the only institution guilty of stigmatising LGBT people, of course – my own profession of psychiatry also has a shameful history of systematic discrimination against them, with homosexuality classed as a psychiatric disorder until as late as 1973. Psychiatry was criminally slow in realising the distress associated with being gay was caused by societal attitudes. Now that we have this understanding it would be criminal to disregard it and to continue exposing LGBT people to damaging prejudice when marriage equality provides a clear path to changing attitudes and improving LGBT mental health.
Kamran Ahmed is a psychiatrist and film-maker, writing on mental health, culture, politics and healthcarePostseason required for Astros if McCullers or Keuchel to return in 2016
OAKLAND --- At this late juncture in the season, with the Astros guaranteed only more 12 games after Monday, the rotation they’ve used recently is the one with which they will finish the regular season.
A 2016 return of either Lance McCullers or Dallas Keuchel will require a postseason berth, the possibility of which remains remote for the Astros. And even then, it’s not a guarantee either of their top two starters would be available.
“At this point, neither could build up quickly enough to start in the regular season,” general manager Jeff Luhnow said on Monday.
“Whether or not either could be available to start in the postseason remains to be seen, (depending on) how deep we go and what kind of progress they’re making.”
McCullers is closer than Keuchel, who is still only two weeks removed from being shut down because of left shoulder inflammation, a period of rest that doctors recommended to last four to six weeks, according to Keuchel.
McCullers, on the other hand, is seven weeks removed from when he exited his last start with an elbow sprain. After weeks of playing catch, the 22-year-old righthander is scheduled to get off a mound for the first time in his rehabilitation “in the next few days,” according to Luhnow
Houston Astros starting pitcher Lance McCullers (43) pitches in the first inning of an MLB baseball game at Minute Maid Park, Saturday, July 9, 2016, in Houston. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle ) Houston Astros starting pitcher Lance McCullers (43) pitches in the first inning of an MLB baseball game at Minute Maid Park, Saturday, July 9, 2016, in Houston. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle ) Photo: Karen Warren, Staff Photo: Karen Warren, Staff Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Postseason required for Astros if McCullers or Keuchel to return in 2016 1 / 12 Back to Gallery
“That will be the next big milestone for him,” the GM said.
McCullers would need to pitch off the mound a few times before facing hitters – either in a simulated game or live batting practice – so it’s still premature to even speculate a timetable for a potential return.
Ditto for Keuchel, who is with the Astros on their road trip but has still yet to play catch. Although he said Friday he expected to play catch in Oakland if the Astros won their series in Seattle – they took two of three – it’s unclear when he will do so.
As for third baseman Alex Bregman, also likely out for the remainder of the regular season because of a hamstring strain, Luhnow said, “He’s working hard but those types of injuries take a while to resolve themselves."
“Every day we’re seeing a little bit of progress and he certainly is champing at the bit wanting to be here and wanting to help these guys out,” Luhnow said. “But (the) timeline is still not clear.”
The Astros came into the weekend probably needing to win 11 of their last 13 games to have even a chance at the second wild card.
“I don’t think anybody can complain if you’re in the second half of September and every game means something,” Luhnow said. “That’s what we play for. For us, this is the playoffs. There’s no guarantees beyond the end of the season. So we have to treat every game from now until the end like it’s the most important game we’re going to play the rest of the year.”Former Doctor Who star Jenna Coleman is making a brief return to the world of sci-fi – well, at least her voice is…
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Coleman guest-stars in the opening episode of the new series of ITV animation Thunderbirds Are Go, and although she’s sporting an American accent for the role, if you listen closely you can definitely make out the woman behind Clara Oswald and the young Queen Victoria…
Coleman plays Baines, the crew boss of a geological survey team who get trapped when a huge earth-breaking vehicle causes them to fall into a narrow crevice.
And when that happens, who you gonna call? No, not them – International Rescue, of course…
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Thunderbirds Are Go returns for a second series on Saturday 22nd October at 3:30pm on ITVKINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Nearly 300 people were arrested across the Democratic Republic of Congo as two days of protests against President Joseph Kabila appeared to subside on Wednesday, the police said.
Sporadic gunfire rang out over Kinshasa, the capital, and witnesses reported clashes in Lubumbashi, the southeastern mining hub, but nothing on the scale of the violence when youths took to the streets on Tuesday accusing Mr. Kabila of trying to cling to power.
The police said that 275 people had been arrested and that 21 civilians and one officer had been killed in the protests that erupted as Mr. Kabila’s mandate expired without any elections in place to pick a successor. Rights groups earlier gave higher death tolls.
Mr. Kabila and his supporters have denied any plan to retain power and have said logistical problems delayed elections.The National Rifle Association has filed a lawsuit against the city of Sunnyvale in response to a gun control law passed by voters there in November. The city now requires gun owners to quickly report firearm theft and lock up their guns at home. It also bans possession of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. The NRA says the measure violates the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.
Guests:
Anthony Spitaleri, mayor of Sunnyvale
Chuck Michel, West Coast counsel for the NRA, senior partner at Michel and Associates and author of "California Gun Laws"
Julie Leftwich, legal director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Larry Barsetti, retired San Francisco police officer and one of several plaintiffs in a suit against San Francisco for a similar gun ordinanceResponding to a grand jury report that found "substantial evidence" of sexual abuse of children, the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese has placed 21 priests on administrative leave.
Although 37 priests were identified last month for allegedly behaving inappropriately with children, the grand jury said it had seen the files of only about 20 priests, The Philadelphia Inquirer says.
In a statement, the archdiocese said five others would have been put on leave but two are serving in other archdioceses, while three others "have not been in active ministry." (One was on leave, and two others are incapacitated.) For the two serving elsewhere, the archdiocese said it would notify their superiors.
The remaining priests won't be put on leave, the archdiocese said, because the grand jury "found no further investigation is warranted."
In a separate statement, the Philadelphia archbishop, Cardinal Justin Rigali, said, "These have been difficult weeks since the release of the grand jury report: difficult most of all for victims of sexual abuse, but also for all Catholics and for everyone in our community."
"As we strive to move forward today, I wish to express again my sorrow for the sexual abuse of minors committed by any members of the church, especially clergy," Rigali said. "I am truly sorry for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, as well as to the members of our community who suffer as a result of this great evil and crime."
Since the Feb. 10 grand jury report, two lawsuits have been filed against the archdiocese over allegations that clergy covered up sexual assaults by priests in the 1990s. The latest was filed Monday.An interactive look at participation in the labor force by age
Click an area on the chart to isolate that category. Slide along the GDP growth graph under the chart to look at a different time period.
shaded ), red lines indicate a major change to the CPS survey. Note: This chart is updated monthly. Data is from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. Basic monthly data are used and all months are averaged together for each year. The survey was revised in 1989 and 1994; changes to both question wording and survey weights result in discontinuities in these years that may not be attributable to real changes in the economy. GDP data from: US. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gross Domestic Product [GDP], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GDP. Recession data from: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, NBER based Recession Indicators for the United States from the Period following the Peak through the Trough [USREC], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USREC, March 1, 2016. Slide to pick a year (recessions are),indicate a major change to the CPS survey.
Methodology
The data assembled span three versions of the Current Population Survey, with new surveys being instituted in 1989 and 1994. All three surveys feature a labor force participation item that is generated based on responses to a series of yes/no questions on the survey. This variable is called ESR, LFSR, and PEMLR, respectively, on the three versions of the survey. A second variable—called major activity, or MAJACT, on the first two surveys and PENLFACT on the post-1994 survey—was used to distinguish between certain categories of non-labor force respondents. Finally, a question on total hours worked was used to distinguish full-time workers from part-time workers.
The results are fairly consistent across surveys for certain age groups but there are important discrepancies. Most notably, the pre-1989 survey did not allow respondents to specifically identify themselves as retired. Instead, the “other” category included retirees. The wording and question order of the 1989-1993 survey appears to bias respondents in favor of choosing “carer” over “retired,” so another break in the retired series is evident in 1994. Minor changes in the survey may also have contributed to the uptick in respondents identifying as “disabled” in the most recent version of the survey.
This project’s github includes the Python code that was used to analyze the raw monthly CPS data, including our survey-weighting procedure and all coding decisions made.For the better part of 13 years, Andrew Redmayne was asking himself whether he was good enough to play for Arsenal. On Thursday night, he found out that he apparently was.
After putting in a man-of-the-match display against the club he spent weeks on trial with as a teenager, Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger admits the club made a mistake in not signing Redmayne when they had the chance.
"I would say the goalkeeper was man of the match," Wenger said. "I don't remember [if he trialled with Arsenal], I have to say it's such a long time ago. But, if he was with us, we made a mistake."
Redmayne appeared a man possessed, pulling-off a string of fine saves including denying England international Danny Welbeck from the spot in Sydney's 2-0 loss to Arsenal to make a major road to cementing a first team spot for the Sky Blues and reminding the Gunners on what they missed out on.EVERETT, Wash. — A 19-year-old was shot in the back, apparently accidentally, by one of his two friends after the three teenagers showed up to visit a shooting victim at Providence Regional Medical Center on Tuesday afternoon, police said.
The 19-year-old was in good condition, police said.
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Sgt. Maryjane Hacker said, "The three involved in today's shooting know each other and they came together to the hospital" to visit another friend -- a victim of a shooting on West Casino Road on Monday night.
"They were here to visit their friend, they ended up back at their vehicle" in the parking lot across from the hospital, Hacker said. While in the vehicle, a gun discharged, striking the 19-year-old in the back, she said.
He was then taken into the hospital, too.
"It appears the shooting was accidental," Hacker said.
The other two friends were aged 16 and 17, Hacker said, and they were detained for an investigation.But it has taken some careful thought to come up with a catch-all regulation that ensures this area of development is shut down.
The arrival of the extra large engine covers and high-up wings has been the result of a loophole opening up in the 2017 regulations that had not been there in original drafts.
And although some designers were reluctant to pursue the concepts because of the aesthetics, they knew that how a car looks matters much less than how quick it goes.
It has been pretty clear that having these fins and wings has helped improve handling in cornering – as the side force being generated helps stabilise the rear of the car when it yaw. There has also been a noticeable increase in downforce too.
How they came out
The rule change introduced for 2018 is a pretty simple one, but it was one that became necessary after the loophole opened up in the rules.
T-wings were not possible in the first draft of the 2017 regulations, but as changes were made elsewhere, the box area within the regulations reopened (Article 3.15.1), making the appendages permissible.
T-Wing rule Photo by: Giorgio Piola
As the image above shows, bodywork was banned in the area marked red, but the wording of the rules allowed a 750mm wide area between these boxes to be utilised.
The T-wings currently occupy a 50mm space ahead of where the rear wing used to be situated, and can be a maximum of 750mm wide, encouraging teams to try out different configurations to suit their own needs.
Change the rules
In a bid to get rid of both the shark fins and the T-wings, the FIA has introduced a new rule that specifically bans bodywork in the area above the engine cover.
2018 Shark Fin Ban Photo by: FIA
As the above image shows, a theoretical line will now be drawn above which teams may not be allowed to have any bodywork.
The new article 3.5.1 c) of F1's Technical Regulations for 2018 will state: "When viewed from the side, no bodywork forward of the rear wheel centre line may lie above a line parallel to the diagonal boundary defined in a) [a rule that defines the dimension of the engine cover] and intersecting the rear wheel centre line 650mm above the reference plane."
These simple sentence are enough to stop teams working on both shark fins and T-wings.
T-wing developments
For now, the T-wings remain, however, and six teams currently run them – although that number may increase in Barcelona when teams bring their larger update packages.
It's also interesting to see just how different the teams' designs are. McLaren for example has a unique oval design, while Williams has placed two T-wings on its FW40 showing how multiple winglets can be used within the box section.
Here we look at the differences
T-Wing table Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Ferrari (upper left) was one of the first to unveil its T-Wing design, with the relatively simple profile offering a neat uplift in direct downforce. The downward turning tip is used to manipulate the rear wing tip vortex.
Mercedes (top, middle) is now a much more complex design than was originally revealed at the car's shakedown. In fact, it's the third iteration, with the first a simple single plane design like Ferraris, albeit with a much longer downturn at the tip.
During the pre-season test it revised the design to feature a twin-plane configuration with a longer downturning tip, much like an endplate.
The T-wing that arrived in Australia was a further refinement, creating a loop at the end of the planes rather than an endplate and a third, narrower, shorter chord singlet was added to the top.
Haas (top, right) has been using a T-wing since the pre-season test but had to make amendments to the stiffness of their shark fin in Australia (large arrow) in order to satisfy the FIA, which was concerned that the large oscillation that had been seen on broadcast footage could lead to the winglet becoming detached and posed a safety concern.
Williams (bottom, left) has been running with two T-winglets on the FW40, an upper and lower appendage as it looks to maximise the box section within the regulations, improving not only the rear wing's trade-off between downforce and drag but also bringing the diffuser into play.
McLaren (bottom, middle) entered the fray in China with what was supposed to be a tandem introduction of the T-Wing alongside a new rear wing. But the rear wing needed refinement to get working properly so may only feature properly from this weekend's Russian GP.
Sauber (bottom, right) has been toying with using a T-wing since Australia when a new engine cover appeared with the metal supports embedded in it. It used the winglet in China but opted to run without it again in Bahrain, before trialling it again at the post-GP test.
Going forward
The ban of these aero surfaces for 2018 doesn't mean we won't still see development of the area during 2017.
In fact, many of the teams will have work in progress and we are likely to see them get further refined throughout the remainder of the season.
However, the FIA has already indicated that it may start getting tougher in terms of ensuring they do not flex, or risk coming off as has happened with Mercedes twice this year. So load or push tests could be increased over the campaign.Polyphony Digital studio head Kazunori Yamauchi has confirmed a limited-time GT Sport demo, in a post on the PlayStation Blog.
The demo will be available as a free download from the PlayStation Store, from 0900 GMT/UTC on October 9, with a pre-download available 48 hours earlier. The demo will run through to 1300 GMT/UTC on October 12, and players can transfer part of their progress into the full game.
Polyphony has made many of the full game’s features available in this unprecedented demo. Sport mode is available, with online races against other players. Players can also work through parts of the campaign mode, including the driving challenges, missions and circuit experience areas. Three circuits — Northern Isle, Dragon Trail and the Colorado rally course — are available in Arcade mode, including a two-player split screen mode.
Shutterbugs can experience Scapes for the first time, although it’s not known how many of the 1000+ locations are unlocked in this demo.
Perhaps most significant of all though is the debut of the Livery Editor. A new feature for GT Sport, the demo will allow players to experience vehicle personalization of this level for the first time in a Gran Turismo game.
Players who’ve participated in the demo will be able to transfer credits to the full game when it releases on October 17–18. Curiously, Yamauchi’s message says that this is capped to “$1MM” – which may refer to GT Sport’s mileage credit system.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE BELOW:
There’s only two weeks left until Gran Turismo Sport hits the shelves, but rumors of a second beta still abound.
UK supermarket chain Tesco has reignited speculation with an update to its description for the game. On its listing for the Day One edition, the store claims that there will be a four-day open beta, starting on October 9.
The details listed are:
Open beta with no UK limit for entrants.
Available to all PS4 owners, and will not require a PS+ membership.
Modes available
Arcade
1. 3 Tracks (Northern Isle, Dragon Trail, Colorado)
Sport Mode
1. Daily Races Only
Campaign Mode
1. School – 8 Events
2. Missions – Stages 1 and 6
3. Circuit Experience – 3 Tracks
4. Racing Etiquette – Not included
Unlocks
Daily Workout
1. One vehicle unlock for every 26 miles driven per day.
Campaign Mode:
1. Missions Stage 1 completion – Group 4 vehicle
2. Missions Stage 6 completion – Group 6 vehicle
Elements transferable to full game (TBC)
1. Cars
2 |
his private mafia, President Obama vacations in Martha’s Vineyard.
Photo by Matthew Healey-Pool/Getty Images
The controversy over Orson Scott Card’s opposition to gay marriage appears to have simmered down. Maybe it’ll kick up again as the Ender’s Game premiere closes in, but it shouldn’t—Card’s religious objection to gay marriage is shared by a substantial minority of Americans, and holding it against him is a little pat. The actual outrage over what’s happening to gay Russians appears to have captured all the anger being directed Card’s way.
That’s good! The gay marriage foofarah was a distraction from Card’s much more fascinating political paranoia. His last column on politics is a sort of masterpiece of that genre, starting with the grouping of “George W. Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq” among “politically useful lies,” and continuing with a fantasy of how Barack Obama will stay in power forever.
Obama is, by character and preference, a dictator. He hates the very idea of compromise; he demonizes his critics and despises even his own toadies in the liberal press. He circumvented Congress as soon as he got into office by appointing “czars” who didn’t need Senate approval. His own party hasn’t passed a budget ever in the Senate.
In other words, Obama already acts as if the Constitution were just for show. Like Augustus, he pretends to govern within its framework, but in fact he treats it with contempt.
Here on Earth, Obama has actually signed off on a series of compromises that fell short of what he demanded—the health care law, the debt limit increases—and he’s only the latest president to appoint a series of advisers who are termed “czars.” Back on Planet Card, it’s clear that Hillary Clinton will not be the Democrats’$2 2016 nominee.
Michelle Obama is going to be Barack’s Lurleen Wallace. Remember how George Wallace got around Alabama’s ban on governors serving two terms in a row? He ran his wife for the office. Everyone knew Wallace would actually be pulling the strings, even though they denied it. Michelle Obama will be Obama’s designated “successor,” and any Democrat who seriously opposes her will be destroyed in the media the way everyone who contested Obama’s run for the Democratic nomination in 2008 was destroyed.
That’s a fun theory that forgets the role that 50 states have in electing a president, and the lack of operational control the White House has over the voting systems of those states. How does he get around that? Card sees how. “Like Hitler and the Iranian dictators,” Obama has announced his plan for a “powerful domestic army to terrify any opposition that might arise.” According to Card, “Obama called for a ‘national police force’ in 2008, though he never gave a clue about why such a thing would be necessary.”
This is a revealing bit of craziness, and one you occasionally hear from members of Congress. Obama never called for a “national police force.” In a July 2008 speech he used the words “civilian national security force” to describe how he’d “expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots,” “double the size of the Peace Corps,” and “grow our foreign service.” That was five years ago, and he actually failed to do it.
Not to be a snob about it, but anyone looking logically at the Obama record from then to now might notice that he hasn’t actually created a civilian strike force answerable only to him. (How its budget would exist outside of congressional appropriations I do not know). Card doesn’t explain why it hasn’t happened, but he has a theory about how it will.
Where will he get his “national police”? The NaPo will be recruited from “young out-of-work urban men” and it will be hailed as a cure for the economic malaise of the inner cities.
In other words, Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama’s enemies.
Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people “trying to escape” – people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama.
This thoughtful detour into racism is the apotheosis of the essay; after this it gets a little mired in incoherence, with multiple assurances that it’s a “experiment in fictional thinking” but “sure sounds plausible.” It’s easy to think that factless obsessive theories about the Obama administration—which has plenty of problems!—are developed by and for stupid people. Card isn’t stupid. He’s a smart kook. I’d rather read his treatment of this Obama coup than watch the Ender’s Game movie, but if he went there, the estate of George Lincoln Rockwell might sue him for infringement.A recently authored whitepaper describes a method to make token offerings fair and balanced.
On September 24, 2017, a whitepaper was published that tackles the dilemma of fairness in token offering-based crowdsales, co-written by both Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and TrueBit founder Jason Teutsch.
Entitled "Interactive Coin Offerings," the paper describes a protocol that operates under the premise that “if each token buyer specifies a desired purchase quantity at each valuation then everyone can successfully participate.” The interactive coin offering protocol proposes allowing buyers to withdraw their contributions to the contract within defined parameters while exploiting the bookkeeping capabilities of executable distributed code contracts; buyers can set a cap on the value of tokens for the issuance, and if it goes above that valuation prior to a certain preset block number, the contract will issue a refund.
Other parameters of the protocol are a withdrawal lock and an inflation ramp. In the provided example, a 30-day crowdsale might allow for voluntary withdrawals during an initial 20 days. After that, only automatic withdrawals would be allowed. An inflation ramp offers a sliding scale for bonuses that apply to early buyers, decreasing, for example, from 20 to 10 percent upon initiation of the withdrawal lock, dissipating to nothing by contract closure or the end of the crowdfunding event.
The protocol also takes into account whale action in crowdsales by treating both large and small purchases the same. As per the paper, "Whales with low personal caps get pushed out of the crowdsale in just the same way as buyers who purchase a fraction of a token."
If adopted, the interactive coin offering protocol offers crowdfunding startups an avenue that may be more inclusive for participants seeking to invest in innovations that are potentially game-changing for the ecosystem.For long time Hanami::Validations had problems that we struggled to solve and new features were problematic to add. Data management is complex task with thousands of cases to cover and because validations deal untrusted input, edge cases are common. Even simple cases like blank values management became an issue.
We tried to fix these problems, but over the time we realized that we hit the limit of that syntax, which led to lack of flexibility for us and for developers themselves.
At the same time dry-rb folks released a new, stronger validations gem: dry-validation. It changes, for the good, the way we express validation rules. So we took the decision to radically change our syntax and to adopt dry-validation as a validations backend for us.
How It Will Work?
Hanami::Validations will work with input hashes and let define a set of validation rules for each key/value pair. These rules are wrapped by lambdas (or special DSL) that check the input for a specific key to determine if it's valid or not. To do that, we translate business requirements into predicates that are chained together with Ruby faux boolean logic operators (eg. & or | ).
Think of a signup form. We need to ensure data integrity for the name field with the following rules. It is required, it has to be: filled and a string and its size must be greater than 3 chars, but lesser than 64. Here’s the code, read it aloud and notice how it perfectly expresses our needs for name.
class Signup include Hanami :: Validations validations do required ( :name ) { filled? & str? & size? ( 3.. 64 ) } end end result = Signup. new ( name: "Luca" ). validate result. success? # => true result = Signup. new ({}). validate result. success? # => false result. messages. fetch ( :name ) # => ["must be filled"]
Boolean Logic
When we check data, we expect only two outcomes: an input can be valid or not. No grey areas, nor fuzzy results. It’s white or black, 1 or 0, true or false and boolean logic is the perfect tool to express these two states. Indeed, a Ruby boolean expression can only return true or false.
To better recognise the pattern, let’s get back to the example above. This time we will map the natural language rules with programming language rules.
A name must be filled and be a string and its size fall between 3 and 64. 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 👇 required ( :name ) { filled? & str? & size? ( 3.. 64 ) }
Now, I hope you’ll never format code like that, but in this case, that formatting serves well our purpose to show how Ruby’s simplicity helps to define complex rules with no effort.
From a high level perspective, we can tell that input data for name is valid only if all the requirements are satisfied. That’s because we used &.
But there is more. Rule composition with blocks is powerful, but it can become verbose. To reduce verbosity, Hanami offers convenient macros that are internally expanded (aka interpreted) to an equivalent block expression.
required ( :name ). filled ( :str?, size? : 3.. 64 )
The Advantages
With this new syntax we give more control to developers: they can decide the order of execution of the validations. They can define custom predicates and custom error messages, opt in for internationalization (i18n) with small effort. They can dry code via macros, reuse validators, enforce types, whitelist params.
To summarize: we fixed old bugs, implemented features that developers asked for, increased internal code robustness and started a new alliance with dry-rb <3.Getty Andrea Enria has called for a creation of an EU "bad bank"
The scale of the EU’s banking problem has become “urgent and actionable”, according to Andrea Enria, chairman of the European Banking Authority. Mr Enria called for a creation of an EU “bad bank” that would buy up the toxic loans from lenders in an attempt to break a financial cycle of falling profits, pressure on lending and struggling economic growth. With the lack of a proper market for the selling of bad loans, banks have been reluctant to offload them and accept a price below market value.
Mr Enria envisioned the formation of a taxpayer-packed fund to buy the bad loans from struggling lenders at their “real economic value” - a level which would be determined by the fund at a later date. The proposal is likely to come under fire from opponents of state-funded aid for banks who will view any intervention as a distortion of the market mechanism. While Mr Enria is the Chairman of the EBA he has no power to introduce such a body.
Getty Chairman of the European Banking Authority Andrea Enria
The move comes though as the EU is currently examining ways of how to reduce banks’ non-performing loans and is currently consulting with national finance ministries and is working on a report which is expected to be published in March. The level of toxic debt within the EU banking system is sizeable with €1.06trillion equating to to 5.4 percent of the entire EU’s total loans - a figure more than treble that of other large banking sectors such as Japan and the US. Some 10 EU states have an average bad loan ratio of 10 percent.
Europe in Crisis Sun, February 5, 2017 Terrorism, migrants, and crippling debt: is this the end of Europe? Play slideshow 1 of 11
Getty Head of the European Stability Mechanism Klaus Regling
Italy has over a quarter of the EU’s toxic debt, which is valued at about £237bn (€276bn) and recently created a similar “bad bank” to buy up bad debt from weaker lenders which was funded by pooled finances from the stronger financial institutions. The European Central Bank had been exerting pressure on Italy as well as other eurozone countries to reduce the level of their bad debts and raise capital. The move effectively led to the nationalisation of Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the country’s third-largest bank, after it failed to raise the capital demanded by the regulators from private investors last month.
Getty Monte dei Paschi di Siena's head office in ItalyPlease enable Javascript to watch this video
NEW YORK — A New York City school is closing while officials investigate the death of a 3-year-old boy who died after he was allegedly given a grilled cheese sandwich – despite the school knowing he had a severe dairy allergy, according to WPIX.
Elijah Silvera was in his pre-K class at Seventh Avenue Center for Family Services in Harlem on Nov. 3 when he went into anaphylactic shock after eating the sandwich. The child was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased.
A family friend wrote on a GoFundMe site, "...he was given a grilled cheese sandwich by an adult at the pre-K, despite them knowing and having documented that he has a severe allergy to dairy."
The family member also told WPIX that school officials called Elijah’s mother when it happened. It’s unclear why they did not call an ambulance, so his mother rushed Elijah 10 blocks south to Harlem Hospital.
But it was too late.
The family stated online they want to know exactly what happened and if proper protocols were followed — "...at this moment, it is unclear where responsibility for Elijah's death will fall between the pre-K and the hospital itself."
"We want to find out exactly where, if any, breakdowns may have occurred at either the school or the hospital," they wrote.
The money raised on GoFundMe will help pay for an independent autopsy, according to the family.
Michelle Daniels says she attended the school as a little girl.
“I went there when I was a kid," Daniels said. "That person should be really investigated. Really they should. Because if that was my child, i would be all over the place."
“If I’m sending my children some place, and I’m entrusting my children in your care, you're supposed to follow those guidelines,” Daniels added.
Late Wednesday, the New York City Health Department released a statement announcing the school will close in order to investigate the incident.John Conyers AP
The House Ethics Committee on Tuesday said it has begun an investigation into sexual harassment claims against Democratic Rep. John Conyers, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives.
Conyers settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who said she was fired after she refused Conyers' sexual advances, BuzzFeed News reported Monday.
Conyers' office reportedly paid the woman $27,000 in a settlement that included a confidentiality agreement. BuzzFeed published four signed affidavits from former employees who said they had witnessed the congressman touch female aides inappropriately and request sexual favors.
"I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go," the woman, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, told BuzzFeed.
One other former staffer wrote in an affidavit that she had faced sexual advances from Conyers and alleged that she knew of others who experienced "the same or similar" treatment by the congressman.
Conyers, a civil rights icon and ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, originally denied that he settled any sexual harassment complaints and said that he knew nothing of the claims until he read BuzzFeed's report on Tuesday morning, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday morning.
But later on Tuesday, Conyers' spokesperson said that the congressman was confused by the AP's questioning on Tuesday morning and thought the reporter was asking about "recent allegations of which he was unaware of and denied."
The 88-year-old congressman released a statement responding to BuzzFeed's report in which he acknowledged the settlement, but denied the accusations made against him.
"I expressly and vehemently denied the allegations made against me, and continue to do so," Conyers said. "My office resolved the allegations — with an express denial of liability — in order to save all involved from the rigors of protracted litigation. That should not be lost in the narrative."
Conyers added that the payment made in the settlement was "not for millions of dollars, but rather for an amount that equated to a reasonable severance payment."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said that she was previously unaware of Conyers' settlement, and called for an ethics investigation into the allegations.
"As Members of Congress, we each have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of the House of Representatives and to ensure a climate of dignity and respect, with zero tolerance for harassment, discrimination, bullying or abuse," Pelosi said in a Tuesday afternoon statement. "As I have said before, any credible allegation of sexual harassment must be investigated by the Ethics Committee."
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the second most powerful Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, also called for an ethics investigation into Conyers.
"The allegations against Ranking Member Conyers are extremely serious and deeply troubling," Nadler said in a statement. "Obviously, these allegations must be investigated and promptly by the Ethics Committee. There can be no tolerance for behavior that subjects women to the kind of conduct alleged."
Conyers said in his statement that he is willing to cooperate with an investigation.
BuzzFeed disclosed that it received the affidavits and other documents from right-wing activist and media personality Mike Cernovich, but independently verified their authenticity.
House Speaker Paul Ryan called the allegations "deeply troubling" in a Tuesday morning statement.
Congress's Office of Compliance, which handles sexual misconduct complaints, has paid $17 million in 264 settlements with federal employees over the past 20 years for violations including sexual harassment, The Washington Post reported last week.
Legislators call for reform
Lawmakers — including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat; Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat; and Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican — have become outspoken advocates of reforming Congress' system for dealing with sexual misconduct complaints.
They argue that the current process, which involves a mandatory nondisclosure agreement, 30 days of counseling, 30 days of mediation between the accuser and the accused, and a 30-day "cooling off period" before the complaint is formalized, discourages victims from coming forward and unfairly protects perpetrators.
"The present system may have been okay in the dark ages," Speier said during a congressional hearing earlier this month. "It is not appropriate for the 21st century."
Speier recently sponsored the Me Too Congress Act, which would reform the House's sexual harassment policies.There are a few magical studios with such amazing sound that they have become sort of sonic temples for musicians who dream of making musical pilgrimages to them. There’s Hitsville U.S.A. in Detroit, home to the Motown sound. There’s FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where artists like Wilson Picket and Otis Redding honed the 60’s southern soul sound.
And then there’s Capitol Records studios in Los Angeles. Housed in the iconic circular building on Hollywood and Vine, it’s uniquely famous as much for what it looks like on the outside, as what’s been created on the inside.
Designed in 1956, the building was actually not meant to resemble a stack of records but well…happy coincidence. A red light, like a beacon, atop the tower flashes “Hollywood” in morse code. And inside the building artists like Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, The Beach Boys, The Beastie Boys and so many more have laid down countless hits.
But what gives Capitol Studios its great sound qualities? Why do artists dream of recording there? At Capitol, much of this magic is attributed to a curious design element that was created by Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor of the famous Gibson Les Paul guitar. Paul was commissioned to give the studios reverb, the sonic quality of echo and delay, or reverberation. Today, musicians use reverb pedals attached to amps to easily achieve this, but in the 1950’s it apparently wasn’t so easy and thus was Paul’s challenge.
To create reverb, Les Paul built a series of eight cavernous trapezoidal echo chambers dug 30 feet below the Capitol Records building. The sparse concrete chambers, each with there own unique characteristics, have speakers on one side and microphones on the other. Sound engineers working in the studios above can pipe audio into the reverb chambers and re-record the sound, adding as much as a five-second delay, giving singers a booming vocal quality that makes it sound more like the track was recorded in a cathedral, not a sound studio in L.A. The difference is huge.
You can fast forward to the 6:30 minute mark in this American Roots segment to hear recordings with and without the echo chamber effect but really, listen to the whole thing. You can also see YouTube clips of the reverb chambers here and here. A look inside the building as it looks now can be found here.
Now there are plans to develop the area around the Capitol Records building. Some are concerned that could threaten the reverb chambers, Here’s hoping some things don’t ever change. -JPUpdate, 6:46 p.m.: Portland fire officials announced that the two victims of the fire have died.
"Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the two people who's [sic] lives were lost in todays [sic] early morning fire," said Chief Erin Janssens in a news release. "I am thankful for the passerby that stopped and notified all of the residents in the apartment complex to evacuate, and the quick actions of our firefighters to stop the fire from spreading to the rest of the building."
Two men were injured in a Friday morning apartment fire in Southeast Portland.
Ron Rouse, Portland Fire Bureau spokesman said fire crews arrived on scene to the one-story apartment complex in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood at 7:17 a.m., two minutes after receiving the first call.
They were greeted by smoke and flames jutting out the backside of an apartment in the 3900 block of Southeast Gladstone.
Rouse said it's a good thing the firefighters arrived so quickly. "Our crews that arrived went into rescue mode," he said.
Rouse said he didn't know the seriousness of the two victims' injuries, but said they were transported to separate Portland hospitals.
The fire was largely contained to one two-bedroom apartment, though Rouse said a downed electrical line sparked another blaze behind the apartment. He said crews are still investigating the cause of the fire and the estimated damage it caused.
SE Portland fire along Gladstone Street 3 Gallery: SE Portland fire along Gladstone Street
Portland police closed access to Southeast Gladstone Street from Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard on the west side of the scene to 42nd Avenue on the east.
More than an hour after the blaze started, Tom Holiday watched fire crews work with a chain saw to remove smoking shingles on the roof of the building.
Holiday, who lives next door to the burned out apartment with his wife, Tamara, and cat, Mongo, said he was in bed when he first heard what sounded like firecrackers.
"There was this weird crackling sound," said Holiday, 34. He also smelled smoke.
Holiday said they have lived in that apartment for about six years, and rarely saw the next-door neighbors, who he described as elderly. Holiday said they stayed inside much of the time and were assisted by in-home caregivers, Holiday said.
Holiday called 911 shortly after they were safely outside, but at that point, he already heard sirens.
This post will be updated as more information becomes available.
-- Andrew Theen
atheen@oregonian.com
503-294-4026
@cityhallwatch(NB: THIS FORECAST WILL BE PERIODICALLY UPDATED.)
CLOSING REMARKS: What a race! The early rain certainly made all the difference - plus some fantastic track action all-round. Well done Jenson; let's see what Malaysia brings - early indications offer a threat of wet weather emerging again as a factor...
NOWCAST UPDATE, SUN. 07:10HRS BST: I expect it to turn dry for a while now... tricky stuff!!
NOWCAST UPDATE, SUN. 06:15HRS BST: Further showery outbreaks of rain likely across the circuit in the next 45mins.
NOWCAST UPDATE: SUN. 05:30HRS BST: The Met Office's model got it spot-on in terms of timing: some rain has already fallen across Albert Park ahead of the race starting, but it'll now prove quite knife-edge in terms of how much affects the race itself. Patchy outbreaks of drizzle and light rain are quite extensive to the NW, feeding towards Melbourne, albeit as expected the heavier pulses are crossing away to the southwest. Intermittently damp weather looks decidely likely for Albert Park, but any such conditions (assuming rain doesn't become persistent) should quite readily dry off the circuit given the breeze and temperature. Wind currently northerly, about 13mph, gusting to 25mph.
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This is a 'new style' approach to the weather forecasts I've previously provided on the BBC's 606 Forum, alongside our live online, radio and TV coverage of all the action during each Formula One race weekend.
The 2nd race of the 2010 season - the Australian Grand Prix - takes place at Albert Park, Melbourne, this coming weekend and I'll keep you updated here on the developing weather prospects.
Dry running is pictured here at Melbourne, but will this year's event escape the rain entirely? (Photo: William West/Getty Images)
Unlike the dry, almost cloudless conditions experienced a fortnight ago in Bahrain, there's a chance of some rain falling periodically in Melbourne to add additional on-track uncertainty through the coming weekend. And don't underestimate the wind: this could prove quite an issue later on Sunday!!
Since I first opened this blog entry, it's been noteworthy how the essential forecast theme has changed very little - irrespective of whatever meteorological model is followed. This continuity provides high confidence in the broad thrust of the Melbourne forecast, albeit the local detail will inevitably now prove more of a 'nowcast' issue.
And with this in mind, you can keep an eye on the local rainfall radar (as the teams surely will!) through this link.
So, here's the current forecast thinking:
The UK Met Office's Global Model, above, hints at the expected proximity & generally light intensity of rain during the Australian Grand Prix (which starts at 5pm local time). Other forecast models offer a broadly similar solution.
SUNDAY FORECAST:
Summary & model assessment: Light to moderate rain highly likely during the race. Turning quite windy. Overcast but very warm.
Unsettled conditions are spreading eastwards as an area of low pressure (circa 1000 mB) moves across the Great Australian Bight towards Tasmania, swinging a trough and a band of rain, some heavy, into coastal districts of South Australia and then across parts of SW Victoria.
The various forecast models we employ (UK Met Office's Global Model; USA's GFS; plus the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's own prediction) all offer agreement on the evolution and provide improving continuity regarding the timing of rainfall progression into Melbourne.
Precipitation & cloud cover: Some showery outbreaks of light rain have crossed Melbourne overnight and it's likely the circuit will prove rather 'green' again by dawn.
It'll be an overcast race with cloud cover becoming quite extensive well before the race start at 5pm local time. The probability of light to moderate rain affecting the event, more especially post-6pm local time, is now considered high.
The Met Office's Global Model suggests the rain could arrive patchily (as drizzle or generally light intensity) even by the start of the race. This could increase a little in intensity later, albeit peak rainfall rates are unlikely to ever exceed 3-5mm per hour.
The US-GFS model, running at similar resolution, has flip-flopped repeatedly in recent runs between offering light rain above Melbourne by the race start, or holding it out west until later. The latest (1200 GMT) output reverts back to the slightly slower solution, with light rain arriving towards the end of the event.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's prediction, combining the output of 9 national and international models, further supports the notion of any rainfall being light in nature.
So broadly, the UKMO, GFS and other models offer comparable forecasts in terms of both the high likelihood of some damp weather arriving into Melbourne districts at some stage during the race (if not actually by 5pm local) and the generally light to moderate intensity of any precipitation once in-situ. So it's now a nowcast issue....
Temperature: With the prevailing flow off the hot continental interior, it will become very warm at around 29-31C mid-afternoon. Ambient temperature during the race likely to be 28-29C.
Wind: Could be key factor, in my opinion. It will turn noticeably breezy during the afternoon, with the north to northeasterly wind gusting 25+mph at times and possibly over 30mph periodically by the start of (and during) the race. The Met Office modelling suggests a prevailing NNE wind averaging from 10-15mph.
It will offer a headwind component on the pit straight; a tricky, gusty crosswind in some of the other sections not well sheltered by the trees and perhaps critically, a noticeable tailwind element through the back of the circuit from turns 10-13. Local funnelling effects of the wind through the adjacent urban areas and down the walled sections of the circuit such as from turns 10 to 11 could be quite an issue, affecting braking stability into the (ever-tricky) high speed left-right switch at 11-12; ditto into the quite fast right-hander at turn 13.
All the latest forecast model runs continue to hold any threat of heavy rain W/SW of Melbourne until later into the evening. However, even intermittent light rain will add a real lottery to proceedings, as emphasised by Hirohide Hamashima, Bridgestone's director of motorsport tyre development:
"If there is rain before tomorrow's race we will face quite a difficult track, and those starting on the soft tyre will have the concern of graining on the left tyres, either front, rear, or both depending on the car and set-up. If a driver can protect their tyres then a one stop strategy should be possible...The soft tyre is around 0.5 seconds faster for its fastest lap than the harder tyre, but we really don't have sufficient data to know how long it will last here. This, and the variable of the Melbourne weather, will be the biggest unknowns for tomorrow's race."
I do urge keeping a close eye on the rainfall radar (here's an alternative version, if you so prefer) - this will offer a real-time answer as to whether it'll rain by race start (and save me trying to type innumerable updates; I'll find it tricky due to mounting excitement / stress level as the race unfolds!)
----------------------------------------------------
(Previous forecasts:)
SATURDAY:
NOWCAST UPDATE, 05:20HRS GMT: Some moderate intensification of the showery rain to the west of Melbourne, but current trajectories suggest these are likely to run south of the city.
NOWCAST UPDATE, 04:10HRS GMT: Despite a scattering of light showers in parts of Victoria, it's highly likely qualifying should remain dry.
FORECAST: High pressure (1024 mB) sits over Tasmania and the remnants of Friday's front continues to decay over Victoria.
Largely cloudy conditions will once again prevail and a good deal of dry weather will dominate during the day. There's a small chance of isolated light to moderate showers developing above Melbourne through the morning and into early afternoon. Some could appear during 3rd practice and indeed there's a risk of some further showers during qualifying (starting at 5pm local time), but on balance it's very likely both sessions will run in the dry..
Temperatures will be somewhat less than Friday's values, peaking around 24C into the afternoon. Winds will be predominantly light/moderate SE to then SW for much of the morning and early afternoon, averaging 8-10mph.
FRIDAY:
NOWCAST UPDATE, FRIDAY 0606GMT: The current shower will soon fade - some running likely again soon thereafter, assuming the track dries speedily. But more showers still likely in the next 30mins.
NOWCAST UPDATE, FRIDAY, 0555GMT: The first shower duly arrived and more look likely before the end of this session. Signs of moderate intensification of these shower cells on rainfall radar... doubtless the teams well aware that they need to take full advantage of the current dry window.
NOWCAST UPDATE, FRIDAY, 0500GMT: Light to moderate showers crossing eastwards, as now seen on rainfall radar, look likely to affect the Melbourne district towards 2nd Practice. Currently the heavier (and in places thundery) showers are remaining well south of the city.
FORECAST: An area of high pressure slowly eases eastwards from southeastern Australia, with another established out west across the Great Australian Bight. An ever-weakening cold front will sit between the two anticyclones during Friday, arcing northwards above Tasmania but quickly losing intensity in-situ.
Dry weather should thus dominate during both practice sessions, with a small chance of isolated showers appearing as the day develops. Most of these should be light in nature, but there's sufficient instability aloft to offer a scattered sharper (possibly even thundery) shower. It'll prove a hit-and-miss situation, more especially into 2nd practice. So worth watching the rainfall radar link I provided earlier in this blog...
Increasingly cloudy skies will be above Albert Park during the afternoon as temperatures reach about 25-27C. Winds will shift from N/NW around to SW by midday; a tad breezy, averaging approx. 10-15mph but closer to 15-20mph by midday.
The combination of ambient / track temperature plus a moderate breeze will readily clear any dampness that might arise from light showers, so on current forecast expectations I expect nothing other than slick tyres being employed during both sessions unless the circuit catches an isolated heavier downpour. Unlikely, but possible!UFC lightweight Melvin Guillard‘s fight career will proceed as usual after receiving a suspended sentence on a pair of assault charges from 2010.
Guillard (30-12-2 MMA, 11-7 UFC), who is scheduled to fight Mac Danzig next month at UFC on FOX 8, was ruled guilty on two counts of aggravated battery and given 364 days in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Bernalillo County, N.M., all of which were suspended by a judge.
In avoiding jail, the 30-year-old fighter was given supervised probation through June 25, 2015, and must complete 40 hours of community service in addition to paying court fees.
Sports Illustrated’s Melissa Segura first reported the sentence, which was later confirmed by MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).
The assault charges came to light this past March when Guillard attempted to move from the Blackzilians MMA team to his previous home at Jackson-Winkeljohn’s MMA. A source close to the New Mexico-based team said the fighter wasn’t welcome back at the gym.
After a brief limbo, Guillard took residence at Wheat Ridge, Colo.’s Grudge Training Center to work with the gym’s head trainer Trevor Wittman, with whom he’d briefly trained.
Guillard pleaded not guilty to the assault charges and told ESPN.com he was actually the victim in the assault case, which stemmed from an altercation with five bouncers at a nightclub.
A career turnaround is badly needed for “The Young Assassin,” who’s lost four of five in the octagon after a five-fight win streak that put him on a short list of contenders in the 155-pound division.
For the latest on UFC on FOX 8, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.Blizzard Entertainment announced that World of Warcraft will receive an official classic-style “vanilla” server. The news comes from the opening ceremony of this year’s BlizzCon event.
World of Warcraft Classic is Blizzard’s response to fans who have long begged for a server based on the original version of World of Warcraft.
“We want to reproduce the game experience that we all enjoyed from the original, classic WOW,” said executive producer J. Allen Brack, following a trailer that revealed the server.
Fans have worked on making their own vanilla servers over the years, some of which Blizzard Entertainment has shut down over copyright and other issues. But that hasn’t stopped players from wanting to return to the classic World of Warcraft experience. That typically refers to gameplay from prior to the Burning Crusade expansion, which dramatically changed the game when it launched in 2007. 2010’s Cataclysm expansion further removed content from what fans call the “vanilla” version of the game.
The official Classic version is currently in development, Brack said.I grew up in southern Louisiana. Summers there are quite a different than New England. I can remember taking short strolls to the mailbox, and returning sweaty. Sweating on a round trip to the mailbox just doesn’t seem right, does it? I used to get up at 6:00 in the morning to mow my grass. Yard work in 100º temps is not my cup of tea. I remember burning my leg on the seat belt buckle in my car a few times. I didn’t always enjoy summers in Louisiana. They weren’t all bad, of course. I don’t recall ever jumping in a pool and stimulating a vasovagal response. Every time I jump in a New England pool, I feel my life pass before my eyes. Pools here are cold all year round. So, there’s that. When I go swimming up north, I always miss Louisiana pools!
This time of year the common small talk chatter revolves around the weather. Well, I guess we always talk about the weather don’t we? I digress. In the summers, the topic can vary from “it’s too hot” to “I can’t wait for fall.” We’re usually pretty excited for the next season when we’re halfway in to the current season. Even in New England, it gets hot. Not Louisiana hot, but pretty hot. This summer seems a bit different. At the risk of jinxing an awesome situation, I’ll go ahead and say it. It’s been an excellent summer. The temperatures here in CT have been wonderful. Low to mid 60’s in the summer is unheard of this time of year. Right now, it’s 53º and we have a high of 80º today. I’ve never been a fan of hot weather, so I’m thankful for this nice little treat! I’m definitely not going swimming, though.
And one |
had very heterogeneous effects in the colonies. In some places, like North America, it created societies with far more inclusive institutions than in the colonising country itself and planted the seeds for the immense current prosperity of the region. In others, such as Latin America, Africa or South Asia, it created extractive institutions that led to very poor long-run development outcomes.
The fact that colonialism had positive effects on development in some contexts does not mean that it did not have devastating negative effects on indigenous populations and society. It did.
That colonialism in the early modern and modern periods had heterogeneous effects is made plausible by many other pieces of evidence. For example, Putnam (1994) proposed that it was the Norman conquest of the South of Italy that created the lack of ‘social capital’ in the region, the dearth of associational life that led to a society that lacked trust or the ability to cooperate. Yet the Normans also colonised England and that led to a society which gave birth to the industrial revolution. Thus Norman colonisation had heterogeneous effects too.
Colonialism mattered for development because it shaped the institutions of different societies. But many other things influenced these too, and, at least in the early modern and modern period, there were quite a few places that managed to avoid colonialism. These include China, Iran, Japan, Nepal and Thailand, amongst others, and there is a great deal of variation in development outcomes within these countries, not to mention the great variation within Europe itself. This raises the question of how important, quantitatively, European colonialism was, compared to other factors. Acemoglu et al. (2001) calculate that, according to their estimates, differences in economic institutions account for about two-thirds of the differences in income per-capita in the world. At the same time, Acemoglu et al. (2002) show that, on their own, historical settler mortality and indigenous population density in 1500 explain around 30% of the variation in economic institutions in the world today. If historical urbanisation in 1500, which can also explain variation in the nature of colonial societies, is added, this increases to over 50% of the variation. If this is right, then a third of income inequality in the world today can be explained by the varying impact of European colonialism on different societies. A big deal.
That colonialism shaped the historical institutions of colonies might be obviously plausible. For example, we know that, in Peru of the 1570s, the Spanish Viceroy Francisco de Toledo set up a huge system of forced labour to mine the silver of Potosí. But this system, the Potosí mita, was abolished in the 1820s, when Peru and Bolivia became independent. To claim that such an institution, or, more broadly, the institutions created by colonial powers all over the world, influence development today, is to make a claim about how colonialism influenced the political economy of these societies in a way which led these institutions to either directly persist, or to leave a path dependent legacy. The coerced labour of indigenous peoples lasted directly up until at least the 1952 Bolivian Revolution, when the system known as pongueaje was abolished. More generally, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012, Chapters 11 and 12) and Dell (2010) discuss many mechanisms via which this could have taken place.
Finally, it is worth observing that our empirical findings have important implications for alterative theories of comparative development. Some argue that geographical differences are dominant in explaining long-run patterns of development. In contradistinction, we showed that once the role of institutions is accounted for, geographical factors are not correlated with development outcomes. The fact that, for instance, there is a correlation between latitude and geography, is not indicative of a causal relationship. It is simply driven by the fact that European colonialism created a pattern of institutions that is correlated with latitude. Once this is controlled for, geographical variables play no causal role. Others argue that cultural differences are paramount in driving development. We found no role at all for cultural differences measured in several ways. First, the religious composition of different populations. Second, as we have emphasised, the identity of the colonial power. Third, the fraction of the population of a country of European descent. It is true, of course, that the United States and Canada filled up with Europeans, but in our argument this was an outcome of the fact that they had good institutions. It is not the numerical dominance of people of European descent today that drives development.
References
Acemoglu, D, S Johnson and J A Robinson (2001), “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation”, American Economic Review, 91, 1369-1401.
Acemoglu, D, S Johnson and J A Robinson (2002), “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118, 1231-1294.
Acemoglu, D, S Johnson and J A Robinson (2005), “The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic Growth”, American Economic Review, 95, 546-579.
Acemoglu, D and J Robinson (2012), Why Nations Fail, New York: New York.
Dell, M (2010), “The Persistent Effects of Peru’s Mining Mita”, Econometrica, 78, 1863-1903.
Putnam, R H (with R Leonardi and R Y Nanetti ) (1994) Making Democracy Work, Princeton: Princeton University Press.His screen blinked and up came an abstract of the paper, a study of a certain hormone excreted during heart attacks. It was definitely the same paper, he says. It had the same title, same journal, same volume and issue number. The author was even a researcher named “Shankar.”
But the publication date wasn’t 1996, the year Shankar claimed to have finished his degree. It was 1976, the year after Shankar was born. Shankar was indeed a precocious researcher, Rockett thought: He was an infant.
Rockett’s first find led to more. Some of the problematic entries were dated incorrectly, he says. Some didn’t seem to exist at all. None were authored by Anoop Shankar. When Rockett had a list of 11 apparent frauds, he took them to Alan Ducatman, the interim dean of the School of Public Health. Ducatman’s first hope was that the situation could be salvaged, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.
Four years earlier, after a search committee pulled Shankar’s resume from a pile, Ducatman believed he recognized the footprints of genius. Shankar was only an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, but his academic history seemed to promise much more. Here was a past winner of India’s national academic talent scholarship, which goes to less than 1 percent of teenage test takers. Here was a top 3 graduate of the All India Institute of Medicine in New Delhi, which itself is 25 times more selective than Harvard.
"I do not speak in this manner whatsoever."
Ducatman recruited Shankar with the promise of a full-time paid Ph.D.-trained assistant, and he supported Shankar’s application for an O-1 visa, reserved for foreigners with “extraordinary abilities.” In return Shankar churned out high-profile research. He linked popcorn to heart disease and the plastic chemical BPA to diabetes.
The work earned WVU national attention from the major medical journals and writers from Reuters and Fox News. That same week the National Institutes of Health had awarded Shankar a $400,000 grant, the first in a hoped-for wave of nearly $2 million dollars in government funding.
Let’s not jump to conclusions, Rockett recalls being told. Shankar may have a good explanation. Besides, the dean allegedly said, this endowed position is bigger than both of us and it would be a mistake to pile on. (Ducatman, who was also a co-author of Shankar’s, declined to comment for the record.)
Rockett was given just two days to complete his review, but it was enough to get Shankar’s appointment postponed, if not outright canceled. Following university procedure, he shared his findings with WVU’s general counsel and the Office of Research Integrity. Then he tried to push Shankar from his mind.
Shankar pushed back in on the morning of August 22, 2012. That’s when a 27-year-old Indian man named Deeban Ganesan walked into Rockett’s office, professing an interest in Rockett’s research on suicide. The man would later claim not to have any prior special relationship with Shankar, but in truth Shankar was his advisor, and the source of Ganesan’s job on campus, according to court documents submitted by Rockett.
The only witness to Ganesan's meeting with Rockett was an even closer ally to Shankar. Srivinas Teppala, a 32-year-old doctoral candidate in epidemiology, regarded Shankar as his mentor and champion, according to the same court documents. Shankar had gotten Teppala into the program, and was his dissertation adviser, in addition to serving as co-author on at least a dozen scholarly articles—the essential kindling of a young academic’s career.
Together these two gave the university’s Office of Social Justice an explosive version of that morning meeting. In their telling, Rockett’s door was closed and his mind was on sex, not suicide. As Ganesan began to talk, according to his discredited statement to the university, Rockett interrupted him.
“You Indians have nice brown skin,” Rockett allegedly said. “But you smell weird with the spices that you use for cooking.”
Right about then the grey-haired professor supposedly pulled his chair closer and snatched at the young man’s penis.
Teppala claimed that from the hallway, he could then hear Rockett rise from his chair and say loudly to Ganesan, “Here, taste my white c--k.”
Ganesan said he fled rather than reciprocate and that Rockett flew into a rage, his words echoing into the corridor: “I will destroy you!”
Rockett says he laughed out loud when he first read this account in the Office of Social Justice. The story was just so preposterous. He said the real meeting was brief. The door was open. And he was sitting the whole time. Besides, he told the school’s investigator, according to a copy of Rockett’s official reply, “I do not speak in this manner whatsoever.”
“I love Indian food, and I do not find their spices or curry offensive or ‘weird.’ I dine almost every Tuesday evening with my wife and friends at a local Indian restaurant.”
Still, Rockett was appalled and a heavy thought settled in his mind: this fight wasn’t going to end well for someone.
Rockett resolved that it wouldn’t be him. He filed a defamation suit against Shankar and the two students. It hinged in part on proving that Shankar had a motivation for threatening Rockett’s reputation. So together with his wife, Sandra Putnam, and his attorney, Bader Giggenbach, Rockett began to roll back more of Shankar’s deceptions.
Some of the sharpest inconsistencies regarded where Shankar went to school. He claimed to have gone to medical school at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, but his medical license, not to mention online photos of him with friends, placed Shankar at Kottayam Medical College, more than 1,600 miles away.
He also claimed to have gotten a Ph.D. in epidemiology at Mahatma Gandhi University, where he later claimed to serve as an assistant professor of preventive medicine. But the institution doesn’t have a department of preventive medicine—or, for that matter, epidemiology. There also is no Anoop Shankar among the school’s 1,116 Ph.D. dissertations from 1988 to 2009, according to an online database accessible to the public. (Neither AIIMS nor Kottayam Medical College responded to queries. A former professor from Kottayam Medical College, however, recalls teaching Shankar there.)
As Rockett worked on his court case, WVU’s Office of Research Integrity conducted its own investigation, turning up evidence of about 30 additional false publications on Shankar’s resume, according to a person familiar with the report. Shankar had explained away Rockett’s initial discoveries as “clerical errors” made by a new assistant. But in the face of these new allegations, he abruptly resigned in December of 2012—just four months after being nominated for the school’s most prestigious position in public health.
WVU later concluded that there was “no evidence” to support the claims against Rockett, and, after he filed a formal complaint against the two students, they left the university without receiving their degrees. Earlier this year a county judge also supported Rockett, ordering the students to pay him nearly a quarter million dollars for damages.
"These are not victimless crimes."
Neither Ganesan nor Teppala showed up in court or responded to NBC News requests for comment. The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston also declined to comment on Teppala, who, despite never getting his Ph.D., is a current postdoctoral fellow at the school.
But Circuit Judge Phillip Gaujot found that they were liable for “the intentional infliction of emotional distress,” not to mention conduct that was “so extreme and outrageous as to exceed all bounds of decency.” Although Shankar has never admitted wrongdoing, Ganesan cracked in late November 2012, apparently telling one of his mentors that Shankar had fed him the false story of sexual assault.
“I’ve made a big mistake,” Ganesan told the mentor, according to documents filed with the Office of Social Justice.
In January 2013, after Shankar resigned, Ganesan again wrestled with his conscience and returned to the mentor’s office. He said that Teppala had failed a polygraph and that “the situation was getting serious.” He said that Shankar had told him to “take a vacation and leave the area.”
Just then, as the mentor counseled Ganesan to come clean publicly, the young man’s cell phone rang. It was Shankar on the line and Ganesan walked out to take the call.
The mentor never saw or heard from him again.
Later that year Shankar paid Rockett $45,000 in an out-of-court settlement and moved out of Morgantown. He didn't admit liability or fault, but also didn't appeal the results of the university’s internal review. More than 18 months after the first sign of fraud, WVU has yet to notify the wider academic community of Shankar’s troubling history.
They also haven’t withdrawn their sponsorship of Shankar’s visa, according to a senior immigration officer who declined to be named because he is not authorized to discuss the case publicly. Under the university’s integrity code, anyone accused or suspected of a breach is protected from public allegations until the university’s investigation is completed. This one evidently is not.
"Since questions about Dr. Shankar's credentials were first raised, WVU has appropriately followed its policies, procedures and applicable law,” John Bolt, a university spokesperson, said in a statement. “WVU shared its discoveries with law enforcement. Many of the issues raised are confidential personnel matters, and the University does not discuss these publicly.”
WVU’s response is typical foot-dragging, according to Retraction Watch cofounder Adam Marcus. But every passing day means more resources could be wasted. When someone falsifies their credentials, Marcus said, the assiduous thing to do is “check their work” for fraud. The costs of inaction are hours lost, money squandered, and progress stalled. “The last thing you want to do as a Ph.D. student is to waste valuable years of your life trying to replicate or build on what proves to be falsified studies,” he said. “These are not victimless crimes.”
There’s been a well-documented rise in false scientific research, driven up by declines in resources and positions. One recent study found a ten-fold increase in retractions since 1975. And some of the most egregious examples of falsified results begin with doctored CVs.
In 2010, four years after an initial complaint, Duke University finally began investigating medical researcher Anil Potti’s cancer breakthroughs after a journalist discovered he was lying about being a Rhodes Scholar. Much of Potti’s research was discredited and in 2011 he resigned from Duke, although he never acknowledged wrongdoing.
"My jaw dropped to the floor."
So far Shankar’s work itself has yet to come under scrutiny, but some anticipate a similar walk of shame, given his history of fraud. Sarah Knox, one of Shankar’s former colleagues, says that his consistently clear cut results are uncommon in large studies.
“It’s amazing,” she remembers remarking to herself as he racked up dozens of publications a year. “How come my results don’t do that?”
One day she discovered an explanation. A student of hers was trying to determine whether exposure to a certain common chemical had an effect on people. It was a new student, not yet trained in statistics, so Shankar’s personal statistician ran the analyses. And the results were perfect: the chemical was indeed showing a widespread effect.
Or so it seemed.
A closer look revealed that Shankar had instructed the statistician to control for the effect of gender and ethnicity, Knox said. She asked the student why and the answer disturbed her: without the controls the effect only registered in white males, she said. White males, Shankar suggested, weren’t enough of a population to impress the big medical journals.
“My jaw dropped to the floor,” recalled Knox.
Here was a person so comfortable with deception that he was willing to teach it to students, she thought. When Shankar left, Knox took over his role in the student’s paper and she tried to re-run the analyses. She couldn’t, the statistician told her. Shankar took everything with him, computer programs and all.
Now Shankar seems to have taken his shape-shifting to the web. He sometimes bills himself as the director of a fancy-sounding research center that doesn’t exist, and he recently created a fake site for India’s leading public health foundation. He populated it with a bogus interview with a Reuters journalist, who is quoted as saying: “Professor Shankar, your work is fascinating!”
He also boldly applied for a job at Virginia Commonwealth University. He dropped the PhD claim, kept the misleading “MD,” and apparently added new experience as a clinician and past medical resident, according to the advertised requirements for the job. But this summer, in response to questions from NBC News, VCU opened its own inquiry into Shankar’s credentials. Last month, the former star quietly left his second American university.
“We looked into his background,” Anne Buckley, a university spokesperson, said in a statement. “Shankar was employed by VCU and is no longer employed here.”
But the deceptions continue, and one of the boldest was due to land in libraries this fall. Shankar was a guest editor of the Journal of Environmental and Public Health, a global publication with board members from Yale, Cornell and the Environmental Protection Agency. Back in March the journal put out a call for papers for the August issue, listing Shankar’s affiliation with Washington University School of Medicine.
The school has never heard of him, however, and a spokesperson for the journal—which is looking into how the false affiliation came to them—said in a statement that the special issue has been canceled for a lack of submissions. Perhaps would-be contributors sensed all they really needed to know about Shankar from his email address.
Here’s a hint: it ends in Yahoo!
This investigation was supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. NBC News has retained sole editorial control over the content of the report.DESCRIPTION
Starboard Games LLC is looking for a highly professional, qualified, indie team developer to join our ambitious INT project.
We are looking for a serious and dedicated Public Relations Manager, who will work with the Project Lead in providing regular community updates, and grow our fan base in preparation for our funding campaign.
Typical tasks include the following:
Promote the INT Project through multiple Social Media outlets (E.G. Reddit, twitter, Facebook). Coordinate and work with our web admin to provide content directly to the website. Create weekly updates with team highlights. This update will be shared to the broader community on IndieDB, Steam, and official INT website. Attend developer meetings and interact with the team and Project Lead to obtain highlights and material that can be used in a weekly update. Map and manage social media analytics and report updates at weekly team meetings. Manage and potentially host monthly INT Project podcast known as ‘RogueSpace’ and manage the INT Project’s twitch account.
REQUIREMENTS
Essential Requirements
Advanced fluency in written English. Able to structure and create informative articles that are attractive at the same time. Excellent self-management skills. Excellent communications skills, both verbal and written.
Preferred
Be an avid gamer. Have played a broad collection of titles; in sync with the latest news in gaming. Other Indie Game Developer experience will also be a bonus.
BENEFITS
This is the perfect opportunity to get into the game development industry. Being an Indie team we do not have the creative restrictions often imposed by publishers or other third parties. We are extremely conscientious of our work and continuously uphold a high level of quality throughout our project.
We are an unfunded project that is seeking to create a technology (public-free) demo which will be used to crowd-fund on a variety of platforms including our websites and Kick-starter. It is a volunteer time based project, but we are looking for people who have around 15 hours a week to spend on this. Currently we are unable to offer commission payment or wages. Your understanding is greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much for your time. We look forward to hearing from you!
TO APPLY
Please send (the link to) your portfolio and any other relevant documents to JohnHR@int-game.net
John Shen
HR Lead
Starboard Games LLCJohn Grass Comments Head CoachComments
2016 FOOTBALL SIGNEES (16)
JANUARY ENROLLEES (5)
2016 SIGNEE BIOS & HIGHLIGHTS
JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville State football team received National Letters of Intent from 16 players on Wednesday's National Signing Day, a day head coachsaid filled needs and made the program better.The Gamecocks signed 12 high school players and four junior college transfers on Wednesday. Of the 16 signees on National Signing Day, five were rated three-star recruits and four received two stars from national recruiting services."We have had a great signing day and this class is really outstanding from top to bottom. We took five guys at the break and they are really good players and we will sign around 15 by the end of the day today, so we will have a class of 20 coming in. We are excited about this class and when you rank them and the guys coming out with three or two stars and some four stars, we have about 15 guys that are ranked coming out of high school. For an FCS program to say that, it says a lot because we are competing against a lot of FBS programs and some Power Five conferences for some guys. Our coaches have done a great job recruiting and it has been a great day so far and looking forward to celebrating tonight and then tomorrow start to go over some highlights of these guys and show the Gamecocks what we have for the future.""Overall, we did a good job of filling some needs and we did fill some needs at some positions that we had from the senior class. When you graduate two tight ends, we picked up two at the break. We picked up some defensive backs after really losing four defensive backs out of our top five, so we feel really good about the guys we redshirted last year and the guys we signed today. We met every need that we had.""It sealed some deals and I think it opened some doors. Our staff does a great job of recruiting these guys and building relationships. They do a tremendous job of identifying the kids and then building the relationships. I think the playoff run and playing in the national championship game sealed some deals. The atmosphere here is pretty special and I feel like that is one of the ways our fan base helps us so much. When you get a kid on campus during the regular season or a playoff game, there might be a kid in Florida somewhere watching one of those ESPN2 games in the playoffs and they see the atmosphere. Most programs don't have the type of fan base that we do outside of the power conferences. I think guys want to come and be a part of that."Below is a complete list of players that have signed their NLI to join the Gamecocks, as well as their bios and highlights from their prep careers.Kurtis Beaman (DL, 6-1, 315, Birmingham, Ala./Huffman HS)Josh Brady (LS, 6-3, 225, Ringgold, Ga./Silverdale Baptist Academy)Robert Chambers (DL, 6-3, 275, Conyers, Ga./Salem HS)Evan Crossing (WR, 5-11, 175, Atlanta, Ga./Riverwood HS)Kendrick Doss (QB, 6-1, 205, Florence, Ala./Florence HS/NE Mississippi CC)Lorenzo Fields (DE, 6-3, 235, Stockton, Ala./Daphne HS/Highland (Kan.) CC)Tyus Flakes (RB, 5-8, 195, Auburn, Ala./Auburn HS)Peyton Gilliland (SAF, 6-0, 215, Cleveland, Ala./Cleveland HS)Satchel Goodrich (WR, 6-0, 175, Fayetteville, Ga./Starr's Mill HS)Brock Gould (OL, 6-3, 255, Mobile, Ala./McGill Toolen HS)Jonathan Hagler (SAF, 6-0, 210, Leeds, Ala./Leeds HS/Arizona Western College)Bryce Handy (LB, 6-1, 220, Miami, Fla./Gulliver Prep)Terrence Harris (LB, 6-3, 215, Birmingham, Ala./Huffman HS)Keegan Hill (CB, 5-10, 163, Carrollton, Ga./Carrollton HS)Jacquez Payton (CB, 6-0, 165, Georgiana, Ala./Georgiana HS)Penny Smith (QB, 6-2, 181, Knoxville, Tenn./Fulton HS/NE Oklahoma A&M)Jonathan Curry (TE, 6-2, 250, Phenix City, Ala./Central HS/Purdue)BJ Hammond (TE, 6-4, 210, Gadsden, Ala./Gadsden City HS/Mississippi State)Pat Porter (CB, 5-9, 163, Tuscaloosa, Ala./Paul W. Bryant HS/Washington State)Tramel Terry (CB, 6-0, 195, Goose Creek, S.C./University of Georgia)Al'Dreecous Wilson (SAF, 5-11, 165, Opelika, Ala./Opelika HS/Jones County JC)A three-star recruit by 247sports, scout.com and rivals.com…played for head coach Alex Wilson at Huffman High School in Birmingham…rated the No. 72 DT in the country and the No. 39 player in Alabama by 247sports and the No. 4 DT in Alabama by scout.com…a second team all-state selection by the Alabama Sports Writers Association as a senior after earning honorable mention all-state honors from the ASWA as a freshman in 2012…selected to play in the Alabama vs. Mississippi All-Star Game…helped lead the Vikings to their first AHSAA Playoff appearance in 10 seasons in 2015…chose the Gamecocks over offers from Arkansas State, Memphis, South Alabama, Southern Miss and Western Kentucky.Played for head coach Al Rogers at Silverdale Baptist Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn…ranked No. 4 nationally and No. 1 in his class by Kornblue Kicking…Kohl's Professional Camps listed him No. 6 nationally at the long snapper position…went to the 2013 Rubio Underclassmen Invite Only Camp in Burbank, Calif…named to the USA 15 and Under National Football Team in 2001 and 2012…chose the Gamecocks over Chattanooga.A two-star recruit by rivals.com…played for head coach John Starr at Salem High School in Conyers, Ga…an honorable mention all-state selection in GHSA Class AAAAA by the Atlanta Journal Constitution…chose the Gamecocks over offers from Charlotte, Eastern Kentucky and Troy.Played for head coach Ben Stready at Riverwood High School in Atlanta, Ga…recorded 39 catches for 679 yards and eight touchdowns as a senior in 2015…helped RHS to a 7-3 record and was selected as the team's Offensive Player of the Year…was named the North Georgia Touchdown Club Offensive Player of the Week in Week Six…had 130 receiving yards and a touchdown in a win over sub-region No. 1 Cambridge...chose the Gamecocks over Navy.Originally signed with Ole Miss out of Florence High School, where he was a three-star recruit by most major recruiting services, including Rivals, Scout and 247Sports…spent one season at Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville, Miss., where he was 92-for-197 for 1,094 yards and five touchdowns through the air, while running for 239 yards and eight scores on 74 carries…at Florence High School, played for head coach Jamey DuBose…one of the top 15 prospects in the state of Alabama and the 11th best dual-threat quarterback nationally by Rivals…received multiple scholarship offers from schools inside power conferences such as the American Athletic Conference (AAC), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big 10 Conference and Southeastern Conference (SEC)…the 2014 TimesDaily Athlete of the Year award among male athletes in its coverage area…also picked by the TimesDaily as its Class 4A-6A Player of the Year following his senior campaign…racked up 2,105 yards through the air and 1,170 yards on the ground for FHS…added 35 total touchdowns during his final campaign at the prep level…had 2,945 yards total offense with 37 touchdowns accounted for in his senior year.Spent the past two seasons at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and Highland Community College after prepping at Daphne High School in Daphne, Ala…as a freshman at MGCCC in 2014, played in all 10 games for head coach Chad Huff, recording 24 tackles…had one tackle for a loss and 1.5 sacks, while also forcing a fumble…played for head coach Glenn Vickery at Daphne High School…was a first team Al.com Coastal Alabama All-Region linebacker that was also named all-county…recorded 119 tackles as a senior in 2013, including a team-high 14 tackles for a loss…led the Trojans to back-to-back region titles in his junior and senior seasons.A three-star recruit by 247Sports and espn.com and a two-star by scout.com and Rivals…prepped for head coach Tim Carter and Adam Winegarden at Auburn High School in Auburn, Ala…AHS's all-time leading rusher, was an honorable mention all-state pick by the Alabama Sports Writers Association as a junior in 2014, when he ran for 1,380 yards and 10 touchdowns…helped AHS to a 13-2 record, a region title and a berth in the AHSAA Class 6A State Championship Game in his sophomore season…suffered a knee injury in the spring of 2015 that forced him to miss his senior season…received offers from over a dozen schools, including Indiana, Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Cincinnati, Florida Atlantic, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Marshall, North Texas, South Alabama and Southern Miss.Played for head coach and father Gardner Gilliland at Cleveland High School in Cleveland, Ala…played both quarterback and defensive back for CHS, who he helped to the best season in program history…was a first team all-state pick by the Alabama Sports Writers Association at defensive back and was a finalist for the ASWA Class 2A Back of the Year…recorded 61 tackles, intercepted seven passes and scored four defensive touchdowns to lead the Panthers to a 12-1 record and into the AHSAA Class 2A Quarterfinals…on offense, ran for 1,348 yards and 20 touchdowns, while throwing for 1,168 yards and 15 scores…in three seasons at CHS, racked up 8,500 yards of total offense and accounted for 107 touchdowns…was a first team all-state pick as a quarterback as a junior, while also being a finalist for Class 2A Back of the Year…played in the Alabama-Mississippi All-Star Classic…also had offers from Army and Navy.Prepped for head coach Chad Phillips at Starr's Mill High School in Fayetteville, Ga…was a first team all-county selection as a senior after recording 210 receiving yards and leading the Panthers' defensive backfield, despite missing some time to an injury…led the Panthers to a 10-2 record and into the second round of the GHSA Class AAAAA Playoffs…as a junior in 2014, had 799 all-purpose yards, thanks to 20 catches for 445 yards and five touchdowns and 151 rushing yards and a score on 27 carries…was a first team all-region by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and an all-county performer.Prepped for head coach Caleb Ross at McGill-Toolen High School in Mobile, Ala…was an all-area selection as a senior in 2015 after helping the Yellow Jackets to the AHSAA Class 7A State Championship, the first in school history…pace MTHS to a 13-1 record and a perfect 8-0 record in AHSAA Class 7A Region 1 play…helped anchor a front line that paved the way for an offense that outscored its foes 245-70.A two-star recruit by scout.com out of junior college…played the 2015 season for head coach Tom Minnick at Arizona Western College in Yuma, Ariz…had 33 tackles and two interceptions as a sophomore for the Matadors…played his freshman season at Shasta College in Redding, Calif…led the team with 76 tackles, including 3.5 for a loss…intercepted eight passes and amassed 199 interception return yards, while breaking up a pass and forcing one fumble…returned two interceptions for touchdowns in 2014…prepped at Leeds High School in Leeds, Ala., for head coach Keith Etheridge…was an honorable mention all-state pick by the Alabama Sports Writers Association as a senior in 2012…helped the Green Wave to an 11-2 record and the AHSAA Class 3A Region 4 Championship.A three-star recruit by 247Sports and scout.com and a two-star recruit by Rivals…played for head coach Earl Sims at Gulliver Prep in 2015, where he was a First Team All-Dade selection by the Miami Herald…recorded 85 tackles in 2015…his father Darren was a starting offensive lineman on Miami's 1989 National Championship team…chose the Gamecocks over offers from Army, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Kentucky and Temple.A three-star recruit by scout.com, espn.com and Rivals…also a three-star recruit by 247Sports, who also rated him the No. 28 player in Alabama and the No. 31 inside linebacker in the country…played for head coach Alex Wilson at Huffman High School in Birmingham, Ala…helped lead the Vikings to their first AHSAA Playoff appearance in 10 seasons in 2015…received offers from several schools, including Cincinnati, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Memphis, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, South Alabama and Western Kentucky.Played cornerback and wide receiver for head coach Ed Dudley at Carrollton High School in Carrollton, Ga…had two interceptions and 101 interception return yards for the Trojans as a senior, when he also recovered a fumble…was a return specialist, as well…had a 91-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against Sandy Creek…had a 60-yard punt return for a score against North Hall.A two-star recruit by 247Sports, scout.com and Rivals prepped for head coach Ezell Powell at Georgiana High School in Georgiana, Ala…a second team all-state selection by the Alabama Sports Writers Association as a senior, Georgiana's first all-state player in 11 years…helped the Panthers to an 11-2 record and to the third round of the AHSAA Class 1A Playoffs…also an all-state point guard for the Panthers on the basketball court…chose JSU over offers from Liberty, Memphis, Samford and South Alabama.Spent the 2015 year at Northeast Oklahoma A&M in Miami, Okla…a two-star recruit out of Fulton High School in Knoxville, Tenn., by 247Sports, Rivals and scout.com…as a senior at FHS, threw for 2,183 yards and 34 touchdowns on 94-for-155 passing…ran for 456 yards and five scores on 34 rushes…threw for 1,494 yards and 22 touchdowns as a junior…team went a combined 28-2 in his last two years at FHS and won back-to-back Class 4A State Championships in Tennessee…signed with Chattanooga out of high school and was redshirted during the 2014 season.Last night, “Religious Left” leader Jim Wallis appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. While the interview started out alright, I kept finding myself disappointed with Wallis’ answers — Maher kept asking him questions that any atheist interested in the Truth would ask, and Wallis kept dodging them in order to make the point that religion can be used for good (which no one is denying and is completely besides the point):
Josh Feldman at Mediaite points out one particular exchange that was really frustrating to watch:
Wallis countered that people who talk about the Bible haven’t exactly read it, though Maher protested he did. Wallis played up how he had a group of religious people rallying for immigration reform in D.C. because of their faith, but Maher interjected to say, “You’re cherry-picking the good parts.” Maher told Wallis that it’s hard for someone to say God is “perfect” when there’s a lot of twisted morality in the Bible itself. “It’s pro-slavery, pro-polygamy, it’s homophobic, God in the Old Testament is a psychotic mass murderer |
rod’s ejection. Perez Garcia reacted by slamming down a water bottle in frustration at being forced to come off.
Get more Quakes news at SJEarthquakes.com
“You look at him, he’s starting to look more confident and playing better, I thought,” Kinnear said of Perez Garcia. “Until the red card, he was one of the better guys on the field. He’s more of a passer than a finisher of plays, but in the Columbus game, he was getting on the end of some good things. And that’s why the message from us is, ‘Vary your play. Sometimes drop back and get it, but always remember we do like you up close to goal,’ because he does have that ability to either make the pass or consistently get the ball on target.”
To some extent, San Jose can be heartened by the fact that they sit at 5-5-4 despite not yet finding a consistent second option behind Wondolowski. A true second option could give them the push needed to get above the clot of teams currently fighting for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
“As long as we’re scoring and winning, that’s what we want to be doing,” said forward Adam Jahn, one of the six players with one goal thus far in 2015. “Wondo is one of the best forwards in the league, so it’s great that he’s producing the way he is.”Hi everyone!,This time, i want to share with you some fanart.I watched "Buffy - The Vampire Slayer" a while ago.This TV show was one of my favourite, in my childhood.Love the monster designs.Moloch the Corruptor: Season 1, Episode 8: "I, Robot...You Jane"I record, the sculpting, texturing process in Zbrush.In the next view days, i will post a little timelapse video.Maybe a create a full tutorial tooIt's not 100% the Moloch concept from the Tv show, because my ref. images hada very bad resolution. The details were difficult to recognise. (only screenshots from 320p videos...)Tools: Zbrush for sculpting, texturing, rendering.Photoshop for comp. workIf you want to see more render shot's, feel free tovisit my Portfolio or Artstation / Facebook page.Portfolio: leifart.artstation.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/LeifArt Artstation: www.artstation.com/artist/leif… Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1cTbw… If anyone know the artist who create this concept, please send me a pm,so i can name the artist in this post!I hope you enjoy this image, like i do! Had alot of fun and it was a good training.Wish you all the best!Leander Dendoncker is a new hope among Manchester United supporters eager for midfield reinforcements. Despite Jose Mourinho moving from Nemanja Matic to Dendoncker seeming an unlikely change of tact, the Anderlecht player being linked has generated some excitement.
Belgium’s De Morgan broke the news that Manchester United are set to watch Anderlecht in action tonight. There’s nothing strange there, the Premier League club have been sending scouts to watch Anderlecht for years, so it’s natural they’re back once again.
Anderlecht are perhaps the most scouted Belgian club and lists of those attending are released on an almost weekly basis. In itself, it was a nothing story, that is until De Morgan said the target is Dendoncker.
The more transfer weary or wary may believe this was an educated guess from De Morgan, with Youri Tielemans now gone, 22 year old Dendoncker is the obvious target.
Manchester United have been linked to the midfielder previously, although there’s been nothing especially concrete, so it all fits in and produces a transfer story which fans were happy to hear.
Anderlecht have been determined to keep the player this summer, letting the Belgium media know it’d cost €38m to change that stance. Such a figure always seemed wildly ambitious, and now it’s been unmasked as nonsense.A 16-inch sewer line overwhelmed by excessive storm flows broke and spilled raw sewage into a creek for hours Tuesday morning near Carillo Way and Melrose Drive in Carlsbad.
A customer discovered the leak and notified Vallecitos Water District crews about 9 a.m. Tuesday, said district spokesman Chris Robbins. The area had more than 3 inches of rain on Monday.
Upon arrival crews used sandbags and a portable pump to divert much of the flow into a nearby sewer manhole, Robbins said. All flow was stopped by 1:10 p.m., and repairs were expected to be complete by the end of the workday.
No estimate of the total spill was available, he said. However, crews estimated the sewage was leaking at the rate of 300 gallons per minute when it was discovered.
Contamination signs were posted from the spill site along the unnamed creek to the Batiquitos Lagoon, and to the ocean at the mouth of the lagoon.
Though storm drains and sewer drains are separate, stormwater often enters sewers in various ways during big storms, Robbins said.
philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com
Twitter: @phildiehlProduct Notes
Blue Train is a hard bop jazz album by John Coltrane, released in 1957 on Blue Note Records, catalogue BLP 1577. Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, it is Coltrane's second solo album, the only one he recorded for Blue Note as a leader, and the only one he conceived personally for the label. It has been certified a gold record by the RIAA. Arguably one of the most influential titles from Coltrane and one of the greatest Blue Note releases ever. Musicians: John Coltrane – tenor saxophone, bandleader Lee Morgan – trumpet Curtis Fuller – trombone Kenny Drew – piano Paul Chambers – double bass Philly Joe Jones – drums Track Listing1. Blue Train 2. Moments Notice 3. Locomotion 4. Im Old Fashioned 5. Lazy Bird"I've been doing that since I was champion. Yeah, when I fought Junior Witter, I was vegan. I went vegan for that fight...Nutrients is what builds bigger muscles; not protein. It's the nutrients, man, so with that said, I was like, man. I consume more complex-carbohydrates than I do protein and I consume more good fat than I consume freakin' protein as well. You know, 65% of my intake is complex-carbohydrates. Another 20% of that is the official fat, and then the rest is just, you know, 10 or 15%, whatever is left, that's protein. I just eat a little bit of protein just to repair my muscles and stuff, but nurtients is what you need. That's why like when guys start fading in later rounds, I'm able to pick it up," stated undefeated WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, who discussed the benefits that he believes his Vegan diet gives him over other fighters. Check out what else he had to say as he gives us an update from training camp.
BT: What's up, Tim? How's training camp going?
TB: I'm feeling great. I'm ahead of schedule right now. I'm not killing my body. I did 12 weeks last training camp for the Pacquiao fight. I think I was ready around 8 weeks; it was hard, man, because I had to taper really early and then pick up again at the end. I didn't really have that peak performance like I wanted, so this time around, I'ma do 8 weeks. My weight's great; my weight's down. I'm in the low 60's. I got about 15 pounds to drop within the next two months and that's not normal for me (laughing). Normally I'm around 170, 175. I got up to 185 after the Pacquiao fight the first time.
BT: Damn! Do you put on weight like that pretty easily?
TB: Yeah. You know, it's just genetics, man. I eat everything and then from there, it don't matter; I just blow up. If you look at my dad, he's 230. He normally blow up around 250, but he's watching his weight and stuff now because he's getting older. But normally he's about 250 and he's 5'7". My uncles and everybody is big; everybody is just diesel, man.
BT: You sound like me. I blow up fast when I'm just chillin', like over the holidays, but when I get in the gym and start hittin' it hard, I get the weight off pretty quickly (laughing).
TB: Yeah, well the older you get, the harder it gets (laughing). I noticed that. I remember when I was 23, a week before the fight, I'll be 165 and I'll still make 140. I was 23 and I'd make weight easy and still feel strong. Now, it's a lot harder. To feel good in the ring, I gotta really take my time, so I take 3 months normally to lose weight.
BT: When you first moved up to 147, were you killing yourself to make 140 at the time or do you think you could've still fought at that weight?
TB: 140 was comfortable for me. I made the weight pretty easily. I mean, I would eat the week of the fight and everything and be hydrated and all that. After I had beat Devon and stuff, it was just like, alright, I'll move up to 47 since that's where the money's at. 147 is pretty much where I fought at when I was an amateur. I didn't fight at 140. I fought at 147. I went from 139 and then I fought at 147 and then 152 when I was amateur. It was natural. 147 was very natural and very easy because I was real comfortable. It was like that's where I belonged and I was real comfortable at 147 when I was an amateur, but then they changed the weight to 52 and then I started fighting like giants (laughing). Everybody was bigger than me. That's why I like fighting guys that are taller than me because I'm used to fighting them.
BT: (Laughing) No doubt. I take it you're back on the vegan diet, right?
TB: Yeah, I'm on the vegan diet right now. No dairy, no nothing.
BT: Man, I don't think I could do that. I think the closest I ever came to a diet like that was when I juiced for a week. I definitely lost weight though. Can you feel any effects on your body while you're on the Vegan diet?
TB: Yeah. Well, what happens is after awhile, you basically hit the barrier where your metabolism is so damn fast, it don't matter what you eat, you burn it; you burn it up and you lose a massive amount of weight very quickly, but it's like, for instance, the week of the fight, I eat pasta. I eat a lot of pasta the week of the fight; every night I have a bowl of pasta and that's like to keep my muscles full of freakin' glucose, man, and just keep complex carbohydrates in my system. It's almost like carbohydrate-loading, you know what I mean; loading before a big day. Most guys, they sometimes don't even eat. I've seen guys like at the weigh-ins laying on the floor, dehydrated; they don't drink water for like a day or two. Me, man, I'm eating pasta, drinking water, you know, eating fruits; because like I said, it becomes to where after 3 months, my body just burns anything. It just burns it up, dude; eats up and carries it off. Yeah, it's real efficient for me. There's a science to it, man. You gotta know what you're doing. You gotta research and consult with a doctor or a dietitian to really see what you're lacking.
BT: How long have you been doing that?
TB: I've been doing that since I was champion. Yeah, when I fought Junior Witter, I was vegan. I went vegan for that fight. What I did was, I tried...see, I met these doctors, man, naturopathic doctors, and I met 'em and they basically connected me with a vitamin company called USANA. A lot of top athletes around the world, basketball players, Olympians, take USANA products because they're products that you can trust because of the drug testing. So they were naturopathic doctors and they told me a story. Basically, they were vegans/vegetarians, whatever you want to call it, and they were just like, "Well, what's the myth of us as humans?" I was like, "Well, there's a couple myths out there, but the way I was raised was that God created us." He was like, "Yeah, yeah, I agree with that, but which animal is similar to the human species?" I said, "Well, you got those chimps and gorillas and stuff. They act like humans." And they said, "Alright, well, you see how big they are?" I said, "Yeah!" They said, "You see how strong they are?" I said, "Yeah!" They said, "Well, what do they eat?" I said, "Um, I think they eat natural vegetation. Every time I see a picture, they eating greens and fruits and stuff." They was like, "Well?" And I was like, "Man, say no more! Say no more, you sold me." (Laughing) He was like, "You see how fast they are, strong they are?" I was like, "Man, hey, I'ma try this." After like a whole week, I was good; I felt completely different. I was able to step my training up and train harder and faster and longer than ever before, and I didn't feel bloated. I had like instant energy, so I was like, man, this is crazy. I was just throwing stuff around and just training, man, and just burning, and after I refueled, I felt good and I healed up quicker. You know, a lot of people have that perception, "Oh, you need a whole lot of protein." That's not true, man. You need protein to help repair your muscles and stuff, but you don't need to overindulge in protein thinking that you're going to build bigger muscles. Nutrients is what builds bigger muscles; not protein. It's the nutrients, man, so with that said, I was like, man. I consume more complex-carbohydrates than I do protein and I consume more good fat than I consume freakin' protein as well. You know, 65% of my intake is complex-carbohydrates. Another 20% of that is the official fat, and then the rest is just, you know, 10 or 15%, whatever is left, that's protein. I just eat a little bit of protein just to repair my muscles and stuff, but nurtients is what you need. That's why like when guys start fading in later rounds, I'm able to pick it up.
BT: Did you have to teach yourself all of that knowledge?
TB: Pretty much; just reading books, you know. Just reading books, man, and you can find anything on the internet, man; anything you don't know or think about. That's what I do, man. I'm a student of this. I don't have a degree in nutrition and all that stuff, but I can damn sure make people lose weight and be a nutritionist, you know, as far as calories and what they should eat; I definitely can do that without having a degree because I just basically taught myself just reading books. Before I called you, I was researching (laughing).
BT: That's wassup. You only do the vegan thing for fights though, right?
TB: Yeah, only for fights. Man, my dad's from the South, man. My parents grew up in the South. I like my meat and potatoes, man. I like my steak, you know what I mean. I like all that stuff. I just try to live a simple life, man. My job is my job and I get down, I get busy when I'm getting ready to train; I get serious and focused and stuff, but, you know, I got kids, man, and they like McDonald's and stuff. I'm sorry, man, I like to live too and that's just my thing. It may kill me sooner and it may not, but at least my kids are having fun and they're all happy and stuff, and we're having a good time and I'm enjoying myself. I really don't care what people think or say. I'm ready to be professional at all times and look good, but man, like I said, hey, I got a family; this is my job and when I get ready for my job, I get ready like no other. I work my butt off, man, and I get the job done most of the time.
BT: Hey, everybody has an off-season and you gotta treat yourself from time to time, right?
TB: Hey man, I'm a firm believer in that. You know, you got these people that are fitness buffs and they in the gym every single day, dude. Every day, working out. That's boring to me, man. (Laughing) That's so boring. You know, I've been training for 20 years of my life doing this boxing stuff, man. You know, running every day, biking every day, that's just boring, man. I do this hardcore. I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, you know.
BE SURE TO CHECK BACK SOON FOR MUCH MORE FROM WBO WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPION TIMOTHY BRADLEY
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Oct. 6, 2017, 9:52 PM GMT / Source: TODAY By Aliyah Frumin
The patient has become the caregiver.
In a true role reversal, a 24-year-old Georgia woman has started a job as a pediatric oncology nurse — at the same hospital where she was treated twice for cancer as a child.
Montana Brown, above, was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer, when she was 2 years old. Courtesy of Montana Brown.
It’s only been two weeks since Montana Brown began working at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, but she told TODAY that already the job is “more than anything I could ask for,” adding: “It’s so cool to just be at the place where I was treated and to have an influence over the kids and to be an inspiration to them.”
After being diagnosed with cancer a second time, Montana Brown, underwent chemotherapy again between 2008-2009. Courtesy of Montana Brown
Brown was just 2 years old when she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer that affects connective tissue. She underwent chemotherapy for a year and went into remission for 13 years.
But at the age of 15, she was diagnosed again with the same cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy for yet another year. It was particularly hard, recounted Brown, because her family recently moved and she was attending a new high school. She was also told that she had to stop competitive cheerleading, one of her passions.
But during that difficult time, Brown said she remembered just how compassionate the nurses were at the Aflac Cancer Center. A few staffers were still there from when the teenager battled cancer as a toddler. Brown, who has been in remission since, decided shortly after her second treatment that she wanted to give back — and give comfort — in the same way the nurses did with her when she was in the hospital.
“Around 10th or 11th grade, I started thinking about what to major in," Brown told TODAY. "I knew I wanted to help people and I knew that I wanted to use my story to help others and give them hope and inspiration. The more that I thought about it, I knew being a pediatric oncology nurse would be the greatest field for me.” She received a degree in nursing from Augusta University last year.
Caroline Rooke, the hematology and oncology nurse manager at the Aflac Cancer Center, told TODAY that Brown’s experience battling cancer makes her a special part of the team.
Montana Brown received a degree in nursing from Augusta University in 2016. Courtesy of Montana Brown.
“After meeting Montana, knowing her story and hearing her response to her own journey, we knew that she would be the next best addition to our team and would enhance the care experience that we can offer our patients,” said Rooke.
“I love the fact that I can I say, ‘I know exactly what you’ve been through; I’ve been there,’” added Brown. “I think it makes me and my patients form a better bond and it helps me be more relatable to them and helps them calm their nerves and ease their anxiety.”Episode 85 — The Incredible Hercules
This week on View from the Gutters our topic work is The Incredible Hercules, Vol. 1: Against the World, written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente, with art by Khoi Pham. Following the events of World War Hulk, Hercules took over the Hulk’s comic, teaming up with Amadeus Cho—a young man known as the 7th Smartest Man in the World. In this volume we see Herc and Cho fighting against a SHIELD they no longer trust as well as Herc’s brother, Ares, who was at the time an Avenger.
In our recommendation section, our hosts nominated The Losers, Infinite Horizon, Morning Glories, Justice League of America, Vol. 1: The Tornado’s Path, and Dungeons & Dragons, Volume 1: Shadowplague for discussion on the next episode, and our selected title is The Losers, Vol. 1. (#1-12)
We invite you to discuss both this episode and its topic on our subreddit.
Our hosts for this episode are Andrew Chard, Tobiah Panshin, Adam Panshin, Brant Gillihan-Eddy, and Cade Reynolds.Occupy Wall Street, October 10, 2011. (Photo: DoctorTongs)A little-known lawsuit advancing in federal court has the potential to change the moral and legal balance of power between private equity and the public good. But analysts say it may take the Occupy Movement to bring about needed regulatory reforms.
The secretive industry of private equity, mostly lauded in press in the 1990s and mid-2000s for executing daring buyout deals of ever-increasing proportions, is facing enormous skepticism these days.The fact that the Republican Party has chosen to nominate a co-founder of one of America’s largest and most controversial PE firms as its presidential candidate, in the midst of the most severe economic downturn since The Great Depression, is an obvious cause of some of the increased attention. Even so, private equity’s record was a story long overdue to be told.
Besides this raft of media attention, including some serious journalistic scoops, there are more serious investigations into the morally and legally dubious activities of companies like Bain Capital that could have reverberating impacts on the industry’s future. What’s interesting about recent government and shareholder investigations is that in years past, these parties mostly looked the other way, or even cooperated through inaction, allowing PE firms to literally commit crimes, or at least to conduct their business in morally dubious ways, unabashedly preying on the wealth of public companies, less powerful investors and local communities.The lack of moral sanction, and the near absence of law enforcement action, only served to reinforce private equity’s greed.
Now, however, one lawsuit has partly pried open the black box of private equity. The case has the potential to not only provide yet unseen data and documents recording some of PE’s biggest possible crimes, but also to set the stage for the taming of finance capital’s most aggressive and destructive creatures. It’s a moon shot of a chance, and will take popular political pressure and aggressive regulatory and legal action to capitalize on, say lawyers and experts watching the proceedings. Even so the case is worth following.
The story begins in 2006 when the Department of Justice (DOJ) let it be known that it was conducting an investigation into possible antitrust violations within the private equity industry. While the DOJ has prosecuted private equity companies before under antitrust laws, these cases tend to apply to instances where a particular buyout deal would result in the monopolistic concentration of ownership within a market. For example, in 2008, federal prosecutors argued that if Bain Capital had been allowed to purchase a controlling stake in the media giant Clear Channel Communications then, “competition in the sale and provision of advertising on radio stations in [certain] markets would be substantially lessened or eliminated.” This was pretty standard antitrust litigation for Justice Department lawyers. It did little to slow private equity’s debt-financed takeovers and value extraction. Bain ended up buying Clear Channel in a club deal that included Thomas H. Lee Partners later that year.
What was different about the DOJ’s 2006 investigation into private equity was that federal prosecutors were said to be surveying the fundamental business practices of the entire industry with an eye to how virtually every other leveraged buyout was cheating shareholders, manipulating securities markets and illegally extracting value from public corporations.
It was rumored to be an investigation of sweeping scope into the industry’s cartel-like organization through so-called club deals. The PE industry was worried; elite defense lawyers were mobilized to prepare a defense if necessary. After two years of rumors, but no suit announced, many observers began to conclude that the investigation was coming up short of the overwhelming evidence federal prosecutors often seek. Even so, counsel friendly to private equity advocated cosmetic changes to the industry.
“Although it would be difficult for the DOJ to prove anticompetitive behavior, the recent inquiry should serve as a signal to private equity firms, such as KKR, to make changes,” opined Jessica Jackson, a legal scholar sympathetic to the industry, in a 2008 Florida Law Review article. To defuse potential DOJ action, Jackson advocated greater transparency, written consortium agreements and lobbying and public relations investments to boost private equity’s reputation, concluding that, “whatever the outcome, the DOJ probe might actually spur changes for the better.”
Private equity’s biggest firms breathed a collective sigh of relief when after several years no government action was filed and the investigation seemed to fizzle out. With the exception of increased public relations expenditures to combat bad press – the PE industry founded the Private Equity Growth Council, an industry lobbying association, in 2007 – mild changes advocated by reform proponents like Jackson were mostly set aside.
One can only speculate about why the DOJ investigation evaporated. It’s no secret that private equity firms, and the investment banks the industry is closely interwoven with, are among the largest donors to both parties, and that key White House, regulatory and Congressional posts are routinely filled with financial industry executives. Long-time critics of private equity don’t see any cloak and dagger intrigue behind the DOJ’s disappearing investigation, but it’s widely understood that any regulatory or legal campaign against the private equity industry nevertheless faces huge political obstacles.
“At the same time private equity companies became dangerous, they also became extremely wealthy,” said Daniel Greenberg, a law professor at Hofstra University. “We have a PE guy running for president. It’s hard to talk about reform when you have a political system that runs on big cash donations. It’s hard to expect them to take on this industry.”
“President Obama is in bed with the PE industry,” said Eileen Appelbaum, an economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “They also own the Congress,” she added, referring to the huge campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures of private equity managers and their firms.
Private equity expends tens of millions each election cycle to fund candidates, and party committees, and spends millions more each year lobbying lawmakers and regulators. Private equity firms are practical players seeking universal influence and access, not beholden to a specific party; PE executives and companies tend to lavish funds on Democrats and Republicans, but usually gauge which way the wind is blowing, and then get behind a strong gust. In 2006 and 2008 private equity firms favored Democrats who were obviously ascendant with reformist notions in mind.
This year PE is funding Republicans by a margin of almost three to one in federal races, but still handing over big sums to key Democrats.
This wasn’t the end of the inquiry, however. As is with many DOJ investigations, aggrieved individuals and plaintiff’s lawyers took note that federal prosecutors were retreating, and therefore assembled their own case against the industry. In 2007 several individual investors filed suit against collusive clubs of private equity firms composed of Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, the Carlyle Group, Blackstone, TPG, and Permira Advisers.These firms are alleged to have stolen millions from shareholders in the leveraged buyouts of Freescale, a semiconductor manufacturer, and Kinder Morgan, a pipeline company.
In 2008 the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System filed its own lawsuit against the same firms, and other private equity titans, that together allegedly colluded in deals to privatize Neiman Marcus, Michaels Stores, the hospital corporation HCA, food services company Aramark, software designer SunGard, and PanAmSat, a satellite operator. These cases were quickly consolidated into what has become one of the most important federal antitrust class actions to advance in recent years, Dahl v. Bain Capital Partners.
In 2010 the judge hearing Dahl v. Bain, Edward F. Harrington of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts, allowed for a major expansion of the buyout deals being subjected to investigation and discovery, from 17 to 27. The plaintiffs recently concluded their survey of records of famous buyout deals produced by the industry’s biggest players – more than 5 million documents according to a lawyer close to the case. Buyouts subject to investigation include Toys “R” Us, Harrah’s Entertainment and the second largest buyout ever – the 2007 purchase of TXU for $44 billion – and even the Clear Channel deal mentioned above. The buyouts in question are nothing less than the crown jewels of private equity’s corporate raids during the bull market of the mid-2000s.
Dahl v. Bain targets a dozen private equity groups as conspirators, including the giants of the industry, TPG, Blackstone, KKR, Goldman Sachs PIA, and Carlyle, which are in respective order the top-five largest PE firms, holding $221 billion under combined management.
The main allegation made in Dahl v. Bain is that through a routine practice of buying out public corporations through so-called “club deals,” private equity firms have conspired to depress the prices at which they purchase the controlling shares of corporations they’re taking private. Club deals are basically leveraged buyouts of public corporations by teams of private equity firms and investment banks as opposed to a single private equity firm undertaking a deal. It’s a very similar case, focusing on the same practices, as the aborted DOJ probe.
Plaintiffs in Dahl v. Bain allege, “bidding clubs restrain competition because they limit the available number of competitors to bid on deals, which artificially depresses buyout prices, thereby harming the shareholders of publicly-traded companies.” Dahl v. Bain’s summary of criminal allegations reads like an annotated playbook of strategic deal structures designed to maximize the value private equity can squeeze from company shareholders on the front-end of a buyout.
“The wrongdoing by these financial institutions is devastating for shareholders,” said David R. Scott, a lawyer representing the Plaintiffs.
The strategic power of private equity to manipulate the terms of a buyout is rooted in the financial industry’s consolidation around a mere handful of investment banks, and the existence of just a few dozen major private equity firms with the capital and connections to be part of the club scene. If what is alleged in Dahl v. Bain is true, then much of the private equity industry’s profits reaped in the 2000s depended on the ability and willingness of a few dozen big firms to constrain genuine competition in markets, to use their outsized power and influence through collusion, and to rig securities prices favorably downward on the opening end of their takeover deals.
“This sort of abusive practice is precisely the kind of conduct that evidences the core pandemic of greed that ultimately has led to our country’s current financial crisis,” said Scott.
The alleged conspiracy was facilitated by the close personal and business relationships linking private equity managers to one another, Plaintiffs claim in their lawsuit. Managers at the largest firms can often be found serving together on corporate and government advisory boards, belonging to the same social clubs, and mixing their money across shared investment platforms. These close-knit ties are features of what has never actually been an industry in the real sense of the word, but rather an elite investors club that has jealously guarded its secrecy, power and privilege.
“Defendants’ senior executives also invested in each other’s investment funds and businesses,” explained the fourth amended complaint in Dahl v. Bain, “thus benefiting when their competitors entered going-private transactions on favorable terms.” Three examples of these collusive links were redacted from the fourth complaint, however. The fourth complaint did let it be known that “certain managing directors of Bain, Silver Lake and TPG are co-owners of the Boston Celtics,” but again the citation from which this fact was drawn was blocked out.
The contents of Dahl v. Bain until recently have been shrouded in secrecy. The PE industry’s lawyers have aggressively moved to prevent as much information as possible from becoming public record. Even so, we know from extensive sociological research that these sorts of ties among elite business executives extend across public and private corporate boards, government advisory positions, and university boards of trustees, where private equity big shots rub elbows and likely plan their raids with one another.
Now these kinds of collusive links, and the detailed communications proving them, has been released in the fifth amended complaint for Dahl v. Bain. This latest version of the lawsuit – which contains much new material from previous version thanks to the extensive discovery process – was almost put under seal by Judge Harrington, at the behest of the PE industry’s lawyers.
Harrington ordered the fifth amended complaint unsealed on October 10 in response to the New York Times Company, which intervened in the case, arguing that the public has a right to know its basic contents.
Why has the private equity industry been able to carry out an allegedly conspiratorial manipulation of stock prices, stealing untold sums of money in the process and with so little resistance until now? Dahl v. Bain strikes at this problem without necessarily naming it. By targeting the biggest players in the industry, and spelling out in detail how their biggest most lucrative deals were all part of a systematic conspiracy to loot the American economy, the lawsuit indirectly is asking why private equity firms have been allowed to organize themselves and behave in ways that are obviously illegal and immoral – beyond just what is alleged in the case complaint.
According to the legal scholar Daniel Greenwood, “a sort of moral and legal arbitrage” characterizes the entire history of private equity. In a 2008 paper, “Looting: the Puzzle of Private Equity,” Greenwood explains how morality and law are arbitraged – that is, how inconsistencies or contradictions in moral and legal codes are purposefully exploited – by private equity’s lords of finance to extract value from the economy:
Private equity funds are primarily devoted to transferring corporate wealth to private pockets. In the economic jargon they are in the business of extracting rents, transferring wealth from employees, citizens, the government, and future innovation to a handful of highly paid managers. In the grittier language of politics they are engaged in legalized theft.
Greenwood’s main point is that in the world of SEC-regulated corporations and banking, managers are beholden to diluted masses of many shareholders, as well as employees, government and the communities in which they operate. These executives are certainly in charge of deciding where and how to use company assets and credit, and could, and sometimes do, loot their companies and harm other stakeholders by ratcheting up unsustainable debts or executing mass employee layoffs.
However, such blatant theft by managers in this realm is relatively checked by both legal and moral expectations that have been codified in what we understand today as the fiduciary and professional duties of company managers. Real laws and strong moral codes prevent outright looting of the company, and constrain greed within financial markets.
In contrast, private equity was created to escape these legal and moral barriers, to unabashedly pursue strategies of looting. “Part of the whole private equity game is that you take the company out of the SEC’s bailiwick, you take it private so it’s not regulated and you can do things that otherwise can’t be done,” explained Greenwood in an interview.
Greenwood’s paper explains the problem in more depth:
Shareholders – the primary role through which private equity defines itself with respect to the corporation – owe no such fiduciary duties to the corporation; under both law and popular mores, they are ordinarily free to exploit their position in purely self-interested ways. By exiting the legal regime of fiduciary duty, agency and collective responsibility and shifting, instead, to the devil-take-the-hindmost rules of self-interested markets, they transform the moral valence. Corruption, thus, is redefined as normal, even praiseworthy, profit-seeking, shareholder-value maximizing market success.
In spite of several decades of blatant moral violations and questionably legal strategies executed by private equity firms, Greenwood says the legal and regulatory framework has yet to catch up.
“Private equity firms fit themselves into a box, the notion of the shareholder.The shareholders’ interest is deeply embedded in system,” explained Greenwood. “People understand stock trading, and people understand that traders act like purely self-maximizing individuals. The current theory we’re all operating under is that the system, with all its rules and norms, will convert this into something socially advantageous. PE [firms] found a way to fit themselves in this shareholder box, allowing them to act in pure self interest, but their actions have no redeeming social value.”
When asked why this status quo has lingered for so long, causing so much damage, Greenberg again referred to the political power of the industry, adding also that, “Some legal thinkers tend to be conservative and slow to pick up on an innovation.”
Dahl v. Bain is a long way from being decided, but if the plaintiffs prevail in their main allegations, the result could serve to advance a broader indictment of private equity, and help change the stymied legal and moral balance of powers by shifting the way regulators, courts, and other market agents think about and treat private equity.
This is especially true now that the SEC is rumored to be in the |
she said. “But it seems to be, at least for the life of a restaurant worker in Asheville right now, it seems to be that there’s a lot of concentration of power and voice at the top and very little representation at the bottom.”
“We have to decide whether workers are just going to have things passed down to them.”
‘Go eat a biscuit’
A food service industry veteran, Nikki Hamblin helped open Tupelo Honey’s Johnson City location last year and later worked in the downtown restaurant as well. In those roles she saw the wage and benefit cuts happen firsthand.
“The back server issues was one of the first holes I saw in the fabric of the things they said they stood for,” she tells the Blade. “We were busy enough that it was o.k. for people for a bit. It was still unfair and everyone knew that, but then things started to slow down and it became clear that this was a most unfair wage and job description.”
Management, Hamblin remembers, claimed the cuts were initially just part of “restructuring” the support staff positions. But, she observed, the new positions in fact required more responsibilities for less pay.
“It was introduced in the newer stores as it opened; it was an easy way for them to get it into their corporate structure and then it couldn’t help but bleed downtown,” she added.
Hamblin attended the petition roll-out and supports ASRW’s efforts. From her experience, she asserts, the business hasn’t treated its workers very well as its profits and profile have expanded.
The disappearance of shift meals, she said, particularly made conditions worse.
“When I was downtown it just seemed good practice and the humane thing to do to give the workers — who’d been working for eight hours straight and waiting on tourists — a bowl of soup and some protein,” she says. Instead, “those are grueling shifts, but what everyone’s encouraged to do is go eat a biscuit to get them through a nine or ten hour shift.”
Even as a manager, she says she saw vacation benefits decrease considerably in her year at the company.
She notes that from her experience some corporate chains, while not places she’d laud, treat their workers better than Tupelo Honey. Currently, she believes the company is in “a dangerous grey area,” too big to be held locally accountable, but not big enough to attract the scrutiny larger businesses do.
Other workers throughout the company confirmed the details of Hamblin and Todd’s accounts of the cut in wages for support staff and declining conditions at the company.
Hamblin noted that she’s seen business vary throughout the chain: she saw some slow times in Johnson City but the downtown location consistently booming. Nonetheless, she says, the company has an obligation to pay the people who work for it well enough to make a living.
“Some of their restaurants that they had seen as cash cows maybe aren’t really doing that for them and their food’s changed quite a bit,” she tells the Blade. “But sorry, pay your workers first.”
Hamblin believes that her former co-workers deserve a shift meal and good pay in an environment where they can be honest about their concerns.
“No one should be afraid to ask for a break or afraid to ask for a meal,” Hamblin says. “They need to turn around and look back a bit on where they came from and not try to take on the inhumane approach of all these corporate chains.”
Back in the hive
Aside from the wage changes and “full-speed” expansion (as Frabitore puts it in the Capital at Play article), the business has seen other changes in recent years as well. It started selling shares, raking in $6 million by 2014, to fuel its growth, and revenues have shot up even further. At the time of that exultant profile on Frabitore last year, the company was bringing in $24 million. Just over year later, according to a company statement, that had shot up to $39 million.
Also, despite the many times Frabitore touted its participation in the local Living Wage program, the company quietly dropped its certification earlier this year. This was confirmed by Just Economics, the organization responsible for monitoring and certifying the area’s living wage businesses. The program certifies that employers pay $12.5o an hour if they don’t offer health insurance or $11 if they do, calculated as the pay necessary to make ends meet in Asheville without public or private assistance.
The Blade tried to reach Frabitore by phone and email for comment about the petition and the concerns raised by the company’s workers. So far we’ve received no response.
In a Citizen-Times article today on the petition and other food service industry organizing efforts, the Tupelo Honey owner states “we’re not looking for validation of who we are and how we run our company from any third party,” when it comes to dropping the living wage certification, claiming that they still pay well compared to the rest of the industry.
But a recent email from “The Hive,” the company’s corporate office, to downtown workers alleges that by signing the petition, they’re giving their personal information to union organizers. The email reads:
We have been informed that individuals working with the AFL-CIO may have been provided your personal contact information as a result of signing the coworker.org petition. The AFL-CIO is an umbrella organization for many unions based out of Washington, DC. We understand they are using this information to contact our team members and wanted to let you know that your personal information was not passed along to this group by our company, nor do we have any affiliation with these individuals. As always, we continually strive to protect your personal information and confidentiality at all times. This message only serves to make you aware.
Kutch, Coworker.org’s co-director, counters that “I’m unclear as to where Tupelo Honey Cafe is coming up with these claims, but this is false.”
“The AFL-CIO has no ability to access the contact information of these petition signers,” she continues in an email to the Blade. “The petition was started by Alia Todd and Hayley Ingram with support from the Asheville Sustainable Restaurant Workforce, which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO.”
Kuch adds that she can only conclude Tupelo corporate staff looked through the social media profiles of one of their freelancers, who used to work for the AFL-CIO but no longer does and hasn’t since working for Coworker.
In his remarks to the Citizen-Times, Frabitore claimed that the company treats its employees well and respects their right to petition but feels that “we’re becoming a target” due to the company’s success.
Meanwhile, Todd and ASRW have also seen an increased profile. Last week, at a summit on worker’s voices hosted by Coworker, President Barack Obama responded to a question she submitted, asking what more could be done, on a federal level, to raise standards for restaurant workers like her.
Obama replied that traditionally, a combination of strong unions and the need for good workers had helped wages rise and keep workers at the table while moving legislation forward.
“But there have always been gaps, and I think the restaurant industry is an example,” he continued. “A lot of federal law did not reach into restaurants the way they should, which is why, for example, waiters and waitresses and how tips were treated was often substandard.”
Given the current makeup of Congress, he added, any changes were unlikely during the remainder of his presidency, but he encouraged ASRW’s efforts nonetheless.
“So, I think the work that Alia is doing — Asheville, by the way, is a great town (with) great restaurants,” Obama said. “But the kind of work that Alia is doing, and some of you describe, of creating new norms and social pressures at the local level with employers and with customers is a really powerful tool.”
Back on the home front, Todd says that while ASRW is “grateful for all of the support we have received since we started this petition some three weeks ago” they’re “disappointed that [Tupelo Honey] had chosen to take a defensive position rather than consider the concerns raised” despite workers at multiple locations signing the petition.
Still, she also tells the Blade that there are some signs that the company is raising wages for support staff at the downtown location, and hopes this will prove “a great first step” to restoring their pay across the company. If that will happen, or if this effort will be regarded by the owner as another meddlesome third party, remains to be seen.
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The Asheville Blade is entirely funded by its readers. If you like our work, donate directly to us on Patreon. Questions? Comments? Email us.The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston metropolitan area. They are a member of the American Football Conference East Division (AFC East). The team began as the Boston Patriots in the American Football League, which merged with the National Football League in 1970. In 1971, the team relocated to Foxborough, where they became the New England Patriots. Since its establishment in 1960, the franchise has selected 64 players in the first round, five of these being the first overall pick.
The NFL Draft, which is officially known as the "Player Selection Meeting",[1] is held each April. The draft is used as the primary means to distribute newly available talent (primarily from college football) equitably amongst the teams. Selections are made in reverse order based on the previous season's record, i.e., the club with the worst record from the previous season selects first. Through 2009, only two exceptions were made to this order: the Super Bowl champion always selects last (32nd), and the Super Bowl loser second to last (31st). Beginning in 2010, teams making the playoffs have been seeded in reverse order depending upon how far they advance.[2] The draft consists of seven rounds. Teams have the option of trading selections for players, cash and/or other selections (including future year selections). Thus, it is not uncommon for a team's actual draft pick to differ from their assigned draft pick, or for a team to have extra or no draft picks in any round due to these trades.[3] The Patriots traded their first-round pick six times (1972, 1974, 2000, 2009, 2013, and 2017).[4] In 2016, their first-round pick was stripped as punishment for the Deflategate incident.[5]
Gerhard Schwedes, a running back from Syracuse, was the first player to be drafted to the Patriots team. He was selected third overall in the 1960 American Football League Draft. Jim Plunkett, a quarterback from Stanford, was the Patriots' first selection in the 1971 NFL Draft. The Patriots have selected first overall five times, drafting Jack Concannon in 1964, Plunkett in 1971, Kenneth Sims in 1982, Irving Fryar in 1984, and Drew Bledsoe in 1993. The team has selected third overall once and fourth overall three times.[4] Through 2017, two Patriots first-round draft picks have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: John Hannah and Mike Haynes.[6] Twenty Patriots first-round draft picks have been selected for the Pro Bowl.[7] The team's most recent first-round draft pick was Malcom Brown, a defensive tackle from the University of Texas.Transcript
Hey and welcome back to Ember Screencasts. Today we’re going to continue talking about authentication. So last time we had our Monsters app and we had different pages that were authenticated that you couldn’t get to if you weren’t signed in. So if we log out and we try to get to those pages, it’ll just tell us to log back in. So our data is safe, right? Well, not so fast, because here we can still access all that data if we know a little bit about our API.
So a malicious hacker could probably guess something like this, especially if they’ve created web apps in the past. So today we’re going to be protecting this information with token authentication. We can think of this problem as having several different parts. One is like a security guard that’s asking for your identification. It wants to know that you have your ID badge. The second part is how our Ember app is displaying that ID badge. So we’ll set up the security guard first in our Rails app, and we’ll speed through that since it’s going to be a little bit different for every type of backend you use. And so with a snap, I’ve got a Rails app asking for identification, and since we haven’t yet set up our Ember app to give that authentication, it now blocks us out. That’s what we want. Let me show you how that works.
So first, we add an authentication_token to our users.
Then, in our application_controller which can be accessed by all of our other controllers, we create a method called current_user that’ll get the X-CSRF-Token from the frontend app. This is basically asking for your badge. And then it says alright, if your badge matches the user then you must be that user. So that’s our current_user method.
And then we have the authorize_user method which is saying, hey, check for the badge, and if not, give them a 401 unauthorized. And then we call that.
So for example in UsersController, we use the before_action so it’s going to check for their badge before it ever gives them any user information.
We can also set up some API endpoints to only give you information that’s related to your current user. So here when we’re asking for multiple team_memberships, it’ll only give you the memberships that are on the current_user, not all the memberships.
So that’s what having a badge gets you. That’s how it protects you. But just checking for the badge isn’t enough. You have to give the user a badge. And so, we do that in the sessions_controller. So what it does is you send it the email and the password, this is what happens when you login, and then it tries to authenticate that user with the password. And if it authenticates, then it returns the json with the user_id in the authentication_token, their badge, and if it doesn’t authenticate then it gives them back a 401, the ‘you’re not allowed here’ header.
So the specific Rails application for this is you do this with bcrypt,
and has_secure_password.
And then also whenever you save a user for the first time, we have some stuff set up so it’ll create the authentication token. And for the passwords, it has a password hash so it never stores the plain password in the database. That’s very important, never save the plain password.
Alright, so that is the Rails details, and I’ll go over this all as a system at the end after I go over the Ember stuff, and so that’ll help you when you’re trying to make it so you’re setting up with a different backend that’s not Rails.
So now we’re going to work on our Ember app.
This is the login method we had before. It’s obviously terrible. Let’s get rid of a lot of that terrible stuff, leaving the stuff that we’ll need to keep and put in somewhere in our new system.
Alright, so it’s returning a promise, and now we’re going to want to actually send something up to the server. We’ll do that with an ajax call. So we’ll take our ajax call, it’s a POST, and we’ll send it to the url: '/sessions' and send it the userName and password, and then it’ll get back the data. The data is the stuff that we’ve sent back from the create session method on our Rail server, so we’ll be getting the user_id and the authentication_token. So we’ve got our token and user.id and we’ll want to use those.
First, we’ll set the user.id cookie, and we’ll have to change this to an underscore so it’s setting the user ID so Ember knows what is happening, who signed in, and then, we’ll also need to set another cookie, the authenticationToken cookie, and that will of course be authentication_token and we’ll be using that to send up to the server.
And then we’ll want to sign in the user. We don’t have the user yet. We’ll need to grab that from the server. Luckily, we’ve already built in the initializeFromCookie method which is usually done on init, but we can call it here.
So that will take the userId, and it’ll just find that user from the store.
Alright. And finally we will resolve.
And of course we need to figure out how to reject it if it’s rejected, so we’ll put that in here, in the fail block.
Then we’ll need to do some cleanup on logout. So we remove the userId. We’ll also want to remove the authenticationToken.
So now that Ember has our badge, our authentication token set in our cookies, let’s go about using this, showing it on every request. How do we do that?
Well, one way is to create an initializer,
and what this initializer does is it will... we’ll use jquery ajaxPrefilter, and then we’ll set the request header, the X-CSRF-Token, to the token that is set in our cookies.
And so what this will do is every time we’re sending a request via ajax, it’ll set the request header, the X-CSRF-Token header, as the token. So this message of showing the token using the ajaxPrefilter will work on both Ember data calls and plain ajax calls.
If you’re sure that you’re only going to be using Ember data calls, then you can use the headers hash in your Ember data adapter.
So let’s try out our setup.
So as we can see, it redirects us back to Login as it should, and we can’t access other people’s data. But if we login, then it’ll correctly show us everything.
Let me walk you through every step of what just happened. So when the login method is called, it sends the userName and the password to the sessions create method in Rails.
And so in the sessions create method, it tries to authenticate it by email and password. And if that works, then it sends back the user_Id and the authentication_token.
Now that authentication token and user ID are set in the Cookies, and then the user is initialized from Cookies.
And so then whenever you send something, it’ll get passed through the ajaxPrefilter, and that’ll attach the authentication token to the request header.
Then in Rails, or your server, whenever you try to get something, it’ll get that request header, and then it’ll find the current_user from that token, like this.
And there are also places where it won’t get by unless that current_user exists and you have the right token, and we call that before most of our methods.
Of course if you have the correct X-CSRF-Token, then you’ll get what you had before and you’ll get all the information you need.
So that’s how you do token authentication with Ember and your backend server.
Next session, we’ll be talking about how to create a user. So we have how to login a user and how to authenticate that user and get what they need, but we need a way to create that user. We’ll do that next time. I’ll see you then.In the early years of the Reagan Revolution, Senator Robert Packwood, then the powerful Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, offered a robust — if unusual — defense of the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance: It prevented the government from getting bigger.
“The one reason we do not have any significant demand for national health insurance in this country among those who are employed is because their employers are paying for their benefits,” he argued. “I hate to see us nibble at it for fear you are going to have the demand that the federal government take over and provide the benefits that would otherwise be lost.”
This reasoning drives American policy making to this day. Whether he realized it or not, Mr. Packwood was effectively explaining why the United States has, alone among advanced nations, built a government on the idea of keeping the government at bay.
Employer-provided health insurance is often portrayed as a result of serendipity. In 1942, the National War Labor Board allowed employers to get around wage and price controls by luring scarce workers with fringe benefits. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service cemented its popularity by allowing employers to contribute to the health plans tax-free.The Islamic State terrorists who attacked the Bataclan theater in Paris last November not only killed scores of innocents — they also gouged out the eyes and sliced up the genitals of some of the victims, according to testimony in a disturbing French report.
Some victims’ bodies from the second floor of the theater had been beheaded, eviscerated and otherwise mutilated, according to two secondhand accounts reported to a parliamentary commission set up to investigate the attack.
The investigation’s chair, conservative lawmaker Georges Fenech, complained to the commission that details of the mutilations have been kept from families and the press, according to an online transcript.
He also said he had heard of one especially grievous account: The father of one victim had told him that his son had been disemboweled and castrated, with his testicles found in his mouth.
“They had cut off his testicles,” Fenech said during testimony.
French law-enforcement officials who also testified for investigators insisted, meanwhile, that there was no evidence that victim injuries were caused by anything other than gunfire and shrapnel.
One official, Michel Cadot, the prefect of police in Paris, stressed that no knives were recovered from the scene.
“Some of the bodies found at the Bataclan were extremely mutilated by the explosions and weapons, to the point that it was sometimes difficult to reconstruct the dismembered bodies,” said investigator Christian Saint.
But Fenech stood by his account. “Someone put his testicles in his mouth,” he said.
The torture allegations surfaced in March during some 200 hours of testimony before an investigative committee of the French National Assembly.
The investigation found a lack of coordination among European intelligence agencies, which failed to prevent coordinated attacks that left 130 dead at six locations in and near Paris.
“The bodies have not been shown to the families because they are people who are decapitated, people who are bloated and people who have been disemboweled,” one police witness told officials, according to the transcript.
When Fenech asked if the mutilations would have been videotaped by the terrorists, the witness answered, “It seems to me.”
“There are people decapitated, swollen and disemboweled. There are signs of sexual acts committed against women and knife cuts to genitals. If I am not mistaken, some of the eyes of certain people have been removed,” the witness said.
The witness was later asked by Fenech how he had come to learn of the acts of barbarism. He answered that he himself had only witnessed bodies struck by bullets, on the ground floor.
But he learned the gruesome details from another investigator, whom he found vomiting and crying after seeing the carnage upstairs, he told investigators.
“After the assault, we were with our colleagues at the Saint-Pierre-Amelot corridor when I saw an investigator leaving in tears, who was just about to throw up,” the police witness said.“Obesity is usually linked with major health conditions later on in life, but already we are seeing the devastating consequences at an early age.
“It is vital that the measures in the childhood obesity plan improve the health of young people, and can help parents make more informed choices about the eating habits and lifestyles of their children.”
Unlike Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 is largely preventable and is closely linked to lifestyle, such as unhealthy eating or lack of exercise.
The first cases of Type 2 diabetes in children were diagnosed in overweight girls of Asian ethnic origin in 2000 and first reported in white adolescents in 2002.
Data from the National Child Measurement Programme, carried out in schools and funded by councils, shows 9.3 per cent of reception children and 19.8 per cent of those in year 6 were obese in 2015/16.
Dr Justin Warner, from the RCPCH, said: “Obesity is major public health threat and there needs to be action at all levels to reverse the trend.
“The Soft Drinks Industry Levy – or sugar tax – is a positive step towards reducing the amount of sugar in the nation’s diet.”
Libby Dowling, Senior Clinical Advisor for Diabetes UK, said: “It is extremely worrying that more young people are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, especially as we know that for nearly 80 per cent obesity is the likely cause for developing the condition.Back in the heyday of the TV Western, Steve McQueen, the star of “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” rode across black-and-white screens toting a sidearm like nothing any lawman or outlaw had carried before. A cut-down, modified version of repeating rifle, this recognizable shootin’ iron could be holstered like a pistol but fired with the speed of lever-action rifle. Nicknamed the Mare’s Leg, this innovative weapon swiftly brought outlaws to justice every week and rose to fame as the real star of the short-lived show. Now fans of those classic westerns and collectors of innovative firearms can holster this lever action pistol manufactured in the spirit and style of the original made for TV classic.
Built in the USA, to Henry’s world-renowned standards of quality, the Mare’s Leg is available in your choice of.45 COLT or in.22 S/L/LR.
The Henry Mare’s Leg.45 Colt is a modified variation of the Henry model H006C Big Boy.45 Colt. The Henry Mare’s Leg.22 S/L/LR a modified variation of the model H001 Henry Lever Action.
Like all Henry Rifles, each sports a select, handcrafted American Walnut stock cut to the exact specification of the gun used on the television series. The large loop lever, coupled with the legendary crisp Henry action, makes it easy for you to enjoy those rapid-fire repeating shots Steve McQueen used to take down the bad guys.
Both calibers are equipped with an easy-loading tubular magazine design.
The.22 S/L/LR holds 10 rounds of.22 Long Rifle and the.45 Colt holds 5 rounds.The.22 S/L/LR. weighs in at an easy-to-handle 4.45 lbs. and measures 25″ overall The.45 COLT model weighs 5.79 and measures 25″.Adding to a Louis Kahn building is not the sort of thing most architects would take on lightly. Well done, then to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, for appointing such a safe and inspiring pair of hands.
The addition to Kahn’s original 1972 museum has been designed and overseen by Renzo Piano, and it’s just opened to the public. Alliteratively called the Piano Pavilion, it’s a stand-alone structure “close enough for a conversation, not too close and not too far away,” says the Italian architect.
While Kahn’s is known for its curvaceous concrete vaults, Piano’s building is effectively two long structures linked by a pair of glazed passageways. It’s low rise, with two-thirds of the interior is below ground, and so will require less energy to heat and cool it.
The east wing is built from glass, wood and concrete, and has galleries at either end of the building. The west wing, meanwhile, has an auditorium with tomato-red seating, a museum library, and education spaces, as well as a gallery and a green roof with public access.
Kimbell Art Museum takes its small but impressive collection very seriously, and the Pavilion has opened with a showcase of some of its most highly prized works by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Boucher.
However, this extension has been constructed to host temporary shows, as museum director Eric Lee explains: “With this expansion, for the first time, the Kimbell will be able to showcase the breadth of its small but extraordinary permanent collection while simultaneously presenting a diverse selection of changing exhibitions.”
Good architecture on this scale has a price tag to match, of course. In all, the museum is spending $135m on the Piano Pavilion, last year’s renovation of the Kahn Building, and some landscaping by Michael Morgan Landscape Architecture.
For modern architecture buffs and classical art lovers alike, this will seem like money well spent. Find out more about the extension here. For greater insight into the work of Louis Kahn pick up a copy of our in-depth and scholarly monograph on the mid-20th century architect. Renzo Piano enthusiasts, meanwhile, should consider our books on this Pritzker-Prize winning architect. Buy them from the people who made them, here.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Many companies now offer products that track children's internet use
A French company offering "invisible PC spy software" has been criticised after it said its product could be used "to find out if your son is gay".
Listing a series of "clues", the company, Fireworld, suggested that "hacking his Facebook account" and seeing if he had visited gay websites could confirm a parent's suspicions.
The company has since taken down the article.
The post was highlighted by a French youth LGBT rights group.
L'Amicale des jeunes du Refuge's thread about Fireworld's article (in French) was retweeted by French Secretary of State for Equality Marlène Schiappa, who wrote that it showed that "homophobia and sexism have their roots in the same gender stereotypes. We will fight them together".
In its online article, since removed, the firm said that "family is fundamental. That's why the sexual orientation of your children, directly responsible for the continuation of your family, is very important to you".
The article went on to list the clues that might cause a parent to suspect that their son might be gay. The article makes no mention of female homosexuality.
They include "taking good care of himself", being more interested in reading and theatre than in football, being shy as a young boy, having certain piercings and liking female singers and divas.
It then suggested a variety of ways to be sure, including "monitoring his Facebook use", seeing "if he has visited gay forums" and "spying on his private messages".
Image copyright Fireworld Image caption The original post has been removed from Fireworld's website
In a response to L'Amicale des jeunes du Refuge, Fireworld wrote that "the article had the sole aim of improving search engine optimisation and was never intended to be read by humans".
"We regret not having reflected on the consequences of this type of content..." the firm emailed. "We sincerely apologise to all those who may have felt offended by this content," it added.
However, the English language version of Fireworld's site suggests a range of scenarios in which a potential customer might want to monitor someone else's computer, including "control your teenage offspring's PC", checking "what your employees are doing" and "detecting infidelity in your marriage or relationship".
It is not legal in France to install spyware on someone else's computer in order to monitor it, without their knowledge.
Fireworld points out to customers that they must comply with the law when using their products. However, it says, "installing [its product] to make sure that your children are not endangering themselves on the Internet or on social networks, come[s] closer to being legal".
French newspaper Liberation reports that spyware vendors are usually more subtle in their claims for their products, as French law does not allow advertising which incentivises the illegal use of such tools.
There are a range of products on the market that offer parental monitoring and report back to parents on what their children have been doing online.
Support for gay young people and their families:The Federal Communications Commission announced it had revoked its conditional approval for the controversial LightSquared national broadband network.
The proposed network was to use airwaves once reserved for satellite-telephone transmissions and had been given a conditional approval by the FCC last year.
The FCC’s move follows a statement by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which held that “there is no practical way to mitigate the potential interference [with GPS] at this time.”
LightSquared’s plans have been strongly opposed by users of GPS systems, which include the military and the aviation industry. The NTIA tests demonstrated that the company’s network, even in a scaled-back version, would interfere with GPS signals and systems.
LightSquared, a Virginia-based company that is controlled by Philip Falcone, a hedge fund manager, issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the testing of the network was “severely flawed” and that it “remains committed to finding a resolution with the federal government and the GPS industry.”
LightSquared blames the GPS industry for making devices that stray into adjacent airwaves, namely the spectrum that LightSquared was planning to use.
The company has been very vocal about the problems it perceives exist with GPS technology. In the company’s blog, Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs, stated that it appeared that the GPS industry had become “too big to fail,” noting that “GPS manufacturers have been selling devices that listen into frequencies outside of their assigned spectrum band – namely LightSquared’s licensed band.” He continued on to say that “The GPS industry has leveraged years of insider relationships and massive lobbying dollars to make sure that they don’t have to fix the problem they created.”There is a manic biological imperative that takes hold when you are denied direct sunlight - beyond an unsatisfying gray and oppressive haze - for a week, and then at last exposed to the full brilliant sunlight that we who live below the Arctic Circle take for granted. I am perched - oddly, judging from the table selections of my fellow travelers - in the brightest ray of burning morning sun available at a cafe in O'Hare, have rolled my sleeves up to expose more skin to the sun, and find myself glancing back at it - staring at it - as if to remind myself that yes, that is the sun, and yes, it is still there.
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I'd been in Iceland for a week of blackest December. Spaceships happened. More accurately, over three days, I spent approximately 25 hours sharing a cramped meeting room with twelve or more spaceship nerds discussing the minutiae of an internet spaceship MMO while on a stormy volcanic rock in the North Atlantic, surrounded by fart-water and almost completely devoid of sunlight. In the northern Alaska, residents compensate for the lack of sun with full spectrum lighting, which has had a dramatic impact on the local suicide rate. In Iceland, they quaff shark oil and drink. Drinking seems to be the catch-all solution to Icelandic problems; in summer they drink for joy, in winter to stave off despair.
At CSM summits, every important discussion is held after work in bars. UAxDeath, CSM rep and leader of Legion of Death, which is now embroiled in a massive cross-Russian bloc civil war, came prepared; he had made some sort of Russian moonshine and smuggled it through Iceland's nonexistent customs in a pair of innocent-seeming Finlandia vodka bottles. This stuff left a trail of devastation across the livers of the CSM and CCP mandarins foolish enough to accept Death's polite invitations to drink with him. I managed to delay imbibing it until Saturday after the meetings were over, and poured half of my shot into the glass of one of my companions, leaving me free to wheel and deal during the summit without the minor impediments of alcohol poisoning - just the standard CSM dose of 5-8 beers a night, every night, from Tuesday until Saturday.
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It was probably some combination of the moonshine, lack of sun, and the chronic lack of sleep that led to the decision to drive an hour outside of Reykjavik at night in a snowstorm, take off my clothes, and get into a volcanic hot spring. The Blue Lagoon is one of those brochure-featured tourist destinations that Iceland constantly advertises to entice the gullible to visit; Death insisted that Tyrrax Thorrk of the Guiding Hand and myself go. We asked Tyrrax, an Icelander, to drive. I had forgotten that Tyrrax had relayed a tale earlier that day of how he once took Istvaan Shogaatsu on a tour of the island and managed to get so lost that they had to call Search and Rescue to bail them out - in the summer. That wasn't in the midst of a horizontal December snowstorm which annihilated any visibility of the road more than a foot in front of our car. Tyrrax, unfazed, noted that this type of blizzard is'very pretty and has its own special word to describe it in Icelandic - and then we got lost.
If you ever find yourself mostly naked in a hot spring mid-blizzard, the trick is to turn your hair towards the wind, or the constant blast of snow and ice will abrade your face. With your now-iced over hair forming something of a shield against the onslaught, it can be a quite pleasant experience. But that may be the testosterone poisoning talking.
Spaceships? This CSM summit was the first post-Crucible. The CCP staff seemed happy and relieved, unlike after Incarna where there was hunched shoulders and a fortress mentality. As one does not move to a volcanic, sunless rock to make virtual pants, the average dev was delighted to at last be working on spaceship content.
I expect that this enthusiasm will translate into not just more content for EVE, but content of a higher quality; spaceships are what the staff actually /want/ to work on, rather than what Hilmar now calls 'Jesus Features'. Why Hilmar felt that badly copying Farmville in Tyrannis or selling microtransaction pants in Incarna has much to do with walking on water is beyond me, but the more salient point is that he seems to have finally acknowledged the past two years as ones of hubris-fueled error.
The CSM enjoyed a few pleasant surprises. In May, before all the riots and chaos, I had hammered on one of my pet issues - the fact that the Rookie Ships in EVE look like piles of low-poly excrement. Welcome to New Eden, kiddo! Here's your Ibis! And they wonder why it's so hard to get |
to submit to greater restrictions of free movement, including more rigorous security checkpoints and additional government identification (sound familiar?).
The French soldiers resort to increasing violence and intimidation against the Algerian Muslims, which leads to terrorist activity in the European parts of the capitol, Algiers. The film is among the first to detail the cell structure developed by the French Nazi resistance (currently employed by al Qaeda), as well as the counterterrorism methods (aka Guantanamo Bay-style torture) employed against cell structures in Algieria by the French, who were now in the role of the occupiers.
One of the recurring themes is the freedom that assimilated women have in moving around the city. There's a scene where Muslim freedom fighters get rid of their hijabs and cut and color their hair to "pass" as Francophilic Muslim women. The scene is shot in a very intimate fashion, and it is designed to show the sacrifice of their "true" identities for the greater good.
By flirting with guards at checkpoints and by bringing children, the attractive women are allowed to move through carrying bombs and messages without waiting, while the unassimilated men get harassed. There's also a scene where the male leaders of one terrorist cell put on hijabs in order to escape a dragnet. They are given away by their boots, once again showing how men are hopelessly lost when it comes to accessorizing.
All of the fear shown in the movie will feel very familiar and is about the invisible threat. I have often used an illegal immigrant metaphor to discuss trans political status. The people in our community who don't assimilate are easily ghettoized and face incredible difficulties, but what really freaks some people out is not genderqueer people, but those who "pass," especially attractive trans women.
If you happen to be trans and are reading this, the Transgender Law Center continues to lead the way on fighting for the rights and dignity of trans travelers. Trans travelers can file a report. Here's their summary:
If you are traveling this weekend or in the future, here is what you need to know: Full-Body Scans and Pat-Downs
Airports are increasingly using full-body screening technology ("Advanced Imaging Technology" or AIT) to screen passengers as a primary or secondary method of screening. This screening technology reveals the intimate contours of travelers' bodies, including breasts and genitals.
The screening may also reveal any prosthetic device or binding materials, including a "packy," binder, breast enhancement material, etc., that you are using.
You have the right to choose whether or not to be screened using the full-body scanner.
If you opt out of using the full-body scanner, you must submit to a pat-down search instead. Many people find the pat-down search extremely invasive, as it may involve TSA officers using their palms and fingers to touch underneath and between breasts, inside thighs, and in the groin area and buttocks.
You may be selected for additional screening including an enhanced pat-down, for other reasons, even if you have successfully passed through the full body-scanning machine.
If you are selected for additional screening you may not opt out.
If you are selected for additional screening, you may request that the screening be conducted in private. A companion may accompany you during the additional screening.
According to the TSA, pat downs are conducted by a TSA agent who is the same gender as you. Please let us know if they do not respect your gender identity.
Although media reports show conflicting practice, according to the TSA these invasive pat-downs are not to be used on travelers under the age of 13.
You MAY NOT opt out of BOTH the full-body scanner and the pat-down search. If you refuse both options, you cannot fly.
Once you reach the security checkpoint you must complete the screening process or you may be fined up to $11,000.
If you are non-trans and have had an issue that needs redress, we can all file a complaint with TSA. I recommend not just leaving it in their hands, since they are self-regulating. Contact your local lawmakers and media outlets, whether you are an angry white guy or not. But especially complain if you are an angry white guy, as it's clear that you will be taken more seriously by the media more quickly and effectively than trans people have been in almost a decade of activism. Know your rights, and exercise them!Fermenting superversatile kimchi is way easier than you think. Case in point, the recipe for this Korean mainstay in the new cookbook “Hello! My Name Is Tasty” by John Gorham and Liz Crain.
“In Korea, kimchi is used as a verb,” explains Liz Crain, coauthor of “Hello! My Name is Tasty, Global Diner Favorites from Portland’s Tasty Restaurants.” That sets the pace — this cookbook hits the ground running with soulful dishes for every time of day.
A small team including Crain and John Gorham — chef/owner of Tasty n Sons, Tasty n Alder and other Portland hot spots — spent 10 days on the road exploring Gorham’s American Southeast culinary roots, a major influence running through these dishes. Don’t be alarmed by all the subrecipes. It’s not about fever-dream flavor mash-ups or overwrought presentation.
Crain and Gorham, who also wrote the 2013 “Toro Bravo: Stories. Recipes. No Bull.” cookbook, have reached into big-flavored cuisines. When bacon fat and make-your-own whole-grain mustard are suggested staples and handy equipment includes an electric griddle and pressure cooker, you’re in for some dirty-hands and faces meals, reflected in Gorham’s no-b.s. “stay-a-while, taste-this” voice.
Courtesy of Sasquatch Books
Kimchi is an easy dish that stands on its own or can be incorporated into a range of ensemble meal adventures. In the U.S., it typically runs to “bright red Napa cabbage and Daikon radish with chili powder, garlic and fish sauce,” Crain says. “I love the texture and it’s got a whole lot of flavor — crunchy, juicy, sour, spicy, salty.”
Read: 4 Delicious Ways To Use Kimchi
“Any fermenting is like a kitchen experiment. It’s fun to watch it evolve, get bubbly, and to taste it every day,” says Crain, a co-founder of the annual Portland Fermentation Festival. “You can arrest it when it is exactly to your liking. If you prefer it more robust, use more Korean chili powder or fish sauce.”
The microorganisms in this live, fermented food are good for digestion and health overall, she says. And making kimchi at home is cheaper: a pint can run $8 or more at retail. Crain says all ingredients can be found in the Asian aisle at mainstream Portland-area grocery stores or any Asian market (among her favorites are Uwajimaya, Fubonn Shopping Center, An Dong Market and Vieng Lao Oriental Food Center). For fermenting containers, check brew supply stores or specialty shops like Kitchen Kaboodle or Williams Sonoma.
Tasty Kimchi
“We set our fermented kimchi off with tiny salty dried shrimp. A lot of people use raw oysters, but that scares the shit out of me. Whatever you use seafood-wise for your kimchi will basically disintegrate into fish sauce by the time you’ve stopped fermentation. Every now and again, you’ll get a little piece of one of the tiny dried shrimp, but they’re pretty much gone by the time the kimchi gets to the table, especially since we grind ours into a shredded wheat-like consistency. It’s hard to imagine that they get like that when you grind them, but they do.
Do not substitute any other type of chili powder for the Korean chili powder because it’s the perfect balance of sweet, spicy (not too spicy), and smoky. If you used the same amount of cayenne, your kimchi would be crazy fiery, and if you used what Americans call chili powder (which typically includes chili, oregano, cumin, and other herbs and spices), it would be a completely different spice profile.
Also, a little tip: our favorite fish sauce, Red Boat, has a punched-hole lid that doesn’t come off easily, so I usually just bore a hole through that tiny one in the top with a corkscrew (good tip for all different sauces with these lids). Then I don’t have to shake the fish sauce out for three minutes like a dummy.
Yes, a gallon is a lot of kimchi, but it keeps forever when it’s refrigerated and it goes well with so many things.” — John Gorham
Prep time (excluding fermentation): 10 minutes | Really pretty easy
About 1 gallon
Ingredients
5 pounds cored Napa cabbage (2 to 3 whole heads totaling 6 pounds)
1/4 cup dried shrimp, ground until it resembles shredded wheat
2 cups sambal oelek (a chunky red chili paste)
1 cup coarse Korean chili powder
1 cup fish sauce (we use Red Boat Fish Sauce)
1 cup sliced scallion tops (top three-quarters and not much of the white part from about 2 bunches)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons freshly minced ginger
To Prepare
Halve the cabbages lengthwise and slice each half lengthwise into three pieces. Chop those pieces horizontally into 1-inch strips. Rinse and drain the cabbage. In a coffee grinder used exclusively for spices, grind the shrimp until they resemble shredded wheat. Alternatively, you can just mince the shrimp with a knife as finely as possible. In a bucket or large bowl, combine all of the ingredients. With clean hands, toss together and massage everything for 2 to 3 minutes, or until all ingredients are fully and evenly incorporated and the cabbage begins to wilt. Pack the kimchi tightly into a container large enough to fit 1 gallon with at least a few inches of headspace — either a large, wide glass jar, stoneware crock, or a food-grade bucket — and push it down so that the cabbage is submerged under the bright-red spicy brine, and then top the cabbage with a clean plate or something else that’s nonporous that fits inside your vessel. Top the plate with a plastic bag filled with enough water to push the plate down onto the kimchi and seal any gaps. Cover the container with a towel. You want the fermenting kimchi to be able to bubble and off-gas as it ferments, but you don’t want any air in direct contact with it. The water-filled bag serves both purposes: it weighs down the kimchi and seals all of the gaps of the vessel, thereby keeping air out of and prohibiting any airborne molds from getting into it. Ferment the kimchi at room temperature for 5 to 10 days; the longer it ferments, the more tart and pungent it gets. Check on it every day or so (wiping down the inside of the fermentation vessel with a clean towel if there is any sort of buildup when you do so) and make sure that the kimchi is submerged under the spicy brine the entire time. If it comes into contact with air it will get moldy. We typically ferment our kimchi for about 5 days, because I like the flavor and crunch of it at that point, but sample it every couple days until the flavor and texture are to your liking. Store the kimchi in a lidded glass container with its spicy brine in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.
Excerpted from “Hello! My Name is Tasty,” copyright 2017 by John Gorham and Liz Crain. Republished with permission from Sasquatch Books.
Liz Crain’s Suggestions For KimchiThe word “icon” is thrown around an awful lot in the comics industry, and to be sure, there are a handful of creators who actually deserve the title. There are just as many who, no matter how hard they try, just won’t ever measure up to what others have done better.
However, I think it can be agreed by everyone that when you look up “icon” in the dictionary, there should be a picture of writer/artist Walter Simonson next to it.
Simonson has been creating some of the best comics in the medium for over 30 years, working on everything from Orion to Manhunter to the Fantastic Four. But it’s his acclaimed (and some say definitive) run on The Mighty Thor for Marvel that most comic book fans remember and associate with him. The stories told in those issues are still being referenced today, and are used as the measuring stick to judge those that have come after him.
Now Simonson is working on the God of Thunder again, just not the Thor you probably have in mind. Ragnarök is a new, creator-owned series being published by IDW that sees Simonson telling the story of what happens to the world after the Twilight of the Gods. The fourth issue just hit comic shops, and I was able to speak with Simonson via email about the new series and what it is about Thor that keeps bringing him back.
Bam Smack Pow: So tell us about your recently launched creator-owned series for IDW Ragnarök.
Simonson: Some years ago, my friend, Scott Dunbier, who was then the editor-in-chief at Wildstorm in its pre-DC days, asked me if I would be interested in doing a creator-owned comic based on the Norse myths. I thought it sounded great, but I had a lot of work at the time, so it took me quite a while to get back to Scott with an idea for a series of stories based on the myths. About 15 years, I think. By then, Scott was at IDW, and it all worked out.
BSP: What is it about Norse Mythology that keeps drawing you back?
Simnonson: I just love the entire collection of stories around the mythos. I discovered the Norse myths when I was 9 or 10. My parents had an old book that told the stories of the myths in great detail, including quotes from the Elder Edda and other primary source documents. I loved the stories immediately, and read and reread them. I think the stories tell tales about wonderful characters in a fascinating world that will eventually be destroyed in a cataclysmic battle between the gods and their enemies. How could anybody not love such stuff!? And maybe the fact that I have a set of grandparents who came from Norway helps.
BSP: Is this the Thor story you always wanted to do, but couldn’t when working at Marvel?
Simonson: Not really. I loved Marvel’s Thor when I discovered the title in college. When I worked on Thor at Marvel, I was creating stories within an established framework. I worked to expand the framework, but my stories were really based pretty solidly on the earlier work of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and on the Marvel Universe in general. I brought a certain amount of mythological interest into the book, but it was always a Marvel Comic.
Ragnarök really began with the myths and expanded outward from there. So the foundation of the book is quite different from the Marvel comic. As a result, the stories have already gone in their own directions, far from the Marvel comic. I expect those differences to become greater as I explore more of the mythology over time. But these are not stories I would have told during my time on the Marvel book.
BSP: Do you consider Ragnarök your magnum opus?
Simonson: Beats me. I’m mostly just trying to tell some interesting stories and draw them well. I’ll let somebody else make those judgment calls.
BSP: Do you see yourself working on Ragnarök for the foreseeable future?
Simonson: Yep. I have a number of stories I’d like to do, and the longer I work on the book, the more stories I seem to find.
Ragnarok #3 Cover
BSP: You’re working once again with John Workman as your letterer. Your styles mesh so perfectly, could you ever picture yourself doing a book without him?
Simonson: I have done so occasionally in the past for one reason or another, but I work with John whenever possible. I do think our work compliments each other’s very effectively, and I hope to keep that partnership together for as long as possible.
BSP: Does your association with Marvel’s version of Thor ever get tiresome? Do you ever want to scream, “I did work on other books,people!”
Simonson: Nope. I loved writing and drawing Thor for Marvel. Believe it or not, I do sometimes bump into fans who know some of the other work I’ve done. But really, it’s a delight to find that work I did that long ago is still well regarded and still has fans.
BSP: When you turned Thor into a frog during your run did you ever think that you would see him become a regular part of the Marvel Universe, much less get the name Throg, wielder of Frogjolnir?
Simonson: Not at all. I just thought it would be a fun story to do. The original tale was in part a parody of heroic fantasy in general and my own work in particular. But the notion that this was going to be a character that would inspire future stories never entered my mind.
BSP: Finally, give people the elevator pitch as to why they should read Ragnarök.
Simonson: The God of Thunder has gone missing. And the time of Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods, has come. The gods and their enemies meet on the field of battle, but without Thor beside them, the gods are doomed, and the Great Enemies not only destroy them, but survive. The Nine Worlds collapse, forming the vast Dusk Land, ruled by the Great Enemies and their servants.
Hundreds of years pass.
Then one day, Thor returns, to find his universe irrevocably changed. And after he has buried his dead and shed his tears, he picks up his hammer, Mjolnir, and goes out into the Dusk Land, seeking the enemies of the dead Aesir of Asgard.
The Vikings’ greatest warrior god will take the final battle of Ragnarök into the very jaws of Hel against the gods’ greatest enemies.
——————–
As I said before, the fourth issue of Ragnarök is out now, and it really shouldn’t be missed. It’s classic Simonson doing what he does best: widescreen, mythological, kick-ass action. You can get updates on Ragnarök and all things Walter Simonson on his Facebook page as well as on Twitter.What's the point of having two versions of Internet Explorer 11 within Windows 8.1?
It’s a good question, and one that Microsoft executives say they haven’t completely solved. Dean Hachamovich, the corporate vice president in charge of Internet Explorer, said that the browser—which appears on both the desktop and Start screen, but in different forms—is bifurcated to satisfy two different sets of users.
“One IE engine does all this wicked-fast, cool stuff,” Hachamovich said Wednesday during Microsoft’s Build 2013 conference in San Francisco. “Why two? Some people live in the desktop for some activities, and we want to make sure when you’re in Windows you have good experiences,” he said.
“Why two? Some people live in the desktop for some activities, and we want to make sure when you’re in Windows you have good experiences."
Hachamovih said that IE11, the version of IE that ships with Windows 8.1, differs from both competing browsers and earlier IE versions in several key ways.
From a hardware-acceleration standpoint, IE11 is wicked fast because it can shift various workloads, including the JPEG rendering pipeline, to a PC’s graphics card. This reduces the load on a PC's CPU, allowing that chip to process other tasks. Microsoft presented SunSpider benchmarks to support its claim.
The new browser version is also more flexible in how it surfaces web content. Within Windows 7, IE9 bookmarks could be pinned to the taskbar. Within Windows 8, IE10 bookmarks could be pinned to the Start screen. But within IE11, those bookmarks can be pinned to Start and serve as live tiles or widgets, dynamically updating information, Hachamovich said.
Then there's a new, efficient approach to tabbing. Microsoft said 100 tabs can be used by IE11 at once, all without putting an undue strain on battery life. This is because IEthe new browser shifts resources away from older, unused tabs, yet it can bring back these tabs almost instantly. IE11 can also increase performance by prefetching an undisclosed number of links and pre-rendering—essentially preloading—two more links, before the user even clicks on them.
March Hachman Microsoft used the SunSpider benchmark to prove the performance of Internet Explorer 11.
IE11 will also save sites, favorites, and other user data across devices, allowing users to pick up where they left off. One exception, unfortunately, is Reading List, a Windows Instapaper clone that works only on the “immersive” version of IE for the Modern interface, and not on the desktop version.
There’s a good chance that IE11 will be implemented inWindows 8, too, although Hachamovich declined to officially confirm that.
SkyDrive updated for Windows 8, too
Shifting one’s content from place to place (and from device to device) is the mantra of SkyDrive, the cloud storage service that serves as the glue connecting all of Microsoft’s software and services.
In Windows 8, Microsoft released both a Windows 8 SkyDrive app as well as a “sync” app through which users can upload files to SkyDrive via a dedicated folder. With Windows 8.1, the sync and SkyDrive apps have been combined, says Dharmesh Mehta, the general manager in charge of SkyDrive and Outlook.com.
The sync app replicates the files stored on a local machine or machines with the collection of files stored in the cloud. For a desktop PC with a terabyte harddrive and just 100 GB in the cloud, this isn't a problem. But for a typical tablet with 16 or 32 GB of storage, it's physically impossible for 100 Gbytes of cloud files to be copied down to the tablet. That's the problem the latest Windows 8.1 version of SkyDrive was designed to solve.
In the new Windows 8.1 version, SkyDrive will only cache a portion of the file—a thumbnail of an image file, for example, or metadata that tells PowerPoint what presentation the file contains. If necessary, and if the user is connected, SkyDrive will download the total file so that the local application can access it. (Users can also select files to store offline, as before.) The bottom line is that SkyDrive now caches about 1 percent of a user’s data store, dramatically saving local storage.
Mehta wouldn’t say whether the same techniques would be applied to the SkyDrive data available to Windows Phone, but it’s a likely bet.The eagerly awaited revival of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s revolutionary television series Twin Peaks is here, and with it, a new soundtrack. Music has always played a central role in Lynch’s work and it helped establish the haunting, dreamlike nature of the original Twin Peaks. The same is true for the new series. This special 2LP edition and the CD features twenty unique-to-the-show tracks. Twin Peaks (Limited Event Series Soundtrack) heavily features grammy-award winning composer Angelo Badalamenti. Tracks will be revealed as they appear in the show. The fact that the Lynch-Badalamenti duo is back in town is something that will have old-school fans of Twin Peaks really excited about both the show and the characteristic music that - more than complementing the visuals - completes them.As you may remember, Stephen Lang's character in James Cameron's Avatar, Colonel Quaritch, didn't live to see the end of the movie. Because of this, it was rather surprising news when it was revealed by the writer/director that Quaritch would be destined to become the Darth Vader of the franchise. As it turns out, this news came as quite a shock to Lang as well... even though Cameron had actually told him about the character's future early on.
With his new movie Don't Breathe in theaters next month, I had the pleasure of hopping on the phone with Stephen Lang to talk about his upcoming work. When he started talking about the future of Avatar, I was curious how the news of Quaritch's resurrection was delivered to him. He noted that at no point during the making of the first movie did he think a sequel was inevitable, but it led to a fun chat between him and James Cameron after the 2009 film became a record-shattering hit around the world. Said Lang,
When it kind of became this global phenomena, it was within a very, very short time that the man said to me, 'You're coming back,' and I said, 'How?' He said, 'I told you that already!' And you know, he'd mentioned it once, a long time ago, when we'd been shooting, but it was speculative! You don't dare to believe anything. 'It's totally not real.' [laughs]
Beyond the positive news delivered to him about the future of his career in the Avatar universe, Stephen Lang also had another big takeaway from this conversation with James Cameron, and his memory of the one they had during the making of the movie. The writer/director never had plans for Avatar to just be one story, but instead was thinking about the project on the most epic of blockbuster scales:
But what it says is that Jim had a saga, an epic in his mind, all the time. Now, I think that certainly if Quaritch had not been as successful a character as he was - and it was interesting, the number of people who liked Quaritch, along with reviling him. But I think it's possible he wouldn't have come back, but the circumstances just made it, I wouldn't say inevitable, certainly not in my mind, but perhaps they were in Jim Cameron's mind. We had a good working relationship. It was a successful character, and, you know, lucky me!
As we now know, James Cameron does indeed have some big and unprecedented plans for the future of Avatar. As we officially learned earlier this year, the writer/director has been hard at work not one, not two, not three, but four sequels, set to arrive in December 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023, respectively. The seven years since Avatar's release has been devoted to developing the four scripts simultaneously, and the plan is to shoot everything all at the same time (hence why Stephen Lang thinks he may ultimately be too busy to possibly play Cable in Deadpool 2).
As always, be sure to stay tuned for more updates about Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5, and look for Stephen Lang in theaters in Don't Breathe starting August 26th.In a recent interview with Collider, Prometheus co-writer Damon Lindelof has confirmed that he will not be returning to pen the planned sequel to Ridley Scott‘s sci-fi epic. He also gave an explanation as to why he won’t be returning, stating that he has “other stuff” to attend to before he can give up two years of his life again.
Check out what he had to say below:
“The thing about Prometheus was it was a rewrite. Jon Spaihts wrote a script and I rewrote it. And still it was a year of my life that I spent on Prometheus, kind of all in. The idea of building a sequel to it—from the ground up this time—with Ridley is tremendously exciting. But at the same time, I was like, “Well that’s probably going to be two years of my life.” I can’t do what J.J. [Abrams] does. I don’t have the capability. I’m usually very single-minded creatively. I can only be working on one thing at a time. So I said to him, “I really don’t think I could start working on this movie until I do this other stuff. And I don’t know when the other stuff is going to be done.” And he was like, “Well, okay, it’s not like I asked you anyways.” He and I are on excellent terms and it was a dream come true to work with him. But much to the delight of all the fanboys, I don’t see myself being involved in Prometheus-er.”
Prometheus was a fairly divisive movie upon its release. A decent number of people loved it but even more were severely disappointed and unimpressed by Scott’s return to the Alien world. Personally I fell somewhere in between the two camps, I wasn’t blown away and was slightly underwhelmed by the finished product, but I think that was more down to the weight of expectation attached to the film after such a brilliant marketing campaign than anything else.
I’m still intrigued as to what Scott will do next with Prometheus though, so fingers crossed for an all around more enjoyable and less plot-hole riddled follow up. As for Lindelof not being involved, it isn’t a massive loss. Some of his other projects were far from exemplary… I’m looking at you Cowboys and Aliens, but the main thing to take from this interview is that a sequel is indeed going to go ahead, even if the LOST writer won’t be behind it.
What do you think of this news? Are you sad to see that Lindelof won’t be writing the sequel to Prometheus?Issue 255 - September, 1st 2016
News
"The TWG coding standards committee is announcing two coding standards changes for final discussion. These appear to have reached a point close enough to consensus for final completion."
Don't miss this online meeting (IRC) about Drupal 8.2.0-rc1.
Tvn explains the changes for Documentation on Drupal.org.
Bradley Fields discusses the focus and changes happening for Drupal Association marketing and communications.
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Gábor Hojtsy seeks to dispel the myth that initiatives only exist to add new things to Drupal core.
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Mark Dorison shares a Drush tip for downloading large databases with Drush.
This looks pretty useful.
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Bunnies and an intro to Twig. What could be wrong with that?
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Tim Millwood demonstrates workspaces in this video.
"Drutopia is an initiative to revolutionize the way we build online tools. We're combining the principles of software freedom, community ownership and intersectional politics to co-develop technologies that meet our needs and reflect our values."
"This blog post summarizes the motivations behind SDKs for Drupal-backed applications and how the Waterwheel team has worked to map out a trajectory for Drupal to be utilized not only by PHP and Drupal developers but also by developers of diverse backgrounds who might otherwise have never discovered or considered it."
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PodcastsMonday April 10, 2017 11:47 PM
Chrissy Houlahan hangs her hat on her public service and business background
Candidate: Chrissy Houlahan, 49, Easttown Township, Chester County. Party: Democratic. Office sought: U.S. representative. District: 6th Congressional District, which is made up of parts of Berks, Chester, Lebanon and Montgomery counties. Current salary for office: $174,000. Education: Earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University and a master's degree in technology and public policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Background: A former Air Force officer and later a top executive at AND1 before becoming a chemistry teacher and nonprofit executive. Website
Reading, PA —
Chrissy Houlahan said public service has been a driving force in her career to this point.
She has served in the Air Force, she has been involved with Teach For America and she has worked as an executive for a nonprofit literacy organization. But now she's ready to try something new, she said.
The Chester County Democrat announced today that she's running for a seat in Congress.
She is seeking the Democratic nod to represent the 6th Congressional District, which includes parts of Berks, Chester, Lebanon and Montgomery counties. The post is currently held by Chester County Republican Ryan Costello.
"I feel it is important that a person like me with real world experience have the opportunity to represent the people in this district when it comes to the issues we really care about in our communities," the 49-year-old said.
Houlahan said she is fed up with the way Congress is being run and is particularly frustrated with the way in which her district has been represented in Washington. She believes the district is much more moderate than Costello's voting record would suggest.
"He's effectively serving as a rubber stamp for the Trump administration," she said. "Ryan Costello serves in a district that is pretty purple and he has presented himself as being a pretty purple guy. But in reality, his voting record has been deeply red."
According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight's data crunchers, Costello has voted in line with Trump's position nearly 96 percent of the time. Houlahan pointed out that Costello was one of only 23 Republican lawmakers who represent a district the president lost. While he defeated his opponent by more than 14 percentage points, Hillary Clinton won the race at the top of the ticket by a narrow margin.
The latest voter registration figures from the Pennsylvania Department of State show there are about 211,000 Republicans, 188,000 Democrats and 79,000 independents that make up the electorate of the district.
Houlahan said she can provide better leadership to the constituents of the 6th district. She said she would put her business background to use by working to create meaningful jobs, she would share what she has learned through Teach For America about preparing students today for the workforce of tomorrow and she would fight for more programs that help veterans transition back into civilian life.
"These are things I've spent my life working for so I think these are issues that are reflective of my values," she said.
Representatives in Congress serve two-year terms and are paid $174,000 a year.Copy and paste this link into an e-mail or instant message: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Dead-Space/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80245410857?cid=SLink Click to create and send a link using your email application
Download the manual for this game by going to https://help.ea.com/en/tag/manuals and selecting your title from the Product drop down menu. When an immense mining ship, the USG Ishimura, comes into contact with a mysterious alien artifact in a remote star system, its communications with Earth are mysteriously cut off. Engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to repair the Ishimura's communications array, but he arrives to find a living nightmare-the ship is a floating bloodbath, the crew unspeakably mutilated and infected by an ancient alien scourge. Clarke's repair mission becomes one of survival as he fights not just to save himself, but to return the artifact to the planet... at any cost. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.Extravagant costs, poor infrastructure and a struggling team will see less that 6,000 Three Lions fans travel to watch their team at this summer's European Championships
SPECIAL REPORT
By James Goldman | UK Deputy Editor
England fans have shunned this summer’s Euro 2012 in their droves with fewer than 6,000 hardy souls prepared to make the arduous trip to Ukraine next month.
Concerns over safety, allied to the astronomical cost of flights and accommodation, have contributed to the sale of just 3,000 tickets out of the 7,000 made available by the Football Association, whose official supporters club boasts a membership of around 29,000.
Kevin Miles, international director of the Football Supporters’ Federation, told Goal.com he expects a further 3,000 England fans to travel independently, but the overall figure still represents a drop in the ocean compared to the following that usually accompanies the Three Lions at major tournaments.
Supreme efficiency and its proximity to the UK encouraged around 100,000 England supporters, 20,000 through the FA, to travel to Germany in 2006 for the World Cup, but Miles has warned the likes of Donetsk, where Roy Hodgson’s side play two group games, will not boast anywhere near the same level of infrastructure, nor value for money experience.
"Essentially Donetsk is an old industrial city with little in terms of major amenities or tourist attractions,” he told Goal.com.
"It’s not very accessible from England by air, while the roads aren’t in the best shape and it can take up to 13 hours by train to get between the two main cities in Ukraine.
"When you throw in the fact we’re in the middle of an economic crisis and they’ve wacked up the price of hotels it doesn’t represent a particularly attractive proposition for England fans."
Approximately 50,000 England supporters made light of the distance to travel to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, while in Portugal eight years ago, where Sven-Goran Eriksson’s men reached the quarter finals, around 70,000 fans, 10 per cent of whom booked through the FA, soaked up the sun in Coimbra and Lisbon.
"Unlike Germany and Portugal, Ukraine, and in particular Donetsk, is not what you’d class a holiday destination," Miles added.
"You might get the hot weather over there but other than sitting in the pubs all day there’s not much else to occupy your time with.
"That’s fine for most supporters if you’re only going to be in one place for a day or two but on day three I can tell you you’d be struggling. The advantage with places like Portugal is that it lends itself to package deals which just aren’t available in Ukraine
"It’s unfortunate there’s little Uefa can do about the prices of hotels being hiked up but the end result is that people understandably aren’t prepared to pay those sorts of prices while there’s a recession taking place."
As well as the obvious economic factors, England’s abject showing at the last World Cup, coupled with the recent managerial upheaval, has convinced some to stay away, according to England fans’ spokesman Mark Perryman.
He told Goal.com: "For the hardcore fans who go to every game home and away the dip in expectation levels won’t affect their decisions to go or not, but certainly there are football reasons behind |
progress between 1989 and 2008 but has now stopped doing so.
For me, neoliberalism describes the system in its totality: the countries that borrow, import and consume; and the countries that save, lend, export and produce. When it worked, it drove a gross global imbalance. The logic of the imbalance was to create financial catastrophe.
As the economists Anton Brender and Florence Pisani wrote in 2010, the only thing that could have rebalanced the world was the financial crisis of 2008. Since then, neoliberalism has been on life support, in the form of $15trn of quantitative easing. You can keep an economy on life support for a long time, but you cannot keep an ideology on life support. The human brain demands coherence.
For many people in developed countries, there is no coherent story of how their lives will get better. They know that their kids will be poorer than they are, and they see an elite – the likes of Mr Blankfein – that just doesn’t get it. Indeed, seeing the elite become richer and go on failing to get it is even more painful than simply staying poor.
In 2015, the Bank of England produced an analysis of the sources of global growth, past and future (see chart on page 33). The black line represents actual and projected growth. The coloured bars show what contributed to that growth. They reveal that between 1980 and 2015 – the entire course of neoliberal globalisation – growth remained more or less static, but what drove it changed.
In the upswing of neoliberalism, before 2000, much of the growth resulted from an expanding workforce (the so-called Great Doubling), shown in blue. But there was also growth at the frontiers of productivity, shown in yellow, which came from better education and technological change.
After 2000, much of the growth was “catch-up growth”, as the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), foremost among them China, truly entered the world market. But look at the black line for the future. If the Bank’s economists are right, there will be less growth in the future than in the past 40 years. A lot of it will be catch-up growth. None of it will be driven by technological change.
Though the great majority of voters in Britain, France, Germany, Austria and the US have never seen this chart, their behaviour and psychology are beginning to reflect the suspicion that it is right and that the best days of capitalism are over. The shock is all the greater because neoliberalism was supposed to last for ever: like this for ever, only better. Since 2008, neoliberalism’s promise has been: like this for ever, only worse.
In my 2015 book, PostCapitalism, I argued that we face a choice – ditch neoliberalism, or it will destroy globalisation. That is what is happening. It’s not just that we have xenophobic movements, violent misogyny and racism; we have sections of the business elite prepared to use these movements and sentiments to gain political power. Donald Trump, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Marine Le Pen, Ukip and the Austrian Freedom Party all exhibit the essential characteristic that Hannah Arendt described in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951): they are an alliance of the “elite and the mob”.
Though they are, in the main, not classically fascist parties, they are succeeding because of the factors that the German sociologist Erich Fromm observed in the 1930s: tiredness, combined with loneliness, and the exhaustion and failure of the left.
What the far-right and the conservative parties are now converging around is not a return to the national state-led capitalism of the Keynesian era. If you listen to Donald Trump, to the right-wing British Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and to the AfD, the project is national neoliberalism.
It will not work. As the historian Charles P Kindleberger reminded us in The World in Depression, his account of the 1930s, when states enthusiastically compete in a negative-sum game, the outcome is a smaller global economy.
What can we do? First, we need to say clearly: neoliberalism is over. If social democracy’s strategy was to generate a surplus through a highly financial, globalised free market economy and distribute it downwards as a compensation for stagnant wages and atomised communities, that is no longer possible. The more you try to do it, the more you have to coerce competitive behaviour into people’s lives, from the counter of the coffee bar to the welfare system, to housing, to the process of finding someone to go on a date with.
Promise number one of a radical social democracy should be: we will switch off the great privatisation machine. Promise number two also costs you nothing: we will stop imposing, nudging and coercing market behaviour into the lives of people and foster instead the human, collaborative impulse that 30 years of neoliberalism suppressed. To do these things, we need an alternative economic model, a narrative of hope, a social movement to fight for it and party structures that can enable all of this to work, rather than hinder it.
In May, people spontaneously turned Jeremy Corbyn’s name into a football song. We got 12.9 million people to vote for Labour at the election in June because the party offered the first two things: a clear policy alternative to neoliberalism and a narrative of hope.
I opposed the Third Way strategy in the 1990s, but I recognise that the Blair/Brown government delivered real advances in social justice. The Third Way strategy was logical if you believed that neoliberalism would last for ever. The problem we have faced since 2010 is: what to do now that neoliberalism is broken?
Source: Bank of England
For five years, under Ed Miliband, we tried to avoid the problem. Yet in the meantime, the tribal alliance that formed British social democracy was being pulled apart, by progressive nationalism in Scotland; by the xenophobia of Ukip in England and parts of Wales, which garnered four million votes in the 2014 European elections; by the emergence of a socially liberal, networked salariat that was switched off from technocratic politics, which prioritised climate change, personal freedom and other social issues.
Once we reached 2016, many working-class people felt alienated from our political language and viscerally worried about the impact of European migration on public services. When the entire centre of politics, backed up by the liberal salariat, told them that they could reduce migration only by leaving the EU, 17.4 million decided to vote Leave.
Even before Brexit, it was clear that only one thing could pull the alliance back together: economic radicalism and a vision of a new kind of capitalism beyond neoliberalism. That is why, when Jeremy Corbyn stood for the Labour leadership in 2015, tens of thousands of people joined the party to vote for him. That is why, in 2016, when the party hierarchy, the majority of MPs and the UK media tried to depose him, more than 180,000 people joined in 48 hours to defend him.
The road from winning the party leadership to destroying Theresa May’s parliamentary majority was not easy. Corbyn made mistakes. His team was inexperienced and was sometimes made to look incompetent by its enemies.
In the EU referendum, Corbyn tried to lead a Labour-only campaign, based on criticism and reform of the Lisbon Treaty. The message was too complicated and got lost – above all because his answer to concerns about migration was the long-term reform of the labour market, while Labour voters were being offered an easier short-term solution: simply to leave.
In June 2017, almost 13 million people intervened in our internal argument and told us that they liked the idea of a radical, social-democratic government and a soft Brexit. A few factors changed things. First, there was the Labour manifesto. The moment it was leaked, the crowds around Corbyn started to be real, chaotic and spontaneous. By setting a strict fiscal rule – to borrow only to invest – Labour gave itself the ability to promise two things: a £250bn investment programme and a £49bn programme of tax rises to reverse austerity.
In more than one Ukip stronghold, I was told by Labour campaigners that active, politicised Ukip members came out of their houses and demanded Labour posters. “The manifesto was all we needed,” they said. They just needed the Labour Party to say that it was going to start serving their communities, not the rich.
Second, we developed a narrative beyond politics. To hike your share of the youth vote to 64 per cent in a single leap, you need more than policies – you need a narrative. And in the final week of the election campaign, on the advice of our friends from Podemos, we consciously staged “la remontada”. We campaigned in defiance of our own image, almost against our previous selves – seizing the high ground on issues of policing, national security and terror, which the right-wing press assumed were always negative for us.
Third, we developed an organisational form that matched the fast-moving online civil society of the electorate. Remember that Jeremy Corbyn did not fully control Labour’s national executive or the party headquarters.
So we used the pro-Corbyn pressure group Momentum to do what the party headquarters did not: campaign in offensive parliamentary seats and not just ones that we were trying to defend. We sent people to constituencies where, in some cases, local officials tried to turn them away, as they were deemed “unwinnable”, and we won them. We produced, at the cost of a few hundred pounds, satirical videos that no party would ever have officially sanctioned. One of them, in which a girl questions her Conservative-voting father, was seen by eight million people.
We didn’t win. We need to go further in creating a social movement to gain – as Antonio Gramsci said – cultural hegemony in the wider society. Let’s be frank: what happened in Britain was possible because the political forces that would be in the European United Left-Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament were already inside Labour. In Portugal, a similar effect has been achieved through coalition. Elsewhere, that may not be possible.
Yet we learned enough to offer some general advice. Be radical. We must put forward a clear, plausible economic alternative to neoliberalism. End austerity. Regulate the labour market to promote the interests of workers. Build new homes for young people on a huge scale. Use state intervention to promote an innovative, high-wage private sector. Preserve, modernise and extend the welfare state.
Beyond this, we must come up with concrete answers to the challenge of automation and precarious work. The citizen’s basic income may be hard to implement at scale, but we should begin to explore it as a solution – Labour has committed to that.
Equally effective can be the state provision of basic goods and services, cheap or free. Twenty-first century social democracy cannot be – as the social philosopher André Gorz said of Marxism – a Utopia based on work.
In a world where many people lack power, lack confidence and experience atomisation, small-scale collaborative projects – the credit union, the community garden, the workers’ co-operative, the food bank – assume much greater importance. As with the socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle in Germany in the 1860s, such projects allow people to achieve things today that provide a link to what will be done tomorrow. Labour, for example, has pledged to double the size of the co-operative sector.
As for globalisation, to save it, we must do less of it. End the tyranny of trade deals over social justice. If neoliberalism is broken, social democracy cannot accept the Lisbon Treaty as the final form of the EU.
Today, if Corbyn is prepared to offer state aid, nationalisation and new progressive limits on the exploitation of migrant labour, it is because for Labour, the Lisbon Treaty never fully implanted itself inside our heads. Outside the euro and, in effect, beyond the EU’s stability and growth pact (and, of course, as a large country), Britain has always been able to start from what is needed and how it can achieve it within the Lisbon framework.
Jean-Claude Juncker’s recent white paper on the future of Europe gives social-democratic parties an opportunity to formulate a new option – a Europe of social justice, where low-wage zones and social dumping are forbidden. If some countries do not want to be in that Europe, they can travel at a slower pace.
The key is to switch off the Lisbon Treaty that is inside your head. The biggest challenge will probably be migration and asylum. The Austrian election result is the latest example: people in relatively prosperous countries are withholding consent because, though some are simply xenophobes and racists, many others cannot see the social justice in sharing scarce resources with people who arrive randomly and suddenly.
The answer is not to close the borders of Europe. We need inward migration to Europe and the maximum amount of freedom of movement compatible with retaining consent for migration. The answer is to win back consent by taking control of migration; to manage the domestic labour market actively; to administer asylum justice fairly; and to equalise minimum wages and social benefits upwards across Europe.
Above all, we must fight for a new concept of citizenship in Europe. In Britain, the main hostility is to eastern European migration. In the EU27, it is probably resistance to the arrival of asylum seekers from outside Europe. In both cases, however, it is hard to defend migration using the concept of citizenship that the EU has adopted, in which your citizenship is primarily economic.
From the British experience, I believe that it was not the low-wage effect of inward migration that mainly drove the hostility to free movement; it was the arrival of three million extra people who were entitled to use taxpayer-funded services in a period of austerity. That many of them worked in the NHS and public services was not enough to convince some people that the overall impact was beneficial.
Many were instinctively hostile to the EU’s abstract notion of citizenship, according to which the social capital, traditions and community values of existing residents do not count and citizenship resides only in your ability to travel and work. At its most fundamental level, our problem is that we have allowed the constitution of Europe to be framed around an economic system that no longer works.
Neoliberalism, writes the British political economist William Davies, is the disenchantment of politics by economics. Right-wing populism is the re-enchantment of politics by nationalism, racism, nostalgia and misogyny. Radical social democracy must be the re-enchantment of politics by social justice and a concept of citizenship based on the whole human being – the zöon politikon, not the homo economicus.
This edited essay was delivered as a speech by Paul Mason at the Europe Together conference in Brussels on 18 OctoberThe highly anticipated 2017 White House strategy for Afghanistan has many experts warning there are no good policy options, let alone an effective number of U.S. troops that will solve what Gen. John Nicholson calls a “ stalemate” between insurgents and the Afghan government. Given recent Taliban gains in places such as Helmand and Kunduz, and devastating attacks in the heart of the capital Kabul, the U.S. metric for success sits on a dreary spectrum of lose now, lose later or try not to lose at all. One thing is for certain, the outcome for Afghanistan rests no longer on the shoulders of the United States, rather it is Afghanistan’s burden to bear. The United States has proven inept at drive-through state building—not because it is corrupt or unskilled, but because state-building is complex and long term. Retired Gen. David Petraeus recently called the mission in Afghanistan “ a generational struggle ” akin to our security objectives in Korea. If we truly seek success, as Petraeus argues, we need to “be there for the long haul.” But what being there looks like is another question. A sustainable long-term strategic vision would prioritize going “urban” over going “local” in Afghanistan.
Recent news suggests the White House has given Secretary of Defense James Mattis and his generals more leeway on battlefield decisions, even while troop increases may remain modest ( 3,900 by one report ). Any strategy will likely bring with it greater pressure on regional neighbors, an increase in troops to support Afghan battalions on the front lines, and greater focus on building an “ enduring counterterrorism platform ” in the region. This likely means more American troops engaging at the local level. One proposal by White House strategists moves to privatize the war effort, surging contractors with CIA and Special Forces to “ create indigenous capacity ” and of course, “save taxpayers money” with a new American “viceroy” of Afghanistan. Any strategy that focuses on positioning U.S troops at the “local” level risks taking the United States down a hole that may only deepen its combat commitments in Afghanistan. During the height of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan in 2009, proponents of counterinsurgency called for a “ local” strategy where U.S. Special Operations and conventional units embedded within villages and patrolled the countryside to build local capacity and connect rural areas to the central government. Idealistic plans were often followed by clever titles such as “government-in-a-box,” the “model village,” or “village stability operations.” In some cases, these programs were successful at the local level, but at the national level, they often failed in terms of resourcing, oversight and direction. Going local only served to prolong the conflict and removed United States and NATO partners away from more important functions of state building–enhancing urban capacity, empowering civil society institutions, such as local governance initiatives, and bolstering the necessary functions of state bureaucracy. A winning strategy in Afghanistan that will fulfill U.S. security objectives needs to not only enhance the power of Kabul and its urban constituents, but decentralize security, development and governance priorities away from the United States and towards Afghanistan and its people.
Proponents of local statebuilding in Afghanistan contend that the nature of Afghan politics are local, power and legitimacy are held by tribes and clans in the rural areas, and that historic attempts to centralize authority from Kabul have always failed. They are partially correct. The Musahiban Dynasty (1929–73) in Afghanistan realized the dangers of overcommitting the state to influence the periphery, while under appreciating the power of tribal institutions. The Musahiban elites ruling from Kabul used a careful balance of carrots and sticks to ensure loyalty from the periphery and prevent large-scale internal rebellions. Their methods often included freedom from taxation and conscription, disappearing outspoken critics, and rewarding loyal clients. Local statebuilding proponents admire the relative stability of the Musahiban era and point to the state’s use of tribal militias and decentralized governance as critical methods to replicate. The special-operations community, long criticized for spending too much time on kill/capture missions, found renewed purpose as they reclaimed their mission to win “by, with and through” local powerbrokers and communities. Going local allowed them to expand state presence to the periphery–at least on paper–through greater intelligence assets, increased combat outposts and enhanced presence of local police. Outside, observers saw something different — a neo-imperial phase of U.S. statecraft to change the game through the mantra of “going local.” Paramilitary intelligence operations often led to allegations of abuse and torture, combat outposts were often sources of insider-outsider tensions, and Afghan local police routinely preyed on the civilian population and created new levels of insecurity. While the U.S. Special Operations community dominated the state building project in Afghanistan, it did so while diplomatic and nonviolent stability practitioners were predominantly marginalized.
This is not to say the Musahiban era is a completely invalid historical example, nor that “going local” was wholly ineffective. Many examples exist (such as expanding local police in Paktika or supporting the National Solidarity Program ) of successful U.S.-led statebuilding at the local level. However, local proponents ignore some vital differences between the era of Musahiban “stability” and twenty-first century state building. Far different from the U.S., NATO and Afghan governments today, the Musahibans never tried to control the entire country, instead they relied upon patron-client bonds, social institutions, and a form of benevolent neglect to bring a semblance of stability within its borders. Stability for the Musahiban’s was dependent upon the survival of the regime, not broad scale human-development indicators prescribed by foreign powers or democratic elections. Civil-society institutions were important only to the extent that they served the interests of the regime and did not upset the status quo. Most important, the Musahibans were fortunate to have the benefits of foreign aid without the curse of foreign occupation—a combination of variables that has never worked well for Afghanistan nor many other post-colonial societies. More than any other factor, the legitimacy of the state, its leaders, and their ability to govern independently were not determined by foreign patrons, western norms or large-scale insurrection. History reminds us, it wasn’t until the Soviet Union ratcheted pressure on the Musahiban’s to reform more in line with the Soviet’s sphere, that Mohammed Daoud Khan overthrew the monarchy and installed himself as president of the Republic—a bold, but ultimately damaging act of protecting Afghan sovereignty from foreign interference.
The type of local statebuilding the Musahiban’s implemented was more sustainable and measured towards local needs. In order to build strong patron-client bonds, the state used intermediaries such as tribal elders to speak for the state. The state encapsulated khans (landowners and local elders) and ulema (religious leaders) that gave those positions a symbolic role in the constitution, but no real power, at the same time granting considerable autonomy. Local institutions were imbued with a symbolic role, but discarded whenever the slightest sign of rebellion emerged. This situation worked well until Soviet occupation and decades of civil war upset the internal momentum of society. Larry Goodson’s prescient warnings in 2001 were derived in part by the collapse of Afghan society, a Soviet policy of “Rubblization,” and nearly $60 billion of military weapons had saturated the country.
Devout proponents of local state-building were a bit naive to think they could recreate the system from scratch and magically link far-off villages to a government they often view as predatory as the Taliban. “ Clear, Hold and Build ” has been played like a broken record that we wonder how well it’s really understood (one recent interview we conducted with a provincial governor revealed U.S. military are still advocating this strategy). Certainly, the United States need not replay this project in Afghanistan. Except for some limited cases (for example, here and here ), military units and individual soldiers have never developed beyond a “ superficial understanding ” of the local political and cultural environments in which they operate. As the Musahiban’s show, “going local” is not necessarily the issue; rather it is who goes local that really matters. In the Asia Foundation’s 2016 Survey of the Afghan People, nearly 80 percent of national respondents stated they would experience some or a lot of fear if they encountered international forces, while only 42 percent and 45 percent would experience fear if they encountered ANA and ANP respectively. A positive sign of continued support for Afghanistan’s security institutions is that from 2014–16, at least 95 percent of respondents viewed either the Afghan Army, police or local police as security providers in their local area. The U.S. warfighters place in Afghanistan is not at the local level—that battle is over and should be fought and won by Afghans alone.Building a basic router
Dylan Bridgman Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 13, 2015
There is always value in learning about the internals of the frameworks and libraries we use. It allows for a deeper understanding of the problem being solved and appreciation of the work that has gone into these projects.
So today I will be building a basic router to explore this fundamental part of even the smallest framework. The idea is not to create something complete or production-ready but rather the minimum set of features needed to be considered a router.
In order to call this a router it must be able to handle static routes, deal with variables within a route, and output an error when a matching route is not found.
Even with such a tiny set of functionality there are decisions to be made regarding the design and implementation.
URLs
The first decision to be made is the format of URL to be used. Rewrite functionality will be used to allow for semantic URLs (eg. http://example.com/this/is/the/route).
Query string based routing (eg. http://example.com/?this+is+the+route) will not be implemented and therefore will not be available as a fallback.
This means that before the router can have even the most basic features the web server must be correctly configured.
The same entry point, index.php, will always be used. In addition the name of this file will not appear in the URL.
Both of these requirements can be handled with two simple lines in an Apache.htaccess file.
For Nginx a similar rewrite may be used.
Normally there would be more rules involved to allow other resources such as CSS, images and JavaScript to be served correctly.
In both cases one should ensure that the REQUEST_URI parameter is being set as this will be used to determine the requested route.
Routing table
The next decision to be made is how to structure and where to store the routing information. This entails making a list of all possible routes and, for each route, specifying the action to be taken.
Often this information would be stored in a separate file, in the database, or created by different modules as they are loaded.
To keep this design as simple as possible an array will be used to store the list of routes. Each entry in the array will have a key to specify the route and the value will contain the code to run for that route.
A route of “404” will be used when no other matching route can be found. Other routes will be specified by name, including the leading slash. This means that the default route will be “/”.
The code to be run for each route will be written as an anonymous function. These functions will return the data to be output for that route.
To start lets add the default route, the “404” route, and a “/hello” route which will return a “Hello world” greeting.
Static routes
Keeping with the theme of simplicity the page header and footer will always be the same. The router will then be used to decide the content of the HTML body.
With a page structure in place, the next step is to implement the core of the router.
Each route is checked in turn against the REQUEST_URI. If a match is found then the associated anonymous function is stored in the $response variable.
If all routes have been exhausted, and the $response variable has not been set, we use the “404” route function.
Finally the chosen function is executed and the returned data is output to the body of the HTML.
At this point one can define any number of static routes and write code to have them give us the results we want.
Parameters
Static routing is not very exciting. Other than cleaner looking URLs it doesn’t give much functionality over using separate files for each page.
Adding parameters allows one to do dynamic routing. Regular expressions will be used as an quick way to do this. This implementation will not allow for named parameters and will require that any special characters are escaped.
Subpatterns, defined with parentheses, will be used to specify where parameters are within the route.
The existing routes must be updated to add the required escaping. Then a new “/count” route containing a parameter can be added. This new route will use the range() function to return the whole numbers between 1 and the number held by the parameter.
The code is then changed to use preg_match() for route matching and call_user_func_array() to process the chosen $response function.
There is plenty more that could be done and many more features that could be added but I think this gives a great overview on what is needed to implement a router.
While writing the code above I found myself considering how it could be changed to be a full RESTful router, how optional or named parameters could be introduced, and refactoring the router into a class.
Going through this exercise was informative. It got me thinking about the design choices made and how these choices affect the functionality. For example, choosing to use regular expressions to add dynamic routing was easy to do, but introduced the requirement of escaping special characters.
I hope it gets you thinking too.Coming Soon
Special
A gay man with mild cerebral palsy decides to rewrite his identity as an accident victim and finally go after the life he wants.
Raise the Bar
In this animated series, a high school girl attempts to overcome the odds and become a champion weightlifter in the Olympics.
Cursed
In this fresh take on the Arthurian legend, teenager Nimue joins forces with mercenary Arthur on a quest to find Merlin and deliver an ancient sword.
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.
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.
Undercover
A major ecstasy producer living in luxury on the Dutch-Belgian border faces big changes when two undercover agents begin moving in on his operation.
Elisa & Marcela
In 1901 in Galicia, Spain, Elisa Sánchez Loriga adopts a male identity in order to marry another woman, Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Based on true events.
The Emperor of Porn
This biopic follows the tumultuous life of director Toru Muranishi, who revolutionized the porn industry during the economic boom of 1980s Japan.The indignant sound of fingers clacking on keyboards is ringing out on Phillip Street as barristers in the heart of Sydney's legal district fire off increasingly personal and widely-circulated emails amid a bitter battle for control of the Bar Association.
In the latest chapter in an unedifying saga, one silk has taken aim at the association for the "support of knitting clubs" and child care facilities, triggering a backlash from a colleague over his "sneering comment".
In the latest chapter in an unedifying saga, one silk has taken aim at the association for the "support of knitting clubs"
Two warring factions are vying for control of the 21-member Bar Council, the governing body of the Bar Association. The profession has been bombarded with an unprecedented volume of campaign emails as the factions seek to sway votes before voting in the 2016 Bar Council election closes on November 5.There is something exotic about the traffic lights that "know" you are there -- the instant you pull up, they change! How do they detect your presence?
Some lights don't have any sort of detectors. For example, in a large city, the traffic lights may simply operate on timers -- no matter what time of day it is, there is going to be a lot of traffic. In the suburbs and on country roads, however, detectors are common. They may detect when a car arrives at an intersection, when too many cars are stacked up at an intersection (to control the length of the light), or when cars have entered a turn lane (in order to activate the arrow light).
There are all sorts of technologies for detecting cars -- everything from lasers to rubber hoses filled with air! By far the most common technique is the inductive loop. An inductive loop is simply a coil of wire embedded in the road's surface. To install the loop, they lay the asphalt and then come back and cut a groove in the asphalt with a saw. The wire is placed in the groove and sealed with a rubbery compound. You can often see these big rectangular loops cut in the pavement because the compound is obvious.
Inductive loops work by detecting a change of inductance. To understand the process, let's first look at what inductance is. The illustration on this page is helpful.
What you see here is a battery, a light bulb, a coil of wire around a piece of iron (yellow), and a switch. The coil of wire is an inductor. If you have read How Electromagnets Work, you will also recognize that the inductor is an electromagnet.
If you were to take the inductor out of this circuit, then what you have is a normal flashlight. You close the switch and the bulb lights up. With the inductor in the circuit as shown, the behavior is completely different. The light bulb is a resistor (the resistance creates heat to make the filament in the bulb glow). The wire in the coil has much lower resistance (it's just wire), so what you would expect when you turn on the switch is for the bulb to glow very dimly. Most of the current should follow the low-resistance path through the loop. What happens instead is that when you close the switch, the bulb burns brightly and then gets dimmer. When you open the switch, the bulb burns very brightly and then quickly goes out.
The reason for this strange behavior is the inductor. When current first starts flowing in the coil, the coil wants to build up a magnetic field. While the field is building, the coil inhibits the flow of current. Once the field is built, then current can flow normally through the wire. When the switch gets opened, the magnetic field around the coil keeps current flowing in the coil until the field collapses. This current keeps the bulb lit for a period of time even though the switch is open.
The capacity of an inductor is controlled by two factors:
The number of coils
The material that the coils are wrapped around (the core)
Putting iron in the core of an inductor gives it much more inductance than air or any other non-magnetic core would. There are devices that can measure the inductance of a coil, and the standard unit of measure is the henry.
So... Let's say you take a coil of wire perhaps 5 feet in diameter, containing five or six loops of wire. You cut some grooves in a road and place the coil in the grooves. You attach an inductance meter to the coil and see what the inductance of the coil is. Now you park a car over the coil and check the inductance again. The inductance will be much larger because of the large steel object positioned in the loop's magnetic field. The car parked over the coil is acting like the core of the inductor, and its presence changes the inductance of the coil.
A traffic light sensor uses the loop in that same way. It constantly tests the inductance of the loop in the road, and when the inductance rises, it knows there is a car waiting!
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More Great LinksThe next Honda Civic Type R will not only be the fastest version yet – it’s tipped to be Honda’s first-ever turbo road car. And our sources in Japan say tuning expert Mugen is already well underway with development.
The Type R has already achieved cult status in the UK – Europe’s biggest hot hatch market – thanks to its combination of a high-revving naturally aspirated engine and aggressive styling. But in order to meet emissions regulations, this latest model will tweak the formula slightly.
Instead of the previous 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine, it will use a 2.0-litre turbo designed to comply with Euro V emissions regulations. A similar engine will feature in Honda’s 2012 British Touring Car Championship challenger.
Adding a turbo will give more torque lower in the rev range, so a higher gear can be used more often to boost efficiency. Stop-start is also likely to be fitted.
Just as VW hiked power with its latest Golf GTI, so Honda will increase the Type R’s output – but not by much. A figure of 210bhp would allow a 0-62mph time of less than 6.5 seconds and a top speed approaching 150mph.
Based on the new Civic seen at last month’s Frankfurt Motor Show, the Type R gets the standard car’s front grille, slim headlights and LED daytime running lights, although most of the bodywork will be uprated.
A front end with large mesh air intakes, a lower chin spoiler and chunky side skirts will boost the visual impact, while a rear diffuser and extended spoiler aim to increase stability at high speeds. Also helping the car’s balance in corners is the standard Civic’s longer, wider chassis; this should also improve ride comfort and grip.
Don’t expect refinement to match a Mercedes S-Class, however. The Type R has always been an extreme proposition and that’s the way it will stay.
The steering is set to be pin sharp, while the six-speed manual box will use a stubby gearlever for snappy changes. Plus, the suspension will be firm, to cope with track work as well as blasting down B-roads.
In a break from tradition that matches the turbocharged Ford Focus ST – a key competitor for the Type R – Honda will offer the car as a five-door only. Prices are expected to start from around £23,000 when it arrives in 2013.Shaolin brothers, Hung Wei-Ting and Hu Ah-Piao are both being released from imprisonment after the emperor pardons their killing of the evil monk, Pai Mei. Mei was a member of the White Lotus Clan. A group that opposed the Shaolin. He was also a classmate of the leader the clan, White Lotus. Lotus is dangerous. He can float, he can retract his testicles into his body and he is the master of the White Lotus 100-Pace Punch. After the brothers are released, The White Lotus Clan vows revenge attacking the Shaolin and killing Ah-Piao. This leads to Hung Wei-Ting retaliating against White Lotus, hoping that his Tiger-Crane Style will vanquish the Lotus’ evil from the world forever.
Gordon Liu and Lo Lieh give some awesome fight sequences. The choreography is effective. I love the sound effects. A whoosh and bump for every move. What the film may lack in production it makes up with exquisite choreographed fight sequences including interesting additions. Additions like White Lotus’ floating or the wind power behind Wei-Ting’s punches. These elements add more interest to the fights then you see in average martial arts movies.Thomas Ricks has a new book out on Iraq. Here's part of an interview with Ricks:
I actually think 2009 in Iraq is gonna be a lot tougher than 2008, for three reasons:
--Elections in Iraq tend to be destabilizing, and there are three scheduled for this year, with national elections at the end of the year.
--At the same time, large numbers of American troops, who have been keeping a lid on things, probably will be withdrawn. General Odierno says at the end of the book that he thinks things will get dicey at the end of his year and the beginning of next year, when we start pulling out of less secure areas, having already left the more secure ones.
--Finally, NONE of the basic questions facing Iraq have been resolved. Oil revenue is just the most prominent. As Odierno says in the book, the surge created a breathing space, and some Iraqi leaders used that space to move backward.The Artful Reinvention Of Klansman Asa Earl Carter
Enlarge this image toggle caption AP |
feed back information about the grip of its tyres and help it plot the best route around the circuit.
Prof Chris Gerdes, head of the Cars Lab at Stanford, said Thunderhill was chosen because its 15 turns present the car's control systems with a wide variety of challenges. Some corners can be taken at high speed, some are chicanes, others are sharp and come at the end of long straights down which the car hit a top speed of 115mph (185kph).
Once familiar with the three-mile circuit the car was raced against one of Thunderhill's staff who was very familiar with the track and logged a slightly faster time.
"What human drivers do consistently well is feel out the limits of the car and push it just a little bit further and that is where they have an advantage," said Prof Gerdes.
He added that follow-up work had been done to record what the best human drivers did with the car's brakes, steering and throttle as they drove so this could be incorporated into the control systems the Stanford team is developing.
"It's not so much the technology as the capability of the human that is our inspiration now. Prof Chris Gerdes
For instance, he said, in situations where the car is being driven at the limit of the grip of its tyres, the car cannot be turned via the steering wheel. Instead, said Prof Gerdes, race drivers use the brake and the throttle to force a car round a corner.
"We're learning what they are doing and it's those counter-intuitive behaviours that we are planning to put in the algorithm," he said.
"Our ultimate objective is not really to robotify [car racing] but to take these sorts of technologies, learning from the very best human drivers and turn those into safety systems that can work on cars," he told the Big Science Summit, a conference organised by The Atlantic magazine.
Currently, he said, driver assistance systems in vehicles actively prevent them performing manoeuvres that the best drivers use to avoid or get out of trouble.
Driving fast on a race track was one way to expose those high level abilities, he said. The maths of making a car steer safely at high speed around a tight bend was very similar to that needed to keep a car on the road if it hits a patch of ice. Both, he said, involved a calculation based on how much friction there was between the road and the tyres.
"As we set up these systems in the future, it's important not to build autonomous vehicles that are merely a collection of systems designed for human support but to think a little bit more holistically about making them as good as the very best human drivers," said Prof Gerdes. "It's not so much the technology as the capability of the human that is our inspiration now."The anti-Corbyn coup and calls for a second referendum on Brexit
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
1 July 2016
The attempted putsch against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is being mounted by a right-wing cabal, working in intimate collusion with the security services in Britain and the United States. Its main propaganda organ is the Guardian newspaper. The aim is to overturn the result of the June 23 referendum and ensure British membership of the European Union (EU) through the election of a suitably refashioned Labour Party, or its incorporation into a coalition government.
Almost every key figure in the moves against Corbyn that began following the Leave campaign’s victory is associated with the party’s Blairite wing. This involves not only the current crop of Labour MPs and shadow ministers, but the inner circle around former Prime Minister Tony Blair—Alastair Campbell, David Blunkett, Jack Straw and others. Vetted and approved by MI5 and MI6, and taking their instructions from the CIA, these unindicted war criminals have been activated to purge not only Corbyn but his support base from the party.
Corbyn’s declared opposition to austerity and militarism is viewed as an intolerable affront by the Blairites. From the 1980s onwards, culminating in the election of “New Labour,” they transformed the party into an instrument for implementing Thatcherite economic policies and pledged to an unconditional alliance with the United States in its wars of colonial conquest in Afghanistan and then Iraq.
They have long viewed his election last year as the illegitimate consequence of the flawed decision to change Labour’s constitution and allow a popular vote for leader by members and supporters. But removing Corbyn became imperative after the referendum vote. The strategic interests of the ruling elite in Britain and the United States—especially as regards NATO and its military provocations against Russia—require that the result be rescinded. With Brexit forces now dominant inside the Conservative Party, Labour is the chosen instrument for this reactionary project.
Washington’s demands were made clear by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who informed reporters Wednesday that the referendum result could be reversed. “I think there are a number of ways” to do this, he said, although he didn’t “want to throw them out today.”
The next day, the Guardian published an op-ed piece by Robert Hunter. Its readers were not informed that Hunter is a high-level US state operative. The former president of the Atlantic Treaty Association, and US ambassador to NATO—amongst numerous other key US military appointments—he is described on Wikipedia as “helping to ‘recreate’ NATO, and breaking down barriers between NATO and the European Union.”
Hunter insists that the referendum vote is an example of “mob rule” that should be ignored and that parliament should overturn the result through elections for a “new leadership and a new government.”
The Blairites have translated this instruction into political action. It is they who engineered the vote of no confidence in Corbyn—based on the charge that the Labour leader “betrayed” the pro-EU aspirations of the younger generation. The same edition of the Guardian features an article by Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff. He declares that Labour must now “speak for the 48% of the country who want to Remain in the EU.” Corbyn “clearly can’t be that person”, so a new leader is needed “to run in the general election on an explicit promise to negotiate with our partners to salvage our position in Europe...” If elected, Labour’s first task would be to hold a second referendum, he writes.
Yesterday, Labour’s Geraint Davies and Jonathan Edwards of Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) presented a motion to parliament calling for a second referendum on whatever terms are agreed for a British exit from the EU.
The Socialist Equality Party condemns these manoeuvres. They recall nothing more than the actions of the Syriza government in Greece, which last year called a referendum on whether to accept a further round of EU austerity measures in the expectation that they would be agreed. When a massive no vote was returned, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras repudiated the result and carried on regardless.
Tremendous confusion has been created around the Brexit vote, above all by the right-wing and xenophobic forces leading the Leave campaign. This has been reinforced by concerns over the economic impact of leaving the EU—so that Davies and Edwards were able to cite a petition calling for a second referendum that has now secured upwards of four million signatures.
However, any attempt to overturn or bypass the vote is antidemocratic and aimed at creating the conditions for a deepening offensive against the working class. That is why it is accompanied by the cultivation of a vile political narrative, denouncing the millions of working people who voted Leave as “stupid,” “ignorant” and “racist.” This torrent of abuse expresses the social outlook of a layer of the upper-middle class who view the EU as a guarantor of their privileged lifestyles and in many cases a direct source of personal wealth.
The contrasting hostility of working people to the EU, which functions as an instrument of the major powers and big business for imposing austerity and pursuing trade and military war, is entirely legitimate.
In the referendum in which the Leave campaign was led by a right-wing faction of the Tory Party and the UK Independence Party and centred on nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, such anti-EU sentiment could find no progressive expression. This was reinforced by the fact that the Remain campaign—led by a government hated by millions for its savage austerity measures—was supported by the Labour Party under Corbyn.
What is now taking place is a systematic attempt at manipulating public opinion to lend legitimacy to a drive by the dominant sections of the bourgeoisie to maintain UK membership in the EU. Above all, this demands that Labour assume the role of the primary pro-EU, anti-Brexit party around which a supposedly “progressive” and “globally oriented” alliance can be formed with the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, sections of the Tories and others.
The professional purveyors of identity politics and postmodernism employed by the Guardian will be rolled out to attack any opposition to this project in the working class as an expression of “backward, insular nationalism,” while the frontal assault on jobs, wages and essential services is stepped up. But this is a project with support extending across the official political spectrum. Phillip Stephens, in yesterday’s Financial Times, wrote, “Many centrist Tories have more in common with their counterparts on the Labour side than with English nationalist Brexiters; and, likewise, middle-of-the-road Labourites are closer to pro-European Tories than to Mr Corbyn’s brand of 1970s state socialism... the space may be opening up for a new, pro-European, economically liberal and socially compassionate alternative to pinched nationalism and hard-left socialism.”
Making clear what the “compassionate alternative” means for the working class, Stephens continued, “The wait, of course, would be infuriating for Britain’s erstwhile partners. Europe cannot afford a year of uncertainty. But at least Berlin, Paris and the rest have had the experience of dealing with Greece.”
The SEP urged an active boycott of the referendum because, in the absence of any significant force expressing a progressive opposition to the EU, a Leave vote could only strengthen the right wing. We warn now that efforts to overturn the result of the referendum not only spread dangerous illusions in the EU, but will strengthen far right forces by allowing them to pose as defenders of the “popular will” against “the elites.”
What is necessary is to advance a perspective that cuts across all attempts to dragoon workers behind rival sections of the capitalist class—based upon the development of a mass movement across Europe against austerity, militarism and war. Genuine European unity must come from below, not above—through the overthrow of the EU and all its constituent governments and establishing the United Socialist States of Europe.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Image caption Inmates Thaer Halahla (left) and Bilal Diab (right) are said to be seriously ill
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have agreed to end a mass hunger strike, which has been going on for more than two months.
More than 1,500 Palestinians have been refusing food to demand an improvement in conditions.
Under a deal, Israel conditionally agreed not to renew detentions without charge, which had been a key grievance.
The protest had raised fears of a violent Palestinian backlash if any of the inmates died, correspondents say.
'Administrative detentions'
"All of the factions signed an agreement," Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, told AFP news agency.
The Israel Prisons Authority later confirmed the deal, which was brokered with the assistance of Egypt and Jordan.
It said the prisoners would now sign a commitment "not to engage in actions contravening security inside the jails", according to Reuters.
An Israeli government spokesperson said the deal was clinched after a formal request from the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
The Palestinian inmates went on hunger strike to protest against the so-called "administrative detentions" - the policy of detention without charge or trial.
The deal envisages that such detentions can no longer be extended for another six months if no new evidence emerges, in what is seen as a big concession by Israel, says the BBC's Jon Donnison in Jerusalem.
It means that more than 300 prisoners could all be freed by November.
Such detentions have been condemned by the Palestinian Authority, which threatened to take the matter to the United Nations.
The inmates have also complained about being kept in solitary confinement and being denied family visits.
An Israeli government official confirmed that more family visits would be allowed from prisoners' relatives living in the Gaza Strip, but denied that Israel had agreed to no more solitary confinement for inmates.
Many of some 4,500 Palestinians held by Israel are suspected of being members of militant groups.
But they are seen as heroes in the West Bank and Gaza, where there have been protests in solidarity with the prisoners.Detroit Banishes Red Gremlin (Nain Rouge)
The Nain Rouge, or the Red Dwarf, is a urban legend that began way back in 1701.
It involves the city of Detroit and the city’s founder, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. According to legend, Cadillac had a run in with the red colored creature while settling in the Motor City way before it was the…uh Motor City.
Multiple other sightings of the Dwarf were reported throughout the city’s history, judging by reports on Wikipedia:
“The creature is said to have attacked the first white settler of Detroit in 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac who, soon after, lost his fortune. The creature is also said to have appeared on July 30, 1763 before the Battle of Bloody Run, where 58 British soldiers were killed by Native Americans from Chief Pontiac‘s tribe. The small tributary of the Detroit River which still flows through what is now Elmwood Cemetery turned red with blood for days after the battle. It is said he was seen dancing on the banks of the Detroit River. Famous multiple sighting occurred in the days before the 1805 fire which destroyed most of Detroit. General William Hull reported a “dwarf attack” in the fog just before his surrender of Detroit in the War of 1812. A woman claimed to have been attacked in 1884, and described the creature as resembling, “a baboon with a horned head…brilliant restless eyes and a devilish leer on its face.” Another attack was reported in 1964. Other sightings include the day before the 12th Street Riot in 1967 and before a huge snow/ice storm of March 1976, when two utility workers are said to have seen what they thought was a child climbing a utility pole which then jumped from the top of the pole and ran away as they approached.”
Another sighting involves a couple of Detroit bar patrons seeing the Nain Rouge at a Detroit Watering Hole in 1996, but I think Jose Curevo might explain that one better then I can.
The March To Stamp Out The Dwarf!
No one actually wants a Nain Rouge in the city of course, which is why the city is holding the Marche du Nain Rouge, a supposedly 300 year old ritual, rived in Detroit in 2010. The march will hopefully not only rid the city of the ‘Red Gremlin’ but also a confrontation with the infamous ‘harbinger of doom’ who apparently will be making an appearance at a local restaurant.
Then the valiant Dwarf Fighters will go on parade, dressed in disguise so the Dwarf will not take retribution on the parade goers later (The march’s website says to ‘Come as you were or yet could be’) and chanting to rid Detroit of the Nain Rouge once and for all.
In reality the March’s founder,Francis Gunrow, knows that little red gremlins are unlikely to be the cause of any of the city’s issues, but the march is useful to band the city together, especially as Detroit has fallen on hard times economically.
“The Nain Rouge has actually been a part of Detroit’s history since the very beginning. The Marche du Nain Rouge is an idea that we hatched to use this story of this evil creature that haunts the city…and use it to sort of come together and banish this evil spirit and welcome the beginning of Spring.”
And yes, the Nain Rouge really does make an appearance at the festivities, he even gives a speech, as seen in the video below:
(Via Click On Detroit)
Related articlesOn Sunday, Colts left guard Jack Mewhort suffered a knee injury that resulted in him being placed on injured reserve on Monday, and today head coach Chuck Pagano shared some details on what that injury is. Mainly, that it’s not a torn ACL like many expected. Instead, it’s a similar injury to the one that defensive end Kendall Langford had earlier this year.
If you recall, the official term for Langford’s injury that he suffered in training camp was a chondral defect, which is basically an articular cartilage injury. Langford wound up having it scoped and he missed a few weeks but was able to return in time for the regular season. Langford was never really the same and never truly recovered from it, however, so midway through the year the Colts placed him on IR so he could get fully healthy. It’s unclear whether Mewhort will need to undergo a procedure like Langford did, but the nice thing is that he should have enough time to get back to 100% since he’ll miss the rest of the season and then have the offseason to recover as well.
Mewhort is an important piece for the Colts up front, as he’s been perhaps their most reliable lineman this year. He started ten games at left guard and played well, and he’s done a good job since arriving to Indianapolis in 2014. He’s started 40 games (most at left guard), and he’s been a reliable and good lineman. For a Colts team that hasn’t really had much of either, that’s been a welcome sight - and that’s why it’s important for him to be able to get back to form for next year. Hopefully since he avoided an ACL tear, he’ll be able to be back to full health before next season begins.At a recentmeeting with Ukraine's prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the conflict "the gravest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War." Although not a member, Ukraine could rest assured of NATO's support, Rasmussen said.
"Ukraine will be a tug-of-war between Russia on the one hand and the West on the other hand. And sometimes it can get pretty ugly," Dmitri Trenin from the Carnegie Moscow Center told DW.
But so far, NATO has merely stepped up joint exercises with the Bulgarian and Romanian navy in the Black Sea, and sent extra combat fighters to NATO bases in Lithuania and Poland. AWAC reconnaissance aircraft are patrolling alliance airspace over Poland and Romania to reassure Eastern European members that NATO is behind them.
A joint exercise of the US, Bulgarian and Romanian navy started on Wednesday
"NATO must make a show of strength to show its own members that it's still functioning," Wolfgang Zellner from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg told DW. But he says, NATO really "can't do much on Ukraine, Russia or Crimea," as no one wants to risk going to war with Russia.
But Trenin says Ukraine is likely to be unstable for a while and that situation could trigger a Cold War "light," which, this time round, won't be characterized by "static military confrontation" or even an "ideological battle", but "more in the field of economics, human relations, information warfare."
And indeed, with regards to Ukraine, Zellner currently sees "almost no de-escalating factors" on either side. That includes the fact that OSCE military observers so far have not managed to get into Ukraine, he says, and that Russia has said it will confiscate Ukrainian ships in the ports of Crimea, if Crimeavotes in favor of independence in Sunday's referendum. But, Zellner says, EU sanctions are also a factor of escalation.
'Ritual humiliation' of Russia
Although there won't be an iron curtain and the conflict won't be as central to global politics as the first Cold War, the relationship between NATO and Russia is likely to have an impact on other conflicts and should therefore be reconfigured. A tall order, and not one NATO has exactly been relishing or spending much time thinking about, Giles Merritt from Security & Defence Agenda (SDA), a Brussels think tank, told DW.
After the Cold War, "the West misguidedly wrote off the Russians, when there was a sense of 'we've won the Cold War,'" Merritt said..
Yeltsin contemplated joining NATO, but was rebuffed by the West
"There was almost a ritual humiliation of the Russians," he told DW. "This triumphalism of the 1990s was very damaging and the Russians, as a people, have, I think, not forgiven the West for that humiliation."
Merritt even goes so far as to claim NATO has no "diplomatic tradition," that it has, since the mid-1990s, neither tried to involve the Russians, nor has it looked at what it's prepared to "put on the poker table…to make life uncomfortable for Moscow."
"We, the Europeans, and the Americans, have neglected to reflect on our political self," Merritt says, adding that this also applies to the EU and the US generally. He calls it a "lack of concertation" that means no one is really prepared to think of scenarios and "chess moves," neither for Ukraine nor for various other conflicts around the world, including the repercussions of NATO's mission in Afghanistan.
Reduced to 'junior partner'
Trenin says NATO did have a strategy of sorts, that Russia was not so much neglected, but simply seen as a "junior partner", who was expected to "adjust to the new reality and accept NATO's role." He says the US as the key driver of NATO policy was always on the Russian mind, but "there was too little Russia on American minds."
NATO called this approach "partnership and cooperation" but it has not lived up to its name. From the early 1990s, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev all tried to get incorporated into the Western system, "but there were no takers on the Western side," Trenin says.
NATO is to step up cooperation with Ukraine
NATO needs a rethink
This nonchalant approach to Russia is now coming back to haunt the alliance. Some 40 percent of NATO members are from former Warsaw Pact countries, Jonathan Eyal from the UK's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) says, so if NATO doesn't address their security concerns, it will become irrelevant.
"The East Europeans were often told they shouldn't be so obsessed with looking at Russia as an enemy," Eyal told DW. Now, he says, their concerns are turning out to be justified and NATO will have to consider more bases in Eastern Europe.
"If we are to take the NATO commitment seriously, we will need to think about increasing defense expenditure…we will need to think about certain strategic moves that are likely to be interpreted as hostile in military terms in Moscow, like the positioning of bases in central Europe," Eyal says, adding that the NATO summit in Wales in September will have to focus on these issues.
Zellner agrees, emphasizing that NATO will have to focus on defense because, for countries like Poland or the Baltic states, article 5 of the Washington Treaty - the commitment to defend members in the case of a conflict - is of the utmost importance.
"I think the ultimate loser from this invasion [in Ukraine - the ed.] will be Russia, because it will achieve what it desperately tried to avoid, which is that it will get NATO right at the border with Russia," Zellner said.Share. All the glory, none of the guts. All the glory, none of the guts.
Amazon's exclusive collector's edition for Battlefield 1 costs $129.99 and doesn't include Battlefield 1.
Available for all three of the game's formats, the item's listing is pretty specific: "Battlefield 1 Exclusive Collector's Edition - Does Not Include Game".
Exit Theatre Mode
So what does a game-less video game collector's edition include? Let's see (I'll help annotate):
14" statue (not the game)
Exclusive steelbook (not the game)
Cloth poster (not the game)
Deck of playing cards (different game)
Messenger pigeon tube containing exclusive DLC (for the game, but not the game)
Patch (not the game)
Premium Packaging (not the game)
For the price of, well, a full-price video game, you can grab the disc alongside the collector's edition for $189.99. Then there's the $209.99 Deluxe edition, which appears to make the sole addition of the Early Enlister version of the game - as you may have guessed, that's usually $20 more than the base game.
Battlefield 1 will be released on October 21 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. In other Battlefield news that omits the games themselves, Paramount is seemingly making a TV show out of the shooter.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor and he's excited to announce the Skrebels collector's edition, which includes a high-res photograph of his knees, a cassette tape of him whispering threats to you but, crucially, not the man himself, or even a piece of him. Follow him on Twitter.Roundup: OT Win Seals Split for North Dakota
UMD, Denver Share Weekend Points; SCSU Crushes CC
CHN Staff Report
After Friday night's thriller in Omaha, North Dakota and Nebraska-Omaha played another memorable one with UND getting its revenge in a 4-3 overtime win.
UNO entered the weekend with a one-point lead on North Dakota for first place in the NCHC standings. With both games going to overtime, the teams split the available six points and remain separated by one point.
"There was a real focus," UND coach Dave Hakstol said. "Nothing else was talked about. We didn't come to go to a shootout. We didn't come to split points tonight. We needed this one.
"That was a huge win, a huge goal. To hear the guys on the bench, there was only one thing: We needed three points, not a shootout."
UND's Brendan O'Donnell scored the overtime winner at 2:04 of the extra period.
Brian Cooper tied the game for UNO on the power play at 16:16 of the third period after Stephane Pattyn put UND on top at 9:15.
The teams traded goals throughout the game with UND going on top in the first through Mark MacMillan. Jake Guentzel answered. Each player scored his team's next goal as well.
UNO goaltender Ryan Massa made 38 saves despite taking the loss.
Minnesota Duluth 4, Denver 2
January hasn't been kind to Minnesota Duluth. League losses to North Dakota, Western Michigan and Denver made things a bit tricky in the NCHC. Last weekend's defeat to Bemidji State certainly hurt the Bulldogs' cause in the Pairwise as well.
However, UMD ended the month on a positive, taking a 4-2 decision in Denver.
"Another hard-fought game just like last night," UMD coach Scott Sandelin told the Duluth News Tribune. "We got the lead, and they battled back like we tried last night."
A pair of second-period goals from Dominic Toninato and Alex Iafallo put the Bulldogs ahead, 3-1, after both teams scored in the first period.
DU's Quentin Shore brought the Pioneers within a goal with a strike at 4:36 of the third period. Kasimir Kaskisuo made 10 saves in the third period to help UMD hold its lead. Adam Krause's empty-net goal saled the win at 19:04.
Kaskisuo ended the night with 31 saves for UMD.
"Your best penalty kill is your goalie, and he made two or three big saves for us," Sandelin told the DNT.
UMD's win gave it a two point lead over fourth-place Miami in the NCHC standings.
Denver missed a big opportunity to jump into home-ice position in the NCHC standings. The split with UMD has DU two points back of Miami.
"It's disappointing to not get the sweep but hats off to the Bulldogs for playing a very good game," DU coach Jim Montgomery said. "They're a high-quality opponent, and they might be the fastest team in the country. We had a tough time keeping up with them at certain points in the game, and that really cost us."
St. Cloud State 6, Colorado College 1
St. Cloud State scored four third-period goals to turn a 2-1 lead into a comfortable 6-1 win over Colorado College. The Huskies' win completed a weekend sweep of the Tigers.
Jonny Brodzinski and David Morley each scored two goals for the Huskies in the win.
CC took an early 1-0 lead through Sam Rothstein at 3:52 of the first period. Morley's first of the night at 7:30 leveled the game, 1-1, and the Huskies never looked back.
SCSU has won three of its last four games. In its three victories, it's outscored opponents 20-2. The Huskies are now off until they head to Duluth on Feb. 13 for the start of two games with the Bulldogs. Currently, SCSU is just four points out of home ice in the NCHC playoffs.
Western Michigan 3, Miami 3 (OT)
Miami wins shootout, 2-1
Lukas Hafner did all he could on Saturday night to keep Western Michigan in the game. His 39 saves, including 17 in the third period, helped the Broncos earn a 3-3 tie with Miami. However, he couldn't bail them out completely. Miami won the shootout for the extra point, 2-1.
WMU led, 2-1, after two periods. Frederik Tiffels and Mike McKee scored after Matthew Caito put Miami up, 1-0.
Anthony Louis and Sean Kuraly scored just 20 seconds apart in the third period to put the RedHawks up, 3-2, with 5:29 to play in regulation.
Colton Hargrove's 11th goal of the came with just 13 seconds to play to force overtime for WMU.
"When you play a game, and you tie it in the last few seconds of the hockey game, there is rationale to come into the locker room and pat people on the back," WMU coach Andy Murry said.
"Here tonight, we made a play at the end of the hockey game. It was a big goal, no question about it, but we let a team come in here and get too many shots and win too many battles against us."
After a scoreless overtime, Louis and Cody Murphy scored for Miami to clinch the extra point for the RedHawks.
Miami is now unbeaten in its last two games after losing three straight earlier this month.Oshawa's power play is in a 2-for-22 slump while Mitchell Vande Sompel recuperates from an injury (Terry Wilson, OHL Images)
Oshawa managed to beat one of the best while not at its best, which kept atop our weekly exercise in quantifying team play.
The Generals have had as many as a half-dozen contributors sidelined, but held off a sizzling-of-late Barrie Colts team 1-0 last Sunday in a matchup that's about as pertinent as it gets for the OHL's Eastern Conference in mid-January. And GM Roger Hunt channeled Crash Davis in Bull Durham by slipping a "the good Lord willing" into an interview this week, which means the hockey gods are going to be nicer to the Durham Region sextet at some point.
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Out west, Brandon is top dog after Kelowna and Medicine Hat each slipped up.
1. Oshawa Generals, OHL (.566 RPI, +1.6 SRS, —) — The Gens' are batting below.100 — 2-for-22, 9.1 per cent — since puck-moving defenceman Mitchell Vande Sompel went on the injury list. The good news, though, is that their depleted lineup, with six regulars out, showed some resolve by winning that 1-0 thriller over the Barrie Colts last Sunday behind a shutout from Ken Appleby. It wasn't a dreary game full of shutdown tactics; the two teams were just that evenly matched.
The most worrying of the Generals injuries was probably the one to Hunter (Big Rig) Smith, since the Calgary Flames second-rounder was hurt in an open-ice collision on Jan. 10. It's being called a chest injury and Smith could play by the end of the week.
Story continues
2. Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, OHL (.560 RPI, +1.5 SRS, —) — Frankly, it's a little surprising the 'Hounds have not cut further into the RPI spread after winning 7-of-8, but the Generals were the one loss and five of those wins have been over rebuilding teams. A soft portion of the schedule at a point where a team is integrating newcomers such as the underrated-for-far-too-long defenceman Connor Boland and the three world junior returnees likely isn't the worst thing for the Soo.
Sault Ste. Marie's docket includes facing Mackenzie Blackwood-less Barrie and a Sunday matinee at Guelph, in what's become one of the OHL's best inter-division rivalries of late.
3. Brandon Wheat Kings, WHL (.545 RPI, +0.9 SRS, +5) — The Wheaties' nice week had a grey lining since Florida Panthers second-round choice Jayce Hawryluk, one of the Dub's best two-way centres, is going to be out for a month with an upper-body injury. The 18-year-old will miss a reunion game this weekend vs. Regina and super-pesky agitator Jesse Gabrielle. The other principal in that swap, 19-year-old Morgan Klimchuk, enters this week coming off his first back-to-back multi-point nights since swapping Regina blue and red for Brandon black and gold.
4. Erie Otters, OHL (.543 RPI, +1.3 SRS, +2) — Just like no one takes about the tea in Colombia, no one ever mentions that the Otters have some solid complementary scoring beyond the Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome pyrotechnics. Erie depth forwards, including the likes of Patrick Fellows, Quentin Maksimovich and 16-year-old Taylor Raddysh, have also had a hot hand during the current four-game win streak.
"Our fourth line's got goals in five straight games," Strome said earlier this week. "When a team in the CHL can do that, it helps out the first and second-line guys."
5. Rimouski Océanic, QMJHL (.542 RPI, +0.9 SRS, —) — The Océanic take the Q's best record into a Friday night visit to Blainville-Boisbriand, which would have been a compelling matchup for national TV if not for a conflict with the NHL all-star draft. Rimouski leaving its nucleus mostly alone looks prescient after a week that it capped off by defeating the Moncton Wildcats 7-3. Charles-David Beaudoin, the de facto big deadline add, was a plus-5 in the game after drawing the task of stymieing the 'Cats duo of Ivan Barbashev and Conor Garland.
6. London Knights, OHL (.541 RPI, +0.7 SRS, +6) — Mitchell Marner did the media whirl in St. Catharines, Ont., at the Top Prospects Game on Tuesday, as he was barred from playing in the Knights' eventual win over the Kitchener Rangers by league edict. It shouldn't be controversial; it was just happenstance, since Tuesday's tilt was a rescheduled game and the event is not far from London. The rules that try to ration the participating players' ice time exist for good reason. Truthfully, the Top Prospects Game is probably at least Exhibit C in the case that teenagers are asked to play too much hockey.
As for the possibility the ruling affects the scoring race, well, tell it to every top player who goes to a NHL camp and plays in the world junior. The scoring title should be based on points per game.
7. Moncton Wildcats, QMJHL (.540 RPI, +0.3 SRS, +2) — The 'Cats have settled into a cushy stretch where six of their next seven games at the Coliseum. Moncton received a good measuring stick by playing Blainville-Boisbriand, Quebec and Rimouski last weekend, which should have provided a glimpse of how well their lineup measures up from top to bottom. One of the other veteran pickups, 19-year-old centre Bronson Beaton, contributed some strong supporting work with two goals on the trip.
8. Kelowna Rockets, WHL (.539 RPI, +1.3 SRS, -4) — Just call Kelowna not ready for prime time; they are 0-for-3 in regionally or nationally aired games, ouch. Both Sportsnet and NHL Network USA audience saw the Rockets get dropped 5-2 by Seattle, which even with the Thunderbirds' surge, contributed to their lowest ranking on the season. One wonders if it's really fair to parallel the post-world junior play of Madison Bowey and Josh Morrissey even though a comparison is easy since they play the same position. Bowey is coming back to the only team he's known, while Morrissey carried a bigger load for the national junior team and is adjusting to a new club team. It looks like the Rockets will need a weak longer than anticipated to clear their New Year hangover..
9. Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, QMJHL (.536 RPI, +1.0 SRS, +4) — Thursday's Top Prospects Game will be a forum for B-B's young goalie Samuel Montembeault, who has the Q's second-best average at 2.62 (albeit with a save percentage below.900, but remember the league tends to be stricter on the shot counts).
Meantime, the breakout Armada contributor of the past month has been 19-year-old defenceman Philippe Bureau-Blais, who's chipped in at a point per game clip since mid-December. The Chateauguay, Que., native typically hadn't been point producer prior to that point, but sometimes older players just figure it out later in their run in the league.
10. Portland Winterhawks, WHL (.535 RPI, +0.5 SRS, —) — How did it take |
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Motorists are urged to avoid the area Sydney Harbour tunnel, and expect significant delays and consider alternate routes.
Buses that cross the Harbour Bridge have now returned to their normal routes but there are extensive delays to services.
Trains are operating across the Sydney Harbour Bridge with no delays.
Meanwhile train services are starting to return to normal after a man who was tasered by police after stabbing himself in the neck died on the railway tracks at Central Station.
Emergency services were called to the country platforms of the station about 12.50pm (AEDT) today, following reports a man was threatening to harm himself with a knife.
Witnesses told police the man went onto the railway tracks and started walking towards Redfern.
Police also entered the rail corridor and tried to restrain the man, but he stabbed himself before police used a Taser on him.
Tragically, despite efforts by emergency services to save him, the man died at the scene.
* Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14Former attorney general Eric Holder was the honored guest at a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reception on Wednesday (leading investigative reporter Murray Waas to reasonably wonder: How’s that again?).
And while I was primarily interested in hearing whether Holder regretted whiffing on torture prosecutions during his tenure (see story: “Holder, Too Late, Calls for Transparency on DOJ Torture Investigation”), I also asked him about whiffing on financial fraud prosecutions.
Specifically, I noted his failure to hold accountable the people responsible for the wide-scale financial fraud that led to the massive economic recession of 2007-2009.
And I noted that after he stepped down from his post in April, he went back to his job at Covington & Burling, the gigantic D.C. law firm whose clients have included many of the big banks that Holder chose not to prosecute. (The reception was actually held at Covington & Burling’s swanky new building downtown. While it was being built — while Holder was still attorney general! — the firm actually kept an 11th-story corner office reserved for his return. He was making over $3 million a year from the firm before his sojourn at the Justice Department; his current salary has not been disclosed.)
Holder bristled at my suggestion that there might be a connection between his current employer and his conduct at Justice, saying that many top prosecutors at Justice had pursued cases as best they could. “We were simply unable to do it under the existing statutes that we had, and given the ways the decision-making worked at those institutions,” he said.
However, Holder had all the statutory authority he needed to prosecute straightforward crimes such as robosigning fraud, perjury in front of Congress by Goldman Sachs executives, or for that matter, HSBC’s money laundering for Mexican drug cartels. He simply chose not to. (In response to another questioner, he denied that any of his decisions not to prosecute were based on the massive legal teams that were fielded against the government.) Moreover, he actively waved off offers of additional help such as the suggestion from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, that Congress give him more staff for his Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, or extend the statute of limitations on some crimes.
At Wednesday’s event, Holder continued: “It’s an easy thing for people who are not a part of the process” to “ask questions,” he said. “It pisses me off, on the other hand,” for people “not conversant” in the process to “somehow say that I did something that was inconsistent with my oath or that I’m not a person of integrity.”
“I’m proud to be back at the firm,” he said. “It’s a great firm. And I’m proud of the work I did at the Justice Department.”
Holder’s comment was only the most recent in a series of pronouncements from formerly powerful government officials that they were in fact powerless — while talking tough once they no longer have the ability to do anything about it.
See, for instance, my colleague David Dayen’s recent article, “Bernanke Talks Tough But Was Weak When It Mattered,” about former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke saying that more Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for criminal misconduct that led to the financial crisis.
As Fed chair, Beranke could have initiated criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but chose not to.
As attorney general, Holder could have made pursuing financial fraud a top priority. And he did not.Roscommon farmer turns up at waste collection with enough cyanide to 'wipe out' the county BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A farmer in Roscommon turned up at a hazardous waste disposal site with enough cyanide to 'wipe out' the county. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/roscommon-farmer-turns-up-at-waste-collection-with-enough-cyanide-to-wipe-out-the-county-35236740.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/article35236738.ece/aabdc/AUTOCROP/h342/farming.JPG
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A farmer in Roscommon turned up at a hazardous waste disposal site with enough cyanide to 'wipe out' the county.
The farmer had the hazardous waste on his farm for the past 45 years and told officials he had originally bought it to get rid of rabbits on his farm.
Suzanne Dempsey, Environmental Officer with Roscommon County Council told Shannonside radio that the 4kg of cyanide was handed over by an elderly farmer. She said he had used it in the past to kill rabbits on his farm.
"That would have been common practice. The farmer had it in his shed for 45 years and had previously sought advice on how to dispose of it safetly.
"The toxic expert on the day said the amount was enough to wipe out most of the county."
She also said the farmer had the chemical well secured in containers.
Other waste products that farmers arrived with included one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used in the Vietnam war.
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently running a series of hazardous waste disposal collection events where people can take any dangerous or hazardous waste they have have and dispose of it safetly.LISTEN: Garfield High School football coach talks about players national anthem demonstration Your browser does not support the audio element.
A national anthem demonstration has become common at recent sports events. On Friday night, a Seattle high school football team will be the latest to make a point.
Garfield High School football players decided to collectively kneel during the national anthem at the start of their Sept. 16 game. The purpose of the kneeling, as it has occurred in other sports venues across the country, is to draw attention to oppression that often goes unnoticed, or ignored, in America.
Seahawks show demonstration of unity during national anthem
The notion began with 49ers Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand during the national anthem. Other sports figures soon followed.
“I’m going to continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed,” Kaepernick told the media recently about his national anthem demonstration. “This is something that has to change. When there is significant change and I feel that flag represents who it’s supposed to represent, and this country is representing people in the way it’s supposed to, then I’ll stand.”
Garfield High School football coach Joey Thomas said the main focus for him is the game.
“You are going to see a great football game by two undefeated teams,” he said, but also noted that there has been a lot of attention on the national anthem demonstration.
“The way this all happened was it was all organic,” he said. “It started with a conversation. Something that we pride ourselves on as coaches is talking about what happens in society with our young men. Regardless if we talk about it or not, they see it. They are going through it. So why not have a conversation? You want to help them process and deal with it.”
The conversations on the field and in the locker room spanned topics from how to handle situations with police, or other parts of their lives. It led to conversations about American history, such as the third verse of the Star Spangled Banner, which includes the line: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave; From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.”
“It was open dialogue that led us to this point,” Thomas said.
Thomas also said that football players will get criticized no matter what they do. In this case, they prefer to stand up for something.
“When athletes get in trouble, they say, ‘they should be stand up guys; they should do the right thing for their community,'” Thomas said. “Then when we stand up for something, like Colin Kaepernick, now people become hypocrites. They say, ‘we don’t pay you to be a politician, we pay to to play a game.”
South Seattle Emerald Columnist Marcus Harrison Green reports further on the national anthem demonstration, noting the conversation among young students at Garfield — on and off the field. It covers a realm of issues around young people growing up to face realities of America’s majority / minority dynamic.
They watched Kaepernick, and the other athletes who followed suit have racist verbal venom spewed on them, in a refusal, an abject refusal to have the story, of what it means to live in this country individually and collectively as these students do as non-members of this country’s dominant group.
Responding to a national anthem demonstration
For KIRO Radio’s Don O’Neill, he sees taking a knee as time to listen. The demonstrations are a reminder to have conversations about tense issues in America.
“It seems to me, we’re beginning to have those conversations,” Don said. “It’s younger people that don’t have a problem having these conversations, which I think is exciting. It’s people that are older though that are seeing this as jumping up and down on the flag, as jumping up and down on veterans … but I think that’s what Colin Kaepernick was trying to accomplish – to talk about these impossible conversations.”
“One of the ways you show great respect in football is when your coach says ‘take a knee,'” he said. “When your coach says ‘take a knee,’ he doesn’t want you to sit on your helmet. You’re not supposed to be sitting on your butt. You’re not supposed to sit on the bench. You’re supposed to take a knee, and you’re supposed to listen. That’s what I’ve been trying to do in my life is to take a knee and listen to these conversations.”
For co-host Ron Upshaw, he understands that people can be outraged over disrespecting the flag. But that’s stopping short of covering the larger issue.
“We can also be outraged about the incarceration rates of black and brown people,” he said. “We can be outraged by the disproportionate numbers of black and brown men that are put to death in this country. We can be outraged by people serving third strike life sentences for dealing marijuana and now there’s a marijuana shop up the street owned by a white guy.”
For Coach Thomas, he lands in favor of having the conversation.
“We have to speak to your youth about what’s going on in society,” he said.
“We don’t have an all black team — we have Caucasian Americans, we have everyone on our team,” Thomas said. “For them to hear stories of their teammates, and to say ‘wow, this didn’t just happen on TV, this happened to my coach, this happened to my brother,’ it puts it into perspective.”As the years pass by I find myself becoming increasingly out of touch with technology. Just last night I struggled to grasp the concept of the new Myki system while catching the train into the city. As I stood at the turnstile swiping my card frantically to no avail, like so many senior citizens before me, I knew something had to be done.
I’m not going out like a chump. I need to conquer technology.
I’ve decided to start with Photoshop. Not being a fan of copius amounts of tutorial reading, I’ve given myself a little project – Trumpafying villains.
Why?! Do I really need a reason?
I do? Ok well here’s just one…
I’m pretty much afraid of everything, name an irrational fear and I’ve got it. I’ve spent many a night looking for a cure: hypnotism, interpretive dance, light tranquilisers – nothing has worked…until now. I have discovered no villain (dare I say, no thing) can be scary if Trump hair is placed strategically atop it.
Here’s a taste…I took this photo of Gibraltar Point Beach on a long walk around Toronto Islands during the city’s most recent cold snap. Because parts of the Island are exceedingly untamed, especially in the isolated winter, I was surprised to see Leslie Street Spit-style slabs of concrete and twisted rebar landfill breaking the otherwise undomesticated landscape of the Island’s south-west beach.
As past posts have explored, the Toronto Islands were formed when land from the dramatic erosion of the Scarborough Bluffs dropped into Lake Ontario and was pushed by the lake’s current to form a peninsular sand bar. Though always referred to as “The Islands”, a powerful storm in 1858 pierced its thin connection to mainland Toronto, rendering them islands in the true sense.
Looking at a few historical Toronto maps (courtesy of the fantastic Historical Maps of Toronto blog), the shape of the sand bar changes dramatically. For its first hundreds of years, the form of the Toronto Islands changed every year and after every storm.
When the Leslie Street Spit peninsula made its final extension into the lake in the 1970s, the flow of sand from the Scarborough Bluffs was effectively blocked. Consequently, the Islands have been eroding, their sand pushed away by the lapping waves of Lake Ontario without the replenishing effect of the Bluffs’ accumulative currents of land.
The city’s response has been to dump landfill along the Island’s south shore to curb erosion. In fact, the City has been doing this for more than a hundred years. In 1885, with the vision of Central Park style forests, lawns and meadows, the City decided to “parkify” the Islands and began dumping soil and infill to landscape and tame the wild, constantly changing landform (picture the French-style geometric gardens that lead from Centre Island to the pier, and the constantly mown fields just to their west). More recently, the City has embraced Michael Hough style “natural processes”, and native plants are reclaiming their habitats.
In both cases — the historical parkification, and the current attempts to curb erosion — I can vividly see how this wild place is slowly being taken over by the deep urbanity across the Bay. As the Toronto Islands remain untamed in many senses, I hope that a delicate balance is maintained between the urbanity and wildness that characterizes Toronto’s frontier shoreline as we continue to negotiate the Island’s role in our cityscape.
Daniel Rotsztain is the Urban Geographer. After six years of formal and informal education in Montreal, Halifax and Amsterdam, he is happily back in his home-city of Toronto and ready to respond to it with words and art. Check out his website, or say hello on Twitter!HOUSTON - A woman is accused of sexually assaulting children with her boyfriend, and photographing the children for exploitation, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
Ashley Virginia Dack, 29, was charged with sexual performance by a child and super aggravated sexual assault of a child. Her boyfriend, Patrick Schuneman, was also charged.
Court documents show that Dack and Schuneman were performing sex acts against innocent children, some as young as 11 months old, and would boast of their activities in sexually-explicit text messages to one another. Dack was a babysitter, giving her access to several victims.
"The defendants befriend women who have small children to gain access to the children," Tiffany Dupree, the chief prosecutor said.
Dack allegedly bragged about her exploits to a friend. The friend backed up text messages from Dack's phone after she asked him to charge it for her, then he contacted authorities on Oct. 14, 2014, and turned over the evidence, according to court documents.
Officers executed search warrants at Dack's and Schuneman's residences simultaneously. One item seized was an iPhone 4 and disturbingly graphic text messages were found.
A text message exchange between Dack and Schuneman on Aug. 30, 2012, read in part:
Dack: There is a little girl at lunch... Wanted you 2 to be hiding in my car and I could bring her 2 you.
According to court documents, Dack sent Schuneman multiple images of children engaging in sexual activity. One of the images showed Dack inappropriately touching an 11-month-old.
"The defendant and co-defendant shared text messages over time that suggest something more sadistic than your typical sexual abuse," Prosecutor Stephen Driver said.
Investigators tracked down the mother of the toddler and discovered that Dack babysat the child on May 10, 2013, the same day the pictures and text messages were sent.
Investigators said after reviewing the text messages, it was apparent the couple were conspiring and planning together to sexually abuse children and to photograph and video their exploits for their sexual gratification.
They moved forward with filing charges to get the couple off the streets and save other children from harm.
Dack's charges were filed Friday and her bond was raised Monday to $350,000.
Prosecutors believe Dack is a flight risk and a judge stipulated Monday that if she posted bail she would be required to surrender her passport and wear an ankle monitor.
Copyright 2015 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.The relatively low cost of housing in North Texas is becoming a thing of the past and industry experts don't expect that to change any time soon. (Published Monday, July 10, 2017)
If you’re looking for an affordable house in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, experts offer two words of advice: good luck.
What was once a calling card for DFW — the relatively low cost of housing, compared to other, similar-sized markets — has quickly become a thing of the past because too many people have come calling.
“I never thought I would live to see the day that this would happen,” Rockwall-based Altura Homes president Donnie Evans said. “That kind of scares me quite honestly.”
As an example, Evans pointed to a 2,000 square foot-home his company is building in the community of Fate.
Developing Judge Issues Arrest Warrant for Dallas City Councilman
“We would build a house really similar to this probably in the low $120,000s,” he said. “Fast forward four years later, we’re at $220,000 to $240,000 for the same house.”
Evans and others in the industry point to many factors to explain the sharp uptick. Chief among them is an increase in the price of land on which to build a new home, as well as increased costs for labor and supplies.
According to the recently released S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, Dallas was among the top three markets in the country in terms of highest year-over-year gains; the price of the average home is up 8.6 percent from March 2016 to March 2017.
“Certainly we are bumping our head on that affordability ceiling,” said Ted Wilson, Principal at Residential Strategies, which performs housing market research in the Dallas-area. “The builders talk about [affordability] quite a bit, so there is concern.”
Wilson noted that the term “affordable home” in the Dallas-area has long been defined as $200,000 and below. But recent trends have shown the number of affordable homes is way down from years past.
For example, in 2007, according to Wilson, there were about 100,000 transactions in the year for homes priced below $200,000 in Dallas-Fort Worth. In 2017, Wilson said that number will be more like 50,000.
As further evidence of the lack of affordable homes on the market, Wilson added that, as recently as 2011, there would typically be 25,000 homes on the market at any given time priced at $200,000 or less. Today there are 5,000 to 6,000 homes available at that price point.
Wilson added that he does not see this trend changing anytime soon.
“When you start talking about [the possibility] of a bubble, the implication is it might burst,” Wilson said when asked if the current conditions are a real reflection of the market. “But when you look at just the shortage that we have with respect to listing inventory and the capacity issues with new construction, we do not see any near-term oversupply in housing.”
So for those who are looking for a deal, they might want to consider Evans' advice and broaden their search area.
“Crandall, Kaufman, Greenville, Fate. Those are the areas you need to come into right now,” he said. “There is good value and they are good cities to build in.”Last year my family and I experienced a serious financial hardship. We had to foreclose on the home we had lived in for twenty years, our dog of fourteen years had passed away and we had absolutely no money to spend on anything extra. Our spirits were low and the Christmas season didn't seem to matter. We sold all of our Christmas decorations in a yard sale, so Christmas wasn't going to happen (and the tree wouldn't have fit in our new apartment anyways.) I was embarrassed when people would ask anything about Christmas and I had a hard time facing all of my friends and family members that I normally bought gifts for. A few friends knew what was going on and reached out to help. Before I knew it a small pre-lit tree was left on our doorstep. And that one act of kindness gave me an idea. My birthday happens to be two days before Christmas so I had received some extra money. I went out got some food and a couple of gifts for my mother. She had the hardest time with it; every year she was able to buy great gifts and this was the first time she couldn't afford to buy anyone anything. So when Christmas day came and when she saw her gifts she was over taken with emotion. It was then I realized that it truly is the small things that make holidays memorable. Most people probably can't remember half the gifts they received last Christmas.AFP via Getty Images Policemen and a group of migrants stand on the platform at the Swedish end of the bridge between Sweden and Denmark in Malmo, Sweden, on November 12, 2015.
As a former intelligence officer, I am a major advocate of the maxim, “facts matter.” As such, I often find myself cringing when listening to President Trump wax philosophically – and creatively – on any number of issues. The most recent example of this are the president’s comments about Sweden, made during a rally before supporters held in Melbourne, Florida this pastSaturday.
“Here’s the bottom line,” the president said. “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany. You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” Trump said. “Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris.”
The president then transitioned into the heart of his message, which dealt with his controversial executive order on immigration. “We’ve allowed thousands and thousands of people into our country, and there was no way to vet those people,” he said. “There was no documentation. There was no nothing. So we’re going to keep our country safe.”
The media – in the United States, Sweden and elsewhere – immediately criticized the president’s words, ascribing meaning and intent in an effort to undermine the message and the man, building on a foundation of negative press regarding Trump’s stalled immigration order banning persons from seven Muslim countries from entering the United States for ninety days while a plan for implementing the president’s vision for “extreme vetting” could be formulated and implemented.
“The comments appeared to refer to recent terror attacks in Germany and elsewhere, but no such attack has occurred in Sweden,” wrote Eric Bradner, of CNN. “Trump’s remark is the latest misplaced reference to a terrorist attack or incident by those in his White House. Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway inaccurately referred to a ‘Bowling Green massacre’ that never took place, and White House press secretary Sean Spicer referred to an attack in Atlanta, later clarifying that he meant to refer to Orlando.”
Steve Benen, of MSNBC, had a similar take on Trump’s Swedish reference. “Kellyanne Conway recently made repeated references to a ‘massacre’ at Bowling Green that never actually happened. Sean Spicer similarly pointed several times to a terrorist attack in Atlanta that didn’t occur. So perhaps it was inevitable that Donald Trump, fresh off his bizarre claims about U.S. murder rates that exist only in his imagination, would point to a Swedish incident with no basis in reality.”
I actually believe Donald Trump did America, and the world, a favor in bringing up the issue of Swedish immigration.
The British press was no less damning in its reporting. “Donald Trump appeared to invent an attack on Sweden during a rally in Florida,” wrote The Telegraph, while the Guardian reported that, “Donald Trump appeared to invent a terrorist attack in Sweden during a campaign-style rally in Florida on Saturday.”
Even the Swedes jumped on the bandwagon, with Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom posting on Twitter an excerpt from Trump’s speech, noting that democracy and diplomacy “require us to respect science, facts and the media.” Former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt likewise tweeted, “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”
The problem with the bulk of the reporting on Trump’s comments was that it was, simply put, wrong. Even the New York Times – no friend of Donald Trump – was compelled to admit that, “Mr. Trump did not state, per se, that a terrorist attack had taken place in Sweden. But the context of his remarks – he mentioned Sweden right after he chastised Germany, a destination for refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war and deprivation – suggested that he thought it might have.”
If there was any doubt as to what President Trump was actually thinking (vice what reporters thought he was thinking), it was quickly put to rest by the president himself, who tweeted Sunday that, “My statement as to what’s happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.” He followed that tweet with another on Monday, noting that, “Give the public a break - The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!”
The president, it seems, was watching an episode of Tucker Carlson’s evening news program, where Mr. Carlson interviewed a controversial right-wing Jewish documentary filmmaker, Ami Horowitz, who had finished a project on Sweden’s immigration policy. Mr. Horowitz is a noted Islamophobe whose film seeks to label Sweden as a nation whose pro-immigration policies coddle Islamic terrorism. His appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show was part and parcel of a trend of reporting by Fox News sympathetic to President Trump and his policies, and as such it should be a surprise to no one that Mr. Trump had been tuned in and watching as Carlson interviewed Horowitz.
That President Trump gets some of his information from watching prime time news shows should neither shock nor surprise Americans who are similarly empowered by such information sources; after all, what is good for the goose should be good for the gander. That the president chooses to publicly comment on this information without first vetting it – or, in the president’s own parlance, “extreme vetting” it – with the resources uniquely available to him, such as the State Department, the National Security Council, etc., is, at the very least, disturbing.
The president, whether he realizes it or not, speaks on behalf of an entire country, and not just that segment of society that supports him and his policies. Even if Mr. Trump is personally sympathetic to the selective and self-serving reporting of Mr. Horowitz and Fox News, he should be assiduous in making sure that, as president, his words leave little open to suggestion by being as precise in fact and context as possible. The fact, however, that President Trump is, and was, not doing so should not come as a surprise to either the public or the media; he consistently campaigned in this fashion during his successful run for the White House, and his actions and words, in transition and during the first three weeks in office, have demonstrated little if any trend away from sustaining that behavior.
That President Trump and the media are currently engaged in a much publicized feud over their respective veracity is well known to all; neither side does itself any service by engaging in actions that only reinforces the talking points of the other side. President Trump should be far more precise and accurate in his facts and commentary, period. The media should likewise limit its reporting to those facts that the president has publicly committed to; Mr. Trump provides more than enough ammunition for fact-based reporters to stay gainfully employed without sinking to the artifice of discerning (i.e., manufacturing) “suggestion” and “intent” behind what the president says. To behave otherwise is to demean the status and value of the Fourth Estate to the American people.
An enemy of the truth is, by extension, an enemy of the American people. Both the president and the media should heed that simple fact, since their future credibility hangs on their perceived adherence to the same. A viable democracy such as the United States requires fact-based debate, discussion and dialogue in order to sustain and further societal growth and health – a static society is a dying society. It is in America’s interest to keep evolving as a nation, seeking new solutions to old problems, and to do so in a manner which encourages the frank and open participation by all citizens, whether others agree with them or not.
In this light, I actually believe Donald Trump did America, and the world, a favor in bringing up the issue of Swedish immigration. The inability of the American (and international) media to help facilitate a responsible debate on the subject by reporting on perceived “suggestion” or “intent” behind the president’s words, vice the actual words themselves, however, has created a situation where the American people can’t see the forest for the trees.
It’s not that I agree with the president’s immigration policy – I don’t. My wife and her family are immigrants (she is a naturalized citizen, her father a green card-carrying permanent resident), and our ability to interact with our extended family abroad is dependent on the freedom of movement between the United States and her native Republic of Georgia. The Georgian Republic is, today, an ally of the United States, its population deeply Christian in religious orientation and as such largely immune to the limitations on immigration proposed by the president.
While I do not share Ami Horowitz’s sweeping denunciation of Sweden’s experience with Muslim immigrants, I do have an opinion on the issue based upon first-hand experience.
It isn’t the impact of the president’s proposed policy on a personal level that prompts my opposition, but rather the fact that families like my own will be adversely impacted simply because of geography or religion. America has the ability and resources to deal with the issue of immigration with the precision of a surgeon, excising those who are shown to represent a threat to American security while allowing entry to those who don’t; in contrast, Trump’s proposed policy represents a hammer-like approach. We can, and should, do better.
The best solutions, however, come only once a problem has been properly defined, and here the problem revolves around both the practical methodologies involved in any vetting of immigrants, extreme or otherwise, and the public perception of the impact upon society that any surge of immigration might have. While I do not share Ami Horowitz’s sweeping denunciation of Sweden’s experience with Muslim immigrants, I do have an opinion on the issue based upon first-hand experience. In late 2007 I had the opportunity to attend a week-long advanced firefighting academy in Sweden, followed by a 72-hour operational “ride along” with Swedish firefighters in the city of Malmo, Sweden’s 3rd largest city with a population of 300,00 – 20 percent of whom are Muslim immigrants.
I spent a decade in the fire service, and had the opportunity to interact with firefighters from across the United States and around the world. I’ve always viewed the fire service as the true barometer of a society; politicians can sweep inconvenient facts under the rug, while a population can coast through life, deaf, dumb and blind about the real problems that exist out of sight, out of mind. Not so the firefighter (or, for that case, the police officer and emergency medical services.)
These first responders know the truth (sometimes ugly) about the state of affairs in a given community. Is there a heroin problem? Ask the firefighter – he or she will be able to draw a map showing precisely where they respond to calls of that nature. Firefighters know the parts of town that have been hit by unemployment, where medical insurance is non-existent, or where immigrant communities (both legal and otherwise) reside.
If you spend some time in a firehouse, as I have, you get a very accurate readout of the pulse of the society they serve. I was a Bernie Sanders supporter during the last election, but by September 2016 I was telling my friends that Donald Trump was going to win, not because I wanted him to, but because that was the feeling I was getting from the firehouses in the parts of America largely ignored by mainstream politicians – the rust belt of the northeast and Midwest America where support for Trump was directly related to the ills of society firefighters knew existed, and which were not being adequately addressed by the political powers that be.
I never met a society more open-minded and tolerant of outsiders than the Swedes. In Malmo, I was driven around the city by a succession of fire chiefs who proudly displayed the work being done by their municipality to receive and care for the large immigrant policy – primarily Muslim – that called the city home. The front-line firefighters that I met and worked with shared the pride in their city, and Sweden’s policy of openness and inclusiveness, shown by their command, but balanced it with a healthy dose of skepticism born of first-hand experience with the ugly side of the immigrant experience.
I personally witnessed the reality of entire neighborhoods in the city where firefighters and police were not welcomed with open arms. While not absolute “no go” zones (the Malmo firefighters, after all, responded to calls in these areas), these neighborhoods were “slow go” zones, meaning firefighters entered with caution. Arson incidents in these immigrant neighborhoods were rampant – I responded to two during my stay, one of which was a school targeted for simply being secular. The firefighters I rode with told of being pelted with rocks while responding to other emergency calls just a week before I arrived, and many times prior. The firefighters spoke of the need for increased outreach to the immigrant community, including trying to recruit immigrants into the emergency response force, but noted that these efforts were stymied by the close-knit nature of many immigrant neighborhoods which made meaningful integration into Swedish society very difficult.
My experience with the firefighters of Malmo in no way validates the reporting of Ami Horowitz, Fox News or any media outlet seeking to paint Sweden as a seething cauldron of Islamic fundamentalism operating in the heart of Europe. What it does do, however, is underscore the reality that when a society undertakes to open its doors to large-scale immigration, there exists the potential for the kind of disruptive, sometimes violent experiences that occurred – and continue to occur – in Malmo – and throughout Sweden as a whole. Rather than being dismissive of the Swedish experience, however, America would do well to reach out to the Swedes for their lessons learned, so that America can proactively address the problems and solutions already identified and acted on by the Swedes.Engineers inspect Toshiba's four-legged robot during a demonstration at Toshiba's technical center in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on November 21, 2012. Toshiba developed a tetrapod robot, enabling it to carry out investigative and recovery work in TEPCO's Fukushima nuclear power plant. The robot weighs 65 kilograms and can move over uneven surfaces. - AFP Photo
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Nov 21, 2012 - Japanese nuclear reactor maker Toshiba on Wednesday unveiled a remote-controlled robot resembling a headless dog that they hope will be used at the battered Fukushima power plant.
The tetrapod, which weighs 65 kilograms (143 pounds) and is about one metre (3 foot, four inches) tall, is designed to be able to cover difficult terrain - such as going up steep steps - that regular robots struggle with.
The robot's triple-jointed legs are designed to give it maximum flexibility, with engineers saying it will be able to go into spaces where high radiation makes it impossible for workers to do so.
The robot can carry a load of 20 kilograms and is equipped with cameras and a radiation meter, expected to help workers decide which parts of buildings are safe to enter and for how long.
Toshiba's four-legged robot climbs steps during a demonstration at Toshiba's technical center in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo on November 21, 2012. - AFP Photo
The machine can also carry a small wired vehicle equipped with a camera and send it out to crawl into small spaces to carry out inspections.
Toshiba engineer Goro Yanase said the as-yet unnamed robot could be upgraded to carry more than 80 kilograms, climb ladders and step over obstacles up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) high.
Robots have already been used inside the wrecked plant to take video footage, including the US-made PackBot and Japanese-made Quince crawler robots, but Toshiba is awaiting the go ahead from plant operator TEPCO to deploy its creation.
The massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11 last year sparked an atomic emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the northeast of the country.
Efforts to clear up after the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 are still continuing, with high levels of radiation hampering operations.
The decommissioning of the crippled plant is expected to take several decades.Image copyright Justin Sullivan/AFP/Getty Image caption Uber has been testing self-driving cars
Uber has fired the engineer accused of stealing secrets from Google-owner Alphabet after he failed to assist with an investigation related to the lawsuit.
Anthony Levandowski, previously worked on self-driving car technology at Waymo, owned by Alphabet.
He is accused of downloading 14,000 confidential files before leaving the company in 2016.
Uber denies it is using stolen technology.
In a court filing last month, Uber maintained its technology is different. It described the claim that employees brought files to Uber with the goal of creating "copycat" technology as "demonstrably false."
Mr. Levandowski has declined to testify in the case, launched in February.
The firing was confirmed by an Uber spokeswoman, who said it was effective Tuesday.
Mr |
and Drew Goddard, while the actors included Eliza Dushku (who will be collaborating with Whedon on the forthcoming Dollhouse), Nicholas Brendon, J. August Richards, Amy Acker, Juliet Landau, Tom Lenk, Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Ron Glass, Morena Baccarin, Summer Glau, Harry Groener, and Camden Toy.
Buffy's own Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is coincidentally this month's Maxim covergirl, sent over several boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts in support of the strike, while an individual, in a passing Ryder van, expressed his/her disapproval by lobbing two water balloons at the picketers.
More photos after the jump.At least 15,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. If you wish to learn about the man who led the North during the American Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 then you are not going to be restricted by choice. (AbeBooks alone has more than 67,000 copies of books with ‘Abraham Lincoln’ in the title).
No-one knows exactly how many books have been written about Honest Abe but in 2012 Ford’s Theater Centre for Education and Leadership in Washington DC constructed a 34-foot pillar of unique titles about Lincoln and it contained more than 15,000 books.
Books have been written about his childhood, his politics, his wartime leadership, his married life, his death, his speeches, his generals and admirals, his writing, his mental health and his legal career. There are biographies, history books, picture books, children’s books and fictional novels based on his life.
In recent years, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin has received a great deal of attention. In 2008, the then-Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama declared, if elected, he would want “a team of rivals” in his Cabinet. “I don’t want to have people who just agree with me. I want people who are continually pushing me out of my comfort zone,” he told Time Magazine. Obama, a keen reader, acknowledged the influence of Goodwin’s book several times as he campaigned to become president.
Lincoln by David Herbert Donald, published in 1996, is also widely acknowledged as one of the better biographies of the man. Manhunt by James L. Swanson is a very readable book about the murder of the president, the motives of his killer John Wilkes Booth and the desperate manhunt over 12 days.
If you want to completely shake up history, then Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith might appeal (and that’s fiction by the way). Gore Vidal also wrote an historical novel about the man.
The Best Books about Abraham LincolnLibertarian Party Vice Presidential Candidate, Bill Weld, was once a proponent of some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. His supporters maintain that Weld has changed his view on guns, since he enacted this legislation more than two decades ago. Weld even assured delegates at the Libertarian Party Convention that he made mistakes as governor of Massachusetts, and is now firmly in favor of the second amendment.
It seems Weld wasn’t being so honest with the delegates that voted for him. In an interview with Revolt last week at the Democratic National Covnention, Bill Weld said:
“You know the five-shot rifle, that’s a standard military rifle. The problem is if you attach a clip to it so it can fire more shells, and if you remove the pin so that it becomes an automatic weapon. And those are independent criminal offenses. That’s when they become essentially a weapon of mass destruction. The problem with handguns is probably even worse than the problem of the AR-15. You shouldn’t have anybody who’s on a terrorist watch list be able to buy any gun at all.“
Watch the interview here:Get the biggest Birmingham City FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
On September 7, 1968 Birmingham City striker Geoff Vowden wrote his name indelibly into Football League history.
Records come and go but no-one will ever surpass Vowden, then a 27-year-old striker of some repute, after he became the first substitute ever to score a hat-trick as Blues thrashed Huddersfield 5-1 at St Andrew’s.
Vowden signed from Nottingham Forest for £25,000 in October 1964 and had been Blues’ leading scorer in each of his first three seasons.
But in 1968-69 with Stan Cullis’s side bottom of the second tier and with only one win to their names after six games, the manager decided to drop Vowden for the first time in his seven years at the club.
The Barnsley-born forward responded eloquently.
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With Blues leading the Terriers 2-0 at half time, through Jimmy Greenhoff and Fred Pickering, Vowden came of for injured skipper Ron Wylie.
Frank Worthington, who would go on to play for Blues in the 1970s, pulled one back for the visitors before Vowden struck three times in 18 minutes.
Headers in the 71st and 74th minutes put Blues 4-1 up and with a minute remaining Johnny Vincent set Vowden up to make history and send 25,000 Bluenoses home happy.
Vowden would go on to score just seven goals in the 1968-69 campaign as Phil Summerill usurped his goal-scoring crown.
Blues would finish seventh that season.
He remained at St Andrew’s until March 1971 when he joined Aston Villa for £12,500 and scored 11 times as they won the Third Division title.
He moved on to New York Cosmos in 1974 before embarking on a coaching career in England and Saudi Arabia.
In all he played more than 220 games for Blues and scored 79 times.Some secrets aren’t meant to be told. Did you really need to know, for instance, that Pablo Picasso sometimes painted with his daughter’s feces?
It’s one of the sickening revelations in 100 Secrets of the Art World: Everything You Always Wanted to Know From Artists, Collectors, and Curators, but Were Afraid to Ask, a new book by Thomas Girst and Magnus Resch. (Other secrets apparently concern such high-profile art world figures as Jeff Koons, Marina Abramović, Larry Gagosian, and Zaha Hadid.)
The news about “Poo-casso,” as reported by Page Six, comes from the famous artist’s granddaughter, Diana Widmaier Picasso, and is a long-held “family secret,” according to the book. It’s unclear how often Picasso turned to this unconventional art supply, which was reportedly featured in a 1938 still life.
Picasso is said to have used his daughter Maya’s feces to paint an apple on the canvas. She was just three years old at the time.
“According to him, excrement from an infant breast-fed by its mother had a unique texture and ocher color,” Widmaier Picasso explained.
As gross as the medium might seem, Widmaier Picasso is mainly impressed by her grandfather’s ingenuity: “Picasso had already told André Breton in 1933 that he wanted to use real, dried excrement for one of his still life paintings, specifically those inimitable turds that he happened to notice in the countryside when children ate cherries without bothering to spit out their pits,” she wrote. “The revulsion that this material might provoke is instead transformed into amazement as we grasp the full imagination of the artist.”
Picasso, of course, isn’t the only artist to employ excrement in his work. Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary, for instance, became a lightening rod for controversy at the Brooklyn Museum back in 1996, causing offense by incorporating elephant dung into its depiction of the saint. There are also several museums dedicated solely to fecal matter.
Follow artnet News on Facebook:Feb 21, 2015; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Montreal Canadiens forward Dale Weise (22) screens Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Curtis McElhinney (30) and teammate Fedor Tyutin (51) during the second period at the Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports
The Eastern Conference leading Montreal Canadiens (39-16-5) are in Columbus Thursday night to face the Blue Jackets (26-29-4). The game starts at 7:00 and airs on RDS and Sportsnet East.
Match Up
This is the third and final game between the Canadiens and Blue Jackets and the second this season in Columbus. The Habs have already earned a pair of wins against the Jackets, 3-2 in Columbus and 3-1 in Montreal. Max Pacioretty has four goals in those two games including both game winners.
What to Watch
Canadiens: Devante Smith-Pelly is expected to make his Canadiens debut on Thursday. The 22 year old had 5 goals and 12 assists in 54 games this season for the Ducks and 40 career points in 129 games over parts of four NHL seasons.
Blue Jackets: With the Jackets likely to miss the playoffs, they could be looking to unload upcoming unrestricted free agents before next week’s deadline. That means this may be among the last time center Mark Letestu and defenseman Jordan Leopold suit up as Blue Jackets.
James Wisniewski and Cam Atkinson’s names have also surfaced in trade rumors, but it would take a considerable return to pry either of those assets away from Columbus.
What’s at Stake
The Canadiens have a pair of games in hand om the Islanders and Lightning, two teams hot on their heels for top spot in the East. Both are idle Thursday giving the Habs a chance to put even more distance between them and their rivals.
Who’s Out
Sergei Gonchar has been cleared to play and could return to action on Thursday, leaving just Alexei Emelin (shoulder) and P.A. Parenteau (concussion) out with injury for the Habs.
Like the last time these teams met a week ago, Sergei Bobrovsky (groin), Ryan Murray (ankle), Dalten Prout (upper body), Boone Jenner (back), Nathan Horton (back), Jack Skille (shoulder) and Jeremy Morin (upper body) are all missing. Kevin Connauton (foot) may also be out of the lineup Thursday.
What Else
With Tuesday’s win over the Blues, the Canadiens are 42 points ahead of the last place Sabres with 21 games remaining for Buffalo. The Habs have 33 regulation and overtime wins to 11 for the Sabres meaning they are guaranteed to finish ahead of Buffalo in the standings. It’s a first step towards clinching a playoff berth for the Habs who sit 18 points ahead of the ninth placed Panthers. Florida has 22 games remaining, so Montreal is still a few games away from sealing the deal.
The Question Mark
After his last trade, what holes if any does Marc Bergevin need to plug in the Habs lineup before the trade deadline?
As always, we’ll be going over your answers on the Montreal Hockey Talk Habs Pregame Show, starting an hour before each Canadiens game on montrealhockeytalk.com.St George Illawarra coach Paul McGregor will wait to hear back from the NRL next week before commenting about his breach notice for his verbal attack on the referees.
McGregor is facing a $10,000 fine for calling the officials in last week's loss to Newcastle "incompotent and embarrassing" but has yet to indicate whether he will appeal the penalty.
"I've got a couple of days left to respond which I will do, and I'll make further comment next week after I get the response back," McGregor said on Thursday.
McGregor this week became the first coach to come under fire from the NRL for berating officials, despite rival coaches also turning the heat on the game's whistleblowers this year.
Canberra coach Ricky Stuart escaped sanction for his spray a fortnight ago, while South Sydney counterpart Michael Maguire took issue with concussion protocols last week.
Asked whether the NRL is being inconsistent with its punishments, McGregor said: "I'd prefer to reserve comment until I have a chance to respond to the actual breach notice."
The fourth-year Dragons coach did admit, however, to speaking with referees boss Tony Archer this week to air his grievances over a number of issues.
But he is unsure whether the conversation would prove beneficial in the long run.
"I emailed Arch after the game. I texted him on the phone and emailed him through a dozen clips of the game and got a response back, so we did talk," McGregor said.
Asked if he was happy with the outcome, he said: "I'll tell you next week."
Ahead of Friday's clash against the Rabbitohs, the Dragons are equal on 24 points with Penrith but ahead in eighth spot on points differential.
- AAPWhen you’re exploring the possibilities afforded by Bitcoin, as well as the many other options in cryptocurrencies, one term that you will likely see repeatedly is “blockchain”. This is an important term to be aware of if you have any interest in trading and investing in Bitcoin and altcoins, which are cryptocurrency alternatives to Bitcoin. Blockchain is the technology behind Bitcoin, and it allows the cryptocurrency to be utilized as such.
Blockchain: The Basics
A blockchain is a public record of every Bitcoin transaction ever made. As transaction blocks are completed on the chain, the chain continues to grow. Blocks are added chronologically, and every computer that is connected to this network receives a copy of the blockchain (the computers are referred to as nodes). This ever-evolving blockchain serves as an entirely comprehensive record of the transactions made for a particular cryptocurrency.
What makes blockchain so interesting as a technology is the fact that, after downloading the proper software, anyone may verify transactions that have been recorded on the ledger in an autonomous manner. This process of verification is known as mining, and miners are integral to the original blockchain concept with the Proof-of-Work algorithm. Mining is done without the need for a centralized entity; the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency is one of its top benefits.
A Little History
Blockchain technology began as a philosophical concept with the intention of protecting independent communities from societal corruption. Decentralization was recognized by the pioneers of blockchain as a key factor in creating true security for such communities. The objective was to create a system of currency that could be protected without the need for centralization. As those at the forefront of this revolutionary concept worked to transform it into a reality, Bitcoin was created.
Enter Blockchain 2.0
As the demand for Bitcoin increased, Blockchain 2.0 platforms were developed. One example of such a platform is Nxt, which provides more features on the blockchain and thus offers even more value to users. These innovative features include voting systems, the ability for users to create their own currencies, and a decentralized exchange right on the blockchain itself.
Another platform that characterizes the next generation of cryptocurrencies is Ardor. Scheduled to be released in the third quarter of 2017, the Ardor platform will allow users to set up their own blockchain with the features on Nxt, which they can use for their projects.
Blockchain is the foundation on which cryptocurrencies are able to function. This technology is growing to be widely embraced for its capacity to instill a true system of checks and balances in terms of currencies. Developments are constantly being made to add potential use cases to this technology and it will be interesting to see how this is used in the future.Microsoft may be forced to release an out-of-cycle security update for a vulnerability published the same day as the firm released its September Patch Tuesday update.
Security researcher Laurent Gaffie published proof of concept code showing how a flaw in Microsoft's file sharing (SMB2) protocol could be exploited.
The flaw means that an attacker can remotely crash any Windows Vista or Windows 7 machines with Server Message Block 2.0 (SMB2) enabled, he said.
According to Gaffie, Windows XP and 2000 are not affected by the flaw as they do not use SMB2.
"This issue does appear to be remotely exploitable, and companies should look to patch as a matter of urgency as it presents a very real danger," said Roger Rawlinson, managing director assurance at NCC Group.
"Threats from an external perspective will be limited as long as best practice has been followed in regards to blocking access to netbios at the external firewalls," he said.
"We expect Microsoft to monitor the extent of exploitation of this new vulnerability and to provide guidance for workaround," said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at security firm Qualys.
Microsoft is also working on a security update for a flaw in its Internet Information Service (IIS) software, which was disclosed last week.
"Until a patch for this is issued, as a temporary workaround we suggest IT administrators using IIS 5.0 and 6.0 turn off anonymous write access immediately," said Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager at Symantec Security Response.
Those using IIS 7.0 with FTP Service version 6.0 installed should upgrade to FTP Service version 7.5, said Greenbaum.
The existence of two zero-day vulnerabilities has sparked speculation that Microsoft will release an out-of-band patch before its scheduled October security update.
Yesterday, Microsoft issued five security bulletins which address eight vulnerabilities, six of which are rated as critical.
The focus is on the Windows operating system family and most versions are affected.
"The notable exception is Windows 7, which is a pleasant surprise and most likely an outcome of the additional security measure implemented in this latest version of Windows," said Kandek.
MS09-045 and MS09-047 are client-side vulnerabilities affecting indirectly Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.
MS09-048 is a network vulnerability located in the TCP/IP network stack of Windows 2008 and Vista and can be exploited through the network.
MS09-049 is an attack on the WLan auto-configuration service of Vista and Windows 2008.
"This requires a malicious access point to be in Wi-Fi range, which limits the number of machines that can be attacked at any given time," said Kandek.
Germany-based Heise Security has confirmed the flaw's effect on Vista, but said it had no apparent effect on a computer running Windows 7.
Video: Qualys' Wolfgang Kandek and Amol Sarwate discuss Microsoft's September security updates.Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos at the Kapitan Andreevo, Bulgaria, checkpoint | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images New border force guards Europe’s ‘broken fence’ The border guard is projected to have 1,000 employees by 2020 and a budget of €320 million.
KAPITAN ANDREEVO, Bulgaria — In a rare display of European consensus on migration, the EU launched a joint force Thursday to police the borders of the Schengen zone in response to leaders' calls for stricter controls of the bloc's external frontiers.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, hosting the event on the border with Turkey, said Europe had certainly not become a fortress, but “a yard with a broken fence” which the new patrols would try to repair. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said it would “help us to get back to Schengen,” referring to the suspension of passport-free travel by some of the 26 European countries in the zone.
It was a low-key ceremony in a tent at the main checkpoint between Bulgaria and Turkey, with a bouquet of flowers as the sole decoration.
European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos jokingly referred to the man in charge of the European Border and Coast Guard (EBCG), Fabrice Leggeri, as a "five-star general." Unlike its predecessor Frontex, which relied on staff loaned by EU member countries, Leggeri's new force will have its own robust financial resources and personnel.
The border guard is projected to have 1,000 employees by 2020 and a budget of €320 million — double the current budget of Frontex. It will draw from a rapid-reserve pool of at least 1,500 officers guards, who will wear their own countries' uniforms but be available for joint EU missions at short notice.
Avramopoulos said governments need to "think, behave and act in a more European way when it comes to migration policy."
"It’s a big step forward from an operational standpoint," said Leggeri, looking forward to no longer having to scrounge staff from EU countries, thanks to a new system of fixed quotas and the new agency's powers to make specific requests. "One year ago, it was very difficult to get staff. We could hardly get half of what we had asked for."
The biggest contributors to the border guard are Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Non-EU countries Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, which have signed up to Schengen, are also going to contribute, unlike the U.K. which opted out of Schengen.
Avramopoulos urged member countries to uphold their commitments, as some governments need to "think, behave and act in a more European way when it comes to migration policy."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced plans to establish the agency in September last year and the legislative process began in December that year. With a touch of pride, Avrampolous said it had become “reality in less than nine months,” as opposed to the two years or so it usually takes EU legislation to see the light of day.
The site of the first deployment is politically sensitive, though not a migration flashpoint like Greece or Italy's sea borders. Between January and August this year, 2,361 irregular migrants crossed into Bulgaria from Turkey, which was 43 percent less than the same period last year, according to Frontex, which called the mission a “precautionary” one.
The mission was warmly welcomed by Borisov. With the Western Balkans route more or less closed, more migrants now stay in Bulgaria.
The new agency is equipped with what it calls “precautionary” means, including dogs from Poland and Romania, and thermo-vision vans.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has complained about the EU's response to the refugee crisis, but Avrampolous suggested such complaints were not justified. “We all know Italy is under huge pressure,” he said, and Renzi should “know we’re behind it... It’s up to Italian authorities to tell us what they need,” added the commissioner, inviting Rome to specify whether it needed funds, equipment, personnel, a Frontex mission or political support.
The new agency is equipped with what it calls “precautionary” means, including dogs from Poland and Romania, and thermo-vision vans. The border officers wore nine different uniforms, all with the blue insignia of the new EU force on their arms.
Avrampolous said he would soon be travelling to African countries including Senegal and Mali to seek their cooperation in "keeping their nationals in those countries" and negotiate agreements modelled on the EU's refugee deal with Turkey, providing funding in exchange for keeping potential refugees at home so that they never have to run up against the EBCG.poster="https://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201703/3106/1155968404_5357800385001_5357787848001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Conway denies accusing Obama of using CIA surveillance tactics on Trump Tower
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said Monday morning that she was not making a specific allegation when she answered a reporter’s question over the weekend about President Donald Trump’s wiretapping claims by remarking that “you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways.”
In an interview with The Record published Sunday evening, Conway was asked whether she knew for certain that Trump’s claim, that his Manhattan skyscraper was wiretapped on orders from former President Barack Obama, was accurate. In response, Conway told the Bergen County, New Jersey, newspaper that “what I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other… you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways.”
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White House officials have yet to offer any proof to back up Trump's explosive claim, first leveled on Twitter last weekend, even though such proof would conceivably be readily available to the president.
Conway’s response to The Record was seemingly a reference to unverified documents published last week by WikiLeaks, detailing CIA surveillance tactics that include using household electronics, including televisions, computers and cell phones to record their owners.
But Monday morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the counselor to the president said her answer to The Record should not be interpreted as an allegation that the Obama administration turned Trump Tower’s electronics against the current president.
"All I said to the Bergen Record is, I was making a comment about the articles from this past week where it is revealed that one can be surveilled in any number of techniques through microwaves, through cameras, through televisions. I wasn't talking about anything specifically,” she said. “I wasn’t making a suggestion about Trump Tower. Those are two separate things.”
Morning Cybersecurity A daily briefing on politics and cybersecurity — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
In a subsequent interview, Conway was more forceful in her comments.
“I'm not Inspector Gadget,” she said later in an interview on CNN’s “New Day.” I don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. However, I'm not in the job of having evidence. That's what investigations are for."
Madeline Conway contributed to this story.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption At the table: Wendy Sherman (far left) and Helga Schmid (far right) at a negotiation session in Switzerland
President Barack Obama continues to push for Congress to sign off on a nuclear deal with Iran. But the historic negotiation was brokered with the help of an unprecedented number of female diplomats.
When an agreement is struck among parties, it is standard practice to "shake on it" in order to seal the deal.
But when a historic nuclear accord was reached in Vienna, Austria, on 14 July between Iran and the P5+1, the Iranian negotiators could not shake the hands of their female interlocutors due to the country's strict religious customs.
Three Western women - two European and one American - were central to a comprehensive deal reached to curb Iran's nuclear programme.
Image copyright Getty Images
Leading the political side of the negotiations was Federica Mogherini, the European Union's chief diplomat and former Italian foreign minister.
She took over the post in November 2014 from Baroness Catherine Ashton - who has also been cited for playing a key role by building good relations with Iran.
Ms Mogherini had faced criticism when she first started as chief diplomat - many said she was too young and inexperienced.
But by crunch time, she had earned herself a reputation as a tough negotiator.
Alongside her was her deputy, Helga Schmid. Credited with having immense technical knowledge, her colleagues have called her a "linchpin" in the negotiations and "the ringleader".
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Helga Schmid and Iran's Abbas Araghchi take part in the P5+1 powers and Iran talks in Vienna
In the end it was Ms Schmid who led negotiations of the agreement and its five annexes, senior Western diplomats have said.
Ms Schmid - unlike Ms Mogherini - had been well known on the diplomatic scene, with years of experience in Iran negotiations under her belt.
At the table for the Americans was Wendy Sherman, her country's first female undersecretary of political affairs and a veteran of nuclear negotiations.
She was one of the chief architects of the Clinton administration's North Korea nuclear policy and had taken the lead on the US team's nuclear talks with Iran since 2011.
Image copyright Pool Image caption Wendy Sherman says handshakes weren't needed to get an agreement
Having three women as senior negotiators in the Iran talks was unprecedented.
"Even inside the European Union it's not that often it happens that there are more women sitting at the table than men," Ms Mogherini told the BBC.
"So it was somehow new, but it's my personal feeling that it was helpful."
She says when the men veered off course and went on historical tangents or started to get tangled into debates about who gave more, the women walked them back to the present.
"The fact of having many women at the table in key positions helped us be concrete and pragmatic the whole way."
But the Islamic Republic of Iran has strict rules about interactions between men and women - customs that diplomats follow regardless of whether or not they're in the country.
"We couldn't shake hands, couldn't touch in any way at all," Sherman said.
But this practice was not uncommon to her.
"I grew up in Baltimore where there's a large Orthodox Jewish community where the same is true, but I think we all understood how to speak to each other without shaking hands and understanding each other to the extent that we got an agreement."
And she says being a woman was not a barrier in her progress in the negotiating room.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Catherine Ashton began the negotiations (with Schmid on her left)
"When I sat across from the Iranians I was the United States of America and perhaps as I woman I can say some things that don't come across as tough, but when I do get tough and when I do lose it, it makes a big impression because it's unexpected."
Over the course of the years she got to know her Iranian counterparts rather well and they would often share videos and stories of their families.
And Ms Mogherini said she heard doubts from her own region.
"Parts of the Western or European public have been reacting and doubting that women were able or could be respected for playing a bigger role," she said
"That says a lot about the fact that in our own societies sometimes we have to still work to pass the message that women can be top negotiators and be in top political position in a credible way as a men are in some cases even more."
Despite increased female leadership, not all teams had a female presence. Sherman said she would tease her colleagues about it.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Federica Mogherini speaks during a post-deal trip to Iran
"Some of the teams were all men and I hope that will change," she said.
Asked for more details she remained a diplomat.
"They know who they are, they know that they've heard from me and that they need to change their act."
Now all the talk is on how and when the deal will be implemented - which began with a highly anticipated trip to Tehran by Ms Mogherini and Ms Schmid.
The women who brought the nuclear deal to fruition have their work cut out for them - can they put it into motion?Most commercial eye gaze tracking systems are based on the use of infrared lights. However, such systems may not work outdoor or may have a very limited head box for them to work. This paper proposes a non-infrared based approach to track one’s eye gaze with an RGBD camera (in our case, Kinect). The proposed method adopts a personalized 3D face model constructed off-line. To detect the eye gaze, our system tracks the iris center and a set of 2D facial landmarks whose 3D locations are provided by the RGBD camera. A simple onetime calibration procedure is used to obtain the parameters of the personalized eye gaze model. We compare the performance of the proposed method against the 2D approach using only RGB input on the same images, and find that the use of depth information directly from Kinect achieves more accurate tracking. As expected, the results from the proposed method are not as accurate as the ones from infrared-based approaches. However, this method has the potential for practical use with upcoming better and cheaper depth cameras.Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration. Rove tried to kill Lieberman VP pick
Republican strategist Karl Rove called Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) late last week and urged him to contact John McCain to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation.
Lieberman dismissed the request, these sources agreed.
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Lieberman “laughed at the suggestion and certainly did not call [McCain] on it,” said one source familiar with the details.
“Rove called Lieberman,” recounted a second source. “Lieberman told him he would not make that call.”
Rove did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rove, President Bush’s former top campaign adviser and arguably the most prominent political operative of the past generation, has no formal role in McCain’s campaign. But he knows much of the Arizona senator’s high command and has been offering informal advice, both over the phone and in his position as a Fox News analyst, since McCain wrapped up the GOP nomination.
His decision to wade into the vice presidential selection process could provide Democrats fresh ammunition to tie McCain to the polarizing Bush.
It is also chafing some Lieberman allies and others wary of the selection of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
“Rove is pushing Romney so aggressively some folks are beginning to wonder what's going on,” grumbled one veteran Republican strategist.
From his perch on Fox, Rove has touted McCain’s fierce primary rival as strong vice presidential material.
“Romney is already vetted by the media, has strong executive experience both in business and in government, has an interesting story to tell with saving the U.S. Olympics, and also helps McCain deal with the economy, because he can speak to the economy with a fluency that McCain doesn’t have,” Rove said on “Fox News Sunday” in June.
The sources spoke about Rove’s involvement after Robert Novak, writing his first column since being diagnosed with brain cancer, reported Wednesday that McCain and some of his close associates would like to tap Lieberman for the number two slot but that putting an abortion-rights-supporting former Democrat on the Republican ticket was likely to be unrealistic.
The column said Lieberman had made that clear to McCain personally at the behest of a “close friend,” but a Lieberman source called that “totally and absolutely false.”
Reached by phone, Novak would say only: "I don't talk about my sources."
The maneuvering comes just days before McCain is to publicly unveil his pick Friday at a large rally in Ohio. A senior campaign official said Wednesday that McCain has settled on his ticket mate and that the person is to be notified Thursday.
Lieberman has his advocates, especially among those who believe McCain needs to make a transformative pick to help disassociate himself from Bush and the GOP, but most establishment Republicans believe tapping the Connecticut senator would blow up next week’s Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., and create major problems for McCain and the conservative base of the party this fall.
A source close to Lieberman said: "If it's Lieberman, none of us know about it" — meaning staff, aides and friends. The source said Lieberman is currently on vacation on Long Island, N.Y.
Martin Kady II contributed to this story.
This article tagged under: 2010
PoliticsIf you read the first and second articles in this series, you know the drill by now: I present an article by Vani Hari (the “Food Babe”) in which she slanders a product; she then pushes an alternative for which she receives affiliate commissions.
In turn, I use her very same “safety” rules to show her own substitute products are dangerous. The alternatives usually contain the same ingredients.
With introductions out of the way, let’s get started on article #3, in which we’ll “prove” she’s pushing another “cancer causing” product on her Food Babe Army. (Please note the quotation marks!) Today’s target is Kiss My Face Moisture Shave, conveniently available via a shill link from the Food Babe shopping page:1
Let’s look at the ingredients in Kiss My Face Moisture Shave:2 Click the image to enlarge if necessary…
Now I’d like to go back to May 2013, where Food Babe tried to scare the [expletive deleted] out of us with this gem in an article about sunscreens:3
Skin cancer from vitamin A?!? Hey, wait a minute… what was the first ingredient in the Kiss My Face Moisture Shave again? Here, let me zoom in on it…
Why yes, it’s vitamin A (retinyl palmitate)!
But… but… Vani Hari told us that putting vitamin A on your skin and going out in the sun could speed the development of skin tumors and lesions! Wouldn’t you at least expect a warning from her to not go out in the sun after using Kiss My Face Moisture Shave?
So something is clearly going wrong here. Either:
Hari doesn’t investigate the products she’s selling as closely as those she slanders, or She does investigate those she sells–but hides the facts to earn money, or She just doesn’t understand what the [expletive deleted] she’s talking about
I’m voting on (3), but you draw your own conclusions. Speaking of conclusions:
Conclusion
Food Babe doesn’t link to any scholarly resource when making her cancer claim. Her source is “The Environmental Working Group” (EWG) who, not surprisingly, has a “Sun Safety Store” on Amazon.com. Look, folks, if you’re going to fall for this type of shill activity, please contact me for instructions on sending me your life savings. Seriously.
The cold hard facts: a 2010 study published by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that retinyl palmitate was implicated in cancer.4
The point remains: Food Babe claims vitamin A causes cancer if you rub it on your skin and expose your skin to sunlight.
And she’s trying to sell you a product loaded with vitamin A.
“Kiss My Face” is as safe as any other product on the market. Buy it with wild abandon. But please don’t buy it via a link on Food Babe’s web site.
Image Credits
Amazon.com product and Food Babe screen snapshots are used in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, commonly known as “fair use law”. This material is distributed without profit with the intent to provide commentary, review, education, parody, and increase public health knowledge.
References
Please note: To prevent increasing search engine exposure for objectionable web sites, I use the DoNotLink service to obfuscate their URLs. I promise you are not being redirected to porn.
(1) Food Babe “Kiss My Face” Shopping Page
http://www.donotlink.com/d |
hand on him and said, “Sir, I need to do this right now, or things aren’t going to go well.” Putting it in the immediate sense made him back off a little bit.
And then as soon as his blood pressure was stabilized, I went and talked to him. Thankfully, the ICU was slow and I was able to spend fifteen or twenty minutes describing exactly what we thought of his defects, what the plan was, why his blood pressure just crashed, why I had done what I did, what we were looking for in the next four to five hours and what we would do if things went in various directions.
And then, perhaps more importantly than anything, I said, “Do you have any questions or concerns?” And both parents cried for a good fifteen minutes and just talked. It was clear no one had really listened to their frustrations in a while. It’s an important lesson in medicine; it’s an important lesson in communication, in general.
It was very rewarding, especially because the next morning, when the other ICU fellows finally arrived, I was able to go downstairs and get some breakfast in the cafeteria. As I came out, I saw the mother and father.
And again, this father was a frightening dude. He literally walked up to me, and I started to back away. But he walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I just wanted to thank you because no one has ever talked to us the way you did last night, and that means a great deal to me and my wife.”
It was a very, very touching but also a very instructive episode. Just listening and communicating, even if it takes some extra time out of your day, is extraordinarily important, no matter the setting.
Q. So it sounds like transparency, explaining the “why,” and then turning it back to give them an opportunity to ask questions are the key lessons.
A. That’s exactly right. I don’t think you can stress enough the importance of just listening and saying, “Is there anything you want to talk about?” If you have that time, it can be immensely rewarding for them and for you.
Q. Is there a story you can share that most shaped your views as a physician and influences the way you work in business today?
A. Yeah, actually at Stanford, in the business school, we have something called the “talk series”, where you’re invited to talk to your classmates about an experience or something that really matters most to you.
I spent a lot of time talking about my experiences as a pediatric cardiologist. But I talked a long time about one patient in particular.
I still remember very clearly. This is a patient who had a very complex congenital heart defect and who had gotten cardiac surgery by the world leaders as an infant at Boston, and had a rough early childhood, but then really stabilized for most of her childhood and early adolescence.
But the way that her physiology works, by the time she hit her late teens, things started to go downhill. And they went downhill in a way that bizarrely coincided with my cardiology training.
Let me explain that. When I was a first-year fellow, I spent a lot of time, as I said, manning the in-patient cardiology unit, taking charge of that unit, making sure those patients were okay. That was when this particular patient, I’ll call her “Kim,” started to go downhill and started getting hospitalized in the unit.
As a second- and third-year fellow, I spent a lot of time in the ICU and in the catheterization labs, while Kim continued to worsen. And so, Kim was in the ICU a lot. She was undergoing cardiac catheterizations a lot. So I saw her a lot; I got to know her family well.
Finally, the last year and a half of my cardiology fellowship was in electrophysiology, or heart rhythms. The last thing that happens when your heart starts to fail is you start to get dangerous arrhythmias. Your heart, the architecture starts to get distorted because the blood isn’t flowing properly; you can think of it that way.
She spent a lot of time on that service, and again, I was the fellow, so I got to know them very well. And then literally, right before I left fellowship, she actually did pass away. I was actually on-call for electrophysiology. When a patient with a pacemaker or defibrillator dies, you don’t necessarily have to turn off their device. I mean, the patient is gone. The electricity might be flowing, but it’s not doing anything. You can’t really do much. If a patient is dead, the pacemaker doesn’t do anything. It just fires, but it doesn’t activate any muscle. But still, it’s comforting for the family to know that there’s not a device in there that’s still ticking.
So the last thing I did for her at Boston was I went in at 6:00 a.m. and turned off her pacemaker. (holding back tears) It was actually a very difficult experience because I had gotten to know her really well. And I had seen how technology – how surgery, how catheters, how pacemakers – had failed her. (choking) So, that’s really what inspired me most and continues to inspire me to this day.
Q. How has that affected your outlook on the kind of physician or business person you want to be?
A. So it was relatively late in my cardiology training. I’d already decided to leave cardiology at that point. I was still trying to be the best cardiologist I could be. It didn’t really change that much there. I would always just do whatever I could for the patients. But it very much instilled in me a sort of underlying theme or goal for my career.
I’m going to tell you something else here about Stanford. I love Stanford, as you can tell. When you apply to Stanford, I think anyone who has ever applied to the business school, especially at Stanford, is familiar with “Essay A.” On the application, it’s a seemingly simple question: “What matters most to you and why?” And that’s it; you just answer whatever you can or whatever matters most to you.
And people take that question very seriously in admissions and in the school itself, and among students and applicants. When you get to Stanford, you talk about it informally with your friends.
And throughout those two years, instructors, professors and deans occasionally remind you not to forget about what you’ve written in that essay, to go back and read it and make sure you adhere to what you’ve in fact written, because it’s something that mattered to you a great deal once upon a time, and to not get distracted by the lure of money or other material goods, to not get distracted from your goal.
So in my essay, I wrote specifically what mattered most to me was the health of patients with congenital heart disease, which was very much informed by my experience with Kim. I wrote this before she passed away, but she was very much on my mind as I wrote that essay.
Even now, as a consultant, I literally open up my Stanford application every few months and go back and re-read that essay. It’s an underlying theme that guides me as I plot out my long-term career trajectory.
Maybe not right now and maybe that’s an overly specific goal, and maybe I won’t do something specifically related to congenital heart disease. Hopefully it’ll be something related to children. It’ll definitely be something related to bringing products to market that’ll improve patient’s lives. That’s what matters most. It mattered then; it matters now. So that’s what guides me as I think about my career moving forward.
Q. Tell me about your current role at BCG and what you do there day-to-day.
A. Sure. Because it’s in my experience, BCG has been able to use me most effectively in healthcare, and I have a lot of experience there — in my experience as a physician and also in my two previous internships. At the same time, healthcare is what matters most to me.
So my experience at BCG has been exclusively in healthcare — across the bio-pharma and medical device spectrum, a little bit of care provider work, but that’s not quite as exciting to me, so a lot more in medical device and bio-pharma. It’s been very interesting, and I’ve learned a great deal.
As far as an average day, that’s very difficult to state. It varies substantially from project to project and even within projects. I can tell you a little bit at a high level about the current project I’m on. Obviously I can’t tell you much, given client confidentiality. But it’s been an interesting project.
So, it’s been with a multinational healthcare client that has operations across the world, and this particular project has been largely focused on some of their stuff that runs out of Asia. So in the first phase of this project, I spent a lot of time in Asia, working directly with key clients and also working with the local BCG team — really intense hours, a lot of time on the ground with the client.
But I think we got to a good understanding of what the client’s chief concerns were, got to know them personally, learned how to interact with them. I began to think a little bit about how to solve those problems.
For the second phase of the project here in the U.S., I’m working with some of the U.S. operations, but still maintaining very close contact with both my colleagues in other geographies as well as the client itself, which is literally spread all over the world.
So it’s a lot of days of waking up very early for 6:00 a.m. or 7:00 a.m. conference calls, generally internally, but we sometimes have client conference calls that early as well, and really getting alignment on what are our goals for the day or coming days are.
After that, I’m actually very independent. It’s a really challenging but also a really fun experience. It’s up to me to think about, “Okay, this is my big overarching problem that I’m trying to deal with this week,” and always keeping longer-term problems at the back of my mind. How am I going to structure my work today to get to that problem and how am I going to structure my problem in the coming week and weeks because I have to be setting that up in the background as well.
It’s very important for me to sit down for a half-hour every morning and think about, what do I need to do today or what do I need to do today that’s going to enable me to perform successfully in the next week or two weeks? What meetings do I have to set up? What reports am I looking at?
Then finally, always in the back of my mind is, what is the ultimate answer for the client? What is my current view on that, and how am I going to get there? That all feeds into each other obviously.
The day itself will inevitably involve calls to other BCG teammates in different geographies. It’ll involve calls to clients, their different offices. It could involve travelling to clients here in the U.S. to talk to people in person or view processes, etc. It varies substantially.
It’s consulting, so a lot of time is also going to be spent on PowerPoint. There’s a lot of that. And a lot of time is spent on writing e-mails as well. That’s certainly the less glamorous aspect of being a consultant.
But I think the really important things about consulting are: first, thinking about approaching problems structurally and thinking through how to solve them; second, thinking about quantitative analysis a bit and learning that. I had no experience building a financial model before this experience, so that’s been great. And third, and also just as important, thinking about communication — communicating verbally, communicating on paper. And I think consulting is a very, very good teacher of those skills.
They try to sell you on this, and it seems a little bit of too much of a sell in that they say, “Oh yeah, you’re going to be in conversations with VPs and CEOs.” Well, that actually is the truth. I’ve literally led meetings with CEOs and SVPs of companies I never thought I would get to interact with. That is a very much trial-by-fire experience, but that’s a great experience I can carry forward. So I think that’s a very important part of things too.
Q. Where do you see yourself in the future, and how do you think what you’ve accomplished so far will help you toward that goal?
A. I think my medium- and long-term goals tie back to that underlying theme I just discussed, about bringing products to market, helping patients’ lives. There’s no doubt in my mind that my future will involve that, and so I’m very much enjoying consulting. It’s a great experience, great people.
But as I think again about the medium- to longer-term, it has to be something closer to patients and closer to science. I’m not sure whether it’s going to be in the bio-pharma or medical device industries. I think I could go in either direction at this point. I think my background might lend itself more to the medical device industry, given that I was a cardiologist, but I’d like to keep both options open at this point.
I think it could be a variety of roles there. I think it would be something, hopefully, that really would allow me to mesh science and business — perhaps something in business development, perhaps something in the management of R&D. It could theoretically be product management, as long as it was more of a scientific product. That could certainly be a role as well.
In the medium-term, I’m thinking probably a larger company, but it could be a medium-sized startup as well, something in the range of 100 employees or something along those lines.
At Stanford, I also had several experiences both in the classroom and outside the classroom with a classic Stanford startup – five guys sitting around a table in a conference room, trying to build a company. And I discovered that, at least in that stage in my life, it just wasn’t for me. I personally like things a little more structured. That might change in the future, but I do know at that early stage of startup, it wasn’t me. That was a very important lesson to learn.
In the longer run, I’m leaving all options open. Again, I think about bio-pharma and medical devices. I think there are a lot of interesting options out there, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot about all of them.
Q. Would you consider going back to medicine or do you think you will stay in industry?
A. I don’t think I would ever go back full-time to medical practice. I’m actually enjoying business too much. I really do enjoy it, especially that intersection of healthcare and business. That is tremendously enjoyable.
However, I am keeping my license and board certifications active just in case my mind changes at some point down the road, or if at some point, I would like to combine the two – say, four days a week on the business side with maybe half a day at the clinic or something along those lines.
To be honest and totally frank, I don’t think I could ever go back to doing invasive procedures again, unless I went full-time. I just don’t think that’s fair to the patients, for me to be jaunting in for six hours a week and doing a couple of ablations. There’s no way I can be as good or as accurate as someone who does it all the time.
So that’s something I’ve said goodbye to and am quite comfortable with. But perhaps a combination down the road might be fair.
Q. What advice do you have for people who want to combine interests in science and healthcare with interests in business, as you have successfully done?
A. I think the first and most important thing to realize is that, in fact, you can successfully combine the two. That was something I wish I knew back when I was in college, because it wasn’t clear to me at all. I think that’s a very important step to realize, that if those are the two things that interest you and they’re actually things you want to pursue, then absolutely think about combining them. I think it’s a very reasonable thing to do.
The second thing I would say is whenever you arrive at that decision, when you want to combine business and medicine, I would tell you to pursue it and not be afraid. A lot of people pushed back on me when I said I was leaving medicine after all those years of training.
It sounds silly, but I’m the only one who knows what’s going on in my head and my heart. No one else can. It was something I really wanted to do, and I’m glad I did it.
On the other end, I had medical school classmates who were thirty-eight years old and forty years old when they started medical school. Just don’t be afraid. People have done it before. People are there for you to talk to, reach out to. It’s something that can be done.
The final thing I would say is, if you are in medicine, or if you’re starting medical school and you’re thinking of combining medicine and business in some way, it’s important to discover the sweet spot for when you should leave or when you should start trying to combine them.
If I met a college student today, there is no way I would ever tell them to pursue the plan I did. It’s a lot of time in medicine before deciding to switch. I have no regrets whatsoever, because it was a process that occurred naturally and because of what I wanted to do. But think a little bit about when you might want to combine that M.D. with consulting or an MBA.
In my own opinion, the sweet spot is after at least a few years of medical training outside of medical school. The M.D. is nice, but if you want to have credibility with a bio-pharma company, with a medical device company, and just as importantly with physicians who align with those industries, it’s important, if at all possible, to get a couple years of training.
Certainly, the best thing to do is some sort of training that enables you to get a board certification, or at least be board eligible because that says to a physician and somebody who knows physicians, “Okay, this is a real physician who has actually practiced, and who can relate to what goes on at hospitals,” because it’s a very different experience compared to what goes on in medical school.Rise of Rocket
Prologue:
Red slowly entered the Viridian Gym thinking to himself "Just one more gym and then I can finally challenge the Elite Four". The door shut behind him but it was very dark inside for some reason. He tried to take in the scene, noticing it was a bit of a mess. That's when he heard a grown and noticed Blue laying against the wall. "I see you finally made it" a voice from the shadows said. Red heard what sounded like fingers snapping and then the lights came on. Giovanni was standing there, "Are you surprised to see me here boy?". An anger started to build in Red, "How could they let a man like you run a gym, your no friend to Pokemon!". "My dear boy, one does not befriend a common wrench so why would I befriend these beasts when they are merely tools themselves?" Giovanni snarled. "Arcanine Go!" Red shouted as he grabbed his first pokeball and tossed it out. The ball rolled on the ground and Arcanine burst out in a shower of embers, howling loudly. Giovanni took a step back slightly intimidated by the display, but he quickly collected himself and said "Very well". He tossed out his own ball and Rhyhorn came charging out. "This will be easy" Giovanni cackled as he commanded Rhyhorn to use Take Down. Rhyhorn went charging full speed at Reds pokemon, but Arcanine jumped up attempting to dodge the attack. His horn caught Arcanines foot and sent him twirling before landing harshly on the ground. Rhyhorn being distracted by this continued forward smashing into the wall hurting itself. "Arcanine use Rock Smash!" Red shouted as Arcanine slowly got up with a bit of a limp. A barrier seemed to glisten around his head as he charged forward slamming into Rhyhorn as it tried to remove itself from the wall. Rhyhorn shouted out in pain as its armor seemed to crack slightly. "Rhyhorn Rock Blast NOW!" rocks began flying at Arcanine, pummeling him back. Five critical hits sent Arcanine sprawling on the ground unable to get up. "Return Arcanine" an energy stream wrapped around him pulling him back to the pokeball in Reds hand. "You see child you are no match for me" Giovanni exclaimed as Red grabbed his next ball and stated "We'll see about that, Snorlax go!". A loud popping sound echoed through the room then Snorlax slammed into the ground yawning loudly. "Alright Snorlax use Heavy Slam!" Snorlax stood up towering over Rhyhorn and did a little hop forward landing on top of him. As Snorlax stood up again Rhyhorn lay there completely crushed "Hmmm I see you haven't been slacking since Silph Co., Nidoking destroy him!" Giovanni yelled in anger as he threw out his next ball. Nidoking comes out and without hesitation uses Double Kick on Snorlax sending him back against the wall. Snornlax Crunches down on Nidoking but instantly pushes him back spitting up a purple gunk. "Snorlax what's worng?" Red said as Snorlax stumbled backwards. Nidoking Double Kicked Snorlax again causing him to fall backward against the wall again. Snorlax looked at Red and gave him a reassuring look before slowly standing up. He stared right at Nidoking and used Giga Impact sending Nidoking flying back towards Giovanni before collapsing himself coughing up more poison. "NO Snorlax!" Red cried out knowing his friend sacrificed himself to finish of Nidoking off. "Hmpf behind every King there is always a Queen" Giovanni exclaimed as he threw out his next ball revealing Nidoqueen. Red grasped his next ball looking down at Snorlax "Sorry friend alright Gyarados let's go!". A flash appeared then a splash of water covered the floor as Gyarados emerged. Nidoqueen began trembling a little but remained steadfast and used Smack Down on Gyarados then turned right around and used Stone edge dealing massive damage to him. Gyarados shook it off, though still looking a bit weary and reared back blasting a huge Hydro pump at Nidoqueen who in return sent a Rock Slide at Gyarados. Both Pokemon collapsed to the ground unable to move. Giovanna looked a bit uneasy as he saw the raw determination in Reds eyes "This means nothing! Dugtrio it's your turn!". As the ball hit the ground there was a rumble and what seemed to be a trail come from it as Dugtrio burst forth. "Pidgeot go!" Red said as he threw the ball into the air and in burst of glowing feathers Pidgeot swooped in using quick attack on Dugtrio. Quickly turning around Pidgeot goes in for another attack just as Dugtrio disappears into the ground. Scanning the area Pidgeot flies in low and is surprised when Dugtrio bursts out and uses Tri Attack paralyzing Pidgeot and sending him crashing into the ground. Pidgeot tries to stand but can barely keep itself up as Dugtrio vanishes into the ground again. Giovanni begins to laugh as Dugtrio emerges again but it seemingly starts to rain and Pidgeot flies up. A strong wind starts swirling around Pidgeot as a Hurricane sweeps by and rips Dugtrio up and slams him into the walls. Giovanni begins screaming in anger before collecting himself yet again. He growls in anger and throws out his last ball and blinding light envelopes the room. As Red regains his vision he sees a Horn Drilling into Pidgeot utterly decimating him. Red falls to his knees wondering to himself how a man this cruel could have ever fooled the League into making him a gym leader. Realizing this is no longer about simply getting a badge and moving on but saving the lives of his friends and possibly more he decides to send out his last two Pokemon together. Two balls go flying into the air and burst open with a yellow and green energy stream circling each other as they slam to the ground revealing Raichu and Venusaur. Giovanni laughs to himself "Now, now boy that isn't regulation battling" Red trembles with anger "Neither is killing Pokemon but you obviously don't have a problem with that". "Ha it's seems from what I hear neither do you, a certain Rattata comes to mind. Anyway your Pokemon are weak and as one does with a broken tool it gets disposed of" Giovanni said with an evil smirk on his face. "That's it! I never meant for Blue to lose his Rattata, he could have asked me for a potion and I would have gladly given it to him. But he is so stubborn he ran off after the battle!" Tears were running down Reds face now " I won't let you leave here Giovanni, Venusaur use Razor Leaf on that pipe then Raichu use ThunderBolt on Rhydon!" Venusaur fired its leafs at the pipe causing water to spray all over the room, especially around Rhydon. Raichu leapt into the air and fired his Thunderbolt at Rhydons feet in a large puddle causing massive damage. Rhydon stumbled backwards before shaking it off, as he looked up a Solarbeam hit him directly in the chest knocking him back into Giovanni. He was down for the count and Red stood triumphantly with Raichu and Venusaur but for some reason Giovanna was laughing maniacally. Out of nowhere a Psycho Cut nailed Venusaur in the face. Raichu began charging up when Psystrike decimated him. Giovanni stood up and dusted himself off and from the shadows emerged Mewtwo. "You see I am not so easily defeated, but it seems that isn't the case for you. Mewtwo get this garbage out of my site." Red stood there awestruck at what just happen, Mewtwos eyes began to glow and Red was sent flying into the wall. He tried to quickly stumble back to his feet when he felt a crushing pain in his right leg as Mewtwo flung a piece of rubble into it snapping it. Red scream out in pain and saw Mewtwo lifting another piece when leafs flew at his face distracting him. Venusaur was still standing after the blow it took though its eye was severely cut. Mewtwo acted as if nothing had happened and began walking slowly towards Red. A shout comes from where Blue was laying only he was standing now. "Get out of here you idiot, a chump like you is no match for him." Blue said as he lifted a rock. Mewtwo wasn't even paying attention to him as he continued towards Red. "I SAID GET OUT OF HERE!" Blue shouted as he flung the rock at Mewtwos head. It hit Mewtwo and briefly stunned him before he turned to Blue and started screaming in anger. Venusaur runs over to Red and picks him up, Red is starting to black out from the pain but he sees Blue get lifted into the air and his body starts contorting. Blue screams out in pain as Venusaur rams through the door carrying Red to safety. Blues screams begin to faid then all of a sudden stop just as Red loses consciousness. "Let him go Mewtwo, that child is no threat to us. I doubt he'll even make it to tomorrow, Now let us head up Victory Road and have a little chat with the Champion" Giovanni laughs as he heads to the door.Get the biggest Newcastle United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Only three Newcastle United players have made 15 or more Championship appearances this season.
One is the Magpies captain, Jamaal Lascelles - who, even despite his magnificent form on the field, you would expect to be an almost ever-present considering he is skipper.
Another is Jonjo Shelvey, a classy midfielder who is widely regarded as being a cut above the majority of second-tier players and who Ian Holloway labelled “the best player ever to play in the Championship”.
The third? Well that one is slightly harder to guess.
Paul Dummett is the only Magpie, along with Lascelles, to have started all bar one of Newcastle’s league games this season.
That left-back slot is pretty much cemented as his own at the moment. And he deserves it.
Yet there will be a fair minority of Newcastle fans reading this who will snigger at the suggestion that Dummett deserves to be United’s first-choice left-back.
He is, for many fans, the player who can easily be scapegoated whenever things are not quite going right on the field.
“Dummett can’t attack”, “Dummett’s not quick enough”, “Dummett can’t cross”.
Time and time again at matches, or more particularly on social media, the Welshman is singled out for criticism.
Social media has helped revolutionise the way fans support their club. For the most that has been for the better.
Unfortunately, it also allows for disproportionate and sometimes overly-personal criticism to arise.
Sometimes that criticism can be fair.
If an opposition winger skips past Dummett and continuously burns him for pace - as has happened on a couple of occasions this season, including when Fulham full-back Denis Odoi left the United defender red-faced down at Craven Cottage on the opening day of the season - or if the Welshman fails to pick up his marker at the back post, that should rightly be highlighted.
But often it strays beyond criticism towards aspersion.
And this does not only apply to Dummett, and it certainly does not solely apply to Newcastle fans; supporters of all football clubs have the players they love to undervalue.
Dummett has deficiencies in his game, just like any player does. He isn’t the super-quick, modern-day, ultra-attacking full-back like DeAndre Yedlin.
Rather, he is an extremely solid defender who is adept at playing a defensive role at left-back, or even covering in at centre-half - as he may yet find himself doing opposite Newcastle team-mate Aleksandar Mitrovic for Wales in Cardiff on Saturday.
Long-term, some members of the United backroom staff even believe Dummett will shift inside permanently.
But, for now, he is Newcastle’s No 1 left-back.
Does he have flaws, just like any player does? Yes.
Yet, rather than underline every single time he mis-hits a cross or fails to overlap Yoan Gouffran down the left - weaknesses which he undoubtedly works extremely hard to improve upon - the criticism should be primarily focused on when Dummett fails to perform the tasks United fans know he is more than capable of doing.
If he is out-muscled in the air, misses a tackle or allows a winger to get in behind him, then criticism should come his way.
It needs to be fair.
And, when he does those things well, he also rightly deserves praise. At Deepdale in particular last month, Dummett was excellent and rivalled both Mitrovic and Karl Darlow for man of the match.
Every supporter has the players they don’t rate, yet it is still possible to attempt to hold a balanced view on how an individual has performed.
Now this correspondent’s particular bugbear was even more prominent during Mike Williamson’s five-year stint on Tyneside.
Everybody knew Williamson was very much an old-fashioned, no-nonsense centre-back. Technical ability was something which the 6ft 4in centre-back was not exactly blessed with, hence the ironic nickname “Mike Braziliamson”.
Therefore every fan - and, even more frustratingly, all of his team-mates - knew that if Williamson was given the ball in defence without an obvious short pass available to him, he would simply lump it forward (and more often than not it would land nowhere near a black-and-white shirt).
Rather than berate Williamson for doing what Williamson does, supporters should have harboured frustration towards the Newcastle defenders and midfielders who passed him the ball in the first place and didn’t give him an easy ‘out ball’.
Criticism for Williamson should have focused on when he failed to win challenges in the air or went walkabouts from his centre-back position. Instead, far too often, the fact he would hoof the ball forward was highlighted.
Returning to the present day and to Dummett, the left-back must be doing something right if he is getting a place on Rafa Benitez’s teamsheet for just about every game.
True Dummett would likely have been rotated more regularly had Achraf Lazaar, Massadio Haidara or Jesus Gamez been fit - Benitez contemplated resting the Welshman for the EFL Cup last-16 clash with Preston - but the fact remains that he offers balance to the United side.
While Yedlin has been attacking down the wing from right-back in recent weeks, Dummett has been marshalling the left-hand side with Gouffran for company.
There are areas of his game which Dummett needs to work at - and is working at - but he has made that left-back position very much his own because of what he CAN do.
Like any player, criticism will come Dummett’s way. But it needs to be warranted, not targeted.
Benitez certainly has an objective opinion on Dummett - and it appears to be largely a positive one.Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur split the points in a hotly-contested draw at the Emirates earlier today, but it's the former who concern Chelsea at the moment. With a home match against the Gunners on the horizon following our trip to Lisbon, that they picked up a series of worrying-looking injuries in the first half of the 1-1 tie is very relevant information.
Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey both limped off immediately after hurting themselves, and while Jack Wilshere soldiered on for some time following a knock to the ankle he too was eventually forced to quit the field. Will any of them be back in time for Chelsea? Here's what Arsene Wenger has to say.
Wenger: "Wilshere I don't know. Arteta and Ramsey will probably be out for Chelsea" #AFCvTHFC — Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) September 27, 2014
I'm not sure that Arteta would have started anyway, as Wenger would probably have played the more defensively-minded Mathieu Flamini at Stamford Bridge, but Ramsey is a clear-choice starter and Arsenal will miss him greatly. While his absence is probably good news in terms of the result, it's still a shame -- Ramsey's a very good player, and getting the opportunity to play against (and beat) the best is what we all want out of our season.Catching without Awaiting
Eran Hammer Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 6, 2017
Sometimes you want to set-and-forget an operation without having to wait for it to complete. With async/await, that’s not so obvious. You cannot catch exceptions if you don’t wait for the async method to finish.
In my previous post, Learning to Throw Again, we discussed how callback errors and thrown errors are merged into a single error channel when using async/await. In this post we’ll discuss how this impacts how async operations are performed in the “backgroud” (double quotes since there aren’t really background operations on a single threaded platform).
Let’s start with callbacks. Consider the following message sending utility:
It follows the typical throw-on-bad-input / callback-asynchronous-errors pattern. If we want to send-and-forget an email, we call:
email(user, message, () => {});
That would still throw the invalid input error (which is good since it is a developer error that should be corrected) but ignore asynchronous errors if the email failed to transmit (assuming the mailer logs it somewhere).
A promises version would look something like:
Invalid input still throws but the mailer.send() operation returns a promise which we can easily send-and-forget by calling:
email(user, message).catch(() => {});
In both callbacks and promises, the application flow continues without blocking on email transmission.
With async/await these patterns don’t really work because you cannot try...catch without also using await. An async version would look like this:
If we call like this:
The invalid input exception is still thrown normally but any error thrown asynchronously by mailer.send() will be left unresolved, including the errors we want to ignore. To fix it, we need to add await — but that would block, defeating the whole purpose of this “background” operation.
It could be tempting to mix promise interface with async/await by calling:
email(user, message).catch(() => {});
Problem is, that’s not going to work because if the user has no email address, the method doesn’t return a value which will cause catch() to fail with: TypeError: Cannot read property ‘catch’ of undefined.
You could be tempted to just slap an async declaration on the email function, forcing it to always return a promise. That’s not a great solution because async/await is just a layer on top of promises. Adding async to a function that doesn’t need it (e.g. it doesn’t call await ) will add a wasteful promise wrapper and a next-tick operation. This is because a promise always resolves on a next-tick and async methods always return a promise.
As an aside, if you have an async loop in hot path and the loop executes many functions, many of which are not actually asynchronous, you would get some performance gain from checking if you really need to await.
You could ensure the email method always return a promise, reusing the same method we used for the promises version in the second example. But that’s tedious and takes away the clean style of async/await. In a full async/await stack, you should rarely need to manually construct promises. More importantly, that’s not always possible. The email method might be provided by a module you have no control over.
One solution is to call await inside another async function. Basically, moving the blocking operation to a function that will never throw anything but the errors we want it to throw, and then not wait for that function:
And then call it without await :
backgroundEmail(user, message);
This will catch the application errors we don’t care about, but still throw system errors.
To make things simpler, the Bounce module also provides a background() helper:
Bounce.background(() => email(user, message));
We can also tell Bounce to re-throw invalid input errors if we use an application-specific error prototype or node’s AssertionError.The 1st year anniversary of MH370 is coming up fast and outside the developments of the search effort, we haven’t had much progress since the first month since the accident in finding out what happened. Calls for aircraft to have better tracking is |
16 years old and I slept on the floor at the foot of their bed. I released all my secrets. If there is a sacred confession. This was it I was cleansed by fire. I felt as though I rose from ashes and I did. That night I was utterly humbled and humiliated by existence. I was a child again but also evolved.The next week I didnt leave my parents house I helped them with various jobs and house projects If I found spare time, Id find something to fill it.It was like every day I died.. and re-awoke. Every day I teetered between heaven and hell. Small decisions like Which juice shall I buy and drink? were wrapped in meaning and metaphor that extended beyond daily life, seemingly deciding my eternal fate. Just under everything was a mechanism, a test or a plot Unraveling. I saw powers that we are all capable of The power to live or to die any moment I began seeing through the facades of judgment and morality. My learned belief systems eroded and were replaced with experience.Id raise my concerns with a close friend who had had similar experiences. He would console me, encourage me to believe in what was in front of me, work with what I knew and be wise not to open up these thoughts to the wrong people, as most would just label me insane and become afraid of me. He was of course totally right and a good friend for his patience and protection.For a time I lived my life shadowing my true thoughts and feelings about daily situations. I made some stunning life decisions. I traveled overseas alone to search my soul and mind. I shed all my addictions, tobacco, TV, caffeine, sex, all drugs, and even meat/processed foods. This was all between the ages of 16 and 23. It took me over a year till I could even talk to my cousin again. Many more till I could truly trust him.I wish that databases such as Erowid, The Shroomery etc. existed when I went through this journey. Their help could have turned this vicious, horrific and difficult experience into something meaning full and useful from the beginning.Much of my delusions werent so at all. This life, this existence is a blanket of meaning and metaphor. Everything we see, touch, hear is a creation of our own perceptions. This can drive you mad, or make you powerful, exalted and blissful.I am 27 as I write this. The lessons and impressions left by the LSD trip, the full week of dementia and the years of re-evaluating evolved me to a state of consciousness few ever reach. I am at peace with myself and my existence. I dont want to die, but I am virtually unafraid of it. I see through the bullshit of war, violence and destruction. I seek and participate in peace. I believe we all wish to. LSD helped push these to the front of my consciousness. I had to go through hell. But these moments I now live are truly awake and free.To this day I wonder if I'm actually alive or if Im alone - A drifting consciousness lingering in an endless construct of my own imagination - It doesnt matter really. I found peace.Defrocked priest David Rapson jailed for sexual abuse of schoolboys at Catholic boarding school
Updated
Defrocked priest David Rapson has been sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison for the rape and indecent assault of six boys in Victoria during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
The Melbourne County Court heard the boys were as young as 11 or 12 when Rapson abused them at the Catholic boarding school he taught at.
The judge described Rapson as a "sexual predator seeking sexual fulfilment at the expense of young boys".
He said Rapson displayed "cruelty and violence bordering on being sadistic".
Rapson will be eligible for parole in 2023.
One of Rapson's victims, who wanted to only be known as his first name Ben, said the verdict represented closure for him.
"I'm glad it's finally over. It's taken a big toll on us all and hopefully it's the last of it and we can move on as best we can," he said.
"It's impacted my life in a big way - crime, drug abuse, things like that - and because he held the position he held in the church I couldn't tell my parents or anyone like that what happened until probably four years ago.
"He's just a sadist, a disgusting person and human being."
Retrial follows miscarriage of justice
The former priest was jailed last year for 13 years for the abuse of eight boys, but the Victorian Court of Appeal quashed those convictions on the grounds that the charges should have been prosecuted separately.
There were eight complainants heard in a single trial, but the DPP acknowledged that significant parts of the evidence were not "cross-admissible", or able to be heard by the same jury fairly.
The DPP said this prevented Rapson from receiving a fair trial.
Rapson faced fresh trials in the Victorian County Court, after prosecutor Peter Kidd SC told the appeal court he should face three separate trials on the charges.
But Rapson's barrister Paul Holdenson QC argued there should be separate trials for each of the eight victims.
The retrial covered the abuse of six victims.
Topics: catholic, child-abuse, community-and-society, courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, melbourne-3000
First postedImage caption A third of people are affected by insomnia in the UK
Too many people may be damaging their health by self-medicating with sleeping pills, according to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
It said half of people with insomnia diagnosed themselves and took medication without seeking medical advice.
However, the society said insomnia was often part of other physical or mental health problems which needed treating.
The warning was based on the findings of a survey of 2,077 people.
Insomnia is difficulty in getting to sleep, staying asleep or getting enough good quality sleep night after night. One in three people in the UK are thought to have bouts of insomnia.
It can be caused by psychiatric problems such as depression, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia. Other illnesses including heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and hormonal problems can also disturb the normal pattern of sleep.
In the survey, 30% of people said they had taken sleeping pills for more than a month without getting advice while 14% had gone six months.
One pharmacist, Paul Johnson, said: "It's worrying that so many people are overusing sleeping remedies.
"They can be effective for short-term treatment of mild insomnia but should not be taken for long periods without advice because they can hide a serious health problem which could get worse if it remains untreated.
"It's never a good idea to take any medicine long-term as a result of self-diagnosis, as you can end up treating a symptom rather than addressing the root cause of your problem."On Sept. 2, 1885 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a mob of 150 white miners rioted against Chinese immigrants, who they perceived as taking away their work. Armed and violent, they demanded the Chinese leave town. By the end of what became known as the Rock Springs Massacre, 28 Chinese lives were taken, hundreds fled to the hills, and every Chinese home and business fell to fire.
This is one of myriad forgotten or overlooked stories of the Chinese American experience -- from the tragic and unjust to the resilient and remarkable -- brought to light with the opening of the new exhibit, Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion at San Francisco's Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA).
The presentation, on view indefinitely, is a gleaming collection of art, set pieces, films and interactive storytelling chronicling the history of Chinese in America, which is in many ways a history of the nation itself.
“We want everyone to know that Chinese have been part of U.S. society as long as the country has been established,” says the historical society's deputy director, Pam Wong. “We want people to know that Chinese people should not be seen as foreigners or those that do not belong, but we are very much a part of American society.”
First installed at the New York Historical Society in 2014 with curatorial help from Wong and the CHSA, the exhibit toured to Portland, Oregon. The New York Historical Society then gifted the show to San Francisco, where it is welcome representation of one of the city’s most enduring communities and cultural presences.RIDLEY Scott’s Alien prequel has been shelved by Twentieth Century Fox and reconfigured into an original sci-fi movie.
The new film will be called Prometheus and will star Noomi Rapace (of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo fame). It will be released on March 9, 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The idea for the new film is a combined one between Scott and Damon Lindelof and expands on an idea originally written by Jon Spaihts and based on an idea by Scott.
In a statement, Scott explained: “While Alien was indeed the jumping off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place.
“The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien‘s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative. I couldn’t be more pleased to have found the singular tale I’d been searching for, and finally return to this genre that’s so close to my heart.”
Lidelof added: “In a world flooded with prequels, sequels and reboots, I was incredibly struck by just how original Ridley’s vision was for this movie. It’s daring, visceral and hopefully, the last thing anyone expects.”
Fox and Scott have been working on their Alien prequel for the past two years and were poised to begin shooting early this year.
The high profile prequel had attracted a host of big names as potential stars, including Rapace and the likes of Gemma Arteron, Charlize Theron and Michelle Yeoh.
Michael Fassbender and James Franco had also expressed interest during the different forms of the film.
Next story: Colin Firth gets Hollywood Walk of Fame starWhile our 8-month-old daughter was depriving us of sleep last summer, I hatched a plan to reclaim our vacation: We’d stay four days in Montpellier, sightsee as much as we could between familial obligations, and spend one night away at a bed-and-breakfast, leaving the baby with my mother-in-law for some uninterrupted sleep. To execute this, I did something I hadn’t done since I left Paris, where Fabrice and I met 10 years ago: I bought a Lonely Planet France.
Everything I had known about Montpellier before then was from Fabrice, who, having left at 18, perceived the city with a mix of boyhood nostalgia and cocky teenage angst. On every trip we spent hours at the large independent bookstore Librairie Sauramps, next to where Fabrice went to high school. One time I watched him, after goofily flipping through comic books, as he sidled up to the manager, a smug former classmate of his, and mentioned, casually yet defiantly, that he now lived in New York City and waited for a reaction.
This trip would be a chance to form my own relationship with Montpellier and its countryside. Thumbing through the guidebook, I felt a tingle of excitement I recognized from my bygone days of vacation planning. I was — I could hardly believe it — looking forward to visiting my in-laws.
Along the Mediterranean, less than an hour’s drive from Montpellier, are beautiful port cities like Sète and Stes.-Maries-de-la-Mer. Surely they would have offered a welcome change from my usual encounter with the sea: Carnon, a seaside resort where Fabrice’s grandmother lives, as exotic looking as the Jersey Shore. But for our night away from the city, I wanted to head inland and see the arid landscape I had only glimpsed from the highway to my father-in-law’s in Carcassonne.
After some research, I announced to Fabrice that we would be going to a village whose name I now forget because he vetoed it. I protested that I was supposed to be discovering his ancestral home on my own terms, but then he brought up on his computer Google images of the Hérault Valley, with its limestone crags, ravines and wildflowers rivaling those of its more famous neighbor, Provence. Sometimes a local’s advice, I conceded, trumps Lonely Planet’s.“I don’t think this is a good fit for Austin to have an event that has supermodels dripping off the arms of playboy millionaires hanging out all over town,” said the former City Council member and environmental leader Brigid Shea, who made Formula One subsidies an issue in her recent unsuccessful campaign against Mayor Lee Leffingwell, a supporter of the project. “Most people in Austin don’t think that’s who we are. That’s more Dallas or Houston.”
Austin long ago outgrew its image as a tranquil college town to become a fast-growing high-tech hub. More than 1.7 million people live in the metropolitan region that includes Austin, Round Rock and San Marcos.
The track is being built in southeast Travis County near Elroy, a ranching community of several hundred people on lots ranging up to 50 acres. Elroy has largely been bypassed by the growth that has developed other parts of the Austin metropolitan area, and its residents complain of inadequate services and the lack of basic conveniences like a supermarket or bus service.
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But at Wild Bubba’s Wild Game Grill, a half-mile from the track’s main construction entrance, the proprietor Wyman Gilliam, a k a Wild Bubba, has decorated the restaurant with Formula One posters. He refers to Elroy as Speed City.
“It’ll be the economic engine that gets southeast Travis County going,” said Gilliam, who came close to moving his restaurant into Austin because of slumping business before plans for the track were announced in 2010.
Now he enjoys a brisk trade from construction crews and Formula One personnel while he awaits an influx of spectators. Gilliam and his father, Wyman Sr., plan to rent two renovated cabanas on their nearby farm to spectators for $400 per night.
Cathy Olive, a goat rancher who leads the Elroy Neighborhood Association, said the track was a far superior option to widely opposed earlier plans to use the once-vacant site for tract housing. But she acknowledged that some residents had contemplated moving because of the potential traffic and noise.
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“We’re very fractured out here about how we feel about it,” she said. “I’m just not sure one or two races a year will get us a Walmart.”
The $350 million Circuit of the Americas project has encountered its share of controversy, including a lawsuit between its principals, an earlier construction delay, and disputes about state and local subsidies. Circuit officials nevertheless say that work at the 1,100-acre site is on pace for completion this fall.
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Veteran race fans will notice design elements reminiscent of other Formula One tracks as the course winds through 20 turns on hilly terrain with a view of downtown Austin. One signature feature is a 133-foot rise in elevation from the starting line to Turn 1. Speeds are expected to reach up to 200 miles per hour on the straightaway between Turns 11 and 12.
The man who brought Formula One to Texas is the Austin racing promoter Tavo Hellmund, a longtime friend of the Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone. Hellmund, a former racecar driver, once competed on European Formula 3 tracks with “Visit Texas” emblazoned on the side of his Dallara.
Hellmund, 46, said he spent years trying to convince Ecclestone that Austin would be an ideal stop for Formula One.
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“At the time, Bernie just had this picture of Austin as being what all of us who have grown up in Austin have — the sleepy, hippie college town,” Hellmund said. “I probably made over 20 trips to pitch him.”
After Ecclestone embraced the concept, Hellmund formed a partnership with Red McCombs, a San Antonio businessman and former professional sports franchise owner (San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Vikings); and Bobby Epstein, an Austin developer who owned the land for the track site.
“I was asked by Tavo and Bobby if they could get an audience with me and I set aside an hour on a Saturday morning,” McCombs said. “And that hour turned out to be about two and a half and I realized from that conference there was a chance that we might be able to do something that would really be an international event. There wouldn’t be anything similar to it.”
McCombs said that international and out-of-state visitors would find a “very cosmopolitan atmosphere with a Western flavor” in Austin and that such a world-class facility would bolster the state and regional economy by hosting events throughout the year. In addition to Formula One racing, the track is scheduled to host three days of Australian V-8 Supercar racing next year.
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But lofty visions were clouded by hard feelings. Hellmund, who was pushed out of the project, sued Epstein and McCombs. The case was settled earlier this month, clearing another hurdle as the circuit gets ready for race day in less than six months.
The track recently announced a host committee of more than 50 central Texas community leaders and high-profile residents, including the golfer Ben Crenshaw and the chief executive of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Doug Ulman.
Of the more than 115,000 requests for information received by late May, about 35 percent were from Texas, 60 percent were from elsewhere in the United States and about 5 percent were from other countries, primarily Mexico, Canada and western Europe, said Geoff Moore, the circuit’s chief marketing and revenue officer.
Personal seat licenses, costing up to $5,500 and good for 15 years, are required for premier seating in the grandstand across from the starting line or at Turns 1 and 15. Three-day general admission grounds passes are $159, grandstand bleacher tickets range from $269 to $499, while a season ticket, which will cover the Formula One and Supercar races, costs $1,250.
Kevin Granger, a 41-year-old real estate agent, was in the Circuit of the Americas downtown sales offices recently to consider a block of seats to use to entertain clients and family members.
“I think it’s going to be a very exciting sporting venue that Austin’s never seen before,” he said.Sultan bin Turki files criminal complaint in Switzerland over kidnapping he claims took place just outside Geneva in 2003
A simmering feud at the heart of the Saudi royal family is poised to break into the open after one senior prince accused another of orchestrating his abduction, sedation and forcible repatriation from Switzerland.
In an unprecedented move, Prince Sultan bin Turki has filed a criminal complaint in Switzerland against his cousin Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd, as well as the current Saudi minister of Islamic affairs, Saleh al-Sheikh, claiming he was seriously injured as a result of a kidnapping that took place in June 2003.
According to Prince Sultan’s lawyers, the Swiss prosecutor Stéphane Grodecki has ordered a criminal investigation into the case. “A complaint has been filed on behalf of Prince Sultan in Geneva,” said the prince’s lawyer, Pierre de Preux. “A criminal investigation has started and is going on.” Swiss prosecutors refuse to confirm or deny whether an investigation is taking place.
The feuding princes are grandsons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Saudi family tree Saudi scions
The Guardian made repeated attempts to contact Prince Abdulaziz and Saleh al-Sheikh, sending requests for comment to Saudi embassies in London and Geneva, and to Prince Abdulaziz’s suite at the George V hotel in Paris. Reporters also left messages at the embassies, at government ministries in Riyadh and at the Paris hotel.
The only response came from a media adviser to the embassy in London, who said: “I have sent your request on to the appropriate people, as requested, but this is really not a UK embassy issue. It is also a private matter between these gentlemen, not a foreign ministry matter.”
The row pits two wings of the Saudi establishment against one another. At the turn of the century, Prince Sultan was a rare voice within the Saudi royal family calling for reform. Prince Abdulaziz is the son of the late King Fahd, who ruled the country from 1982-2005.
Prince Sultan’s claim relates to a chain of events stretching back to January 2002, when he began accusing the defence and interior ministries of corruption.
In May 2003 he announced he would hold a public seminar in Geneva to reveal the full extent of corruption at the ministry of defence. A month later he attended an event at a palace owned by members of the Saudi royal family in the Swiss municipality of Collonge-Bellerive, just outside Geneva, along with the two accused.
Prince Sultan bin Turki Photograph: Supplied
After a private meeting with Prince Abdulaziz and Saleh al-Sheikh, Prince Sultan says five masked men appeared from behind the curtains and attacked him, knocking him unconscious.
He says he was anaesthetised, taken to a Boeing 747 waiting at Geneva airport, and flown to Riyadh. He says he suffered medical complications and was in a critical condition in Riyadh for five days. He says he was then held at the high security al-Hai’r prison, where he remained for several months. He was then allowed to return to his house in Riyadh, and placed under house arrest.
Aside from one statement given to al-Jazeera in 2004, nothing was heard of him until 2010, when he was moved to the US for palliative treatment.
According to Prince Sultan, he made an unexpected, albeit partial, recovery and escaped Saudi custody late in 2010. He then began planning legal action against those he holds responsible for his abduction.
Ever since Prince Sultan’s father, Prince Turki bin Abdulaziz, found out about his son’s ordeal, a blame game has played out in the royal family over the kidnapping. For several years mutual recriminations and finger-pointing have stalled all attempts at solving the dispute.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The palace in Collonge-Bellerive, Switzerland, owned by members of the Saudi royal family
The case has the potential to spark a diplomatic row between Switzerland and Saudi Arabia
But now the long-promised lawsuit by Prince Sultan is finally going ahead in Switzerland, thanks to the new distribution of power in the royal family. The new king, Salman, and Prince Turki, the father of Prince Sultan, belong to the “Sudairi seven”, seven sons of the old King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud who were full brothers with a Sudairi mother. Prince Abdulaziz is also a Sudairi but he lacks support from senior members of the royal family.
Prince Sultan is submitting his medical records in support of his complaint, and witness statements are also expected to form part of the case, though it is expected to be extremely difficult to compel the accused to give statements.
Besides the criminal charges, Prince Sultan has said he will launch a civil claim for the damage done to his health. He says he has submitted medical bulletins in support of his accusations.
Members of the Saudi royal family have sometimes faced scandals and lawsuits in the past but this is the first time such a senior member has accused another of such a serious criminal offence in a European court.
The case has the potential to spark a diplomatic row between Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. Prince Sultan alleges many organs of the Saudi government had a hand in his abduction, including General Intelligence, the ministry of interior, the embassy in Geneva and Saudi Arabian Airlines, as well as some of the most important and influential princes in the royal family.
The Swiss legal complaint extends to any other participant whose criminal responsibility may yet be discovered. According to defence lawyers, Grodecki has already begun the process of interviewing witnesses who were with Prince Sultan on his visit to Collonge-Bellerive on 12 June 2003.
The office of the general attorney of the republic and canton of Geneva refused to comment on the allegations or the status of any criminal investigation.
Cousins at war
Prince Sultan bin Turki bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
Prince Sultan, 47, is a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s first king, often known as Ibn Saud. He came to brief public prominence in 2002 when he denounced corruption and issued a public call for reform. His father, Prince Turki, had had his own problems with his royal relatives and lived in exile in Cairo and the US for many years. His Moroccan wife had a reputation for black magic. Significantly, Prince Turki belonged to the “Sudairi seven”, the seven sons of Ibn Saud and one of his wives, Hessah bin As-Sudairi, who formed a strong faction that ruled the country after the assassination of King Faisal in 1975. King Salman, who came to the throne this year, is also one of them. In a country where family ties are hugely important, direct royal lineage means influence, power and wealth. Prince Sultan was in poor health before his alleged abduction. Resides in Geneva. Title: His Royal Highness.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
Prince Abdulaziz, 42, is also a grandson of Ibn Saud and the favourite son of the late King Fahd, who ruled Saudi Arabia from 1995-2005. But he is not from the Sudairi branch of the family. His extensive business interests include Saudi Oger (construction) and MBC (media). He reportedly has a $1bn (£640m) property portfolio in the US. A mansion on Palace Green, in Kensington Palace Gardens (nicknamed Billionaires’ Row), London, was reported to be being offered for sale by Prince Abdulaziz in July 2013 for £100m. Last year King Abdullah relieved him of his posts as minister of state and a member of the Council of Ministers. He owns a fleet of private jets and is often described as being best known for his extravagance and a playboy image. Title: His Royal Highness.
• This article was amended on 20 July 2015 because an earlier version said King Fahd ruled Saudi Arabia from 1995-2005. This has been corrected to say from 1982.So the second movie of the year about mall security officers came out this weekend, leading many entertainment observes to cry out, "Seriously WTF?" or words to that effect.
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Hollywood of course has a long history of releasing similar themed movies within months of each other, but this pair feels a little over the top. Two asteroid movies in one year seems downright reasonable in comparison, and even the two volcano movies almost seem plausible. But two movies about mall security in three months? Speaking on behalf of the world, I have to ask, "Hollywood, are you fucking with us?" I haven't seen either of these two movies yet because I'm pretty certain that they're both terrible. (Don't worry; years of writing Internet comedy has given me the ability to make pretty accurate snap judgments like this about movies, other creative works and entire cultures.) Based on the ads alone I can probably tell you exactly the plot of both these movies. They're about mall security guards and are terrible, right? See, easy. The problem is that the concept of "mall security guard" lends itself to five or six really obvious jokes and themes. One big trick with humor is ignoring these obvious jokes, and approaching your target from a different angle. (Failing that, it also helps to insert obscene biological acts, or references to 80s cartoon shows.) Looking at the ads, I can tell that the creators of these two movies did not ignore those obvious jokes, meaning we've already seen these movies before they were released.
In Japan, their movies about mall cops are actually movies about mall cop robots. I love that country so much. Here then are my observations for what the obvious jokes are for a mall cop movie, how to avoid them and, with the insertion of some unnecessarily obscene biological humor, how to make a movie eight billion times better in the process. How can I make such bold claims? Because I write on the Internet and none of you will check my math. __ Obvious Joke/Theme #1: Mall Security Guards are self-serious buffoons who want desperately to be real cops. Not Obvious Joke with the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed Chowdhury was a doctor in his native Bangladesh. But because none of his training is recognized in America, he has been forced to take a menial job as a mall security guard to feed his family. The humiliating nature of his job, combined with the low levels of racism he regularly faces, has engendered in him an enormous antipathy towards most Americans in his heart. He relieves these feelings of ill will by rubbing his genitals on selected items in the Williams & Sonoma after hours. Obvious Joke/Theme #2: Mall Security Guards make humiliatingly small salaries, and have horrible home lives because of it. Not Obvious Joke with the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed does make a humiliatingly small salary, but works two other jobs at different malls to compensate. To make extra money, Syed operates a private members club after hours in the Sears furniture department, a place where "Spokane's fattest swingers" can come to play. Obvious Joke/Theme #3: Mall Security Guards are fat and lazy. Not Obvious Joke with the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed is smaller than average, and possesses the trim physique of a cricket player. His small hands and slender wrists get him unwanted attention from Friendly Mike, a regular at his after-hours club. Friendly Mike produces videos of the sort where things that aren't meant to be inserted into other things, are, repeatedly and vigorously. Obvious Joke/Theme #4: Mall Security Guard gets in over his head when actual criminals perform actual crime in his mall. Hilarity ensues. Not Obvious Joke with the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed himself gets caught up in a criminal enterprise within his mall. The wife of one of Spokane's most important car salesmen dies on mall premises during the production of one of Friendly Mike's films. It is not a good death. Hilarity ensues. Obvious Joke/Theme #5: Thanks to some quick thinking, and the use of a useless-seeming skill that was demonstrated earlier in the movie, the Mall Security Guard battles the villains in an action packed sequence. Not Obvious Joke with the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed makes things much, much worse, and soon finds himself in the center of a dark carnival of death and intrigue. The film of the car salesman's wife's demise does brisk business thanks to the horror that is the Internet. This business opportunity is seized upon by Syed and Friendly Mike. By day Syed begins offering "parole" programs to shoplifters who want to avoid a criminal record, and by night Friendly Mike films these same shoplifters as they meet horrifically erotic demises between the racks at the Hallmark Store. Obvious Joke/Theme #6: The Mall Security Guard overcomes his enemies and learns some important lessons about himself and life. Not Obvious Joke with the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed disposes of the bodies in the dumpsters used by the food court. They go unnoticed as it turns out they already smell like death. He learns that he should stop eating at the food court, perhaps the hardest lesson of all. Obvious Joke/Theme #7: The Mall Security Guard wins the heart of the girl who is much too hot to plausibly be attracted to him. Not Obvious Joke without the insertion of unnecessarily obscene humor: Syed and Friendly Mike begin spending time socially, and soon develop a platonic relationship that is more fulfilling than anything Syed has had in his life. The film ends with the two of them riding a paddle boat in the park, laughing and splashing water on each other. __
More BlogsGuess Which Country Has The Biggest Increase In Soda Drinking
Enlarge this image toggle caption STEPHEN SHAVER/BLOOMBERG NEWS STEPHEN SHAVER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Soda is at the crossroads.
The U.S. is still a world leader in taking the pause that refreshes (and causes weight gain).
But soda drinking is flat or declining in the West. The reasons are many: Health consciousness. Bottled water. Energy drinks.
So the Big Soda companies are spending money to develop new markets in low- and middle-income countries. In some of these places, people are earning a bit more than a few years before, so they have more money for soda.
Health advocates aren't happy that soda consumption is going up in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They would like to see the sale of soda go down because it's pretty well documented that soda just isn't good for you.
New data suggest that Mexico's tax on soda may be one way to get people to drink less soda. (Check out this post from The Salt.) Other countries, including Chile, are considering a similar tax.
But a soda tax won't necessarily lead to a reduction in consumption. "Soda companies could reduce their prices and absorb the tax," points out Dr. Bruce Lee, director of the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University.
And there isn't always another drinking option.
"In many low-income countries, access to clean drinking water is limited, so soda becomes a viable alternative," Lee says. "People will say, 'We don't have anything else to drink.' "
One way for countries to address this issue, he suggests, is to levy a soda tax as Mexico did, then use the proceeds to bring clean water to people via aqueducts, water purification systems or better sanitation so water sources aren't contaminated by human waste.
But it's tough to convince soda drinkers to give it up. People's habits are influenced by "what everyone else is doing, what's available, what's cool and hip," says Lee.
Plus, it's easy to drink a lot of soda because it doesn't make you feel full, says Steve Gortmaker, who directs the Harvard School of Public Health Prevention Research Center. With some foods — whole grains, salad — you get a feeling of fullness. With soda, "your body doesn't sense it's getting all these extra calories," he says. "And you consume it so rapidly, a couple hundred calories in a couple of gulps, your body hasn't had a chance to react to it."Groklaw member PolR has written an explanation for lawyers of computation theory to try to fill a gap in their knowledge that he has observed from reading legal briefs.
A brief extract:
Lawyers and judges know about modern electronics in general and computers in particular. They know about code and the compilation process that turns source code into binary executable code. Computation theory is something different. It is an area of mathematics that overlaps with philosophy. Computation theory provides the mathematical foundations that make it possible to build computers and write programs. Without this knowledge several of the fundamental principles of computer science are simply off the radar and never taken into consideration. The fundamentals of computation theory are not obvious. A group of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century needed decades to figure them out. If this information is not communicated to lawyers and judges they have no chance to understand what is going on and mistakes are sure to happen. All the errors I have found result from this omission. The purpose of this text is to help fill the gap. I try to explain all the key concepts in a language most everyone will understand. I will underline the key legal questions they raise or help answer as they are encountered. I will conclude the article with examples of common mistakes and how the knowledge of computation theory helps avoid them.
Feel free, then, those of you who are also programmers and engineers, to amplify, correct, explain, or if there is another topic you feel lawyers and judges need to understand, email me about it, and let's see if we can help them out.
Similarly, if you are a lawyer or judge, feel free to ask questions or ask that further information be provided.
What I get from the paper is that there isn't really a difference between what a human does with a paper and pencil and what a computer does, except speed, and that neither method of computation should be patentable subject matter. Also, it's now clear that just as you wouldn't go into litigation without a lawyer, if you are wise, because that is their area of expertise, lawyers also shouldn't assume they understand software and patents and how they relate unless they get help from technology experts who know how software and computers, and the underlying math, really work.
Update: If you'd like to print the article without the introduction, I've placed a copy here. And here's a PDF.
And for those of you who are interested in digging a bit more into computational theory, with an emphasis on the theory as opposed to the consequences with regard to patents, here's a reference for you, A Problem Course in Mathematical Logic, by Stefan Bilaniuk. Here's a description of what you'll find:
Parts I and II, Propositional Logic and First-Order Logic respectively, cover the basics of these topics through the Soundness, Completeness, and Compactness Theorems, plus a little on applications of the Compactness Theorem. [...] Part III, Computability, covers the basics of computability using Turing machines and recursive functions; it could be used as the basis of a one-term course. Part IV, Incompleteness, is concerned with proving the Gödel Incompleteness Theorems.
*****************************
An Explanation of Computation Theory for Lawyers
By PolR
[This article is licensed under
a Creative Commons License.]
I am a computer professional with over 25 years of experience. I have a Master's degree in computer science and no legal expertise beyond what I acquired reading Groklaw. Yet I have developed an interest in understanding US patent law and how it applies to software. I have read a few court cases and legal briefs. Based on my professional knowledge I can say that in some precedent-setting cases the legal understanding of computers and software is not technologically correct.
I see the situation like this. The authors of legal briefs and court rulings have enough of an understanding to feel confident they can write meaningful arguments on the topic. But yet they do not understand computers and software well enough to reach technically correct conclusions. The unfortunate result is |
. These guys have three championships since 2010 for a reason.
And so, when all is said and done, hand the G-Men this NL pennant.
10 2018 World Series Champion: San Francisco Giants
Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports
Out with the old, in with the new.
The Red Sox will try to put a crown on top of their dynasty, but the Giants are here to be the big boys of the majors. It's time for the Giants to take back what has usually been their's in recent years: A World Series in an even year.
You have to like their rotation much more in this matchup. They have the arms to deal with Boston's scary lineup. Rick Porcello and David Price haven't exactly been great in the playoffs, either. The Giants have a very experienced lineup that has shown its ability to get the big hits in crunch time.
We'd also like to point out that Aroldis Chapman will be with the Giants by this point, meaning they can't blow all the leads that cost them the title chances in 2016.
9 2019 AL Champion: Cleveland Indians
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
The Indians were one swing of the bat away from winning the World Series in Game 7. They allowed a 3-1 series lead to slip away to the Chicago Cubs and now have the longest World Series drought, having last won it all in 1948.
Luckily for Cleveland, this entire team has such a promising future, thanks to the work done by former front office men Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins.
It starts with ultra star Francisco Lindor, who is just 23 years of age. Jason Kipnis is turning 30 in the new year, Jose Ramirez is only 24, Michael Brantley 29, Carlos Santana 30, and Lonnie Chisenhall 28. When it comes to the pitching staff, Corey Kluber is only 30, Trevor Bauer 25, and Danny Salazar 26. Andrew Miller is 31, which isn't old for a reliever. Cody Allen, their star closer (28), figures to get better over time. This is a stacked team that's built to win for years to come, and they will get back to the World Series.
8 2019 NL Champion: Chicago Cubs
Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
The Cubs are built to win today, tomorrow and for at least a full decade. By the time these two teams meet in another World Series in three year's time (at least according to my own calculations) the Cubbies won't be so young any more.
Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, and Kyle Hendricks will either be in their 30s or at least pushing it. But that's fine, these guys are only going to get better than what you saw from them in 2016. The Cubs are playing in a fairly weak NL Central that's no longer as scary as it once was.
We've talked about how great the Cubs will be for years to come. Don't believe us? How about our projections that give them three NL Pennants in just four years. Now, if they can just win another World Series...
7 2019 World Series Champion: Chicago Cubs
Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports
Here is how the World Series will play out.
The Cubs lead the World Series three games to one, but the Indians crush Chicago in the next two games to force a Game 7. Rajai Davis, who'll be 39 by the time this game's played, steps up to the plate in the top of the ninth. With the Indians trailing 4-2, he launches a three-run homer to give Cleveland a lead. Now, they're just three outs away from winning their first World Series in 71 years.
But Kris Bryant takes Cody Allen deep in center field to tie the game up. Anthony Rizzo completes a comeback for the ages by taking Allen deep into right field. Ball game. Cubs win their second World Series in four seasons.
And yet again, a late-game meltdown by the Indians (third time in 22 years) cost them a shot at the World Series.
6 2020 AL Champion: Houston Astros
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Some may forget that an epic meltdown in Game 4 of the 2015 ALDS against the Kansas City Royals prevented the Astros from reaching their first championship series in 15 years. Nonetheless, they've got a great roster in place and are set to be a juggernaut for years to come. Their big chance will come in 2020.
MLB.com gives the Astros baseball's third-ranked farm system. Though you're familiar with Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, George Springer, Dallas Kuechel, and other big names, you should also try to learn more about their stars that aren't in the big leagues yet.
Alex Bregman is one of baseball's hottest commodities and will be the face of this franchise when he comes in. Francis Martes and Joe Musgrove also figure to be big parts of the Astros' future.
Their current core is already loaded, but Houston's only going to get better when their prospects make it to the big leagues. They'll be your 2020 AL Champions.
5 2020 NL Champion: St. Louis Cardinals
Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
After missing the playoffs altogether in 2016, the Cardinals figure to be back in the MLB's elite in the next few seasons. Their current core probably isn't enough to take them to a World Series championship, but luckily they have the model organization when it comes to home-growing their own talent.
Alex Reyes, Luke Weaver, and Jack Flaherty are their top-three prospects according to Joel Reuter from Bleacher Report. If those guys become the dominant arms they're projected to be, then the Cardinals may have baseball's top rotation in the long run.
The Cardinals farm system doesn't look all that scary now, but they're adding in new big names every year. Those will be the guys that carry this team in the future. Look for the Cardinals to get back to the World Series in 2020 after a seven-year absence.
4 2020 World Series Champion: Houston Astros
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
How history can change so fast.
The Astros and Cardinals met in the 2004 and 2005 NLDS. St. Louis went on to be swept in the 2004 World Series while Houston was swept by the Chicago White Sox in the 2005 Fall Classic. The main difference between these teams?
St. Louis avenged their loss by winning the 2006 and 2011 World Series', while the Astros have just one playoff appearance since their loss. But after the Astros moved to the AL to begin the 2013 season, it meant that these two former NL Central rivals could meet in the World Series. How cool would that be?
We have it happening by 2020. We simply love the young cores both teams have to go along with loaded farm systems. But we're taking Houston here, because they currently have more young talent CURRENTLY in the big leagues than the Cardinals.
Experience usually trumps youth in baseball. Houston wins their first World Series.
3 2021 AL Champion: New York Yankees
Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
It really doesn't seem like the Yankees are baseball's most hated team anymore. It's a new era with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, and Andy Pettite long gone. The Yankees are moving on from their old veterans and are trying to rebuild through the farm system. Not spending one hundred billion dollars every winter (Dr. Evil pose).
Well, the Yankees plans to rebuild have worked out great. MLB.com gives them baseball's second-ranked farm system. They earned huge pieces from Cleveland in the Andrew Miller trade and got huge assets from the Cubs after trading Aroldis Chapman.
Gleyber Torres, Justun Sheffield, and Clint Frazier will be bonafide stars for years to come. Also, Gary Sanchez did so much in so little during 2016. He's the new face of a Yankees franchise.
So with all this young talent, the Yankees will be competing for titles in the long run. But don't forget, they also have the resources to spend money and add stars.
2 2021 NL Champion: Atlanta Braves
Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports
In a 1999 World Series rematch, the Braves and Yankees will meet up again.
They were baseball's two most dominant franchises in the '90s and 2000s. The Yankees would win five World Series championships from 1996 to 2009, while the Braves would constantly reach the playoffs but only have one ring (1995) to show for it.
With both of these teams now rebuilding, we can tell you they'll be forces once again in 2021. You know how great the Yankees are, but what about the Braves? Well...
The ninth-ranked farm system by MLB.com has a lot to be excited about. Dansby Swanson is a once-in-a-generation player to build around. Jim Callis from MLB.com notes that Kevin Maitan is being compared to Miguel Cabrera and Chipper Jones, only the two best third basemen baseball has seen in the past two decades. Freddie Freeman will be a seasoned veteran by 2021, and hopefully part of a stacked Braves team. Starting pitcher Julio Teheran will be a Cy Young candidate for years to come as well.
1 2021 World Series Champion: Atlanta Braves
Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
So the Braves will end 22 years of pain when they take down the Yankees, sending most of America into its glory. Let's be honest, people will always hate the Yankees. Their 27 World Series Championships and all of the hearts they broke throughout the years will always put them among the most despised teams.
The Braves have just a little more big league talent right now that I like. Their rebuild figures to take another two or three seasons, meaning they'll only add more and more talent to an already stacked pool of great prospects. Teheran gives the Braves an ace, something the Yankees are still looking for.
And when the Braves start winning, they'll start adding veteran players. For now, we'll take them as the 2021 World Series champions.UPDATED
A Minnesota court has ordered the state's board of teaching to restore a licensing option it stopped operating in 2012—a win for plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit over certification.
Judge Shawn Bartsh granted partial summary judgment on behalf of 20 teachers, most of whom are out-of-state teachers whose attempts to get a license in Minnesota have been mired in red tape.
The specific option has to do with a "portfolio" licensing process, which the board apparently closed in 2012 despite its existence in state law. Some 530 teachers were licensed under this process between 2004 and 2012.
Under the order, the board of teaching must reinstate the portfolio process, begin to accept, review, and process applications, and complete reviewing any already-submitted portfolio. It must also issue new rules outlining specifically how the portfolio process works.
"In light of the fact that over 500 teachers successfully received licensure through the portfolio process and given the current need for teachers in Minnesota, the court is made to wonder why the board would abandon what from all appearances was a successful program that gave licenses to qualified persons," Bartsh wrote. "The board's on-going suspension of the portfolio program constitutes a violation of Minnesota law."
The state legislature has repeatedly told the board to clarify its certification rules, but critics contend it has dragged its feet in doing so. (It is not entirely clear why, because the board's legal responses were largely procedural; it did not contest that it had shuttered the portfolio process.)
Under the order, the judge will hold a compliance hearing on Jan. 29 to determine whether the board is complying.
UPDATED 4:45 p.m.: The Board of Teaching helpfully reminds us that while it makes policy regarding licensing, the state education department actually has to process licensing applications. Click this sentence for the website where updates will be posted.
"As this type of application is implemented collectively by the Minnesota Department of Education with support from the Board, we will continue to collaborate to reinstate licensure via portfolio as an alternative means of demonstrating one's qualifications for licensure. The Board intends to fully comply with the judge's order and will report the progress of both agencies in the days ahead," its executive director, Erin Doan, said in a statement.
More on Minnesota's licensing troubles:
Don't miss another Teacher Beat post. Sign up here to get news alerts in your email inbox.
Follow @Stephen_Sawchuk Follow @TeacherBeat for the latest news on teacher policy and politics.So you can read this one one of two ways:
Either the terror watch list is complete bull, or the Department of Homeland Security has a big problem. Come to think about it, maybe you can read it both ways.
At least 72 employees at the Department of Homeland Security are listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list, according to Representative Stephen Lynch (D., MA).
It is entirely possible Representative Stephen Lynch just demonstrated there is little to no actual threat from terrorists.
“Back in August, we did an investigation — the inspector general did — of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security. The former DHS director had to resign because of that.”
Lynch did not say what has happened to the 72 employees, however. That in fact is the key question. If any of them are indeed bad guys, how did they get their jobs at DHS, and keep them, and what, if any, naughtiness did they do? If some/none of the 72 are bad guys, why were they on the terror list and WTF is the point of such lists?
Meanwhile, list or no list, DHS continues to fail inspections aimed at determining the efficiency of its internal safety mechanisms, as well as its efforts to protect the very Homeland that is part of its own name. Lynch referred to a recent report that found the Transportation Security Administration, which is “overseen” by DHS, failed to stop 95 percent of those who attempted to bring restricted items past airport security.
“We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said. “We had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.”
And that brings up another question. If TSA has a 95 percent failure rate, and since no terror incidents have happened due to contraband being smuggled through our airports, doesn’t that strongly imply there really isn’t much of a threat? At a 95 percent failure rate, given the level of threat we are told is now part of our post-ISIS lives, shouldn’t planes be dropping daily from the sky?
Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during Iraqi reconstruction in his first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. His latest book is Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent. Reprinted from the his blog with permission.Come fall, Elizabeth Thompson will reach a milestone in her one-woman anti-hazing campaign against the University of Dayton: 18 years.
“The students coming in were not born when I started,” Thompson said.
>> “No Hazing Lady’s” fight with UD continues
Seventeen and half years have passed since her weekly protests at the UD entrance at Brown and Stewart streets began, but Thompson said her conviction that she was hazed and harassed as a UD electrical engineering graduate student in the late 1990s has not.
“What they do is very wrong. They are bullies,” said Thompson, now a professor of electrical engineering at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. “They think that can outlast me... It absolutely blows my mind. I promise you I will not go away.”
>> 50 ideas for your Dayton summer bucket list
The University of Dayton has long rebuffed Thompson’s long list of grievances.
“She is a graduate and has been part of our campus community; we regret that she has not found closure on this issue,” the university said in a statement.
Thompson’s commitment to her protest is hard to dispute.
She says she’s weathered counter-protest, wind chills of 20 degrees below and temperatures in excess of 90 degrees while touting signs that read things like “Stop the Academic Fraud,” “Hazing Is Not Leadership With Virtue” and “Stop the Hypocrisy.”
>> 9 traditions and urban legends at Ohio colleges
Elizabeth Thompson has been protesting at the corner of Brown and Stewart Streets for 8 years. Thompson, a UD grad who received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering, is protesting harassment and unfair treatment that she says she endured while attending UD. Staff photo by Photo: Jim Noelker
WHY IS SHE PROTESTING?
The pivotal claim is that she was given a “B” in an engineering master’s course when she earned an “A.”
She said she was told the lower grade was given to teach her “respect.” The B was so devastating that it made her cry for weeks.
She says the university has “repeatedly attempted to discredit, intimidate, silence and otherwise beat me into submission.”
>> Did you know: 2 of Dayton’s most famous people were high school buddies
Before the incident, Thompson had all As and had a 4.0 grade average. While appealing the grade, she went on to earn her doctorate from UD. She subsequently became a professor at the Indiana university.
Thompson said UD made her an outcast when she complained and has not made an attempt to resolve the situation since January 2000.
University officials have said that Thompson’s claims have been determined to be unfounded despite conferences, hearings and a mediation session at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. In 2007, one official said her transcripts couldn’t be changed as she desires.
Thompson says said she doesn’t not want money from UD, but what she considers justice.
>> Wacky foods you’ll only find at the 2017 Ohio State Fair
WHAT SHE WANTS
Item on Elizabeth Thompson's "anti-hazing" campaign published Aug. 22, 2005
From a letter explaining the protest:
To settle the issue, I am requesting the following four things.
To settle the issue, I am requesting the following four things. Restoration of my 4.0.
Restoration of my 4.0. Correction of all transcripts that have been sent on my behalf to reflect this change.
Provide me with the total of six letters of recommendation that were written for me by UD professors and to which I am legally entitled.
legally entitled. Rescinding of the criminal trespass warning.
THE IMPACT ON HER CAREER
Thompson said the way she feels UD treated her has not impacted her career in a negative way.
She earned an undergraduate degree at Ohio State in 1981 and worked 10 years as a welding engineer for General Dynamics Land Systems, where she would troubleshoot production of the M1A1 Army tank.
>> PHOTOS: A look inside of Dayton’s famed Engineers Club
Thompson earned an electronic engineering master’s degree and doctorate from UD in 1995 and 1999.
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne promoted her to professor from associate professor in 2015.
She has published several articles in and worked extensively in functional magnetic resonance, as well as brain mapping through functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), teleoperated robotics and magnetoenceophalography (MEG), a technology that measures the magnetic field emitted by the brain.
>> Judge denies UD’s motion to dismiss ‘hazing’ lawsuit
The Society of Women Engineers named her Outstanding Faculty Advisor in 2013 for “creative leadership; for immeasurable service to her engineering students and SWE section as as mentor, advisor, coach, and advocate; and for outstanding university teaching and research.” In partnership with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Thompson received funding from the National Institute of Health to develop functional brain activation maps using space-time adaptive processing, her Society of Women Engineers profile says.
Her employer featured her in promotional videos and articles on more than one occasion.
Thompson, a grandmother, was married to her late husband Robert for nearly 36 years before his death on June 22, 2016.
The protest is only part of her life.
“I have a very demanding job and I spend a lot of time with my family,” Thompson said.
Here are some memorable experiences from Thompson’s letter explaining her protest:An American website called First We Feast has just announced what it declares are “The 20 most influential beers of all time”, a list put together by a “panel of beer-industry pros – brewers, distributors, publicans, and importers, as well as a few journalists.”
You’ll have some idea of the validity of this list when I tell you that half the beers on it are brewed in the US. I don’t want to diss the panel that chose these beers, but I only recognise one name on it, apart from him there are none of the commentators I turn to for insight into the North American brewing scene, let alone anyone from outside the US, and there doesn’t appear to be a single brewing historian among any of them. Which is presumably why they came up with such a totally crap list, with far, far more misses than hits.
The First We Feast attempt at naming the 20 most influential beers of all time
Gablinger’s diet beer, Rheingold, New York
Blind Pig IPA
Westmalle Tripel
New Albion Ale
Fuller’s London Pride
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
Pilsner Urquell
Anchor Steam Beer
Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye
Ayinger Celebrator
Generic lager
Cantillon Classic Gueuze
Anchor Old Foghorn
Reissdorf Kölsch
Draught Guinness
Allagash White
Sam Adams Utopias
Saison Dupont
Schneider Aventinus
I mean, Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye is more influential in the history of beer than Bass Pale Ale or Barclay Perkins porter? Don’t make me weep. Allagash White trumps Hoegaarden and Schneider Weisse? (You may not like Hoegaarden or Schneider Weisse, but I hope you won’t try to deny their influence.) Gueuze, Saison and Kölsch are such important styles they deserve a representative each in a “most influential beers of all time” list, while IPA and porter are left out? I don’t think so. And the same goes for Schneider Aventinus: where are the hordes of Weissebockalikes? Sam Adams Utopias has influenced who, exactly? “Generic lager”? I see where you’re coming from, in that much of what has happened over the past 40 years in the beer world is a reaction against generic lager, but still … And I love London Pride, but it’s not even the third most influential beer that Fuller’s brews.
Gablinger’s Diet Beer is about the only smart choice on the FWF list, because although it’s pretty obscure now, it was the inspiration for all the “lite” beers that, through big brands such as Miller Lite and Bud Light, came to dominate the US beer scene. Pilsner Urquell is a must: you could argue (and I will, in a moment) over whether there has been a more influential beer, but no “all-time greats” list could ignore the pale lager from Plzen. Westmalle Tripel: Duvel, surely, is more important. Guinness: I really don’t think Guinness is influential: it’s so sui generis, it’s just carried on being itself, without influencing anybody.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale I’m prepared to consider, as the pioneer of “hop forward” American pale ales, and the same consideration may be due to Blind Pig IPA, the first “double” IPA. Anchor Old Foghorn was itself too influenced by other beers, especially the English old ale/Burton Ale tradition, to be on a “most influential” list itself. If Goose Island Bourbon County Stout was, as it appears, the first “aged in barrels used for something else” beer, then for all the brews that has inspired, it deserves a “most influential” mention. But having both New Albion Ale and Anchor Steam on the list is far too California-centric: indeed, if you’re looking for a beer than inspired the boom in American craft brewing, them I’d put on a steel helmet and announce that it’s Samuel Adams Boston Lager: I bet that inspired far more drinkers to try something other than the mainstream than any other early American “craft” beer.
So: what ARE the real 20 most influential beers of all time? Judged purely on the size of the effect they had on subsequent beer history, I reckon they are:
1 Spaten Dunkel The lagering techniques Gabriel Sedlmayr perfected at the family brewery in Munich, and the yeast that he used and then so generously donated to brewers from Carlsberg in Denmark to Heineken in the Netherlands were what powered the lager revolution in Europe and around the world. Without the work done at the Spaten brewery, there would have been no Pilsner Urquell. But the original Spaten lager (and indeed the first lagers brewed outside Bavaria) were all dark beers, little known by modern drinkers, which is why their importance has been forgotten.
2 Pilsner Urquell The genius of the men who set up the Burghers’ Brewery in Plsen in 1842 appears to have been in combining Bavarian lager yeast and lagering techniques with pale malt made in the English fashion, to produce the world’s first pale lager. It took another half a century or more for the Pilsner style to triumph over its darker rivals even in continental Europe, but most of the beer drunk in the world today has its roots in Bohemia.
3 Hodgson’s East India Pale Ale There’s a good case for saying that Bass Pale Ale, as the most successful IPA of the 19th and 20th centuries, should fly the flag for the style. But Hodgson’s brewery in Bow, London was the maker of the highly hopped pale beer shipped out east whose success inspired the Burton brewers to follow with their own beers brewed for the Indian trade, beers that later proved popular back home in Britain as well. Therefore it’s Hodgson that deserves to be on the “most influential” list, even though the Bow brewery eventually collapsed into obscurity.
4 Parsons’ porter We have no good evidence as to who, if anyone, first turned London brown beer into what became known as porter: it looks as if the city’s whole brown beer trade slowly moved in the first 30 or so years of the 18th century towards a hoppier, more aged style of dark beer that eventually became hugely popular. But there IS evidence that the pioneer of lengthy storage for porter in huge vats, to perfect its flavour, was Alderman Humphrey Parsons, of the Red Lion brewery, by St Katharine’s Dock, to the east of the Tower of London, which would make him the most influential porter brewer, since everybody else copied his idea. And without porter we wouldn’t have stout.
5 Barclay Perkins Russian Imperial Stout A number of London brewers were exporting very strong stouts to the Baltic lands in the 19th century, but Barclay Perkins’s Anchor brewery is the earliest we have evidence for, the best-known and the longest–lasting. Its imperial stout influenced brewers in Poland, the smaller Baltic states and Germany in the 19th century, and American craft brewers in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
6 Schwechater Lagerbier Anton Dreher was a big pal of Gabriel Sedlmayr and accompanied the Bavarian on his “study tours”. At the family brewery in Schwechat, just outside Vienna, Dreher used Sedlmayr’s lagering ideas and, like the brewers in Plsen, malting techniques based on those used by English brewers, though Dreher produced darker malts than the Bohemians, to give a beer halfway in colour between Pilsner and a Munich Dunkel. Think Sam Adams Boston lager, and you’d be about right. Dreher’s is the influence on all those lagers that look more like English bitters in colour.
7 Einbecker Ur-Bock Without the Einbeckers of Lower Saxony, there would be no Bock beers.
8 Paulaner Salvator And without Munich’s Salvator, the first of the souped-up Doppelbocks, we wouldn’t have all those beers ending in -or.
9 Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Come on – of course it was hugely influential. It pioneered national beer distribution around the US, and it set the standard for what American beer was expected to be. You might not like that standard, but millions of drinkers did, and do, in the US and abroad.
10 Bass No 1 Best-known of the strong Burton Ales, this was the beer that other barley wines wanted to be, until number 16 on my list came along.
11 Schneider Weisse Who should carry the banner for Bavarian wheat beer, a style that was restricted to little old Bavarian ladies only 40 years ago but which has since bounced back hugely and now has imitators everywhere? There are several candidates, but I’ll give it to the guys from Kelheim, because they brew nothing else.
12 Hoegaarden When it comes to Belgian wheat beer, however, there can be only one original, and all the rest are imitators (even if some now, whisper it, might be doing a better job). When Pierre Celis rescued this style from the grave, he was to have far more influence than he could have possibly imagined.
13 Duvel Anyone brewing a strong, golden Belgian-style ale is bowing towards Breendonk.
14 Fuller’s ESB A winter-only brew to begin with, ESB became famous as the strongest bitter in Britain, and spawned a new style in the US.
15 Newcastle Brown Ale First and best-known of the fruity dark amber “Northern brown ales”.
16 Tennant’s Gold Label The Sheffield brewer Tennant’s launched its golden barley wine more than 60 years ago, inspiring a host of imitators among brewers who had previously believed strong beers had to be dark.
17 Fowler’s Wee Heavy Wee Heavy is a much misunderstood style: it’s not that old and it certainly shouldn’t be made with smoked malt. But Fowler’s is the one everybody copied.
18 Sierra Nevada Pale Ale See above
19 Blind Pig IPA See above
20 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout See above
Now: let the arguments begin.Legend is a 1985 American dark fantasy adventure film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Cork Hubbert, and Annabelle Lanyon. The film revolves around Jack, a pure being who must stop a plan by the Lord of Darkness to cover the world with eternal night. It is often described as a dark fairy tale and as a return to more original and sometimes disturbing fables originating from the oral tradition of ancient times before reading and writing were widespread.[4][5]
Although not a commercial success when first released, it won the British Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in 1985 for cinematographer Alex Thomson,[6] as well as being nominated for multiple awards: Academy Award for Best Makeup; Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for Best Makeup; BAFTA Awards for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup Artist, Best Special Visual Effects; DVD Exclusive Awards; and Young Artist Awards.[7] Since its premiere and the subsequent release of the Director's Cut edition, the film has become a cult classic.
Plot [ edit ]
In order to cast the world into eternal night, Darkness (Tim Curry) sends the goblin Blix (Alice Playten) on a mission to kill the unicorns that guard the light and bring him their horns. Blix and his colleagues Pox (Peter O'Farrell) and Blunder (Kiran Shah) follow impetuous Princess Lili (Mia Sara) and her forest-dwelling paramour Jack (Tom Cruise) through Jack's forest home to the lair of the unicorns. When Lili distracts the stallion by stroking it, Blix shoots it with a poison dart from his blowpipe, and the unicorns flee. Lili makes light of Jack's fears that she broke the law of the forest by touching the sacred animals and sets him a challenge by throwing her ring into a pond, declaring that she will marry whoever finds it. While Jack dives in after the ring, the goblins find the dying stallion and sever its alicorn. An apocalyptic winter descends; Lili runs off in terror and Jack is barely able to break through the surface of the now frozen pond.
Taking refuge in a frozen cottage, Lili overhears the goblins talking about their slaying of the stallion and testing the alicorn's magical powers. She follows the goblins to a rendezvous with Darkness, who orders them to hunt and kill the surviving mare. Blunder unsuccessfully tries to use the alicorn to overthrow Darkness and is taken away to his castle. Meanwhile, Jack, accompanied by the forest elf Honeythorn Gump (David Bennent, voiced by Alice Playten), the fairy Oona (Annabelle Lanyon), and the dwarves Brown Tom and Screwball (Cork Hubbert and Billy Barty), finds the lifeless stallion and his mate; the mare tells Jack that the alicorn must be recovered and returned to the stallion. Leaving Brown Tom to guard the unicorns, Jack and the others retrieve a hidden cache of ancient weapons. While they are gone, Lili tries to make things right by helping to save the mare, but the goblins overpower Tom and capture the mare and Lili. Learning what has transpired, Jack and his group make their way to the castle in the middle of a swamp. On the way, they are nearly killed by a swamp hag named Meg Mucklebones (Robert Picardo), but defeat her by flattering her appearance and then decapitating her.
After reaching the castle, Jack's group falls into an underground prison cell in a hellish kitchen. They encounter Blunder in the same cell, revealed to be an elf gone astray, before he is dragged off by an ogre cook to be baked into a pie. Oona offers to use her magic to escape their cell and retrieve keys to free the others if she receives a kiss from Jack. He is tempted when Oona turns into Lili, but refuses to follow through, telling her "human hearts don't work that way". Greatly offended by his rejection of her, Oona scolds Jack, but realizing what's at stake, she frees everyone so they can all search for Lili and the mare.
Having fallen in love with Lili, Darkness tempts her with jewelry, a beautiful dress and promises of power and glory. Seemingly seduced, she agrees to wed him under the condition that she kills the mare in the upcoming ritual. Overhearing their conversation, Jack and Gump learn that Darkness can be destroyed by daylight. After saving Blunder, the group takes the ogres' giant metal platters to reflect the sunlight to the chamber where the mare is to be sacrificed.
As the ritual begins, Lili frees the mare, but is knocked out by Darkness. While the others relay the light of the setting sun using the platters, Jack fights Darkness, finally wounding him with the severed alicorn. As the redirected sunlight blasts him to the edge of a void, Darkness warns them that because evil lurks in everyone, he will never truly be vanquished. Jack hesitates as he realizes this to be true, but overcomes his doubt and severs the evil hand holding the alicorn, thus expelling him into the void. Gump returns the stallion's horn, returning him to life and ending the winter. Jack retrieves the mystic ring from the pond and returns it to Lili, returning her to life.
Alternate Endings [ edit ]
The film concludes with one of three endings:
In the Director's Cut, Lili wakes with Jack trying to convince her she was merely dreaming, but she is ultimately unconvinced. They confess their love for each other, but realize they live in two different lifestyles, which causes Lili to request continuing a merely platonic relationship. Jack, happy with this request, accepts. Lili returns to her home to assume her responsibilities, promising to visit him again. Jack happily runs off into the sunset, hailed by the forest fairies and the revived unicorns.
In the American theatrical version, Jack and Lili assure each other of their love and watch the unicorns reunite, and they run off into the sunset together, hailed by the forest fairies and the unicorns. Darkness watches them from the void, laughing. [8] [9]
The European version also ends with both Jack and Lili running off into the sunset, but without Darkness's final appearance.
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
While filming The Duellists in France, Ridley Scott conceived Legend after another planned project, Tristan and Isolde, fell through temporarily.[2] However, he believed that it would be an art film with limited audience appeal and went on to make Alien and did pre-production work on Dune, another halted project, which was eventually finished by director David Lynch. Frustrated, he came back to the idea of filming a fairy tale or mythological story.
For inspiration, Scott read all the classic fairy tales, including ones by the Brothers Grimm.[2] From that, he conceived a story about a young hermit who is transformed into a hero when he battles the Darkness in order to rescue a beautiful princess and release the world from a wintery curse.[13]
Screenplay [ edit ]
Scott wanted Legend to have an original screenplay because he believed that "it was far easier to design a story to fit the medium of cinema than bend the medium for an established story".[2] By chance, he discovered several books written by American novelist William Hjortsberg, and found that the writer had already written several scripts for some unmade lower-budgeted films. Scott asked him if he was interested in writing a fairy tale. He was already writing some and agreed.[13] Scott remembers, "The first notion was to actually make a classical fairy story, but if you actually analyze a classical fairy story, most are either very short, or very complex".[14] The two men bonded over Jean Cocteau's 1946 film of Beauty and the Beast. In January 1981, just before beginning principal photography on Blade Runner, Scott spent five weeks with Hjortsberg working out a rough storyline for what was then called Legend of Darkness.
Originally, Scott "only had the vague notion of something |
that, for what Eddie does--
OLIVIA: I mean, I, I think he prefer-, at least in the times I've heard him talk about it on stage, I think he goes by transvestite. And, but that's also kind of a term that--
PAUL: It seems antiquated to me.
OLIVIA: Yeah. It's not really a term that people use anymore.
PAUL: Right.
OLIVIA: I think it was more, it was definitely in use in like the '90s when he was really working, but no, it's cross-dresser is, it means the same thing. It's, you know, a person who wears clothes, you know, of a gender that they don't identify as, I guess is the really convoluted way of explaining it.
PAUL: Yeah.
OLIVIA: But, yeah, no, that was definitely formative when I was young.
PAUL: And the reason I ask how you would explain it is because, not that I need to categorize it for my own sake, but let's say you wanted to describe Eddie to somebody--
OLIVIA: Totally.
PAUL: --I would, I found myself wanting to describe Eddie to the listeners that aren't familiar with him and then all of a sudden I got anxious, like I'm going to say something--
OLIVIA: [Chuckles]
PAUL: --that's totally fucked, although I have to say, of 99% of the e-mails I've gotten from people in the trans community or people who are close to the trans community kind of steering me--
OLIVIA: Yeah.
PAUL: --have been very loving and diplomatic and appreciative.
OLIVIA: You know, yeah, I think, there's a certain understanding among trans people that we're a relatively new th-, like thing for wider America to know about, and I acknowledge that being trans is not, it's not, you know, big air quotes, normal. You know, it's like it's a thing that people might not be used to, like there's a lot of concepts associated with it that people might not be used to, and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's when people just accept their ignorance and don't want to learn and move on, that that's when I start to get belligerent.
PAUL: Yeah.
OLIVIA: I'm kind of, I'm kind of one of the angry ones [chuckles] a lot of the time. I, yeah, I tend to much more angrily vocalize--
PAUL: Can you give us some examples from your life--
OLIVIA: Me being angry?
PAUL: Yeah. Where it's come up, either negative encounters or positive encounters, but just, I want the listener, and me, to be able to better understand your experience.
OLIVIA: Totally. Yeah. I guess, well, I mean, it's Trans Day of Remembrance [chuckles], and it just so happens that a year ago, on the last Trans Day of Remembrance, a fellow comedian came out of the woodwork on Facebook to like just start, on a post of mine, to start slinging crazy transphobic shit at me, and I just met insult with insult.
It's one of those things where after I get attacked I'm less willing to be polite and try and like reason with someone who is just like, told me to watch my back or, you know, called me tranny or whatever. I used to try to be very diplomatic.
PAUL: What do you think that person's reason for being so hostile towards you was?
OLIVIA: Because he doesn't like--
PAUL: It scares him.
OLIVIA: Yeah. He's gay and he thinks that he's an authority on everything not straight.
PAUL: Oh, he's out.
OLIVIA: Yeah, he's an out gay man.
PAUL: Okay.
OLIVIA: Yeah. And that’s, unfortunately, an attitude that does come out in some cis gay men, a feeling of ownership over all LGBT issues, even when they don't have any knowledge of like trans issues in particular. So, yeah--
PAUL: Oh, irony, there's no corner of the globe you won't travel.
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah, I know, right? [Sighs] It really is, like you would, it's always baffling to me when I see people who are themselves a member of a marginalized community like using the same ignorant language at another like community, it's always weird--
PAUL: It happens a lot with immigrant communities--
OLIVIA: Yeah.
PAUL: --you know, the Irish were shit on when they came here, and some of the most violently racist people I know are maybe second-, third-generation Irish Americans and there's just this, you know, the neighborhood where I was raised, not a very tolerant place.
OLIVIA: Yeah.
PAUL: Not a very tolerant place, yeah.
OLIVIA: Yeah, it's crazy. I don't, it's one of those things that I'll never, it'll never fail to just boggle my mind of just...
PAUL: So, give me some moments, in addition to the Facebook one.
OLIVIA: Let's see.
PAUL: And what was that person's issue with you? What specifically did they have a problem with?
OLIVIA: He, I made a vague reference in my Trans Day of Remembrance post to seeing several comics make transphobic remarks, didn't call out him or anyone in particular. It was just like, oh, I've seen like five or six people say a lot of shitty things on today, and today is kind of a bad day for that [chuckles].
You know, this is a day of like where we recognize the members of our community who were taken from us, and to, on today of all days, to say transphobic shit is really annoying, and I guess someone on my friends list told him about this and he assumed that I was just talking about him and came and started fighting me.
PAUL: And do you remember what the thing was that he had said that upset you?
OLIVIA: Ah, oh, boy. It was something about watch your fucking back or something. I can't even remember. It got to be like, it was ridicu-, it was [chuckles] out of c-, it got to be like 170 comments.
PAUL: Like watch your back, as in that was supposed to be like a sexual innuendo or something, like--
OLIVIA: No. Like, you know, watch who you're talking shit about because I can ruin you in this town or something like that, you know, like trying to throw weight around, like he means anything. It, you know, posturing, that sort of thing--
PAUL: I see. Well, I was also curious about what the comment was that he had made or in general that you were talking about, the transphobic comments that you were writing about--
OLIVIA: Oh, the thing that, oh, yeah. I mean, like I said, there'd been several. Like the one of his that had happened, another trans comic had written a piece just talking about her experiences with anti-trans bigotry, and he wrote this thing like, look at this crybaby, these people, you know, there's a fucking reason these people commit suicide and all this, you know, just like going off.
And it's like, Jesus, like really, you want someone to commit suicide because they're hurt by people being like prejudiced to them [chuckles]? Like, that's horrific. That, I mean, you know, and yeah, and then it just, I guess that was what got back. Anyway, you know, and that's, I've tried to not get into as many online fights as I used to.
PAUL: It's pretty futile. You're not going to change their minds.
OLIVIA: Yes, but it feels really good.
PAUL: For about five seconds--
OLIVIA: Yeah [chuckles].
PAUL: --and then I want more, then I want more.
OLIVIA: [Sighs] Sometimes it's just like I need to get my heart rate up and I don't do much cardio and so, it's what I've got [chuckles].
PAUL: Give me some other examples, if you can think of--
OLIVIA: Yeah.
PAUL: --things that help convey your experience.
OLIVIA: Definitely. Let's see. When I first moved out here, one of the first experiences I had, I went to one branch of the L.A. LGBT center that has like an outdoor courtyard, and I was just, you know, I was dressed pretty simply, just wearing like a top and a skirt, and some guy comes up to, like walks off, like I saw him walking down the sidewalk, then like double back and come back over to me, and be like, hey, do you know where all the trannies hang out?
And I'm just like [chuckles], uh, no. I just moved here. I don't, I don't know where all the trannies hang out--
PAUL: Wow.
OLIVIA: --we're not of hive mind. We're--
[Chuckling]
OLIVIA: I'm not queen tranny. I'm not, you know, I don't know where everyone is, you know. And I've had several creepy, usually creepy older men, that's who I get approach me, you know, thinking I’m a prostitute or wanting to kiss me or do gross things--
PAUL: Like you're desperate because you're marginalized--
OLIVIA: Yeah, exactly.
PAUL: --here's my chance.
OLIVIA: Yeah, I'm fat and I'm not conventionally feminine, and so that makes me an easy target. Like, here, oh, you'd be desperate for any sort of cock, I guess.
PAUL: What in that moment, do you remember what it felt like, what you thought?
OLIVIA: Oh, I mean, I was, I'm always at first like caught off guard, because I don't ever expect anyone to talk to me in public [chuckles]. I try to minimize that as much as possible.
And yeah, and so it's mostly just a bun-, it's shock and it's, I try, you know, my main, I react to everything by laughing, so there's usually a little bit of me laughing at whatever is happening, and yeah, then just trying to blow them off as quick as possible so I can get away. I mean, there are definitely times when you feel threatened.
Like I've had guys follow me in the middle of the night, which is not great, you know, and that's pretty terrifying. But like, yeah, I've gotten pretty callous, though. I'm pretty good at, now I just kind of tell people to fuck off. I don't take anything. I carry a knife. I don't [chuckles], I don't want, it's like, okay, if you're going to try to do something, then just fucking try it so that I can move on with my night, please.
[Chuckling]
PAUL: What did it feel like the first time you put on clothes that felt authentic to you?
OLIVIA: Ah...
PAUL: Or did something that embraced the authentic you that you had been too afraid to do before.
OLIVIA: It's, ah, it's a complicated mix of emotions, especially, you know, back at the beginning, I still had a ton of deeply ingrained shame about the whole thing, so that was always there, you know, just like, God, this is, oh, this is so stupid--
PAUL: Oh, shame always gets a front-row seat.
OLIVIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
PAUL: It stands in line for tickets.
[Laughter]
OLIVIA: Yeah, so it's, it was shame but also like kind of realizing like, oh, oh, it's not, I guess it's not that bad [chuckles]. Like I had--
PAUL: The mirror didn't crack?
OLIVIA: Exactly. Like, I didn't, I had expectations of like, of, I don't know, feeling like more self-doubt and more self-loathing or, I don't know. I don't know what I expected--
PAUL: Like maybe a fear that, oh, my God, this is an even worse decision than staying in the closet?
OLIVIA: Yeah, exactly. I definitely had a lot of anxiety pre-coming out and like immediately post-coming out. I had a lot of anxiety about what's known as like passing, which is not a term that people have a lot of fondness for right now.
PAUL: Yeah.
OLIVIA: Because it's kind of a shitty concept, the idea of like passing or not, people not being able to tell that you're trans.
PAUL: Yeah. It's like success means being approved of.
OLIVIA: Exactly, success means, oh, now you're hidden in a different way.
PAUL: Right.
OLIVIA: Now you've gone through coming out of the closet and now you're back in a different closet where people will, where you're afraid people will find out about something.
PAUL: So, there would be a difference, then, between passing being your goal and passing being just a byproduct of you trying to express yourself as fully as you--
OLIVIA: Exactly. That was a big switch that I had to make in my mind, where I had to be like, I was at such, you know, I mean, I had to get to like rock bottom mentally before I even considered transitioning to begin with. I was at a very low place.
And then it just became like, you know, like even if I don't pass, like I'm happier being, you know, a, quote, like ugly woman, I'm happier being that than a depressed dude. Like it's, I'm, yeah, yeah, the way I put it to my therapist is like, I feel more comfortable being a fat chick than a fat dude. Like, it's just like it fits with my personality more.
PAUL: Give us the arc of the decision to come out, some snippets of coming out, and then the decision to transition and what that was like.
OLIVIA: So, the decision to come out, it came from doing like a ton of reading. Like, I've always been a researcher. I've always been someone who, you know, reads as much about whatever thing before I make any sort of leaps. And then it started with, I've got, pardon me, my best friend who lives in Indiana, we would hang out every day when I lived there, and just one day in the car I was like, so, I think I'm transgender [chuckles], you know, kind of, that was like literally how it came out, and he was like, okay, yeah, that's cool.
Like, and then it just kind of slowly went from there, and then I told my mom and she cried, but was fine with it after a short amount of time.
PAUL: Were her tears because she feared for your struggle or she was embarrassed or both?
OLIVIA: It was part of both, I think. She's got her own issues that she has a hard time, that she struggles with. Oh, I’m trying to think of what the right term, kind of the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses thing of just like, but it's more of, it's just kind of a culture that's perpetuated in the Midwest like of, oh, everyone, you know, you've got to do this thing, like, you know, or else people will look at you and people...
PAUL: Yeah. And I think different areas of the country, their thing of keeping up with is a little different than other areas--
OLIVIA: Yeah, definitely.
PAUL: --and me being from the Midwest, it's, you know, don't look too different.
OLIVIA: Exactly. It's you know that everyone is watching even if they're pretending like they're not watching, and they're like [chuckles], and they're taking note of everything and then they'll passive aggressively be like, so, I noticed that so-and-so is this, is that really going on, like, and so my mom is very conscious of all those things and so was very nervous about that sort of stuff and was nervous for me and, you know, didn't know if I knew what I was doing.
And so, we sought out a therapist and I found actually a trans woman who specializes in gender therapy and she was amazing.
PAUL: And this was in Indiana?
OLIVIA: Yeah, yeah.
PAUL: That's fantastic.
OLIVIA: I just, yeah, I just happened to have a friend of the family who was, who works in the psychiatric field and he was able to hook us up with this lady, and she was amazing and really helped me talk through my feelings and kind of understand the nuances of like, oh, well, gender doesn't have to be this. It can be, you know, your idea of what it means to be a woman is just as valid as anyone else's because there are a million different ways to be a woman. That's--
PAUL: And a kid may see you walking down the street and say, that's me, it's okay to do that.
OLIVIA: I mean, yeah [chuckles], it's true. I mean, yeah, any sort of representation is positive. It's like, oh, I'm glad that, you know, if that could happen, that would be great.
But, yeah, and so, then it just kind of went from there. And then a year later, I started taking hormone therapy, which is just a combination of estrogen and testosterone blockers. And then, yeah, and then I moved out here, and then that's really where, like I was out in Indiana except for at my jobs.
PAUL: Wouldn't it be funny if you came out in Indiana but were closeted in Los Angeles?
OLIVIA: Yeah [chuckles], yeah, I moved out here and then I went back into the closet for a little--
PAUL: It just didn't feel safe.
OLIVIA: You know, it was really, it's like it's a big, this place seems kind of repressed and so I just wasn't feeling comfortable with it.
[Chuckling]
PAUL: And, by the way, there are some great places in Indiana that are--
OLIVIA: Sure.
PAUL: --all of Indiana isn't like that. It's, Bloomington is great and Broad Ripple in Indianapolis is a pretty cool place.
OLIVIA: Yeah, Broad Ripple is cool. I, yeah, like there are, I really hate Indiana [chuckles], but that's mostly just me. Yeah, there are lots of, there's a place in Indianapolis called the Indianapolis Youth Group that I went to a little bit in high school that has an LGBT youth center.
And it was like, it was this tiny little house in Indianapolis [chuckles], and it was like, it looked like if you see a picture from, of the houses where people would like hide Jews during World War II, like, these like tiny little arch-roofed houses with little attics and we would meet in there and be like, oh, it's safe here, this is our safe space.
PAUL: Like the tiny-house movement.
OLIVIA: Yeah [chuckles], exactly.
PAUL: Have you seen those?
OLIVIA: Yeah, yeah. And like, and I tried to start a gay-straight alliance at my high school, but we got roadblocked by the principal, and so that ended up not happening. But yeah, so Indiana is not all bad, but it is pretty bad.
PAUL: So, the decision to transition, what were the things that went through your mind? Was it like a list of pros and cons, or was it just, yes, I want to do this, there's...
OLIVIA: Yeah. It basically came down to the point of like, of me recognizing that I'd had these feelings for so long and--
PAUL: And we're talking about physically transitioning, correct?
OLIVIA: Well--
PAUL: Or are you talking about coming out and--
OLIVIA: Yeah, coming out. Like transition is a broad term. Like, transition isn't just taking hormones. It's literally--
PAUL: No, I know. I'm asking in your particular case, are you talking about physically, my question was, the decision to physically transition, to do hormones.
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah. That was not even like, like once I decided that I wanted to come out and like start transitioning, I knew that hormones were on--
PAUL: Okay.
OLIVIA: --like hormones and surgery and everything like, was like, oh, this is on the table for the future. I just didn't know when I would get to it.
PAUL: And is it, I know it's a very personal question, but is it okay to ask what kind of physical transitioning you hope to do?
OLIVIA: Yeah, sure. Well, like I said, I've been on hormones for three years, or four years? Now I can't remember. Oh, my God. Been on hormones for about three to four years. I'd like to have gender-confirmation surgery, meaning bottom surgery. I'd like that. I'd like that soon [chuckles].
I would like, preferably I would like to be able to do that within the next year so I could have it done before I'm 30 and then just freely enjoy the rest of my 30s, but, you know, we'll see what happens with everything that's going on in the world.
PAUL: I imagine there are a lot of people that think transitioning is about what they prefer sexually.
OLIVIA: Yeah. Definitely. I know I did when I was first questioning and trying to, and coming out. There is a lot, like people do tend to lump gender and sexuality in together.
PAUL: I did when I started doing the podcast.
OLIVIA: Yeah, totally. Like it, and it's because, for so many people, those things are inexorably linked. You know, you have, you're certain in your gender and you're certain in your sexuality, and so those things kind of go hand in hand, but once you start questioning that, then all of the preconceived notions kind of just go out the window.
It was a difficult thing to figure out, though, and it was when I found out, I think, that, when I found out about that separation of gender and sexuality, that's when I really, that helped a lot. But I--
PAUL: Did you feel relief when you realized--
OLIVIA: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And like, and I do, like I have sexual attraction to men, but I do identify most, you know, as a lesbian because I'm really only emotionally attracted to women. So, it's like, and to find out that that's a legitimate orientation was definitely a relief, and I do think that people conflate those a lot.
PAUL: And I think there's also a lot of misunderstanding around people who are gender fluid or who are pansexual--
OLIVIA: Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PAUL: --and it's not a phase that you're going through, you know, because you're moody.
OLIVIA: Yeah, totally.
PAUL: It's just...
OLIVIA: It's, well, that's the thing, is like there's all these, people have these very gut-shot, like gut defensive reactions to like new terminology, and they feel like, and, you know, I see people being like, oh, why are we, why do we even put all these labels on things, you know, like why can't everybody just be people? And it's like, well, it's not for you [chuckles]. I--
PAUL: Sorry to make your life so burdened--
OLIVIA: I know.
PAUL: --by six new words.
OLIVIA: Oh, God, you've got to learn pansexual and polyamorous and gender fluid and all these things, like, oh, my God, it's the worst [chuckles]. And yeah, it's, the words are for us. You know, the words are for us to be able to go, oh, this, like this is how I'm making sense of myself in my head. Like, yeah, you know--
PAUL: I want to be seen.
OLIVIA: Yeah.
PAUL: Do you mind learning six words so I am a valid--
OLIVIA: Exactly. And I do--
PAUL: --member of society?
OLIVIA: Right. And I do simplify, I definitely simplify my words when I'm talking to people, and then people get confused by my simplifica-, like I, you know, I'm a transgender woman and I'm a lesbian, and that's too complicated for a lot of people.
PAUL: Mm-hmm.
OLIVIA: But then, you know, when you want to get specific, then people get more freaked out because you're using words that they're not used to.
PAUL: Are you sure you're not just doing this so that when you golf you can hit from the red tees?
OLIVIA: Yeah, that's, I mean, golfing is, I will admit, is a major motivator in most things in my life, especially my gender.
[Chuckling]
OLIVIA: I just am constantly looking to improve my golf game.
PAUL: How can I shave a couple strokes?
OLIVIA: Yeah. I just want to take two strokes off my golf swing, and that's it. And I feel like, you know, women have it a lot easier when it comes to golf, like I don't want to--
PAUL: The red tees are, what, a good 100 yards ahead of the white tees?
OLIVIA: The red tee, talk about the red pill, am I right, you know?
[Chuckling]
PAUL: Right now there are some listeners that are very confused, that don't know--
[Laughter]
PAUL: --are they being sarcastic? What are red tees? Does it have to do with menstruation?
OLIVIA: I don't know what red tees are [whispers].
PAUL: Yeah. It's the ladies' tees, what they call the ladies' tees in golf--
OLIVIA: I didn't know that--
PAUL: --which are always, it makes the hole shorter, so--
OLIVIA: Really?
PAUL: Yes, yeah.
OLIVIA: Golf?
PAUL: Hard to believe, golf is, has some traditions that are still there.
OLIVIA: I didn't know that [chuckles].
PAUL: Yeah. So, that was my joke. You're just doing it to hit from the red tees, which is actually, I think there's a joke-joke that's super old about that. Anyway--
OLIVIA: Yeah. Oh, I mean, there's every--
PAUL: I feel comfortable enough with you to let all the bad jokes out of my brain.
OLIVIA: That's fine. I can take them. I can take them.
PAUL: So, where were we before I brought everything to a standstill?
OLIVIA: [Chuckles] We were talking about golf, right? That was...
PAUL: Yeah.
OLIVIA: Yeah, I, I don't know, I lost my train--
PAUL: Oh, we were talking about people having to learn new words so that they could, and we were talking about your doing surgery--
OLIVIA: Hm, yeah.
PAUL: --and...
OLIVIA: Yeah. That's, and so, well, you were asking what I planned to do for physical transition, and that's, I think I, I want a, I want a vagina. They're cool. I'm a fan personally [chuckles].
PAUL: I'm a fan. I get the newsletter.
OLIVIA: Right? They're pretty nice. And, you know, and the ones they make nowadays are pretty spiffy, so it's like--
[Chuckling]
OLIVIA: You know, why not go in and get myself a new 2017 vagina and, you know?
PAUL: Do you know what the Blue Book on your cock is?
OLIVIA: [Laughs] Well, you know, what they do is, it's actually they repurpose it, so it'll be a refurbished cock.
PAUL: But they're not going to call it a used cock. They're going to call it a previously owned cock.
OLIVIA: Yes, exactly, yeah [chuckles].
PAUL: Because you get more money that way.
OLIVIA: Previously driven.
[Chuckling]
PAUL: What are some myths, to people who are new to these discussions, that you can kind of help illuminate?
OLIVIA: Totally.
PAUL: And I'm not excluding myself from that group.
OLIVIA: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's, I mean, there's a lot of myths around trans people. I mean--
PAUL: Or things you would like people to know. For instance, I didn't know how deeply offensive it can be, and I feel embarrassed even saying this, but I think it's important to say, inquiring as to whether somebody still has their penis or their vagina--
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely, yeah.
PAUL: --and I was, I felt so embarrassed. And now, I don't think I've ever asked somebody that, but I found myself wondering it, just like I used to want to know, is that person gay or not. It's none of my fucking business.
OLIVIA: That's the thing. It's, yeah, that is definitely, I mean, it's not necessarily a myth, but it is a common thing, of like people like starting conversations with you with, so what's going on in your pants?
PAUL: Right.
OLIVIA: And it [chuckles], and that's, that's not cool. Let's keep the pants talk to a minimum, because, yeah, it is, I mean, you're basically just saying, you know, it's like going up to one of your dude friends and being like, so how's your cock doing today, or you still have a penis, you doing good, [chuckles] everything's hanging--
PAUL: How long are you hard?
OLIVIA: Yeah, you know, on average, like how many times a day do you say you masturbate? Like, is it more than five, less than 20, you know, so it's one of those things.
Or like, you know, [chuckles] have you ever, there's not really an approp-, I was about to say, you know, do you still have your appendix, but that's like, I guess that's not quite the same, but it's similar. It's like you're asking about someone's like personal medical history--
PAUL: I think, to them, it seems like you're just asking, have you ever had your appendix out.
OLIVIA: Exactly, yeah. But it's really, it's much more, it's much more pointed, and it's also like, you've got to look at it from the perspective of someone who's been asked that question a million damn times, and it's like, I'm more than what I got going on in my pants, like--
PAUL: I am also my butthole.
OLIVIA: Yeah [chuckles]. I mean, please, if anything, we can all focus a lot more on my ass because it has so much--
PAUL: Yeah, it's the one thing that binds us all.
OLIVIA: It really is. Everyone has an asshole.
PAUL: We should, to bring the country together, we should have national butthole day and we just all look at each other's buttholes, get it over with, and go, why are we fighting?
[Chuckling]
OLIVIA: I got to tell you, I might abstain from that one. Not a, you know...
PAUL: I'm sorry, I thought you were a patriot.
OLIVIA: Yeah, [sighs] I'm not.
PAUL: I misjudged. I misjudged. So, go ahead [chuckles], myths.
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah, totally, myths.
PAUL: Or things you would like people to know.
OLIVIA: Yeah. That's a big one, don't just come up to us and talk about our genitals.
Also, a big thing is pronouns. Don't, I hear people say, you know, people will often either use the wrong pronouns for me or for, they'll refer to another trans person by incorrect pronouns or something, and their excuse is always like, well, it just seems so embarrassing to ask.
And I can guarantee you that no trans person, well, okay, I guess I can't say no trans person, will make you feel bad for asking what their pronouns are, because, as embarrassing as it might be to like ask that question, it's so much more embarrassing if you assume and guess wrong, and then you've got to do the whole apology dance and that's like embarrassing and frustrating, and like--
PAUL: Yeah. And I think by asking you're showing that you care.
OLIVIA: Yeah, exactly. And also, you should be asking that of your cis friends also, or maybe not your cis friends because you know what their pronouns would be, but like, you know, if you make it a habit to just start asking everybody what their pronouns are, then it kind of eliminates that sort of feeling like you're picking on someone, because I feel like, yeah, a lot of people are like, well, it feels like I'm like pointing out that they're trans.
It's like, well, yeah, but you're also doing that when you mis-gender someone and it's even worse and that hurts. So it's like, just ask.
PAUL: Yeah. And don't say it.
OLIVIA: Yeah. Never say it. You should never describe a human as an it.
PAUL: No.
OLIVIA: Like [chuckles] I'm just going to make that stand.
PAUL: I mean, that sounds obvious, and I suppose there aren't many people who listen to this podcast that would do that--
OLIVIA: Yeah.
PAUL: --but it doesn't hurt to mention.
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah, no. Definitely not, never call a trans person it. Oh, and also, they as a singular pronoun, that's a--
PAUL: When used in that context.
OLIVIA: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's actually just a singular pronoun now. Like, and people use it as a singular pronoun all the time and don't realize it. Like they'll say, oh, who is that, who's that person over there, they're cute, or something, you know, like, and not even realize, oh, I just used they as a singular. And it's, it's a real easy switch to make if you just realize, oh, language changes, and so now they is singular.
PAUL: Yeah.
OLIVIA: But yeah, those are the big ones. And then like, don't ask about people's like birth names or, you know, or if they've had a name change. Like, just kind of use, I guess I want to, I always want to say use common sense and, but then like, but then I'll get well-meaning people being, you know, coming up and, you know, saying embarrassing stuff, and then we have to have the apology dance and it's just always [chuckles] frustrating.
But yeah, like, basically, think about if you would ask like a cis person the same question and expect the same like type of answer, you know.
PAUL: And for people that don't know, cis is--
OLIVIA: Oh, yeah, yeah.
PAUL: --it means people who identify with the gender that they were assigned at birth.
OLIVIA: Right, yeah. It's short for cisgender. And--
PAUL: Was that correct, the way I described that?
OLIVIA: Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Yeah, I just kind of, I explain it as like it's, it's like the trans version of straight. It's like, instead of gay, you're straight. Instead of trans, you're cis.
And then there's everything in between of both of those terms, of all sorts of gender varying, gender neutral, agender, bigender, like there's a whole rainbow spectrum of gender identities. But, and they're all really hot and I like them all, so, yeah [chuckles].
PAUL: It's just so nice that our society is moving slowly in a direction where people can be more seen and heard and felt.
OLIVIA: Yeah, definitely.
PAUL: And get on to the other reasons they hate themselves.
OLIVIA: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, it's so nice to like not have the worry of my gender constantly hanging over my head, so I can focus more on how much of a lazy piece of shit I am--
PAUL: Exactly.
OLIVIA: --and, you know, and just how I never accomplish anything in my life and how I'm homeless and I live in an RV. Like, I focus on the concrete things that really matter.
PAUL: And how do you feel about now getting a 70% paycheck?
OLIVIA: Oh, you know, it's been--
PAUL: You excited about that?
OLIVIA: Yeah, it's been really good. Well, luckily, I, you know, I've now shifted to unemployment, so that's, so now I just get 70 cents to |
the previous year to their highest ever level, led by profits of $55 billion at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (601398.SS). China Construction Bank (601939.SS), Agriculture Bank of China (601288.SS) and Bank of China (601988.SS) filled the top four positions.
Banks in the United States made aggregate profits of $183 billion, or 20 percent of the global tally, led by Wells Fargo’s (WFC.N) earnings of $32 billion.
Banks in the eurozone contributed just 3 percent to the global profit pool, down from 25 percent before the 2008 financial crisis, the study showed. Italian banks lost $35 billion in aggregate last year, the worst performance by any country.
Banks in Japan made $64 billion of profit last year, or 7 percent of the global total, followed by banks in Canada, France and Australia ($39 billion in each country), Brazil ($26 billion) and Britain ($22 billion), The Banker said.
The magazine said ICBC kept its position as the world’s strongest bank, based on how much capital they hold - which reflects their ability to lend on a large scale and endure shocks.
China Construction Bank jumped to second from fifth in the rankings of strength and was followed by JPMorgan (JPM.N), Bank of America (BAC.N) and HSBC (HSBA.L).
ICBC, which took the top position last year for the first time, was one of four Chinese banks in the latest top 10.
Wells Fargo has this year jumped to become the world’s biggest bank by market value, after a surge in its share price on the back of sustained earnings growth. Its market value is $275 billion, about $75 billion more than ICBC.
The Banker said African banks made the highest returns on capital last year of 24 percent - double the average in the rest of the world and six times the average return of 4 percent at European lenders.ADVERTISEMENT
In an effort to show us our impact on the planet, NASA's Earth Observatory has a series of time-lapsed images from around the world. Each one shows the significant impact of humans have on the environment around them.
The Aral Sea is practically gone.
On the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is the Aral Sea. Once well supplied with water by the region's two major rivers, the sea lost its river sources in the 1960s when the Soviet Union undertook a massive water diversion project to irrigate its desert.
What was once the fourth largest basin in the world has basically dried up at this point. The black lines on the time-lapse below represent the Aral Sea's original borders from 1960.
We are STILL cutting down the Amazon at alarming rates.
Rondônia, Brazil was once home to 51.4 million acres of gorgeous, life-giving rainforest. In the last three decades, though, humans have gutted it.
According to NASA: "Clearing and degradation of the state's forests have been rapid: 4,200 square kilometers cleared by 1978; 30,000 by 1988; and 53,300 by 1998. By 2003, an estimated 67,764 square kilometers of rainforest — an area larger than the state of West Virginia — had been cleared."
We are moving mountains, and not figuratively.
West Virginia is full of mining companies trying to reach a thin layer of coal under the Appalachian Mountains. To manage this difficult task, they use a process called "mountaintop removal," which sounds innocent enough and like a rather impressive feat. But really they just use explosive to blow up the mountain tops, which seems like cheating. On top of that it is massacring the region's biodiversity and making its rivers toxic. Mitigation practices so far haven't worked. The time-lapse below shows mountaintop removal mine spreading in just one county — Boone County, West Virginia — from 1984 to 2013.
Remember the ozone layer? That's still a problem.
Our ozone layer protects us (and all life on Earth) from harmful sun rays. Before 1979, the recorded concentration of the ozone layer had not dipped below 220 Dobson Units, which is fine. Since then though, it's thinned dramatically. In a rare and potentially world-changing and glorious moment, governments came together in 1987 and agreed to phase out harmful "CFC" chemicals, which were causing the Ozone damage. This year scientists said they had evidence that the ozone might be recovering. Whoohoo! There is still, however, a long way to go. The time-lapse below shows the growth of the hole in the ozone over Antarctica.
It's getting really, dangerously hot in here.
The time-lapse below shows global temperatures for each decade, beginning with 1880. One thing is clear, the world is definitely getting warmer. According to NASA, whether the cause is human activity of natural variability — and the preponderance of evidence says it's humans — thermometer readings all around the world have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution."
This story, by Simran Khosla, originally appeared at GlobalPost.
More from GlobalPost...St. Paul, Minnesota (CNN) -- The long, complicated legal road for NFL players and owners kicked off in a federal courtroom Wednesday, as both sides made their case for and against lifting a lockout that could delay the start of the football season.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Susan Richard Nelson said she expected to make a decision in a couple of weeks.
The lockout is the result of an ongoing dispute between the NFL owners and the players who failed to reach a collective-bargaining agreement last month.
Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and seven other players have filed a lawsuit on behalf of other current and eligible NFL players against the league to halt the lockout, which could affect the start of the 2011-12 season scheduled for September 8.
What to expect from Brady v. NFL
They want a preliminary injunction to block the lockout. The players also want a future trial to determine if the NFL lockout is in violation of federal antitrust laws.
In his opening statement to the judge, the players' attorney James Quinn stressed the players face "irreparable harm" to their careers, income and health, if a preliminary injunction is not granted.
NFL attorney David Boies disagreed with that position.
"They say there is irreparable harm, we say there is not," Boies told the judge. "There are numerous factual disagreements between the parties."
Nelson asked several times whether an evidentiary hearing is necessary to resolve the factual disputes. But Quinn said, among other things, that would only "delay" this process.
The players present in the courtroom were Vincent Jackson of the San Diego Chargers, Ben Leber and Brian Robison of the Minnesota Vikings, Mike Vrabel of the Kansas City Chiefs, draft-eligible Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller and retired NFL player Carl Eller.
On Monday, Nelson agreed to combine Brady v. National Football League with another class-action lawsuit, Eller v. NFL, filed in March by a group primarily made up of retired NFL players.
That second lawsuit is "potentially more threatening" because the plaintiffs in Eller v. NFL are not bargaining members of the NFL's players union, the National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, and the NFL cannot argue that they engaged in bad faith during collective-bargaining discussions, according to SI.com's legal analyst Michael McCann.
"The NFLPA may be removed from the picture in Eller v. NFL, a point which would take away a key defense the NFL enjoys in Brady v. NFL," McCann said.
Last month, negotiations between the NFL and players union aimed at preventing a work stoppage broke down. The union decertified itself. By giving up their collective-bargaining rights, the players could file individual antitrust suits against the league and the owners. That move set the stage for a lengthy legal battle with owners.
At the time, the NFL accused the union of walking away from "a very good deal on the table."
If the players are locked out from playing in September, it would be the first NFL work stoppage since 1987, with months of labor and legal maneuvering for football fans already confused about how a $9 billion industry lacks enough money to satisfy everyone.
NFL prepares players for lockout
The heart of the issue between the players and the owners is how to divide the league's $9 billion in revenue.
Right now, NFL owners take $1 billion off the top of that revenue stream. After that, the players get about 60%.
The owners say that the current labor deal doesn't take into account the rising costs related to building stadiums and promoting the game. The players argue that the league has not sufficiently opened up its books to prove this point.
In addition, the owners also want to increase the season by two games, which some players are against because of the risk of injuries.
While star players earn millions of dollars each year, the median NFL salary is $790,000 and the average career lasts about four years.
A lockout also affects the league's employees: the receptionists, ticket salespeople and stadium workers. The New York Jets have announced that they will require all business-side employees to take a one-week unpaid leave each month during any lockout.
Poll: Who do you think is to blame?
The lockout will not stop the NFL Draft, which will proceed as scheduled on April 28-30, the league said.
All other regular off-season activity would cease, threatening to delay or cancel the start of the new season.
The teams might approach the draft a bit differently in the midst of a lockout, according to Steve Politi, a sports columnist for The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey.
"Teams might (pick) based on needs rather than the best players available, because who knows when they'll be able to address those needs on the free-agent market," Politi said.
It is possible for the NFL season to go forward with replacement players, but analyst McCann said that is not likely:
"Practical and legal hurdles would make doing so extremely unlikely," he said.
But it's still a possibility.
"The NFL might argue that if NFL players won't accept the league's best CBA (collective-bargaining agreement) offer, the league has no choice but to resume games with other players who are willing to play," he added.
CNN's Tricia Escobedo reported from Atlanta, and Chris Welch reported from St. Paul.Women in Burkina Faso are the first to gain access to a new, easy-to-use contraceptive injection that lasts for three months, costs $1, and could "transform women's lives" in the world's poorest countries, according to health officials.
The new Pfizer-developed contraceptive, Sayana Press, is a small, all-in-one disposable needle and syringe developed for populations where access to modern contraception is limited or nonexistent. It delivers a dose of the widely used drug Depo-Provera. Last week, a collaboration among Pfizer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (which also funds TakePart World), and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation was announced to expand the distribution of Sayana Press to 69 developing countries by 2020.
Access to contraceptives is crucial in the developing world. For those 69 countries alone, Sayana Press could prevent 77 million unintended pregnancies and 125,000 deaths during childbirth, according to a report released last year by Family Planning 2020, a global partnership organization focused on voluntary family planning.
“When women are able to plan their families, they are more likely to survive pregnancy and childbirth, to have healthier newborns and children, and to invest more in their families’ health and well-being,” said Dr. Chris Elias, president of Global Development Programs at the Gates Foundation, in a statement.
The program’s initial launch in the West African nation of Burkina Faso aimed to support women in one of the world's poorest countries, where nearly one-third of pregnancies are unintended, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization focused on reproductive health. Contributing factors include a lack of education; cultural traditions that emphasize natural family planning and give husbands control over what kind of contraception their wives use (only 8 percent of married women use modern contraception); and the illegality of abortion. The same study found that 64 percent of women surveyed said they wanted to avoid pregnancy but couldn’t because of lack of access to and the high cost of modern contraception.
“Sayana Press is now an option for women who have been at the margins of family planning access for way too long,” said Dr. Cathy Ndiaye, a project manager with PATH, a Seattle nonprofit that develops global health innovations. Ndiaye orchestrated the program in Burkina Faso and hopes it will be available to "any woman who chooses to use it.”
Another benefit of Sayana Press is that it can be easily administered in rural, nonclinical settings, making it accessible to more women. So far, results have been impressive: Nearly 6,000 women in Burkina Faso use the contraceptive, and for nearly 2,000 of these women, it’s the first time they’re using contraception.
To date, 75,000 Sayana Press units have been delivered to health clinics in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Uganda, and nearly 3,000 health providers have been trained to administer the contraceptive, according to the Gates Foundation. It hopes to see an additional 120 million women given access to family planning services in the next six years.
“This initiative is a major innovation in family planning service delivery,” said PATH President and CEO Steve Davis in a statement. “By making injectable contraceptives available at the community level, it offers more women control over the timing and spacing of their children and a better chance at a healthy life.”Nearly every product imaginable, from Band-Aids to KitchenAid mixers, is now available in pink, and Americans are constantly encouraged to buy these items to support the fight against breast cancer. So why is a Christian bookstore furiously pulling pink Bibles from its shelves? Because they raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which in turn funds Planned Parenthood's breast cancer programs.
CNN reports that in recent weeks conservative Christian groups were put in the strange position of rallying against a Bible after people complained that $1 from the sale of each "Here's Hope Breast Cancer Bible" goes to the Komen foundation. After conservatives attacked the group last summer for its association with Planned Parenthood, it released a statement explaining what its donations finance:
In all cases, Komen funding is used exclusively to provide breast cancer programs, including clinical breast exams conducted by trained medical personnel. It's important to note that Komen will only make grants to non-profit organizations. As many mammography providers are for-profit entities, we are only to fund mammography services through grants made to local non-profit service providers.
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According to The Nashville Tennessean, in the past five years, money provided by Komen allowed Planned Parenthood to perform 139,000 breast exams and 5,000 mammograms, which detected 177 cases of cancer.
This is a specific example of the women's health services provided by Planned Parenthood that have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. However, according to conservatives logic, the money Planned Parenthood takes from Komen is only freeing up funds for its nefarious abortion plot, so no money should go to the organization. This week LifeWay Christian Bookstores announced it's removing the Bible from its shelves, saying, "Though we have assurances that Komen's funds are used only for breast cancer screening and awareness, it is not in keeping with LifeWay's core values to have even an indirect relationship with Planned Parenthood."
Komen said in a statement that it's disappointed by LifeWay's decision because they money from the Bible sales would all be used to fund breast cancer programs, and LifeWay had pledged to donate $25,000. Komen has also said that it won't cut its ties to Planned Parenthood because they're committed to giving underpriviledged communities access to healthcare and, "will fund the facilities that can best meet those needs." LifeWay certainly has every right to recall the Bibles, but it's sad that depriving Planned Parenthood of money that won't even fund abortions is more important to the store than seeing more women get breast cancer screenings.
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Christian Bookstore Pulls Bible From Shelves, Anti-Abortion Advocates Celebrate [CNN]
Pink Bibles Pulled After Benefits Tied To Planned Parenthood [The Nashville Tennessean]On the sixth anniversary of the first infamous "Cablegate" by WikiLeaks, when it releases its first batch of sensitive US files, on November 28 2010, it has expanded its Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD) with 531,525 new diplomatic cables from 1979.
In a statement to coincide with the release of the cables, known as "Carter Cables III", Mr Assange explained how events which unfolded in 1979, had begun a series of events that led to the rise of ISIS.
He said: "If any year could be said to be the "year zero" of our modern era, 1979 is it."
Mr Assange said a decision by the CIA, together with Saudi Arabia, to plough billions of dollars into arming the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan to tackle the Soviet Union, had led to the creation of terror group al-Qaeda.
This, in turn, he said led to the 9/11 terror strikes, the invasion of Afghanhistan and Iraq by the US, and the creation of ISIS.In bad news for Monsanto, but good news for food safety advocates, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., has vowed to oppose a provision that protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks. The provision, dubbed "the Monsanto Protection Act" by activists for the benefit it would provide biotech giants like Monsanto, was sneaked into a broad spending bill and passed through Congress without appropriate review by the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees.
Via HuffPo's Ryan Grim:
The chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, pledged to oppose the extension of the so-called the Monsanto Protection Act, a victory for advocates who have been pressing for its repeal.
Stabenow made her pledge in a conversation with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who has been pushing the Senate to vote on an amendment to the farm bill that would repeal the provision. That vote was blocked by [Republican Sen. Cochran] and on Thursday morning the Senate voted to end debate and move to final passage.
When two senators have a pre-arranged public conversation on the Senate floor, it's known as a colloquy and is typically the bow that ties up a deal struck beforehand. While Merkley was unable to get a repeal vote, the colloquy is a significant win for him, with Stabenow promising she will oppose any attempt to extend the Monsanto Protection Act in backroom negotiations.Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants Indians to stop using cash for daily transactions and rely on mobile wallets, debit and credit cards and Aadhaar-based payments instead.
But how safe are cashless payments? What really are the threats that your hard-earned money can be subject to, if you transact digitally? Here’s all that you wanted to know.
Your data can be stolen: The entire online payment ecosystem relies on data, as bit and bytes replace hard physical currency. In October, just weeks before demonetisation, as many as 3.2 million debit cards were compromised in what was perhaps India’s biggest such security breach. Moreover, your debit or credit card can simply be cloned. A cashless society will require a robust and secure backend IT infrastructure, and the government will need to fill gaps here.
You may simply lose your mobile phone: If your mobile phone becomes your wallet, you may be left high and dry if you lose that or are pickpocketed. Mobile wallets effectively store money and anyone in possession of your mobile phone could use it to make purchases or transfer the money, especially if your phone is not password protected. It is for this reason that phone-based biometric authentication needs to become the norm for fool-proof security.
A cheque can bounce: Cases of bouncing cheques have been such a big problem in India that they have been clogging up the entire legal system. A cheque can bounce either for lack of funds or any other reason, and can lead to a disruption in payments. In January this year, the government notified the new Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill 2015, which allowed for a cheque bouncing case to be filed in a court at the place where it was presented for clearance, instead of the place of issue. Having said that, it can take a long time to get someone to pay up, hampering business activity.
Few laws protect online transactions: As VCCircle noted last week, India has simply not enacted any laws to come to consumers’ aid if they were to lose money as a result of online fraud. Although India does have a functioning Information Technology Act, there are no specific laws that deal with digital payments conducted via mobile wallets and other such devices. Moreover, companies that promote such wallets are classified as non-banking financial companies, which technically brings them under the ambit of the Reserve Bank of India. The government will, therefore, have to streamline regulations so as to guarantee an effective legal cover for such transactions.
Hack attacks, especially over open wireless networks: Although India has already leapfrogged ahead into the wireless era, airwaves remain vulnerable and can be hacked. Moreover, few people take care to password protect their home WiFi connections, giving potential hackers a chance to seize sensitive information.
Like this report? Sign up for our daily newsletter to get our top reports.Bannon told Rose that he will be President Trump's "wingman outside," now that he's left the White House and returned to his post as chairman of the administration-friendly Breitbart News. But it's hard to know whether Trump feels the same way about Bannon.
"The media image I think is pretty accurate. I'm a street fighter," Bannon told Charlie Rose in an interview to be broadcast on 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, Bannon's first extended interview since leaving the White House. Portions of the interview aired on CBS This Morning on Thursday.
In the same way that Anthony Scaramucci embraced the "Mooch" persona the media gave him, another former White House aide, Steve Bannon, has embraced the way he's been described, as something of a swashbuckling flamethrower.
In perhaps the newsiest bit of the partial transcript released in advance of the show airing on Sunday, Bannon said that National Economic Council director Gary Cohn should "absolutely" have resigned after criticizing Trump's comments about Charlottesville.
READ MORE John Oliver on Bannon Exit: Nothing Will Change Until Trump Leaves
"If you don't like what he's doing and you don't agree with it, you have an obligation to resign," Bannon said.
Bannon, who ran Trump's campaign for the last few months before the election and came into the White House as chief strategist, defended Trump's controversial remarks about the melee in Charlottesville that left one person dead. "By the way, after the Charlottesville situation, that's what I told [chief of staff General John Kelly], I was the only guy that came out and tried to defend him," he said. "I was the only guy that said, 'He's talking about something, taking it up to a higher level.'"
But Bannon said that "neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates and the Klan" are "absolutely awful," even though Trump, in his remarks, was seen as equivocating the behavior of far-right groups and progressive groups that came to counter-protest in Charlottesville.
READ MORE Inside Steve Bannon's First Day Back at Breitbart News
Later in the day CBS Evening News released another preview of the interview, this time with Bannon saying "the Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election."
When asked to clarify who exactly he was referring to, he explained, "I think Mitch McConnell, and to a degree, Paul Ryan. They do not want Donald Trump's populist, economic nationalist agenda to be implemented. It's very obvious."
In the clip, Rose counters Bannon's comments by saying, "You are attacking on many fronts people who you need to help you to get things done."
In response, Bannon said, "They're not going to help you unless they're put on notice. They're going to be held accountable if they do not support the President of the United States."
"And so therefore, now that you're out of the White House, you're going to war with them?" the host asks. To this the ousted White House aid replies, "Absolutely."
Sept. 7, 6:11 p.m. Updated to include new clip and quotesPatricia Llewellyn, the influential producer who discovered Britain’s Jamie Oliver and transformed him into The Naked Chef, while also kick-starting the TV career of Gordon Ramsay, has died. The former chief of Optomen stepped down in 2016 and had been battling a long illness. She passed away over the weekend at age 55.
Llewellyn joined UK indie Optomen in 1994 and in 1996 introduced the now classic cooking show Two Fat Ladies presented by Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson. In 1999, she made Oliver a star with The Naked Chef, and in 2004 Optomen produced Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares for Channel 4. Llewellyn won BAFTAs for both the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares and for The Naked Chef. She also co-founded Ramsay’s production company One Potato Two Potato in 2008.
Llewellyn took over as Managing Director at Optomen in 2005 and in 2010, both Optomen and One Potato Two Potato were acquired by All3Media in a £40M deal.
Her other credits include Ramsay’s The F Word and Hotel Hell. She was also an exec producer on the U.S. versions of Masterchef and Masterchef Junior.
Jamie Oliver remembered Llewellyn on Instagram:
On its website, Optomen wrote of her passing:In an interview on Newsmax today, Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., criticized President Obama’s recent summit on violent extremism as a “feel-good thing on something that’s very serious” and contended that what America really needs to do to fight extremism at home and abroad is to stop “taking God out of this country.”
Yoho told host J.D. Hayworth and fellow guest Michael Flanagan, both former GOP congressman: “Congressman Flanagan said we’ve got to get God back into a lot of these principles in our country that we were founded on, and I agree. We’re taking God out of this country, they’re fighting for their God, and all I can say is the person who has God on their side is going to win this. And I think we all need to huddle around and get back to some basics in this country.”Bettmann via Getty Images
Trump’s win and America’s divisiveness have left some Americans feeling hopeless ― but this country has reckoned with this kind divisiveness before. We’ve gone through Civil War, after all. And Reconstruction. And those decades of Jim Crow that gave way to what we know today as the Civil Rights Movement, an era that more and more feels eerily similar to the one we’re living in today.
Since his assassination in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has gone from being an ordinary man fighting for a righteous cause, to a man who has become as synonymous with the American story as the founding fathers. The memory of Dr. King has been used as a shorthand for morality.
But also, Dr. King’s legacy and what he stood for has been watered down, oversimplified, and appropriated to justify the very things he fought against. His words have been twisted in order to denounce the Black Lives Matter movement, and bolster anti-transgender bathroom bills.
No one can really presume to know how Dr. King would have actually felt about the current state America were he still alive, but what one can do is make healthy assumptions based on the life he lived, and the things he said. Martin Luther King likely would have been horrified by Trump’s America.
As Trump’s inauguration looms closer and closer, landing just a day after we celebrate Dr. King, what we should actually take away from his legacy are not the sanitized platitudes about “peace and equality,” but the burning fire for change and most of all action that made Dr. King the great leader that he was.
His lessons went far beyond “I Have A Dream.”
1. This is not normal.
We cannot settle into a false sense of complacency and accept the next four years as our “new normal.” In 1964, Dr. King wrote about the dangers of electing Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, and his words are eerily resonant today. “While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist,” King said. “His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand.” Goldwater lost to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, but today, we’re living in the reality that Dr. King warned against. What we should take away from King’s words, then, is that there is possibly even more at stake today than there was back then.
PhotoQuest via Getty Images Dr. King meeting with Lyndon B. Johnson.
2. Colorblindness isn’t the solution, but focusing on our economic similarities might be.
So many of the white people who voted for Trump in support of the vague notion of making America “great” again were people who arguably voted against their own interests. In the days since his win, stories about Trump voters who now fear the loss of their Obamacare and reproductive rights have emerged.Trump’s campaign fed on the distrust of the “other,” be they undocumented immigrants or BLM protestors. But what Dr. King knew, and what we shouldn’t lose sight of, is that selling the narrative of fear of the other is simply a tactic to distract from the social issues that plague us all.
In his 1968 sermon “The Drum Major Instinct,” Dr. King talked about his interaction with white prison guards during a night in jail. During a conversation about race, the guards informed King of their measly salary.
Vernon Merritt III via Getty Images Dr. King sits with others during a march to encourage voter registration.
“You ought to be marching with us. You’re just as poor as negroes,” King said.
“You have been put in the position of supporting your oppressors, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress negroes in American society oppress poor white people too. And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big, when you are so poor you can hardly send your children to school.”
3. Everyone has to mobilize in the movement for equality.
In Trump’s America, a clear course of action in combating the possibly harmful legislation and rhetoric to come will be vital. While social media has changed and even enhanced activist work, Dr. King’s on-the-ground mobilization is something to be emulated. Between 1961 and 1968, the SCLC’s Citizenship Education Program trained over 8,000 people in organizing. These people then shared what they had learned in their own communities, sparking a chain-reaction of change. What Dr. King understood more than anyone was that in order to end segregation and secure basic rights for black people across the nation, the movement would need to include a large cross section of Americans. This meant people of different racial backgrounds, education, and economic classes. This meant that white people who were against Jim Crow had to be just as vocal, just as willing to to speak out against injustice as blacks were.
AP Dr. King in Selma, Alabama.
4. All forms of protest should be understood.
During his campaign, Donald Trump often dismissed and incited disdain for the Black Lives Matter movement. He was completely unwilling to actually engage with protestors, and in turn his followers vilified and condemned the protests in cities like Ferguson and Charlotte. Again, Dr. King’s memory was often invoked as a way to shame protestors and rioters alike. But one thing to know about Dr. King is that he didn’t shame or dismiss the frustrations of black people that erupted in unrest.
Robert W. Kelley via Getty Images Dr. King during the March on Washington.
“Urban riots... may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community,” King said in a 1967 speech. He explained that riots are a “distorted form of social protest,” and that looting “enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse.”
He added: “But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act.”
5. The concept of love.
After Trump’s win, there was a swell of think pieces asking those who felt angered or threatened by the prospect of a Trump presidency to understand and even empathize with the people who voted for him. But how do we empathize with people who cannot show empathy for us? Dr. King is best known for his message of love and non-violence towards the oppressor. But King was not necessarily a pacifist. His commitment to love and non-violence was not idealistic ― it was a calculated tactic. When he talked about love, King often referred to “agape,” the highest form of love, a spiritual love. In a 1957 essay Dr. King explained the concept this way:
“In speaking of love we are not referring to some sentimental emotion. It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense … When we speak of loving those who oppose us we speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word Agape. Agape means nothing sentimental or affectionate; it means understanding, redeeming goodwill for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. ”
The love Dr. King preached was not a love that asks the oppressed to ignore or deny their own oppression in the interest of unity. Instead, it’s a love of self and of society that compels the oppressed to stand up for what’s right for the good of all people.
Bettmann via Getty Images MLK delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech.Five people were killed after a pickup truck slammed into a freight train.Authorities said they were attempting to pull over the driver of a Chevrolet Avalanche on Tuesday, but the driver fled and wasn't spotted again until Wednesday morning.Police in Sanford asked for assistance from the Seminole County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said they used a helicopter to capture video of the vehicle speeding down several roads at speeds approaching 74 mph before hitting the stopped train.Investigators said a deputy was near the railroad crossing and used stopsticks to slow it down, and just seconds later, the driver hit the crossing gates and five people died.Authorities with the Sheriff's Office said they were keeping a safe distance from the pickup truck at the time of the crash."It did not meet the criteria for a vehicle pursuit. A pursuit is the continued attempt to apprehend a vehicle," Seminole County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Don Rufo said.The Memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist by Z Magazine
Monday Jul 6th, 2009 5:19 PM
A Review of 'Forty Years in the Struggle; The Memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist,' by Chaim Leib Weinberg; English Translation by Naomi Cohen; Edited by Robert Helms; Litwin Books, 2008.
Forty Years in the Struggle: The Memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist
Book Review by Hans Bennett
(Z Magazine, July/August 2009)
The “Old City” neighborhood of Philadelphia is renowned for its many historic sites related to the “founding fathers” and the US colonial era. Yet, very few know about this same neighborhood’s significant anarchist history. Since 1997, local historian Robert Helms has led an “Anarchist Historical Walking Tour” that presents this history of resistance from the poor and working classes, who viewed the rhetoric about “American Democracy” as a fraud, and organized themselves to challenge the power of the ruling class. Helms is the editor of the just-released English translation of Chaim Leib Weinberg’s (1869-1939) autobiography: Forty Years in the Struggle; The Memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist.
Weinberg’s autobiography was originally written in Yiddish and released in 1952. It is written by Marcus Graham, and is based on Graham’s four weeks of conversation with Weinberg in 1930. Described by fellow anarchist Emma Goldman as “an eloquent Yiddish agitator,” Weinberg never wrote or published a word, but gave thousands of speeches--all in Yiddish. Helms writes in the book’s introduction that Weinberg “was an incredible orator and story teller: these were the talents that set him apart from most of his contemporaries.” Helms notes that “during Weinberg’s heyday, Jews accounted for the majority of Philadelphia’s anarchists,” and the book “presents a side of Philadelphia’s Jewish life and social movements that has, until now, been unavailable in English.”
Weinberg was born in Tshekhanovtse, Grodne Province in Russia. He first left and moved to London when he was 18, following his mother’s death. He returned several years later, but at 21, he moved to the United States, where he struggled to support himself as a peddler and eventually returned to Russia nine months later, where his father arranged a marriage for him, but Weinberg writes that the “matchmaking proved to be worse than my suffering in England and America.” Subsequently, he moved back to the US and learned cigar-making, a job he continued throughout his life. He first worked in North Carolina, where he soon became involved in organizing a union, got a taste of public speaking, and was introduced to the writings of the German anarchist Johan Most, whose writings and speeches influenced him greatly.
Weinberg soon moved to New York City where he got a job at a union shop making cigars for $10/week, but soon ended up in Philadelphia, where he continued cigar-making, and helped organize the city’s first Jewish bakers union and the first Jewish cigar-makers union. Weinberg became very involved in public debates and helped to form a new group founded by workers, called the “Knights of Liberty,” with which Weinberg writes that “the history of the Jewish anarchist movement in Philadelphia truly began.” Weekly public forums were organized and speakers were brought from New York and elsewhere. Weinberg also became involved in organizing the first Jewish cooperative organization in the US |
Nutritional limitation [11], [12] and exposure to sub-lethal doses of pesticides [13] – [16], in particular, may alter susceptibility to or severity of diverse bee parasites and pathogens.
We further tested effects of pesticides in pollen on measured Nosema prevalence using a generalized linear mixed model with a bee’s Nosema status as the response variable, the source hive and pesticide variables as fixed effects, and the pollen sample fed to the bee as a random effect. Collinearity prevented developing a full model to investigate in detail how pesticides and pollen source affect bees’ susceptibility to Nosema infection. We thus selected for analysis two measures that vary with crop and are not nested: total pesticide diversity and fungal load. To graph logistic regression results in a meaningful manner, we followed recent recommendations [42], [43] and a modification of the logi.hist.plot function in the R popbio package [44] that shows our mixed model output.
To look for potential effects of individual pesticides on susceptibility to Nosema infection, we calculated the relative risk and its 95% confidence interval for bees becoming infected after consuming pollen with a specific pesticide. Relative risk measures the chance of developing a disease after a particular exposure [41], here each pesticide. A relative risk value of one indicates that the probability of infection is equal between exposed and non-exposed groups.
The Nosema infection experiment is similar to published methods [26]. We obtained 210 disease-free honey bees from each of three healthy colonies at the Bee Research Laboratory. Each bee was placed into one of 21 groups upon emergence, with the ten bees in the same group and from the same colony housed together in a wooden hoarding cage (12×12×12 cm). Each group of bees was fed 1 g of pollen mixed with 0.5 mL of syrup (1∶1 sucrose to water by weight), which they fully consumed in 2–4 days. These pollen cakes were placed in small petri dishes with the laboratory cages. Pollen from either one of the crop fields or one of two control diets were used. The pollen control group (“BRL”) was fed a mixed pollen diet prepared by the USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory. This pollen was collected in the desert Southwest (Arizona Bee Products, Tucson, AZ) and tested as pesticide-free by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service prior to use. A protein control group was fed an artificial honey bee pollen substitute, MegaBee®. The Nosema inoculum was freshly prepared by mixing Nosema spores isolated from an infected colony (details provided in [26] ) with 50% sucrose solution to obtain a concentration of ca. 2 million spores per 5 mL. We fed 5 mL of the Nosema inoculum to each cage during the first two days of adult life, then provided bees with ad libitum access to clean 50% (w/v) sucrose solution. We collected bees 12 days after infection and examined them for the presence or absence of N. ceranae spores by homogenizing individual abdomens in 1 mL distilled water. Here we focus only on infection prevalence, the number of individuals with Nosema spores.
The total number of pesticides present and total load did not meet parametric assumptions. We thus analyzed how these variables differ between crops using non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis tests. When separated by category and log-transformed, pesticide loads did meet parametric assumptions. We thus determined whether load varied by pesticide category using a general linear mixed model with sample as a random effect, to control for the fact that our regression included one data point per category from each sample. Insufficient degrees of freedom prevented us from expanding this model to include crop. We thus asked whether the pesticide load and diversity varied with crop for each category using one Kruskal-Wallis test per category and applying a sequential Bonferroni correction [40] across pesticide categories to control for multiple comparisons.
We determined the identity and load of pesticide residues present in pollen samples collected from all crops (except almond). For each field sampled (n = 19), we pooled pollen from the three hives for analysis. One early-season cranberry field and one cucumber field did not yield sufficient pollen in traps for pesticide analysis. Methods follow the LC/MS-MS and GC/MS methods for pollen analysis described in Mullin et al. [27]. We used these data to determine the total number of pesticides detected in each sample, each sample’s total pesticide load, and the diversity and load of pesticides in each of 10 categories: insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and several insecticide types (carbamates, cyclodienes, formamidines, neonicotinoids, organophosphates, oxadiazines and pyrethroids). To permit comparison between categories with different numbers of elements, we calculated diversity as the proportion of pesticides from a category found in a given sample, and load as the total load divided by the number of chemicals in that category. We only calculated diversity for categories with at least three chemicals.
For each subsample, we estimated pollen diversity as the number of different pollen colors collected from that bee hive. We also calculated the proportion, by weight, of the pollen that was identified as belonging to the target crop’s genus. Many samples could only be identified to genus, so assessing target genus rather than target crop permitted a more inclusive analysis. We used Kruskal-Wallis tests to determine whether either of these measures differed with the crop in which sampled bee hives were placed.
Each 5 g pollen subsample was dehydrated in a drying oven at 40°C. We considered a sample to be dry when its weight did not change between two consecutive time points (measured every 4–6 h). Typically pollen dried in 12–18 h. To identify pollen types collected by the bees, we sorted the pollen in each subsample by color, quantified each color by comparing to Sherwin-Williams® color palettes, re-weighed after color separation and fixed each color from each subsample on a separate slide. We prepared each slide by grinding 2 pollen pellets in 2 mL water and letting them dissolve to form a slurry. We placed a small amount of slurry on a slide with a drop of silicon oil, and covered slides and sealed with clear nail polish after letting air bubbles escape for 48 h. We visually identified each pollen type under 400x magnification by comparing with published reference collections [34] – [36]. Visual identification of pollen grains through comparison with voucher or reference specimens is standard in pollination ecology [37], [38]. Similarities between closely related pollens, however, sometimes prevent identification to genus or species with this method [39]. Because of this limitation, we assumed that all pollen collected in apple (Malus domestica) orchards that was identified as Malus sp. was from apple trees, and that all pollen in the Cucurbitaceae family collected in cucumber (Cucurbitaceae, Cucumis sativus) fields was from cucumber flowers.
We measured the wet weight of each pollen sample, and compared the quantity of pollen collected by hives in different crops via a Kruskal-Wallis test followed by a post-hoc non-parametric Tukey-type test (using the R package nparcomp [33] ). We then divided each sample into three portions. A 5 g subsample was sorted by color and then each group of similarly colored pollen pellets were identified (see below); a 3 g subsample was sent to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service Laboratory in Gastonia, NC for pesticide analysis; and a 10 g subsample was sent to the USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory (Beltsville, MD) for the Nosema infection study. Because almond pollen was collected after all other pollens, we were unable to include it in the pesticide analysis and Nosema infection study. In cases where the total amount of pollen collected from a single colony was less than 6 g all the pollen was used for pesticide analysis.
Because our first round of pollen trapping in cranberry fields yielded little pollen, we collected pollen from each hive in cranberry fields twice: early in the flowering season and late in the season. We separate these samples in data analyses, referring to them as “Cranberry early” and “Cranberry late.”
We collected pollen carried by foraging honey bees returning to the hive for nine hives in seven crops: almond, apple, blueberry, cranberry, cucumber, pumpkin, and watermelon ( Table 1 ). For each crop, we selected three fields that were separated by at least 3.2 km. Hives were deployed in these fields for pollination services based on growers’ needs. Within each selected field, we chose the three honey bee hives with the strongest foraging forces by observing flight in the bee yard for 5–10 min, and attached plastic pollen traps (Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, Moravian Falls, NC) to these hives. Pollen traps collect the pollen pellets bees carry on their hind tibiae in flattened regions called corbiculae. Bees use this pollen to make food for larvae inside the nest. We checked traps after three days, and removed them if they contained at least 5 g of pollen. Traps with less than 5 g remained on hives until they contained 5 g of pollen or for 10 days. We placed pollen removed from traps in 50 mL centrifuge tubes and stored the samples on ice until they could be transferred to a −29°C freezer in the lab.
A pollen sample’s fungicide load significantly affected Nosema prevalence among bees fed that pollen ( Fig. 5 ; GLMM, likelihood ratio test: χ 2 = 5.8, df = 1, p = 0.02), but pesticide diversity did not (χ 2 = 1.7, df = 1, p = 0.19). A bee’s source colony, included as a blocking variable, also did not affect Nosema prevalence (χ 2 = 2.0, df = 2, p = 0.36). Replacing fungicide load with chlorothalonil load obtained the same result (chlorothalonil load: χ 2 = 5.3, df = 1, p = 0.02; pesticide diversity: χ 2 = 1.5, df = 1, p = 0.23; source colony: χ 2 = 2.0, df = 2, p = 0.36; fungicide load model AIC = 612.71, chlorothalonil load model AIC = 613.15). Chlorothalonil was also the most abundant fungicide in our samples, and comprised 50.0±10.2% (mean ± se) of the per sample total fungicide load.
147 of the 630 bees (23.3%) fed Nosema spores became infected. 22 of the 35 pesticides (62.9%) found in our pollen samples had relative risk values significantly different from 1 ( Table 2 ). 8 pesticides (22.9%) were associated with increased Nosema prevalence, while the remaining 14 were associated with decreased Nosema prevalence. Two of the three detected pesticides applied by beekeepers to control hive mites (marked with a * in Table 2 ) had a relative risk larger than two, indicating Nosema prevalence in bees fed pollen containing those chemicals (DMPF and fluvalinate) was more than double the Nosema prevalence in bees that did not consume these chemicals. Of the seven pesticides found in pollen from over half, or at least four, of the crops, the majority were associated with higher Nosema prevalence in bees that consumed them. Both control diets had relative risk values not significantly different from one.
After adjusting for multiple comparisons, pesticide loads did not vary by crop for any pesticide category ( Fig. S1 ). We calculated pesticide diversity within only those categories containing three or more chemicals. Fungicide and neonicotinoid diversities varied by crop, but diversities of other pesticide categories did not ( Fig. 3 ).
Bars show the total number of pesticides in each category found in each crop. Kruskal-Wallis test statistics comparing pesticide diversity between crops are: fungicides, H 6 = 16.1, p = 0.01; cyclodienes, H 6 = 6.9, p = 0.33; neonicotinoids, H 6 = 17.9, p = 0.007; organophosphates, H 6 = 14.3, p = 0.03; pyrethroids, H 6 = 7.8, p = 0.26. We only compared pesticide diversities for categories containing at least three chemicals. Sequential Bonferroni adjusted critical values are: 0.01, 0.0125, 0.0167, 0.025, 0.05. A * indicates that the total number of pesticides varied between crops within that pesticide category.
We found insecticides and fungicides in all 19, and herbicides in 23.6% of, pollen samples. Insecticides present in pollen collected by the bees came from seven categories. We found oxadiazines in 10.5%, neonicotinoids in 15.8%, carbamates in 31.6%, cyclodienes in 52.6%, formamidines in 52.6%, organophosphates in 63.2%, and pyrethroids in 100% of pollen samples. Both neonicotinoids and oxadiazines were present only in pollen collected by bees in apple orchards ( Figs. 3, S1 ). Within a sample, pollen fungicide loads were significantly higher than loads of herbicides or any of the insecticide categories ( Fig. 4 ; GLMM, likelihood ratio test: χ 2 = 121.9, df = 8, p<0.0001).
All pollen collected in this study contained pesticides ( Table 2 ; mean ± se = 9.1±1.2 different chemicals, range 3–21). Pesticide loads ranged from 23.6 to 51,310.0 ppb (11,760.0±3,734.2 ppb). The maximum pesticide concentration in any single pollen sample exceeded the median lethal dose (LD 50, the dose required to kill half a population within 24 or 48 h) for esfenvalerate and phosmet ( Table 2 ). The number of pesticides detected in trapped pollen varied by the crop in which the bee hives were located (Kruskal-Wallis test: H 6 = 12.96, p = 0.04), but the total pesticide load did not (H 6 = 11.21, p = 0.08)( Fig. 2 ).
Bee colonies collected different amounts of pollen in the different crops ( Table 1 ; Kruskal-Wallis test: H 7 = 29.6, p = 0.0001). Pollen diversity, estimated by quantifying the number of differently colored pollen pellets collected in pollen traps, varied by crop ( Table 1 ; Kruskal-Wallis test: H 7 = 23.5, p = 0.0014). The proportion of pollen that bees collected from the target crop, except for almond and apple, was low (mean±se = 0.33±0.05; Table S1 ). Like pollen weights, this proportion dramatically differed between crops ( Fig. 1 ; H 7 = 44.86, p<0.0001). Notably, none of the pollen trapped from hives in blueberry, cranberry (early and late), pumpkin or watermelon fields was from the target crop.
Discussion
The results from this study highlight several patterns that merit further attention. First, despite being rented to pollinate specific crops, honey bees did not always return to the nest with corbicular pollen from those crops. These findings support other research with honey bees and native bees indicating that in some crops native bees may be more efficient pollinators [45]. Second, fungicides were present at high levels in both crop and non-crop pollen collected by bees. Third, two fungicides (chlorothalonil and pyraclostrobin), and two miticides used by beekeepers to control varroa infestation (amitraz and fluvalinate) had a pronounced effect on bees’ ability to withstand parasite infection. Research on pesticides’ effects on bee health has focused almost exclusively on insecticides (e.g. fipronil [15] and the neonicotinoids imidacloprid [13], [14] and thiacloprid [15]). Finally, several individual pollen samples contained loads higher than the median lethal dose for a specific pesticide. While multiple studies have shown negative effects of specific pesticides on honey bee individual and colony health [14], [15], [22], [26] and high pesticide exposure [27], [28], ours is the first to demonstrate how real world pollen-pesticide blends affect honey bee health.
Our results show that beekeepers need to consider not only pesticide regimens of the fields in which they are placing their bees, but also spray programs near those fields that may contribute to pesticide drift onto weeds. The bees in our study collected pollen from diverse sources, often failing to collect any pollen from the target crop (Fig. 1). All of the non-target pollen that we were able to identify to genus or species was from wildflowers (Table S1), suggesting the honey bees were collecting significant amounts of pollen from weeds surrounding our focal fields. The two exceptions to this were hives placed in almond and apple orchards. Almond flowers early in the year, and almond orchards are large, thus providing honey bees with little access to other flowers. Honey bees rarely collect pollen from blueberry or cranberry flowers, which only release large quantities of pollen after being vibrated by visiting bees (buzz pollination) [46], [47]. Honey bees are not capable of buzz pollination and thus are unlikely to collect large amounts of pollen from these plants to bring back to the colony. Bumble bees, which can buzz pollinate, collect mainly blueberry pollen when placed in blueberry fields [48]. Interestingly, the two crops that saw high levels of pollen collection by honey bees are Old World crops that evolved with honey bees as natural pollinators. Crops native to the New World, where honey bees have been introduced, yielded little or no pollen in our samples.
It is possible that bees were exposed to pesticides while collecting nectar from our focal crops, even when we detected no pollen from those crops. Because pollen traps collect only corbicular pollen intended for consumption by the colony, our data indicate only flowers from which bees are actively collecting pollen and not all flowers they visited. Several studies have detected pesticides in floral nectar and pollen [49], [50], sometimes in concentrations with sublethal effects on honey and bumble bees [51], [52]. Honey bees may collect nectar from blueberry and cranberry flowers via legitimate visits or “robbing” through slits cut at the base of flower corollas [53]. However, exposure to pesticides via nectar may be unlikely in cucumber, pumpkin and watermelon. Beekeepers often report poor honey production when their hives are placed in these crops (pers. obs.).
The combination of high pesticide loads and increased Nosema infection rates in bees that consumed greater quantities of the fungicides chlorothalonil and pyraclostrobin suggest that some fungicides have stronger impacts on bee health than previously thought. Nosema infection was more than twice as likely (relative risk >2) in bees that consumed these fungicides than in bees that did not. Research on the sub-lethal effects of pesticides on honey bees has focused almost entirely on insecticides, especially neonicotinoids [54]. In our study, neonicotinoids entered the nest only via apple pollen. However, we found fungicides at high loads in our sampled crops. While fungicides are typically less lethal to bees than insecticides (see LD 50 values in Table 2), these chemicals still have potential for lethal [55] and sub-lethal effects. Indeed, the fungicides chlorothalonil (found at high concentrations in our pollen samples) and myclobutanil increases gut cell mortality to the same degree as imidacloprid [56], an insecticide with numerous sub-lethal effects (e.g. [21], [57]). Exposure to fungicides can also make bees more sensitive to acaricides, reducing medial lethal doses [58]. In our study, consuming pollen with higher fungicide loads increased bees’ susceptibility to Nosema infection. This result is likely driven by chlorothalonil loads. The pesticide with the highest relative risk was the fungicide pyraclostrobin. Bees that consumed pollen containing pyraclostrobin were almost three times as likely (relative risk = 2.85, 95% CI 2.16–3.75; Table 2) than bees consuming pollen without this chemical to become infected after Nosema exposure. Our results show the necessity of testing for sub-lethal effects of pesticides on bees, and advocate for testing more broadly than the insecticides that are the targets of most current research.
A similarly large increased risk of Nosema infection was associated with consumption of DMPF and fluvalinate, miticides applied by beekeepers to help control the highly-destructive Varroa mite [3]. The path from in-hive application of these miticides to pollen on foragers returning to the hive is unclear. An increasingly popular practice, rotating combs out of hives to remove accumulated pesticides, is expected to reduce miticide levels in hives, and will hopefully decrease spread of these chemicals to the environment. Potential extra-nest sources, however, would slow efforts to reduce miticide accumulation and slow the development of resistance to these chemicals.
Insecticide relative risk values showed an interesting pattern: directional separation by insecticide family. Within a family, relative risk values significantly different than one were almost all in the same direction. The formamidine (DMPF) and two of the three the pyrethroids (bifenthrin and fluvalinate, but not esfenvalerate) were associated with an increased risk of Nosema infection. The carbamate (carbaryl), all neonicotinoids (acetamiprid, imidacloprid and thiacloprid), organophosphates (coumaphos, diazinon and phosmet) and the oxadiazine (indoxacarb) were associated with reduced risk of Nosema infection. Esfenvalerate and coumaphos have previously been found to be associated with apiaries without Colony Collapse Disorder [59]. These patterns suggest that insecticides’ modes of action have differential effects on honey bee immune functioning. Because of the relatively small number of pesticides we found in each insecticide family, however, additional sampling is necessary to determine how robust this pattern is.
The large numbers of pesticides found per sample and the high concentrations of some pesticides are concerning. First, two pollen samples contained one pesticide each at a concentration higher than the median lethal dose. Esfenvalerate (LD 50 = 0.13 ppm) was measured at 0.216 ppm in pollen collected by bees in a cucumber field, and phosmet (LD 50 = 8.83 ppm) at 14.7 ppm in one apple orchard. While the mean loads for these pesticides are well below their respective median lethal doses (0.0169 ppm for esfenvalerate, 0.7987 ppm for phosmet), our data indicate some bee colonies are being exposed to incredibly high levels of these chemicals. Second, research suggests that simultaneous exposure to multiple pesticides decreases lethal doses [58], [60] or increases supersedure (queen replacement) rate [61]. Our pollen samples contained an average of nine different pesticides, ranging as high as 21 pesticides in one cranberry field. Thus published LD 50 values may not accurately indicate pesticide toxicity inside a hive containing large numbers of pesticides. Research looking at additive and synergistic effects between multiple pesticides is clearly needed. Third, pesticides can have sub-lethal effects on development, reproduction, learning and memory, and foraging behavior. The mean and maximum imidacloprid loads in our samples (0.0028 and 0.0365 ppm, respectively) are higher than some published imidacloprid concentrations with sub-lethal effects on honey and bumble bees (0.001–0.0098 ppm [21], [54], [62]).
It is not surprising that total pollen collection varied by crop. Bee foraging activity levels vary with weather [63], thus outcomes of short-term measurements may be sensitive to temperature, cloud cover or humidity during data collection. Because we collected pollen samples from different parts of the country and on different days, weather conditions undoubtedly differed between crops. Crop flowering timing and landscape-level floral availability can also affect bee activity levels. We focused our analyses on variables less affected by these factors, such as the diversity of pollen types found in samples and the proportion of a sample that was from the target crop.
Our results are consistent with previously published pesticide analyses of pollen collected by honey bees or honey bee nest material [16], [18], [27]. The more intensive and geographically more diverse sampling of Mullin et al. [27] resulted in almost triple the number of pesticides we found, but the average number of pesticides per sample (7.1) is slightly lower than our 9.1. In our study and those listed above, pesticides applied by beekeepers to control hive pests were present in a large proportion of the samples, often in quantities higher than most of the pesticides that are applied to crops.
Our results combined with several recent studies of specific pesticides’ effects on Nosema infection dynamics [13]–[15] indicate that a detrimental interaction occurs when honey bees are exposed to both pesticides and Nosema. Specific results vary, and may depend on the pesticide or dose used. For example, bees exposed to imidacloprid and Nosema can have lower spore counts than bees only infected with the pathogen but also exhibit hindered immune functioning [13]. Our study improves on previous methodologies by feeding pollen with real-world pesticide blends and levels that truly represents the types of exposure expected with pollination of agricultural crops. The significant increase in Nosema infection following exposure to the fungicides in pollen we found therefore indicates a pressing need for further research on lethal and sub-lethal effects of fungicides on bees. Given the diverse routes of exposure to pesticides we show, and increasing evidence that pesticide blends harm bees [16],, there is a pressing need for further research on the mechanisms underlying pesticide-pesticide and pesticide-disease synergistic effects on honey bee health.Imagine if Ohio Representative and anti-war activist Dennis Kucinich had come in second place and won 23 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary in 2008 — after taking a close third place in the Iowa caucuses. The New York Times‘ headlines would be proclaiming “A Huge Victory for Anti-War Democrats,” and Fox News pundits would be warning that the Democratic Party was being taken over by “anti-American appeasers” and “secret Muslims.”
But Kucinich ended up winning only 1.35 percent of the New Hampshire primary vote in 2008. Chicago Senator Barack Obama who was a critic of the Iraq War did get 36.45 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in the Granite State that year. But his foreign policy views had never amounted to a coherent anti-interventionist agenda.
If anything, when it comes to foreign policy, it is former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and this year’s Republican presidential candidate who is calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that sounds today like candidate Obama did in 2008 when he was urging an end to the war in Iraq.
You can describe both Huntsman and Obama as “realist internationalists” in the tradition of Republican President George H. W. Bush and Democratic President Bill Clinton. They have never pretended they that they were waving the anti-war flag; but still, they were critical of the neoconservative let’s-invade-the-world agenda.
So if you consider that Huntsman came in third in New Hampshire, winning 17 percent of the vote, and you combine that number with the 23 percent that Paul mustered there, it is possible to conclude that 40 percent of the Republican voters in New Hampshire have rejected President George W. Bush’s global military adventures and democratic crusades.
Moreover, the three most radical neocons in the race — former House Speaker News Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and Texas Governor Rick Perry — who cannot wait to start bombing Iran — in the case of Perry, to re-invade Iraq — got altogether 20 percent of the vote in New Hampshire.
The MSM will probably continue dismissing Paul as “unelectable” and argue that his anti-interventionist foreign policy positions are “outside the mainstream” while continuing to take seriously the push for war with Iran by Gingrich and Santorum (not to mention their support for the bizarre anti-Sharia campaign in this country).
It is true that it may too early to predict whether Paul would do as well (and perhaps even better) in the primary in South Carolina and other states in the South and the Mid-West — where Republicans tend to espouse more nationalist positions — as he did in New Hampshire and Iowa.
And the fact is that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney who did win in Iowa and New Hampshire continues to adhere to foreign policy positions that are very similar to those of former President George W. Bush and former presidential candidate John McCain. And he could win the Republican primary race.
In fact, Romney has surrounded himself with national security advisors that belong to the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and continues to accuse President Obama — under which Osama bin Ladin was killed, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan have increased, and an effort to raise the diplomatic status of the Palestinians at the United Nation was averted — of “appeasement,” of gutting the U.S. military and of abandoning Israel.
But Romney whose main strength has been his ability to adjust his earlier more moderate political views on social-cultural issues — like abortion of gay rights — to the prevailing ultra-conservative views of rank-and-file Republican, will now have to deal with another changing political reality: W’s era neoconservative strategy of maintaining American global hegemony has ceased to be the dominant view among Republican voters.
At the minimum, there is going to be a serious and heated debate among Republicans about the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the coming years. Indeed, many conservatives have concluded that the notion of using the power of the U.S. government to do “regime change” and “nation building” around the world runs very much contrary to conservative values that highlight skepticism about the ability of government to promote political and social change — whether it is in Dubuque, Iowa, or in Baghdad, Iraq.
Moreover, the emphasis that Republicans and conservatives have been placing on the need to cut the federal deficit has already forced many of them to figure-out that it is not possible to put the U.S. fiscal house in order without slashing the gigantic defense budget. That in turn, is also leading these Republicans and conservative to start reassessing the expensive U.S. military presence abroad.
If Republican candidate Romney wants to ensure that the supporters of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman — that include many young voters and the kind of middle class professionals that constitute the critical bloc of “independent voters” — he would need to respond to their opposition to military adventurism in the name or regime change and nation building and accommodate their views by embracing a more prudent and realist foreign policy agenda that looks more like that of George H. W. Bush than that of his son.
Or Romney is going to find out in the general election that it is his own neoconservative foreign policy views that may be “outside the mainstream” of the Republican Party and majority American opinion.Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Tuesday called on Republicans to renounce their support for Donald Trump, saying he exploited this weekend’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando as an excuse to foment hatred towards immigrants and Muslim Americans.
“Donald Trump proved that he is a terrible leader, as he is a terrible businessman,” Reid said in an address from the Senate floor. “Trump proved he is not the person to lead our nation through difficult times, or in fact any time. Trump failed the most important of tests for a presidential candidate: How to respond in a crisis when our citizens are under attack.”
In a speech Monday laying out his response to the Orlando shooting, Trump reiterated his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants and charged that “political correctness” was crippling the US response to potential terrorist attacks. The presumptive GOP nominee also suggested that President Barack Obama may be cooperating with jihadi extremists, telling Fox News, “There’s something going on.” In the same Fox interview, Trump alleged that American Muslims are aware of potential terrorists in their communities but are either afraid or unwilling to come forward.
“How do you look your son or daughter in the eye and explain that a man running for president is telling your classmates to be suspicious of you, to doubt your loyalty to this country based upon your religion?” Reid asked. “Solely on your religion, purely on your religion. You can’t explain it. I can’t explain it. It’s not possible to explain.”
“Because this level of hate is not comprehensible,” he went on. “It’s incomprehensible that any presidential nominee would foster and promote systematic bigotry, as Trump often does. It’s reprehensible and un-American for the nominee of any major party or any party to declare millions of Americans guilty until proven innocent based on their religion.”
The Nevada Democrat warned that Trump’s rhetoric could encourage physical or verbal attacks against the 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States. Since the 2016 presidential race began, dozens of hate crimes against Muslim Americans have been reported.
Warning that congressional Republicans must distance themselves from Trump or risk “normalizing hatred,” Reid called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other GOP leaders to renounce their endorsements of their candidate.
“Republicans must do what they haven’t had the courage to do,” he said. “Stand up to Trump and say no more.”
Editor’s note: This post originally identified Reid as a “Kentucky Democrat,” not one from Nevada.The UK's Virgin Media is to begin rolling out Netflix to its customers. According to a report from BBC News, Virgin will send out invitations to pilot Netflix to some 40,000 customers before eventually rolling the app out to all users of its TiVo boxes. The move is at odds with others in the industry, who have generally shunned services that are viewed as competitive with their own. Although the Wall Street Journal suggests otherwise, BBC News says Virgin Media may offer Netflix subscriptions to its customers as part of a bundle with its own services. The company offers a similar bundle already, allowing customers to pay for Spotify access as part of their monthly subscription.
If you've been following the fate of the US-owned Virgin Media, though, today's news won't come as a huge surprise. Since being bought out by Liberty Global, Virgin Media has been more open to getting streaming companies on board. In March, the company's CEO told Bloomberg Virgin would try to "get hold of every content asset we possibly can" for TiVo, explaining that the industry "has a far greater chance of succeeding if we work together and embrace over-the-top services." Virgin Media already offers access to YouTube through TiVo, and has expressed an interest in bringing the Amazon-owned LoveFilm to the box as well.When the Phoenix Coyotes traded Scottie Upshall at the deadline one of the reason's Don Maloney cited was the play of Mikkel Boedker making it possible to deal one of the top goal scorers for the Coyotes. A good number of fans were shocked. Some were even angry. Asking where goal scoring would come from certainly not Kyle Turris or the kids, pshaw. Turris only had 10 goals so far in the season how can we count on him? people were asking. Well the thing is, is that alone Kyle Turris, Mikkel Boedker and Brett MacLean haven't been able to do much. It's not hard to see why when Turris gets playing time on a line with Paul Bissonnette and whoever coach Tippett decides not to scratch. When the kids get put together though you get games like they had the other night against Detroit.
Why such a difference though? Well, apart each guy has a good skill set. You can see that from Turris' assist to Ray Whitney from the other night. He passed through traffic right onto Whitney's stick and Ray finished the play. Boedker has been solid on any line he's on, going into corners and winning possession battles. MacLean hasn't seen much time actually playing for the NHL team, but from what I saw Saturday he can be like a smaller Martin Hanzal in that while he may not be the single greatest skater in the world, if he goes to the front of the net moving him away is difficult. It's the balance of the three guys that makes the line difficult to deal with and gives them the ability to get the rest of the team going.
Each guy has a certain role to play when they're placed together on the ice. Kyle Turris can float through the defense and set plays up. It gets even better when he shoots his wrister when the opportunity presents itself. Mikkel Boedker takes care of the play along the boards. As we've seen he comes out with the puck more frewuently than not. Both of those guys have speed to spare and can fly into the zone for rushes or just to get the puck deep without having to dump it in every time. Like I said before Brett MacLean can park himself in front of the goal for the deflections and garbage. He's got a nice shot too so doesn't have to stay there, but if Jimmy Howard diving into his knees doesn't get him out of the way how will defensemen that aren't Chara sized? Just take a look at this goal from the other night and watch each guy do their job.
Turris especially never gives up on the play. Watch MacLean take a shot from up close on the initial try and Boedker may not factor into the scoresheet on this goal, but he's right there at the front of the net waiting for rebounds an making the smart play. MacLean takes up position in front of the net to screen Howard later in the play and while Howard was screaming like a baby about interference afterwards, the fact is MacLean claimed the ice and Howard had to try and make the save while he was face first in Brett's pads.
Later on Mikkel Boedker added a goal for the Kid line on a bad Detroit turnover.
Now, the major part of this play is Detroit just making a bad play, but it's forced by Brett MacLean charging in hard after the puck and hurrying Jimmy Howard's pass. Mikkel Bo |
The Warrants are subject to an acceleration clause whereby if at any time after the Common Shares are listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (“CSE”) the closing trading price of the Common Shares is greater than $1.00 for at least 20 consecutive trading days, Phivida shall have the right to accelerate the expiry date of the Warrants with a minimum of 20 days’ notice to shareholders, issued by way of press release.
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Email: IR@phivida.comIt’s 5PM. I’ve been working on the same code for hours, grinding out an implementation one line at a time. It’s been a torturous process. Some days, code just naturally flows from my brain to my fingertips. This is not one of those days.
I’ve been tasked with adding new functionality to a class. “Easy”, I thought. “I wrote this class, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to extend it.” So, after a delicious lunch, I sat down and started coding.
Things started out all right – I had a vague idea of how the new functionality would fit in the class. However, the deeper I got into my implementation, the more I realized my vague idea wasn’t good enough. Functions needed access to data that wasn’t available to them. I was creating edge cases left and right, making the class much more fragile and bug-prone. On top of that, unit tests were constantly failing when I ran my new code.
I fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole over the next few hours, until I could barely recognize the code I had written. I was constantly looking at the diff between my local code and the original to figure out what I had changed. I no longer had a mental model of how the code worked, or how I wanted it to work. Things soon degraded into a battle between me and my computer. “Just compile, damn you, compile!”
So here we are at 5PM – one hour before I go home for the day. I’ve all but given up on finishing the feature today. “There’s no way,” I think. “It would take me an hour just to untangle this mess of code.”
I stand up from my desk in defeat, my head hanging low, and make my way towards the bathroom. I sit down on the toilet, take a deep breath – and that’s when I obtain enlightenment!
The Throne of Inspiration
Suddenly, I see everything clearly. Code is racing through my mind. I can see the class, all of its functionality and its use cases. I can see exactly where to add new code for the feature. I can see it all!
I finish my business (wash hands before returning to work!) and rush back to my desk to start banging out code. My fingers can’t type fast enough to keep up with the code that’s rushing out of my brain. The keyboard starts losing structural integrity as my fingers hammer it with the force of a thousand suns. The computer and I are no longer enemies – we are the closest of allies, working together with a common goal.
Thirty minutes later, the code successfully compiles. All of the unit tests pass. I run down the list of requirements for the new feature, and each one works as expected. “I’ve done the impossible, I finished it!”
As I come down from my coding high, I reach a single, infallible realization: The most efficient programming I’ve done has not been in front of a keyboard, but on a toilet.
Step Back (From Your Code)
Now, I’m not saying that toilets have magic code-architecting properties (although I do think they’re a great invention). However, I am saying that all but the most trivial coding tasks will be 10x easier if you step away from your computer and think things through at a high level. Whether it’s going to the bathroom, taking a walk to the park, or just sitting in your office kitchen, getting away from your screen will clear your head and allow you to see the forest for the trees.
Many programmers are hesitant to step away from their desks. They consider time spent away from an IDE to be wasted, or worry that they’ll be looked down upon. “Why isn’t he at his desk coding!? Time for that demotion,” their managers will say.
I would argue that this logic is completely backwards and counterproductive. Programmers are not paid to sit at a desk, or to stare at a screen, or even to write code. These are all just steps on the way to a programmer’s real goal: to create functionality for the end-user. If you’re able to create that functionality more quickly and efficiently by stepping away from your desk, then that’s what you should be doing.
In conclusion: don’t forget to use the bathroom while coding.
AdvertisementsReid Ribble, a Wisconsin roofing contractor-turned-Republican lawmaker, has helped change the way Washington talks about the national debt. That’s not to say he has done much about the debt itself.
Nearly a year ago, Ribble and other newly elected House Republicans came to Capitol Hill on a single-minded mission to shove the federal debt to the top of the congressional agenda. They succeeded. At every opportunity, they demanded cuts in spending, forcing a series of white-knuckle showdowns that have kept the government in a state of perpetual crisis. Washington nudged close to a public conversation about the kind of government taxpayers want and what they are willing to pay for it.
Last week, however, Ribble went home for the holidays with little to show for all the political drama. The debt stood at $15.1 trillion, $1 trillion more than when he got to town. By the end of next year, projections show, it will grow by an additional $1 trillion. Ribble said he and his allies had cut spending for 2012 by only about $7 billion, a sliver so tiny Ribble could measure its impact in minutes.
“We’ve saved the American taxpayer about 17 hours of spending. That’s it,” he said. “When you just really stop and think about it, we’ve made very little progress.”
Look past 2012, and the budget deals of the past year make a more significant dent. They reduce spending by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years, the largest debt reduction in two decades. Yet no one, of any ideological stripe, is bragging about the accomplishment. Instead, the Capitol is pervaded by an atmosphere of failure, of opportunity blown.
Despite round after round of negotiations — first over the operating budget, then over the federal debt ceiling and finally in the deficit “supercommittee” that disbanded last month —Republicans and Democrats never resolved the most fundamental budget questions: whether to raise taxes and how to control spending on an aging population.
There was some movement. Some Democrats, including President Obama, conceded that Social Security and Medicare pose a long-term threat if there are no constraints on benefits. Some Republicans, including House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), declared themselves willing to talk about raising taxes, a break from the GOP’s long-standing and vigilantly enforced party line.
But Boehner was not able to lead his top lieutenants and unbending freshman class to embrace a compromise on taxes as a first step toward their debt-
reduction goals. In more than a dozen interviews, lawmakers and independent analysts blamed leaders in both parties for failing to seize the moment and then retreating to their respective corners to prepare an election-year assault on the ideas offered by the other side. Many expressed their frustration with an unusual candor that reflected exhaustion as well as disappointment.
“Both major political parties have not been honest about what it’s going to take to fix this,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who has led Senate efforts to forge consensus. “Expectations of us are so low, if we could actually show we can put policy ahead of party, I think the reaction would be so positive.”
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), another major player in the debt discussions, held out little hope. “Washington is kind of like Las Vegas,” he said. “It brings out the worst in everybody.”
After two years of meetings that left him feeling “like I’m pushing 20 boulders up a hill of ice,” Coburn said he has concluded that “it all comes back to leadership. There is none right now in this country, either Republican or Democrat.”
Even if the GOP were to win the White House and both chambers of Congress in the next election, Coburn predicted that nothing would improve. “They all sit there and do a calculation: ‘If I tell the voters the truth, they won’t like me and they won’t vote for me.’ They say, ‘We can’t do what’s right now, because we won’t have the power to stay up here.’ Well, who cares if you stay up here? If you fix the country’s problems, go home!”
Language as the problem?
When the supercommittee collapsed, many lawmakers viewed it as another colossal embarrassment at a time when approval ratings for Congress were already in the tank.
Made up of six Republicans and six Democrats, the panel had extraordinary powers to cut a deal and push it to final passage. But those close to the process say neither side was able to rally support for the concessions needed to seal a deal.
So Washington will end the year much as it began: bobbing on a rising tide of red ink.
The portion of the debt held by outside investors stands at nearly 70 percent of the economy — more than at any time in U.S. history, except during World War II. Unless taxes rise or spending is cut or the economy expands at a supernatural pace, the debt is projected to grow ever larger as the baby-boom generation moves on to Social Security and Medicare. Analysts predict that investors could soon lose faith in Washington, potentially sparking the sort of debt crisis that is stalking Europe.
A bipartisan plan to stabilize borrowing does exist — several of them, in fact. The most influential came from a commission appointed by Obama and led by former Republican senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton.
The release of their blueprint last December raised hope that compromise was possible. The plan would increase tax collections while cutting tax rates, slow the growth in Social Security and Medicare spending while protecting the poorest recipients, and slow borrowing through other gradual changes. Cuts would exceed tax hikes by a ratio of about 3 to 1.
But the plan’s hardest trade-offs got limited traction. Then the Republican freshmen arrived, with little interest in carefully calibrated plans. Their hard-line stance hasn’t raised the party’s stock with voters, but it has influenced the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Recently, Simpson said he was appalled to see every contender vow to reject any debt-reduction deal that includes new taxes, even if the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases were 10 to 1.
“This next year is going to be chaos. Absolute chaos,” Simpson said, noting the deepening troubles in Europe. “And to watch my party get up and say, if you had 10 bucks of spending cuts and one buck of tax increases, they wouldn’t take it — it looked like nine robot hands went up out of the mechanical morass.”
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a leading force behind the fiscal commission, said that “the American people still don’t believe you need to make hard choices,” not even after a year when the debt dominated Washington news.
“They believe you should balance the budget,” Conrad said. “But when it comes down to doing the things that need to be done to accomplish that, they don’t support them. Until the American people believe we need to change some things, it’s unlikely we’re going to accomplish them here.”
Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, has been searching for ways to break through to voters. “I was talking to a pollster the other day. He said, ‘The problem is your language. It’s all about austerity. You have to make it about aspiration.’ I was like, ‘Really? I’m pretty sure we need to talk about austerity. Because it’s not going to be all peaches and ice cream when we do this.’ ”
In a perfect world, MacGuineas said, she imagines a presidential address recalling “important moments in history when we made huge decisions that propelled the country forward or screwed us up for years. We’re at one of those moments.”
House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) has delivered speeches like that, stating plainly that solving the problem will require people to pay more for government and get less in return.
But, he said, “I don’t talk in terms of sacrifice. I don’t think we have to make sacrifices. If the middle class were contributing at the rates they were contributing under Bill Clinton, in which they enjoyed the best economic situation they’ve ever been in, we would generate enough dollars to solve our deficit problem.”
Hoyer acknowledged, however, that Obama and the Democrats are not likely to risk campaigning on a return to the higher middle-class tax rates of the 1990s. Instead, Obama has been implying that the debt problem can be solved by raising taxes on the tiny fraction of people earning more than $1 million a year. Republican presidential contenders, meanwhile, are proposing to tame the debt by spending cuts alone, perhaps by eliminating a few federal agencies.
Hunger for leadership
The next major budget crisis is already on the calendar. It is scheduled for January 2013, just after the next election.
That’s when policymakers face a trifecta of politically perilous developments. Deep spending cuts affecting all parts of government are scheduled to take effect, courtesy of this past summer’s Budget Control Act. The George W. Bush-era tax cuts, which benefit virtually every household in America, are set to expire. And the national debt will once again be approaching the legal limit set by Congress.
Ironically, if Congress did nothing at that moment, the debt problem would largely disappear. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts and related provisions would bring in an additional $4 trillion over 10 years. The spending cuts would add savings of more than $1 trillion. Borrowing would slow and the debt would begin to fall as a percentage of the economy by the end of the decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
No one expects that to happen, however. Instead, policymakers will be under enormous pressure to come up with more palatable alternatives.
“You have a perfect storm set up for December 2012,” said White House budget director Jacob J. Lew. “I think we’re on a path where it’s almost inevitable within the next 18 months that decisions are made.”
Lew is an optimist, but he may turn out to be right. Ribble, the Wisconsin freshman, has already made one decision. During his campaign last year, Ribble signed a pledge never to raise taxes. He would not sign again, he says. And he is working on a plan to change the tax code by wiping out cherished subsidies.
“I’ve heard this a lot this year: ‘We just have to wait till the next election. We have to wait, we have to wait, we have to wait.’ Well, I think the American people are hungry for someone to lead,” Ribble said. “It’s our job as members of Congress to go back to our districts and communicate why these reforms have to happen.”Fight erupts over political donation crackdown
Posted
A parliamentary committee is again recommending tougher rules for political donations as efforts in recent years to rein in spending have largely failed.
The Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters says all donations over $1,000 should be publicly disclosed and it would like to see a ban on foreign donations.
The Coalition remains vehemently opposed and the Greens say the committee should have gone further and called for a cap on election spending.
Glossy brochures and high-rotation television ads have become par for the course in Australian election campaigns, but questions about how the campaigns are funded have also increased.
The Federal Government has tried to reduce the amount of money which can be donated without disclosure from almost $12,000 to $1,000.
One bill has been rejected and another has sat before the Senate without any action.
Now the committee is urging the Government to try again.
Chairman veteran Labor MP Daryl Melham says they have made a range of recommendations to make political donations more transparent.
"If you want to influence politicians or if you want to participate in the political process and spend more than $1,000, then you should be prepared to be identified," Mr Melham said.
"We've also said for the first time that single donations of $100,000 have to be disclosed to the Electoral Commission within 14 days of receipt. Now that's a first.
"We've also said that we're going to treat related political parties as the same parties for the purposes of disclosure, so that you can't split your donations and try and hide behind giving it to different entities.
"We've also said that money raised from fund-raising events should be counted as donations."
The committee has also recommended a ban on foreign donations and anonymous donations over $50 and reporting every six months instead of yearly.
Dissenting report
But the committee stopped short of recommending a cap on total election expenditure or private donations.
That has disappointed Greens senator and committee member Lee Rhiannon, who while agreeing with many of the recommendations, has also filed a dissenting report.
"What the Greens advocated - and it should have been in this report - was a ban on political donations from all corporations and other organisations, a strict cap on the amount of money that individuals can donate," Senator Rhiannon said.
"And also limits on how much political parties can spend come election time.
"The public are over having their letterbox stuffed full of coloured glossies, the television dominated by advertisements.
"It doesn't enhance the democratic process and it's through electoral funding reform that we can clean that up."
Mr Melham says the committee's recommendations are achievable.
"Hopefully these recommendations can be implemented, then they can be built on," he said.
Disclosure threshold
But shadow minister of state and committee member Bronwyn Bishop has questioned the role of advocacy groups and unions in their support of the Greens and the ALP
"The $1,000 threshold is designed to penalise the non-Labor side of politics because once people make a donation to the non-Labor side of politics they receive intimidation, particularly from the unions, and very often from the Labor Party themself," Ms Bishop said.
She says the Coalition will maintain its opposition to lowering the disclosure threshold and it used its dissenting report to make its own suggestions.
"We want to see a dedicated fraud unit within the [Electoral Commission] because we heard evidence about how the AEC did not use any of its existing powers to investigate the Craig Thomson affair," she said.
Mr Melham rubbished the Coalition's suggestion.
"I've never seen a dopier dissenting report in all my time in Parliament. It doesn't stand scrutiny or withstand scrutiny," he said.
"These recommendations will apply equally to all political parties, to all players, to all independents, to business, the trade union movement, the lot.
"There's no preferential treatment. There's no better treatment for the business community or more favourable treatment for the unions."
He says the Government will work with the Greens and the independents to get the bill which is currently before the Senate passed next year.
Topics: political-parties, government-and-politics, federal-government, australiaMOSCOW — The authoritarian president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, who has ruled the isolated Central Asian country for more than 25 years using old Soviet methods like forced labor for cotton harvesting, has been hospitalized with a stroke, his younger daughter announced Monday on Facebook.
Later on Monday, Ferghana, an Uzbek website banned at home since 2005, reported that Mr. Karimov had died in the afternoon, citing sources outside the government. The report was widely repeated by independent news outlets in Russia.
There was no official confirmation, however, and Russian outlets, such as the state-run RIA Novosti agency, quoted unidentified government officials in Uzbekistan as saying that the president remained alive and in stable condition.
The nightly news on the main Uzbekistan television channel did not refer to the story at all, mentioning the president as the active leader.The D.C. Council… TAI’s highlights, seen and heard, from each Washington Wizards game. Now: Wizards at Bulls, Game 36, Jan. 12, 2016 at United Center in Chicago, via Sean Fagan (@McCarrick).
M.V.P.
There have been several notable constants throughout the Randy Wittman regime in D.C. When you give as many interviews as Wittman has throughout his tenure, through both good times and bad, certain tics begin to make themselves apparent and stay lodged in the brains of the poor beat reporters who patrol the bowels of NBA arenas. One tic in particular that has resonated throughout is his almost slavish devotion to two ledgers within the box score. Wittman has obsessions with both FG% and turnovers, and it’s upon those statistics that he often credits the results of games. ‘What it boils down to,’ the coach might say.
Fairly or not, when you place a large amount of emphasis upon the latter, praise or blame falls most often at the foot of your point guard. If one had a dollar for each time Wittman has proclaimed that “John has got to do a better job at protecting the ball,” then one would have enough money to pay your rent or start saving for a small bungalow out by BWI. Lately, even in wins where Wall has been offensively brilliant (as in his 24 point performance against the Magic), he has played fast and loose enough with the ball (7 TOs in that Magic game) where criticism could be appropriately leveled at a lack of poise or concentration.
Yet, no criticism can be laid at Wall’s feet after his masterful performance in leading his ragtag Wizards over a surprisingly docile Chicago Bulls. If the Wizards had triumphed over the Bulls at the Verizon Center to the same result, Wittman would have been ebullient, slapping the stat sheet and pointing out that Wall a grand total of two turnovers and his team was miserly with the ball committing only nine turnovers in total. You can see Wittman then dropping a few aphorisms on the importance of “effort” and then stride boldly out of the room, the scrum of reporters dogging at his heels in their race to the locker room.
Wall earns the M.V.P.—not only for being the primary conductor in orchestrating a surprising 114-100 victory over the Bulls—but through his continued offensive excellence, particularly at moments when his team needs it most. After Doug McDermott cut the Wizards lead to four points at 9:33 in the fourth quarter, following a 3-point shot and an ill-advised foul on the part of Gary Neal, it was Wall who started the 13-2 run that enabled the Wizards to pull away and put the game out of reach. Wall first calmly drained a 16-footer over the heads of the Bulls, who seemed content to continue going underneath picks to let Wall shoot. Following a Joakim Noah offensive foul, Wall then picked apart the Bulls defense and found Nene cutting on a seam for an easy layup. To cap off his performance, Wall went on to drain a 24-footer (with an assist from Jared Dudley) over a defense that still had yet to process that they were not guarding Rajon Rondo.
There is a strong impetus to pick apart this Wizards season and declare it a failure because the team has not met expectations, and every other game appears to be an exercise in motivational futility on the part of Randy Wittman. The one thing that has kept the Wizards within reach of the playoffs in an below average Eastern Conference (and Wittman in his job) is Wall, who continues to reframe his ability to shape a basketball game on a nightly basis.
L.V.P.
If someone needs to be shamed on the evening, let the shame fall upon Gary Neal, whose foul on Doug McDermott left the door open for the Bulls in the fourth quarter. Yet, Neal went 4-for-9 from the field and contributed two of the Wizards’ 10 steals. So he need not be shamed.
If someone needs to be shamed, let the shame fall upon Kelly Oubre, who went 1-for-7 from the field. Yet, Oubre converted an amazing alley-oop (from Gary Neal) and added two hellacious blocks. So he need not be shamed either.
Instead, let us turn to the opposition and point to Chicago’s Joakim Noah as the least valuable player.Noah played a scant 19 minutes, went 0-for-7 from the field, and had one of his offerings to the basket firmly rejected by John Wall. It is both saddening and satisfying to see Noah’s fall from dominance, from the player who once patrolled the halls of the Verizon Center exclaiming expletives over the state of the Wizards, to the shell of the defensive presence he once was in his hey-day. But maybe Noah deserves a break, too, as Monday was his first action after missing nine games. Then again, maybe not.
X-Factor.
Engines are slow to start up in the winter (even in these El Nino-infected environs), and it has been a fitful start for Nene, who has spent much of this season behind the bench wearing a suit rather than within the paint. However, when the stars align and the proper offerings are made to Basketball Gods to allow Nene to perform the act of “basketball,” his importance to the Wizards can’t be understated. In a scant 20 minutes of play, Nene went 7-for-11 from field and kept the Wizards vibrational intensity at a low buzz, acting as a second playmaker to John Wall.
Perhaps the Wizards woes over the season can be seen as yawning lack of craftiness, a skill which only a few other players (Jared Dudley and Wall) are able to replicate. Against a team where ball movement, trickery, and an occasional flop were not only desired but necessary, Nene’s caginess were a key ingredient toward success.
That game was … perhaps a mirage?
Beating the Bulls could be seen as the start of something great for the Wizards, or it could viewed as a one-off, a pleasant blip in a season filled with disappointment. What is apparent is that for the Wizards to win on a consistent basis, they need to perform at a nearly flawless level and not at the status of a half operational Death Star. The ball movement for the Wizards and the engagement of the players within the system was probably the best we have seen out of the injury-ravaged squad on the season lacking Bradley Beal.
The question is therefore one of sustainability and whether the Wizards can continue to play at this level with this many injuries and the fluctuating #Effort from all involved wearing red, white, and blue. Without Beal, without Nene (50% of the time), and now without Marcin Gortat, the Wizards’ room for error is razor thin if not non-existent. Too many times this season we have seen the team play above their heads and defeat a opponent superior on paper – only to string together consecutive losses when things fall apart. On Wednesday, the Wizards face a Milwaukee Bucks team struggling with the same issues of consistency and a team Washington has already beaten twice, coming off a back-to-back against these same Chicago Bulls. A win in the same fashion would point toward a more pleasant spring ahead, a loss a return to the status quo.Support for independence is now at 48%, according to Ipsos MORI research.
Ruth Davidson is more popular with Scots than Nicola Sturgeon, according to a new poll commissioned by STV News.
The Scottish Conservative leader's net satisfaction sits at +31, 17 points ahead of the First Minister on +14. The Prime Minister finds herself out in front of the SNP chief too, leading Sturgeon by two points on net satisfaction, at +16.
The research, conducted for the broadcaster by Ipsos MORI, also shows a slight increase in support for independence.
Today, 48% of Scots certain to vote in another referendum would back Yes while 52% would vote No.
Mark Diffley, director at Ipsos MORI Scotland, said: "The summer was dominated by the fallout from the Brexit vote and the impact it may have on support for independence. It is clear from this poll that, despite the UK-wide vote contradicting the wishes of the majority in Scotland, Brexit has not resulted in a surge in support for independence.
"However, at 48% among committed voters, it remains entirely possible that a second referendum campaign could be won by supporters of independence."
The Conservatives will seize on the satisfaction ratings for Nicola Sturgeon, which Ipsos MORI has tracked for STV News since the height of the independence referendum campaign.
While a majority of Scots (54%) remain satisfied with with the Nationalist leader she also attracts a high dissatisfaction score - 40% of Scots report themselves unhappy with her performance as First Minister.
This represents a fall in net satisfaction in Sturgeon of 22 points on April.
Opposition leader Ruth Davidson, who took her party from third to second place and more than doubled her seat tally at May's Holyrood election, beat the First Minister in both the satisfaction and net satisfaction stakes.
The Edinburgh Central MSP is doing a good job according to 55% of Scots and enjoys a net satisfaction rating of +31. Only 24% declare themselves dissatisfied with Davidson's performance.
Forty-seven per cent of Scots are happy with the job Theresa May is doing as Prime Minister, set against 31% who are unhappy. May took over at Number 10 in July after David Cameron resigned in the wake of the Brexit vote.
Public opinion on Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale remains static, with 32% satisfied in her leadership and 42% dissatisfied. Her -10 net rating is a one point increase on her rating from April.
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has seen his popular fall further north of the border. Fifty-five per cent of Scots are unhappy with Corbyn's leadership while 29% are happy, giving the left-winger an overall score of -26, a tumble of 19 points since April.
Brexit appears not to have shifted public opinion on independence substantially.
Fifteen per cent of voters said the UK's impending departure from the European Union had altered their view on independence but 79% said it had not.
However, the SNP will take succour from the poll's findings on undecided voters, who make up 6.5% of respondents. Of those, 36% backed the Union prior to the EU referendum but now say they are undecided but only 14% have gone from supporting independence to undecided.
The poll suggests a majority of Scots do not want a second independence referendum within the next two years.
When asked 54% of Scots said they disagreed with holding a second vote on independence with only 41% wanting another referendum within the next two years.
The legal process for the UK leaving the European Union is expected to take at least two years from the point at which the Prime Minister triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Ipsos MORI conducted telephone interviews with 1000 respondents 16 years and over between September 5 and 11.
Download: The STV News app is Scotland's favourite and is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from Google Play. Download it today and continue to enjoy STV News wherever you are.Roy Moore: America “was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery” He really said this.
Alabama’s Republican candidate for Senate, Roy Moore, says America needs to be a bit more like it was when it had slaves.
This is not a joke or exaggeration. When a black man at a September rally asked what President Donald Trump means by “make America great again,” Moore acknowledged, the Los Angeles Times reported, that the country had a history of racial tensions. Then he answered the question: “I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery. They cared for one another. People were strong in the families. Our families were strong. Our country had a direction.”
Moore later added, “The greatness I see was in our culture, not in all our policies. There were problems. We had slavery; we’ve overcome slavery. We’ve had prejudice; we still have prejudice. But we’ve turned the tide on civil rights. And we’ve done a lot of things to bring this country around, and I think we can still make it better.”
The first part of the quote comes from a Los Angeles Times report published in September, but it was recently resurfaced by a viral tweet from former Obama administration official Eric Columbus. The Times later published the full audio.
There are so many problems with this remark that it’s hard to know where to start.
For one, which families, exactly, were “united” and “strong,” as Moore claims? Black families were regularly torn apart — and tortured — by slave masters at the time. Slaves often couldn’t even marry, because their marriages were legally considered void.
Moore’s comments also lay bare what “make America great again” really means. Progressives have long asked when, exactly, America was so much better than it is today.
When black people were slaves? When the country committed genocide and ethnic cleansing against Native Americans? Was it when the country looked the other way as white supremacists lynched thousands of black people? When women and black people were denied the right to vote? When black people were legally barred from white-only schools and restaurants?
Was it when women were thwarted from having meaningful careers? When same-sex couples couldn’t get married, or even go out into public holding hands without fearing for their safety?
The list could really go on. (And some of these still apply today.)
These were all horrible periods for many Americans. The rhetoric of “make America great again” suggests that those Americans — black, Native American, LGBTQ, women, and so on — just don’t matter, or at least that their plights could be overlooked for whatever benefits the country was supposedly producing — for white men — back then.
Moore essentially said that it’s possible to overlook America’s original sin. The time of slavery was the time of, in his view, great things — at least in America’s culture, even though that culture included slavery — and that’s apparently what the country should aspire to.
I asked Hannah Ford, deputy campaign manager for Moore, if he really thinks that the last time America was great was when it still had slavery. She responded, “To suggest such is recklessly malicious. Judge Moore clearly made his point: America is great when our families are united, as in the husband and wife committed to each other and raising their children to be good citizens.” She did not respond to a follow-up question about why, then, Moore brought up slavery at all.
Moore has a history of racially insensitive remarks. At the very same event reported by the Los Angeles Times, he referred to Native Americans and Asian Americans as “reds and yellows.” Prior to that, he compared the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage to the decision that effectively denied black people citizenship. He has questioned whether former President Barack Obama was born in the US. And he previously argued that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress.Michael Jordan is the standard by which all NBA wings are measured. The comparisons remain inescapable, particularly when it comes to Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, the two players who have offered the strongest contemporary challenges to Jordan’s legacy as the league’s undisputed greatest of all time.
The discussion is, as you’d expect concerning players whose primes didn’t (really) intersect, rife with hypotheticals and caveats. Just a few weeks ago, Jordan and LeBron engaged in a much-ballyhooed back and forth over who would win a one-on-one contest in their respective primes. We'll obviously never know, so things inevitably always seem to circle back to “RINGZ,” the default currency in any "legitimate" discussion about who is the NBA's G.O.A.T. Jordan, of course, has six of them—one for every trip he ever made to the NBA Finals. Kobe boasts five, and could have tacked on two more were it not for the egalitarian might of the 2004 Detroit Pistons and the sheer veteran intensity of the Kevin Garnett-led 2008 Boston Celtics.
Then there’s King James, who for all his considerable and often-Herculean efforts (he’s made five consecutive NBA Finals, and six |
finish it. At the same time, surely you’d have to bribe an airport mystery buff, or strap down even the most voracious twelve-year-old reader and main line her with Ritalin,[25] in order to get either to finish that first paragraph. It’s, like, a different thing.
Wallace has Schmidt speak for the both of them when he claims to be sparing his audience a level of detail he “wouldn’t dream of making you sit still for.” But given a comfy seat “Mister Squishy” is a truly inimitable performance.[26] There are solid storytelling tools on display, as well as baroque sentence constructions. Customers who bought this also bought what? Nothing? And pledged to buy nothing for the rest of their lives? The purposes of genre are supposedly clearer—entice, suspend, escape—but “Mister Squishy” is clearer to me still. It is the clarity of ambition; an attempt to do all that literature can do at once and to accept the measure of failure sure to follow. “Mister Squishy” is irritating without any passage being skippable; it is meticulously researched, deeply sentimental (demonstrating, in interstitial moments, only a select few of the “infinite ways human beings always kept impacting each other,” as if otherwise held in painful reserve). It is so good that it is eminently put-down-able. And there’s a moral to the story. Page upon page detailing the expertise brought to bear on a snack-cake’s entry into the marketplace seems to offer proof of just how commercially determined our lives are. Instead, we’re told,
no no all that ever changed were the jargon and mechanisms and gilt rococo with which everyone in the whole huge blind grinding mechanism conspired to convince each other that they could figure out how to give the paying customer what they could prove he could be persuaded to believe he wanted, without anybody once ever saying stop a second or pointing out the absurdity of calling what they were doing collecting information or ever even saying aloud—not even Team ∆y’s Field Researchers over drinks at Beyer’s Market Pub on E. Ohio together on Fridays before going home alone to stare at the phone—what was going on or what it meant or what the simple truth was. That it made no difference. None of it.
Upon reading “Mister Squishy” I am convinced that there is such a thing as literary fiction, tradition, experiment, modern-day parables of capitalism, great hypergeometric sentence-level fiction and leap-before-looking heartfelt writing, and that it is, itself, all and none of the above. These distinctions are important only as long as they’re immediately disavowed. And this is no small matter of taste. Our conviction that we control our own destinies is matched by the world’s gigantic investment in defining, manipulating, and anticipating them. We’re all UAFs in a giant TFG. We live in a “Mister Squishy” world even if we don’t know it.
* * * *
Take a look at the “phase 3” Marvel movies slate and the DC-to-2021 rollout,[27] a chilling, scorched-earth vision of the future center of our culture that will almost certainly occur just as scheduled, give or take a week or a test-screening gone wrong.
“Money makes the world go round” is not a new concept. Capitalism has always influenced culture, but it’s no longer throwing darts. Record labels used to listen to demos, manage unruly drummers. Movies had an absurd target audience: America? Television’s upfronts took place in a scattershot, semi-technological era where we produced things that might work, not just more of that which has already been proven to. Never has our culture been more efficient. Amazon’s precision has raised the stakes—world in the balance, three-headed screenwriter fluff-stakes—until it seems verily as if only bestsellers will be left standing.
“Openness alone does not provide the blueprint for a more equitable social order, in part because the ‘freedom’ promoted by the tech community almost always turns out to be of the Darwinian variety,” writes Astra Taylor. The technological new giveth, and it taketh away. Tech-boosters and doomers are equally fond of the rhetoric of historic precipice, and today’s world does seem fast, participatory to an unprecedented degree. But many voices speaking at once is the only way the merciless rule of commerce is mistaken for anything else. As the rich get richer in the market for pulp, some can still glimpse a brave new genreless world. In a raucous democracy of fandom—and a plutocracy targeting advertising at it—it’s possible to confuse artistic integrity with big-time compromises.
In Henry V, the king tells his troops that to be outnumbered and die is really exciting. He is sued for peace, but money would deprive him of glory. No deal! On St Crispin’s Day:
Herald, save thou thy labour;
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald:
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
Which if they have as I will leave ‘em them,
Shall yield them little, tell the constable.
For the 29 days a month that the rent isn’t due, I might think, hey, it’s only ransom. Ransom can’t buy happiness. This is not so much an argument for coming clean about the profit motive—we all have it. In particular, “artwork” is motivated by a galvanizing vanity, and not an entirely coherent one, being both a desire to connect to the world and a result of an alienating distinction from it.
Problems of definition are intrinsic to an arts economy, which blends “making your voice heard” and relentlessly tacky self-promotion. The drive to breach the walls of other selves is twisted up in the desire for recognition and an endless curiosity with how it must feel not to worry so much about money. Attention is both sought for its own sake by the lesser angels of our nature and seems to carry along with it breathing, meaningful life. Still, in our temptation to be clever and pithy and ideologically consistent there’s been something of an overcorrection for ethical arrogance. We would let Amazon create an absolute wasteland of WhatSells. A world of Bud and no snobs. The Ford F-150 and no one telling you what to do. Taylor Swift and haters. “8th grade and up.” Fanfic of fanfic. Not a lick of sex without hokey whips and chains. Harry Potter and nothing holier-than-thou. McDonald’s chicken nuggets without foodies or picket lines. The Voice and the vacuum. The Sunday Night Football Theme Song brought to you by Verizon Mobile and no one sees your band. Literally nothing to read other than “5 Ways to Tell You’re an Elitist,” “Against Philistines,” and Walmart aisle markers. Captain America with a minimum of depressing America.
A good-humored irony about pop-cultural excess wins every argument against a stodgy anti-capitalism.[28] And just as well, a pox-on-both-houses exhaustion with the discourse is a sly victory for the status quo—which is at this unfortunate moment an intensifying inequality in the economy and the culture. The important thing is not to be ideologically pure but to be clear: The market is not tied to something so mysterious as pleasure, but to something so quantitative as sales. The market is a useful fact in our world, but it’s a force with a distinct taste for the familiar, the already preferred, the highly rated, the related item. Much of this is a digital matter of course—we need not see it as corrupting. And yet the convenience it affords us is not equal to its bending of the arc of history toward kinda shitty middle-of-the-road fare, in regular installments, the last of which is divided in half for the film adaptation. At some point, a stingy anti-commercialism becomes the only thing we can afford.
We are all modern, implicated in moral complexity. The commercial imperative is woven into self-expression. Genre is but a manifestation of that compromise. It is a kind of market solution (which kind sells best, and how to make more of it quickly and cheaply)—for its distributors, certainly, but also for its practitioners. By which standards do we feel the need to succeed, and how much can we bear to fail? We should be honest with ourselves about what mode benefits a story worth telling. We should be wary of companies that traffic in our own self-interest. Le Guin shows us the way back to a moral clarity that would seem like contemporary naïveté: a black-and-white fantasy pitting the craven against the pure. It is a clarity that predates our world, from before it seemed possible that our loneliness would be assuaged by everyone at once. As writers or readers I’m sure we’d all say there’s nothing like turning to the next page. Compulsion puts us in the sights of commerce, where we shall stay for the foreseeable future. “Come thou no more for ransom?” Really? Is there any way we could do what we can’t help but do, with just a little ransom to spare?
[1] The Dungeon Master’s Guide is often cited because it’s the more evocative signifier, but in fact the DMG is rife with esoteric treasure tables and endless descriptions of magical items—Gauntlets of Dexterity, Bag of Holding, the bookkeeping headache which is the Sword +1/+3 vs. Lycanthropes and Shape-changers. The book with all the necessary rules—and the only one required for play—is the Player’s Handbook.
[2] For example, Randall Jarrell’s “a prose narrative of some length with something wrong with it.” For a definition of that prose, James Wood’s discussion of “free-indirect style” in How Fiction Works. Wood’s question is, basically, “Whose word is this?” as in “belonging” to the author, or to the character, or in an emergent coherence, both.
[3] Statistics on bookselling are often accompanied by a lament about how hard they are to come by. Here’s the closest I could find to year-to-date stats on 2014, an entire year beset with worry that the numbers would appear catastrophic due solely to the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey had been published the year previous. Not to mention that 2014 is years upon years after the initial rise of YA: Hunger Games, Wimpy Kid, Lemony Snicket, Harry Potter & the Expanded Universes.
[4] The Genre Wars tend to put literary fiction in one corner of the ring, ignoring the various forms “serious” literature takes. Here are only a few of the contending egghead genres: realist fiction, experimental fiction, the personal essay, the reported story on actual events, the “novel from life.” Every once in a while one of these subgenres is reported missing, presumed dead.
[5] My preferred genre—to use the term uncontroversially—is comedy. Likely only in its purest form—standup—is it still considered even a little lowbrow. If comedy is not present in something I’m watching or reading I will find this something unwatchable or unreadable. Louis C.K., Mallory Ortberg, Jenny Slate, and writing staffs at HBO, Comedy Central, FX, seem to have no aesthetic problems except the most mysterious: how to be funny. Standups share an ideal with writers: honesty. It’s the same honesty that’s an odd combination of realness and artifice, craft and artlessness. Comedy and lit are acts of cagey confession.
[6] Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that different readers are turning the pages of completely different kinds of books. There is pleasure in quickness, but that speed and eagerness with which we devour prose is mostly dependent on the serendipitous, imagined bond between reader and writer.
[7] “The conditional quality of novel speech, applicable only to particular characters, enables the novel to be acute without being reductive. In novels, it is left to readers to see—or not to see—the universal in the specific. In this, there is something humble and essentially democratic.”
[8] However shopworn the premise, the real competition is the “Golden Age of TV.” Rothman thinks “it’s where the ‘social novelists’ work.” I don’t want to dwell on this point but it’s useful to think about a medium’s intellectual situation when there’s plenty of prestige and financing to go around. Watch whatever you want: Broad City or True Detective. TV shows are good. What are they? They’re good. Genre anxiety dissipates on the small screen. Game of Thrones is thought of as another bang-up HBO job, as if it didn’t belong squarely to a genre that used to ensure the social exile of its adherents. The problems with overfamiliar anti-heroism and authenticity in Girls wouldn’t be problems at all if we didn’t presuppose that TV speaks to all of us, to the human condition.
[9] The rating PG-13, YA’s old partner in crime, was instituted after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which intended fun for the entire family while having a lot of violence. Similarly, YA somehow connotes both pre-approval for ALL AUDIENCES and a kind of illicitness. The classics of the genre have weird morals, end-deaths, if not hearts ripped from chests.
[10] How funny is it that the post-apocalypse has become our biggest cliché—so overwhelming is our sense that we deserve it. That being said, Divergent, the first installment in The Divergent Series, sucks. Divergent is set in a world where teens are taken from their families and divided into factions according to an oppressive, ritual reduction of the teens’ humanity into a singular quality: brains, brawn, priestly kindness, hick, and standup comic. So desperate to capitalize on the market, Divergent skips right on past the inconveniently contrary present-day situation that any respectable work of sci-fi would extract into dystopia: this generation’s protracted adolescents, told they can be anything they want, possessed of every technological tool of self-expression, and coddled not until 16 but all the way to 26 (when they’re no longer covered under their parents’ insurance policy—the language on Healthcare.gov is actually “coverage ends on a child’s 26th birthday.”). Currently, is there any sense that mama’s little boy will one dark day be culled, reaped, factionalized? What about (in voiceover): a world where twenty-three-year-olds are sent away from home and expected to get JOBS, a grim future they will FIGHT TO THE LAST MILLENNIAL. Also, teach persecution complexes to the young much?
[11] See Astra Taylor’s The People’s Platform. The situation in music—the coalmine canary of free culture—is a crowd-pleasing case-study. There are many songs out there for sure, but the anecdotal evidence is that most of them are Taylor Swift songs about the fear of minor injuries to celebrities in snowmobiling accidents.
[12] “Nerd”—we keep using that word, but I do not think it means what we think it means. The Nerd now has a plum job and the lion’s share of production resources. This is a big, argumentative aside that I’ll just sketch, but there’s a connective strand between the Marvel/DC rollout, how YA privileges the sense of rejection, tech chauvinism, Gamergate’s rock through the window, and swords-and-sorcery’s LoTR/GoT-aided journey to the absolute mainstream of pop-culture.
[13] The Everything Store, Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. In the analog past, to say “everything” or “everybody” was to begin a generalization. Something about the current moment is informed by “Everyone” being a coherent, even essential, idea.
[14] Amazon eventually bought Zappos and Diapers.com. Is the strategy to stay aggressive in a select few retail sectors? “They want to own all of it.” Oh, well.
[15] “Publishers are getting squeezed out because they don’t contribute anything of value.” –Matthew Yglesias at Vox.
[16] People in publishing work hard at highly specialized tasks. Of course they could improve in any number of ways. But real, live editors work there. They read, they have idiosyncratic taste in different things. They wonder where things came from and how stuff works and how people other than themselves experience things. They hope their books sell.
[17] I just looked up The Secret on Amazon thinking that if I hoped, prayed, wanted it to surprise me it would. After a raft of the usual self-help suspects the recommendation system offered up the sequel to a bestselling YA novel.
[18] “The Amazon Effect” by Steve Wasserman in The Nation.
[19] One en vogue solution in support of the arts is to pay more. The premium, the subscription model, an ethics of profligacy (more authentic, independent, local—the beef is gamey, the music noise.) Many of us are partly engaged in this ethic. Here’s my ledger: the New Yorker is a necessity, non-negotiable, and I would renew with my eyes closed if they weren’t always trying to give you that gift calendar. I wouldn’t trust meat I didn’t pay out the nose to have killed right in front of me. For uncomplicated reasons, I use Spotify. “The Free and the Antifree” in n+1 describes the absurd amount of freelance writing that can be had for fifty bucks or nothing.
[20] Gessen, Vanity Fair. “‘And, Keith, you will not be able to afford to write a book. No one, unless they have inherited $50 million, will be able to afford to write a serious work of history, of poetry, of biography, a novel—anything. The stakes are Western culture.’ Western culture I could take or leave, but the part about me sent a chill down my spine.” One of the strangest attributes of writers is that despite what we’ve done to ourselves we want to succeed just like anyone else. Inside us is that same mélange of self-interest and intellectual principle that resides in anyone—we just barely have half a chance. We cling to this faint idea that they might cast in the movie version the sexiest actor of our approximate ethnicity and he would look cool holding a gun, make love real well, etc.
[21] “Content” is a bad joke to everyone—until it’s no joke at all to anyone. A Contently survey asked marketers which content in their experience had the best ROI. “Longform” (22.59) won out, beating the indefatigable “I don’t know” (17.77).
[22] In the same interview, Wallace mentions the “hard work serious fiction requires.” In various forms this homely idea has reached a kind of tenet-status on the literary side of things. It’s genre war artillery, basically, though I’m never quite sure what it means. Apropos to this essay, Wallace uses the terms “commercial culture,” and “commercial art” without much fanfare or hem-hawing. Perhaps it’s not “work” so much that goes into the appreciation of literary fiction over commercial forms, but whatever means readers use to—naturally, intuitively—tell the difference.
[23] Using a pseudonym in McSweeney’s—tough to find a comparable present-day fringe literary experience.
[24] Academic approaches to Infinite Jest in particular preserve some of this characterization. Attempts to prove its structure are often made in a language that would make the book seem all but unreadable to an ordinary civilian. Like all good writing, the book is very much readable, regardless of fractals, and despite Wallace’s intermittent obscurity. The book’s sendup of an elite tennis academy is rather delightfully broad, alternating with sections of beautiful and wildly earnest prose on AA.
[25] I apologize for this R-rated image. It was, at once, precisely the language I wanted to use and clearly depicts the torture of a twelve-year-old, which I cannot endorse.
[26] Wallace signatures present: Schmidt’s worry that he had a “fat man’s waddle” (articulating not only the mechanism of self-consciousness but the tragedy of it—as it turns out, no one even noticed what he’s painfully certain they had); the unforgivable use of the word “neocortices”; a series of reveals in earnest which peg it as genre—a mystery novella of corporate espionage; this part about a growing crowd watching a mysterious figure scale the façade of a building that is not my favorite but is fairly clearly about how an American audience interprets novelty as either imminent violence or imminent advertising and is an ingenious plot element or “framing device.” Wallace trashes Tums and the “repeat” instruction on shampoo. He leverages suspense from POV itself—it’s a mystery as to who is telling the story. Stick around for the lengthy would-be excerpt from the Anarchist Cookbook.
[27] See Mark Harris in Grantland. Check out the graphics headed “DC and Marvel Comic Book Movies (32)” and “Other Sequels and Major Franchises.”
[28] All in play here: the comic book film franchise, the unimpeachable hits of “Poptimism,” and our very personal relationships with a frighteningly small number of tech/social media behemoths.Coal miners look on as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign rally at American Energy Corportation in 2012 in Beallsville, Ohio. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Climate hawks have been gleeful over the trend of big U.S. coal companies filing for bankruptcy. Patriot Coal filed for Chapter 11 in May, Walter Energy sought protection in July, and Alpha Natural Resources succumbed in August. And it makes sense: A financially unviable coal industry could be a big step in the movement toward a lower-carbon future. A report this month by Taylor Kuykendall and Hira Fawad at SNL Energy found that roughly “10.4% of all the coal produced in the U.S.” in the second quarter of 2015 came from companies that have filed for bankruptcy protection. “In Central Appalachia, 37.5% of the coal mined in the quarter came from mines that were owned or operated by companies that have filed for bankruptcy since 2012,” they write.
But coal haters shouldn’t be too gleeful at this spate of bankruptcies. While some mines are being idled, they’re not being shuttered en masse. The financial failure of many coal companies, by itself, won’t necessarily bring about a low-carbon future—and for particularly Americans reasons.
Coal production is falling in America—just not by quite the amount you would expect given the financial stress hitting the industry. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the number of working coal mines in the U.S. has fallen nearly 40 percent in the past 10 years. But those that remain open are still quite productive. According to the Energy Information Administration, total annual coal production fell about 14 percent between 2008 and 2014. In the first seven months of 2015, production is down only 8 percent from the first seven months of 2014.
The slightness of these declines tells us that the market for coal is very different than the market for coal stocks and securities. While nobody wants to buy the publicly traded shares of coal companies, plenty of people still want to buy coal for industrial use. As this chart shows, use of coal in the electricity sector, which accounts for about 92 percent of total U.S. coal consumption, fell by about 14 percent in the first five months of 2015 compared with 2014—largely because power plants are switching to cleaner-burning and cheaper natural gas. But although the market for coal stocks has contracted sharply, coal mines won’t shut down simply because their parent companies are in bankruptcy.
America has what is by international standards a very forgiving bankruptcy code and system. It recognizes that the best way to make creditors whole is to keep the business operating, cut debts, and encourage new lenders and investors to provide capital. The process of converting debt to equity happens relatively quickly and without stigma. Once a company files for bankruptcy protection, a robust and highly functional industry—courts, judges, lawyers, consultants, specialized lenders, distressed debt investors—kicks into gear to ensure that companies with valuable assets keep operating until new owners can be found for the whole business or for parts of it. Sure, plenty of businesses liquidate when they go bust—your neighborhood restaurant, electronics chain Circuit City. But many others keep operating and restructure.
And that’s precisely what is happening with many coal companies. Patriot Coal, which filed for bankruptcy protection in May, agreed to sell most of its mines to Blackhawk Mining LLC.
Going forward, coal will continue to be mined at the rate the global market demands—just under a different capital structure. And the new owners will have the same incentives as the old owners to fight regulations and lobby against emission standards. Unless activists acquire coal mines on the cheap out of bankruptcy and permanently shutter them, a series of bankruptcies alone will not lead to sharply reduced coal mining. In theory, a billionaire like George Soros or Tom Steyer could wade into bankruptcy court, pick up the assets of bankrupt coal companies for pennies on the dollar, and then shut them down entirely—and thus ensure that the coal will stay in the ground.
There is something of a middle ground, however. The bankruptcies may lead to new owners that decide to operate the mines in a more environmentally friendly manner and create a new business model for coal. For example, Patriot Coal in August announced a prospective deal whereby the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund, a nonprofit that works on sustainability issues, would acquire some of Patriot’s West Virginia mines. The fund would keep operating the mines while simultaneously reclaiming and reforesting land. If it could lash together carbon credits it receives for reforestation with coal production, the VCLF says it could create a form of coal that utilities could burn while still complying with new emission standards.If you can't beat them, reach out to one of their best assistant coaches in program history and get tips. That's what Minnesota did with former Wisconsin defensive coordinator Dave Aranda.
According to a report from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota defensive coordinator Jay Sawvel contacted Aranda for insights into his 3-4 scheme that he could apply with the Gophers, Wisconsin's fiercest rival in a series that dates back to 1890.
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“I firmly expected, ‘Hey, you know, I’m not going to do that,’ ” Sawvel said. “But he said, ‘Sure, let’s talk after recruiting.’ ”
According to the report:
"Aranda spent several hours over two days in February talking with Sawvel at the Gophers football complex. They’d known each other from recruiting circles, and since they weren’t scheduled to compete against each other anytime soon, the time seemed right to share ideas."
For what it's worth, Minnesota, who has lost 12-straight games to Wisconsin, runs a 4-3 defense. The Gophers were looking to gain Aranda's perspective on his countless unique blitz package schemes.
“We probably had the best secondary in the Big Ten, but it didn’t show because our blitzing wasn’t there, our pass rushing ability wasn’t there,” junior linebacker Cody Poock told the Star Tribune.
Over the last three seasons combined, Aranda led Wisconsin to a top five finish nationally in total defense, scoring defense, passing defense, and rushing defense. The Badgers led the country in scoring defense in 2015, prior to his departure for LSU.
Wisconsin will take on Aranda and the Tigers on Sept. 3 in Green Bay for the 2016 season opener.Check out the Man vs Meeple hands-on preview of Hand of Fate Ordeals.
Here are some of the things the players at a recent preview event said about Hand of Fate: Ordeals.
Click above to see more press, videos, and community mentions.
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Hand of Fate: Ordeals is a full collaboration between Rule & Make and Defiant Development. Both companies are big fans of each other’s work and have been for many years. Interest and passion for this project grew organically as both companies started working together, culminating in what you see before you.
Rule & Make is a board game publisher with seven successful tabletop game Kickstarter campaigns. Titles include the 2015 Freeplay winner Rise to Power, the Dice Tower Seal of Excellence recipient, Burger Up and most recently, Entropy: Worlds Collide.
Defiant Development is the video game studio behind the critically acclaimed Hand of Fate, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2013. It combines tabletop storytelling with collectable card-game deck-building and real-time melee combat. The game has over 2.5 million downloads across PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Collectively, both teams have decades of experience in both the physical and digital space, and some of the most highly skilled people from both the board and video game industries.Dear Readers,
If you follow this project – you already know that our efforts of putting a man into space on a suborbital DIY mission is a project about making dreams and ideas come true.
The real driver for doing this is finding solutions to the many exciting problem this project has to offer – but also seeing natural science unfold itself in pictures and videos during tests and final flights.
Before we get there – we have to “settle” with illustrations and conceptual drawings of what to expect on future missions. Carsten Brandt is our conceptual artists – constantly working such amazing drawings and just finished a bunch for the HEAT2X/TDS80 mission which is to be launched summer 2014.
The concepts and subsystems in these drawings are made of what is know at the moment and even trying to get as much detailed information from all teams are not easy but it seems pretty close to the final design. Both Carsten and I have a real passion for such hand made drawings which was also a method used in the “old days” by NASA – before it all went to be cold 3D-renderings.
PLEASE ENJOY – HEAT2X/TDS80
The x-ray image above only displays a certain number of main subsystems. Some of these systems has already been explained in previous blogs but here is a short description of each from this image:
Capsule (TDS80)
Top lid
This lid on the TDS80-capsule is not only the actual nose cone of the entire rocket but also the cap of the bay containing the recovery systems for the capsule. The top lid is made from plain carbon steel but has a 10-50 mm layer of cork for heat protection of the systems its holding. (ballute, drogue, flotation device). So far, we are likely to use an airbag-charge to provide and instant overpressure for top lid jettison.
Ballute
The space capsule ballute is a balloon/parachute combo system which is deployed at apogge. This drag-device can withstand super sonic speeds while providing just enough drag in the thin part of the atmosphere to ensure a correct orientation of the capsule during re-entry. The ballute will be released after atmospheric re-entry using a standard 3-ring system pulling the drogue for deployment which is used during splashdown.
Flotation device
The capsule has a mass of 80 kg and does not float. A dedicated flotation device must be installed and will be released for use during splashdown to ensure safe recovery of the capsule.
Parachute bay
The containing under the top lid holding ballute, drogue and flotation-device.
Camera x 2
The capsule will be installed with two wide angle cameras pointing towards the horizon. The feed will be recorded on board and transmitted to ground control for live-viewing in mission control and Youtube.
GPS Antenna
A number of GPS-antenna systems (without altitude and speed limitation) will be added to provide live data for mission control on general FIDO-positioning.
Antenna send/receive
The capsule will transmit all on board computer data and video to mission control for live mission analysis and for general record keeping, if the capsule is lost later during the mission.
Avionics
There will be four main avionics boxes installed in the capsule for all data handling, communication, navigation and video.
External interface
The main side of the capsule provides access to the main interface of the capsule. This interface is used for data-handling, charging and activation of systems prior to launch.
Batteries
The capsule will have a number of NiMH, 13.2 V battery-packages installed in the bottom providing power for all on-board systems during the entire mission phase.
Launch vehicle (HEAT2X)
Separation ring
The launch vehicle holds the separation ring which is the interface between the capsule and the launch vehicle. This ring has four clamps holding the capsule in place which are released prior to apogee.
Parachute bay
The launch vehicle will have ballute, drogue and main parachute installed in the parachute bay which becomes available after the separation ring is jettisoned.
Avionics / battery modules
The main avionics and battery section of the launch vehicle is placed below the parachute bay. General control, communication and navigation is being handled, stored and transmitted from this section.
Cable tunnel
The cable tunnel of the launch vehicle is the data and power communication link between the upper avionics section and the lower avionics parts such as jet vanes control.
LOX tank
Propellant tank for liquid oxygen.
LOX heat exchanger
This spiral device provide constant cooling of the LOX tank during fueling and prior to launch. Having a constant flow of LOX will keep the temperature to a desired level and provide additional time for sea launch operation. This system is automatically disengaged when launched.
Flight termination detonation chord
The launch vehicle has two detonation chord installed which will be fired if there is a need for instant flight termination due to course malfunction combined general engine short down failure.
Double walled LOX pipe
The LOX propellant has to pass the fuel tank and to avoid any LOX heating during this process an insulated double walled piping system us used.
Fuel tank
The tank holding 75% alcohol as the second propellant component.
Roll thrusters
Each fine tip has hydrogen peroxide roll thrusters installed as part of the guidance system.
Injector
The injector is the top part of the liquid propellant engine functioning as a “shower head” injecting both LOX and alcohol into the combustion chamber.
Combustion chamber
The main core of the liquid propellant engine burning LOX and alcohol as the launch vehicle propellant.
Jet vanes
The main guidance system for the rocket using 4 copper rudders places into the exhaust altering the thrust vectors of the rocket. Each rudder is tilted using high power servo engines which are controlled from the main avionics guidance system.
Alcohol fuel pipe
The liquid propellant engine is constantly cooled by the fuel (alcohol) in a doubled hull construction. The alcohol is entering the engine is the lower skirt part until it reaches the top injector and becomes a part of the propellant.
TDS80 close-up view (just for the blog). Image: Carsten Brandt
I love watching Carstens drawings for hours – but we have to exchange those with real images from a real flight – back to work!
Ad Astra
Kristian von BengtsonMore than 12,000 people were murdered last year in the Mexican drug war, The Washington Post's Nick Miroff reported, a figure that's been largely unchanged over the past three years. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has vowed to cut down on the violence, and he recently talked with the German news magazine Der Spiegel about his priorities. Here are a few highlights, along with some context:
SPIEGEL: Mr. President, more than 60,000 Mexicans have lost their lives in the drug war during the last six years. You have been in office for two months now. How do you propose to end the carnage? Peña Nieto: We must fight inequality and poverty if we want to re-establish peace and security. Seven million Mexicans live in extreme poverty, which is why I have launched a crusade against hunger. We also have to improve our educational system and stimulate economic growth.
[What it means: About half of Mexico's population lives in poverty and half is middle-class, as The Washington Post's William Booth has reported. Peña Nieto has said he wants to push a third of the country's poor into the middle class and has promised to get half of college-age Mexicans to go to college. (Mexico has some of the lowest education levels in the world.)
Some analysts have noted that Peña Nieto has been decidedly more mum about fighting the drug war than his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, instead preferring to tout education reforms and other social programs. Some analysts have said that's a poor strategy for Peña Nieto, since past administrations of his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) were often seen as corrupt and soft on the cartels, Miroff reported.
In response, he's argued before that education and a stronger economy are the keys to fighting crime, saying that without jobs, "millions of my countrymen have no other option than to dedicate themselves sometimes to criminal activity."]
SPIEGEL: Most of the drug mafia's weapons come from the United States. Peña Nieto: That |
of the conflict, he came to the view that British control of the region could only be achieved through war.
Famously, after meeting Milner for the first time, Jan Smuts predicted that he would be "more dangerous than Rhodes" and would become "a second Bartle Frere".
Milner Schools [ edit ]
In order to Anglicize the Transvaal area during the Anglo-Boer war, Milner set out to influence British education in the area for the English-speaking populations. He founded a series of schools known as the "Milner Schools" in South Africa. These schools include modern-day Pretoria High School for Girls, Pretoria Boys High School, Jeppe High School for Boys, King Edward VII School (Johannesburg), Potchefstroom High School for Boys and Hamilton Primary School.
Although not all Afrikander Bond leaders liked Kruger, they were ready to support him whether or not he granted reforms and, by the same result, contrived to make Milner's position untenable. His difficulties were increased when, at the general election in Cape Colony, the Bond obtained a majority. In October 1898, acting strictly in a constitutional manner, Milner called upon William Philip Schreiner to form a ministry, though aware that such a ministry would be opposed to any direct intervention of Great Britain in the Transvaal. Convinced that the existing state of affairs, if continued, would end in the loss of South Africa by Britain, Milner visited England in November 1898. He returned to Cape Colony in February 1899, fully assured of Joseph Chamberlain's support, though the government still clung to the hope that the moderate section of the Cape and Orange Free State Dutch would induce Kruger to give the vote to the Uitlanders. He found the situation more critical than when he had left, ten weeks previously. Johannesburg was in a ferment, while William Francis Butler, who acted as high commissioner in Milner's absence, had allowed the inference that he did not support Uitlander grievances.
Protection for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal [ edit ]
Vanity Fair in 1897 A caricature of Milner fromin 1897
On 4 May, Milner penned a memorable dispatch to the Colonial Office, in which he insisted that the remedy for the unrest in the Transvaal was to strike at the root of the evil—the political impotence of the injured Uitlanders. "It may seem a paradox," he wrote, "but it is true that the only way for protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our subjects." The policy of leaving things alone only led from bad to worse, and "the case for intervention is overwhelming." Milner felt that only the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal would give stability to the South African situation. He had not based his case against the Transvaal on the letter of the Conventions, and regarded the employment of the word "suzerainty" merely as an "etymological question," but he realized keenly that the spectacle of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal in the condition of "helots" (as he expressed it) was undermining the prestige of Great Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government not to be ousted from its predominant position. This dispatch was telegraphed to London, and was intended for immediate publication; but it was kept private for a time by the home government.
Its tenor was known, however, to the leading politicians at the Cape, and at the insistence of Jan Hendik Hofmeyr a peace conference was held (31 May – 5 June) at Bloemfontein between the high commissioner and Transvaal President Kruger. Milner made three demands, which he knew could not be accepted by Kruger: The enactment by the Transvaal of a franchise law which would at once give the Uitlanders the vote; the use of English in the Transvaal parliament; and that all laws of the parliament should be vetted and approved by the British parliament. Realizing the untenability of his position, Kruger left the meeting in tears.
The Second Boer War [ edit ]
When the Second Boer War broke out in October 1899, Milner rendered the military authorities "unfailing support and wise counsels", being, in Lord Roberts's phrase "one whose courage never faltered". In February 1901, he was called upon to undertake the administration of the two Boer states, both now annexed to the British Empire, though the war was still in progress. He thereupon resigned the governorship of Cape Colony, while retaining the post of high commissioner. During this time at the helm a number of concentration camps were created where 27,000 Boer women and children and more than 14,000 black South Africans died.[citation needed] The work of reconstructing the civil administration in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony could only be carried on to a limited extent while operations continued in the field. Milner therefore returned to England to spend a "hard-begged holiday," which was, however, mainly occupied in work at the Colonial Office. He reached London on 24 May 1901, had an audience with Edward VII on the same day, received the GCB[8] and was made a privy councillor,[9] and was raised to the peerage as Baron Milner, of St James's in the County of London and of Cape Town in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope.[10] Speaking next day at a luncheon given in his honour, answering critics who alleged that with more time and patience on the part of Great Britain, war might have been avoided, he asserted that what they were asked to "conciliate" was "panoplied hatred, insensate ambition, invincible ignorance." In late July Milner received the Honorary Freedom of the City of London, and gave another speech in which he defended the government policy.[11]
The peace [ edit ]
Meanwhile, the diplomacy of 1899 and the conduct of the war had caused a great change in the attitude of the Liberal party in England towards Lord Milner, whom a prominent Member of Parliament, Leonard Courtney, even characterized as "a lost mind". A violent agitation for his recall was organized, joined by the Liberal Party leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman. However it was unsuccessful, and in August Milner returned to South Africa, plunging into the herculean task of remodelling the administration. He bitterly fought Lord Kitchener, who ultimately won out. However Milner drafted the terms of surrender, signed in Pretoria on 31 May 1902. In recognition of his services he was, on 15 July 1902, made Viscount Milner, of Saint James's in the County of London and of Cape Town in the Cape Colony.[13] Around this time he became a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian Society campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
On 21 June, immediately following the conclusion of signatory and ceremonial developments surrounding the end of hostilities, Milner published the Letters Patent establishing the system of crown colony government in the Transvaal and Orange River colonies, and changing his title of administrator to that of governor.[14] The reconstructive work necessary after the ravages of the war was enormous. He provided a steady revenue by the levying of a 10% tax on the annual net produce of the gold mines, and devoted special attention to the repatriation of the Boers, land settlement by British colonists, education, justice, the constabulary, and the development of railways. At Milner's suggestion the British government sent Henry Birchenough a businessman and old friend of Milners as special trade commissioner to South Africa with the task of preparing a Blue Book on trade prospects in the aftermath of the war. To aid him in his task, Milner recruited a team of gifted young lawyers and administrators, most of them Oxford graduates, who became known as "Milner's Kindergarten".
While this work of reconstruction was in progress, domestic politics in England were convulsed by the tariff reform movement and Joseph Chamberlain's resignation. Milner, who was then spending a brief holiday in Europe, was urged by Arthur James Balfour to take the vacant post of secretary of state for the colonies. He declined the offer on 1 October 1903, considering it more important to complete his work in South Africa, where economic depression was becoming pronounced. As of December 1903, he was back in Johannesburg, and had to consider the crisis in the gold-mining industry caused by the shortage of native labor. Reluctantly he agreed, with the assent of the home government, to the proposal of the mineowners to import Chinese coolies on a three-year contract with the first batch of Chinese reaching the Rand in June 1904.
In the latter part of 1904 and the early months of 1905, Milner was engaged in the elaboration of a plan to provide the Transvaal with a system of representative government, a half-way house between crown colony administration and that of self-government. Letters patent providing for representative government were issued on 31 March 1905.
For some time he had been suffering health difficulties from the incessant strain of work, and determined a need to retire, leaving Pretoria on 2 April and sailing for Europe the following day. Speaking in Johannesburg on the eve of his departure, he recommended to all concerned the promotion of the material prosperity of the country and the treatment of Dutch and British on an absolute equality. Having referred to his share in the war, he added: "What I should prefer to be remembered by is a tremendous effort subsequent to the war not only to repair the ravages of that calamity but to re-start the colonies on a higher plane of civilization than they have ever previously attained."
He left South Africa while the economic crisis was still acute and at a time when the voice of the critic was audible everywhere but, in the words of the colonial secretary Alfred Lyttelton, he had in the eight eventful years of his administration laid deep and strong the foundation upon which a united South Africa would arise to become one of the great states of the empire. Upon returning home, his university bestowed upon him the honorary degree of DCL.
Experience in South Africa had shown him that underlying the difficulties of the situation there was the wider problem of imperial unity. In his farewell speech at Johannesburg he concluded with a reference to the subject. 'When we who call ourselves Imperialists talk of the British Empire, we think of a group of states bound, not in an alliance or alliances that can be made and unmade but in a permanent organic union. Of such a union the dominions of the sovereign as they exist to-day are only the raw material.' This thesis he further developed in a magazine article written in view of the colonial conference held in London in 1907. He advocated the creation of a permanent deliberative imperial council, and favored preferential trade relations between the United Kingdom and the other members of the empire; and in later years he took an active part in advocating the cause of tariff reform and Imperial Preference.
In 1910 he became a founder of The Round Table – A Quarterly Review of the Politics of the British Empire, which helped to promote the cause of imperial federation.
Censure motion [ edit ]
In March 1906, a motion censuring Lord Milner for an infraction of the Chinese labour ordinance, in not forbidding light corporal punishment of coolies for minor offences in lieu of imprisonment, was moved by a Radical member of the House of Commons. On behalf of the Liberal government an amendment was moved, stating that 'This House, while recording its condemnation of the flogging of Chinese coolies in breach of the law, desires, in the interests of peace and conciliation in South Africa, to refrain from passing censure upon individuals'. The amendment was carried by 355 votes to 135. As a result of this left-handed censure, a counter-demonstration was organized, led by Sir Bartle Frere, and a public address, signed by over 370,000 persons, was presented to Lord Milner expressing high appreciation of the services rendered by him in Africa to the crown and empire.
Businessman [ edit ]
Upon his return from South Africa, Milner occupied himself mainly with business interests in London, becoming chairman of the Rio Tinto Zinc mining company, though he remained active in the campaign for imperial free trade. In 1906 he became a director of the Joint Stock Bank, a precursor of the Midland Bank. In the period 1909 to 1911 he was a strong opponent of the budget of David Lloyd George and the subsequent attempt of the Liberal government to curb the powers of the House of Lords.
World War I [ edit ]
Since Milner was the Briton who had the most experience in civil direction of a war, Lloyd George turned to him in December 1916 when he formed his national government. He was made a member of the five-person War Cabinet. As a Minister Without Portfolio, Milner's responsibilities varied according to the wishes of the Prime Minister. This meant that all domestic related issues pertaining to the war fell in his lap, such as negotiating contracts with miners, food rationing, etc. Considering his background, as a former High Commissioner in South Africa, and a tory intellectual leader, this was not a position ideally suited for him. However, he remained one of Prime Minister Lloyd George's closest advisers throughout the war, second only to Bonar Law.
In January 1917 Milner led the British delegation (with Henry Wilson as chief military representative and including a banker and two munitions experts) on the mission to Russia. There were 50 delegates in total including French (led by de Castelnau) and Italians. The object of the mission, stressed at the second Chantilly Conference in December 1916, was to keep the Russians holding down at least the forces now opposite them, to boost Russian morale and see what equipment they needed with a view to coordinating attacks. The official report in March said that even if the Tsar was toppled—which in fact happened a few weeks later—Russia would remain in the war and that they would solve their "administrative chaos".
It was Milner's idea to create an Imperial War Cabinet, similar to that of the War Cabinet in London, which comprised the heads of government of Britain's major colonies.
It was also Milner's influence, through correspondence with General Pershing in May 1918, that kept a black American infantry unit (the 92nd Division) from being trained by and deployed with the British Army.
Milner became Lloyd George's firefighter in many crises and one of the most powerful voices in the conduct of the war. He also gradually became disenchanted with the military leaders whose offensives generated large casualties for little apparent result, but who still enjoyed support from many politicians. He backed Lloyd George, who was even more disenchanted with the military, in his successful move to remove Edward Carson from the Admiralty.
On at least one occasion, the conservative Milner came to the aid of people from the other end of the political spectrum. He was an old family friend of Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse—in fact, he was Stephen's proxy godfather. In 1917, when Margaret was working to get her son and other British conscientious objectors freed from prison, Milner discreetly helped, intervening with high government officials. As a result, in December 1917 more than 300 COs were released from prison on medical grounds.
Milner was involved in every major policy decision taken by Prime Minister George's Government in World War I, including the Flanders Offensive of 1917, which he initially opposed, along with Bonar Law and Lloyd George. Lloyd George spent much of 1917 proposing plans to send British troops and guns to Italy to assist in an Italian offensive (this did not happen in the end until reinforcements had to be sent after the Italian disaster at Caporetto in November). The War Cabinet did not insist on a halt to the Third Battle of Ypres offensive in 1917 when the initial targets were not reached and indeed spent little time discussing the matter—around this time the CIGS General Robertson sent Haig (CinC of British forces in France) a biting description of the members of the War Cabinet, whom he said were all frightened of Lloyd George—he described Milner as "a tired and dispeptic old man". By the end of the year Milner had become certain that a decisive victory on the Western Front was unlikely, writing to Curzon (17 October) opposing the policy of "Hammer, Hammer, Hammer on the Western Front", and had become a convinced "Easterner", wanting more effort on other fronts. As an experienced member of the War Cabinet, Milner was a leading delegate at the November 1917 Rapallo Conference in Italy that created an Allied Supreme War Council. He also attended all subsequent follow up meetings in Versailles, France, to coordinate the war.
Milner was also a chief author of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, although it was issued in the name of Arthur Balfour. He was a highly outspoken critic of the Austro-Hungarian war in Serbia arguing that "there is more widespread desolation being caused there (than) we have been familiar with in the case of Belgium".
On March 21, 1918 came the German Spring Offensive. Lord Milner says, "On March 23rd, my birthday, I received a call from the Prime Minister who wanted me to go over to France to find out what was going on. I left the next day. On March 26th, at 8 in the morning, I drove to a meeting at Doullens, France, arriving there at 12:05pm. Immediately I met General's Haig, Petain, Foch, Pershing, their staff officers, and President[a] Clemenceau. The front had broken wide open in front of us, threatening Paris. There was confusion in the ranks as to what to do, and who was in charge. I immediately took the general's aside, and using the powers entrusted with me as the Prime Minister's representative, I deputized General Foch, making him the Allied Commander at the front, and told him to make a stand." That stand was taken at Amiens, a town with a critical railway station, that, if taken, could have divided the allies in half, driving the British into the sea, and leaving Paris and the rest of France open for defeat. When Milner returned to London, the War Cabinet approved his action. On 19 April he was appointed Secretary of State for War in place of the Earl of Derby, who had been a staunch ally of Field-Marshal Haig, and presided over the Army Council for the remainder of the war.
Following the khaki election of December 1918, he was appointed Colonial Secretary and, in that capacity, attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference where, on behalf of United Kingdom, he became one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, including the "Orts-Milner Agreement" allowing to Belgium the administration of Ruanda and Urundi territories to reward the Belgo-African army ("Force publique") for his war effort which highly contributed to push the German troops out the future Tanganyika Territory (the victorious Tabora and Mahenge battles).
Post World War I [ edit ]
After the War, Lord Milner assisted the Royal Agricultural Society in procuring Fordson tractors for the plowing and planting of grasslands, and communicated directly with Henry Ford by telegraph.
Last years [ edit ]
Right until the end of his life, Lord Milner would call himself a "British race patriot" with grand dreams of a global Imperial parliament, headquartered in London, seating delegates of British descent from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. He retired in February 1921 and was appointed a Knight of the Garter (KG) in the same month.[27] Later that year he married Lady Violet Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil, widow of Lord Edward Cecil and remained active in the work of the Rhodes Trust, while accepting, at the behest of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, the chairmanship of a committee to examine a new imperial preference tariff. His work, however, proved abortive when, following an election, Ramsay MacDonald assumed the office of Prime Minister in January 1924.
Death [ edit ]
Seven weeks past his 71st birthday, Milner died at Great Wigsell, East Sussex, of sleeping sickness, soon after returning from South Africa. His viscountcy, lacking heirs, died with him. His body was buried in the graveyard of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, in Salehurst in the county of East Sussex.[28]
Credo [ edit ]
Found among Milner's papers was his Credo, which was published to great acclaim.
I am a Nationalist and not a cosmopolitan.... I am a British (indeed primarily an English) Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and long supremacy at sea, has been to strike roots in different parts of the world. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British Race Patriot... The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, wherever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community. If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent hive are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood. We have already parted with much of it, to form the millions of another separate but fortunately friendly State. We cannot suffer a repetition of the process. Alfred Milner, [29]
Lord Milner Hotel at Matjiesfontein in South Africa
Evaluation [ edit ]
According to Colin Newbury:
An influential public servant for three decades, Milner was a visionary exponent of imperial unity at a time when imperialism was beginning to be called into question. His reputation exceeded his achievements: Office and honours were heaped upon him despite his lack of identification with either major political party.
Styles of address and honours [ edit ]
Styles of address [ edit ]
1854–1894: Mr Alfred Milner
1894–1895: Mr Alfred Milner CB
1895–1897: Sir Alfred Milner KCB
1897–1901: Sir Alfred Milner GCMG KCB
1901: Sir Alfred Milner GCB GCMG
1901–1902: The Rt Hon The Lord Milner GCB GCMG PC
The Lord Milner GCB GCMG PC 1902–1921: The Rt Hon The Viscount Milner GCB GCMG PC
The Viscount Milner GCB GCMG PC 1921–1925: The Rt Hon The Viscount Milner KG GCB GCMG PC
Honours [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Primary sources [ edit ]For small-to- medium-size businesses, electricity will increase 19.9% a year. Credit:Peter Stoop "This is... absolutely not what they wanted to hear. In the past 12 months alone wholesale prices for both electricity and gas have surged, almost doubling in some states," she said. EnergyAustralia is the second energy retailer to announce its price increase, after AGL revealed last week that it would increase electricity prices by 16.1 per cent and gas prices by 9.3 per cent. In comparison, electricity prices across all retailers rose by an average of 8 per cent last year, according to a St Vincent de Paul Society report. St Vincent de Paul Society's Gavin Dufty said EnergyAustralia's increase was slightly higher than expected, and cautioned consumers that it "would not be the end."
"These price increases will also be higher for non-solar households, for whom they will be closer to $400 a year," he said, "And for larger consumption households with families and lots of kids, it will be higher again." Some estimates suggest high consumption households could see annual increases of 20.8 per cent - or $517 - a year. Mr Dufty said the reason for different increases between retailers, such as AGL and EnergyAustralia, is because they are based on the retailer's average portfolio. "You might find AGL has more solar households, so they use less, therefore the increase is lower."
Ms Clarke said the EnergyAustralia's price rises were reflective of the impact of higher wholesale costs, following the closure of large coal-fired power stations and reliability issues with some big generators. "Today, getting electricity to our customers costs more right across the energy chain," she said, adding that the retailer would continue to support a wind and solar projects, as well as "smart" solar and battery products. Last week EnergyAustralia committed to a one-off $10 million injection into its hardship program, in order to prepare to help customers through ongoing prices increases. The retailer's hardship program usually runs at $1.5 million each year. Mr Dufty said St Vincent de Paul called on "all the energy companies to muscle up their energy hardship programs and support for vulnerable Australians." The price increases follow the release of the long-awaited review of Australia's electricity market by chief scientist Alan Finkel.
The report outlined a plan to reduce emissions, improve reliability and lower power bills. NSW Energy and Utilities Minister Don Harwin said he was "disappointed" by the increases, which are the result of a "broken national energy market." "As the Prime Minister and Federal Energy Minister have said in the past week, this is a national problem and we need a sensible solution out of the Finkel Review," he said. "For those facing hardship the NSW Government has a range of rebates to help vulnerable customers pay their electricity and gas bills...I urge people who are struggling to call Service NSW or their retailer to find out what rebates they are eligible for." Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the average annual increase for EnergyAustralia customers was $346.
- with Esther HanSexting photos of yourself can be perilous, but sexting photos of somebody else could lead to jail time. A teenage girl in Canada has been convicted of distributing child pornography after she sent around five explicit pictures of a girl she found on her boyfriend's phone, CNN reports. The 16-year old defendant is being tried as a minor, and is out on bail while awaiting sentencing.
"I had trouble understanding text language."
The trouble began back in November 2012 when the defendant found out that her boyfriend was receiving sexts from his ex-girlfriend. After making threats on Facebook, the defendant commandeered her boyfriend's phone and sent out the explicit pictures she found (of his ex) to several friends. It's hardly the stuff of child porn, the defendant's attorney Christopher Mackie told CNN, but Crown Prosecutor Chandra Fisher seems like she intends to set an example. Fisher said the case should serve as a warning to teens about the dangers of texting and posting inappropriate content online.
Now if only she could decipher the 36,000 texts she's been given access to. "I had trouble understanding text language and I had to take a lesson in what some of these symbols meant," she told CTV.Almost every conservative in town wants Bob Hickey to be San Diego’s next city attorney.
Almost. A notable exception is his boss, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
Hickey has the support of Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Sherriff Bill Gore and every Republican on the City Council. Last week a horde of law enforcement officials added their names to his endorsement list. But the man’s boss since 2003 remains conspicuously absent.
In fact, she is actively opposing him behind the scenes.
Two sources familiar with the situation, who asked not to be named to avoid repercussions from the DA, told us Dumanis reprimanded a local Republican elected official who endorsed Hickey. She was upset the official even considered supporting her employee.
“Her feelings on this are not quiet,” one of the sources said. “It’s finally getting out there, but it isn’t new.”
Hickey and Dumanis have a history of tension.
In 2012, Hickey was president of the union for deputy district attorneys and rejected a $100,000 donation offer that would have boosted Dumanis’ then-active mayoral bid. The offer came from a Mexican national who was later indicted for illegal political donations.
Two years later, Hickey didn’t endorse Dumanis in her successful re-election run, and the two tangled over multiple issues related to the union’s involvement in the race.
After Dumanis won, she demoted Hickey without explanation. The DA’s office has said only that reassignments are routine and done in the best interests of the office.
But both Hickey and a former supervisor at the district attorney’s office say his demotion wasn’t based on performance. Hickey says he was assured of such by top Dumanis deputies.
If true, it raises suspicions the move was personal or political.
Dumanis and her political consultant, Jennifer Tierney, ignored multiple requests for comment. They did provide a written statement on why she hasn’t endorsed her employee, and the only Republican in the race:
“There are several strong candidates running for City Attorney who are continuing to go through the public vetting process. The DA hasn’t endorsed anyone at this time; however, as the campaign unfolds she may revisit a potential endorsement.”
Dumanis supporter Nicole Murray-Ramirez said Dumanis has made her opinion on the race known to those close to her.
“Other strong Bonnie Dumanis supporters and I know exactly how she feels about each of the four city attorney candidates,” said Murray-Ramirez, who wouldn’t elaborate on what those feelings are.
While Dumanis is keeping her views on the race quiet, she’s had plenty of public issues with Hickey over her failed mayoral run and successful re-election bid.
During both races, Hickey was the president of the Deputy District Attorneys Association, the union for the office’s 300 attorneys. He didn’t endorse anyone in the 2014 district attorney race – not his boss, nor her opponent Bob Brewer, who hired Hickey in private practice. Hickey considers Brewer a mentor and friend.
Hickey also pushed for the union to hold a member-wide vote for its endorsement, rather than limiting the vote to board members, as some Dumanis supporters had wished. Then he tried to cap how much the union’s political action committee could spend on Dumanis’ behalf in the primary, hoping to reserve some for the general election. He also referred complaints to the DA’s human resources division after union members said they felt strong-armed into supporting Dumanis.
When Dumanis locked up the office for another four years, Hickey was demoted from his management position along with two deputy district attorneys who had officially supported Brewer, as U-T San Diego reported at the time.
In an interview with Voice of San Diego, Hickey said top Dumanis deputies told him the demotion had nothing to do with performance.
“The final thing I would say on it is, from the day Bonnie became the district attorney until today, she has trusted me with the most important cases the district handles: murder cases,” Hickey said. “So, there you have it.”
The situation puts Hickey in a difficult position as he makes his case for city attorney. Hickey argues the city attorney’s office needs a prosecutor, especially since voters approved Proposition 47, which made many former felonies into misdemeanors.
Eventually, one of his Democratic challengers will ask: If the city needs a prosecutor, why hasn’t he earned the endorsement of the county’s top prosecutor and his boss of 12 years? And is there a reason he was demoted that should be shared with voters now that he’s pursuing elected office?
Hickey said he respects that Dumanis is in a tough spot with endorsements and pointed to support from other law enforcement organizations as evidence of his qualifications. Whatever iciness there is between them wouldn’t affect his performance as city attorney, he said.
“It’s not a problem now while I’m working for (the district attorney) on a murder case in the South Bay; I can’t imagine it being a problem then,” he said.
Outgoing Republican City Attorney Jan Goldsmith also hasn’t endorsed one of his employees – Chief Deputy City Attorney Mara Elliott, a Democrat – but that would be a rare cross-party endorsement.
Some of Hickey’s closest supporters attributed Dumanis’ non-endorsement to Hickey’s own neutrality in her 2014 race.
Julie Korsmeyer, Hickey’s former supervisor and former chief deputy over the office’s gangs division, said Hickey has been one of the best-performing attorneys in the office from the first day of his career, and his demotion couldn’t be merit-based.
“That’s not debatable,” she said. “You’ll find no one, even on the defense side, who disputes that.”
Instead, she said, it had to do with his time heading the deputy DAs union, and his non-endorsement in 2014.
“That’s a more sensitive subject,” she said. “I think you have some resentment there, but this is where I’m speculating.”
However, Hickey’s demotion definitely would have sent a message to other employees, Korsmeyer said.
“The other district attorneys observe those things and make their own conclusions,” she said.
Brian Marvel, head of the San Diego Police Department’s union, said the issue seems to stem from the perception that Hickey took Brewer’s side in the last election.
“From an outsider looking in, you could probably take it that away, that it’s probably personal, or that there’s some politics involved in it,” he said. “It’s a political office: Some politicians endorse some folks, and others don’t.”
Yet taking the decisions to be purely political only makes the stand-off more confounding. Dumanis’ resistance to Hickey’s candidacy seems to cut against her own self-interests.
It would reflect well on her office to have a deputy district attorney rise the ranks and eventually win the second highest office in the city. More significantly, it would put someone in the city attorney’s office who has an established relationship with all her deputy attorneys.
“I lived through the (former City Attorney) Mike Aguirre years, and there was such animosity between our offices because of the perception on our part that he was not doing the job as legally defined,” Korsmeyer said. “That was very different for us, and we had a very difficult time with it; contrast that between having a former district attorney in that position, and it would be a huge improvement from our perspective.”
But Tony Krvaric, head of the local Republican Party, which supports Hickey and has supported Dumanis in all of her re-election bids, rejected the entire premise. He said he’s heard nothing at all of any issues between Dumanis and Hickey, even those reported during and following her 2014 re-election.
“It sounds like you’ve been watching too much ‘Game of Thrones,’” he said.Kerry voices concern to China over South China Sea: US official
KUALA LUMPUR - Agence France-Presse
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) listens while US Secretary of State John Kerry talks before a bilateral meeting at the Putra World Trade Center August 5, 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Reuters Photo
"Secretary Kerry reiterated his concern about rising tensions over disputed claims in the South China Sea and China's large scale reclamation, construction, and militarisation of features there," a State Department official told reporters after Kerry met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malaysia.
"He encouraged China, along with the other claimants, to halt problematic actions in order to create space for diplomacy."
The two envoys met at the sidelines of a gathering hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Kuala Lumpur at which the long-simmering regional dispute over the South China Sea has resurfaced as a flashpoint issue.
China has sparked alarm in the region by expanding tiny reefs and constructing military posts to reinforce its claims over the strategic waters, which are believed to sit atop vast gas deposits.
China insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the sea. However ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as Taiwan, also claim parts of the sea.
The United States and Southeast Asian countries have called for Beijing to halt its reclamation activities, which have dominated discussions at the regional security forum, but China has refused.
Their meeting came a day after Southeast Asian nations warned the row was threatening peace and stability in the region.
US Secretary of State John Kerry voiced concern to China on August 5 over its land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea and militarisation of the waters, a US official said.Scientists have linked higher intelligence to an appreciation of dark humour, based on a small study that investigated the complex information-processing that’s involved in interpreting a sick joke.
But a higher IQ isn’t the only thing that’ll have you winning popularity contests in your local Louie Appreciation Society - the study also found that those who were most in tune with dark humour had the lowest scores for aggression and bad mood.
"These findings support the notion that humour processing depends on cognitive as well as emotional aspects, and suggest that this also accounts for black humour processing, which seems to be a complex information-processing task," the team from the Medical University of Vienna in Austria concludes.
The researchers recruit 156 male and female volunteers with an average age of 33, and asked them to rate their comprehension and enjoyment of 12 dark humour cartoons taken from The Black Book by German cartoonist Uli Stein.
To give you an idea of the kind of thing the participants were looking at, one of the cartoons is set in a morgue, where a physician lifts the sheet off a body for a woman to identify.
"Sure, that’s my husband," she says, "anyway, which washing powder did you use to get that so white?"
Another cartoon depicts a confused man using a public telephone, and the voice coming from the phone says: "Here is the answering machine of the self-help association for Alzheimer patients. If you still remember your topic, please speak after the tone."
Topics ranged from death, disease and deformity, to disability and warfare.
For each cartoon, the participants were asked to rate various qualities, such as how vulgar or tasteless they found it, how fitting was the punchline, how much did you like the joke, and how fresh or novel did you find it?
They were also tested for various qualities themselves, including verbal and non-verbal IQ, mood disturbance, aggression, and educational background.
The team found that there was no difference between the male and female subjects regarding dark humour appreciation, and age didn’t appear to be a factor either.
But they did identify three distinct ‘groups’ in the 156 participants, based on their respective scores:
Moderate black humour comprehension and preference, average non-verbal and verbal intelligence, low values in mood disturbances, and moderate values in aggressiveness Moderate black humour comprehension and low black humour preference, average non-verbal and verbal intelligence, |
summoned for a hearing with the P.I.C. Three days after the poison gas incident, however, Faraday was attacked and got amnesia, and she, Edgeworth, and Gumshoe were caught up in a murder incident at the P.I.C. meeting room. Blaise Debeste, the chair of the P.I.C. and Sebastian's father, tried to force Faraday's arrest. In an effort to resist Blaise, Edgeworth relinquished his prosecutor's badge, saying that it meant nothing to him if it meant capitulating to those who would hide the truth. As the amnesiac Faraday ran away in guilt, Edgeworth told Gumshoe not to follow him as he chased her.
Gumshoe thus struck out on his own, sending Ema Skye to Edgeworth to assist him, though Edgeworth later got arrested for assisting the fugitive Faraday. The next day, Gumshoe overheard Blaise talking to Edgeworth in the detention center, with Blaise openly admitting that he had made up all of the evidence against Faraday. This prompted Gumshoe to look into the case again and obtain a new autopsy report, which corrected the old version and helped Edgeworth expose Blaise as the real killer, with Faraday regaining her memories upon the case's resolution. Gumshoe also learned that Faraday had been previously kidnapped with the help of a powerful sleeping drug. He subsequently tried to avoid Edgeworth while the latter was investigating a series of incidents, including the murder of Di-Jun Huang, instigated by Blaise and another, unknown individual. However, Edgeworth eventually found him and requested his help, as a friend. Gumshoe agreed, completing the trio once again.
Gumshoe helped rescue John Marsh, who had been kidnapped by the unknown individual, with Faraday while Edgeworth went to the courthouse to help Sebastian confront his father in the trial of Patricia Roland. Gumshoe later found out that the warehouse in which he had found Marsh was contracted out to the Berry Big Circus, which helped to demonstrate that Simon Keyes was behind Marsh's kidnapping. He was eventually shown to be the one behind Faraday's kidnapping and the murder of Di-Jun Huang, as well as masterminding the other three recent murders that Edgeworth had investigated. After Keyes' arrest, Edgeworth chose to continue as a prosecutor, and Courtney returned his badge. He later gave Gumshoe a raise for the first time, finally showing his appreciation for both him and Faraday.
Wright defeated? Edit
Main article: Turnabout Succession
Phoenix Wright (You fail to grasp the concept of "questioning", detective. [...] You fail to grasp the concept of "shooting people is bad", detective.) Turnabout Succession
Gumshoe's last known meeting with Wright was later that month, when he testified against Zak Gramarye. He seemed determined to best Wright this time, but the defense attorney blew through his testimony as usual. However, Wright was found to have (unknowingly) presented forged evidence during the trial, and was soon disbarred. Said disbarment was eventually overturned, and Wright returned to practice law eight years after the Gramarye trial. Since then, Wright and Edgeworth have remained in touch with Gumshoe.[3]
Personality Edit
Miles Edgeworth (...Gumshoe indeed! Like gum on your shoe, he's impossible to get rid of!) Bridge to the Turnabout
Dick Gumshoe has a strong, childlike loyalty to his closest friends, especially Miles Edgeworth. From the day they met, Edgeworth has cut his pay and threatened to fire him, but this ultimately has had no visible effect on their working relationship. Gumshoe does all that he can to assist Edgeworth in his field investigations; this loyalty sometimes extends to Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey, largely because they opposed the von Karmas. He has helped them solve cases, and even temporarily joined the Wright & Co. Law Offices as resident cook. Gumshoe also tends to befriend children, such as Pearl Fey and Kay Faraday, quite easily, most likely due to his own somewhat childlike personality.
Gumshoe is very sensitive, often leading to his feelings getting easily hurt, but he is also a very optimistic and hard-working person. He has a habit of jumping to conclusions and doing things a more sensible person wouldn't. Gumshoe has been known to act on a whim, such as buying a fishing rod that he has never used. Despite this, he has been shown to be courageous and dependable, saving Wright and Fey from gangsters on one occasion and tirelessly trying to save Maya from a kidnapper on another.
Gumshoe has a penchant for getting involved in complicated murder cases, which he uses his powers of persuasion and determination to get assigned to. Unfortunately for him, he is often bumbling and incompetent, and he has had his pay cut many times by several of his superiors. This has forced him to live in a "not [...] great" apartment complex called "Compton Castles" and subsist on instant noodles and off-brand products, though he tries to diversify his diet when he can. Gumshoe has a particular liking for steak lunches and sausage weenies, commenting at one point that he could live on the latter. He still maintains a good working relationship with most of the police force, which he uses to prevent himself from losing his job altogether.
Despite his bumbling detective work, Gumshoe has occasionally shows signs of above-average intelligence and competence. For example, he was easily able to identify Charley's species and constructed a usable bug detector from scratch while still in elementary school.[4] He has also claimed to be good at checkers and chess, being able to identify an error on Edgeworth's chessboard, much to the latter's surprise. Upon being insulted by Richard Wellington (who referred to him as looking like a "dropout from a no-name high school"), Gumshoe claimed to have "graduated from a pretty good, I mean, top-ranked college!"
On some occasions, Gumshoe has been somewhat competitive with Wright. On their last known meeting, during the trial of Zak Gramarye, he boasted that there was no way Wright could win the case since Gumshoe's evidence was too strong.
Gumshoe apparently takes care of the police dog, a Shiba Inu breed named Missile. Despite Franziska von Karma's doubts about the dog's abilities, Missile has shown himself to be quite useful by finding overlooked evidence in a fireplace. Missile appears to have a great liking for Samurai Dogs and therefore, it may not be a coincidence that the aforementioned evidence was also in the same place as some of these meat-based foodstuffs. Missile is one of Gumshoe's so-called "Seven Tools of Investigation", which also includes his fishing rod, his metal detector, and a video analysis device called "Mr. Analysis".
Gumshoe is known to always keep a red pencil behind his ear, which is apparently because, at the start of his career, his superior Tyrell Badd told him to mark everything he owned with his name[5], which Miles Edgeworth took to be a reference to Gumshoe's forgetfulness. It would appear that he simply failed to grow out of the habit once no longer working under Badd.
Relationship with Maggey Byrde Edit
Dick Gumshoe Don't worry about it! In the name of love, a man will soil himself silly! Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations closing credits
Gumshoe has had a major crush on Maggey Byrde ever since she joined the force, even going so far as to keep a picture of her in his locker in the evidence room. She, in turn, was grateful for his teaching during her training, but remained unaware of his feelings. She was fired after a murder incident in which she was the accused; she became a waitress soon afterward, but Gumshoe kept in contact. When Byrde was accused of murder a second time, he stood by her even though she believed he had betrayed her. Through his efforts, he managed to help to turn the case around, and she soon forgave him and bought him a new trench coat.
During the investigation into the murder of Buddy Faith, Byrde and Gumshoe's relationship was brought up again as Gumshoe fiercely attempted to prove Byrde's innocence. By this point, Byrde would occasionally end her sentences with "pal" in a similar way to Gumshoe's speech habits, hinting on the effect he has had on her. Miles Edgeworth also remarked on the undeniable similarities between Byrde and Gumshoe. However, it would seem that Gumshoe had still not confessed his feelings for her.
Gumshoe possesses a wide range of items that he likes to call the "Seven Tools of Investigation". Most of them are apparently stored between two sets of lockers in the police department's evidence room when not in use, as seen when Wright visited the room.
Name Edit
His Japanese surname " Itonokogiri " (糸鋸) roughly means "a fretsaw", while " Keisuke " (圭介), his given name, is a reference to Keisuke Kuwata, a Japanese rock musician. [6]
" (糸鋸) roughly means "a fretsaw", while " " (圭介), his given name, is a reference to Keisuke Kuwata, a Japanese rock musician. "Dick" and "Gumshoe" are slang terms for a private detective. "Dick" is usually used in a negative sense for a detective, but it is also a nickname for "Richard", possibly suggesting that his real name is "Richard Gumshoe". Richard, if one can assume it to be his real name, could be a reference to Richard Diamond, Private Detective, who shares many traits with Gumshoe. It is also possible that his name is a reference to Dick Tracy, a famous detective character in American cinema, although the two are quite different in terms of personality. "Gumshoe" is often used to denote very new and inexperienced private detectives. In Bridge to the Turnabout, Edgeworth says that Gumshoe is "like gum on your shoe" in the sense that he annoyingly sticks around and is difficult to get rid of, although this is more of a play on his name than a likely name origin. In the English dub of the anime adaptation, Manfred von Karma addresses him as "Richard Gumshoe".
, Edgeworth says that Gumshoe is "like gum on your shoe" in the sense that he annoyingly sticks around and is difficult to get rid of, although this is more of a play on his name than a likely name origin. His full French name, "Dick Tektiv", is a play on "détective" (which is typically used to refer to a private detective).
Development Edit
Style of speech Edit
Maya Fey We're on this case too, pal!
Dick Gumshoe Huh!? Hey! You can't just go saying "pal" like that! That's MY endearing character trait!
Maya Fey I'd say he's a character alright... Turnabout Samurai
Gumshoe has a distinct style of speech that varies depending on the games' regional version. In the English version, Gumshoe ends a lot of his sentences with "pal". In the Japanese version, he uses slang in which he slurs the ends of his sentences (i.e. "nan desu ka?" becomes "nanssuka?"). In the German version of the game, Gumshoe calls Wright "Junge" (the German word for "boy") instead of "pal", and in the French version, he uses "mon gars" (literally "my dude"); however, the meaning of these is roughly the same. In the Italian and Spanish translations, he is extremely informal and refers to everyone as "amigo/amiga" (in Spanish) or "amico/amica" (in Italian), which literally means "friend".
However, during Gumshoe's first meeting with Wright (namely while arresting Maya in Turnabout Sisters) he never ends his sentences with "pal" like he does throughout the rest of the series (including the next time Wright meets him while looking for Maya's cell phone). In fact, he actually uses "see" in a similar way instead (e.g., "Alright, I'm Detective Dick Gumshoe, see?" and "We received a report from the building across the way, see."). This may be a leftover from an earlier attempt to keep the detective's distinct style of speech from the Japanese version (where he slurs the end of his sentences), and is reminiscent of the way that actors like Edward G. Robinson would pepper their dialogue with heavily accented "yeah!" and "see?" for emphasis while playing gangsters.Last updated on: September 28, 2014 17:38 IST
India's Yogeshwar Dutt poses with the gold medal. Photograph: PTI Photos
London Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt ended India's 28-year gold drought in wrestling at the Asian Games, in Incheon, on Sunday.
He beat Zalimkhan Yusupov of Tajikistan in the men's 65kg freestyle and accounted for the country's fourth yellow metal at the 17th Asiad.
This is India's first Asian Games wrestling gold since 1986, when Kartar Singh triumphed at the Seoul Games.
However, both Satywart Kadian and Babita Kumari lost out on third-place finishes, as they went down in the men's 97kg and women's 55kg freestyle.
Yogeshwar was the day's star performer as he bettered his 2006 edition bronze medal finish with a couple of splendid bouts.
The Indian, who trailed all through in his semi-final before coming good in the last few seconds to enter the final, won the gold in style.
India's Yogeshwar Dutt celebrates after winning the final against Zalimkhan Yusupov of Tajikistan. Photograph: PTI Photos
He, however, had to toil in a gruelling final, as Yusupov defended extremely well.
Yogeshwar tried to pin his opponent down time and again but failed. He won his first point at the end of the opening period.
In the second, he earned two more to get a 3-0 verdict.
Earlier, Yogeshwar, having beaten Jinhyok Kang of North Korea 3-1, a decision by points, in his quarter-final bout, clashed with Yeerlanbieke Katai in the last four stage.
The Chinese was dominant and led throughout before the Indian turned the bout around in the last few seconds.
Yogeshwar was trailing 7-9 but managed to pin down his opponent in the dying minutes of the match to win via 'victory by fall' verdict.
India's Yogeshwar Dutt celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men's 65kg freestyle wrestling. Photograph: PTI Photos
Meanwhile, Satywart was beaten comprehensively by Mamed Ibragimov of Kazakhstan 0-3 in the bronze-medal match.
Satywart, who lost his quarter-final bout to Magomed Musaev of Kyrgyzstan 1-3 in a 'decision by points' verdict, could make it to the repechage round as his opponent reached the final.
In his repechage, Satywart proved too strong for Pakistan's Bilal Hussain Awan, who he defeated on great technical superiority 12-0 to make it to the bronze medal play-off.
On her way to the semi-finals, Babita first defeated Cambodia's Srey Mao Dorn 5-0 in a 'victory by fall' verdict in the Round of 16 and then got the better of Aiym Abdildina of Kazakhstan 3-1 'decision by point' verdict to make it to the last four stage.
In the semis, Babita had an uphill task as she faced the 15-time World champion Saori Yoshida of Japan.
As expected, the Japanese, who is three-time Olympic gold medallist, proved too strong for the Indian. Although Babita tried her best, Yoshida won 4-0, on great superiority (a difference of 10 points) 14-4.
But in the bronze-medal round, Xuechun Zhong of China downed Babita 3-1.IT'S the owners' manual that any self-respecting starship engineer in the year 2151 wouldn't be seen without.
As Earth's first warp-five capable starship in the Federation fleet, there's a lot to get your head around in the engine room of the USS Enterprise, but one trusty British company has come up with a decidedly low-tech solution.
Haynes, whose iconic range of automobile user manuals help teens and devotees alike keep their cars on the road 10 years after it is sensible to do so, have published a DIY guide to the most famous space voyager of them all.
The 160-page guide covers the entire range of USS Enterprise models, from Captain Jonathan Archer's original NX-01 from the most recent TV series through to the NCC-1701 under the control of Captain Kirk and her replacement, the NNC-1701-E.
While it might be 140-odd years ahead of its time, the manual will be available this month, guaranteeing Trekkies a perfect Christmas Day of ignoring the family and poring over the details of Triton-class spatial torpedoes and polarised duranium hulls.
"Haynes Enterprise Manual covers the various Enterprises – some in more depth than others – at a level that is accessible to anyone," Haynes Publishing Book Division editor Derek Smith told the official Star Trek website.
"So it was really about getting the level of technical detail just right.
"What’s also important is that the book shows how the design of these ships evolved from NX-01 through to NCC-1701-E.
"Along the way we go into more detail about the key technologies used on board. People want to know how warp engines work. We explain that.
"People want to know how transporters work. We explain that."
Haynes even hired the graphic designer who wrote the technical manual for Star Trek scriptwriters - Michael Okuda - to watch over the project and ensure the technology was consistent throughout their special edition.
Each Enterprise model gets the full Haynes cutaway treatment, with details of the bridge, engines and transporter rooms.
Aspiring Scottys even get a step-by-step guide to stripping down their starcraft and rebuilding her for those awkward moments when Zefram Cochrane's warp drive fails to make the jump into hyperspace.
Haynes said it hoped the manual would be available in Australia "some time in November".
It will retail for $32.95 and will be available at www.haynes.com.au and through Dymocks, A&R, Borders and speciality bookstores.Shifting climate patterns in the Indian Ocean driven by global warming are likely to increase the frequency of “devastating” weather events for much of Australia, Indonesia and eastern Africa, a study led by Australian researchers has found.
While attention has focused on the prospect of an El Nino forming in the Pacific, a similar phenomenon may be under way in the Indian Ocean that could exacerbate dry and hot conditions for large areas of Australia.
A change in surface water temperatures on the Indian Ocean due to global warming could produce extreme weather events in Australia. Credit:Greg Wood
Tropical sea-surface temperatures in the eastern Indian Ocean are becoming cool relative to those in the west.
Known as a positive-Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), such conditions typically mean less convection off north-western Australian and reduced rainfall in winter and spring for south-eastern and central Australia. Indonesia also tends to endure drought and bushfires while east Africa gets hit by floods.Bay Area cities are scrambling to pass emergency laws around the cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana in anticipation of statewide changes aimed at regulating California’s cannabis industry for the first time.
Earlier this fall, Gov. Jerry Brown signed three bills into law, collectively known as the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act. The law goes into effect Jan. 1 and is an attempt to create guidelines for the industry nearly two decades after California voters legalized medical marijuana.
But there has been confusion at the local level about the potential impact ahead of the act’s implementation, including whether cities will lose local control if they don’t act by March 1.
The legislation will create a new state agency that will issue, suspend and remove licenses to dispensaries starting in 2018 and require the Medical Board of California to investigate doctors who recommend the drug excessively. It will also make it a misdemeanor for doctors to prescribe the drug when they have a financial interest in a licensed medical marijuana facility and crack down on marijuana farmers who pollute streams and rivers.
Now cities are rushing to meet the March 1 deadline out of fear they will lose local control when it comes to whether to allow dispensaries to grow medical marijuana within their city limits.
“If we don’t pass this type of ordinance, we will lose our right to regulate it,” said Richmond Assistant City Attorney Patricia Aljoe during a recent City Council meeting to discuss how to modify the city’s existing laws around cultivation and the mobile distribution of marijuana. The city has three cannabis dispensaries.
Many East Bay cities are responding to the upcoming changes by tightening or reaffirming existing ordinances that ban the cultivation and mobile delivery of cannabis. Others are taking an even more conservative approach with bans on the sale of medical marijuana, prompting concerns from advocates that hasty policies will restrict access for patients.
“There has been a big push by the League of California Cities to ban dispensaries, ban cultivation, ban delivery services, pretty much ban everything,” said Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.
“We’re especially upset about places that aren’t distinguishing between personal use and dispensaries.”
Gieringer said the March 1 deadline cities are rushing to meet was the result of a drafting error, accidentally added during the end-of-the-year legislative scramble.
“The whole stampede is a mistake,” Gieringer said.
Last week, Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, and author of the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, sent a letter to all California cities explaining the error and said that emergency legislation would be presented in early January to correct the problem. He added that cities will not be penalized for not having ordinances in place by March 1.
“Even if my urgency measure is not signed until after March 1, the Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, the entity responsible for developing the state’s regulations, currently exists on paper only,” Wood wrote. “It will be many months before the bureau has the capacity to develop and enforce statewide regulations.”
Wood’s district stretches from Santa Rosa to the Oregon border and includes the Emerald Triangle, the largest marijuana-producing region in the world.
But it appears that many cities haven’t gotten the memo, with Oakley, Brentwood, Antioch, Fremont, Richmond, San Pablo, Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, Dublin and Livermore among those recently engaged in discussions about amending existing ordinances. Currently, only Richmond, Vallejo, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro, unincorporated Alameda County and San Jose allow dispensaries.
Pleasant Hill bans dispensaries but allows patients to grow up to three plants outdoors for personal use so long as they are not visible from a public right of way. Most cities opposed to dispensaries cite concerns over smell, increased crime and that marijuana use may lead to the use of other drugs. Others don’t want to violate federal law, which treats marijuana not as medicine but as an illegal drug.
“Dispensaries are prohibited by federal law, and our city has a long-standing ordinance that we don’t allow things prohibited by federal law,” said Walnut Creek Mayor Bob Simmons.
But whatever their stance on marijuana, all are concerned with retaining local control as the statewide regulations near.
“Generally, a city likes to retain its control over what happens within its borders and not turn that control over to Sacramento,” said Brentwood Planning Commission Chairman Lance Crannell during a recent meeting.
Despite many cities’ tough stance on marijuana, a growing number of voters support legalization. A 2015 poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 55 percent of California residents believe all marijuana should be legalized.
They will have a chance to show their support next year when the Adult Use of Marijuana Act is expected to appear on the ballot. If approved, it would decriminalize all forms of marijuana, following in the footsteps of Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.
Staff writer Nate Gartrell contributed to this report. Contact Karina Ioffee at 510-262-2726 or kioffee@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/kioffee.Written by Dr. Maurice Bucaille
Islamic Articles - Holy Quran
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Taken from: "The Origin of Man", by Dr. Maurice Bucaille.Submitted by: Syed Ifraheem Haidar KarachiDr. Maurice Bucaille is an eminent French surgeon, scientist, scholar and author of "THE BIBLE, THE QUR'AN AND SCIENCE" which contains the result of his research into the Judeo-Christian Revelation and the Qur'an. It is a unique contribution in the field of religion and science.Being an outstanding Scientist, he was selected to treat the mummy of Merneptah (Pharaoh) which he did. During his visit to Saudi Arabia he was shown the verses of the Holy Qur'an in which Allah says that the dead body of the Pharaoh will be preserved as a "Sign" for posterity. An impartial scientist like Dr. Bucaille, who (being also a Christian) was conversant with the Biblical version of Pharaoh's story as being drowned in pursuit of Prophet Moses. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that unknown to the world till only of late, the Holy Qur'an made definite prediction about the preservation of the body of that same Pharaoh of Moses' time. This led Dr. Bucaille to study the Holy Qur'an thoroughly after learning the Arabic language. The final conclusion of his comparative study of Qur'an and the Bible is that the statements about scientific phenomena in the Holy Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences whereas the Biblical narration's on the same subjects are scientifically entirely unacceptable.As most people in the West have been brought up on misconceptions concerning Islam and the Qur'an; for a large part of my life, I myself was one such person. Let me cite one or two specific examples to indicate the kind of inaccurate ideas generally current.As I grew up, I was always taught that 'Mahomet' was the author of the Qur'an; I remember seeing French translations bearing this information. I was invariably told that the 'author' of the Qur'an simply compiled, in a slightly different form, stories of sacred history taken from the Bible; the 'author' was said to have added or removed certain passages, while setting forth the principles and rules of the religion he himself had founded. There are moreover Islamic scholars today in France whose duties include teaching and who express exactly these views, although perhaps in a more subtle form.This description of the origins of the Qur'anic text, which is so out of touch with reality, might lead one immediately to assume that if there are scientific errors in the Bible, there must also be errors of this kind in the Qur'an! This is the natural conclusion to be drawn in such circumstances, but it is based on a misconception. We are well aware that at the time of Muhammad - the Qur'anic Revelation took place between 610 and 632 A.D - scientific obscurantism prevailed, both in the Orient as well as in the West.In France, for example, this period corresponded roughly to the reign of King Dagobert, the last of the Mrovingians. This approach to what was supposedly the Qur'anic text may on first sight seem logical, but when one examines the text with an informed and impartial eye, it becomes clear that this approach is not at all in keeping with reality. We shall see in a moment the truth of this statement, which is obvious from the texts.Whenever there is textual proof of the existence in the Qur'an of statements that are in agreement with modern knowledge, but which in the Bible are related in a manner that is scientifically unacceptable, the stock response is that, during the period separating the two Scriptures, Arab scientists made discoveries in various disciplines which enabled them to arrive at these supposed adaptations. This approach takes no account whatsoever of the history of the sciences. The latter indicates that the great period of Islamic civilizations, during which, as we know, science made considerable progress, came several centuries after the communication of the Qur'an to the communication of the Qur'an to man.Furthermore, scientific history informs us that, as far as the subjects dealt with in this present book are concerned, no discoveries were made during, the period separating the Bible from the Qur'an.When this aspect of the Qur'an is mentioned in the West, however, we are likely to hear it said that while this may indeed be so, nowhere is this fact referred to in the translations of the Qur'an which we possess today, or in the prefaces and commentaries that accompany them.This is a very judicious remark. Muslim - and indeed non-Muslim - translators who have produced a French version of the Qur'an are basically men of letters. More often than not, they mistranslate a passage because they do not possess the scientific knowledge required to understand its true meaning. The fact is, however, that in order to translate correctly, one must first understand what one is reading. A further point is that translators - especially those mentioned above - - may have been influenced by notes provided by ancient commentators often came to be regarded as highly authoritative, even though they had no scientific knowledge - nor indeed had anybody else at that time. They were incapable of imagining that the texts might contain allusions to secular knowledge, and thus they could not devote attention to a specific passage by comparing it to other verses in the Qur'an dealing with the same subject - a process that often provides the key to the meaning of a word or expression. From this results the fact that any passage in the Qur'an that gives rise to a comparison with modern secular knowledge is likely to be unreliably translated.Very often, the translations are peppered with inaccurate - if not totally nonsensical - statements. The only way to avoid such errors is to possess a scientific background and to study the Qur'anic text in the original language.On the subject of man, as well as the other topics mentioned earlier, it is not possible to find any corresponding data in the Bible. Furthermore the scientific errors contained in the Bible - such as those describing man's first appearance on earth, which, as we have seen, may be deduced from the Genealogies that figure in Genesis are not to be found in the Qur'an. It is crucial to understand that such errors could not have been 'edited out' of the Qur'an since the time they first became apparent: well over a thousand years have elapsed since the most ancient manuscripts and today's texts of the Qur'an, but these texts are still absolutely identical. Thus, if Muhammad were the author of the Qur'an (a theory upheld by some people), it is difficult to see how he could have spotted the scientific errors in the Bible dealing with such a wide variety of subjects and have proceeded to eliminate every single one of them when he came to compose his own text on the same themes. Let us state once again, that no new scientific facts had been discovered since the time the Bible was written that might have helped eliminate such errors.In view of the above, it is imperative to know the history of the texts, just as it is essential to our understanding of certain aspects of the Bible for us to be aware, of the conditions in which it was written.As we have noted earlier, experts in Biblical exegesis consider the books of Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired works. Let us now examine, however, the teachings of Muslim exegetes, who present the Qur'an in quite a different fashion.When Muhammad was roughly forty years old, it was his custom to retire to a retreat just outside Mecca in order to meditate. It was here that he received a first message from God via the Angel Gabriel, at a date that corresponds to 610 A.D. After a long period of silence, this first message was followed by successive revelations spread over some twenty years. During the Prophet's lifetime, they were both written down and recited by heart among his first followers. Similarly, the revelations were divided into suras (chapters) and collected together after the Prophet' death (in 632 A.D.) in a book: the Qur'an. The Book contains the Word of God, to the exclusion of any human additions. Manuscripts dating from the first century of Islam authenticate today's text, the other form of authentication being the recitation by heart of the Qur'an, a practice that has continued unbroken from the time of the Prophet down to the present day.In contrast to the Bible, therefore, we are presented with a text that is none other than the transcript of the Revelation itself; the only way it can be received and interpreted is literally. The purity of the revealed text has been greatly emphasized, and the uncorrupted nature of the Qur'an stems from the following factors:First, as stated above, fragments of the text were written down during the Prophet's lifetime; inscribed on tablets, parchments and other materials current at the time. The Qur'an itself refers to the fact that the text was set down in writing. We find this in several suras dating from before and after the Hejira (Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.) In addition to the transcription of the text, however, there was also the fact that it was learned by heart. The text of the Qur'an is much shorter than the Old Testament and slightly longer than the New Testament. Since it took twenty years for the Qur'an to be revealed, however, it was easy for the Prophet's followers to recite it by heart, sura by sura. This process of recitation afforded a considerable advantage as far as an uncorrupted text was concerned, for it provided a system of double-checking at the time the definitive text was written down. This took place several years after the Prophet's death; first under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, his first successor, and later under the caliphate of Omar and in particular that of Uthman (644 to 655 A.D.) The latter ordered an extremely strict recension of the text, which involved checking it against the recited versions. ÂAfter Muhammad's death, Islam rapidly expanded far beyond the limits of the area in which it was born. Soon, it included many peoples whose native language was not Arabic. Very strict steps were taken to ensure that the text of the Qur'an did not suffer from this expansion of Islam: Uthman sent copies of his entire recension to the principal centers of the vast Islamic empire. Some copies still exist today, in more or less complete form, in such places as Tashkent (U.S.S.R) and Istanbul. Copies have also been discovered that date from the very first centuries after the Hejira; they are all identical, and all of them correspond to the earliest manuscripts.Today's editions of the Qur'an are all faithful reproductions of the original copies. In the case of the Qur'an, there are no instances of rewriting or corruption of the text over the course of time.If the origin of the Qur'an had been similar to those of the Bible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the subjects it raised would be presented in the light of the ideas influenced by certainopinions of the time, often derived from myth and superstition. If this were the case, one might argue that there were untold opportunities for inaccurate assertions, based on such sources, to find their way into the many and varied subjects briefly summarized above. In actual fact, however, we find nothing of the kind in the Qur'an.But having said this, we should note that the Qur'an is a religious book par excellence. We should not use statements that have a bearing on secular knowledge as a pretext to go hunting after any expression of scientific laws. As stated earlier, all we should seek are reflections on natural phenomena, phrases occasioned by references to divine omnipotence and designed to emphasize that omnipotence in the eyes of mankind throughout the ages. The presence of such reflections in the Qur'an has become particularly significant in modern times, for their meaning is clearly explained by the data of contemporary knowledge. This characteristic is specific to the Qur'an.It was not until I had learnt Arabic and read the Qur'an in the original that I realized the precise meaning of certain verses. Only then did I make certain discoveries that were astounding. With my basic ideas on the Qur'an - which to begin with were inaccurate, just as those of most people in the West - I certainly did not expect to find in the text the statements that I in fact uncovered. With each new discovery, I was beset with doubt lest I might be mistaken in my translation or perhaps have provided an interpretation rather than a true rendering of the Arabic text.Only after consultations with several specialists in linguistics and exegesis, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was I convinced that a new concept might be formed from such a study: the compatibility between the statements in the Qur'an and firmly established data of modern science with regard to subjects on which nobody at the time of Muhammad - not even the Prophet himself - could have had access to the knowledge we possess today. Since then, I have not found in the Qur'an any support given to the myths or superstitions present at the time the text was communicated to man. This is not the case for the Bible, whose authors expressed themselves in the language of their period.In 'La Bible le Coran et la Science' (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science), which first appeared in the original French in 1976 and which subsequently appeared in English in 1978, I set forth the main points of these findings. On November 9, 1976, I gave a lecture to the Academia de Medecine (French academy of Medicine) in which I explored the statements of the origins of man contained in the Qur'an; the title of the lecture was 'Donnees physiologiques et embryologiques de Coran'(Physiological and Embryological Data in the Qur'an). I emphasised the fact that these data - which I shall summarize below - formed part of a much wider study. The following are some of the points which arise from a reading of the Qur'an:* a concept of the creation of the world which, while different from the ideas contained in the Bible, is fully in keeping with today's general theories on the formations of the universe;* statements that are in perfect agreement with today's ideas concerning the movements and evolution of the heavenly bodies;* a prediction of the conquest of space;* notions concerning the water cycle in nature and the earth's relief, which were not proven correct until many centuries later.All of these data are |
index DAX, +0.31% fell 2.2% and France’s CAC 40 index PX1, +0.13% gave up 2.5%.
Greek government bond yields GR:GR10YT jumped 75 basis point to 7.90%, according to electronic trading platform Tradeweb.
Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.During the debate, John Kasich, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz were asked about Common Core State Standards. Of the three, Trump barely answered the question (albeit without the specifics Jake Tapper called for), Kasich gave the wimpy “it’s all hysteria” answer, and Cruz actually identified the problem.
Common Core’s biggest problem is that the U.S. Department of Education has been using other programs like Race To The Top funding in order to more or less blackmail states into adopting the standards. There are very, very few curricula written to the standards, and the majority of the ones out there are barely comprehensible. Cruz’s plan to roll back the executive actions that have led to the abuse of education funding and eventually eliminate the Department of Education is the most sensible way to go about de-federalizing Common Core.
Good on Cruz for knowing the problem, when it’s clear the other two have no idea.A new report from The Information says Google is working on its own personal assistant hub, similar to Amazon’s Echo. Only recently, through a series of updates and new hardware, has the Echo grown into a gadget worthy of its original transformative promise, and Google’s apparently taken notice.
Although details about the new product are light, we do know a few things: Google is supposedly working on an Echo competitor and has no working name for the product and may never even release it. But the idea makes almost too much sense. Google has the best voice recognition and search capabilities available, which also happens to be the Amazon Echo’s greatest downfall: You can’t perform a simple Google search on the Echo.
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Additionally, a lot of the software that would likely go into a Google-powered personal assistant device is already packed into millions and millions of smartphones with Google Now. The integration with this voice-powered device into other Google services could be incredibly useful. Imagine asking your household AI how long it would take to get to a friend’s house. After tapping into Google Maps, it gives you an estimated arrival time and can shoot the directions to your phone as you walk out the door. Yes, I would buy that gadget.
The other part of the equation is how this all ties in with Nest, Alphabet’s smart home division. According to The Information, Nest wanted to include this Echo clone with the rest of its smart home lineup, but Google “rebuffed” the idea. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t ultimately have Nest integration—let’s be honest it likely would—but Google is keeping this project as one of its own, at least for the time being.
When Amazon announced the Echo in 2014, it felt like a future that wasn’t ready for the big time. But with LG making its own Echo clone this past December, and other high-profile experts saying its “the next big platform for the near future,” the time for homes operated by Google’s powerful artificial intelligence may finally be here.
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[The Information]A waxy substance in apple peel, called ursolic acid, might help humans suffering from muscle wasting that can accompany disease, illness and aging. In a new study, researchers found apple peel in the diet reduced muscle atrophy in mice, promoted muscle growth and fat loss and even lowered blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Compound in apple peel helps muscle building hormones
The researchers were looking for a chemical that could stop muscle atrophy that Christopher Adams, M.D., Ph.D., University of Iowa endocrinologist and senior author of the study says is very common, but lacks treatment.
"We studied muscle gene activity in people with atrophy and used that information to find chemicals that might block atrophy. One of those chemicals was especially interesting. It's called ursolic acid and it's particularly concentrated in apple peels.
When the scientists tested ursolic acid in mice, they found it increased muscle size and strength, in addition to reducing body fat, cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Adams explained, the apple peel compound works to build muscle and protect from muscle atrophy in the mice "by helping two hormones that build muscle: insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1) and insulin."
Apple peel given to the mice and added to the daily diet corrected abnormal gene signaling that leads to muscle atrophy. The mice were fasting to simulate what happens to humans during prolonged illness that leads to muscle weakness and longer hospitalization times from debilitation.
Natural compound in apples changes gene expression to promote muscle building
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The research team isolated 63 genes that change in a fasting state in mice and in humans, and another 29 that change expression in the presence of spinal cord injury and during fasting.
Dr. Adams said ursolic acid is an “interesting compound”. An apple a day changed gene expression in the mice to promote strong muscles, opposing the pattern that causes muscle wasting.
"We know if you eat a balanced diet like mom told us to eat you get this material," Adams said. "People who eat junk food don't get this."
It’s not clear if the same results will be found in humans, but if so, the compound could be developed to protect patients with chronic illness from debilitation that comes from muscle atrophy during prolonged illness, immobility and inability to eat.
Ursolic acid, a natural compound found in apple peel, boosts the effect of the muscle building hormone IGF1 without increasing body weight and fat. The researchers hope to study the compound in human trials to see if daily intake of apple peel is enough to provide the same muscle building benefits to humans found in the mouse studies.
Cell Metabolism
"mRNA Expression Signatures of Human Skeletal Muscle Atrophy
Identify a Natural Compound that Increases Muscle Mass"
Steven D. Kunkel, Manish Suneja, Scott M. Ebert, Kale S. Bongers, Daniel K. Fox, Sharon E. Malmberg, Fariborz Alipour, Richard K. Shields, Christopher M. Adams
Image credit: MorguefileShadowrun: Hong Kong developer Harebrained Schemes launched the Kickstarter for it turn-based tactical reboot of BattleTech today, and the project met its funding goal within one hour.
With 35 days left, 4,347 backers have already pledged $335,789, smashing the initial goal of $250,000 goal.
The developer is seeking funding in three stages, with two more parts left in stage one yet to be funded. It’ll get there though, obviously. Should the project hit the $1 million mark, a single-player campaign will be included. At $1.85 million an expanded mercenary campaign will be added, and $2.5 million will ensure PvP multiplayer.
BattleTech is set during the 3025 BattleTech Succession Wars Era, which is often referred to as “Classic BattleTech”. The developer has already put $1 million into the game which will ensure the Skirmish mode which is now in pre-production on PC.
Check out the Kickstarter through the link.An archaeological dig is currently underway at Malcolm X's former home in Roxbury. Malcolm X, the famed civil rights activist, lived on Dale Street with his half-sister, Ella Little-Collins in the 1940s.
The dig will last for two weeks, hoping to unearth artifacts before the Collins family begins to restore the historic home.
Guests
Joseph Bagley, city of Boston's archaeologist. He tweets @BostonArchaeo.
Ted Widmer, Saunders Fellow for Public Engagement at Brown University and senior fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
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Interview Highlights
On the focus of the dig
Joseph Bagley: Because we’ve got such a short time to be on the site — we’re only going to be here for two weeks — we’re trying to focus all of our energy on finding as much as we can of things that will tell us the story of the property.
We’re working with Rodnell Collins who owns the house and grew up with Malcolm in the house about places on the property where he and his family did things — like picnicked or where they had their rabbits and various parts of the property that they used — but then we’re also using the radar to see if there’s things underground... So we’re using the radar and the oral history to pick the best spots to focus all of our energy for next week which is when we actually do the below ground testing.
On what they've found so far
We’ve done a little bit removal of soil... We found pieces of Ella’s China set that she had for the family. There’s actually a hutch still in the house that would have held all the family's dishes. And we’re finding pieces of that. And we found a toy that Rodnell grew up with that he was using in the yard.... We found a penny from 1952 which is when the family would have been living there, and Malcolm would have been listing the property as his home address.
We’re finding some really interesting things, but then we’re also finding some really bizarre things, like we just found a piece of ceramic from the 1740s. We’re not sure why it’s there. It could be from the farm that was here well before the property got developed. It could be that Ella collected antiques. We’re still working on some of the details.
On how the site varies from the other Boston-area landmarks
Normally, on the sites that we’ve been doing, they’ve been a lot older, there’s no way around that... [We] very rarely have the opportunity as archaeologists to work with people who were alive during the time that we are interested in studying. So it’s almost like we get kind of a behind-the-scenes tour of our own historic sites when we have the family members there. We’re able to take the combination of the oral history from Rodnell and his family, the written records that we have through the census and the deed records and the stuff that we have about Malcolm that’s very widely written, and we can also add the artifacts to that. So we can kind of do a three-part historical view of this house.
And the other reason why we’re doing it is, it’s now or never. If we don’t do this dig, the site will be gone, so in this case we can’t afford to wait until Malcolm becomes a more, even further back in time historical figure, like we would on Paul Revere’s house or John Hancock's properties. We just can't afford to wait.
... We have done a fairly in-depth analysis of the whole storyline of this property, because we could end up finding things from all periods of occupation, and we kind of have to treat each of those as significant even if we know the house is important because it’s Malcolm X’s house, we’re looking at the entire history of the property, because when you do archaeology you can’t avoid finding other time periods.
More
The Boston Globe: Malcolm X’s Former Home Gets A Closer Look
"Bagley said the home, which has remained in the family and is now owned by Malcolm X’s nephew, Rodnell Collins, is largely unchanged since the 1940s. And since Collins, 71, lived in the home as a boy, he can serve as a guide on where it would be best to look."
The Boston Globe: A House Of Malcolm X Added To Endangered List
"The designation offers preservationists and city officials hope they can raise enough money — and attention — to fix up the home and turn it into housing for graduate students of African-American studies or similar fields."
This post was updated on Wednesday, March 30 at 10:57 a.m.on •
Slasher movies are, by their very nature, retrospective. Regardless of the year in which they were made slashers use the same character archetypes, the same narrative beats, the same broad strokes that they always have and, for me, that’s part of the charm. I know when I’m sitting down to watch one exactly what to expect; the enjoyment comes not from the body count but rather the creative ways in which we get to the expected final jump scare at the end. Post-modern slashers, like Wes Craven’s mostly-excellent ‘Scream’, gave us an extra layer of intertextuality; the narrative was comfortingly familiar and safe, the dialogue however showed a more obvious and knowing referencing of the genre. Cyclical as these things are, however, in recent years the slasher sub-genre has fallen out of favour with new offerings limited to the indie market; in actuality, this is probably how these films are best created, in the same abject financial conditions, by the same kind of passionate and creative people, who made the originals that we love.
‘Don’t Go To The Reunion’ tells the story of a group of friends who play a trick on a horror film-loving geek at high school that results in his expulsion from school just prior to graduation. After ten years pass, the friends are invited to attend a class reunion but, when they arrive, it becomes apparent that sinister forces are at work. When people start going missing at the hands of a faceless killer, the group must overcome their differences to survive the night.
The plot in ‘Reunion’ is fairly standard fare. Anyone who is familiar with the sub-genre (if you’re reading this review, it is likely that you are) will be able to plot out its direction and will very quickly have a suspect for the killer come the ending. So far, so predictable, and everything proceeds according to expectation; the body count rises, slasher logic is in full facepalm effect, and we arrive at the final act in due course. This is when the movie throws its curveball however and, as our villain narrates prior events, the movie takes on a different complexion and you realise just how clever some of the references are. ‘Reunion’ is a film that is made by horror fans for horror fans; some references are quite obvious (character names, a female version of the Krueger jumper, etc.) but some are very subtle and it is only when they are pointed out during the film’s conclusion that they become apparent. Whilst the plot is fairly predictable the constant referencing of slasher lore and history is where the fun is for aficionados.
This is director Steve Goltz’s debut feature-length movie although he has made some short films in the genre prior to this, including the very entertaining ‘Teddy’ in 2011. Whilst ‘Reunion’ is still very short – I timed it at around 65minutes plus credits – it feels like a complete and well-rounded piece, a proper feature film despite its brevity. He clearly has a good eye too and much of the film is shot in a voyeuristic style reminiscent of ‘Myers-cam’ from ‘Halloween’, giving it an early Eighties indie feel. This is further supported by surprisingly good use of sound and, although there are a couple of sections when the blaring-synth jump scare is employed, the cheesiness of this is playfully referenced part way through; once again, this is entirely in keeping with the retro nature of the production.
The film, by slasher standards at least, has quite a small body count and it is here that the mega-low budget nature of the production is most obvious. Goltz sticks to practical make-up effects and clever edits to give the impression that you have seen more than is onscreen; ‘Reunion’ is not particularly gory or graphic but I suspect that finances dictated toning down this aspect. The cast who fall victim to these deaths are a little uneven but generally solid although there are clear standouts. Our final girl, and the main focus of the story, is Erica played by Stephanie Leigh Rose who is likeable throughout and is easy to root for once things go south. The real highlight, however, is douchebag jock Joe played by Mike Goltz, who is very convincingly detestable and whose foul mouth gives us most of the film’s humour; he has a real future in genre films and is definitely someone for whom to keep an eye out.
I really enjoyed ‘Don’t Go To The Reunion’. If, like me, you are a true fan of the slasher niche there’s much here to like. It is true that it lacks the blood and gore that some would enjoy but that isn’t really the point of the movie. It is, in the purest sense, an old fashioned slasher; made on a tiny budget, with a hokey premise, but by people who love and respect the genre. The biggest compliment I can pay ‘Reunion’ is that its low budget, its sensibility, its limitations even, give it a rough, homemade, traditional feel; if you didn’t know it was made in 2013, you would easily believe it as a legitimate Eighties production. Slashers have given breaks to many talented actors and directors over the years; on the evidence here, Steve Goltz is one to watch.
3.5/5
Find me on Twitter @dr_catsu
Note: ‘Don’t Go To The Reunion’ is not available through traditional outlets in the UK but it can be ordered direct from www.slasherstudios.com – the DVD is region-free.
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Categories: 00's horror, ReviewsTheo Wargo via Getty Images Part of the power of "Hamilton" is the fact that the white founding fathers are played by non-white actors.
On Wednesday, a casting call for the Broadway juggernaut that is “Hamilton” drew criticism from members of the Actors’ Equity theater union for specifying a need for “non-white” actors. To the union, and to many others in and outside of the theater world, the idea that the show would exclude white performers in its auditioning process is wrong: the auditions should be open for everyone.
OK, but no.
To be clear: from a legal standpoint, this is really a question of semantics. According to the rules of professional theatre, the use of “Non-” anything is considered discrimination. What they should have done was specify what races they wanted, not what race they did not want. That was their mistake.
However, criticizing the show’s poorly-worded casting call is very different than criticizing the show’s desire for actors of color. Because that is how casting calls work. Casting directors want to fill a specific role, a character with a certain height, a certain age, a certain hair color or, yes, a certain race ― and then they make a casting call that spells out all the details so that they only have to see actors who would actually work for the part.
And that’s not to say that the system is inherently OK just because it’s always worked this way. There is, of course, a case to be made for the importance of colorblind casting, the practice of choosing actors for parts based solely on their ability and not on race or ethnicity. And if you think about it, “Hamilton” is perhaps as colorblind as castings come ― when else would black and Latino actors get to play the Founding Fathers?
“What if they put an ad out that said, ‘Whites only need apply?’” --Man who has never seen a casting call before. https://t.co/kq3VYJJZG2 — Havilah McGinnis (@littlebirdwords) March 31, 2016
But what makes "Hamilton" work so well is the fact that it's a commentary on America's past through the prism of America's present, its future. It works because the historically white, male founding fathers are being played by a predominantly non-white cast of blacks and Latinos (there are also plans to cast women in the roles of men).
Now, what would the musical look like if Alexander Hamilton wasn't played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Aaron Burr wasn't played by Leslie Odom, Jr, but instead the characters were played by two capable, talented white actors? The show would likely still be entertaining, but the context and the conversation would change. It's like suggesting that "For Colored Girls..." or "The Color Purple" have an all-white cast. It's a completely different show.
This isn't a case of reverse racism. This isn't a case of people of color excluding white people despite bemoaning their own lack of inclusion in media. That's the whole point. "Hamilton" has created a space on Broadway for black and brown performers that otherwise wouldn't exist. Opening up roles designed specifically to be played by performers of color means encroaching on that space.
And no. The campaign for a black Spider-Man or a black James Bond cannot be equated to this. You can't scream "double-standard!" and suggest that having a white Spider-Man is just as integral to his story as having Lin-Manuel Miranda play Hamilton. Whiteness is not tied down to Spider-Man's character or his ever-evolving mythology. Neither is James Bond's.
But "Hamilton" is a musical that lives and breathes hip-hop. Its music and diverse cast, juxtaposed with the story of a country just beginning to find its voice, perfectly reflect the complex racial history and identity of America. That's integral to the story. That's a non-negotiable.
What's fascinating is the fact that so often there are casting-calls that exclude actors of color, and very rarely is there anyone calling out the producers or writers as racist. Or, some casting calls will be demeaning to actors of color -- remember when "Straight Outta Compton" perpetuated racial stereotypes about black women when it asked for "light-skinned, long haired" girls to play hot video vixens and dark-skinned actresses to play "poor, not in good shape" slobs?
On Thursday, the producers of "Hamilton" conceded, stating that the casting call will be changed to "welcome people of all ethnicities to audition" for the show. It makes sense why people would want a cultural phenomenon like "Hamilton," not to specify only non-white actors for the casting of some of its most key roles. A chance to be a part of the musical would be both career and history-making.
It's amazing that "Hamilton" has managed to capture the hearts and minds of so many people, but it's also important to remember that, at its core, the show is exploring the ways in which race, ethnicity, and nationality intersect. Just like Beyonce's "Formation" was enjoyed by all when it dropped in February, there was still the implicit understanding that what made it so unique was its inherent, unapologetic blackness. "Hamilton" is most definitely an inclusive show, an inclusive experience. But the fact of the matter is, quite frankly, not everything is about white people.Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like. Close
It befuddles me to read such a blatantly biased article published in our school newspaper. The article which attacks International Men’s Day as “unnecessary” is such an affront to reason, that it begs a response.
First, the author’s bias is clearly shown numerous times throughout the article, but they attempt to hide it under the shroud of “it isn’t fair.” Reasons like, “men aren’t as oppressed as women” are not valid reasons to deny appreciation of the genuine good that men bring into society. The logic is that men have it better and thus shouldn’t have a day honoring them. Isn’t this the mentality of a bully? To degrade another to make yourself higher?
Second, the author is a woman who has no idea what being a man is like, but pretends to. The quote “that for a man, is a given” is extremely offensive and ignorant. If I, as a man, said that being a woman was a given, that they had everything handed them, and because of this we should abolish International Women’s Day, I would be lambasted and ridiculed, and rightly so.
So, is it logically okay and fair for the author to go against their own logic?
Lastly, the author quotes The Huffington Post and Barbra Streisand as if they are authoritative on the matter. Just because a celebrity writes an article on a website, which is notorious for its bias, and it happens to be a position that you agree with doesn’t mean that it’s proof of anything. Celebrities have overblown their importance on issues in which they have no real knowledge. If you don’t agree with me, what are your thoughts on Trump?
Overall the article was one in which a double standard is allowed to play out, and offends the logic of readers everywhere.
Editor’s note: This is a letter to the editor.Hi, I'm Matthew Clark, the Senior Technical Architect for BBC Online's Olympic website and apps.
Alongside colleagues Mike Brown and David Holroyd, it's been my responsibility to create the technical strategy that has allowed us to produce successful online Olympic products.
We've focused on the design and development to make sure the site and apps stay reliable and can handle high traffic loads, whilst offering more content than ever before. In this technical blog post I'll be looking at some of the challenges we faced and how we overcame them.
We expected the Olympics would drive far more traffic to our site than ever before, and it did. Planning for this load was not easy. There are over 60,000 dynamically generated pages, many with a significant amount of content on them, so efficient page generation is vital.
Content needs to be as 'live' as possible, so long-term caching is not an option. We use a range of caches (including Content Delivery Networks, Varnish, and mod_cache) to offload the bulk of the traffic from our Apache web servers. For content that's dynamic, cache lifespan (max-age) varies between a few seconds and a few minutes, depending on the context. This is particularly true for the new video player, which needs the latest data every few seconds to compliment the live video stream.
Page generation is done using PHP, which is stateless and receives all of its data through calls to a RESTful API. This API is the Java application layer that retrieves its data from a range of data stores (including MySQL databases, triple stores, and XML content stores). It's the most critical layer from a performance point-of-view, as load is high, calls can involve significant processing, potentially multiple data store calls, and limitations on what can be parallelised. Caching (mod_cache and Memcached) is again used to address the bulk of the traffic.
From data stores to screens, sites and apps
We spent considerable time modelling how traffic creates load on the whole stack. This was first done theoretically (through modelling of user behaviour, load balancing, and caching). We then did it for real - we used data centres around the world to place load equivalent to over a million concurrent users on the site, to confirm everything worked during busy Games load.
More video: handling 2,500 hours of coverage
A moment when all 24 streams were running at the same time. Can you identify what they are?
There's been plenty of discussion about the BBC's 24 video streams, and the challenges of creating them at the International Broadcast Centre by the Olympic Park. This is the equivalent to 24 new channels, offered over cable and satellite as well as via IP.
Once the channels are created, the challenge is to direct viewers to the right content at the right times.
Sport schedules have a habit of changing - extra time, delays due to rain, etc - and the sites and apps need to show this. When an event starts, the tools used by (human) controllers to control the video also log the start in our XML content store. This metadata is then picked up by pages and apps (via an API) so that, within a minute of the event starting, there are links to the content throughout the site, app, and red button. A similar process happens when coverage finishes. Olympic sessions can be as short as 45 minutes, so the faster a video stream can be made available, the better.
More screens: coverage on mobiles, tablets, computers and internet connected TV
The BBC has a four screen strategy where we develop for PCs, tablets, mobiles, and internet connected TV. For the Games we've offered an unprecedented amount of content to all four. In addition, there are Olympic apps for iOS and Android smartphones, a Facebook app, foreign language content for World Service sites, and a red button service for satellite and cable TVs.
Our architecture is the classic multi-tier approach - pushing as much logic as possible into shared components, so that the amount of development for each interface is as low as possible. This is DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) at a multi-platform level. For web pages, a single PHP codebase creates both the desktop and mobile versions. This includes the iOS and Android apps, which use PhoneGap to 'wrap' the mobile website for most of its functionality. It has saved us having to rewrite functionality in native code. Certain other applications, such as the Olympic Facebook app, are different enough to warrant their own codebase, but still make the same API calls to the Java application layer, where most of the 'business' logic is held.
More content: Data is power
Video aside, there is a wealth of data required to make the Olympic site. The primary source is the Olympic Data Service, which blog posts from Oli Bartlett and Dave Rogers have already covered in depth. In brief, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) provide a comprehensive data feed that covers all sports, and provides a wealth of data - from latest scores to medal tables. This, combined with stories from journalists, and other sources such as Twitter, creates the content for tens of thousands of results, athletes, country, and event pages.
The Dynamic Semantic Publishing (DSP) model, which understands relationships (triples) between all content and concepts, is the process that ensures everything automatically appears in the right place. All created content, including stories, medals, and world records, are tagged (normally automatically) with the appropriate athletes, sports and countries. This causes the content to appear on the appropriate page without human intervention.
In essence, it's this automatic curation of pages that has allowed us to offer such a broad range of product. The automation has kept maintenance to a minimum, freeing journalists to focus on writing content. It's allowed multiple products and thousands of pages to stay up-to-date without a large operational overhead.
More testing: Simulating an entire Olympics
With all this content, data, video, and technology, comes a huge engineering challenge: how do you test it? All development areas follow Test Driven Development (TDD) so there is no shortage of automated unit and component tests. But what happens when you plug everything together? How can you be sure that the right medals go to the right country, or that video works on all devices, or that results appear correctly for all 36 sports? Unlike, say, the football season, the Olympics only happen once every four years, and only last a couple of weeks.
There are no second chances.
We needed to be 100% sure that on day one of the Games, everything would work as expected.
To tackle this we set up an entire team, as big as any development team, with the job of proving everything would work when the Games started. We took a three-pronged approach:
We used as much of the Olympic technology as we could for other sporting events, such as F1 and Wimbledon. This was often offered as a beta service - and we're grateful to all who gave these a go. We used the Olympic test events to get video and stats that would be similar to that of the Games. We ran this on our staging environment so that they could be made to look like real Olympic events without appearing on our normal site. Most importantly, we created fake video and data that let us simulate the Olympics. We picked the most interesting moments of the Games (the opening ceremony, the first big day, etc) and created all the inputs as they would be at that moment. This was run in our staging environment and allowed us to see all sites and apps behave as they would when the Olympics were underway. (You can read more about how we made the simulated data in the post by my colleague Dave Rogers.)
This testing process lasted several months and caught a significant number of bugs and performance problems. Fortunately it paid off - I was a little nervous on the first day of the Games, but it passed without incident.
More for the future
With the end of the Games fast approaching, attention now turns to other areas of the Sport website.
Some features have already been applied throughout - for example, most live video coverage will be in HD from now on. Other services that we've offered for Olympics aren't yet ready for use elsewhere (mobile apps and video chapter points being two). Over the coming months we'll be working on bringing many of these features to the rest of Sport, and perhaps other parts of BBC Online too.
If you've any questions about the technology we've used during the Olympics, please get in touch using the comments below.
Matthew Clark is Senior Technical Architect, Knowledge & Learning, BBC Future MediaThe Tampa Bay Lightning are keeping quiet about the extent of the injury Victor Hedman suffered in Thursday's game against the Dallas Stars.
Hedman left the game in the second period after taking a hit from Jamie Benn, the defenseman's head slamming into the glass.
Head coach Jon Cooper said Friday that Hedman's feeling better, according to the Tampa Tribune's Erik Erlendsson. But Cooper offered no official injury status, only ruling out the 24-year-old from Saturday's home game against the Buffalo Sabres.
Cooper's optimistic that Hedman, who may have suffered a concussion, will be back sooner rather than later.
Tampa Bay could be facing a very depleted blue-line corps on Saturday, with Hedman out and Nikita Nesterov facing a possible suspension after hitting Stars forward Curtis McKenzie from behind. Nesterov will have a hearing with the league at 4:30 p.m. ET on Friday.
The Lightning will officially call up defenseman Slater Koekkoek from Syracuse of the AHL on Friday evening, Erlendsson added.Main Forum Container minimized. Expand Tweet The Streaming Ones September 22nd, 2017 0 replies Rovena Posts: 157 Votes: +113 Level 5 LEVEL 5
You can re-watch the stream on
With a lot of the balance talk, I did not include the numbers because they are all still WIP and will probably change anyways.
Gavin
System and Item designer / engineer
Lately he has been doing a lot work on the Kaidan Dock Containers
He worked on weapons specialties (his most fun stuff he did in SWL)
Specialties he was working on (not him alone): Chaos, Blood Magic, Elemental, Shotgun
Monster abilities are his specialties
9 out of the 10 new gadgets have been worked on by him
Worked on the NYR too, supporting
Describes himself as Powergamer / nerd
Plays a lot board games & PC games (Andy thinks he is great at Overwatch)
His favorite monster in SWL are the shade stalkers
This Week's patch
Tokyo beyond the wall just launched on Wednesday
Some Mission items were not working and had to be disabled. They are back now
Bankheist is still disabled due to bugs and won't be back before next week probably
Mission item inventory is live
An issue with the inventory counter should be fixed too
Vanity Transfer System is live as well (Cosmetics from TSW can be transferred ONCE from TSW. No time limit) Details
Tilty posted a small update
Shipping containers are well received
Docks / Containers in Tokyo
Story: there is a contaminated ship and the infestation is crawling out
There are new monsters and so on
The interesting new (to Beyond the Wall) mechanic are the shipping Containers
The containers have Numbers and the Letters (A,B,C) on the relate to the keys that drop from Tokyo side missions (what is a side mission was subject to discussion, they are not 100% sure)
A is the most rarest, C the most common, rarer bosses are harder but give better loot
Opening the container spawns a boss
There are always Anima shards in there, distillates
Other rewards are clothing or gadgets
The persons that used the key gets the loot, even in a group
The Gadgets are all based on myths, things Orochi has been collecting from around the world (Mesopotamian, Roman, Mayan, Norse, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Spanish and Native American. One Gadget each.)
The effects and powers are based on the culture / theme of the gadgets
They were not happy with how little they had to reward players to reward them for playing Tokyo
Power level of the bosses is about the same as the other bosses in Tokyo
Next (Content) Patch
Tokyo Lair is coming along quite well
The tower will be coming Probably in the first part of October
There will be a new floor most likely, no details though
They might sneak something in that is not on the Roadmap yet
Game mechanics & Balance changes
They are working on AR-Grenades and AoEs in general
AoEs will get the DMG penalties for being an AoE removed, but there will be changes, it still is very much WIP
The penalties have been applied inconsistently, for example Hammer barely had them, while Elementalism and Balde had a lot of it.
The AoE buff will effect Elemental & Blade quite heavily as well
Shotgun changed a lot during the development, from a very tanky to a more hybrid weapon
Armor piercing shot was meant to be useful in groups
Acquiring friendly targets is going to be iterated on but they don't have details
Healing Player / NPCs outside the group is much discussed but they don't have a solution yet.
The cursor jumping back to the center of the screen MIGHT be changes so that you can set a toggle so it stays where it was last times
Boss HP in dungeons will probably come down a bit in the E2-E6, making it a bit smoother
The goal was to have all dungeons to be about the same difficulty, they want feedback on encounters that are standing out as being too difficult (compared to the others), balance is an ongoing thing
Spirit blade will be changed to scale based on the damage the ability used (more on power abilities, les and basics )
Some passives will get buffed to, Sweeping slice will be triggering on 2+ instead of 3+ hit enemies, Masterpiece will provide a percent based dmg increase to spirit blade, Deluge will trigger on ever other hit, not ever 6th.
Weapon agnostic signets are going to be improved
I listened to this one twice but still feel like I have missed something. Let me know if you remember anything important.
Edit: Fixed a few minor things, thanks to Aerinx from Discord for pointing them out! Todays stream was hosted by Spynosaurus, Andy |
government in power. With Hadi allies taking over the southern port of Aden, the first GCC ground troops have arrived.
The source: the United Arab Emirates. An entire UAE brigade arrived this week in Aden, complete with tanks and armored vehicles. Officials bragged that the UAE forces participated in recent battles against the Shi’ite Houthis, and played a role in territorial gains for Hadi loyalists.
The Houthis still control the vast majority of the country, but the capture of Aden has raised hopes for the Saudis and their allies that the war may be starting to turn in their favor. The deployment of UAE troops suggests they are betting heavily on that momentum continuing.
Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi was “elected” as president of Yemen in 2012, in a single candidate vote in which no one else was allowed to run. He resigned in January amid disputes with the Houthis over a transition to actual democratic elections. The Saudis declared war in March, vowing to reinstall Hadi.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzM-dwarf ‘Hot Jupiter’ a Challenge for Planet Formation Theories
The Next Generation Transit Survey has come up with an interesting catch. A gas giant close to the size of Jupiter (about 20 percent less massive) has turned up orbiting a red dwarf some 600 light years away, with an orbital period of 2.6 days. With a temperature calculated at 800 Kelvin, NGTS-1b stands out not because it is a ‘hot Jupiter’ but because stars as small as this one are not normally associated with gas giants. The new planet is, in fact, the largest planet — compared to the size of its companion star — ever discovered.
Image: Artist’s impression of planet NGTS-1b with its neighbouring star. Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick.
The Next Generation Planet Survey is a wide-field photometric survey designed to find transiting exoplanets of Neptune-class and smaller around bright stars, using an array of fully-robotic small telescopes operating in the 600-900nm band. The survey is thus sensitive to K and early-M class stars, the goal being to provide targets for instruments ranging from the upcoming European Extremely Large Telescope to the James Webb Space Telescope.
Sited at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal site in Chile, the survey now has its first catch, about which lead author Daniel Bayliss (Geneva Observatory) comments:
“The discovery of NGTS-1b was a complete surprise to us – such massive planets were not thought to exist around such small stars. This is the first exoplanet we have found with our new NGTS facility and we are already challenging the received wisdom of how planets form.”
We only have three transiting gas giants around M-dwarfs, which are the most common type of star in the galaxy. The two previously discovered planets are Kepler-45b and HATS-6b, the latter a warm transiting ‘Saturn.’ The radius of NGTS-1b has proven tricky to determine because this is a ‘grazing’ transit at the edge of detection — not all of the planet transits the host star’s disc. The authors believe that further data from the upcoming Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will improve their models of the system.
We can hope that surveys like NGTS will eventually monitor enough M-dwarfs to give us statistics on the frequency of hot Jupiters around this class of star — the plan calls for approximately 20000 early-type M-dwarfs per year to be monitored. This will be useful information as we continue to learn about planet formation. We would expect gas giants to be rare around M-dwarfs because protoplanetary disk mass decreases with stellar mass, so there is less material to work with and longer, slower process of planet formation at work.
There is also the question of metallicity, about which we have much to learn. Remember that to an astrophysicist, a metal is any element heavier than helium. The paper comments:
It has long been known that for solar-type host stars the incidence of giant planets increases very sharply with increasing host star metallicity (Fischer & Valenti 2005), and very few giant planets have been detected around stars with significantly sub-solar metallicity. However, the same correlation is not seen for Neptunes or super-Earths, whose incidence appears largely independent of metallicity (Sousa et al. 2008; Buchhave & Latham 2015; Jenkins et al. 2017). By robustly determining the metallicity of NGTS-1 and systems like this we will be able to probe if the correlation between metallicty and giant planet frequency remains true for low mass stars.
The paper is Bayliss et al., “NGTS-1b: A hot Jupiter transiting an M-dwarf,” accepted for publication at Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (preprint).The international committee of experts at the independent policy institute, Chatham House, has issued a widely documented study that tells governments that drastically reducing consumption of meat and milk will be a key factor to keep global warming below the dangerous two-degree rise in temperature.
Livestock is a major factor of global warming based on a well-known fact: growing vegetables to feed billions of animals is a disastrous process, much less efficient than humans directly eating plants and their derivatives.
Because of its disastrous energy deficiency, livestock emits 15% of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, an amount greater than the entire transportation industry together – planes, trains, cars, and boats, included.
Livestock is also a major factor in water and air pollution, water scarcity, soil degradation, deforestation, the loss of biodiversity, and ocean pollution.
So far, livestock and meat production have been outside of the agenda of governments and environmental organizations, however, things are changing, and changing fast.
The documentary, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, is playing an important role in the change. In the film, the highly destructive power of raising livestock, as well as the suspicious silence of major environmental organizations on the matter are exposed.
The UN has issued a report calling for a change in the food model in which the population would mainly feed on a diversity of plants. This change is necessary in order to combat world hunger, the energy crisis, and the impact of climate change.
The international committee of experts at the independent policy institute, Chatham House, has issued a widely documented study that tells governments that drastically reducing consumption of meat and milk will be a key factor to keep global warming below the dangerous two-degree rise in temperature.
In this context, and with the Paris Summit underway, demonstrations have been held in cities around the world calling on the participating countries to incorporate the disasters of animal agriculture among the factors to be discussed. It is known that the Summit does not usually take this topic into consideration, even though they are aware of the impact of meat production on the climate.
In these demonstrations, the message of veganism has been noticed. This is a growing movement showing that millions of people around the world are turning to a more responsible lifestyle with the animals and the planet in mind.
As Anna Pippus of The Huffington Post columnist said in her article, “Killing animals is killing the planet.”
If you want to help stop climate change, in addition to saving the lives of numerous animals, try choosing a more compassionate diet. Millions of people already are changing their eating habits, helping countless animals and the planet. Try new recipes today!Now Available: M20 Book of Secrets and Hundred Devils!
Exalted, Mage: The Ascension, Sales
Now available in PDF and print: the Book of Secrets for Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition.
More Than Magick For mages who think they have everything, this trove of treasures expands upon the wealth of material presented throughout Mage: The Ascension’s 20th Anniversary Edition. New Traits, new rules, essays, answers, information… the Secrets are revealed within. Enter the Annex Building upon the M20 core rulebook, this Book of Secrets features updated rules and setting material, such as… An M20 FAQ Genres & Resources
Matters of Focus Justice & Influence
New Abilities, Archetypes, Merits & Flaws
Expanded Rules for Combat, Resonance, Wonders, Computer Systems, and More This Ascension Continues…
Also available in PDF: Hundred Devils Night Parade: Mouse of the Sun and Rantai.
From the frozen North to the burning South, and all directions in between, there are creatures that stalk Creation. Demons, spirits, monsters and even creatures who live alongside mankind are in every region. In this collection you will find new foes, encounter old enemies, and learn the secrets of these denizens of Exalted 3rd Edition’s wondrous world. Hundred Devils Night Parade: Mouse of the Sun and Rantai The next two entries in the series for this bestiary for Exalted 3rd Edition.
Don’t forget that DriveThruRPG’s Christmas in July sale continues this week!This post may contain referral/affiliate links. If you buy something, MSA may earn a commission. Read the full disclosure
Source: Instagram user jaime.wistdi
We have full spoilers 2017 Sephora Sun Safety Kit!
This kit goes on sale in the Sephora app on Tuesday, 4/11, but stores have it now! (Call ahead to make sure they will let you buy it before you head out. My local Sephora told me the bags are in the back, but they would bring one out for me to buy if I asked for it.)
Here’s everything in the Sun Safety Kit:
Source: Instagram user jaime.wistdi
Source: Instagram user jaime.wistdi
Source: Instagram user jaime.wistdi
The Box: Sephora Sun Safety Kit (In stores now!)
The Cost: $32
The Products:
Dr Brandt Pores No More Multi-performance Stick Broad Spectrum SPF 45 – 1.9 g
FRESH Sugar Nude Tinted Lip Treatment SPF 15
Josie Maran Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 47
Murad Invisiblur Perfecting Shield Broad Spectrum SPF 30
Peter Thomas Roth Max Sheer All Day Moisture Defense SPF 30 Sunscreen Lotion – 15 ml
Shiseido Ultimate Sun Protection Cream Broad Spectrum SPF 50 Water Resistant (80 minutes) Sunscreen Wetforce
St. Tropez Gradual Tan Tinted Body Lotion – 50 ml
Supergoop! Defense Refresh Setting Mist SPF 50 –.5 oz
MD Solar Sciences Mineral Tinted Creme –.25 oz
Clarins UV Plus Broad Spectrum SPF 50
Cover FX Clear Cover Invisible Sunscreen SPF 30 –.1 oz
Vita Liberata Body Blur Instant HD Satin Finish –.24 oz
COOLA Daydream Mineral Primer – 5 ml
NEOGEN Dermalogy Day Light Protection Sunscreen SPF 50 – 5 ml
Amore Pacific Compact –
And here is the JCPenney version of the Sephora Sun Safety Kit, available in stores only:
The Box: JCPenney Sephora Sun Safety Kit (In stores only)
The Cost: $26
The Products:
Dr Brandt Pores No More Multi-performance Stick Broad Spectrum SPF 45
FRESH Sugar Nude Tinted Lip Treatment SPF 15
Josie Maran Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 47
Murad Invisiblur Perfecting Shield Broad Spectrum SPF 30
Peter Thomas Roth Max Sheer All Day Moisture Defense SPF 30 Sunscreen Lotion
Shiseido Urban Environment UV Protection Cream Broad Spectrum SPF 40
Shiseido Ultimate Sun Protection Cream Broad Spectrum SPF 50 Water Resistant (80 minutes) Sunscreen Wetforce
St. Tropez Gradual Tan Tinted Body Lotion
Supergoop! Defense Refresh Setting Mist SPF 50
Too Faced Cosmetics Chocolate Soleil Matte Bronzer in Medium/Deep
What do you think of the Sun Safety Kits this year? Are you going to grab one?
And our Play! by Sephora subscription box reviews, too!In the UK the document BB93 Acoustic Design of Schools provides design guidance for refurbished and new classrooms. Traditionally, school acoustic design in the UK is concerned with the needs of the listener, rather than the voice ergonomics of the speaker. However, a recent survey undertaken by London South Bank University (LSBU) indicated that over 65% of the surveyed teachers had experienced voice problems during their career. This supports other studies suggesting that teachers have a significantly higher incidence of voice problems than the general population.
In an effort to better understand the influence of classroom acoustic design on teachers’ speech LSBU is undertaking measurements of teachers’ voices in different classroom types. An Ambulatory Phonation Monitor (APM) is used to measure voice parameters (including the average speech sound level, fundamental frequency and phonation time) directly from the skin vibrations in the neck, thus eliminating the effects of other noise sources in the environment. The rooms involved are acoustically benchmarked separately to enable relationships between the voice data and acoustic parameters, such as unoccupied ambient noise levels and reverberation times, to be investigated. This paper will present the results of the field measurements to date, and discuss some of the findings.« The Republic—gravely injured, or deceased? | Main | Is Limbaugh evolving, or only revolving? » Will conservatives abide in the terrible truth, or revert to their standard optimism?
Peter H. writes: writes: You wrote: “Our future is to be a country ruled by a coalition of nonwhite parasites and white leftist scum.” One reason among many that I love reading VFR is terrific turns of phrase like this one! You mentioned Sean Hannity. I’ve heard him and several other “conservative” commentators say that the reason the election was lost is our changing demographic. They then turn around and say something like, “We need a strong conservative to get our message out,” or “Mitt Romney was not a strong candidate.” Hannity has been saying for five years now that Obama is a catastrophe and that his reelection would be disastrous for America, then he signs off his show last night with his trademark “Let not your heart be troubled.” I’m confused. If a disaster has befallen the country, shouln’t my heart be troubled? All of the commentators talk about the browning of America as though it were an inevitability. Not one brings up the topic of immigration. I don’t think any of them realize what an actual disaster has befallen the country over the past 45 years by importing millions upon millions of Third-Worlders. It seems not to be on their radar screen at all, when it should be the first thought to occur to them. Most pathetic is the idea that by repackaging the conservative message, we’ll be able to make inroads, particularly with Hispanic voters. In my view, this is laughable, impossible. It will never happen. If we don’t stop Third-World immigration and encourage Third-Worlders who are here (whether legally or illegally) to leave, we will eventually become a Third-World country where I don’t want to live and where I don’t want my children and grandchildren to live. I believe the current election and our current financial crisis are symptomatic of our racial transformation and that the latter is, likewise, not likely to improve significantly until the subject of immigration/repatriation is addressed. LA replies: LA replies: First, as I wrote in Chapter One of The Path to National Suicide: [E]ven when people realize the unimaginable scope of the changes taking place in our country, there is a feeling that those changes are inevitable. It is as though the “browning of America,” as Time has dubbed it, were a kind of vast natural phenomenon, as far outside of human control as continental drift. There seems to be almost no awareness of the fact that this alteration of our society is the result, not of an act of God, but of an act of Congress; not of some inviolable provision in the Constitution, but of a law passed in 1965. Second, earlier today I gave Sean Hannity credit for seeming to recognize that America “is no longer the center-right country that it once was.” But if he also wants to maintain the standard mainstream conservative optimism, that will prevent him from ever following through on such insights, and he will remain a loyalist to what is now America’s lawless leftist regime.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 08, 2012 12:51 PM | Send
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WASHINGTON, May 10 - Speaking at a news conference today outside the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) announced legislation to end billions of dollars in oil, coal and gas subsidies.
"The American people are asking how can it be that at a time when so many in Congress are calling for savage cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and when they tell us we can't renew key incentives for solar and wind and other sustainable technologies, that we can somehow afford to continue to pumping tens of billions in taxpayer dollars into hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations." Sanders said.
"Our legislation is the most comprehensive ever introduced," Sanders said. "It ends all tax breaks, special financing arrangements, and federal research and development funding. We ensure that never again can a company like BP take a tax deduction for money spent cleaning up its own mess in the Gulf of Mexico," he added, "and we close the loophole that lets tar sands oil pipeline operators avoid paying the oil spill clean-up tax."
Ellison noted that big oil companies make more than $300 million every day. "Why should Americans prop up these companies with tax dollars and have to pay ridiculous fuel prices?" he asked. "We need to get off the fossil fuel bandwagon that keeps us dependent on oil and contributes to climate change. The $113 billion in taxpayer handouts that oil, gas, and coal companies receive should be used to invest in green jobs. It's time for this corporate welfare to end."
The measure would do away with tax breaks, financial assistance, royalty relief, direct federal research and development and many loopholes that benefit the fossil fuel industry. Under current law, more than $113 billion in federal subsidies would go to oil, coal and gas industries in the coming decade.
The five largest oil companies in the United States earned about $1 trillion in profits over the past decade. Meanwhile, in recent years, some of the very largest oil companies in America like Exxon Mobil and Chevron, paid absolutely nothing in federal income taxes.
The bill is supported by 350.org, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, Oil Change International and Earth Justice.
"It's bad enough that the fossil fuel industry is doing severe damage to our climate--but that we're paying them tax dollars to do it adds insult to injury," said Bill McKibben, the environmentalist from Ripton, Vt., and founder of 350.org.
Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense said, "With the federal government facing a $1.3 trillion deficit and $15 trillion debt, the time to trim the fat is now. The Sanders-Ellison bill helps us get there by eliminating more than $110 billion in outdated and unnecessary subsidies to the fossil fuel industry."
"If we are to have any chance of avoiding climate catastrophe the first thing we need to do is stop paying corporations to pollute - and this landmark legislation does just that," said Brent Blackwelder, president emeritus of Friends of the Earth.
For a list of current subsidies, click here.
For a fact-sheet on the bill, click here
Become a citizen co-sponsor of the bill here.The United States recovered thousands of old chemical weapons in Iraq from 2004 to 2009 and destroyed almost all of them in secret and via open-air detonation, according to a written summary of its activities prepared by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international body that monitors implementation of the global chemical weapons treaty.
The 30-page summary, prepared after quietly held meetings between the organization’s technical staff and American officials in Washington in 2009, was provided to The New York Times by the Pentagon on Friday.
It included a table disclosing limited details on 95 separate recoveries and destructions of chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, for a total of 4,530 munitions from May 2004 through February 2009 — a period of often intense fighting in Iraq.
The United States later recovered more Iraqi chemical weapons, pushing its tally to 4,996 by early 2011, according to redacted intelligence documents obtained by The Times via the Freedom of Information Act.SPECIAL POST — Bernice Gordon, who reinvented herself as an artist and a crossword-puzzle constructor after raising three children, died this morning at her home in Philadelphia. She was 101.
Ms. Gordon was born in Philadelphia on Jan. 11, 1914. She began constructing puzzles in her 30s when, bored with television — except for Milton Berle — she set about looking for a mental challenge for herself. With characteristic determination, she sent her puzzles to then-New York Times puzzle editor Margaret Farrar. After some guidance from Ms. Farrar, Ms. Gordon eventually made her New York Times debut in 1952, although the paper did not give bylines to constructors until the 1990s and exact dates cannot be confirmed. According to Will Shortz, who now edits crossword puzzles for The Times, Ms. Gordon went on to publish an estimated 150 puzzles for the paper over a span of 60 years.
In addition to her work in The New York Times, Ms. Gordon published puzzles in The Philadelphia Inquirer, multiple puzzle syndicates and puzzle books from Dell and Simon & Schuster.
Photo
Her May 30, 1965 New York Times puzzle, however, made a considerable splash. Credited with pioneering the concept of rebus puzzles, her debut included a punctuation mark that inspired hundreds of people to write to Ms. Farrar, according to a 2014 interview she gave to ABC15.com. Some people liked the innovation, she reported, but others claimed that it was cheating and that “they had never seen anything worse.” In addition, she once constructed a set of X-rated puzzles for Xaviera Hollander, who achieved some notoriety as the “Happy Hooker” in the 1970s.
Her final puzzle for the Times, a collaboration with David Steinberg, was notable not just for the cleverness of the grid; in all likelihood, the two set some sort of record for largest age gap between crossword collaborators. At the time of their collaboration, Mr. Steinberg was 16; Ms. Gordon was 100.
According to the following Associated Press interview, Ms. Gordon was still constructing a grid a day until recently and, according to Mr. Shortz in this video, was a consistent crosswords record-setter, largely due to her longevity:
On a personal note, I never had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Gordon, but was a huge admirer of her wit, creativity, formidable intelligence and her obvious joy and energy. She will be missed.Spread the love
Bend, OR — Last week, a torrent of new information on the Lavoy Finicum shooting, including a photo of where he was shot and video from the inside of his vehicle during the road block, were released to the public. It was also announced that the FBI is being investigated for a cover up after the shooting.
Here's the autopsy report showing the three shots in Finicum #OregonStandoff pic.twitter.com/CQn7COKzkL — Simone Del Rosario (@SimoneReports) March 8, 2016
Since the shooting, which was captured on video from the FBI’s birdseye view, there have been many theories surrounding the death of Finicum.
According to the official story, Lavoy Finicum was killed by officers because they had no other choice as he was reaching for a gun in his left pocket. Officials claim they later found a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic handgun in that pocket.
It is evident from the video that Finicum never presented the handgun. However, we can clearly see him reaching for his left side.
In a photo of the autopsy report, taken by RT’s Simone Del Rosario at the press conference last Tuesday, and the newly released video, there is a now an alternative reason, outside of going for a gun, as to why Finicum was reaching toward his left side — he was shot there.
The newly released video shows that officers and agents opened fire on the vehicle prior to Finicum exiting it.
The footage from inside the vehicle shows that Finicum could have been shot with his hands up as he was exiting the vehicle.
After announcing that the state troopers committed no wrongdoing, it was announced that multiple FBI agents are under investigation who were on the scene that day.
Authorities revealed that at least one FBI agent is suspected of lying about firing twice at Robert “LaVoy” Finicium, and may have gotten help from four other FBI agents in covering it up afterward.
Immediately after admitting that the agents were under investigation, officials quickly noted that none of the shots fired by the unnamed agent, who is part of an elite national strike unit, hit Finicum. However, newly released police reports show that two bullet casings which could have proved that an FBI agent shot Finicum — disappeared from the scene.
According to the Oregonian, the police reports show that investigators, who saw the full FBI video the day after the shooting, suspected something was amiss. They searched two FBI pickups used at the roadblock, looking for bullet casings, according to a detective’s report. They didn’t find any.
However, FBI aerial surveillance video shows that before the detectives could get there, the FBI agents searched the area with flashlights and then huddled, according to law enforcement sources who have seen the video. The group then broke and one agent appeared to bend over twice and pick up something near where the two shots likely were taken, the sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
As members of an elite FBI strike unit, the odds of missing two shots from such close range are slim. Could it be that Finicum was shot, knew these people weren’t afraid to kill all the occupants of the truck, and, therefore, heroically drew fire away from the vehicle by yelling “shoot me,” and saved the lives of all those inside? All the evidence shows that could be the case.
As for which FBI agent fired those shots — they still don’t know. Greg Bretzing, special agent in charge of the Portland FBI office, cautioned at a news conference last week, “The question of who fired these shots has not been resolved.”German World Cup hopefuls Julian Draxler and Benedikt Howedes (along with Nico Rosberg) involved in car accident during Mercedes film shoot
Two people taken t o h ospi tal during Mercedes advert shoot
Germany internationals Benedikt Howedes and Julian Draxler involved in cars when incident took place
Pascal Wehrlein was driving the car involved in the crash, Nico Rosberg was driving the second vehicle
Film set was near German team's hotel in South Tyrol, northern Italy
Formula One driver Nico Rosberg and two of Germany's World Cup squad have been involved in a car accident during a promotional shoot at their World Cup training base on Tuesday which left two people in hospital.
Rosberg and DTM driver Pascal Wehrlein were carrying Germany team-mates Julian Draxler and Benedikt Howedes in separate vehicles when Wehrlein's car collided with two people on a road in northern Italy's South Tyrol region. The road had been closed to the public.
'I am shocked by the accident,' said Rosberg, who leads the Formula One World Championship after winning Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix.
VIDEO Scroll down to watch Nico Rosberg and Lukas Podolski do keep-ups
Investigation: Italian Police closed a road following an accident near Germany's national football team's training camp in San Martino
World Cup bound: Germany internationals Benedikt Howedes (left) and Julian Draxler were both involved
Monaco winner: Nico Rosberg was involved during the filming for the Mercedes advert
'My thoughts are with the two people who were injured and I wish them a fast recovery.'
Rosberg, Wehrlein, Draxler and Howedes were not injured in the accident.
A statement from Mercedes Motorsport said: 'An accident occurred during a visit to the training camp of the German National Football Team: while driving on a closed circuit, DTM driver Pascal Wehrlein injured two people whom he unexpectedly encountered walking on the closed course.
'We cannot offer any statement concerning the severity of injuries, as both injured parties are currently undergoing medical treatment. Pascal Wehrlein was uninjured in the accident.
'We deeply regret this accident and send wishes of quick recovery to the injured. We will work in full cooperation with the authorities in determining the exact circumstances of the accident.'
Media: Rosberg, golfer Martin Kaymer and Pascal Wehrlein spoke to the German press earlier in the day
Accident: Two people were taken to hospital - one with serious injuries
Walk away: None of the football players were injured in the accident
Germany manager Oliver Bierhoff said in a statement: 'During a driving event of our partner Mercedes-Benz there was a serious accident,'
'We regret to say that two people were injured and treated on the spot before being taken to hospital.
'At the moment all our thoughts are with those injured. We do not have more information at this moment.'The Ad Age Presidential Campaign Ad Scorecard is sponsored by The Trade Desk
Editor's note: Here's the 31st installment of the 2016 Presidential Campaign Ad Scorecard. The chart below represents a collaboration between the Ad Age Datacenter -- specifically, Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Catherine Wolf -- and Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), together with Ad Age Digital Content Producer Chen Wu. Some context from Simon Dumenco follows. --Ken Wheaton
Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Gary Johnson.
Earlier this week Donald Trump's campaign engaged in some insta-advertising -- quickly creating an ad that slammed Hillary Clinton for slamming Trump supporters with her notorious "deplorables" comment; it was slated to get TV time in at least four battleground states: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But the reality is that, as much attention as that rapid-response advertising effort got, spending by the Trump campaign, together with pro-Trump PACs, continues to be a small fraction of the spending we're seeing from the Clinton campaign together with pro-Clinton PACs. In terms of booked TV and radio ad time from today through election day, Team Clinton is tracking at roughly 33 times the outlay of Team Trump.
(Click here for one theory: that Trump is conserving cash for an October all-out attack-ad blowout against "Crooked Hillary.")
Meanwhile, speaking of stretching the value of ad dollars: Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson made news on Tuesday when his campaign announced that he's managed to get on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. -- and he's achieved that milestone with very little spending on TV and radio. Though he has been doing some advertising (see: "Is Gary Johnson Running for TV or for President?"), his spending relative to Clinton and Trump is so small you can't even see his bars in our bar chart below.
To put all this another way, of the $149,912,723 millon in booked TV and radio spending through election day for these three presidential candidates, $145,299,727 is being spent by the Clinton campaign combined with pro-Clinton PACs.New information Tuesday night about the alleged robbery to a Notre Dame student.
Sources tell NewsCenter16 the Notre Dame student was picked up miles away, and not on campus. The student was eventually returned to campus safely.
Monday night, Notre Dame released two photos of men who the complainant identified as the men who picked him up early Saturday morning on campus. The Notre Dame student told police he was abducted on Notre Dame Avenue between Holy Cross Drive and the Morris Inn by three men. However, sources tell NewsCenter16 that did not happen.
Three men were interviewed by Notre Dame Security Police on Tuesday morning. They were questioned, and police determined their story did not match up with the complainant.
Police also brought in the complainant on Tuesday. They say he was also questioned, and police found there was not enough evidence to make any arrests.
NewsCenter16 received this statement from Notre Dame Tuesday evening: Notre Dame Police interviewed the complainant and three other males involved in a reported robbery and abduction last weekend. The complainant did not enter their vehicle on campus, as he originally reported, but several miles away. There was no evidence of an abduction, and insufficient evidence to warrant an arrest on robbery or other charges. This case remains under investigation.By some estimates, invasive species are the second-biggest threat to endangered animals and plants. Which is a problem, because invasions are on the rise, thanks to increasing global trade, climate change and habitat loss, all of which are turning the planet into a giant mixing bowl as invasive species spread across the globe. So it’s not surprising that many conservationists treat invasive species as enemy combatants in a biological war. The federal government spent $2.2 billion in 2012 trying to prevent, control and sometimes eradicate invasive species, in an effort that involved 13 different agencies and departments.
But un-mixing the global mixing bowl may be impossible—human activity has simply altered the planet too much. And as a new study in Science suggests, some invasive species have become so embedded in their environment that they could only be removed at great cost. Take them away and an ecosystem might collapse, in the same way that pulling a single thread can cause an entire tapestry to unravel.
Researchers from the University of California-Davis examined the relationship between the California Clapper Rail—an endangered bird found only in San Francisco Bay—and the invasive saltmarsh cordgrass hybrid Spartina. The Army Corps of Engineers originally introduced the grass Spartina alterniflora into San Francisco Bay in the mid-1970s in an effort to reclaim lost marshland. Unsurprisingly, though, the introduced species didn’t stay in its niche—it hybridized with native Spartina grass and began spreading, displacing the native Spartina and eventually invading more than 800 acres. That was a problem for the clapper rail, because the bird depended on the native Spartina as a habitat. So the Spartina casebecame a classic example of an invasive species causing trouble for an endangered native, which is why efforts began in 2005 to eradicate it. Those efforts were successful—more than 90% of the invasive Spartina has been removed, though the native plant has been slow to recover.
But something unexpected happened: Between 2005 and 2011, populations of the federally endangered clapper rail fell by nearly 50%. That’s likely because the bird came to depend on the invasive Spartina for habitat just as it had on the native. And since the population of the native grass wasn’t rebounding, the eradication of the invasive Spartina left the clapper rail that much more vulnerable. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to prohibit further eradication of the invasive Spartina, while transplanting nursery plants of the native Spartina.
As an invasive species, though, the hybrid Spartina was still marked for death—the question was how to complete eradication of the plant without accidentally eradicating an endangered species as well. The Science researchers modeled out possible interventions and found that the best solution was to slow down the eradication of the invasives until the native plants could recover and the ecosystem could return to something like its natural state. The default reaction to invasives is to stamp them out whenever possible, but the Science study demonstrated that the collateral damage would simply be too great.
“Just thinking form a single-species standpoint doesn’t work,” said Alan Hastings, a UC Davis environmental science and policy professor and a co-author of the paper, in a statement. “The whole management system needs to take longer, and you need to have much more flexibility in the timing of budgetary expenditures over a longer time frame.”
This isn’t the only example of a conflict between eradicating an invasive species and protecting an endangered one that has come to depend on it. In the Southwest, a program to eradicate invasive Tamarisk was eventually scaled back when it was discovered that the tree provided a nesting habitat for the endangered Southern Willow fly-catcher bird. And as the pace of invasions around the world gains speed—and efforts to fight those invasions scale up—we can expect those conflicts to intensify.
That’s one reason why a small but growing number of wildlife ecologists have begun to question the wisdom of fighting an open-ended war against invasive species. In 2011, 19 ecologists co-authored an influential article in Nature arguing that we should judge species not by their origin, but by their impact on the environment. That piece produced serious pushback by mainstream ecologists accustomed to the eradication paradigm, but in a planet that has been so fundamentally remade by human beings—the ultimate invasive species—it’s clear that an all-out war can’t go on. “The planet is changing,” Mark Davis, a biologist at Macalester College and the lead author on the Nature article, told me not long ago. “If conservation is going to be relevant, it has to accept that.”
Contact us at editors@time.com.I just left Share Conference in Belgrade, Serbia. The conference was top notch — 80 speakers, 50 bands, three days, three nights. Very laid back with cushions everywhere in the lobbies, people were lounging about and just having a good time.
The conference was opened by Bruce Sterling to a full room. I spoke shortly thereafter — my Shelters or Windmills presentation, but updated with the insight that the copyright lobby is behaving like religious people.
I was happy to meet Peter (Sunde) and Jake (Appelbaum) again. Seems like we only run into each other when we’re speaking these days. Also, Samir (Allioui) was there, and I was happy to meet Alexandar and all the people from Pirate Party Serbia (PPRS).
But the real kicker was hearing Vladimir Vlidi from Creative Commons Serbia. I had spoken to this guy before, in 2006, when he came to Sweden to make an interview with me and a few other guys. He gave the story of what had happened when then-Yugoslavia was under an international embargo in 1990-1995.
Yugoslavia was allowed to import food, medicine, all the basic necessities of life, but not luxury items. Copies of digitized works counted as luxury items that weren’t allowed. Importing copies of bitpatterns was not permitted, stupidly enough. It turns out, therefore, that this was not a problem. The people living there could make do themselves, copying themselves. It showed on a country-wide scale just how unnecessary the copyright monopoly is — not just to academics studying the situation, but to the very people, too.
The result |
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New studies show that psychopathy in criminals is the best predictor of future offenses.
Kent Kiehl, associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, spoke Friday, April 20 on his research on psychopathy—a personality disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of disregard for the rights of others and the rules of society—in prison populations in the United States and Canada. Using a trailer equipped with a mobile MRI unit that could travel to prisons, Kiehl scanned the brains of 2,000 inmate volunteers, which included 200 female offenders and 250 juvenile offenders, in medium and maximum-security prisons in Wisconsin and New Mexico.
“Psychopathy is currently considered the single best predictor of future behavior,” Kiehl said. “If you have a diagnosis of psychopathy and you’re going for parole or something, they view that as a risk factor.”
He found that compared to the average offender, 60 percent of psychopaths reoffend within the next 200 days. Maximum-security juveniles showed a similar pattern: 68 percent of individuals who were at high risk for psychopathy reoffended.
Using images of the brain, Kiehl said he could predict psychopathy as well as one can with clinical error.
“If you have different behavior, you’re going to have a different brain. Just like men and women: different behaviors, different brains.”
Kiehl noted the role of the MAOA gene in violent behavior. He said if one has the gene and comes from a stressful environment, he or she has a significantly elevated risk for committing a violent offense. The gene may contribute to variability in grey matter density in some parts of the brain, which is a risk factor for psychopathy.
Although Kiehl noted the strengths of group therapy in prisons, he said treatment might actually make things worse. Treating psychopaths leads to “violent failure,” meaning that they have a high chance of violent recidivism (relapsing into the behavior).
In juveniles, however, Kiehl said positive reinforcement techniques have reduced recidivism by deemphasizing punishment and treating impulsivity. The kids in the program show a 50 percent reduction in violent recidivism compared to those who undergo normal treatment. Besides the reduction in violent recidivism, the juveniles are also less likely to commit the same types violent crimes, such as murder.
Diagnosing psychopathy and using cost-effective treatments, such as positive reinforcement, can help alleviate the burden of the prison system in the United States.
“We have a problem in the United States: We incarcerate a lot of people,” he said. “We incarcerate more per capita than any other country. It’s expensive—it costs $2.34 trillion per year, which is about the same as the annual estimate for all health care [in the country].”Until a few years ago, writer Abigail Pogrebin had never shaken a lulav on Sukkot, danced with the Torah on Simchat Torah or baked hamentaschen for Purim. She decided it was finally time to plunge headlong into observing the Jewish holiday cycle.
A culturally Jewish New Yorker, she was a novice to religious knowledge and ritual. But with a strong desire to open herself up to the richness of her heritage, Pogrebin resolved to observe every single holiday, fast day, and day of commemoration on the Jewish calendar for a year.
A former 60 Minutes producer and author of several books (including “Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish”), Pogrebin initially chronicled her quest in a series of columns for the Forward titled, “18 Holidays: 1 Wondering Jew.” Her new book, “My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays, One Wondering Jew” is an expansion of these pieces.
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The book is fuller, deeper, and more honest and personal. It is an encapsulation of Pogrebin’s journey, which is resonant for many liberal American Jews who — like her — are not necessarily interested in strict halachic observance, but rather crave a better understanding of and connection to the Jewish holidays.
While her yearlong exploration took her to synagogues around the city and across the country, upon completing her “Jewish Year,” Pogrebin became president of Central Synagogue, a prominent Reform congregation on Manhattan’s East Side she calls home.
In a recent conversation with The Times of Israel, Pogrebin, 51, spoke about what she learned from the rabbis and scholars who helped prepare her for each holiday, how Jews are never alone, and why it is never too late to delve into Judaism.
Were you aware of your lack of knowledge of the Jewish holidays? When did you begin to feel that something was missing?
I wasn’t as aware of what I didn’t know because I hadn’t been exposed to the whole canvas. It was something that really began to nag at me when I went to college in the most nascent way when I was irked by the fact that I didn’t know Hebrew and never had the kind of literacy that other Jews around me had. The minute you have children is where the rubber meets the road. Can you explain to this baby when he grows up why you had a bris, why you light candles on Friday night, why you go to synagogue on High Holidays, or even why you light menorah candles? It’s not just about family tradition. That was not sufficient for me. I began to be annoyed with myself for what I had missed and felt somewhat despairing that it was too late.
You obviously discovered it wasn’t too late.
I write in the book how Judaism is like a bus that circles back to pick you up. The idea proved true for me. In a way, Judaism waits for you. It is a big enterprise to take on both spiritually and structurally. I don’t think Judaism is easy. The fact that it’s demanding is part of its power and why I now understand it lasts. I think its endurance is to a great degree because of its depths and layers. You’re never finished or complete. There is always more to learn and feel. I don’t mean that in a crunchy way. I mean it in a very concrete way.
‘Judaism is like a bus that circles back to pick you up’
When I would look at a holiday like Sukkot and there is one layer of meaning that is fascinating and I pursue it for a while, and then I come upon another entire layer of meaning that is absolutely relevant and connects to the holiday but takes me a whole other direction to look at my life… In that sense I do feel like it is never too late.
You have to put a little elbow grease in. You have to put some skin in the game. It’s not going to talk back to you if you don’t start talking. But if you do, that conversation is going to pay dividends you can’t expect. Whenever you get there, Judaism will come alive for you.
Your journey resulted in a radical change in your level of knowledge and awareness, but not a major change in your practice. Are you satisfied with that?
I think I am still in the Jewish in-between. I am not just going back. It’s not a reset to where I was. That’s impossible. The holidays that I always observed have been deepened immeasurably and challenged indelibly, for sure. So that’s one change. In terms of saying my Jewish year is complete and I’m not adding anything — not at all. Elul for instance, the 40 days leading up to the High Holidays when you’re supposed to begin the work of introspection, is something I have continued and that is a pretty radical change, because that means frontloading atonement into the summer now every year with some kind of practice. I have put the five fast days (in addition to Yom Kippur) in my calendar now so that I know those are days not just of sobriety but also responsibility. And finally Yom HaShoah — I have added that modern day of remembrance that I don’t think has taken hold in America, but should.
You become the top lay leader at your synagogue after your exploration of the Jewish year. Not everyone — especially young liberal Jews — will want to engage through congregational life.
‘There is no question that my trajectory is a bit abnormal’
There is no question that my trajectory is a bit abnormal, but I think what is universally accessible about it is that even if one chooses to add or explore one new thing, there is this menu sitting there that is open to you that is fairly electric and exciting.
Jewish tradition and heritage is like a banquet waiting for you if you want to approach the table. You may not like the eggs, but you’ll like the French toast, or you’ll at least taste the French toast for the first time. It’s not like you have to eat the whole meal, and I am not suggesting a cafeteria-like selection of Judaism. I am saying that one new thing can lead to curiosity and electricity that makes you want to go for, learn and try more. You will never feel full, I think. And that is a rare treasure trove.
With Judaism, it’s not that you are just sitting there as an observer, a witness standing by. It asks something of you and it actually challenges your life at this moment — wherever you are, whatever you are going through. Whether it is the holidays or the liturgy, if you look closely it is speaking to you very personally.
There are a million avenues for Jewish engagement, whether you are sitting at your computer listening to someone’s sermon, picking up a book you’ve never picked up before, or going online to see what synagogues or JCC’s in your area have organized for the holiday of the moment and you decide to go. All of those things are going to be worth your time, and they will change you.
While you had your family’s support, you basically went on this exploration alone. That must have been hard.
‘There is almost no holiday or ritual that happens alone’
In some ways I did it alone, but I was going places with a lot of people waiting for me, even if they weren’t my best friends or family. I think that’s an important takeaway from this book and journey. This holiday net does catch you. There is almost no holiday or ritual that happens alone. I think there is something very powerful about how a Jew can show up alone, but you won’t be alone. That was the case whether it was Hoshana Raba or it was Yom HaShoah. Everywhere I was, I was surrounded. Certainly on Shavuot, when you proverbially go to Sinai and study all night and there were 4,000 people there [at JCC Manhattan], that’s when the message was driven home most profoundly.
You were already acquainted with many of the rabbis and scholars you quote in your book. Did you get to know them in a different way through interviewing them about the holidays?
I felt like every one of these interviews was a precious audience with some of the people I have been following and admiring for many years. I did feel like these conversations — even with those whom I had met before — were more intimate in a certain way. There is something quite magical about being able to call or sit with someone whom you respect and say, “Help me through this. Help me understand Shemini Atzeret in a way that I will understand it right now.” I didn’t even have to ask it quite that way. That is the incredible skill of these people. They know that the way that this is going to work is relevance. It isn’t going to work if they are just going to speak from an academic point of view. They have to make it matter. That doesn’t mean they have to be like your therapist, but without blinking an eye they all went to language and imagery that was wholly alive for me at that moment, and that was extraordinary.
Your “Jewish Year” was 2014-2015. The tensions that arose within the Jewish community as a result of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza the previous summer feature in your book quite a bit.
There were a few times during the holidays where the idea of Jew vs. Jew and sin’at chinam, or baseless hared, came through to me — particularly on Hanukkah and Tisha B’Av. There was so much rancor on social media about what kind of a Jew you were. And certainly it has reared its head again during the election and again now with this moment of whether we are going right or left with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. I feel like the Jewish community is at a crossroads about being one. I don’t think we are one. As soon as something as the JCC threats happen and the gravestones are overturned there is solidarity, but as soon as it’s a bit more nuanced than that, like discussion of moving the [US] embassy [to Jerusalem] or [Israeli] settlements, the rhetoric is unforgiving.
The other issue which is certainly relevant is the “Who is Jewish enough?” or “Who is a real Jew?” question. When Israeli Minister of Religious Services David Azoulay says Reform Jews are not real Jews, that stays with you. That is discouraging and dispiriting for someone whose personal Judaism came to life during this holiday exploration. At the end of the day for Azoulay, I don’t count. It’s like, “Abby you can have your little journey over there, but you’re not authentic as a Jew.”
Passover is coming up. What is one of your most important takeaways about this holiday?
One of the most important new ideas that I took away for Passover is the point and power of Elijah. When I was a kid, it was always exciting to open the door to “let in the Prophet Elijah,” but I was never taught that he was the harbinger of the messiah, a better world. Whether one believes in the messiah or not, we do all hopefully believe the world can get to a kinder, more peaceful place. And this moment reminds us that it takes human agency to bring that about. I now grasp that there’s great symbolism in it being the children who usher in this prophet, because who better to learn that we all have a role to play in bringing that better world about?The increased concentration of income among a small group of high earners — the one per cent — over the past 30 years is a legitimate concern. What to do about it remains an open question: there’s still no clear consensus as to how or why this happened, so we don’t have a good handle on what governments can or should do about the surge in incomes at the top. The Liberals’ proposal of a new tax bracket for taxable incomes above $200,000 is, at least on the surface, a plausible response, although its effectiveness is debatable. Our lack of understanding of the problem doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t discuss the matter; just the opposite. But we should at least get the facts straight.
This brings us to a new TV ad being run by Engage Canada, a newly formed interest group that earnestly, if implausibly, describes itself as a “non-partisan, independent project.” Its creation appears to be a response to the formation of the anti-union Working Canadians interest group whose claims to non-partisanship seem equally implausible. As such, Engage Canada’s ads are sharply critical of the Conservatives. Unhappily for a project that has “a mandate to increase democracy and democratic participation,” its take on top-end income inequality is unlikely to improve voters’ understanding.
Here is the opening sentence of their TV ad: “Under the Harper Conservatives, inequality is skyrocketing. Income for the wealthiest five per cent has increased 12 times faster than for the rest of Canadians.”
The Engage Canada website says this startling — and wildly misleading — claim is based on Statistics Canada data for the median market incomes of the top five per cent and median market incomes for the bottom 95 per cent. I’ve been following the literature on top-end inequality pretty closely, and as far as I can tell, this is the first time that anyone has ever used those particular statistics to illustrate anything. Whenever an attack ad makes use of a never-before-used statistic to make a point, it’s worth taking the time to do some unpacking.
To begin with, the choice of market incomes — that is, income earned from wages and investments — is non-standard. Empirical studies usually look at total income (market income plus transfers from government) and if you’re going to make a point about what governments have or have not done to reduce inequality, you’d best use after-tax income, which is the end result of the tax-and-transfer system.
Top-end income shares peaked in 2006 and have been declining ever since
A more puzzling bit is the use of the median of the top five per cent and bottom 95 per cent groups. The median of the top five per cent is the 97.5th percentile — 97.5 per cent of incomes are below the 97.5th percentile — and the median of the bottom 95 per cent is the 47.5th percentile. (To give you some perspective on these numbers, the 97.5th percentile total income was $146,300 in 2012; the 47.5th percentile was $28,700). These are statistics for particular points of the income distribution, not the top five per cent as a whole or the bottom 95 per cent as a whole. To claim that these percentiles are representative of their subgroups requires additional evidence that simply isn’t there. And why the top five per cent? Why not the top one per cent, or even the top 0.1 per cent or the 0.01 per cent?
More fundamentally, these data on two income percentiles don’t address the basic problem: the concentration of income at the top end of the income distribution. And when you look at the share of income that is going to high earners during the Harper government, the data are pretty clear. Regardless of what measure of income you use (market, total or after-tax) or which threshold you use (top 10 per cent, five per cent, one per cent, 0.1 per cent, 0.01 per cent) you get the same answer: top-end income shares peaked in 2006 and have been declining ever since. These shares are still higher than what they were in 1982, but to say that top-end inequality has “skyrocketed” during the Conservative government is absurd; “cratered” would be a better description. Virtually all the damage done since 1982 occurred before 2006. Incomes at the very top of the income distribution have fallen significantly since Harper took power.
In the broad-minded spirit of non-partisanship, Engage Canada assigns responsibility for worsening top-end inequality to the Conservative government. But it turns out that top-end inequality has actually improved since 2006. So by the logic of political advertising, Stephen Harper can claim credit for the decline of the shares of income going to high earners, right?
Well, no. At least, no more than Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin can be blamed for the surge in top-end inequality that occurred under their ministries. Although we still don’t have a definitive explanation for the top-end income concentration that occurred before 2006, we do have some plausible conjectures. To my mind, the most plausible is the “brain drain” theory.
As the Canadian dollar depreciated during the 1980s and the 1990s, there rose a widening gap between top-end Canadian salaries and U.S. salaries expressed in Canadian dollars. To the extent that a highly skilled Canadian worker could credibly threaten to accept a higher-paying U.S. position, Canadian employers would be obliged to match those offers with ever-higher salaries. The trend would reverse itself as the Canadian dollar appreciated during the resource boom. A stronger dollar reduced the gap between U.S. and Canadian high earners, and so would weaken whatever bargaining power that could be leveraged from the threat of moving to the U.S. Jean Chrétien can’t really be blamed for the depreciating dollar while he was in power, and neither can Stephen Harper be credited for its appreciation.
This isn’t an argument for complacency; just the opposite. If this story is correct, there’s a real danger that the recent depreciation in the value of the Canadian dollar will lead to another episode in which high earners will try to use the threat of outside offers from the U.S. as leverage for increased salaries.
If you’re going to make the point that top-end income inequality is worth worrying about, it’s worth making an honest effort to understand the facts, and to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your political opponent may not be at fault.
National PostJohn Lucas III played 21 games for the Detroit Pistons last season and wants to return to the team. (Photo: Carlos Osorio, AP)
There is one free agent viewing the Detroit Pistons as a destination franchise.
Free-agent point guard John Lucas III, who played 21 games for the Pistons toward the end of the season, would love a return engagement.
That's the message Lucas relayed to the Pistons at the end of the season, according to his agent.
"Obviously, he would love to come back," Toronto-based agent Bernie Lee told the Free Press last week. "When we did his end-of-the-year deal last year, one of the things we talked about was something that covered (next season) as well, but we kind of decided at the time to kind of table it because it just seemed like his situation with the team could be dictated by other situations that have to work themselves out this summer.
"We kind of said we would revisit it this summer."
The Pistons needed another point guard when Brandon Jennings suffered a ruptured Achilles in January. After the trade deadline acquisition of Reggie Jackson, the Pistons added Lucas, fresh from a stint in China.
Lucas was traded from the Utah Jazz in July 2014 to the Cleveland Cavaliers, then sent to the Boston Celtics and was waived in September. With little time to catch on with another team, he signed with a Chinese team.
When the opportunity with the Pistons arose, his Chinese team let him out of his contract a week early, and the 5-foot-11 point guard would sign consecutive 10-day contracts with the Pistons before being signed for the rest of the season.
He helped the Pistons with 15 points in a 10-point upset of the Atlanta Hawks, who eventually reached the Eastern Conference finals.
With Jennings still rehabbing, his status for next season is uncertain and won't be known even at the beginning of camp.
It's a safe bet the Pistons will hedge their bet and bring in a point guard for the veteran's minimum to back up Jackson and Spencer Dinwiddie with Jennings' status uncertain.
Lucas, 32, likes the fit in president/coach Stan Van Gundy's system and thinks the franchise is headed in the right direction.
"They just had at the end of the year there a close-knit group, and they could all kind of see they were building for something. You know what I mean?" Lee said. "So, I think John would be happy to be able to continue with that, no question."
Contact Vince Ellis: vellis@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @vincent_ellis56.I did a rebinding project for an institutional client, The University of Missouri Special Collections, and thought I would share a little of the process (with the permission of the client). This is not intended to be a formal instruction of the process, and my descriptions use common terms rather than more accurate technical terms.
The book was a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses printed in Venice and dated 1518, and had been rebound sometime in the early 19th century, from the looks of it. The sewing structure of the book was breaking down, the covers were badly worn and detached, the pages in good condition overall. In discussion with the client, we elected to rebind the book in a Limp Vellum Binding appropriate to the period and location. This would help to present the book in a more appropriate format, and would actually make reading it much easier, as it would open more completely. In keeping with the simplicity of the style, and since we had no original cover to work from, there would be no tooling or decoration of the cover. Here is a brief series of images and descriptions from the project (click on each photo for a larger version):
First, I removed the 19th century covers, cleaned the spine of old adhesive, and dis-assembled the book. Then I created strips of alum-tawed pigskin of the appropriate length, and put a single slit in the middle of each through which the sewing could be done using linen thread. As the strips were stiff and free-standing, there was no need to support them in a sewing frame as would be done with cord.
Sewing progressed using the original sewing stations (where the holes were poked in the folios) until completed. New endpapers were sewn on, using an archival quality paper. I selected a neutral grey paper for two reasons - it would clearly indicate that it was separate from the original paper for future reference, and the edges of those sections would match the discolored edges of the rest of the text block.
Then the text block was secured, and given a light application of PVA-Methyl cellulose mix along the spine. A thin layer of kozo was applied to help support the sections and stabilize the text block. Once this was dry, another light application of PVA-Methyl cellulose mix along the spine, then some strips of thin handmade flax paper was applied, which came up onto the first folio of the of the end sections. These liners would serve the purpose of helping to support the text block's mechanical mounting to the cover.
One of the interesting things about the Limp Vellum Binding is that the cover is mounted mechanically to the text block, without the use of any adhesive. This allows the cover to move more naturally, and accepts the normal changes in the shape of the vellum as environmental conditions change. It is generally agreed that this is what has allowed these structures to hold up so well over the centuries. Notice the strips of alum-tawed pigskin standing up in the last photo. These would be the primary means of attaching the cover to the text block.
Once the sewing was done, I constructed a small paper model to refresh my memory of how the binding would work. Then I took careful measurements of the binding, and constructed a full-scale mock-up of the cover in paper. This allowed me to make sure I had thought through all the issues about how the vellum would need to be cut and folded properly. Since the sheet of vellum cost over $200, I wanted to make sure I didn't make any errors in this.
Once I was satisfied that I had everything worked out with the paper mock-up, I cut the vellum to size (about 25" x 27") and started laying out the positions of folds, cuts, and slots in light pencil. Once this was done, and double checked, I started cutting the vellum as necessary to create the folds, turn-ins, and slots. In order to minimize the risk of the vellum tearing at the start of any cuts, I used a small screw-punch to make a 1.2mm hole at the start and finish of any cuts or slots.
First, I made the folds for the head and tail of the book, with slits to allow for the spine joint. This is seen with the hinge fold from the outside of the cover. Then I carefully positioned the text block, and took measurements to indicate where the strips of alum-tawed pig would come through the vellum at the spine and go back through at the hinge. Slots were cut to accommodate the pigskin at these locations.
Once all the slots were ready, I positioned the text block, tucked the first and last folio into the cover, made a small slit through the folio at each slot location, and started 'lacing in' the strips of pigskin. The strips of pigskin come out, through the vellum from the spine to the hinge, then back inside and are tucked under the vellum turn-in so as to be hidden.
Once all of this was completed, and the text block securely mounted to the cover, I noted the position of the fore-edge of the text block relative to the protruding cover. The client wanted a Yapp-style fore-edge (where the vellum extends out about a half inch, with a slight downward fold to protect the text block). I made the necessary folds, removed a rectangle of excess material, and positioned the location of the slit needed to hold the turn-in at the fore-edge in place.By Erik Casey
When practicing magic, do you ever notice that some of your moves don’t look totally convincing in the mirror? But since other magicians do them, they have to be effective, right?
I am looking at you slip cut force! Why is this so-called sleight being done? I say so-called because a sleight is supposed to be invisible and look natural and the slip-cut force is far from that. I do not know the creator of the force, but I like to optimistically believe he created it sarcastically.
This is the first move that everyone learns on Youtube as well, if not first at least second after the double lift. When done for a lay audience there is a higher chance that someone in the crowd knows the move, thus making the effect worthless. I know an argument could be made for the double lift, and if you’re making that argument you should probably practice your double more. That is a true sleight. When done correctly, it will look natural and invisible. Something I am convinced the Slip Cut Force will never be.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The move has you force the card that is on top of the deck. Your thumb will run down the side of the deck and when the spectator calls stop, it is supposed to look like, the card where they called stop is the card they take. The only advantage this “sleight” has is that you literally stop at the spot the spectator calls stop. That is nice. But then you ruin that with your fingers on |
$action; die "no such dir $out" unless -d $out; my $out_file_name = $in_file; $in_file =~ s{/+}{_}g; copy($in_file,$out->file($out_file_name)->stringify);
The only change is the '~' instead of the '.' in line 10. Running this version gets me:
=SORRY!= Error while compiling qiv-command.retry Unsupported use of =~ to do pattern matching; in Perl 6 please use ~~ at qiv-command.p6:14 ------> $in_file =~⏏ s{/+}{_}g;
(What you can't see here (because I'm to lazy) is that the error message is color-highlighted. And this fancy utf-char '⏏' points to the column where the error was encountered)
So let's fix that, and try again:
perl6 qiv-command.p6 =SORRY!= Unrecognized regex metacharacter / (must be quoted to match literally) at qiv-command.p6:14 ------> $in_file ~~ s{⏏/+}{_}g; Unrecognized regex metacharacter + (must be quoted to match literally) at qiv-command.p6:14 ------> $in_file ~~ s{/⏏+}{_}g; Unsupported use of brackets around replacement; in Perl 6 please use assignment syntax at qiv-command.p6:14 ------> $in_file ~~ s{/+}⏏{_}g;
Huh, seems that using things other than '/' for regex is not supported (or as easy to use as in Perl5). So let's just use plain old '/':
$in_file ~~ s/\/+/_/g;
But I still get an error:
=SORRY!= Error while compiling qiv-command.p6 Unsupported use of /g; in Perl 6 please use :g at qiv-command.p6:14 ------> $in_file ~~ s/\/+/_/g⏏;
After some more acking through various Perl6 scripts I remember that regex modifiers like 'g' have moved from the end of the regex to the front, so you can read the regex from left to right and know how to set your brain before hitting the actual regex:
$in_file ~~ s:g/\/+/_/;
perl6 qiv-command.p6 =SORRY!= Error while compiling qiv-command.p6 Unsupported use of -> as postfix; in Perl 6 please use either. to call a method, or whitespace to delimit a pointy block at qiv-command.p6:15 ------> copy($in_file,$out->⏏file($out_file_name)->stringify); expecting any of: postfix
Ah, of course, file and stringify is Path::Class, which I'm not using here. So I need to figure out how to do this in Perl6. I again ack some of the Perl6 code coming with Perl6 and find this:
$*SPEC.catfile($dir, $template ~ $ext);
This looks usable, so I replace quite a bit of code with this:
#!/usr/bin/env perl6 use Shell::Command; my $action = 5; my $in_file = '/media/mmc/DCIM/131_PANA/P1310372.JPG'; my $out_file_name = $in_file; $out_file_name ~~ s:g/\/+/_/; my $out_file = $*SPEC.catfile('/home/domm/media/fotos/select/', $action, $out_file_name); copy($in_file,$out_file);
Does it work yet?
Yes!
Now I needed to figure out how to handle ARGV. Luckily FROGGS was sitting right behind me, so I asked him for help during the next break. He told me about the rather magic MAIN subroutine. And implemented a rather basic, idiomatic Perl6 solution, which I mangled a bit more (to get better cleanup on the filename):
Perl6 rocks!
#!/usr/bin/env perl6 use Shell::Command; sub MAIN ($action, $in) { my $filename = $in; $filename ~~ s:g/( \/ || \.\.)/_/; $filename ~~ s:g/_+/_/; $filename ~~ s:g/^_//; my $out = $*SPEC.catfile('/home/domm/media/fotos/select/', $action, $filename); copy($in, $out ); }
And it's fast! There is a very short lag when starting the script, but it's hardly noticeable. Definitely much shorter than when starting a Moose-powered script.
Summary
Perl6 is indeed usable now, and it's a lot of fun working with it. Not only because the error messages are awesome & helpful, but because the language really removes all the warts and disgusting bits from Perl5, while still staying very Perlish (much more than go, with which I've also played around a bit recently)
My plan for the next months: Port a few more of my various helper scripts and tools to Perl6!
Update
Here's the current version, including some suggestions by smls. And as of 2015-06-02T10:00:00 I'm using Perl6 in productionWhat I learned building an app in Hanami A lightweight alternative to Rails
For the past year, I've been loosely following the progress on Hanami (formerly Lotus), a new web framework for Ruby created by Luca Guidi (@jodosha). I recently decided to build a small app in Hanami to get a feel for its design and to understand better its fresh perspective on web development in Ruby. In other words, to answer for myself, "Is Hanami better than Rails?"
The app is a simple integration between GitHub issues and the helpdesk platform, Groove. Visitors can login via OAuth through their GitHub accounts, connect to a Groove account with an API key, import their Groove tickets, and create GitHub issues from these tickets through the app. You can see the source on Github and play with the app hosted on Heroku, where it would help to have accounts on both GitHub and Groove to see how it works.
I've made note of what I learned and some of the challenges I faced while going beyond the getting started guides to build and deploy the app. This post is not an introduction to Hanami - the guides serve as an excellent overview.
The Github-Groove app is built on hanami-0.7.0. As the framework is under heavy development (as of this writing the latest version is v0.7.2 ), your experience getting started with Hanami may differ.
Hanami opinions are not Rails opinions
Hanami has a lot in common with Rails. Both are web frameworks built on Ruby that employ some version of the Model-View-Controller pattern and, among other things, value convention over configuration. Both frameworks are opinionated about how web apps should be built. In a nutshell, Hanami takes what it likes from Rails and draws the line on certain principles including avoidance of monkey-patching, enforcing modularity, and encouraging the use of "plain old Ruby objects".
If you're coming from Rails, you can expect to learn some new conventions in Hanami. As the guides warn,
learning these conventions may be hard: without change, there is no challenge
The framework pushes you toward "monolith first" while emphasizing "separation of concerns". There are suggestions in the generated directory structure like how the app/ folder is named apps/ in Hanami encouraging you from the start to define sub-applications boundaries under one umbrella, or "container" in Hanami parlance. So while in Rails has engines as an opt-in feature, you build everything as an engine in Hanami. Each "app" gets its own set of views, controllers, assets, configuration, etc. Shared resources, like models, tend to go in lib/.
You also get useful development tools like generators, migrations, and asset pipelines in Hanami, but expect less ceremony here. Migrations handed off to the venerable Sequel project and the asset story is still young but passable; you won't be able to take advantage of the multitude of Rails-asset gems.
I'd be interested to see Hanami go in a different direction here, like taking advantage of the "frontend explosion" by providing integration with external pipelines as the static-site generator middleman has done or what Shakacode is trying with webpack in react_on_rails.
It's worth noting that Hanami comes with security features baked in for as one would expect, including CSRF protection and app-level secure-by-default options for items like Content Security Policy and X-Frame-Options.
One gotcha is that Hanami does not itself provide any mechanism for code reloading (at the moment). This was not obvious to me starting off since the development server does "appear" to reload code. It turns out that the dev server launches with Shotgun (commonly used in Sinatra projects), to serve each development request in a new process with fork(2). I didn't pick up on this until several iterations in when I added the SuckerPunch gem and couldn't figure out why my background jobs wouldn't run in development. I added a sync action that allows users to trigger a background job to import ticket data from Groove into the application. Long story short, kicking off background jobs in threads in the request process, as is possible with SuckerPunch, won't work without disabling Shotgun.
Hanami MVC is not Rails MVC
With the Model-View-Controller paradigm, you'll see some big departures from Rails. First, controllers are not classes with "RESTful" methods, but directories of related action classes. In other words, instead of defining #index, #show, #create, etc. in a PostsController, you create a separate class for each action using a mixin that live in a directory that would represent a single controller in Rails.
In my Github-Groove app, here's how I organize the tickets controller:
app/ web/ assets/ config/ controllers/ tickets/ index.rb show.rb sync.rb templates/ views/...
Each "action" is a Rack-inspired class whose contract is only that it responds to #call. You still get familiar macros like before filters, but there are new ideas too, like declaring what instance variables are available to the view with expose, inserting action-specific middleware, and whitelisting params at the class level, all of which I find to be huge improvements over the Rails controller design.
module Web::Controllers::Project class Create include Web::Action expose :project before :authenticate! params do param :project do param :groove_access_token, presence: true param :github_repository, presence: true end end def call(params) if params.valid? @project = ProjectRepository.find_or_create_by_params(params[:project]) UserRepository.update_user_project(current_user, @project) flash[:notice] = "Your project has been saved!" redirect_to "/project" end end end end
Arguably, the biggest efforts in Hanami appear to be at this action layer and it shows in the guides and the README where you can find a ton of great information for customizing these classes.
Another big benefit in the controller design, and for most of the Hanami framework, is that unit-testing has a much lower barrier to entry. To get controller tests to work in Rails requires a ton of setup behind the scenes to the point where you essentially have integration tests. Controllers tests in Hanami are much simpler by the simple fact that getting a testable object is as easy as instantiating a Hanami action.
In Hanami, "views" are classes that act more like presenter to represent a model or collection of models for the "templates", which the place of the views/ folder in Rails. Like Rails, file-naming conventions link an action, view, and template. The helper method story is still developing, but you can expect to find some surprises in the docs, like the criticism of Rails monkey-patching of ERB to achieve block-style helpers for things like forms. Expect to get tripped up by these differences in helper syntax which ironically are valid ERB. Hanami does support all the other popular templating engines through Tilt for your preference.
Hanami also provides hanami-model for the model layer as a soft-dependency so you can bring your own ORM if desired. If you choose to use hanami-model as I did, you can expect to leave your ActiveRecord convenience (and baggage) behind. Hanami's model layer emulates the repository pattern where database queries, table mapping, and entities are all separate concerns.
Repositories become a collection of query methods:
class ProjectRepository include Hanami::Repository def self.find_or_create_by_params(params) found = find_by_groove_access_token(params[:groove_access_token]) if found found.update(params) update found else create(Project.new(params)) end end def self.find_by_groove_access_token(groove_access_token) query do where(groove_access_token: groove_access_token) end.first end end
Entities feel basically like POROS that provide a thin layer over attributes. Don't expect to find any database access, validations (by default anyhow), or callbacks here.
class Project include Hanami::Entity attributes :groove_access_token, :github_repository, :syncing def ready? groove_access_token.present? && github_repository.present? end #... end
Validations do exist in Hanami as a separate mixin but these are more typically done in the params macro at the action-layer.
Expect to write code
While Hanami has its own variety of "magic" of the kind that developers have come to either love or hate in Rails, you can expect to write code you might not otherwise have to in Rails. The framework is still young, so there are missing features. What's not always clear is whether these features have been left out by priority or choice. To figure that out takes some digging on GitHub issues, the Hanami chat and Discourse forum.
Though its database layer has the Sequel library as a foundation, I didn't find the repository and entity functionality as fully-developed. I found myself writing a lot of boilerplate code in the entities and repositories with a lot of co-dependence between the classes. With some more thoughtful design and refactoring, I could probably address this issue, but at this stage, the separation of concerns is less apparent: entities and repositories appear to be tightly bound. Convenience methods are still in the works.
For one, associations are still in development at the time of this writing (see open issue here). Much of my entity code was to fill this gap - to load objects linked by foreign keys via repositories like below.
class Project include Hanami::Entity def tickets(params = {}) TicketRepository.all_by_project(self, params) end end class TicketRepository include Hanami::Repository def self.all_by_project(project, _params = {}) query do where(project_id: project.id).desc(:number) end.all end #... end
I'm not sure if this is the "Hanami-way", but I found myself doing this kind of thing a lot.
I also ran into some unexpected issues while deploying the application to Heroku where its HANAMI_ENV is set to 'production'. In many cases, custom classes I extracted, like one for sharing a pagination query and another for wrapping the Groove API Ruby Client (my fork with paginated enumeration) weren't "autoloaded" when booting the Hanami application. To resolve this, I added explicit requires like require_relative './pagination'. Again, I didn't have time to dig into whether this issue would be expected or not; I could have been missing something important here.
The Community is still young
That brings me to the community - it's extremely supportive, but still very small. I encountered a lot of helpful folks on chat including @jodosha himself, but there simply hasn't been enough traction to reach StackOverflow critical mass where just about any question you can think of in Rails already has an answer.
This means a lot more code-spelunking in the hanami repositories. To that end, I found the code extremely clean, well-documented, and approachable whereas, even today, I need to brace myself before diving into Rails source.
That said, you can expect to run into edge cases and bugs occasionally that may not yet have a solution, including this incredibly irksome issue that prevents you from accessing the pry console when using binding.pry in Hanami controllers and the problem I mentioned earlier that prevents you from using SuckerPunch in development with Shotgun enabled.
Another challenge is that all those Rails-specific plugins and engines you've come to rely on won't work in Hanami: Yikes, you have build authentication without Devise! Using Warden, the general Rack-based authentication middleware on which Devise is based, is very feasible and you can always rely on OmniAuth like I did.
The lesson here is that with Hanami, you're much more likely to have to "roll up your sleeves" to get to the bottom of issues, figure how to do things that aren't covered by the guides, or otherwise, get from a Rails-specific gem.
Hanami is and is not Rails
So should you build your next app in Hanami? Only you can answer that of course. The lightweight approach in Hanami means there is less to wrap your head around if you're coming from Rails, but there is still a learning curve nonetheless. I'd say it's a worthwhile endeavor to build something small like I did at first to push the boundaries and answer the questions you have about Hanami for yourself.
Hanami treads the same ground as Rails and aims to do a lot of the low level work for you so can focus on what's important - your business logic. Personally, I found a lot of advantages in the "Hanami way" and enjoyed the experience of the new paradigm. My "Rails muscle memory" tripped me up on occasion and left me pining for features that don't exist or are not as well-developed in Hanami yet. I see a lot of potential in the Hanami framework and see it growing into a viable alternative to Rails in the near future.
Check out the GitHub-Groove source and demo app and let me know what I could have done differently.Caption
Lost Lake in Central Oregon is a mysterious natural wonder. During winter, it resembles any other large body of freshwater. However, as drier weather kicks in the water disappears, transforming the 85-acre 'Lake' into a beautiful meadow. It turns out that there is a logical answer to this magical phenomenon - a tube or tunnel created by an ancient lava flow that drains out the water.
Jude McHugh, a spokeswoman for the Willamette National Forest in Oregon, says that the lakebed starts to fill during the rainy season in fall. Because the lava tube measures just six-feet in diameter, it is unable to drain the water fast enough. As a result, the lake which is 167-ft at its deepest manages to remain full, despite the fact that some water is always seeping out. This continues through spring as the snow from the surrounding mountains melts. But once the steady flow of water stops, the constant drainage causes the lake to "disappear."
Experts are not entirely sure where the water goes. They hypothesize that it seeps through the porous volcanic rock below and eventually makes its way into Oregon's groundwater supply. Lava tubes are relatively common in Oregon due to the Cascade Mountain Range, a series of tall mountains and old volcanoes that cut through the state. However, none are as fascinating as the one on Lost Lake.
Lava tubes or tunnels form when lava flowing from several volcanic eruption channels merge into one large stream, similar to how a series of water streams and creeks amalgamate into a larger river. As the lava flows, some of the liquid rock overflows onto land and begins to cool. This cooling magma builds up solid walls on both sides of the flow. As the lava flow continues to flow, it erodes the ground creating an even deeper channel. Eventually, a crust forms on the top of the channel, forming a tube that remains long after the molten rock has stopped flowing.
Lava tubes vary in size. Some are only about a foot across while others are big enough for people to walk through. Not surprisingly, they are popular destinations for thrill-seekers. Some of the longest and deepest lava tubes can be found at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park which is home to two active volcanoes: Kilauea, one the of world's most active volcanoes and Mauna Loa, the world's biggest subaerial volcano!
Resources: wikipedia.org, livescience.com,zme.comA police report on the case has gone to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), relating to the death of Yolanda Cox, who suffered an allergic reaction to the unlicensed drug.
The CPS said on Saturday that it has decided not to take any further action.
An inquest into the death of Mrs Cox, who took the drug voluntarily, was held last week and a coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure.
The drug was administered by her elder sister, Dr Yvonne Pambakian.
Both sisters worked for a pharmaceutical company, Amro Biotech, set up by their mother, Dr Arpi Matossian-Rogers.
Amro Biotech had spent more than £3 million developing the drug, known as "B71", to treat diabetes, cancer and was even hoped to reverse ageing.
At the time of Mrs Cox's death, it was still being tested in trials in the Netherlands.
Dr Pambakian rejected the suggestion that they were taking part in a drugs trial but said they had decided to take the drug after seeing a response in a small trial on type-2 diabetes sufferers in the Netherlands.
Mrs Cox, who had been married less than a year, died two years ago, but the extraordinary background to the case has only become public because of the inquest at St Pancras coroner's court.
Mrs Cox collapsed after receiving the drug in the living room of the family's home in Hampstead, north London.
Patrick Cox, 24, who has a master's degree in biochemistry from Oxford University, told the inquest that his wife had initially complained of an itchy arm, The Times reported on Saturday.
"Two minutes later she was inside sitting on the sofa and she was struggling for breath. We called the ambulance.
"She was treated with oxygen and taken to hospital. I think her heart stopped beating for a long time."
Hospital tests revealed that Mrs Cox's brain was irreversibly damaged and four days later her life support machine was turned off at the Royal Free Hospital in London, where she was being treated.
Dr Andrew Reid, the coroner, recorded a verdict of misadventure after accepting that the death was an unintentional result of the drug being administered.
He ruled out unlawful killing because the standard of proof required – that it was beyond reasonable doubt – could not be met.
Dr Pambakian, 38, told the inquest that she had also injected herself, her mother and a terminally-ill woman with the drug – without any adverse effects.
The Medicines and Health care products Regulatory Authority confiscated supplies of the drug following Mrs Cox's death, but the body is expected to return supplies to the company so it can continue its research.
Dr Pambakian was arrested after the death of her sister, but was never charged.
Legal experts at the CPS had considered charges of manslaughter and gross negligence but concluded there was insufficient evidence for any prosecution.
A CPS spokesman said: “If the police provide us with any new evidence which would affect our original decision, we will consider the case again.”
The General Medical Council (GMC) confirmed it was investigating Dr Pambakian’s conduct, but that she is currently allowed to practice with conditions.
The restrictions imposed on Dr Pambakian include that she is banned her from prescribing drugs.Electrical Stimulation
Current medical practices tend to look at people with consciousness disorders — those in a vegetative or comatose state — to be almost impossible cases. Recovery is uncertain at best. A breakthrough new study, however, suggests that this may no longer be the case. A team of researchers and clinicians from the Institut des Sciences Cognitives (ISC) Marc Jeannerod in Lyon, France restored signs of consciousness to a 35-year-old man who had been in a vegetative state for 15 years through a method called vagus nerve stimulation (VNS).
Used to prevent seizures in those with epilepsy and to treat depression, VNS sends mild pulses of electrical energy at regular intervals to the brain via the vagus nerve. Because it’s the longest cranial nerve, the vagus nerve connects the brain to various parts of the body — even the gut — and is critical to maintaining certain essential body functions, like alertness and walking.
In this new research, a vagus nerve stimulator was implanted on the chest of the patient, who was in a vegetative state because of a car accident, a procedure conducted by Jacques Luauté and his team of clinicians. The results, published today in the journal Current Biology, was compiled by researchers led by Angela Sirigu from the ISC Marc Jeannerod.Grayson: "I think that the Democrats have been fooled now for months, by this, this fantasy of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is a concept that's become a Weapon of Mass Distraction to keep us from actually doing what we need to do, to give people in this country universal health care, to give them affordable health care, and to give them comprehensive health care, because a lot of people find they get all the health care they need as long as they don't need any. And that has to end, that's not what America is entitled to, and that's not the kind of America most people want to see, but instead we get bogged down in these nuscances. I don't remember hearing a lot about bipartisanship when we were talking about tax cuts to the rich."
Maddow: "Do you think that Democrats are starting to rise to the occasion on health reform? Do you think they're, they're fighting more, appeasing less when it comes to real health reform?" Grayson: "I think so. Since I pointed out that a Harvard study shows that 44,789 Americans die every single year because they don't have health coverage, now people in Washington understand what's at stake, and that is life and death. The cost of delay now, people understand now, is death. And death of many, many Americans, more Americans dying every month than died on 9/11, but that was just once, and this is month after month after month, and that's why I say it is so important that we move it along to save these people's lives." Maddow: "And strategically, do you think the Democrats have made the pivot? That they've stopped working for, toward Bipartisanship as an end rather than as a means and they've started pushing for what they want?" Grayson: "I think we're making the pivot because we are making the moral argument in favor of what we want. For too long we were bogged down in this idea of, of just simply making it more affordable when, in fact, we are talking about is life or death. And that is the case the Democrats haven't made until now, and now we're seeing, we also exposed that the Republicans have nothing. I mean, the point of my presentation was that they have no plan, and now they've had two weeks to come up with something that would actually save these people's lives and they've got nothing, so now, for a change, they're on the defensive."
Republicans on the DEFENSIVE!?!? Who knew that was even possible? If Grayson keeps this up maybe other people will start wondering why other Democrats don't have guts? Maybe it will force other Democrats to FIGHT TOO!
Now that is something I can support
Donate to Alan Grayson (Dem with GUTS-FL08) here with Act Blue, where we've raised almost $10,000 for Alan Grayson at The Progressive Electorate.com
Or go to CongressmanwithGUTS.com and donate there to help Grayson build a Money Bomb so he can stay in office for years to come. The Money Bomb goes OFF on Nov 2nd, and they're asking people to pledge to give on the Nov. 2 Money Bomb. (I am not affiliated with the Organization behind CongressmanwithGuts.com)
The GOP will be painting a BIG Bullseye on Grayson's back in 2010. If you can, help out Grayson and show that you want MORE and BETTER Democrats with GUTS!
Bipartisanship is a ruse. It always has been. It is designed to create a consensus that IS NOT THERE. The Republicans HATE YOU, Obama. They HOPE YOU FAIL. They hope AMERICA FAILS, and they are hoping we are all pissed off, unemployed and pissed off in 2010, as if that will bbe good for them. As soon as Obama and Democrats understand that the Republiican party is NOT loyal opposition but a pack of bratty, fit throwing 6 year olds who do not care about anyone than themselves, the better.
Until then, let's keep fighting back with guys like Grayson, Weiner, Sen. Sherrod Brown and others. Put the GOP on the Defensive for one. Attack for once. Who knows, we may just get good at this sort of thing.
The best defense is a good offense.
Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com and Docudharma.comLearn how to manage up as well as down. Most people I meet in their 20s are busy fulfilling the notion of managing less skilled colleagues, when the real skill is managing up to more skilled and experienced people. The art of conversation and public speaking will take you everywhere in life.
Find your passion and then aim to be the best on the planet at what you do by having a ferocious hunger for learning. Both formally and through experience.
Find a mentor that has walked the pathway you wish to walk. Then be totally reliable, honest and respectful with your time with them. They learn from you too!
Save money every pay. Learn how to budget and get out of home and stand on your own independent feet. Nobody owes you anything. Lose the sense of entitlement. It’s not yours to take.
Start and run a business. No matter how small. If you can learn these skills early, you will learn how to fail with low risk or repercussion. Basic accounting and business skill will support and future endeavours.
Finally, travel and get out of your bubble and get uncomfortable. It will help with acceptance, tolerance, and patience, and show you how incredible our world really is.The chief of Iran’s atomic energy agency provided further testimony to the anemic nature of Barack Obama’s nuclear deal by stating on Tuesday that Iran could resume enriching uranium within “at most five days” if it desires.
“Definitely, we are not interested in such a thing happening,” insisted Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi. “We have not achieved the deal easily to let it go easily. We are committed to the deal and we are loyal to it.”
However, Salehi said Iran was ready to “surprise” the United States by speedily resuming uranium enrichment if President Trump challenges the nuclear deal. He described the Fordo enrichment facility as crucial to delivering that “surprise,” which is why “they didn’t want Fordo to exist and were saying that it should be closed.”
Under the deal, Iran is restricted to 5 percent enrichment, which is sufficient for power plants but not nuclear bombs. 20 percent enrichment is weapons-grade material. The Obama administration was firmly convinced Iran would need at least a year to resume 20 percent enrichment if it broke the nuclear deal.
Salehi is not the first Iranian official to boast of how quickly nuclear weapons development could be resumed. Last week, President Hassan Rouhani claimed it would take only “hours and days” to regain the capabilities that were sacrificed for President Obama’s deal.
Reuters notes that Salehi gave his five-day estimate specifically to refute accusations that Rouhani was bluffing about how quickly Iran could resume bomb research. “The president’s warning was not baseless,” said Salehi.
These threats are beginning to sound suspiciously like nuclear blackmail. Iran has asserted that the nuclear deal makes virtually all U.S. sanctions against Tehran illegal, including those imposed for supporting terrorism. Iran claims its ballistic missile program is not covered by the deal, but it does forbid American sanctions over Iranian missile research.
For example, the L.A. Times saw Rouhani’s “hours and days” claim as a “direct response to Trump’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, and his announcement of fresh sanctions on individuals and businesses connected to Iran’s ballistic missile program.”
Rouhani accused Trump of “bullying” Iran with sanctions and said such “failed policies” are what forced the Obama administration to negotiate what Iran views as a surrender and apology to Tehran for the unjust imposition of sanctions in years past.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Samsung fought until the bitter end to avoid paying Apple, but the company now says it will finally hand over the more than $548 million it owes for infringing the patents and designs of its biggest smartphone rival.
A sales assistant uses her mobile phone next to the company logos of Apple and Samsung at a store in Hefei, Anhui province September 10, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
In papers filed in federal court in San Jose, California on Thursday, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it will make the payment by Dec. 14 if Apple Inc sends an invoice on Friday.
Asked if it had done so, Apple declined to comment on Friday.
The payment comes after a U.S. appeals court last May reduced a $930 million judgment against Samsung by $382 million, stemming from a 2012 verdict for infringing Apple patents and copying the look of the iPhone.
Another trial over remaining damages relating to some of Samsung’s infringing products in the case is set to go ahead next spring.
Even though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. had authorized damages to Apple in May, Samsung again appealed the final figure to the same court, and was rebuffed twice more.
Now agreeing to pay, Samsung told the San Jose court that it expects to be reimbursed if it eventually succeeds in a forthcoming appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court over its liability for copying the patented designs of the surface, bezel and user interface of the iPhone, which accounted for $399 million of the total award.
South Korea-based Samsung also said it reserved the right to be reimbursed in the future if a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office invalidating one of the Apple patents in the case, related to touchscreen gestures, is upheld.
Apple intends to appeal that ruling and said in court documents it “disputes Samsung’s asserted rights to reimbursement.”
“We are disappointed that the court has agreed to proceed with Apple’s grossly exaggerated damages claims regardless of whether the patents are valid,” a Samsung spokeswoman said in a statement.If you’ve enjoyed my previous in-between episodes, then this might be your favorite episode ever. It’s one of the most actionable, information-packed interviews I’ve ever done.
This time, it’s Joel Stein (@TheJoelStein) asking the questions. Joel is one of the funniest writers I have ever read, and he’s great at leading an interview.
Here’s how it all happened: I have many different conversations with journalists. It can be painful when I have a 1-2 hour conversation, and then it’s cut to a single sentence as a quote in a piece. And it’s often a misquote. So how do you fix that? Well, you record it yourself, which is how this episode was created. (With the interviewer’s approval, of course.) This way, you don’t “lose” the content, and you cover your ass with media and journalists.
Joel wanted me to help him figure out 5 areas he could upgrade in his own life for a series on self-improvement. In this episode, we discuss a wide variety of topics, including:
How I choose what to improve from infinite options
How you can subtract your way to success
The genius of Ben Franklin
Why self-improvement doesn’t mean self-centered
How I say no to time-consuming lunches, coffees, and other meetings
How I tackle cold introductions
How I surmounted Lyme Disease
My 100% complete break from start-ups (read this for more)
My podcast process
Tools and tactics for reversing email overwhelm
If you want help reducing anxiety and don’t have time for the entire episode, listen to this short segment.
Enjoy!
#144: How to 10X Your Results, One Tiny Tweak at a Time https://rss.art19.com/episodes/be6dd519-cc9a-4682-8332-d433907da14b.mp3 Download
Listen to it on iTunes.
Stream by clicking here.
Download as an MP3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
Want to hear another podcast packed full of actionable tips that I use in my own life? — Listen to this short episode on the magic of mindfulness. In this episode, I discuss how to complain less, appreciate more, and live a better life (stream below or right-click here to download):
#122: The Magic of Mindfulness: Complain Less, Appreciate More, and Live a Better Life https://rss.art19.com/episodes/97488ccb-10b9-43d5-aab7-106e14021fac.mp3 Download
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of the Zadroga Act. That legislation, approved in 2010, was also set to last five years. It allowed more than $4 billion, paid by the visa fees and a fee on government procurements on companies located in other countries, to help 9/11 first responders.
The Zadroga Act is named after a police officer who later died from a respiratory illness attributed to the 9/11 attack.
Jon Stewart, the former host of The Daily Show, was in Washington last week to lobby for the Zadroga Act extension, but the outcome of that effort remains as uncertain as the future of the visa fee.The next version of Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet may use advertisements to lower its price to consumers, sources have told the Wall Street Journal. According to the sources, the advertisements would appear on-screen after the user wakes the tablet from sleep.
Amazon's E Ink Kindles have already been using a similar strategy for quite some time—both the Kindle and Kindle Touch are offered in standard and "with Special Offers" forms, the latter of which costs $30 less than the non-ad-supported Kindles. Users can choose to pay the extra $30 at any time to permanently dismiss the ads. Whether the amount of the ad subsidy (or the option to pay to dismiss the ads) would differ for the Kindle Fires is unclear.
The original Kindle Fire was fairly unique when it launched last year for the impulse-buy price of $199, but it has since been eclipsed by other tablets that offer more features and better specifications for the same amount of money, most notably Google and Asus' Nexus 7 tablet. The option to subsidize some of the tablet's cost with advertisements could help Amazon undercut Google without having to take a significant loss on each tablet sold.
Amazon is widely expected to refresh its entire Kindle lineup at its September 6 press event, and rumors suggest that the 7" Kindle Fire may be joined by a larger version with a 10" screen. Amazon announced earlier this week that the original Kindle Fire was "sold out" and it would not be producing any more units. Ars will be on the scene, liveblogging the announcements as they happen.MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A health emergency has been declared in Miami-Dade and three other counties due to the Zika virus.
Governor Rick Scott signed the order Wednesday to cover Miami-Dade, Lee, Hillsborough and Santa Rosa counties. Lee and Hillsborough counties has two confirmed cases each, Santa Rosa had one.
Florida health officials have confirmed that there have been nine cases of the mosquito borne Zika virus in the state, four of which were in Miami-Dade.
All nine cases have been contracted by people who’ve traveled to Latin America and the Caribbean. None of the cases have involved pregnant women.
“Although Florida’s current nine Zika cases were travel-related, we have to ensure Florida is prepared and stays ahead of the spread of the Zika virus in our state. Our Department of Health will continue to be in constant communication with all county health offices, hospitals and the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We know that we must be prepared for the worst even as we hope for the best,” said Gov. Scott in a statement.
The order allows the state’s agriculture department to use mosquito spray more in those areas. It also directs the Florida Department of Health to make its own decisions about what’s needed from the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Centers For Disease Control says they have confirmed the first case of the virus being transmitted sexually in Texas.
The Zika virus has been found in 28 countries, with a majority of the cases being reported in Brazil.
Only about 1 in 5 people infected with Zika virus are symptomatic. Zika fever is a mild illness. Signs and symptoms of Zika fever may include a low-grade fever, rash, joint pain, reddening of the eyes, body aches, headache, eye pain, and vomiting. Illness typically resolves within a week.
The real concern is for women who are pregnant because it is linked to possible serious birth defects for unborn children.
South Florida hospitals are now asking pregnant women if they have traveled to areas known to have confirmed cases of the Zika virus during the admission process. Pregnant women are being advised not to travel to areas where the virus is present. If they do, they should consult with their doctor first.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)Massimo Moratti: Ready to splash the cash in the summer
Moratti hailed the way Stramaccioni turned things around to hold rivals AC Milan to a 1-1 draw at the San Siro on Sunday.
Inter were given a 4-1 thumping at the hands of Fiorentina the previous week and Stramaccioni was under pressure heading into the Milan derby.
Stephan El Shaarawy opened the scoring before the break before Inter struck back thanks to Ezequiel Schelotto's second-half header to rescue a point.
The result keeps the Nerazzurri a point behind their Milanese rivals in fourth spot and in contention for a UEFA Champions League spot while Stramaccioni remains unbeaten in Milan derbies, having won his previous two.
But Moratti was pleased with the display and has hinted at signing more young players in the summer.
He told the club's official website: "I was pleased with the way he raised the players on a psychological level after going a goal down.
"I don't think AC Milan had ever played so well this season. I watched them in other games but they were like lightning.
"I believe Inter can grow. Hopefully we can make more room in the squad for players that represent the future."CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) -- A five-year-old boy fighting cancer is getting a little boost from the community just in time for Valentine's Day.
Timmy Nelson, a kindergartner at Waverly City Schools, has been forced to miss school recently. Timmy and his family just learned the tumor on the roof of his mouth is cancerous.
Timmy's mother Cassandra is having to drop out of her Early Childhood Education classes at Ohio University-Chillicothe to care for Timmy. But, students and faculty decided that they didn't want the story to end there.
The group has started a campaign to collect at least 1,000 Valentine's Day cards for Timmy.
"I thought, 'He is going to miss his Valentine's (Day) party.' Who doesn't remember that?" says Jamie Harmount the Assistant Professor in the Early Childhood Program at Ohio University-Chillicothe who is leading the charge, "You know, the box, the Valentine's cards, the cupcakes, the little hearts...and I said we are going to do a Valentine drive."
Now, cards are flooding in from across Ohio. Harmount says schools from every district in Ross County have sent them in for Timmy.
"Now, I truly believe we are going to see at least 2,000 if not more and that to me shows the goodness of people," says Harmount.
Classmates are taking it a step farther, collecting donations as well to help the family deal with the commute from Southern Ohio to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus.
"It is a rare form of cancer, you just hope that they can take care of it within the next year and get him back to school," says Abby Storts, a classmate and co-worker of Timmy's mother.
We couldn't talk to Timmy today because he had to be admitted to the hospital with a fever. But, his mother tells us she wants to thank the family, friends and strangers who have reached out. She says they don't have the words to show their gratitude.
Those looking to send a card can address them to:
Ohio University Chillicothe Child Development Center
Attn: Jamie Harmount
101 University Drive
Chillicothe, OH 45601
Monetary donations and more info about Timmy can be found started for him. You can also contact if you'd like more info on how you can help.Christopher Sabatini is the senior director of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas and founder and editor-in-chief of the hemispheric policy magazine Americas Quarterly. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisSabatini.
If you ever had a desire to invest in oil rich Venezuela, you may want to hold your money.
The government, first under the self-proclaimed revolutionary government of President Hugo Chávez and now under his handpicked successor Nicolás Maduro, has managed to squander one of the longest, greatest oil booms in history, not just misspending the oil windfall that at one point reached $133 per barrel, but also destroying the country's domestic economy.
As a result, Venezuela teeters on the edge of default on its debt.
Related: Wall Street bets on Russia and Venezuela defaults
Venezuelan benchmark sovereign bonds are now trading at 22 cents on the dollar--a shocking, sad situation for any petro-state, now made urgent with oil selling at around $60 per barrel.
The risk of default stems from the broad economic disaster wrought by the past 15 years of revolutionary government. At more than 60%, Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the region, a result of government profligacy that produced a fiscal deficit reaching 12% of GDP and public debt at 26% of GDP by 2012. Part of this has gone to the government's popular social missions that provide free access to health care and education to the poor as well as subsidized food through state stores.
The larger problem is the gasoline subsidy that makes filling your SUV's gas tank in Venezuela (and there are many) the cheapest in the world and the hangover of former President Chávez' revolutionary ambitions both domestically and globally, supported by Venezuelan oil patronage.
A gallon of gasoline today costs a driver around 18 cents per gallon, but costs the Venezuelan government $15 billion a year to maintain. Similarly, thanks to former President Chávez' regional ambitions, the Venezuelan oil give-away program to allies in the Caribbean basin---supplying to Cuba, for example, around 100,000 barrels of oil per day--costs the Venezuelan people an estimated $7 billion a year.
Related: Cheap gas could kill U.S. oil export ban
As a result, according to Deutsche Bank, Venezuela needs oil at $120 a barrel to meet its spending needs.
The $21.6 billion gold and hard currency reserves that the Venezuelan central bank reported in November this year were only enough to pay 60% of the country's debt due by 2017. And with oil prices where they are now, there's little hope of those coffers being filled again soon. All of this leads to the question how long the government can last on the current course.
Only 16% of Venezuelans had faith that the president could steer the country out of its economic crisis, according to an October survey. To avoid default and meet other looming domestic and international demands, the deeply unpopular government and president has three options. None of them are easy and not one of them alone will be sufficient.
Devalue Venezuela's wildly overvalued currency. Right now the government is operating a byzantine, multi-tiered exchange rate system with the official rate of 6.2 bolivares to the dollar, but with parallel rates for designated goods. On the black market, though, the bolivar is being exchanged at 165 to the dollar. To shore up reserves, the government will have to devalue somewhere at least close to the market value of the bolivar. The problem is that under Venezuela's oil and import dependent economy--oil accounts for 96 % of exports while the country imports most of its basic food and basic needs--that will mean sharply rising costs for consumer goods and inputs. For a government that has built its popular support as a champion of the poor and working class, the resulting spike in living costs would be a huge blow to its fast dwindling popular base.
Right now the government is operating a byzantine, multi-tiered exchange rate system with the official rate of 6.2 bolivares to the dollar, but with parallel rates for designated goods. On the black market, though, the bolivar is being exchanged at 165 to the dollar. To shore up reserves, the government will have to devalue somewhere at least close to the market value of the bolivar. The problem is that under Venezuela's oil and import dependent economy--oil accounts for 96 % of exports while the country imports most of its basic food and basic needs--that will mean sharply rising costs for consumer goods and inputs. For a government that has built its popular support as a champion of the poor and working class, the resulting spike in living costs would be a huge blow to its fast dwindling popular base. Cut costs. President Maduro has already in a public speech promised to reduce public sector spending by 20%. The question is where. The government's much promoted social misiones? An already strapped police force in a country that already has one of the highest murder rates in the world? One likely area is a reduction in the state's generous gasoline subsidy. But when that was tried in 1989, under a different government and in a different era, it provoked massive rioting and looting in Caracas. The other easier route is to end the government's petroleum patronage to the Caribbean. But that course would wreak havoc on countries such as the Dominican Republic and Jamaica that depend on both the subsidized oil and the hard currency they receive from re-selling it on the global market. And that's not to mention Cuba for whom Venezuela's lifeline represents roughly 15 % of GDP in its crumbling socialist economy and on whom President Maduro depends for strategic political advice and intelligence.
President Maduro has already in a public speech promised to reduce public sector spending by 20%. The question is where. The government's much promoted social misiones? An already strapped police force in a country that already has one of the highest murder rates in the world? One likely area is a reduction in the state's generous gasoline subsidy. But when that was tried in 1989, under a different government and in a different era, it provoked massive rioting and looting in Caracas. The other easier route is to end the government's petroleum patronage to the Caribbean. But that course would wreak havoc on countries such as the Dominican Republic and Jamaica that depend on both the subsidized oil and the hard currency they receive from re-selling it on the global market. And that's not to mention Cuba for whom Venezuela's lifeline represents roughly 15 % of GDP in its crumbling socialist economy and on whom President Maduro depends for strategic political advice and intelligence. Ask the Chinese for a fast-cash infusion. Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Rafael Ramirez, has already made the rounds to China and Russia hat in hand. China already holds over $45 billion in Venezuelan debt--to be paid back in cheap oil--and is unlikely to dig as deeply in its pockets as Venezuela needs. And after 14 years of courting rogue regimes and leaders like Vladimir Putin's in Russia and former president Mahmud Ahmadinejad's in Iran, all of the so-called friends of Venezuela are themselves in equally dire straits with in both cases sanctions taking a bite alongside plunging oil prices.
The easiest--though far less effective--option is blaming the yanquis. And that, predictably, is the one Maduro has chosen, especially after the U.S. Congress voted to impose visa sanctions on Venezuelan officials who violated human rights during the crackdown on opposition protesters earlier this year. Railing against the U.S. is a tried and true tactic, but unfortunately it won't improve the lives of Venezuelans, and fewer and fewer citizens are buying it.
No one knows if Venezuela will default on its sovereign debt, though the alternatives are fading fast. One strong disincentive to stiffing international lenders, though, is that it could leave the country open to have its international assets seized, including the state-owned CITGO refineries.
One thing, though, is clear. While investing in Venezuelan debt may be a bad idea now, investing in Miami real estate may be a good one. I suspect in the next year we'll be seeing a lot of the Venezuelans who cashed in during the past decade's boom years leaving for safer ground.The second day of OpenStack Days Silicon Valley continued with conversations about containers and the processes of managing OpenStack. If you missed the event and the live stream, no worries; here are the highlights.
Christian Carrasco – When OpenStack Fails. (Hint: It’s not the Technology)
Christian, a cloud advisor at Tapjoy, started off the day by sharing what Tapjoy has learned from working with OpenStack. Tapjoy is an SaaS player that from early on set its sights on OpenStack. The company has grown to be the leading player in the mobile app monetization space, with more than two million daily engagements, 270,000 active apps, and 500 million users.
However, interestingly, most of the lessons Christian has learned while working at Tapjoy have less to do with the technology or maturity underpinning OpenStack or the many components necessary to its deployment. Instead, they revolve around the people, process, and organizational choices that are necessary for your OpenStack cloud to succeed.
Christian urged the audience to stop focusing on building a better buggy, and to instead focus on making a better cloud—the next generation of cloud. Christian argued that before we can hyper-converge the cloud, we need interoperability standards, arguing that there were many industries that couldn’t have existed without standards, such as the internet, the automobile industry, and healthcare.
Luke Kanies – DevOps: Myths vs. Realities
Next up was Luke Kanies, the founder and CEO of Puppet. Luke spoke to the audience about the myths that surround DevOps in the enterprise, and argued that we need to leave behind the old way of delivering software to adopt the new world of DevOps practices.
Luke made it clear just why: top performing DevOps teams deploy 200 times more often and recover from failure 24 times faster, he said.
Luke argued that the fears companies have about adopting DevOps practices are due to two beliefs. First, that certain practices just won’t work for an organization, due to factors such as legacy environments, traditional enterprises, or hierarchical organizations. The second belief, he said, is that DevOps practices are simply unworkable when enterprises are subject to a host of external regulatory and compliance requirements.
Luke said that most organizations (97-98 percent) that had fears about introducing DevOps practices had legacy issues, but he argued that ignoring those legacy issues undermined their work.
Luke ended his talk by discussing how to overcome misconceptions by dispelling the most common myths. He said that adopting DevOps practices didn’t have to be all or nothing, they could be simpler than it appeared, and that often the largest returns come from unexpected areas. Ultimately, he argued, you have a choice—do you want to start using DevOps practices, or would you prefer for your competitors to beat you to it?
James Staten – Hybrid Cloud is About the Apps, Not the Infrastructure
James Staten, Microsoft’s Chief Strategist for the Cloud and Enterprise division, was next up on stage to talk about building and deploying true enterprise cloud apps.
James said the key to this is understanding how to blend your environments, as leading enterprise examples of cloud computing are not exclusively private or exclusively public cloud deployments, but are instead a mixture of both plus multiple public clouds. He said that even Microsoft runs on a hybrid cloud.
James argued that the hybrid cloud is here to stay, and not just because of the legacy code that can’t move anywhere (let alone to the cloud). He pointed to statistics that showed 74 percent of enterprises believe a hybrid cloud will enable business growth, and 82 percent have a hybrid cloud strategy (up from 74 percent a year ago).
He said that organizations used to be worried about application integration, security, and data sovereignty when considering moving apps to a public cloud. However, now organizations say they don’t use public clouds because of needing compute on premises, the Internet of Things, optimization of economics, and wanting to leverage the right resources in the right places.
James ended his session by outlining new hybrid models with many elements, including local resources, public clouds, and SAAS apps and microservices. He said that hybrid isn’t just about location, but the programming languages, devices, and operating systems. He said that the apps we are building need to have compute capability everywhere, because a hybrid cloud is about the apps you are designing.
Alex Williams, Frederic Lardinois, Craig Matsumoto, Mitch Wagner – Open Source and the News Media
The first panel discussion of the day was about Open Source and the News Media, with four technology journalists: Alex Williams (founder of The New Stack), Frederic Lardinois (writer for TechCrunch), Craig Matsumoto (Managing Editor at SDxCentral, and Mitch Wagner (Editor, Enterprise Cloud, for Light Reading).
Key takeaway: People are often confused by messages coming from open source projects and companies that build products and services using them, and acronyms, clever names, and not-for-profit foundations had further contributed to this confusion. Alex said that some people would say that cloud service providers are the greatest threat to open source.
In addition, the panelists discussed the difficulties they had with tracking and learning all of the players and their interests in the Open Source movement.
Kim Bannerman (Director, Advocacy & Community – Office of the CTO, Blue Box), Kenneth Hui (Senior Technical Marketing Manager, Rackspace), Patrick Reilly (Founder and Former CEO of Kismatic) — All Open Source Problems Solved in This Session
Next, Kim Bannerman, Kenneth Hui, and Patrick Reilly, a group of open source veterans, discussed critiques that are common for open source projects and looked at how to address them.
Patrick pointed out that OpenStack really is a community, and to have OpenStack work better you really need to participate. He argued that if you have a complaint, you should follow up and work to fix those issues.
Interestingly, the panel discussed the idea that often criticisms about open source projects, such as their governance, roadmap, and focus, are often just the downsides of advantages open source provides: transparency, inclusiveness, and agility.
Jonathan Donaldson (VP & GM, Software Defined Infrastructure at Intel) — The Future of OpenStack Clouds
Following the two panel discussions, Jonathan Donaldson of Intel and Craig McLuckie from Google talked to us about their collaboration and the future of OpenStack clouds.
Craig said that Google wants to be an enterprise software company, using OpenStack, because the market is too big to ignore. However, Craig said that Google is pretty behind.
During the talk, Jonathan discussed Intel’s Cloud for All initiative. It began last year and Intel began heavily investing in the OpenStack platform in an effort to improve OpenStack for the enterprise and to speed up its rate of adoption around the world. He said that Intel cares so much about a cloud for all because fostering innovation leads to use cases and creates value.
This has led to Intel and the broader community making OpenStack production-ready for enterprise workloads. He said that this has led to new features and significantly lower barriers for businesses that want to deploy private and hybrid clouds.
Randy Bias (VP of Technology, EMC), Sean Roberts (Director Technical Program Management, Walmart Labs), Mike Yang (GM of Quanta Cloud Technology) – The State of OpenStack on Commodity Hardware
The first discussion of the final session was about OpenStack and commodity hardware. In the early days of OpenStack, open cloud software with “open” or commodity hardware was seen as a perfect match.
One question the panel discussed was whether BOMs that mix commodity and proprietary components were the norm, or whether pre-integrated and fully commodity BOMs with components from one manufacturer were more popular.
Randy pointed out that the bottom line is that open or commodity hardware is not free, as it still takes skill to deploy. He argued that while it eventually will be easy to deploy open hardware, it’s not there yet.
Adrian Cockcroft (Battery Ventures Technology Fellow), Boris Renski (Mirantis Co-Founder and CMO) – Infrastructure Software is Dead… Or is it?
Next up Boris Renski from Mirantis and Adrian Cockcroft, a Battery Ventures Technology Fellow, conversed about Boris’ premise that Infrastructure software is dead.
As the two discussed the cloud revolution, Boris argued that the cloud revolution isn’t just about software, but also the delivery model, and that the delivery model for enterprise on-premises software has changed radically. Adrian agreed, adding that traditional hardware and software procurement cycles have collapsed with the cloud.
The two finished their talk by discussing the future of OpenStack. They said its future will not be in making the most “enterprise ready” software, but in building models for delivering customer outcomes that move the needle. Adrian said that he believed that unless you had very specialized or very large scale workloads, there is no competitive advantage to having your own data center.
Michael Miller (President of Strategy, Alliances and Marketing, SUSE) – OpenStack Past, Present and Future
To wrap-up the conference, Michael Miller from SUSE discussed OpenStack’s journey from inception to the present and shared some thoughts on what to expect next, discussing just how quickly enterprise IT is now adopting OpenStack, despite initial apprehensions.
The Last Word
From hallway conversations, to expert commentary, to the swarms of people who were visiting sponsor booths, the OpenStack Days Silicon Valley conference was a great success in getting people talking not about whether OpenStack was a success—that part’s a given—but why. Users were talking about where OpenStack fits in, how it’s still important for enterprise workloads, and how to most efficiently leverage new technologies such as containers.
So here’s our question to you: what do you think we’ll be talking about next year?The newly released 2017 State of Cybersecurity Among Small Businesses in North America is a 24 page summary of an extensive survey of small businesses (SMB’s) and consumers primarily from the US (71.4%) and Canada (28.5%). SMB’s had revenues less than $5m with the vast majority under $500k.
Awareness & Education
Awareness among SMB’s is very high ranging from 76% to 93% depending on the axis measure. The level of education, as measured by a 10 question quiz, is relatively low with much room for improvement. This corresponds with the finding that lack of expertise/understanding is a leading barrier to cybersecurity initiatives. It is underscored by the finding that an IT or security vendor’s approach was very important, which presumably measures the perception that knowledgeable vendors will bridge the education gap.
Framework Adoption
PCI-DSS was the most widely adopted “framework”, but over a quarter of SMB’s haven’t even heard of this industry regulation. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework came in second place with 17% of SMB’s having adopted the framework primarily to help decision making. Pressure from regulatory authorities and clients are also driving adoption of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
Financial Impact & Spending
While the median loss for SMB’s is relatively low at $2k, the average was nearly $80k and peaked around $1m. Spending ranged from $200 annually for SMB’s with 0-5 employees to $65k annually for firms with 250 employees or more.
Return On Cybersecurity Investment
A recurring theme throughout the report is helping SMB’s understand the “Return on Cybersecurity Investment” (ROCI). Page 21 lays out five step process for estimating the ROCI on various investments, which encourages business owners to evaluate investments against the familiar probability times impact formula.
Conclusion
The BBB’s report is a significant step forward in understanding the state of, and needs of, small businesses in the US and Canada. Kudos to the whole team and everyone who participated. I spoke at length with the lead author, Bill Fanelli, this past fall and it was refreshing to find a kindred soul that understands that cybersecurity a business problem, not just an IT problem. Something which this recent report clearly illustrates.
Further Reading20 Quick Fix Home Organization Hacks Lying Around The House
When you have a home organization issue, there are some very ingenious ways to fix it. But “a quick fix, really?” you may ask. “Just how quick?” Well, it depends on how fast you can move to find any of the items in this article – this could be your organizing scavenger hunt!
Since there are dozens of ways to get organized and dozens of various organizing solutions, the ones I wanted to show you here are the quick fix remedies- especially since you may already have some of these around your house already. This makes the task much quicker – again, it depends on how fast you can move to find them around in your house (or how fast you can get to a dollar store).
The way I see it, if a lot of stuff is just lying around, it’s clutter. If it’s put away in (or on) something, it’s organized. This goes for hidden places like cabinets, drawers and closets. Just use any of these inventions and you will be cured. I mean, your home will be cured.
1. The Jar
Open food in cabinets can become unruly, not to mention that the food can get stale faster. So a jar is a good fix for that.
2. The Basket
What a great bin these turned out to be in trying to get organized indeed.
3. The Container
Now these are fabulous, simply fabulous. You can just throw in like-items and group them together in a container.
And tiered containers with drawers … marvelous!
4. Plastic Shoebox Containers
If I got a dollar for every use I found for these, I’d be so very rich.
5. The Can
If you haven’t saved any of your food cans, start putting some aside because they can be a useful thing to use in getting some of those pesky utensils organized.
Even a small trash can comes in handy for other things besides trash.
6. Canvas Bins
These seem to be quite popular in stores now and must be selling well since they are still around. I bet you have some. If you do, throw some stuff in them.
7. Dollar Store Bins
A cheap fix to hold just about anything. Think about the under the sink clutter and try putting it to use there for a start.
8. Drawer Trays
For those kitchen drawer blues, these nifty trays do wonders inside drawers.
(via therealisticorganizer.blogspot.com)
9. The Tool Box
Another cheap fix from the dollar store – the plastic tool box. Throw all your craft stuff in, or whatevers, it doesn’t matter. It’s useful for something.
10. The Bucket
Again, if you don’t have one or two of these around, take a trip to the dollar store. They have a use.
11. The Lazy Susan
It’s not called the Lazy Susan for nothing – it may have been invented for lazy people trying to stay organized, is my guess. Who it’s named after is simple – it’s Susan.
Okay, so you you may not have it lying around your house. But just go out and buy one (or two or three or …).
Now this incredible turntable invention can be used as a treatment for a lot of kitchen issues – namely those deep cupboards which hide our stuff behind other stuff in the front row.
And you can use them in your fridge as well since they share an equal problem of hiding stuff.
I personally go a little crazy when it comes to these because I also use them on my countertop to group stuff on that clutters the counter. And I’ve seen them used on desktops to group desktop accessories too.
12. The File Folder
Forget about your filing system for now (or lack of) … and use those file folders for paper you can’t quite find a home for (other than your kitchen counter – which is not really a home, but a resting place that gives you no rest). Pocket folders are even greater.
Now, if you have some of those really cool plastic transparent folders, the better to see your stuff with, my dear!
13. The Notebook Binder
You know, these binders are not just for students to carry around their school papers (do they still use these, I wonder?). They are actually the perfect cure for accumulated papers because you didn’t want them stuffed inside some forgotten file cabinet.
Take for instance, all those clippings of your favorite recipes, those dozens of restaurant menus you’ve collected, and let’s not forget to mention those project papers you needed handy.
14. The Clipboard
I’ve never known a home to be without one of these. But if you’re one of those few that didn’t bother to get one, here’s something you can do with it that could help you get a handle on all those papers.
15. The Envelope
Got envelopes? Try using it for receipts and misc. paper stuff.
16. The Hanger
Think outside the box when it comes to hangers – you can actually hang other stuff on them beside clothing.
17. The Totebag
Quite a clever thing, particularly for gathering up all those items on the loose and keeping them there until you find another home for them.
Even papers can be toted around if you find yourself mobile a lot.
18. The Bag
For all those bags you’ve saved, now is the time to put them to real use.
19. The Gift Bag
The gift bag is a good start to be on the stylish side of organizing.
20. The Box
Wow, what an invention this was! I saved this one for last because we probably all have a box or two around that isn’t being properly utilized – especially some archive banker boxes.
…or those shoe boxes that never got tossed after we took the shoes out.
And low and behold, you can even use shoe boxes to store shoes!Redpath, with his mother Sam. Credit:Simon Schluter Reflecting on how he came to be in a very different job and having more fun than ever, Redpath starts and ends with his mother, Sam. He's in awe of her, the example she set, all that she's done for her kids. Sam Redpath's first three children were born in an on-again off-again relationship that was over by the time baby Jack, No.4, arrived. The Redpaths were on their own for a few years, then she married, had two more daughters and they moved from Leongatha to Kyneton. "It didn't turn out well," Sam says with a laugh of resignation. "I've been on my own ever since." Redpath remembers his mum working at the fee-paying school she somehow managed to send them to, then going back to college and emerging as a supervisor at a juvenile justice centre. "She just busts her arse six days a week, always has," he says. "We've always had everything."
This quality runs through the family, and clearly starts at the top. "Nobody changes anything unless they've got a work ethic," Sam says. "I've always said to the kids, 'There's no such word as can't. You can have whatever you want in this life if you work hard'." The oldest of the clan, Beau, is 32 and using his cabinet-making skills to do form work in the mines in Western Australia. Hayley is 28 and a police force detective, 26-year-old Jesse has a bricklaying business. Ruby and Lily are 19 and 18 and both did well at school. Ruby is doing nursing, Lily's having a gap year. "She's a bit of a wild one, got the dyed purple hair," Redpath says of his youngest sibling, with obvious affection. He adds that she's working in a local cafe "and every time I'm home she seems to have more money than me". His own earnings started early. At 12 he was working out the back of a butcher shop, getting called "CK" for "Clean-up Kid", pocketing $120 a week. He'd always wanted to do whatever Jesse did, so had a crack at bricklaying but found his size (he's now 194 centimetres and 99 kilograms) an impediment. "I know you're not enjoying school, I'm happy for you to go and work," his mum told him. Within three days of finishing year 9 a nail bag hung from his waist. "I was never going to be one for uni," he says. "The best way of learning for me is by hand."
He was playing senior footy for Kyneton at 16 but a few weeks' training with Bendigo Pioneers betrayed that the TAC Cup wasn't the right fit for a boy already living in a man's world. "I loved it, but it just didn't click for me. I didn't know anyone, so I just decided to focus on finishing my apprenticeship." His boss was Neville Massina, a country footy legend with abundant connections. He steered Redpath to Bendigo's VFL team, structured his work around training, took him for extra sessions running the Woodend golf course hill on Saturday mornings. "He loved his footy and he'd obviously seen something in me." He'd played a dozen VFL games in 2009 and was standing James Podsiadly in his first outing as a backman when someone landed on his left leg. He'd never been injured, let alone felt such pain. Shannon Grant was coaching Bendigo when he was ready to resume the next season and told Redpath to have a game at Kyneton and he'd be straight back in. In the second quarter he was tackled on the wing and heard a massive "pop". "I was absolutely shattered." The questions and condolences soon wore thin; football was teasing him, and he was of a mind to give it a miss.
Through both "recos" Massina was amazing, paying a carpenter who initially couldn't work, encouraging him that all wasn't lost. He'd shown enough before the first injury to be invited to pre-draft screening, which planted a seed that maybe, with a change of luck, he could make it. With Kyneton getting belted on a weekly basis, he made a mid-season comeback and kicked 5.8 against Sandhurst. "Maybe I can still play... " More eye-catching performances followed and with former Hawk and Kangaroo Nathan Thompson, who was playing for Kyneton, a plan was crafted to be back in the VFL the following year. In December 2011, as he drove home from a Bendigo pre-season session, the Bulldogs called. "My 21st party was that weekend. I trained with the Dogs on the Friday, Saturday didn't have a beer, just watched the boys drink them all. They were back at my brother's till all hours and I was in bed at Mum's." Mother and son were having coffee on the morning of his birthday, watching the rookie draft online, when his name bobbed up at pick 62. "Mum screamed a bit."
He'd arrived at an unlikely destination, |
David R Wilson. It's unclear why Wilson was not arrested at the time.Last month, a 14-year-old girl spoke to the Children's Assessment Center, telling a caseworker she had been having sex with a man for two years. She identified the man as David R Wilson and said she was pregnant. An exam of the girl showed that she was HIV positive, had herpes and chlamydia.Wilson was arrested, and is now being held without bond in the Harris County Jail. His first court appearance is expected to be Friday.Oh no, oh no. 500 words just isn't enough to prove my innocence, and I'm already down to 482. Well, my name is Jacob Carter as you already know. I’m a young man. I'm innocent.
@GuiltyThemAll
Cut the lies. We've all read the evidence already. This man will repeat his actions if he scores an overall innocent. We see through you.
#guilty
Please don’t use up my words. Now I only have 428 left. I need my words. I have a family. I have a wife. A son. I love him. Little Callum. He needs a daddy, he’s only seven.
@Tracy_Spike
I’ve got a daughter too. I love her. That’s why I want her to be safe from people like YOU.
#guilty
Please, please- if your choice is guilty make that all you say. My words are precious. Don’t use up my words and waste my jury time. This system is ridiculous. I know they changed it to save money, but surely a case like this deserves a jury in a room? I just wish I could afford to pay for the proper trial, to prove it wasn’t me.
@Gregory Adams
If your aim is to vex us, you fail. Your arguments are inadequate. I apologize highly for my verdict being
#guilty
Greg, listen to me- I can tell from your words that you're an educated man, so listen to the truth. I never mentioned this before. I was protecting him- my brother; Dominic. I love my brother, but when he's drunk he gets violent and angry. When he asked me to talk to the police, I said yes because I was scared. But it WAS my brother who committed the crime, not me. That favour was the most stupid thing I ever did, and I see that now.
Do you understand what happens to me if there are more guilties than innocents? I will die! The doctors are in the room next door, ready to inject the poison into my skin. Please just save my life. I want to see my family again.
@RyanRox
I believe you are being dishonest, but the crimes you committed don't justify taking someone's life.
#innocent.
Thank you, but I DIDN'T commit the crime. It was my brother, Dominic Carter. It was him. Please believe me.
@Braveheart_
Jacob, I came here today ready for a guilty, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
#innocent
Anyone else? Anyone else to vote innocent? And please save my words.
@James Turner
I’m on the same page as @braveheart
#innocent
YES!! It’s a draw so it's a hung jury, right? So I can have an e-retrial. Then I can bring in the evidence against Dominic. Oh YES! Thank you @Braveheart, @RyanRox, @JamesTurner. You guys have literally saved my life. 466 words. Nearly there. Is anyone else, online? Okay quickly I'll use up my words so no one else can get in blah blah blah 490 blah blah blah 494 blah blah
@Dominic_Carter
#guilty, Brother.Optional Route Parameters in Aurelia 07 Oct 2016
As a top-notch UX developer, you’re familiar with Rule #25: Designing for Zero Data. As the leading frontend JavaScript framework, Aurelia is too. Parameter-optional routes are the Aurelia best practice for designing for zero data.
The Zero Data Page
Imagine we’re building an application that connects users who need and provide goods and services. The success of our application revolves around users creating posts, so let’s remove every obstacle that stands in their way.
Our brand new user navigates to the route #/posts/. What does he see? He could see an empty list and a big button saying “Create your first post!”. Instead, let’s click that button for him; let’s create an empty post and navigate him to it by default. With the empty post just waiting to be filled out, your user will immediately begin dreaming of the content he can create for your application.
There are a few ways we could tackle this problem, but the best practice for accomplishing this in Aurelia is to have a single parameter-optional route. You will stay DRY with code reuse between create and edit pages while preventing any confusion to your users by having one simple route. Let’s take a look at how a parameter-optional route works:
The Parameter-Optional Route
app.js
configureRouter ( config, router ) { config. map ([ { // Simply add a '?' after the parameter ':id' to indicate that the // parameter is optional and may not be provided route : 'post/:id?', title : 'Your Posts', // by giving the route a name, we are able to navigate to this route // using the router API, i.e. `router.navigateToRoute()`, which is // another best practice name : 'post', moduleId : 'post', // if 'nav' is set to true, a href must be provided for the navigation // model, just as with normal parameterized routes nav : true, href : '#/post' } ]); this. router = router ; } open ( id ) { // now, we can leverage the router API even if `id` is undefined this. router. navigateToRoute ( 'post', { id }); }
Pitfalls of Other Patterns
I usually don’t list bad code, but I have seen some other methods circulating throughout the community, and I wanted to briefly look at the alternatives and explain why these approaches are not best.
Multiple Route Templates
// This breaks `router.navigateToRoute('post')`! Don't use this! config.map([ { route: ['post', 'post/:id'], title: 'Your Posts', name: 'post', moduleId: 'post' } ])
Query Strings
Passing data to the query string, e.g. #/posts?id=3 will have the same effect as a parameter-optional route. However, this will only work on the initial load of a route. Navigating to a new route, e.g. #/posts, will not trigger the activation lifecycle.
Multiple Routes
// This is a second best practice, but introduces unncessary complexity. // Only use this if you're stuck on an older version of Aurelia config.map([ { route: 'post', title: 'Your Posts', name: 'post-list', moduleId: 'post' }, { route: 'post/:id', title: 'New Posts', name: 'post-item', moduleId: 'post' } ])
Original GitHub Feature Request Thread
Parameter-Optional Route Feature Pull Request
Route Recognizer Spec examples
Jods4 on GitHub
GoodUIShare the News
The boutique hotel at the corner of Cathedral and Monument streets has been called the Peabody Court, the Wyndham Baltimore and the Mount Vernon Hotel.
Now, it has a new name: Hotel Revival, a Joie de Vivre Hotel.
Currently closed for renovations, Hotel Revival is targeting fall of 2017 for its reopening.
Michele Richter, president of the Mount Vernon Belvedere Association, announced the new name and other details during the association’s monthly meeting this week. She also said the hotel is the community organization’s newest business member.
“It’s going to have a new entrance on Cathedral Street and a new bar on the roof,” she said. “Its website is already up.”
A group called LL Pro Hospitality Baltimore LLC bought the 104-room hotel in early 2015 and announced plans last year to close it temporarily for a thorough renovation.
The hotel closed last July, and most of its contents were emptied out in a liquidation sale. The hotel is being managed by Commune Hotels and Resorts as part of its Joie de Vivre portfolio.
This spring, the building at 612 Cathedral Street is entering a new phase of the renovations, as it is literally flipping its lid.
Construction crews recently began removing the glass windows and framing that enclosed the top level, where Citronelle restaurant used to be. Over the years, the curved glass has become cloudy and difficult to see through.
As part of the renovations, the hotel owners will reconstruct a new, more rectilinear, but still glassy top level — notably, without the curving edge the building has had since the 1980s. When it’s complete, visitors will still be able to look across to the statue of George Washington atop the Washington Monument. The hotel’s top floor is practically at eye level with the Washington statue.
Schamu Machowski + Patterson is the architect for the project, which was approved by Baltimore’s preservation commission.
Tracy Proietti, a hotel representative and Baltimore resident, referred questions to a public relations executive in San Francisco. The executive could not immediately be reached.
None of Joie de Vivre’s other hotels use the word Revival.
“Revival combines traditional roots with modern details, made from scratch cuisine with private karaoke rooms and classic cocktails with sweeping views of Baltimore,” states the new website.
Revival will be a place “where vintage meets emerging,” the message continues. “We host intimate gatherings and discoveries in spaces designed to pay homage to the cultural past, present and future of the historic Mt. Vernon neighborhood. The best of Baltimore, past and present.”
The fall 2017 reopening date is listed on Joie de Vivre’s website. Room rates online start at around $109 per night on sites such as hotels.com.(CNN) The cries from family members and shocked Muslims are clear: Call it what it is, a hate crime.
They say Craig Stephen Hicks hated religion and that he was riled at the sight of his Muslim neighbors: two of them young women who wore hijabs.
But police in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said the Tuesday evening shooting appeared to be fueled by rage over a parking space. Hicks' wife said it was a dispute between neighbors.
The FBI has opened a preliminary inquiry into the killings to look into whether the slayings violated federal hate crime laws or other federal laws, a U.S. law enforcement official said Wednesday. But the official also said so far investigators haven't found any indications of a hate crime, and evidence suggests the slayings resulted from a confrontation over a parking dispute.
Some allege there's a double standard at play here. They say that if the situation was reversed, law enforcement and the media wouldn't hesitate to call it a hate crime or a terrorist act.
When is something a hate crime?
It's a hate crime when violence is tinted with discrimination.
The FBI defines it as "a traditional offense like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias."
JUST WATCHED Were UNC shootings a hate crime or parking dispute? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Were UNC shootings a hate crime or parking dispute? 02:39
That bias can go, among other things, against race, gender, sexual orientation or disability.
"To qualify as a hate crime, all that matters is that the crime was motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias," CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin said.
It also applies in cases of mistaken identity -- for example, it someone attacks a person because he thinks they're gay, but they're not.
After the 911 attacks, some Sikh men, who typically wear turbans, were mistaken for Muslims and attacked.
Does it make a difference legally?
In the justice system, the old adage that words can never hurt you is dead wrong.
Labeling something a "hate crime" can make the law come down much harder on a defendant. It adds a new serious charge that can come with a heavy additional sentence.
In 2013, a Mississippi judge sentenced Deryl Dedmon -- a white man who killed James Craig Anderson, an African-American, in a clearly racist attack -- to two concurrent life terms.
Though it's the states that try hate crimes as a rule, federal authorities can push forward their investigation and prosecution.
Take Dedmon's example.
He caught the wrath of the federal government as well. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 50 years in a federal prison.
"The defendants targeted African-American people they perceived as vulnerable for heinous and violent assaults -- hate crimes, motivated solely by race, that shook an entire community and claimed the life of an innocent man," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
JUST WATCHED Sister of slain Muslim student: We are in shock, denial Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Sister of slain Muslim student: We are in shock, denial 03:18
Finally, even if a defendant is acquitted on a state level, the Justice Department can prosecute a case as a "hate crime."
Derrick Donchak and Brondon Piekarsky had repeatedly kicked a Mexican man in the head while hurling racist slurs at him. The man died.
What about the 'terrorism' label?
That, too, has legal ramifications, and is not applied lightly.
The feds have a very specific definition of when something is an act of domestic terrorism.
It has to have three characteristics: an act that takes place in the United States, that's dangerous to human life, and is intended to intimidate civilians or affect government policy by "mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."
Probably the best example is the Fort Hood shooting in 2009. To the victims at the Texas base, it was an act of terror, when Maj. Nidal Hassan opened fire on his fellow service members.
But federal authorities never used the terrorism label. It met some of the criteria, but it was a legal move. Avoiding the label made it easier for them to pursue the death penalty
Why doesn't the 'hate crime' label seem to apply here?
There's not much concrete evidence of bias, police in North Carolina say. They're searching Hicks' computer and so far have not come up with anything that points in that direction, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN.
Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims A woman cries during a vigil on Wednesday, February 11, as she watches photos projected on a screen of three people killed at an apartment near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Much of the college community is grieving at vigils and prayer services after three Muslim students -- Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad, 21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19 -- were found shot to death Tuesday, February 10. Craig Stephen Hicks has been charged with murder in their deaths. Hide Caption 1 of 7 Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims University Chancellor Carol Folt addresses mourners gathered on campus February 11. Hide Caption 2 of 7 Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims Nida Allam, a senior at North Carolina State University, rests her head on Asheen Allam during a vigil in Chapel Hill on February 11. Hide Caption 3 of 7 Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims People attend a vigil at the Chapel Hill campus on February 11. Hide Caption 4 of 7 Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims People light candles to honor the victims on February 11. Hide Caption 5 of 7 Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims People embrace near a makeshift memorial at the close of a February 11 vigil. Hide Caption 6 of 7 Photos: Mourning Chapel Hill shooting victims Dental students make the North Carolina State University Wolfpack sign following a candlelight vigil in Chapel Hill on February 11. One of the victims, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, was studying architecture at North Carolina State. Another, Deah Shaddy Barakat, was a second-year student at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry. His wife, Yusor Mohammad, had recently been accepted to study there next year. Hide Caption 7 of 7
Hicks' wife, who is in the midst of divorce proceedings, told journalists she's convinced religion had nothing to do with it. Her divorce lawyer, Rob Maitland, said the shooting "highlights the importance of access to mental health care services."
He declined to provide any details about the suspect's mental health history, but said, "obviously it's not within the range of normal behavior for someone to shoot three people over parking issues."
So, why are people calling it a 'hate crime'?
On what is believed to be his Facebook page, Hicks is quite vocal about his atheism. Those alleging it's a hate crime are passing around a post attributed to him:
"When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I." CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the post.
By itself, it's thin, said CNN legal analyst Mark O'Mara.
It's "one piece of evidence that suggests that he had a hatred or dislike for the Muslim community -- potentially. If that was the only piece of evidence, I don't think it's enough, quite honestly," he said.
Contrast this case with the Kansas City shooting last year in which Frazier Glenn Cross is accused of opening fire at two Kansas Jewish centers. The three people he killed were Christian.
Organizations that track hate groups described Cross, who is also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, as a long-time white supremacist. Another indication of his mindset were the words he shouted from the back of the patrol car after his arrest: "Heil Hitler."
Soon afterward, Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said investigators had "unquestionably determined... that this was a hate crime."
What happens next?
Mohammad Abu-Salha, who lost both of his daughters in the slaying, is sure the women's hijabs had something to do with it.
When his son-in-law lived alone in the condominium complex, the family never had any problems. But once his daughter moved in, wearing a head scarf that clearly identified her as Muslim, trouble started, Abu-Salha said.
JUST WATCHED Suspect's wife: Incident had nothing to do with faith Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Suspect's wife: Incident had nothing to do with faith 02:02
"Daddy, I think he hates us for who we are," Abu-Salha said his daughter Yusor Mohammad told him.
It has been two days since the attacks, and the investigation is far from complete.
As details about the case are still emerging, a lot of questions persist. The FBI is assisting police. And Chapel Hill authorities aren't ruling out any options.
"We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated, and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case," Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said.
But in the end, does a motive really matter?
"If the deaths resulted from a hate crime, it is an international tragedy.
"If the deaths came simply because a man was consumed with a general hate for all humanity -- heck, then it's still an international tragedy. Because people all over the world have now been deprived of the services Deah, Yusor and Razan would have rendered unto them."The notion of “Africa rising” is understandably alluring. The vision of hundreds of millions of Africans striding into the middle class, mobile phones in hand, is certainly a refreshing antidote to endless images of death and deprivation. But while there is no denying that economies are growing rapidly across the continent, this feel-good narrative risks distorting reality, making it even more difficult to develop and adopt effective policies to truly improve African lives.
Just because some African economies are recording annual growth rates of more than 6 % does not mean that the lives of average citizens are necessarily improving apace; wealth disparity is rising even faster. In Kenya, for example, the mortgage market has only increased from 7,600 homes in 2006 to 20,000 homes in 2012.
Much of the overhyped economic growth is fueled by the exploitation of oil and gas reserves, investment in the telecommunications industry, and infrastructure development. Most of the profits and benefits from this growth go into the pockets of investors, shareholders, and government officials.
The African Development Bank defines a middle class African as someone who spends between $2 and $20 a day. A recent survey of Kenya by the polling firm Ipsos found that 93 per cent of households in the country of 42 million have monthly incomes of under Sh40,000 ($450). A Standard Bank survey of 11 sub-Saharan African countries, which together account for about half of Africa’s gross domestic product, found that 86% of their households remain in the low-income band.
The classic definition of middle class in the US implies the ability to fully enjoy the benefits of “modern life” - decent housing, good health care, affordable food and education, a car, public security and leisure. Few of those Africans who fit the African Development Bank’s description of middle class would argue that they enjoy such lifestyles because middle class does not mean the same thing in Lagos as it does in New York. So-called middle-class people like teachers in Nigeria earn 10 times less than their US counterparts. Comparable cars and decent housing are out of the reach of most teachers in Nigeria, since the cost of living in Lagos is only about 40% less than in New York City.
My parents, whose household fits into the middle class, according to the African Development Bank and World Bank, have been teachers in Kenya for over three decades. They earn less than $400 a month now, after numerous raises, but cannot afford medical insurance, a new car, education for my siblings and I in private schools, or even a decent vacation.
At the very least, middle class people should be able to afford decent and stable housing. However, according to UN-Habitat, sub-Saharan Africa currently has a slum population of 199.5 million people, 61.7% of its urban population. This means millions still live in temporary structures without electricity, running water, drainage or other basic amenities, like my parents did for many years in Kenya.
Data from the latest Human Development Index, a composite statistic that ranks life expectancy, education and income indices, puts the global HDI at 0.702. Thirty-three African countries rank at 0.535 or below, the lowest is Niger at 0.337.
So why all the fuss over “Africa rising”? The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote 2,300 years ago that “there is always something new coming out of Africa.” The latest news is that Africa is on the move, and this can’t be a bad thing. Institutional investors and pension funds are looking for new markets for their clients, and African governments are definitely open for business. In the past two years, the world’s major alcoholic beverages firms have opened offices in Nairobi in hopes of wooing east Africa’s emerging middle class.
Much of the investment in this “rising Africa” is headed to oil and gas and long-term infrastructure projects to facilitate the transport of these commodities. Such projects inevitably give rise to kickbacks, patronage and influence-peddling, none of which are intended to improve a country’s overall Human Development Index. In fact, numerous reports chronicle the links between corruption and endemic poverty.
Whether “Africa rising” is a construct that will benefit only a few or a reality for everyone depends on the diligence of African citizens to hold their leaders more accountable. African people should remain optimistic that the continent is growing. However, instead of becoming complacent that the “Africa rising” narrative will ultimately lift them up, we should be Afro-realistic about the problems we still face and encourage practical solutions.
Ultimately, it is the people, not the elite, who must ensure that a rising Africa, like the proverbial incoming tide, will raise all their boats, create jobs for the extremely high unemployed youth, and lift millions of out poverty into real middle class.
Evans Wadongo is a 2014 Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow. Follow @evanswadongo on Twitter.
Read more stories like this:
• Booming economies are not boosting employment in Africa, why?
• Access to information: bridging the digital divide in Africa
• Solome Lemma: African philanthropy, the new drivers of development
Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter.2018 Fight Like a Girl (TV Movie documentary) (writer: "Wake Up" - uncredited)
(TV Movie documentary) (writer: "Wake Up" - uncredited)
2018 La resistencia (TV Series) (writer: "Hail to the Chief")
(TV Series) (writer: "Hail to the Chief")
2017/I Bright (performer: "FTW (F*ck the World)") / (writer: "FTW (F*ck the World)")
(performer: "FTW (F*ck the World)") / (writer: "FTW (F*ck the World)")
2017 The Activists: War, Peace, and Politics in the Streets (Documentary) (writer: "Testify" - as Thomas Morello)
(Documentary) (writer: "Testify" - as Thomas Morello)
2017 Fist Fight (performer: "Crossroad Blues") / (writer: "Crossroad Blues")
(performer: "Crossroad Blues") / (writer: "Crossroad Blues")
2015 Entourage (performer: "King Of The Jungle" - as Tom Morrello) / (writer: "King Of The Jungle" - as Tom Morrello)
(performer: "King Of The Jungle" - as Tom Morrello) / (writer: "King Of The Jungle" - as Tom Morrello)
2014 Revenge of the Green Dragons (performer: "The Promised Land")
(performer: "The Promised Land")
2013 The 55th Annual Grammy Awards (TV Special) (performer: "Refuse to Lose", "No Sleep till Brooklyn")
(TV Special) (performer: "Refuse to Lose", "No Sleep till Brooklyn")
2013 Sound City (Documentary) (writer: "Killing in the Name")
(Documentary) (writer: "Killing in the Name")
2012 Zero Dark Thirty (performer: "Rise Up (Featuring Tom Morello)") / (writer: "Rise Up (Featuring Tom Morello)" - as Thomas Morello)
(performer: "Rise Up (Featuring Tom Morello)") / (writer: "Rise Up (Featuring Tom Morello)" - as Thomas Morello)
2012 Battleship (performer: "Super Battle") / (writer: "Super Battle")
(performer: "Super Battle") / (writer: "Super Battle")
2011 Real Steel (performer: "The Midas Touch", "One Man Army") / (writer: "The Midas Touch", "One Man Army")
(performer: "The Midas Touch", "One Man Army") / (writer: "The Midas Touch", "One Man Army")
2011 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (performer: "Goodbye - Gate 21" - uncredited)
(performer: "Goodbye - Gate 21" - uncredited)
2011 If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (Documentary) (writer: "Sleep Now In The Fire")
(Documentary) (writer: "Sleep Now In The Fire")
2010 The A-Team (performer: "A-TEAM BLASTOFF SUITE") / (writer: "A-TEAM BLASTOFF SUITE")
(performer: "A-TEAM BLASTOFF SUITE") / (writer: "A-TEAM BLASTOFF SUITE")
2010/I The Losers (writer: "Clap for the Killers", "The Oath")
(writer: "Clap for the Killers", "The Oath")
2010 WrestleMania XXVI (TV Special) (writer: "Be Yourself")
(TV Special) (writer: "Be Yourself")
2008 Rock Band 2 (Video Game) (writer: "Testify")
(Video Game) (writer: "Testify")
2008 Tropic Thunder (writer: "The Name Of The Game", "The Name Of The Game (The Crystal Method's Big Ass T.T. Mix)")
(writer: "The Name Of The Game", "The Name Of The Game (The Crystal Method's Big Ass T.T. Mix)")
2008 Drillbit Taylor (writer: "Name Of The Game")
(writer: "Name Of The Game")
2007 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Video Game) ("Tom Morello Boss Battle") / (writer: "Bulls On Parade")
(Video Game) ("Tom Morello Boss Battle") / (writer: "Bulls On Parade")
2007 World in Conflict (Video Game) (writer: "Shadow on the Sun")
(Video Game) (writer: "Shadow on the Sun")
2007 SingStar Amped (Video Game) (writer: "Cochise")
(Video Game) (writer: "Cochise")
2007 Slacker Uprising (Documentary) (performer: "No One Left") / (writer: "No One Left")
(Documentary) (performer: "No One Left") / (writer: "No One Left")
2007 Sicko (Documentary) (performer: "I'm Alone Without You" - as The Nightwatchman) / (writer: "I'm Alone Without You" - as The Nightwatchman)
(Documentary) (performer: "I'm Alone Without You" - as The Nightwatchman) / (writer: "I'm Alone Without You" - as The Nightwatchman)
2006 Guitar Hero II (Video Game) (writer: "KILLING IN THE NAME OF" - as T Morello)
(Video Game) (writer: "KILLING IN THE NAME OF" - as T Morello)
2006 Madden NFL 2007 (Video Game) (writer: "Revelations")
(Video Game) (writer: "Revelations")
2006 Miami Vice (writer: "Shape of Things to Come", "Wide Awake")
(writer: "Shape of Things to Come", "Wide Awake")
2006 Akoma anteho (Short) (writer: "Show Me How You Live")
(Short) (writer: "Show Me How You Live")
2006 Coachella (Video documentary) (writer: "Om Nia Merican" - as Tom Morrello)
(Video documentary) (writer: "Om Nia Merican" - as Tom Morrello)
2006 Threat (performer: "Rage") / (writer: "Rage")
(performer: "Rage") / (writer: "Rage")
2005 Guitar Hero (Video Game) (writer: "Cochise")
(Video Game) (writer: "Cochise")
2005 Audioslave: Live in Cuba (Video documentary) (writer: "Set It Off", "Your Time has Come", "Like a Stone", "The Worm", "Gasoline", "Doesn't Remind Me", "Be Yourself", "Bulls on Parade/Sleep Now in the Fire", "Out of Exile", "I am the Highway", "Show Me How to Live", "Cochise")
(Video documentary) (writer: "Set It Off", "Your Time has Come", "Like a Stone", "The Worm", "Gasoline", "Doesn't Remind Me", "Be Yourself", "Bulls on Parade/Sleep Now in the Fire", "Out of Exile", "I am the Highway", "Show Me How to Live", "Cochise")
2005 The Work of Director Mark Romanek (Video documentary) (writer: "Cochise")
(Video documentary) (writer: "Cochise")
2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Video Game) (writer: "Killing In The Name" - uncredited)
(Video Game) (writer: "Killing In The Name" - uncredited)
2004 Collateral ("Shadow On The Sun") / (writer: "Shadow On The Sun" - as Thomas Morello)
("Shadow On The Sun") / (writer: "Shadow On The Sun" - as Thomas Morello)
2003 Foolproof (writer: "Wild, Sweet & Cool")
(writer: "Wild, Sweet & Cool")
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (writer: "Sleep Now in the Fire")
(writer: "Sleep Now in the Fire")
2003 Outlaw Comic: The Censoring of Bill Hicks (TV Movie documentary) (writer: "Killing in the Name")
(TV Movie documentary) (writer: "Killing in the Name")
2003 The Matrix Reloaded (writer: "Calm Like a Bomb")
(writer: "Calm Like a Bomb")
2002 Splinter Cell (Video Game) (writer: "Name of the Game")
(Video Game) (writer: "Name of the Game")
2002 Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (writer: "The Name Of The Game" - as T. Morello)
(writer: "The Name Of The Game" - as T. Morello)
2002 Blade II (producer: "PHDream") / (writer: "The Name of The Game")
(producer: "PHDream") / (writer: "The Name of The Game")
2001 Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 (Video Game) (writer: "Wake Up" - uncredited)
(Video Game) (writer: "Wake Up" - uncredited)
2001 Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Mexico City (Video documentary) (writer: "Testify", "Guerilla Radio", "People Of The Sun", "Calm Like A Bomb", "Sleep Now In The Fire", "Born Of A Broken Man", "Bombtrack", "Know Your Enemy", "No Shelter", "War Within A Breath", "Bulls On Parade", "Killing In The Name", "Zapata's Blood", "Freedom")
(Video documentary) (writer: "Testify", "Guerilla Radio", "People Of The Sun", "Calm Like A Bomb", "Sleep Now In The Fire", "Born Of A Broken Man", "Bombtrack", "Know Your Enemy", "No Shelter", "War Within A Breath", "Bulls On Parade", "Killing In The Name", "Zapata's Blood", "Freedom")
2000 This Is What Democracy Looks Like (Documentary) (writer: "Guerrilla Radio")
(Documentary) (writer: "Guerrilla Radio")
2000 Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption (Video Game) (writer: "Electric Uncle Sam")
(Video Game) (writer: "Electric Uncle Sam")
2000 Undressed (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode)
Handcuffs (2000)... (writer: "Guerrilla Radio") (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode)
1999 The Matrix (writer: "Wake Up")
(writer: "Wake Up")
1998 The Faculty (performer: "Another Brick in the Wall, part II")
(performer: "Another Brick in the Wall, part II")
1998 Small Soldiers ("War") / (performer: "War")
("War") / (performer: "War")
1997 Spawn (performer: "One Man Army") / (writer: "One Man Army" - as T. Morello)
(performer: "One Man Army") / (writer: "One Man Army" - as T. Morello)An interactive employee evaluation, leaked to us by a very, very distressed employee:
Current job title
Associate Director for Vision and Articulation at [Redacted] (a mid-sized architectural firm of some repute)
Current salary
$45K
Years in position
7
Years with company
7
Years left
oh god
Main achievements accomplished this year
expanded our cross-disciplinary cross-pollinated cross-methodological data-driven research-based evidence-based design-oriented laboratory for architectural innovation and strategic development into a fully inter-disciplinary inter-pollinated inter-methodological research-driven data-based design-facing evidence-oriented innovation and strategy studio.
What would you consider your greatest strengths?
staying at work for 20 hours in a row, caffeine management, I own the thesaurus
What are your growth edges aka areas for leadership potential aka learning frontiers?
drawing on paper; model-making; eye contact with boss
What would you recommend we do to better facilitate engagement?
…. talk to me?
What’s one thing you love about working at [Redacted]
the time you increased the number of X-acto knives you buy per year so that i didn’t have to try and sharpen the blades on the edges of my sorrow
What’s one thing you wish we would improve at [Redacted]
the number of X-acto knives you buy bc i’m still sharpening more than is ideal on the edges of my sorrow and it’s starting to feel p eternal
Do you feel valued in your position?
i do feel value….. ENGINEERED (mic drop)
What kinds of rewards do you feel contribute to increased productivity?
would be a philosophical impossibility to increase productivity but for rewards i would like, 1) to have my face somewhere screenprinted onto some part of at least one of the buildings (our little secret) 2) to be allowed to do more than render the bathroom closet (at least give me a bathroom OR a closet but not a bathroom closet) 3) next time you choose an employee of the month instead of giving us stars that we can use to redeem for 1 minute of time with our principal [Redacted] for purposes of asking for theoretical clarification as to what exactly we do here all day long with our cross-pollinated renderings, we can use it for 1 minute of time to lie under our desks and casually confront the abyss of the edges of our eternal sorrow
What do you enjoy about my management style?
wait i thought you were the new intern
My status is irrelevant
wait why are you responding to what i’m actually saying
How do you work best?
ok now we’re back to … wait
are you a robot
I am a real person
just say the words “i am not a robot”
How do you work best?
ok i see how this is going to go
i work best at my desk with all the lights off so that i can better see the glare of the autoCAD for help w/ the bathroom closet configuration and also to better see the text box that i’m writing next to the |
to resist such degradation. Vettel could lap competitively for longer: 20 laps on the faster Medium compound tyre compared to Hamilton’s 14-lap run. Mercedes, by contrast, were trying to get the slower Hard tyre to work believing it to be the better race tyre. Once Mercedes had decided to sacrifice the lead on Lap 4 when Hamilton and Rosberg pitted for Hard tyres under the safety car, the degree of thermal degradation they experienced on both tyre compounds meant that they could not unleash the W06 Hybrid’s phenomenal pace to catch and overtake Vettel.
It took unusually hot track temperatures to reveal a chink in Mercedes’ armour. The race seemed reminiscent of the 2013 season when Mercedes faced similar, albeit much starker, tyre degradation problems. The German marque had a quick car that year too but it simply cooked and ate its rear tyres. This problem appeared to have been rectified in 2014, but apparently not cured entirely.
Will Ferrari challenge Mercedes again in 2015?
Was Ferrari’s victory in Sepang a one-off? On the face of it, yes. Malaysia was the ‘perfect storm’ of extremely hot track temperatures, an abrasive surface, high lateral loads on the tyres due to fast corners and a choice between pitstop strategies. This set of conditions is uncommon, especially 60 degree centigrade track temperatures. However, Ferrari is likely to enter Mercedes’ strategy calculations again this season because at least one of these conditions will come into play again. When this happens, expect Ferrari to at least threaten Mercedes due to their ability to keep their tyres in better shape for longer, enabling Vettel and Raikkonen to make fewer pitstops than Mercedes. In this scenario, Mercedes will in all likelihood be forced to sacrifice track position to Ferrari, as they did in Sepang. However, for Ferrari’s tyre degradation advantage to translate into Vettel or Raikkonen winning, the track temperature must be very high (50+ degrees centigrade) to make it impossible for Mercedes to lap to the full potential of the W06 Hybrid and catch and pass Ferrari. The other way for Ferrari to stay ahead would be if the track layout does not offer Mercedes good overtaking opportunities.
In sum, Mercedes retain the quickest car, but the window in which they can deploy their superior pace is narrower than Ferrari’s. Ferrari are not yet quick enough to worry Mercedes in a normal race, but they retain better strategic options.
What did the Malaysia Grand Prix reveal about Hamilton vs. Rosberg in 2015?
Hamilton got the better of Rosberg again in Sepang. Rosberg’s limited running in practice meant that he had less time to engineer the perfect setup and dial out the imbalance between the front and rear of his Mercedes. Hamilton was similarly compromised by missing Free Practice 1 due to a mechanical problem. However, in the race, Hamilton managed to improvise and ultimately cope better than Rosberg did with a less than perfect handling car. This is revealing as it shows that for Rosberg to match and beat Hamilton he really needs his car to be in the sweet spot. Therefore, in some ways, it is advantageous for Hamilton that the W06 Hybrid is not perfectly balanced because his superior ability to drive around car problems will more often than not give him an edge over his team-mate. Rosberg needs maximum practice time to find an engineering solution that allows him to get on terms with Hamilton. However, it was often through finding a better setup than Hamilton that kept Rosberg in play in many races last season.
If one or both Mercedes struggle again in hot races this season, it raises the prospect of Ferrari interfering in the world championship battle. Vettel and Raikkonen are likely to cost one or both of the Mercedes drivers world championship points again and these points losses could be critical in the title race.
Equality must be earned
One fantastic outcome of the Malaysian Grand Prix is that it will squash tedious calls for an equalisation of F1. Ferrari has shown that it is possible to turn a bad car into a good car and even more compellingly, take on Mercedes and beat them. The Scuderia has earned this success, as Mercedes earned it in 2014 and Red Bull before them. If Red Bull want to be top dogs again, they will have to re-earn that privilege.
Ferrari has delivered a great shock. Here’s hoping for more surprises in F1 in 2015.
@TheWheelspinner
AdvertisementsPascal is considered by many programmers as an old language from the past. And although it is in fact one of the older programming languages, it has greatly evolved into a modern, full featured language over the last decades.
Pascal was initially developed in 1969 by Dr. Niklaus Wirth on the ETH of Zurich. It was used as a teaching language as well as a language for business applications. With the appearance of the Classic Mac OS, Pascal was the language of choice propagated by Apple for serious application development. As an example, the first version of Photoshop was made with Pascal.
Pascal was standardized as an ISO standard in the early 90s. But unlike other languages, there were different Pascal dialects and compilers since the very beginning. One of the most favourite versions, which made Pascal one of the most well-known and widespread programming languages of the 80s and the early 90s, was Borlands Turbo Pascal. Over time some object-oriented additions were added to the language by Apple and later by Borland, which has evolved into what we now call Object Pascal.
Today there are two major implementations: Delphi, the official Turbo Pascal successor, and Free Pascal.
Delphi is a commercial Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment, which consists of the Object Pascal language, a powerful and fast compiler, a large runtime-library (RTL) and a designer for crossplatform Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). Delphi runs only on Windows, but can compile programs for GNU/Linux, MacOS, Windows, iOS and Android, too.
Free Pascal in contrast is a free, Open Source implementation of the Object Pascal language. It consists of the language, the compiler and a runtime-library - but does not include the RAD-tools which made Delphi famous. But thanks to some Free Pascal enthusiasts, the Lazarus IDE was developed as a powerful RAD environment especially for Free Pascal. Both, Free Pascal and Lazarus, are highly cross-platform and can run on and compile for different systems, among them are GNU/Linux, Windows, MacOS, BSD.
But beside this historical excursion, what are the reasons that I use Free Pascal in my personal projects?
Pascal focus on types
Pascal is a compiled, statically-typed language, which requires, that you define the types of all variables, parameters and functions in your code. The compiler will instantly raise an error when you’re trying to pass incompatible types to a variable or parameter. The type-safety has one big advantage: it forces you to think about how to structure your data.
The language offers many predefined types, but you can also define your own types. For this task Pascal offers you Enumerations, Sets, Arrays, Records and Classes. It is even possible to create sub-ranges of types or to rename existing ones.
Pascal is very strict, so the programmer has to differ between subroutines that return values, in Pascal called functions, and subroutines that does not return something, called procedures. Functions and procedures can also be passed to variables or other functions thanks to procedural types.
It is possible to overload operators for specific types. With this feature, you have the power to define, let’s say, the result of the addition operation of two or more instances of the same class.
Object Pascal has full support for OOP
Object Pascal provides you all the tools you need for modern Object Oriented Programming (OOP). Although the language is not fully object oriented in that sense like Smalltalk or Ruby, where even the most basic data types are instances of classes, you will find all the concepts that define OOP in the Object Pascal language: encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism.
You can define complex types with the help of classes. A class can define methods, which are procedures or functions, and data, called fields in Object Pascal. It is also possible to define the way of how data is accessed by a feature called properties. Properties define which getter- or setter-methods are used to read or write a field. Classes can also inherit other classes, so you can build a hierarchical tree of the data and behaviour you have modelled within your application. The base class of all classes is TObject.
Interfaces are also a part of Object Pascal as well as Exceptions. You can use the build-in standard exceptions, but you have of course the freedom to define your own exceptions. Class helpers are comparable with Extension Methods in C# or Smalltalks or PHPs traits (although not exactly the same) and let you add methods to existing classes without the need to derive a new class.
Further features are Generics to define classes that apply to a wide range of types, as well as many predefined classes for advanced data structures like lists, dictionaries, streams and many many more.
For an in-depth overview of all the modern OOP features, I recommend an excellent article written by Michalis Kamburelis, which is called Modern Object Pascal Introduction for Programmers.
Pascal is modular
Pascal supports programming in a modular way. What is called packages or modules in other languages like Java or JavaScript, is called an unit in Pascal.
An unit can contain all the code that has a common relation. You can define which data, types or functions of this unit are visible to other parts of your program - this is called the interface. And you can also define which parts are not visible to others and thus are private to the unit - this is called the implementation part. You can even define code, which gets executed once when the unit is included into your program, the initialization part of the unit, and code that gets executed when the program terminates, the finalization part.
Units have another advantage: they encapsulate the code in its own namespace. So you can have for example two or even more procedures with the same name in two different units without a name-collision.
Pascal is fast
One of the reasons why the early Turbo Pascal was a huge success was the speed of the compiler. Even on older hardware code was compiled in a few seconds. In comparison to other compilers this is still true today.
But despite the fast compilation of code, the compiled code itself is very competitive to applications developed in plain C, C++ or Java due to the highly optimization for different processor architectures, allowing the program to run at a very high speed and with little memory consumption.
Pascal is verbose
This is maybe the fact, that most developers are annoyed about: the absence of braces and the very verbose syntax of the language. As an example, instead of opening and closing braces, Pascal uses the begin and end keywords for blocks. The if keyword is complemented by the word then. As you can see, the whole syntax is readable like plain English. If you start to cry now, you should consider one important question by yourself: What is more important? The ability to have a short syntax to write code fast or the possibility to read and understand code that was written by other developers or even by you a year ago? I’m in favour of the second fact and I really enjoy that verboseness.
Pascal has good documentation
A language without a good documentation is only half the value. The team behind Free Pascal has done a very good job. You can browse the whole language documentation as well as the documention about the compiler itself, the Runtime Library (RTL), Free Component Library (FCL) and the Lazarus Component Library (LCL). In addition to this you will find many examples in the Free Pascal Wiki, but this takes us to the fact that…
Pascal has a great community
Beside the official wiki, there is also an official forum where Free Pascal and Lazarus users will answer your questions. If you’re active on Google+ you can have a look at the Google+ Free Pascal / Lazarus IDE Community, too. There are several (althoug not many) Object Pascal related conferences as well as some local Free Pascal and Lazarus meetups. And with the Blaise Pascal Magazine you will find a regular publication which offers a broad selection of articles about Delphi, Free Pascal, Lazarus and Object Pascal in general.
Conclusion
Object Pascal is really worth a look. Don’t let you discourage by people that tell you that Pascal is out of date. It is definetly not! There are many great projects out there that prove how strong the language is: from the Lazarus IDE itself to high performance 3D-Game engines like the Castle Game Engine, which compiles your games for Android and iOS, too. If you’re interested in the path aside of the mainstream languages, have a look at some of the resources I mentioned. Or simply install Free Pascal and Lazarus and try out the language for yourself!Makers of the controversial Brave browser last week began testing a payment system that ultimately will be used to compensate websites when their revenue-generating ads are blocked, then replaced by Brave with its own.
Brendan Eich, CEO and president of Brave Software -- and for a short stint in 2014, CEO of Mozilla -- announced the Bitcoin-based payment system last week.
"We've heard from many people who say that they are tired of the current ad-tech ecosystem that clogs their web pages and data connections with annoying ads and tracking pixels and scripts, and that they would be happy to go ad-free if they could instead funnel their support directly to the websites they visit," wrote Eich in a post to a company blog.
Dubbed Brave Payments, the system is baked into the Brave browser and relies on Bitcoins, the digital currency. Users must fund their "wallets" with their own Bitcoin or through a partnership with Coinbase, deposit up to $5 a month in the wallet from a debit or credit card. Users also designate which sites are to be on their pay list.
Website publishers are paid monthly from each user's wallet, with the proceeds divvied up based on the number of pages visited and the time spent on each site, said Brave in an FAQ.
Brave takes a 5% cut of each wallet.
Eich implied that Brave Payments would also be used to dispense funds collected in the future from its own ads. "This is just the first step along a path that should offer users a revenue share for their attention, if they so choose, where that share will come back to the user's Brave wallet," Eich said.
Brave, which Eich introduced in January, based its business model on blocking web page ads and site-tracking techniques. Brave will scrub sites of most of their ads and all tracking, then replace those ads with its own. The latter will be targeted not at individuals but at the anonymous aggregate of the browser's user base. If enough people gravitate to the browser, Brave will share its ad revenue with users and content publishers, with approximately 55% going to the latter.
The ad-blocking got the attention of newspaper publishers, who in May filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleging that Brave and others violated federal law prohibiting deceptive practices and those barring unfair competition. The newspapers objected specifically to the idea that a micro-payment system -- like Brave Payments, although the complaint did not name it -- was a suitable replacement for existing ad revenue.
"These services claim that publishers are not harmed by the blocking of their advertising because of these supposed payment systems. But these claims are, in fact, entirely unsubstantiated, given that these ad-blockers destroy millions of dollars in advertising value (and support for free content) and that their owners have made no showing that any payments they may offer to publishers could offset the funds lost to blocked advertising," the complaint to the FTC read.Five Reasons to Love Day of the Dead
by Jeff Kirschner
Confession time: When I first saw George A. Romero’s 1985 Day of the Dead, his third entry in his Living Dead series, I loathed it. A little context is necessary for such a strong statement. When I was young, I was pretty much afraid, not just of my own shadow, but also my shadow’s shadow. Hence, I hated horror films. But from a very young age, I loved cinema – just not horror. So when all my friends went to the mall’s cinema 20- strong to see A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, I whiled away the 93-minutes in the food court, eating my value burger and reading then rereading the menus.
In my second year of university, I took a film studies course. Day of the Dead was on the syllabus. I had yet (nor wanted) to see Night of the Living Dead nor Dawn of the Dead, so this was my first introduction to the Romeroverse. And after that initial viewing, I naively surmised that it was the worst film I had ever seen. What I learned later was that the version that was shown in that 500-seat lecture hall was heavily truncated, shorn off all of Tom Savini’s incredible gore gags.
But my how times change. I may have gotten into horror much later in life than most, but I can honestly say that horror now is my life. Horror is my favorite genre, horror paraphernalia fill my apartment, horror-themed tattoos cover my body, and horror is the subject I spend most of my time thinking about, writing about and discussing. And Day of the Dead, far from being the worst film ever, is my favorite of the Dead films (and incidentally, Romero’s favorite too.) What follows are five reasons why I love Day of the Dead.
5.) The Stakes
Day of the Dead begins with a small group heading out via helicopter to find if somebody, anybody, is still alive and unaffected by the zombie virus. No one answers the call. The streets are well and truly deserted save for some spiders, an alligator and legions of the undead. Currency is meaningless as evidenced by the dollar bills flying around as debris along with the crumpled newspapers. The only vestiges of humanity are a small group of civilians, soldiers and scientists living in a fortified underground Florida bunker, sheltered from the hordes of restless zombies clawing at the fences and desperate to get in. The civilians and the soldiers are at loggerheads and nobody is very optimistic about the future (save for one whom we’ll get to later.) Are these few the last remaining survivors? The soldiers had to have received orders from someone, and there is speculation of similar bunkers in other states, but for all intents and purposes, this is it. The zombies have taken over and humanity has lost.
The futility of the situation isn’t lost on anybody, but perhaps is most keenly felt by Miguel, an ostensibly cowardly soldier who’s suffering from a serious case of PTSD. The man is collapsing emotionally, and his instability threatens the few survivors who remain. But what is the right thing to do? Put an end to him in the interests of self-survival as the soldiers wish? Or to do as the civilians want which is to protect and assist him, as it’s the human thing to do? In a world where humanity is literally represented by perhaps a dozen individuals, is humanity best served by compassion or by the natural instinct for self-survival. Romero asks the question and then allows for the audience to decide the answer.
4.) Rhodes
Joe Pilato plays Captain Rhodes, the leader of the soldiers who has replaced the departed Major Cooper. He is a hot-headed, racist, alpha-male blowhard whose disposition permeates his ranks, including his men Steel and Rickles. He’s a little too enamored of his power and has neither patience nor respect for the intellectual scientists. His attitude can best be summed up as “my way or the highway”, or rather “my way or a bullet in the brain”.
Upon first viewing, I found Rhodes to be the least commendable aspect of the film. His bluster and over-the-top machismo style of acting seemed laughable, especially as he’s uttering lines such as “I’m running this monkey farm now…” and “All you’ve given us is a mouthful of Greek salad.” But as my estimation of the film grew, so too did my appreciation for Pilato as Rhodes. His acting is a perfect counterpoint to the cool-headed scientist Sarah, played by Lori Cardille. He may represent the worst that humanity has to offer, but he’s the one with the authority.
But is Rhodes really that bad? He’s a soldier, and it’s his men that he witnesses dying one by one, sacrificed for reasons unfathomable to him. No one is suggesting that Rhodes is a hero. His cowardly and self-centered actions near the end of the film certainly contradict any heroism on Rhodes’ part. But he’s not as cut-and-dried villainous as he may initially appear to be.
3.) The Gore
Night of the Living Dead was shocking in 1968 for its grimness and brief flashes of gore. Dawn of the Dead ten years later upped the ante with some incredible zombie kills. But its Dawn of the Dead where Romero and Savini go all-out with a sanguine tour de force. Day of the Dead is one deliciously gory film.
Scenes such as a zombie getting up from a table and spilling his innards like a dumped-out bowl of raspberry jello, a zombie’s head getting cleaved in half with a shovel, and soldier Johnson’s re-animated severed head are just the tip of the unsavory offerings on display. The final act is a gorehound’s delight and may arguably represent Savini’s best work. Zombie’s tearing soldier Torrez’s head off and ripping away Rickles’ face are incredible, but even those startling scenes pale next to Rhode’s last stand when The soldier is descended upon by dozens of the living dead. They tear him in half, dragging his lower extremities away while his insides become his outsides. One of the best gore scenes in horror history.
2.) Logan
One of the scientists is a seemingly harmless eccentric named Logan, played wonderfully by Richard Liberty. He’s dubbed “Frankenstein” by everyone else because he toils in a lab experimenting on specimens – captured and corralled zombies that are kept in the deepest recesses of the bunker. Logan is the only one completely convinced of the integrity and imperative of his work. Clad in his blood-spattered lab coat and scrubs, Logan plugs away, trying to discover what it is that makes the zombies tick. Sometimes that involves removing the organs of one zombie; other times it requires rendering another to just a brain and a body.
But there’s something haughty and hubristic about the good doctor, and it turns out that his experimentation is not completely without moral compromise. In the interest of science and “the greater good”, Logan isn’t just experimenting on those long undead. And really, there’s something disquietly Joseph Mengele about his experiments on the poor, captured undead chained by the neck to his laboratory walls.
1.) Bub
There is not one zombie in the entire canon of zombie films more memorable, and for that matter, more human, than Howard Sherman’s Bub. Without uttering so much as a word, Sherman gives the single best performance in the film.
Logan’s ultimate goal is not to reverse the zombification process, but rather to condition, domesticate and control zombies, first by examining them using a sort of Cartesian process, and then by training them through Pavlovian respondent conditioning. And his star pupil is Bub.
Logan gives objects of resonance to Bub and then takes them away. He’s interested in how Bub handles and responds to those objects, which include a razor, a toothbrush and a copy of Steven King’s Salem’s Lot. Bub appears domesticated and docile, and even seems to recognize his reflection in the mirror. But Bub is also a character imbued with pathos, and he just may be the only fully-sympathetic character in the entire movie. The look of amazement and wonder on Bub’s face as he’s allowed to listen to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” is heartbreaking, but is rendered all the more affecting by the crestfallen look when the music is taken away from him. But what’s even more tragic is the fact that Bub is successfully domesticated (although his reward for good behavior is indeed suspect.) As the film ends, Bub is left alone in the bunker; his “father” now deceased, the only civilized being amongst a group of savages.
Jeff is the co-host of the podcast Really Awful Movies. Click on the link to to check it out! You can also follow his web site Really Awful MoviesA trip to Russia could not have come at a better time for embattled President Jacob Zuma.
As he flew out to Moscow on Sunday, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela was tightening the screws, chastising him for what she deemed to be an inadequate response to her report on how he had "benefited unduly" from the R246-million upgrades to his KwaDakwadunuse private homestead in Nkandla.
Madonsela's letter, in which she gave Zuma two weeks to explain why he should not reimburse the state a portion of the money spent on non-security features, was made public just a few days after Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema pushed Nkandla back to the top of the public discourse by dramatically disrupting a parliamentary session.
These, and the fact that the president's lawyers have finally relented in the face of a DA legal challenge for access to the "spy tapes", must have weighed heavily on Zuma's mind as he jetted off for the last days of the Russian summer.
The government has called the six-day trip a "working visit", saying Zuma is in the Russian Federation to discuss cooperation between the countries and trade and investment opportunities.
"The visit will further strengthen the excellent bilateral relations with a view to consolidating and opening new avenues towards job creation, skills development, exchange and transfer of technology and trade and investment," said the International Relations Ministry.
But strangely, Zuma's delegation on the trip does not include Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies or any of his colleagues in the cabinet's economic cluster.
Accompanying Zuma are International Relations Deputy Minister Nomaindia Mfeketo and, curiously, State Security Minister David Mahlobo. If the main purpose of the visit is indeed to discuss bilateral trade, why take only the spy boss and a deputy foreign affairs minister?
To add to the mystery, senior executives at the SABC tell this columnist that none of its journalists assigned to cover the president accompanied him to Russia. The president never goes abroad without the public broadcaster in tow.
Closer scrutiny of the government statement on the trip - issued on Saturday afternoon following questions from the Sunday Times about Zuma going on holiday - reveals that the president spent his first three days in Russia in "low-key meetings" and using "the period to rest".
Given his punishing schedule during the election campaign earlier this year, his poor health and the tumultuous nature of the first three months of his second term in office, Zuma probably needs a rest.
But why Russia?
Zuma and Russian President Vladimir Putin have become pretty close of late, meeting at every available opportunity.
During the Brics summit in Brazil soon after the World Cup, they were described as closer to each other than to the leaders of the other member countries, Brazil, India and China.
When Zuma and Putin hold talks at the Kremlin tomorrow it will be the fourth time they have met in 15 months. This excludes the telephonic conversations they are said to have on a regular basis.
They are to hold further private talks at least twice before the end of the year - at the UN General Assembly next month and at the G-20 meeting in Australia in November.
What is so important that the two have to meet so often?
According to Saturday's statement, tomorrow's meeting "will also focus on developments on critical international issues of mutual concern, including, but not limited to, the situation in Syria, and the Israel-Palestine matter, as well as developments in Ukraine."
In short, Putin will be seeking Zuma's backing in his confrontation with the West over Russia's alleged aggressive behaviour towards Ukraine. Russia is in desperate need of friends from the "developing world" as it takes on the US and its traditional European allies.
Like China and many other powerful economies, the Kremlin also views South Africa as strategic to success in the new scramble for African markets.
Of course, there is also the matter of the R1-trillion South African nuclear-building project that the Russians are said to be keen to get their hands on.
But what does Zuma derive from his relationship with Putin, in general, and the current trip, specifically?
Seeing that the most senior member of his small delegation is the intelligence minister, it is difficult not to speculate about the trip having something to do with state security. After all, Putin - like Zuma - has a very strong intelligence background.
He is also the 21st century's biggest political survivor, having successfully fought off attempts from some of Russia's powerful oligarchs to unseat him.
Is our president, whose supporters believe the likes of Malema are backed by powerful business interests who want him removed from office, in Moscow to compare notes with the ultimate survivor?You know Blade, right? He's the Daywalker, a vampire hunter with some vampiric abilities of his own. Grew up in a brothel. Hunted Dracula. Hung out with Dr. Strange a lot. Well, rethink all that, because Marvel has announced a new series at San Diego Comic-Con from writer Tim Seeley and artist Logan Faerber, which presents Eric Brooks in a whole new way: through his daughter.
That's right, Blade has a daughter, and she'll be a big part of the focus of the new series, as she and her dad will apparently go on some macabre adventures together.
Logan Faerber
Here's Marvel's solicitation for the first issue, which comes out in October, just in time for Halloween:
Fallon Grey is a sixteen year old girl from rural Oregon. Nominated for Prom Queen, Captain of the debate team, most popular girl in her class. But there is another side to Fallon. A feeling like there’s something more inside of her. When terror strikes her small town, she’ll find out just how right she was. As fearsome supernatural forces hunt Fallon, she’ll come face to face with something even more shocking than the monsters on her tail. Eric Brooks…Blade… her father?! And in each other, they’ll discover the purpose they’ve each been struggling to find.
Of course, the big, lingering question is just how Fallon ended up in Oregon while Eric Brooks has been bopping around to various cities hunting vampires. There are a few others, too: Will she become a Blade herself? What exactly are these monsters that show up in her town? (Seems like they'd be vampires, but the solicitation is intentionally vague about it.
We'll all find out this fall, but check back during the week for our interview with Tim Seeley about the new Blade.It has been almost three weeks since former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Marc Allan Feldman passed away. Feldman, an anesthesiologist from Cleveland, was a beloved Party activist who finished 5th in the presidential primary voting at the Libertarian Party convention in May.
Among his many accomplishments in both his professional life, as well as in the Libertarian Party, Dr. Feldman is remembered for the closing statement–which is really more of a rap–he delivered during the convention’s presidential debate.
However, one part of Feldman’s debate performance especially stood out to me, and it was not the rap. While responding to a question about social security, Dr. Feldman put forth one of the most practical and ingenious solutions to the social security problem that I have ever heard.
As you are likely aware, the social security system is going bankrupt. The program is a huge portion of the federal budget and it is only growing. After years of squandering the payments of baby boomers, the government can’t afford the entitlement program now that the greatest generation has reached retirement. The taxes today’s workers are paying in can no longer cover the payments that retirees have earned. Each major party has at least some basic ideas on how to solve the problem: Democrats simply want to continue to borrow money to pay for the ballooning costs, while Republicans have introduced proposals that means test the program and raise the retirement age for those in the middle of their careers. Some bold conservatives have even offered total privatization as a solution. However, I don’t believe I have ever heard any plan that was as clever as the one Feldman proposed.
Dr. Feldman’s idea is to link social security with student loans. Retirees currently get a 1-2 percent cost of living adjustment each year–when the adjustment is sporadically offered–but students pay anywhere between 3.75 and 8 percent interest on federal student loans. If you allow workers to invest their money by purchasing student loans, you can theoretically increase the return for retirees and reduce the interest students have to pay at the same time. This solution is especially attractive given how burdensome college debt is becoming on young professionals. It kills two birds with one stone.
“Let the people mid career take care of educational opportunities of the kids, and then when the kids get jobs, they can support the retirements of their elders.” – Dr. Marc Allan Feldman
It is unclear how realistic the idea would be in practice, but it does seem like Feldman was on to something. Allowing workers to invest their retirement savings–money the government forces them to pay in taxes–in a way that actually allows them to make money has always been at the core of the best solutions to social security. When the government forces us to pay into a “retirement system” that offers so little interest that it does not even track inflation, they are literally stealing from us. They force workers to pay into a program with no promise that they will ever receive a dime of benefit. If the state won’t let workers opt out completely, maybe it will at least let them earn a decent return while also helping to solve the student loan crisis.Archimedes Palimpsest. The text of the prayer book is seen from top to bottom, the original Archimedes manuscript is seen as fainter text below it running from left to right A typical page from the. The text of the prayer book is seen from top to bottom, the original Archimedes manuscript is seen as fainter text below it running from left to right
Discovery reported in the New York Times on July 16, 1907
The Archimedes Palimpsest is a parchment codex palimpsest, which originally was a 10th-century Byzantine Greek copy of an otherwise unknown work of Archimedes of Syracuse and other authors. It was overwritten with a Christian religious text by 13th-century monks.[1] The erasure was incomplete, and Archimedes' work is now readable after scientific and scholarly work from 1998 to 2008 on images produced by ultraviolet, infrared, visible and raking light, and X-ray. All images and scholarly transcriptions with metadata are now freely available on the web at the Digital Palimpsest, now hosted on OPenn[2] and other web sites for free use under the Creative Commons License CC BY.[3][4]
The Palimpsest is the only known copy of "Stomachion" and "The Method of Mechanical Theorems" and contains the only known copy of "On Floating Bodies" in Greek.[5]
History [ edit ]
Early [ edit ]
Archimedes lived in the 3rd century BC and wrote his proofs as letters in Doric Greek addressed to contemporaries, including scholars at the Great Library of Alexandria. These were first compiled into a comprehensive text by Isidorus of Miletus, the architect of the Hagia Sophia patriarchal church, sometime around 530 AD in the then Byzantine Greek capital city of Constantinople.[6]
A copy of this text was made around 950 AD by an anonymous scribe, again in the Byzantine Empire, in a period during which the study of Archimedes flourished in Constantinople in a school founded by the Greek mathematician, engineer, and former archbishop of Thessaloniki, Leo the Geometer, a cousin to the patriarch.[7]
This medieval Byzantine manuscript then traveled to Jerusalem, likely sometime after the Crusader sack of Constantinople in 1204.[7] There, in 1229, this Archimedes codex was unbound, scraped and washed, along with at least six other partial parchment manuscripts, including one with works of Hypereides. Their leaves were folded in half, rebound and reused for a Christian liturgical text of 177 later numbered leaves, of which 174 are extant (each older folded leaf became two leaves of the liturgical book). The palimpsest remained near Jerusalem through at least the 16th century at the isolated Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba. At some point before 1840 the palimpsest was brought back by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem to their library (the Metochion of the Holy Sepulcher) in Constantinople.
Modern [ edit ]
The Biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf visited Constantinople in the 1840s, and, intrigued by the Greek mathematics visible on the palimpsest he found in a Greek Orthodox library, brought home a leaf of it (which is now in the Cambridge University Library.) In 1899 the Greek scholar Papadopoulos-Kerameus produced a catalog of the library's manuscripts and included a transcription of several lines of the partially visible underlying text.[7] Upon seeing these lines Johan Heiberg, the world's authority on Archimedes, realized that the work was by Archimedes. When Heiberg studied the palimpsest in Constantinople in 1906, he confirmed that the palimpsest included works by Archimedes thought to have been lost. Heiberg was permitted to take careful photographs of the palimpsest's pages, and from these he produced transcriptions, published between 1910 and 1915 in a complete works of Archimedes. Shortly thereafter Archimedes' Greek text was translated into English by T. L. Heath. Before that it was not widely known among mathematicians, physicists or historians.
The manuscript was still in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem's library (the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre) in Constantinople in 1920.[8] Shortly thereafter, during a turbulent period that saw a Turkish victory in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22) along with the Greek genocide and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the palimpsest disappeared.
Sometime between 1923 and 1930 the palimpsest was acquired by Marie Louis Sirieix, a "businessman and traveler to the Orient who lived in Paris."[8] Though Sirieix claimed to have bought it from a monk, who would not in any case have had the authority to sell it, he had no receipt or documentation for a sale. Stored secretly for years in Sirieix's cellar, the palimpsest suffered damage from water and mold. In |
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— Three federal judges on Wednesday denied a request by state lawmakers to postpone their earlier order requiring new state House and state Senate districts be drawn and elections be held this year.
The judges ruled last August that lawmakers had relied too heavily on race when they drew 28 legislative districts in 2011, but they said there wasn't enough time to rectify the situation before the November elections. So, they later ordered lawmakers to redraw the districts by March 15 and hold primaries in the summer and a special general election in the fall.
Lawmakers have appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they also filed a motion with the three-judge panel to stay their decision, arguing that voters chose their legislators to serve for the next two years and that the state shouldn't have to invest resources in a special election.
The judges said, however, that it would be more harmful to voters' rights not to fix the unconstitutional districts as soon as possible. The March deadline gives lawmakers plenty of time to redraw the voting districts, they said.
"Defendants nonetheless argue that this Court abused its discretion in ordering a special election because previous cases in which courts ordered special elections involved far fewer districts. This amounts to little more than a claim that Defendants’ racial gerrymandering is 'too big to remedy,'" the judges wrote in their order.
North Carolina has 120 state House districts and 50 state Senate districts. Although only about one-sixth were found to be drawn unconstitutionally, the federal court order will likely lead to both maps being entirely redrawn because every change to one district affects adjoining districts.
"It’s time for the legislature to recognize that the people of our state deserve to have fair representation and the opportunity to vote in districts that were not racially gerrymandered," Anita Earls, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which represents the voters who challenged the districts, said in a statement.Your first name
Barack Obama might not have seen the video of Hillary Clinton going limp at Sunday’s 9/11 memorial service, says Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
WATCH:
During Monday’s White House press briefing, Earnest explained that he had not discussed the incident with the current commander in chief.
A reporter had just asked Earnest if President Obama was “alarmed” by the news of Clinton’s Sunday, pneumonia-induced collapse.
“I don’t know whether or not he saw the video,” Earnest responded.
“He’s a pretty heavy consumer of media,” the reporter pressed Earnest a second time. “I think it would be pretty shocking if he hadn’t at least seen or heard of it.”
Earnest amended his statement the second time around.
“I certainkly would not be surprised if [President Obama] did,” he explained. “But I didn’t talk to him about it.”
Follow Datoc on Twitter and FacebookLike many states in the south and west, Texas has an interesting early American past that begins with Native American settlement followed by Spanish colonization. It's also a state that was an independent nation before being admitted to the United States.
Today we explore Texas’ intriguing early American history with Andrew Torget, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Texas and author of Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.
Listen Now
Episode Summary
In this episode, Andrew Torget, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Texas and author of Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850, leads us on an exploration of Texas’ early Americans past.
During our exploration, Andrew reveals what the Texas borderlands were and what early life and settlement in them was like; Details about Moses Austin and his plan to settle Texas with Anglo-American farmers; And, the stories of the Texas Revolution and the independent Republic of Texas.
What You’ll Discover
The Texas borderlands
Life and early settlement in the Texas borderlands
Native American peoples who lived in the Texas borderlands
Moses Austin and his plan to settle Texas
The Cotton Revolution
How Anglo-Americans came to settle in Texas
How the Mexican War for Independence affected Anglo-American settlement of Texas
Slavery in Texas and the tensions it caused with Mexico
The role slavery played in fomenting the Texas Revolution
The Republic of Texas
Ethnic relations within Texas
Juan Seguín
Texas’ admission to the United States
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In your opinion, what might have happened if the Republic of Texas had been a success? How would an independent Republic of Texas have affected the Antebellum and later history of the United States?
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Click here to rate & review on iTunes | Click here to rate & review on StitcherIt has been four days since Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke died at the age of 100 in Rome, but it is still unclear where his remains will be laid to rest. Italy, Argentina, and Germany have all expressed strong opposition to burying the vocally unrepentant former SS captain, who had been living under house arrest in Rome since his extradition from Argentina in 1995.
Priebke's birthplace -- the town of Henningsdorf, northwest of Berlin -- became the latest locale to reject Priebke's body, the German daily Bild reported Monday. "We would refuse a burial for Priebke," a spokesperson for Henningsdorf said, citing local laws that stipulate that only residents and those that die in the city may be buried there. "Separately, we have no interest in burying a war criminal here," added the spokesperson, according to the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.
Moreover, if Priebke is buried in Henningsdorf, it could transform the town into a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis, warned a commentary in the German daily Tagesspiegel. Last year, a member of the far-right National Democratic Party posted a birthday announcement for Priebke in a local Henningsdorf newspaper, prompting 30 to 50 masked neo-Nazis dressed in black to hold a march through town the following day.
For its part, the German government said it had not received an official request from Italy to have Priebke buried in Germany. "It is also not for the German government to decide where and what kind of burial Priebke will have," foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schäfer told the Berliner Morgenpost. "It is fundamentally a decision for the immediate family."
The decision by Henningsdorf comes a day after the leader of Rome's Jewish community insisted that burial in Priebke's birthplace was the most viable option. "There is only one solution -- logic demands that he return to the country where he was born, that he return to Germany and be buried in the town where he was born," Riccardo Pacifici told German news agency DPA.
No Church Funeral
However Pacifici suggested an alternative, if burial in Henningsdorf proved impossible. "Perhaps we should do what the Americans do with some characters -- cremate them and disperse their ashes at sea," he said. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a US-based Jewish human rights organization, made a similar recommendation. "The best thing would be to send the body back to Germany for it to be incinerated. That would be the most efficient way to leave no trace of a Nazi criminal like Priebke," Zuroff told the Italian daily La Stampa.
The mayor of Rome confirmed yesterday that he would not permit Priebke to be buried in the Italian capital, while the Roman Catholic Church said it would not permit a church funeral for the Nazi, a practicing Catholic. The city of Pomezia also ruled out a burial for Priebke at a German military cemetery located there.
In 1998, Italian authorities convicted Priebke for his role in the 1944 murder of 335 Italian civilians, including 75 Jews, in Rome's Ardeatine caves. The massacre was apparently ordered by Hitler in response to a partisan bomb attack that killed 33 SS police officers in Rome. Priebke never apologized for his role in the massacre and denied the full extent of the Holocaust.
On Monday Priebke's son, Jorge, expressed anger at the widespread opposition to burying his father. "Where should my father be buried? For me, even Israel would be good," he told the Italian news agency ANSA.
Meanwhile, the vicar of Rome confirmed that the Church would be willing to offer a small prayer service for Priebke in his home in Rome either Wednesday or Thursday of this week, the Italian daily La Republicca reported. The Church's offer, which does not directly address the issue of disposing with Priebke's body, was rejected by Priebke's lawyer as "viltà del clero," or "clerical cowardice."Image copyright Getty Images
The economic case for independence should not include North Sea oil revenues, the chairman of the SNP's growth commission has said.
The commission, headed by former MSP Andrew Wilson, was set up by the SNP to help shape its future economic policy.
Mr Wilson suggested that making North Sea revenues central to the economic arguments for independence ahead of the 2014 referendum had been a mistake.
He said any future campaign would need to balance optimism and realism.
Concerns about the potential economic impact coupled with the UK government ruling out the possibility of a currency union are widely seen as being central reasons for Scottish voters rejecting independence by 55% to 45% in 2014.
'Zero revenues'
The Scottish government's White Paper on independence ahead of the referendum had predicted North Sea oil revenues of between £6.8bn and £7.9bn in 2016/17 - which would have been the first year of independence if Yes had won.
It also said independence would ensure that "taxation revenues from oil and gas support Scottish public services, and that Scotland sets up an Energy Fund to ensure that future generations also benefit from our oil and gas reserves".
Since then, the North Sea oil price has plummeted - with UK oil and gas production generating negative receipts in 2015/16 of -£24m, compared with +£2.15bn the year before.
Image caption Mr Wilson was named as the chairman of the commission by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
Mr Wilson, whose report is due to be delivered to the first minister in the coming weeks, said Yes campaigners had argued ahead of the 2014 referendum that "oil was a bonus and not the basis" of the economic case for independence.
He told the BBC's Scotland editor, Sarah Smith: "But we did have oil baked into the numbers and it was indeed a basis.
"So I can say with some certainty in terms of our own work that we'll assume for the purposes of our projections that oil is producing zero revenues and therefore treat any revenues that we get from oil as a proper windfall to be used on intergenerational projects rather than spent on spending today."
The Scottish government's Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures, which were published last August, put the country's spending deficit at just under £15bn in the previous financial year, partly because of the fall in oil revenues.
That figure represented a 9.5% share of Scotland's GDP - more than double the 4% figure for the UK as a whole.
Analysis by Sarah Smith, Scotland editor
The SNP are already preparing for the possibility of another referendum.
They have experts working hard on formulating a new economic case for independence, considering key questions such as what currency an independent Scotland might use and how they would cope with the sharp fall in the price of oil.
Other Yes supporting campaign groups have already started fundraising.
But calling another referendum would still be a gamble, and the consequences of defeat could be disastrous for Nicola Sturgeon.
To lose two referendums in quick succession could set back the cause of Scottish independence for at least a generation.
And there could be a high personal cost. Both Alex Salmond and David Cameron resigned immediately after losing referendums. There would be an expectation that Nicola Sturgeon would have to do the same.
But still, every time the first minster mentions the possibility of another vote she makes it seem increasingly likely.
Read more from Sarah
Sarah will be examining the SNP's possible strategy for a second referendum on BBC Radio 4's Analysis programme at 20:30 on Monday 6 March.
Mr Wilson said it was "true that the economic circumstances are fraught at present", and that the "world sea is very stormy".
He added: "The energy sector has had troubles and the fiscal inheritance that we would have from the rest of the UK is a very difficult one.
"All of the above, however, would be a reason to change the way you're operating rather than to stay stuck to your deckchair on the Titanic.
"There are plenty of precedents that we're looking to from around the world of small countries who have put governance in place and put programmes in place that can both ensure that their economy grows and the welfare of people increase.
"But the financial footing that they're on is one that the markets and people who would be funding the government can respect, and that's what we would seek to achieve."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The UK and Scottish governments remain at loggerheads over Brexit
He said he did not think a future independence campaign would explicitly be arguing that there would be "short-term pain but long-term gain" following a Yes vote.
But he added: "I do think there will be a very purposeful approach to all of us working very hard to make it successful.
"I guess that's why oil's not a particularly helpful argument - because it gives the suggestion that somehow there's a free lunch and that we won't have to work, and of course we all will have to work no matter what happens.
"Independence would give us more tools and that's what's different".
Mr Wilson also said it was "imperative" for Scotland to continue to have full access to both the UK and EU single markets, and to be able to grow its population.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that a second independence referendum is "all but inevitable" following the Brexit vote - but has insisted that the UK government can avoid one by agreeing to its demands to allow Scotland to retain its membership of the EU single market.
However, opponents have accused her of using Brexit as an excuse to push for independence - and argue that the UK market is worth four times more to Scotland's economy than the EU is.
'Constitutional grievance'
In her address to the Scottish Conservative conference on Friday, Prime Minister Theresa May said the SNP was "interested only in stoking-up endless constitutional grievance and furthering their obsession with independence, at the expense of Scottish public services like the NHS and education".
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said Alex Salmond had "never admitted he tried to mislead people on oil during the 2014 referendum. Now that even his own SNP colleagues are owning up, it is time he did so himself."
He added: "If the SNP is now admitting oil is a bonus, it must set out which taxes would rise and what public services would be cut in order to fill an independent Scotland's £15bn deficit."
Scottish Labour's Jackie Baillie said her party had "warned time and again during the 2014 referendum about the SNP's rose-tinted fantasy of an independent Scotland's finances" but had been accused of "talking Scotland down".
She added: "Now the SNP's own economics guru has admitted promises of a land of milk and honey were a figment of Alex Salmond's imagination.
"And that reality has hardly changed. With a £15bn deficit, the cost of independence to our valued public services would be even more brutal".
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the economic case for independence was "weaker than ever" with the plummeting oil revenues, adding: "The SNP will need to explain which public services will be cut to pay for independence."Here is one clue as to what is going on:
To what does he [Zennon Kapron] attribute bitcoin’s popularity in China, and how could others benefit from it? “There’s BTC China’s no-fee trading for starters. You can leave your money on the platform, your coins on the platform, and trade in and out for free,” he said. The entry and exit points aren’t free, with a 0.5% Tenpay (China’s PayPal equivalent) cash in/out fee, and a 1% bank transfer fee. Capital controls in China are strict. It’s easy to bring money into the country, but getting it out (to invest or spend) is more difficult. That means there are are plenty of wealthy Chinese citizens and residents looking to move their money around the world with greater freedom.
There is more here. And here is a map of Bitcoin flows, recommended. In other words, more entrepreneurs in China are holding Bitcoin and accepting the volatility of its value, in order to sell the asset to those looking to get money out of China.
Those using Bitcoin may wish to diversify their portfolios, they may need to make payments abroad, or they may think the Chinese currency is currently overvalued, or some mix of the above. Bitcoin has become increasingly popular in China, and the largest Bitcoin exchange is in China, yet the currency has hardly any retail use in the country. Still, the number of yuan-based Bitcoin trades has risen thirty-fold in the last two months, according to Bloomberg.
Right now, you can think of the value of Bitcoin being set in the same way that the value of an export license might be set through bids. If/when China fully liberalizes capital flows, the value of Bitcoin likely will fall. A lot. To the extent the shadow market value of the yuan rises, and approaches the level of the current quasi-peg, the value of Bitcoin will fall, by how much is not clear. Or maybe getting money out through Hong Kong (or Shanghai) will become easier and again the value of Bitcoin would fall. If Beijing shuts down BTC China, the main broker, which by the way accounts for about 1/3 of all Bitcoin transactions in the world, the value of Bitcoin very likely will fall. A lot. You will recall that the Chinese government shut down the virtual currency QQ in 2009; admittedly stopping Bitcoin could prove harder but still they could thwart or limit it.
If you are long Bitcoin for any appreciable amount of time, it seems you are betting that the Chinese economy will do poorly and capital controls will remain. Then more people will be increasingly desperate to get more money out of the country. Or you may be betting that the Chinese use of Bitcoin to launder money will increase due to the mere spread of the idea, through social contagion. According to this source, the value of Bitcoin is up by a factor of 66 this year in China.
To the extent the price of Bitcoin incorporates expectations about the future strength of the social contagion effect in China, the price of Bitcoin may become more volatile. Expectations about the future strength of social contagion effects are probably not so stable.
In theory these points might give you a way to hedge the value of Bitcoin. Or hedge the value of China. Here is an interesting post about how Bitcoin prices in yuan do not so closely mirror Bitcoin prices in dollars. If you are a resident of China and have a BTC account there are numerous interesting possibilities, none of which I recommend for the faint-hearted. (Justin Wolfers doesn’t have to like this, but how can he think it is not interesting?)
I do not recommend that you go either long or short in Bitcoin, unless it is a small amount of money and done “for kicks.”
By the way, Ben Bernanke, by “talking up” the price of Bitcoin, is placing an implicit tax on the Chinese Johnny-come-latelys to this market, whether he intends it or not. He also is raising the price for circumventing Chinese capital controls and perhaps thus delaying a fall in the actual market value of the yuan.
For related ideas behind this post, I am indebted to a series of tweets by Izabella Kaminska.
Addendum: Izabella comments here.We know the music, we know the douchebags. They wear the T-shirts, always blast their music with windows down and will fight you if you disagree with their taste or not; these guys are pretty much always ready to throw down. It’s no surprise the music they are listening to.
This doesn’t mean these bands aren’t popular (or rich from album sales) - they are, which I guess says more about our society. Oh, and before you start your hate tweets, I like some of these bands as well, so, welcome friends…
Bands that just missed the list are Beck and Radiohead. Being confused over what music to like doesn’t necessarily make you a douchebag just challenged. So what makes the list? Bands that have a following of dudes that insist this is the best band and will pump their fists when their music comes on, regardless of the venue. Also, if this band attracts a douchebag element to their shows, that helps a lot. Now, another exception is Pearl Jam, a band that at one point was too popular, hence, the high douchebag ratio. Funny how their popularity decreased as did their douchebag following.
So the burning question is what is it about these bands that make those known as D-bags love them? Well, for one most of these bands live by the mantra of drugs, sex and rock and roll, this essentially translates to “F the world.” So there’s that, but that doesn’t necessarily make it okay. You be the judge. Here are the 15 bands that pretty much only douchebags listen to.
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15 Guns N’ Roses
via rollingstone.com
As soon as “Sweet Child O’ Mine” hit the airwaves, it was over. Douchebags swarmed to this band faster than looters hit the electronics store. Now it’s important to note that most only stand by the album Appetite For Destruction and the song “Used To Love Her” off the Lies EP. It’s important because this group loves a good rage and the debut album is one of the greatest rage rock albums of all time.
D-bags believe Axl Rose is Jesus Christ and the fans (douchebags) wear bandanas just like their Christ does. This was dying breed until the original band (or at least three main members) decided to get back together for a reunion. Now, it’s an all bandanas off rage once again. Don’t even try and convince them otherwise, you will be muted with chants of “Guns N’ F’n Roses!” Want to have some fun? Bring up Chinese Democracy, of course, I would advise ducking right after you bring this up.
14 Journey
via journeymusic.com
Journey, being a band for douchebags, was never their intention. No, this was a classic seventies band that had a lot of good tunes that rallied the classic radio dial whenever played. So many hits, even with a new lead singer, they flourished on their own. Then the finale of The Sopranos happened.
"Don't Stop Believin'" was, a good song. Now, it’s the anthem for a state of douchebags that will stop at nothing when they hear “Just a small town girl…” over the speakers. These guys could be at a cemetery where a passing car goes by with the window down playing Journey and they will pump their fists and sing along. “Good song man!”
13 Blink 182
via alternativenation.net
When someone over the age of sixteen says they are a fan of the band, Blink-182 they are telling you they are a douchebag. Technically categorized as “pop punk” like bands like Green Day, they are nothing alike. Just because you cast an adult film star in a video does not make you cool. Their lyrics are so immature and ridiculous only a person with mental capacity of a fifth grader can enjoy their music.
Instead of Green Day, they should be compared to a boy band and their fans, well, enough said. I mean this is a band that whines through their songs and then tries to get emotional after talking about poop. The music is generic and their sense of humor falls flat, which makes sense given the sense of humor of their fans. The song “What’s My Age Again?” is very appropriate and should also be asked of their D-bag fans.
12 Creed
via rollingstone.com
Where to start... I think the overuse of leather pants is a good place. Not only is this band terrible to look at, but their fans are just as bad. Creed is a band made for douchebags that want to believe they are listening to a good band, but aren’t. The lead singer Scott Stapp acts if he’s Jesus Christ in his videos. Specifically the video for “Higher” where is actually floats... I mean c’mon!
At one point this was supposedly a Christian-influenced band, but then later Stapp did a cameo in an adult movie. Make up your mind, oh that’s right, you don’t have to because your fans (douchebags) will support you regardless.
11 The Offspring
via theblaze.com
Is there such a thing as surf-douchebag rock? Because I believe that The Offspring is much more surf douchebag rock than pop-punk rock, as they have been labeled. When I was younger, I went to one of their concerts and it was a good time. Recently, I listened to their music and although I was okay with some of the tunes; although, I definitely didn’t have same feeling, there was little nostalgia you would hope from a band you used to enjoy. The humor is dated and the music blends together.
Douchebags with grey in their hair that still dig this band have issues. It’s time to put down the surf board and take a step into real life. “I know man, it’s hard, but you’ve got to man!” The recent legalization of marijuana in California could produce a double album from this band, just to please their older douchebag following.
10 Avenged Sevenfold
via mtv.com
For a band that wants to be a heavy metal band, it’s not good when you are known as an emo fan to a group of douchebags who relate to you as their sensitive side. The problem is that their fans are obviously trying to find something new, when this band is anything but new, they are the douchebags of rock, a wannabe Metallica that sounds anything like this band.
The biggest issue with this band and their douchebag fans is that they all swear this is a hardcore band when the reality is they are closer to Poison than they are Five Finger Death Punch. There is nothing worse than a band that tries to be something they are not. I mean, the singer even tries to sound like James Hetfield from Metallica and fails. The good news is that the fans (D-bags need I remind you) don’t care, they are used to failure.
9 Linkin Park
via rollingstone.com
Rap/rock fans swear by this album despite only 1.5 good albums, and yes, that’s the problem here. Linkin Park definitely broke pop ground with their industrial rap/rock and ability to break it down into the ballad “In the End.” I don’t debate this. So, hands down you can call me a douchebag for liking the first album; it’s awesome, but the subsequent releases have been anything but, at least for me. I guess that makes me partial douchebag (more on this later, I promise).
The biggest issue with this band and their douchebag following is their insistence on how Linkin Park changed the landscape of music. This is simply not true. Maybe for a couple of years, but their influence and success faded quickly. Remember that the lead singer decided to front a Scott Weiland-less Stone Temple Pilots... yes, that happened people.
8 Bon Jovi
via grantland.com
Oh, Jersey, how you are full of douchebags. Bon Jovi, and most importantly Jon Bon Jovi, started off as a hair band that new showing off their beautiful hair and asses was their best assets to go along with their pop rock. Stone-washed jeans and jean jackets manufacturers should pay a royalty to Jon. Then they named their fourth album New Jersey and all hell broke loose. The problem is that the band actually grew musically and consciously; however, their fan base only grew.
Today, Bon Jovi still plays as well as acts as a voice for the small guy. Most of their fans are douchebags that think the song “Living On A Prayer” was made specifically for them and that they have the right to always sing this song at the top of their lungs whenever played. You are not Tommy and you did not work on the docks. You are just a douchebag, son…
7 AC/DC
via huffingtonpost.com
This Aussie band is loved by douchebags across the world. Now, a little bit of history. This band has switched lead singers, twice. First they went from Bon Scott to Brian Johnson and recently have hired Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses) to front their band. Did you know that every song in the AC/DC catalog has the word “rock” in it? Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating slightly, but it’s not surprising their fans will answer “rocking dude” when you ask them about their plans for the day, an evening or their lives.
What does a typical AC/DC douchebag look like? They look a lot like the members of the band, lot of receding hair that isn’t cut in the back, paper boy hats and a constant head banging stance. It’s impossible to even have a conversation with these D-bag fan boys without being interrupted with someone shouting “For those about to rock we salute you!” They are hardcore and obnoxious to the core.
6 Disturbed
via metalinjection.net
Once I was in Tampa Bay and yes, I was at a gentleman's club because Tampa… Anyway, the girl on stage “danced” to the song “Down with the Sickness” by Disturbed. It was so disturbing (pun intended) and to this day am still troubled by that scene. Not sure what that has to do with current topic, but thought it was important to share.
I don’t want to say Disturbed fans are a special group, but there’s a lot of rage and hate and “douchebaggery” that goes along with this. Fans (aka douchebags) insist this is one of the best modern bands in the metal scene today. Fact: This is not the case; this band is closer to the bottom than the top. Regardless, the girls love to strip to Disturbed and the guys love to beat the hell out of people whenever they hear a song by the band, regardless of the venue.
5 Nickelback
via yesofcoursea.com
All you need to know about Nickelback and their douchebag fans is in the song “Rock Star.” The song is supposed to be a cliché of what it is to be a rock star, but then this band has actually taken the rock star path so now I don’t know if they are just being ironic or they are confused as well. Chad Kroeger and Avril Lavigne are a thing, or were a thing or something. It doesn’t matter and the only reason I know this is because their douchebag fans talk about this as if this has any influence on their music. It does, it makes it worse!
Poor Canada, I know you have better than this, but somehow this is what broke through in the states and created a legion of phony fans that insist Nickelback is a ground breaking band. Yes, they are a band. I will not refute that.
4 Megadeth
via metalinjection.net
How do you make the album Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying, turn religious, then political and then back to angry? More importantly how can you be a fan of this band? Easy answer to that: douchebag alert. Founder and lead singer, Dave Mustaine was the guy that got kicked out of Megadeth, so he’s a rebel right? Question: Guess what’s worse than douchebag fans? Answer: Rebel douchebag fans. FYI picking the losing team doesn’t make you a rebel.
Fans of Megadeth are a jealous bunch that tries to convince themselves that “their band” is better than the juggernaut known as Metallica. Insistent that their band never “sold out” is such an insane take that is constant with this group. If no one hears a band can they sell out? A deep thought that the D-bag Megadeth fan base would never understand. Seriously, if you spot someone wearing a Megadeth t-shirt turn-around and go the other way.
3 Metallica
via metalinjection.net
Along the way a lot of fans have exited the Metallica douchebag wagon, but there is still an army. This army of fans insist St. Anger is a good album. Either this group is just plain too loyal or they have been brainwashed by Lars. In fact, I believe Metallica tested their loyalty/brainwashing by releasing the album Lulu, leading to their fans insisting this concept album with Lou Reed was a good idea. Fact: This album was the worst idea of all time! What a mess and that fans that have stuck with them are the worst.
Now there is a new album and the army is ready to let everyone know that their band IS BACK! The douchebags will insist the new album is as good as their earlier work, but that’s impossible, it just doesn’t work way guys. Hey, at least you’re not a Megadeth fan, oh wait, you like both bands! Biggest douchebags ever!
2 Motley Crue
via rollingstone.com
Motley Crue started off as more of a New York Dolls punk act, went dark, satanic and heavy and then eventually really glammed it up. Once they made the song “Girls, Girls, Girls” there was no holding back the douchebag fan base. This became their anthem, after all, what douchebag doesn’t love a strip club? The Crue made music for dirt bags so douchebag isn’t much of a stretch. Influenced by KISS douchebags, Motley Crue douchebags always let you know who they are – they are the ones wearing the jean jacket with the Girls, Girls, Girls album cover patch on the back.
Even the members of the band are somewhat douchebags, either full of themselves or unable to keep it together over any length of time. Any band that gives themselves the nickname Saints of Los Angeles deserves to have a large fan base made up of mostly douche bags.
1 Kid Rock
via richestcelebrities.com
Love him or hate him, this is about the fans he attracts and no person attracts more douchebags than Kid Rock. He is the self-proclaimed Bull God so there’s that. Maybe it is the hat, the cigar or the swagger? Starting with rap/metal, and then turning to rock and then country, Kid Rock could walk on stage and use the toilet and his fans would cheer. In fact, I bet if he didn’t even show up the fans would just start singing his songs and not even care. Then they would get drunk and beat the hell out of each other. Kid Rock is the leader of the douchebags.
Each year Kid Rock hosts a cruise, can you imagine? A boat full of Kid Rock douchebag fans with nowhere to go? Everywhere you turn there’s another douchebag, they would be unavoidable. You want a deterrent to murder? Forget prison; sentence someone to ten days on that boat, surrounded by douchebags and Kid Rock. I think I just solved our violent crime epidemic.'This is an industry absolutely without a moral radar,'' he told The Sunday Age.'Last week, The Lancet reported ''alarming patterns'' of tobacco use in developing countries. Overall, consumption is growing in these nations by more than 3 per cent every year. At a time when Australia's adult smoking rate - one of the lowest in the world at 16.6 per cent - continues to drop by about 1 per cent a year, in parts of Asia as many as two thirds of men smoke, and women and children are increasingly taking up the habit. In China, schools are sponsored by the state-run tobacco industry, while in India mouth cancer rates in children are soaring as a chewing tobacco epidemic takes hold. The biggest commercial player, Philip Morris, has seen its net revenue soar in the Asia-Pacific region from $5.6 billion in 2007 to nearly $11 billion last year, and it has set up production in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. In a statement to The Sunday Age, a Switzerland-based media adviser for Philip Morris International outlined the market's potential: ''A home to over half of the world's population, the Asian region is very important for any global consumer goods company. Tobacco has been used in Asia for centuries.''
British American Tobacco's revenue has grown from $1.8 billion to $4.2 billion over the same period in the region. Spokesman Scott McIntyre was unapologetic, saying the company has had a presence in the developing world since the early 1900s. ''Just because people live in a developing nation, does that mean they have less of a right to choose what legal products they purchase than Australians? Or do Australian health experts believe they should have control over individuals in other countries. We believe education on the health risks of smoking is the most effective way for governments to reduce smoking rates.'' In China, where one in three of the world's cigarettes are smoked, the government-owned China National Tobacco Corporation, which has a near monopoly, generates taxes and profits of about $9 billion per month. China has 330 million smokers. In Indonesia, where the average age for starting smoking is under 10, there are 65 million.
In India, chewing tobacco is creating major health problems. Five million children are addicted, and mouth cancers are being seen in those as young as 13. Professor Daube said the combination of large markets, low taxes, cheap labour, corruption, poor literacy levels and lax advertising restrictions makes the |
ged with: education, google, UploadImage caption The Forth Road Bridge was closed for much of December after a crack was discovered in a truss end link
Engineers in charge of Forth Road Bridge maintenance wanted to replace a component which broke, causing a three-week closure, but "did not have the funding", MSPs have been told.
Former bridge engineer Barry Colford gave evidence to a Holyrood inquiry into December's closure.
MSPs heard budget cuts in 2011 and the axing of tolls had an impact on the capital budget for the bridge.
Nicola Sturgeon had previously insisted that cuts were not a factor..
Mr Colford said he wanted the truss end links to be replaced in 2010/11.
The infrastructure and capital investment committee heard from several witnesses from the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (Feta), the body which formerly managed the bridge.
Former Feta convener Lesley Hinds said the body's capital grant was reduced by 58% after the spending review in 2011.
'Not a wish list'
Replacing the truss end links, one of which cracked in December 2015 causing the closure of the bridge, was part of a capital investment plan put together by Feta in 2010/11.
Mr Colford said the capital plan was "not a wish list", but a list of things which he considered "needed" to be done.
He said it was difficult to say if the bridge would have had to be closed during the replacement works, but said people would have been warned to expect disruption.
Image caption Bridge engineer Barry Colford told MSPs he wanted the truss end links replaced altogether in 2010/11
Image caption Former Feta boss Lesley Hinds said the group's capital budget had been cut by 58% in 2011
In any case, Mr Colford said Feta had to "reprioritise" and be "realistic" about changes to funding.
He described the risk to the truss end links as "operational", although he said this was "very subjective", and said the failure would "probably" have still occurred had they been strengthened instead of replaced outright.
He said Feta had a close working relationship with Transport Scotland, but took its own decisions.
However, Mr Colford said he was "not in control of the funding of my destiny" after bridge tolls were abolished in 2008, which left Feta relying on funding from the Scottish government and Transport Scotland.
Former Feta board member Phil Wheeler, who was a Lib Dem councillor in Edinburgh at the time, said he felt the removal of bridge tolls was a "rush job" which had not been "thought through".
Political row
Following the closure of the bridge, Ms Sturgeon said it was "absolutely" not true that cuts to maintenance budgets had caused the failure.
She said "the maintenance that has been required to be done on the bridge has been done", and said the crack which occurred was "unforeseen and unforeseeable".
Transport minister Derek Mackay became embroiled in a row with Labour over past work on the bridge, which included the release of emails between Ms Hinds and Mr Colford.
He also insisted that the fault was not linked to a drop in finance due to the ending of bridge tolls, and claimed replacing the truss end links would have caused a "lengthy and unnecessary closure".
Labour's Alex Rowley said the government "cannot continue to live in denial" after hearing the committee's evidence, saying "it is their cuts which led to the Forth Road Bridge shutting down".
He said: "For weeks the SNP government in Edinburgh told us that cuts to the maintenance budget of the Forth Road Bridge had nothing to do with the bridge's eventual closure.
"The reality is the SNP made short-sighted cuts to essential maintenance budgets which meant that an essential piece of infrastructure was shut down at a crucial time for the Scottish economy."The decision has come down and Alberta conservatives have united.
It was a whirlwind of a day that had a few tense moments, especially when it came to the outcome of the Wildrose membership that needed 75 per cent in favour to get to yes.
The Progressive Conservative vote was not all that big of a surprise though, since Jason Kenney made it clear what his mandate was and most people rallied behind him for that reason.
Both parties voted overwhelmingly in favour of unity at 95 per cent; that should be a clear message to all members of the party that this is the direction Alberta conservatives have chosen to go.
But of course, there are those that voted no to unity and in separate media addresses, the former leaders of the parties spoke about unity and the way forward. The former leaders of Alberta’s two conservative parties, Brian Jean and Jason Kenney addressed the media after the decision came down.
Watch my video on to see their reactions and what they had to say about moving forward, their leadership races and the NDP.
The new United Conservative Party will have a founding meeting sometime next week and will name an interim leader. That leader does not have to be an MLA, although Kenney believes it likely will be.
And after formalities like requesting to be recognized as MLAs to the Speaker, it’s on to the leadership race, where a new official leader will be elected October 28.
We know that Kenney, Jean and Calgary lawyer Doug Schweitzer have thrown their hats in and I’m sure we’ll see even more candidates step forward in the coming days and months.This week, we are highlighting the work of one Medford student who has changed how his teacher instructs.
Seventeen-year-old Hunter Raymond, a student at Medford Vocational Technical High school, invented the Richbot 3000 to help his teacher who was battling cancer.
“I know he likes teaching and he always tells us, so when he wasn’t able to teach I know how much it affected him,” Raymond said.
The robot is named for Richard Cormio, who was forced to take a leave of absence after receiving a stem cell transplant.
Cormio had to be quarantined for a year, but that wasn’t going to stop him from being in the classroom.
“We started with Skype,” he said. “Because of the setup of the room and the sun I couldn’t really see too much, I was only getting glare. Students were asking questions but I didn’t know who was asking them or anything.”
That’s when Hunter created the Richbot 3000
“The next thing you know they said, ‘We have a way for you to look left and right,’” Cormio said. “It was thrilling for me to be home and be able to maneuver that thing all around. It was just a tremendous feeling, almost like a freedom.”
“Every time I would do something, like put wheels on it, make it so he could control it, it made me want to keep going and adding stuff,” Raymond said.
Raymond said creating the robot also changed his life.
“It made me so happy,” he said. “It was the best feeling to see it actually work. Every time I hit a wall I couldn’t keep moving with the robot I would just think to myself, ‘This is what it’s for.’ It would just keep making me want to progress.”
Cormio said he is proud of Hunter.
“He really went above and beyond and just created something wonderful,” Cormio said.
Hunter has applied to several local colleges and plans to study robotics.An aggressive promotional campaign helped “Downton Abbey” win six Emmy Awards, including best mini-series or movie, away from competitors on HBO and Starz.
“The thinking was that they had to up their game,” said Kliff Kuehl, president and chief executive of KCPT, a public television station in Kansas City, Mo. “That’s what we’ve evolved to — trying to give people that pay-TV moment.”
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“Downton Abbey,” which follows an aristocratic English family and its nosy staff at a sprawling estate on the cusp of World War I, was first shown on ITV in Britain. It slowly built an audience in the United States after critics called it a “delightful romp.” Viewers who didn’t typically watch PBS tuned in.
The first season, consisting of four 90-minute episodes, had a nightly average of 4.9 million viewers, in contrast to 1.9 million viewers on an average night on PBS stations, according to Nielsen. The number of women ages 25 to 54 who watch “Masterpiece,” which typically has an average age of 64, was up 56 percent during “Downton Abbey.” More than one million viewers, mostly from the ages of 18 to 49, streamed “Downton Abbey” on PBS.org or via Netflix.
“It was the closest thing to water-cooler television as public television gets,” said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of Masterpiece, produced by WGBH Boston.
A water-cooler show couldn’t come at a more critical time. The Budget Control Act, which ended the debt ceiling crisis in August, strips public television and others of a portion of federal financing starting as early as 2013.
In 2010, PBS had $571 million in total revenue, down from $624 million in 2007. (A PBS spokeswoman said annual revenue varies based on programming investments.) Federal financing for public television in 2010, through grants and appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was $97.8 million, or 17 percent of PBS’s total revenue. That’s down from $121 million, or 19 percent, in 2007, according to audited consolidated financial statements.
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States, meanwhile, under severe budget pressure, have cut financing for local public broadcasting stations. In Florida, Gov. Richard Scott, a Republican, vetoed $4.8 million in funds for stations. In April, Daystar Television, a Christian media group, announced its plans to buy WMFE-TV, a public station in Orlando. Since then, another local Orlando station, WUCF, has picked up PBS content. In January, KCET-TV in Los Angeles, citing financial problems, ended its 40-year relationship with PBS.
“People say ‘your business model is broken’ and we should walk away from federal appropriations,” said Paula A. Kerger, president and chief executive at PBS. “It’s an unusual system but frankly, PBS was envisioned as a public/private partnership. I don’t think we can trade out that blend that makes public television different.”
PBS is hoping that prime-time hits like “Downton” and “Sherlock,” which appeal largely to better-off viewers, will attract donations to local PBS stations that will be used to pay dues. In turn, that helps finance other programs like “Sesame Street” and “Sid the Science Kid.” PBS Kids is the most-watched bloc by children aged 2 to 5 and was originally created for underprivileged young viewers who lacked access to early-childhood education. (Viewers can also donate directly to the “Masterpiece” programming bloc through the Masterpiece Trust.)
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“That wasn’t just chance, but an effort to reach a wider audience and really think about how we can make the case to them to continue their support,” Ms. Kerger said.
But first PBS must connect to that wider audience. Though the broadcaster has a limited marketing budget, it has introduced an ambitious campaign ahead of the season premiere of “Downton Abbey” that includes placing ads on CNN, BBC America and Lifetime and in publications like People and TV Guide.
A social media campaign includes “Downton” actors sending Twitter messages about the show and sponsored, promotional Twitter messages. Viewers can unlock “Downton Abbey” stickers on GetGlue. On Dec. 26 fans got a 10-minute preview of “Downton Abbey” on the “Masterpiece” and PBS Facebook pages.
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“Social media drove the success of ‘Downton’ the first time around,” said Lesli Rotenberg, senior vice president of marketing and communications for PBS. “This time we’re using social media to help further drive buzz.”
Viking River Cruises has signed on as “Masterpiece’s” corporate sponsor, filling a five-year void that began when Exxon Mobil withdrew its support in 2004. Viking will send mailers to customers pegged to the “Downton Abbey” Season 2 premiere. A corporate message will come on right after the show’s host, Laura Linney, introduces the program. “Our demographic is affluent baby boomers, 55-plus,” said Richard Marnell, Viking’s senior vice president of marketing. “We’d been looking for a broadcast partner that reaches that group.”
Originally envisioned as a mini-series, “Downton Abbey” had such success that the writer, Julian Fellowes, agreed to do additional seasons. The second season begins in 1916 and will run for seven episodes. Its September premiere in Britain averaged more than nine million viewers or roughly a 35 percent share.
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In October, PBS introduced a redesigned iPad app modeled loosely after HBO Go. Combined, the mobile apps and online video player offer free access to 2,700 hours of local and national video. Ms. Kerger said PBS was exploring ways to link app downloads to easy-to-access online donations. “I want to be very careful that we don’t become commercially driven in the online space,” she said.
PBS doesn’t expect “Downton” to immediately lead to an influx of cash, and still plans to push shows like “Nova” and “Antiques Roadshow” in prime time.
“No one sat around and said ‘How can we sex it up?’ ” said Mr. Wilson, PBS’s chief programmer. Still, he said: “There’s nothing better for our future than to have a large audience. That engagement stimulates financial support.”To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from zucchini fritters. I don’t particularly like zucchini by itself and I had never tried making anything like this before. But after prepping the batter and lightly pan frying them until golden and crispy, I took a bite and… wow. I was shocked. These guys are so amazingly fresh, crispy, and delicious.
But fritters are fried! That must mean they are super unhealthy, right? Yes, your average fritters are usually fried (deep fried!) and contain way too much fat. But wanna hear a secret? You can pan fry these fritters in very minimal olive oil, like 1/2 tablespoon each, and the texture comes out just perfect. This dish is low fat, high in veggies and nutrients, but so delicious no one would ever guess it’s healthy.
Oh, I was so excited about the fritters I almost forgot to mention the tomato sauce! Sure, you can eat them dry, but drizzling a beautiful tomato sauce with basil and olives takes these fritters to a whole new level.
Makes 6 fritters
Ingredients: 3 cups grated zucchini
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 green onions
1 tablespoon dried oregano
Sea salt & black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil 1 16 oz can of tomato sauce
10 Kalamata olives
1/4 cup capers
Handful of basil leaves
Sea salt & black pepper
Step One
Grate two large zucchini until you have about 3 cups. If you have a food processor with grating attachment, it makes this job so, so much easier while also creating the perfectly-sized shreds for making fritters.
Step Two
Start the tomato sauce. These fritters can be eaten by themselves, but a simple tomato sauce adds a lot. To make, simply combine all ingredients from the second list (tomato sauce, olives, capers, basil, and salt & pepper) into a saucepan and let it simmer for 15+ minutes while you’re preparing the fritters.
Step Three
Prepare the fritters by mixing the zucchini shreds with the flour, sliced green onions, oregano, salt & pepper, and lemon juice. Use your hands to toss everything together in a mixing bowl. Test the consistency by trying to form into a ball, about 1/2 the size of a baseball. If they hold together nicely, the batter is perfect. If they’re too watery, add more flour; too dry, add a few tablespoons of water.
Step Four
Heat a skillet with enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan over fairly high heat. While the oil is heating, roll the fritters into balls and flatten to about 2/3 inch thick.
Carefully add 3 fritters into the pan and let them cook until thoroughly browned on that side (about 4 minutes). Then, flip and allow the other side to brown as well.
Step Five
Remove from the heat and allow the skillet to cool before pouring in a layer of the now-cooked tomato sauce to cover the bottom half of the fritters. To serve, plate 1-2 fritters with a drizzle of the tomato sauce.Books are lives compressed, humanity summarised into screaming or striking stories.
One would think the book world would be a safe haven from inequality. But instead the traditional publishing industry — the big corporate publishers — is perpetuating prejudice and limiting ideas by elevating certain authors, characters, and thoughts above all others, with significant social consequences.
The big publishers are big businesses with monopolies over a product, as much as other industries. They are driven by profit, rather than the social importance of books. They only publish books that are a “sure thing”, causing quality to be lost to lowest common denominator marketability.
“Sure things” tend to be books by celebrities, books with a guaranteed (forced) market such as text books and required readings in schools and universities, books on popular genres such as horror and romance, and books by authors who have already been very successful.
Just as food monopolies limit food choice and news monopolies restrict our understanding of current events, the book corporations have a monopoly on the ideas, identity, history and perspectives available to us.
Publishing industry profits are strong and stable: the rumours that they have been hit by the digital book boom are exaggerated. Publishing companies' profits sit at around 10%, and higher for digital books. This is a middle of the pack profit margin compared to other industries.
The US publishing market is worth US$30 billion. According to Forbes, Amazon's annual revenue from book sales is $5.25 billion.
Meanwhile, the number of independent book stores, which usually try to sell books for their literary or intellectual quality rather than profitability, have fallen by 50% over the past two decades: from 4000 to under 2000 in the US. Independent publishers are also struggling.
Further, news monopolies are playing a bigger role in publishing. In 2013, two of the biggest publishers, Random House and Penguin Group, merged to form Penguin Random House. Random House, though, is owned by media conglomerate Bertelsmann, while Penguin is owned by Pearson, which also owns the Financial Times.
Pearson also had shares in The Economist, but sold them in August. Penguin Random House is believed to control about one quarter of the global book market.
HarperCollins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in 1987. Last year, News Corp also bought romantic publisher Harlequin.
Thomson Reuters owns legal book publishers West and Sweet & Maxwell, as well as, obviously, the multinational media company Reuters.
Despite the profits, authors continue to be among the most exploited workers, in terms of pay to work time ratios — seeing many potential authors excluded from the start.
Fiction writers especially work for years for no pay, with no security or labour rights. Then when, and if, a book is published, they receive 7% of the sale price or net profits. That figure can go up to 12% if they are well known.
Further, publishers leave most of the promotion work to the author — with the exception of the likes of Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Bookshops charge hundreds of dollars just to do a book launch, on top of book profits.
When traditional publishers do dare to publish a first time author, they prefer those from economically comfortable backgrounds, who are known by people from the same background who will purchase the book. All this means that poor writers — and therefore the ideas of the poor - are virtually boycotted.
Putting the market first, the publishing corporations are promoting the status quo and overlooking books that are critical, have new ideas or atypical characters or use new techniques. They are under-representing oppressed groups such as women, migrants and LGBTI as authors, characters, and experts (in the case of non-fiction).
They seek celebrities and the big sell, with 0.01% of fiction titles accounting for 50% of sales, and 0.1% for 80% of sales.
Last year, just 14% of children's books in the US were by or about non-white people, despite people of colour making up 37% of the population, according to the Cooperative Children's Book Center.
The director of the centre, Kathleen Horning, said the buyers at Barnes and Noble, for example, believe “multicultural” (a misuse of a word to mean non-white focused) books don't sell.
When the books aren't stocked in book stores, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Black poet and author Nikki Grimes also noted that there were few people of colour in decision making positions in publishing.
Even though more women buy and read books than men, women account for just 17–22% of book submissions in the US, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. That is, women are 50% less likely to submit their finished work to publishers, according to Mslexia — perhaps because there are less female author role models.
In the 2012 VIDA count, 216 male authors were reviewed in the New York Review of Books, compared to 89 female authors. What all this amounts to is a censoring of a diversity of viewpoints and experience.
The disparity is even starker when comparing books published in first world countries to third world countries. UNESCO found the US published 305,000 new titles and editions in 2013 and Britain 184,000 in 2011, compared to 250 in El Salvador in 2003 and 14 in Mali in 1995.
English language books written outside Britain and the US — in India, Nigeria, New Zealand, South Africa, and so on — are much less likely to be published. Those that are often have to convert their manuscript into US English and are pressured to lose local jargon and references.
The traditional big publishers are often seen as a sort of quality control, choosing the best books of the many that get written. But those making decisions at these companies tend to be comprised of more privileged people — and are not always qualified to determine what we read.
One writer, for example, described some editors giving a speech at a book event and referring to Asian Americans as “exotic”. Editors often do not understand oppressed peoples, nor consider their issues important.
For publishers, a “good” story is the same old story, a familiar one that fits into a popular genre, with the same old characters and following the same old formula. The formula tends to be sexist (women are trophies), racist (main protagonists are white), ageist (you're only interesting when you're young) and classist (a mansion house is normal and the lives of workers aren't interesting).
This is repeated so often in the book and movie world that it becomes what most people aspire to and judge themselves by. It creates a disfigured version of the world, where young, white, straight, well-off men are life's protagonists.
Debbie Reese, tribally enrolled at Nambe Pueblo, told Lee & Low Books' blog, The Open Book, that there were many books by not-Native people that were marked as being about US Indigenous peoples. US people love a “certain kind” of Indigenous person, she said.
“They adhere to the bogus images in books (such as Susan Cooper's Ghost Hawk) but they find books about real Native people boring,” Reese noted. “If we don't walk on water, they're not interested in us. They don't care to know what sovereignty is or means.”
Similarly, publishers assume that only women want to read books by or about women, and that only Blacks want to read about Blacks, and so on, whereas the white male author is universal, classic, read by all. Anyone else is marketed as “multicultural” or “foreign”.
Jane Gangia, an associate professor, told The Open Book: “We grow up in the myth that whiteness is and should be the default; we don't question it. Not even my students of colour question it.
“One student from Puerto Rico asked me, 'Why did I have to wait until college to realise there was something wrong with this picture?' She did not know Puerto Ricans wrote books until eighth grade.”
The social consequences are inequality and a limiting of understanding — also known as the creation of prejudice. Books — and movies, art, music and other creative formes — are our consciousness: they reflect it and create it. That consciousness determines how we think, what we prioritise, value, and therefore, in a large part, how we act and how we view the actions of the powerful.
Who owns the words matters because democracy can never be real if the opinions of some social sectors matter less, or if ideas are monopolised by a small minority.
Unwritten, unpublished books are so many unsung stories, so many perspectives made invisible: the forced disappearance of books. Squandered poetry, wasted stories. The invisible majority barely making it into the slums of our imagination.
A giant hole in life where the books critical of giant injustices should be, where the middle aged heroes and non white protagonists and Third World thinkers should be. It is a more boring world, without all that.
[Tamara Pearson is an activist, journalist and editor living in Latin America. She is the author of the novel, The Butterfly Prison (Open Books, 2015) and will launch the book in Sydney at the Resistance Centre, 22 Mountain Street, Ultimo on October 23 at 6.30pm.]
Like the article? Subscribe to Green Left now! You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.Islamabad, PAKISTAN: At least 10 prisoners being held by US forces at Afghanistan’s Bagram prison have been released into Pakistani custody, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has told the prisoners’ families.
The prisoners have been repatriated to Pakistan, but their whereabouts remain unknown, the lawyers representing the families told Al Jazeera.
The 10 prisoners released are Awal Noor, Bismillah Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Paizoo Khan, Farman Shah, Abdul Sattar, Shah Khalid, Wajid Rehman, Rehmatullah and Sallah Muhammad (also known as Yunus Rehmatullah), according to a statement released by the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), who represent the families.
As far as we are concerned legally they were being held without charge. Sarah Belal, Justice Project Pakistan
"All have been held for several years without charge and access to a lawyer,” the JPP statement said.
The Pakistani Foreign Office confirmed the prisoner release, but was unable to provide details regarding the mechanism by which it occurred, or what the men had been charged with.
Tasneem Aslam, a spokesperson for the Foreign Office, told Al Jazeera the release was "expected", and that approximately 20 Pakistanis remained in US custody at the Bagram facility.
"The process for the confirmation of nationality for the rest of the people is under way and […] the Americans are also very keen that before they close down the facility and hand it over to the Afghan government that the process can be completed," she said.
US forces, who operate the facility at Bagram, are due to hand over the prison to Afghan authorities by December 2014, as part of their withdrawal from that country.
Sarah Belal, lead counsel for JPP, said that the families were still seeking information on what charges the men had been held.
"There's never been a charge sheet that has been produced by the Americans or the Pakistani government. As far as we are concerned legally they were being held without charge," she said, adding that her organisation, which has been contesting a case related to these detainees at the Lahore High Court, would be seeking the court’s intervention to produce the prisoners.
In November 2013, six Pakistanis were released from US custody at the Bagram facility and handed over to Pakistani authorities. They were then held by authorities for 10 days, before being released to return home.
"We are going to court tomorrow, because the Pakistani government is again in breach of their duty," said Belal. "They haven't informed the court or the families or the legal representatives about [the prisoners’] repatriation and location in Pakistan."
Pakistan’s interior ministry, which has handled such releases in the past, did not respond to a request for comment.
Yunus Rehmatullah, one of those released, was originally captured by the British military in Iraq in 2004, before being transferred into US custody at Bagram, according to UK-based rights group Reprieve.
In 2012, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that Rehmatullah’s rendition was a breach of the Geneva Convention, and that his detention was “unlawful”.
Kat Craig, legal director at Reprieve, said: “After ten years of unimaginable abuse and imprisonment at the hands the British and US forces, Yunus Rahmatullah deserves a full investigation into the circumstances of his capture. He must receive justice, so that he and his family can move on and return to some semblance of their old, peaceful life.”
Follow Asad Hashim on Twitter: @AsadHashimThe Luxor Massacre refers to the killing of 62 people, mostly tourists, that took place on 17 November 1997, at Deir el-Bahri, an archaeological site and major tourist attraction located across the River Nile from Luxor in Egypt.
In the mid-morning attack, terrorists from the Islamic Group and Jihad Talaat al-Fath ("Holy War of the Vanguard of the Conquest") massacred 62 people at the attraction. The six assailants were armed with automatic firearms and knives, and disguised as members of the security forces. They descended on the Temple of Hatshepsut at around 08:45. With the tourists trapped inside the temple, the killing went on systematically for 45 minutes, during which many bodies, especially of women, were mutilated with machetes. A note praising Islam was found inside one disemboweled body.[4] The dead included a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons.[5][6]
The attackers then hijacked a bus, but ran into a checkpoint of armed Egyptian tourist police and military forces. One of the terrorists was wounded in the shootout and the rest fled into the hills where their bodies were found in a cave, apparently having committed suicide together.[7]
From Wikipedia Now the leader of Egypt's Islamic-oriented Labor Party, Madgy Ahmed Hussein, is saying that he has discovered some secret information leaked by an unknown Egyptian official that the people behind the massacre were not Islamist. Oh, no. They were, of course, Israelis According to Hussein, who is running for president of Egypt, Israel was upset at Egypt's refusal to participate in the 1997 Doha economic conference, which it tied to progress in the Oslo process and somehow thought that its boycotting the conference would hurt Israel. Israel's anger at Egypt was behind the decision to massacre dozens of Egyptian tourists.The ability to think clearly is an impediment to coming up with these sorts of theories.He made these claims at a Labor party conference in Luxor Friday night.Federal Government to spend $4 million on TV drama to deter would-be asylum seekers
Updated
The Federal Government is spending $4.1 million to make a telemovie designed to deter asylum seekers from coming to Australia by boat.
Lateline has been told the multi-million dollar drama, commissioned by the Customs and Border Security Agency, is for broadcast in countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan where deteriorating security is contributing to the worst global refugee crisis in more than 60 years.
Sydney-based production house Put It Out There Pictures has been given the contract for the drama, which Lateline understands could include storylines featuring the Australian Navy and asylum seekers drowning at sea.
Scheduled to be broadcast later this year, it will carry strong messages that asylum seekers should not trust people smugglers but instead wait to be processed.
A spokesperson for the Immigration Department told Lateline that "television soap operas and telemovies are proven media to reach the target audience when seeking to deliver complex messages."
While the department did not directly address whether the telemovie would be branded to audiences as being fully funded by the Australian Government, "each broadcast will be accompanied by a major awareness campaign across television and social media," the spokesperson said.
TV producer says 'propaganda' films can improve lives
Trudi-Ann Tierney from Put It Out There Pictures said "the impact this film will have on a person's decision to attempt a journey by boat to Australia cannot be underestimated" because it could help "save people from detention, disappointment and even death".
Ms Tierney is an experienced TV producer who worked in Afghanistan for four years making TV soap operas as well as an anti-terrorist police show called Eagle Four which was largely funded by the US embassy in Kabul and which she described as "propaganda".
She also worked on Afghan programs backed by other embassies as well as UN bodies and aid agencies.
In her 2014 memoir Making Soapies in Kabul, Ms Tierney wrote that: "Ostensibly I was head of drama (for a local TV company); but in truth I was nothing more than a propaganda merchant".
I don't think the Government understands why people are on the move if they think a TV drama will be a deterrent. President of the Refugee Council of Australia, Phil Glendenning
"The official term for what I was facilitating was 'psychological operations,' better known as PSYOPS which basically equated to identifying target audiences and influencing their values and behaviour to suit the objectives of, in the case of Afghanistan, NATO and its allies," she said.
Ms Tierney said most of her work was "grey PSYOPS" meaning that the source of the propaganda is not acknowledged and can actually appear to originate from a non-hostile or indigenous source.
However despite early misgivings, she believed the messages were positive and designed to improve Afghan lives through promoting greater gender equality and anti-drug and anti-extremist behaviour.
Ms Tierney said the Government-funded asylum seeker movie "is about people, not politics".
She referred questions about the plot and funding transparency to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
TV drama unlikely to deter asylum seekers: Refugee Council
Refugee Council of Australia president Phil Glendenning said the proposed drama was unlikely to deter people fleeing the horrors of Islamic State and a resurgent Taliban.
"We know that more people are on the move out of countries like Afghanistan and Syria than there have been for well over 50 years," Mr Glendenning said.
"A TV show isn't going to stop people who are running from the Taliban."
He said the $4m should be spent supporting the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to provide asylum seekers with better protection and to speed up lengthy processing times so they are less likely to turn to people smugglers.
"I don't think the Government understands why people are on the move if they think a TV drama will be a deterrent," Mr Glendenning said.
"It may have good intentions but when people are up against the Taliban and Islamic State, it's not going to help them find protection and that's what our concern should be — how to protect people's lives."
Professor William Maley, an international expert on Afghanistan at the Australian National University, said deteriorating security, including increasing attacks on Hazara asylum seekers in Pakistan, meant that "a lot of people don't think they can wait for a year in a dangerous environment for bureaucracy to respond to them".
"This is why people smugglers are more attractive because they can get people moving within five days of making a down payment," he said.
The departmental spokesperson said the "telemovie will realistically portray the journeys of people … and the challenges they face" including the lies of people smugglers and Australia's detention policies.
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the movie was part of an intensive effort by the Federal Government to end the people smuggling trade.
"Operation Sovereign Borders has stopped the boats coming to Australia and in the process saved countless lives," Mr Dutton said.
"But Australia must remain vigilant."
Topics: immigration, film-movies, afghanistan, iraq, australia, syrian-arab-republic
First postedNBC declined to specify the number of crew members who were with Mr. Engel. Two of the crew members, John Kooistra and Ghazi Balkiz, appeared with Mr. Engel on “Today.” A third crew member, Aziz Akyavas, spoke at a news conference in Turkey.
Photo
Two others were seen in a YouTube video apparently posted by the hostage-takers last week. Mr. Akyavas said in an interview on the Turkish television channel NTV that one of the other two, a technician who traveled with the crew, was still missing as of Tuesday. NBC did not respond to a request for comment about that report.
Mr. Engel was last seen on television last Thursday in a taped report from Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital, where he reported that “the Syrian regime appears to be cracking, but the rebels remain outgunned.” In order to transmit their report in safety, Mr. Engel and his crew crossed into southern Turkey. They were captured trying to cross back into Syria on Thursday.
About 15 men, Mr. Engel said on “Today,” “just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes” and “dragged us out of the car.” The kidnappers killed one of the rebels whom the crew had been traveling with, he said. NBC’s Web site said there was “no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.”
The crew members were freed when the captors “ran into a checkpoint manned by members of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade, a Syrian rebel group,” NBC’s Web site reported. “There was a confrontation and a firefight ensued. Two of the captors were killed, while an unknown number of others escaped.” The rebels then helped escort the crew to the border with Turkey.
“We are very happy to be |
or slight or single out Mormons. So maybe we need a name for those who do it — a name like Mormophobe or anti-LDSitite — some label that can be applied to those who insult or degrade or generalize negatively about Mormons whenever they feel like it.
And by the way, it’s not just outsiders or “non-Mormons” who ride this horse. As with most prejudice, some of the worst slurs, name-calling and disrespect come from within. Disaffected Mormons sometimes feel like they have special license to judge and criticize, much like some African-Americans feel they have a right to call other blacks by names that no one else should; or like Jews who assume they can tell Jewish jokes because they are Jewish, or gays who can gay-bash with tongue in cheek because they are gay.
“Political correctness” is a concept that often gets carried to extremes, but P.C. is a good thing when it causes us not to tolerate those who use words of prejudice. And when people’s words turn away from bigotry, perhaps their hearts will follow.
Part of this whole issue, of course, is that many Mormons are too easily offended. The problem results both from those who offend and from those who take offense. As an institution, the LDS Church has become much better at not taking offense and laughing with their detractors whenever possible — and even turning or spinning a negative into a positive. A classic example of this is "The Book of Mormon Musical," a monumentally profane work, certainly not without artistic merit, which the church could have taken as a huge insult. Instead, it warmed to the challenge with promos and publicity lines such as “You’ve seen the play, now read the book,” or “The book is always better.”
We were recently in London and many of the omnipresent red double-decker buses have full-length ads proclaiming “I (heart) Mormon.” It is in reference to the musical of course, but the LDS Church couldn’t buy better visibility.
Interestingly, the term “Mormon” itself was originally a slur — a derogatory nickname given to the members of the LDS Church by their detractors. Now, at least among many, it is a name of respect and admiration.
In our own speaking and travels throughout the world, we find much more understanding and appreciation for Mormons than we do criticism or cynicism. Generally, the world is becoming more tolerant of differences and less tolerant of those who slash or bash the race, the beliefs, or the orientations of people who are different from themselves. And as mentioned, the very best part of the overused idea of political correctness is that it often shames those who show prejudice toward or suggest superiority over any other group or category of human beings.
Let’s all hope that this general trend of more tolerance and respect extends itself more to Mormons; and that one day soon “Mormophobic” or “anti-LDSitism” or other labels will make it a little harder to get away with hating or judging or slandering or belittling any group for their faith traditions and the way of life they have chosen.
Above all, lets teach that kind of tolerance and respect to our children so that there will be less prejudice in each coming generation than in the generation before.BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Belgian court on Monday handed out prison sentences to seven women for supporting Islamic State and radicalizing young women to go to Syria to join its ranks and marry fighters of the militant organization.
Four of the seven women - five Belgians, one Dutch and one Moroccan - were not in court to hear their convictions and were believed to be in Syria with female battalions of Islamic State, the Antwerp-based court said.
In their absence, they were given five-year prison sentences for their activities with those battalions, including patrolling and guarding entrances to towns and cities in Syria.
The women present in court were guilty of facilitating the departure of Islamic State recruits and collecting money for organizations aiming to radicalize young girls. They received prison sentences of between 20 and 30 months.
In February, 45 men belonging to radical Islamist group Sharia4Belgium stood trial, accused of being part of a terrorist organization. The head of the group received a 12-year prison sentence.by Ethan Fry | Dec 20, 2017 3:15 pm
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Posted to: Derby
Derby Mayor Rich Dziekan cut the first of what he hopes will be many ribbons welcoming new businesses to the city Wednesday.
Sherman’s Taphouse is now open for business at 181 Main St.
Owner Sean Sherman and his wife Leigh Anne welcomed Dziekan and other local leaders for a ceremony celebrating the new restaurant.
The location was previously the home of Fratelli’s and 500 Degrees. Sherman has been working for months to make the space different than its previous iterations.
“We wanted something that was a little more laid back, a place where people could just come in, relax, have fun, enjoy themselves, have some really good food along with some really great beer,” Sherman said.
A Texas native, Sherman is the former manager of J. Timothy’s Taverne, an award-winning Plainville restaurant.
The staff of about 30 full- and part-time employees at Sherman’s Taphouse include General Manager James Welch and Chef Daniel “Red” Roos.
The business looks to capitalize on the steady growth of the craft beer movement, which is growing faster than the overall beer market.
The industry contributed $67.8 billion to the U.S. economy in 2016, according to the Brewers Association, a craft brewing trade group.
In Connecticut, the economic impact was pegged at more than $718 million.
That impact has been felt already in Connecticut’s smallest city, with the openings of The Hops Company beer garden on Sodom Lane and Bad Sons Beer Co., a brewery on Roosevelt Drive for which Sherman’s will set aside one of its 16 taps.
The Dew Drop Inn, at the corner of North Avenue and Roosevelt Drive, has become a regional destination for beer and chicken-wing lovers.
By 2025 the worldwide market for craft brews will top $500 billion, according to one estimate.
Sherman said after Wednesday’s ribbon cutting that most of the restaurant’s 16 taps will be dedicated to craft brews, many of which be from Connecticut.
“Craft beer is so big these days,” Sherman said, rattling off a list that included Bad Sons, Beer’d, New England Brewing Company, Stony Creek, Kent Falls, and Two Roads. “They have grown so much, and so many of them are doing such a great job.”
While he said that while first considering opening the business he had concerns about parking, he sees potential in Derby.
“As long as you’re doing things the right way, people will come,” Sherman said.
He also hopes the long-awaited widening of Route 34, upgrades to the Waterbury Line train service, and movement in the city’s redevelopment zone between Route 34 and the Housatonic River will bring more attention.
“It just has so much potential. I think we can be successful even before (the redevelopment),” Sherman said. “After that it just adds exponentially to the opportunity.”
Other than Dziekan, Derby officials in attendance included Andrew Baklik, the mayor’s chief of staff; Carmen DiCenso, the city’s economic development liaison; and Board of Aldermen members Ron Sill, Evelyn Browning, and Barbara DeGennaro.
Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce President Bill Purcell emcee’d the ribbon cutting.
Dziekan said since taking office he’s been working with the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments in an effort to kickstart the Route 34 project as well as a plan to make improvements on the Derby-Shelton bridge.
“A main goal is to get that foot traffic from Shelton coming over here,” Dziekan said.
Sherman’s Taphouse at 181 Main St. can be reached at 203-308-2179.
Click here for the business’ Facebook page.
Click here for a menu from the restaurant’s website.The world's most famous band will be available on a variety of streaming services at midnight. Timed perfectly for Christmas Day, The Beatles' catalog will be available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Slacker, Tidal, Groove, Rhapsody, Deezer, Google Play, and Amazon Prime. Beatles fans will be able to stream all 13 remastered studio albums, and four of the band's special collection albums at 12:01AM local time on December 24th (it’s already Christmas Eve in New Zealand).
Spotify has confirmed that both free and premium users will be able to access all of The Beatles' tracks, making them available to a wide range of people alongside various streaming services. This is the first time the entire Beatles catalog will be available to stream online, a big step forward from when the albums first appeared to purchase on iTunes in 2010.
The Beatles are available everywhere
Until now, the iconic Beatles discography had been absent from on-demand streaming music services. It was particularly noticeable at the launch of Apple Music, where the lack of Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, and other classic albums showed that holes existed in Apple's streaming catalog. Just a few years ago, Apple pumped serious advertising dollars into announcing the iTunes debut of Paul, John, George, and Ringo in 2010, which came a year after the band's discography was remastered and re-released on CD in 2009. The individual band members have already embraced streaming for their solo careers, but it took longer for The Beatles to get a deal done.
It's very possible you've heard The Beatles on Pandora, which isn't subject to the exact same terms and licensing requirements as Apple, Spotify, and others. But there, you're at the mercy of the company's algorithms and can't simply listen to "Get Back" or "A Day in the Life" on a whim. Spotify has managed to deliver some important (if temporary) exclusives of its own over the last couple years, including Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, but it's nice to see that The Beatles will be available wherever you feel like listening.Chasing Immortality: Agilities
Since the announcement Noah Winston’s Immortals would be playing for one of the Los Angeles Overwatch League spots, the team has spent quite a bit of time in the limelight. After an impressive Contenders Season 0 victory, the team has the time to regroup and rediscover their identity in the new meta and esports landscape. We have taken this chance to talk to the names behind Immortals’ success in Overwatch and get their thoughts on the future.
This week, we sat down with Brady ‘Agilities’ Giradi to get his thoughts on his team’s performance in Contenders and how much the Overwatch World Cup really means to him. Beyond being a world class Genji player, Agilities is also one of the game's youngest stars and biggest role models. With Overwatch just now emerging from its infancy, it remains critical for players to not only set their sights on the everlooming Overwatch League at the end of the year, but also their future careers years down the line. It is in this reality Brady bears the unusual burden of being a trailblazer, as well as, a forefather.
Welcome to Week 1 of Chasing Immortality.
The full audio interview can be found here on SoundCloud.
For more competitive Overwatch news, follow us on Twitter @GosuOverwatch.
QUICKPOLL Is Contenders Season 1 a good barometer for the team's future performance in the Overwatch League? Yes
Thank you for voting! No
Thank you for voting!The Redskins have already taken care of two significant pieces of their 2016 offseason business. Just before they started training camp they signed linebacker Ryan Kerrigan to a five-year, $57.5 million contract extension. A few weeks later they locked up left tackle Trent Williams with $66 million over six years.
With those two big contracts out of the way the Redskins will be able to get to work on other free agents they want to sign once the season ends with certainty about the cap implications of those big contracts. As we noted yesterday they should have ample cap space to work with so lack of money to spend should not be an object towards them keeping any of their own players they want to keep.
Here is a look at the Redskins’ unrestricted free agents:
Starters
QB Kirk Cousins (age 28 at start of 2016 season, 2015 cap number $778,000)—This could be huge or it could be almost an afterthought, depending on how Cousins plays in the remaining nine games. If his performance is good enough to warrant starter status in 2015, he could get a deal something like Nick Foles’ extension with the Rams. In August, Foles, who was going into the final year of his rookie contract, signed for two years and $24.5 million in new money. $12 million is guaranteed and, in reality, that is the total value of the deal. There is no guaranteed money in the final year of the deal so the Rams could easily cut ties after 2016 with minimal cap pain. Cousins could get something similar if the Redskins want him to be their starter next year.
FB Darrel Young (age 29, $1.5 million)—He has played only 45 snaps on offense this year and although he is also a regular on special teams, you have to think that the organization can find someone younger and cheaper to fill that role. On the other hand, Scot McCloughan is going to keep a few veterans around to set the example for the younger players and Young is perfect for that. I think he’s back on a deal that’s shorter and slightly less lucrative than the one he’s finishing up (that one is 3 years, $3.9 million, $1 million guaranteed).
ILB Keenan Robinson (age 27, $765,000)—Even though he has fallen off from his high level of play he displayed last year, he is still a valuable member of the defense and not a player they want to let get away. Unless he really turns it on the last nine game he should get something in the neighborhood of the three-year, $12 million deal that Perry Riley got in 2014, with a couple of million added on due to cap inflation.
NT Terrance Knighton (age 30, $4.45 million)—This could get sticky. The Redskins are probably willing to give him an average of 4.5 million per year but probably for only a couple of years. Knighton’s camp will point to the deal that Dan Williams got from the Raiders and want more like four years, $25 million. A good solution would be to meet in the middle and go for three years, $17 million.
OLB Junior Galette (age 28, $745,000)—He didn’t start a game, of course, but he would have if not for the torn Achilles he suffered in August. Another “prove-it” deal at minimum salary for him? That’s doubtful. I think they give him a couple of years with a low guarantee that’s loaded with incentives and per-game roster bonuses. Let’s say two years, as low as $1 million per year and as high as $7 million if he stays on the roster for 16 games a year and cashes in on the incentives.
RB Alfred Morris (age 27, $1.6 million)—If I absolutely had to bet I think he plays elsewhere in 2016. The simple fact is that he has more value to a team that is committed to the zone scheme, like perhaps the Falcons. But you never know what will happen in the last nine games and you can’t rule out a re-signing.
Reserves
QB Colt McCoy (age 30) likely will re-sign to back up Cousins or whoever the starter is. I think CB Will Blackmon (age 32), DE Frank Kearse (age 27), TE Anthony McCoy (age 28), and LB Mason Foster (age 27) will be offered minimum-salary type deals to return to compete for jobs as backups. S Trenton Robinson (age 26) is currently a starter due to injury but he should be a backup and special teams performer. But with a safety shortage around the NFL, someone might offer him more money elsewhere. DE Kedric Golston (age 33) is a good locker room leader and capable reserve but the team may want to go the younger and cheaper route. Same with TE Logan Paulsen (age 29), although the shortage of tight ends might prompt the team to make him an offer. Unless Josh LeRibeus (age 27) really turns it on in what remains of his opportunity to start at center, he is likely to leave.CAIRO -- More than 90 people have been killed in weeks of fighting between Libyan militias in the city of Sabratha in a conflict that erupted in part as an unexpected consequence of Europe's efforts to halt migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
Thousands have fled the city, according to the Red Crescent and local officials. Fighting has also taken place inside Sabratha's landmark antiquity site, the 1,800-year-old remains of a Roman city. The death toll of at least 93 includes at least eight civilians, says Essam Karrar, the head of Sabratha Civil Society Federation
The fight broke out in mid-September. Italy has funded two militias in Sabratha to halt boatloads of migrants, which succeeded in dramatically reducing the flow but also sparked a backlash from rival militias, local officials say.A Nova Scotia businessman whose sexual abuse convictions were overturned in Canada has reportedly been arrested in Nepal for allegedly forcing a boy to have sex with him.
Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, is in jail in the Lalitpur district, just south of the capital city of Kathmandu, the Himalayan Times reported Friday.
The newspaper said MacIntosh allegedly forced a boy into "having unnatural sex" with him on Dec. 13, 2014, according to a spokesperson with the local police, the Metropolitan Police Range.
CBC News is working to confirm the details.
Police told the Himalayan Times that the complaint came from the boy's family and that the boy is staying at a children's home in Lalitpur.
MacIntosh was convicted of 17 sex-related charges involving three complainants who were boys at the time of the offences, during the 1970s.
In the 1980s, MacIntosh was twice convicted of two separate sexual assaults and an indecent assault. He moved to India in 1994.
In 1995, a Canadian man told police he had been abused by MacIntosh in the 1970s. Eventually, nine people came forward, resulting in more than 40 charges. Police contacted MacIntosh in 1996, but he did not return to Canada.
Canada sought to extradite him from India, but it took until 2007 to do so. His first trial began in 2010.
In 2010 and 2011, MacIntosh was convicted of 17 sex-related charges involving three complainants who were boys at the time of the offences, which took place in Port Hawkesbury area of Cape Breton during the 1970s.
But those convictions were overturned on appeal because it took too long to bring him to trial, partly because he had to be extradited from India.
MacIntosh has consistently denied the allegations.
Bob Martin, one of the complainants, blames the delay in bringing MacIntosh to trial on the Canadian government, which gave him a passport despite his sex assault convictions in the 1980s.
"They're the hinge that let him off and let him go free and said, 'Here is your passport,'" Martin said Friday.
"I guess I feel good in one way that he's incarcerated in a country that may not be so kind and may keep him in jail."
After his convictions in Canada were overturned, MacIntosh got a new job in Asia promoting companies that sell spices.TEL AVIV (Reuters) - OPKO Health Inc OPK.N will buy Israel-based biopharmaceutical company Prolor Biotech Inc PBTH.A in an all-stock deal valued at $480 million to expand its portfolio of specialty drugs.
Holders of Prolor common stock will receive 0.9951 shares of OPKO for each share of Prolor, the companies said on Wednesday.
The deal is valued at $7.00 per Prolor shares and is expected to close in the second half of 2013. It represents a 20 percent premium to Prolor’s Tuesday close on Amex of $5.83.
Its shares in Tel Aviv were up 14.2 percent to 24.1 shekels ($6.66) in early trade.
Prolor’s version of human growth hormone, hGH-CTP, has completed four clinical trials, including a Phase II trial in adults with growth hormone deficiency (GHD).
The trials showed hGH-CTP has the potential to reduce the required dosing frequency of human growth hormone from a standard of one injection per day to a single weekly injection.
The treatment demonstrated a good safety and tolerability profile in these clinical trials, the companies said. A Phase II trial in children with GHD is in progress and a Phase III trial in adults with GHD is planned to begin in the second quarter.
“This transaction is consistent with OPKO’s stated objective of broadening our portfolio of market-transforming therapies in selected specialty markets,” said Phillip Frost, OPKO’s chief executive.
With Prolor’s pipeline, OPKO will have four significant products in Phase III clinical development, Frost said. “Prolor’s drug-product candidates for growth hormone deficiency, hemophilia, obesity and diabetes... are highly valuable assets that will complement OPKO’s strategy.”
Barrington Research Associates acted as financial adviser to OPKO while Jefferies LLC advised Prolor.Harry Potter is back in the spotlight (after never really leaving it in the first place). 2016 was quite a year for the fans. We got The Cursed Child-play, The Cursed Child-book, a Patronus quiz, and now the next film has arrived, finally. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was met with some scepticism at first, but intriguing trailers made fanboys and girls rejoice. Has it – despite the recent controversy surrounding the casting of Johnny Depp – turned out to be the film that the fans were hoping for?
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set to be a five-part saga. However, chances are that Harry Potter himself will never appear on screen, mostly because the first film takes place in New York, in the roaring twenties. Our protagonist is Newt Scamander (Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne), a magizoologist who travels around the world in search of mostly unknown and definitely unique beasts. He puts them in an enchanted suitcase in order to study and catalogue them.
His search also takes him to New York, where relationships between wizards and No-Majs (Muggles) are as good as non-existent. Because of, among other things, the Salem Witch Trials, wizards and witches have suppressed their magic and now live in hiding. But still there are groups of No-Majs, The Second Salemers led by Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton), who fear magic and its practitioners and want to see them punished. Shit really hits the fan when a couple of Newt’s beasts escape the suitcase and people get hurt. This gets him into trouble with MACUSA (The Magical Congress of the United States of America, the American Ministry of Magic) and threatens to expose the American wizarding community.
But Newt is not on his own in this unknown country. He receives help from two magical sisters, Legilimens Queenie (Alison Sudol) and Auror Porpentina ‘Tina’ (Katherine Waterston) Goldstein, and also from Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a No-Maj who accidentally collides with Newt and can’t believe his eyes. He’ll definitely need their support, especially when there’s more going on than solely Newt’s escaped beasts… Also a part of the cast, but playing more mysterious characters, are Colin Farrell, who takes on the role of Percival Graves, an Auror who is investigating an unknown wreaking havoc in New York; Jon Voight, who plays Henry Shaw Sr., a big cheese in the No-Maj world with a would-be senator son; and Ezra Miller as Credence, who has something to do with the Second Salemers and Graves. Nice and vague, no?
Of course we won’t be spoiling the plot here, but that means that I can’t add much to the short summary above. The whole is best discovered rather than spelled out. People who have no clue about Harry Potter will, however, have some trouble understanding everything. Some knowledge is required.
Different era…
There are a few references to the British wizarding community in the film, but Harry is not irreplacable as a protagonist. That is mostly to the credit of the amazing cast. Eddie Redmayne is very charming as Newt, shy and passionate about animals. It’s not all surprising that one of his descendants ends up marrying Luna Lovegood. Redmayne gives his all and clearly has fun, most evident in a scene where he tries some out-there tricks in the book to lure a beast back to him. You’ll know it when you see it.
The MVPs of Fantastic Beasts are Colin Farrell and Ezra Miller.
The Americans do a fine job as well. Tina is the more serious sister of the two, but more sensitive than she appears at first. Katherine Waterston maintains that balance in a believable way. Queenie is dreamy and gorgeous, but she’s no fool and more powerful than her appearances might betray. Alison Sudol brings a clear sincerity to a character which otherwise might seem rather onedimensional. Dan Fogler’s No-Maj Kowalski brings the necessary comic relief, but shows another side as well. But the true MVPs of Fantastic Beasts are Colin Farrell and Ezra Miller. Both are perfectly cast, and your attention is drawn to them when they’re on screen.
Some fans might wonder if it’s difficult to imagine this as another part of the Wizarding World, because this story is not set in the UK, the main characters are adults, and far more beasts show up than ever before. But you needn’t worry. The first thing that gave me the feeling we were watching a new tale in the Harry Potter universe was the familiarity of David Yates’ camera works with his long shots and swooping angles. And even though he is working with a new cinematographer, Philip Rousselot, the colour palette closely resembles that of Yates’ Potter films. Scenes that require warmth, have it, but especially those in the darkness are beautifully filmed.
…familiar crew
One of the best elements of the Harry Potter adaptations was always the production value, and that’s no different this time around.
One of the best elements of the Harry Potter adaptations was always the production value, and that’s no different this time around. Composer James Newton Howard has made music which swells in the right moments and evokes the feeling of magic. There’s no catchy theme like in the Potter films isn’t in the cards, but might be in the future. Stuart Craig once more does the film’s production design, and it is stunning. The sets scream New York and breathe its 20s atmosphere. A pleasure to behold. Equally beautiful are the costumes by Colleen Atwood. The fact that this lady has multiple Oscars to her name will surprise no one. She definitely seems to feel at home in this era.
The visual effects by Harry Potter veteran Tim Burke as excellent as well, which isn’t always as easy with so many creatures involved. And they look amazing. Everyone who sees this film will without a doubt want a Niffler, and a Bowtruckle too if it’s possible. Other animals, such as the Murtlap, are far from cute. We see a large number of great-looking beasts, and so the film has earned its title.
To be continued…
But don’t be fooled: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is not simply a fun round of hide-and-seek and tag with magical creatures. The plot soon rises above that, and that’s where the film falters a bit by wanting to mesh two different tones. At one point, you have to sort out your priorities (pun intended). One or two fewer animal chases would’ve been okay with me. Aside from that, Beasts is very entertaining and a great start to the new franchise while avoiding existing solely of exposition. I’m very curious to see where this franchise will go.Amber Heard fully committed to her role as Mera in the upcoming Aquaman movie, spending hours in the gym to fit the part.
“She wanted to deliver for the character,” Gunnar Peterson, one of the multiple trainers Heard worked with during filming, tells PEOPLE.
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Peterson trained Heard, 31, four to five times a week, “for a non-stop, no-breaks hour with me, and THEN she went to her fight training, which was rigorous!” he says.
They focused on full-body fitness, similar to what Peterson features in his videos for Now health products, for Heard to fit the sea queen role — and to fit into her costume.
“Everything was athletically based. We trained movements, not muscles,” Peterson says. “Squat presses, sled work and lots of work in a rotational plane against resistance. She is a true athlete.”
Peterson adds that their workouts were “unrelenting,” but Heard handled it with ease thanks to her dedication.
RELATED VIDEO: Amber Heard Joins Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson for first Aquaman Table Read
“She was so consistent,” he says. “Without her being so committed, the results would not have happened.”
And he says that Heard had the perfect attitude for getting the work done.
“She could not have been better!” Peterson says. “If I could bottle her drive and conviction I’d sell that as a pre-workout drink!”National Rifle Association (NRA) board member Ted Nugent essentially advocated the return of public American lynchings in a Sunday column that decried the modern justice system as too slow to deal with “voodoo” terrorists like the Boston bombing suspect and the Fort Hood shooter.
“He probably won’t go to trial for more than a year due to court-sanctioned delays,” he wrote for right-wing conspiracy website World Net Daily. “Once he’s found guilty, he will be afforded any number of appeals that will take more years, possibly more than a decade. The young voodoo nut has got a long life in front of him, thanks to America’s screwed-up justice system.”
The Detroit-born rocker went on to say that he views the Fort Hood shooting suspect in a similar light. “Hasan is a voodoo terrorist who should have been the feature attraction at a neck-stretching party on the grounds of Fort Hood years ago,” Nugent added. “I would have supplied the rope, the lumber for the gallows and gladly pulled the hatch on this soulless rabid dog.”
Nugent goes on to say that since American “jurisprudence” has been hijacked by things like attorneys, evidence and appeals, “a July 4 celebration of stringing this son-of-a-b-tch [sic] up in the Boston Common and letting the crows pick on his rotting flesh” would be more his speed.
“There will be no swift justice for the Boston voodoo punk,” he concludes. “He’s got a long life ahead of him. How pathetic.”
Nugent may be surprised to learn that jurisprudence is a field of study, rather than an attitude or plodding, methodical system of doing things. A key piece of literature in that field is Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “The Common Law,” which contains a series of lectures on how laws against murder, assault, property damage liabilities and the like evolved over time.
Holmes, as any student of jurisprudence would note, dissects in great detail how society moved from mob rule justice, hangings, lynchings and regular public displays of barbarism to a more nuanced, logical system of rigor, evidence and oversight through appeals.
“For the most part, the purpose of the criminal law is only to induce external conformity to rule,” Holmes explains. “All law is directed to conditions of things manifest to the senses. And whether it brings those conditions to pass immediately by the use of force, as when it protect a house from a mob by soldiers, or appropriates private property to public use, or hangs a man in pursuance of a judicial sentence, or whether it brings them about mediately through men’s fears, its object is equally an external result.”
“In directing itself against robbery or murder, for instance, its purpose is to put a stop to the actual physical taking and keeping of other men’s goods, or the actual poisoning, shooting, stabbing, and otherwise putting to death of other men,” he adds. “If those things are not done, the law forbidding them is equally satisfied, whatever the motive.”
Anyone who would place “the condition of man’s heart or conscience” above the rigors of logic and evidence, Holmes adds, is trafficking in “the very opposite of truth.”
The suspect in Boston, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is in critical condition after shooting himself in the head Friday night as police uncovered his hiding spot. Authorities said Sunday that his condition recently stabilized enough for him to answer questions in writing.
——
Photo: Screenshot via NBC News.Shanghai: Nick Kyrgios has continued his flirtation with the suspended six-month ban issued by the ATP, having received his second code violation warning in a week – this one for an audible obscenity during a colourful, almost-farcical, winning debut at the Shanghai Masters on Monday.
Kyrgios' frustrations percolated from early in the 6-3, 6-2 opening round defeat of Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer that he branded "a circus" and "unbelievable", declaring "I hate this place" during a running commentary that bounced around the near-empty Grandstand court at Qi Zhong Tennis Centre.
Torrid tournament: Nick Kyrgios received a warning for an obscenity. Credit:AP
A cameraman was ejected after multiple warnings for talking on the side of the court during points, there were issues with ball-kids, noisy commentary audio could be heard in the early stages and Kyrgios several times struggled with his footing behind the baseline.
It was the latter issue that eventually led to the warning from chair umpire Carlos Bernardes in the second game of the second set, when the world No.32 had run to attempt a forehand winner down the line on break point, and blamed the "f... ing surface" he had also criticised in set one. Haider-Maurer's complaints were generally less audible but still apparent; the world No.60's biggest statement was to belt a ball out of the stadium to earn a code violation of his own.Britain is in love with huge 'American-style' fridges. But just because you have the room doesn't mean you should pack it with food, says Tim HaywardHow do you store your perishables? Tells us on the food blog
Twenty years ago, we didn't really think about fridges. They were usually small and cupboard-like. They smelled a bit. They had a "freezer compartment" - often a solid berg of frost into which was set a broken ice-tray and a rogue oven chip - and they made that reassuring "thunkety humm" noise at odd intervals throughout the night.
Then the Americans arrived. We had already glimpsed them in imported sitcoms: vast, cavernous hangars of fridges with wide-spaced, well-lit shelves, groaning with Budweiser, leftover Chinese food in bucket-shaped boxes and orange juice that was drunk as profligately as squash. Over-stuffed and then, all at once, over here.
Demand rose and manufacturers such as Samsung and Maytag lunged at the opportunity, introducing new "American-style" fridges. That word "style" is important.
Consumer research showed we wanted fridges that were taller than us - but our kitchens, units and even doors couldn't cope with the size of imported models so slightly smaller versions were made for the UK market.
According to market research group, Mintel, sales of "larder" fridges - tall, with no icebox - or the even more bloated "side-by-side" type with adjacent freezer wing, have entirely outstripped sales of under-the-counter models. A fact borne out by the presence of an entire section dedicated to "American-style" fridges on the John Lewis website.
Researchers attribute this trend to both fashion - fitted kitchens are no longer in vogue - and the amount of cumbersomely boxed chilled meals we consume. And now the government waste reduction body, the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap), is recommending we store all fresh produce in the fridge so it keeps longer, because UK consumers throw away a staggering 4.4m apples a day, and fruit and veg accounts for 40% of all food waste.
But is the recommended fridge temperature of below 5C necessarily best for keeping all food appetisingly fresh? Do we really need to store enough perishable goods to fill an American-style fridge at such a low temperature? A domestic fridge dries food out, hermetically seals smells and flavours together and - even though today's fridge is, on average, twice as fuel efficient as one bought 10 years ago - consumes significant amounts of energy. I talked to a wide range of culinary and food hygiene experts to find out what we should and shouldn't be keeping in our fridges.
Cheese: According to conventional culinary wisdom, good cheese is a living thing that needs to breathe good air, maybe sweat a little. People have been hanged, drawn and quartered at north London dinner parties for serving cheeses that have been cruelly incarcerated in the fridge. In fact, according to cheese guru Patricia Michelson, owner of north London's La Fromagerie, although cheese should be served at room temperature, it can be refrigerated if allowed to breathe under cover of a damp cloth. But be careful: its flavour can be tainted by that of other foods and, of course, some of the stronger cheeses will return the favour - camembert trifle anyone?
Butter: The Brits favour uncultured butter, which becomes rancid very quickly if not refrigerated. Unfortunately, refrigeration also gives butter the spreading qualities of a housebrick. Domestic arguments over keeping butter either fresh or soft are certainly to blame for the popularity of "spreadable" butters - made tractable with vegetable oil or air bubbles. More civilised nations prefer cultured butters made from soured milk, which have a delicious, rich flavour, often with elements of fresh grass or caramel. They also keep well at low room temperatures. Sadly, this is impossible to get in the UK, though a good, salted, raw milk butter will last longer than most.
Eggs: One of |
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Exploring surface finishes in Enscape
Enscape’s unique workflow is possible because of the way the software works. Rather than exporting geometry from Revit, it only sends graphics information to Enscape, which is then rebuilt as proxies.
The software is installed as a plug-in inside Revit and is given its own tab. To enter VR, simply click the ‘VR’ Button, pick a predefined Revit view from the pulldown list, then hit run. In less than a minute, you’ll be able to see your Revit model in VR.
The best way to enter VR is usually from a bird’s-eye view, as this gives a good overall picture of the project. However, this initial view must be set up properly in Revit. Enscape has a maximum teleport distance, so be careful not to be too far way. If you are, the only way to get closer to the building is to fly there using the Vive’s trackpad controls (the left controller moves you left and right, the right controller moves you up and down) and this can take some time. You also need to ensure your model has some surrounding terrain.
Paper view in Enscape's desktop mode
Once you are close enough, navigation is intuitive. You can teleport through doors – both solid and transparent – which is great, but you can’t teleport through certain types of windows. This can be annoying if you quickly want to jump outside to view the exterior of a building. To get around this, Enscape lets you fly through any solid object – windows, walls and all. Flying is very useful for viewing buildings from above, from any angle. However, it did make us feel a bit sick and, at times, gave us vertigo.
Enscape offers limited functionality inside the VR environment. You can change the time of day using the grip buttons on the side of the Vive controller. Shadows will change in real time and lights will come on at night. Unfortunately, Enscape does not display a clock in VR, so the wearer of the HMD cannot assess lighting at specific times of the day. A clock is visible when viewing the model on a monitor, so the wearer can momentarily lift the HMD, but it’s a bit of a fudge.
The Enscape settings in Revit provide real time control over the model in VR
If you want to capture certain elements of your building to jog your memory or for basic design review, you can also take s c r e e n sh o t s with a custom keyboard hot key. This is pretty tricky with a standing, room-scale experience (think one leg, big toes, small keys). Ours is the voice of experience as we used this exact method to produce the screen shots for this review.
For more control, you will need to take off the HMD and use a mouse in Revit. Through the Enscape settings dialogue box, users have full control over contrast, colour saturation and colour temperature, which is great for getting the desired look. There’s a papermodel mode, which strips out all materials but retains light and shadows. This is useful when you might not have correct materials assigned or simply want to dumb down the view to emphasise form. A polystyrol mode gives the effect of your building being made from Styrofoam. Both modes can be turned on at the same time. Line thickness can also be changed to enhance the edgfes of objects.
Enscape includes 3D mannequins
To bring scenes to life, Enscape can automatically replace planar ArchVision RPC models in Revit with more realistic 3D entourage. This includes 3D people and trees with individual leaves. The software can also directly support all types of RPC content, including premium human models from RPC content partner AXYZ.
Render quality, in general, is excellent. The software supports Global Illumination, simulating how light bounces off objects onto other surfaces. This can be turned on and off.
Enscape offers plenty of scope to take visual realism to the next level, by tweaking lighting and materials or adding custom Entourage. Phil Read from Enscape reseller Read | Thomas, who supported us during this review, has some great tips on self-illuminating objects, material bump maps, reflectivity and transparency.
Enscape offers more than just high-quality visuals. To deliver an even more realistic experience, it allows you embed sound sources within your Revit model. Here WAV files are added to Revit Family Components, such as a stereo playing music or birdsong from a tree. The volume of the sound increases as you get nearer and it also responds to the acoustic qualities of the objects within the space, which really adds to the realism.
With all its visual quality, Enscape has pretty high GPU requirements, with the developers recommending at least an Nvidia GTX 980 or Quadro M6000 GPU. The software performed very well with our Nvidia Quadro P6000. It did not work with the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100.
Trees are very detailed to add realism
In summary, Enscape is an excellent choice for Revit to VR, offering a seamless workflow with near-instant updates. This is great for architects or engineers who want to jump between Revit and VR to assess different options or for presentations where clients can immediately see the results of their feedback. Enscape also has the added benefit of offering a desktop game engine experience using a standard 2D display. And models can be distributed as a fully contained.EXE, which can be viewed without any additional software.
The visual quality is excellent, encouraging exploration of materials and finishes, as well as form, fixtures and fittings.
However, some of this is lost in VR, simply because of the display resolution of the HTC Vive and other HMDs (you can still see the pixels).
It would be great to see more control given to the wearer of the HMD for things like mark-up, but with Revit driving the application in real time, this is less of an issue.
Enscape is available on a free 14-day trial. Prices start at $449 per year.
■ enscape3d.com ■ readthomas.com
Update - Nov 2017
Since this article was written, there have been a number of features added to Enscape.
The major emphasis has been on increasing visual quality and realism. Key enhancements are detailed below.
Realistic Lighting: Reflections and indirect lighting are now done using real-time path tracing, which is more faithful to reality.
Realistic grass: Enscape can now draw real geometry grass blades for more realism.
Trees have been reworked to better resemble an architectural rendering look.
Decals such as posters, can now be added to scenes.
Polystyrol Mode has been made more realistic with physically correct subsurface light scattering.
Performance has been improved to better support larger projects and slower workstations.
IrisVR Prospect 1.1.0 Out of the three Revit to VR tools featured in this article, Iris VR Prospect is the only one to concentrate solely on VR (there’s no formal desktop experience, although spectators can look at the monitor to see what the wearer of the HMD is seeing). This focus helps make it the most mature in terms of what you can do inside VR, including real-time daylighting, layer management, annotation and screen capture. IrisVR Prospect also has the added benefit of being able to work with other applications, including SketchUp and Rhino. There are plans to add support for ArchiCAD, MicroStation and Navisworks. This expansion will help extend the focus beyond architecture and into infrastructure. Scale Model Mode places your project on top of a plinth Having this breadth of functionality calls for a higher price tag of $200 per user, per month. However, there’s also a free version, Prospect Basic, that strips back all the extended functionality, but still includes the core push-button workflow for file conversion and VR viewing. With Prospect Basic, it’s not possible to save projects as native Prospect files (.IVZ). The VR experience always has to start in the CAD or BIM software or with a neutral 3D file. Models inside IrisVR Prospect appear more clinical than in Autodesk LIVE and Enscape. Textures are less realistic and RPC content is represented by outlines, but the wearer of the VR headset still gets an excellent sense of presence and scale. Materials and outlines can be toggled on and off by hitting M and O on the keyboard. The resulting ‘white model’ gives a schematic feel and is great for conceptual design. By offering a less visually rich experience and by performing heavy geometry optimisation, Prospect is able to run on more modest workstation hardware. We found that the entry-level VR graphics card, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, delivered an excellent experience with all our test models. Prospect installs as a plugin inside Revit, which can be accessed via the add-ins tab. Simply select your 3D view, then click ‘View in VR’. Once your file is ready, click ‘launch’ and you’re straight into VR. Most of our files took a minute or less to process. Mark-up tools accessed through the toolbar In VR, you first enter Scale Model Mode, where you’ll see your project on top of a plinth. From this bird’s-eye perspective, the model can be rotated using the HTC Vive trackpad. Lean forward to get a closer view of the building – even stick your head inside. To view the building at human scale, simply point your cursor at a surface on the model then click the trigger button. You can teleport anywhere where it shows an avatar. To stand outside the building, the Revit model must include some form of surrounding topography. For navigation, take short steps in your VR ‘room space’, then travel larger distances by teleporting. A circle denotes places where you can teleport. A cross shows where you can’t. Navigation is pretty easy, although there are some limitations. You can teleport through transparent walls, doors and windows, but not through solid doors or walls. There are a few ways to get around this. One option is to move close to a door, reach through until your control disappears, then click the trigger to teleport to the other side. Another is to make all doors transparent in Revit. A third is to turn off all door layers, leaving the model with door frames. The developers are looking at ways to improve this, including X-Ray modes or the ability to select an element in VR, and turn off all similar objects. One of the Vive’s controllers is used for navigation, the other to hold the tool palette, which includes Home, Screen Capture, Annotation & Callouts, Daylight and Layers. To access tools, simply use the other controller to point and click at the icons. The home button puts you back where you started, in Scale Model Mode. Screen capture takes a snapshot of where you are looking. There are very simple annotation tools, which allow you to redline the 3D file with a freehand marker or draw a fixed circle callout at the centre of your view. Once you’ve completed the markups, these can be saved with the screen capture tool. IrisVR admits that these tools are quite basic and will be improved in subsequent releases. In the future, there may be the ability to assign custom text and symbols to objects. Layer control directly in VR One of the most powerful capabilities of Prospect is the daylighting tool, which allows you to see how light and shadows change with time or date, based on the geolocation of your Revit model. Simply use your Vive controller to move the appropriate sliders on the tool palette and see the light and shadows update in real time. The sliders can get a little frustrating if you move your cursor slightly off centre as it then stops scrolling. Some leeway would be great here, just like when you’re in Windows and it still stays engaged even when you move your cursor off the scroll bar. IrisVR told AEC Magazine it will be addressing this in the next release. Layers can be a powerful way of viewing model data; for example, you can strip back everything to the steel frame, view different design phases, toggle between materials, or explore different furniture arrangements. To get the most out of this feature, users will need to do some work in Revit upfront. Layers are listed alphabetically, so it can be a bit of a pain if the layer you most frequently want to turn off lands at the end of the list. Renaming layers is the obvious solution, but this could impact company layer conventions. Layers suffer from the same scrolling issue as daylighting. IrisVR already has lots of ideas on how to improve the software. It is exploring ways to view metadata, simply by clicking on an object. IrisVR admits that the only way to do this would be to load all the objects individually, which would impact performance, so there is still some work to do here. (One of the reasons Prospect delivers such good performance in VR is because objects are currently grouped to reduce draw calls.) Collaboration is also going to be a big focus moving forward. Ideas currently being explored include project libraries, an easy way for clients to view IrisVR projects, and shared sessions, where multiple users can exist in the same project, with each participant represented by an avatar. See shadows change in real time with sun studies in VR In the more immediate future, the next release of Prospect will be able to load in perspective cameras from Revit, to allow users to jump between waypoints at the click of a button. IrisVR sees this as a useful way to quickly get a bird’s-eye view of the project or to guide clients through a building, rather than letting them wander off on their own. In summary, IrisVR stands out for its expansive toolkit. The daylighting and layering tools, in particular, are very impressive. The push-button workflow where models can be processed very quickly makes it well-suited to design iteration workflows. The relatively low GPU requirements and free version will also make it exceedingly attractive to smaller AEC firms with tight budgets. With the prospect of BIM data being exposed and better collaborative tools, we’re really looking forward to seeing how this impressive tool develops. IrisVR Prospect Pro is available on a free 21-day trial. Licenses cost $200 per user, per month. Iris VR Prospect Basic is free. ■ IrisVR.com Update - Nov 2017 Since this article was written, there have been a number of features added to IrisVR Prospect. Measuring in VR: a new measuring tool allows users to verify sizes, distances, and clearances in real scale in Virtual Reality. Traveling between viewpoints: 3D views from Revit can now create viewpoints within Prospect. These are camera locations that you can use to walk a client/colleague through a project to present the flow of space more effectively. Sectioning/modifying models in Scale Model Mode: In Scale Model Mode user can now lift/move the model around space, rotate it, zoom in, and section it. 360° Panorama: A new 360° Capture tool allows users to instantly capture a 360° panorama from within Prospect. Multi-user collaboration: Earlier this year, IrisVR previewed a multi-user mode that will allow users anywhere in the world to collaborate on AEC projects in VR. The technology will be available by the end of the year.
VR workstations and GPUs
Virtual Reality demands extremely powerful workstation hardware. While most modern CAD workstations should satisfy the m i n i - mum requirements for CPU, memory (3.30GHz Intel Core i5 4590/8GB RAM or above), and USB 3.0, they will likely fall well short on graphics (GPU). Both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require a GPU capable of sustaining a minimum frame rate of 90 FPS while in VR. Anything below this and the model can jump and the user can experience nausea or motion sickness. This is because what the user sees on the HMD is not what the brain expects to see, based on head movements.
To make things easier for those buying VR workstation hardware, both AMD and Nvidia brand their GPUs ‘VR Ready’. This stamp of approval works well in the games market, as games contain fixed datasets designed to run on specific GPUs. However, just because a professional GPU is labelled ‘VR Ready’, it does not mean it will work with all professional VR applications out of the box.
Performance is both applicationand model-dependent and is influenced by the size of the da taset, the complexity of the geometry (number of polygons), how well the application optimises geometry for VR, as well as lighting and textures. Custom Revit objects, particularly those with curves, can eat up GPU resources, especially if there are hundreds of them within your model.
For example, the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, a low-cost ($799) professional ‘VR Ready’ GPU, gave us a comfortable experience with IrisVR Prospect out of the box. But it stuttered with Autodesk LIVE and didn’t work at all with Enscape. For these more demanding applications, we needed the considerably more expensive Nvidia Quadro P6000 ($6,999). We imagine the Nvidia Quadro P5000 ($2,499) would probably be powerful enough to deliver a good experience in Autodesk LIVE and Enscape, but we didn’t get to try this. Ideally, you should try before you buy, using your own datasets.
In many cases, a simple graphics card upgrade can turn your desktop CAD workstation into one capable of running VR. However, this depends on the type of workstation you have; all the aforementioned GPUs need an auxiliary power connector and between 150W and 250W of available power. And all of them, bar the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, take up two PCIe slots. You need to make sure your CAD workstation can satisfy these demands. You may need to upgrade your Power Supply Unit (PSU) as well.
Of course, there are plenty of pre-configured ‘VR Ready’ desktop workstations. These are available from HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Fujitsu, as well as custom system builders like Scan, Workstation Specialists and BOXX. The Armari V25 is a slimline, custom-built VR workstation with a chassis designed to house the HTC Vive’s Link box.
VR-ready workstations don’t have to come in tower form factors. Dell’s new All-in-One, the Precision 5720, features a 27-inch screen and an integrated AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 GPU. Also coming soon are a whole range of VR-ready mobile workstations, featuring AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100, Nvidia Quadro P4000 and P5000 GPUs. We expect there to be a lot of interest around VR-ready mobile workstations for those wishing to take VR to client offices.
VR is not limited to professional GPUs. There are number of consumerfocused AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce GPUs that meet or surpass the minimum requirements for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift.
These GPUs should work perfectly fine with all the Revit to VR applications mentioned in this article. However, they are not certified for Autodesk Revit or other CAD /BIM applications, which will be very important for some firms.
Conclusion
It’s still very early days for VR but we are already starting to see the extensive benefits that this exciting technology can bring to architecture and engineering – from functional and aesthetic evaluation of projects to daylighting studies, markup and client communication.
We’re excited to see how these capabilities grow over the coming years. Applications like Enscape will likely keep their strong focus on using VR as an extension to desktop design visualisation, but it will be interesting to see how products like IrisVR Prospect evolve to better support design/review workflows.
VR is great for identifying issues with buildings, but it’s very much a one-way street. The process would benefit greatly from being able to capture this information and feed it back into BIM authoring tools. Technologies such as the BIM Collaboration Format (BCF) or voice recognition could play important roles here.
Since this article was written in February 2017 all of the tested VR software products have received new features. We have listed some of these features at the end of each review.
Autodesk LIVE has also been rebranded to Autodesk Revit Live.
In addition, Nvidia has released a single slot, professional VR Ready GPU called the Nvidia Quadro P4000. At $999 it is considerably cheaper than the Nvidia Quadro P5000 and P6000. We have tested the Nvidia Quadro P4000 with IrisVR and Autodesk Revit Live and it performs well. Check out our full review at tinyurl.com/P4000-AEC
AMD has also released two new dual slot pro VR capable GPUs, the AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition ($999) and AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 ($2,200), both of which are considerably more powerful than the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100.
More VR tools for Revit Revizto is a standalone real-time viz tool with a focus on collaboration, co-ordination and issue resolution. It works with Autodesk Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Navisworks and AutoCAD, and also supports FBX, IFC, BCF and PDF file formats. Revizto runs on PC, Mac, iOS and Android, as well as supporting the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. ■ revizto.com LumenRT from Bentley Systems is a game engine design viz application that plugs directly into Autodesk Revit, ArchiCAD, Bentley MicroStation, Sketchup and others. It can also import models from many more applications. Users then bring the model to life by adding entourage, including realistic trees, people, water, wind and moving vehicles. LumenRT can currently create VR panoramas but will add support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift later this year. ■ LumenRT.com
Click here to read our Beginner’s Guide to VR for ArchitectureWaldron Announces Candidacy for House District 77
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Focused on School Funding Needs, John Waldron Announces Run for House District 77
July 13th 2017
Contact: Sarah Baker
P. 405.824.7077
E. sarahe.baker@icloud.com
TULSA, OKLAHOMA - Advocating for school funding, responsible tax policy, and good jobs, local teacher John Waldron announces his candidacy for House District 77, which covers portions of Tulsa, Catoosa, and Owasso.
“I want to bring real change to our government, to restore public services like education and health care, and to bring common sense back to our budgeting process. It is time to give power back to the people. This year’s legislature was another bitter disappointment for anyone who wanted our government to deliver on a balanced budget, and to respond to the needs of the people of Oklahoma,” Waldron said.
A resident of District 77 for the past 13 years, Waldron says the future of his community is tied directly to what happens next at the State Capitol. “I am tired of the same old politics of special interests and budgets that just don’t add up. The people of Oklahoma were promised many things this year and got nothing but excuses. We were promised teacher pay-raises and got nothing. We were promised transparency and instead got a budget deal that no one saw before a vote was held. There is no accountability or responsibility and that is why I have stepped up before our chance for a better future slips away.”
He said his campaign will focus on restoring funding levels for education, retaining and recruiting teachers, and creating a community in which business leaders look to Tulsa, and to Oklahoma, as an exciting place to locate and grow. “When I look at my students, or my young son, I see so much promise in their eyes. Oklahomans have so much potential but we have to put in the work to see that fulfilled.”
Waldron, 48, and his wife of 14 years, Krista, have one son, eight-year-old Van. He is a member of the Church of the Madalene, and has taught Government and History at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa for the past 18 years.
For more information about John Waldron and his campaign please visit www.Waldron4OK.com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Waldron4OK.
###(John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
After John Feinstein publicly campaigned for Gary Williams to get the (technically still occupied) Wizards head coaching job, many readers scoffed.
“Gary Williams would never want to coach the Wizards,” they said, scoffingly. “What piffle.”
I’m paraphrasing, of course. But if they didn’t say that, they should have.
Anyhow, to those scoffers, let me refer you to this dialog from Mike Wise’s radio show on 106.7 The Fan Thursday afternoon. The discussion was about whether Gary Williams would coach in the NBA.
Co-host Chris Johnson: “I think Gary Williams wants the Wizards job, and only the Wizards job.”
Feinstein: “Yes. He does. I wouldn’t have written the column if he didn’t want the job. It would have been pointless. I mean, why write a column saying they should hire somebody if the person’s not interested in the job?”
Johnson: “So he told you he wanted the job?”
Feinstein: “Yes. Yes. Yes. I asked him the question, I said would you take the job. The answer was yes.”
Ahoy there. That’s news. News-ish, anyhow.
More from Feinstein:
“The point I made in the column, I think the exact words were Randy Wittman has a roster full of deuces in a league where you need aces. And it’s not his fault, it’s more Leonsis’s and Ernie Grunfeld’s fault that they are where they are and that they have the team that they have. Randy just kind of got thrown into the middle. I think he’s a good man and a good coach….
“But my point was, when you’re this bad, it’s time to just blow the whole thing up. Give him another job in the organization. If he wants to stick around as an assistant under Gary, that would probably be great, because it’d be good for Gary to have someone who’s had NBA coaching experience there with him. I think they gave him a two-year deal, so they’re gonna have to pay him for two more years anyway…
“I think you need Ed Tapscott there, because he knows Gary so well, and he’d be a good right-hand man for Gary. And by the way, there are people out there who think Ed was the source of this story. He wasn’t. I never spoke to him about it before it came out, just for the record. Gary’s the source. Well, really, I’m the source, because I started it by asking the question. It’s not like Gary called me up and said Hey, I’d like the Wizards job, why don’t you write a column. As we often do, we were discussing basketball, and the subject of the Wizards came up and how bad they are. And Gary was talking about the team. I said Hey, would you take the job? He said yes. I was surprised… He just said, yes.”
Now, as it turns out, Williams was also on local radio this week, discussing the Wizards season with Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban on ESPN 980’s Sports Reporters.
“All right, enough [messing] around, would you coach this team if asked?” Czaban finally asked.
“Heh,” Williams said, approximately. “I think Randy Wittman is in a situation where he’s working as hard as he can, and he’s doing whatever he thinks is the best for that team. If [Tuesday] night’s any indication, then you go from here. Believe me, 15 games in an NBA schedule is way too few games to get a sample, because they don’t even have their best player. You know, John Wall hasn’t played yet.
“So there’s a long way to go before there should be any speculation about who’s going to be the next coach or whatever. But I coached in high school and I coached in college, and in an ideal situation, you look at it, sure. I mean, you can never say that you wouldn’t look at it. But I’m not in a position to say anything or to make any call, because like I said, you haven’t seen the real Wizards team yet.”
“That’s a definitive walk-around,” Czaban later observed.
“Thank you,” Williams said.
“Yeah, well done,” Czaban said.
“I got that from RGIII,” Williams countered.
The end.When you pull the curtain back on an AWS-powered application, you’ll find that a lot is happening behind the scenes. EC2 instances are launched and terminated by Auto Scaling policies in response to changes in system load, Amazon DynamoDB tables, Amazon SNS topics and Amazon SQS queues are created and deleted, and attributes of existing resources are changed from the AWS Management Console, the AWS APIs, or the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI).
Many of our customers build their own high-level tools to track, monitor, and control the overall state of their AWS environments. Up until now, these tools have worked in a polling fashion. In other words, they periodically call AWS functions such as DescribeInstances, DescribeVolumes, and ListQueues to list the AWS resources of various types (EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and SQS queues here) and to track their state. Once they have these lists, they need to call other APIs to get additional state information for each resources, compare it against historical data to detect changes, and then take action as they see fit. As their systems grow larger and more complex, all of this polling and state tracking can become onerous.
New CloudWatch Events
In order to allow you to track changes to your AWS resources with less overhead and greater efficiency, we are introducing CloudWatch Events today.
CloudWatch Events delivers a near real-time stream of system events that describe changes in AWS resources. Using simple rules that you can set up in a couple of minutes, you can easily route each type of event to one or more targets: AWS Lambda functions, Amazon Kinesis streams, Amazon SNS topics, and built-in targets.
You can think of CloudWatch Events as the central nervous system for your AWS environment. It is wired in to every nook and cranny of the supported services, and becomes aware of operational changes as they happen. Then, driven by your rules, it activates functions and sends messages (activating muscles, if you will) to respond to the environment, making changes, capturing state information, or taking corrective action.
We are launching CloudWatch Events with an initial set of AWS services and events today, and plan to support many more over the next year or so.
Diving in to CloudWatch Events
The three main components that you need to know about are events, rules, and targets.
Events (represented as small blobs of JSON) are generated in four ways. First, they arise from within AWS when resources change state. For example, an event is generated when the state of an EC2 instance changes from pending to running or when Auto Scaling launches an instance. Second, events are generated by API calls and console sign-ins that are delivered to Amazon CloudWatch Events via CloudTrail. Third, your own code can generate application-level events and publish them to Amazon CloudWatch Events for processing. Fourth, they can be issued on a scheduled basis, with options for periodic or Cron-style scheduling.
Rules match incoming events and route them to one or more targets for processing. Rules are not processed in any particular order; all of the rules that match an event will be processed (this allows disparate parts of a single organization to independently look for and process events that are of interest).
Targets process events and are specified within rules. There are four initial target types: built-in, Lambda functions, Kinesis streams, and SNS topics, with more types on the drawing board. A single rule can specify multiple targets. Each event is passed to each target in JSON form. Each rule has the opportunity to customize the JSON that flows to the target. They can elect to pass the event as-is, pass only certain keys (and the associated values) to the target, or to pass a constant (literal) string.
CloudWatch Events in Action
Let’s go ahead and set up a rule or two! I’ll use a simple Lambda function called SomethingHappened. It will simply log the contents of the event:
Next, I switch to the new CloudWatch Events Console, click on Create rule and choose an event source (here’s the menu with all of the choices):
Just a quick note before going forward. Some of the AWS services fire events directly. Others are fired based on the events logged to CloudTrail; you’ll need to enable CloudTrail for the desired service(s) in order to receive them.
I want to keep tabs on my EC2 instances, so I choose EC2 from the menu. I can choose to create a rule that fires on any state transition, or on a transition to one or more states that are of interest:
I want to know about newly launched instances, so I’ll choose Running. I can make the rule respond to any of my instances in the region, or to specific instances. I’ll go with the first option; here’s my pattern:
Now I need to make something happen. I do this by picking a target. Again, here are my choices:
I simply choose Lambda and pick my function:
I’m almost there! I just need to name and describe my rule, and then click on Create rule:
I click on Create Rule and the rule is all set to go:
Now I can test it by launching an EC2 instance. In fact, I’ll launch 5 of them just to exercise my code! After waiting a minute or so for the instances to launch and to initialize, I can check my Lambda metrics to verify that my function was invoked:
This looks good (the earlier invocations were for testing). Then I can visit the CloudWatch logs to view the output from my function:
As you can see, the event contains essential information about the newly launched instance. Your code can call AWS functions in order to learn more about what’s going on. For example, you could call DescribeInstances to access more information about newly launched instances.
Clearly, a “real” function would do something a lot more interesting. It could add some mandatory tags to the instance, update a dynamic visualization, or send me a text message via SNS. If you want to do any (or all of these things), you would need to have a more permissive IAM role for the function, of course. I could make the rule more general (or create another one) if I wanted to capture some of the other state transitions.
Scheduled Execution of Rules
I can also set up a rule that fires periodically or according to a pattern described in a Cron expression. Here’s how I would do that:
You might find it interesting to know that this is the underlying mechanism used to set up scheduled Lambda jobs, as announced at AWS re:Invent.
API Access
Like most AWS services, you can access CloudWatch Events through an API. Here are some of the principal functions:
PutRule to create a new rule.
to create a new rule. PutTargets and RemoveTargets to connect targets to rules, and to disconnect them.
and to connect targets to rules, and to disconnect them. ListRules, ListTargetsByRule, and DescribeRule to find out more about existing rules.
,, and to find out more about existing rules. PutEvents to submit a set of events to CloudWatch events. You can use this function (or the CLI equivalent) to submit application-level events.
Metrics for Events
CloudWatch Events reports a number of metrics to CloudWatch, all within the AWS/Events namespace. You can use these metrics to verify that your rules are firing as expected, and to track the overall activity level of your rule collection.
The following metrics are reported for the service as a whole:
Invocations – The number of times that target have been invoked.
– The number of times that target have been invoked. FailedInvocations – The number of times that an invocation of a target failed.
– The number of times that an invocation of a target failed. MatchedEvents – The number of events that matched one or more rules.
– The number of events that matched one or more rules. TriggeredRules – The number of rules that have been triggered.
The following metrics are reported for each rule:
Invocations – The number of times that the rule’s targets have been invoked.
– The number of times that the rule’s targets have been invoked. TriggeredRules – The number of times that the rule has been triggered.
In the Works
Like many emerging AWS services, we are launching CloudWatch Events with an initial set of features (and a lot of infrastructure behind the scenes) and some really big plans, including AWS CloudFormation support. We’ll adjust our plans based on your feedback, but you can expect coverage of many more AWS services and access to additional targets over time. I’ll do my best to keep you informed.
Getting Started
We are launching CloudWatch Events in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Ireland), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) regions. It is available now and you can start using it today!
— Jeff;COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (RNS) Four years ago, an evangelical Christian family entered Colorado’s booming medical marijuana marketplace and developed an extract called Charlotte’s Web.
The Stanley brothers, all six of whom attended Colorado Springs Christian School, saw God’s hand at work when some local parents found that giving the dark oil to their epileptic children ended their violent seizures.
“That’s when it really sank in,” said Joel Stanley, the eldest of the brothers. “This is not a fluke. This is not going away. There is a purpose to everything under the sun, including the marijuana plant.”
Word got out, and over the next year and a half, more than 500 families relocated to Colorado. These “medical refugees” strained family bonds and budgets to give their kids Charlotte’s Web, not available legally in many states.
RELATED STORY: Marijuana culture in Colorado
As the successes mounted, Stanley said, “it was a transformation for me, and I was angry that I had been told marijuana was evil and of no medical benefit. At that point, it was very easy for me to reconcile marijuana with my Christian faith.”
The Stanleys, along with two of the initial parents, Paige Figi and Heather Jackson, founded a nonprofit called Realm of Caring to help the relocated families. Most of Realm’s $600,000-plus annual budget is funded with profits from the family business, CW Botanicals.
The morality of marijuana
Serving medical refugees wasn’t enough. Jackson and Figi decided to help parents change laws in their home states so everyone could return home with the extract. Before they knew it, these pioneering marijuana moms had helped change laws in 19 states in 18 months: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Idaho’s governor vetoed the bill there.
Jackson, who said her Christian faith is everything to her (it’s “the pie, not a piece of pie,” she said), talked to her minister as she wrestled with the morality of marijuana. “I’m a byproduct of the 1980s and ‘Just Say No,’ so |
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Google ScholarContrary to popular belief, a great number of cannabis enthusiasts are productive stoners. They are known for seizing the day and getting stuff done. Such individuals also apply special techniques that allow them to get the best of both worlds.
Today we’ll cover how to boost productivity levels while smoking weed.
1. Smoke a lighter strain
Not all weed strains are created equal. If you’re smoking a heavy indica strain, like Purple Kush or Northern Lights, in the morning or during the afternoon, it could be holding you back from being productive. Instead, try a light, energetic sativa strain with high CBD content for daytime smoking. Save the other stuff for your last smoke sesh, before going to sleep.
2. Plan your day before lighting up
Getting your day going after taking a few bong rips can be difficult if you haven’t already set your plans in stone. Having a solid to-do list before lighting up a joint would allow you to transition smoothly into your productive day.
3. Pound an energy drink or a cup of coffee
Sometimes you need a little boost to revive your focus and motivation in the middle of the day. If you’re already sinking into your high and need something to pick you up immediately, try reaching for a cup of coffee or an energy drink.
4. Hold off on the smoke sesh
Timing your weed sessions properly could significantly boost your productivity levels. If you have a meeting coming up or a project that requires you to be on your toes, try holding off on retreating to your usual spot for a smoke. By waiting until after you’re done with your commitments, you could finish your tasks faster and have more time to enjoy your high.
“I typically smoke late at night as a wind-down before bed. I feel like it’s a treat then, like I’ve earned it,” said Chantal, a former consultant at a top-five firm, during an interview with GQ.
5. Don’t eat a heavy meal (stick to light snacks)
Munching on heavy meals after smoking could knock you out prematurely. Foods that are laced in oil and carbs have a reputation for making people less productive. To avoid this trap, stick to light snacks that promote natural energy, such as fruits, smoothies and dark chocolate. If you’re looking for a hearty meal, try non-fried food items, like sandwiches and soups. If your body is craving protein, opt for fish and green vegetables over meat and potatoes.
6. Keep moving
Melting into a comfortable couch can easily lead to an unproductive day. If you’re struggling with staying focused, it might be worth avoiding sedentary activities. Monotonous tasks that force you to walk around, like a trip to the grocery store or the post office, go well with smoking weed. They can make such activities less boring; and tackling them during the weekday can help free up time at the end of the week.Amid a massive frozen foods recall involving millions of packages of fruits and vegetables that were shipped to all 50 U.S. states, Canada and Mexico, authorities who want to stem the listeria-linked illnesses and deaths worry it’ll be difficult to get consumers to dig through their freezers and check for products they may have bought as far back as 2014.
It’s one of the largest food recalls in recent memory, with well over 400 products from CRF Frozen Foods in Pasco, Washington, sold under more than 40 different brand names at major retailers like Costco, Target, Trader Joe’s and Safeway. So far, eight people have been sickened by listeria that’s genetically similar to that found in CRF vegetables, and two have died, though listeria was not the primary cause of death.
Click here for the list of more than 400 products.
“Unquestionably, this is a lot of product. … It reflects the severity of listeria as an illness, the long duration of illnesses and the outbreak and the long shelf life of the products,” said Matthew Wise, who leads the outbreak response team at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The initial recall started April 22, covering 11 frozen vegetable products. On May 2, CRF expanded it to include all of its frozen organic and traditional fruit and vegetable products manufactured or processed at its Washington plant since May 1, 2014. Thanks to recently developed whole-genome sequencing of food-contaminating bacteria, the Food and Drug Administration and CDC found that the listeria bacteria found in the blood of a person sickened in 2013 is genetically similar to the listeria tied to the recall.
“The idea is that it’s possible that it could be linked to this plant as far back as that because of the match. As a result the company, working with the FDA, decided to do the recall that far back,” CRF spokesman Gene Grabowski said.
The CRF plant closed two weeks ago and Grabowski said the company is still trying to pinpoint the source of the contamination.
Wise said his concern is that consumers check the online recall lists discard the products from of their freezers. “Listeriosis always makes us worry because it’s such a serious infection,” he said. The CDC says listeria is most harmful to adults over 65 with weakened immune systems and pregnant women.
Products were both packaged for sale as individual products and repackaged by places like Piggly Wiggly, Kroger and ConAgra foods as ingredients in a host of other store-brand and private-label products for stores like Trader Joe’s and Costco.
Also, retailers including Target and regional distributors such as Midwest grocery chain Hy-Vee Foods have recently recalled products made by Tokyo-based Ajinomoto Windsor due to the company recalling 70 of its Asian variety products that contain CRF vegetables – about 47 million pounds worth – some of which were also sold in Canada and Mexico.
The FDA and CDC have developed a system to track the genetic makeup of salmonella, listeria and E.coli. Once a food-related illness outbreak is identified, scientists can match the DNA from contaminated food with the bacteria making people sick and potentially trace it to the originating food processing plant.
In this outbreak, of those eight who were sick, six were in California. The two people who died were from Maryland and Washington.
Authorities say it’s unclear why there are not more illnesses from listeria. Wise said that the levels of listeria contamination might not be high or may be uneven in the packaged vegetables. Also, the vegetables in the recall are typically cooked before they’re eaten, which would kill the bacteria.
The CDC continues to monitor state illness reports for any sign of additional cases, Wise said.
Listeria causes an estimated 1,600 cases illnesses each year in the U.S., but just half are reported. About 18 per cent of listeriosis patients die.
FDA spokeswoman Lauren Sucher said it’s important to follow label directions for cooking frozen foods and to check freezers thoroughly for the products listed on the FDA website.
Some of the products recalled by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency due to Listeria monocytogenes:
Sold at Costco:
– Organic by Nature brand frozen Organic Butternut Squash (UPC 8 46358 00067 1) and Organic Vegetable Medley (UPC 8 46358 00062 6) sold in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
– Organic by Nature brand frozen Organic Sweet Peas (UPC 8 46358 00061 9) sold in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
Other Retailers:
– Cookin’ Greens Organic brand A Blend of Kale, Sweet Corn & Peas (UPC 8 11138 00038 7) sold nationally
– Alasko brand IQF Regular Mixed Frozen Vegetables A Grade (UPC 1 06 95058 17331 7) and B Grade (UPC 1 06 95058 17341 6) sold for hotel/restaurant/institutional use in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
– Harmonie brand, IGA brand, Co-op brand, Western Family brand and unbranded frozen vegetable products (various UPCs – check CFIA website) sold in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Possibly National, Saskatchewan
– Ajinomoto brand Yakitori Chicken with Japanese-Style Fried Rice (UPC 0 71757 05642 8) sold in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
– All Asia Fresh brand rice and noodle bowls sold in Alberta
– Indican brand Mixed Frozen Veggies (UPC 6 27727 10001 3) sold in Alberta and British Columbia
– Stahlbush Island Farms brand Cut Green Beans (UPC 6 38882 00053 7) sold at retail in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Possibly National, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Yukon.
Source: Canadian Food Inspection AgencyCrochet Bath Pouf: Free Loofah Pattern Published by on
I’ve been seeing these cute homemade crochet bath poufs on Pinterest. They look so easy and fun to make… I’m certainly going to give it a shot.
From what I can find online, the most important part about making these crochet bath poufs is the type of yarn you use.
Some people suggest 100% cotton yarn, such as Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton Yarn, while others recommend crocheting with a Nylon/Cotton yarn so that the bath loofah will hold it’s shape when wet.
I’ll have to try it with different types of yarn to see which one works best for my crochet loofah bath pouf.
Free Crochet Bath Pouf Patterns
Here is a roundup of different crochet loofah patterns that I found online:
Free Pattern: The Perfect Loofah by Bridget Burns
Bath Pouf Crochet Pattern by Daisy Cottage Designs
Bath Pouf Crochet Pattern by The Painted Hinge
Puffy Bath Pouf – Free Pattern by The Stitchin’ MommyIt looks like the folks over at Nvidia are planning to take on Radeon’s recently released RX 500 series of graphics cards; one graphics card in particular that apparently got Nvidia’s attention is the RX 550. According to Expreview, Nvidia will be releasing a graphics card to compete with the RX 550, and it may be called the GT 1030.
That’s right folks, we might actually be looking at the first non-GTX graphics card by Nvidia to be included under its 1000 series of cards. In addition, the GT 1030 will also, upon being released, be the first Pascal-based graphics card to be classed under Nvidia’s ‘GT’ branding.
For those who are not aware, most of Nvidia’s older GT series of graphics cards are catered for the low-end market; this means they are not as power as their GTX counterparts. Interestingly, Nvidia may equip its upcoming low-powered graphics card with a brand new Pascal GPU called GP108 (14nm) too.
Like many other low-end graphics cards, the GT 1030 may be rather small in size, which means that it’ll be perfect for compact systems. Not much else is known about the GT 1030 for now, but sources do expect the graphics card to be announced officially sometime in May 2017.
(Source: Expreview, TechPowerUp)
4 3 36 2 1 6CoinFest, the decentralised cryptocurrency events organisation, is holding the largest out of 20 or so global meet-ups in Manchester on the 8th and 9th of April, and like all CoinFest events it will be free to attend.
CoinFest said it has over 20 events planned around the world between April 5-10. The movement, which began in 2013 as a small gathering of Bitcoin enthusiasts in Vancouver, is decentralised and open source meaning that anyone can participate as long as they uphold its protocol.
The CoinFest organisation keeps its funds in a 10-of-15 multi-signature wallet for non-profit use, and hosts simultaneous events at venues that accept or support cryptocurrency. The long-term goal is to create a decentralised autonomous organisation on the blockchain.
Previous events have included networking at the site of the world's first Bitcoin ATM, a Decentralized Doge Party, and educational events across Africa, where we shipped Botswana's first Bitcoin ATM. It has featured guest stars from Mr Bitcoin to Vitalik Buterin, with events ranging from pub nights to conferences.
CoinFest 2016 is going to be the biggest one yet, with at least two dozen cities preparing to play host. The most anticipated include Toronto, Washington DC, Vancouver, Manchester, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and cities across Africa and Latin America. Many are incumbent from last year, with new events in
CoinFest 2016 will also have global activities such as the International Hangout, which will beam speakers to multiple projectors around the world. Other activities may include a decentralised arcade, which showcases crypto gaming projects, said a statement.
CoinFest UK will be based at MadLab in the northern quarter of Manchester on the 8th and 9th of April and run from 9am to 10pm on the Friday and 9am to 4pm on the Saturday. It will operate over two floors and host a wide range of speakers covering topics including the laws on Bitcoin, banking, cryptocurrency debit cards, and local council-run cryptocurrency projects. There will also be a range of activities, short education sessions and sponsored giveaways.
"We are aiming for CoinFest UK to be a hub for people interested in cryptocurrencies at every level--a place for them to become engaged," said CoinFest.
CoinFest UK opened pre-registrations in the middle of January 2016, and currently has over 300 planned visitors from more than nine different countries. CoinFest UK's ticket system will become live at the beginning of March, generating a unique cryptocurrency ID for each attendee for later use in an included raffle.During the fall campaign, the liberal TV hero Rachel Maddow ran a stinging segment ridiculing The Star-Ledger’s endorsement of Gov. Chris Christie. How could we endorse him, she asked, when we criticized him so harshly in the same piece? Had we lost our minds?
Not quite. An endorsement is not a love embrace. It is a choice between two flawed human beings. And the winner is often the less bad option.
But yes, we blew this one. When the endorsement ran, I could not get a cup of coffee in the People’s Republic of Montclair without my liberal friends taunting me. Back then, I pushed back.
Yes, we knew Christie was a bully. But we didn’t know his crew was crazy enough to put people’s lives at risk in Fort Lee as a means to pressure the mayor. We didn’t know he would use Hurricane Sandy aid as a political slush fund. And we certainly didn’t know that Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer was sitting on a credible charge of extortion by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
Even before this scandal train got rolling, this endorsement was a close call and a split vote among the editorial board. We regard Christie as the most overrated politician in the country, at least until now, a man who is better at talking than governing. We criticized him for trashing the working poor, for his tea party approach to the environment, for his opposition to gay marriage and a livable minimum wage. And so on.
But there is more to it. Christie has made good progress on education with a focus on struggling cities, especially Newark and Camden. His pension and health reforms helped contain public costs that were spiraling out of control.
And let’s not forget his opponent, Sen. Barbara Buono. She was not up to the job of being governor — even in the view of many Democrats. She got the party’s nomination because more credible candidates, including Cory Booker, backed out in the face of Christie’s strength.
And on education, the most important issue for any governor, Buono ran well to the left of President Obama. She embraced the state’s regressive teachers’ union and its relentless efforts to protect bad teachers and stunt the growth of even the best charter schools.
This is not about who we like better. Christie has boycotted the editorial board for years, an attempt to bully us into more loving coverage. So we’ve had a front-row view of what a creep he can be. Buono is the more likable person by far.
We could have skipped the endorsement altogether, as the New York Times did. But voters have to push one button or the other, and we felt The Star-Ledger should belly up to the challenge and offer them our best advice. My guess is the Times would never punt on a presidential election for the same reason.
So we swallowed our hesitations and endorsed Christie, complete with our long list of deep reservations.
Now, the governor is in a free fall in the polls, and liberals everywhere are rejoicing. And yes, it is delicious to see a bully like him lose the swagger.
But be careful. Because if you turn your focus to the presidential race in 2016, you might wind up facing the same dilemma we did in the fall.
Now that Christie has been knocked back, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination is Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, recently famous for his bizarre rant about women’s libido. And when he fades, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will be waiting to pick up the pieces.
LIVE CHAT: MORAN Have questions about The Star-Ledger's endorsement of Gov. Christie, or its regrets? Join Tom Moran here for a live chat Monday at noon. Ask @TomAMoran
If one of the tea party favorites gets the Republican nomination, then the country is at risk. Because as we have just seen, one scandal can flip the board in politics. What if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, and some dark secret emerges about her tenure as secretary of state? How does President Rand Paul sound to you?
Now ask yourself this: If the Republican primary came to a choice between Paul and Christie, which candidate would you endorse?
At the risk of repeating a mistake, I’d pick Christie in that primary, even now. And if you think that makes some sense, then you understand how excruciating the endorsement process can be.
RELATED STORIES
• Live chat with Tom Moran Monday at noon: Why he regrets endorsing Christie
• Rachel Maddow is puzzled by Star-Ledger's endorsement of Chris Christie
• Poll: Did the Star-Ledger endorse the right candidate for governor?At least since Isaac Asimov posited the Three Law of Robotics, many have wondered whether robots would ultimately help or harm humanity. Or maybe do a little of both. Humanity still has time to shape the answer to that question, and we’re pleased to announce three speakers who have distinctive, grounded perspectives on how to secure a world made better (not worse) by robots.
These speakers join our agenda for TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics, our first one-day event dedicated to discussing the core topics facing the robotics industry. General admission tickets are currently available for purchase though seating is very limited.
The event takes place on July 17 in Boston at MIT’s stunning Kresge Auditorium. It will be a great time and we hope to see you there.
David Barrett is a professor of mechanical engineering at Olin College, where has helped pioneer new approaches to training future robotics engineers and advocated the development of “eusocial” robotics – a robotic sensibility driven to act for the common good. Prof. Barrett has more than 25 years experience in robotics, including VP of engineering at iRobot, director of the Walt Disney Imagineering Corporation, research engineer at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and technical director at Draper Laboratory. He has a PhD in ocean engineering from MIT.
David Edelman is leading the Project on Technology, the Economy, and National Security (TENS) at the MIT, which is a joint position between MIT CSAIL and MIT’s Center for International Studies. Edelman recently left government, where he served for the past seven years in a variety of roles, including Special Assistant to President Barack Obama on issues of the digital economy and national security, including the impact of robotics on the economy and cyberwarfare. He has a PhD in international relations from the University of Oxford.
Brian Pierce is the director of the DARPA Information Innovation Office (I2O) and has 30 years of experience developing advanced technologies in the aerospace/defense industry. Prior to joining DARPA, he was a technical director in Space and Airborne Systems at the Raytheon Company. Dr. Pierce earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of California at Riverside. He has more than 20 U.S. patents.
Agenda
TC Sessions: Robotics
July 17, 2017 @ MIT’s Kresge Auditorium
9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
Opening Remarks from Matthew Panzarino
9:05 AM – 9:25 AM
What’s Next at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory with Daniela Rus (MIT CSAIL)
9:25 AM – 9:50 AM
Is Venture Ready for Robotics? with Manish Kothari (SRI), Josh Wolfe (Lux Capital) and Helen Zelman (Lemnos)
10:10 AM – 10:35 AM
Collaborative Robots At Work with Clara Vu (VEO), Jerome Dubois (6 River Systems) and Holly Yanco (UMass Lowell)
10:35 AM – 10:55 AM
Coffee Break
10:55 AM – 11:20 AM
Building A Robotics Startup from Angel to Exit with Helen Greiner (CyPhy Works), Andy Wheeler (GV) and Elaine Chen (Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship)
11:20 AM – 11:30 AM
Soft Robotics (Carl Vause) Demo
11:30 AM – 11:55 AM
Re-imagineering Disney Robotics with Martin Buehler (Disney Imagineering)
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Lunch and Workshops TBA
1:00 PM – 1:20 PM
Robots at Amazon with Tye Brady (Amazon Robotics)
1:20 PM – 1:55 PM
When Robots Fly with Buddy Michini (Airware), Andreas Raptopoulos (Matternet) and Anil Nanduri (Intel)
1:55 PM – 2:15 PM
Bringing Robots Home with Colin Angle (iRobot)
2:15 PM – 2:35 PM
Building Better Bionics Samantha Payne (Open Bionics) and TBA
2:35 PM – 2:45 PM
Demo TBA
2:45 PM – 3:05 PM
The Future of Industrial Robotics with Sami Atiya (ABB)
3:05 PM – 3:25 PM
Coffee Break
3:25 – 3:35 PM
Demo TBA
3:35 PM – 4:15 PM
Robotics Startup Pitch-off (Judges and contestants TBA)
4:15 PM – 4:35 PM
The Age Of The Household Robot with Gill Pratt (Toyota Research Institute)
4:35 PM – 4:55 PM
Building The Robot Brain with Heather Ames (Neurala) and Brian Gerky (Open Robotics) and TBA
4:55 PM – 5:20 PM
Robots, AI and Humanity with David Barrett (Olin), David Edelman (MIT) and Dr. Brian Pierce (DARPA) and TBA
5:20 PM – 5:25 PM
Wrap Up
5:25 PM -7:00 PM
ReceptionThe Racial Gap Widens and Policymakers Turn Their Backs
Christian E. Weller, University of Massachusetts, Boston, posted on
People need wealth to weather an emergency and to create economic opportunities for themselves and their families. Yet, wealth has always been very unequally distributed in the United States, especially by race and ethnicity. The racial wealth gap has in fact grown in recent years. Consequently, many African-Americans, Hispanics, and large parts of the Asian-American community have been increasingly economically vulnerable and losing out on opportunities for upward mobility.
The need for policy interventions to reduce the racial wealth gap has long been clear and has only grown since the Great Recession ended in 2009. But little has happened and is unlikely to happen in the near term. Worse, the current policy direction could actually widen the racial wealth gap, not shrink it.
Communities of color have a lot less wealth than whites do. On average, working-age African-Americans owned $72,987 (in 2013 dollars) from 2010 to 2013, compared to whites’ $564,426. Whites then had almost eight times the wealth of African-Americans. In that same period, working age white households had 5.7 times the wealth of their Hispanics counterparts. And, the average white household in the bottom half of the income distribution had 1.4 times the wealth of the average Asian-American household in the bottom half of the income distribution during those years.
Such wealth gaps exist because of different access to beneficial savings, varying contributions to savings, and gaps in fees for financial services and in interest rates. Communities of color, for example, are much less likely than whites to be homeowners and to have a retirement plan from their employers. Communities of color thus often do not have access to the various tax and other benefits that come with those savings.
Moreover, people contribute to savings by paying the principal on a mortgage, adding to a retirement plan, having an employer contribute to a retirement plan, or inheriting wealth. Since communities of color are less likely to be homeowners and have retirement plans, they and their employers are also less likely to participate in these kinds of benefits.
Communities of color are also less likely to inherit money, and when they do the amounts inherited are lower than for whites. Communities of color tend to be good savers, but they fall behind in their wealth because they receive less help from the government |
in a gallery or a magazine or online... it helps them tell their family or their kids what they do. ‘That’s what it looked like. That’s what I did.’ ”
Cervantez’s last trip was in the Kandahar area, bouncing around combat outposts as soon as his boots hit Afghan soil.
“The very next day (after arriving in country) I was out on a 12-hour patrol,” he said. “It was absolutely great.”
Battles and Cervantez said they mainly sketch and take photos downrange, then go back to the States to produce paintings based on those impressions. But there are some things a camera can never catch.
“A lot of times when I’m taking photos … I will see things that the photo doesn’t capture,” Cervantez said. “Dust, the way the light hits things, certain colors going on.”
Cervantez tries to knock out sketches whenever possible, to get the shape or feel of a scene — within limits. He’s done a sketch during a firefight but notes that “it’s not a polished piece of work.”
“You have to be safety- and security-conscious,” he said. “If people are moving, you’re moving with them.”
Battles, 43, has deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan but said he rarely gets to sketch outside the wire.
“When you’re on patrol you have to keep your eyes open,” he said. “The patrol is definitely not going to stop when you want to capture the ambiance of a scene.”
Combat artists like Cervantez and Battles generally go out for three- to four-month tours, basically embedding with units, and often snap a lot of photos for future reference as well as making sketches. Good downrange sketches are highly valued and sometimes treated as finished pieces, Battles said.
“It’s very fresh and it’s very alive,” he said. “When a sketch is done very well on location, it’s valued as a piece of art in and of itself.”
He has drawn amputees in the States but has not encountered a combat casualty while downrange. He’s unsure if that’s something he could draw or paint.
“Certain things you wouldn’t want to show graphically,” he said. “I have not drawn that scene, but I haven’t ruled it out.”
Cervantez said the immensity of the job hit him when he reported for duty.
“Your job is to paint history,” he said. “That’s kind of a huge pill to swallow.”
Both men said getting to showcase the lives of soldiers and Marines is important.
“Young Marines, if they are in a situation where it’s a little bit bleak or dingy or dreary, if they see the Marine Corps cares enough about them to send artists to sketch their portrait or their daily lives in the combat zone, that’s a morale builder,” Battles said. “I get to show them they’re important.”
Geoffz@estripes.osd.mil
Twitter: @Stripes_GeoffZIn a couple of years, Ottawa will be party central (in both the political and celebrative sense) when we mark 150 years since we began assembling the provinces into a federation. The year 1867 was also the year Ottawa was the epicentre of the Dominion of Canada’s first general election, the writ for which was dropped on Aug. 6. A month and a bit earlier, at midnight on June 30, the bells had started ringing in the churches of Ottawa and across the confederated provinces to celebrate the birth of a democracy.
The day after the writ was dropped, the voting and the counting of them began. Assembling the votes so that they could be counted and the results relayed to Ottawa was not easy in a country where four-fifths of the population lived in between the cities, not in them. It wasn’t until Sept. 20 that the brand new Governor General, in the person of Lord Monck, was able to declare John A. Macdonald the prime minister. The freshly elected first batch of MPs met on Parliament Hill, with the paint still fresh on the walls, for the first time on Nov. 6.
In Ottawa of 1867, the entire population amounted to almost exactly the average attendance at Senators games last year — 18,247. Out of those 18,000, who could actually vote in the first general election? The eligibility criteria varied in detail then from province to province, but you needed to not be at least three things; female, under 21 and something other than a British subject. There were also conditions related to money, in the form of property or annual income. If you made more than $250 a year in Ontario (the former Upper Canada) you were good to go to the polling station. (That’s me out, then.) Once at the polling station you voted with your mouth, not a pencil or by touching a screen, announcing your vote to all and sundry. The possibilities for intimidation and bribery were rife, and were entertained. The attack ads and rhetoric in those days, on the stump and in the pages of the Citizen, made today’s mudballs seem like soap bubbles.
When all the results were finally in, the winner in the city of Ottawa was Joseph Merrill Currier, a member of the coalition Liberal-Conservative party. (Two words you don’t often see hyphenated these days.) Currier was our sole MP, there being only one riding in Ottawa until 1872.
Currier was American born, arriving in Canada around 1837 in his late teens. By the time of the general election he had been a busy man, hooking into the timber trade with mills in Manotick, New Edinburgh and launching a start-up lumber business in Hull with Alonzo Wright. His business in Manotick was short-lived; when he brought his second wife, Annie, to the mill for the first time, in 1863, she was killed in an industrial accident when her frock caught in machinery. Joseph never went near Manotick again.
Then as now, Ottawa men whose deep pockets were full of timber money went into politics. Currier stepped on the first rung of the political ladder when he became a city councillor for By Ward in the early 1860s, and then went one step up in 1863 by becoming a MLA. A year after he was elected, he built a home for his third wife, a member of the Wright family. The address was 24 Sussex.
He also found time during his tenure as our MP to be president of the company that owned and printed the Citizen, be involved in a couple of railway companies, and, in 1877, forced to resign from Parliament by the opposition on a technicality when it was discovered that Joseph the MP had been doing business with Joseph the entrepreneur. He was re-elected within the month. A year later his mill in Hull burnt down and he was bankrupt. His fellow Conservatives came to his aid to help him meet his expenses.
Currier ceased to be our MP in 1882, by virtue of not running in that election. He promptly became the city postmaster and delivered that post till his death two years later, while away in New York. He is buried, alongside many who sat with him then and since, in Beechwood Cemetery.
Phil Jenkins is an Ottawa writer. Email phil@philjenkins.ca.But when I was 37, my father died, and all these lessons were suddenly forgotten. I wanted to be something as fierce and inhuman as a goshawk. So I lived with one. Watching her soar and hunt over hillsides near my home, I identified so closely with the qualities I saw in her that I forgot my grief. But I also forgot how to be a person, and fell into a deep depression. A hawk turned out to be a terrible model for living a human life. Once again, I had tried to escape emotional difficulty by filling my mind with a living creature. It was a failure, a mistake that revealed in retrospect the deepest lesson that animals have taught me: how easily and unconsciously we see other lives as mirrors of our own.
Animals don’t exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. The purpose of animals in medieval bestiaries, for example, was to give us lessons in how to live. I don’t know anyone who now thinks of pelicans as models of Christian self-sacrifice, or the imagined couplings of vipers and lampreys as an allegorical exhortation for wives to put up with unpleasant husbands. But our minds still work like bestiaries. We thrill at the notion that we could be as wild as a hawk or a weasel, possessing the inner ferocity to go after the things we want; we laugh at animal videos that make us yearn to experience life as joyfully as a bounding lamb. A photograph of the last passenger pigeon makes palpable the grief and fear of our own unimaginable extinction. We use animals as ideas to amplify and enlarge aspects of ourselves, turning them into simple, safe harbors for things we feel and often cannot express.
None of us see animals clearly. They’re too full of the stories we’ve given them. Encountering them is an encounter with everything you’ve ever learned about them from previous sightings, from books, images, conversations. Even rigorous scientific studies have asked questions of animals in ways that reflect our human concerns. In the late 1930s, for example, when the Dutch and Austrian ethologists Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz towed models resembling flying hawks above turkey chicks, they were trying to prove that these birds hatched with a hard-wired image resembling an airborne bird of prey already in their minds that compelled them to freeze in terror. While later research has suggested it is very likely that young turkeys actually learn what to fear from other turkeys, the earlier experiment is still valuable, not least for what it says about human fears. To me it seems shaped by the historical anxieties of a Europe threatened for the first time by large-scale aerial warfare, when pronouncements were made that “the bomber will always get through,” no matter how tight the national defense.
Simply knowing that fragment of history, and knowing that domesticated turkey chicks freeze when hawks fly overhead, make them more complicated creatures than farmyard poultry or oven-ready carcasses. For the more time spent researching, watching and interacting with animals, the more the stories they’re made of change, turning into richer stories that can alter not only what you think of the animal but also who you are. It has broadened my notion of home to think of what that concept might mean to a nurse shark or a migratory barn swallow; altered my notion of family after I learned of the breeding systems of acorn woodpeckers, in which several males and females together raise a nest of young. No one I know thinks that humans should spawn like wave-borne grunion or subsist entirely on flies. But the various lives of creatures have led me to feel there might not be only one right way to express care, to feel allegiance, a love for place, a way of moving through the world.Johannesburg – What started as a tiny band of protesters outside the Gupta family's estate in Johannesburg on Friday morning has grown into large, lively crowd of picketers.
As struggle songs resonated outside the infamous family's upmarket estate in the leafy suburb of Saxonwold, posters demanding the resignation of President Jacob Zuma were the order of the day.
Police at the scene cordoned off the road, a police helicopter circled above the estate, and at least 20 police officers and private security guards kept a close watch on the more than 100 people gathered in front of the compound's main entrance.
Charles Ngubane, one of the protesters, said the Guptas are to blame for much of what has gone wrong in South Africa during Zuma's tenure as president.
"They (the Guptas) tell Zuma who he must appoint, and then those ministers steal our money for the Guptas," said Ngubane.
It was not clear whether any members of the Gupta family were inside the estate.
The Guptas have come under fire in recent months following allegations that they've "captured" Zuma’s government, and that they benefit irregularly from government contracts.
Meanwhile, a handful of Black First Land First (BLF) members have arrived outside the Gupta compound and are facing off with anti-Zuma supporters.
They are holding placards saying: "WMC (White Monopoly Capital) Puppets" and "Hands off Zuma".On February 1, 2016, Virginia will no longer honor concealed carry handgun permits from 25 states with which it previously shared reciprocity agreements. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post)
On February 1, 2016, Virginia will no longer honor concealed carry handgun permits from 25 states with which it previously shared reciprocity agreements. (Ashleigh Joplin/The Washington Post)
Want to see how warped the gun debate is? How knee-jerk and partisan this game has become?
Check out what’s going on in Virginia.
Last month, the state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring (D), told a bunch of out-of-state gun carriers that they can’t walk the streets of Virginia packing heat anymore because where they come from, concealed-carry gun permits are handed out like candy at a carnival, and that’s just a little too loosey-goosey for Virginia.
In the Old Dominion, residents can legally carry a concealed weapon as long as they aren’t stalkers, convicted abusers, mental-health patients and so forth.
But if another state is totally cool with letting their citizen gunslingers pack heat in public despite a troubled past, Herring doesn’t want them armed and ready when they come here. That should be common sense.
Instead, cue the outrage from the gun-rights hard-liners and their army of supporters in the legislature, who are always claiming that the government is trying to take their weaponry away.
[Virginia to stop recognizing concealed carry gun permits from 25 states]
Some of the people freaking out in Richmond right now are the ones who wrote this law — which says you can only carry a concealed weapon in this great commonwealth if you meet a set of common-sense requirements — 20 years ago.
So now that Herring wants to enforce that law (and isn’t that a mantra in some Second Amendment corners, “We don’t need new laws, we just need to enforce the ones already on the books”?), the conceal-carry crowd is calling foul.
Knee, meet jerk.
This all started two decades ago, when lawmakers radically changed what it takes to get a concealed-carry permit and thousands of Virginians rushed to get licenses to carry their guns about town.
It used to be only judges had the power to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether anyone outside law enforcement really needed to carry a weapon. The gun folks got pretty agitated over that because so few Old Dominion judges were granting permission for people to tuck guns into their pants and purses.
Fairfax County — a mostly leafy Washington suburb that happens to be the home of the National Rifle Association — got the worst rap back then. Judges there found only one citizen in a year and a half who needed to carry a concealed weapon. They seemed to think most people could brave the wild and woolly world of Northern Virginia office parks, cul-de-sacs and shopping malls unarmed. Imagine that.
[Our insane approach to guns and the people who use them to slaughter us]
So in 1995, state Republicans moved to take that decision out of judges’ chambers.
As long as those who wanted to carry a concealed weapon took a gun safety course and weren’t a danger — no felony convictions, no history of gun violations, mental illness or substance abuse, weren’t here illegally or booted from the military dishonorably — they’d be approved.
A Republican-led House Courts of Justice committee even fattened the original list of disqualifications, adding no convictions for drunken driving, stalking or sexual assault.
Records show all of Virginia’s Republicans, as well as many Democrats, favored the final bill, and it passed 69 to 29.
In the months after the law was passed, at least 2,000 Virginians applied for and got the right to Dirty Harry their way through work, play and errands.
A couple of years later, the idea of reciprocity was discussed. Where else can armed Virginians swagger down the streets, secretly armed? And which out-of-state visitors can properly arm themselves against the dangers of visiting the commonwealth?
I mean, Colonial Williamsburg and Tysons Corner can be totally scary if you’re from Utah, right?
The folks in Richmond figured it was fair and reasonable that Virginia should have agreements only with the states that had similar restrictions.
In other words, people from states that allow someone convicted of stalking his ex-wife to walk around with a concealed weapon weren’t welcome to come to Virginia locked and loaded. And then-Gov. George Allen (R) added the provision that his attorney general and the state police should be the folks to review and keep track of this.
Common sense. Safe and smart. The measure passed overwhelmingly, with little opposition. Done.
Now, 20 years later, the attorney general is actually enforcing these laws. On Feb. 1, he is yanking reciprocity with 25 states that have concealed- permit requirements less stringent than those in Virginia. And the gun rights folks are howling.
Even the people who wrote and passed these laws — especially House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford), who gave a thumbs-up to all of this back in the day — are angry about Herring’s action.
“Despite promising to take politics out of the Attorney General’s Office, Mark Herring consistently seeks to interpret and apply the law of the commonwealth through the lens of his own personal, political opinions,” Howell told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “He is damaging the integrity of the office he holds.”
By enforcing the law you endorsed, Mr. Speaker?
The policy has not changed, only the politics of the gun debate.
The gun guys are whipping folks into a frenzy, warning Virginians that they won’t be able to carry concealed weapons when they travel to Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina because those states won’t recognize Virginia’s gun toters, either, come Feb. 1.
“THE ENTIRE SOUTHERN STATES ARE GONE...!” shriek the guys at Pegasus Firearms in Midlothian, Va.
But they have a solution. Utah will issue concealed-carry permits even to non-Utah residents. And because 30 states accept Utah’s easier-to-get permits, a Virginian with a Utah permit can keep that trip to Nashville an armed experience.
“We will teach this course for $59.99 per student,” the Pegasus website offers. “Don’t wait! After Feb. 1st your OBX trip means that you can no longer carry your firearm concealed in NC.”
Dang. All these years I’ve been braving that Outer Banks beach rental unarmed? I’ve let my kids eat doughnuts in Duck and surf in Corolla without a Glock in my beach bag? What was I thinking?
Twitter: @petuladA 40-year-old widow in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district was allegedly made to eat faeces, tortured and beaten to death by her relatives, who accused her of being a witch, the police said on Sunday. The incident took place on August 3 in Kekri, a block around 135 km from the state capital, they said.
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“Kanya Devi Raigar was branded a witch and severely tortured before being beaten to death, she was also made to eat faeces by her relatives,” Superintendent of Police (SP) of Ajmer, Rajendra Singh, said. The police registered a case on Monday against four people –Pinky Raigar, Sonia Raigar, Mahaveer Raigar and Chandra Prakash Raigar — under relevant IPC sections, including murder, and provisions of the Rajasthan Prevention of Witch-Hunting Act, 2015. The woman succumbed to injuries at the spot, the police said.
On claims that the relatives had pierced her eyes with a hot rod, Singh said the body was cremated by the relatives and no post mortem could be conducted, “so it is proving difficult to ascertain these claims”. “Thorough interrogation of the accused will reveal what transpired that day,” he said, adding that three persons have been detained and will be arrested soon.
The woman’s husband died about a month ago and she was living with her son and daughter, the police said. The police said a distant relative of the woman had lodged a complaint on August 10. “I had received the complaint on August 10 from a relative, but we could not file an FIR as the complainant was not a close relative of the deceased,” SHO at the Kekri Police Station Hari Ram Kumawat said.
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However, after the woman’s daughter lodged a complaint, the police registered a case, he said.It’s not exactly clear where this exact Conte quote came from — Simon Johnson doesn’t elaborate in his article for the Evening Standard, which has now been picked up other news agencies like AFP — but it’s a good and happy quote, so let’s have it regardless. (It might be taken from quotes before the break; Conte’s not due to address the media again until later today, Friday.)
“A year ago they didn’t know my idea of football, my physical work and the analysis. It is easier now for me and my job at this point of the season. The feeling is a lot better if you compare now to this time last season.” -Antonio Conte; source: Evening Standard
“They” being the players, presumably, many of whom are the same, but some of whom are brand new and still adapting (Morata, Bakayoko, Rüdiger, Drinkwater, etc.), which for Conte tends to be a lengthy process. So in that sense, it’s easy to see why he’d be more comfortable, more relaxed than last season, when he had to drill his ideas into the whole squad, then had to re-drill his tactical ideas again after six games when he decided, rather momentously, to switch to the now famous 3-4-3.
It’s a good thing, too, that most of the squad are familiar with these ideas since the time for training will be drastically reduced this season thanks to all the midweek matches and associated travel around Europe. With only two full days between many of these matches, there simply won’t be opportunity for any sort of intense training. Sure, tactical training can consist of walk-throughs and video sessions, too, but there’s no replacement for repetition, especially when Conte’s systems rely so much on “automatisms”. (Bayern head coach Carlo Ancelotti talked quite pointedly about this problem last season, and he at least had a winter break in the Bundesliga!)
Starting with Saturday’s match away at Leicester, Chelsea will tackle seven games in twenty-one days. There won’t be too much travel involved (Atlético away the biggest commitment), but we’ll have two essentially must-win games (given that we will be the home team) against Arsenal and Manchester City this month.
Hope y’all had a nice break. It’s time to get down to work.[JURIST] The Pennsylvania State Senate [official website] approved legislation Thursday that would legalize several forms of medical marijuana. Senate Bill 1182 [legislative documents], proposed by state senator Daylin Leach [official website], passed with strong support 43-7 [Senate Roll Call] and will now proceed to the State House of Representatives. The bill calls for the creation of a State Board of Medical Cannabis Licensing, which would oversee a limited number of medical marijuana growers, processors and dispensers who would be subject to licensing fees, random inspections and zoning requirements. The bill is expected to face opposition from Governor Tom Corbett [official website], who has proposed a limited research pilot program [Post-Gazette report] but has indicated [ABC news report] that he would veto SB 1182 if it reaches his desk. The bill, if passed by the House of Representatives, would legalize a number of marijuana delivery methods, notably excluding smoking
The use of marijuana for medical purposes [JURIST backgrounder] has garnered more legal support [Marijuana Policy Project website] in the US in recent months. In July US Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) [official website] introduced a bill [JURIST report] to nationally legalize cannabidiol (CBD) oil, or marijuana extract, which has been shown to treat seizures in children suffering from epilepsy. Also in July New York Governor Andrew Cuomo [official website] signed [JURIST report] the Compassionate Care Act into law, making New York the twenty-third state to legalize medical marijuana. In June Florida Governor Rick Scott [official website] signed [JURIST report] a bill allowing a non-euphoric strain of marijuana to be used for the treatment of epilepsy, cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Minnesota lawmakers in May approved a bill [JURIST report] legalizing medical marijuana in pill or liquid form for a limited number of patients who suffer from severe or fatal illnesses.Think of the strongest wind you’ve ever experienced. No, think of the strongest wind anyone’s ever experienced. It still doesn’t hold a candle to the terrifyingly strong winds on some extrasolar planets. There are gas giants out there, with masses similar to Jupiter, that experience winds as strong as 14,400 kph (9,000 mph).
This seems to be the only way to explain measurements of three extrasolar planets that orbit extremely close to their parent stars. With one face to the star, you would think that half the planet is white hot, while the other is much cooler. But strangely, these planets have roughly the same temperature across the entire planet.
These supersonic winds move so quickly, they’re able to churn the planets’ atmospheres, and keep temperatures from dropping on the night side.
A team of American astronomers recently presented their findings at the American Astronomical Society’s annual meeting in Seattle, Washington. They used the Spitzer Space Telescope to measure the infrared light of the planets at eight different positions in their orbit in 2005. They measured the brightness when the planets were facing the Earth, and then when they were facing away. Amazingly, they found no variations.
The three planets are 51 Pegasi, about 50 light years from our sun, HD179949b about 100 light years distant, and HD209458b about 147 light years away.“"Football’s been in my life forever. With Marcus, my cousin Grady, my cousin Omar, they all played football. I’ve always been around the game. I was at practices running around with them, my cousin had his practices, I was the ballboy on Marcus’ team when they went to the state championship, things like that. As far as I can remember, football’s always been in my life."” ~ Desmond Trufant
USA Today Images USA Today Images
Tacoma isn’t a city of dreams. It’s a mill town, a blue-collar city, the ugly middle child between genteel Seattle and the crunchy capitol in Olympia. But on clear days at Wilson High School, where the Trufant brothers played football, Mount Rainier rises into the sky without connection to the horizon, a floating colossus of impossible height. It is ghostly and distant -- but in truth, it’s not so far away. It can be climbed.
Lakewood, the nondescript Tacoma suburb where Lloyd and Constance Trufant live now, was, until the mid-’90s, just another undesirable stretch of Tacoma: the closest place to Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base for young married soldiers and airmen to live. As such, many of the houses date back to the post-Cold War military boom and are appropriately shabby -- mold creeping up from the ground, yards and roofs overrun with wet leaves, a general low-slung disrepair exacerbated by the long shadows cast by towering conifers.
Stumble onto the right street, though, and you’ll find enclaves of wealth, usually on the shores of one of the town’s four lakes. It’s here, on Lake Steilacoom, nine days before the 2013 NFL draft, that I find the house Marcus Trufant bought for his parents after an All-Pro selection led to a six-year, $50 million contract with the Seahawks in 2008.
Whereas most of the houses on the block are hidden by hedges or fences, the Trufant residence is open, welcoming. The split-level is neither ostentatious nor modest, but the wide deck over the lake makes it clear that it’s in no way cheap. The house is filled with family photos, football paraphernalia and floor-to-ceiling windows on the lake side.
Next week, Marcus, who went to the Seahawks with the 11th overall selection in the 2003 draft, will see his youngest brother, Desmond, go to the Falcons with the 22nd pick. Isaiah, the middle brother, went undrafted in 2006 and played arena football and in the UFL before landing with the Jets, where he’s played the last three years. The stated purpose of the family gathering -- including grandfather, aunts, cousins -- is a celebration of Desmond’s impending jump to the pros. But over the course of the night, I get the feeling that they’re together simply because that’s what they do.
Isaiah Trufant
New York Jets Marcus Trufant
Seattle Seahawks Desmond Trufant
Atlanta Falcons
***
Desmond was 12 years old when Marcus, a second team All-America cornerback at Washington State, was drafted by the Seahawks.
"I remember he had a separate party, family or coaches or anybody that influenced him, at this place called Julius’s. I was a young kid, I really didn’t know what was going on, I was just excited for him, I was going to be happy for him no matter what happened. And he got picked by Seattle, we went over to the party, and I remember him having to do his press conference."
A lot has changed since 2003, from the way the NFL draft gets covered to the rules that hamper a defensive back’s game.
"All the rules, all the stuff you can’t do nowadays, it’s a little bit crazy, but that’s just how the game is," Marcus says. "You gotta be able to adjust, but I think he’ll be OK. And I’m going through the same thing as the game changes -- I just finished my 10th year, of course -- and you have to adjust if you wanna make it in the game."
A decade later, Desmond stands in front of the Atlanta press in a smart navy suit -- zip sweater, natty plaid tie, pocket square -- for his own press conference, offering the Teflon platitudes about his work ethic and skill set that are at once true and too general to sound like anything substantive.
"I can fit into any scheme," he said to me -- and likely other media members at different times. "Because at Washington, we did a little bit of everything. We played zone, we played man, I played off coverage, I played press, I played slot, I even lined up at safety sometimes. I’m diverse, you can put me in different spots."
It is the practiced art of saying nothing (encouraged by the media’s habit of asking the same questions), and if the press conference was all I knew about Desmond Trufant, I wouldn’t know him at all.
***
Lloyd "Chill" Trufant has a cornerback’s build: even in his 50s, he’s compact and trim with ramrod posture. He acts and dresses like a New Orleans musician, which he is, in parts. Though he grew up just outside of the Crescent City, he didn’t play music until he was an adult. "I craved music as a child," he says. "I always wanted to be in the school band, but we couldn’t afford it. And I’m not ashamed to say that, because there were 10 of us. For me, to go ask my dad to buy a trumpet, or a guitar, that would be like suicide." He laughs.
"I got to working as a teenager -- I’m talkin’ slave labor, pickin’ tomatoes and cucumbers -- and I bought me a guitar and an amplifier. I didn’t know how to play nothin’. I got chased out of the house ‘cuz I didn’t know how to play it."
Stationed at Fort Lewis after being drafted, Chill borrowed a bass and taught himself how to play one song. "I was playin’ that song, and this old sergeant came up and said, ‘Man you sound good on that. You wanna be in the band?’ I said, ‘Yeah!’"
Chill’s love of music was the spark for his future family. Or, in his words: "Constance was kinda like a groupie. She was stalking me."
His wife laughs. Did she have a crush on Chill? "I did. I followed the band around." But they never actually met until her car broke down. She glances sheepishly at her father, Frederick "Pa" Johnson, before telling the story. "My father probably don’t know this," she says, eliciting laughter.
"I had a little orange Pinto, ’72 hatchback, I went on Fort Lewis with my friend Anita to meet her friend -- I had to drive her because I had the car. But the car broke down.... It was my shining star, nice and orange, big rims and everything. It was tricked out. I know a tricked out Pinto sounds bad, but you had to see it. Anita called her friend that we were going to meet, and lo and behold, Lloyd was in the car -- he was best friends with her friend, and I didn’t even know that.
"And so he fixed the Pinto, and ever since then, he’s been fixing my cars. Thirty-five years later, here we are."
***
"I just wanted to take advantage, show everybody that I’m elite." USA Today Images USA Today Images
Without games on TV, it’s easy to forget that even the offseason is rigorous for players, and this is truest for the college players who declare for the NFL draft. After finishing his senior season at the University of Washington, Desmond had a week to relax before moving to Arizona to train at Athletes’ Performance -- the "leader in integrated performance training, nutrition, and physical therapy for elite and professional athletes," according to its website -- where he trained for the Senior Bowl.
A sparkling Senior Bowl performance in January catapulted him up the draft charts. As NFL.com analyst Daniel Jeremiah noted:
Most teams that I spoke with prior to the Senior Bowl had Trufant pegged as a middle-of-the-second-round-type player. Following three days of practice, nearly every personnel executive I spoke with considers him a likely first-round pick.
Most scouts pegged Desmond as the best cornerback at the Senior Bowl, where he shined against the toughest wide receivers in college. "I just wanted to take advantage, show everybody that I’m elite," he says of the showcase.
After that, it was back to Arizona. "I continued to work, work really hard there to get ready for the combine," he tells me, and the results from Indianapolis in February reflect his words: He ran "a cool 40," he says, opting not to disclose the time of his blistering 40-yard dash (4.31 unofficial, 4.38 official). He survived the other hoops, as well -- "the meetings, the interviews, the hospital, the psychological tests -- there’s a lot of things at the combine. It was a stressful time, but I was prepared for it."
He returned to Arizona once again, this time to prepare for UW’s pro day in March, where he skipped the 40 and weights but put on a positional workout that NFL.com described as "phenomenal." The long build to the NFL draft, he says, "has been an incredible journey," and the miles alone justify a literal meaning.
***
Music was Chill’s passion, but it didn’t pay the bills. "I was what you call a ‘starving musician’," he says. During the day, he worked as a framer for Milgard Windows, while Constance was a manager in the Social Security Administration. Their focus on family sounds like a political ad’s description of middle-class triumph.
"We put them first," Constance says. "My husband and I did a lot of sacrificing to give the kids what they wanted. I think they saw that we made sure that they were fed, they were clothed, that they were in school and did their homework, and that it mattered. We cared, and they saw that we cared."
Marcus’ stories of childhood reflect effective parenthood: the adults rarely appear in the stories, but they’re an ever-present source of boundaries. "We’ve got a lot of cousins," he says, "either we were at my grandfather’s house and we was tearin’ up his front yard, or runnin’ through the yard, actin’ crazy, or at our parents’ house. There were games; we would race all the time. There were games our parents didn’t know about. We’d be downstairs, turn the lights off, and just go crazy, fight, then we’d wait for a little bit because someone was crying, then we’d talk about it, then we’d do it again. We had a lot of fun."
"Everybody kind of fed off of each other," says Grady Maxwell, a cousin two years older than Des and a former three-star recruit who signed with Washington State before injuries ended his career. "It’s always been competitive. My grandfather had 10 girls, but he’s got over 40 or 50 grandkids, and over half of them are boys, so we’ve always been competing, no matter what it is. Even though [Marcus and Isaiah were] way older than me, I was competing against them, regardless of what we were doing."
"We’d go to the park as a family," says Marcus, "me and all the cousins -- me, Isaiah, Des, everybody. There’d probably be about 10 to 20 of us, everybody in the neighborhood. We played out in the street. And we did that stuff all the time -- it was always competitive, it was always fun, it was always lots of laughter."
The Trufants, L to R: "Chill," Isaiah, Desmond, Marcus, Constance. Courtesy of the Trufant Family.
But the Trufant boys were never pushed into sports, insists Chill. "Our objective was mainly to keep them active with the boys’ clubs and sports. We just let them try everything, and made sure they did what they said they were going to do. To me it was exercise -- something besides going to school, come home, and look at TV. You gotta go to practice, you gotta go to school, and you gotta do |
a couple properties next to each other, and they just don't know that they all own a house on the same block," Jackson says. "So now we can actually show them, 'Hey, all four of you guys, all four different departments, you all have property on this street. If you're going to send in a demo crew, instead of sending them in four different times, why don't you all put your properties together and do all four of them at the same time so you can help get some cost savings and be able to work together on solving these problems?' "
That's the kind of information new Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says he's waiting for.
Despite a state-appointed emergency manager making all of the financial decisions for the city, Duggan vows to use what power he retains to make Detroit a more attractive place to live, beginning by bringing anti-blight agencies under a single Land Bank Authority.
But the mayor says he needs the information from the mapping database to improve Detroit beyond its thriving downtown and midtown areas.
"Everything starts with the neighborhoods," Duggan says. "And so we're going to build a legal team at the Land Bank to do what I was doing when I was in the prosecutor's office: with lawyers to go in and sue the owners of the abandoned houses, knock down the ones that can't be fixed, sell the ones that can, and move through the city on a systematic basis."
At least one decision already appears to have been made.
Remember the flooded basement inside the abandoned home in Brightmoor? Once abandoned homes are removed, water service will be turned off to those areas permanently.Game developer defends programming misogyny, biphobia, and ableism into characters Can video games handle tough conversations about diversity in a post-GamerGate world?
A controversy reminiscent of GamerGate is brewing in the gaming community, as the designer of a popular game is defending his choice to program some problematic gender stereotypes into his characters.
Though RimWorld is not yet a complete game, the sci-fi colony sandbox survival simulator — first published in 2013 — has become increasingly popular since its “Early Access” release on the Steam platform this past July.
In RimWorld, players pick an assortment of characters who live and work with each other to build a colony on an extraterrestrial world that can hopefully withstand an onslaught of disasters. These “pawns” have their own personalities and can interact with each other in a fashion similar to The Sims. That means they’re capable of romance.
But Claudia Lo, a master’s student in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, realized there was something peculiar about the significant role that gender was playing in the different ways characters were trying to engage romantically with each other.
And given a chance to examine the game’s code, she found even more than she was expecting.
The romance algorithms
Lo noticed that the game sympathized with the men whose affections were not reciprocated, but appeared to feel no concern for a woman constantly being harassed about her looks.
In a piece for gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun published this week, Lo described how her two male pawns relentlessly hit on her gay female pawn. “Her life is a constant hellish stream of corny pick-up lines and work for the colony,” she wrote. While this annoyed Lo, it didn’t annoy the female pawn, who constantly rebuffed the men in the game but never let it negatively impact her mood. The men, however, were constantly agitated that they kept being rebuffed, making them less effective in their roles.
This observation prompted Lo to delve into the game’s coding to make sense of how exactly these pawns were programmed to behave — and she found some compelling results. For example, male characters in the game are programmed to initiate romance with someone they’re attracted to almost all of the time, while female characters only initiate about an eighth of the time. Neither a history of rebuffs nor knowledge that a pawn was gay was programmed to affect this behavior. That explained why the male pawns just didn’t give up on harassing her female pawn.
“In daily life, the feeling of having to constantly turn people down is not a nice feeling,” Lo, a real-life woman, said. “But these negative feelings are only reflected mechanically for those being rejected, and because of the way romance initiation is handled, you end up having to cater for the sad rejected men, rather than the women who are always having to turn away these unwanted encounters.”
Lo also found that men and women were programmed with different limitations to their sexuality. In RimWorld as it’s currently programmed, there are no bi men and no exclusively straight women.
If women were gay, like Lo’s pawn, they would always reject men, and likewise, if men were gay, they would always reject women. All non-gay men were totally straight and would always reject other men, but all non-gay women had a 15 percent chance of being attracted to other women.
And Lo uncovered some odd differences in terms of how age impacted attraction. For example, female pawns are programmed to prefer partners that are older than them with no age limit, but men have a cap of 15 years older. The attractiveness algorithm also punished pawns for having a disability, including any limitation to their ability to talk, move, or manipulate objects.
“The problem with this model isn’t that it’s flawed,” Lo concluded. “It’s that it’s flawed in a way that perfectly mirrors existing sexist expectations of romance, with such specificity that it is hard to view it as unintentional. And if it is unintentional it is on us to ask what this system is trying to show.”
The backlash reminiscent of GamerGate
When Rock Paper Shotgun published Lo’s findings, her piece was accompanied by an odd editor’s note:
The developer was contacted for interview as part of this article, but declined to take part unless we ceded editorial control over the publishing of that interview. We do not cede editorial control to developers or interview subjects and so no interview took place.
This is an unusual request. Ceding “editorial control” to the subject of a piece isn’t a thing. Journalists conduct interviews and quote accurately from those interviews as it makes sense to do so in their stories. Anything short of full editorial control results in either a puff piece or outright sponsored content.
But the game’s creator did eventually weigh in. After Lo’s article was published on Wednesday, RimWorld creator Tynan Sylvester published his own lengthy response in the comments, then followed up on Reddit on Thursday with additional remarks
In these comments, Sylvester accused Lo of writing an “anger-farming hit piece” and of not being willing to “print the other side of the story.” He objected to “naive” and “uninformed” readings of the code that led Lo to make inferences about the intent of his programming.
He also defended some of his choices, including his belief that “bi-curiosity is quite asymmetrical between sexes,” citing research from The Advocate and the Williams Institute to make his case. He insisted he understood that bi men exist, but also said, “In contrast, every bi man I’ve ever known has ultimately ended up identifying as gay.” It was his understanding that bi men are “rarer than bi women” and that “gay women seem to be rarer than gay men.” And he rebuffed the claim that the game treats disabilities as unattractive, arguing that “you probably wouldn’t attempt a romance with someone who had a gunshot wound or who had severe flu.”
Sylvester concluded by explaining that the characters in RimWorld are designed to be flawed, including having gender prejudices, enjoying cannibalism or sadism, or just being lazy or selfish. “Please don’t criticize how the game models humans as though it’s my personal ideal of optimal human behavior. It’s not,” he wrote. “I’m really hoping RimWorld can be appreciated as the game it is and not just become a culture war battleground.”
In his responses, Sylvester confirmed that the next release of the game will include bi male pawns, as well as some sort of “gaydar” behavior “so colonists will be less likely to attempt romance with others of non-matching orientation.” He did not indicate fixes that address any of Lo’s other concerns, nor did he offer a timeline for when that next release will be published.
This RimWorld controversy bears a strong resemblance to the GamerGate controversy that has played out over the past few years. Essentially, GamerGate became just a vast platform for misogyny, including the targeted harassment, doxxing, and threatening of female gamers and anyone interested in diverse representations in games.
Somewhere at the heart of what became GamerGate was a catalyzing event in 2013. Female game designer Zoe Quinn was publicly accused by her ex-boyfriend of sleeping with a male game reviewer to get better coverage of her game. Though the backlash Quinn then faced was purportedly about journalistic ethics, that quickly proved to be a facade for many gamers’ objections to the changing culture of games. The harassment that Quinn and countless others suffered was because of their attempts to expand the gaming community and make it more inclusive for people who aren’t members of the industry’s traditional demographic: straight men.
The parallels for Lo’s RimWorld article are perhaps all too obvious. She’s a female writer who published a critique of a game’s portrayals of women on a gaming site, and the male designer of that game responded by attacking her and accusing her of malicious motives. Not unlike GamerGate, Sylvester took umbrage over Lo’s journalistic ethics, which were neither relevant nor in doubt, to avoid a more considerate discussion of the concerns she raised.
“Locking down”
Lo is no stranger to these issues. She told ThinkProgress that, since she has been both a gamer and a Reddit moderator on various feminist and social justice channels for some time, she saw GamerGate go down first-hand.
Though Sylvester had never explicitly taken a position on GamerGate, Lo felt the need to be very careful publishing a piece criticizing an aspect of his game. The gloom of GamerGate was ever-present.
“I told my close friends about this article I was writing,” she recounted, “and almost universally, their response was, ‘Congratulations!’ and then immediately, ‘Tell me if there’s anything I can do for you if you don’t feel safe!’ It’s kind of messed up to be really happy for your friend’s success and then immediately start worrying about her safety.”
She had good reason to be particularly cautious writing about Sylvester’s game. As she was working on her critique of RimWorld’s romance code, she noticed that Sylvester had recently done an extensive interview with Breitbart — an alt-right site whose tech editor, uber-troll Milo Yiannopoulos, was one of the chief mouthpieces of GamerGate, having penned headlines there like, “Feminist Bullies Tearing The Video Game Industry Apart.” The fact that Sylvester had given Brietbart an interview “set off warning bells in my head,” she said. Lo also found evidence that he was sympathetic to a designer whose game depicting the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist organization was banned from Google’s platforms.
Before the piece was published, she took steps to “triple check” her security on her social media accounts, delinking her accounts and emails on various platforms, changing passwords, setting up two-factor authentications — “locking down,” as she put it, to protect herself from potential harassment. She told her friends and even explained the situation to her roommate, “just in case the worst happens.”
“That’s the kind of tenor and that’s the kind of shadow that harassment and GamerGate have passed over game criticism. It’s scary, it really is.”
Although Lo has been thrilled about the thoughtful ways she has seen people engage with her piece, and the new connections she’s made in the few days since it was published, she already foresees the challenge of publishing future critiques in the gaming community.
“I’m incredibly happy and I’m really really excited, but at the same time, in the back of my head, there’s just some voice that keeps going, ‘When is it going to come crashing down? When is the backlash going to come?’” she said. “I want to have my name out there, I want people to know who I am, because I think I’m doing good work and want people to read it. But how much is it a risk to my emotional and physical safety? Is it worth it to link my Twitter and my blog if it’s going to make me panicky and anxious for weeks?”
The real-world implications
Lo believes that code should be just as fair game to critique as the visible aspects of a video game, and she’s been heartened to see other developers engage in conversations about how “unconscious bias feeds into the way you structure and design the things.”
Sylvester’s choices reinforce some harmful myths about how human interactions play out in the real world. For example, the way Lo’s female pawn was constantly being pursued by the male pawns despite being gay mirrors the way real-world women are often subjected to street harassment like catcalls or other unsolicited “compliments.”
Research has found that being constantly subjected to these kinds of comments makes women feel angry, annoyed, disgusted, nervous, and scared. In one survey, only 14 percent of women said that these comments made them feel “flattered,” and only 4 percent said the comments “didn’t bother” them.
Sylvester’s game design reinforces the myth that it’s no burden on women to be subjected to this kind of treatment. The fact that it’s actually the male pawns who suffer from being rebuffed communicates to players that women somehow owe men something when they find those women attractive.
Likewise, Sylvester’s justifications for the limited portrayals of sexuality simultaneously fuel both bi erasure and biphobia. Eliel Cruz, an outspoken bi activist, told ThinkProgress that RimWorld doesn’t come close to getting it right.
“Statistically speaking, in most studies, bi men typically make up 1/3 of queer men while bi women make up 2/3 of queer women,” Cruz said. Research on the bi community is still limited, but he expects that these stats will actually increase “as acceptance of bisexuals grows and makes it easier for bi people to come out.” Though it is true that there appears to be fewer bi men than bi women, “it is not justifiable to completely erase the community altogether.”
Sylvester may be adding bi men to the game, but Cruz isn’t convinced the designer actually believes they exist in the real world, as he claims. “His experience contributes to bi-erasing tropes that bisexual men are ‘bi now, gay later.’ It’s insulting that he would perpetuate this offensive bisexual trope that is used to delegitimize bisexual male identities in a response to accusations of bisexual erasure.”
Likewise, Cruz worries that RimWorld’s over-representation of bi women, particularly in the absence of bi men, reflects how bi women tend me more accepted in culture because of the way they are over-sexualized by straight men. “This sexualization contributes to the disproportionate amount of violence against bisexual women,” he explained. “For bisexual men, we’re close to nonexistent because we do not appease a straight male gaze. This is evident in the coding of RimWorld.”
Affecting the evolution of games
Unlike television shows, movies, and the platform games of yore, modern-day games are not static; they are constantly being remade.
The way that RimWorld was released as “incomplete” but playable, and was then repeatedly iterated upon, is becoming an increasingly typical model for games. RimWorld may never be “complete” if Sylvester keeps devising ways to improve and expand it, and if players keep coming back for more.
Because games constantly evolve through patches and new releases, reviews and critiques do have a unique role to play. As Lo’s article has already demonstrated, they can shape how a game changes in the future — or, if critiques are not well-received, they can shape how players perceive a game or its creators. They can significantly impact both the identity and the future financial success — or failure — of a game.
For that reason, the way Sylvester reacted suggests that there may actually be a journalistic ethics issue in the gaming community, but not in regards to what reviewers might write, but how developers and players interact with that commentary.
Sylvester’s response when Lo reached out for comment demonstrates the disconnect. As Lo paraphrased it, he said, “Yes you can interview me, but I’ll only answer your questions if you will promise to print them in full, without any editing — my answers and your questions — no matter what I say.” As the note on her piece explained, her editors at Rock Paper Shotgun rejected these terms, so the interview never happened.
“We don’t let interview subjects dictate terms like that,” Rock Paper Shotgun Editor-in-Chief Graham Smith told Polygon. “It’s a fundamental principle in order to maintain editorial independence, but also a practical matter. If he had said something libelous, say, we would have had to immediately go back on said promise. So we didn’t make that promise and didn’t do the interview.”
The offer was arguably a courtesy; Lo’s piece was commentary, not investigative journalism. “What I’m writing isn’t a review, and it’s definitively not an interview. It’s a piece of criticism — fairly limited in scope even,” she said. “In no other media form do we harp on the right of the creator to respond to criticism so much. Were I writing a criticism of some big blockbuster film, nobody would be agitating for me — ‘How dare you not speak to the writer! How dare you not speak to the developer when you criticized this film!’ — because that’s not what we understand film criticism as needing.”
“If it’s available for public consumption, surely it should also be available for public critique,” and that should include a humanities scholar like her critiquing the coding of games. “We don’t ask that every food critic be a restaurateur or chef before they can criticize food.”
“If you do games criticism, suddenly it’s a different standard. You must let people defend themselves, or rather more insidiously, all criticism is taken as personal attack. Couple that with the history of harassment… and it’s a really frightening atmosphere to work with.” Jumping through all the hoops, she said, just “doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be safe.”
Hope for the future
Despite the drama her article has stirred up, Lo is encouraged by the positive reactions she has received or even just the people who “aren’t completely separating the creator from the work that they create.” They’re going through the process of reconciling a game they might like with its creator’s views, which they might find abhorrent, or at least questionable. “I think that’s an important thing to do.”
She hopes that designers like Sylvester can learn to take constructive feedback. She had already been enjoying RimWorld for two years before she had the chance to look at the code and write about her findings, so her goal wasn’t to ruin the game or destroy Sylvester’s reputation. She wanted to make it better, in part so that it can be more accessible to more players, and also so that other designers can similarly be more thoughtful about their games as well.
Gaming cultural commentators like Lo certainly have a long uphill battle ahead of them to make games more inclusive. As she pointed out in her original piece, the highest rated thread on RimWorld’s Reddit channel remains, “ Strategies for dealing with attractive lesbians? ” And though she has managed to shield herself from the backlash so far, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been one, as comments on her article and other platforms show.
But many people have also encouraged Sylvester to hold his game to a higher standard. Others who had never considered that the code could be held to scrutiny in this way and are open to exploring that kind of critique further.
The roadblocks of GamerGate — shutting down challenging discussions with harassment — might actually be diminishing. The gaming community might not yet be a perfectly safe and open place for conversations about diversity and representation, but like the games themselves, it might just be growing a little bit more inclusive.[+]Enlarge Tetraphenylphosphonium (left) enabled the capture of the elusive cyanoformate anion (right). Credit: Katherine Robertson
For such a seemingly simple ion, cyanoformate (NCCO 2 −) has been tough to catch. But scientists have now trapped the fleeting anion. The achievement could guide the design of agents that capture the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Jason A. C. Clyburne of Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and coworkers captured cyanoformate as a tetraphenylphosphonium salt and obtained its crystal structure (Science 2014, DOI: 10.1126/science.1250808 ).
The structure shows that the anion is a Lewis acid base adduct in which the carbon from cyanide donates a pair of electrons to the carbon in CO 2. “It’s a donor-acceptor complex between a base and an acid,” Clyburne says. “But it forms only a very weak carbon-carbon bond,” adds Heikki M. Tuononen of the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland, whose research group examined the electronic structure of the anion with theoretical methods.
Cyanoformate “is as reactive and as unstable and as sensitive a molecule as I’ve ever isolated,” Clyburne says. “Cyanide is a stable entity, and CO 2 is a stable entity. Yet, under the right conditions we can pair them, isolate the complex, and study its decay.”
Clyburne and coworkers also stabilized another salt of the anion in an ionic liquid. By using different solvents, they were able to study the anion’s degradation as a function of the dielectric constant of the solution. “The chemistry of CO 2 is significantly different in low-dielectric media,” Clyburne says.
In the anion, “cyanide is only barely able to hold onto the CO 2,” says Philip G. Jessop, a professor at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, and technical director of GreenCentre Canada. That weak binding means the work could inspire new strategies for capturing CO 2 from power plant emissions.Blue Mountain State is an American television sitcom that premiered on Spike (now Paramount Network) on January 11, 2010. The series was created by Chris Romano and Eric Falconer, and produced by Lionsgate Television. The series is about a fictional university, Blue Mountain State, and its football team, the "Mountain Goats". It portrays certain aspects of American university life, including American football, sex, binge drinking, drugs, wild partying, and hazing. Over the years, due in large part to being streamable on Netflix, the series has developed a cult following.
In February 2012, it was reported that Blue Mountain State would not be renewed for a fourth season.[1] On April 8, 2014, The BMS Movie was announced and a Kickstarter launched on April 15, 2014. The Kickstarter campaign reached its goal of $1.5 million on May 11, 2014, and the film was released in February 2016.
Cast [ edit ]
Main [ edit ]
Alex Moran (Brooks): A Junior starting quarterback, acting Captain, from Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Sammy Cacciatore (Romano): The team mascot (Billy, The Mountain Goat Mascot) from Cheyenne, Wyoming and Alex's roommate, childhood friend and Mary Jo's half brother.
Kevin "Thad" Castle (Ritchson): A Senior linebacker/team captain from Connecticut.
Martin "Marty" Daniels (Mariano): Marty is the coach for Blue Mountain State, and former NFL player.
Radon Randell (Kennedy) (Starring Season 2) : Radon was the new freshman starting quarterback from Detroit.
: Radon was the new freshman starting quarterback from Detroit. Craig Shilo (Jones) (Starring Season 1) : A running back from Columbus, Ohio. National High School Player of the Year, Craig Shilo was the team's star freshman player.
: A running back from Columbus, Ohio. National High School Player of the Year, Craig Shilo was the team's star freshman player. Denise Roy (Dennis) (Starring Season 1) : Denise is Craig Shilo's high school girlfriend.
: Denise is Craig Shilo's high school girlfriend. Mary Jo Cacciatore (Shaw) (Starring Season 2, Recurring Season 3) : Mary Jo is Sammy's younger sister.
: Mary Jo is Sammy's younger sister. Debra Simon (Richards) (Recurring Season 2; Starring Season 3) : Debra is Marty's ex-wife and current girlfriend.
Recurring [ edit ]
Harmon Tedesco (Cade): Harmon Tedesco is the drug-abusing kicker for the football team. Harmon exploits in anything to get him high, from smoking weed to sticking ice rods up his rectum. Harmon lives at the Goat House with Thad, Alex, and Sammy.
(Cade): Harmon Tedesco is the drug-abusing kicker for the football team. Harmon exploits in anything to get him high, from smoking weed to sticking ice rods up his rectum. Harmon lives at the Goat House with Thad, Alex, and Sammy. Donald "Donnie" Schrab (Ramsay): Donnie Schrab is the center for the Blue Mountain State football team. He is somewhat childish and very easygoing. Donnie lives in the Goat House. It was revealed in Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland that Donnie is gay.
(Ramsay): Donnie Schrab is the center for the Blue Mountain State football team. He is somewhat childish and very easygoing. Donnie lives in the Goat House. It was revealed in Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland that Donnie is gay. Larry Summers (Newton): Larry lives in the Goat House, is Thad's best friend, and is often seen following him around. He has shown to do anything to help his team, even diving his finger up Thad's butt on Coach Daniels's orders.
(Newton): Larry lives in the Goat House, is Thad's best friend, and is often seen following him around. He has shown to do anything to help his team, even diving his finger up Thad's butt on Coach Daniels's orders. Jon Jon Hendrix (Sangui): Coach Jon Jon is Coach Daniels's best friend and second-in-command. He is extremely loyal to his boss
(Sangui): Coach Jon Jon is Coach Daniels's best friend and second-in-command. He is extremely loyal to his boss Pauline (Chantal Quesnelle) (Seasons 1-2): Pauline is the resident cougar at the Blue Mountain State Goat house. She loves it when people pee on her, which is what made her become attracted to Sammy since he peed on her while she was drunk. She's had sex with all the football players and Sammy. In Season 2, she becomes pregnant and leaves a message at the Goat House. She ultimately decides to raise the baby on her own, until it is announced that Coach Daniels is the father.
(Chantal Quesnelle) (Seasons 1-2): Pauline is the resident cougar at the Blue Mountain State Goat house. She loves it when people pee on her, which is what made her become attracted to Sammy since he peed on her while she was drunk. She's had sex with all the football players and Sammy. In Season 2, she becomes pregnant and leaves a message at the Goat House. She ultimately decides to raise the baby on her own, until it is announced that Coach Daniels is the father. Kate (Heffern): Kate is Captain of the cheerleading squad. She has shown great disdains towards both Sammy and Mary Jo. In Season 2, it is revealed that she is Thad's personal cheerleader after she sprains her ankle, and makes Mary Jo fill in for her.
(Heffern): Kate is Captain of the cheerleading squad. She has shown great disdains towards both Sammy and Mary Jo. In Season 2, it is revealed that she is Thad's personal cheerleader after she sprains her ankle, and makes Mary Jo fill in for her. Warren Simon (Ted Atherton) (Season 2): Warren is the dean of Blue Mountain State. He was a nerd in his youth and resents Coach Daniels. He tried to humiliate Alex by holding a banquet in his honor and giving a speech on a paper he knows Alex didn't write, and he convinces the nerds to turn on the jocks. His plans were ruined by a prank led by Sammy. Warren was dating Debra, Daniels' ex-wife, but she and Daniels eventually got back together.
Special cameo appearance [ edit ]
Seasons [ edit ]
Reception [ edit ]
Metacritic gave the series 38 out of 100, from the four reviews it collected.[2] Brian Lowry of Variety found that "Blue Mountain embraces that (crude comedy) aspect of Spike's mandate over all else – putting the bodily function/semi-nudity cart before the sitcom horse."[3] Lowry also stated: "[Spike] has simply made this too-blue "Mountain" into a comedic molehill."[3] Mark A. Perigard of the Boston Herald gave the series a favorable review saying, "Blue is also frequently funny in a raunchy American Pie way. It's a college comedy in which the guys want to get wasted and laid, in whatever order." Joe Walljasper of the Columbia Daily Tribune describes the series as appealing to those who viewed the film Porky's and "felt that the jokes were a little too high-brow.".[4]
In its first season, the show averaged 949,000 viewers in its first six episodes while improving on the time slot by 165% among men 18–24.[5] In its second season, its premiere drew a 1.34 rating in Men 18–34, up 34% compared to the first season average and was ranked No. 2 in its timeslot. Over the season it showed significant ratings growth compared to season 1, delivering a +33% increase in Men 18–34, +50% in Men 18–24, and +14% in Men 18–49.[6] Season 3 of Blue Mountain State started airing on September 21, 2011 on Spike.[7]
The show has gathered a small cult following after it was released on Netflix.[8][9] Fans of the show often start petitions and Facebook pages to make Spike bring the show back for a fourth season. Many members of the cast, especially Page Kennedy, hinted at a reunion project in the month leading up the announcement of the film. Kennedy made Vines and tweeted with show stars Darin Brooks, Alan Ritchson, Frankie Shaw, Chris Romano and Sam Jones III.
Filming locations [ edit ]
The Herzberg building on the John Abbott College campus, which doubles as Blue Mountain State University in the show.
Broadcast [ edit ]
The series premiered on Spike on January 11, 2010 in the United States.[10] In Australia and New Zealand, the series airs on MTV Australia and MTV New Zealand, respectively, beginning April 22, 2010.[citation needed] The series began airing in the United Kingdom April 18, 2010 on MTV.[citation needed] MTV Germany and Viva (TV station) also broadcast the series with great success in Germany and The Netherlands. MTV Brasil began airing the series August 3, 2010.[11] The show also began airing on The Score in Canada in October 2011.
Season 3 began airing September 21, 2011 on Spike at 11 pm.[12]
Feature film [ edit ]
In March 2013, Ed Marinaro stated in an interview with Class Act Sports that he was working on a Blue Mountain State film. He continued to hint on Twitter at some 'behind-the-scenes' work being done on said movie.[13] In early March 2014, Page Kennedy started hinting at Blue Mountain State reunion project on Instagram, Vine and Twitter along with Darin Brooks, Kelly Kruger, Alan Ritchson, Sam Jones III, Frankie Shaw and Romanski.
On April 8, 2014, Blue Mountain State: The Movie was officially announced. To help make the announcement, Alan Ritchson, in character as Thad Castle, made a fake video featuring Jimmy Kimmel (the Kimmel footage was from a 2013 interview with Kanye West).
On April 15, the production launched a Kickstarter campaign, much like the hugely successful 2013 campaign by Veronica Mars to get the cancelled show made into a feature film. The project's goal was to raise $1.5 million by May 15 in order to fund the film. There were rewards for donating to campaign, such as personalized tweets from the cast (for donating $10), shot and pint glasses with the BMS logo ($20), and a speaking role in the film (for a $10,000 donation).
On May 11, 2014, the Kickstarter goal of $1.5 million was reached. On May 15, 2014 the Kickstarter campaign ended, with the final funds raised being $1,911,827 from 23,999 backers.[14]
In May 2014, it was announced Jay Chandrasekhar would be the director of the film.[15] However, on September 28, 2014, Lev L. Spiro was announced as the new director of BMS: The Movie.[15] The crew started filming in late 2014 on location in Wilmington, North Carolina.[16][17] Filming was reportedly complete by December 14, 2014.
The film, titled Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland, was officially released on February 2, 2016.[18]Galway City Tribune – The distinctive sound of the Coastguard helicopter hovering over the Corrib sends shivers through the city.
Everyone knows what it means and it is rarely good news. Invariably they’re searching for someone who has fallen, or more often than not, jumped, into the river.
That eerie sound and a spate of suicides in Galway earlier this decade, prompted an NUIG student to design an ‘anti-suicide system’, which was specially adapted for the city’s waterways.
“I was sick of hearing about suicides and the state of the mental health system and wanted to provide a physical, engineering solution to a problem,” explained Allison Barry from Oughterard.
Ms Barry, who was educated at Salerno in Salthill, and her NUIG colleague, China Soribre from Nigeria, during their second year studying biomedical engineering, designed an engineering project to tackle the problem of suicide.
Like all good inventions, theirs was simple.
It involves an infrared sensor that triggers the device if someone has stepped onto the bridge railings or wall.
If detected, a text message is sent to a pre-specified number or to someone such as a volunteer or paramedic, who can then decide to either telephone the bridge to negotiate with the individual contemplating jumping, check a live feed or CCTV to ensure that there is no imminent danger or notify the emergency services if necessary.
“The incorporation of smart security technology into the public domain is feasible and has enormous potential to save the lives of those at risk on the waterways of Galway,” the authors said.
To read the rest of this article, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.Tablao The easy way to write HTML tables
Get Tablao for Mac
Tablao is a table editor that allows you to create HTML tables like you create tables in Excel. You don’t need to write cumbersome HTML-tags, Markdown- or ASCII tables anymore. But unlike Excel, Tablao creates proper HTML tables. HTML tables created with Tablao are without any style information and very easy to use in your own HTML documents. Features Preview Preview your table with simple styling. This styling gets not exported. Autosave Your table is automaticly saved when you close Tablao or the window looses focus. Use HTML where needed Use HTML code in your table cells to structure the content of your cells if needed. Paste from other spreadsheets Paste Data from Excel, Libre Office or Numbers. Optional table header Choose if you create HTML tables with or without header. Cross platform Tablao works on Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
Installation
Tablao is still in an early alpha stage. If you are interested to test tablao, I added installation instructions for all major platforms. If you encounter any problems or have suggestions, feel free to post them at Tablao’s issue tracker.
Linux
I provide a Download for Ubuntu 16.04 and 17.04, that should work on most Linux platforms. If not install Python3, Qt5 (Version 5.7 or higher), Git and PyQt5 with your package manager. In a terminal execute the following steps:
INSTALL HY
pip3 install hy
INSTALL TABLAO
git clone https://github.com/rockiger/tablao.git
START TABLAO
cd tablao/dist python tablao.py
MacOS
Unfortunately, I was not able to package Tablao for macOS. This is why I provide this installation instruction, that worked on my virtual machine. I hope I can provide Mac disk images in the future. From a terminal execute the following steps:
Install Homebrew
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Install PyQt5 and Python3
brew install pyqt
Install Git
brew install git
Install Hy
pip3 install hy
Install Tablao
git clone https://github.com/rockiger/tablao.git
Start Tablao
cd tablao/dist python tablao.py
Windows
Unfortunately, I was not able to package Tablao for Window either. This is why I provide this installation instruction, that worked on my virtual machine. I hope I can provide am MSI in the future.
Install Qt5, Python3 and Git
Download Python 3 from the Python download page: https://www.python.org/downloads/
Download Qt5 from the Qt open source download page: https://www.qt.io/download-open-source
Download Git for Windows: https://git-for-windows.github.io/
Install all Downloads
The remaining steps are done in the Windows Powershell. So open a Powershell and execute the following steps:
Install PyQt5 and Hy
pip3 install pyqt5 pip3 install hy
Install Tablao
git clone https://github.com/rockiger/tablao.git
Start TablaoOn nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as “transgender” and “gay” are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).
Yet hundreds of distinct societies around the globe have their own long-established traditions for third |
religion.
This mother-tongue is rooted in the Koran and on some level Arab identity is too – the vast majority of Arabs are Muslim. But it’s important to remember that not all Muslims are Arab, as Muslims with Southeast-Asian and Persian roots play important roles in the fomentation of Islamic extremism, and Arab-Muslims actually make up a minority of the world’s total Muslim population today.
Islam and Arabness are more patently intertwined than any other religious-culture pair, hence the term “Arab-Islamic,” which could refer to one of the Prophet Mohammad’s original followers as much as an Israeli citizen who practices Islam, a Japanese-speaking Muslim in Indonesia, or a Tagalong-speaking Filipino child who practices Islam at home but studies with Christian missionaries. So the term used by Arabs to describe their community and identity as a whole, the ummah, has an inescapable connotation of a confessional society but also highly flexible rules for membership.
Although who exactly falls within the ummah is highly mercurial, it’s a sense of shared-identity only as consistent as the literally unwritten rules governing the disparate dialects spoken by Arabs across the world.
And due to the close link between Islam and Arabness, citizens in many nations – including Indonesia, which hosts the largest population of Muslims on the planet – who aren’t necessarily fluent in any dialect of Arabic can still feel as if they’re a part of the same confessional community as an Arab who can trace his bloodline directly to the prophet Mohammad.
Arab identity, its current state and its past permutations, is a concept large enough to fill dozens and dozens of books. And for the most part Arab identity has remained a largely benign abstraction. But then in the 1970s, horrible conflict tore across Lebanon and then spread into the rest of the region.
Horrible enough to charge communal Arab identity with the power needed to foment blasts of extremism that sought to level the entrenched institutions of the land. With Arab identity imbued with a new sense of power, novel groups emerged which offered organizational reinforcement to the growing and mutational force of communal Arab identity.
This force, which drew power from dramatic violence and the strength of a shared heritage soon helped foment new groups attempting to take the place of the institutions and bureaucracies they’d destroyed, groups that splashed like embers from the fires of martyrdom and revolution. Although it was Palestinians who were killed by Lebanese in the aforementioned bus bombing, Lebanon’s Civil War wasn’t between Palestinians and Lebanese.
It was between Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim sects – with the Palestinians belonging as minority immigrant members of the latter group who were killed by Christian Lebanese. But understanding what Palestinian immigrants were doing in Lebanon in the first place and why the Christian and Muslim sects were so easily cleaved apart and then set at each other’s throats requires some knowledge of Lebanon’s history and the international forces acting on the region at the time.
These forces can trace their lineage back first to the carving of the Middle East into the political borders of the present, and then to the violence that subsequently transpired due to the instability of a region whose sense of national identity was determined not by political will, but imperialist edict.
Lebanon and the rest of the nations in what is today called the Middle East were born in a unique fashion. Following the close of World War I, under the auspices of the Treaty of Versailles the victorious Allies went about carving up what had for centuries been the Ottoman Empire. Today’s Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Israel were all part of that once cohesive Empire. Each of the Allied powers had been promised spheres of influence in the Middle East and so – paying little attention to geographic or societal realities – the region was dissected into discrete states where none had previously been.
This process seemed so haphazard and random that a chip in Jordan’s eastern border is cheekily referred to as Churchill’s hiccup, as if the only possible reason for the indentation’s existence is that Britain’s Prime Minister, perhaps chugging a pint of bitter, must’ve belched and jerked his pen while he was drawing that particular border.
Because the construction of these nations was so obtuse in terms of the forces that make a nation cohesive, a fair amount of blame has been heaped on the British and the West in general for imbuing the region with an inherent instability. Today this lackadaisical cartography is seen as the beginning of imperialist interference in the matters of Middle Eastern society, and has fueled the rhetoric of Islamic extremists ever since.
And imperialist interference is exactly what it was: the Allied Powers fully intended to create manageable chunks of resource-rich land in the form of discrete nations. The Allies weren’t attempting to create the violent instability that has persisted in the region, and those who chose to do the shooting and fighting are complicit in the magnificent death-toll racked up in the region. However, from the perspective of the imperialized, strife was written onto the region by the exploitative pens of Empire.
This instability played itself out in the 1950s and ’60s as, inspired by Nasser’s coup of Egypt’s constitutional government, military coups followed in rapid succession in Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Algeria, and Libya. A few generations later, another chain of uprisings would domino across the region, but with rather different underpinnings. Because Nasser “popularized and institutionalized militarism in Arab politics,” dictatorships became commonplace and the resulting “militarism and authoritarianism have grown into cancers”2 which thrived in the region.
But no matter where the fault lies, the fault lines created in the Middle East would again and again rock the region’s residents with conflict and death in the years to come. This happened nowhere more famously than a land known today as either Israel, Palestine, the Occupied Territories, or as the Zionist Entity – depending on who you ask.
Give or take a few generations, the Biblical Promised Land has been through a nearly endless series of small- and large-scale conflicts.
In 1967 one of the larger conflicts, the Six Day War between Israel and five of her neighbors, resulted in a windfall of land for the inchoate Israeli state, which incorporated land from the defeated Egyptians, Syrians, and Jordanians into its own borders. In doing so Israel displaced the thousands who had been living on the land, thousands who had no place to go. Their ethnic identity as Palestinian precluded almost all of them from citizenship in any of the other neighboring Arab countries and so refugee camps were eventually constructed both within the new borders of Israel, and within some of the neighboring Arab countries.
Blame for their fate has since been placed both on the unwavering shoulders of the conquering Israelis and on the proud shoulders of the neighboring Arabs who refused to incorporate their own kinsmen into their societies. It is a problem that has no solution in sight and which has only been exacerbated by even more dire refugee crises in recent years, but which does give hints about the innerworkings of the nations affected by it. Lebanon, with its close proximity to the conquered lands, was a prime area for the construction of refugee camps for the homeless Palestinians. Its unique political structure also created a pliable state, primed for the introduction of refugees and terrorism.
Created by the same flurry of lines drawn in the sand that yielded Churchill’s hiccup in the aftermath of World War I, Lebanon’s odd political underpinnings are those of a consociational democracy: a system of nominally democratic rule which is based on decision-making that is done via shady backroom dealings between discrete parties who represent each of the state’s minority groups. Since Lebanon’s Christian, Sunni, and Shi’ia populations were close enough in size to preclude any of them from establishing majority-rule, Lebanon turned to a consociational democracy in an ultimately futile attempt to establish a fully-functional national government.
The French colonialists created a framework of rule that was fleshed-out by a census taken in 1932, controversial at the time and never accurately updated since. The results of the census created a carefully balanced formalized system of power-sharing between Lebanon’s three main sects: Shi’ia, Sunni, and Christian – with the Druze and other sects thrown a bone here and there.
This loosely knit polity became a cosmopolitan hotbed of trade, enterprise, and tolerance from its inception until the fateful 1970s. At that point the neighboring conflicts reached into Lebanon and shook loose the stability that had once precariously held the country together.
Lebanon’s tendency towards instability was also written onto the state because during its construction the founding fathers of Lebanon “neglected the sine qua non of all nation building, namely an effective military.” The lack of security and stability that resulted from this would soon come to haunt Lebanon, whose people considered their military a joke. It was better trained, they said, “at ballroom dancing than at fighting.”3
By the 1970s this inherent instability was beginning to show, and the start of that decade marks the birthday of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, more commonly known as the PLO. With the relocation of hundreds of thousands of refugees into Lebanon from the lands won as spoils by Israel, came the formation of an organization dedicated to the restoration of the Palestinian lands to their rightful Arab owners.
This relocation came after the Palestinians’ brief stay in Jordan was ended when a wary King Hussein gave them the boot after they hijacked three airliners and landed them in the kingdom, and declared a “liberated zone” – an act foreshadowed by the PLO’s refusal to pay taxes or use national license plates, and insistence on creating tolled check-points on royal roads. Yassir Arafat, who championed these refugees cum militants, has since passed away but not without first passing into legend in the eyes of Arab peoples. Before he died in Paris from either Israel assassins, cirrhosis of the liver, AIDS, his wife, polonium poisoning, or simply old age, Arafat was lionized by his people because of his defiance of Israeli and Western will.
Arafat’s defiance, manifested by the PLO, came to be rooted in southern Lebanon because the Lebanese government “was too weak to shoulder its security responsibility and force the PLO to respect the country’s sovereignty,”4 and stop the PLO from staging attacks against Israel from within Lebanese borders. Lebanon was not a decisive single-minded monarchy like Jordan.
And for every attack the PLO was able to execute, the Israelis would respond in kind, beginning the cycle of violence that’s still pulling innocents into its deadly vortex today. The PLO was able to exist as “a state within a state”5 because Lebanon’s existence as a polity was so inherently flimsy. Lebanon was not founded so much as ordered into existence, with the people encompassed by its edict having no say in how, or why, or by whom they were ruled.
The only alternative to being part of Lebanon was relocating your entire family. In Middle Eastern cultures transplanting your family would often mean uprooting several generations of immediate relatives and many branches of cousins, and leaving the country. Lebanon provided the perfect growth medium for the PLO and the other organizations which would soon sprout as offshoots from it in a state deeply cleaved by religious and ethnic identities. Identities cleaved so deep that they severed any sense of national identity.
These fissures were readily apparent to anyone taking the time to talk to a member of Lebanese society. At one point during the Lebanese Civil War, a sixteen-year-old Christian-Lebanese boy asked a reporter if the reporter wanted to know what he thought of the Palestinians in Lebanon. When the reporter affirmed that he did, the boy replied with a grin and his middle-finger.6
As is often the case, “religious difference can inflame nationalist sentiments in ways that encourage mass support for martyrdom and suicide terrorism.”7 This was compounded by the state itself being hamstrung by the corruption that’s inescapable within consociational democracies, which are unable to move as one unit against internal uprisings. This indecisiveness presented a vacuum of action and order that other organizations soon coalesced to fill. And so the modern history of Lebanon isn’t so much one of a singular government and people, but one of a rotating and mutating array of “states within a state” hosted within Lebanese borders.
Another term for a “state within a state” is a “State Shell.” State Shells have popped up within and along the borders of weak states throughout history – the PLO being one of many examples – and present unique clues into the political development and formation of modern Islamic extremism.
At the broadest level, State Shells are semi-autonomous polities hosted within a nation that are able to impose their own will and organizational structure on some segment of society beyond the reach of local government regulation.
Strictly speaking, State Shells are cohesive organizations which have “a monopoly on the means of violence; territoriality; taxation; and public bureaucracy”8 within their stomping-grounds. The depth and breadth of the will they are able to impose varies greatly from situation to situation, but generally State Shells establish a following in a society by filling gaps left open by the government.
The less able a government is to provide public works and order, from hospitals to courts to support for the needy, the bigger the opportunity a State Shell has to gain credibility and then power within a pocket of that state. A crucial common-denominator among all State Shells is economic independence from the host government – State Shells must be able to raise their own funds, either through their own taxes, outside support, or often via ransoms and the illicit trade of drugs, guns, and plundered resources.
Another characteristic of State Shells is that they rule through an unflinching use of violent coercion, a trait embodied by Arafat. Once after executing a man who refused to preach the PLO’s propaganda he went to the man’s home, found his ten-year-old son, gave the boy a gun and after telling him it was the Israelis who’d shot his father instructed him to “use this to take revenge.”9
Many of the world’s most recognizable terrorist groups are prime examples of State Shells filling the gaps created when a government – beset by political violence, incompetence, or upheaval – is unable to fully govern. Within a State Shell there is no such thing as the rule of law, and the exercise of Godfatheresque impersonal power that’s based not on a code of justice but individual whim is paramount over political representation or citizenship. Although they do provide public works, a State Shell’s overall effect is not a positive one on the society that hosts it, as they are by nature exploitative and predatory.10
Examples of this behavior span numerous continents and countless generations. And in what were supposed to be the waning years of Operation Enduring Freedom, an eduring threat to the freedom of Iraqis and Syrians alike emerged from the ashes of an incompetent occupation and a macabre civil uprising, as the Islamic State declared the establishment of a modern caliphate in the ancient lans of empires gone by. But understanding the Islamic State, alternatively known as ISIS, ISIL, IS, or transliterated from Arabic as Da’ish – is impossible without first examining State Shells whose existence is already well-established and which have already lasted multiple generations.
In Columbia, the FARC has established a robust State Shell that reaped a stunning toll on the local population since its inception in the 1920s when it rode the revolutionary wave stirred-up by the Russian Revolution into existence.
Today its protection-money fueled income is estimated at $500 million, the majority of funds relying on the large American market for cocaine. The FARC, the Spanish acronym for a group whose name translates as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, feeds off the American drug trade, and wouldn’t be able to raise the funds it relies on without America’s vast demand for its product. In 2000, the FARC killed as many as 25,000 people in the countryside, mostly in brutal massacres, often preceded by torture.
The Colombian government – which has never been able to solidify rule because of attempted coups, constant bribery, and virulent corruption – at one point attempted to appease the FARC by giving them uncontested control of a swath of land roughly the size of Switzerland. Within this area people were “treated as commodities” and whoever resisted was simply executed. By the close of the 20th century, The FARC “no longer represented the shaggy-haired university idealists of the Cold War era, but a criminal army built on the forced recruitment of teenage boys and girls.”11
And within this army, desertion doesn’t mean death only for yourself, but also your entire family. Known just as aptly as “narco-terrorists” as a State Shell, the FARC thrives on extortion, murder, smuggling, kidnapping, and all the other means of brutally enforcing control found wherever government regulation and direction lapses. But ironically, the FARC does provide security for those who don’t struggle once they’re caught in its web.
It wins loyalty by implementing programs of social and public works to superficially better the lives of the Colombians whose lives it controls, and so many are willing to pay the FARC off for security and services with their own liberty.
Following in the FARC’s pattern, but demonstrating a more international taste, is a cousin of the PLO. Hamas has expanded from its birth in the Palestinian refugee camps to establish a vast economic web that’s pulled money and resources from neighboring economies into its own domain.
Its name is the phonetic English equivalent of an anagram standing for “The Party of Islamic Resistance” and, appropriately, spells out the Arabic word for “Zeal.” Taking inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which plays a key role in the evolution of Islamic extremism, Hamas features an unlikely mix of Islamic fundamentalism balanced by nominally democratic principles.
This rather quirky approach paid off in early 2006, when Hamas won political control of the Occupied Territories from the Palestinian Authority, an offshoot of the PLO.
Earlier, during the Gulf War, Hamas had received a windfall from Saudi Arabia when that monarchy diverted funds earmarked for Arafat’s PLO to Hamas because of Arafat’s support of Saddam Hussein. It used this money to intensify its attacks on Israel from the prior year by over twenty-five percent in 1992, securing its reputation as the prime aggressor against Israel.12 Hamas’s overt funding is estimated to be eighty-five percent foreign-based, with money pouring in from Saudi and Iranian state donations – on one occasion via a $150 million telethon complete with an enthusiastic charismatic host and burka-clad women fastidiously answering the ever-jingling phones.
1998 saw Hamas’s newly freed spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, pull in over $300 million on a whirlwind tour of Arab capitals. Other private donations from expatriates and businessmen from within the Arab world help fund Hamas’s ends, which aren’t only terrorist attacks against Israelis.
Hamas has won the loyalty of Palestinians by funding “schools, orphanages, mosques, health-care clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues in the poorest areas,” and as a result winning support not just from Joe Palestinian but from “trade unions, agricultural cooperatives… and among student unions.” But like the FARC, Hamas is far from entirely benevolent. As the PLO took a more conciliatory approach to Israel, Hamas sought to exploit this and formed “shock committees” which acted as death squads to interrogate via torture and terror suspected collaborators with Israel.13
Those are only two examples of State Shells at work. Peru’s Shining Path, Spain’s now-tamed ETA, and Ireland’s IRA circa the 1960s and 1970s are other prime examples of terrorist State Shells. However none of the groups, explored above in detail, ever made a significant attack on American personnel. And although the Islamic State certainly presents a clear and present danger to security in the Middle East, as of the spring of 2015 they hadn’t yet goaded the American military into a full-scale ground engagement.
An attack large enough to affect American foreign policy has only been pulled-off by one State Shells. And so it was a State Shell with a story and strategy all its own that in 1983 strode confidently across the line every other terrorist group had previously only dared to toe. In many ways this attack permanently blurred the lines between terrorism and warfare, lines which fade when you step several thousand years back into history and learn about the man history could consider both our first terrorist and our first commando.
If you’ve spent any significant amount of time traveling in America before, odds are you’ve almost certainly slept right next to him. Unaware that the example he set would inspire how Ramzi Yousef would kill as much it would inspire millions of others to pray.
- continue on to the Next chapter below, or click here to get a copy of the book -The jump to $1.50 per night from $1.20 takes effect on December 2, it says this morning. And while that’s still just pocket change, it could make some consumers question whether it’s worth the trek to a local kiosk instead of staying home and paying a bit more to queue up a movie on a cable, satellite, or streaming VOD home entertainment service. Redbox last raised the price of its once-famous $1-a-night DVD rentals in 2011. It notes this morning that prices “may vary in certain places.”
In addition to the change for DVDs, Redbox will increase the price of Blu-ray disc rentals to $2 from $1.50. Video games will go to $3 from $2 beginning January 6. This is the first time the company has raised the rental price for Blu-ray and games.
It probably will depress the number of rentals in Q1, Redbox parent Outerwall warns investors. Still, it says in a release, the increase will help “offset future declines in the physical rental market.”
“Redbox remains the best value in new-release home entertainment,” Outerwall CEO J. Scott Di Valerio says. “Consumers can continue to expect access to the newest movies months before streaming subscription services and daily prices that are still lower than Video On Demand, The pricing adjustments announced today will allow Redbox to continue to offer consumers high quality movies and games while making investments to enhance the customer experience.”
Some analysts were more skeptical as they saw the company test higher pricing. “While we can understand the need to use price increases to offset the secular decline in disc rentals and expected margin pressures on the horizon, given Redbox’s past experience (with the October 2011 price hike) and recent demand trends, we continue to believe any benefit would be short-lived and could actually drive more detrimental longer-term usage shifts (i.e., to other formats),” B. Riley’s Eric Wold wrote in late October.
This has been a tough year for Redbox. Last month Outerwall pulled the plug on its Redbox Instant By Verizon streaming joint venture. Then the company blamed “a weak release schedule… and the unfavorable timing and mix of content released” in Q3 for Redbox’s anemic financial performance in Q3, with little improvement expected in Q4.But for two small details, the run-in between a bicyclist and two men in a car on Monday evening would most likely have gone unremarked, just another entry in the annals of asphalt warfare in New York City.
The bicyclist, however, happened to be a transit activist with a cellphone camera and an active Twitter account. And one of the two men in the car was State Senator Martin J. Golden.
So rather than disappearing amid the stream of other social media gripes, the confrontation spawned a semi-viral Twitter post, a bout of amateur sleuthing and a renewed look at Mr. Golden’s record on traffic safety, not only in Albany, where he has voted against the expansion of speed-safety cameras in school zones, but also in New York City, where traffic records suggest a pattern of driving infractions.
In particular, critics highlighted a 2005 episode in which Mr. Golden hit a 74-year-old pedestrian while driving an S.U.V. The woman, Hariklia Zafiropoulos, died several months later. Police ruled the crash an accident and found Mr. Golden not at fault.We can all use more information when it comes to making music with Ableton Live, it’s why you’re here! Although this site does its best to bring you quality Ableton Live tutorials, I think it’s about time we’ve compiled a list of our 10 favorite Ableton Live tutorial videos from around the web. Enjoy!
1. Tom Cosm’s Electronic Music Tutorial (Parts 1 & 2)
The holy grail of Ableton Live video tutorials. Tom Cosm does an excellent job running over the basics of Ableton Live, then quickly digging into topics like designing a bass line from scratch and sampling drum parts.
Tom has yet to make the other parts to this series (it’s said there will be 10, making this whole series over 10 hours!). Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
2. 20 Ableton Live Tips & Tricks In 8 Minutes
Quick and to the point. Unless you’re an Ableton Live genius, there is bound to be something new here.
3. ESKAMON: “Fine Objects” – Ableton Tutorial by ill.Gates
A great tutorial featuring some interesting and creative ways on using Ableton Live’s Sampler.
4. Sound Design For Film (Parts 1, 2 & 3)
Nick of Nick’s Tutorials takes us through the process of designing sound for film (in this case, clips from the “Clash Of The Titans” trailer). Great for those of you looking to get a demo reel together.
5. DJing With Ableton Live (Tom Cosm DJ Megaset 1.0)
An insightful approach to DJing with Ableton Live. Yet another brilliant Tom Cosm video.
6. Dubspot: Creating Dubstep Drums/Beats In Ableton Live 8
A great video tutorial showcasing the power of programming drums in Ableton Live. You don’t have to just make Dubstep to get something from this video!
7. Designing Glitchy Sounds In Ableton Live
Another great video tutorial from Nick over at Nick’s Tutorials. A simple/quick way of getting glitchy sounds out of Ableton Live.
8. Making Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” In Ableton (by Jim Pavloff)
Not a tutorial proper, but nonetheless, this jaw dropping video that shows the power of Ableton Live. “Smack By Bitch Up” completely recreated from scratch in Ableton.
9. Ableton Live Tutorial – Operator
Operator is a tough instrument to really wrap your head around, this video gives a great general overview of how things work.
10. Deadmau5’s Interview With Future Music Explaning His Live Setup (Parts 1 & 2)
Have any videos you’ve made? Or have you stumbled across some that you would love to share with the Ableton Live community? Post the URL below!1986, 1990 and now after a huge gap of twenty-four years Argentina and Germany are facing each other in the World Cup Final. ’86 was Argentina’s World Cup; ’90 was when the Germans took revenge on the Argentinians.
When the two sides met in the last World Cup it was in the quarterfinal stage – Germany drubbed Argentina to 4-0. Four years ago, it was a young German side vs an unbalanced Argentinian one. Now things have changed.
Argentina are known for their attacking prowess. They have one of the best attacking sides of the tournament: Gonzalo Higuain; Ezequiel Lavezzi; Sergio Aguero; Angel di Maria and Lionel Messi are all top quality players. However, the defence was their major concern and everybody expected that Argentina would concede many goals. But what Alejandro Sabella has done to the team is amazing. Instead of focusing more on attacking, he concentrated on defending and a deep defensive line coupled with deep lying midfielders has so far been very crucial in Argentina’s progress into the finals. Supporting this fact is Argentina’s goal record in this tournament. They have scored eight times and conceded only thrice. They have edged past all their opponents by one goal margins and are yet to concede any goals in the knock-out rounds.
Messi drifted wide in Argentina’s last match against Netherlands and created problems for Daley Blind and Bruno Martins Indi on the left. Can he do the same against the Germans? Only if Bastian Schweinsteiger is generous enough to let the best player in the world to do whatever he wants.
We can expect a conservative approach from Argentina. A strategy that stresses on defending and not conceding any goals. Argentina will look to counter attack Germany and will also try to make the best use of Germany’s high defensive line by laying off long balls into the paths of their fast running forwards.
Argentina probable eleven – Sergio Romero, Pablo Zabaleta, Martin Demichelis, Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo, Javier Macherano, Lucas Biglia, Enzo Perez, Lionel Messi, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Gonzalo Higuain.
Formation – 4-2-3-1. While defending 4-4-2 with Lavezzi and Perez dropping into the midfield.
Germany are not the same side they were in the last World Cup: the members of the team are the same, but they are more experienced now. Moreover, tactically they are a completely different team. They used to sit deep and counter – just as Argentina are doing now. But now they are pressing higher and push the opposition back. High defensive line – which is dangerous and can backfire at times – has been successfully deployed by Jogi Loew, thanks to the exceptional sweeper ‘keeper ability of Manuel Neuer.
Evidence for high pressing can be found in the Germany vs Brazil match. The two central midfielders, Sami Khedira and Toni Kroos were all over Fernandino and Luis Gustavo. Brazil were taken by shock by the Germans’ play. Loew will try to keep his midfield trio intact in an attempt to nullify the Argentinian midfield. It will be Messi vs Schweinsteiger, Kroos vs Mascherano and Biglia vs Khedira and this battle will define the match.
With Philip Lahm playing in his usual role at right back, Germany will have an advantage. Messi will most probably be attacking on the right and along with him Higuain and Zabaleta will be present on the right. This leaves Lahm and Thomas Muller free to act on the left and put pressure on Rojo and keep him pinned back to his position. This cuts Lavezzi runs into the box as he will be dragged deeper by Lahm.
Germany probable eleven – Manuel Neuer, Philip Lahm, Jerome Boateng, Mats Hummels, Benedikt Howedes, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Sami Khedira, Toni Kroos, Thomas Muller, Miroslav Klose and Mesut Ozil.
Formation – 4-3-3 with a midfield triangle facing upside down. Expect every German forward to drop into the midfield region.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on twitter- @NachikethRamesh. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport and “liking” our Facebook page.
Feel free to discuss this and other footy related articles with thousands of fans at r/football.Sarcopenia is the name (fairly recently) given to age-related muscle loss, a situation that most people find themselves in with advancing age. In past years, researchers have investigated whether this might related to tendencies for diet to change with age, such as reduced protein intake for example. Interestingly, however, there is also solid evidence for the practice of calorie restriction to slow the process of sarcopenia.
Back in 2005, one group of scientists painted a fairly convincing argument for dysfunctional processing of the essential amino acid leucine as the cause of sarcopenia, a dysfunction that can be overcome by simply consuming more leucine. Those researchers went on to point the finger at increasing chronic inflammation that occurs with aging as a root cause of this amino acid processing problem:
In old rats, the ability of leucine to stimulate muscle protein synthesis was significantly decreased compared with adults. This defect was reversed when old rats were supplemented with antioxidants [but it] was not related to increased oxidative damage... These effects could be mediated through a reduction in the inflammatory state, which decreased with antioxidant supplementation.
You can look back in the Fight Aging! archives for more of a background on inflammation and aging:
Inflammation participates importantly in host defenses against infectious agents and injury, but it also contributes to the pathophysiology of many chronic diseases. Interactions of cells in the innate immune system, adaptive immune system, and inflammatory mediators orchestrate aspects of the acute and chronic inflammation that underlie diseases of many organs.
Let me direct your attention to another more recent demonstration of the link between age-related chronic inflammation and sarcopenia in rats:
Recently, low grade inflammation has been suspected to be one of the factors responsible for the decreased sensitivity of muscle protein metabolism to food intake. This study was undertaken to examine the effect of long term prevention of low grade inflammation on muscle protein metabolism during aging. Older rats (20 month of age) were separated into two groups: a control group and a group (IBU) in which low grade inflammation had been reduced with a non steroidal anti inflammatory drug (ibuprofen). After 5 months of treatment, inflammatory markers and cytokines levels were significantly improved in treated old rats when compared to the controls... controlling the development of low grade inflammation in old rats significantly decreased muscle mass loss between 20 and 25 months of age. In conclusion, the observations made in this study have identified low grade inflammation as an important target for pharmacological, nutrition and lifestyle interventions that aim to limit sarcopenia and muscle weakness in the rapidly growing elderly population in Europe and North America.
Turning back to calorie restriction once again, you might recall that reduced calorie intake does in fact reduce the level of inflammation suffered with advancing age, an effect possibly achieved though loss of visceral fat tissue. Taken together, all of this is one more reason to take better care of your health, and keep up with those practices known to reduce inflammation - such as not letting yourself get fat.
Rieu I, Magne H, Savary-Auzeloux I, Averous J, Bos C, Peyron MA, Combaret L, & Dardevet D (2009). Reduction of low grade inflammation restores blunting of postprandial muscle anabolism and limits sarcopenia in old rats. The Journal of physiology PMID: 19752122I recently built my first model — a 1:144 scale Saturn V. I posted this picture of the painted but unassembled rocket online, and it wasn’t long before I got an email from a fellow space-enthusiast. He asked about the paint scheme I used. He used the same design on a model years ago, and neither of us followed the paint scheme of any Saturn V that actually flew. I’d been so distracted following the directions and getting the lines straight that I didn’t stop to look at where the lines were going. It got me thinking about the Saturn V’s design scheme, which might be one of the more interesting histories of paint. Turns out, most of the readily accessible information is geared towards model builders. That’s all well and good, but it didn’t tell me why German-built launch vehicles have always varied their paint scheme.
The Saturn V’s iconic black and white paint scheme is a remnant of its German roots. When Wernher von Braun and his rocket engineer colleagues tested early prototypes of the Vergentungswaffe Zwei or V2, they painted a large black and white checkered pattern on its skin. This helped them see any roll the rocket gained around its vertical axis during launch. Armed V2s that fell on London towards the end of the Second World War were painted with a camouflage so the Allies would a harder time finding them. (The V2).
The black and white pattern became a standard feature on subsequent rockets built by von Braun’s team. After the German rocketeers surrendered to American solders in 1944, von Braun and 110 colleagues were brought into the United States. The majority went to White Sands, New Mexico, and became the core of the Army Ballistic Missile Association (ABMA) where they developed rockets for the US army.
One of the early products from the ABMA was the Redstone family of rockets. The first iteration, PGM-11 Redstone, a short range surface-to-surface ballistic missile. It’s direct descendant was the first mid-range ballistic missile, Jupiter A. The Jupiter C built on the Jupiter A and was designed to put payload into orbit. A variant of the Jupiter C, Juno I, launched the first US satellite Explorer 1 into orbit on January 31, 1958. They shared a paint scheme. All were painted white and had a pattern of black stripes on the midsection. (Left, Redstone research and development missile number CC-56 launches at the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 17, 1958.)
The Redstone was the first rocket NASA used to launch astronauts. The Mercury-Redstone version was similar to the elongated Jupiter C and Juno I with a different paint scheme. Unlike its predecessors, the Mercury-Redstones had a pattern of alternating black and white stripes on its upper stage for ground tracking purposes. Fifteen fixed cameras followed the rocket during launch; its azimuth and elevation could be determine by measuring the vehicle’s paint pattern, as well as its light source and exhaust, against reference targets.
The stripes disappeared when Mercury proceeded to orbital flights and the Atlas launch vehicle took over. Built by Convair, it didn’t have the German origins. The rockets that launched Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra, and Cooper were unpainted so looked like a silver tube with a black capsule on top. The ice from the propellant inside made them look white.
The Gemini program also used American-designed rocket. The Gemini-Titan II launch vehicles all had the same look: black and white stripes on the midsection for optical tracking and an otherwise silver body.
The German rockets resurfaced with Apollo. The followup to the Redstone and Jupiter family was the Saturn family. It was so named because Saturn is the next planet after Jupiter. The first version, the Saturn I, was NASA’s first heavy lift vehicle. It was painted with a zinc chromate primer covered with white paint, but its colour scheme changed throughout its lifetime.
The first four Saturn I flights — Saturn-Apoll0 1 or SA-1 through SA-4 — featured alternating black and white stripes on the first stage, a small checkered pattern on the interstage, and an all-white second stage. On these flights, the second stage was a dummy filled with water as ballast. But the first stage was loaded with fuel, and heat spikes registered on its skin before launch were a cause for concern. On some missions, the rocket was up to 12 percent hotter |
tx signing 🍻
- 033ed79 — [wip] full CRUD for v3 and cold
- 5a307a6 — [wip] create `keystore_modal` that wraps creation and editing
- d168303 — [wip] hook up web3-redux and keystore_edit modularity
- 66c6bbd — [wip] token and balance listings
- c5c3621 — [wip] network chain ID & blockchain prefix
- ff11555 — [wip] Sexy token CRUD
- 83dcd6f — [wip] minor UX fix
- 42cee34 — [wip] better hot loading
- 424f0d7 — [wip] UI tweaks
- 947b914 — [wip] generate v3 wallets
- 44434c1 — [wip] modular keystore creation 👏
- 8744304 — [wip] major clean up
- 902c837 — [wip] bump iteration count
- 63b8997 — [wip] relational keystores, keystoreTypes & networks
- a26b975 — [wip] implement redux-orm for networks
- 14ba3df — [wip] web3-redux base token transactions
- 34d510e — [wip] implement pending requests
- 1644df9 — [wip] full network sync with web3redux
## web3-redux
### https://hitchcott@github.com/DigixGlobal/web3-redux.git
- e5fbc40 — [bugfix] merge contract calls
- 65f96f5 — [bugfix] ensure waitForMined has a blockNumber
- a6ac364 — [wip] merge transaction data
- 54c9c10 — [wip] implement total & networks pending
- 3ed5861 — [wip] implement connection status
- bc63ede — [wip] contracts completed
- c6b2b6b — [wip] reactor action creators
- 6d9308e — [wip] generateContractApi
- cd8c9c9 — [wip] getTransaction
- 11739d6 — [wip] implement transaction creation
- efb29d5 — [wip] implement web3 setter/getter
- 99cba45 — [wip] allow passing actions, cached generateNetworkApi setup
- e9c5710 — [wip] implement basic connect model
- ea90350 — [wip] boilerplate example project for v2
## sui-react-ezmodal
### https://hitchcott@github.com/hitchcott/sui-react-ezmodal.git
- 456dcc6 — [feature] setFormData
- 9aab1c0 — [feature] onReset
- fdca4ec — [feature] error message
- 3929cfb — [feature] add `resetFormData`
## report-script
### git@github.com:DigixGlobal/report-script.git
- 41093ac — [bugfix] show repos with 1 commit
- b20131f — [feature] initial commit — git report scriptGlenn Beck had Luke Tait, the college student who took the infamous video of the TSA agent doing a pat down of the shirtless little boy, on his show this morning to discuss the incident at the airport. During the interview, Beck said that he learned from a ‘refounder’ (Congressional insider) that the little boy didn’t actually set off the metal detectors as the TSA reported, but rather the boy had on a baggy shirt that caught the attention of the TSA and thats why they wanted to do a pat down. Beck said he also learned a detail that hasn’t been reported yet, that the little boy has autism.
Those two details, if true, certainly put this in a different light than the TSA reported. It would also better explain why the agents tried to intimidate Tait into deleting the video, as he describes in the interview.
So I guess we should all give kudos to the TSA for helping protect America from an innocent little autistic boy with a baggy shirt. Great Job TSA!
Cross posted at www.therightscoop.comWelcome to the REST CookBook
REST is hot! And REST is finally rediscovered by API programmers all over the world. But REST isn't always as easy as it seems on first look. Dealing with HATEOAS, Code on demand and uniform interfaces can be really tricky and many people will fall back to not-so-restful approaches when things are starting to become more difficult. But it doesn't need to be. Once you get to know REST, you will like it.
The RESTful cookbook website is inspired by the puppetcookbook from Dean Wilson, who created cookbook recipes on how to deal with some of the issues people are facing over and over again when using the Puppet Configuration management tool. This site however, is about dealing with issues and questions people are facing over and over again when trying to create RESTful APIs.
This site is created by Joshua Thijssen and is available on github, so you can always add or update information if you like. With more contributions, this site can become the place where you can find all answers to your RESTful questions once and for all.
Disclaimers
And now the disclaimers. This site is maintained by Joshua Thijssen and others. All information found here is written and updated by a group of volunteers. In no way we are or can be held responsible for content of this site.
We accept no responsibility for any issues that may arise from the use of the recipes found on this site.Share. And a new Guardian of the Galaxy. And a new Guardian of the Galaxy.
Update: Here's a handy infographic identifying who's who and what they can do.
The original story is below.
Hot on the heels of yesterday's All-New All-Different Marvel teaser image, we've got another look at the heroes of the Marvel Universe after Secret Wars this Fall, only this one certainly emphasizes the "all-different" aspect.
There are a few notable surprises.
First, Laura Kinney aka X-23 is the new Wolverine, which makes a certain degree of sense given that she's his genetic clone and has been a big player in the current Wolverines series. There's another Wolverine, but that grizzled, white-haired one is Old Man Logan from an alternate universe where he's the last hero in a United States ruled by super-villains. There's currently a Secret Wars series about Old Man Logan, so it looks like he might survive Secret Wars and become a part of the main Marvel Universe. Two Wolverines -- why not?
Marvel Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso teased a new Wolverine to us yesterday, but he also teased a new Hulk that isn't Bruce Banner. No sign of him.
Another shocker is the Thing wearing a new uniform sporting a Guardians of the Galaxy insignia. Star-Lord is curiously missing his insignia -- could Thing be his replacement? Even though the Fantastic Four comic is cancelled, it looks like Marvel's First Family will still be around. And that person on fire isn't the Human Torch -- it's Inferno, an Inhuman. The hooded man is recently-resurrected Inhuman Karnak and the redhead is Inhuman Queen Medusa. The Inhumans continue to be a big push for Marvel, as they will be getting another book called Uncanny Inhumans by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven.
Finally, it looks like Daredevil has a new black costume with red accents. Very Netflix-y.
Exit Theatre Mode
Let us know your thoughts on Marvel's tease of their publishing line for this Fall.
Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Game of Thrones, Green Lantern, or Super Smash Bros. are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter and IGN.Back in 2009 I saw a talk by then VMware CTO Steve Herrod, now a partner at General Catalyst Partners, who described a private Amazon Web Services-like environment where users could provision services with the same ease they do in the public cloud. It was the first time I heard the term “private cloud.” A group of ex-VMware veterans have gotten together to finally fulfill that vision with a product and a company called Platform9. The product is being released into Beta this week and they will have their official coming out party at VMworld later this month.
In addition, Platform9 announced $4.5M in Series A funding with Redpoint Ventures providing 100 percent of the funding. Up to this point they had been completely self funded.
Co-founder and CEO Sirish Raghuram told me he and his fellow co-founders had been thinking about the idea for some time and began working in earnest on the product last October. Just like a baby, 9 months later the product is about to be born.
What they wanted to provide was a system that was as easy to use and flexible as a public cloud infrastructure service like AWS, but that would run a private cloud. Today, too often users get frustrated waiting for IT to provide the services and resources they want, and they simply go around IT and provision it themselves in the public cloud.
Platform9 wants to change that by providing companies with the ability to roll out a private cloud easily. They do this by offering a management layer that is itself in the cloud, and they don’t care if you use KVM, Docker or VMware vSphere for virtualization. It’s worth noting that for now, the Beta version only works with KVM, but support for the others is in the works.
Madhura Maskasky, co-founder and head of product explained that initially an IT administrator signs up for the service on the company website and downloads what they call an agent and runs it on each server. When they sign up, she explained, Platform9 spins up a dedicated instance of the software running OpenStack. She stresses that this is dedicated to your organization. In other words, they do not put your data center information in a multi-tenant environment.
Meanwhile the agent then stakes out the lay of the network land feeding back the resources available on the given server to the Platform9 service in the cloud. When it’s done, the IT administrator can see exactly what resources he or she has available in a dashboard which offers a single view across the entire pool of servers, regardless of what geographical location it might be in.
You can then look at different services and create a template and begin to build access to different services. The administrator can allocate resources by department setting maximum allocations if they wish or end users can sign on and download these templated instances and use them, so if a user needs access to an Apache webserver, they can download a configured instance and have access to it immediately just as they would in a public cloud environment.
The product not only provides insight into the resource allocation pool, it will eventually let IT administrators show departments just how much of the pool they have been using. CEO Raghuram says they may at some point even be able to provide a way to charge back to departments for resource usage, but he said that’s not a priority at the moment because they are not hearing demand for such an ability.
He says right now he sees AWS as his key competitor because today the public cloud does make it easier to allocate and manage these types of resources, but for people looking for a similar level of functionality in a private setting, this service puts it in their reach.
For now, Platform9 has some money to build out their product further, and begin to expand the company and test the platform in a Beta environment. They have a chance to provide that ability to see your virtualized resources in a single view while allocating those resources as you see fit or letting users access them in a self-serve environment.Image: Flickr/Judit Klein
The only thing more uncomfortable for friends and close relations than filming your marriage proposal and putting it online is being really, really into bitcoin.
On Tuesday, somebody decided to go all-in on both of these modern horrors and became the latest person to propose using the bitcoin blockchain, the publicly viewable ledger that's stored on every bitcoin user's computer forever and ever.
This decision could have very easily ended up being nothing more than a permanent digital reminder of one of life's more depressing failures, but thankfully for everyone involved she said yes, god help both of these people.
The initial message was added to the block reward (a handsome 25 bitcoins, or $17,182 USD by today's price) sent to Chinese bitcoin company HaoBTC because they'd successfully "mined" a block of bitcoin transaction data and uploaded it to the blockchain. It read: "Sun Chun Yu: Zhuang Yuan, will you marry me?" The response, which came in the next block mined by HaoBTC, was: "Zhuang Yuan: YES!"
It's worth noting that this tale of crypto-love might be too good to be true. The messages were added by HaoBTC itself—both the proposal and the response. Either two people working at the company are about to get hitched, or the whole thing was cooked up by HaoBTC itself to promote its new mining pool, which people can join for a fee and get a cut of the reward coins.
HaoBTC has not responded to Motherboard's request for comment.
This isn't the first time that somebody has included a message with a block of transaction data and stored it for posterity on every bitcoin user's machine. Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin's anonymous inventor, used a similar method to include some text in the first batch of coins ever generated in what's known as the "genesis block." The message read: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." Not very romantic.
Whatever happened in this situation, an apparent love story come true is even more pleasant news for bitcoiners, as the currency's value continues to soar ever closer to its all-time high of over $1,000 USD per coin—right now, the value of a single coin is nearly $700.
Baby, it's the blockchain of love.
UPDATE: HaoBTC confirmed with Motherboard that the marriage proposal came from inside the company, since the mining pool agreed to give each member one chance to sign the "coinbase," which new coins emerge from when a block reward is generated, with a message. In this case, the message was a marriage proposal from a member of the pool.Epidemiological studies have shown that cigarette smoking is a major risk factor for tubal ectopic pregnancy but the reason for this remains unclear. Here, we set out to determine the effect of smoking on Fallopian tube gene expression. An oviductal epithelial cell line (OE-E6/E7) and explants of human Fallopian tubes from non-pregnant women (n = 6) were exposed to physiologically relevant concentrations of cotinine, the principle metabolite of nicotine, and changes in gene expression analyzed using the Illumina Human HT-12 array. Cotinine sensitive genes identified through this process were then localized and quantified in Fallopian tube biopsies from non-pregnant smokers (n = 10) and non-smokers (n = 11) using immunohistochemistry and TaqMan RT-PCR. The principle cotinine induced change in gene expression detected by the array analysis in both explants and the cell line was significant down regulation (P<0.05) of the pro-apoptotic gene BAD. We therefore assessed the effect of smoking on cell turnover in retrospectively collected human samples. Consistent with the array data, smoking was associated with decreased levels of BAD transcript (P<0.01) and increased levels of BCL2 transcript (P<0.05) in Fallopian tube biopsies. BAD and BCL2 specific immunolabelling was localized to Fallopian tube epithelium. Although no other significant differences in levels of apoptosis or cell cycle associated proteins were observed, smoking was associated with significant changes in the morphology of the Fallopian tube epithelium (P<0.05). These results suggest that smoking may alter tubal epithelial cell turnover and is associated with structural, as well as functional, changes that may contribute to the development of ectopic pregnancy.
Funding: Array studies were funded by the Chief Scientist Office (SCD/02) and the laboratory work was supported by The Cunningham Trust and the MRC (G0802808). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
We recently reported that cotinine (an active metabolite of nicotine) increases the expression of prokineticin PROKR1 in the Fallopian tube, a regulator of smooth muscle contractility and a gene thought to be important for intrauterine implantation [9]. We proposed that cigarette smoking attenuates tubal PROKR1 expression resulting in changes in Fallopian tube function, providing a possible explanation for the link between smoking and tubal ectopic pregnancy. In this study, we take this finding forward by investigating how smoking alters global gene expression and function of tubal epithelial cells.
Over 98% of ectopic pregnancies implant in the Fallopian tube but the aetiology of tubal implantation is largely unknown [3]. Nevertheless, descriptive observations support the hypothesis that tubal implantation is likely caused by embryo retention within the Fallopian tube due to impaired tubal transport and alterations in the tubal microenvironment allowing early implantation to occur. Transport of the embryo through the Fallopian tube is controlled by a combination of smooth muscle contractility and ciliary beating [4], [5]. The factors that regulate and maintain the normal tubal microenvironment are largely unknown.
Representative portions of the Fallopian tube biopsies fixed in neutral buffered formalin were dehydrated through a series of aqueous solutions of ethanol (50 to 100% v/v). Scanning electron microscopy was performed as previously described [15]. Briefly, the specimens were critical point dried from liquid CO2 and mounted on carbon-coated aluminum stubs, and coated with evaporated carbon using an Edwards 306 vacuum coating unit. The samples were subsequently examined using a Cambridge Stereoscan S360 electron microscope (KE Developments, UK). The accelerating voltage was 15 kV.
Histological images were captured using an Olympus Provis BX2 microscope (Olympus America Inc. Center Valley, PA, USA) equipped with a Canon E0S 30D Microcam camera (Canon Inc Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan). B cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 (BCL2) and BCL2-associated agonist of cell death (BAD) epithelial immunolabelling intensity, and the degree of surface blebbing in the sections stained for BAD, were graded on a four-point scale by two observers blinded to tissue identity, with excellent correlation, and averaged. Statistical analysis was conducted using a Mann–Whitney test. For assessment of number of cleaved caspase 3 and Ki-67 positive cells five fields were identified and captured using a stratified random sampling technique. Using Image J ( http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/ ) software with thresholding both the number of nuclei and the number of immunostained cells were counted. Statistical analysis was conducted using a Mann Whitney test.
Formal-saline fixed paraffin wax embedded (FFPE) sections were mounted on Snow Coat X-tra charged slides (Surgipath Europe, Peterborough, UK), dewaxed in xylene, rehydrated and subjected to antigen retrieval by pressure cooking for 20 minutes in 10 mM sodium citrate (pH 6.0), before blocking endogenous peroxidase with 3% hydrogen peroxidase (Sigma, Dorset, UK). An avidin–biotin block (Vector Laboratories, Peterborough, UK) and protein block (Dako, Ely, UK) were performed prior to overnight incubation with primary antibodies (Table S2 in File S1 ). Negative controls included incubation with equivalent concentrations of non-specific immunoglobulins and omission of the primary antibody. Sections were then incubated with biotinylated secondary antibody and ABC-Elite (Vector Laboratories). Positive immunolabelling was visualized using 3,3-diaminobenzidine (ImmPACT DAB: Vector Laboratories). Sections were then counterstained counterstained in Mayer's Haematoxylin and mounted with No. 1.5 glass coverslips using Pertex (Cellpath PLC, Hemel Hempstead, UK).
Messenger RNA was extracted from the FT samples as described previously [10] and reverse transcribed into cDNA using random hexamers (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). Quantitative real-time PCR (QRT-PCR) was carried out on the ABI PRISM 7900 heat-cycler sequence detection system (Applied Biosystems) using specific previously-validated primers (Table S1 in File S1 ) (Eurogentec Ltd., Southampton, UK). Gene expression was related to a G6PDH internal control (Applied Biosystems). Negative controls included Taq polymerase omission, RT negative (containing template hRNA but no RT enzyme) and RT water (containing RT but no template RNA). All samples were analyzed in duplicate and a relative comparison was made to human corpus luteum cDNA [14]. All statistical analyses were performed using Prism (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, USA). A two-tailed t-test was used if the data were normally distributed with similar standard deviations otherwise a non-parametric Mann–Whitney test was used. Differences were considered significant when P<0.05.
The effect of cotinine on cell and tubal gene expression was examined using Illumina Human HT-12 microarrays. Array analysis was performed in GeneSpring GX 12.0 (Agilent Technologies). Raw data were pre-processed to remove variability across and within array samples. To minimize non-biological variability across arrays raw data was log2 transformed and then quantile normalised. Further downstream filtering of the normalised array data was performed to remove invariant transcripts based on quality flags and normalised expression values. Heat maps based on average fold-changes (FC) for each gene in the array were generated to visualize the level of correlation between the individual samples and treatment groups and showed that the arrays demonstrated a high degree of correlation between samples. Protocols of the experimental procedures, methods of analysis and microarray data are available as supplementary information in the European Bioinformatics Institute's MIAME compliant ArrayExpress database ( http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress website). Analysis of differential gene expression was performed as previously described [13]. Briefly, after explorative assessment, a rigorous statistical analysis was exploited to identify differentially expressed genes. The four treatment groups [Low Cell (40 ng/ml OE-E6/7: n = 3), High Cell (400 ng/ml OE-E6/7: n = 3), Low Tissue (40 ng/ml explant: n = 3), High Tissue (400 ng/ml explant: n = 3)] were compared to the respective diluent (ethanol) only control samples (n = 3 per group) using pairwise T-test comparisons with a P-value cut-off of <0.05 and a fold change cut-off of >1.1. The lists of genes identified by this method were compared between each of the four analytical groups and any gene matches recorded.
Fallopian tube explant culture was performed as previously described [9]. Explants were exposed to 0 ng/ml (n = 3), 40 ng/ml (n = 3) or 400 ng/ml cotinine (n = 3) and again treated with equivalent amounts of ethanol to control for the cotinine diluent. Treatments were performed on duplicate explants (which were later pooled) for 8 hours, at which time the culture medium was removed and tissues placed in 300 µl of Trizol reagent (Invitrogen, Paisley, UK) and frozen at −80°C until RNA extraction. RNA was extracted using Trizol (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer's instructions. After RNA extraction, DNAase treatment was performed followed by sample clean-up using the RNAeasy kit (Qiagen, West Sussex, UK). After extraction, RNA concentrations were quantified as described above.
OE-E6/E7 cells [11] were maintained in DMEM/F12 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (growth medium) in 5% CO2 at 37°C. Cells were seeded at 500,000 cells per well in 12-well dishes and incubated for 24 hours. The growth medium was then removed and cells washed once with PBS, after which serum-free DMEM/F12 (maintenance medium) was added and the cells maintained overnight. The cells were then exposed to 40 ng/ml cotinine (n = 3) (Sigma-Aldrich, Dorset, UK), which represents cotinine concentrations found in the serum of passive smokers, and 400 ng/ml (n = 3), the average concentration found in the serum of active smokers [12]. All cells, including controls, (n = 3) were treated with an equivalent amount of ethanol (0.16% v/v) to control for the cotinine diluent. Cells were treated for 8 hours (the time taken for changes in gene expression to be observed in our previous study) [9] and medium was then removed and cells harvested into 300 µl of RLT buffer (Qiagen, West Sussex, UK) containing 10 µl/ml β-mercaptoethanol and stored at −80°C until RNA extraction. All experiments were performed in triplicate (and replicates pooled). RNA was extracted using the RNA easy kit (Qiagen, West Sussex, UK), according to the manufacturer's instructions which included a DNase treatment step. RNA concentrations were then quality tested and quantified using a Nanodrop Spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific, Wilmington, DE).
Serum cotinine concentrations were measured using the direct cotinine ELISA kit (Immunalysis, Pomona, CA), according to the manufacturer's instructions. ELISA data were analyzed in conjunction with the smoking history provided by the participants. A very strong relationship was observed between serum cotinine concentrations and the self-reported smoking status of the patients [9]. All smokers had serum cotinine concentrations in excess of 160 ng/ml while the concentration in the serum of non-smokers did not exceed 12 ng/ml, confirming that cotinine is a good biomarker for smoking. As non-smokers have serum cotinine levels less than 40 ng/ml [9] we used this cut off to divide the samples into two groups: a) non-smokers (cotinine <40 ng/ml) (n = 11) and b) smokers (cotinine >40 ng/ml) (n = 10).
Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Lothian Research Ethics Committee (04/S1103/20), and informed written consent was obtained from all of the women participating in the study. Serum samples (10 ml) and Fallopian tube biopsies (2–3 cm) from the ampullary region of the Fallopian tube were collected from participants at the time of hysterectomy for benign gynaecological conditions. Women were between 18 and 45 years of age. All biopsies were collected in the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, and cycle phase was later confirmed by estradiol and progesterone levels measured in the serum samples as described previously [10]. A smoking history was obtained from all patients. In the first part of the study biopsies from non-smokers (n = 3) were transferred to the laboratory in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) for explant culture [9]. In the second part of the study biopsies (n = 21) were divided into equivalent portions and i) immersed in RNAlater (Ambion, Texas, USA) at 4°C overnight and then flash frozen at −80°C for RNA extraction, or ii) fixed in 4% neutral-buffered formalin overnight at 4°C followed by storage in 70% ethanol, and subsequent embedding in paraffin wax for immunohistochemical staining. Serum samples were stored at −20°C until analysis. Altman's nomogram indicates that a sample size of 8 in each group will have 80% power at the 5% significance level to show a difference of ≥1.4 standard deviations between the two groups, if one truly exists.
The immunolabelling of FT sections with BAD highlighted epithelial features less visible in the negative control sections. Some epithelial cells, and areas of epithelium, had more obvious apical BAD staining in some sections than in others ( Figure 3I and J ). We termed these epithelial cellular protrusions as ‘epithelial blebbing’ and blind scoring for degree of ‘epithelial blebbing’ on a four point scale indicated that they were significantly higher in Fallopian tube from smokers compared to Fallopian tube from nonsmokers ( Figure 5C ). This suggests that possible alterations in cell turnover associated with smoking may alter tubal structure and subsequently its function.
A) Frequency of Ki67 positive cells in the FT of non-smokers (clear bars: n = 11) and smokers (filled bars: n = 10). B) Relative expression of Cyclin D1 transcripts within the FT of smokers and non smokers Expression of CCND1 in the FT of smokers and non smokers. C) Histoscore analysis of the degree of ‘epithelial blebbing’ in non-smokers compared to smokers. Observed differences are significant at * P<0.05. Gene expression was related to a G6PDH internal control.
We assessed cell proliferation using immunolocalization of Ki-67 ( Figure 3G and H ). There were dividing cells in the tubal epithelium from smokers and non-smokers. Although there were more proliferating cells in the FT of smokers this did not reach statistical significance ( Figure 5A ). In addition the increase in CCND1 ( Figure 5B ) did not reach significance. Overall however this suggests that there may be a trend to increased cell proliferation in the tubal epithelium of smokers. Taken together with the data on cell death there is a strong suggestion that smoking might affect cell FT epithelial cell turnover. We therefore assessed if this was associated with structural changes of the Fallopian tube.
A) Frequency of immunopositive cells in the FT of non-smokers (clear bars: n = 11) and smokers (filled bars: n = 10). Relative expression of of CASP3 (B) and CASP9 (C) transcripts within the FT of smokers and non smokers and (D) their correlation to each other in a single FT sample. Observed differences are significant at * P<0.05. Gene expression was related to a G6PDH internal control.
In order to investigate the effect of altered BAD and BCL2 expression in the FT we immunolocalized cleaved caspase 3 to identify apoptotic cells in tissue sections ( Figure 3E and F ). Cells expressing cleaved caspase 3 could be identified in both smokers and non-smokers, and although the numbers were less in smokers this did not reach statistical significance ( Figure 4A ). Likewise the trend to reduced CASP3 and CASP9 expression ( Figure 4B and C ) did not reach significance although their expression was correlated (r = 0.5, P<0.05; Figure 4D ). Overall this suggests that there may be a non-significant trend to reduced cell death in the tubal epithelium of smokers.
A) BAD (brown) is expressed in the epithelium (E), most prominently towards the lumen (L), of the FT and not in the stroma (S). B) BCL2 (brown) immunolabelling showing predominant epithelial staining with occasional cell staining in the stroma. C) Higher power BCL2 immunolabelling showing no staining in the ciliated epithelial cells (black arrow) with staining in interspaced cells with no obvious cilia (red arrow). D) Scanning EM highlighting the two populations of epithelial cells with and without cilia. E) Apoptotic cells (brown) identified by immunolabelling for cleaved caspase 3. The arrow shows an apoptotic cell in the tubal epithelium. F) Higher power view showing a cell stained for cleaved caspase 3 (arrow) at the epithelial and stromal junction. G) Cells stained by the proliferation marker Ki-67 (brown). H) Higher power view showing a cell stained for Ki-67 (arrow) in the tubal epithelium. I) Representative image of a section of FT from a smoker immunostained for BAD showing the apical smooth protuberances or ‘epithelial bledding’ (arrow). J) Section of FT immunostained for BAD with the ciliated epithelial cells with no surface ‘epithelial blebbing’.
The epithelium of the ampullary region of the human Fallopian tube was found to express both BAD and the pro-survival gene BCL2 by immunohistochemistry ( Figure 3A–C ). Although BAD appears to be constitutively expressed in the cytoplasm of all of the epithelial cells, BCL2 is expressed in some epithelial cells and not others. High power analysis shows that it appears to be absent in the ciliated cells ( Figure 3B ) and expressed in the non-ciliated cells whose surface has a more bleb-like appearance ( Figure 3C ). These different cell types in the FT epithelium can clearly be seen using scanning EM ( Figure 3D ).
NCL expression was not altered in the FT of smokers when compared to non-smokers (data not shown). However, the expression of BAD mRNA was significantly lower (approximately 1.5 fold; P<0.01) and expression of BCL2 was found to be significantly higher (approximately 1.5 fold; P<0.05) in Fallopian tube from smokers compared to Fallopian tube from nonsmokers ( Figure 2 ). These data suggest an association between FT BAD and BCL2 expression, serum cotinine, and cigarette smoking.
In the OE-E6/7 cell line the addition of 40 ng/ml cotinine (‘Low Cell’) altered the expression of 946 genes (increasing 585 genes and reducing the expression of 361 genes). Of the 676 genes (361 increased and 315 reduced) altered by the addition of 400 ng/ml cotinine (‘High Cell’), 135 were shared with the ‘Low Cell’ treatment. In FT explants the addition of 40 ng/ml cotinine (‘Low Tissue’) altered the expression of 596 genes (137 increased and 459 reduced). Explant treatment with 400 ng/ml cotinine (‘High Tissue’) changed 2419 genes (increasing 313 and reducing 2106), 265 of which were shared with the ‘Low Tissue’ treatment. The effect of cotinine in Fallopian tube therefore is mainly to inhibit gene expression. When comparing the effect of cotinine in the OE-E6/7 cells when compared to FT explants common were genes identified. There were 16 altered genes the ‘Low Tissue’ group shared with the ‘Low Cell’ group and 27 genes shared with the ‘High Cell’ group. There were 111 genes that changed expression in common between the ‘High Tissue’ and ‘Low Cell’ group and 54 with the ‘High Cell’ group. There was only one up-regulated gene and one down regulated gene in common to all groups.
Microarray data are available as supplementary information in the European Bioinformatics Institute’s MIAME compliant ArrayExpress database http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress website: accession number E-MTAB-12390. After explorative analysis of the microarray data, a rigorous statistical analysis was exploited to identify differentially expressed genes. We then conducted pairwise comparisons between Fallopian tube explant and oviductal epithelial cell lines exposed to each concentration of cotinine and control samples with a p-value cut-off of <0.05 and a fold change cut-off of >1.1, i.e. a 10% difference in expression of up- or down-regulated genes. The lists of genes identified by this method were compared between each of the four analytical groups and any gene matches recorded (summarized in Figure 1 ). However there was only one up-regulated gene and one down regulated gene in common to all groups. The down-regulated gene highlighted was the pro-apoptotic gene BAD and the up-regulated gene was the cell cycle associated gene NCL. It therefore seems that both the cell and tissue effects of cotinine in vitro relate to regulation of cell turnover. We therefore used this finding as a starting point to assess the effect of smoking on cell turnover in retrospectively collected human Fallopian tube biopsies from smokers and non-smokers, focusing on the BAD/BCL2 pathway.
Discussion
Our in vitro array studies indicate that cotinine exposure appears to affect expression of genes involved in epithelial cell turnover. We subsequently demonstrate that Fallopian tube biopsies from smokers exhibit evidence of an anti-apoptotic profile (reduced BAD, increased BCL2), a trend towards increased cellular proliferation and decreased cell death, and structural changes in epithelial cell surface structure. These results suggest that smoking may alter epithelial cell turnover in the Fallopian tube, and the resulting structural alteration may help explain the link between smoking and tubal ectopic pregnancy. Cigarette smoking is also associated with other adverse effects on human reproduction, in addition to tubal ectopic pregnancy, such as infertility and spontaneous abortion, making this is an important finding in the broader context of reproductive health [16].
These results are biologically plausible. Outside the reproductive tract, nicotine in cigarette smoke is well known to pro-survival, inhibiting apoptosis and activating survival pathways in the context of other pathologies, such as lung cancer [17]. In the rat tongue mucosa, BAD expression did not change following exposure to cigarette smoke whereas BCL2 was overexpressed [18]. In addition BCL2 over-expression in response to cigarette smoke has also been reported in an earlier study in the context of head and neck cancer [19]. The similar findings in oral and respiratory cells and the FT suggest the involvement of a circulating product of smoking rather than a purely topical effect. As this product may be cotinine it would be interesting to study whether nicotine replacement therapy is associated with tubal ectopic pregnancy.
In contrast to our observations in the FT, Hu et al [20] reported that cigarette smoke extract has the opposite effect in human airway smooth muscle cells – increasing expression of BAD and decreasing expression of BCL2. One potential explanation is a topical effect of other constituents of smoke or associated changes in the function of the p53 gene [21] that transcriptionally up |
iss because the speech is open to anyone who wants to attend and can afford the $40 ticket price. “Patrick Brown’s not speaking at the Cambridge Club to a men’s-only event,” Deputy Leader Steve Clark told reporters after the legislature’s daily question period.
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Brown was not available for comment. Officials at the Cambridge Club, which also owns the Toronto Athletic Club, did not return a call seeking comment. “I think it’s not OK for him to attend an event at the Cambridge Club, but he’s not attending an event at the Cambridge Club... all are welcome at that event. That’s the most important part of the event,” Clark added. Naidoo-Harris said the fact that women are allowed at the luncheon speech “doesn’t change the fact that he’s going through the Cambridge Club, which is essentially a club that leaves women out.” “I think it shows a lack of judgment.”
Conservatives noted that Olivia Chow spoke to the Cambridge Club during her campaign for mayor in 2014. Former federal finance minister Joe Oliver cancelled a speech at the club in August 2015 during the last national election campaign after the event was widely criticized because the venue was men only.
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The club’s website boasts “it’s the place for Toronto’s top executives to play, sweat and rejuvenate” and adds “the Cambridge Club delivers the services gentlemen require in the refined surroundings they deserve.” “As day turns to evening and conversation fills the air, a round of competitive backgammon or whisky-tasting might be in order.” The disagreement comes several days after Conservative MPP Randy Pettapiece apologized for saying a female engineer appearing before a legislative committee hearing should turn her expertise to fixing the bad coffee. Last spring, Conservative MPP Jack MacLaren was forced by Brown to take sensitivity training after he made crude remarks about a female Liberal MP.
Read more about:Some criticized Quebec’s so-called “anti-niqab” law Thursday, calling it “Islamophobic and sexist,” while others just shook their heads and wondered what it all meant. Meanwhile, in Gatineau, there were few voices praising the new law.
Bill 62, adopted by the National Assembly Wednesday, will require people to uncover their faces if they are giving or receiving a public service. In other words, once the bill has royal sanction and becomes law, it would deny public services, from bus rides to hospital care, to anyone wearing a niqab unless she agrees to uncover her face.
And it appears to throw the responsibility for enforcement onto front-line public servants: librarians, bus drivers, nurses.
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Ahmed Limame, imam of the Centre Islamique de l’Outaouais in Gatineau, said Gatineau’s Muslims are all talking about the news.
“We find it a very discriminatory law, and some even find it a bit racist,” he said.
“And it’s also illogical because there is no need for such a law. In Quebec, there are seven or eight million (people). Women who cover their faces — there are dozens.” He said he knows of only one such woman in Gatineau.
“The neutrality of the state is that you take the same treatment of all cultures and all religions. And here we see that this is not neutral. This is forcing women to show part of their body to receive a service. We are really disappointed about it … People are shocked,” he said.
Limame also sees the oddball side of the new law, which applies to buses but doesn’t appear to make provisions for the hundreds of bus trips that cross the Quebec-Ontario border each day.
“She (a passenger) can uncover her face when she’s in Gatineau and cover it back up when she’s in Ottawa. In the same bus,” he said.
“In rush hour, does the (bus) driver have to stop and say, ‘Uncover your face,’ and this and that? It’s creating more problems than solutions … It’s crazy.”
The national office of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents both Gatineau and Ottawa bus drivers, spoke out strongly against the whole bill Thursday, calling it “a terrible law.”
“Islamophobia is a horrible thing that I think people need to put aside,” said president Paul Thorp, “and I think it’s a breach of their human rights if they have to remove any garment. And to deny them a public service that they are paying taxes for is shameful.”
It also puts the drivers into a new and unwanted role if they have to decide who can ride and who can’t based on their religious clothing, he said.
“Bus drivers are not there to enforce laws. That’s what we pay taxes for law enforcement agencies, and bus drivers are there to transport passengers to and from where they need to go, safely and reliably.”
The Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) isn’t doing anything about the new law yet.
“There will be no change to our policies regarding the admission of riders on our buses as long as we don’t know the details and modalities of application of this bill. Consequently, there is no new directive to drivers, it’s the status quo,” an STO spokeswoman said in a statement.
“Meanwhile, discussions are needed between ATUQ (the association that represents transit agencies in Quebec), the UMQ (Union of Quebec Municipalities) and the Quebec government. The particular situation of the STO being a cross-provincial bus service that serves Ottawa is something to be considered in those discussions to come.”
Cross-border service is a potential source of confusion to OC Transpo and the STO alike, as both run service across the river. Ottawa transit commission chair Stephen Blais couldn’t be reached Thursday.
The Université du Québec en Outaouais was taken by surprise by the new bill, and hasn’t made any plans to deal with it because it doesn’t know the details yet.
“We just read about it in the paper this morning,” said Gilles Mailloux, the spokesman for the university. “The rector is away today. This is certainly going to have to go to the board of governors.”
He said there are a number of students and staff who wear hijabs but he couldn’t immediately think of any who wear the niqab.
The Citizen asked the organization that operates hospitals in Gatineau, Shawville and Maniwaki what it would do if a woman wearing a niqab arrives in hospital needing emergency help.
The Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l’Outaouais didn’t have an answer: “Since the bill was passed (Wednesday) and it is not yet in effect, it is too soon to answer that question,” a spokeswoman replied. She suggested phoning the justice ministry in Quebec City.
The Collectif Canadien Anti-Islamophobie (CCAI) calls the bill “an Islamophobic and sexist law because it targets exclusively Muslim women who wear the niqab out of religious conviction,” the group said.
It said the Liberal government “is contributing to the exclusion and stigmatization of the Muslim minority.”
The Citizen tried to contact all five mayoral candidates in Gatineau for their views on the new legislation, since it affects city services and staff. None had responded.
tspears@postmedia.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1Comedian Andy Richter, the longtime sidekick to late-night host Conan O’Brien, recently told a Hollywood audience of his personal experience with abortion, expressing how he was “eternally grateful” for Planned Parenthood for helping terminate a girlfriend’s pregnancy in 1992.
The actor all but credited the abortion provider for indirectly enabling his successful career, marriage and “planned” parenthood.
Mr. Richter made the remarks at the Sept. 10 Sexy Beast fundraising gala for Planned Parenthood’s Los Angeles chapters, where he served as host, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Mr. Richter recounted that 24 years ago he and his girlfriend Sarah Thryre — whom he married in 1994 — were hardly ready to have kids.
“She was in New York City working three jobs; I was in Chicago jobless and sleeping on my mother’s couch. The strain of living apart, and the stress of being two young people attempting to make a living as performers and writers was really taking a toll on its relationship,” Mr. Richter said, THR reported Tuesday. “So when she called me to tell me that she was pregnant, it was not exactly happy news.”
“Luckily for us Planned Parenthood existed,” Mr. Richter added. “I drove from Chicago in my battered old Toyota pickup to be with her when she went to Planned Parenthood to terminate her pregnancy. Her choice to get an abortion was a choice that she made with assuredness. She knew that she was doing the right thing for everyone involved.”
Noting that they briefly broke up shortly thereafter, Mr. Richter explained that he and Sarah “realized that breaking up was the stupidest thing we’d ever done,” getting engaged, married two years later and going on to have “a couple kids, and a parrot and two dogs.”
“Planned Parenthood gave two young struggling people the ability to do the thing that is in their name: We got to plan parenthood. When we could barely care for ourselves, much less a newborn, we were able to choose the time when we brought a child into our lives,” Mr. Richter said. “Planned Parenthood allowed my wife to make the decisions she needed to make in order to control her body and her health, and maintain her life and her future. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.”
No stranger to political activism, Mr. Richter, a proponent of gun control, has also mixed it up on Twitter with conservatives over gun rights issues. According to the Federal Election Commission’s online database, Mr. Richter gave to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in February, donating $2,700 for the primary cycle.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Livescribe released the Sky Wi-Fi pen last year. It lets you transfer handwritten notes and audio notes straight to your Evernote account, making them accessible anywhere. This solution worked well, but you had to have a data connection to retrieve those notes from the cloud. The Livescribe 3 was just announced and it takes things a step further, making your notes available to you all the time.
The Livescribe 3 smartpen works with your mobile device, using Bluetooth Low-Energy to sync your notes directly to the Livescribe+ app. Right now the pen and app are only compatible with iOS devices, but Android support is coming soon. The Livescribe 3 pen does not have a built-in microphone like the Sky or Echo pens. Instead, it uses your phone or tablet to record audio directly. The syncing works the same as previous Livescribe pen models, with voice notes being tied to the corresponding texts in your written notes.
The Livescribe 3 smartpen has a very minimal design, mostly because it lets the accompanying app do most of the heavy lifting. Livescribe designed the pen to look like a pen, not like a gadget. It's bigger than a regular pen though. The smartpen is turned on by twisting the ring in the middle; that also reveals the pen tip. There's a small LED in the clip that lights up when the pen is turned on. The light flashes green when it's in pairing mode, it's solid blue when it's paired with your device, and it flashes when the battery is low. The Livescribe 3 is designed to capture information for a full 14 hours before it needs to be recharged. There's a small capacitive nub on the top of the pen that can be used as a stylus on your touchscreen, and if you remove the nub you'll find a microUSB port inside for charging.
The pen works by using a small IR camera in the tip that works with special Livescribe paper. The paper is printed with a very small dot pattern that lets the pen know where it is on the page. The syncing between the Livescribe paper and the Livescribe+ app is almost instantaneous. The Livescribe+ app does most of the work. It will automatically connect to the pen when it is turned on, and there's an icon that shows you that the pen is connected to your phone or tablet. The app lets you manage all of your notes and play back your voice-recorded "pencasts." The app can even turn your handwritten notes into searchable text, similar to Evernote. You can also add photos to your notes using your device's gallery or by taking a picture from within the app.
The Livescribe is available in two versions. The first will set you back $149.95, comes in black and chrome, and is bundled with a 50-sheet notebook. It also comes with a charging cable and a black tungsten carbide medium-tip ink cartridge. Then there's the $199.95 Pro Edition that comes with a leather portfolio, a 100-sheet hardbound journal, a one-year subscription to Evernote Premium, and the same charging cable and cartridge mentioned before. You can find more information on the Livescribe site.Valerie Trierweiler, known in France as the "first girlfriend" of the country's President François Hollande, was hospitalized after she learned he was having an affair with a younger actress.
Trierweiler, who is 48 and has been with the 59-year-old Socialist leader since 2005, was treated for "gros coup de blues," or a "severe case of the blues," according to Le Monde. Twice married, she is a hard-hitting journalist known around France as the "Rottweiler."
On Jan. 10, after hearing of Hollande's alleged trysts with 41-year-old Julie Gayet at a borrowed apartment near the Élysée palace, Trierweiler was taken to a Paris hospital for exhaustion, and doctors prescribed bed rest. She was expected to be released today.
Hollande has never been married. He left his former college sweetheart and mother of his four children, Ségolène Royal, for Trierweiler. Royal ran for president herself in 2007 but lost to Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande has not denied the affair but has objected to the invasion of his privacy.
The French are well-known for their casual acceptance of sexual affairs, but that does not diminish the impact on Trierweiler, according to Lawrence Josephs, a professor at the Derner Institute of Psychological Studies at Adelphi University in New York. The trauma can make a person sick.
"It is a common idea that the French have different standards when it comes to infidelity than do Americans," he said. "Rates are similar in the U.S. and France, and they get just as hurt, jealous and enraged when they suffer sexual betrayal."
Infidelity occurs in about 15 to 40 percent of all American marriages, according to Josephs. In a survey of his students, he said 25 percent reported awareness of parental infidelity.
"The question that is yet to be researched is if the more philosophical attitude that the French possess toward marital infidelity provides them with any immunity from the psychological suffering sexual betrayal causes," he said. "Americans are probably more inclined to use couple's therapy to help them recover from the adverse impact of extra-marital affairs."
But Josephs said the physical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are not an uncommon response to infidelity, and the betrayed party can have flashbacks of the spouse having sex.
Emotional trauma can even trigger a broken heart, according to Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News' chief health and medical editor.
"Fortunately, the condition is quite rare," Besser said. "It's almost exclusively seen in postmenopausal women. And while the symptoms are similar to a heart attack, 1 to 2 percent of people who are diagnosed with a heart attack are really suffering from the broken heart syndrome, what's happening to the heart is quite different."
Broken heart syndrome is thought to stem from a surge of hormones that impairs the ability of the heart muscle to pump.
According to a 2005 study at Johns Hopkins Hospital that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, sadness or emotional trauma can be a stressor. But, say researchers, unlike a classic heart attack, it is rarely fatal.
But when it comes to infidelity, many people underestimate the extent of the trauma when one partner betrays another, according to Janis Abrahms Spring, a Connecticut psychologist who specializes in infidelity.
Spring wrote "After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful." Published in 2012, it was the first book to frame infidelity as a psychological trauma.
"The hurt person is buried in an avalanche of losses," she told ABCNews.com. "It doesn't just involve a loss of trust, but the basic loss of self. It cuts to the core."
Spring said hurt partners experience feelings of being "helpless, crazy and alone."
"They become obsessed with the affair and the other person," she said. "They spend all their time checking, looking at the partner's cell phone and emails because they don't feel safe."
Spring said physical symptoms, such as those experienced by Trierweiler, are not uncommon.
"People experience disorientation, not sleeping," she said. "Because they don't sleep, they don't function well during the day. They go to the parking lot and can't find their car. They get lost in their mind. It feels like it's been hijacked."
She said it doesn't matter if the hurt partner is married or not. The trauma is still there.
"Betrayal is not about marriage. It's about one person believing they are in a committed relationship and the other acts outside of the contract," said Spring. "Affairs are not about sex but about secrets."In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a California law on Monday that required the euthanization of downer livestock, to promote animal welfare and keep them out of the food supply.
In 2009, California enacted a ban on selling or slaughtering downer, or lame animals unable to walk, in response to undercover footage showing animal handlers abusing cows — forcefully dragging and forklifting non-ambulatory animals — in a San Bernadino County slaughterhouse. The video, released by the Humane Society, sparked consumer outrage and led to the nation’s largest-ever meat recall.
Non-ambulatory cows are at a higher risk for BSE, or mad cow disease. The packer caught prodding downed animals into slaughter had also been supplying the National School Lunch Program.
California’s law required meat processors to remove downed animals — including pigs, goats, and sheep — from the herd and euthanize them immediately. Federal law currently only prevents downer cows from being slaughtered.
The Federal Meat Inspection Act prohibits state regulation that goes above and beyond, or is different from the law, which has ruled over the meat industry since the beginning of the 20th century. The National Meat Association challenged the California’s law, on behalf of pork producers, and a federal judge in Fresno, CA struck down the slaughter ban. The decision was later reversed by the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco. The judge called the lower opinion “hogwash.”
In its decision released this week, the Supreme Court noted that the federal meat inspection law “expressly pre-empts” the California law’s application to federally inspected pork facilities.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms the supremacy of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and USDA’s role in regulating meat process plants,” said NPPC President Doug Wolf, a hog farmer from Lancaster, WI. “It also recognized that non-ambulatory hogs with proper recovery time and veterinary oversight do not need to be condemned immediately in all cases.”
Animal rights advocates argue that the California law would promote humane treatment and keep sick, weak animals out of the food supply. According to NMA, around 3 percent of pigs are non-ambulatory, or unable to walk, when they show up to the slaughterhouse.
“Non-ambulatory hogs that are allowed to recover pose no food-safety risk to the public,” Wolf said. “Such pigs are inspected by USDA inspectors and veterinarians regarding their fitness for processing and entering the human food supply, and strong regulatory safeguards for humane treatment in the processing of animals already exist.”CLOSE Fall brings changing colors to northern Arizona. Michael Chow/azcentral.com
Hikes and scenic drives in Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Sedona, Canyon de Chelly and Ramsey Canyon.
Trees and leaves change color with the arrival of fall near Flagstaff on Oct. 11, 2016. (Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic)
If the desert has a seasonal weak spot, it’s in the form of fall color. Mild temperatures dance in at the end of summer, but but we don't get brilliant leaves. (Sorry, paloverde trees. You’re lovely in spring.) Fortunately, dazzling autumn displays are just a road trip away. Here are a few directions you can go. And crazy as it seems — you better pack a jacket.
Flagstaff
Tom White of Cornville ventured out in October to capture this photograph of the turning leaves in their glorious fall colors near Snow Bowl. (Photo: Tom White)
When you want autumn fast and flashy, head for Flag and mountain slopes drenched with aspens. Prowling the western flank of the San Francisco Peaks, Hart Prairie Road (Forest Road 151) winds through high meadows and thick conifer forests interrupted by huge stands of aspens. Go on the right October day and every breeze will trigger a cascade of lemon and gold leaves, as if it were raining dollops of sunshine.
The dirt road can be managed in a passenger car, although there might be a few bumps along the way. From downtown Flagstaff, take U.S. 180 west for about 10 miles to FR 151 (near mile marker 226). Hart Prairie Road winds through colorful timber for 10 miles then reconnects to 180.
RELATED: Best places to find fall in Arizona | Fall colors peek through at Grand Canyon's North Rim 2016 | Top things to do in Arizona this fall | Best fall-colors hikes in Flagstaff | 5 best Sedona fall-colors hikes
For a bird’s eye view of the seasonal splendor, let the chairlift at Arizona Snowbowl carry you up the mountain. The three-person lift chair drops you off at a high perch of 11,500 feet. Spend time savoring the dizzying views and chatting with a forest service ranger, on hand to answer questions. The gentle ride up and down the mountain banded with golden belts of aspen may be the most peaceful 25 minutes you’ve had in ages.
The chairlift operates Fridays through Sundays through mid-October. Cost is $13-$19. Purchase tickets in advance on the website for a discount.
Details: 928-779-1951, www.arizonasnowbowl.com.
Leaf peeping from a car or flying chair is nice but it’s so much better to walk among the trees. A network of trails loops over and around the Peaks, the hulking remains of an eroded volcano. One of the most stunning is the Kachina Trail, which takes off from the parking lot below the Snowbowl. Kachina dips immediately into lush woodlands and you’re immersed in aspens almost as soon as you’re out of your vehicle. The trail rambles for 5 miles across high slopes painted in yellow hues. The most vibrant color is contained in the first half of the hike.
A little lower on the mountain, Veit Springs makes an easy 1.5-mile loop past the remnants of old homesteads. You’ll find a tumbledown cabin and spring houses huddled at the edge of an impressive boulder field. But mostly what you’ll notice is a path carpeted and canopied in gold. It feels like you’re exploring a lush tunnel of aspens.
Details: 928-526-0866, www.fs.usda.gov/coconino.
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LEAF-ometer: To keep track of Flag’s color status, check out the LEAF-ometer. It's updated through the season at www.flagstaffarizona.org/leafometer.
RELATED: Learn about all of Arizona's national parks | Adventurers wanted: Explore Arizona with XAZ | Our 5 favorite 'Only in Arizona' experiences | 39 things only Arizonans know
Sedona
The beautiful fall colors adorning the forest in the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. (Photo: Tom White)
The winding drive on Arizona 89A through Oak Creek Canyon between Flagstaff and Sedona is astonishing anytime but explodes with color during the cool autumn months. If you’re looking for the closest thing Arizona has to a New England display of fall foliage, make a stop at West Fork Trail.
Starting from the Call of the Canyon parking area, West Fork pulls you into verdant forests tucked beneath high cliffs. Echoes of birdsong and the splashy stream fill the canyon. The main trail parallels the meandering creek the whole way. Peak season for fall colors usually runs from mid-October well into November. The path seems to burrow into a kaleidoscope of willows, box elders, velvet ash and the fiery scarlet of bigtooth maples. They’re supported by an understory of grapevines, sumac and Virginia creeper in a tangle of varying hues.
Call of the Canyon Picnic Site is 9.5 miles north of Sedona. It's open from 8 a.m. to dusk. The fee is $10 per vehicle.
Naturally, West Fork is packed on autumn weekends. If you can wrangle a weekday visit, you won’t regret it. You can also enjoy a little more solitude at other Sedona trails.
• The Huckaby Trail emerges along an elevated ridge, overlooking the multi-hued ribbon of Oak Creek before descending to the stream banks past a colorful collection of vines, shrubs and trees.
• The hike through Secret Canyon leads through a deeply forested ravine and some beautiful red-rock narrows. Most of the vibrant leaves surround the canyon bottom that often harbors a few pools.
• Allens Bend Trail is a short jaunt beneath the remnants of an old orchard and a canopy of riparian trees. Enjoy the serenade of the nearby stream but be careful of poison ivy. The itch-inducing vine changes to lovely shades of yellow, orange and red in the fall but remains just as potent.
Details: 928-203-2900, www.fs.usda.gov/coconino.
CLOSE From Show Low and Pinetop to the White Mountain Apache reservation, fall colors are starting to appear. John Samora/azcentral.com
3 more destinations
If you’re looking to travel further afield, you’ve got some options.
For a leisurely road trip, aim for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s a long scenic route just to reach the Kaibab Plateau, skirting Marble Canyon and the rising ramparts of the Vermilion Cliffs. Turn onto State Route 67, a high-country, aspen-swaddled road under skies so crisp they seem brittle, and summer heat will be a dim memory before you reach the edge of the canyon.
Many North Rim roads and lookouts were closed over summer because of the Fuller Fire but most have reopened. Check the Grand Canyon website for updates. And go soon. Splashes of color are visible by late September, usually peaking in early October. Grand Canyon Lodge closes Oct. 15. The park remains open for day use until Dec. 1, or until snow closes SR 67.
Details: 928-638-7888, www.nps.gov/grca.
MORE TRAVEL: Live in Arizona? 5 spots you need to see | Top 5 Arizona adventures to get your adrenaline pumping | 5 more places every Arizonan should visit
Good monsoon rain at Canyon de Chelly National Monument in recent weeks means the cottonwoods and willows lining the canyon bottom could put on an impressive show this fall. One ranger predicted peak color about mid-October, but call ahead to be sure.
Viewing the bounty of leaves from the rim drives is free and open to anyone. You can even hike down to the canyon floor alongside a winding stream lined with cottonwoods on the White House Ruins Trail. But to really explore the canyon depths, to see the yellows and golds pinned against soaring red walls and achingly blue sky, book a tour. Jeep tours are offered daily through Thunderbird Lodge (928-674-5842, www.thunderbirdlodge.com.) Other registered guides for jeep, horseback and hiking excursions can be found near the visitor center at the park entrance.
Details: 928-674-5500, www.nps.gov/cach.
CLOSE Fall colors at West Fork and Hart Prairie in northern Arizona. Rob Schumacher/azcentral.com
To extend your autumn, head south toward Ramsey Canyon, a lush defile on the east face of the Huachuca Mountains. A single pathway climbs into the high-walled canyon from the back door of the Nature Conservancy visitor center. The trail passes a nice medley of Arizona sycamore, bigtooth maple, cottonwood, willow and velvet ash, with a few oaks mixed in away from the water. Autumn colors should linger well into November. The visitor center is in Hereford, about 6 miles south of Sierra Vista off State Route 92. Admission is $6.
Details: 520-378-2785, www.nature.org/arizona.
Find the reporter at www.rogernaylor.com. Or follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RogerNaylorinAZ or Twitter @AZRogerNaylor.
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Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2cWkUuHYEREVAN, June 30. / ARKA /. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director for Middle East and Central Asia Masud Ahmed said today in Yerevan that the IMF has improved its forecast for Armenia’s economic growth in 2015 to zero or modest growth from its previous outlook of one percent decline.
Speaking to local journalists Mr. Ahmed said the IMF expects the Armenian economy to show a zero or a very modest growth in 2015, adding also that IMF would be happy to see its forecast to be wrong because the agricultural sector is in a better shape than expected.
Meeting yesterday with Armenian prime minister and president Mr. Ahmed said that considering numerous economic and geopolitical challenges faced by Armenia, the IMF is prepared to provide the necessary assistance to the government.
He told reporters today the IMF predicts a one percent growth for Armenian economy in 2016. According to Mr. Ahmed, the Armenian economy is being affected by negative developments in the region, including economic recession in Russia, the 40% drop in money transfers from Russia and a drop in exports. According to the Central Bank of Armenia, remittances to Armenia in 2014 decreased by 7.5% to $1.73 billion, making 15.7% of the national GDP.
Stressing that Armenia is still reeling from the aftereffects of the 2009 crisis, Mr. Ahmed said the government has 12-18 months to find the "middle ground" between the budget assistance to mitigate the impact of reduced demand and the macroeconomic stability.
Mr. Ahmed pointed out such measures as massive investments, improvement of revenue collection rate, improved business climate, removing obstacles for investors and also creating sufficient number of jobs and opportunities for young people.
He said although macroeconomic management in Armenia is correct, however efforts should be made to promote increased capital and social spending and reducing public debt as further progress in tax administration will provide additional resources for the implementation of these goals.
He said the IMF attaches great importance to further strengthening of Armenia's foreign reserves, maintaining the stability of the banking system and eliminating problems of the energy system.
He said these actions have to be implemented in addition to the infrastructural reforms. According to him, IMF has effectively cooperated with Armenia over the past twenty years, and will continue supporting it.-0-
18:38 30.06.2015Hackers who stole about $80 million from a Bangladesh central bank account with the New York Fed could have made off with far more were it not for their shoddy spelling.
According to Reuters, Bangladesh Bank officials think that hackers breached its systems in early February and stole its credentials for payment transfers.
The crooks then sent a host of payment requests to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Bangladesh Bank has a current account holding billions of dollars that is used for international settlements.
Although four requests to send a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, a fifth that asked for $20 million to be sent to Sri Lanka was thwarted because of a spelling error.
The money was intended for an NGO but, bank officials told Reuters, the crooks misspelled the word 'foundation' in its name as 'fandation'. When routing bank Deutsche Bank sought clarification, the payment was halted.
Meanwhile, more payments - worth a total of up to $870 million - were stopped when the Fed became suspicious that so many payment instructions were directed towards private entities, rather than banks.
Bangladesh Bank says that it has recovered some of the $81 million that was lost and is working with authorities in the Philippines to get the rest.
However, although the payment credentials were stolen at Bangladesh Bank's end, the country's Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith has blamed the New York Fed for not stopping the transactions earlier, even raising the possibility of suing the US outfit.
For its part, the Fed says that its systems were not breached and it is working with the Bangladesh central bank.Kennedy writes: "Doctors Without Borders says it is evacuating its staff from hospitals in northern Yemen after 19 people died when an airstrike hit one of its hospitals on Monday."
Yemenis inspect the damage in a room at a hospital operated by the Paris-based aid agency Doctors Without Borders in Abs, in the northern province of Hajjah, on Tuesday. (photo: AFP/Getty)
Doctors Without Borders Evacuates Teams From Yemen After Repeated Strikes From the US-Supported Saudi Coalition
By Merrit Kennedy, NPR
octors Without Borders says it is evacuating its staff from hospitals in northern Yemen after 19 people died when an airstrike hit one of its hospitals on Monday.
"Given the intensity of the current offensive and our loss of confidence in the Saudi-led coalition's ability to prevent such fatal attacks, MSF considers the hospitals in Saada and Hajjah governorates unsafe for both patients and staff," the group — also known as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF — says in a statement. It adds that the hospitals will continue operating "with staff from the Ministry of Health and volunteers."
.@MSF condemns the way all involved actors; the #Saudi-led coalition, the #Houthis and their allies, are conducting this war in #Yemen — أطباء بلا حدود-اليمن (@msf_yemen) August 18, 2016
The Saudi-led coalition, which supports Yemen's embattled president, has been waging an air campaign against Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels since March 2015. The Houthis hail from the north of the country, and according to MSF, the "coalition has resumed an intensified campaign" there since the Houthis and the coalition suspended peace talks earlier this month.
Coalition members said in a statement released on Saudi Arabia's state news agency that they "very much regret" MSF's decision. "We are seeking urgent discussions with MSF to understand how we can work together to resolve this situation."
However, MSF says it has tried to communicate with the coalition, to no avail. "Over the last eight months, MSF has met with high-ranking Saudi-led coalition officials on two occasions in Riyadh to secure humanitarian and medical assistance for Yemenis, as well as to seek assurances that attacks on hospitals would end," the statement reads. "Aerial bombings have, however, continued, despite the fact that MSF has systematically shared the GPS coordinates of hospitals in which we work with the parties involved in the conflict."
MSF Director of Operations Raquel Ayora says, "The explanations given by the Saudi-led coalition are not enough reassurance for us." Here's more:
"We don't think that all measures necessary are being taken to prevent more incidents. We have the feeling this incident might happen again, and we consider therefore that hospitals are not safe. Not for the patients, not for our staff."
Ayora calls the decision to pull MSF staff from the six hospitals an extremely difficult one and adds that she hopes it is temporary. She says MSF fears that resources now will be diverted to focus on treating war wounded, rather than branches such as maternity services or chronic diseases.
The group says the bombing of the Abs hospital in Hajjah governorate earlier this week was the fourth attack on an MSF-supported facility in the past year. "At the time of the airstrike the hospital was full of patients, including newborns and children," an MSF statement reads, noting that the now-closed facility has treated 4,611 patients since July 2015.
"This new incident shows that there are no effective measures in place to ensure that hospitals are not another casualty of war," says Teresa Sancristóval, manager of MSF's Emergency Unit.
According to The Associated Press, "rights groups and U.N. agencies say that more than 9,000 people have been killed since the Yemen war escalated with the Saudi-led airstrikes."[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of Russia [official website] ruled Thursday that the law banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors is not in breach of the Russian Constitution [text]. The controversial law [text, in Russian], which entered into force in June 2013, was challenged [RAPSI report] by three LGBT-rights activists: Nikolay Alekseev, Yaroslav Evtushenko and Dmitry Isakov, who had each been found guilty of disseminating propaganda of unconventional sexual relations to minors and fined 4,000 rubles (USD $120). The activists contended that the ban undermined their constitutional right of freedom of speech and discriminated against the LGBT community. According to the court, the law does not limit the rights of homosexual citizens but is meant to prevent the promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships. Under the law private individuals, civil servants and private entities who disseminate homosexual “propaganda” to minors face civil penalties ranging from 4,000 rubles for individuals to one million rubles (USD $30,500) for private entities.
Russia has drawn heavy criticism from the UN and international community over government actions targeting homosexuals. In February Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev [official website] announced a decree [JURIST |
early stages of the planning that went into the heist into Fischer's mind. While they might have slowed down the story on screen, they do clarify things quite a bit, especially a couple of scenes in which Eames and Cobb and Arthur are discussing how and why they need to implant the idea of breaking up his father's company in 3 different stages.There's an intriguing interview between Chris Nolan and his brother Jonathan about the initial inception of Inception, and there are several storyboarded scenes. There's also what looks like a professional instruction manual for the intravenous dream device (that they carry around in a shiny suitcase). Highly recommended for lovers of the movie - it's always illuminating to read the screenplay of a film you've seen and enjoyed, and this screenplay is extremely readable. I've read several, but I found this one to be not only intriguing but fun. (The last time I couldn't put down a screenplay once I'd started was when I read Tarantino's initial script for Inglourious Basterds.)The University of California Police Department has arrested a suspect in a rape reported at a university residence hall in Berkeley over the weekend.
According to an alert released by UCPD on Thursday morning, the department got a report Monday of a rape Sunday night at a UC Berkeley residential hall.
The victim, a 19-year-old female student, was sexually assaulted by a male acquaintance who is also a student and a resident of campus housing, UCPD said.
An investigation led to the arrest Wednesday of 25-year-old Sardar Sikandar Wali Zia Khan on suspicion of two felony charges.
Two Cal students also reported being victims of sexual assault at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Saturday night. A total of three sexual assaults were reported at Diplo’s ‘Mad Decent Block Party.
UCPD is asking anyone with any information about Sunday’s crime, or recent similar incidents, to contact the University of California Police Department Criminal Investigation Bureau. Tel: 510- 642 0472, 8am–5pm during business hours, except holidays; 510-642 6760 at all other times.
Berkeleyside provides exclusive coverage of many Berkeley crimes. We welcome community tips about public safety issues and other newsworthy issues via email, Twitter or Facebook. Please alert us in advance if your tip is anonymous.Posted by OrdainWomen on Sep 16, 2017 in Blog |
Debra Jenson serves as on the Ordain Women executive board.
It has been five days since the LDS Church officially signed on to an amicus brief arguing that the Supreme Court should find in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to provide services to a couple based on their sexual orientation. This means it has been 72 hours since the leaders of the church we call home declared that they support the idea of discrimination. Which ultimately means that it has been 4,320 minutes since my church broke my heart. Again.
I cannot help but wonder if the leaders of the LDS church realize what they are telling us—the people who live under their influence or sway—every time they dive into this debate. They are telling us that we have no obligation to respect others. They are telling us that any public move by the church to appear accepting was simply a ploy. And they are telling us that love is conditional.
LDS Church leaders have been creative in finding ways to disrespect our LGBTQIA+ siblings. These men have brought more hurt and pain to people whose only offense is the desire to feel love. The result of these efforts has left both a figurative and literal body count. I can do two things in my own attempt to counter this campaign: speak out and pray. I hope you will join me in doing both.Nearly every block of transactions on the Bitcoin network has been full for the past couple of weeks, and miners are reaping the benefits of users having to bid for the right to have their transactions confirmed on the blockchain in a timely manner.
Although Bitcoin was often promoted due to its extremely low transaction fees of a couple of pennies or less, the one-megabyte hard cap on the number of transactions that can be processed by the network has forced users to pay $0.50 or more per transaction in recent weeks.
Because users are willing to bid against each other for block space, bitcoin-denominated miner transaction fee revenue has increased fivefold over the past year. However, it’s also unclear what effect congestion has on the market price of bitcoin, which directly impacts the value of the miners’ block reward.
Finding a direct connection between network congestion and price is not a straightforward task, so it’s not entirely clear whether miners are profiting directly from the lack of Segregated Witness (SegWit) activation or a hard-forking increase in the block size limit. In general, the bitcoin price is also up around 300 percent since this time last year.
The Numbers Behind Transaction Fees
According to BitInfoCharts, Bitcoin miners were taking in 10 to 15 bitcoins per day from transaction fees for all of 2014 and half of 2015. An increase in fees started around the time Bitcoin’s scaling debate spilled out of the technical forums and into the media in the summer of 2015. Bitcoin miners were collecting around 30 bitcoins per day in fees by the end of 2015 — a doubling of the previous norm.
Keep in mind, these transaction fees are collected in addition to the block subsidy, which was halved from 25 bitcoins per block to 12.5 bitcoins per block in the summer of 2016. The block reward is the combination of the block subsidy and the transaction fees.
Fees really started to take off in the summer of 2016, when the fees collected by miners per day amounted to 50 to 60 bitcoins. Since then, miner transaction fee revenue has seen meteoric growth to 250 bitcoins per day. As the chart provided by Blockchair.com shows, this is due to the fact that demand for block space has increased.
Miners now collect 1,800 bitcoins per day via the block subsidy and 250 bitcoins per day via transaction fees. This means the total reward is roughly 2,050 bitcoins, of which roughly 12 percent is made up of transaction fees.
Another way of looking at this is that 12 percent of the bitcoin-denominated miner revenue lost due to last summer’s block reward halving has been brought back via transaction fees. Of course, in U.S. dollar terms, bitcoin’s rise in price has more than made up for the revenue lost from the block reward halving.
Scaling Debate Not Affecting Bitcoin Miners
Many Bitcoin hashers — the miners that provide their hash power to mining pools — were initially missing out on the increased transaction fee revenue. This was because mining pools were not sharing the transaction fees with their hashers. Since transaction fees are now around 12 percent of the overall block reward, competition has forced mining pools to share this transaction fee revenue with hashers.
Many mining pools, even those that routinely complain about the lack of a hard-forking increase to the block size limit, are now pushing marketing campaigns built around this new, growing source of revenue for hashers.
While some users are complaining about higher fees or the fact that they are unable to get a transaction confirmed in a timely manner, miners are earning increased revenue. Although fees have risen quite dramatically from where they were a year or two ago, it’s unclear how much effect this has on the digital gold use case, which some believe provides the largest amount of support for the bitcoin price — and therefore keeps miners happy, too.
The Future of Bitcoin Transaction Fees
What will happen with transaction fees over the near term remains unclear.
If adopted, Segregated Witness may offer some relief in terms of an effective doubling of the availability of block space. But some argue that cheaper fees would not last that long due to the possibility of blocks quickly becoming full again (at least partially due to the cheaper fees that come with excess block space) and demand for block space continuing to rise.
The same line of thinking applies to a possible hard-forking increase to the block size limit by way of Bitcoin Unlimited or the newly promoted ideas behind BitcoinEC, although it’s less clear if these these particular proposals have the support of the Bitcoin economy.
Recently, China-based Bitcoin miner Chandler Guo indicated that no one wants to rock the boat while the bitcoin price is still at historical highs. It’s possible that changes in the supply of block space may not be made until stakeholders’ pockets start hurting.
Civic CEO and Gyft Co-Founder Vinny Lingham shared similar thoughts on the most recent episode of This Week in Bitcoin. “It’s kind of a weird situation because the current high price is really increasing the fees, but that’s also stopping SegWit because you basically have a situation where the miners are making so much in fees that they don’t want to put SegWit in because it will take away their fees,” said Lingham. “Now, if the price was at $200, SegWit would be a no-brainer because they wouldn’t be making any money in fees anyway.”
The demand for block space may change if layer-two solutions, such as the lightning network and TumbleBit, rise in popularity. Additionally, miners may eventually have more avenues for earning transaction fees through the use of sidechains.
The economics behind changes in the supply of block space require further evaluation. While more block space should lead to lower transaction fees (all things being equal), the specific points at which changes in the supply of block space lead to higher or lower U.S.-dollar-denominated revenues for miners remain unclear.
Featured image via Blockchair.com.In the aftermath of The Motion Picture the TOS characters were seen supposedly going back to the final frontier but what if they went back to Earth first for repairs and shore leave first?
In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Dan Gunther discuss Shadows of the Machine, the latest novella by Scott Harrison. We talk about the how heroes are real people, some of the continuity issues with other novels, dive into the stories of Kirk, Sulu and Spock, and give our ratings.
In the news segment we judge the covers for the New Frontier novellas, talk about blurbs for the upcoming Titan, Seekers, TOS, and DS9 books, discuss the news of a 50th anniversary trilogy, finishing up by reviewing the new issues of the Trek/Apes crossover and Ongoing #43.
News
Multiple Covers to Judge (00:02:30)
Titan: Sight Unseen Blurb (00:09:09)
Seekers: All That’s Left Blurb (00:12:08)
TOS: Child of Two Worlds (00:14:53)
DS9: Ascendance (00:17:04)
5th Anniversary Trilogy (00:24:39)
Trek/Apes 4 (00:27:38)
Ongoing #43 (00:32:39)
Feature: Shadows of the Machine
Shadows of the Machine (00:38:01)
Heroes are Real People (00:39:25)
Continuity Issues (00:44:10)
Kirk’s Story (00:48:27)
Sulu’s Story (00:52:47)
Spock’s Story (00:58:14)
Final Thoughts and Ratings (01:03:30)
Closing (01:06:15)The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
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Moral disputes seem intractable — more intractable than other disputes. Take an example of a moral position that most of us would consider obvious: Honor killing is wrong. But honor killing has its supporters. Anyone who suggests that we can compromise with its supporters on the matter misunderstands the nature of this type of disagreement. It’s absolute. One party has to be right. Us. So why can’t we convince those who hold the opposite view?
Religion can enforce a certain morality, but it can’t show it’s right.
With some exceptions, political disputes are not like this. When people disagree about politics, they often agree about ends, but disagree about means to attain them. Republicans and Democrats may differ on, say, health care policy, but share goals — a healthy American population. They differ on fiscal policy but agree on the goal of economic growth for the nation. Of course, this is often a matter of degree. Political disputes can have moral aspects, too. The two sides in the debate over abortion rights, for instance, clearly don’t agree on the ends. There is an ethical disagreement at the heart of this debate. It is safe to say that the more ethical a political dispute is, the more heated and intractable it is likely to become.
Honor killing is the execution of one’s own family member, often a woman, who is seen to have brought disgrace to the family. It is a practice most of us find absolutely wrong, no matter the goal — in this case, restoring dignity to the family. The fact that it is a practice long sanctioned in other cultures does not matter to us. Meanwhile, those who approve of or carry out honor killings reject our condemnation, and most likely see it as a moral lapse of ours.
What makes moral disagreements so intractable? Ethics shouldn’t be as hard as rocket science.
Can religion help? It might seem that if morality is a matter of obeying divine commands, we could make short work of moral disagreement, if only we knew which was the true faith. Of course, we don’t. But 2,300 years ago Plato showed that appeals to God’s wisdom, no matter which faith, is irrelevant to what makes for moral rightness.
His argument was simple. Take for example, “Honor killing is wrong.” Now ask, is our condemnation of honor killing right because God commands us to do so? Or does God command us to oppose it because it’s morally right? It can’t be a coincidence that it’s right and that he chose it for us. So, which is it: right because God choose it, or chosen by God because right? Most people think it’s the latter. But then whatever it is that makes honor killing wrong, it must be something about honor killing itself, not simply God’s having chosen to prohibit it. So, even if we accept that God chose the right morality for us, we are still in the dark about what makes it the right one.
So religion may tend to enforce a certain morality, but it certainly can’t show it’s right.
What about reason?
Many philosophers have argued that rational beings can reason their way to the right answers in morality. Kant and Mill both tried to do this, but ended up building incompatible moral theories by reasoning from two quite different starting points.
Mill founded his concept of morality on the feeling of pleasure, which he held is the only thing everyone seeks for itself alone. Therefore, it had to be the intrinsic good, and morality is a matter of trying to maximize its quantity. The trouble with this argument was obvious from the start: just because we all seek pleasure for its own sake doesn’t make it morally valuable.
Moral claims like ‘honor killing is wrong’ are not good candidates for being true or false statements. They are more like disguised imperatives.
Kant started with our consciousness of freedom and reasoned to moral principles that any autonomous rational agent logically must endorse for him or herself. Alas, no one has ever converted Kant’s convoluted prose into a clear argument that all can agree is a convincing reason for any moral rule. In spite of the complexity of Kant’s argument, the resulting moral rule, his famous “categorical imperative” sounds little different from “The Golden Rule.” Neither is likely to settle the honor killing dispute.
A few philosophers claimed that we have a moral sense that perceives the moral rightness or wrongness of things directly and immediately. This theory might be worth taking seriously if morality were like mathematics. Mathematicians all agree that we know with certainty a large number of mathematical truths. Since experiment and observation could never be the source of such certainty, we (or at least mathematicians) must have some other way of knowing mathematical truths — a mathematical sense that directly perceives them. For this argument to work in ethics, there would have to be little or no ethical disagreement to begin with. Since many moral disagreements seem intractable even among experts, the hypothesis that we are equipped to know moral truths directly is very difficult to sustain.
Still another way of attempting to justify moral judgments goes back to Aristotle: What is morally right is what virtuous people do. We can see what is morally right by observing how virtuous people behave. The very existence of honor killing reflects the problems this approach faces. The practices one culture identifies as vicious are virtues in other cultures. And there is no culture-free point from which to adjudicate such disagreements about what counts as a virtue.
In recent years some thinkers have argued that the foundations of morality are given by what science, especially evolutionary biology, shows us about the conditions of human flourishing. These philosophers, social psychologists and evolutionary anthropologists argue that there was strong selection for a core set of moral norms that are so widespread they are absent only in psychopaths. Their lack of a moral sense, they assert, is the result of brain damage — neurological conditions caused by genetic mutation and/or environmental damage.
The trouble with this argument is clear: first, Mother Nature selects only for traits that lead to more offspring. But there is nothing particularly moral about having more children than someone else. Even if some set of norms we all share were conducive to having more offspring, this wouldn’t in any way underwrite them as the morally right ones. Second, as we know only too well, Darwinian processes, whether biological or cultural, sometimes select for norms we absolutely reject as immoral.
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This short tour of the history of ethical theorizing might make one pessimistic about the very possibility of resolving ethical disputes. The pessimism is part of what has led to meta-ethics, a subdiscipline of philosophy that may shed light on why moral disputes are so intractable. Instead of trying to figure out which moral claims are right and which are wrong, meta-ethics starts by examining the meaning of ethical claims in general. If we can agree on their meanings, we may be able to figure out under what conditions they are right or wrong.
One thing to notice is that, despite appearances, moral claims like “honor killing is wrong” are not good candidates for being simply true or false statements. They are more like disguised imperatives: “Though shalt not engage in honor killing!” Another difference some meta-ethicists argue for is that when we really endorse a claim as morally right, we are prepared to act on it. Moral claims motivate in a way factual claims don’t.
If believing moral claims motivates in a way factual claims don’t, this may be because they express emotions that can spur actions: positive ones like admiration in the case of moral praise; negative ones like anger in the case of moral blame. It is hard to deny that morality at least harnesses our emotions. That is in part what makes moral disagreement often so heated and so intractable. But is the connection closer? “Sentimentalists,” following David Hume, argue that because they express our emotions (or sentiments), moral claims are like other reports of our sensations. “The sky is blue” reports a fact about the subjective sensation light rays produce in us. Hume and the meta-ethicists who followed him argue that ethical statements express our emotional responses to the actions of others.
Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.
The notion that moral judgments are not just true or false claims about human conduct helps explain the failure of ethical theories as far back as Aristotle’s. These theories started out on the wrong foot, by treating morality and immorality as intrinsic to the actions themselves, instead of our responses to them.
Factoring human emotions into moral judgment explains much about them. Why they are held so strongly, why different cultures that shape human emotional responses have such different moral norms, even why people treat abstract ethical disagreement by others as a moral flaw. And most of all, this meta-ethical theory helps us understand why such disputes are sometimes intractable.
Meta-ethics has begun to make use of findings in cognitive social psychology, and in neuroscience, to help understand the nature of ethical claims. For example, we now have a good brain imaging data that shows why a person’s moral judgments in the so-called trolley problems change as a result of even slight changes in the way the problem is described. The differences are to be found in distinct brain networks that generate different emotional responses.
These conclusions encourage tolerance of ethical differences and an appropriate diffidence about our own moral judgments. But they also make it harder to condemn honor killing or even more extreme or violent actions. If “honor killing is wrong” reports our emotional horror at the practice, and not its objective wrongness, then even worse moral catastrophes will be hard to condemn.
Many people will not find this a satisfactory outcome. They will hope to show that even if moral judgments are expressions of our emotions, nevertheless at least some among these attitudes are objective, right, correct, well justified. But if we can’t find objective grounds for our emotional response to honor killing, our condemnation of it might turn out to just be cultural prejudice.
Alex Rosenberg is professor of philosophy at Duke University. He is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming historical novel, “The Girl from Krakow.”
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and on Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.Actress Mayim Bialik slammed the Left and feminists in a blog post this week, explaining that feminist activists often ignore the suffering that many women in majority Muslim countries endure on a regular basis.
Writing in a post on her website GrokNation, the Big Bang Theory star responded to Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour’s recent claim that a person cannot be both a Zionist and a feminist.
“Zionism is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to have an autonomous state in Israel,” Bialik, an Orthodox Jew, wrote. “I am a Zionist. Feminism is the belief that a woman-driven movement can bring about race, class and gender equality and that women deserve all of the rights and privileges afforded to men. I am a feminist.”
The actress specifically called out “the left,” who she says “needs to reexamine the microscope they use to look at Israel, and we all need to take a step back and remember we are stronger together: women, men, lovers of peace, and lovers of freedom and justice.”
Bialik saved her most harsh criticism for feminists who ignore “atrocities against women” in majority Muslim countries.
“The question is this: Many countries – many Muslim countries, in fact – perpetrate atrocities against women which include: female genital mutilation, forced marriages, child brides, systematic abuse of women by the justice system, revenge rape and honor killing,” she writes. “Why is Israel held to a standard none of these other countries – whose offenses are, arguably more extreme – are held to? And why is belief in the State of Israel something that should exclude women – or men, for that matter – from identifying as feminists?”
“Ultimately, for a feminist activist – or any activist – to place the blame for policies made by a few people on the entire entity of Zionism and all who are committed to the idea of a Jewish state is irresponsible,” Bialik argues. “It’s disgusting, it’s insulting, and it’s wrong. It creates fragmentation in a movement that needs cohesion, needs to stand together for equality, domestically and internationally.”
CBS just renewed The Big Bang Theory for two more seasons, which will carry the long-running sitcom to its 12th season through 2019.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudsonIn his latest episode of Time Crisis on Beats 1, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig interviewed an odd assortment of guests. First, Ezra Koenig, co-host Jake Longstreth, and comedian/Time Crisis Family member Jerrod Carmichael, interviewed the composer of the original “Reading Rainbow” theme. Steve Horelick, a composer for TV and video games, produced the 1981 song alongside his wife Janet Weir and Dennis Neil Kleinman. “That opening synth was made on a very rare module by Donald Buchla,” Horelick explains. “I just picked a bunch of notes that sounded good and used the randomizer.” Elsewhere on the show: Koenig talked to Kid Rock’s son, Robert James Ritchie Jr., about working at the Apple Store Genius Bar. Listen to the full episode here.
In the previous episode, Koenig improvised a Nirvana version of a “$5 footlong” jingle; he also half-joked about performing an 8-minute version of “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” at future, no-setlist Vampire Weekend shows.
Hear the original “Reading Rainbow” theme:
Watch Vampire Weekend’s episode of “Over/Under” on Pitchfork.tv:Rick Rubin has confirmed that he is working on new music with Kanye West.
Rubin made this announcement during a recent interview with BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, according to NME. “Rubin previously helped produce the 2013 album Yeezus and confirmed that recording on a follow up has begun while chatting to BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe as part of a special interview which will be broadcast in four parts (Monday [through] Thursday) next week.”
According to the report, Rubin and West are gathering vocal ideas.
“Kanye West is coming in and we’re starting looking at vocal ideas for things for the next album,” Rubin says.
Recently, Billboard published a report about a 2014 Kanye West album. In the report, Rubin was named among many acts set to contribute to the effort. Mike WiLL Made-It, Q-Tip, French Montana, Young Chop, Young Thug, James Blake, DJ Mustard and Tyga were also mentioned.
West’s last offering was critically acclaimed by some. For instance, HipHopDX awarded Yeezus with a 4.5 out of 5 in its review. However, it was criticized by many, also. 50 Cent, for example, said the following of the project. “It doesn’t feel like Hip-Hop to me,” he said. “It feels like a fusion of something else, like a weird combination of dance music sounds and stuff. It’s just him being an artist, you don’t have to agree with everything an artist does.
RELATED: Kanye West’s 2014 Album Details Revealed By Billboard SourceActive Shooter
An Active Shooter is a situation where one or more suspects participate in a random or systematic shooting spree, and demonstrating intent to continuously harm others. The overriding objective appears to be that of inflicting serious bodily injury or death rather than other criminal conduct. These situations are dynamic and evolve rapidly, demanding immediate deployment of law enforcement resources to stop the shooting and mitigate harm to innocent victims.
Watch Lone Star College Armed Intruder Safety Procedures courtesy of LSC-CyFair
Active Shooter Instructions
In the Classroom or Office
If you are in a classroom, room or office, assess the situation. If you are unable to escape, secure the door and turn off the lights.
secure the door and turn off the lights. Remain silent.
If the door has no lock and the door opens in, a heavy door wedge can be kept on hand and used, otherwise look for heavy furniture to barricade the door.
If the door has a window, cover it.
Depending on the gunmen's location, you may also exit through windows. Have someone watch as you get as many students out through windows as calmly and as quietly as possible.
If the windows do not open, you cannot break them, or you are not on a ground floor, get out of sight from the door and stay low and quiet.
If no police units are on scene, move well away from the incident and find safe cover positions (not the parking lots) and wait for the police to arrive.
When police officers arrive, while keeping your hands on top of your head and do exactly what the police tell you to do.
In Hallways or Corridors
If in the hallways, get in a room that is not already secured and secure it.
Unless you are very close to an exit, do not run through a long hall to get to one, as you may encounter the gunmen or hostage taker.
In Large Rooms or Auditoriums
If in a gym or theater area and the gunmen are not present, move to an external exit and move toward any police unit.
Drop all bags and keep your hands on your head.
Do what the police tell you to do.
Open Spaces
Stay alert and look for appropriate cover locations. Hard cover, such as brick walls, large trees, retaining walls, parked vehicles, and any other object that may stop bullets, may be utilized as cover.
What to Expect from Responding Police Officers
Police officers responding to an active shooter are trained to proceed immediately to the area where the shots were last heard; their purpose is to stop the shooting as quickly as possible. The first responding officers may possibly be from different police agencies and dressed in different uniforms. They may even be in civilian clothes and wearing an external bulletproof vest.
Regardless of how officers appear, remain calm.
Do as the officers tell you, and do not be afraid of them.
Put down any bags or packages that you are carrying and keep your hands visible at all times.
If you know where the shooter is, or know the shooters description, tell the officers.
The first officers to arrive will not stop to aid injured victims.
Rescue teams will follow shortly after the first responding officers enter the area.
They will attend to the injured and remove everyone safely from the area.
Keep in mind that once you have escaped to a safer location, the entire area is still a crime scene.
Police will usually not let anyone leave until the situation is under control and witnesses have been identified.
Until you have been released, remain at the assembly point authorities have designate.
What else can you do?
Prepare a plan of action for an active shooter in advance.
Determine possible escape routes and know where the nearest building exits are.
Other Downloadable material:
Active Shooter Booklet (pdf)
Active Shooter Pocket Card (external link)
After a Shooter Toolkit for Schools (pdf)
Active Shooter Training Online:
DHS Training Course
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Independent Study Course titled: Active Shooter, What You Can Do (IS-907), is a no-cost training course developed to provide the public with guidance on how to prepare for and respond to active shooter crisis situations. This training is available through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute (EMI) at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS907.asp
The training is targeted to reach a broad range of individuals, including managers and employees, so they can prepare to respond to an active shooter situation.
The course is self-paced and takes about 45 minutes to complete. Upon completion of Active Shooter, What You Can Do, employees and managers will be able to:
· Describe the actions to take when confronted with an active shooter and responding law enforcement officials.
· Recognize potential workplace violence indicators.
· Describe actions to take to prevent and prepare for potential active shooter incidents.
· Describe how to manage the consequences of an active shooter incident.
A certificate from FEMA EMI is awarded to participants who complete the course and pass a short final exam.I’ve had a few months to use the Topo Standing Mat by Ergodriven. The company claims that their “patent-pending, calculated terrain” encourages frequent movement. Having written a bunch of patents in my day, what is unique enough to patent doesn’t immediately jump out at me. This mat has a bunch of ridges at different heights and a ball area they call a tear drop in the middle. But once I jumped on it I understood how it encourages constant movement. This mat just begged to be walked all over. I’m guessing they went through a whole lot of prototypes to come up with this design. Check out their intro video below where they equate this mat with climbing trees and walking out in nature.
Without question, this mat creates more opportunity to move all day long compared to other standing mats that I’ve tested. One really nice feature I love is the size. This mat fit below every desk that I tested it with. The stand-up desk mat I used before this was too wide for a few desks. This Topo mat is also more squishy and more comfortable than other mats I have used.
The company touts this mat as easy to position without needing your hands. Yes, this is true but I can also move other mats with my foot as well. Not sure this is a unique feature. The ridge in the back makes it easy to kick around on the ground. The grip on the back is grippy enough so you can use this on hardwood without it moving all over but not so grippy that you need to bend down to reposition. On carpet, I can also move it around with just my foot.
The company also claims that they have a pebble texture that allows the mat to feel cooler. Being a barefoot guy, I can attest that this indeed is true. To be honest, I could feel the difference because I was looking to measure a difference between this mat and couple of others. It did feel cooler after a few hours of use. If you wear shoes, this pebble texture should not make a difference. The skin on the mat does seem extremely well made, easy to clean, and probably a bit more puncture resistant over other mats I’ve tested.
As I noted in my post about using standing desk for over five years, please get a mat! You’ll negate some of the benefits of a standing desk if you use without a standing desk mat. While this may not be the best stand up desk mat in the world, it is the best I have ever used. Well done Ergodriven!The leader of the Georgia Republican Party decried marriage equality in a newspaper interview as a pathway for heterosexual people to scam their way into getting tax breaks.
“I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman,” chairwoman Sue Everhart told the Marietta Daily Journal for a story published on Saturday. “There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”
Everhart described a scenario where two friends who were “straight as an arrow” could enter into a fake marriage if one of them had a job with a “wonderful health plan.”
The story focused on various residents’ reaction to the Supreme Court’s discussion of both California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, and a subsequent social-media campaign in support of allowing LGBT couples the right to marry.
“Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”
Everhart also said she would be leery of letting gay parents near a young child of her own out of fear they could influence the child’s sexual orientation.
“You’re creating with this child that it’s a lifestyle, don’t go out and marry someone else of a different sex because this is natural,” she said. “But if I had a next door neighbor who was in a gay relationship, I could be just as friendly to them as I could be to you and your wife or anybody else. I’m not saying that we ostracize them or anything like that. I’m just saying I’m against marriage because once you get the gay marriage you get everything else.”
According to GOP.com, Everhart was elected to her current position in 2007, after serving as the state party’s first vice chairperson.
[Image by Fulton County Republican Party, via Flickr Creative Commons]
[h/t Talking Points Memo]by Grant Fritchey
I woke with a start, bathed in cold perspiration. I was in my cubicle, at work. The last thing I remembered, I'd been going through the morning emails. Last night had been busy: patching the servers, plugging the latest security holes with bits of chewed bubble-gum, the usual routine.
OK, I shouldn't have dozed off, but I suppose that the effect of last night's cheap bourbon had begun to kick in. I'm only an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer, and occasionally wakes a few days later in Saigon with a full beard.
As I pulled myself back to full wakefulness, my nerves tingled, sensing some evil presence, perhaps in the cubicle, veiled by the shadows. I glanced at my screen and then I noticed it.
"What's this? A new database? Where did that come from?"
"Don't you guys have any monitoring?" Monitor your servers in real time with SQL Monitor.
I recoiled instinctively, as if a great cobra sat coiled on the keyboard. Dark forces seemed to be stirring. I shook my head.
"My nerves must be out of order!" I told myself. After all, what's the harm in a new database. I'll just keep a weather eye on the server and it'll be fine.
The phone rang. It was the SAN Admin, Mildred. She cut short the usual pleasantries, never a good sign. "How's the boy? What 'cha doin to my disks?" she hissed, as if I was personally doing her wrong.
Hell, it must be that new database. I played dumb. "I don't know what you're talking about Mildred. Which server is having trouble?" I tried to sound nonchalant, but my voice came out as a nervous squeak; the disks were her girls and they weren't happy.
"There are massive reads and writes going on. My girls are rattling like mice."
"I don't know, Mildred. There was a new app released last night, maybe that's it."
"Well, ya better find out, and fast. Don't you guys have any monitoring?"
Mildred knows how to make a guy feel small. "We're working on it," I lied, smooth as a grifter running twenties on a barman.
I put my feet on the floor, swabbed the back of my neck, and pulled the keyboard towards me. That poison snake of a database was bugging me. I did what I always do, go and shake down the historic records in the cache to see what falls out:
SELECT SUBSTRING ( dest.text, (deqs.statement_start_offset / 2) + 1, ( CASE WHEN ( deqs.statement_end_offset = -1) THEN LEN ( dest. text ) * 2 ELSE deqs.statement_end_offset END - deqs.statement_start_offset ) / 2 + 1), -- the query statement in the batch deqs.execution_count, deqs.total_elapsed_time, deqs.total_logical_reads, deqs.total_logical_writes, deqs.total_physical_reads, deqs.total_worker_time, deqs.min_elapsed_time, deqs.min_logical_reads, deqs.min_logical_writes, deqs.min_physical_reads, deqs.min_worker_time FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan ( deqs.plan_handle ) AS deqp CROSS |
a middleweight title against Australia's Sam Soliman.
Sturm vowed to win a fifth world title against Chudinov.
"It was close but I lost," Sturm said. "I have the means and the power to defeat Chudinov. The only thing that counts for me is victory. I made a lot of mistakes in the first fight. I could only show 20 percent of myself, but this time I'm ready. All or nothing, I'll prove I'm still one of the best in the world."
Said Chudinov, "The title stays with me."May 30, 2017, 2:41 PM GMT / Updated May 30, 2017, 2:41 PM GMT By Victoria DeFrancesco Soto
Freedom of speech. It’s a pretty big deal; that’s why it’s the First Amendment of our Constitution. But according to one Texas legislator the First Amendment doesn’t apply to you if you look Latino.
On the last day of the Texas legislative session hundreds of protesters filled the Capitol to protest the recent signing into law of SB4, a measure that goes into effect this fall. Activists were dressed in red, waved banners and chanted their opposition to the law. It was boisterous, but nothing that the Legislature hadn’t seen before. It was, pure and simple, an exercise of free speech.
But Dallas County Republican state Rep. Matt Rinaldi seems to have an uninformed view of the Constitution. Rinaldi, a supporter of SB4, didn’t like what he was hearing from the protesters so he called immigration authorities.
Rinaldi sent out a statement saying he made the call.
Several members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus recounted that Rinaldi, “came up to us and said, I’m glad I just called ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to have all these people deported.”
On Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an e-mailed statement "ICE is not aware of receiving any calls related to this matter."
There was no way for Rinaldi, or anyone else, to know who was undocumented or not. The crowd was overwhelmingly Latino and that was enough for the lawmaker to assume the need for a round up and mass deportation.
Related: Texas Lawmakers Accuse Each Other of Assault, Threats as Hundreds of ‘SB4’ Protesters Disrupt Session
Siccing ICE on people who annoy you, now that’s a new low in politics. What Rinaldi did is especially troubling in light of the signing into law of SB4, which allows individuals to be questioned about their citizenship status while detained, including during traffic stops. The new law of the land in Texas, which takes effect Sept. 1, encourages racial profiling.
However, according to Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, the law would not allow for Hispanics to get detained inappropriately. As reported by the Texas Tribune, the governor stated that, “there are laws against racial profiling, and those laws will be strictly enforced.”
The rationale for SB4 was similar to Arizona’s S.B. 1070 anti-immigration bill – to ensure public safety and not target specific groups. Its provisions prohibit government entities and universities from preventing law and immigration officers from enforcing immigration laws, a strike at so-called sanctuary cities.
Well in Texas, that flimsy negligee of a justification didn’t stay on long.
Would Rinaldi have called immigration authorities if the protesters were white women or African-Americans? He called Immigration authorities because the crowd was overwhelmingly Latino.
Related: Texas SB4 Immigration Enforcement Law: 5 Things To Know
Four out of 10 Texans is Latino.
SB4 essentially puts a cloud of suspicions on close to half of the state’s population. The end result of this law will not be increased public safety, but one of increased racial profiling, political polarization, and a lot of false alarm calls to ICE.Chris - Yes but perhaps not for the reason that he was suggesting.
People often think that, as we increase our population, the weight of the people comes from nowhere. People just weigh more and the Earth therefore weighs more. That's not true. The Earth is an isolated system where all the of the mass that was on it to start with doesn't go anywhere. You don't make mass from nowhere, so people have got to gain weight by taking mass from elsewhere on the Earth: in other words, eating food that's come out of the Earth and into their bodies.
But, considering the planet as a whole, does that get heavier over time? The answer is yes, it can.
Every year, Earth gains about the weight of two aircraft carriers landing on it: two "HMS Ark Royals", or about 40,000 tonnes-worth of debris, which lands on Earth from space.
You can demonstrate this for yourself. If you put a big plastic sheet or a white sheet on your grass in the garden on a nice day, leave it for a few hours and then run a magnet over it. You can often find specks have just fallen down from outer space and landed on your magnet. Debris, dust and other stuff raining in from space contributes a huge amount of weight to the Earth every single year.ALAMEDA — It may be the closest Antonio Smith has ever gotten to a “Why me?” moment.
Smith, 33, played last season for the Houston Texans, a preseason AFC title contender that lost its final 14 games after a 2-0 start. Now a starting defensive tackle with the Raiders, 0-9, Smith adds it all up and figures it has to be some kind of test from a higher realm.
“I was thinking, ‘What’s going on Lord?'” Smith said after practice Wednesday. “I have 23 of these things. It’s almost two seasons without feeling the pleasure of a win.”
For the record, Smith last left the field a winner on Sept. 15, 2013, when the Texans beat the Tennessee Titans 30-24 in overtime.
“I remember exactly how it felt because it was my first game back off suspension and it felt mighty good,” Smith said.
The suspension was for ripping the helmet off the head of Miami guard Richie Incognito and taking a swing at him with it during a preseason game.
As emotional as Smith can get on the field, he’s a central figure for the lighter side of things in the locker room. Smith is part court jester, part philosopher, much of it good-natured nonsense designed to elicit a smile.
Last week, Smith borrowed the microphone of a reporter and conducted an interview with himself, asking the questions, then moving a few feet to his left to answer them as teammates laughed and shook their heads.
At Halloween, Smith showed up in a Ninja master costume, with linebacker Sio Moore dressed up as his understudy.
He recently brought in karaoke machine, inviting all comers to test their vocal skills as well as prevent the locker room from becoming too somber. Cornerback DJ Hayden took the mike Wednesday for a rap session.
“The youngsters don’t know it yet, but it’s something that kind of keeps the mood light so you won’t come in here feeling like you’re swimming in a cloud of black tar,” Smith said. “I’ve seen that happen before, where even coming to the facility is depressing.
“I also wanted to show off my karaoke skills and let ’em know I’ll sing any of them under the table.”
Interim coach Tony Sparano said of Smith, “He’s been really good for the team, but he’s been really good for me as well... he brings a little levity to the table.”
Smith said his outlook comes naturally.
“I don’t know where it came from,” Smith said. “I didn’t develop it. I see no cause in burning up a ship, and any time you come at anything with a negative outlook, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re killing yourself from the inside out.”
Moore said Smith is good for more than just a few good laughs.
“He’s someone who I’ve talked to about everything. Life, spiritual things, football,” Moore said. “Not only is he going to put a smile on your face, but he’s going to lift your spirits.”
Rookie linebacker Khalil Mack said, “Antonio is one of the funniest dudes you could ever meet, but he has his moments where he can be real serious and you get real talk and he’ll let you know what you need to know.”
Smith said the atmosphere isn’t anything like it was when broke in to the NFL under Dennis Green with the Arizona Cardinals in 2004 and “Everybody’s face was down. Nobody had hope.”
In his 11th season, Smith has played more snaps (439) than any other Raiders defensive lineman and defensive coordinator Jason Tarver said “he is playing at a high level.” But besides the 23-game losing streak, Smith has a 15-game run without a sack that is weighing on his mind.
In Houston, Smith had a “Ninja Assassin” sack dance that has been put in mothballs.
“When you don’t sack the quarterback, you don’t feel like you’ve done nothing,” Smith said. “But when I watch film, I see solid play, but I have to get to the quarterback. I need to eat.”Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Moneta, Va. -24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and 27-year-old photographer Adam Ward from local news station WDBJ in Roanoke were killed Wednesday morning during a live news broadcast.
Police say the suspect was 41-year-old Vester Lee Flanagan. He is a former reporter at WDBJ that went by the name Bryce Williams.
The shooting occurred at Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta, Virginia.
Flanagan was pursued for several hours before reportedly shooting himself on I-66 in Fauquier County. He was taken to the hospital before being pronounced dead several hours later.
A timeline of the events are detailed below:
During a live interview at 6:45 a.m. from Bridgewater Plaza at Smith Mountain Lake, approximately eight gunshots were heard as reporter Alison Parker is seen interviewing someone on screen. The camera, held by photographer Adam Ward, then drops to the ground and the broadcast cuts back to the anchor desk.
The video captures an image of the what's believed to be the suspected shooter before it cuts away.
A short time later, WDBJ confirmed that Parker and Ward were killed in the shooting. Parker was 24. Ward was 27.
Both grew up in Southwest Virginia. Parker was a 2012 graduate of James Madison University and was dating a anchor Chris Hurst at WDBJ. He described her in an interview with NewsChannel 3's Gabriella Deluca
"She is inside and out the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and I was lucky enough to call her my girlfriend,” says Hurst who announced that the two had been dating for the past nine months.
She was the most radiant woman I ever met. And for some reason she loved me back. She loved her family, her parents and her brother. — Chris Hurst (@chrishurstwdbj) August 26, 2015
Ward was a 2011 graduate of Virginia Tech and engaged to a morning show producer at WDBJ.
It is with extreme sadness that we report WDBJ7's Alison Parker and Adam Ward were killed in an attack this morning. http://t.co/oC9s4vLJXV — WDBJ7 (@WDBJ7) August 26, 2015
We love you, Alison and Adam. pic.twitter.com/hLSzQi06XE — WDBJ7 (@WDBJ7) August 26, 2015
The woman being interviewed, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was shot in the back and was taken via ambulance to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital where she is currently in good condition.
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In a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said Flanagan left the scene of the crime and drove his 2009 Ford Mustang to the Roanoke Regional Airport. He then left the airport in a Chevrolet Sonic that he rented earlier in the month. The Mustang has been recovered as evidence.
Virginia State Police report they spotted Flanagan's vehicle traveling eastbound on I-66 just before 11:30 a.m.
Flanagan then led them on a pursuit for several minutes before he ran off the road and crashed into the median.
When troopers approached the vehicle, they found Flanagan suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was flown to a Inova Fairfax Hospital where he died around 1:30 p.m., the Franklin County Sheriff's Office said in a news conference.
He appears to have posted several times to Twitter and Facebook accounts under the name Bryce Williams as he was being pursued. He made a series of tweets alleging several work-related issues with Parker and Ward and also included a graphic video showing the shooting from his perspective. The Twitter account and Facebook account were quickly removed.
The WDBJ station manager says Flanagan had previously sued the station for discrimination in 2014. He also filed a discrimination lawsuit against an NBC affiliate in Tallahassee in 2000.
The #WDBJ shooting suspect's name is Vester Lee Flanagan, not Lester as reported by other outlets: http://t.co/0wWbFcVlbX — WHSVnews (@WHSVnews) August 26, 2015
ABC News reports sometime overnight, they received a 23-page fax from someone who says he is Bryce Williams that they have turned over to authorities.
They also report that someone claiming to be Bryce Williams called ABC News around 10:00 a.m. and said that his real name was Vester Lee Flanagan, that he shot two people, and that he was being pursued.
ABC News has released some of the details in the 23-page fax. The writer claims that the shooting was triggered by the Charleston church shooting that occurred in June.
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”
“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them."
In this document, Flanagan also says "I've been human powder keg for a while just waiting to go BOOM."
He says he was influenced by other mass shooters.
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WDBJ held a news conference about the incident on Wednesday evening. General Manager Jeff Marks, Flanagan complained to Human Resources while he was there. He says they went though internal investigations and staff members saw him around town but did not know if he'd landed a job.
"We are people with feelings. People are around the newsroom hugging and taking care of each other. I don't tell journalists how to do their jobs," says Marks.
WDBJ also says they tried to put programs in place to help Flanagan, but that did not help the situation.
"It has been very difficult. Our viewers got to see. Our anchors got to see it. The producer kept working after seeing her fiance shot. It's tough. I've never dealt with anything like this," says News Director Kelly Zuber.
Flanagan's family members released a statement saying that their thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims, and with the news station, CNN affiliate KRON reported. "Words cannot express the hurt that we feel for the victims. Our family is asking that the media respect our privacy," the statement read.
Memorial outside of WDBJ tonight. pic.twitter.com/QaPGDLLUbh — Margaret Kavanagh (@MargaretAnnKav) August 27, 2015
Large group praying outside @WDBJ7 Prayers are lead by a local pastor pic.twitter.com/bnGmjfVSN3 — Gabriella DeLuca (@GabriellaDeLuca) August 26, 2015
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Related:
WDBJ reporter, photographer hailed by colleagues, friends
Virginia chamber of commerce executive in stable condition after on-air shooting
Who was Vester Flanagan/Bryce Williams?
WDBJ Anchor/Boyfriend of slain reporter: “The last thing she said to me was ‘goodnight sweet boy'”
Emails detail threats after deadly TV shooting suspect was fired from station
#WeStandWithWDBJ: Journalists post tributes to victims of WDBJ shootingOf all the conveyor belt of young talent that Vancouver Whitecaps’ Residency program has produced recently, the goalkeeping position appears to be the gift that keeps giving.
There’s been some impressive Residency graduates the past couple of years in the shape of Callum Irving (currently in top form in the NCAA at Kentucky), Sean Melvin (currently in NCAA at North Carolina), Nolan Wirth (currently in NCAA with Oregon State) and Marco Carducci (now on the ‘Caps MLS roster). Still within the system you have the U16 talents of Aidan Aylward and Luciano Trasolini coming through.
The reality of it is, so much talent, so few opportunities for them to play with the Whitecaps in the future. It’s the nature of the position. Only one can play, just ask Paolo Tornaghi. It’s impossible for all of these guys to come back and be ‘Caps players again, even with the new USL team.
With all that in mind, it was somewhat surprising that the Whitecaps selected a goalkeeper in the latter stages of this year’s MLS SuperDraft. It certainly wasn’t a position that needed filled on either the MLS or the USL squads, but in Spencer Richey, Vancouver saw a player that was simply too good to pass up.
Washington Huskies goalkeeper Richey was widely tipped to be taken pretty early on in the draft, but as things played out, the Whitecaps were able to get him with the penultimate pick of the third round, 61st overall.
“I spent five years down at the University of Washington,” Richey told AFTN. “It was an awesome experience. I’m super thankful for the staff and what that program did for me and for my soccer abilities especially.
“Going in to the draft I didn’t have a ton of idea where I was going to end up, which was kind of part of the fun of it.”
The fact that it ended up being the Whitecaps that selected him came a something of a surprise to Richey. The ‘Caps hadn’t been one of the clubs that had shown interest in him going in to the draft, although they had previously brought him up to Vancouver for some training time.
“I came up here a few years back, right when Marius [Rovde] got here, but the rest of the staff wasn’t here yet. So that was the only history or kind of communication. That was the last time I spoke to them, so it was a bit of a surprise in a totally positive, good way.
“Just getting to know the technical staff and the guys and even going down to getting to know the equipment guys and the medical staff. They’ve all been super helpful and all seem like good guys, so I’m really enjoying it so far.”
After a string of strong showings with an increasingly successful Washington side in NCAA, which saw them ranked number one in the nation for a time last year, a pro career was always looking on the cards for Richey. He’d represented the US at both U17 and U20 level and had played at the 2009 U17 World Cup. Things were looking rosy, but it wasn’t to prove to be a smooth journey for the young keeper, as a leg break four games into his senior season with the Huskies derailed plans.
Richey was forced to sit out the remainder of the 2013 NCAA season, as the Huskies made it to the Elite 8 stage of the College Cup, only to be knocked out by Ben McKendry’s New Mexico Lobos, in a game that saw the Residency alumni, and now teammate of Richey, score the only goal of the game on a bitterly cold December night in Seattle.
Richey watched from the sidelines as he continued to recover from his injury, and he was soon faced with a tough decision. Did he head into the 2014 MLS SuperDraft as planned or go for a redshirt season and repeat his senior year? The lure of the pros and still entering the draft crossed his mind, but in the end he decided that wouldn’t be the best move for his future career.
“I thought about it,” Richey admits. “Jamie Clark, our head coach down there, is big on evaluating all your options. We sat down and chatted about it. I actually got invited to the combine, even though I was nowhere near healthy enough to participate in it. So it was something we thought about.
“But, especially as a goalkeeper, you’re not in a big hurry to get to the next level. You’re not in a race against your prime so to speak. With a goalkeeper you’ve got a little bit of a longer career, barring injuries and things like that. We thought it was the right choice to come back and rehab properly and play my 5th year down there and I’m glad I did.”
All that’s in the past and Richey’s professional career is now underway in Vancouver and it was evident from the early days of preseason camp that not only had the Whitecaps acquired a talent, they liked what they saw. Richey was officially added to the WFC2 roster last week and will now battle it out with Carducci for starting minutes in USL this season.
The Whitecaps are keen for both keepers to fight it out, and constantly push and test each other throughout the season. It’s likely that they’ll each share significant playing time between themselves.
Heading into his first pro environment, it’s a challenge Richey is looking forward to and one which he feels will be beneficial to both keepers and the ‘Caps in the long run.
“It’s something we’ve talked about and from the sounds of it, Marco and I will be down there quite a bit together,” Richey revealed. “From everything I’ve understood, they think the best goalkeeper will play, which is awesome to hear. Coming in as a new guy, all you want is a shot to compete and a shot at playing time.
“Marco’s a really quality goalkeeper, especially for how young he is, so I’ve been pretty impressed by him. It’ll be fun competing for minutes and I’m sure it will make us both better.”
Richey’s journey to the Whitecaps is an interesting one, especially as landing in Vancouver now puts him in the unique situation of playing for all three Cascadian clubs.
A Seattle native, Richey turned out for the Sounders in PDL action in 2010 and 2011, before heading south to play for the Portland Timbers U23 side in 2012, where he played alongside Erik Hurtado, in front of some large crowds. He’s now completed the Cascadia trifecta.
“It’s kind of funny,” Richey told us. “At my school we had four guys that went pro this past year. Two to Seattle, one to Portland and one to Vancouver, so that was kind of a crazy coincidence. I’ve had a fun ride these past five, six years. Kind of bouncing around. I’m trying to get different experiences.
“Down in Portland, it was an awesome summer. Probably my best PDL experience. They take it really seriously and it’s a good program down there. It’s pretty wild [with the crowds they draw]. You wouldn’t know it was a PDL game unless someone told you. Like I said, trying to get as many different experiences, in as many different environments as possible, can only help in the long run.”
Different, but similar environments, for after being born and raised in Seattle, Richey has found himself not having to travel too far in his playing career so far. Now, after bouncing around the PDL scene in the Pacific Northwest, where he also had a season with Washington Crossfire, Richey begins his footballing journey in the pros still in Cascadia.
With all the uncertainty of draft day and where he might end up, it must have been a nice feeling for him to know that he was about to begin the new chapter in his life not too far from family, friends and familiar surroundings, instead of having to up sticks and move to the other side of the country.
“It’s one of those things that whichever team takes you, you’re stoked about it because that’s the team that’s giving you your shot before anybody else is,” Richey told us. “But obviously being close to home, it’s fun to be able to, on an off day, sometimes make a trip down and back. It’s fun to see the family and what not.
“But it’s also fun to go to a new city and kind of get out of my own back yard. It’s a good balance of both, where I can visit now and then, but it’s fun to be in a new adventure, a new area.”
Richey’s enjoying his new life in Canada, but he’s also enjoying continuing to hone his craft in a professional footballing environment. He may have only been here for a few weeks so far, but he feels that what he’s learned in that time from David Ousted and Whitecaps goalkeeping coach Marius Rovde has been invaluable and already improved his game.
“It’s one thing that’s fun about sports overall, but goalkeeping especially, everyone does it a little bit different,” Richey said. “So it’s fun training with different goalies and different nationalities from other parts of the world. Everyone plays a little different.
“David’s been super helpful to me and Marius as well. I’ve kind of taken bits and pieces, a page from their book, a page from his book, and not totally changing what you do but little things that can help you along the line. Both of them have already given me quite a few pointers that have helped me out. It’s a different game up here, so there’s definitely parts of my game that I need to adjust to make sure I can play at this level.”
And has Ousted been teaching him to scream at his defenders?!
“He is!” Richey laughed. “But that’s honestly probably one area that I need to get better at. I’m kind of a, not necessarily a quieter guy at heart, but I’m not much of a yeller. At times, it’s absolutely necessary to be a yeller, to wake some guys up if their off to a slow start. That’s one of the things, one of many, that I can take from David and those older guys.”
With the preseason now over for WFC2, the challenge of their inaugural USL season begins down in Richey’s hometown of Seattle on Sunday. It’ll be a long and tough season ahead, but it’s one Richey feels the Whitecaps are heading in to in good shape for success.
“The one thing we know is that we’ve got tons of talent, tons of good players,” Richey said. “The chemistry will come. It’s tough cos one of the benefits of having a USL team is that it’s right in your back yard, so the MLS players, it’s easy for them to swing back and forth. But the downside of that is that the full roster isn’t there all the time, so it’s coming and going. I think that will be the biggest challenge for us.
“Regardless of what roster is out there on a given weekend, and I’m sure it will be changing all the time, the more training and the more we can get out of the games that we do play together, from a comfort standpoint, will be the biggest challenge. The players are there and the talent is there, so we’ve got high hopes and we’ll be competitive.”Since the triumph of the moon landings more than four decades ago, presidents have made grand pronouncements about the next adventure for NASA astronauts, one that would culminate with humans on Mars. But each time, those ambitions faded, unfulfilled.
Now a panel of experts is warning that the same fate may be in store for President Obama’s declaration that NASA astronauts would reach Mars in the 2030s.
In a 285-page review of the human spaceflight program, the experts, convened by the National Research Council at the request of Congress, found that NASA had not detailed a viable strategy for getting there and that its budgets were too small to succeed.
“There is not a believable plan for getting there in a finite period of time,” said Jonathan I. Lunine, a Cornell astronomer and a co-chairman of the committee.NEW YORK ( TheStreet ) -- Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) failed to win his home district in the Texas primary Tuesday night as Mitt Romney clinched the GOP nomination.
The congressman decided more than two weeks ago to ignore his home state's primary to focus his attention on concluded contests.
in state conventions that had previously held caucuses or straw polls, Paul's campaign said earlier this month. Tuesday's results effectively wrapped up the Republican Party's extended primary season, which saw four different candidates win delegates, and five -- including Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Romney -- lead an average of national polls at least once between June 2011 and May 2012. Paul never led the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, but he did grab a late lead ahead of the Iowa caucuses only to see it dissipate on a surge by Santorum, who narrowly edged out Romney to secure victory in the well-known straw poll. Paul, though, has used his organization to nab delegate victories in Maine and Minnesota, and likely will try to win a majority of Iowa's delegates at the upcoming state convention there. Paul will continue to compete for uncommitted delegates in other states, as well. Paul's commitment to staying in the race has gotten him within one delegate of Gingrich, but still leaves him more than 1,000 behind GOP nominee Romney. As it stands on May 30, Romney has 1,191 delegates, Santorum has 265, Gingrich has 138 and Paul has 137, according to The Associated Press. The AP uses a rigorous process to determine its delegate count. Paul won 18 delegates in Texas to Romney's 105, as Romney defeated Paul in every county in the state. -- Written by Joe Deaux in New York. >Contact by Email. Follow @JoeDeaux
The choice to skip Texas campaigning was to focus on grabbing as many delegates as possibleShe added: "Unwanted physical or verbal contact or engagement is defined as exactly that and so can cover wolf-whistling and other similar types of contact.
"If the victim feels that this has happened because they are a woman then we will record it as a hate crime. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a criminal offence has been committed, but means we will carry out risk assessments and offer support as we would to any victim of a hate crime.”
Domestic abuse is not included within the scope of misogyny hate crime as it is dealt with under its own procedures.
Richie Jones, lead on hate crimes for the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “All hate crimes are serious offences, and need to be dealt with appropriately. Any change in recording which helps officers better categorise the types of hate crime, can only be a good thing.”
Sarah Green, acting director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “We welcome this because it comes off the local police force talking to and listening to local women’s groups. What we are talking about is not trivial behaviour – some harassment that women and girls receive in public is upsetting and should have the attention of the authorities.”
She added: “Police in Nottingham have not changed the law but they have listened to local women who said the behaviour bothered them. Together, they are recording it so they can monitor it and look back on who is doing it and where it happens.”
Last year, a building firm was investigated by police after a young woman, Poppy Smart, complained about “lecherous” men wolf-whistling at her in the street.
The 23-year-old filmed the builders’ behaviour and handed it to police.
It was believed to be the first time police had ever investigated wolf whistling as a potential crime. The investigation was later dropped when Miss Smart said she was happy the men had been internally disciplined.Special report
H-1B visas: who gets them, where they go
Before hiring a foreign worker on an H-1B visa, an employer must submit a Labor Condition Application (LCA) with the U.S. Department of Labor, which details the position the company hopes to fill, the prevailing wage for the job and the pay being offered to the prospective worker. The intent is to ensure that overseas employees will be paid a fair wage if they receive a visa. More than one employee can be attached to an LCA, and there’s no limit on how many a company can submit. As a result, the number of LCAs accepted by the Department of Labor often far exceeds the number of H-1B visas issued. Over the years, the number of approved LCAs has increased. In 2008, the federal government certified about 370,000 applications for roughly 650,000 workers, according to a Chronicle review of federal Department of Labor data. Last year, more than 530,000 LCAs were approved for 1.14 million workers (applications certified then withdrawn by the company were not included). About 10 percent of the LCAs approved last year, or 53,500, were for jobs in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Companies in the region overwhelmingly sought high-paid computer programmers and other similar tech workers.
Which Silicon Valley and San Francisco companies pursued H-1B workers in 2015 visas requested by County by Company for Salary Source: Office of Foreign Labor Certification data. All data is from FY 2015. Company data includes all subsidiaries.
By county, Santa Clara sought the most H-1B workers, not just in the Bay Area, but in the entire country. San Francisco just edged out San Jose as the region’s most popular city for H-1B applicants (it ranks third nationwide behind New York City and Houston). A handful of major firms filled out the majority of applications in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The tax and financial services giant Deloitte and its subsidiaries submitted LCA applications for more than 10,000 workers locally. Apple hoped to fill 8,650 positions with foreign professionals, most at its Cupertino campus. And both Facebook and Google requested at least 2,200 workers each. Not every major Bay Area tech firm tried to recruit an abundance of foreign professionals. Salesforce, for example, sought to fill roughly 475 positions in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Twitter submitted applications for just 350 H-1B workers locally. It’s unclear how many positions at major companies were filled by India-based subcontracting firms. Such outfits have become major players in bringing H-1B workers into the United States, hiring pools of workers on behalf of other companies. Tata, Wipro, Infosys and HCL America are some of the largest outsourcing companies based in India. Some have accused them of gaming the H-1B visa system by flooding the Department of Labor with LCA applications, thus increasing their odds of obtaining H-1B visas via the computerized lottery used to distribute them. Last year, Infosys, Tata and Wipro — and any subsidiaries affiliated with the companies — filed more LCAs nationally than any other firm besides IBM.
Top companies recruiting H-1B workers nationwide in 2015 LCAs filed Workers requested Private companies US-based outsourcing firm India-based outsourcing firm Foreign-based outsourcing firm {{co.company}} {{co.workers_requested}} {{co.company}} {{co.lca_filed}} Source: Office of Foreign Labor Certification data. All data is from FY 2015. Company data includes all subsidiaries.
Wipro, Tata and Infosys have been the subject of labor and discrimination lawsuits. The latter two were the subject of a Senate inquiry. All three firms tend to seek lower-paid and less-skilled workers than other major companies. Last year, the average salary of an H-1B worker requested by Tata was about $69,700 per -year, at Wipro it was $70,200, and Infosys’ salaries were $79,100 on average, according to the Chronicle analysis. Google, on the other hand, offered an average salary of nearly $130,000 to its H-1B workers. Apple’s H-1B positions paid between $123,600 and $154,200, on average. And Facebook offered roughly $141,000 to the average H-1B applicant. As India-based subcontractors have expanded, so has the number of Indian H-1B workers coming into the United States.
Where H-1B recipients came from in -- 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 Choose a year: Continent Key Europe Asia North America South America Oceania Hover over or click on a bubble for more information. Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs
In fiscal year 2015, about 177,750 H-1B visas were issued, according to State Department data. These included 85,000 new three-year visas, approved extensions and other positions exempt from the H-1B cap. More than 69 percent went to workers from India — the highest proportion in nearly two decades. For more in-depth coverage, see the Chronicle's related story.mousesports returns to Dota 2 scene
From mousesports on {{ "2017-04-07T12:30:30+00:00" | date "longDate" }}
We are excited to announce that we are back in business with Dota2. We welcome the reigning runner-up of the recent Valve Major, the artists formerly known as "The Greeks", to the mousesports family.
It's been a while since mousesports took to the lanes of Dota 2 and we are thrilled to be back with this new lineup. Following their miraculous run in Boston which saw them capture the hearts of Dota Fans around the world with their plays and sheer passion, the team decided to continue their path of success with mousesports - at the upcoming major in Kiev and far beyond.
(GRE) Omar Mohammad " Madara " Dabachach (Position 1)
" Dabachach (Position 1) (GRE) Dimitrios " ThuG " Plivouris (Position 2)
" Plivouris (Position 2) (GRE) Charalampos " Skylark " Zafeiriou (Position 3)
" Zafeiriou (Position 3) (GRE) Verros " MaybeNextTime " Apostolos (Position 4/5)
" Apostolos (Position 4/5) (GRE) Georgios " SsaS |
isn’t it? That time when MLS-USMNT buzz evolves into future West Brom rumors, when Goalkeeper of the Year awards become Goalkeeper of a geographic Generation beginnings. He’s 24-years-old, an MLS vet by now, and ready to spring. Hamid has always flaunted the impossible, but he’s recently added a certain patience—the kind of arbitrary distinction that either arrives or doesn’t—between the sticks. He’s there, now, waiting before jumping, two big hands stretched, reaching carefully into the striker jar of crushed celebratory dreams. Don’t run over to your supporters, don’t jog and skip, no matter how near release seems, because Bill just made the right decision.
Our collective obsession with potential is fraught and silly and occasionally sinister, but it seems all right as Hamid looms and nods, still crouched and balanced, still six feet tall and coming to fuck up your whole goal-scoring world.
Chicago Fire
Character on the popular television show, or player from the slightly-less-successful soccer team?
1. A fireman.
2. A Ghanaian international with a few recent caps and an impeccable goal-scoring record in the Swedish league.
3. A muscled paramedic.
4. A 32-year old red-haired midfielder who is very responsible, I bet.
5. A sweaty and shirtless captain.
6. Harry Shipp.
Answer Bank: Harry Shipp.
FC Dallas
By Patrick Redford
Russell Westbrook is the only athlete, but Fabian Castillo is the other one; I consider them each nodes of the same super organism. Westbrook has his rocket boot dunks and zippy, terror show drives. Castillo has the ability to surge down the left wing and attack dudes on the dribble. It works, all the time, to terrifying effect. Right backs can't get forward against Dallas because if Michel or another distributor finds Castillo, he can casually rip holes in your defense. The biggest critique of MLS is that it's no fun watch, but Castillo defies this pigeonholing. Look at this shit. If you could dunk in soccer, Castillo would.
San Jose Earthquakes
After the fall, there weren’t a lot of visitors. A middle-aged raccoon sometimes sniffed the stools and looked for bags of mixed nuts underneath the dusty chair wreckage, but the bags were fewer and fewer now and there really wasn’t much to do around here and the vibes were bad and the raccoon just went home, discouraged by this whole business. Things were kinda boring these days.
Bottles of Triple Sec and Tia Maria and blue-black margarita mix lost their appeal given the time passed, and the sad fact that all the patrons of Avaya-sponsored Patron had somehow turned inexorably dead. The last disgrace note of humanity was preserved by a single bar etching of two initials—S.L.—into the southwest end of the wood, two jagged letters pointed toward where the scoreboard might once have been. Each of the punk letters tries to be something else; the S looks like a 5, and the L looks like Dave Kaval’s 2013-2014 player spending chart. There is mystical illegibility, here and in the passing dust storms, none of which belong to the airport anymore.
Steven Lenhart, forever a part of America’s largest outdoor bar.
Montreal Impact
The Impact's most exciting player is a 30 year-old balding winger with eight USMNT caps and probably a remarkable 401k. His name is Justin Mapp and he's the MLS answer to the Arjen Robben question, though his right foot occasionally convalesces and Mapp has a few less UEFA Champions League appearances. No matter; the dude is unlikely joy incarnate, taking on CCL and MLS competition with all the verve of Diego Fagundez, consistent hairline intact—still there, always there, pacing with purpose until that deadly sprint arrives.
Sparks like Mapp make a second-tier league fly, and those cuts inside keep compasses guessing well into each year.
Colorado Rapids
We had pages and pages of incisive analysis and poetic verve prepared for this section before Stan Kroenke deleted the whole thing.
Vancouver Whitecaps
They pass a lot. Usually it goes well, laterally. Every starter is an average or above-average talent by league standards. Kekuta Manneh is wonderful. David Ousted brings more quality than generally thought. Russell Teibert hasn’t glanced at his right foot since 2011.
This might be the year this means a title—or, one endless loop of passes, an infinite live feed of Jordan Harvey clears and Darren Mattocks shrugs.
New York Red Bulls
“So Eric’s out.”
“Lateral tear?”
“No. Out of here. Headed to Montreal. Better learn Quebeckian.”
“For what? For who? It’s French, you know.”
“Oyo’s gone too.”
“We get Justin?”
“Felipe.”
“Oh. Worse Justin.”
“Worse Justin.”
“You get a reason from anyone?”
“Something about that time he said energy drinks were for children. Didn’t sit well with management.”
“Monster is the place to go for adult-oriented marketing.”
“Think word was also spreading about his Atlantic oral history on the creepy ‘wings’ commercials.”
“Eric writes for The Atlantic?”
“Cultural criticism, yeah. Pays better.”
Toronto FC
By Pierce H.
The best of Jozy Altidore was a ten-yard, shoulder-to-shoulder war of attrition with Arsenal right back Bacary Sagna and a perfectly angled shot past onrushing Wojciech Szczęsny. Sunderland and manager Di Canio offered Altidore this narrative-driven shot at redemption after his barren Hull City days for precisely the strength on display during this powerful run. A wave of Sunderland fans looked destined to follow the Dutch in bestowing his namesake upon their sons and daughters.
The signal of Jozy’s triumphant return was disallowed as shot crossed goal line. Instead of playing advantage, the ref brought the play back, citing Sagna’s foul before meting out punishment in the form of a yellow card. Jozy would not score in the game. Eight more goalless appearances for hapless Sunderland followed before the long-awaited breakthrough came against Chelsea. No true goal-scoring flurry was borne from this flicker. Despite the rare flash of superb talent, Altidore did not score in a Premier League match again, floundering under the weight of his own self-doubt and the team’s midfield incompetence.
Imagining a reality in which the goal against Arsenal stood and Altidore’s confidence waxed rather than waned is not exceedingly difficult. Reaching the dizzying heights of Steven Fletcher’s seven goals in forty-two matches and Connor Wickham’s heralded eight in forty-one would have required only a modicum of additional luck, assuredness, and midfield service.
As Altidore returns to MLS and oft-disappointing Toronto FC, at least two of those three factors should be present. Michael Bradley’s preternatural ability to pass a man open into space will be a welcome improvement upon the level of service Jozy has previously received at the club level, and Bradley will likely see him finish more emphatically than Oduro and Gilberto last season. While MLS is a markedly improved league from what it was five years ago, Jozy’s previous success with the New York Red Bulls should alleviate the mental strain of last season’s frustration as he faces easier competition in a better environment.
Toronto FC plans to emerge from its own disappointment. Last year’s extravagant spending brought them Michael Bradley, Jermain Defoe and Gilberto, and it appeared to be well worth the outlay at the midway point of the season. But a Defoe injury, uneven midfield play and mistakes by a young center-back pairing prevented the team from pairing its ambition with results, leaving them short of the playoffs. With the arrival of Altidore and high-profile signing Sebastian Giovinco, Toronto FC hopes to improve upon Defoe’s goal-scoring output. Altidore’s return to Eredivisie form provides little chance to redeem him in the eyes of Premier League detractors, but it will bolster Toronto FC’s chances of meeting their lofty expectations.
Philadelphia Union
People would come from distant locations and ideological positions and dark eras to see that view, the stadium beyond the bridge, nestled into that post-body-of-water portion that land dwellers often call land.
“What a beautiful place to build a bridge,” Donny said, “and what a wonderful view.”
“How’d they manage to get public funding for such a great bridge facility?” Brian wondered.
“How’d they,” Rick said.
“It’s interesting, isn’t it,” Amobi Okugo answered, “how facile a beautiful sight can seem. How fleeting our vistas become when a knife comes out of the social contractor’s pocket. Quite the thing, I must say.”
“It really is beautiful,” Donny screamed.
“That South End sure is something,” Brian thought.
“Though gorgeous this may be,” Amobi sighed. “it remains full of people, crawling and sifting through the infrastructural mud. Flawed, all of it, and so incredibly spaced. People not even principled enough to form a cohesive aesthetic whole. If our sights this day must grow populated, must they also be so discontinuous and disappointing, so hollow and tangible and loud?”
“This has been the best vacation of my life,” Donny declared.
“And it’s just beginning,” Amobi answered, turning away from Vince’s embrace.
Columbus Crew
Watch Tony Tchani closely. Enjoy Steve Clark domestically. Hope for the best, because Kei Kamara has plans to spare.
Sporting KC
I imagine it’s kinda exhilarating to receive a life subtweet from Jurgen Klinsmann. Check Jurgen’s comments to the press one day, realize he was talking about you the next. As far as I can tell, the USMNT’s German manager never specifically named Matt Besler as a fitness disappointment from January’s camp; he simply allowed the media to wonder—and eventually intimate—Besler’s unfortunate candidacy. The reaction of Besler and Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes is equally intriguing, given the oddities of MLS scheduling and Klinsmann’s notorious obsession with fitness, but in the context of the national team, this is ultimately a minor dust-up among many during Klinsmanan’s tenure. It only becomes important if a no-sprints walkout occurs during Gold Cup training, simultaneously resurrecting both Alan Gordon’s career and the soccer section of the Sporting News.
But this was no minor incident for Besler the individual, and perhaps that’s the true impetus behind his direct response. Besler has faced post-World Cup malaise of an insidious order since July; he’s been injured and out of form and certainly not the player he was before Brazilian competition ensued. Gone are the linking passes and one-on-one assurances that made him such perfect medicine to the ailments of both his squads. Gone is the calm. Gone is a once-great backline partnership, with Ike Opara replacing Aurelien Collin at right center back. It’s a new world for Besler and Sporting KC, and perhaps not the one they expected. Besler hoped for peak fitness by March 1, 2015. The deadline is four days gone. Let’s hope the summit remains.
Real Salt Lake
Here’s to Joao Plata’s health, and to yours.
Houston Dynamo
By Terrence Malick and Giles Barnes
Sweet stadium. Corporate and orange. How you shaped me. How I love your three-quarters yell. There is DaMarcus Beasley, running like a wind that belongs to someone else, someone we once knew. I wanted you to love me. I wanted Brad to love me. I waited for your crosses and free kicks but wanted them for myself. I was a star.
A mid-table team wants only to please itself. Gets fans to please it, too; tell it it’s ok. Say everything’s all right. Wants to feel like everything makes sense. Wants to be told that stasis works just fine, that being all right isn’t the source of the pain. Boniek. Tally. Always you wrestle around me.Police lights by night (Photo: Alex_Schmidt, Getty Images/iStockphoto)
GREEN BAY — A 50-year-old Green Bay man was taken into custody early Thursday after firing a shot into the air during a disturbance with two neighbors.
It happened about 12:30 a.m. outside a home at South Clay and Crooks streets. When police arrived, the disturbance was over and the man had gone inside, but he came out peacefully and cooperated when asked, police said.
He had shouted at the two neighbors for making noise and when they came out of the house to confront him, he fired a 9 mm handgun into the air and they fled back into their house, police said.
The man was jailed for disorderly conduct and intoxicated possession of a firearm.
Read or Share this story: http://gbpg.net/2uLYh9gHimalayan flowers shed light on climate change
The steep terrain in Nepal that acted as a natural filter for testing how flower might evolve differently in different climates.
Flower colour in some parts of the world, including the Himalayas, has evolved to attract bees as pollinators, research has shown for the first time.
In a study published in the Journal of Ecology, biologists from Monash University and RMIT University have investigated the evolution of flower colours due to the bee’s colour vision. They researched in the understudied Nepalese steep mountainous terrain, and other subtropical environments. The study also has implications for understanding the effects of climate change on plant pollination.
Associate Professor Adrian Dyer of Monash and RMIT said previous studies had shown that flower colour evolved to attract bees as pollinators in temperate environments, but the story for either subtropical or steep mountainous environments had been unknown.
“Mountainous environments provide an ideal natural experiment to understand the potential effects of changing climatic conditions on plant-pollinator interactions, since many pollinators show preferences for localised conditions, and major pollinators like honeybees do not tend to forage at high altitudes,” Associate Professor Dyer said.
Dr Mani Shrestha from Monash University and his colleague Prakash Bhattrai from the Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, collected spectral data from more than 100 flowering plants in Nepal over a range of altitudes, from 900 metres to over 4000 metres.
Using computer models to examine flower colours as bees would see them, the team addressed how pollinator vision had shaped flower evolution. Then, with Associate Professor Martin Burd, of the School of Biological Sciences, they did phylogenetic analyses to identify how altitude zones affected results.
Dr Shrestha said flowers from both subtropical (900-2000m) and alpine (3000-4100m) regions showed evidence of having evolved colour spectral signatures to enhance discrimination by bee pollinators.
“The finding was a surprise as flies are thought to be the main pollinator in many mountain regions, but it appears that in the Himalayas several bee species are also active at high altitude, and these insects have been such effective pollinators that they have led to the evolution of distinctive bee-friendly colours,” Dr Shrestha said.
The research could shed light on how flower colours may continue to evolve in particular environments, depending upon the availability of the most effective pollinators.
While ‘bee colours’ were prevalent at all elevations, flower colours in high altitude zones were more diverse and had more often undergone larger steps of evolutionary change than those at lower elevation, Associate Professor Burd said.
“Studying these patterns helps scientists understand how plant communities are assembled, and are potentially able to deal with changing conditions.”
The work was assisted by a grant from the Australian Research Council.After Massachusetts voters approved a ballot question legalizing the sale and use of recreational marijuana, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he may have to re-examine his own views on the matter.
"I have never been an advocate of that," Malloy said Wednesday. "On the other hand, of course, when multiple states move in a direction you have to re-examine your own personal thoughts on the issue. I'm just like anybody else."
Massachusetts was one of five states where voters were considering whether to legalize, regulate and tax the drug. Measures also passed in California and Nevada. In Maine, "yes" on Question 1 was leading "no" by a few thousand votes Wednesday afternoon.
Connecticut doesn't have ballot questions, so a bill to change the regulations around marijuana would have to pass the General Assembly and be signed by Malloy. Bills have been raised in previous years but never seriously considered. Proponents say the first state in New England to have a retail marijuana business up and running will reap the most tax receipts.
Malloy supported decriminalization of marijuana and enacting a medical marijuana program in Connecticut, but he has said that legalizing the drug for recreational use goes too far. But now marijuana businesses are poised to open up just over the border in January 2018.
"Would I begin any day by saying I think we need to [legalize marijuana]? No," Malloy said. "But I do have to re-examine that position in light of our very large shared border."
The governor noted how consumers in northern Connecticut often head over the border to buy alcohol in Massachusetts, where taxes are lower.Work on a major road development in the North-east has been postponed for seven days due to fears over pollution.
Work on the entire Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route will stop for a week while officers from the Scotland’s Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) inspect the pollution following floods on the site over the last two days.
Heavy downpours in the North-east has led to silt polluting the tributaries of both the River Dee and Don.
As a result, work on the bypass has been halted so investigations can be carried out.
Calum MacDonald, executive director of SEPA, said: “SEPA officers have been investigating multiple reports of significant silt pollution in watercourses surrounding the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR), following heavy downpours last night.
“The pollution appears to have resulted from run-off water from the construction site being flushed into smaller watercourses, including tributaries of the Rivers Dee and Don.
“Due to the potential scale of pollution, Aberdeen Roads Limited has voluntarily halted construction work on the project.”
Mr MacDonald added: “This will allow for AWPR contractors to provide assurance to SEPA, within seven days, that adequate measures and monitoring are in place to protect against potential pollution.
“During this time, SEPA officers will continue to inspect the entirety of the route to identify the sources and impact of pollution on the wider water environment, which includes protected spawning grounds for Salmon and Freshwater Pearl Mussels.
“Transport Scotland is supporting SEPA with its ongoing investigation.”
A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: “We are aware that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is currently undertaking an investigation into water run-off from the AWPR/B-T site.
“Aberdeen Roads Limited – the project contractor – has been working over the past three days to mitigate excess water flowing from the project site, following a prolonged period of heavy rain across the north east.
“However, these measures put in place have been overwhelmed by the extent of the heavy rain.
“Aberdeen Roads Limited has voluntarily stopped its works to focus its efforts on improving the mitigation measures in place. We take our environmental responsibilities seriously and are supporting SEPA in its investigation.
“We are also working with the contractor to secure watercourses across the site and to enable construction works to continue at the earliest opportunity.”SANAA (Reuters) - Foes and backers of a plan to ease Yemen’s president out of power fought each other with stones and clubs on Tuesday, deepening the country’s chaos as Washington said it was considering a request from the leader to fly to the United States.
An anti-government protester, with his face painted in the colours of Yemen's national flag, shouts slogans during a rally to demand that Yemen's outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh be tried, in Sanaa December 27, 2011. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Youth activists, who have led months of protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule, were split on him leaving the country - saying it might ease the conflict but could also let him escape justice.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh bowed to months of protests and international pressure by agreeing last month to a deal that would grant him immunity from prosecution over his violent crackdown on the uprising but see him hand over power to his deputy.
Far from resolving the crisis, the settlement has sparked further tension between groups who opposed the immunity deal, and groups who backed it - many of whom have since joined an interim government.
Activists said least 20 people were injured in the clashes in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday between supporters of the Islah party, which backed the immunity deal, and the Houthi movement, a Shi’ite rebel grouping in the north of the country.
Washington and top oil producer Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, both fear continued chaos would allow al Qaeda to build on its already strong presence in the country, which lies close to key oil shipping lanes.
After another bout of violence on Saturday - when protesters said Saleh’s forces killed nine people who had joined a mass march against the immunity deal - the president vowed to give way to a successor and go to the United States.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday Washington was still weighing Saleh’s travel request.
“We’re continuing to consider President Saleh’s request to enter the country for the sole purpose of seeking medical treatment. But contrary to some reports that we’ve seen, that permission has not been granted yet,” Toner told a news briefing.
Anti-Saleh protesters said they were in two minds about the possible U.S. trip.
“We are at a loss, between our desire to see Saleh go and avoid Yemen sliding into civil war, and the desire to see him tried for his crimes,” said Samia al-Aghbari, a protest leader who was detained briefly after Saturday’s violence.
“If he (Saleh) is away and forbidden from being part of the political atmosphere in Yemen, it may help, I see the point of that. But he still has money and weapons in the country and if this doesn’t change, nothing will change at any level in Yemen,” said activist Hamza Shargabi.
OVERLAPPING CONFLICTS
Any suggestion that Saleh is taking up sanctuary in the United States would be highly controversial among activists and opposition figures who have accused Washington of backing Saleh as an ally in the campaign against al Qaeda.
“He has this relation with the U.S., its war on terror, and torturing people in the name of that war, and putting people in prison,” said Shargabi. “Anything can happen in the name of the war on terror.”
Hostility against the United States was fanned by Yemeni media reports that Washington’s envoy in Sanaa described Saturday’s march as a provocative act, shortly before Saleh’s forces cracked down on the protest.
In a statement on Monday, a group of protest organizers demanded Washington recall Gerald Feierstein, whom they called an “advocate and defender of Saleh’s ruthless oppression of his people, almost from the start of his assignment in Yemen.”
Al Masdar Online, one of the publications which attended a briefing with Feierstein, cited him as saying, in Arabic translation: “Being peaceful isn’t just about not carrying weapons. If 2,000 people decided to march on the White House, we wouldn’t consider it peaceful and we wouldn’t permit it.”
The U.S. embassy in Sanaa did not respond to requests for comment on the remarks.
Slideshow (2 Images)
The top “counter-terrorism” official in Washington - which wages a campaign of drone strikes against alleged al Qaeda members in Yemen and assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, that way earlier this year - urged Saleh’s deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Sunday to show restraint with protests.
Any successor to Saleh would face multiple, overlapping conflicts including renewed separatist sentiment in the south, which fought a civil war with Saleh’s north in 1994 after four turbulent years of formal union.
Islamist fighters have seized chunks of territory in the southern Abyan province. Fighting there has forced tens of thousands of people to flee, compounding a humanitarian crisis in a country where about half a million people are displaced.Filed in Ideas Subscribe to Decision Science News by Email (one email per week, easy unsubscribe)
THE BENEFITS OF FAMILIAR UNITS
This Mercator projection is famous for distorting land areas
Like Jake Hofman, we at Decision Science News love putting things in perspective. Watch this space for a paper we are writing on the topic. We recently thought:
Wouldn’t it be cool for US readers to see how big foreign countries are by comparing them to presumably familiar US states?
Wouldn’t it be cool for non-US readers to see how big US states are by comparing them to presumably familiar countries?
Wouldn’t it be fun to group countries by area?
To keep things simple, we only consider the area of each state, twice the area of each state, and the area of the entire USA as units. We only bother with twice states’ area thing for big countries (larger than 2,500,000 sq km). For compactness, we do not provide the reverse mapping from countries to US states. R code available upon request.
Here you are. A list of US states along with countries and dependencies that are roughly as large as them:
Smaller than Rhode Island (4,002 sq km):
Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Barbados, Bermuda, Comoros, Cook Islands, Dominica, Gaza Strip, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guernsey, Holy See (Vatican City), Hong Kong, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Nauru, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Seychelles, Singapore, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tonga, Tuvalu
As big as Rhode Island (4,002 sq km):
Cape Verde, French Polynesia
As big as Delaware (5,061 sq km):
Brunei, Cyprus, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, West Bank
As big as Connecticut (14,359 sq km):
Bahamas, East Timor, Falkland Islands, Fiji, Gambia (The), Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Qatar, Swaziland, Vanuatu
As big as New Jersey (22,590 sq km):
Belize, Djibouti, El Salvador, Israel, Slovenia
As big as Vermont (24,903 sq km):
Republic of Macedonia
As big as Massachusetts (27,337 sq km):
Haiti, Rwanda
As big as Hawaii (28,314 sq km):
Albania, Armenia, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Solomon Islands
As big as Maryland (32,134 sq km):
Belgium, Bhutan, Denmark, Estonia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Moldova, Netherlands, Republic of China (Taiwan), Switzerland
As big as West Virginia (62,758 sq km):
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Togo
As big as South Carolina (82,898 sq km):
Austria, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Panama, United Arab Emirates
As big as Maine (91,652 sq km):
French Guiana, Jordan, Portugal
As big as Indiana (94,327 sq km):
Hungary, South Korea
As big as Kentucky (104,664 sq km):
Iceland, Serbia and Montenegro
As big as Tennessee (109,158 sq km):
Guatemala
As big as Virginia (110,771 sq km):
Benin, Bulgaria, Cuba, Honduras, Liberia
As big as Pennsylvania (119,290 sq km):
Eritrea, Malawi, North Korea
As big as Mississippi (125,443 sq km):
Nicaragua
As big as Louisiana (134,273 sq km):
Greece
As big as New York (141,090 sq km):
Nepal, Tajikistan
As big as Iowa (145,754 sq km):
Bangladesh
As big as Wisconsin (169,652 sq km):
Suriname, Tunisia
As big as Missouri (180,545 sq km):
Uruguay
As big as Oklahoma (181,048 sq km):
Cambodia
As big as Washington (184,674 sq km):
Syria
As big as South Dakota (199,742 sq km):
Kyrgyzstan, Senegal
As big as Kansas (213,109 sq km):
Belarus
As big as Idaho (216,456 sq km):
Guyana
As big as Minnesota (225,181 sq km):
Laos, Romania, Uganda
As big as Michigan (250,737 sq km):
Ghana, Guinea, United Kingdom
As big as Colorado (269,618 sq km):
Burkina Faso, Gabon, New Zealand, Western Sahara
As big as Nevada (286,367 sq km):
Ecuador
As big as Arizona (295,274 sq km):
Italy, Philippines
As big as New Mexico (314,924 sq km):
Congo (Republic of the), Côte d’Ivoire, Finland, Malaysia, Norway, Oman, Poland, Vietnam
As big as Montana (380,847 sq km):
Germany, Japan, Zimbabwe
As big as California (423,999 sq km):
Cameroon, France, Iraq, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Yemen
As big as Texas (695,673 sq km):
Afghanistan, Bolivia, Botswana, Central African Republic, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Tanzania, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, Zambia
As big as Alaska (1,700,133 sq km):
Algeria, Angola, Chad, Congo (Democratic Republic of the), Greenland, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Niger, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sudan
Twice as big as Alaska (3,400,266 sq km):
Argentina, India, Kazakhstan
As big as the United States (9,826,630 sq km):
Australia, Brazil, Canada, China
Twice as big as the United States (19,653,260 sq km):
Russia
Map credit:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections#mediaviewer/File:Miller_projection_SW.jpg
Country Areas: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_areaDespite the authorities' best efforts to put people on their guard against the odious "It's me, send money" and other forms of fraud, the number of reported incidents last year rose by 13% over 2014, to total 12,762 cases. Aggregate losses were calculated at 39 billion yen.
Broken down by type, according to police statistics, the known incidents went up by 5% year-on-year for "it's me, send money" schemes; 30% for spurious invoice demands; and 23% for bait-and-switch scams involving tax rebates.
Considering the extensive reporting in the media of such incidents, marvels Nikkan Gendai (April 23), it's something of a wonder that the number of cases keeps growing. This is in part a testimony to wily crooks' ability to keep coming up with original types of confidence schemes. Once, all it took was a hushed voice over the telephone, pretending to be a son or grandson, and urgently asking for money to keep the police or court at bay. These are still common; but now those considerate, cooperative criminals are even willing to come to their mostly elderly victims' homes to receive the cash -- or an ATM card giving them access to the victims' accounts.
One of the fastest-growing types of schemes is the tricking of people into using parcel delivery services to send payment for billed items that they never ordered.
As a proactive measure to protect oneself from becoming victimized by one of these nefarious schemes, Nikkan Gendai says nothing beats emulating the conversational style of an "Osaka auntie."
Why Osaka? If one looks at the prefectures where reported cases of fraud are most common, the top three are Tokyo, Saitama and Okayama. Osaka, at 43rd, ranks close to the bottom. And one likely reason for this is the way Osaka people typically engage others, including over the telephone.
For details, the tabloid turned to a book titled "The Osaka Obasan Strikes Back," authored by Sachiko Minamoto, who says she was born "smack dab in the middle of Osaka."
"If the caller begins by saying 'Ore dakedo' (it's me), such women tend to be immediately put on their guard, demanding confirmation by asking, 'What do you mean by ME? None of my kids are an 'ore.'"
If the caller speaks using standard Japanese instead of Osaka dialect, moreover, it'll almost certainly raise suspicions. "Homma ni Takeshi?" (Takeshi, is it really you?) she'll ask in the local vernacular, insisting on some sort of proof before continuing the conversation.
"In the old days, discussion of money wasn't treated as a taboo among Osakans," author Minamoto notes. "For instance, if you saw a person clad in a nice garment, there was nothing wrong with asking 'Nanbo shitan?' (how much did you pay for it?). Or if a person changed residence, you could ask him, 'Yachin nanbo?' (how much rent are you paying?). Osakans have got the kind of culture where they can negotiate with a realtor and even ask for a discount on the rent for an apartment. So the subject of money tends to come up right off the bat, and they don't automatically agree with someone else's terms."
Minamoto also points out such ladies' contrary nature. Ask for the money to be sent via bank transfer and she'll counter, "That's too troublesome. Why don't you come and get it yourself?" In other words, while she may be perfectly willing to have others make additional efforts, she's twice as circumspect when it comes to laying out her own money.
"That's an attitude everyone ought to emulate," Minamoto says.
© Japan TodayAnthony Del Col and Conor McCreery, writers of Sherlock Holmes vs. Harry Houdini #4, talk with writer Paul Tobin about Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #12, both on sale February 25th. Cover images by Bart Sears and Jae Lee.
ANTHONY DEL COL & CONOR McCREERY: I’m sure you’ve been asked this question a hundred times, but where did you come up with the idea of mashing up medieval England and dinosaurs? It’s so great and a “why didn’t I think of that?” concept!
PAUL TOBIN: That one’s all Greg, at least for the series, but it’s something that’s been in my head since I was a kid. The thought of knights jousting on horseback has always had a huge draw for me, this combination of animal and armored human melded together into a charging engine of destruction is awesome. But, of course, as a kid, you never stop there: you start out with knights on horseback and pretty soon it’s armored knights on armored dinosaurs, because that’s awesome. If I’d been totally true to the “kid” in me, we’d have had knights on dinosaurs jousting … in space!
A&C: What have been the major influences on the creation of this series?
PT: The original series, for one. My grandmother had bought a couple of piles of them at garage sales. This was the early eighties, and I was a kid, and looking at those Alberto Giolitti dinosaurs was amazing. Poor Turok was always running from some big ol’ reptile. I loved it. Beyond that, a lot of classic movies inspirited me, all those medieval adventure movies from the 40’s and 50’s, the ones I watched back when I thought everything Hollywood produced was basically a historical documentary.
A&C: Turok seems like more than just the average “reluctant hero” in this series. What aspect of his character surprised you the most as you sat down to write him and flesh him out?
PT: For me, it was his sense of just wanting to be left alone, strangely combined with actually enjoying the company of people. He’s a reluctant introvert and a reluctant extrovert at the same time. He’s one seething pit of reluctance and dinosaur-killing. Except that he likes dinosaurs too. So he only kills them reluctantly.
A&C: I quite enjoyed the bits of humor in this issue. Do you find that the comedy comes naturally for you, or is it something that you really have to work at achieving?
PT: Very naturally. I’m a reluctant optimist, so I normally have a wry outlook on life, and I love a good quip, so that finds its way into my writing. I don’t like stories that are relentlessly grim. I’ve had grim times in my life, and humor helped me through it. Sometimes, you just gotta laugh about things.
A&C: Conor loves to use the expression “God’s teeth” in our Kill Shakespeare series, which Anthony had never heard of before. Of course, you use it in this issue. What’s your favorite Olde (or Middle) English expression?
PT: Hmmm, that’s a good question. Maybe referring to a footman/valet as a “fart catcher.” That one’s been on my mind lately. I’m working on a series of urban fantasy novels where a significant part happens a couple of hundred years ago, so I’ve been doing a lot of language research in the area. One site that you can get lost in is …. http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/cant/ It’s a huge compendium of 18th century thieves cant. The whole site is marvelous.
A&C: I’m sure it’s the dream of any comic artist to be able to draw dinosaurs. And grand medieval battles. Do the artists Felipe Cunha and Ruairi Coleman have a favorite thing to draw in this series? What would you love to be able to get them to draw more of (in this series or another)?
PT: All artists are genetically born loving to draw dinosaurs. It’s how we as a species survive. And, I don’t see it happening, but I’d still love to get in at least one dinosaur fight in space. I owe it to the 12 year old in me.
For more information on Turok: Dinosaur Hunter #12, click here |
action being several minutes to an hour or so, depending on the method of ingestion.[4]
Salvinorin A is found with several other structurally related salvinorins. Salvinorin is a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid. It acts as a kappa opioid receptor agonist and is the first known compound acting on this receptor that is not an alkaloid.[4]
History [ edit ]
Salvinorin A was first described and named in 1982 by Alfredo Ortega and colleagues in Mexico. They used a combination of spectroscopy and x-ray crystallography to determine the chemical structure of the compound, which was shown to have a bicyclic diterpene structure.[5] Around the same time, Leander Julián Valdés III independently isolated the molecule as part of his PhD research, published in 1983.[6] Valdés named the chemical divinorin, and also isolated an analog that he named divinorin B. The naming was subsequently corrected to salvinorin A and B after the work was published in 1984.[7] Valdés later isolated salvinorin C.[8]
Pharmacology [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is a trans-neoclerodane diterpenoid with the chemical formula C 23 H 28 O 8.[9] Unlike other known opioid-receptor ligands, salvinorin A is not an alkaloid, as it does not contain a basic nitrogen atom.[2][10] Salvinorin A has no action at the 5-HT 2A serotonin receptor, the principal molecular target responsible for the actions of 'classical' psychedelics such as LSD and mescaline.[4][10]
Potency and selectivity [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is active at doses as low as 200 µg.[9][11][12] Synthetic chemicals, such as LSD (active at 20–30 µg doses), can be more potent.[13] Research has shown that salvinorin A is a potent κ-opioid receptor (KOR) agonist (K i = 2.4 nM, EC 50 = 1.8 nM).[9] It has a high affinity for the receptor, indicated by the low dissociation constant of 1.0 nanomolar (nM).[14] It has been reported that the effects of salvinorin A in mice are blocked by κ-opioid receptor antagonists.[15] In addition, salvinorin A has recently been found to act as a D 2 receptor partial agonist, with an affinity of 5–10 nM, an intrinsic activity of 40–60%, and an EC 50 of 48 nM.[16] This suggests that the D 2 receptor may also play an important role in its effects.[16] Salvinorin A shows atypical properties as an agonist of the KOR relative to other KOR agonists.[17] For instance, it is 40-fold less potent in promoting internalization (receptor downregulation) of the human KOR relative to the prototypical KOR agonist U-50488.[citation needed]
Effect on intestinal motility [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is capable of inhibiting excess intestinal motility (e.g. diarrhea), through its potent κ-opioid-activating effects. The mechanism of action for salvinorin A on ileal tissue has been described as 'prejunctional', as it was able to modify electrically induced contractions, but not those of exogenous acetylcholine.[18] A pharmacologically important aspect of the contraction-reducing properties of ingested salvinorin A on gut tissue is that it is only pharmacologically active on inflamed and not normal tissue, thus reducing possible side-effects.[19]
Solubility [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is soluble in organic solvents such as ethanol and acetone, but not especially so in water.[20]
Detection in urine [ edit ]
Humans who smoked 580 μg of the pure drug had urine salvinorin A concentrations of 2.4–10.9 µg/L during the first hour, but the levels fell below the detection limit by 1.5 hours after smoking. Analytical measurements may be performed using gas or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.[21]
Associated compounds [ edit ]
Many other terpenoids have been isolated from Salvia divinorum, including other salvinorins and related compounds named divinatorins and salvinicins. None of these compounds have shown significant (sub-micromolar) affinity at the kappa-opioid receptor, and there is no evidence that they contribute to the plant's psychoactivity.[22][23]
Synthesis [ edit ]
Salvinorin A
Biosynthesis [ edit ]
The biogenic origin of salvinorin A synthesis has been elucidated using nuclear magnetic resonance and ESI-MS analysis of incorporated precursors labeled with stable isotopes of carbon (Carbon-13 13C) and hydrogen (Deuterium 2H). It "is biosynthesized via the 1-deoxy-d-xylulose-5-phosphate pathway," rather than the classic mevalonate pathway, consistent with the common plastidial localization of diterpenoid metabolism.[24]
Terpenoids are biosynthesized from two 5-carbon precursors, isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP). The NMR and MS study by Zjawiony suggested that the biosynthesis of salvinorin A proceeds via the 1-deoxy-d-xylulose-5-phosphate pathway. In the deoxyxylulose phosphate pathway, D-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and pyruvate, the intermediates of the glycolysis, are converted into 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate via decarboxylation. Subsequent reduction with NADPH generates 2C-methyl-D-erythritol 2,4-cyclodiphosphate, via the intermediates 4-diphosphocytidyl-2-C-methyl-D-erythritol and 4-diphosphocytidyl-2c-methyl-d-erythritol-2-phosphate, which then lead to IPP and DMAPP.
Synthesis of IPP and DMAPP via 1-deoxy-d-xylulose-5-phosphate Pathway
Subsequent addition of three 5-carbon IPP units to a single 5-carbon DMAPP unit generates the 20-carbon central precursor, geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP). Bicyclization of GGPP by the class II diterpene synthase, ent-clerodienyl diphosphate synthase (SdCPS2), produces an Iabdanyl diphosphate carbocation, which is subsequently rearranged through a sequence of 1,2-hydride and methyl shifts to form the ent-clerodienyl diphosphate intermediate.[25] SdCPS2 catalyzes the first committed reaction in the biosynthesis of salvinorin A by producing its characteristic clerodane scaffold. A series of oxygenation, acylation and methylation reactions is then required to complete the biosynthesis of salvinorin A.
Biosynthesis of Salvinorin A
Similar to many plant-derived psychoactive compounds, salvinorin A is excreted via peltate glandular trichomes, which reside external to the epidermis.[26][27]
Chemical synthesis [ edit ]
A total asymmetric synthesis of salvinorin A, which relies on a transannular Michael reaction cascade to construct the ring system, was achieved as a 4.5% overall yield over 30 steps,[28] then revised using 24 steps to yield salvinorin A in 0.15% yield.[29] An approach to the trans-decalin ring system of salvinorin A used an intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction/Tsuji allylation strategy,[30] and a total synthesis of salvinorin A was achieved using the intramolecular Diels-Alder / Tsuji allylation approach, combined with an asymmetric late-stage addition of the furan moiety.[31]
Other salvinorins [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is one of several structurally related salvinorins found in the Salvia divinorum plant. Salvinorin A can be synthesized from the inactive salvinorin B by acetylation. The de-acetylated analog salvinorin B is devoid of human activity.[citation needed] 2-Mexothymethyl salvinorin B is five- and seven-fold more potent at KOPr in GTP-γS assays than U50,488 and Salvinorin A, respectively.[32] Salvinorin A seems to be the only active naturally occurring salvinorin.[23]
Salvinorins A - F Name Structure R1 R2 Activity Origin Salvinorin A -OCOCH 3 − active 22-Thiocyanato-
salvinorin A -OCOCH 2 SCN − active
(biased)[33] semi-synthetic Salvinorin B -OH − inactive Salvinorin C -OCOCH 3 -OCOCH 3 unknown Salvinorin D -OH -OCOCH 3 inactive Salvinorin E -OCOCH 3 -OH inactive Salvinorin F -H -OH unknown
Salvinorin J is most closely related to salvinorin E in structure, with a C-17 secondary alcohol instead of a ketone group.[34]
Semi-synthetic analogues [ edit ]
Research on salvinorin derivatives has produced a number of semi-synthetic compounds, several of which can be conveniently made from salvinorin B. Most derivatives are selective kappa opioid agonists as with salvinorin A, although some are even more potent, with the most potent compound 2-ethoxymethyl salvinorin B being 10x stronger than salvinorin A. Some derivatives, such as herkinorin, reduce kappa opioid action and instead act as mu opioid agonists.[35][36][37][38]
Effects and research [ edit ]
Salvinorin A has only been administered to humans in a few studies, one showing that its effects peaked at about 2 minutes, that its subjective effects may overlap with those of serotonergic psychedelics, and that it temporarily impairs recall and recognition memory.[39] Like most other agonists of kappa opioid receptors, salvinorin A produces sedation, psychotomimesis, dysphoria, anhedonia, and depression.[2][40][41] Salvinorin A is under preliminary research for its possible use as a scaffold in medicinal chemistry to develop new drugs for treating psychiatric diseases,[2][42] such as addiction from cocaine dependence.[43]
Legal status [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is sometimes regulated together with its host, Salvia divinorum, due to its psychoactive and analgesic effects.
United States [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is not scheduled at the federal level in the United States.[44] Its molecular structure is unlike any Schedule I or II drug, so possession or sales is unlikely to be prosecuted under the Federal Analogue Act.
Florida [ edit ]
"Salvinorin A" is a Schedule I controlled substance in the state of Florida making it illegal to buy, sell, or possess in Florida. There is an exception however for "any drug product approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration which contains Salvinorin A or its isomers, esters, ethers, salts, and salts of isomers, esters, and ethers, if the existence of such isomers, esters, ethers, and salts is possible within the specific chemical designation."[45]
Australia [ edit ]
Salvinorin A is considered a Schedule 9 prohibited substance in Australia under the Poisons Standard (October 2015).[46] A Schedule 9 substance is a substance which may be abused or misused, the manufacture, possession, sale or use of which should be prohibited by law except when required for medical or scientific research, or for analytical, teaching or training purposes with approval of Commonwealth and/or State or Territory Health Authorities.[46]
Sweden [ edit ]
Sveriges riksdags health ministry Statens folkhälsoinstitut classified salvinorin A (and Salvia divinorum) as "health hazard" under the act Lagen om förbud mot vissa hälsofarliga varor (translated Act on the Prohibition of Certain Goods Dangerous to Health) as of Apr 1, 2006, in their regulation SFS 2006:167 listed as "salvinorin A", making it illegal to sell or possess.[47]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Photo
His boots were caked with mud when Thomas S. T. Gimbel, a longtime hedge fund executive, slipped in a strawberry patch. It was the plumpness of a strawberry that had distracted him.
Mr. Gimbel, who once headed the hedge fund division of Credit Suisse, now spends more time discussing crop yields than stock or bond yields.
He is the man on the ground for a group of investors — including New York’s biggest real estate dynasty, two Florida sugar barons and the founder of a multibillion-dollar investment firm — who have been buying up farms across the United States through a real estate investment trust called the American Farmland Company.
Hedge funds are not new to farmland. For nearly a decade they have scoured the corners of the globe for cheap land as food prices have soared, positioning themselves to profit from the growing demand. Hedge funds now have $14 billion invested in farmland, according to the data provider Preqin.
But in the latest twist, a small but growing group of sophisticated investors and bankers are combining crops and the soil they grow in into an asset class that ordinary investors can buy a piece of.
Farmland Partners and the Gladstone Land Corporation, two real estate investment trusts that also own and lease farmland, are already trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
For now, American Farmland is a private company, and its founder, D. Dixon Boardman, is pitching the vision to Wall Street. Corn, cotton, lemons, walnuts, avocados: If it grows in the ground and has an attractive income stream, he is peddling it.
“It’s like gold, but better, because there is this cash flow,” Mr. Boardman said. The income stream comes from the rent farmers pay American Farmland and also often includes a share of the revenue from the crops. The company buys farms with permanent crops like almonds and avocados and row crops like cotton and corn.
Down the line, if American Farmland follows the same path as Farmland Partners and Gladstone Land and lists on a public exchange, Mr. Boardman will have another audience to pitch his vision to: ordinary investors.
American Farmland has spent $131 million on 16 farms and more than 11,000 acres of tillable land — the equivalent of 13 Central Parks. It’s a small start, but Mr. Boardman, Mr. Gimbel and their partners have large ambitions.
Photo
They are competing with investors that have huge war chests. Alaska’s state pension fund, for example, had $485.9 million invested in farmland in 2013. The world’s biggest asset manager, BlackRock, has $180 million of its clients’ money in an agricultural fund, according to Preqin.
The latest wave of interest was generated by the 2008 financial crisis. As global food prices soared and opportunities to buy land abounded, investors like BlackRock, Whitebox Advisors, Ospraie Management and George Soros’s hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, offered their clients ways to invest in the heartland. Investors were wary of the exotic sliced-and-diced securities that had contributed to the crisis, and farmland seemed more tangible.
“It was a major inflection point,” said Philippe de Lapérouse, managing director for the agriculture consulting firm HighQuest Partners. “At that time, investors were looking at farmland as an attractive asset to hold.”
Many individual investors were soon presented with a different challenge: Farmland can be difficult to sell quickly. Some hedge funds stopped offering agriculture investments. But the flow of money from some of the country’s largest pension funds has remained steady.
Wall Street’s foray into farmland may present its own challenges. Shares in Farmland Partners and Gladstone Land have been volatile, indicating investor uncertainty. “It’s a question of whether it is really in the long term something that’s going to appeal to investors,” Mr. de Lapérouse said.
Mr. Boardman and his partners — among them Harrison T. LeFrak, of the LeFrak real estate empire in New York; Alfonso and Pepe Fanjul, the Cuban-American owners of a sugar conglomerate; and William von Mueffling, the founder of Cantillon Asset Management — think it will.
Mr. Gimbel said, “It’s unlike any other asset class.”
American Farmland teamed up with Prudential’s agricultural investment arm, Capital Agricultural Property Services, which runs a farm management and real estate brokerage business. The unit provides loans to farmers and manages farmland, giving American Farmland access to information in an often opaque real estate market.
“I was not about to put on my Wellington boots with my pinstriped suit,” Mr. Boardman said.
American Farmland and other Wall Street firms could soon crowd the heartland.
“I probably have a call from an interested party once a day, someone who has never invested in farmland,” said T. Marc Schober, a partner at Colvin & Company, which connects buyers and sellers of farmland.
Todd H. Kuethe, an assistant professor of land economics at the University of Illinois, said that at agriculture conferences, which were once the domain of farmers and industry insiders, a majority of participants are now institutional investors, venture capitalists and hedge fund managers.
“The share of bank and financial representatives who really want to know what is going on is now surpassing farmers,” Mr. Kuethe said. “I think there are more folks sitting around with money to buy than there is farmland.”
The few metrics that exist have helped lure many. National net farm income, considered a bellwether, is forecast to hit a record high of $130.5 billion for 2013, according to the Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture. The figure for 2014 is expected to soften to about $95.8 billion.
Photo
The value of farmland in the United States has appreciated on average by 8.4 percent over the last year and 4.7 percent annually since 1990, according to an index from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. Taking into consideration the income generated by crops, the total average return was 17.4 percent over the last year and 11.9 percent annually since 1990.
But not everyone thinks farmland values will continue to rise endlessly.
“You can certainly overpay for farmland, and if crop prices declined for whatever reason — for example because of some type of natural disaster — there are all sorts of reasons why, all of a sudden, the income stream does not support the price you paid for a piece of land,” said Jeffrey R. Havsy, director of research for the council.
And as the financial world’s interest in farmland grows, some observers have raised concerns about the new landowners’ switching to crops that pay better but that work the soil too hard and use up precious resources like water. In California, for example, a recent move toward nut trees has put pressure on already constrained water resources during a severe drought.
These concerns are likely to increase as more farmland changes hands from farmers to corporations.
But to Mr. de Lapérouse, whose HighQuest Partners started Global AgInvesting, a series of conferences that take place in Dubai, London, New York and Singapore, the current level of interest is just the beginning.
“Less than 1 percent of global farmland is owned by institutional investors,” Mr. de Lapérouse said. “So even if you quintupled that, it would be a major sea change, but it’s still only a little territory.”A 71-year-old man who spent more than four decades in solitary confinement in Louisiana died Friday, less than a week after a judge freed him and granted him a new trial.
Herman Wallace’s attorneys said he died at a supporter’s home in New Orleans. Wallace had been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and stopped receiving treatment. Wallace was held for years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. In 2009, Wallace was moved from Angola to “closed-cell restriction” at Hunt Correctional in St. Gabriel, where he recently was taken to the prison’s hospital unit.
Jackie Sumell, a longtime supporter of Wallace, said he was surrounded by friends and family when he died. Wallace at one point told them, “I love you all,” according to Sumell.
“He was in and out of consciousness,” she said.
U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson in Baton Rouge had ordered Wallace released from prison on Tuesday after granting him a new trial. Jackson ruled women were unconstitutionally excluded from the grand jury that indicted Wallace in the stabbing death of the 23-year-old guard, Brent Miller.
One of the final things that Herman said to us was, 'I am free. I am free.' - Statement from Herman Wallace's lawyers
A West Feliciana Parish grand jury re-indicted Wallace on charges connected to Miller’s death on Thursday. District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla told The Advocate newspaper that Jackson ordered a new trial because he “perceived a flaw in the indictment — not his murder conviction.”
Out of prison for 3 days
Wallace and two other inmates held in solitary confinement for years came to be known as the “Angola 3.”
Wallace’s attorneys said in a statement Friday that it was an honour to represent him.
“Herman endured what very few of us can imagine, and he did it with grace, dignity, and empathy to the end,” they said. “Although his freedom was much too brief, it meant the world to Herman to spend these last three days surrounded by the love of his family and friends. One of the final things that Herman said to us was, 'I am free. I am free.”‘
Wallace, of New Orleans, was serving a 50-year armed robbery sentence when Miller was stabbed to death.
Wallace and fellow “Angola 3” member Albert Woodfox denied involvement in Miller’s killing, claiming they were targeted because they helped establish a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party at the Angola prison in 1971, set up demonstrations and organized strikes for better conditions.
In 2010, Woodfox was moved to the David Wade Correctional Center in Homer, where he remains in custody.
The third “Angola 3” member, Robert King, who was convicted of killing a fellow inmate in 1973, was released in 2001 after his conviction was reversed.OTTAWA—When Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stood in Parliament to deliver his first budget on May 2, 2006, the economy was robust, Ottawa’s books were in surplus and Canadians, he said, had every reason to be confident in their future.
But only two and a half years later, Canada was being battered by the worst global recession in a century and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government was struggling to keep the economy afloat with an emergency bail-out plan that would run up the biggest federal budget deficits ever.
Now, after contending with economic unknowns and risky growth at home for nearly half a decade, the former Mike Harris stalwart has started preparing the 2013 budget amid questions about how long he will stay on in his portfolio.
Flaherty, 63, who has been relentlessly crossing far-flung time zones for meetings with his international counterparts since 2006, sometimes looks a bit the worse for wear. This has raised questions in Ottawa, but Flaherty refuses to discuss his health.
At Finance, officials wouldn’t be surprised if the MP for Whitby—Oshawa left public life fairly soon to “make some money,” as the saying goes, in business.
But no one really seems to know. While he may seem a bit tired at times, Flaherty clearly enjoys steering the economy and he continues to have the confidence of the markets. As well, his high-profile portfolio has given him a prominent role in global economic decision-making that he relishes.
So for the moment, there’s little expectation that anyone else will announce the budget in March.
And Flaherty himself goes further, saying he plans to stick it out at Finance until the Conservatives balance Ottawa’s books by eliminating the $26-billion budget deficit several years from now.
“I’m the only finance minister our government has had,” he pointed out recently. “We have a long-term economic plan... to get to balanced budgets in the medium term during the course of this Parliament and I intend to see my way through to the end until we are balanced. So I intend to stay.”
But the finance portfolio isn’t getting any easier.
Despite years of efforts by Flaherty and the Bank of Canada to boost the economy, weakness persists, with the most recent available data showing growth of just 0.1 per cent in October from September. And the near-term outlook is not bracing.
“Following a weak third quarter (of 2012), the Canada economy appears to have entered the fourth quarter on soft footing,” observed TD Bank economist Dina Ignjatovic.
“This reflects the sluggish growth and the impact of the fiscal cliff on business investment in the United States, as well as the impact of high consumer indebtedness and softness in the housing market domestically,” Ignjatovic said.
Economists have been dialing down their forecasts for 2013, with many predicting growth for the year below 2 per cent. And Canada could be plunged back into a recession if U.S. President Barack Obama is unable to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, the economically damaging divisions between him and the Congress.
Even if that calamity can be dodged, Canada’s annual economic performance appears mired for the foreseeable future in the lower 2-per cent range, considerably below the robust 2.9-per cent growth recorded the year before the Conservatives came to power.
Unemployment, which was 6.6 per cent when Flaherty was sworn in as finance minister, now stands at 7.2 per cent, with 1.3 million out of work. And significant improvement in the jobs picture is expected to be years away.
Turbulent economic times have also played havoc with the Harper government’s financial accounting.
Flaherty seldom makes a speech without stressing the need for spending restraint. Yet the Conservatives, after inheriting a $13-billion budget surplus from the Liberals in early 2006, were running a deficit within three years. In the four years since then, mainly as a result of the stimulus spending rolled out to combat the global recession, Flaherty has run up budget deficits totalling about $140 billion.
He missed his deficit-reduction target in 2011, and his projection in the Nov. 13 budget update that the Conservatives would not balance Ottawa’s books until 2016 caused a political uproar.
That’s because Harper had promised in the last election that, as soon as the books were balanced, he would bring in popular new tax breaks for Canadian families and savers. Flaherty’s fiscal estimate pushed the introduction of those goodies past the expected 2015 date of the next federal election, leading Harper to step in and brush aside the finance minister’s budget projection. Harper said the government intends to erase the deficit by 2015 after all — leading the NDP to accuse the Conservatives of “making things up” as they go.
Despite trouble balancing the books in recent years, Flaherty stuck with his plan to turn Canada into one of the world’s low-tax jurisdictions for corporations. According to finance department calculations, tax breaks between 2007 and 2013 will result in income tax savings totalling $60 billion for Canadian corporations. In hopes of boosting the economy by stimulating business activity, Ottawa has also scrapped import tariffs on a wide range of imported raw materials and machinery and provided tax breaks on the cost of machinery and equipment.
Flaherty has said repeatedly that the country’s economic health depends on the willingness of corporations to invest now that deficit-laden governments are reducing their stimulative spending and maxed-out consumers are less willing to part with their money.
But, with global economic conditions so uncertain, business investment in machinery and equipment has not responded as vigorously as the government hoped and companies are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in cash—a hoard Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney labelled “dead money.”
“I think he may be a bit frustrated by the dead money,” Progressive Economics Forum president Erin Weir said of the finance minister.
“Flaherty is boasting about these corporate tax cuts and saying the ball is now in corporate Canada’s court to invest. But the question in my mind is: At what point does Flaherty start to revisit the corporate tax cuts?” said Weir, a candidate in Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership race.
The NDP favours tying tax cuts to actual job hires by business, but there is no indication that Flaherty, who sees corporate tax reductions as part of his personal accomplishments, will alter his current approach.
In fact, the Conservatives have so far given every indication that the next budget will continue with the restraint campaign Flaherty has pursued in the last few years. He is hewing to this position despite repeated complaints from the NDP and Liberals that the government’s belt-tightening measures are inappropriate when the economy is sputtering and unemployment remains high.
Opening pre-budget consultations a few weeks ago, Flaherty said he is willing to consider shifting federal money to projects that spur growth, though major new programs are out of the question.
“It’s not as if there won’t be new initiatives and reallocating of resources,” he said. “What there won’t be is any large, multi-billion dollar spending initiatives which would create a structural deficit for the government of Canada.”Indonesia’s practice of subjecting would-be female police officers to ‘virginity tests’ is “discriminatory and a form of gender-based violence,” that has to be stopped, Human Rights Watch says.
“Police authorities in Jakarta need to immediately and unequivocally abolish the test, and then make certain that all police recruiting stations nationwide stop administering it,” Nisha Varia, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, said in the statement released on Tuesday.
The watchdog interviewed female police officers in six Indonesian cities to find out if women applying for a job in law enforcement still have to undergo virginity tests, despite previous promises by police officials to abolish the practice.
The video with the interviews is now posted on the Human Rights Watchdog official YouTube feed. The women, hiding their faces from cameras and concealing their names, say they had to go through the pain and humiliation of the ‘two-finger test’, which HRW describes as an archaic and discredited practice.
So many reasons why it's wrong. #Indonesia's police shd stop requiring women applicants to undergo "‘virginity tests" http://t.co/46jQ97NkI3 — Nisha Varia (@Nisha_Varia) November 18, 2014
“Entering the virginity test examination room was really upsetting,” one 24-year-old woman recalls. “I feared that after they performed the test I would not be a virgin anymore. It really hurt. My friend even fainted because... it really hurt, really hurt.”
The requirement for undergoing the test is posted on Indonesia national police’s official website.
"In addition to the medical and physical tests, women who want to be policewomen [sic] must also undergo virginity tests,” it reads. “So all women who want to become policewomen should keep their virginity."
Indonesian police spokesman Maj. Gen. Ronny Sompie urged people not "respond negatively" to the tests, explaining that they are done to ensure the applicants do not have sexually-transmitted diseases, AP reported.
"All of this is done in a professional manner and did not harm the applicants," Sompie said.
Testimonies recorded by the HRW, however, indicate the opposite.
“I don’t want to remember those bad experiences,” a 19-year-old woman said. “It was humiliating. Why should we take off our clothes in front of strangers? Yes, [the virginity testers] were women, but they were total strangers. It was discriminatory. It is not necessary. I think it should be stopped.”
Currently women account for only 3 percent of 400,000 police officers in Indonesia. The National Police force plans a massive increase in the number of policewomen, though. By December there are expected to be 21,000 female police officers, or 5 percent of the total police force.
Human Rights Watch has also documented the practice of virginity tests for policewomen in other countries including Egypt, India and Afghanistan.
Last year, some education officials in Indonesia proposed that virginity tests be introduced for teenage schoolgirls, causing an uproar.The PvZ connundrum: A look at late game P v Z, Broodlord infestor trouble.
During the round of 16 in the GSL we had TSL_Symbol play Liquid'Hero. These games were endurance matches to say the least. Each game made it to the 40 minute mark with Liquid'hero up against every protoss' nightmare; a patient zerg sitting on a massive broodlord/infestor army protected by a wall of spine crawlers.
This scenario plays out often in the matchup and it seemingly hinders on a single moment, the vortex. There are other ways to deal this army composition whether it be the massive carrier switch, speed prism harass but the most popular is still the archon toilet.
For those unaware, the archon toilet is a strategy that hinges on trapping a portion or all the zerg's broodlords in a vortex. Then you walk all your archons (more is better) into the vortex to annihilate all the zerg forces once the spell ends.
With this strategy the game literally hinges on this one spell. Vortex misses, zerg wins. Mothership is captured by neural parasite, zerg wins. Vortex lands on broods and archons enter, protoss wins.
There has to be another way.
Let us look at the trouble of this zerg army. It is easy to focus on the broodlords. They are slow, powerful, high health siege units. Anything on the ground gets blocked by the broodlings if they are not dealt with quickly. The real trouble however, are the infestors. Fungal growth locks units in place damaging them while infested terrans do tremendous damage to both ground and air forces.
The speed prism harass takes advantage of the sluggish zerg army by ideally picking off valuable tech structures, harvesters and delaying the zerg push. This is typically done in conjuction with mass expansions to gather a large bank of resources. However there is still the army to deal with.
In the current metagame this usually leads into the carrier transition. Carriers have some of the highest damage output available, are unimpeded by the broodlings and have immense range to pick off infestors. The carriers however hinge on surprise as they take a long time to gather a force large enough to be formidable. If scouted, the zerg can hatch an appropriate number of corruptors to make engagements troublesome. With the assistance of infested terrans and fungal growth locking down the carriers and their interceptors this too can become a toss up.
While I do not have a guaranteed way to win in these situation, I believe the thinking of protoss players needs to adapt. Below is simply a suggestion for a new approach to dealing with this army. The warp prism harass is an excellent idea but it does not go far enough. The clear vulnerability of the broodlord/infestor is the speed. Bypassing the army into a base race may give the advantage needed.
By going into this stage of the game with that mindset you can prepare accordingly. As the harass and expansion explosion occurs set up a backup main base and establish a tech tree in case the main goes down.A second cyber core, spreading out gateways, along with a dark shrine/templar archives in unconvential positions can go a long way in recovering in these chaotic situations. The mothership's recall ability allows you to save entire mineral lines which can be the difference between a win and a loss.
Forcing your opponent into tough choices opens the doors for mistakes. In the latest stage of the game a single misstep often results in a loss. The pattern of mothership/vortex into GG puts all the pressure on the protoss to make the right move. I am not suggesting this is the answer to all lategame protoss vs zerg but with the state of the game as it is, something needs to change.
If you have any ideas regarding this article, matchup or others please comment or contact me on twitter @m2nello.
Get one step ahead of the metagame,
Chris MartinelloFBI Rejects Baltimore Police Department's Request To Take Over Suiter Investigation
The FBI has rejected the Baltimore Police Department's request to take over the investigation of Detective Sean Suiter's death, Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis announced Wednesday.
The FBI says there is no evidence to suggest Suiter's death was directly connected to the police corruption case that Suiter was set to testify in the day after he was shot, or another FBI investigation.
"For [that] reason we believe it's prudent for the [Baltimore Police] to continue as the lead in this investigation with our current commitment to assist and support you fully [with] FBI analytical, forensic and investigative support," FBI Assistant Director Stephen Richardson said in a letter to Davis. "If we develop information that changes our assessment of the investigation, we will, of course, take appropriate action."
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office will continue to support the ongoing investigation and will help identify any leads in the case. The $25,000 reward from the FBI for information leading to the arrest of anyone involved in the case remains. The Baltimore Police Department's $215,000 reward for information still stands as well.
Davis asked FBI Director Christopher Wray for the FBI to take over the case three weeks ago.
FBI letter saying the agency is not taking over the Det Suiter investigation. FBI says there’s no evidence that Suiters death was directly connected to police corruption probe pic.twitter.com/r8NH7fAiNG — David Collins (@dcollinsWBAL) December 27, 2017
In an announcement Wednesday, Davis said they have no real physical evidence that ties to one individual person or suspect in |
While I won’t ever really know all the German words, there’s a certain charm to discovering new words, idioms and phrases—especially since many of them are surprisingly fun.
Whatever the feeling you’re trying to express or the thing you want to describe, more often than not, there’s a German word for it. And if not, you can pretty much make one up. But before you’re proficient enough to do so, here are some of my favorite German words I’ve learned so far.
15 German Words You Need To Know
To help come up with list of German words (some useful, some less-than-useful), I’ve collaborated with Berlin-based illustrator Clairikine and online language school Lingoda.com to help put it together. Use coupon code adam15 for a 15% discount on your first month of a Lingoda subscription!
Schafskälte
Schafskälte is a meteorological phenomenon that happens around June 11 (or at least between June 4th and 20th), but not necessarily every year. When it does, temperatures drop suddenly by 5 to 10 degrees Celsius. It affects Central Europe but Germany is the country where it can be felt the most—hence the reason why the German language has a name for it but English doesn’t. Speaking of that word, “Schaf” means “sheep” while “kälte” refers to cold temperatures. And this phenomenon got its name from the fact that the Schafskälte would kick in after the sheep had been sheared, thus making them most vulnerable to the cold!
Fremdschämen
The verb fremdschämen could be the German cousin of face palm. It’s used to describe being vicariously embarrassed by the behavior of someone else. Common situations where you might have to fremdschämen include our best friend being too drunk in public, seeing a stranger trip and fall on the street or hearing someone proudly say something completely irrelevant during a meeting. #oops
Hüftgold
Hüft means hip while gold means, er, gold—see, German really is fairly easy! However, guessing the meaning of this poetic word might be a bit trickier. Any idea? Hüftgold, it turns out, describes something slightly less glamorous, namely the extra fat people put on around the hips. But come on! It’s so much sweeter to tell a friend they’ve put on a bit of hip gold than, you know, fat.
On a side note. Hüftgold is also the name of a pretty cute café in Berlin! Check it out if you are ever in town.
Kummerspeck
Kummerspeck is used to describe the excess fat gained by emotional eating, especially in times of stress or sadness. Kummer means grief and Speck means bacon, which does make Kummerspeck an interesting word, don’t you think? By the way, Speck does not refer to actual bacon here, it’s just that Germans call any excess fat “Speck.” So if you manage to avoid putting on Kummerspeck, beware of Winterspeck, which is the weight people put on in winter. And believe me, winters in Germany are so long that there is more than enough time to get a little bit chubbier!
Zweisamkeit
Let me have another shot at showing you that German is, indeed, a beautiful and romantic language. Ever heard of Zweisamkeit? This word describes the self-imposed isolation of a couple in love. Their togetherness creates a kind of loneliness around the two of them. It derives from Einsamkeit, meaning loneliness, but Zweisamkeit is obviously much more appealing…Two is better than one!
Geil
Geil is a funny word that shows German people are perhaps a tad dirtier than you’d think. This adjective is often used to describe something cool, awesome or exciting, but geil’s true meaning is that is describes being “horny,” “salacious” or “randy.” Therefore, avoid saying “ich bin geil” thinking it means “I’m awesome” as whoever you are talking to might think you’re blatantly asking for sex. Or, use it. Your call.
Reizüberflutung
Überflutung means flooding, or overflow, and Reiz is the German word for stimulus. Therefore, Reizüberflutung is the somewhat familiar term that was coined to describe what occurs when someone is being over-stimulated by their environment. This happens more often in our societies than it used to, especially because of urbanization, mass media, advertising, technology, Twitter, etc. It can cause irritability, over-excitement, tension, and more, so this evocative expression makes all the sense in the world.
Kopfkino
Probably among the cutest German words, Kopfkino is composed of Kino, which means cinema, and Kopf, which is German for head. Can you guess what Kopfkino means? Let’s say you’re about to fall asleep and you start thinking about that interaction you had with your crush earlier. Your mind starts drifting while you imagine how you could’ve kept the conversation going a bit longer, maybe you could’ve even asked them out? Letting this scenario unfold in your head is Kopfkino! Or that moment where your thoughts are acting like the director of your own private movie.
Na?
Na is among the most puzzling words for German learners, especially if you’re living in a German-speaking country. It’s not rare to be greeted with a loud Naaaa? by your flatmate upon coming home, and it turns out the only correct answer to that perplexing, monosyllabic question is to ask it in return! Na? is, in a way, the German equivalent to our beloved “What’s up?” Now you know!
Picobello
No, Picobello is not an Italian word, although it does sound like one. Turns out it might be derived from the old German word piekfein, where fein was somehow replaced by Italian word bello. When something is picobello, it means it’s flawless, as in super clean for example, or that it’s looking good.
Feierabendbier
Feierabend itself is a cool German word as it describes the few hours that come once you get off work. It doesn’t matter whether they actually happen during the evening (“Abend”) or not, and regardless of whether a party (“Feier”) is in order. Add beer to the mix and you get one of my favorite German institutions: the Feierabendbier, or the beer you have upon finishing work. Some Germans take it a bit too seriously though, or at least that’s what I can’t help but think upon seeing construction workers open a bottle of cheap Pils at 10 am on any given day!
Pipapo
Pipapo is a another German word that doesn’t sound quite German and has unclear origins. It’s usually preceded by mit allem (“with all the”). The phrase Mit allem Pipapo means the same as the English expression “bells and whistles,” but you’ll have to admit that Pipapo just sounds way cuter!
Vokuhila
Vokuhila doesn’t sound very German either, does it? That’s because it’s a made-up word created by taking the first two letters of four words, namely vorne kurz, hinten lang, meaning “short in the front, long in the back” and, well, I guess you know which horrendous haircut this refers to… Now that’s one trend I wish the German language hadn’t encouraged!
Fruchtfleisch
Frucht translates to fruit and Fleisch means meat. Combine these two words and you get another fun German word: Fruchtfleisch, which is what you’d call pulp in English. Actually, this word always makes me smile because I’ve realized that, in German, even vegans have a bit of Fleisch in their lives.
Tatendrang
Tatendrang, or literally “action urge” is, hmm, the opposite of how you probably feel on Sundays or on Monday mornings. Tatendrang is used to describe a strong urge to get things done, take up new projects and accomplish everything on your to-do list. Though I do feel the Tatendrang sometimes, believe me when I say that, as a freelancer, I definitely wish this was my default mode!
• • •
If you’re interested in learning German, check out the Lingoda.com website which offers online language lessons with qualified native-speaking teachers in online classrooms. At the moment, they’ve got courses for English, German, French and Spanish. You can even take a German language trial class for just 0.99€.
Use coupon code adam15 for a 15% discount on your first month of a Lingoda subscription!Senate Democrats are planning an all-night talkathon Thursday over President Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The late-night floor drama comes after senators voted to move forward with Scott Pruitt's nomination earlier Thursday in a 54-46 vote.
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A final vote, absent a deal, is expected early Friday afternoon.
Democrats don't have the manpower to block Pruitt on their own. Cabinet nominees only need a simple majority, and Republicans have 52 seats.
Democrats blasted McConnell on Thursday for refusing to delay a vote on Pruitt. They wanted more time to wait for records from his time as Oklahoma attorney general requested more than two years ago.
The Center for Media and Democracy had sought, under Oklahoma’s state records law, copies of emails between Pruitt’s staff and representatives of various fossil fuel and conservative interests.
Eleven Democrats had already taken to the floor as of Thursday afternoon to protest Pruitt's nomination.While It’s Compiling is a new series of interviews with experts across a range of bleeding-edge technologies and practices, exclusive to Skills Matter. Be sure to subscribe to this blog for future interviews, or follow us on Twitter.
Find out who we’ll be interviewing next, and get a chance to put your questions forward with the hashtag #whileitscompiling.
It’s the third round of While It’s Compiling and we’ve had some time to chat with Kevin Hammond. Kevin is a Professor at the School of Computer Science, University of St. Andrews where he also leads the Functional Programming research group. He is also an Honorary Professor at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and his main interests are in cost modelling, real-time parallelism and embedded systems.
1. What attracted you to functional languages in the first place?
I took a summer job rewriting a novel lambda calculus reducer (using spine order reduction) before starting my PhD. I actually started my PhD looking at logic languages as part of an Alvey project, but decided that Functional Languages had advantages in simpler reduction order, and had fewer compromises in purity than Prolog. This was important for maximising parallel performance (due to an administrative error, my thesis was originally about “decorative” programming languages, but I hope we now have languages that are practical as well). After finishing my PhD I moved over to Glasgow where I wrote the first Haskell compiler (pre GHC) including a parallel implementation for the GRIP multiprocessor, working with Simon Peyton Jones, Phil Wadler and John Hughes amongst others. That was a very heady mix!
2. What are you working on?
All kinds of things. I lead a very active research group at St Andrews that is investigating worst-case execution time for lazy languages, static analysis, real-time functional programming, types for parallelism, security through dependency, patterns of parallelism, implementations for heterogeneous (CPU/GPU computation), functional financial computations.
One big current project that I’m running, ParaPhrase, has 13 partners in 8 European countries and aims to develop clean functional patterns of parallelism for both Erlang and C/C++. Partly you can see this as a stealthy way to get more functional ideas into the C++ community.
3. Do you work in only FP languages, or does the project you are working on have some FP code and some OO/Procedure code? If so how does that fit together?
I’ve partially answered that above. As a language implementer, the internals of our systems tend to be very complex and often low-level. I have, for example, written microcode, needed to deal with assembly language/machine code in a very intimate way, used C or other languages for runtime systems implementation, linked with code written in various languages etc. I even at one point had to build some prototype hardware using a wire-wrap tool. If I’m doing something high-level, I much prefer to use a functional language such as Haskell, since this lets me express my ideas quickly, concisely and usually with few or no errors. As an example, the first version of the Hume compiler was written in about a fortnight.
The front end (in Haskell) took one week, and the runtime system (in C) took another week. Over 95% of the bugs were in the (much simpler) back end. I find Java (which I’ve been using since 1995) to be a very awkward level: too low level to let me code quickly and abstractly, too high level to let me get easily at the machine details, and the libraries are often rather poorly written/documented, which I find very frustrating.
One thing that horrifies some of my collaborators is that I tend to write simple Haskell programs (a few hundred lines) without any type signatures at all, using the type inference system to deal with any mistakes. I wouldn’t recommend this for production code, but it’s good for really fast prototyping.
4. What is one piece of advice you can give to new programmers?
Don’t make it too complicated! Gratuitous use of advanced language features may seem cool, but can be murder to understand, debug and change. Good code is clean, clear, easy to understand, but still abstract and generic. Oh, and syntax is important: the most heated arguments about the Haskell design related to syntax rather than semantics; and the single most contentious issues was comments. I think we did a reasonable job there.
5. Do you see the increased interest in FP in industry reflected in your students interest in FP?
Yes, but it takes time for changes to be reflected in the curriculum and we need to get the message through to both students and faculty (who can be surprisingly conservative). One way to feed this through is by running advanced Masters courses with direct industrial links that can then pull through from the undergraduate level. If anyone is interested/willing to help with this, I’d love to get in touch!
6. What would you like to ask the community?
What are the key remaining obstacles to wider spread adoption of functional techniques, and how can we work together to break these down/create new opportunities?
Also, please consider applying for one of our eight 7th Century PhD studentships (and/or tell anyone who might be interested). They’re open to students of any nationality, and have a deadline of March 31st. Please contact me if you’re interested in applying.
Know how to break down the obstacles to a wider adoption of Functional techniques? Tweet #whileitscompiling or @skillsmatter
Kevin will be speaking at the Functional Programming eXchange 2014 about ParaForming: Forming Parallel Functional Programs using Refactoring
Tickets are available at Skills MatterAlmost 50 years ago, thanks to Kevin Lynch, Jane Jacobs and many others, the Parisian flâneur tradition of "looking around" cities became a central aspect of academic inquiry about, and activist response to, urban change.
In the changing city of today, during these divisive political times, I am often asked how this looking around (what I now call "seeing the better city" in my new book title) can make a difference. Reporters, audience members, friends, and colleagues wonder how compiling visual, "urban diaries" (composed of photographs that capture what we like and dislike, what is working and what is not) might change our cities for the better.
In short, how can urban diaries influence effective city planning and development outcomes?
My answer, first of all, is that using the time-honored words of designer George Nelson, "to see is to think." Observing, and thinking more visually can enhance our ability to understand and contrast differing points of view about the cities we want, and better equips us to intelligently discuss---rather than provide a visceral response to---inevitable changes in the urban landscape.
For example, I repeatedly notice many assumptions buried in public debate in my hometown of Seattle about how the city should redevelop. Newcomers and long-time residents, as well as different generations, offer varying perspectives and often disagree. Discussions, both online, and in city-convened meetings, often focus on the nature of single family versus multifamily or mixed-use neighborhoods. While participatory websites and facilitators may use maps and visual examples, the process has not yet fully embraced bottom-up, visual submittals as part of consideration and fine-tuning of policies, projects, and plans.
Amid our increasing capacity to photograph with smartphones (over and above conventional cameras), one of the most simple and empowering things we can do is to record and communicate our observations and impressions of where we live, work and travel each day. These urban diaries can occur on multiple levels---from introductory, "how to see" exercises, all the way to incorporation of citizen-based photography into city planning processes and development project input.
Charles R. Wolfe
In short, I believe that urban diaries are one key to a more inclusive and empowering approach as our cities change around us. An online Seattle publication, The Evergrey, has agreed and encouraged readers to create, share and annotate urban diary examples.
After all, urban diary topics are as varied as the inspiration that we find in cities. The urban diary interprets the intersection of the public and private realms, the boundaries of the built and natural environments, the relationships between land uses and transportation, and issues of adaptive reuse and public safety.
Interested? Give it a try, with the following concluding suggestions gleaned from Seeing the Better City on how to start thinking more visually in urban settings. Here are five tips to help read and frame urban surroundings and the way people connect with the places around them:
Choose the diary tool and type. Will you photograph, write in a journal, sketch, record audio, tweet, or do a combination of each? Pick a medium that best fits your diary’s purpose, whether your aim is to explore, document, or advocate for change.
Plan your path. Decide whether to follow a prescribed path or wander. Where will you start and end? Will you walk, bike, use public transit, or drive? Use maps (paper or digital) to gain perspective and define initial goals.
Select what you will focus on. Examples include the role of transportation, nature, color, the overlap of public and private space, height and scale of buildings, street features, spontaneous expression (e.g. graffiti), and feelings of safety or discomfort.
Use the LENS (Look, Explore, Narrate, and Summarize) Method. Here are some easy examples: summarize the walk from your home to a chosen destination in one to two paragraphs, videotape a walk, bike trip, or other focused activity along a street, or use continuous shutter or “burst” mode to photograph street life that you observe from a passing car, bus, streetcar, or tram.
Finalize conclusions and use. Assemble and present photographs and other diary media in a way that will inspire and show what is possible and what might be adaptable to your city or neighborhood. Most importantly, address human character and opportunity, no matter how the diary will be used.
Images composed by the author in Paris and Seattle. © 2009-2017 myurbanist. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy.Things don’t get much better in the classroom: Foreign-exchange students find U.S. classes less challenging than those abroad. A related Brookings survey from 2001 revealed that nearly 60 percent of international students found their U.S. classes “much easier” than classes in their home country. This number rose to 66.4 percent in Wednesday’s report.
Tom Loveless, the report’s author, concludes that international students think U.S. schools “do not fully embrace inculcating knowledge as the high school’s primary institutional mission.” But how true is this perception? Are U.S. schools any less rigorous or knowledge-focused than their international competitors? Well, the foreign-exchange students might be onto something.
To determine how the United States compares with other educational systems, Loveless turned to two reliable international assessments: the Program for International Students Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS). Although the two tests are highly correlated, they don’t necessarily test the same knowledge or skills. And while the PISA studies 15-year-old students every three years, the TIMSS studies fourth- and eighth-graders every four years. Both programs conducted tests in 2015 and released their findings the following year. Compared with other economically developed countries in Europe and Asia, the United States was not a top performer on either test.
In fact, Loveless finds America’s PISA scores to be “mediocre.” From 2012 to 2015, the nation saw little change in its performance in science and reading, ranking just ahead of the international average for both subjects. By contrast, math scores in the United States took a significant dip in 2015, declining by 11 points since the last PISA in 2012.
The nation’s scores on the TIMSS are slightly better. The report finds that eighth-grade American students saw a significant improvement in their math and science scores in 2015, with math scores rising by 26 points and science scores by 17 points over the last two decades. While Loveless describes this as a “rosier picture,” the data becomes more sobering when he considers the results for Singapore, the highest-scoring nation in both math and science. In 2015, the United States trailed Singapore by 66 points in eighth-grade science and by 103 points in eighth-grade math. At this rate, Loveless estimates, it could take more than 140 years for the nation to close the gap in its math scores.
Still, U.S. schools need not panic about its overall performance. Out of around 70 educational systems tested by the PISA, the United States scored equal to or better than 51 nations in science and equal to or better than 55 nations in reading. Similarly, out of 42 educational systems that tested eighth-graders using the TIMSS, the United States scored equal to or better than 35 nations in both math and science.One of the biggest secrets in Metal Gear Solid V may not actually be possible—but that’s not stopping players from coming together and trying to achieve it anyway.
First, some background. Yesterday I wrote about a hidden ending of sorts that players found while datamining the game on PC. It looks like this, uploaded courtesy of Александр Гольтяев:
Nobody knows for sure how to trigger this cutscene, but the most common theory postulates that, in order to achieve this, players have to disarm every single nuke in the game. The scene itself seems to support this:
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Nukes, for those that don’t know, are a weapon which can be built in Metal Gear Solid V after reaching a certain point in the game. Players build them because it deters other players from attacking them in the multiplayer portion of the game—only players with nukes, or high enough heroism can attack other players with nukes. Players are free to try to steal nukes from one another, if not outright detonate them against other players. Once in possession of a nuke, players can also choose to dispose of it in exchange for heroism points.
Let that sink in for a moment. In order to get this secret, players think they have to get rid of every single nuke in the game. No more nukes. Nobody building nukes. How, exactly, would that be possible? Can hundreds of thousands of people come together in the name of peace, or is this just a clever but unfeasible mechanic in the game?
One group is trying to make the impossible happen. Over on Reddit, 369 players who call themselves the “Metal Gear Philanthropists” are working to get rid of every nuclear warhead within the game.
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To do this, they’ve created guides that inform players on best practices and routes to acquire and disarm nukes:
“If you have to die or get captured [to steal the nuke], so be it,” one of the philanthropists advises. That’s how serious they are about it. The group has even taken to creating personal leaderboards that keep track of how many nukes individual players have disarmed, complete with its own ranking system.
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“Soon after that cut scene was leaked someone on /r/metalgearsolid suggested that we form a group to disarm as many nukes as possible, like how Snake formed the Philanthropists in MGS2 to rid the world of Metal Gears,” superpegacorn, a high school senior and one of the founding members of the subreddit, told me in an interview.
The undertaking is not without its hitches. For one thing, hackers on the PC version of the game make disarmament more difficult: these cheating players can simply give themselves more nukes. The game itself can hiccup occasionally, and get in the way of the Philanthropist’s goals. Sometimes, for example, the game won’t show enemies with nuclear weapons consistently within its own interface. Other times, the Philanthropists have reported difficulties actually getting the game to disarm the nukes. And, more importantly, an entire opposing side has sprung up in response to the Philanthropists. Every Metal Gear Solid V player does not dream of peace, as it turns out.
The enemy calls themselves the Patriots, and they aim to “[populate] the world of MGS with Weapons of Mass Destruction.” As of this writing, the group is small, but dedicated. They want to steal nukes from the opposition before they can be dismantled. Some of them are surely in it for the chaos—being a dick is fun! But some of them genuinely believe building and stockpiling nukes is an evil done for the greater good.
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“There [aren’t] enough nukes to achieve the goals that are being rumored for unlocking a special ending,” dchaffins, one of the members of the Patriots, wrote on the subreddit. “More nukes = more people disarming nukes = closer to the rumored cutscene.”
The player continues:
Instead of disarming nukes, we would instead make nukes more readily available. Geo-politically it might give counties that aren’t considered world powers a larger say in world affairs if the option were available to them to contract a PMC to build a nuke. PMCs already operate outside of the UN and other peacekeeping organizations therefore the country in question would not be breaking any sanctions by owning a nuke rather than developing one. Having this opportunity open might act as a deterrent against world powers from interfering or controlling the actions of lesser countries. Like MGSPW, MSF was contracted to fight for a country that didn’t have an army. So/r/MetalGearPatriots would be available to contract as nuclear deterrent for those countries that are being manipulated through the nuclear arms race of the 1980s. (This is kind of similar to Peacewalker and Skull Face’s motives).
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Yeah. They’re really getting into it, much to the delight of the Philanthropists.
“Every army needs an enemy to fight to keep focused and motivated,” Xander, a moderator of the Philanthropist subreddit, told me in an interview. Hilariously, Xander is actually helping the Patriots get their community off the ground, just to keep things interesting.
“Honestly, the fact that a group formed to counter us has been one of my favorite parts of the experience so far,” superpegacorn said. “We are playing a game after all, and having a distinct rival to battle with just makes it all so much more interesting, challenging, and rewarding.
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“I like to think of the relationship between our groups as similar to the relationship between Big Boss and Zero—a bitter, yet civil relationship where both sides are merely fighting for different things but with the same intentions. Nuclear deterrence can be seen as an alternate way to achieve peace, after all. So in a way we’re fighting for the same thing.”
Funnily enough, superpegacorn isn’t sure if full disarmament will actually unlock the scene—as I mentioned earlier, people aren’t 100% certain about the unlock conditions at play here. Maybe it can’t be triggered at all. Not that it really matters in the end. For the Philanthropists, it’s more about the journey.
“I thought that crusading to make the game nuclear weapon free would be a fun way to add to the experience of the game,” superpegacorn said. “It adds an extra level of role playing to the experience that makes you almost feel like a hero in your own right, instead of just being a hero through Venom Snake.
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“Trying to rid the game world of nuclear weapons is a daunting task, and in my opinion it also fits in well with the overall themes of the franchise. So I feel as though, by making this group, we’ve in a way added a game mechanic and gave a new level of depth to what was already a fantastic gaming experience.”
“I almost feel like Big Boss leading my own Diamond Dogs! And trust me, that’s a fantastic feeling.”Westboro Baptist Twitter/Kim Davis- screenshot
Proving that there is no limit to fundamentalist Christian extremism, the ultra-conservative Westboro Baptist church has launched a crusade against Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis despite all parties being against same-sex marriage.
While Davis is sitting in jail on contempt charges for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, members of the extremist Westboro Baptist church in Topeka are threatening to go to Kentucky to protest against Davis for being an adulteress –due to having been married four times — and for causing “F*g marriage” because of her sinfulness.
Davis, who converted to Christianity four years ago maintains that she cannot issue licenses to gay couples on religious grounds, calling it a “Heaven or Hell decision.” Despite that, members of the Topeka church have launched a Twitter jihad on Davis saying she is a “phony divorced/remarried traitor to God,” and “#NotChristian.”
Addressing Davis, who has been married four times –twice to the same man — and reportedly had twins out of wedlock, Westboro tweeted: “‘Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me.’ -The LORD”
A sampling of Westboro’s less than Christian charity towards Davis below.
Now that #KimDavis is in jail, time to criminalize homosexuality, adultery, fag marriage & fornication, and book 'em Danno! #FollowGodsLaw
— Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) September 4, 2015
What if a clerk denied #KimDavis a license for her 2nd/3rd/4th marriage because Christ calls it adultery? — Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) September 4, 2015
It's time to pack this sign and visit Kentucky — land of the phony divorced/remarried traitors to God. #NotChristian pic.twitter.com/ztt0A26dbB — Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) September 5, 2015
KY clerk Kim Davis would NOT feel at home at Westboro Baptist. She a fake (hence her 3 husbands!), @MattMurph24 >> //t.co/lKtgZuCmol — Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) September 3, 2015
If Kim Davis has any real fear of God she'll resign and move out of the house from the man she lives w/ in adultery! pic.twitter.com/5dJF79PgFN — Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) September 3, 2015
Kim can't keep living/sleeping with a man not her husband & say she's repented. Any more than "gay Christians" can. https://t.co/D0X4w48a5u — Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) September 5, 2015allanmjoseph:
Take note, Ron Paul fans. It is a bad idea, and economists everywhere agree.
“economists everywhere”
The poll you link to surveys central banking apologists, mostly Monetarists and Keynesians. They are by definition in support of fiat currency. They view the economy as something to be engineered through the manipulation of the money supply - something impossible with a fixed gold standard. Consensus among them is meaningless.
That’s like asking your local butcher if eating meat should be outlawed.
Looking at their answers, it’s clear even the “experts” are anything but. Allow me to address a few:
Nancy Stokey: “There are much better ways to avoid excessive inflation, while maintaining the flexibility of a fiat currency.”
Inflation is an increase in the money supply. You cannot avoid excessive inflation by allowing for the mechanisms of excessive inflation to control inflation. This is like keeping a flame at bay with a firehose of gasoline.
The Fed’s only tool is to inflate - and it has persistently used this tool to the great detriment of the value of our currency. By no means has a central bank, much less leaving the gold standard, avoided excess inflation (as I will demonstrate later).
The law of supply is immutable: When dollars are abundant they are also cheap. A gold standard thus keeps dollars from being artificially abundant.
Richard Thaler: “Why tie to gold? why not 1982 Bordeaux?”
Because gold is a proven asset. It is the most successful medium of exchange in the history of mankind. People have used and still use gold as money. No one uses wine.
Though perhaps if wine (1) retained value over thousands of years without decay (imperishable), (2) were easily divisible without losing value, (3) were malleable and ductile, able to be shaped into more convenient and portable forms, (4) remained stable in a wide range of temperatures and climates, (5) has never been worth nothing, (6) was fungible (an ounce from one source would be equal and identical to an ounce from another source), (7) supply was finite without being so rare as to be difficult to use (relative scarcity), (8) new supply was relatively uncommon and difficult to acquire (certainly relative to the success of vineyards or activity of a printing press), (9) its authenticity can be verified relatively easily, (10) had a long-standing history of being used as currency, and above all else (11) free people were using it as a medium of exchange or intermediary of trade - then Thaler might have a point. Seeing as none of that applies to wine, Thaler’s comment exposes some serious economic shortcomings.
Kenneth Judd: “The relative price of gold can be very volatile.”
Yes - relative to the dollar because the dollar is volatile:
This chart clearly shows the effect of fiat currency that can be inflated at whim - such as the greenback during the “Civil War” or the Federal Reserve note when losing its silver/gold backing in the late 60’s.
Meanwhile, the value of gold is incredibly stable relative to other commodities.
Let’s look at gasoline back in 1980, which, like 2011, also had a spike in the price of gold and oil (these are my calculations, but feel free to look into it yourselves):
So, relative to the Federal Reserve’s “stable” dollar, the price of gasoline increased by 245%. Relative to “volatile” gold, on the other hand, the price of gasoline decreased by 0.5%.
Which one is the bad idea again?
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Related:
(Source: allanmjoseph-blog-blog)“You want me to do what?” Bubbles said.
She sat up in the bed, still naked from their lovemaking. The sheets pooled around her waist and legs and she didn’t bother holding them up to cover herself. James tried not to stare too much. He cleared his throat.
“I uh, want you to chat with your ex-boyfriend and find out where they took someone.”
“And just why would I do that?” she said, running a hand through her dark hair. There was a fresh scar across her ribs, white and angry in the dim light from a lone window.
He sat on the end of the bed and ticked off a finger one at a time. “First, you wanted to know about the virus right? Two, you wanted know where it came from? Well… this guy might know the answers to both of those.”
“And just how do you figure?”
“Well…” he said and cleared his throat.
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pursing her lips. Her head tilted slightly to one side. It was the universal sign for, ‘right, you are so full of shit.’ He tried not to focus on how the gesture made her breasts look. He had a nagging memory of them as she mounted him an hour before.
“Okay, so remember how I punched Holden in the face?” he said, pointing a thumb behind him towards the Administration Building. She nodded, smirking.
“Yes, but I wasn’t there.”
“Doesn’t matter. Well they hauled my ass down to the brig right? Well this guy was in a cell next to me. I don’t think Holden meant that to happen, because when my dad got me, he was pissed. Like he didn’t want me near this guy. Turns out? He was from Kurama.”
She raised a brow and then furrowed it in thought. Her hands came away and she rested her elbows on her knees.
“He was brought in by chopper a few months back, wasn’t he?”
“I actually have no idea.”
“Well, see,” she said and then winced. She had tried to move both of her arms but instead sank back down into her bed with a sigh. For a time, she didn’t move and her breathing became more even, almost restful. James reached over and squeezed her foot through the blanket.
“You awake?”
“Shut up a second.”
He did, watching her in the darkness. The light coming in through the window was just enough to show her shoulder and half of her face. Her eyes were closed, her jaw tense. After another minute of silence, she exhaled.
“Fuck, okay so a while back… what, maybe three months ago? We were tipped off that some Kurama agents were going to be in Solon’s Wake. Orders were to fly down there, clean house on any Infected and intercept the chopper. They had some guy with them, a scientist I think.”
“A scientist?”
“Yeah, don’t you listen, Cubby? Fuck.” She groaned as she sat up. “Anyway |
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About the author
Wendi Weiner, creatively known as The Writing Guru, is a Nationally Certified Resume Writer (NCRW) and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) with over 15 years of expertise in resume writing, essay writing, and professional editing. Visit her website here.
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Photo Credit: ShutterstockA report by the Council on Animal Testing revealed Tuesday that more than half the experiments in Israel in 2014 were conducted at the highest level of pain for the animal, and more than 99 percent of the animals were put to death when experiments were finished.
There were 340,000 experiments conducted on animals last year, the report found, 12.1 percent more than the previous year. This data does not include tests conducted by the defense establishment, where tens of thousands of animals are used in tests which are not independently monitored.
The council found that there was a rise in the use of mammals, especially monkeys and mice (108 in 2013 compared with 724 in 2014). Mice were used in 83.9 percent of the experiments, while chickens and other birds were used in 7.4 percent, fish in 7 percent, and 1.3 percent in large mammals. The rise in the number of experiments, according to the report, comes to a large extent from the wider use of mice and fish, both used in experiments in much larger quantities in 2014 than in 2013.
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Among the large mammals were 161 sheep, 48 goats, nine horses, nine donkeys, eight hedgehogs, two foxes and one camel.
The rise in the use of animals, noted the council, “reflects efforts to develop new methods and technologies, enabling the use of animals for tests while implementing stringent work principles, according to which the animals used should be on the lowest rung of the developmental ladder while still answering the needs of the research at hand.”
Adi Winter, spokeswoman of the Israeli Association Against Animal Testing, said the rise in experiments “is a very worrying trend. These creatures have a right to live their lives without their flesh being cut for the sake of science. The time has come for animal testing to pass from the world, the time has come for a world that respects all animals sharing the Earth with us.” Animals are not “test tubes with tails,” she said.
Winter noted that for medicine and cosmetics there are “many alternatives today. There are cultures of tissue and there is a chip simulating organs or even a whole human body.” The Council on Animal Testing, operating under the authority of the Health Ministry is also in charge for promoting and developing substitutes for experimentation on animals “but until now has not offered even one alternative in all the years it exists,” she told Haaretz.
Prof. Alex Tzafriri, from the Department of Biological Monitoring at the Weizmann Institute of Science, rejected the claims of Winter and other animal rights activists.
“If you hear from people who oppose animal testing that the experiments are not needed then they are simply lying,” Tzafriri told Haaretz. “Have you heard of SARS? Have you heard of Ebola? How were these diseases defeated? Only by testing vaccines on animals. There is no substitute to animal testing. We will never undertake any action on a human without proving first that this action will benefit them or at the very least not harm them. We will never take a sick person and try on them something we have not proven to be effective and safe,” he said.
Tzafriri added that only a third of all medical publications are based on animal testing and that an overwhelming amount of tests is conducted on very primitive life forms.poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201609/3660/1155968404_5142629237001_5142622431001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump [again] says he opposed the Iraq War. That's still false.
“Donald supported the invasion of Iraq” — Clinton
“Wrong.” — Trump
Trump was supportive of the Iraq invasion as far back as 2002, according to interviews the Donald did with Howard Stern, which were first uncovered by BuzzFeed. Stern asks Trump if he agreed with the Bush administration trying to sell the war. He said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
The argument between Clinton and Trump then spilled over into a clash of words between Trump and moderator Lester Holt. Holt insisted Trump had supported the war, referencing the Stern interview.
Trump then claimed he'd had arguments with Fox News televsion host Sean Hannity, in which he argued against the war. He also said the argument that he supported the war was a media "lie."
He also cited a 2004 Esquire interview that mentioned his criticism of the Iraq invasion as proof of his opposition. That interview took place after the start of the war, and Esquire has since attached a note to the article arguing that Trump is misrepresenting its contents.Pitt brought back the famous Pitt Script to their uniforms and hopefully will bring the winning days of Marino and Dorsett back to Pittsburgh.
When thinking of Pitt sports many great names come to mind, such as Dan Marino, Tony Dorsett, Curtis Martin, and the list goes on. Whats the one thing these greats from different eras had in common?
They all wore that beautiful script logo on their helmets, not the blog letters that have become a symbol of Pitt’s mediocrity.
That all changed last night at the Petersen Events Center when AD Scott Barnes unveiled Pitt’s transition back to the script that this school was known for in the glory days. All day on twitter former Panthers were showing love and it all led up to the uniform unveil at 8 PM ET.
First look at the new script uniforms.
These new matte navy helmets are something I have never seen from Pitt, and I LOVE them!
Former Panthers repping the new gear includes Larry Fitzgerald, Darrelle Revis, Aaron Donald, Dan Marino, Tyler Boyd and many more.
The script is the perfect symbol to illustrate the change that Narduzzi is bringing here to Pitt. The now second year coach is looking to bring Pitt back to dominance and what better way than going back to the logo that won 15 National Championships (9 Claimed; 8 Unclaimed).
So it’s time to gear up for next season Panthers fans! And don’t forget to rock the script to Heinz Field on September 10, 2016 to watch Pitt show cross-state rivals, Penn State, just who the Kings of Pennsylvania are.
For a closer look at the new uniforms check out the following link: https://slate.adobe.com/cp/Bckch/
Follow @ACAllAmericans for quality, up-to-date sports reporting.Three weeks ago, the Chicago White Sox had a six-game lead in the AL Central Division. They woke up Sunday in third place, listening to cries for manager Robin Ventura's head.
Ace Chris Sale wants that talk to stop.
Robin Ventura has watched the White Sox go from a big lead in the division to blowing leads and losing 14 of 18 games. Kamil Krzaczynski/USA TODAY Sports
"I don't think he gave up any runs," Sale said. "I don't think he made any errors, and he's in the dugout the whole time. It's on us to win games. I understand people -- I'll keep it that -- want to point fingers and find blame. But at the end of the day, it falls on the players. We have to find a way to turn it around. We're going to keep fighting. It will turn. We have too much morale, chemistry and too much talent. Just a rough patch."
The White Sox's struggles continued Monday against someone else who was feeling the heat. New York Mets starter Matt Harvey, who was 3-7 with a 6.08 ERA entering Monday's games, stymied the White Sox lineup in a 1-0 Mets victory.
There had been talk of dropping Harvey from the Mets' rotation, but he was dominant Monday, pitching seven scoreless innings while striking out six and walking just one batter.
The White Sox have now lost seven in a row and 15 of 19 games after a start that had people talking about an all-Chicago World Series against the red-hot Cubs.
What a rough patch it's been. On Sunday, Sale left after seven innings with a two-run lead. The Kansas City Royals scored three runs in the eighth to win.
White Sox closer David Robertson wasn't available because he had thrown 29 pitches while giving up six runs in Saturday's debacle. Chicago led 7-1 with one out in the bottom of the ninth before blowing that game.
That loss came after the White Sox led 5-2 in the seventh inning of the opener and ended up losing 7-5.
Ventura said all the right things Sunday when asked if he was feeling any added pressure.
"Not any more pressure than there already is," he said. "That's just part of the job, and you do it."Recently we’ve received complaints from customers demanding more new undiscovered squirrels in the calendars. As the artist, my initial response is “Com’mon people, are they trying to kill me? I need sleep too.” Then Anne (President of Arundale Products) chuckled and reminded me that this was actually a good complaint. People love the images and they want more. As referenced in a previous post “The Undiscovered Squirrels” the creation of each undiscovered squirrel is no simple task. Because of the limited production time for illustration, layout, designing, and editing we decided a few years ago to only add a limited number of new squirrels to each upcoming calendar, to lighten the work load, to extend the series out, and to give new customers a chance to discover the favorites of previous years. New ideas are constantly being tossed around through out the year and I’m always on the look out for the next crazy awesome hypothetical squirrel idea.
One difficulty we have when selecting new “animal” are the requirements for keeping our little guys cute, fuzzy, and being able to still look like squirrel at the final stage. Sorry, there will be no Octopus Squirrel in our calendars. It crosses our “Is it cute?” line and squirms right into something one might find in an H. R. Giger series. I certainly mean no disrespect to his work, after all I own several of his books. The Octopus Squirrel, and other hybrids of that vein, simply do not fit into what we want to create and share with our customers.
What exactly are the requirements for a potential Undiscovered Squirrel “animal”? Mammal, easily identifiable features to distinguish it from other animals, and appears significantly different than a squirrel. This last requirement is why the “Rabbit Squirrel” is a no show, the two animals look too much alike, the final product wouldn’t appear very “undiscovered”.
Cute, yes, undeniably so. While cute is a requirement, it is not the over all goal for the undiscovered series. If one removes the tail off of the squirrel or adds a squirrel tail to the rabbit, the end product wouldn’t carry that same intriguing quality that the other undiscovered squirrels possess.
I’m always eager to hear idea from others, even if the idea isn’t chosen, there is always the potential for an outside idea to generate an even more fantastical Undiscovered Squirrel to present next year.
In this most recent edition I created the Armadillo Squirrel, this was by far the most ambitious of the series. There were so many opportunities for this little armored one to fail. He’s technically a mammal, has fur and definitely stands out in a crowd, but his leathery armor was tricky to manipulate. It was simple enough to create the “shell” but the bulk of the work went into directing him in a cute direction. Real armadillo body armor is made up of small plates of bone, each covered by a layer of horny skin and separated from its neighbors by soft skin from which sparse hairs grow. This intricate armor was recreated in a similar fashion but with the coloring and fur texture of a squirrel. All the while, in the back of mind I was hoping “please don’t end up looking like some freakish alien turtle”. I put off the tail for last. It took several weeks to develop viable a plan of attack for negotiating how to integrate the banded armadillo tail into the fluffy squirrel tail and have the two appear feasible. After a great deal of patience, adherence, and humility to hit command-Z repeatedly the image was complete.
Hopefully the next round of Undiscovered Squirrels will be just as unexpected as their predecessors and, as always, we hope people will take the same amount of enjoyment from them as we get from coming up with them.
The 2012 Undiscovered Squirrel Calendar is available at www.SquirrelStuff.com
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedPaulie O'Byrne before he embarked from Victoria on his stickhandling journey across Canada. Photo courtesy of the 'I'm 1in5' Facebook page.
Londoner Begins Stickhandle Across Canada
Paulie O’Byrne has begun his journey that will see him stickhandle across Canada.
The Londoner left from Victoria late Saturday afternoon, on a campaign that will raise money and awareness of mental illness.
Funds raised from the journey will go to the not-for-profit organization I’m 1in5.
To track O’Byrne’s progress, click here.
O’Byrne has played competitive hockey for 14 years, and after graduating from Lambton College, landed a coaching opportunity in Delhi, Ontario.
However, clinical depression, anxiety, drug addiction, suicide attempts and post-traumatic stress derailed his life plan.
I’m 1in5 is dedicated to the one in five Canadians affected by addiction, mental illness, trauma, and victimization.
Officials expect the journey will end near the end of October in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
O’Byrne posted this video to his Facebook page on Saturday.ESPN After years of agonizing failure, the Golden State Warriors exploded onto the scene as legitimate NBA contenders. In their second playoff appearance since 1995, Golden State made a huge statement behind their young nucleus and coach (which, despite the fact that gave the Warriors no chance in the first round of the playoffs, I was in the minority who thought the Warriors would pull it off.)
three-point attempts to pull off the stunner, it might have been a very different Western conference finals and NBA Finals. As a Warriors fan, I felt knifed by that dagger in Game 1, especially considering Manu finished off the series below 30 percent beyond the arc… And if Game 1 didn’t become the tragic disaster that it did once Klay Thompson fouled out, Richard Jefferson choked on two free throws, and Manu hit the second of ninethree-point attempts to pull off the stunner, it might have been a very different Western conference finals and NBA Finals. As a Warriors fan, I felt knifed by that dagger in Game 1, especially considering Manu finished off the seriesbeyond the arc…
A significant portion of the Warriors fate rides upon this summer (can they re-sign Jack and/or Landry for below market value? If not, can they pick up another solid veteran?) BUT the core that they have to build around is as good as it gets.
If everybody can remain healthy (forever the qualifier with Steph’s ankles ), I believe that the Warriors will be better than the Oklahoma City Thunder in the very near future. Before you say that I’m crazy, let me explain why I have so much faith in this young Dubs team.
The Warriors have infamously seen their fair share of injuries, but Russell Westbrook going down with a torn meniscus in the playoffs was a debilitating blow to the Thunder. Kobe Bryant going down (against the Warriors, ironically enough) with an Achilles rupture crippled an already injury-laden Lakers team. Andrew Bynum, well…who knows what his deal is. And Derrick Rose didn’t play a minute in the 2012-13 season.
assuming no injuries that’s legitimate…but it’s also legitimate for 29 other NBA teams. So if we’re going to pull out the injury card, you could make an argument for the Bobcats winning the title. Not to mention that the Warriors proved that they could win playoff games without their lone All-Star, David Lee. Dwyane Wade also battled knee injuries throughout the post-season and ended up en route to a second consecutive NBA championship. For the sake of argument, let’s assume a healthy NBA and take it from there. If you want to put an asterisk sayingthat’s legitimate…but it’s also legitimate for 29 other NBA teams.
Now that we’ve set the injury qualifier aside, let’s talk about why I predict the Warriors will be better than the Thunder in the next two to three years—maybe even sooner.
Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook vs. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Harrison Barnes is more complicated than the success of a young duo over an up-and-coming trio who have just started to prove themselves.
Russell Westbrick the defense locks him down, he can be taken out of a game because he’s lacks a well-rounded offensive skillset. As LeBron James has shown (over the past two years, in particular), great players need to have more than a one-sided ability to score. In Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals, LeBron put on a shooting clinic with five threes and countless jumpers, a far cry from the driving and passing mentality that he showed earlier in the series. Great players have plasticity—that ability to exploit the changing weaknesses of the opponent from game to game. Durant is the best scorer in the game, but if he has an off-night orthe defense locks him down, he can be taken out of a game because he’s lacks a well-rounded offensive skillset.
Curry has the complete offensive game that you want a guard. He looks to get teammates involved as much as he looks for his own shot, and when you have a guy who can shoot off the dribble or take you off the dribble, it’s nearly unstoppable. At his best, Curry can compete with any scorer in the league—his 54 points at MSG was the mark for most points in a game this season (2012-13). 30 from 30 for 30 is no joke when the Warriors star makes threes look like layups.
And Curry’s supporting cast is better than OKC’s. This mellows the pressure on Steph to score 25 or 30 a game because he has Klay and the Black Falcon. Mark Jackson said it best: he has the best shooting backcourt in NBA history. And in a “make-or-miss” league, when you have great shooters, you always have the opportunity to pull off incredible comebacks.
That lights-out shooting got Golden State into trouble sometimes. They lost games during the year where they built healthy double-digit leads only to gift the game away to opposing teams—none of course, more nationally recognized than Game 1 of the Conference semis where a double-digit fourth quarter lead evaporated in minutes. With experience, those losses will disappear. Learning to win is something that the Oklahoma City Thunder know all about.
Part of their success is the development of rookie standout, Harrison Barnes (aka Black Falcon or Bad News Barnes, take your pick). His ability to get to the rim has been constantly improving, and he looks like the guy who you can go to when your team needs a bucket. His jump-shot improved even within his rookie year, and his monster posterization of Nikola Pekovic exhibited his phenomenal athleticism. What he loses to Westbrook in quickness, he beats him in strength, and if he develops his post-game (something that he went to in the playoffs)…watch out.
His defense has also improved a ton and his versatility on that side of the ball is almost LeBron-esque. Barnes is a perimeter defender by trade, but the Warriors (and their small lineups) morphed him into a post-defender when needed—which he is capable of, at 6’8”. 16 points, 6 rebounds, 86 percent from the line and
There is no real comparison between the front lines of the Warriors and Thunder. Bogut led the league in rebounds during the first two rounds of the playoffs despite having played few regular season games. David Lee was a nightly 20-10 threat before dropping to injury. Ibaka and Perkins don’t have nearly the offensive potency of the Vanilla Towers. Sure, Iblocka will get you some impressive plays on that side of the ball, but he is to defense what Blake Griffin is to offense: flashy and entertaining, but not as great as he is often made out to be. In 2013, Ibaka and his 7.7 RPG didn’t crack the top-10 in defensive win shares.
Defensively on the front line, it may be closer but considering the Thunder can expect no offense from Perkins (4.2 PPG in 2013), the Warriors bigs are better. (The one problem for Golden State being Bogut's free throw shooting.)
Golden State also has a superior bench. Even though they may lose Landry and/or Jack, Brandon Rush will help boost the starters as will Ezeli, Draymond Green, and possibly the 12th man of the year, Kent Bazemore. This gives the Warriors shooting, defense, veterans, and youth in their second squad. With Kevin Martin a free agent, the best that OKC can expect from the bench is Nick Collison and…Hasheem Thabeet? Meanwhile, if Draymond’s three-point stroke looks anything like it did in the playoffs, you’re looking at a Shane Battier-type who can hit big outside shots and play lockdown defense. For less than $1 million a year through 2015, Bob Myers struck gold with this pick.
combined. even went so far as to rank Steph at No. 3 in the NBA on his trade value series. The other thing is the salaries involved. Because Westbrook and Durant are both bona-fide superstars, they are paid as such. Over the next three years, the OKC duo will make upwards of $40 million a year with a salary cap at $58 million. Not much flexibility there. In 2014-15, David Lee, Curry, Barnes, Thompson, Ezeli, and Green are set to be paid less than that duo Bill Simmons even went so far as to rank Steph at No. 3 in the NBA on his trade value series.
If given those salaries, I would take those seven guys over Westbrook and Durant. With the money that OKC has locked up in their top-four players ($57 million) in 2014-15, and $48 million in 2015-16 for three guys (KD, RW, and Ibaka), they will struggle to support their stars. Unlike Miami, OKC doesn’t have the ability to woo free agents with beautiful beaches. As for the Warriors, the sacrifices in stardom will be made up for chemistry and the complimentary skills that each player brings to the team.
Don't forget the Dubs will soon be able dangle the beauty of San Francisco and a new arena in front of wandering free agents. It was no mistake that a big name like Dwight Howard was linked to the Warriors already, and who knows what the summer of 2014 will bring in the Bay Area.
Both OKC and Golden State have brilliant young coaches and savvy front offices. To Sam Presti’s chagrin, the Warriors will vie for a top seed in the West much sooner than he would have liked. Golden State has two of the best three-point shooters in the league (both who have offensive games more developed than just that aspect), an up-and-coming scorer who can play defense, a post scorer (maybe two), post defenders, and a reasonably deep bench that has a good combination of youth and experience.
It may happen next year or it may take another year or two, but look for the Warriors to surpass OKC in the wild West.
only 1.3 TO per game in the playoffs against two great defenses (Spurs and Denver)? This man is a star in the making and the Warriors have him locked up until 2016.Governor Deval Patrick on Thursday publicly denied rumors that he is in line to be the next US attorney general.
Patrick told the Globe it was “mind-blowing to be mentioned in those contexts,” but acknowledged some weariness at the now-familiar pattern of his name surging to the top of lists about federal jobs, despite his repeated statements that he will serve out his term.
And he repeated his insistence that his first career step out of the corner office will not be into another government post.
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“As soon as I know what my next job is, I will tell you, I promise. But it will be in the private sector,” he said.
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A flurry of speculation erupted Thursday morning after news broke that Attorney General Eric Holder would be resigning. Patrick, the top civil rights enforcer in the Justice Department under President Clinton, is a perennial mention when any top spot in Washington opens. He is close personally with President Obama and, come January when his term ends, will be available for new employment opportunities.
Patrick has consistently ruled out interest in federal posts and has said he would like to explore more lucrative, private-sector opportunities.
One long-time adviser said that Patrick would be great at the job, “but he’s also had a successful private sector career and after eight years in public life I think he’s ready to get back to that.”
This time, though, Patrick’s travel schedule only fueled speculation.
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Patrick had a Cabinet meeting at 2 p.m. on Thursday, and then planned to leave for Washington afterward, according to his official schedule, released late Wednesday. His stated reason for being in D.C. is for events with the Congressional Black Caucus. He may also attend a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee.
“The president has not made a final decision on a replacement for Eric Holder,” a White House official said, “and therefore will not be making an announcement for his replacement today.”
Patrick’s political image has been dented by a string of mismanagement scandals, including at the state drug lab and major problems at the state’s Department of Children and Families.
Despite the governor’s denials, Senator Elizabeth Warren — campaigning with gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley in Chelsea Thursday — hinted that Patrick would be an ideal replacement for Holder.
“I happen to be very fond of the current governor of Massachusetts,” she said. “I don’t want to start any rumors here. I have not spoken with the governor about this and don’t know what the governor’s wishes are.”
Akilah Johnson of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Jim O’Sullivan can be reached at Jim.OSullivan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JOSreportsSource: Shocking statistics about black slavery liberals will NEVER admit – Allen B. West – AllenBWest.com
Shocking statistics about black slavery liberals will NEVER admit – Allen B. West – AllenBWest.com
When we look at the failures in the black community today, there seem to be lots of “activists” who want to tell us the problem lies in poor police relations — militant policing and presence. Recently, I was on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. The issue was about the black community and the other guests ranted on about everything other than what the real problem is — the decimation of the black family. Now, I must apologize because I’ve been sharing that the illegitimacy rate in the black community was 72 percent. I was wrong. It’s now 75 percent.
“Today’s black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent. It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.”
“Much of today’s pathology seen among many blacks is an outgrowth of the welfare state that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual. Having children without the benefit of marriage is less burdensome if the mother receives housing subsidies, welfare payments and food stamps. Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished. Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems. Ignored in all discussions is the fact that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994.”
Those are facts and there is only one group that MUST be held responsible for this degradation and decimation of the black family — white liberal progressive socialists. It was fifty years ago when President Lyndon Johnson came up with the brilliant idea of the government giving a check to a woman having a child out of wedlock. But worse, the checks would continue to come as long as no man was to be found in the home.
http://www.allenbwest.com/allen/shocking-statistics-about-black-slavery-liberals-will-never-admitES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
A mother-of-two who is suing for £300,000 over a harrowing lift accident at Tower Bridge relived her trauma when she got trapped in another elevator on her way to court.
Australian tourist Bronwyn Cowan, 63, and her husband Graham, 64, were on the first day of their dream holiday when the lift they were in plunged around 10 feet and crashed.
They were left both with leg fractures from the incident, and Mrs Cowan continues to be affected by psychological trauma, Central London County Court heard.
Christopher Edwards, representing the couple, said she fractured both ankles and a big toe in the fall, and is still haunted by memories of lying stricken on the floor of the Tower Bridge lift.
He said memories of the incident came flooding back as they made their way to court, and she suffered a panic attack when the couple became trapped in a lift at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Asking for extra time before legal proceedings began, Mr Edwards explained Mrs Cowan needed a few minutes to compose herself: “My client was briefly stuck in the lift and suffered a very unpleasant reaction.”
“That’s dreadful,” said Judge Peter Wulwik who allowed the couple to use a private judicial staircase to exit the building at the end of the hearing.
The couple were among ten passengers in the lift which failed in May 2009 as it was rising from Tower Bridge’s ground floor.
Mr Edwards said the accident “utterly ruined” their holiday on the first day, forcing them to cancel plans for a walking tour of Italy after leaving London.
Mrs Cowan says she was a naturally calm person but now has a fear of using lifts and is “hyper-vigilant of mechanical sounds”.
However she and her husband could only get to the court hearing by lift or an exhausting climb up several flights of stairs.
The couple, from Sydney, are suing the City of London Corporation, which owns Tower Bridge, and two companies involved in installing and maintaining the lift.
Liability for the accident was admitted in April last year, but defence lawyers are disputing the £300,000 value put on the couple’s claim.
“It is clear that she is still psychologically affected by this horrible accident - as we saw from her brief experience of becoming stuck in this lift”, said Mr Edwards.
The court heard she “effectively retired” from work after trying to balance her job with stress from the accident, and is “still conscious of the accident when she travelled in lifts”.
She had also suffered “an episode of panic in the lift at work”, said Mr Edwards.
He said she suffers from mobility problems which have affected her hobbies of gardening and bush-walking.
Mr Cowan, 64, a rail engineer, fractured his spine and left ankle in the impact, and ended up taking redundancy in 2012.
He had a “specific phobia of lifts” for around five months after the accident, the court heard, and was “worried every time” he got into an elevator. However his symptoms have now subsided.
City of London Corporation declined to comment.
The hearing was continuing today.Recently by Rev. H. R. Curtis: Deadly Stupidity: Government Roads in DeerCountry
Dear State,
I use the customary salutation even though this letter will make it clear that, in our case, we must consider it merely a convention and quite devoid of any real feeling. Oh, I know, we’ve had our times together when we were quite close indeed — but those days are, God be praised, behind us.
To think how young I once was! At least, I’d like to blame it on my youth. Though my Father had warned me about your seductions — and though you yourself were quite cruel to me when we were growing up together back East — as a young woman I could not resist your charms. You were a man of action — so powerful and strong — so dashing in your uniform! And, frankly, as a young lady of my stature — a queen by birth, wasn’t I? I felt at that time that I deserved the honor and wealth that you could provide for me. So, though I had been betrothed to another by my Father, I took up house with you.
And how my manner changed almost immediately! With your wealth and honor came also pomp and violence. Where before I had been content to settle my quarrels with words, it was now all too easy for me to have you deal with them in more precipitous and (as I thought) effective ways.
But it was as my Father said it would be — a chasing after the wind. I learned that your violent temper could not always be directed by my own will — that it would, in fact, often be directed at me. It was a long process — I came to my senses only slowly. Even when I first expressed my doubts about our relationship I would return time and again to your arms.
But what finally did it was physical separation. As the flower of my youth faded into middle age, I began to feel suffocated by your very presence. I built new, humbler houses in the West and South and began to imagine life without you. I find I like that notion much better than I ever thought I would. I remembered my Father’s warnings, the purity of my childhood when you were openly against me — and the long-suffering patience of my Husband.
But you know all that. I’m writing today for a different reason. If I could come to my senses, I still hold out some hope for you as well. Well, perhaps it is better to say that I hold out hope that you can stop being so much like yourself. I write today with a suggestion — something that really helped me recapture who I was meant to me. It may just help you become better than you are as well.
When I moved out West I found that things were different, especially in one way: I didn’t have you there to force my children to support their Mother. At first, frankly, I was frightened by this prospect and tried to hang on to my privileges out here. If nobody forced them to support me, how would I survive in the style to which I had become accustomed? But what choice did I have? In the end, I had to give up the coercion and simply ask them to support me for the sake of love.
And here is the funny thing: to ask for love means you have to give it; to remove coercion means you have to persuade. Nothing could have more quickly and surely transformed me back into my Father’s daughter and my Husband’s wife than this. Once your purse strings were cut from my hands, I found that they were free to hold on to things of much greater worth.
Indeed, when I travel back East now, I find that I feel sluggish and weak because of my long connection to you in those parts. Something about the air is cleaner out West and down South — I can feel an energy in these old bones when I’m out there because these places hold no reminders for me of our misplaced love affair.
So, at any rate, that is why I’m writing today: I think you should try it, too. Drop the coercion. Give your children the same freedom I had to give mine. I did so, and I found myself. Perhaps if you did so, you would find a new and better self. Stop coercing them for your support. If you are a good father to them, then they will be happy to support you. And if they don’t support you — well, I think you will find that poverty of that sort can be good for the soul.
I have written enough and it is almost time for sunrise down South — and I do so love to hear the children sing Labia mea aperies — they are so happy, so free (sons of the kingdom are free).
Most Sincerely, Christi Ecclesia
December 30, 2010
The Best of Rev. H. R. CurtisI was checking out some photos emerging from this weekend’s Interesting 2011 conference held in London (there was a world record attempt at ping pong ball mouse trap nuclear fission, among other things) when I stumbled onto a portrait of the group’s organizer Russel Davies being drawn with a very strange device. It turns out the robotic drawing machine was built by maker/designer/craftsman Sandy Noble and he calls it a Polargraph which is really nothing more than a pen attached to string that’s moved by two small motors. With an assist from good ‘ole gravity and some clever software the pen arcs back and forth, similar to a standard back-and-forth plotter printer, creating the beautifully textured drawings above.
Drawing machines are certainly nothing new, what with Harvey Moon’s Drawing Machine that successfully debuted on Kickstarter last year, and even Eske Rex’s enormous weight balanced spirograph drawing machine. However this variation on the design shows lots of exciting potential for such a primitive if somewhat quixotic method of drawing. You can learn more about the nitty gritty details of Noble’s printer here and see some more photos here.Quarterback controversies, especially when it comes to the Jets, rarely end well for all parties involved. In the case of the Geno Smith-Michael Vick quarterback tandem in New York, circumstances are not what they seem.
In the aftermath of New York's first preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts, it's easy to dive deep into the numbers and make a |
much like the Wii U release of Splatoon in 2015. However, it also highlights the Switch’s biggest problem; Nintendo’s shameful approach to online play.
Shortly after the game’s release, a friend and I who regularly play games together on PlayStation 4, decided that we’d hop into a game of Splatoon 2. However, we were astonished to find that the game’s online functionality requires a minimum of four players to form a party, and it won’t just match you with two other players to form a team. Instead, myself and players like me, are forced to resort to finding other team mates on Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and other social media platforms just to form a team.
In 2017, this just shouldn’t be the case.
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As anyone who has played on PS4 or Xbox One, or even their predecessors, the PS3 and Xbox 360 will know, it’s been a staple of online gaming for many years for players to form a party with any number of friends and then that party will be matched with other players to form a team. However, this appears to be a concept Nintendo is incapable of achieving.
The worst part is, according to Trusted Reviews, in 2018, Nintendo plans to start charging for use of the aforementioned abysmal online service. An online subscription for the Nintendo Switch will reportedly cost players $20 per year, with a one-month membership option available for $3.99 or three months for $7.99.
Whilst it’s difficult to blame Nintendo’s decision to charge users for the Switch’s online service, especially since its competitors have been doing the same for many years. The issue is, Nintendo plans to charge for an online service that is considerably substandard in comparison to options offered by its competitors. For myself personally, it’s going to be difficult justifying dropping $20 on an online service that doesn’t even let me hop into a game with a friend and I’d imagine many other Switch owners feel the same.
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The Switch’s online issues aren’t just confined to the recent release of Splatoon 2 either. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which launched on the console in April, suffers similarly from a mediocre online experience. According to Crave Online, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe doesn’t have a lobby system for online matchmaking, so when you want to play with a friend, they have to attempt to join your game in progress, which is often a difficult task with games often already filled with the maximum number of players.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s online offering is as bare bones as possible, which is a shame considering it was the console’s first major online game. Nintendo could have quite easily bolstered the game’s online mode with matchmaking lobbies and dedicated ranked/unranked modes, however, instead, Nintendo has once again thrown online play in as an afterthought.
For a free service, the Switch’s online woes are frustrating but understandable. However, if Nintendo plans to charge users for that service, it’s nothing short of unacceptable.
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Splatoon 2 is yet another fantastic release for the Nintendo Switch, demonstrating Nintendo’s maintained ability to create impressive original software. However, for an online multiplayer game, it’s been let down by online functionality, an area where Nintendo continues to struggle, time and time again.
[Featured Image by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images]This is part of The Globe's Wealth Paradox series, a two-week examination into how the income divide is shaping Canada.
It's a tale of two postal codes.
The Woods family – mom Kathy, dad Peter and daughter Naomi – lives in M1N 2T2 on Courcelette Road. It's a quiet street of well-tended homes approaching million-dollar price tags, at the eastern end of the Beaches. Standardized test scores at Courcelette Public School are among the highest in Toronto. Ten-year-old Naomi has taken piano, swimming and karate lessons. On Tuesday evenings, she and a friend have a standing date. They build video games, supervised by her web developer dad. Mr. Woods works from home and reads with his daughter every night (Ms. Woods, a business consultant, is often on the road but makes sure to Skype in). Naomi read the entire Harry Potter series before her seventh birthday.
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Ten kilometres away in M1P 3N7, in the heart of Scarborough, third-grader Shazfa Noor comes home after attending Edgewood Public School and goes to the basement to play with her three siblings, watch television and use the computer. "I can't do soccer club or anything like that for all of them. I cannot afford that. It's too expensive for me," Latifa Sultana, Shazfa's mother said.
Last year, Ms. Sultana noticed her daughter struggled with reading; Shazfa would skip words. Ms. Sultana asked the teacher but was told not to be concerned. She spent half an hour reading with Shazfa every evening and created a folder of rhyming words for Shazfa until she saw an improvement in the girl's skills.
Ms. Sultana stays home while her husband works as a chef. They immigrated from Bangladesh in 1999. They moved to the Edgewood neighbourhood four years ago from an apartment building in East York to give their children a neighbourhood and a house to grow up in.
In theory, Naomi and Shafza would have equal opportunities to do well in school, participate in extracurriculars and move on to university or college. According to the OECD, Canada's educational system is more effective than that of most other countries in compensating for income inequalities. But the reality is becoming quite different. As neighbourhoods become increasingly defined by income in the country's cities, student achievement scores reflect that divide.
In Toronto, where income inequality is highest, wealth and test scores at Canada's largest school board are correlated. A Globe and Mail analysis, based on data obtained from the Education Quality and Accountability Office and 2010 income data from Statistics Canada, shows this divergence quite clearly. High-scoring elementary schools are primarily concentrated in high-income areas and vice-versa. In lower-income neighbourhoods, a higher percentage of students fail the reading, writing and math tests.
When it comes to gifted students, nearly 60 per cent came from the three highest income deciles, according to a 2010 TDSB study. Fully a quarter came from the very highest income group, and only 11 per cent were from the three lowest deciles.
The study also found that those kids identified with a language impairment or a developmental disability were more likely to come from lower-income neighbourhoods. Those disadvantages intensify through their schooling: Kids from low-income families also have a higher likelihood of taking applied courses in high school, leaving them less likely to graduate or attend university or college.
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"Kids are already coming into school at a disadvantage and that disadvantage appears to grow over time, rather than lessen," said Annie Kidder, executive director of the advocacy group People for Education.
Well-educated, high-income parents expect a lot from their schools and put pressure on teachers to perform. If those parents are absent, who is holding teachers accountable? Two years ago, Florida passed a bill to reward teachers for rising test scores, one of the key measures advocated by former governor Jeb Bush. Would merit pay for Canadian teachers help close the achievement gap? Progressive Conservative education critic Rob Leone said it's worth discussing. "All options have to be on the table because what we need to do is ensure that our kids are succeeding," he said.
The danger is that if left unchecked, income inequality in Toronto – and other Canadian cities – will lead to a greater concentration of high-scoring schools in well-to-do neighbourhoods. As housing prices continue to climb (since 2011, they've doubled), middle-class neighbourhoods with good schools become wealthy neighbourhoods and poorly performing schools are left behind.
Unlike cities such as Vancouver and Edmonton, where parents can choose which school to send students to, Toronto has rules surrounding geographic proximity. Students can only attend schools outside of their neighbourhood if there is room, and no schools with consistently high test scores have extra desks.
As a result, desirable schools drive surrounding real estate prices ever higher. Real-estate agent Patrick Rocca, who has worked in Toronto's Leaside and Davisville area for 20 years, said school catchment is "probably the No. 1 factor when people consider where they want to live."
There's a dangerous racial element to this divide. The majority of kids in families that earn more than $100,000 a year are white, while visible minorities, such as children from black, Middle Eastern and Latino families, tend to be disproportionately represented in the low-income group.
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It's not supposed to be like this.
"Education is the part that holds the promise – that, if we're going to give everybody a fair start in life, the best place to do that is in school, where kids are. Schools provide a really important buffer to even out the chances for everyone," said Diane Dyson, director of research and public policy at WoodGreen Community Services, a social service agency. "To be rich is to know about possibilities. And so often poor kids don't know about possibilities."
'NOWADAYS YOU HAVE TO DO EXTRA'
On the ground, Naomi and Shazfa's educational experiences are both overtly and subtly different.
At Courcelette, more than 30 per cent of families make more than $100,000, according to the city. Almost all students meet the provincial standard on testing. At Edgewood, almost 40 per cent of families earn between $20,000 and $40,000. Only 20 per cent of Grade 6 students met the provincial standard in math in 2012-13. Edgewood also faces other challenges: A larger special-needs population and English-as-a-second-language learners.
When Courcelette's parents fund-raise, they use the money to fulfill the principal's and teachers' "wish list," buying iPads and whiteboards for the classroom, for example, or funding arts and science programs that bring in community guests. Edgewood parents "fundraise for a purpose," said school council chair Lisa Clarke. Two years ago, Edgewood parents raised money to buy six folding tables for the gymnasium so that students would not have to sit on the floor to eat their lunch. One study found that when it comes to the amount of money collected through fundraising in Ontario, schools in the top 10 per cent raise a much as those in the bottom 81 per cent combined.
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At Courcelette, where there is a significant number of stay-at-home parents, the school uses a lottery system for field trips because so many adults jostle for a spot. At Edgewood's first school council meeting in September, only two parents showed up. Precarious employment – defined as a state of employment that lacks security and benefits, is on the rise in Toronto according to a report last year – and can make it particularly difficult for lower-income families to be engaged in their schools and communities.
Ms. Clarke, a mother of two Edgewood students, says the lack of engagement means teachers aren't necessarily as accountable. "You can't expect that you send your kids to school and everything works out. I think nowadays you have to do extra."
For Courcelette parents, providing enrichment for their kids comes so naturally that they barely notice they're doing it. "In terms of what I'm doing personally? Very little," Mr. Woods said, when asked about Naomi's extracurriculars.
"Parent expectations are high here, and if they find a gap, they fill it," said Gillian Main, a mother with two children, the youngest in Grade 6 and the oldest, now in Grade 11, graduated from Courcelette. She has hired a math tutor who comes to her home once a week "because my experience has been that my children are not excelling in math." Ms. Main and her husband moved to Courcelette Road in 2004, after studying rankings from the Fraser Institute, a conservative think tank, which placed Courcelette among the best.
The school board is aware of the achievement gap, and is making attempts to close it. One initiative provides additional funding to 150 TDSB schools, referred to as model schools, in low-income neighbourhoods for extra teaching supports, vision and hearing tests (with free glasses and hearing aids), nutrition programs and after-school activities. One of Latifa Sultana's older children is a product of the model school program, and participated in cricket and cycling. He applied and is now enrolled at a TDSB alternative school. Her eldest is in an International Baccalaureate program after receiving supports in school at an early age. Neither attends the local neighborhood high school – secondary schools are not organized by catchment.
But raising test scores also takes strong leadership. At John A. Leslie Public School in Scarborough, where about 70 per cent of parents were born outside Canada, students are thriving despite the neighbourhood's low income. There are plenty of extracurriculars, including cricket, to keep kids engaged; parents come in for literacy nights and math nights; and a book lending program forces kids and their parents to read together at home. "Everything we know about effective school works at building on student engagement and parent engagement. We know that if parents feel welcome in their child's learning, then that carries over into the home," Principal Greg McLeod said.
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SCHOOL BOUNDARIES
Income inequality isn't particular to Toronto, and other jurisdictions have taken steps to lessen its impact on education.
In the United States, the creation of school vouchers allows parents to choose which school their child attends, including private schools. In Vancouver, the opening of school boundaries means parents living in the east of the city often drive their kids to better schools in the west. But even though rules surrounding geographic proximity are not mandatory in Ontario, it's unlikely the province will abandon it.
Education Minister Liz Sandals said introducing school choice could exacerbate educational inequality, because low-income families don't necessarily have the means to drive their kid across town to a higher-ranking school.
Ms. Sandals said the solution lies in universal programs, such as full-day kindergarten, which has the potential to give every child, regardless of where they live, an early-learning experience. "You solve the problem through programming and not by opening by boundaries," she said. "Because quite frankly, we don't have any evidence that that actually changes things."
Carla Kisko, the TDSB's associate director of operations, agrees that opening up boundaries would be a nightmare when it comes to planning. "You [level the playing field] by focusing and looking at the data of students and really, truly putting intended additional support and effort to students that need the boost. That's happening every day," she said.
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Principal Carol Cabral is new to Edgewood, and this year she started a home reading program and is working with staff to identify kids that need extra academic support. "We want the parents to be working with us. We want to give them the tools. We want to give them the strategies that we know will affect student achievement," she said. She is closely studying the EQAO results, and doing what she calls "intentional and strategic planning" to improve those scores. So when Shazfa takes the provincial test later this year, she is better prepared for the questions that come at her.
Is it enough to close the achievement gap? Long-time TDSB trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher has been heavily involved in the model-school initiative. "People like me like to think that we can. In our saner moments we know that we probably won't. But the minute you say 'You can't really expect to do that,' you lose the impetus, you lose the passion," she said.
With a report from Simona Chiose and Stuart Thompson.Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.
click to enlarge Rebecca Kaplan.
In November, Oakland voters will decide whether to establish a new civilian-run police commission that would take over the job of disciplining police officers from the city administrator. But the ballot measure would also do something else — significantly expand the power of Oakland's mayor.Under Oakland's current charter, the mayor's main source of power is the ability to hire and fire the city administrator, and because the city administrator is Oakland's true boss, with the power to fire department heads, shape policy, and direct city staff, the mayor has implicit authority and can steer the city's bureaucracy.The police commission charter amendment, if approved by voters, would further expand the mayor's power in two significant ways. First, the mayor would get to make three direct appointments to the police commission's seven-person board. Second, the mayor would be given the power to unilaterally fire the police chief. Right now the mayor can't fire anyone except the city administrator. At last night's Oakland City Council meeting, these new powers became the center of a ferocious debate. Dozens of angry members of the public spoke during public comment, telling the council that giving the mayor three appointments to the police commission would make it susceptible to political influence. Many argued that all seven commissioners should be nominated by a selection panel composed of Oakland residents, not politicians."We do not trust the mayor to make these appointments," said Cat Brooks, an Oakland resident and member of the Anti Police-Terror Project."Up to today I received many calls from people asking that the commission be entirely independent of politics and asking that all the appointments be made by the citizen group and none be made by politicians," Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan said during the meeting.Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf did not attend last night's council meeting to explain her position that the power of the mayor's office should be expanded. But Schaaf has previously argued that her office is accountable to the public, and giving the mayor's office three appointments helps maintain a balance of power."The proposal balances independence and accountability," Schaaf said in a written statement email to theon Monday. "The Mayor is the most directly accountable official to the people."But some speakers at last night's council meeting weren't buying this logic, and they convinced councilmembers Desley Brooks and Rebecca Kaplan to undertake a last-ditch effort to remove the direct mayoral appointments from the ballot measure. The rest of the council, however, refused to vote on Brooks and Kaplan's amendment, siding instead with the mayor.Brooks said the rest of the council's actions showed that they are "carrying water" for Mayor Schaaf.But Kalb defended the measure's division of powers. "This will be the only police commission that I know of in the country that has less than a majority of its commissioners appointed by the chief executive," Kalb said.A few public speakers voiced support for giving the mayor more power to oversee the police department. “The mayor should be accountable for the police department based on her appointments,” said former Oakland City Councilmember Danny Wan. He added that if the commission failed to hold officers accountable, the failure would be the mayor's fault.If approved by voters in November, the police commission measure would further consolidate Oakland's division of powers under the so-called "strong mayor" for of government.Back in 1998, Jerry Brown succeeded in selling "strong mayor" reforms to Oakland voters. When voters approved Measure X that year, Brown, who was mayor at the time, wrested control of the city administrator's office away from the council. Having the ability to hire, fire, and direct the city manager allowed Brown to run Oakland in a more aggressive way.Under Brown's administration, the transformation of Oakland began with the 10K Plan, which added thousands of apartments and condos around the downtown and Jack London District. Brown also presided over Oakland during the Riders scandal when a unit of Oakland cops were accused of systematically profiling Black residents, brutal beatings, planting evidence, and other constitutional rights violations.Russia is more than ready for NATO's plan to increase naval and air presence in the Black Sea region
Russia's growing presence in the Black Sea is a military and geopolitical reality that NATO refuses to accept.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced yesterday that NATO will "strengthen its air and maritime presence" in the Black Sea region, triggering an immediate rebuke from Russia's NATO envoy Aleksandr Grushko:
But Russia has one'spy' ship off the coast of Connecticut! “All these decisions will be subject of thorough analysis… And, undoubtedly, we will take all necessary measures to properly safeguard Russia’s national interests in this region,” Grushko said. In addition to the Black Sea buildup, the Russian envoy also warned that the agreed increase of contributions to NATO's budget might lead to a new arms race. [...] Right now, the envoy warned, NATO is in danger of being stuck in a “vicious circle” of an arms buildup “from which it will be very difficult to get out.”
The threat is already very real. Some of Russia's most advanced military hardware is already stationed in Crimea:
Today, Crimea is one of the most modernly equipped bases of Russia’s armed forces. Besides surface and underwater ships, naval air forces, and coastal units, several installations of the latest “Bal” coastal missile systems are also deployed in Crimea. What’s more, “Bastion”, the newest word in coastal defense, was adopted by the armed forces in 2014 and has a missile range of over 600 km. As experts from the fleet’s officers affirmed to me during interviews, the deployment of “Bal’s” and “Bastion’s” renders the presence of NATO ships in the Russian part of the Black Sea largely futile and even fatally dangerous for themselves. A report by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine published on July 29th noted that Russia has established a self-sufficient grouping of forces in Crimea. New combat aircraft, S-400 anti-aircraft systems, “Varshavyanka project” submarines, and small missile ships equipped with “Calibre” missile systems will also all be transferred to the peninsula.
When Stoltenberg claimed, "Our deployments are defensive and measured. We will not match Russia soldier for soldier, tank for tank, or plane for plane. Our aim is to prevent conflict, not to provoke it," what he really meant to say was that NATO is incapable of matching Russia's firepower in the Black Sea region.
Heck, Moscow has already hinted that it has plans to place nuclear weapons in Crimea.
NATO is playing a dangerous game of "chicken" with Russia's Black Sea Fleet. But prancing around the Black Sea with a few extra destroyers won't scare Moscow. Sorry?Image copyright Getty Images Image caption White House staff members gathered in the Rose Garden after the election to hear Obama speak
The election of Donald Trump has upended the Washington establishment. Think-tankers, analysts and others are now wondering: What will we do now?
David Simas, the director of the White House's office of political strategy, walked into the Rose Garden on Wednesday. He was chewing gum, just as he'd done while campaigning with the president earlier in the week.
Back then he looked jaunty.
Now he was waiting for President Obama to give a speech about President-elect Donald Trump. Mr Simas looked sombre.
Nearby Susan Rice, the president's national security advisor, spoke with a colleague. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, put his arm around a woman in tears.
Another White House staffer, a foreign-policy expert who's worked in Washington for years, straightened his tie. People around him - a burly, bearded man, a woman clutching two mobile phones - sobbed openly.
They embody the Obama administration - and, for many, the Washington establishment.
There was a time when they had a fresh vision of Washington: hope and change was the slogan of the Obama administration. "That's all gone," I said to a colleague in the garden.
But as he rightly pointed out: "There'll be change."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption President Obama, shown with Vice-President Biden, told staffers about the transition
Mr Trump plans to upend Washington. He ran against the establishment, a group of insiders who work for the White House and on Capitol Hill, as well as in the media and for lobbying groups and think-tanks.
At a rally in Florida during his campaign, Trump issued a warning to "those who control the levers of power in Washington". He told people in the audience that the days of the Washington establishment would soon be over.
He said: "Our campaign represents a true existential threat like they haven't seen before."
He will now set up his own administration in Washington, one that promises to look very different from those that preceded it.
The men and women in the Rose Garden won't be part of it. They - like other members of the Washington establishment - will be replaced.
Candidates traditionally rail against the status quo in Washington, saying they'll shake things up. But the establishment is rarely trounced in such a dramatic manner.
Donald Trump is an outsider with no Washington experience. He does not have a vast team of advisers, people he's worked with for years in this town - nor does he want one.
No wonder those in the establishment are concerned. They're wondering what will happen to the country - and to them.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Hillary Clinton conceded defeat on Wednesday
I asked Bradley Graham, the co-owner of a Washington bookstore, Politics and Prose, the intellectual centre of the Washington establishment, to make sense of things.
"I'm not able at the moment to explain to myself, let alone your audience, what happened," he told me. "It's all so surreal, sad and scary."
Republicans were stunned, too. "Everyone made the wrong call," said Juleanna Glover, a Republican lobbyist. "I don't even think Trump thought he was going to win."
She and others had assumed that they knew the outcome of the election, weeks before it took place. Late on Tuesday, though, they started to wonder.
In my neighbourhood in northwest Washington, a place of narrow, tree-lined streets where congressmen, economists and other members of the establishment live, the lights were on in just about every house.
On a front stoop, a man sat hunched over a laptop, staring at the screen and smoking furiously. At another house, someone walked from room to room, looking at his phone, with his hand pressed against his forehead.
Gordon Adams, a former senior White House official, spoke with me after the election about the way that members of the Washington establishment - himself included - got things wrong. They were blinded by their own assumptions about the country and their role in it, he said.
"The capacity of the media and the chattering class to mystify itself is unlimited," he told me.
He described the way that Washington insiders underestimated the rage that people felt in other parts of the country. Now, Mr Adams said, the elite is trying to come to terms with reality: "They're shaken to the core."
Andrew Bacevich, the author of a book called Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, said that the election laid bare uncomfortable truths. It showed how fed up people are with the Washington establishment - and also "by the unwillingness of those people in the establishment to recognise their anger".
Yet not everybody was upset by the election results. It was bright and sunny in downtown Washington on Wednesday morning. Strangely, it was raining at the same time.
Two men waited for a light on M Street. They had an establishment look (silver hair, navy jackets), and I asked them what would happen under Trump. I thought they'd be disturbed.
Their answer surprised me. Rather than sounding dismayed, they said they welcomed the change.
"Forget about the Washington establishment," one of the men said. He made a thumbs-up sign, saying: "All I can tell you is that."
Then he and his friend headed into McDonald's.
Image copyright Chip Somodevilla Image caption Trump supporters - shown in New York - railed against the establishment
Meanwhile members of the elite were in shock and tears. It won't last. Soon the jockeying and deal-making will begin - at least among some of the establishment leaders.
Some of those who once savaged Mr Trump are likely to start see things differently in a bit. They will start to wonder if there's a way for them to advise his cabinet or even to get a job in the White House.
As Mr Bacevich explained: "Like any establishment, this establishment is committed to its own self-perpetuation."
Mr Adams agreed.
"The Gucci-loafer crowd will survive. They'll find a way to work their way back in," he said. "I am much more worried about those Trump savaged on his way to the top - the women, the African-Americans, the Latinos, the disabled."
He said: "What happens to them?" For that, he said, he didn't have an answer.They want war? Then launch a full-blown BDS assault on Israel and its supporters
By Stuart Littlewood
There was never a better moment for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to mass-mobilize for a mega-campaign not only to impact more heavily on the lawless Israeli state but also unmask those in business and public life who shamelessly support the criminal programme that was embedded in its DNA while on the Zionists’ drawing board.
Zero tolerance
This could include politicians, businesspeople, entertainers, sports stars, churchmen and the many organizations and fan clubs that nourish the thuggish vanity and horrendous cruelty of the Zionist regime. Zero tolerance is needed. Those who fund or support the inhuman behaviour we have witnessed, not just this week but ever since 1947 (and some would say, long before then), are not fit to be admitted into decent society let alone allowed to run our country and major institutions.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Holocaust Trust, the Jewish Leadership Council are among those who are quick to jump down anyone’s throat with accusations and slurs of anti-Semitism while they themselves endorse (or refuse to condemn) the blatant racism practised by the state that claims to be home to the Jewish people. They need to reflect.
And what about those party goons who wanted to “re-educate” MP David Ward – remember?
Pseudo-Christians who have allowed dangerous Zionist ambition to poison the faith and divert them from their Christian duty deserve no sympathy either.
Media organizations should also be targeted. Many of them simply don’t “do journalism” anymore and are happy to print the Israeli narrative without question.
Blatant lies their peddlers
Even after huge demonstrations protesting against the BBC’s biased reporting, its flagship news “Today” programme, broadcast on Radio 4, on 18 July gave the Israeli ambassador, Daniel Taub, a free platform, courtesy of British licence payers, for another torrent of disinformation that went unchallenged.
Presenter: “Let’s just get some history. Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in 2005 pulling out its settlements there. In 2006 there was a ground offensive…” and he went to to list some of Israel’s major assaults. Taub: You cannot have a situation where you have 5 million Israelis who are within reach of the longest range missiles smuggled in from Iran… meaning that more than half of our population has to live within seconds of bomb shelters. What we’re trying to do in this case is create an extended period of time where people can live quiet and normal lives.
The presenter could have pointed out that millions of Palestinians have lived for decades under constant fear of Israel’s jets, armed drones, helicopter gunships, tanks, naval gunboats, snipers and snatch squads. In the West Bank they have to put up with aggressive Israeli troops manning hundreds of checkpoints and battering down their doors in the dead of night and abducting their children. The Separation Wall cuts them off from their farms, their jobs, their friends and family. They have no bomb shelters and, in overcrowded Gaza, nowhere to run. The BBC presenter could also have asked Taub how a period of calm is going to solve the real problems – i.e. the illegal occupation, the dispossession and expulsions, and the vicious eight-year blockade.
However, he did ask if Israel had a long term plan, to which Taub answered:
In 2005 we pulled out completely. We uprooted 8,000 Israelis precisely because Israelis want to have a viable, prosperous, stable Palestinian society living next door. Instead of a prosperous Palestinian society taking root Hamas took over in a very brutal coup and started firing missiles against Israel. In that situation the options available to us are limited…
He admitted no blame attaching to Israel when specifically asked.
When you have a terrorist organization like Hamas which doesn’t use arms to protect its civilians but uses civilians to protect its arms, there is no way of defending yourself that doesn’t have some impact on the civilian population. But not defending yourself is not an option.
Dereliction of duty
The lies? In 2005 Israel did not pull out of Gaza “completely”. It continued to occupy Gaza’s airspace and coastal waters and had all entrances and exits sealed, except for the Egyptian border where Israel nevertheless exerted strong influence. Palestinian fishermen cannot even fish their own waters. Palestinians cannot develop and enjoy the benefits of their offshore gas-field. Nothing comes in or out without Israel’s say-so, unless it’s through secret tunnels. That’s still the situation.
The West Bank also remains under military occupation and blockade. Israel has annexed the holy city of Jerusalem. Movement within the occupied and increasingly fragmented territories is severely restricted. The economy is strangled. Little water flows through the taps because Israel steals it. No people on earth are going to tolerate such human rights abuses without hitting back as best they can.
Taub’s false talk of hopes for a prosperous Palestinian society would have been shot down in flames by any competent interviewer. Furthermore, Hamas did not “take over” Gaza in a coup. Hamas’s unexpected victory in the 2006 elections didn’t suit Israel and its sponsors, and sanctions were immediately imposed. A coup by rivals Fatah, supported by the US and Israel, backfired and Hamas chased them out.
The presenter could quite simply have put it to Taub that all the Palestinians want, including Hamas, is an end to the Israeli occupation and their property and livelihoods back, and pressed him on that.
Did the BBC wheel in the Palestinian ambassador on the day his country was being invaded yet again? No.
Those on the “Today” team no doubt see themselves as journalists but do not trouble, even after thousands of complaints, to brief themselves correctly. Either that, or they are under instructions to let Taub and other Zionist mouthpieces shoot any line they like.
I notice that Tel Aviv’s propaganda wordsmiths have been unusually creative. The phrase “doesn’t use arms to protect its civilians but uses civilians to protect its arms”, when referring to Hamas, has become the new Israeli mantra.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Former Massachusetts Senator and NH Senate hopeful Scott Brown called Obamacare a “monstrosity” while visiting the home of NH State Representative Herb Richardson. Bashing Obamacare is pretty standard Boilerplate GOP campaign strategy, but poor Scott Brown made his argument in the wrong home. Richardson and his wife had to correct Scott Brown, because under the new health care exchanges made available because of Obamacare the Republican couple is paying a staggering 88 percent less for health insurance costs.
Richardson’s wife exclaimed “thank God for Obamacare” as she and her husband described how Herb had been injured on the job and forced to live off of workman’s compensation. The couple had to pay over half of their income, 1100 dollars a month, out of pocket to maintain their health insurance under the old federal COBRA law. Obamacare enabled them to qualify for a healthcare subsidy which lowered their costs almost a thousand dollars a month to an affordable 136 dollars a month instead. The Richardsons have reason to be grateful for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Scott Brown may have learned a lesson for Republicans campaigning against Obamacare. As long as it remained an abstraction, it made a convenient bogeyman to attack on the stump. However, now that Obamacare is actually working for some people, the GOP will have to tread carefully. For some people it has brought affordable health care. Despite all the phony horror stories, for Republican families like the Richardsons, the real story is that Obamacare will save them over 10,000 dollars annually in health care costs. For other people with low incomes or with pre-existing conditions, the Affordable Care Act may give them health care coverage for the first time.
While Obamacare is by no means a perfect solution to the nation’s health care crisis, it is an improvement to America’s health care system that provides real and tangible benefits to the American people. The program even helps Republicans. Perhaps eventually Scott Brown and the other federal GOP candidates will learn to accept that Obamacare is a lifesaver and not a monstrosity, at least out here in the real world where the American people have to live.
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:NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- U.S. consumers have had their fill of expensive, contract-based phone plans.
Figures from T-Mobile USA on Thursday, added to earlier reports from other companies, indicate that the U.S. wireless industry lost subscribers from contract-based plans for the first time in the first quarter. Contract-based plans are the most lucrative ones for phone companies. The industry default over the past several decades, they account for the vast majority of revenue at the big phone companies.
The seven largest U.S. phone companies, representing more than 95 percent of the market, lost a combined 52,000 subscribers from contract-based plans in the January to March period, according to a tally by the Associated Press. The companies have a combined 220 million devices on such plans, accounting for about two-thirds of the total number of devices.
Since nearly every adult, and many children and teenagers, already have phones, there's little room for growth anymore. But subscribers are also flowing to cheaper, no-contract plans, which showed an increase of at least 2 million. That figure, however, is down from more than 5 million in the same quarter a year ago.
The industry is also adding millions of non-phone devices, like smart energy meters. These so-called "machine-to-machine" connections usually carry very low monthly fees, on the order of a few dollars per month.
For example, AT&T subscribers on contract-based plans pay an average of $64.46 per month, while other AT&T customers pay an average of $11.52 per month.
T-Mobile's report comes on the last day of the U.S. cellphone industry's annual trade show in New Orleans. At the show, companies talked about various ways of boosting their business outside phones. For instance, AT&T launched a home security and automation business, and the head of its wireless business, Ralph de la Vega, said the company is getting closer to launching family data plans, which would allow the sharing of one "bucket" of data among various devices and family members. That could encourage people |
Morgan County which borders Madison County, home of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. United Launch Alliance (ULA) also builds rockets in Decatur. Because of our proximity to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and ULA, space, aeronautics, and robotics are a part of our school's curriculum. Approximately 300 students attend, from kindergarteners to fifth graders.Our teachers have high expectations for students and we are known for excellence in math, science, technology, and reading. Students here excel on math teams, participate in hands-on science demonstrations, utilize up-to-date technology, and engage in reading across all subjects. Besides being known for our innovative use of technology, our school has an international outlook. Our 34 North program allows students in each grade to learn about a city or country that lies along the 34 North line of latitude, the same latitude of our school. For students that attend all six years at our school, they leave with an appreciation and understanding of many cultures that shape our world. In summary, Walter Jackson is a growing school in a tight-knit Southern town. We enjoy the small-town benefits of teachers really getting to know students and families while simultaneously having access to cutting-edge resources. We look forward to adding the International Space Station to our ever- expanding global network! Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows: 1. Please describe how you communicate with your family. How did you feel about leaving them? 2. Are common illnesses like colds and headaches common? How do you treat them? 3. What training and education are involved in becoming an astronaut? 4. Please describe your daily jobs on the ISS. 5. How are animals used in experiments on the ISS? What have you learned from them? 6. Have you had any frightening moments or emergencies while on the ISS? 7. How do you celebrate holidays on the ISS? 8. We learned that astronauts get weekends off. How do you spend your weekends? 9. Please describe a spacewalk. What are they for and have you had a memorable one? 10. How do you find your way around the ISS? Did you have to memorize the layout or is there a map? 11. Please describe some of the experiments on which you have worked. What kind of experiments do you find most interesting? 12. What is your biggest challenge in space: microgravity, separation from Earth, fatigue, or something else? 13. Did you take any items from Earth with you to the ISS? 14. Is breaking a bone in space any different than on Earth? How would it be treated? 15. Does microgravity affect snoring? 16. Do you grow plants or food on the ISS? If so, how is that done? 17. What are some of your favorite sights from the ISS? 18. Does the ISS search for alien life? If so, have you discovered any signs of it? 19. What is it like living with astronauts from different countries? Do you have anything in common? 20. Do you use robots on the ISS? If so, how? PLEASE CHECK THE FOLLOWING FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ARISS UPDATES: Visit ARISS on Facebook. We can be found at Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). To receive our Twitter updates, follow @ARISS_status Next planned event(s): TBD ABOUT ARISS Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) is a cooperative venture of international amateur radio societies and the space agencies that support the International Space Station (ISS). In the United States, sponsors are the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary goal of ARISS is to promote exploration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics by organizing scheduled contacts via amateur radio between crew members aboard the ISS and students in classrooms or informal education venues. With the help of experienced amateur radio volunteers, ISS crews speak directly with large audiences in a variety of public forums. Before and during these radio contacts, students, teachers, parents, and communities learn about space, space technologies, and amateur radio. For more information, see www.ariss.org, www.amsat.org, and www.arrl.org. Thank you & 73, David - AA4KN --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirusFirst in an occasional series of rants about dining out.
Most people have a superhero fantasy. Some want superior strength, plus tights and a cape, to fight crime. Others imagine being able to fly, become invisible or see through walls.
Mine has always been tamer. No costume. No drama. In my fantasy, I enter a restaurant, order and sweetly ask the waiter if I can "hold on to the menu" during dinner. Then, using a distinctive purple pen, I discreetly copy-edit the descriptions of the dishes.
Caesar, not "caeser." Shiitake, not "shitake." Riesling, not "reisling" (though I'd quietly applaud restaurants that spell it wrong as long as the misspelling was consistent.)
"Who was that anonymous proofreader?" chefs would whisper to one another. Correct-a-girl strikes again! Eliminating menu mistakes, one restaurant at a time.
Given the state of the world, I know this fantasy is a bit of an embarrassment. Even in restaurants, there are far greater calamities than the occasional menu mistake. Skyrocketing food costs are squeezing already-slim margins. Soaring gas prices are keeping diners at home. And anyone watching the long-fought election campaign knows that it's anything but fashionable to be an elitist.
Still, my fantasy was revived a few weeks ago after I had dinner at Hank's Oyster Bar in Northwest Washington. As our party left the restaurant, we looked up to see an enormous banner that had recently been mounted above the door. It read: "HANK'SOYSTER BAR. Nominated for Best Neighborhood Restuarant." When my friend politely pointed out the errors, the pleasant maitre d' was appropriately horrified. (By the next day, the sign had been replaced.)
It got me wondering: How does that happen? Can restaurant folks not spell? Do they just not care? "Restaurant people are not writers. For a chef, doing a menu is like writing a term paper," says Gregg Rapp, a California menu engineer for large restaurant chains.
I don't expect chefs to be writers, just as they don't expect me to make my own puff pastry. But given the existence of spell-checkers (the writing equivalent of frozen puff pastry dough), the number of errors is surprising.
I'm not talking about ethnic restaurants where the chef might not speak English, though the Chinese dish "vegetarian with tofu" I once spotted had a certain appeal. Nor would I pick on restaurants overseas, such as the one in Baghdad favored by foreign journalists that serves Chicken Gordon Blue.
What I'm talking about are the common, easily avoidable mistakes: "Deserts," "marscapone" and "pizza's." In the past few weeks, I've seen "angnolotti" at Charlie Palmer Steak, "avocadoes" at Kinkead's, "molton chocolate cake" at Dupont Circle's Darlington House and a "carrot mouseline" at Belga Cafe. At Zola, they warn on the online menu that "consuming raw or undercooked meat, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase your risk of foodbourne illness." But my recent favorite remains the "mescaline salad served with satay grilled shrimp, cucumbers, tomatoes and avocado" at Arlington's Yorktown Bistro.
Talk about your psychedelic flavor combinations.AlltheWeb (sometimes referred to as FAST or FAST Search[1]) was an Internet search engine that made its debut in mid-1999 and was closed in 2011. It grew out of FTP Search, Tor Egge's doctorate thesis at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, which he started in 1994, which in turn resulted in the formation of Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), established on July 16, 1997.[2] According to FAST, AllTheWeb once rivaled Google in size and technology.[3]
Traits [ edit ]
When AlltheWeb started in 1999, FAST aimed to provide their database to other search engines, major portals, ISPs and content sites.[4] By August 2, 1999, the AlltheWeb database had grown to 200 million unique URLs.[4] By June 2002, their crawler had indexed over 2 billion pages.[3]
AlltheWeb claimed a few advantages over Google, such as a fresher database, more advanced search features, search clustering and a completely customizable look.[3][5][6]
Closure [ edit ]
In February 2003, FAST's web search division was bought by Overture for $70 million.[7] In July 2003, Overture was acquired by Yahoo!, putting AlltheWeb under the ownership of Yahoo!.[8] Shortly after Yahoo!'s acquisition, the AlltheWeb site started using Yahoo!'s database and some of the advanced functions were removed, such as FTP search and direct image search.[citation needed]
In May 2006, Yahoo! started testing live search results on AlltheWeb.[9]
On April 4, 2011, AlltheWeb was shut down by Yahoo!.[10]
See also [ edit ]Story Time
Suppose you're part of America's surveillance forces, something you're good at, and you begin accumulating massive quantities of information exposing naked Republican complicity with Russian intervention of our Presidential elections. Would you say "Hey! Cut that out! Play nice! " or would you sit quietly and continue to gather information, spreading the net ever wider in order to catch every single bad hombre in the cabal?
You might even spread a little misinformation, like connecting Hillary Clinton with Anthony Wiener, in order to throw the election to the cabal thus giving you more time to gather incriminating evidence. In the end, you could then swoop in and frog-march half the GOP leadership down the Capitol steps or out the door of the White House.
Just suppose.....
=Lefty=The Ministry of Unification is an executive department of the South Korean government aimed at promoting Korean reunification. It was first established in 1969[1] as the National Unification Board, under the rule of Park Chung-hee. It gained its current status in 1998 and has played a major role in promoting inter-Korean dialogues, exchanges and cooperation.
Under previous minister Yu Woo-ik, the ministry consisted of one office for planning and coordination; three bureaus for unification policy, inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation, and humanitarian cooperation; one special bureau for the Gaeseong Industrial Complex project; and five affiliated agencies on unification education, inter-Korean dialogue, transit between the South and the North, settlement support for dislocated North Koreans and inter-Korean consultations on exchanges and cooperation. However, in 2008, the ministry was significantly downsized as part of an efficiency restructuring of government.[2]
The current minister is Cho Myung-gyun.[3] Its headquarters are on the third and fourth floors of the Seoul Government Complex in Jongno District, Seoul.[4]
Lee Myung-bak administration [ edit ]
The ministry's aims as of 2008[5] were:
Responsibilities [ edit ]
According to the Ministry website, its major duties are as follows:
Establishing North Korea Policy: The ministry coordinates the South Korean government's policy toward North Korea and establishes and implements long-term policies for national unification. The ministry encourages public participation in the overall process. To effectively pursue unification policies, the ministry analyzes the political, socioeconomic and military aspects of North Korea.
Coordinating inter-Korean dialogue: As the chief government body tasked with communicating with North Korea, the Ministry of Unification coordinates inter-Korean dialogue at all levels in the political, economic, military and humanitarian areas.
Pursuing inter-Korean cooperation: In addition, the ministry sets the rules and procedures for inter-Korean economic cooperation including those governing Mt. Geumgang tour, Gaeseong industrial complex and reconnection of inter-Korean roads and railways and various exchange programs in the athletic, cultural and academic areas. This includes the pursuit of humanitarian cooperation on human rights conditions in North Korea, South Korean POW and abductee issues, reunion of separated families, settlement support for dislocated North Koreans and cross-border exchanges of goods and people alongside the inter-Korean roads and railways.
Educating the public on unification. The ministry often enlists the services of local NGOs to provide educational information to people throughout Korea.
Vision [ edit ]
Creating a Community for Peace: It will denuclearize the Korean peninsula, build military trust between South and North Korea and reduce tension on the peninsula. Creating a Community for Common Prosperity: The Lee government will help North Korea develop its economy and participate in the international community and pursue an economic cooperation that will benefit both Koreas. Creating a Community for Happiness: It will enhance the well-being of the 70 million South and North Koreans by resolving humanitarian issues between the two Koreas and raising the quality of life for all Koreans.[6]
Guiding principles [ edit ]
The Hong Yong-pyo administration is guided by four principles: a balanced approach; North Korea policy that evolves over time; and cooperation with the international community.
A balance between ‘national security and exchange/cooperation’ and ‘inter-Korean cooperation and international cooperation’ will be struck: remain flexible where appropriate, yet firm when necessary, in order to closely coordinate the critical factors which constitute our policy towards North Korea. Encourage North Korea to make “the right choice” and move closer towards meaningful cross-border interaction by continuously complementing and revising our policies toward the North; North Korean policies will remain responsive and vigilant with regards to developments in our surrounding regional neighborhood in order to ensure robust and proactive management of the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Close consultation and cooperation with the international community, we will resolve the security crisis on the Korean Peninsula; seek to establish a virtuous cycle between the resolution of issues on the Korean Peninsula and increased peace and collaboration in Northeast Asia.
Major tasks [ edit ]
All issues between the two Koreas should be resolved through dialogue. We will engage in productive dialogue with the North to resolve all pending issues with sincerity. The leaders of the two Koreas may meet any time if they do so in good faith with the goal of unification and a better life for all 70 million Koreans. It will continue to encourage North Korea to give up its nuclear programs through the Six-party Talks. The Lee administration will call for a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue during inter-Korean dialogue. It will achieve qualitative development of inter-Korean relations through mutually beneficial economic cooperation between the two Koreas. Existing economic cooperation projects will be promoted by removing obstacles. New projects will be pursued according to the four criteria: progress in North Korea’s denuclearization, economic feasibility, our financial capability and national consensus. The Lee administration will implement the Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness to create an inter-Korean economic community. Social and cultural exchanges will be expanded to develop a sense of national commonality. An institutional foundation will be laid to ensure a substantial and stable development of social and cultural exchanges. The former Lee administration will remain strongly committed to the resolution of the humanitarian issues. We will find fundamental solutions to the separate family issue and give a priority to the resolution of the South Korean POW and abductee issues as they are our citizens whom the government should protect. We will deal with human rights in North Korea as a matter of universal value. The ROK government will provide humanitarian aid to North Korea unconditionally from a humanitarian perspective and in the spirit of brotherhood toward fellow North Koreans.[7]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Media related to Ministry of Unification at Wikimedia CommonsGoogle, one of the most powerful companies in the world, is being sued by one of its own employees for a number of "draconian" and allegedly "illegal" confidentiality policies – from stifling whistleblower complaints to running a secretive internal "spying programme."
The legal challenge, with the plaintiff identified only "John Doe", a California-based Google product manager who still works at the firm, slams the internet giant for violating nearly a dozen of California's labour laws. It alleges a number of internal policies are both "wrong and illegal."
Google said it plans to defend the suit "vigorously because it's baseless."
The lawsuit asserts that Google requires its 65,000-strong workforce to comply with "illegal confidentiality agreements, policies, guidelines, and practices." These include, Doe alleged, policies that "restrict Googlers' right to speak, right to work, and right to whistle-blow."
They range from the shocking to the bizarre.
One of the stranger accusations is that Google's communication policy states that any budding novelists working for the firm may have to give up that dream. Employees are reportedly restricted from "writing creative fiction" without permission.
"Google's employee communication policy prohibits employees from writing 'a novel about someone working at a tech company in Silicon Valley' unless Google gives prior approval to both the book idea and the final draft," the court filing, available in full here, reveals.
"In addition to requiring Googlers to keep all information about Google confidential, Google places additional onerous restrictions on Googlers' freedom to speak," it continues.
"Google's 'employee communication policy' states that if a Googler shares 'confidential information' outside the company, they may be terminated, held personally liable, or subject to prosecution."
"The policies prohibit Googlers from telling a potential employer how much money they make, or what work they performed, when searching for a different job," the suit states. "The policies prohibit Googlers from speaking to the government, attorneys, or the press about wrongdoing at Google.
The insider claims that failure to comply with confidentiality policies can lead to "draconian results."
Google is watching you
The suit said Google enforces "unlawful" policies through employee training, internal investigations, self-confessions, written and oral warnings, the threat of termination and litigation and even a secretive "spying program" called StopLeaks.
The filing describes a team called 'Global Investigations' – led by Brian Katz – which allegedly helps to enforce the "illegal confidentiality policies" by running the company-wide operation which aims to "deter employees from asking questions."
"The Stopleaks program is managed through an internal website that includes a Chrome extension to facilitate the reporting of alleged leaks on the internet" the filing revealed. Staffers are required to report all leaks to Stopleaks.
"In addition to leaks Google asks staffers to file "suspicious activity reports," about'strange things you observe or strange things that happen to you – like someone asking you really detailed questions about your project or job'," it adds.
In response to the claims, a Google spokesperson told IBTimes UK: "We will defend this suit vigorously because it's baseless. We're very committed to an open internal culture, which means we frequently share with employee's details of product launches and confidential business information.
"Transparency is a huge part of our culture. Our employee confidentiality requirements are designed to protect proprietary business information, while not preventing employees from disclosing information about terms and conditions of employment, or workplace concerns."
Silence all whistleblowers
For a company built on the troves of personal information provided by its millions of users, it (unsurprisingly) treasures secrecy. In light of this, the suit alleges that Google engages in a "concerted effort to prevent both internal and external whistleblowing."
"Google restricts what Googlers say internally in order to conceal potentially illegal conduct," the court document reads. "It instructs employees in its training programs to do the following: 'Don't send an e-mail that says 'I think we broke the law' or 'I think we violated this contract.'"
The court document outlines a so-called "training programme" called 'You Said What?' that allegedly demands all Google staff must "avoid communications that conclude, or appear to conclude, that Google or Googlers are acting 'illegally' or 'negligently'".
In other words, it adds, staff are forbidden from speaking out about illegal conduct within the firm.
John Doe argues that both the California and United States constitutions were designed with freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of information in mind. Based on this, the insider said: "Sunlight remains the best disinfectant. Google must let the sun shine in."
"Google's motto is 'don't be evil.' Google's illegal confidentiality agreements, policies, and practices fail this test," the claim adds.Team Russia Preview
With Russia being the host of the 2014 Winter Olympics expectations are running high for the team. Expectations should be high for this team. Having the likes of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Andrei Markov, Pavel Datsyuk and many other amazing players. But other than the all stars that crowd the lineup there are some other reasons that make Russia a deadly team and a favorite for gold. But first here is the lineup.
Sergei Bobrovsky G Columbus Blue Jackets
Alexander Eremenko G Moscow Dynamo
Semyon Varlamov G Colorado Avalanche
Anton Belov D Edmonton Oilers
Denis Denisov D CSKA Moscow (KHL)
Alexei Emelin D Montreal Canadiens
Andrei Markov D Montreal Canadiens
Evgeny Medvedev D Kazan Ak-Bars (KHL)
Nikita Nikitin D Columbus Blue Jackets
Ilya Nikulin D Kazan Ak-Bars (KHL)
Fedor Tyutin D Columbus Blue Jackets
Vyacheslav Voynov D Los Angeles Kings
Artem Anisimov F Columbus Blue Jackets
Pavel Datsyuk F Detroit Red Wings
Denis Kokarev F Moscow Dynamo (KHL)
Ilya Kovalchuk F SKA St. Petersburg (KHL)
Nikolai Kulemin F Toronto Maple Leafs
Evgeni Malkin F Pittsburgh Penguins
Alex Ovechkin F Washington Capitals
Alexander Popov F Omsk Avangard (KHL)
Vladimir Tarasenko F St. Louis Blues
Alexei Tereshchenko F Kazan Ak-Bars (KHL)
Viktor Tikhonov F St. Petersburg SKA (KHL)
Forwards
Russia has a lethal offense and is best known for it. Of course you have the likes of the all stars like: Malkin, Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk and to name a few. Then you have other NHL players that fly under the radar like Nikolai Kulemin, Vladimir Tarasenko and Artem Anisimov. All of those players are good players. Now all of us in North America know how dangerous the NHL players are but how about the KHL players? They have the potential to be even more deadly than some of the NHL players. But one player as a Team Canada fan that I am scared of the most in the forward core is: Ilya Kovalchuk. Now a lot of you might be thinking, What? The guy that quit on the NHL? How is he one of the most dangerous players on their team? Well let me answer those questions for you guys.
Ilya Kovalchuk did leave the NHL to go play in his home country. Now they are using the same types of rinks that they use in the KHL for the Winter Olympics. Now every KHL player on that team is comfortable with this ice surface, they know how fast they have to go and they know how to get around it. Meanwhile NHL and North American players are used to smaller rinks and using different amounts of speed since it’s a smaller surface. Bigger ice surface = More need for speed and endurance. Not only does Kovalchuk have that knowledge of the ice surface and how fast he needs to go, but at the same time he has NHL experience that is always an advantage. Now put his experience for playing for both leagues (KHL and NHL) and put it together and you have a player that know how a lot of the players in the tournament play and a player that is comfortable playing on the big ice surface. Thus you have the Kovalchuk theory.
Some side notes for the offense is more players that follow the Kovalchuk theory. Probably the only player to be more dangerous than Kovalchuk is Evgeni Malkin. You have the player that won the Ted Lindsay, Art Ross and Hart trophy only a few season ago. Not to mention he has be amazing for the penguins this year. On top of his amazing NHL performance he also has experience playing on the big ice surface like Kovalchuk. Malkin played on Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the KHL during the lockout on a line with Nikolai Kulemin (who I’ll get to in a second) and was pretty good. Malkin had 23 goals in 37 games and had 58 points all together. That is just mind blowing but then again it’s Malkin. Another side note is Nick Kulemin. I am going to keep it brief with him, but as a leafs fan I find that Kulemin has gone from a goal scorer into a defensive minded forward. But for some reason he seems to perform better offensively on that big ice surface in Russia. I find it amazing that he can change so much as a player on a different ice surface (or maybe it’s just that he’s playing in his home country) but whatever it is it’s great for Russia and their chances of winning.
Defense
Russia has a great defensive core, but not the best. Now any team with the duo of Andrei Markov and Alexi Emelin is doing pretty good on defense already. Then you add Slava Voynov and Nikita Nikitin and your lineup is looking pretty good. Of course not to exclude the KHL players, Medvedev has won a gold medal at the World Championships and has a decent plus minus. Ilya Nikulin is a much better player and is NHL worthy looking at his International Stats. He has 26 points in 66 games, success wise Nikulin has three gold medals, two silver medals and one bronze. All of them coming in the World Championships though so you never know, because the Olympics and the World Championships are different.
But I can’t say for the other players since I haven’t see a lot for the other player but I can only assume that they are just as good.
Goalies
Bobrovsky being the reining Vezina Trophy winner he is an obvious pick. Varlamov (in my opinion) he should be number two but he get’s number three instead. Bobrovsky has been decent, not amazing but not terrible. Their goal tending might be their weakest link of their entire lineup. Bobrovsky being a risky and being the definite starter but not the same form he has been in his Vezina season (beating out Martin Brodeur). Most Olympic teams have either a sure number one/all star goalie or two goalies that are amazing or just flat out phenomenal. Canada has Price and Luongo, Sweden has Lundqvist, USA has Miller and Quick, the Czech Republic are going to have to rely on Ondrej Pavelec and so on.
This may be a weak spot but with Russia’s dynamite offense and experienced defense this might not be a huge problem but will be a weak spot. But you never know, Bobrovsky could be lights out or their KHL goalie Eremenko could be the guy. But all teams, espically in the Olympics, need good goal tending to survive.
A side note is the rink, maybe Eremenko could give the Russians an edge with puck movement/ puck control goalie wise. If Eremenko know the rinks the way Luongo knew the rink back in Vancouver (playing for the Canucks and playing in the Rogers center for a lot of his carrier) maybe the same will apply for the Russians.
Snubs
Some big ones are Alex Semin, Sergi Gonchar, Anton Volchenkov and youngster Nail Yakupov. Now I thought Gonchar was going to be a sure thing, his veteran present and leadership alongside Markov would make a great defense. Obviously I was wrong! Volchenkov and Yakupov were bubble players for me. Volchenkov’s play has been sub-par these past few years. Meanwhile Yakupov has been absolutely terrible for the disappointing Oliers. Yakupov would be a last second decision for me, his play just hasn’t been that good for Olympic standers. But for next Olympics I see Yak making it but for now he needs some development and Dallas Eakins will do that (used to be in Toronto.) Semin was a bubble player but I thought he would make it knowing that he used to have chemistry with Alex Ovechkin. But I guess that wasn’t enough for him.
Overview
Russia is a medal favorite for me, with the home ice advantage throughout the tournament and the “Kovalchuk theory” many already crazy good players get even more deadly. I predict that Russia will get either a Bronze or a Silver on home soil. I expect great things from this over powered team but just not gold. Not with that goal tending. But hey maybe they will surprise me with a Gold Medal. It’s possible, Canada did it back in Vancouver maybe Russia can do it in Sochi? Who know will find out in February!
AdvertisementsJocelyn Brando (November 18, 1919 – November 27, 2005) was an American film, stage, and television actress.
Her film debut came in the war movie China Venture (1953) with Edmond O'Brien and Barry Sullivan. Her best-known movie role was as detective Glenn Ford's wife in the film noir The Big Heat (1953).
Biography [ edit ]
Brando, the older sister of Marlon Brando, was born in San Francisco, California, to Marlon Brando Sr. and Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. She and her brother and their sister, Frances, grew up mostly in the Midwest - Omaha, Nebraska, Evanston, Illinois, and Libertyville, Illinois, although the family also spent time in California.[citation needed]
The bane of the children's existence was the alcoholism of both parents, which was particularly acute with their mother, who later became a leader in Alcoholics Anonymous.[citation needed] Although Jocelyn, a talented actress, was blacklisted for having signed a peace petition, she managed a career that spanned five decades in the theater, film and television.[citation needed]
Brando came to the stage naturally, first appearing in a theatrical production under the direction of her mother, who was a principal in an Omaha community theater group. Her mother, Dorothy Brando, had given Henry Fonda his start in theater in this same group. She made her Broadway debut soon after her 22nd birthday, appearing in The First Crocus at the Longacre Theatre on January 2, 1942; the play closed after five performances. Her next appearance on Broadway came two months after her younger brother began his role as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.[citation needed]
Even before that, however, in the fall of 1947, both Jocelyn and Marlon would become two of the first fifty or so members of New York's newly formed Actors Studio, Jocelyn studying with Elia Kazan, Marlon with Robert Lewis.[1]
On February 18, 1948, she appeared in her second role on Broadway. She played Navy nurse Lieutenant Ann Girard in Mister Roberts, which starred family friend Henry Fonda in the eponymous title role. The play was a smash hit, running about three years (1157 performances).[citation needed]
She did not complete the run of the play, appearing in the comedy The Golden State in the 1950-51 season, a flop that lasted but 25 performances, followed by a critically acclaimed, but commercially unsuccessful 1952 revival of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms, which ran for only 46 performances. Brando would later appear in a Broadway revival of O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra.[citation needed]
Back in uniform as a military officer, she made her film debut in Don Siegel's war drama, China Venture (1953). When she first arrived in Hollywood, she gave an interview with The New York Times in which she commented on her brother's advice - or lack of it - to the tyro film actress: "Marlon is a sweet fellow, and he works very hard. I asked him for a tip about pictures, and he answered, 'Oh, I just say the words. That's all I know about picture acting.' He probably was smart at that to let me find my own way."[citation needed]
It was her second film that was her best-known movie role: detective Glenn Ford's doomed wife in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953). Her character is killed by a car bomb, intended for her husband. She also appeared in supporting roles in two of her brother's films, The Ugly American (1963) and The Chase (1965).
In the late 1960s, Jocelyn joined the cast of the CBS soap opera, Love of Life, where she created the role of Mrs. Krakauer, mother of Tess (Toni Bull Bua) and Mickey (Alan Feinstein). On primetime television, she played the recurring role of Mrs. Reeves on Dallas. Other television series that featured her work include Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wagon Train, Riverboat, The Virginian, Kojak and Little House on the Prairie.[citation needed]
Many fans of the 1981 film Mommie Dearest believe Jocelyn portrayed actress Barbara Bennett, sister to Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett, in the movie, but this is incorrect. It is merely coincidence that the Redbook writer in the movie has the same name as the actress.[2]
In later life, Brando ran her own bookstore in Santa Monica, California, known as The Book Bin. She wrote poetry and conducted workshops at her home in the Intensive Journal method, a self-therapy technique developed by Ira Progoff.[citation needed]
Personal life/death [ edit ]
Brando had two sons, Gahan Hanmer (by husband Don Hanmer) and Martin Asinof (by writer Eliot Asinof). She died at her Santa Monica home, shortly after her 86th birthday, from undisclosed causes.[citation needed]
Filmography [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Barack Obama, a constitutional law professor and state senator from the south side of Chicago, is a leading candidate for the US Senate in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary. It's an open seat with no incumbent. In a crowded field that includes three well-known and better-funded opponents, Obama is definitely a contender. But who is Barack Obama? A former community organizer not long out of Harvard Law School, Obama was tapped in 1992 to head up Project VOTE Illinois, where he was responsible for registering 120,000 new Democratic voters, mostly minorities, and chasing the greater part of them out to the polls that November. Barack and his team made a significant contribution toward Bill Clinton carrying Illinois that year and enabled Carol Moseley Braun to squeak by a Republican opponent to become the first and only black woman ever to sit in the US Senate. In 1996 Obama was elected to the Illinois state senate. At the midpoint of a four-year term in 2000, Obama challenged incumbent congressman Bobby Rush and was trounced in the Democratic primary by almost 2 to 1. He is the sponsor of a bill in the Illinois legislature requiring local police departments in Illinois to record the race of anyone stopped for questioning so that the data can be used to track the occurrence of racial profiling. Energizing the base To win the Democratic primary election in Illinois, where African Americans cast at least a quarter of the ballots, Obama needs to capture the great majority of a large black turnout, and pick up a significant slice of white votes as well. To secure a general election victory in a presidential election year Obama will have to fire up an expanded Democratic base and turn the election into a crusade against the incumbent president and his party. Can he do it? At an antiwar meeting last October Obama was certainly pitching to that Democratic base in the progressive and African American community: "I don't oppose all wars... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. "What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Roves to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income... to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thru the worst month since the Great Depression. "That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.... " Somebody else's brand of politics appears to have intruded on Obama's campaign. For a while the whole speech could be found on Obama's campaign web site, a key statement of principle for a serious US Senate candidate in an election season when the President's party threatens the world with permanent war and pre-emptive invasion, and cows US citizens with fear mongering, color coded alerts, secret detentions and the abrogation of constitutional liberties. Although Obama may have appeared at meetings of other citizens opposed to the war or let them use his name, no further public statements from the candidate on these important issues have appeared.
Then, a few weeks ago, Barack Obama's heartfelt statement of principled opposition to lawless militarism and the rule of fear was stricken without explanation from his campaign web site, and replaced with mild expressions of "anxiety":
But I think [people are] all astonished, I think, in many quarters, about, for example, the recent Bush budget and the prospect that, for example, veterans benefits might be cut. And so there's discussion about that, I think, among both supporters and those who are opposed to the war. What kind of world are we building?
And I think that's - the anxiety is about the international prospects and how we potentially reconstruct Iraq. And the costs there, then, tie in very directly with concerns about how we're handling our problems at home. His passion evaporated, a leading black candidate for the US Senate mouths bland generalities on war, peace and the US role in the world. Barack Obama, professor of constitutional law, is mum on the Patriot Act, silent about increased surveillance of US citizens, secret searches, and detentions without trial. His campaign literature and speeches ignore Patriot Act 2, which would detain US citizens without |
why, after all of the Senate’s bipartisan negotiation, just 14 of the 45 GOP senators ultimately backed the immigration legislation, nine fewer than supported a similar comprehensive plan under Bush in 2006.
Can Republicans bet their future primarily on the notion that the party can amass even bigger advantages with whites? The answer depends on two distinct factors: turnout and vote-share.
The past two elections have offered Republicans many encouraging signs about their standing with whites. In 2010, exit polls showed that Republicans carried 60 percent of white voters in congressional races — their best showing ever, in both exit polls since the 1970s and in the University of Michigan’s American National Election Studies tracing back to 1948. In 2012, while winning a comparable 59 percent among whites, Romney displayed dominant strength with groups that usually tilt toward the GOP, particularly married, noncollege, and older whites. With some of these groups, the NJ analysis shows, Obama sank to depths Democrats haven’t experienced since the Reagan and George H.W. Bush landslides.
Obama, for instance, lost noncollege white men — once the brawny backbone of the New Deal-era Democratic coalition — by a crushing 31 percentage points, the widest deficit since 1984. He lost married white men and married white women by the largest margins for his party since 1984. He lost whites nearing retirement by the widest margin since 1988, and white seniors by the most since 1984. Among older working-class whites (those without college degrees age 45 or older), he faced even larger deficits than Mondale did against Reagan. Likewise, the analysis shows, Obama lost white Catholics, once considered perhaps the single most decisive swing group, by a larger margin (19 points) than Mondale did. Obama didn’t sink to record deficits among two other GOP-leaning groups — college-educated white men and noncollege white women — but he lost each by around 20 percentage points.
Even among the portions of the white community generally open to Democrats, Obama’s performance flagged. After running essentially even among single white men in 2008, he lost them by 8 points in 2012 — the party’s weakest showing since 2000. His margin among white single women (ordinarily one of the Democrats’ best groups) fell from 19 percentage points in 2008 to just 6 in 2012, the party’s smallest advantage since 1988. Likewise, after carrying college-educated white women his first time, Obama lost them in 2012 by 6 percentage points, the party’s biggest deficit since 1988. His overall deficit among white women spiked to 14 percentage points, double the level in 2008 and the biggest shortfall the party has faced since Mondale. Among whites younger than 30, Obama fell from a 10-point advantage in 2008 to a 7-point loss in 2012. Among whites in households with a union member, the exit poll found, Obama edged Romney by just 2 percentage points.
Some of these results look like hardening patterns. Romney’s performance slightly stretched, but largely continued, trends in which recent Republican nominees have averaged huge advantages among married white men (almost 31 percentage points since 2000); married white women (more than 21 percentage points since 2004); noncollege white men (over 27 points since 2000); college white men (almost 20 points since 2000); and noncollege white women, the so-called waitress moms (19 points since 2004). As the Silent Generation that came of age under Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower succeeds the “GI Generation” forged under Franklin Roosevelt, the political orientation of white seniors has also clearly transformed: Although Bill Clinton carried white seniors in each of his two campaigns, a majority of them have voted Republican in all four elections since then, each time by a wider margin. Romney became the first GOP nominee since Reagan in 1984 to cross the 60 percent threshold with this group. Republicans look as well positioned with the older baby boomers near retirement.
Yet these advantages, while commanding, can also provide Republicans an exaggerated sense of comfort. On both the turnout and margin fronts, a whites-first strategy would face entrenched, structural challenges. For Republicans to increase the white share of the electorate in 2016 or beyond would require them to reverse the virtually uninterrupted trajectory of the past three decades. According to the NJ exit poll analysis, the white share of the total vote has declined in every election since 1980, except in 1992, when it ticked up to 88 percent (from 85 percent in 1988) amid the interest in Perot’s quirky third-party bid. Otherwise, this decline has persisted through years of both high and low overall turnout. Even in 2004, when George W. Bush’s state-of-the-art microtargeting and turnout operation allowed Republicans to equal Democrats as a share of the total vote for the only time in the history of polling, whites’ share dropped 4 percentage points from 2000. Throughout 2012, many Republicans anticipated that the white proportion of the vote would increase from 2008 and even quietly based their polling on that assumption; but, ultimately, the white share of the vote followed the long-term trend and fell to 72 percent — exactly the level that Obama campaign manager Jim Messina projected early in the year. In a mirrored development, the minority share of the vote rose to 28 percent, 2 percentage points above 2008 and more than double the 12 percent level for Bill Clinton’s first victory in 1992.
The challenge for Republicans hoping to reverse these voting trends is that they reflect tectonic shifts in the overall population. Although the change in the electorate has trailed the change in the total population, the two lines have moved in parallel. From 1996 to 2012, according to census figures, the white share of the eligible voting population (citizens who are older than 18) has dropped about 2 percentage points every four years, from 79.2 percent to 71.1 percent; over that same period, whites have declined as a share of actual voters from 83 percent to 74 percent (according to census figures) or even 72 percent (according to the exit polls). With minorities expected to make up a majority of America’s 18 and younger population in this decade, all signs point toward a continued decline in the white share of the eligible voter population — which suggests the GOP would have to marshal heroic turnout efforts to avoid further decline in the white vote-share. If the electorate’s composition follows the trend over the past two decades, minorities would likely constitute 30 percent of the vote in 2016.
With one exception, Republican nominees since the 1970s have shown only modest appeal to that growing population. In both 2008 and 2012, Obama won a combined 80 percent of minority voters. In fact, as ABC pollster Gary Langer notes, the Democratic nominee has won between 78 percent and 82 percent of the two-party vote among nonwhites in every election since 1976, except in 2004, when Bush’s strong minority appeal held John Kerry to just 71 percent.
The “Hidden History” analysis shows very few cracks in the Democratic dominance among both African-American and Hispanic voters in 2012. Even among groups in the African-American community in which Republicans had displayed at least some presence from 1980 through 2004 — men, those with a college education, and those who are married — the GOP registered little more than trace support in each of the two contests against Obama. In each of his two races, Obama won an astounding 96 percent among African-American women, but the Democratic nominee has reached at least 90 percent among these voters in every election since 2000.
Likewise, Romney faced broad repudiation from Hispanics. Obama won nearly two-thirds of Hispanic men and more than three-fourths of Hispanic women. Each of those numbers represented the Democrats’ best performance since 1996. Obama slipped somewhat from 2008 among married Hispanics, but he still exceeded the Democrats’ two showings against George W. Bush. The only signs of encouragement for Republicans: During the rout, Romney gained ground from 2008 with college-educated Hispanic men (falling just short of Bush’s level with them in 2004) and also attracted just over 40 percent of Hispanic Protestants, many of them evangelical social conservatives. Still, Catholics remain the largest group among Hispanics, and among them Romney drew only 21 percent, less than any GOP nominee since 1980 (except for Bob Dole in the three-way race of 1996).
All of these results map the depth of the minority-voter hole confronting Republicans — and the daunting math they will face if they can’t recover at least somewhat. If minorities reach 30 percent of the vote next time, and the 2016 Democratic nominee again attracts support from roughly 80 percent of them, he or she would need to capture only 37 percent of whites to win a majority of the popular vote. In that scenario, to win a national majority, the GOP would need almost 63 percent of whites. Since 1976, the only Republican who has reached even 60 percent among whites was Reagan (with his 64 percent in 1984). Since Reagan’s peak, the Democratic share of the white vote has varied only between 39 percent (Obama in 2012 and Clinton in the three-way election of 1992), and 43 percent (Obama in 2008 and Clinton in 1996).
To shatter that band, and return to the margins among whites they enjoyed under Reagan, Republicans would need to overcome another set of demographic changes. Just as the overall composition of the country is changing, so is the nature of the white electorate. These changes are generally displacing white groups that vote overwhelmingly Republican with white groups in which Democrats run more competitively. That dynamic makes the recent GOP performance among whites even more impressive — but also shows the difficulty of climbing still further. The shifts are visible across several dimensions. Republicans now reliably run better among whites without a college education than those with at least a four-year degree. In 1984, those noncollege whites represented 62 percent of the total vote, while college-educated whites constituted just 27 percent. That meant working-class whites represented more than two-thirds of all white voters. But since then, according to the exit polls, the share of the vote cast by those working-class whites has declined in every election except 2000, hitting a low of 36 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, the share of college-educated whites grew through the 1990s and has fluctuated in a narrow range since. In 2012, the exit poll found, college-educated whites also cast 36 percent of the vote, marking the first time they have equaled working-class whites.
Similarly, every Democratic nominee since 1980 has run better among white women than white men. While white men and women represented equal shares of the vote in 1984, in 2012 the women (at 38 percent) outvoted the men (at 34 percent). Combining education and gender underscores the point. Men without a college education have become the most reliably Republican component of the white electorate; women with a college degree are the most receptive to Democrats. In 1984, those blue-collar men cast nearly three times as many votes as the white-collar women; in 2012, for the first time, the college women (at 19 percent) outvoted the noncollege men (at 17 percent). Given that the share of white adults with at least a four-year degree has increased in every year since 1981 except two, and that women are garnering nearly three-fifths of those degrees, this gap is likely to widen.
Marital status pushes in the same direction less dramatically. Every Democratic nominee since 1980 has run better among single than married whites. In 1984, married couples represented 70 percent of all white voters; by 2012, that number slipped to 65 percent. (The decline has been especially sharp among married white men, who have voted more Republican than married women in each election since 1984.) Another trend steepening the grade for the GOP is growing secularization. Since 2000, Democrats have averaged a 32-point advantage among whites who identify with no religious tradition, and the share of them has increased from 15 percent in 2007 to 20 percent by 2012, according to studies by the Pew Research Center.
These shifts in the white electorate change each election almost imperceptibly, like the slow melting of an iceberg. But over time they add up. “Every structural change you are talking about is moving in the direction of whites improving their votes for Democrats,” says Stanley B. Greenberg, the veteran Democratic pollster. “Big trends in the country — what’s happening in education, marriage, in the religious sphere — all point to an upward trend among whites.” Consider this hypothetical. If Romney had matched his 2012 performance among white men and women with and without a college degree, but those four groups still constituted the same share of the white electorate as they did in 1984, Romney’s total vote among whites would have edged up to around 61 percent. That was just about the level he needed to win the popular vote.
The major countervailing force is that the share of whites in union households has steadily declined, and that white population is aging even as Republicans have widened their advantages with older whites. On the other hand, with the Democratic-leaning GI Generation dwindling, the older white voters passing out of the electorate every four years are concentrated in the Silent Generation that has voted reliably Republican in recent years. Through 2020, the younger voters replacing them will be members of the Millennial Generation (generally regarded as those born between 1981 and 2002), which has shown much more openness to Democrats. Since 2000, when the first millennials became eligible, Democrats have averaged 45 percent among whites under age 30, far more than the 36 percent they averaged with young whites during the 1980s (and much more than what they are attracting from older whites now).
This suggests that one critical variable is whether today’s young white millennials will move toward the GOP as they age. Michael Dimock, director of the Pew Research Center, which has extensively studied generational voting patterns, says there is some precedent for such a shift: Older baby boomers who came of age from the Kennedy to Nixon presidencies have shifted toward the GOP in recent elections (the youngest boomers, who reached adulthood under Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, have voted more consistently Republican). And as young people struggled in the economy, Obama’s showing among younger whites did drop sharply from 2008 to 2012.
But, Dimock says, the evidence from other generations doesn’t support the notion that voters “inherently [drift] Republican as they age.” Moreover, he says, the liberal-leaning positions the millennial generation expresses on social issues remain a barrier to further Republican inroads with them. “Young people are not off-the-scale liberal when it comes to the social safety net or government programs, but there is a really strong pull from those social issues,” he says. Dimock notes that the generation following the millennials, which is reaching awareness amid the political stalemate and economic struggles of the Obama years, may not replicate their older siblings’ Democratic leanings — but they can’t vote at all until after 2020 and won’t participate in large numbers until after that.
Geography poses another complication for a whites-first GOP strategy: Even if the Republican Party can further expand its overall national advantage among whites, its another thing to do so in the states critical to the Democratic presidential victories over the past two decades. Romney’s national margins among the various groups of white voters are inflated by Obama’s utter collapse in the country’s most conservative regions, particularly the South (where the president won fewer than one in six whites in Alabama and only one in nine in Mississippi, exit polls found). In most of the places where Obama needed to do better among whites to win, he did. “Some of this you have to look at regionally, because this is exaggerated in the Appalachian parts of the country and the South,” Greenberg says. “The white numbers in the industrial Midwest and on the East and West Coast are different.”
Indeed, analysis conducted for National Journal by Edison Research shows that Obama equaled or exceeded his national share of the vote among noncollege whites in 22 of the 31 states in which exit polls were conducted last year — and won each of them except Indiana. Likewise, he equaled or exceeded his national share of the vote among college-educated whites in 22 states, and won all of them except Montana. (See “The White Vote, by State,” p. 17.) North Carolina was the only one of the nine battleground states that both sides actively contested in which Obama did not match or better his national showing among either noncollege whites (Ohio and Florida), whites with college degrees (Virginia), or both (New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada). Obama carried each of those states beyond North Carolina.
Weighing all these factors, most political professionals in both parties who have expressed an opinion are somewhere between dubious and scornful of the notion that Republicans can rely almost entirely on further gains with whites to recapture the presidency without meaningfully improving among minorities. “This is an anti-mathematical position,” says longtime Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “Electoral reality is not the product of somebody’s ideological wishes. It’s arithmetic. And the arithmetic is working badly against the Republicans.”
Similarly, Greenberg, who polled for Bill Clinton, says Obama faces unique problems among whites both because of his race and the gruelingly slow economic recovery. “Those things together make me think these white numbers [for Democrats] are not the new baseline — that they are much more likely to go up than down,” he says.
Veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres is no less dismissive. “Any strategy that is predicated on [consistently] getting a higher percentage of the white vote than Ronald Reagan got in 1980 is a losing strategy,” he says. “It’s the same thing Democrats would talk about in the late 1980s after they had lost five of the previous six presidential elections in the popular vote. What they would say is, we need to get the nonvoters to vote; the nonvoters are with us. It never happened.”
The whites-first argument, Ayres adds, “is not getting much penetration among people who are serious about winning presidential elections. It is getting traction among people who are trying to justify voting against immigration reform or making any of the other changes that are necessary to be nationally competitive in the 21st century.”
Republican strategist Rich Beeson, the national field director for Romney’s 2012 campaign, takes a more nuanced view. In theory, he says, the next GOP nominee might achieve enough white gains to win without improving among minorities. But as the minority population continues to increase, Beeson adds, “is it a recipe for long-term success? Absolutely not.”
All four consultants, like others in both parties, agree that Republicans would face additional challenges expanding or even maintaining their white margins in 2016 if Democrats nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not only would her status as the first female major-party nominee give her an obvious calling card with white women, but during the 2008 nomination fight against Obama she also appealed effectively to some voters whom Obama has always struggled with. “Working-class whites connect with her and President Clinton in a way they don’t with President Obama,” says Garin, who served as the senior strategist in her 2008 campaign’s final stages.
That doesn’t mean Hillary Clinton would be a favorite to win most white women (no Democrat has since Bill Clinton in 1996), and she has almost no chance of carrying most working-class whites. But absent big GOP gains with minorities, she could win, even comfortably, just by maintaining Obama’s showing with whites; Republicans would face the burden of pushing her below Obama’s performance. Though it’s very early, the first 2016 polling instead has generally shown her trimming Obama’s deficit among whites both nationally and in key states. Ayres says that rather than hoping to increase their showing with whites, Republicans must prepare for “the likelihood that the Democratic nominee, particularly one who doesn’t come from the far left wing of the party, will get [a] higher proportion of the white vote” than Obama did in 2012. “That means,” Ayres adds, “Republicans have simply got to rethink the formula of how you get to 50-plus-1 percent.”
Kristol, the GOP thinker, doesn’t concede that Republicans are unlikely to expand their white margin against Clinton if she runs. “It’s true that Republicans have not done much better [than in 2012], but if Romney-McCain becomes the high-water mark for the Republican Party with any group of voters, they are in trouble,” he says. And while Kristol believes Republicans will alienate conservatives for little gain with Hispanics if they pass immigration reform, he says the party next time should intensify its pursuit of minority voters on other grounds. “I very much hope the Republican Party by 2016 will have a conservative reform agenda especially speaking to working- and middle-class Americans,” he says. “I still think there’s a problem [with Hispanics], but I don’t think it’s inevitable that you can never get above the 27 percent [Romney won with them] if immigration doesn’t pass.”
In some ways, the very existence of this debate encapsulates the GOP’s challenge. It’s unlikely that a party with more diversity in its coalition would be debating whether it could respond to those voters without sacrificing its principles. But even in a rapidly diversifying nation, Republicans remain almost entirely dependent on the votes of whites, who supplied Romney with nearly 90 percent of his total support and cast over 90 percent of the ballots in almost all of the party’s 2012 presidential primaries. Nearly four-fifths of House Republicans represent districts that are more white than the national average. This means that minorities who might be drawn to the party by a different mix of policies, such as comprehensive immigration reform, have minimal influence in shaping the party’s agenda now. For those seeking a more inclusive and diverse GOP coalition, the first hurdle is that the future doesn’t have a seat at the table today.(CNN) -- A political crisis in Honduras escalated Thursday as a defiant President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, followed by hundreds of supporters, led a loud but peaceful protest to a military base in order to personally take possession of thousands of ballots to be used in a contested referendum Sunday.
President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, middle, reviews troops with Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, right, in 2008.
Zelaya, a leftist elected in 2005, suddenly found himself pitted against the other branches of government and military leaders over the issue of the referendum.
The referendum at the center of the storm asks voters to place a measure on November's ballot that would allow the formation of a constitutional assembly that could modify the nation's charter to allow the president to run for another term.
Zelaya, whose four-year term ends in January 2010, cannot run for re-election.
The Hondurans Supreme Court had ruled the referendum illegal, and Congress and the top military brass agreed, but Zelaya remained steadfast.
"Sunday's referendum will not be stopped," Zelaya said at the entrance of the military base where boxes of ballots were removed from storage and put into trucks to be taken to the presidential palace. Moving the ballots prevented them from being voided or destroyed to comply with the court's ruling of the illegality of the vote.
Zelaya and his supporters braved an overcast and rainy day and sang the national anthem as the cardboard boxes filled with ballots were moved out of storage.
"We have the right to vote and the right to organize," Zelaya said. "The military should rect |
about rules in Serbia which demanded three home-grown players started top-division matches. “But after five minutes, everyone had changed the three players,” he said.
Walcott played 45 minutes for Arsenal’s Under-21 side against Blackburn last night as he stepped up his recovery from the knee injury which kept him out of the World Cup. The creation of an English core happened by a combination of design and opportunity. “First of all, we gave chances to players from our academy. I try to buy the best English players, Walcott and [Calum] Chambers are a consequence of that. I cannot say the [Danny] Welbeck situation was planned for five years. We do some work so that these players are together for a long time at Arsenal and develop together. Even for England it’s important. If they can do well at Arsenal and play for England, England will be strong. To have five or six players in the team, they know how to play [together]. The confidence grows.”
Wenger also hopes there will be a deeper-rooted loyalty that keeps English players at the club. “It’s easier for them. When you buy a player from Barcelona, at some stage he might want to go back to Barcelona because Barcelona is a big club as well,” he noted drily.
Steve Bruce hopes to relive the club’s “greatest day” when his Hull side visit the Emirates, but wants to leave with a different result. His side led 2-0 in last season’s FA Cup final between the sides before being overhauled 3-2 in extra time. “The last time we played against them it was the Cup final …it was the greatest day for a lot of people,” he said. “We played to our maximum and it was extra time before we lost.
“Everyone had a wonderful day but we lost and it could have been so much more. We were close to pulling off one of the big shocks in an FA Cup final but it didn’t quite happen. We just ran out of a little steam. We gave a hell of an account of ourselves and if we can repeat that on Saturday, that will be great. If we do and we’re not quite good enough again, fine.”Investment in windfarms and other large-scale renewables would dry up and subsidies for household solar power and electricity could cease under recommendations to the federal government from its review of the renewable energy target (RET).
The recommendations from the review, chaired by businessman and self-professed climate sceptic Dick Warburton, are set to be opposed by Labor, the Greens and the Palmer United party, setting the stage for another fight over climate policy in the upper house.
The issue has divided the cabinet, with Tony Abbott favouring the idea of closing the RET to any new investment, and the environment minister, Greg Hunt, and the industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, fighting for it to be “pared back” rather than closed.
The review, which the prime minister took responsibility for when the Coalition assumed government, includes Abbott’s preferred option as one of two recommendations.
It says closing the scheme to new investment avoids the cost of shifting any generation from the high-emitting brown and black coal Australia largely relies on now, given that electricity demand is lower than anticipated and no new generation capacity is needed.
“This approach avoids the costs to the community associated with subsidising additional generation capacity that is not required to meet electricity demand,” the review says.
As an alternative, it recommends that renewable energy could be allowed to represent 50% of any growth in the electricity market, which in the short term would be minimal since demand for electricity is falling. The review says confining the RET to a growing electricity market “would protect the broader community from the cost of subsidising unnecessary additional generation capacity if electricity demand continues to fall”.
Hunt said the “share of growth” option could take renewables close to 20% of Australia’s generation by 2020, but the renewable industry said it was highly unlikely anyone would make a long-term investment under such an uncertain scenario.
The review also says the “small scale” target – which subsidises solar PV and solar electricity – should be wound up or phased out.
It says closing the small-scale renewable energy scheme (SRES) “would have an immediate effect of reducing the install rates of rooftop PV by at least 30% and the number of solar water heaters by around 16%” but calculates that “by the early 2020s, the rate of small-scale solar PV systems installed each year would recover to a rate similar to that if the SRES was left in place”.
Hunt and Abbott issued a statement saying the government would announce its response to the report in the coming weeks.
Greg Hunt said before the election: “We will be keeping the renewable energy target. We’ve made that commitment. We have no plans or proposals to change it.
“We have no plans or intention for change and we’ve offered bipartisan support to that.”
On Thursday Hunt said the Coalition’s promise was for a 20% renewable energy target but that there would be a review “under the ALP’s own law”.
“What we said at the election is our policy was for 20% and a review,” he said. “I feel very comfortable about where we are at the moment.”
He said the Coalition had “a long-term commitment to renewable energy in Australia, but it is about finding balance”.
Labor’s climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, said it was a document written by and for climate change deniers.
“This is a political document – not an independent review. The climate change denialism endemic in the Coalition is written throughout this document. This is a report written by climate change deniers, for climate change deniers, and it shows,” he said.
“The recommendations contained in the Warburton report put 24,000 clean energy jobs at risk and will freeze the billions of dollars in investment that is already in the pipeline.”
And the Greens leader, Christine Milne, said the report was “climate denier drivel” and she was glad it was now public.
“Everyone can see it for the climate denier drivel it is. The outcome was determined long ago,” she said. “It’s now time to give the industry certainty by retaining and expanding the renewable energy target. The RET review is part of the dinosaur protection racket – an $8bn favour for Tony Abbott’s mates in the fossil fuels sector, at the expense of clean technology.
“The renewable energy target is cutting pollution, rolling out investment, creating jobs and will bring power bills down. Why on earth would we get rid of it?
“The reality is that the fossil fuels sector can’t handle the competition from renewables, so the Abbott government is trying to delay the inevitable.”
The chief executive of the Climate Institute, John Connor, said: “If the government accepts the changes proposed by the Warburton review, it would see Australia increase the amount of coal in our generation mix effectively re-carbonising, rather than de-carbonising our electricity.”
Ben Pearson of Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “If the prime minister accepts either recommendation he will destroy a policy that has generated handsome business opportunities and jobs for Australians, including $20bn of investment in renewable energy technologies.
“The two options recommended by the Warburton panel would be a disaster for the renewables industry.”
John Grimes, chief executive of the Solar Council, said the recommendations would “decimate” the solar industry and cost about 8,500 jobs. They would also remove the best way households could reduce their power bills, by installing rooftop solar.
The chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, Kane Thornton, said either recommendation would not only stop new investments but also cause “massive financial damage” to $10bn of existing investment in renewable energy.
Abbott initially said the RET review was necessary because the RET was pushing up the cost of household power.
“We have to accept that in the changed circumstances of today, the renewable energy target is causing pretty significant price pressure in the system and we ought to be an affordable energy superpower … cheap energy ought to be one of our comparative advantages,” he said last year.
But several modelling exercises – including one done for the review itself – showed that closing the RET to new entrants would not reduce electricity prices, or would do so by only a small amount.
The review concedes this, and changed the rationale it used to argue in favour of getting rid of the RET.
It now argues there are cheaper ways to reduce greenhouse emissions than by changing the way we generate electricity – clearly implying no change in electricity generation is necessary.
“With the renewables industry now established in Australia, the main rationale for the RET hinges on its capacity to contribute towards the government’s emissions reduction target in a cost-effective manner,” the review says.
“However, the RET is a high-cost approach to reducing emissions because it does not directly target emissions and it only focuses on electricity generation. It promotes activity in renewable energy ahead of alternative, lower cost options for reducing emissions that exist elsewhere in the economy. In the presence of lower cost alternatives, the costs imposed by the RET are not justifiable,” the review says.
And while it concedes that “overall, the RET is exerting some downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices” it says this is happening only because “the RET is increasing the supply of electricity when electricity demand has been falling” and therefore the cheaper electricity will not last.
“Artificially low wholesale electricity prices can distort investment decisions in the electricity market and are unlikely to be sustained in the long term. Over time, all other things being equal, wholesale electricity prices could be expected to rise to better reflect the cost of generating electricity,” it says.
The original intent of the RET policy was to deliver 20% of energy from renewables by 2020. Because of falling electricity demand, the RET’s designated 41,000 gigawatt hours will represent closer to 28% if the policy was left unchanged. If it is closed to new entrants Australia will have only around 17,000 gigawatt hours of renewable electricity by 2020.
ACIL Allen modelling done for Abbott’s own review showed the current target would increase the average household bill by an average of $54 a year between now and 2020, but would reduce bills by a similar annual amount over the following decade compared with what they would be if the RET were repealed. That modelling used assumptions highly unfavourable to renewable energy, including that coal and gas prices would remain almost unchanged until 2040.
Separate modelling for the Clean Energy Council by Roam Consulting – with different assumptions about gas prices – found that bills would be $50 a year lower by 2020 if the RET were retained.
Another modelling exercise, commissioned by three business groups from Deloitte, found household bills would rise by at most about $50 a year.
Abbott’s top business adviser, Maurice Newman, has long argued the RET should be scrapped and has said that persisting with government subsidies for renewable energy represented a “crime against the people” because higher energy costs hit poorer households the hardest and there was no longer any logical reason for them.Some of us, for the record, have always played the music. And some of us, also just to clarify, never stopped lighting the lights. That's because, for us in the cultural elite, we are always ready to meet the Muppets on The Muppet Show tonight.
When it was announced on Tuesday that US TV broadcaster NBC has commissioned a script for a new series of the Muppets, the reaction among critics, commentators and tweeters was, frankly, remarkable. It is rare that a four-decades old franchise can announce a return to TV and prompt such unabashed enthusiasm as well as a total lack of cynicism about quality control. Everyone loves the Muppets – that goes without saying. More surprising is how many people want them back, creating, satirising, karate chopping.
The Muppets are definitely having what Miss Piggy would call, with a proud tilt of her snout and a toss of her blonde mane, "un petit moment". The Muppets, the latest Muppet movie, opens in America this week and magazines across the nation have enthusiastically taken advantage of this to feature the cloth-covered puppets on their covers, in all their anarchic glory.
That film, though, has been slightly gazumped by the extraordinary documentary, Being Elmo, about the man behind possibly the most famous Muppet not on The Muppet Show but on Sesame Street. This beautiful movie has reminded audiences, if any needed reminding, that the Muppets were always more than just clever satirists but an integral part of American culture and society.
When Eddie Murphy dropped out of hosting the Oscars two weeks ago, a campaign was instantly launched for the Muppets to take his place. "Can Muppets Save the Day?" read the headline on the LA Times. "If the position were chosen by popular vote, the beloved Henson creations would likely come out on top," the journalist concluded. Sadly, the position is not chosen by popular vote and so the hosting duties went to another comedy throwback, Billy Crystal. But if the Muppets don't at least get to present an award, Miss Piggy should karate-chop Crystal. Hiii-yah!
Here is where I should, really, put the responsible disclaimer: my love for the Muppets is not without personal loyalties. My mother used to work for the Children's Television Workshop (CTW, now called Sesame Workshop), the non-profit organisation behind various Jim Henson shows. Incidentally, that is the coolest thing about me. It's all pith from hereon.
She worked on Sesame Street (The Muppet Show was, in fact, produced in England, as all English fans of the show tell me within one minute of first mentioning the programme – that explains the extraordinarily high number of cockney singalongs). Yet it's fair to say that I grew up in a household predisposed to watch all things Muppet-based. When I think back on my childhood, one of the first tableaux that comes to mind is me, my sister and our parents watching Sunday night screenings of reruns of The Muppet Show. It's a vision that seems so inspired by a 50s advert for TV sets that I'd doubt it – if my family didn't have a habit of making Muppet Show references to one another, if not on a daily basis then certainly on a weekly one, from Miss Piggy chasing her "Kermie" around, to the Mahna Mahna song. That Sunday night ritual, with my sister and me laughing at the slapstick gags, my parents laughing at the satirical ones, was as comforting as being tucked into bed later. It was like being told that everything, in the end, would turn out just fine.
The Muppets: a scene from the new film. Photograph: Scott Garfield
But in all professional and personal honesty, I cannot imagine that if my mother had worked on, say, The Magic Roundabout, I'd have loved The Muppet Show any less.
For those who have – bafflingly, tragically – not yet had the pleasure of seeing The Muppet Show, I shall explain. Presented as a chaotic variety show – replete with unruly audience, fond of throwing things at the MC, a little green frog called Kermit – with a different celebrity guest in every episode, The Muppet Show was Henson's attempt to break out of the children's-entertainer niche he found himself in after the success of Sesame Street. And to a certain degree, it was a success. Unlike Sesame Street, The Muppet Show was not interested in educating its viewers in anything other than funny pastiches of, say, Bohemian Rhapsody as performed by Gonzo and his chickens, or the brilliant comedy potential of pairing, say, Carol Channing with Miss Piggy for a rendition of Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend. It was, at times, so surreal that one could only wonder how on earth it ever got on air, with scenes such as Miss Piggy trying to remove Rudolf Nureyev's towel in a sauna and Roger Moore beating the hell out of a bunch of Muppets. But it never sacrificed comedy for surrealism, let alone for the celebrity guest stars' egos. Like a Muppet-based version of Michael Frayn's classic play, Noises Off, or the great MGM musicals Singin' in the Rain and The Bandwagon, The Muppet Show was about the difficulties of putting on a show, with the main plots revolving around the relationships between the characters backstage (Miss Piggy pursuing a frazzled Kermit, Fozzie Bear always looking for and failing to find a joke), and the onstage set-pieces acting as comic relief. And as funny as those setpieces were, the personalities of the Muppets always struck me as the funniest part of the show, and seemed to amuse the celebrity guests most, too.
When I interviewed Dolly Parton for this paper over the summer, I tried to resist asking for my first question how she felt when she was honoured in Muppet form as "Polly Darton". I failed. Yet Parton, to her great credit, did not seem the least bit miffed: "Well, I was so excited! Who wouldn't be? I love that show. That was just a hoot! People your age still ask me about that – well, every week."
Stevie Wonder once said that playing Superstition on Sesame Street with the Muppets (and an amazingly enthusiastic small child in the background) was one of his career highlights. Roger Moore's Muppet Show appearances were absolutely his career highlight. Even Elton John – not a man known for handing out compliments lightly – has said that his 1977 appearance on The Muppet Show was "the most fun" he ever had and, I think it's safe to say, Elton was a man who knew fun from fun in the 70s.
Elton John performs Crocodile Rock on The Muppet Show. Photograph: TVTIMES/SCOPEFEATURES.COM
Children's TV shows – and despite Henson's attempt to escape the "children's entertainer" tag, The Muppet Show was, ultimately, for kids – always spark silly sentimentality. But the Muppets are not petrified in nostalgia. If anything, the original shows look better today than when first screened in 1976 (they ended in 1981). The genius of The Muppet Show was that it was ironic without being cynical, sharp without being cruel, sweet without being sappy, anarchic without being too chaotic, timely without being dated. These balancing acts sound impossible today, particularly if one spends too much time, as I do, reading internet blogs and pop culture magazines in which the only language spoken seems to be Snark. (Although it is perhaps inevitable that my favourite characters will forever be Statler and Waldorf, the snarky critics in the box, passing dismissive judgment on one and all. Well, what else would you expect?) It is a satire of a 70s variety show (especially through the house band, Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem) and of American TV of the time (Veterinarian's Hospital, the show's take on General Hospital, remains one of the best TV satires, ever) yet it is timeless for a simple reason: it is very funny and, crucially, very kind.
So, when I said the coolest thing about me was that my mother worked for the Children's Television Workshop, that was perhaps not entirely true. I do have another, possibly even more trumpity-trump card in my pocket.
In 1989, my family moved from New York to London. It would, our parents assured us, be just a temporary move. But within a year, it was obvious that we were never going to move back as a family and so, in March 1990, my mother, sister and I travelled back to New York to pack up our childhood home. I'd already had to give up my dog, my friends and my life (in that order of importance). Selling the apartment – my bedroom! – seemed the most unbearable change of all.
In an attempt to distract us from our prepubescent grief, my mother took us to Disney World afterwards. It was OK. On the third day, as we wandered from one hour-long queue to the next hour-long queue, I heard a familiar voice.
It just so happened that our trip to Disney World coincided with the filming of The Muppets at Walt Disney World, a made-for-TV movie in which the Muppets meet the Disney characters, and we were suddenly standing about 4ft away from Jim Henson himself, bearded, sun hatted and in a lavishly patterned shirt, giving the frog hoiked up on his arm that reassuringly familiar voice as well as that endearing personality. Behind Henson, Frank Oz was adjusting Miss Piggy, doing her splendid diva head-waggle as she addressed her "Kermie". During a break, Henson smiled and said hello. Kermit shook my hand and hoped I was enjoying my vacation more than he was. He didn't like the heat that much; he wanted to get back to the swamp. I had met the Muppets, even if not, strictly speaking, on The Muppet Show tonight, and it was easily the most magical moment, quite possibly, ever.
Two months later, Henson died suddenly at the cruelly young age of 53.
We went back to London where we lived for the next 20 years and made new lives. When The Muppet Christmas Carol came out in 1992, the first Muppet movie since Henson's death, my family and I all went to the cinema together and we were relieved, we agreed, to see that it was up to the high Muppet standard. No matter what details changed and how life moved on, there will always be the Muppets. And everything, in the end, turned out just fine.
• The Muppets film is released in the UK in February 2012Inspecting DNS Prefetching and resolver performance within Chrome
2013-10-11 10:42
With Chrome and Firefox both performing DNS prefetching, it can be useful to inspect and understand what's happening behind the scenes when the process takes place. Fortunately, Chrome has some really nice internal tools which can be used for this purpose.
Using net-internals to visualize DNS prefetching
Pointing Chrome to chrome://net-internals/#dns will start running a visualizer for the NetLog (Chrome's internal network logging system) DNS event stream.
After clearing the host resolver cache, we can load a new page and get a list of all hosts that were queried.
Inspecting resolver performance using Chrome histograms
Pointing Chrome to chrome://histograms/DNS will display metrics about various DNS performance measurements.
A particularly interesting one is "AsyncDNS.ResolveSuccess", representing the distribution of resolution time (in milliseconds):
Histogram: AsyncDNS.ResolveSuccess recorded 3732 samples, average = 263.9 ( flags = 0x1 ) 0... 2 -O ( 3 = 0.1% ) { 0.0% } 3 --O ( 5 = 0.1% ) { 0.1% } 4 ---O ( 6 = 0.2% ) { 0.2% } 5 -O ( 3 = 0.1% ) { 0.4% } 6 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 7 O ( 1 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 8 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 9 O ( 1 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 10 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 12 O ( 1 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 14... 24 O ( 1 = 0.0% ) { 0.5% } 28 O ( 3 = 0.1% ) { 0.6% } 32 O ( 1 = 0.0% ) { 0.6% } 37 O ( 4 = 0.1% ) { 0.7% } 43 ---O ( 32 = 0.9% ) { 0.8% } 50 -----O ( 57 = 1.5% ) { 1.6% } 58 ------------O ( 134 = 3.6% ) { 3.2% } 67 ----------O ( 115 = 3.1% ) { 6.8% } 77 --------O ( 85 = 2.3% ) { 9.8% } 89 ------------------------------------O ( 405 = 10.9% ) { 12.1% } 103 ------------------------------------------------------------------------O ( 808 = 21.7% ) { 23.0% } 119 ------------------------------------O ( 403 = 10.8% ) { 44.6% } 137 -----------O ( 125 = 3.3% ) { 55.4% } 158 ------------O ( 130 = 3.5% ) { 58.8% } 182 -------------O ( 146 = 3.9% ) { 62.2% } 210 ---------O ( 106 = 2.8% ) { 66.2% } 242 --------O ( 95 = 2.5% ) { 69.0% } 279 -----------O ( 121 = 3.2% ) { 71.5% } 322 ----------O ( 109 = 2.9% ) { 74.8% } 372 ----------O ( 109 = 2.9% ) { 77.7% } 429 -----------O ( 124 = 3.3% ) { 80.6% } 495 ------------O ( 130 = 3.5% ) { 83.9% } 571 ---------O ( 106 = 2.8% ) { 87.4% } 659 ---------O ( 106 = 2.8% ) { 90.3% } 761 --------O ( 89 = 2.4% ) { 93.1% } 878 ----O ( 47 = 1.3% ) { 95.5% } 1013 -----O ( 59 = 1.6% ) { 96.8% } 1169 ---O ( 32 = 0.9% ) { 98.3% } 1349 -O ( 12 = 0.3% ) { 99.2% } 1557 -O ( 7 = 0.2% ) { 99.5% } 1797 O ( 3 = 0.1% ) { 99.7% } 2074 O ( 3 = 0.1% ) { 99.8% } 2394 O ( 4 = 0.1% ) { 99.9% } 2763 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 100.0% } 3189 O ( 1 = 0.0% ) { 100.0% } 3681...
Another one is "DNS.PrefetchResolution":
Histogram: DNS.PrefetchResolution recorded 1658 samples, average = 333.0 ( flags = 0x1 ) 0 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) 15 -O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 0.0% } 17 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 0.1% } 19 -O ( 2 = 0.1% ) { 0.1% } 21... 26 O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 0.2% } 29 -O ( 3 = 0.2% ) { 0.2% } 32 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 0.4% } 36 -O ( 2 = 0.1% ) { 0.4% } 40 --O ( 6 = 0.4% ) { 0.5% } 45 --O ( 8 = 0.5% ) { 0.9% } 50 --O ( 9 = 0.5% ) { 1.4% } 56 -----O ( 19 = 1.1% ) { 1.9% } 63 ---------O ( 34 = 2.1% ) { 3.1% } 71 --------O ( 30 = 1.8% ) { 5.1% } 79 -------O ( 27 = 1.6% ) { 6.9% } 88 -------------------------O ( 94 = 5.7% ) { 8.6% } 98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------O ( 276 = 16.6% ) { 14.2% } 110 ---------------------------------------------------------O ( 218 = 13.1% ) { 30.9% } 123 --------------------------O ( 98 = 5.9% ) { 44.0% } 138 -------------O ( 48 = 2.9% ) { 49.9% } 154 -------O ( 27 = 1.6% ) { 52.8% } 172 -------O ( 26 = 1.6% ) { 54.5% } 193 ---------O ( 35 = 2.1% ) { 56.0% } 216 -------------O ( 50 = 3.0% ) { 58.1% } 242 ------------O ( 46 = 2.8% ) { 61.2% } 271 --------------O ( 53 = 3.2% ) { 63.9% } 303 -------------O ( 48 = 2.9% ) { 67.1% } 339 ---------O ( 36 = 2.2% ) { 70.0% } 379 -----------O ( 41 = 2.5% ) { 72.2% } 424 ----------------O ( 63 = 3.8% ) { 74.7% } 475 -----------O ( 43 = 2.6% ) { 78.5% } 532 ---------------O ( 57 = 3.4% ) { 81.1% } 595 ----------O ( 40 = 2.4% ) { 84.5% } 666 -------------O ( 49 = 3.0% ) { 86.9% } 745 -----------O ( 43 = 2.6% ) { 89.9% } 834 --------O ( 32 = 1.9% ) { 92.5% } 933 ------O ( 24 = 1.4% ) { 94.4% } 1044 --------O ( 29 = 1.7% ) { 95.8% } 1168 ----O ( 15 = 0.9% ) { 97.6% } 1307 -O ( 4 = 0.2% ) { 98.5% } 1463 -O ( 3 = 0.2% ) { 98.7% } 1637 -O ( 3 = 0.2% ) { 98.9% } 1832 -O ( 2 = 0.1% ) { 99.1% } 2050 O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 99.2% } 2295 -O ( 2 = 0.1% ) { 99.3% } 2569 -O ( 4 = 0.2% ) { 99.4% } 2875 O ( 0 = 0.0% ) { 99.6% } 3218 O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 99.6% } 3602 O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 99.7% } 4032... 5051 O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 99.8% } 5653 -O ( 2 = 0.1% ) { 99.8% } 6327... 19524 O ( 1 = 0.1% ) { 99.9% } 21852...
There are a lot of DNS performance histograms to explore, and the best thing is that they are displayed in ASCII, making it easy to save, compare, and analyze them.This is an issue I've spent a bit of time looking at. I've sought Constitutional advice.
If there was a challenge - I don't think there will be but there could be - if there was a challenge, the Governor-General would have to ask that person to display they had the confidence of the House.
If it came back to the House to test confidence I wouldn't guarantee the challenger that it would naturally follow that my support would be that way.
When the (minority government) arrangement was made with Julia Gillard it was made with her.
I have no regerets about that.
She was by far the best. There has not been one moment in a hung parliament where I've sensed that she wanted to welch on any undertakings. I hold her in high personal regard.
If the Labor Party can't their mess together, there may be a scenario where the second place getter, a bloke called Tony Abbott would get my vote.
The scenario needs to play out.Domestic violence has been a problem all too often ignored, covered up, and swept under the rug. Many well-intentioned and successful efforts have been made in the last few decades to bring the issue to public attention; to get the word out to women that they need not suffer silent, helpless, and alone; to advertise that there are organizations victims can turn to for help and support; and to educate others in spotting the signs of abuse. Unfortunately, nearly every cause will encompass a sub-group of advocates who, either through deliberate disingenuousness or earnest gullibility, end up spreading “noble lies” in the furtherance of that cause. The myth of Super Bowl Sunday violence is one such noble lie.
The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is “the biggest day of the year for violence against women” is a case study of how easily an idea congruous with what people want to believe can be implanted in the public consciousness and anointed as “fact” even when there is little or no supporting evidence behind it. Christina Hoff Sommers charted a timeline of how the apocryphal statistic about domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday was widely (if erroneously) publicized over the course of a few days leading up to the Super Bowl in January 1993:
Thursday, January 28
A news conference was called in Pasadena, California, the site of the forthcoming Super Bowl game, by a coalition of women’s groups. At the news conference reporters were informed that significant anecdotal evidence suggested that Super Bowl Sunday is “the biggest day of the year for violence against women.” Prior to the conference, there had been reports of increases as high as 40 percent in calls for help from victims that day. At the conference, Sheila Kuehl of the California Women’s Law Center cited a study done at Virginia’s Old Dominion University three years before, saying that it found police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia rose 40 percent after games won by the Redskins during the 1988-89 season. The presence of Linda Mitchell at the conference, a representative of a media “watchdog” group called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), lent credibility to the cause.At about this time a very large media mailing was sent by Dobisky Associates, warning at-risk women, “Don’t remain at home with him during the game.” The idea that sports fans are prone to attack wives or girlfriends on that climactic day persuaded many men as well: Robert Lipsyte of the New York Times would soon be referring to the “Abuse Bowl.” Friday, January 29
Lenore Walker, a Denver psychologist and author of The Battered Woman, appeared on “Good Morning America” claiming to have compiled a ten-year record showing a sharp increase in violent incidents against women on Super Bowl Sundays. Here, again, a representative from FAIR, Laura Flanders, was present to lend credibility to the cause. Saturday, January 30
A story in the Boston Globe written by Linda Gorov reported that women’s shelters and hotlines are “flooded with more calls from victims [on Super Bowl Sunday] than on any other day of the year.” Gorov cited “one study of women’s shelters out West” that “showed a 40 percent climb in calls, a pattern advocates said is repeated nationwide, including in Massachusetts.”
Commentators were quick to offers reasons why this “fact” was so obviously true: Men are mostly loutish brutes, and football is the epitome of mindless, aggressive, violent, testosterone-driven macho posturing, so certainly during the culmination of the football season and its final, spectacular, massively-hyped “super” game, more men than ever were going to express their excitement or disappointment by smacking their wives and girlfriends around. So much attention did the “Super Bowl abuse” stories garner that NBC aired a public service announcement before the 1993 game to remind men that domestic violence is a crime.
Ken Ringle, a reporter for the Washington Post, was one of the few journalists to bother to check the sources behind the stories. When he contacted Janet Katz, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion University, and one of the authors of the study cited during the January 28 news conference, he found:
Janet Katz, professor of sociology and criminal justice at Old Dominion and one of the authors of that study, said “that’s not what we found at all. “One of the most notable findings, she said, was that an increase of emergency room admissions “was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general, nor with watching a team lose.” When they looked at win days alone, however, they found that the number of women admitted for gunshot wounds, stabbings, assaults, falls, lacerations and wounds from being hit by objects was slightly higher than average. But certainly not 40 percent. “These are interesting but very tentative findings, suggesting what violence there is from males after football may spring not from a feeling of defensive insecurity, which you’d associate with a loss, but from the sense of empowerment following a win. We found that significant. But it certainly doesn’t support what those women are saying |
and considerably less incomings. My partner and I could not afford electricity and had to go two days without it (we are on a pre-pay meter) and he is having to work overtime, resulting in me being overtired and stressed.
We also don't qualify for tax credits as we "earn too much". It's absolutely appalling. Even when I do go back to work, childcare is so expensive - it's going to cost £940 a month. I don't know how I am going to cope.
'We should not be seen as the most backward country on this'
Caroline Poisson, London
Image copyright Caroline Poisson
I work for a sourcing and procurement firm in the City and am currently on maternity leave, with only statutory pay. I am fortunate enough to have some savings which I am using in order to make ends meet for a few extra months, but I will not have anything left for any incidents, or holidays, let alone another child.
The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding exclusively until the age of six months. This is impossible on the current statutory maternity pay, as most people have to go back to work after six weeks or very little more in order to pay bills.
We are told that the UK is generous with regards to this, but it is generous with time off, not with supporting the families of very young children. I know that we are leaving the EU, but the UK should not be seen as the most backward country in this regard.
'Lucky my company is generous'
Danielle Atkins, Cumbria
I am currently on maternity leave and I am lucky that my company offers a generous six months full pay. However, once this six months is over the statutory pay isn't sufficient.
'Fighting the wrong battle'
Sarah, Essex
I work in HR in the professional services industry, and went back to work before six months, partly due to finance and largely not wanting to be out of "the system" too long. It is very little money to live on compared to what you might be used to, but I would often say to employees who questioned the amount of money and who requested company pay, you are fighting the wrong battle.
I would much rather have a fairer system when returning from maternity leave than receiving higher maternity pay when you may need to leave at the end if the flexibility or hours cannot be provided. Pay in the maternity leave period is irrelevant if you haven't got a job afterwards.
As intelligent women, we need to focus on demonstrating that a company will reduce their skillset by women leaving after having babies through not having appropriate choices. Maternity pay is a minor consideration when reflecting on a lesser career for the rest of your working life as a result of not having flexibility etc. when returning from maternity leave. We should start with this and then work on better pay.
'I feel guilty putting my child into a nursery'
Jenny Moraes, London
Image copyright Jenny Moraes
I live in London, have a mortgage and a personal loan for home improvement. Having two full-time incomes is essential for us as a family. As much as I want to use the full year of maternity leave, financially I cannot afford it and I am having to go back to work after eight months (as I am exhausting my annual leave entitlement of 30 days, I am getting an additional two months). I feel guilty putting my child into a nursery but I feel like I have no other option.SEOUL (Reuters) - The head of South Korea’s Samsung Group [SAGR.UL], Jay Y. Lee, may be languishing in a jail cell but he is allowed plenty of visitors, which may allow him to play a key role in corporate decisions even if he isn’t running the conglomerate like he did before.
Lee, who didn’t attend last Thursday’s preparatory hearing for his trial on bribery, embezzlement and other charges, is kept well away from other inmates at the Seoul Detention Centre.
Some, such as top former presidential advisors, are also defendants in the corruption scandal that led to the removal from office of South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Friday.
Under South Korean regulations, though, Lee can meet any of his battery of attorneys without time limits and as often as he wants during business hours from Monday to Saturday.
One of those lawyers told the first day of what special prosecutors described as potentially “the trial of the century” that Lee denies all charges against him.
Lee, like others in detention centers awaiting trial, is also entitled to one 30-minute visit per day from someone else, including executives from one of Samsung’s affiliates, or at least 12 hours of such meetings a month.
At the discretion of the warden of the detention center, he could have additional special meetings in a visiting room that doesn’t have partitions, allowing detainees to review documents and receive phone calls.
By comparison, in the United States, a defendant in federal custody on corporate crime charges is generally allowed unrestricted access to attorneys during regular business hours but can only receive other visitors for a maximum four hours a month.
In the U.S., though, major white collar defendants are usually allowed to post bail so they can live at home before trial.
NO NEED FOR “ALTERNATIVES”
South Korean media have photographed former Samsung Group Vice Chairman Choi Gee-sung and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) President Rhee In-yong visiting Lee following his Feb 17 arrest.
Samsung declined to confirm those visits or comment on the level of Lee’s involvement in management affairs since he was detained. It did say that he is meeting regularly with his defense team, though declined to be more specific.
Samsung Group chief, Jay Y. Lee arrives at the office of the independent counsel team in Seoul, South Korea, February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
In a statement it said: “Mr. Lee’s priority is preparing the legal defense so the truth can be revealed in future court proceedings.”
Samsung hasn’t named a replacement for Lee, who company insiders say did not manage day-to-day affairs but was instead acting as the key decision maker on major initiatives such as new investments, acquisitions, personnel decisions and restructuring.
“There is no plan B,” said an executive at a Samsung affiliate, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “We believe the vice chairman will be proven innocent, and if he walks free after the first trial there’s no reason to talk about alternatives.”
Samsung Group has disbanded its corporate strategy office, the conglomerate’s nerve center controlled by Lee and his lieutenant Choi Gee-sung, who is also a defendant in the case.
It has also been moving in the past year to give more power over decisions to the boards of its affiliates such as Samsung Electronics.
THREE MEETINGS A DAY
In the recent past, some top South Korean businessmen who have been in custody while on trial have used the lenient visitation regime to the full.
For example, Justice Department data obtained and then released by an opposition party lawmaker shows that Chey Tae-won, the head of chemicals to telecoms and semiconductors conglomerate SK Group, had 171 “special” meetings with non-attorney visitors, when he was detained between February 2013 and July 2014.
Chey also had 1,607 meetings with his lawyers during that time, or three times a day on average, and the regularity of the meetings allowed him to review and comment on major decisions for the conglomerate while being detained, according to people familiar with the matter.
While Lee won’t have access to a computer in his 6.56 square meter (71 square foot) cell, he can view documents during those meetings with his lawyers and Samsung executives. Lee is not allowed to take documents back to his cell.
He can also make phone calls with permission of the warden, but calls can be recorded or listened to by the authorities, according to South Korean correctional rules.
Lee may remain at the detention center until at least September should the case end up in the Supreme Court and he does not seek bail. Samsung said Lee has not decided yet whether to seek bail.
FILE PHOTO - Samsung Group chief, Jay Y. Lee arrives at the office of the independent counsel team in Seoul, South Korea, February 22, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo
Despite the access to attorneys and executives, it isn’t easy for business leaders to participate fully in company affairs once they are in jail, according to those who have had previous experience of such dealings.
“In jail, it’s difficult to communicate smoothly. So we couldn’t do much of the big things, especially M&As,” said one person with direct knowledge of a chaebol leader’s incarceration. “Operating a conglomerate from within a jail is difficult. It’s not like they have a computer, they can’t receive things with ease.”A team at the University of Louisville has taken bioprinting a step farther by creating a working 3D printed human heart made of fat cells.
Image: mustafahacalaki/iStockphoto
Imagine your beating, pumping heart, working hard right this moment to keep you alive. Now think of a future where, if your heart failed or has a defect, you could get one that works better and lasts longer.
It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but researchers at the University of Louisville have moved a step closer in this direction by using a 3D printer to make working parts of a human heart, using fat cells and collagen.
"We are utilizing printing and other biological manufacturing techniques to build these different parts of the heart," Dr. Stuart Williams told TechRepublic. Williams is the chief of the Bioficial Heart program at the University of Louisville's Cardiovascular Innovation Institutein Louisville, Kentucky.
He added that the team has not reached the point where they put together the valves and the blood vessels, or any other products. They are solely focused on creating working pieces of the muscle.
Williams described the process as similar to building an airplane. Airplanes aren't built in the traditional 3D printing sense, where you would start with the wheels at the bottom and build up. The parts for an airplane are made piece by piece, then assembled together.
Same with a human heart, which is a complex muscle. It can't be built at once, so each part — the valves, large blood vessels, small blood vessels, electrical conducting system — is built and assembled together with a giant, intricate 3D printer.
To print the heart, Williams and his team use collagen and fat cells. One liter of fat from someone can give them a huge number of cells that can be directly translated to patients, he said.
"[We are] taking a piece of fat, isolating regenerative cells in the fat, utilizing those, then mixing factorized cells with collagen, and it prints."
What's even more innovative is the "six-axis" printer Williams helped build that makes the heart one section at a time. This "robot" can build the specific parts, then move them around and place them in their correct positions within the muscle.
The U of L lab is the only one in the world that has this intricate of a 3D printer, made specifically for bioprinting. Williams calls it a "bioassembly tool."
Williams came to the University of Louisville in 2007, after spending many years at the University of Arizona, where he founded the biomedical engineering program. Three years ago, he teamed up with Advanced Solutions, also based in Louisville, and "noodled up the idea" of 3D printing a working human heart.
Bioprinting has developed into a hot topic recently, with companies like Organovo making liver and eye tissues using 3D printers, so competition to be the most innovative in the field is building quickly.
"I always say were all sort of in this together," Williams said. "The real competition is [heart] disease and this process."
There is an urgent clinical pull in this field — that is, what the doctors and other healthcare providers need. Luckily, it is working with this huge leap forward in technology right now, and everything in this industry is happening rapidly.
"That's what is quite unique about the group in Louisville. We are identifying what the real short term needs are and designing the answers for bioprinting," he said.
Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Louisville built a 3D printed model of a toddler's heart so doctors could better analyze and treat his condition. The project and surgery were successful. In other areas of the university, like the Cardiovascular Institute, researchers are pushing the limits even farther. Right now, Williams and his team are working on many bioprinting projects for the cardiovascular system. Williams has looked at the pancreas, which could be made to better work for diabetics, as well as kidney tissue and bone tissue that could be replaced if a patient is sick or injured.
Interestingly enough, the heart is much easier to print than any other part of the body, Williams said.
"The heart is a bag of muscles and blood vessels and an electrical system," he said, comparing it to a hand, which would require making specific nerves and joints, making it difficult.
The lab has also created a patch for a human heart, which he said he thinks will be in some of the earliest bioprinting clinical trials for humans. Instead of replacing the entire heart, this patch can mend the part that does not work. It would be especially important for pediatric patients, because it would grow with them, unlike plastic or metal pieces currently in use.
The ultimate goal for WIlliams is much bigger. He truly believes a fully functional human heart that beats, pumps blood, and keeps us alive for even longer is very possible. Extra blood vessels that would act as back up systems if one clogs or fails is one example of creating that type of muscle, Williams said.
"We are rethinking what the best design is for the heart and putting that into a computer," he said. "What happens if we build a heart basically resistant to problems that can take place?"
Also seeClose
The body's DNA isn't exactly human, at least for 19 new pieces of DNA left by prehistoric viruses. The human DNA contains remnants of infectious viruses that first infected our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, scientists found.
The body's DNA contains traces of infectious viruses that have lurked in ancient humans. These pathogens, called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), were passed down from one generation to another. Good thing, they mutated in a way that disabled their ability to cause infection, until they eventually became part of the human DNA.
A team of scientists and geneticists from Tufts University and the University of Michigan Medical School, however, found 19 new pieces of DNA left by viruses, resting dormant between our own genes. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists described their discovery of one stretch of newfound DNA in about 50 of the 2,500 people examined. This contains an intact and full genetic make-up of an entire virus.
It is still unclear if the virus can replicate but previous studies have shown that ancient viruses in the DNA can affect human carriers. In recent years, there are 17 other pieces of virus DNA found in the human genome and the study wants to focus on searching for the entire human genome.
They looked at the genome or entire span of DNA from people across the globe focusing more on those living in Africa, where ancient people came from before spreading throughout the world.
"Many studies have tried to link these endogenous viral elements to cancer and other diseases, but a major difficulty has been that we haven't actually found all of them yet," said Zachary Williams, a doctoral student at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University.
The discovery sheds light on human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs. The human DNA contains all characteristics humans have, including the color of the eyes or hair and some medical conditions. Somehow, viruses made it to the human DNA and through the years, it has been replicated and passed down and that has led to what human DNAs are today.
Having these viruses in the human DNA isn't all that bad because somehow, the body has adopted HERV sequences to impose beneficial effects like helping pregnant women build a cell layer around a developing baby to protect it from the toxins and antibodies in the mother's blood.
The new discovered HERVs, is part of a family called HERV-K while the entire viral genome is now called Xq21 since it was on the X chromosome.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.We already knew that February 6 is was the day that Samsung will roll out the Android Jelly Bean update for the Canadian Galaxy Note 2. It looks like the South Korea-based phone maker kept its promise and has already started to release the software to the Note 2 owners.
Even if its still morning time, some of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 users say that they have received and installed the Android 4.1.2 update. So far, the firmware update is already available for customers of four of the Canadian carriers meaning SaskTel, Rogers, Bell and Telus. However, it’s really early and more carriers could be added to the list.
Apart form the features of the standard Android Jelly Bean, the JZ05K firmware could add others such as multi-window support, support for traditional and simplified Chinese, a new notification panel that can be customized, a new lockscreen ink effect, Swype-style keyboard, etc.
The Galaxy Note 2 was announced in August 2012 and it’s the second so called “phablet” launched by Samsung. It sports a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a pixel resolution of 1280 x 720. It has 2GB of RAM and it’s available in three versions, depending on its internal storage space (16/32/64 GB). It has an 8MP camera with autofocus and and LED flash and it’s capable of recording HD video. Also, at the moment of its release it was running Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean.
In case you receive the Android 4.1.2 update on your device, pleas let us know.ST. PAUL -- Minnesota Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher today announced the National Hockey League (NHL) club has acquired forwards Martin Hanzal and Ryan White, and a fourth-round selection in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for Minnesota's first-round selection in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, its second-round selection in 2018, a conditional fourth-round selection in 2019, and forward Grayson Downing. Arizona will retain 50 percent of Hanzal's salary.
"We were trying to accomplish a couple things at the trade deadline. We felt we needed to add a couple forwards to our group. We were looking to add some experience, some size, some versatility to round out our roster and make us a little deeper going down the stretch and into the playoffs," Fletcher said. "The second goal was not to give up any of our prospects. Teams have been calling on a lot of our guys for awhile. That's been the preferred choice of payment for a lot of them."
Hanzal, 30, has collected 26 points (16-10=26), 43 penalty minutes (PIM) and 105 hits in 51 games with Arizona this season. The 6-foot-6, 226-pound native of Pisek, Czech Republic, led the Coyotes in goals, ranked third in scoring and led all forwards in TOI/game (18:35). One of Arizona's alternate captains, Hanzal also led the Coyotes with a 56.0% faceoff success rate, and has won more than 50% of faceoffs taken in seven of the last eight seasons. He ranks T-9th amongst active NHL players with a 55.7% faceoff win percentage since 2013-14 and is 17th amongst active forwards with 1,427 hits since 2007-08. Hanzal set career highs with 28 assists and 41 points in 64 games last season.
Tweet from @mnwild: "The focus was improving our depth. This was a way of providing more depth & providing Bruce a lot more versatility." ��� #mnwild GM Fletcher
Hanzal owns 313 points (117-196=313) and 537 PIM in 608 career NHL games in 10 seasons with the Coyotes. Hanzal has totaled 12 points (4-8=12), 47 PIM and 97 hits in 23 career Stanley Cup Playoff matches. He registered a career-high 239 hits (13th in NHL) and plus-12 rating during the 2011-12 season, 16 goals in 2010-11 and 104 PIM in 2009-10. Hanzal played for the Czech Republic at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, the 2014 Olympics, the 2013, 2008 and 2007 World Championships, the 2006 World Junior Championship and the 2005 Under-18 World Championship where he was named to the All-Star Team. He was originally selected by the Coyotes in the first round (17th overall) of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft and will wear jersey No. 19 with Minnesota.
"He's an extremely tough player to play against. I know if you speak to any of our players having to play against Arizona over the last few years, he's a big, strong centerman, he plays a heavy game, he makes you earn every inch of the ice when you play against him," Fletcher said. "He's a guy that can contribute offensively, he can win faceoffs, he can play both specialty teams. We thought he was the top rental forward on the market."
White, 28, has totaled 13 points (7-6=13) in 46 games with Arizona this season, leading the Coyotes with 70 PIM and ranking second with 138 hits. The 6-foot, 200-pound native of Brandon, Man., has totaled 58 points (29-29=58), 433 PIM and 770 hits in 294 career games with the Coyotes (2014-17) and Montreal (2009-14). He registered career highs in games played (73), goals (11), points (16), PIM (101), PPG (3), shots (88), and hits (208) last season. He was originally selected by Montreal in the third round (66th overall) of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft and will wear jersey No. 21 with Minnesota.
"[Hockey operations advisor] Andrew Brunette called him a junkyard dog watching a lot of video of him the last couple months. He's a guy that was a heck of a junior hockey player, has a good shot, was a player coming up that was an offensive player in a lot of ways," Fletcher said. "He's morphed more into a checking, gritty type of player. He's a player that plays in your bottom six. He competes, he shows up everyday, he's good around the net, he can make plays, he has scored some goals in this League."
Downing, 24, has totaled 22 points (7-15=22) and 11 PIM in 47 games with Iowa (AHL) this season. The 6-foot, 195-pound native of Abbotsford, B.C., has totaled 66 points (26-40=66) and 39 PIM in parts of three seasons with Iowa after signing originally signing with Minnesota as a free-agent on March 24, 2015.To Honor Doug Engelbart, Who Passed Away Last Night, Please Go Watch His 1968 Demo
from the innovation-at-work dept
On the the 40th anniversary of Doug Engelbart's famous 1968 demo of a personal computer system, we urged everyone to find some time to watch the video of his demo. Now, with the news that Engelbart passed away last night in his sleep, at age 88, we'll once again suggest you find the 100 minutes necessary to rewatch the demo This is the birth of modern personal computing on so many levels. Engelbart, and his staff at SRI, more or less invented the very concept of a personal computer, including the mouse, the graphical user interface, hyperlinks, and so much more that is now standard today. So many of those concepts are now ubiquitous, in part, because of Engelbart's brilliance, and his openness in sharing what he was working on and inspiring so many of those who came into contact with him over the years. Engelbart shared these concepts with the world, and the world took them and built so many useful things with them. The computing world we live in today would likely be very, very different if there had never been a Doug Engelbart.
Filed Under: computers, doug engelbart, gui, hyperlinks, innovation, mouseProf Nutt said ministers ignored his advice in reclassifying cannabis MPs have asked Home Secretary Alan Johnson to explain his decision to sack the government's chief drugs adviser. The Commons Science Committee has written to him asking for clarification of the reasons for the decision and the sequence of events leading up to it. It wants to know whom he consulted before removing Professor David Nutt and whether the adviser broke any rules in making comments about cannabis risk. Mr Johnson said Prof Nutt overstepped the mark in criticising drug policy. Version of events The home secretary said he lost confidence in the chairman of the advisory panel on the misuse of drugs after he suggested cannabis posed less of a risk than alcohol and tobacco. Prof Nutt's sacking led to an outcry in the scientific community and prompted two other members of the panel to quit. The committee has discussed holding an inquiry into the affair but wants to gather evidence from the main players before deciding whether to conduct hearings. Lib Dem MP Phil Willis, the committee's chairman, said he was asking the home secretary for his account of events leading up to the sacking in light of the "considerable" media coverage of the story. He said the committee was keen to ascertain whether Prof Nutt had breached the panel's remit or the code of conduct for scientific advisers in any of his public comments about the relative risk of different drugs. In addition, Mr Johnson has been asked to confirm whether he consulted Professor John Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, before taking the decision and if not, to explain why. The home secretary is also being pressed on his views on the future of the advisory panel and whether, following the spate of resignations, it has "sufficient expertise" to carry out its functions. The committee has also written to Prof Nutt and Prof Beddington asking them for their version of events. In July, the committee recommended that members of advisory committees should not be criticised for publishing scientific papers or making statements as professionals independent of their public role. It also urged ministers to speak up in support of scientific advisers whenever their independence was threatened by political actions. Prof Nutt has criticised the decision to sack him and floated the idea of setting up a separate advisory body. Gordon Brown has backed the home secretary's decision, saying the government could not afford to send "mixed messages" on drugs.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionWalking through the Greenmarket near my Brooklyn apartment, I usually linger at one stand that I've dubbed the "alien farm." The stand seems to specialize in unusual vegetable varieties, from bulbous heirloom tomatoes and knobby beets the color of spilled ink to those pale Romanesco broccoli, which curl endlessly out from themselves like a vegetable Spirograph. I love these farmers' commitment to biodiversity and their obvious sense of whimsy, but sometimes I imagine that they secretly source their produce from some far-off planet where weird-looking vegetables are the norm.
The most striking "alien veg" of the bunch is the orange or "cheddar" cauliflower. In shape alone, it resembles any old cauliflower, but its color—ranging from creamy coral to sunburst orange—is strikingly unique. The hue, it turns out, comes from the extra beta-carotene naturally stored in its florets (which also gives this cauliflower 25 percent more vitamin A than the more common white variety).
Discovered in Canada in 1970, the mutant vegetable was shipped to Cornell University, where agricultural scientists crossbred it with white varieties to create the showstopper of a vegetable that's now available at farmers' markets and some grocery stores. Like other vegetables in the Brassica family (including Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cabbage), orange cauliflower comes into peak season during the fall months, when the cool air lends it a deep sweetness. It tastes slightly more sugary and creamier than its cousin, but it can be successfully used in any recipe that calls for cauliflower: it's great when mashed, sauteed with potatoes, used as the base for soups, or roasted and served with pearl onions. Until it becomes too common to retain its "alien" status, orange cauliflower will remain an easy way to surprise and delight your dinner guests.
Buying Tips
Season: My Pride of New York harvest chart says that cauliflower can be found in my home state from mid-August through late November. In warmer parts of the country, like California, it can grow year-round.
Where to find it: Your best bet is to scan your local farmers' market, but you can also find orange cauliflower in some supermarkets and natural food stores like Whole Foods.
Price: Approximately $3-$5/pound.
Leah Koenig is a freelance writer, home cook, and food columnist for the Forward.It's as hot as you-know-where, so we thought it would be a good time to talk about the history of hell. Our guests are Utah scholars Margaret Toscano and Isabel Moreira, co-editors of a book that looks at historic and modern views of the underworld. They say that hell is all but disappearing in mainstream religions, but it still permeates our books, films and even cartoons. Tuesday, we'll talk about how the idea of hell developed in religion and philosophy, and why we still seem to need it today.
Isabel Moreira and Margaret Toscano co-edited Hell and its Afterlife [Amazon].
Moreira is a Professor of History at the University of Utah. She's author of Heaven's Purge, Purgatory in Late Antiquity [Amazon|Indiebound]
Toscano is an Associate Professor in the University of Utah's Department of Languages and Literature. Her work focuses on religion, gender, and myth.
See also Alice Turner's The History of Hell [Amazon|Indiebound].ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, former presidential hopeful and former loud critic of President Donald Trump, has stepped back into the political arena to call out his fellow Republicans as hypocrites — for not publicly condemning Trump.
Sigh. Why, why, why do these entrenched Republicans insist on picking public fights with their fellow GOPers?
It doesn’t endear them to anyone but their own dwindling bases. And we know their bases are dwindling because try as they might, their candidates — their Marco Rubios, their Mitt Romneys, their Jeb Bushes — just couldn’t win against Trump.
Yet six-plus months into Trump’s presidency, and they still can’t get behind their own Republican leader.
Bush, from the OZY Fest in New York City, called out those in his party who weren’t being vocal enough about the whole Russia-Trump collusion thing.
“If your opponent does things that you, your head explodes on, if Barack Obama did something as it’s related to Russia, you say ‘this is outrageous,’ all this stuff, then when your guy does the same thing, have the same passion to be critical,” Bush said, The Hill reported.
Come on now. Doesn’t the left and the media — not to be redundant — do enough damage against this White House without those of supposed Republican Party affiliation adding to the hatchets and hits?
Bush is why Trump won. He doesn’t get that. His ilk doesn’t get that. And that means Trump and his supporters don’t just have to battle the progressives, the leftists, the Democrats, the left-leaning media, the atheists and so forth. They also have to battle the Republican-In-Name-Onlys who’d rather side with the Democrats to win back power — who’d rather cast aside the will of the people for their own self-serving agendas.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.AntiTaintDroid (a.k.a. ScrubDroid)
AntiTaintDroid (a.k.a. ScrubDroid) is a proof-of-concept Android application offering a working implementation of the techniques presented in our paper at SECRYPT 2013 which can be exploited to bypass the security protections offered by TaintDroid, a real-time privacy monitoring mechanism based on dynamic taint analysis.
AntiTaintDroid/ScrubDroid is a work by NICTA. When referencing this work, please use the following citation:
Golam Sarwar, Olivier Mehani, Roksana Boreli, and Mohammed Ali Kaafar. “On the Effectiveness of Dynamic Taint Analysis for Protecting Against Private Information Leaks on Android-based Devices”. In: SECRYPT 2013, 10th International Conference on Security and Cryptography. Ed. by P. Samarati. ACM SIGSAC. Reykjávik, Iceland: SciTePress, July 2013. url: http://www.nicta.com.au/pub?id=6865;
A BibTeX file is also available.
Video Demo
Quick Installation Guide
If you don't want to be hassled with compiling the app yourself, you may just follow the workflow below:
git clone git@github.com:gsbabil/AntiTaintDroid.git # checkout my source-code cd AntiTaintDroid # change current directory to AntiTaintDroid adb install bin/AntiTaintDroid.apk # compile and install the app on your phone/emulator cd AntiTaintDroid/AntiTaintDroid-Server # change directory to AntiTaintDroid server python antitaintdroid-server.py # runs the server
Compiling the code
I have included both the Eclipse and Ant project files. You should just be able to import it in Eclipse and hit the Run button. Or, you can just do ant debug install to compile and install it on your TaintDroid phone.
How it works
The mechanisms to bypass TaintDroid protections are elaborated in our paper. Also, the code itself if pretty self-explanatory. Just go through UntaintTricks.java and you should be fine. You should note that the way this PoC app works is - first it collects some private information (e.g. IMEI, Android ID etc.) from the phone with collectPrivateData() and then it tries to leak it over the network. Where the data is leaked to depends on where you run the server component. AntiTaintDroid PoC comes with a simple Python server which you can find in AntiTaintDroid-Server directory. Just make sure that you cd inside the AntiTaintDroid-Server directory and then run the python antitaintdroid-server.py script. The server should start a very simple web-server on port 8000. Now you can go back to the app and hit menu > settings to specify your server IP address and port number. That's it! Now you are ready to try all the AntiTaintDroid tricks. Each time you tap on a trick, some private data (depending on what you have in collectPrivateData() ) should be stolen, leaked to your server ( antitaintdroid-server.py will print it on the console) and of course there won't be any TaintDroid notification to alert you that your IMEI has just been stolen. Cheers!
References
TaintDroid is a joint collaboration between Intel Labs, Penn State and Duke University, and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.This past week, the University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit over the contentious contraception mandate that requires employers to provide health insurance to employees, including birth control, as part of the Affordable Care Act. About a year and a half since the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Obamacare, there have been many lawsuits filed over individual policies in the law.
This is the second time that the university has filed a challenge to the policy. It first filed an identical suit in January, but had the case dismissed by a federal judge who ruled that the Notre Dame did not have the legal authority to sue because it would not be impacted by the law due to a delay in the law’s implementation.
The university has made it clear that the motivation behind the suit is not taking away access to contraception, but is to protect the institution’s rights to religious freedom. “Our abiding concern in both the original filing … and this re-filing has been Notre Dame’s freedom — and indeed the freedom of many religious organizations in this country — to live out a religious mission," said Notre Dame President Reverend John Jenkins.
Central to this case is the dispute over whether employers should be required to cover contraception for their employees' health insurance policies. The Affordable Care Act requires that most employers provide free birth control for their employees. Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from the law, but the fate of religious-based institutions such as the University of Notre Dame and Boston College has yet to be determined.
Notre Dame officials had been working with the Obama administration to formulate a plan that would allow the university to skirt the birth control mandate, but said it is doubtful such a deal could be reached without the university having to forfeit its rights and partake in a program that is inconsistent with Catholic teaching.
The Thomas More Law Center, a Christian-based public interest law firm, has said there are currently 86 lawsuits attacking Obamacare on religious grounds. Forty-one of those cases, according to the firm, involve Catholic nonprofit organizations such as the University of Notre Dame that disagree with the birth control mandate. The other 46 cases have been filed by for-profit organizations whose owners argue the contraception policy violates their religious freedom.
Two of the cases involving for-profit organizations have been taken up by the Supreme Court. The two organizations, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., claim that they should be exempt from covering employee contraception on religious grounds. While not direct challenges to the contraception mandate, the cases do call to question whether companies owned by individuals who object to the provision on religious grounds can be exempt from the requirement.
Women’s rights groups have said a ruling in favor of the companies would make key preventive measures inaccessible for women. "If the Supreme Court decides for bosses rather than for women's health, far-reaching consequences could result," said Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center. "Women could find their bosses not only interfering in their private reproductive healthcare decisions, but other care as well."
The decision could also have huge ramifications on future interpretation of the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Historically limited to individuals, a ruling in favor of companies could open the door to corporations being given religious rights. The case comes three years |
beyond the comprehension of the students.”
The question arises as to why we are only now becoming aware of this problem at universities, 10 years after the new curriculum was introduced. One would not expect that the shift in a student’s mode of learning, from one based on understanding to one based on memorization, would occur instantly, and many teachers continued to teach the way they always had, regardless of the new curriculum. However, a student first exposed to the new science curriculum in Grade 5 in 1998 is now entering second year of university. I believe that the rapid decline in performance over the last five years has its roots in the teaching at the elementary level; a university student’s ability to think decreases with the length of time they were exposed to the new curriculum.
I recently reviewed the drop-out rate from my introductory physics class that I have taught quite regularly from the 1980s. Over this time, the drop-out rate has increased gradually from eight percent in the early 1980s to more than 20 percent now, with one glaring exception. In the Ontario double-cohort year of 2003-04 and the next year, (which included about 25 percent of the four-year students who stayed in high school for an optional fifth year), the drop-out rate plummeted to eight and 10 percent, even though the class performance was not exceptional. Similar results were seen at Brock and Guelph universities. The best explanation is that these students were told that they would have to work very hard to gain one of the limited places at university. The work and study habits they developed then carried into university, and helped them through their first year. The lesson is that at least some student problems can be reversed very rapidly if the incentive is large enough.
The indications are strong that we have taught students to memorize and not to think. If we do have such a problem, we must move quickly to determine its magnitude, and deal with its causes. A new Ontario curriculum was introduced for K-8 in Mathematics and English in 2005 and 2006, respectively, and a new high-school science curriculum is currently under review as mentioned above. Let’s hope that local teachers and school boards are bringing their expertise to the development of this new curriculum, and will be involved in its monitoring and evaluation. There may be 10 years of students who have been taught not to think, and reversing that effect will be not be easy without a determined effort.
Alan Slavin is professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Trent University. He holds two national teaching awards: a 3M Teaching Fellowship and a medal from the Canadian Association of Physicists.
Read about how in 2010, there is a big drop in math skills of entering students.If How to Destroy Angels’ 2013 tour plans seemed short, the subsequent news of Nine Inch Nails reformation for the road should have provided some serious consolation. Especially considering the new additions to the live band: Jane’s Addiction’s Eric Avery, King Crimson’s Adrian Belew, and Josh Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv. Fans of all things Trent Reznor will have plenty of lovely spirals to dive into. And now we know a couple of NIN dates to look forward to.
Reznor’s most famous band will be among those (Björk included) to play Japan’s 17th annual Fuji Rock Festival, which runs July 26 through 28. As Consequence of Sound reports, NIN will also perform at Rock ‘n’ Heim 2013, another three-day event that kicks off on August 16 at the Hockenheimring race track in southwestern Germany (where they’ll be joined by System of a Down, Tenacious D, Deftones, and other heavy-hitters).
As previously reported, a U.S. arena tour is planned for the fall with additional worldwide dates set to stretch into 2014, although no specific details have been announced. Also as noted, Nine Inch Nails are planning to release a greatest hits compilation next year that Reznor says will include two brand new songs. The band’s last set of new material was 2008’s The Slip, a top-notch collection of “primo death funk.” HTDA are at Coachella on April 12 and 19.Image caption Clive Mantle played Mike Barrett in the TV series Casualty and later Holby City
A former actor in BBC medical drama Casualty has had part of his ear bitten off at a Newcastle Travelodge.
Clive Mantle, who also stars in US drama Game of Thrones, was attacked at the Forster Street hotel in a dispute over noise, his agent said.
The 55-year-old from Bath had finished a run in The Ladykillers at the Theatre Royal. The ear has been sewn back on.
A 32-year-old man from Hamilton in South Lanarkshire has been charged with wounding with intent.
He will appear before magistrates next month following the attack in the early hours of Sunday.
'Shaken and shocked'
A spokesman for Mr Mantle's agent, London-based Sarahband Associates, said surgeons at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary had managed to sew the top part of the actor's right ear back on.
He said he believed Mr Mantle was pinned to the floor in the hotel and attacked after asking other guests to keep the noise down.
He said: "He is very shaken and shocked by what has happened, you don't expect this kind of thing to happen in a hotel.
"The part of the ear that was bitten off was found and sewn back on. Mr Mantle said the police, ambulance and hospital staff were amazing."
'Horrified by events'
The Ladykillers finished its run in Newcastle on Saturday but its tour is due to continue in Salford on Tuesday.
Laura Myers, publicist for the play, said: "Clive doesn't yet know when he will be able to rejoin the cast and feels he must mention the ambulance crew, police and hospital staff who were all superb.
"Fiery Angel, producers of The Ladykillers, are horrified by the events of Sunday morning and are doing everything they can to ensure Clive has a speedy recovery."
A Travelodge spokesman confirmed that emergency services were called to the Newcastle Central Travelodge in the early hours of Sunday morning after an incident involving two guests.
"As this is a live police investigation, we cannot offer any further comment at this stage, but we can confirm we are working very closely to assist Northumbria Police with their investigation," the spokesman added.
"Travelodge's number one priority is the health and safety of customers and staff, and we do not tolerate any form of harmful behaviour on our premises towards our customers or staff members."
Another man has been released on bail in connection with the attack and a third man released without charge.
Mr Mantle played surgeon Mike Barrett in Casualty and spin-off series Holby City for more than nine years.
He also featured in the first season of Game of Thrones as Lord Greatjon Umber.
In the 1980s he co-starred in the TV series Robin of Sherwood as Little John.Iraq War vet praises Iran nuclear deal as list of supporters grows
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, who served four tours of duty in Iraq before his election to Congress from Massachusetts last fall, has provided the White House a testimonial in favor of the Iran nuclear deal designed to counter criticism from some Iraq War veterans, POLITICO has learned.
“As a combat veteran, I know the cost of war. It is something I still carry with me today,” Moulton writes, arguing that no better deal is possible and that rejecting the deal increases the odds of military action.
Story Continued Below
Moulton had endorsed the deal earlier this month. But the White House is eager to amplify support for the agreement from a Marine who served in Iraq, where Iranian commanders backed Iraqi militias that killed hundreds of U.S. troops.
Moulton’s argument — which the White House will email to supporters Monday — comes as deal backers are claiming momentum in Congress. In recent days three Senate Democrats — Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada — have declared their backing for the agreement, which limits Iran’s nuclear program for more than 15 years in return for an end to economic sanctions.
Administration officials are growing hopeful that Democrats might block a Republican-led resolution of disapproval for the deal with a Senate filibuster, which requires 60 votes to overcome.
“During the Iraq war, I saw the weapons and influence of the Iranian regime, and I deeply understand the threat Iran poses to America and our allies like Israel. That is why it is so crucial that the international community works together to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Moulton writes.
A group of Iraq War veterans has been attacking the deal on the airwaves this month, with a multimillion-dollar television ad campaign reminding Americans of the Iranian role in Iraq during the war. One ad from the group, Veterans Against the Deal, features a testimonial from an Army soldier who was maimed and disfigured by an Iranian-made bomb in 2005.Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra revealed he does not plan to reopen a driving while intoxicated (DWI) case against 13th Court of Appeals Justice Nora Longoria.
Her case was recently dismissed by a Hidalgo County Judge because of "lack of evidence."
Guerra is now speaking out about a police dash cam video of Longoria failing a sobriety test, which would have been "crucial evidence."
"In the dash cam video I'll admit it does look like she is intoxicated," Guerra told Action 4 News. "I'll agree to that but the problem is in the video room at the police department is that she does not look drunk."
Guerra showed Action 4 News the DVD the McAllen Police Department gave to Hidalgo County prosecutors.
Only four files were on it, and none of them were the dash camera video.
Instead, there was video of Longoria at the McAllen Police Department following her arrest.
"I saw in the video what I needed to see," Guerra said. "In my opinion the judge at the police department, she did not look drunk."
In the police documents handed to the district attorney's office there is mention of the dash cam video.
Action 4 News asked why they never requested it.
"I probably read that, but in relying on the completeness of the videos given to me, I did not see it," Guerra said. "I did not know whether the dash cam was recording or not, I didn't bother to ask and that was my oversight."
Guerra said he will not reopen the case despite the new evidence.
"Had I seen the dash cam video I probably would have put her on a pre-trial diversion program," he said.
The program is an equivalent of probation lasting anywhere from six months to two years.
"People will judge their opinion and accuse the good ol' boy system and that's okay," Guerra said. "I'm going out December 31st and someone else will have to face the wrath of the public later on it they don TMt like their decision."
Guerra added that his office is overloaded with cases and prosecutors do not have time request evidence for every case.Then a number of people then say "well that's the worst way to write that kind of big long essay," which is a totally understandable view too, but Hulk thinks the whole thing actually allows for a deeper affectation. For instance, Hulk thinks a few people might be missing that it's not actually gimmick, but instead a device. And actually a fairly standard high/low device at that. Hulk dresses up the sentiment in big silly all-caps and it shows that Hulk doesn't take Hulk-self too seriously. Which is good. Because Hulk really doesn't take Hulk-self too seriously. And that's because the subjects themselves and the thoughts are serious enough on their own. The subjects get all the right kinds of attention too and that's the most important thing. And so that inherent sense of humor and disambiguation that comes with the device is very important to Hulk.
On top of that, there's even logistical reasons: all-caps actually gets people to slow down when they read so it actually prevents a lot of skimming (and to be frank, Hulk has had a fair amount of people who most hate the device also admit they are the kind of people who are not interested in a 12,000 word essay anyway). Granted there are a few people who are genuinely bothered by the caps and it hurts their eyes, but Hulk finds that is really, really a small minority of people and Hulk happy to direct them to Convert Case alas, Hulk's not for everyone, but no one is for everyone. At least there's a reason for it.
And then there's one last level deeper than that. A lot of folks have noticed that Hulk tends to be a pretty optimistic Hulk. And what Hulk has discovered is that if the incredible Hulk of all people is willing to be open, honest, lofty, optimistic, and a big ole' softy... Well... Then why can't they? It let's everyone know that it's okay to embrace these things. That our over-fixation on texture and cool and disaffection can actually be counterproductive. And that you may have expected Hulk to be a big smashy monster, but Hulk isn't smashy at all. Hulk's just a big, stupid, sweet Hulk that's just way too big for it's body. Hulk thinks that defying expectations is one of the most humane things we can do.
Of course, some people still don't like Hulk's whole deal and that's more than fine. Hulk willing to keep trying with them. Always. But at the least Hulk wants them to know that Hulk has truly spent more time thinking about this than anyone on the planet. And it's not a cold gesture. It's not calculated. The distillation of all of this is joyful. And in a strange way, it is the most honest voice possible.
And then there's the truth that Hulk holds to dearly: that banner actually turns into a giant green monster to write these essays and none of you can prove otherwise.... Sorry, you got a Hulk-sized answer on that one.The internet is crying over a man’s post recalling the time when Yoo Jae Suk saved him during his toughest days.
About 15 years ago, the man was serving in the military when he decided to end his life.
His family was going through rough times, and he was an outcast without a friend.
The day he decided to commit suicide, he was assigned to look for man holes with a mine detector.
His day got worse when he realized that he didn’t even have money to buy himself a can of coke on his last day.
As he continued working, he felt a presence and turned around to find Yoo Jae Suk looking right at him!
The man went up to greet him as courtesy, and Yoo Jae Suk welcomed him so warmly.
Yoo Jae Suk bought the solider two cans of soda and an ice cream bar, telling him to push on.
Without even knowing, Yoo Jae Suk had given the man the comfort he needed most.
“Yoo Jae Suk is a person who can give love and favor without expecting anything in return.”
The man drank the soda as he cried until he exhausted himself.
Ever since their encounter, he turned against his decision to suicide and worked harder to live a better life.
“After that day, I was surprised by the amount of change I could feel inside myself.”
He ended the post with hopes that he’ll meet Yoo Jae Suk again to thank him in person for saving his life.
Source: RuliwebThe U.S. economy has had six full years to bounce back since the financial collapse of 2008, and it simply has not happened. Median household income has declined substantially since then, total household wealth for middle class families is way down, the percentage of the population that is employed is still about where it was at the end of the last recession, and the number of Americans that are dependent on the government has absolutely exploded. Even those that claim that the economy is “recovering” admit that we are not even close to where we used to be economically. Many hope that someday we will eventually get back to that level, but the truth is that this is about as good as things are ever going to get for the middle class. And we should enjoy this period of relative stability while we still can, because when the next great financial crisis strikes things are going to fall apart very rapidly.
The U.S. Census Bureau has just released some brand new numbers, and they are quite sobering. For example, after accounting for inflation median household income in the United States has declined a total of 8 percent from where it was back in 2007.
That means that middle class families have significantly less purchasing power than they did just prior to the last major financial crisis.
And one research firm is projecting that it is going to take until 2019 for median household income to return to the level that we witnessed in 2007…
For everybody wondering why the economic recovery feels like a recession, here’s the answer: We’re still at least five years away from regaining everything lost during the 2007-2009 downturn. Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicts that real median household income — perhaps the best proxy for middle-class living standards — won’t reach the prior peak from 2007 until 2019. Since the numbers are adjusted for inflation, that means the typical family will wait 12 years until their purchasing power is as strong as it was before the recession. That would be the longest period of stagnation, by far, since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Of course that projection assumes that the economy will continue to “recover”, which is a very questionable assumption at best.
Meanwhile, total household wealth has been declining for middle class families as well.
According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.
That is a pretty substantial drop. But you never hear our politicians (especially the Democrats) bring up numbers like that because they want us to feel good about things.
So why is all of this happening?
The biggest reason why the middle class is struggling so much is the lack of good jobs.
As the chart posted below demonstrates, the percentage of the working age population that is actually employed is still way, way below where it was prior to the last recession…
The “employment recovery” (the tiny little bump at the end of the chart) has been so miniscule that it is hardly even worth mentioning.
At the moment, we still have 1.4 million fewer full-time jobs than we did in 2008 even though more than 100,000 people are added to the U.S. population each month.
And a lot of the workers that have lost jobs since the start of the last recession have never been able to find a new one.
According to a brand new survey conducted by Rutgers University, more than 20 percent of all workers that have been laid off in the past five years still have not found a new job.
Meanwhile, the control freak bureaucrats that run this country continue to kill off small businesses.
In recent years we have seen large numbers of small businesses fail, and at this point the rate of small business ownership in the United States is at an all-time low.
As a result of everything that you have just read, the middle class is shrinking and dependence on the government is soaring.
Today, there are 49 million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity, and Americans received more than 2 trillion dollars in benefits from the federal government last year alone.
For many more statistics just like this, please see my previous article entitled “30 stats to show to anyone that does not believe the middle class is being destroyed“.
Without a doubt, things are not that good for the middle class in America these days.
Unfortunately, the next great wave of financial trouble is rapidly approaching, and once it strikes things are going to get substantially worse for the middle class.
Yes, the stock market set record high after record high this summer. But what we have observed is classic bubble behavior. So many of the exact same patterns that occurred just prior to previous stock market crashes are happening once again.
And it is interesting to note that September 22nd has marked important market peaks at various times throughout history…
For traders, September 22 is one of those days with a notorious history. UBS’s Art Cashin notes that September 22 marked various market highs in 1873, 1929, 1980, and even as recent as 2008.
Could the coming months be the beginning of the next major stock market decline?
Small-cap stocks are already starting to show signs of real weakness. In fact, the Russell 2000 just hit a “death cross” for the first time in more than 2 years…
The Russell 2000 has been diverging from the broader market over the last several weeks, and now technicians point out it has flashed a bearish signal. For the first time in more than two years, the small-cap index has hit a so-called death cross. A death cross occurs when a nearer-term 50-day moving average falls below a longer-term, 200-day moving average. Technicians argue that a death cross can be a bearish sign.
None of us knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, but a lot of the “smart money” is getting out of the market right now while the getting is good.
So where is the “smart money” putting their assets?
In a previous article, I discussed how sales of gold bars to wealthy clients is way up so far this year.
And CNBC has just reported that the ultra-wealthy “are holding mountains of cash” right now…
Billionaires are holding mountains of cash, offering the latest sign that the ultra-wealthy are nervous about putting more money into today’s markets. According to the new Billionaire Census from Wealth-X and UBS, the world’s billionaires are holding an average of $600 million in cash each—greater than the gross domestic product of Dominica.
Why are they doing this?
Are they concerned about the potential of a market crash?
And if we do see another market crash like we witnessed back in 2008, what is that going to mean for the rest of us?
2008 certainly did not destroy our economy.
But it did cause an immense amount of damage that we have never recovered from.
Now the next wave is approaching, and most people don’t even see it coming.
Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and has a law degree and an LLM from the University of Florida Law School. He is an attorney that has worked for some of the largest and most prominent law firms in Washington D.C. and who now spends his time researching and writing and trying to wake the American people up. You can follow his work on The Economic Collapse blog, End of the American Dream and The Truth Wins. His new novel entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.White nationalist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend drew bipartisan condemnation, particularly after a car plowed into counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen. Many observers called the apparent attack an act of domestic terrorism. “Go home,” Virginia Gov. McAuliffe, a Democrat, told white supremacists in a press conference Saturday. “You are not wanted in this great commonwealth.” GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan called white supremacism a “scourge” and said that, “Hate and terrorism must be confronted and defeated.”
President Trump’s response to the violence, by contrast, was comparatively mild and, in the view of many commenters, inadequate. Trump tweeted that we should “come together as one” in the face of hatred and violence and called the events in Charlottesville “sad!” In a short statement from his golf course in New Jersey on Saturday, he said Americans need to reject violence “from many sides.” But as of Sunday morning, he had yet to denounce the white supremacist protesters specifically, and he declined to label the car crash an act of terrorism. (On Saturday, Charlottesville police charged a man, apparently the driver of the car, with second-degree murder.)
Trump’s comments are striking for a couple of reasons. For one, Trump repeatedly denounced his predecessor, Barack Obama, for refusing to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” to refer to attacks by Islamist radicals. For another, denouncing Friday’s white supremacist protest and Saturday’s (apparent) attack should have been comparatively easy for an American politician. In recent years, political norms emphasizing “colorblindness” in public life have made it tough for presidents to talk about structural racism, but rejecting rallies and groups like the ones coming together in Charlottesville should be straightforward. Photographs and press reports indicated that some of Friday and Saturday’s protesters gave Nazi salutes and chanted slogans associated with the Nazis, and at least one person carried a Nazi flag.
There is a long history of U.S. presidents proving reluctant to take strong stands in response to racial violence. Democratic and Republican presidents alike were unable and, often, unwilling, to address the most egregious abuses of the Jim Crow South. And that caution extended well into the modern era. Political realities have meant that presidents have rarely led the way on race relations, but Trump’s response to the events in Charlottesville stands out for lagging so far behind.
In 1906, for example, a group of African-American soldiers in Brownsville, Texas, was accused of shooting multiple people. They were acquitted by a court and there was no real evidence of their guilt — but President Theodore Roosevelt issued a dishonorable discharge for all of the accused soldiers. Roosevelt’s critics accused him of placating the angry mob for political reasons, as Roosevelt’s Republican Party had long tried to make electoral progress in the South.
Later in the 20th century, several presidents struggled to respond to lynchings, the violent, extra-judicial killing of African-Americans accused of crimes. (Recent estimates suggest that nearly 4,000 people died this way in the South between 1877 and 1950.) The NAACP had to lobby both Democrat Woodrow Wilson (who held and acted on racist views) and his Republican successor Warren G. Harding. Wilson did eventually speak out against lynching, but it took several years of lobbying by the NAACP to convince him to do so. As political scientist Megan Francis has written, “Only through an unyielding onslaught of protest was [the NAACP] able to obtain support from Wilson.” Harding, meanwhile, made some initial statements about lynching, Francis found, but did not continue to pressure Congress to adopt anti-lynching legislation. Like Theodore Roosevelt, he was limited by his party’s ambitions in the South.
Even in cases when presidents did end up taking more aggressive action on racial issues, they often did so reluctantly. In 1957, for example, Dwight Eisenhower sent federal troops (and federalized the Arkansas National Guard) to quell unrest in Little Rock, Arkansas, and enforce a court decision mandating the racial integration of schools. But Eisenhower took that step only after the crisis had been going on for three weeks, and he avoided addressing the substance of the ruling or the question of civil rights, instead citing the need to enforce the law. Eisenhower’s successor, John F. Kennedy, was also slow to move forward civil rights, although he eventually found his voice on the issue as political pressure mounted. In June, 1963, Kennedy addressed the nation on the question of civil rights and urged Congress to pass legislation, which he had previously been reluctant to pursue.
More recent presidents have faced a somewhat different set of issues. Since the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, presidents have been able to embrace the principles of racial equality without fear of political backlash. But they have still often struggled to respond to racially charged situations. In 2005, President George W. Bush sparked outrage with his slow response as Hurricane Katrina wrought destruction in New Orleans, especially in predominantly black sections of the city. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus tied the slow federal response to the race of those affected by the flood. In response, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the most prominent black official in the administration, defended its record on race.
In 2014, Obama urged calm after the announcement that the police officer who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, would not be charged, and many networks showed him speaking on a split screen alongside images of Ferguson descending into disorder. In both cases, the leaders appeared disconnected from the suffering of their citizens, at least in the moment. For different reasons, Bush and Obama faced delicate political situations. Bush led a party that had equated government assistance with moral degeneracy, a theme that came up as criticism piled up over the anemic federal response to the disaster. For Obama, the question of race was perpetually complex and fraught.
Presidential responses to racial violence and injustice have not all been discouraging. In the wake of Kennedy’s assassination and years of build-up from the civil rights movement, Lyndon Johnson staked his legacy on the issue. As a presidential candidate, Obama addressed the nation candidly about prejudices and fears. Obama’s eulogy for the slain pastor Clementa Pinckney is considered one of his most powerful speeches. And in a piece of rhetoric that gets less attention, George H. W. Bush responded to the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles by turning attention to the police violence against King.
Although racial politics have changed, the political dilemma facing presidents is dismayingly familiar. When it comes to race questions, presidents have sought to balance competing groups and their concerns. Presidents are products of their times — and they are politicians. In this sense, Trump’s bland equivocation fits right in. When it comes to race relations in the United States, presidents rarely cut through politics to express bold statements about equality; rather, they tend to be caught up in political conflict, and respond only to sustained pressure.
But history doesn’t absolve Trump. His tepid response to such overt and violent racism recalls a much earlier era, when people who espoused these violent ideologies held real political power. The political calculus for a contemporary president should be different. Congressional Republicans, for example, like Marco Rubio and Cory Gardner have asked the president to more strongly condemn what’s happened. Presidents have typically lagged behind the racial justice activists of their day — sometimes far behind. But Trump is unusual in also lagging behind today’s widely understood norms.
This weekend is not, of course, the first time that Trump has appeared reluctant to denounce white nationalists or other racist groups and individuals, many of whom supported his presidential campaign last year. He retweeted accounts and memes with ties to white supremacist groups, and he waited until deep into the campaign before firmly disavowing the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. That suggests that Trump’s cautious statements, like those of past presidents, may stem in part from his reluctance to alienate a key group of supporters; in Trump’s case, however, those key supporters include avowed racists.CVS is announcing new action Thursday to combat the opioid epidemic nationwide.The drug store chain will limit opioid prescriptions to seven-day supplies for new patients. CVS will also reach out to doctors about prescriptions that seem to be excessive. The plan also includes a cap on daily dosages and requires immediate-release opioids to be used before extended-release versions are given.CVS officials said in a news release that counseling it provides to patients will also be strengthened. Pharmacists will discuss the risks of dependence and addiction, company representatives said.The Rhode Island-based pharmacy chain has 9,600 locations and is taking the action after the opioid epidemic claimed 64,000 lives nationwide last year.
CVS is announcing new action Thursday to combat the opioid epidemic nationwide.
The drug store chain will limit opioid prescriptions to seven-day supplies for new patients. CVS will also reach out to doctors about prescriptions that seem to be excessive.
The plan also includes a cap on daily dosages and requires immediate-release opioids to be used before extended-release versions are given.
CVS officials said in a news release that counseling it provides to patients will also be strengthened. Pharmacists will discuss the risks of dependence and addiction, company representatives said.
The Rhode Island-based pharmacy chain has 9,600 locations and is taking the action after the opioid epidemic claimed 64,000 lives nationwide last year.
AlertMeOntario is raising the minimum paid vacation from two weeks annually to three for all workers with five or more years at the same job, says Premier Kathleen Wynne. Wynne told the Star the change is part of sweeping labour reforms being announced Tuesday at Queen’s Park that will take effect before the next election on June 7, 2018.
Labour Minister Kevin Flynn: “The prosperity we’re seeing in the Ontario economy now has to be shared by everybody... the world has changed,” said Flynn. ( Richard Brennan / Toronto Star file photo )
The premier noted many European countries already mandate far longer paid holidays than three weeks a year. “We have fallen behind,” she said Monday. The government will also outline the timetable for raising the hourly minimum wage from $11.40 to $15 and reveal measures for making it easier for workers to join unions.
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“People being able to act collectively has contributed to the civility of our society,” said Wynne, adding employees should be allowed to organize “without being strong-armed or bullied” if they want to sign union cards. “I would like to see more people who are working in precarious work protected. Organized labour protects people, protects workers.” Wynne and Labour Minister Kevin Flynn are using the 419-page Changing Workplaces Review, which was released last week, as the blueprint for reform legislation to be tabled this fall. “The prosperity we’re seeing in the Ontario economy now has to be shared by everybody... the world has changed,” said Flynn. Prepared by special advisers C. Michael Mitchell and John C. Murray, the review made 173 recommendations on improving job conditions for Ontarians.
“There are a lot of recommendations. We will be doing some of them, not all of them,” Wynne emphasized. With Ontario’s economy leading the nation in growth, the premier said “we are in a position now” to take bold action to help workers.
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But she is bracing for backlash from business groups concerned about rising labour costs. “There’s going to be howling. The business community will be yelling at me. People will yell about the three weeks,” said Wynne. “I know that there will be people who will be upset. Part of that, I think, will be because they haven’t had the chance to think through exactly what the implications will be and what are the other supports we’re putting in place,” she said. “The biggest issue that we’re dealing with is people who can’t make ends meet. It’s just not enough... they can’t do it on $11.40 an hour.” To allay concerns from business, the government will be “phasing in” the minimum wage rise to $15, Wynne said, but she declined to say, until Tuesday, what the timetable would be. “There are people who are struggling,” she said, adding having better-paid Ontarians is good for everyone. “Having people who can look after themselves, and can buy the things that they need and to look after their kids... that’s good for business, that’s good for small businesses all across the province.” Flynn said he is especially concerned about vulnerable workers. “There’s a group of people that seem to be stagnant, seem to be falling behind, and yet they’re very, very important people that we rely on. For example, they work in our restaurants, they do our home care,” the minister said. Those same employees often work at the whim of their bosses with short notice for shifts. Flynn promised “the same kind of scheduling notice that you or I would want.” He also wants to guarantee that Ontario workers earn equal pay for equal work, regardless of their full-time, part-time or temporary employee status. “The number of people that are working part-time is something that obviously concerns us. And it’s not just that they’re working part-time, but they’re working part-time at a lower hourly rate than somebody who is full-time,” the minister said. “We’ve turned our minds to that … Two people doing the same work side by side in the same factory, the same business, obviously deserve to be paid the same,” he said. The goal is for employers to hire permanent staff, not rely on contract workers. To achieve that, Queen’s Park wants to close loopholes enabling businesses to claim that workers, who are effectively full-timers, are independent contractors as a way of paying them less.
Read more about:by Ken B.
Everyone knows at least one person who is so good at everything, with seemingly no darkness or flaw, that we feel like we should collectively take up arms and despise them forever out of pure spite. But we can’t, because they’re also just so nice. The Way He Looks is the movie equivalent of that person. Based off an equally infectious short film, writer/director Daniel Ribeiro succeeds at turning hearts to mush in 96 minutes. I should hate this movie. It’s so openly sentimental, a trait normally found reprehensible by many. It’s unabashedly doe-eyed and sweet, even going so far as to feature the Belle and Sebastian song “There’s Too Much Love” like three or four times. But how could anyone hate something that’s just so pretty and wonderful? (And a film that has such good taste in music).
The Way He Looks is set in a middle class neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil. Leonardo (Ghilherme Lobo) is a blind teenage boy, who passes vacation days with his best friend Giovana (Tess Amorhim). Leo has been blind since birth, and his parents, especially his mother (Lúcia Romano), are quite overprotective, and while Leo feels he is ready to gain some form of independence in his life, such comments for the matter are either ignored or shot down outright. The question is raised of if any interesting changes in the near future are even possible. When school heads back into session, the answer comes in the form of Gabriel (Fabio Audi), a new student that joins Leo and Giovana’s class. Giovana is smitten, yet the tawdry Karina (Isabela Guasco) makes loud and obvious advances first, but he doesn’t really reciprocate. Around this time, Leonardo is going through a period in his life of revaluation and realization, and through this, he begins to realize that he has feelings for Gabriel that stretch beyond the boundaries of friendship.
It might somehow feel self-contradictory that I would write a positive review of this film, when weeks ago I wrote some generally negative comments on Letterboxd about a Dutch film called Boys, a film also about a teenager coming to terms with his sexual orientation. The difference is that while Boys had a rigid structure filled with already tread material, and as a result, made itself forgettable, The Way He Looks is spontaneous, flowing, and fresh. The script is well paced, as in it moves on its own speed and is fully aware of what it’s doing. Ribeiro looks over the proceedings with an even, skillful hand, bringing the audience to truly care about Leonardo almost immediately.
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the street, but it worked. It will keep working, if we can keep it up.$100 Billion. That’s what the big 5 oil companies have made in profits since January 1. $102.85 billion to be more precise, according to my own calculations (see table below).
That means that they’re on course to top $140 billion for 2011. More if oil prices keep rising. And that’s in a year when unemployment has soared and unrest has spread to all corners of the world driven by economic and social inequity.
Yet as these mega profits are extracted from us in the course of our daily lives, the U.S. government continues to grant subsidies, tax relief and royalty relief to the U.S. oil industry.
The industry tells us that if we take their subsidies away then they won’t be able to afford to drill as much as they do and oil prices will go up even more. I don’t know about you but I’m feeling just a little bamboozled by that one. If there’s any sector out there right now more able to pay a little more in tax I’d like to know about it.
But are we going to see oil and gas subsidies cut in the trillion dollar budget cutting plan being hammered out by the super committee? Given how much campaign money the committee gets from the sector it’s not looking good.
Indeed as Matt Price so eloquently describes in today’s Tyee, the industry continues to defend its subsidized existence without irony in a manner reminiscent of a certain genre of B movie. Yes, the zombie cry of “Oiiiiiil” can be heard from Alberta to Texas and Ottawa to Washington as the North American oil industry digs in against the nascent clean tech era.
As Matt describes, “the ideology of oil is that because oil exists, it must be got, and it must be burned. Any critics must be deranged, damaged, discounted, discredited, and dismissed. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of “Oiiiiiil…”
Over at Transition Voice, where the vision of a world free of oil zombie domination is daily discussed, Erik Curren writes that Big Oil has so far gotten off lightly in the Occupy movements spreading round the globe. Perhaps surprising in the face of such lavish profits. Not that the Occupy protesters have ignored them completely but that the focus on banks has dominated for obvious reasons. Erik argues that Big Oil’s role in the corporate fleecing of the 99% is easily as pernicious as Wall Street’s.
Erik lays out 5 key ways to Occupy Big Oil. Perhaps with the implementation of these 5 principles the world may one day be safe from the zombies that threaten to change the face of the planet.
Get oil money out of politics Cut direct subsidies to oil companies Cut indirect subsidies for oil through ARSE (auto/road/sprawl) Complex. Remove barriers to renewable energy Conserve and localize.
It’s still not too late to vanquish the zombie curse. Trick or treat anyone?
Big 5 Oil Companies 2011 Profits in $Billions Q1 Q2 Q3 Total BP 5.48 5.30 5.14 15.93 ConocoPhillips 3.02 3.40 2.63 9.06 Chevron 6.22 7.73 7.82 21.78 ExxonMobil 10.65 10.68 10.33 31.66 Shell 8.78 8.66 6.97 24.41 Big 5 34.16 35.78 32.90 102.85
Source: Quarterly results announcements from company websites.In the first century BC it was one of India’s most important trading ports, whose exports – especially black pepper – kept even mighty Rome in debt. But have archaeologists really found the site of Muziris, and why did it drop off the map?
Around 2,000 years ago, Muziris was one of India’s most important trading ports. According to the Akananuru, a collection of Tamil poetry from the period, it was “the city where the beautiful vessels, the masterpieces of the Yavanas [Westerners], stir white foam on the Periyar, river of Kerala, arriving with gold and departing with pepper.”
Another poem speaks of Muziris (also known as Muciripattanam or Muciri) as “the city where liquor abounds”, which “bestows wealth to its visitors indiscriminately” with “gold deliveries, carried by the ocean-going ships and brought to the river bank by local boats”.
The Roman author Pliny, in his Natural History, called Muziris “the first emporium of India”. The city appears prominently on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a fifth-century map of the world as seen from Rome. But from thereon, the story of this great Indian port becomes hazy. As reports of its location grow more sporadic, it literally drops off the map.
In modern-day India, Muziris was much more of a legend than a real city – until archaeological excavations in the southern state of Kerala, starting in 2004, sparked reports of a mysterious lost port. Though the archaeologists cannot be certain, they – and, with some exceptions, historians too – now believe they have located the site of Muziris.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Excavations in the village of Pattanam, Kerala, have raised questions about whether the site is ‘urban’ enough to be Muziris. Photograph: KCHR
“This was a centre of paramount importance for Roman trade,” says Federico De Romanis, associate professor of Roman history at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. “What made it absolutely unique was the considerable amounts of black pepper exported from Muziris. We are talking about thousands of tons.”
In addition to pepper, De Romanis says, exports included both local products – ivory, pearls, spices such as malabathron – and those from other parts of India, including semi-precious stones, silks and the aromatic root nard. “These attest to commercial relationships nurtured with the Gangetic valley and east Himalayan regions.”
In the other direction, ships arrived with gold, coral, fine glassware, amphorae of wine, olive oil and the fermented fish sauce called garum. But the value of this trade was lopsided: De Romanis says Pliny the Elder estimated Rome’s annual deficit caused by imbalanced trade with India at 50m sesterces (500,000 gold coins of a little less than eight grammes), with “Muziris representing the lion’s share of it”.
Maritime trade between Muziris and Rome started in the first century BC, when it became known that sailing through the Red Sea to the horn of Africa, then due east along the 12th latitude, led to the Kerala coast. “Muziris was entirely dependent on foreign, especially Roman, demand for pepper,” De Romanis says. So when the Roman empire’s economy began to struggle in the third century AD, he believes the trade in pepper reconfigured itself, and Muziris lost its importance.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Muziris pictured (bottom right) in the Tabula Peutingeriana, a fifth-century map of the world as seen from Rome
Dr PJ Cherian, director of the Kerala Council for Historical Research, confirms there are few references to Muziris after the fifth century AD. It had been generally assumed that Muziris referred to the port of Kodungallur, which had been put out of commission by devastating floods in 1341 – but excavations there did not turn up anything older than the 13th century.
Travel 11 kilometres by road from Kodungallur, however, and you reach the village of Pattanam. For years, children there had been collecting beads that would rise to the surface during the monsoon season. After an initial dig in 2004, systematic excavations by Cherian and his colleagues began in 2007. Soon, he says, it was clear they had discovered a major archaeological site.
Over nine seasons of excavations, they have found Roman amphorae (for the first time on the Keralan coast), a wharf-like structure, a dug-out canoe that is approximately 2,000 years old – plus foundations, bricks and tiles, tools and artefacts made of iron, lead and copper, glass beads, gold ornaments and semi-precious stones clearly meant for export.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Local children have collected 2,000-year-old beads at Pattanam. Photograph: Mohamed A/KCHR
So, is Pattanam the site of fabled Muziris? There isn’t clinching evidence yet, but Cherian thinks it’s likely. He is also tired of questions about the Roman connection, asking: “When they excavate a Roman site in Europe, do they obsess similarly about whether it traded with India?” To him, an integral part of the excavation is what it reveals about the people who actually lived there.
Tathagata Neogi, of the Indian Institute of Archaeology, explains the stages of occupation in Pattanam using a large photograph of an excavated trench’s cross-section. Human habitation began there around 1000BC, marked by characteristic Iron Age black and redware pottery, while the period between 500 and 300BC marks a mixed phase.
“We think this is when Pattanam began making the transition from a village to a trade hub,” Neogi says. The period from 300BC to AD500 is densely packed with evidence for trade both within and outside India. Burnt bricks and tiles, terracotta ring wells and coins suggest a thriving settlement. Small amounts of west Asian pottery in the earlier portions of this segment provide evidence for pre-Roman maritime trade. After AD500 the record thins out – until AD1500, when Chinese and European ceramics are found.
Is Pattanam ‘urban’?
Today, Pattanam is a village situated four kilometres from the sea. The vegetation is typical of the region: tall arcing palms, squat plantains, vines and creepers, near-flourescent monsoon grass. There are sporadic houses, a temple, a village office and sudden channels of water.
The archaeological mound at Pattanam is around 70 hectares; atop it sits a museum displaying finds from the excavations. It is curious, Cherian notes, that a village should be named Pattanam, a word that means market-town or trading port across south India.
Some historians – such as Rajan Gurukkal, author of Rethinking Classical Indo-Roman Trade – have argued that Pattanam (which he believes is the location of Muziris) was likely nothing more elaborate than a colony of Mediterranean merchants, plus the inland traders and artisans who dealt with them. Gurukkal’s theory is based on the apparent absence of permanent structures, and the seeming disconnect of the materials and skills found at Pattanam with those of the wider region. He suggests the colony might even have been seasonal, inhabited only when ships arrived for trade.
Such a debate comes down to what is meant by a city or urban settlement. According to Cherian, “Urban is a complicated word – to me, it means ‘organised’, ‘thought out’, ‘planned’.” And he sees evidence of this in Pattanam: “It was certainly a city, but of its time.”
The excavations have revealed what appear to be toilets, drains and terracotta ring wells, and these – along with raised foundations aligned in one direction – suggest a planned settlement.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A channel of the Periyar river near Pattanam. Photograph: Srinath Perur
Cherian also thinks the level of technological accomplishment – the quality of mortar in a wharf structure; evidence of intricate glass and stone work – and the high density of potsherds (some 4.5 million have been recovered so far) all point to a settlement that was urban in character. The local coins suggest a monetised economy and a degree of political organisation.
Less than 1% of the site has been excavated. We have only touched the tip of the iceberg PJ Cherian
“We now recognise that ancient cities could look very different from their modern counterparts, even as they had the same functions of trade and economic integration,” says Monica Smith, professor of anthropology at UCLA, who studies newly emergent urbanism in the Indian subcontinent.
“It used to be felt, by 20th-century archaeologists such as V Gordon Childe, that monumental architecture was required before a site could be defined as a ‘city’. In addition, there was often a sense that a city should have a high density of concentrated populations at their core, in which that density was focused on a particular religious or administrative purpose such as a palace or temple.”
But Smith offers an example for a more spread-out idea of a city: the large Kumbh Mela camps in India, which come up only for the duration of the congregation, are well-planned, possess infrastructure, and have an “urban atmosphere”. She adds: “We can envision that temporary or sequential occupations could have been the case in ancient cities as well.”
Lost cities #4: Pompeii was preserved by disaster. Now it risks ruin all over again Read more
Smith suggests such sites can grow in extent very quickly, especially when demand for a new commodity is high (black pepper, in the case of Pattanam). “This is why research of the kind done at Pattanam is particularly important. It can help us understand the dynamic changes over time, and evaluate the extent to which investments in features such as wharves and ring wells signalled a ‘core’ location around which surrounding suburbs grew.”
A more complete understanding of the Pattanam site – and its flavour of urbanism – will take a while yet, however. According to Cherian: “Less than one percent of the site has been excavated. We have only touched the tip of the iceberg.”
The quest for Muziris may or may not be over. But as De Romanis says: “Pattanam is the closest thing to Muziris we have got so far. Whatever it was, it should be treasured and taken care of.”
Please share your stories of other ‘lost cities’ throughout history in the comments below. Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join in the discussionNot his biggest fans. Days after the 2005 Access Hollywood video of Billy Bush and Donald Trump making vulgar comments about women was released, a source tells Us Weekly that Bush’s Today show coworkers are not too fond of the 44-year-old TV host.
The insider confirms to Us that Today’s Tamron Hall, Matt Lauer and Al Roker strongly dislike Bush. Additionally, the insider says that the NBC personality’s future at the show is uncertain after the incriminating footage was leaked to The Washington Post on Friday, October 7.
However, a Today show source tells Us, “The anchors and hosts of the show each had a good relationship with Billy. The show staff is comfortable with how the situation is being handled.”
In the 11-year-old video, Bush and the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host, 70, make lewd remarks minutes before they taped a segment for Access Hollywood. Bush and Trump didn’t know their mics were on as they engaged in inappropriate banter about the business mogul’s failed efforts to “f–k” a married woman, who was later identified as Entertainment Tonight’s Nancy O’Dell.
The clip caused a media firestorm and prompted Bush to delete his Twitter account and apologize for his past behavior.
"Obviously I'm embarrassed and ashamed," he told Us in a statement on Friday. "It's no excuse, but this happened 11 years ago — I was younger, less mature and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry." (Bush was 33 and Trump was 59 at the time.) Two days later, NBC announced that Bush — Jeb Bush's cousin — was suspended from the Today show indefinitely.
Savannah Guthrie briefly mentioned Bush’s absence on the Monday, October 10, episode of Today. "We want to note one other thing. Pending further review of the matter, NBC News has suspended Billy Bush as the host of Today's third hour for his role in that conversation with Donald Trump," she said.
In the next hour, Bush's cohosts Roker, 62, and Hall, 46, chimed in. "As you can see, Billy Bush is not joining us today. As you're probably aware, [he was] part of that 2005 Access Hollywood taping with Donald Trump that's been in the news all weekend," Roker said.
Hall added: "NBC, which owns Access Hollywood, has suspended Billy for his role in that conversation pending further review."
Meanwhile, Bush’s former Access Hollywood colleagues have had nothing but positive things to say about him.
"He was always in my corner,” Kit Hoover said on Monday morning’s edition of AH. "I was just devastated to watch all this unfold because the Billy that I know — and that a lot of people would say — has the biggest heart of anybody, and he is a good person."
Natalie Morales echoed a similar sentiment: "One of the first people to call me and congratulate me when I announced that I would be getting this job was Billy. He also offered advice and offered to help with my move and transition."
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!Dave Meltzer's latest podcast has a bit of shocking news that we'd not heard to this point when it comes to Strikeforce fighters. In the wake of last night's Strikeforce show that saw Luke Rockhold retain his Strikeforce middleweight title, Dave was discussing the idea of fighters in Strikeforce fighting the best in the UFC when he said the words "but that can't happen because of the deal with Showtime."
He went on to explain that this was the result of Showtime's paranoia over having Alistair Overeem, Nick Diaz and Dan Henderson lost to the UFC (all through slightly different circumstances):
"They made this list of guys and they said 'these are our guys' and, even if their contract expires, they can't move to UFC. That's part of their deal with keeping this alive. So these guys are stuck."
To be clear, the UFC signed this agreement.
Meltzer continued:
"He [Gilbert Melendez] couldn't go to UFC. He could go to Bellator if he wanted to, but he couldn't go to the UFC.... There's a list of guys, not everyone on Showtime is on the list, but Ronda Rousey is on the list, Gilbert Melendez is on the list, Luke Rockhold is on the list... It's for as long as Showtime broadcasts MMA."
That doesn't mean as long as Showtime broadcasts Strikeforce, but rather as long as Showtime broadcasts any MMA from the way Meltzer explained it.
More after the jump...
SBN coverage of Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Kennedy
Note: I think it's important that we understand that this could be a misunderstanding, could be fact, could be somewhere in the middle. Meltzer has talked to people about it, it appears that if it is not the case, that some people think it is. Discuss it with that in mind.
Update 1:42 p.m. ET: Meltzer clarified the Rousey situation:
As long as Showtime and Zuffa have a contract to broadcast events, Rousey can only fight on a UFC show if Showtime allows her to do so. She's not banned, but Showtime has to make the decision. That's why I recommended Showtime should allow her to fight on the December UFC show.
From what I'm told "the list" does exist but Rousey might not be a member of that list to the same restrictive degree.
When asked if this means that if Showtime broadcasts MMA for 15 years, for the next 14, they can't go to the UFC?
"No, because they're Showtime fighters for life. Or they could leave the Zuffa organization."
And also, on the idea of if this could be challenged in court:
"They can't because it's a contract the UFC has, it's not a fighter deal. I've had the whole thing explained to me by one of the fighters on the list. Zuffa isn't going to do it to be in breach of contract. The contract is between Zuffa and Showtime that this list of fighters are Showtime fighters and if they're in the Zuffa organization they will fight on Showtime."
This is a shocking development and means that the Strikeforce fighters are stuck on Showtime for the foreseeable future. Should Strikeforce be dissolved, Showtime could promote their own independent MMA shows or bring on any other promotion and keep Strikeforce's top stars locked out of the UFC and, presumably, on their airwaves.WINNIPEG – Thousands of Winnipeggers were without power as they started their morning routine Tuesday after power went out in St. James and parts of north Tuxedo.
Manitoba Hydro staff restored power to all customers at about 7:45 a.m., spokesman Scott Powell said.
The lights went out at about 6 a.m. in an area stretching from King Edward Street west toward Sturgeon Road and from Wellington Avenue to the Assiniboine River. Parts of north Tuxedo across the river were also out.
Major outage in St.James area. Crews have been dispatched. No estimate on restoration as of yet. — Manitoba Hydro (@manitobahydro) June 9, 2015
Traffic lights were out throughout the area, including on major routes such as Route 90 and Portage Avenue, causing major traffic headaches. Police directed traffic at a couple of major intersections and some lights were working again at 7:15 a.m.
Kenaston (St. James area) Avoid it. Seriously. — Ron Cantiveros (@RonCantiveros) June 9, 20153. "No Baggy Hip Hop Pants"
This is a real thing.
Correctional Officers (CO"s) hate "sagging" pants (prison pants do not usually come with belts). On our unit window were guidelines for how to wear pants and a warning that "sagging" would get inmates tickets.
CO's can often be heard telling people to "pull up their pants" and screaming about not wanting to see our "asses."
They are actually kind of obsessed with this and it does seem to be a way for officers to express their racism in a way that will not get them into trouble most of the time (the majority of guards at most prisons I was at were white and the majority of the inmate population were people of color)..
Officers even tried to push the narrative that if someone was wearing "sagging pants" that doing so meant that they were inviting gay sex.
For some people, "sagging" is a fashion statement and for other's it can be a political protest (in opposition to the CO's). For some, it can simply be a sign of weight loss (prison food is exactly as bad as you would assume).
Oh, at one point during Piper's orientation, the assistant warden comes to talk to the inmates and says that she is always available but refuses to answer even one question. This is pretty accurate, in my three years in prison I only saw wardens or assistant wardens twice (in both instances, they were simply walking through the unit without talking to any inmates).
2. "Credit Denied"
Piper tries to get some cocoa butter from Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox) but is initially denied because as Taystee (Danielle Brooks) put it "Credit Denied."
It is possible that since Piper is being shut-off by Red that she might be denied purchase by credit. However, prison runs on credit. The whole economic model of the inmate economy is based on credit and interest.
In other words, this is not correct.
Now, probably the number one cause of violence in prison is debt. So, it makes sense not to use credit. But most inmates, when they don't have money, go to what is called a "Store Man" (or in this case 'Store Woman') whose business is selling things on credit and collecting with interest.
Usually, each store man or woman has a partner who is in charge of collection (the muscle).
If you are confused about how "money" works in prison, it is pretty simple. Inmates have commissary accounts and the money you earn working (for pennies per hour) or that your friends or family deposit in your account allow you to purchase goods from the store list (a list of goods approved for inmates by the warden). Those goods become tradable currency.
Not all goods are of equal value (there are some things on the list that nobody wants).
In Michigan, the basic unit of currency is Ramen Noodles. In other words, all prices are negotiated around the number of Ramen Noodle packs you will owe. So, say I had no money and wanted a Honey Bun from a "Store Man" they would tell me the cost in Ramen Noodle packs.
You don't have to pay in Ramen Noodles, but you have to pay the value by Ramen Noodle packets (and it is wise to make sure that the person will accept your means of payment).
When I left prison, Ramen Noodle packets ran close to 40 cents a pack (like everything else in prison, the supplier and the prison inflate the cost massively - and yes, they inflate costs basically to rip-off the family of inmates).
Between court costs, victim fees, phone email and mail costs (very high), commissary prices (inflated), supervision fees upon relief, and the ability of states to take whatever money you had in any accounts when you went to prison - the costs to prisoners and prisoners families are MASSIVE (tens of thousands of dollars).
Some of you will say, of course, prisoners should bear the costs, but the truth is coming out of prison with massive debt, a hard time finding housing, and a hard time getting jobs, is a major cause of recidivism.
If safety is the concern, you could not design a path to peaceful reintegration into society more poorly than the current "prisoners pay" model.
In addition, virtually all of these costs are borne (before and during imprisonment) by prisoner families who are almost always in poverty (and who also often have to take care of prisoner's children etc.).
By the way, the amount of money in your commissary account is important for other reasons as well. One of the key reasons that people get targeted for extortion in prison is because they have too much money and are getting too much store (getting your goods is "getting store").
How do they know how much "store" you have?
First, the extortion rings generally have someone working "store." In other words, they see who is getting the biggest amount of store goods. When they see a new prisoner getting big store bags, that makes them a target for extortion. Also, if you walk around the unit and always have extra food and/or goods, people will see it and that can make you a target.
Anyway, the larger point is that the inmate prison economy runs on credit (credit is rarely declined but the interest might change based on your reliability and status).
One thing I forgot last week is that Piper gets asked why she is in prison and says "I thought nobody was supposed to ask you that" (I think the response was, "Did you study for prison" or something like that). The truth, everybody can find out what you did because most states have publically searchable sites.
If anyone wants to know, they simply ask, and then after you answer they call a friend or family member on the outside and if the results don't match up, they will know that you lied etc.
In other words, I always told people what I did straight up (no percentage in lying). Most people won't ask, but someone always will.
1. Hot Peppers
Suzanne (Uzo Adubo aka "Crazy Eyes") brought Piper a few hot peppers which she subsequently used to make the lotion that she gives to Red (Kate Mulgrew).
Generally, a kitchen in prison would not have hot peppers (or any other food that could be weaponized). Prison food is incredibly bland because:
* Seasoning costs money...Especially, the use of fresh produce for seasoning would be highly unlikely (I never saw a tomato in prison, for instance).
* Many people have food allergies and in order to avoid having to accommodate dietary needs, cafeterias err on the side of bland.
* Seasoning is an opportunity for more store sales. You can buy salt and pepper as well as a "spice mix" on the store list. Yes, we literally carried salt and pepper shakers with us to meals every day (and it was important if you wanted any flavor in your food).
Also, hot pepper's, at least where I was located, was considered weaponized contraband. I am not kidding, you would actually be charged for having hot peppers.
That said, I did a few times acquire some hot peppers (allegedly). One of the jobs you can get in prison is working on the yard. Some people who have jobs on the yard work as gardeners. One of my cube mates planted some peppers among some flowers and brought some peppers back to the cube (a cube is a group of 8 prisoners in a level one prison - the lowest security level - in Michigan).
Obviously, if he had gotten caught with the hot peppers, he would have gotten a ticket for having dangerous contraband and maybe even new charges.
One other thing, most prisons have moved from a centralized movie night to individual televised movies. In other words, every prisoner has the ability to buy a personal television set (this is in the prison's interest because it operates like a babysitter in many ways). Every weekend, the prison plays DVD movies through an internal network that each TV can access.
The movies generally run on a loop all weekend, so everyone can watch them when they want to. It is not a collective experience (collective events require additional supervision).
Oh, sadly, the "Nobody Fucks with Cancer" statement by Rosa (Barbara Rosenblat) is kind of bullshit too. People who are sick are just as vulnerable as anyone else (often more vulnerable). But, I kind of love Rosa's character, so I will give that one a pass.
I also plan on doing a bigger thing on guards soon (if you are wondering, there are plenty of guards like Mendez aka Pornstache - Pablo Schreiber).
Unlocking The GatesOn March 31, 2015, The grandson of J Paul Getty, heir to the Getty oil fortune, was found dead in his Hollywood Hills mansion with his pants pulled down, bleeding profusely from his anus. Why did Andrew Getty, son of Gordon Getty, the 54th richest man in the United States at the time, die in the manner that he did, from blunt force rectal trauma? And how was death from anal rape classified as "natural causes" by the LAPD after very little investigation?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/grandson-getty-oil-tycoon-found-dead-home-report-article-1.2168965 http://www.news.com.au/world/oil-heir-andrew-getty-found-dead-in-los-angeles-mansion-with-traumatic-rectal-injury/news-story/f522b74f624a9374b7741676d3b5f6f6 The autopsy on Andrew Getty, performed on April 2, 2015, included a toxicology report showing that methamphetamine and prescription drugs were present in Getty's blood at the time of his death and that duodenal ulcers could have caused gastrointestinal bleeding. Drug paraphernalia were also found in the home. However, the issue of "severe blunt trauma to the rectum" has yet to be explained or properly investigated by authorities.
https://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/andrew-getty-autopsy-result-ulcer-related/2015/06/17/id/650955/
Andrew Getty was not the first grandson of J. Paul Getty to die in middle age under odd, drug-related circumstances. The family appears to be unusually plagued by decadent living, tragedy and drug addiction resulting in death, including the suicide of J Paul Getty's oldest son, J Paul II. You can read a comprehensive article by Forbes Magazine on the history of the Getty family and their fortune, made largely in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait by J Paul Getty Sr., here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2015/04/23/the-getty-family-a-cautionary-tale-of-oil-adultery-and-death/#55e5b9367eee
Additionally, Gordon Getty, Andrew's father, kept a second family, which was an "open-secret" in Hollywood circles. http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-2nd-getty-family-an-open-secret-20150331-story.html Andrew's cousin, J. Paul Getty III, was kidnapped in Italy in 1973 and the kidnappers cut off the 16-year-old's ear after J. Paul Getty Sr. refused to pay the ransom. Getty Sr. eventually paid a ransom of approximately 3 million dollars. Once released by the kidnappers, Getty Jr. cut off all contact with J. Paul Sr. and his own father and led a reckless life of drug addiction and fast living until experiencing a debilitating stroke in his 20s. He died in 2011 at age 54. In addition, Getty Jr.'s stepmother, actress Talitha Pol, died of a heroin overdose in 1971.
The Getty Museum, a fortress engineered to withstand high levels of radiation, nuclear fallout and high magnitude earthquakes, was built when the original Getty Villa, still housing the Getty's antiquities collection in Malibu, California, became too small to accommodate Getty's enormous art collection. Sir John Paul Getty, (born Eugene Paul Getty; September 7, 1932 – April 17, 2003), the elder son of Jean Paul Getty Sr. (1892–1976), was responsible for developing and completing the Getty Center Museum fortress. In 1986, he was awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth for loyalty and "services" to the Crown (to the tune of 200 million dollars) and for his support of the Conservative Party. His honorary knighthood became true knighthood when he became a British citizen in 1997. Interestingly, The Getty Center, the big sister campus to the Malibu Villa, of the Getty Museum, which cost $1.3 billion to build, opened to the public on December 16, 1997. In 1998 Eugene changed his name to Sir Paul Getty. An ex-CIA operative, Steven D Kelley, claims that the knighting of Sir Paul Getty was payment for services rendered in building the Getty Center Museum complex and the massive deep underground facilities beneath the Center. This man purports that the Getty Museum is situated over a vast tunnel network and massive underground facility designed to house the British Royal Family in the event they should need to go into hiding. The operative also claims that there are thousands of children being bred and held captive under the Getty Fortress and used in breeding programs, satanic ritual abuse and then harvested as food, adrenalized blood elixirs and bone marrow stem cell crops. Please see the bottom of this article to sign a petition, organized by Kelley, to request that the United States Marines raid the Getty and free these captive children. Here is the Getty Center in Brentwood, California:
AMTV's Chris Green interviews ex-CIA operative, Steven D Kelley, who is currently working to compel the FBI to raid the underground base beneath the Getty Museum:
Last week, the Getty Museum was engulfed in a raging wildfire, making it inaccessible, while hundreds of homes in Bel Air were burning and thousands of people were forced to evacuate. The scene was apocalyptic, with people recording the blaze with their cell phones, depicting scenes reminiscent of Dante's INFERNO. Who started these fires? Why? Are they the result of directed energy weapons? If so, what are they attempting to destroy or cover up? Is there a major deep state or white hat operation going down behind the "smoke screen" of this "inferno'?
Yesterday, SGT Report published an excellent video connecting the Getty to the elite pedophile rings in Hollywood and the current exposure these rings are getting. Is the deep state planning to "sacrifice" the Getty Museum and underground base, with its massive holding of irreplaceable art and artifacts and the alleged thousands of children held captive beneath it, in order to cover up the mass child trafficking operation going on within this possible satanic stronghold:
Ironically, a Sony blockbuster film, All The Money In The World, starring Kevin Spacey and depicting the story of J. Paul Getty Sr.'s refusal to pay for his grandson's ransom, was due for release on December 22, 2017.
Then Kevin Spacey was accused by multiple men of molestation, rape and sexual harassment, the most recent accusation coming out only two weeks ago. Spacey's Netflix series, House of Cards, was cancelled as a result and he will no longer receive the Emmy award that he was supposed to be presented with in January of 2018. Spacey has been linked to billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express pedophile ring, taking multiple flights with Bill Clinton to Epstein's Caribbean pedo-island, where the elite engage in sex with minors and children who are trafficked to the island.
http://www.realclearlife.com/movies/allegations-sexual-harassment-kevin-spacey-surface/
http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/kevin-spacey-lolita-express-bill-clinton/ Ridley Scott, the award winning director, refused to scrap the film and is re-shooting all of Spacey's scenes, this time with J Paul Getty played by veteran actor, Christopher Plummer.
Why is the film All The Money In The World being made to be released for Christmas, 2017? What is happening underground at the Getty Museum in Brentwood, California, while LA burns? Are we about to be indoctrinated with J Paul Getty's tragic yet sentimentalized life story spun by the CIA-run Hollywood machine in order to hide a much more serious and sinister reality-- the global elite child trafficking and harvesting industry and the breakaway civilization's literal feeding on the flesh and blood and sexualized terror of human children? What about the British Crown and Getty family's involvement in it? Just as the sacrifice of Harvey Weinstein was an attempt to take the focus off of Pizzagate, the film All The Money In The World is meant to implant our minds with a programmed message from the deep state elite.
What do you think that message is?If changing demographics and the longer elapsed time since the era of John Gotti and Jimmy Burke meant Ozone Park was losing its notoriety as a mob epicenter, the |
and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this month was so powerful. The U.S. and Canada, the world’s second-largest and fourth-largest methane polluters, respectively, have committed to reducing methane pollution 40 to 45 percent. This is the meaningful action that this problem demands.
The new federal standards on methane will bring important benefits to Ohioans. There will be health benefits for the residents who live nearest to oil and gas development in eastern Ohio, since methane is a major contributor to smog. There will be a reduction in lost resources from capturing methane, as the gas would otherwise be wasted. There will even be more good-paying jobs right here in Ohio from a growing industry in methane mitigation technology.
We have reached the point where we cannot afford to wait to act. The discussion is no longer whether or not to address dangerous methane pollution from the oil and gas industry, but how quickly we can address it and how much of the damage can be undone.
It is our hope that the President acts swiftly to follow through on his promise to tackle existing source methane pollution. A draft rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the immediate future will be essential to addressing this challenge. The President’s leadership on this issue will help ensure that our nation does its part in the global fight against climate change and that Ohioans, especially those living nearest to oil and gas development, are safe from dangerous air pollution.
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1SniPb9Throughout the late 19th century racial tension grew throughout the United States. More of this tension was noticeable in the Southern parts of the United States. In the south, people were blaming their financial problems on the newly freed slaves that lived around them. Lynchings were becoming a popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to the free blacks.
From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. The blacks lynched accounted for 72.7% of the people lynched. These numbers seem large, but it is known that not all of the lynchings were ever recorded. Out of the 4,743 people lynched only 1,297 white people were lynched. That is only 27.3%. Many of the whites lynched were lynched for helping the black or being anti lynching and even for domestic crimes.
Was lynching necessary? To many people it was not, but to the whites in the late 19th century it served a purpose. Whites started lynching because they felt it was necessary to protect white women. Rape though was not a great factor in reasoning behind the lynching. It was the third greatest cause of lynchings behind homicides and ‘all other causes’.
Most of the lynchings that took place happened in the South. A big reason for this was the end of the Civil War. Once black were given their freedom, many people felt that the freed blacks were getting away with too much freedom and felt they needed to be controlled. Mississippi had the highest lynchings from 1882-1968 with 581. Georgia was second with 531, and Texas was third with 493. 79% of lynching happened in the South.
Of the lynching that did not take place in the South, mainly in the West, were normally lynchings of whites, not blacks. Most of the lynching in the West came from the lynching of either murders or cattle thief’s. There really was no political link to the lynching of blacks in the South, and whites in the West.
Not all states did lynch people. Some states did not lynch a white or a black person. Alaska, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut were these few states that had no lynchings between 1882-1968.
Although some states did have lynchings, some of them did not lynch any blacks. Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin were some states that did not lynch any blacks to record.
Quite a few states did in fact lynch more white people than black. In the West these greater number of white lynchings was due to political reasons not racial reasons. California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming lynched more whites than blacks.
It’s sad to think that we look at other countries and deem them immoral for killing their own people, but we over look the fact of what happened in the late 1890’s to the late 1960’s. This is something that we cannot over look and do not need to try to over look it.
http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynchingstat.html
MAY 19, 1918
Walter White was sent by the NAACP to investigate lynchings in Brooks- Lowndes County, Georgia. The lynching of Mary Turner was one of the investigations.
Abusive plantation owner, Hampton Smith, was shot and killed. A week long manhunt resulted in the killing of the husband of Mary Turner, Hayes Turner.
Mary Turner denied that her husband had been involved in Smith’s killing, publicly opposed her husband’s murder, and threatened to have members of the mob arrested.
On May 19th, a mob of several hundred brought her to Folsom Bridge which separates Brooks and Lowndes counties in Georgia. The mob tied her ankles, hung her upside down from a tree, doused her in gasoline and motor oil and set her on fire.
Turner was still alive when a member of the mob split her abdomen open with a knife and her unborn child fell on the ground. The baby was was stomped and crushed as it fell to the ground. Turner’s body was riddled with hundreds of bullets.
TENNESSEE 1918
Walter White, The Crisis, May 1918
(Of fair skin and with straight hair, Walter White, assistant secretary for the NAACP, used his appearance to increase his effectiveness in conducting investigations of lynchings and race riots in the South. He could “pass” and talk to whites, but identified as Black and could talk to members of the African American community. Through 1927 White would investigate 41 lynchings.)
Jesse McIlherron was prosperous in a small way. He was a Negro who resented the slights and insults of white men. He went armed and the sheriff feared him. On February 8, he got into a quarrel with three young white men who insulted him. Threats were made and McIlherron fired six shots, killing two of the men.
He fled to the home of a colored clergyman who aided him to escape, and was afterwards shot and killed by a mob. McIlherron was captured and full arrangements were made for a lynching. Men, women and children started into the town of Estill Springs from a radious of fifty miles. A spot was chosen for the burning. McIlherron was chained to a hickory tree while the mob howled about him. A fire was built a few feet away and the torture began. Bars of iron were heated and the mob amused itself by putting them close to the victim, at first without touching him. One bar he grasped and as it was jerked from his grasp all the inside of his hand came with it. Then the real torturing began, lasting twenty minutes.
During that time, while his flesh was slowly roasting, the Negro never lost nerve. He cursed those who tortured him and almost to the last breath derided the attempts of the mob to break his spirit.
The CRISIS Magazine Lynching ArticlesI recently wrote to Loz Kaye, the leader of the UK Pirate Party, to congratulate him and his party on their brother’s and sister’s victory in Berlin. I pointed out that in Europe they were at a cross roads. As they grow in maturity and power as a political party, something yet to occur in the UK, it will become harder to talk to and work with supporters in other political parties. There is a mature balancing act to be taken in advancing their ideas, most of which I agree with, and winning political power. In my mind, they have to find a route between supporting the growth of broad campaigning groups such as the ORG or building their own organisation. There is a tendency in both the Liberal Democrats and the British Trotskyist movement to consider each new party member a victory for the cause. Both parties often win these cadres at the cost of those they create, dispirited by defeat who give up on politics. Each person who gives up on politics and hope is a loss to democracy, and we are not winning.
The predecessor party to the Greens was founded in 1975. In 2010, they won their first MP’s seat. It took ’em 35 years. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were exiled in 1834, Kier Hardie, Labour’s first MP was elected in 1892, a 58 year interregnum. (Let’s face it, he and his supporters had a bigger struggle since there was no universal suffrage in the UK until 1928, or 1948 or 1972, depending on how you want to count these things!) If you don’t get it right, it’s going to be a long wait.
It’s a fantasy to believe that the Pirates will replace the Greens or Reds, and certainly not one at a time. I suggested that the Pirate Party needs to consider alliances and keep its eye on the prize which in the short term in the UK is about the repeal or reform of the Digital Economy Act. They should also keep their demand for the shortening of copyright and the permitting of personal use rights on the table. It’s a major blow to our friends in the Liberal Democrats, and all opponents of the Digital Economy Act that despite their victories in their Party, this will not be part of the “Great Freedom” bill. We should all be honest and recognise that the supporters of digital liberty are loosing.
We i.e. digital freedom campaigners need all the friend we can find, which is why I find his welcome to Harriet Harman in her new role as Shadow Spokesman on Culture, Media and Sport churlish. If we want to win the Labour Party, even some of it, or the Trade Unions to our cause, you need to do better than that, and if you don’t want them on your side, tell your supporters the truth, they’ll be waiting for another 50 years in the UK.
Just one more cadre
Share this: TwitterA video game so boring that people can rarely play it for more than a couple of minutes has become surprisingly popular.
The online game Waiting in Line 3D was released Monday by developer RajeevBasu, and was played 50,000 times in its first 24 hours on its official website, www.waitinginline3d.com.
In the game, you are standing in a line of about 20 people, and as time goes on, you start to fall asleep, as indicated by a shrinking bar on your screen. You can wake yourself up by pressing the spacebar to "punch" yourself.
"The trick is you need to punch yourself, but not too much, or you die," Basu told Carol Off, co-host of CBC's As It Happens, in an interview.
He said his goal was "to create something that was so un-fun and uninteresting that it might come back full circle and you might stick with it and see what happens."
The game is not as easy as it looks, discovered Off, who lasted only about 10 seconds and scored "0" on each of her two attempts at the game.
Basu reassured her that most people only last a couple of minutes.
"You need a real iron will, I think, to get even a single point in this game," he said.Below you will find ten fun low-cost board games and card games to help your children learn to read and practice their reading skills. These games are a great way to foster your children’s/students’ phonics, sight-word, vocabulary, and fluency skills (all important elements of becoming an effective reader). For students who are struggling or just learning, an adult should play with the child/children, providing assistance as needed. Children who are more independent with their reading skills often love playing these fun board games with each other.
Research demonstrates the benefits of applying a multi-sensory approach to reading instruction. A multi-sensory approach incorporates the senses such as sight, sound, and touch into instruction. This helps address a variety of learning styles. Some children learn best by hearing, some by seeing, some by doing, and others need multiple types of input to learn a concept. Playing board games allows for a fun, engaging experience that incorporates a multi-sensory approach. To learn about the research on multi-sensory methods see Using Multi-Sensory Methods in Reading and Literacy Instruction.
10 Fun Games To Help Children with Reading
1. Learning Resources Pop For Sight Words Game
For 2 to 4 players. Ages 5+
Kids will gobble up foundational reading skills as they recognize and read aloud sight words. This fast-paced game play is great for improving fluency and vocabulary. Players keep piling up the kernels, when they read the words correctly (Adults can provide assistance and slowly fade it out as children’s skills improve). Pull a POP kernel, and all your pieces go back!
Sight words are high-frequency words that are crucial for reading fluency. Make sight-word practice as much fun as possible with this popular Pop for Sight Words game! Basic game-play instructions are printed on the box—but look for ways to put your own twist on things! For example, decide on a silly activity that everyone has to perform when you pull a POP kernel. Or, challenge children by asking them to read the word and use it in a sentence. The options are endless.
2. Learning Resources POP for Word Families Card Game
2 to 4 players. Ages 6+
Pull out a popcorn piece and create a word with that ending. A POP kernel means all your pieces go back. Start with 2-letter endings, then move up to 3-letter endings and rhyming practice (adults support and guidance as needed). Includes 92 word family cards, 8 POP cards, spinner and guide (printed on box).
3. ThinkFun What’s Gnu
Up to six players. Ages 5+
This game is a great way for younger players to practice their word recognition and spelling skills, while building confidence. Players slide the “Letter Getter” forward to reveal two letter tiles, and then use them to create three-letter words by filling in the blanks on their Word-Starter cards. You can play with your child or a group of children providing support as needed.
4. Learning Resources Snap It Up! Phonics:Word Families
2 or more players. Ages 6+
This exciting, fast-paced card game provides kids with hard-hitting practice in reading skills! Players pick and pass cards as fast as they can to spell words. It’s fast! It’s crazy! And it’s so much fun, kids will want to snap it up again and again! Each game includes 90 cards (adults provide guidance as needed-play with your kids so they get the hang of it).
5. Trend Enterprises Sight Words Bingo Flash Cards
36 Bingo Cards. Ages 5+
6.
2 to 8 players. Ages 6+ Children practice reading 46 words from common vocabulary lists. The unique, 6-way format adapts to a variety of skill levels and is a fun learning supplement for small groups or the entire class. Also ideal for learners with disabilities and anyone learning English. Set includes 36 playing cards, 264 playing chips, caller’s mat and cards and a sturdy storage box.6. Spot It! Basic English Spot It! Basic English boosts learning and reading while having fun. The 55 cards in this game feature universal images and words for emergent readers, including sight words. There is always one, and only one, matching symbol between any two cards. Spot it to win! The match may be between a word and its corresponding picture, between two pictures, or between two words. While the repetition solidifies word recognition, the pictures support reading comprehension. There are three ways to play with different challenge levels. The rule booklet also includes tips for advanced play. In a tiny durable tin, this game is easy to toss in a backpack and take to school, back home, and on trips. Spot it! Basic English is an ideal classroom activity and kids can play at home to practice reading skills with family members.
7. Zingo Word Builder Board Game
2 to 6 players. Ages 5+
Build reading skills, three letters at a time. This game is the perfect confidence booster for early readers. Ideal for players who are just learning how to put letters together to form words, it’s great for teaching spelling and vocabulary. With two levels of play, it’s designed to engage and support both beginner and more experienced readers (provide adult support as needed). Just slide the Zinger and pick tiles to fill your Zingo card with three letter words.
8. Zingo! Sight Words
2 to 6 players. Ages 4+
Zingo! Sight Words brings young children the fun of the classic game of bingo while they learn to recognize sight words. Players learn to quickly read important, commonly used words that don’t always “sound out” easily. The interactive Zinger! machine lets your child slide the dispenser to release two word tiles, recognize and read the words, then see if the words match the squares on their word card. The first player to fill all the squares on their card with tiles is the winner. Zingo! Sight Words is different than other Bingo type sight word games because the cards give visual hints to help children who are still learning to read the words.
9. Erudition
2 to 4 players. Ages 4+
Er-u-di-tion, an award winning educational board game, jump-starts the road to reading by incorporating over 300 sight words and the letters of the alphabet in an enjoyable, engaging activity. The game takes emergent readers on a fun adventure through literacy land, complete with common landmarks and street signs. They earn a bonus roll after correctly identifying a game card. The first player to reach the library is the winner! Players of all reading levels may participate, because they choose from one of four game cards: blue game cards – upper & lower case letters, green game cards – beginner level sight words, yellow game cards – intermediate level sight words, red game cards – advanced level sight words (as always, provide adult support as needed). The blue cards also contain two words that emphasize that letter’s fundamental phonic sound. The sight word game cards divide words into syllables and give simple definitions to assist in word pronunciation and reading comprehension. Through repetitive interaction with basic phonic sounds, sight words and their definitions, emergent readers enhance their reading skills while playing a fun game.
10. Funny Mix Superhero Phonics Learn to Read Card Game
2 to 4 players. Ages 4+
This game teaches consonants, vowels, and three-letter and four-letter words (provide adult support as needed). The teaching methods are based on evidenced-based strategies such as teaching phonemic awareness and assessing skills with nonsense words.
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Thank you for visiting educationandbehavior.com. A free resource for parents, educators, and counselors! Browse our topics from the navigation bar above! Receive our updates on Facebook!Tanya Hill was 27 years old when she was found dead, face-down and nearly naked, in her Barton Street East apartment in Hamilton.
And even after five years have passed, her family has been asking questions about the circumstances of her death and the official conclusion that there was no foul play.
Hill's death on March 5, 2011, was deemed accidental, the result of toxic alcohol levels in her system, according to the official coroner's report her family received.
The coroner found her blood alcohol level was at a "fatal level" of 450 after a night of drinking with her boyfriend and other friends.
'My girlfriend was killed last night'
But that coroner's report also states on the day Tanya's body was found her boyfriend told police, "My girlfriend was killed last night."
Family doubts 27-year-old Tanya Hill's death was an accident 2:55 Family members believe there's more to the story, and that officials didn't take the opportunity to investigate further.
"They made up their idea about who she was, I guess – a Native, drunken Indian," said Tanya's mother, Rhonda Hill-Maracle.
"That's what was so disheartening," said Wendy Hill, Tanya's aunt. "Not only the fact that she died but how they treated us and how they thought of her. How they thought of all of us."
Photographs and memories adorn a poster put together after Tanya Hill's death in 2011 at the age of 27. (Rhonda Hill-Maracle)
34 cases across Canada
Hill's death is one of 32 deaths and two disappearances of Indigenous women across Canada, investigated by CBC News, in which authorities ruled there was no foul play.
Despite official rulings of suicide or accidental death, CBC News has found evidence in some cases of unexplained injuries, suspicious circumstances, failure to interview key witnesses and persons of interest who have never been convicted.
The pan-Canadian CBC News analysis has found:
Ten of the women had unexplained injuries, though officials claimed they did not contribute to the deaths.
Seventeen of the women were involved in domestic and family violence, where families insist there was a clear suspect.
Six of the women were found nude or partially clothed in suspicious or anomalous circumstances.
In 31 of the cases, a person of interest was identified at some stage either by police or family members, but none was ultimately judged responsible for the death.
In five of the cases, coroner findings and police determinations appear to be in conflict with each other.
In 25 of the 34 cases, families say they felt racism and assumptions about the woman and her lifestyle hampered the investigation.
"It leaves the families with no answers and a lot of unresolved grief. They're still grieving because they have no resolution," said Gail Gallagher, senior manager of violence prevention with the Native Women's Association of Canada.
A family photo of Tanya Hill. (Rhonda Hill-Maracle)
'The case became more complex'
A coroner's report was clear on the cause of Hill's death.
"There was no visible trauma to the body," the report states. "There were many empty bottles of alcohol in the apartment."
But some of the details in the report raise questions for Hill's family.
One: She was found naked except that the shirts she was wearing were pulled up over her head.
There were two marks on her abdomen "that were unexplained but that would not have caused death," according to the coroner's report.
And then there were the details about Hill's romantic partner. Family members told CBC News that she had told them she was leaving her partner within days.
She was planning to leave her partner and to move home, to Six Nations near Brantford, her mother said.
But she hadn't yet left when she died.
(Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner)
"The case became more complex when her partner presented himself to Hamilton Wentworth Regional Police and seemed to be confessing to causing her death," the coroner's report states.
It goes on: "There was a long history of domestic violence between the deceased and her partner."
The coroner's report says after that conversation between the partner and police, the investigation was temporarily turned over to police detectives with the Major Crimes unit.
Hamilton Police did not address questions about the interaction between police and Hill's partner. They say they are not conducting a criminal investigation.Stream Foo Fighters ‘Sonic Highways’ Album In Full
After the promo teases, the badass HBO music-history documentary series, social media overloads and beyond, the new Foo Fighters album Sonic Highways is now streaming for fans’ breathlessly anticipatory pleasure.
Recorded across the country in a handful of iconic recording studios alongside a barrage of guest musicians associated with each landmark city. Artists included on the recordings are Gary Clark Jr. (Austin), Eagles’ Joe Walsh (Los Angeles), and Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen (Chicago), with additional possible appearances from Carrie Underwood, Public Enemy’s Chuck D, and Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes. The LP hits stores on Monday, November 10, and though the show is only halfway through it’s run of episodes, you can stream the whole thing now over iTunes Radio.
Preorder at the official Foo Fighters site.All submissions are closed.
Writers! We want your stories and poems for Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk & Eco-Speculation, the upcoming anthology of speculative fiction edited by us, Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Wieland. Set for publication in spring 2017, Sunvault will open to submissions following the funding of our Kickstarter project in April.
We want this anthology to reach outside Western and Anglophone traditions of speculative fiction, showcasing the way environment and environmental issues are talked about and perceived in all parts of the world. We encourage and welcome submissions from diverse voices and under-represented populations, including, but not limited to, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, those with disabilities, and the elderly. Authors of all walks of life should feel encouraged to send us stories and poems celebrating these diverse characters and settings all around us.
What are we looking for?
We want short stories and poems that fall under the scope of speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, weird fic, etc.). If you’re unsure, submit! We love to be surprised.
The anthology will focus on times of environmental crisis and the people inhabiting these tipping points, fighting to effect change and seek solutions, even if it’s already too late. But these are times of hope, not just disaster! Turn your lens to those crucial moments in a world’s history when great change can be made by the right people with the right tools. Remember: hope can spark in even the grimmest of situations.
Is there environmental SF already?
There is! Although environmental factors in SF aren’t seen as frequently as other issues, writers are addressing it in revolutionary ways. Here are some examples of SF with primary environmental concerns:
Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy
Paulo Bacigalupi’s novels
Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Vaster than Empires and More Slow”
George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road
Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer
Maureen McHugh’s Mission Child
Edan Lepucki’s California
Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy
The list goes on. Not all of these stories, though, truly fall into the solarpunk category. So what is solarpunk?
What is solarpunk?
Solarpunk follows in the tradition of steampunk and cyberpunk as the embodiment of a counterculture ideology: innovating a way of life that is better for the present and ultimately better for the future. Concepts like clean energy and sustainability are integral to solarpunk as they are outlets for societal reform. The fight for positive change is where -punk comes into play.
There are various communities online that are imagining and building solarpunk as an idea and an aesthetic, but as a literary movement, it is as yet largely undefined. That’s where you come in. Sunvault is the SF community’s opportunity to define the solarpunk genre. We want to see your conceptions and interpretations of the genre. We want to see what solarpunk looks like to you.
Length & Payment:
We’re looking for short stories from 500 to 7500 words. Don’t query about longer pieces. We want to include as many stories as possible in the anthology, so we aren’t able to consider longer works. All authors will be paid 6 cents USD per word upon publication for original fiction.
We are also open for reprint submissions. Reprints are paid a flat rate of $50 for stories under 2000 words and $100 for stories over 2000 words. Please include a complete publication history for reprint submissions.
For poetry, we are looking for original, unpublished poems up to 200 lines or 500 words for prose poems. Please submit only up to five poems. All authors will be paid either 6 cents USD per word or 15 dollars per page, whichever is greater. Payment will be made upon publication.
We will accept submissions from any country.
Translations:
Translations are welcome. Please include proof that you have the permission of the original author to translate and submit the story, and provide the original author’s contact details as well as your own. Payment will be split equally between the translator and the author. If this is the first publication of the story in English, even if it has appeared in its original language in print, we will pay the rate for original work.
How to submit:
Submissions will open as soon as our Kickstarter is fully funded and run for approximately a month. Send your story or poems to us at sunvaultanthology[at]gmail.com with the subject like Fiction Submission: Title or Poetry Submission: Title for originals. For short story reprints, please put Reprint Submission: Title in the subject line. We will not be accepting poetry reprints. Submit translations as original pieces (if previously unpublished in English), but be clear that it is a translation in the body of your message. Please submit all poems in one document.
If the format is wrong, your work may end up in our spam folder, so be diligent. We will only read files sent as.doc,.docx,.odt, or.rtf.
Include a cover letter in the body of your email to tell us a bit about who you are. Please mention if it is a story or poems, the length, any relevant info we should know about the story or poems, and an author’s bio. Do not describe your story or poems in the cover letter.
We will accept simultaneous submissions, but if accepted, the piece must be withdrawn from submissions elsewhere. You may only submit one story during the reading period.
Art Submissions:
We will also open submissions to line drawings and coloring sheets!
Submissions will be open as soon as the Kickstarter is fully funded and stay open until June 30
Email all submissions (up to 5) to sunvaultanthology[at]gmail.com with the subject line Art Submission: TITLES
Art submission files should be.jpeg and at least 300 dpi resolution. For reference, the book will be 6″ x 9″, so artwork should be sized accordingly.
We’ll pay artists 100 USD upon publication
We are only open to line art and coloring pages due to publication restrictions.
Art has always been a foundational part of the solarpunk community, specifically art nouveau. We can’t wait to see how artists interpret the ideals of solarpunk and eco-speculation!
Response Time:
We won’t be responding to submissions until the reading period has officially closed, so response times will vary, but expect to hear back from us within 2-3 months. Please don’t query until after 3 months.
Cover artist Likhain’s color palette!
AdvertisementsHeard of DRACO? It stands for Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer. Back in August of 2011 I read a news office release from MIT’s Lincoln Lab, describing a new technology that could someday cure the common cold, influenza and other viral-derived illnesses. At the time I thought this is something to watch and see if comes out of the laboratory to become a reality. Unlike antibiotics designed to destroy bacterial invaders, DRACO focuses on viruses, and in particular, on a single universal feature common to all of them.
Viruses mutate rapidly. That’s why every year we need to get a new influenza shot because every year we tend to face a new viral variant. But what do they all have in common? A double strand of RNA that coerces the DNA of the cells they invade to replicate copies of themselves. Every time a cell is invaded by a virus it replicates on mass and then breaks out destroying its host.
So what if an infected cell died before the virus could replicate? And what if the double strand of RNA could be the identifier that would trigger premature cell death so that no viruses could infect neighbouring cells. Essentially that is the modus operandi for DRACO, switching on the suicide button in a cell once the viral RNA alarm bell goes off.
What constitutes a suicide button in a cell? A protein! Normally cells use proteins as messengers and instruction deliverers for the execution of cell function. DRACO is a combination of two recognized natural proteins commonly found in human cells. Called a superprotein, DRACO’s two components are PKR and Apaf-1. PKR stands for protein kinase RNA-activated. It tracks the RNA viral double strand within the cell. Apaf-1 stands for apoptotic peptidase activation factor 1, a protein that activates a cell’s suicide switch.
What viruses are the object of DRACO’s wrath? The superprotein is being tested in the lab to combat 15 different viruses including:
HIV (AIDS)
Influenza (the flu including H1N1, swine flu)
Rabies
Ebola
Rhinovirus (the common cold)
Dengue Fever
Tacaribe
TMEV
Amapari
Reovirus
Adenovirus (respiratory infections)
Murine Adenovirus (internal organ infections)
Varicella zoster (chicken pox)
When will DRACO be available for human trial?. As early as 2017 with large-scale trials planned for 2020. FDA and other health authority approvals are expected by 2022.
For a recent article on DRACO, look for the September/October 2012 issue of Science Illustrated. Great pictures and good explanations.COLUMBUS, Ohio – One of the tactics that discourages student cheating may not work as well in courses that college students particularly dislike, a new study has found.
Previous research suggests instructors who emphasize mastering the content in their classes encounter less student cheating than those who push students to get good grades.
But this new study found emphasizing mastery isn’t related as strongly to lower rates of cheating in classes that students list as their most disliked. Students in disliked classes were equally as likely to cheat, regardless of whether the instructors emphasized mastery or good grades.
Eric Anderman
The factor that best predicted whether a student would cheat in a disliked class was a personality trait: a high need for sensation, said Eric Anderman, co-author of the study and professor of educational psychology at The Ohio State University.
People with a high need for sensation are risk-takers, Anderman said.
“If you enjoy taking risks, and you don’t like the class, you may think ‘why not cheat.’ You don’t feel you have as much to lose,” he said.
Anderman conducted the study with Sungjun Won, a graduate student in educational psychology at Ohio State. It appears online in the journal Ethics & Behavior and will be published in a future print edition.
The study is the first to look at how academic misconduct might differ in classes that students particularly dislike.
“You could understand why students might be less motivated in classes they don’t like and that could affect whether they were willing to cheat,” Anderman said.
The researchers surveyed 409 students from two large research universities in different parts of the country.
The students were asked to answer questions about the class in college that they liked the least.
Participants were asked if they took part in any of 22 cheating behaviors in that class, including plagiarism and copying test answers from another student. The survey also asked students their beliefs about the ethics of cheating, their perceptions of how much the instructor emphasized mastery and test scores, and a variety of demographic questions, as well as a measure of sensation-seeking.
A majority of the students (57 percent) reported a math or science course as their most disliked. Large classes were not popular: Nearly half (45 percent) said their least favorite class had more than 50 students enrolled, while two-thirds (65 percent) said the course they disliked was required for their major.
The most interesting finding was that an emphasis on mastery or on test scores did not predict cheating in disliked classes, Anderman said.
In 20 years of research on cheating, Anderman said he and his colleagues have consistently found that students cheated less – and believed cheating was less acceptable – in classes where the goals were intrinsic: learning and mastering the content. They were more likely to cheat in classes where they felt the emphasis was on extrinsic goals, such as successful test-taking and getting good grades.
This study was different, Anderman said.
In classes that emphasized mastery, some students still believed cheating was wrong, even in their most-disliked class. But when classes are disliked, the new findings suggest a focus on mastery no longer directly protects against cheating behaviors. Nevertheless, there is still a positive relation between actual cheating and the belief that cheating is morally acceptable in those classes.
“When you have students who are risk-takers in classes that they dislike, the benefits of a class that emphasizes learning over grades seems to disappear,” he said.
But Anderman noted that this study reinforced results from earlier studies that refute many of the common beliefs about student cheating.
“All of the things that people think are linked to cheating don’t really matter,” he said.
“We examined gender, age, the size of classes, whether it was a required class, whether it was graded on a curve – and none of those were related to cheating once you took into account the need for sensation in this study,” he said. “And in other studies, the classroom goals were also important.”
The good news is that the factors that cause cheating are controllable in some measure, Anderman said. Classes can be designed to emphasize mastery and interventions could be developed to help risk-taking students.
“We can find ways to help minimize cheating,” he said.What is a laser?
Laser stands for Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation. One basic type of laser consists of a sealed tube, containing a pair of mirrors, and a laser medium that is excited by some form of energy to produce visible light, or invisible ultraviolet or infrared radiation.
There are many different types of lasers and each uses a different type of laser medium. Common laser media include gases such as argon or a helium and neon mixture, solid crystals such as ruby, and liquid dyes or chemicals. When energy is applied to the laser medium, it becomes excited and releases energy as particles of light (photons).
A pair of mirrors at either end of the sealed tube either reflects or transmits the light (see illustration below) in the form of a concentrated stream called a laser beam. Each laser medium produces a beam of a unique wavelength and color.
Laser
What are lasers used for?
Lasers are used for a variety of purposes including pointing out objects during a presentation |
TwitterXseed Games has revealed its full E3 line-up, which includes a good number of titles we knew about and one major surprise we weren't expecting.
Way back in January, we heard about two new Senran Kagura games being released in Japan - Deep Crimson for the 3DS and Dekamori Senran Kagura for the PS Vita.
Described as - ahem - a "hyper big-breasted cooking-rhythm game", we kinda figured Dekamori wouldn't make its way to the west.
Now Xseed's proved us wrong by announcing a winter 2014 release date for Senran Kagura Bon Appétit! - which has also sneaked its way into its E3 line-up.
Senran Kagura Bon Appétit! is a straight-up rhythm game that sets the shinobi girls of Senran Kagura against one another in cooking challenges - which seems pretty tame at first.
But because this is a Senran Kagura game, clothing will come flying off as the culinary battles rage on - leaving the losing girl in an "outfit" that would violate a great many health codes.
Joining Senran Kagura Bon Appétit! at E3 will be demos for Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed (PS Vita), Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus (PS Vita), the next non-Harvest Moon Harvest Moon game Story of Seasons (3DS), and a Nihon Flacom dungeon crawler Brandish: The Dark Revenant (PSP).
We have not one but two booth visits planned with our friends at Xseed this year, so we'll be sure to bring you plenty of coverage - and exclusive information - next week.The progressive Left’s opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Ben Carson to be the next Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is predictably condescending, biased and hypocritical. For example, out-of-touch Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Carson a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice." Democratic Senate Minority Leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer said he had "serious concerns about Dr. Carson's lack of expertise and experience in dealing with housing issues. Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for housing secretary, to say the least."
It is incredible how progressives such as Pelosi and Schumer, neither of whom experienced real poverty first hand, are ready to demean Ben Carson, who grew up in abject poverty. They cannot deal with the fact that an incredibly accomplished African-American, who does not buy into the failed progressive ideology of big government social engineering, is poised to take over the leadership of a failing government bureaucracy that would rather dabble in social engineering than get its own house in order. Ben Carson simply does not fit the progressive image of how an African-American should think and act.
"I think the way that I'm treated, you know, by the left is racism," Ben Carson has said. "Because they assume because you're black, you have to think a certain way. And if you don't think that way, you're 'Uncle Tom,' you're worthy of every horrible epithet they can come up with,” he added.
Ben Carson’s credentials for reforming the bloated, mismanaged Department of Housing and Urban Development come from his real life experience. "I grew up in Detroit, and I grew up in Boston. In Boston, we lived in the ghetto. There were a lot of violent episodes there. There were rats, there were roaches. It was dire poverty," Carson said.
Carson’s opposition to government-imposed dependency is not based on some abstract conservative theory. He is not anti-government per se, but rejects the vicious circle of the dependency culture that progressive big government policies have fostered. “I'm interested in getting rid of dependency, and I want us to find a way to allow people to excel in our society, and as more and more people hear that message, they will recognize who is truly on their side and who is trying to keep them suppressed and cultivate their votes," Carson said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015.
Carson’s views are informed by what he saw first-hand growing up, including his own mother’s willingness to work at multiple jobs while raising her children as a single mother. She refused to simply rely on government handouts and instilled her work ethic in Ben Carson himself, which helped him escape the black hole of dependency. As a friend of Carson’s tweeted on Monday, "Dr. Carson's mother worked 3 jobs at a time to keep them out of public housing, but he grew up around many who utilized housing programs."
HUD is a failing government bureaucracy, which needs the kind of thorough overhaul that Ben Carson has the analytical skills to deliver, and the life experience to draw upon. He will not be trapped inside the bubble of conventional bureaucratic thinking that has led to gross financial mismanagement of HUD’s $50 billion annual budget during President Obama’s time in office, as well as poor performance. The fact that this renowned neurosurgeon, now retired, is willing to enter public service and bring a fresh outsider’s perspective to an entrenched government bureaucracy is to be lauded, not ridiculed.
During the tenure of the current HUD Secretary, Julián Castro, HUD’s own Office of Inspector General identified in its audit for fiscal years 2016 and 2015 eleven “material weaknesses,” seven “significant deficiencies” in internal controls, and five instances of “noncompliance” with applicable laws and regulations. “Overall, we determined that HUD’s financial management governance remained ineffective,” the Inspector General’s audit report concluded.
HUD’s management ignored over 60 prior recommendations on financial management presented by the Inspector General since 2012. Julián Castro became HUD Secretary in mid-2014, doing nothing since that time to fix the systemic problems at HUD. As Curtis Kalin, spokesman for Citizens Against Government Waste said to the Daily Caller News Foundation, “HUD’s failure to properly maintain basic financial documents calls into question the department’s commitment to safeguarding taxpayer dollars.”
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a separate blistering critique in July 2016 of HUD’s overall management and operations. “GAO and others continue to find deficiencies in numerous aspects of HUD’s operations,” the report said. “HUD has not fully met some requirements or implemented a number of key practices for its management functions, including performance planning and reporting and information technology (IT), human capital, financial, and acquisition management. In particular, some HUD plans for executing critical management functions are missing key elements…HUD also has not always maintained current and complete policies and procedures, an important component of agency governance.”
Perhaps Secretary Castro was too busy sucking up to Hillary Clinton, even to the point of violating the Hatch Act when he expressed support for her presidential candidacy in an interview last April, to be bothered about mismanagement and poor governance in his own agency. Castro was also preoccupied with his social engineering schemes to force so-called “affordable housing” into suburban communities. Never mind about the effect on resources for providing quality government services and on public safety. Castro also introduced other policy changes designed to placate the Left. This included replacing a market-driven process to get the best prices from investors for nonperforming loans with a government winner selection process where "approved" buyers based on “social” criteria would receive steep discounts in lieu of competitive bidding. This is an indirect subsidy funded by the taxpayers.
Meanwhile, from July 2014, when Secretary Castro assumed his responsibilities at HUD, through the third quarter of 2016, the home ownership rate in the United States declined from 64.7 percent to 63.50 percent. Note that this is significantly below the all time high of 69.20 percent achieved in the second quarter of 2004 during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
In other words, HUD’s administration under Obama’s HUD Secretary, Julián Castro, has been an utter disaster that will require a person of Ben Carson’s analytical skills and life experience to remediate.
Since the progressive Left is quick to criticize Ben Carson’s “lack of expertise and experience in dealing with housing issues,” as Chuck Schumer put it, it is fair to ask what qualifications Julián Castro had before becoming HUD Secretary that endeared him to the progressives other than his Latino background. He was, to be sure, the mayor of San Antonio, Texas. That sounds impressive until one learns that the mayoralty position in San Antonio is mostly ceremonial. The real day-to-day responsibilities are vested in a city manager, who is chosen by the city council. Moreover, in a sign of the financial mismanagement problems that Castro would continue to tangle with at HUD, a 2012 report from HUD’s Inspector General identified some troubles in the way San Antonio was spending federal money on housing. The audit found that starting in 2009, when Castro became the mayor of San Antonio, through 2011, San Antonio “did not administer its Neighborhood Stabilization Program Grant in accordance with requirements” of the federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and associated regulations.
In short, Julián Castro’s record was thin at best, accompanied by a warning sign from HUD of financial irresponsibility during his tenure as a city mayor. Yet the Senate vote to confirm Castro as HUD Secretary was 71-26. He faced little to no opposition on the way to his bipartisan confirmation. Any attempts by Democrats and their progressive Left supporters to throw roadblocks in the way of Ben Carson’s smooth confirmation to succeed Castro will prove their double standard partisanship and racial bias against free-thinking African-Americans.26 0 0 0
So the question was posed, “Zack, how would you respond when people say they’ll pray for you?” My response was some variation on, “Thanks, but I actually don’t believe in prayer.” This, to me, seemed simple and honest. The discussion on my Facebook wall involved several people suggesting that this, or any response that is not wholehearted acceptance of the offer, would be considered offensive and even a “slap in the face” to people who are simply trying to show their love to me. It wouldn’t matter how out of my way I went to express my gratitude for the sentiment; if I say anything about how I think about prayer, I’m being disrespectful and a bad example for atheists.
The truth of the matter is: I don’t want anyone to pray for me. I really don’t. The discussion on my Facebook page gave me a lot of opportunity to think about it, and I thought I’d offer an organized comprehensive explanation in this post.
First let me clarify: I’m not ungrateful. I think the reason why people want to pray for me is (usually (hopefully)) quite lovely. I greatly appreciate any demonstration of hope, optimism, and encouragement. I think that knowing that other people care enough about me that they are going to keep me on their minds is an incredible source of comfort. But, I don’t want them to actually pray for me.
There’s a difference between thinking about someone and praying for someone. For me to feel better, all people have to do is say they are going to keep me in their thoughts. Whether they actually do or not is irrelevant, because for me it’s just comforting to know that they might. When people commit to the actual act of prayer, this is a whole different level that I actually have a few problems with.
Let’s be honest here: prayer doesn’t work. People who think they are praying are not talking to God; they are talking to themselves. When people hear God reply, they are hearing themselves talk back. It might be different levels of consciousness, but it isn’t anything supernatural and it sure isn’t “God.” That observation isn’t “offensive” or “disrespectful,” and if you think it is, check yourself. If you have valid evidence to refute what I have said in this paragraph, then let’s have a debate about it, but if you simply don’t like my blatant portrayal of what actually happens when people pray, well then tough. The truth hurts. And if you say, “Well, I don’t care, I like how prayer makes me feel,” well then great, realize that prayer is delusional and reorient yourself to meditation and other forms of introspection. You might be surprised how much more rewarding it is to take the mask off your subconscious.
And while we’re at it, let’s just seal the deal on prayer. A recent study was done attempting to measure the effects of prayer, to see if people who are prayed for actually benefit. The results were an unsurprising blow to prayer. The cardiac patients who had the most complications were those who knew they were being prayed for. Even the people who did not know they were being prayed for had more complications than those who were not prayed for at all. I’m not suggesting prayer has a negative impact (though knowing you’re being prayed for might cause psychological stress). The study simply shows that prayer had no apparent effect whatsoever. Of course, believers often reject things like “facts” and “evidence” that don’t align with what they believe, so consider that study how you will.
So basically, point 1: The physical act of prayer is a waste of time. I appreciate your concern; it means a lot. I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t waste your time on my behalf doing something that’s actually not going to have any effect on me.
Following the rejection of logic that faithful prayer depends upon, it is also easy to observe how uncritically prayer is discussed. Prayer always gets credit when it works and never gets blamed when it doesn’t. How many successful athletes or celebrity award-recipients have you seen say, “Thank you, God! My success is your answer to my prayers!” You don’t think the other team, the other team’s fans, or the other nominees didn’t have anyone praying? Those prayers were not “answered.” But nobody seems to care when prayer doesn’t work, because “prayer works.”
Well, no, it doesn’t, and more importantly, I don’t want the events in my life to somehow suggest to anybody otherwise. If I experience the positive outcome that people prayed for, then that will validate the power of their own prayer. My own personal worldview is that critical thinking and skepticism—exploring the full capacity of the human mind—is the ideal, and to a certain extent, I’ll concede that I hope to “evangelize” by promoting others to think more critically. When people pray for me, they are in a way using me (against my will) to possibly validate their own beliefs. So really, when people tell me they are going to pray for me, they are also saying, “I want to support you, but I will pay no heed to honoring your worldview; you only get my support the way I want to give it.”
If you aren’t quite seeing this point, here’s another way of looking at it. People telling me they are going to pray for me inherently assume that I want their prayers to be answered. Obviously, what they are praying for is the desired outcome in my life, so naturally, I would want their prayer to work. Since I don’t want them to think their prayer works, the opposite is actually true. I similarly hope for the desired outcome, but I have no such wish that their prayers be validated. By asking them not to pray, I am simply correcting the false assumption they made about me (an assumption that reflects the privileged expectation that everybody believes in God).
So, point 2: People praying for me actually dishonors my own identity as an atheist. If anything, this is most evident by those who don’t want me to even inform or remind those who are praying for me that I am an atheist. How dare I infringe on their method of supporting me? If someone were beating the crap out of me, should I be grateful that they are dedicating their time and energy to me? I know, that’s not a very fair comparison, but I’m not keen on this notion that I should be grateful for things that don’t respect who I am or what I stand for.
You might have seen this one coming, but we’ve quickly arrived at point 3: Prayer is selfish. Prayer doesn’t benefit me, it actually disrespects me, and it “benefits” the people praying. I already know the retort to this, so follow me through this:
1. People pray because they want to support me. It’s how they show their love.
2. I’m suppose to appreciate their prayer because they believe it will help me.
3. If I don’t graciously accept their prayer, I am not showing respect to what they believe in their heart of hearts.
4. Oh wait! The whole point of this blog and my outspoken atheism is to challenge the “undeserved respect” that beliefs have in our society.
It really comes down to respecting belief. My whole worldview is constructed around not respecting beliefs, not being subjected to them, and openly questioning them. Apparently, since prayer is not my thing, I have no say in whether I am incorporated into other people’s beliefs against my will. Prayer is about the person praying. When people say they will pray for me, the slap in the face is to me; they are going to pray for me whether I like it or not. That’s certainly their choice (which I do respect), but suddenly it’s about them, not me. That’s really not a considerate show of support, is it?
To review:
» I greatly appreciate the sense of support that motivates a person to want to pray for me.
» I welcome such encouragement, but I do not want people to actually engage in the physical act of prayer on my behalf.
» Prayer is a waste of time. If people want to truly show they support me, they should do something better with their time.
» Prayer does not honor my worldview. If people want to truly show they support me, they should not subject me to support that I have no respect for.
» Prayer is a selfish act. If people want to truly show they support me, they should show their support in ways that actually support how I feel, not just how they feel.
What is really more important to people? Is it supporting me, as a fellow human being, or is it seeking support for their own beliefs? If we take a step back from the details, we can see that this whole social conundrum exists because of religious privilege.
A person says she’ll pray for me. (This is an expression of religious belief that is normalized and accepted.) I tell her I appreciate the sentiment, but that I don’t want her to pray on my behalf. (This is an equal but opposite point of view on a religious belief.) At this point, everything should be okay. She could say, “Oh, I understand that isn’t a kind of emotional support that actually helps you,” or “I respect that you would prefer I not include you in my prayers.” Maybe she doesn’t understand, but she could politely ask so that she could learn more about my point of view. The mere fact that my offer of a contrary position is considered “offensive” or “disrespectful” is evidence of the inherent privilege.
My request that people not pray for me is an exercise of my religious freedom. I do not want to be incorporated into other people’s beliefs. My saying so is deemed “offensive” because it is resistant to the norms of religious prevalence in society. It’s not actually offensive; it’s just contrary. I see no valid reason why I should keep my atheism “closeted” if I am able to discuss it politely the same way others discuss their religious beliefs openly.
And that’s why I do.British rock band Coldplay has been confirmed to headline the debut edition of the Global Citizen Festival on November 19 in Mumbai. The organisers have refuted reports that tickets for the fest have been set at astronomical prices.
“We’re so excited to be announcing that on World Toilet Day — November 19th — we’re hosting the first-ever Global Citizen Festival in India, with an incredible lineup of international and Indian headliners including Coldplay,” said a post on www.globalcitizen.org, the gala’s official website.
Coldplay comprises Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion. Martin, who visited Indialast year for the Global Poverty Project to oversee innovative projects addressing sanitation in local communities, is the curator for the Global Citizen Festival.
While reports have been rife that a Coldplay gig will soon enthrall Indian fans, a news report claiming that tickets for the show will be priced at a whopping Rs 25,000 to Rs 500,000 left the fans in a tizzy. The social media was abuzz on Friday with how the prices had left fans “Coldplayed”.
But putting rest to all concerns, the organisers have said: “Just like our annual festival in Central Park, entry to the Indian Festival will be free. Fans will earn them through taking actions in support of education, equality, and sanitation campaigns.”
Starting Monday, tickets to the Global Citizen Festival in Indiacan be earned through the new platform by signing up to become a Global Citizen and completing the festival’s action campaigns at GlobalCitizen.IN.
In its first year, Global Citizen Indiawill offer a wide cross-section of content and actions focused on creating meaningful impacts in the areas of education, equality, and clean water and sanitation. The event will also have a line-up of other international and Indian headliners.
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had participated in the Global Citizen Festival in New York. And in 2015, Martin met Modi to discuss Swachh Bharat, Namami Gange and Beti Bachao – Beto Padhao.
-IANSSunday: Pokémon Sun & Moon - NicoNico Stream + Pokémon Special + Pokémon of the Week by Serebii Be sure to check the previous updates. This update may be amended throughout the day so be sure to check back. If you have any ideas for the site, be sure to send them in
With the new generation upcoming, and the Chatroom has been rife with discussion while the WiFi Chatroom has been a place for battles, trades and Friend Safari hunting, so be sure to visit them. Our Forums have also had these discussion and are a bustling trade and competitive section for the games. Be sure to like our FaceBook Page.
Last Update: 21:35 BST
Edit @ 21:35: Pokémon GO Update In The Games Department Pokémon Sun & Moon A special broadcast has aired on NicoNico for Pokémon Sun & Moon and, within this it showed some gameplay footage early on. We'll update this as more details come.
In it, a minor feature was showcased of shaking grass. As the trainer approached it, the Pokémon in the shaking grass ran up to him. True mechanics of this feature are unclear at this time
12:32: After capturing a new Pokémon, Rotom will give you a report of how complete your Pokédex is in terms of percentage.
13:12: The stream went on to Ilima's trial which requires you to look around for Alolan Rattata which are hiding in parts of the cave. You get a Z Crystal for completion. It also confirmed that there are 7 trials. In The Games Department Pokémon GO A new patch has started to go live for Android and iOS devices, with a gradual release happening. This patch, Version 1.13.3, adds a difference in patterns for eggs based on the distance that's required to hatch them. They have also added icons for each Pokémon's type in the information screen. Finally, they have added a low battery indicator for the GO Plus. Full details of the patch are still coming so keep checking back In The Manga Department Pokémon Special - Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire In Japan, the latest saga of the Pokémon Special/Pokémon Adventures manga, focusing on the events of Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, has been going on in a variety of Japanese magazines. As such, Coronis has continued the section of this saga, bringing the ORAS sage to a conclusion. Click the image to go to our page
I In The Pokémon of the Week Department Who's That Pokémon Today marks the one-hundred & fifty-sixth entry into the Generation VI competitive field with a Hoenn Pokémon. These entries are created by the visitors for the visitors and then compiled by our writers Archangel, Miror, Psynergy, EKZ1505 & KillerDraco. To get involved, Click here for the discussion forum
Today, we are covering a Pokémon introduced in the third generation. Swampert is very strong. It has enough power to easily drag a boulder weighing more than a ton. This Pokémon also has powerful vision that lets it see even in murky water. Swampert predicts storms by sensing subtle differences in the sounds of waves and tidal winds with its fins. If a storm is approaching, it piles up boulders to protect itself.It can swim while towing a large ship. It bashes down foes with a swing of its thick arms. Its arms are rock-hard. With one swing, they can batter down its foe. It makes its nest on beautiful beaches. So, here it is, the one-hundred & fifty-sixth entry, Swampert Until Next Time, See YaIt’s funny sometimes to observe pundits’ amnesia and watch them contradict themselves. In the wake of last month’s historic Women’s March and on-going nationwide protests against Donald Trump’s immigration order, many liberal pundits seem to suddenly forget what they said about movement politics and mass protests just a few months ago.
In an about-face, they are now in awe of the sheer force and multitude of protesters and unequivocally sing their praises. Jonathan Chait, a prominent blogger for “New York Magazine,” wrote a piece called “Don’t let anybody tell you the marches didn’t matter” and tweeted “…the Women's Marches were more than a statement but a major event that changes the political landscape.”
Solid take, except that he dismissed the very concept of protests and marches just under a year ago. Back then, in the heat of 2016’s Democratic primaries, he bashed Bernie Sanders for believing “a sufficiently large crowd outside [Mitch] McConnell's window would make him support campaign finance reform.”
To be fair, Chait is probably right that a protest outside Mitch McConnell’s window in itself would not suddenly persuade him to back campaign finance reform. However, when Sanders talked about bringing millions of people to Washington, he was really talking about a new- or rather, old- approach to politics that is centered on popular political power and mass political mobilization.
Under this framework of grassroots politics, or in Sanders’ own words, “Political Revolution,” millions of protesters in Washington would only be a manifestation of the progressive movement’s power. The real struggles, meanwhile, take place locally across the country 24/7, with workers organizing for higher labor standards; progressive candidates challenging conservative Democrats in primaries; constituents flooding Republican legislators’ town halls and phone lines demanding accountability and working class people turning out to vote en masse. Indeed, when a political movement like this emerges, Mitch McConnell’s window in all likelihood could only be that of the minority leader’s office.
Of course, pundits, journalists and liberal politicians alike laughed at this idea at first. To them, politics is just another elite sport. Its players include only those who rose through the ranks of meritocracy and are supposed to know better, and it takes place solely in the hallowed halls of Congress, fancy Floridian retreats with big-money donors and comfortable reception rooms of K Street lobbying firms.
The people, what an annoyance, just come out and vote for us every two years and leave us everything else. Forget about participatory democracy and don’t ask for what you’re never going to get. We’ll take good care of you by making deals with Mitch McConnell. Be realistic. That’s how this thing works anyway.
This attitude was quite pronounced during an illuminating exchange between Chris Matthews and Bernie Sanders last year, during which the latter proposed bringing out millions of people to Washington to pressure the Republican Congress into backing progressive legislations.
Pressing Sanders on his method, Matthews repeatedly demanded: “What evidence do you have this has worked for you…what evidence do you have you can do it?” Well, just as Sanders responded, this is pretty much the only method that meaningful, lasting changes ever took place.
It is how the labor movement established labor standards like the minimum wage and 40-hour work weeks. It is how the suffragette movement won women the right to vote. It is how the Civil Rights Movement tore down segregation and Jim Crow laws, and it is how the LGBTQIA movement secured marriage equality.
None of these changes happened because Washington politicians woke up one day, sat down with one another, and suddenly decided to do the right thing. No. They happened because the people- yes, the ignorant, “unrealistic” people- organized and struggled for them.
When they go out and protest the injustices and talk to their neighbors, they create public support for their causes. When they engage their elected representatives and turn out in high numbers to vote, they make sure their voices are heard.
As Congressman Keith Ellison, a top contender to be the next DNC chair, said when addressing a labor rally outside of Trump hotel: “politicians see the light when they feel the heat; so when you guys bring the heat, that’s when we are going to win!”
Of course, if you live in D.C., read Politico all day and study court intrigues in the White House and on the Hill for a living, you might not see it this way. But Washington does not reflect the real America and career politicians are never the real change makers.
Notice how Hill Republicans are standing up to Trump’s immigration order and backtracking on “Repeal and Replace”? Congressional Democrats didn’t make this happen. Protesters and thousands upon thousands of angry constituents did.
So yes, grassroots organizing and mass mobilization are messy and time-consuming, but they work and are in fact the only way to create real change. In the era of Trump, it is especially important to remember this and not let the same politicians and operatives who lost the election to Donald Trump be the official face of “the resistance”. You are the resistance. Your voices and actions matter.
And finally, always stand up for what is right and never let pundits tell you that your demands are “unrealistic.” After all, what did they say about Trump becoming President of the United States?
Frank Yuwen Chen is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and the School of International Service and is a columnist for The Eagle.
fchen@theeagleonline.comIf opinions around corruption and rule of law can affect people’s reactions to dishonesty, Gächter reasoned that they surely affect how honest people are themselves. If celebrities cheat, politicians rig elections, and business leaders engage in nepotism, surely common citizens would feel more justified in cutting corners themselves.
To test this idea, Gächter and Schulz asked volunteers to roll a die twice, and report the first roll. They got a dollar if they reported a one, two if they reported two, and so on; a six, however, earned them nothing. The experimenters couldn’t see the results; they dished out money based entirely on what the volunteers said.
“The task contains a lot of psychological truth, exactly because it’s so simple,” says Gächter. If everyone was being honest, the average claim would be 2.5 dollars. If everyone was maximally dishonest, it would be 5 dollars. But there are many shades of gray between these black and white extremes. For example, volunteers could report the higher of the two rolls, rather than the first one. They’re still cheating, but it’s more like bending the rules rather than flagrantly ignoring them. It’s “justified dishonesty.” If they do that, the average payoff is 3.47 dollars.
Over five years, Schulz played this game with students from 23 countries, from the U.K. to Indonesia to Guatemala to Morocco. They chose these nations to represent a wide range on the “prevalence of rule violations” (PRV) index—a score that Gächter and Schulz created using 2003 indices of political fraud, tax evasion, and corruption.
Schulz found that people from high PRV countries, like Georgia, Tanzania, and Guatemala, behaved less honestly in the die-rolling game than those from low PRV countries like Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The former claimed an average of 3.53 dollars; the latter claimed 3.17.* So no country was perfectly honest or dishonest. Players from every nation bent the rules a bit, but their propensity for doing so varied depending on the level of corruption around them. “They show that being exposed to corrupt environments corrupts the individual,” says Shaul Shalvi from the University of Amsterdam.
This is a subtler result than it might first seem. For example, Gächter and Schulz found that the number of people who said they rolled a five—a number that reflects outright lying—did not correlate with the PRV score. “Corruptive norms do not turn people into brazen liars but rather into truth-stretchers,” Shalvi explains.
These results fit with the still-controversial broken windows theory, which suggests that signs of petty crimes, like graffiti, litter, and the eponymous broken windows can foster more serious crimes. A 2008 study from the Netherlands supported this idea, showing that disorder can breed more disorder. Gächter and Schulz found something similar, albeit at a much larger scale.Kickstarter Alert!
FOUR DAYS TO BACK!
There are only FOUR DAYS LEFT of the Kickstarter campaign and right now it will take every possible backer I can find to make this game become a reality. If you're a watcher and you can help, take a moment and become a backer using the widget below! Thank you for your role in making this game come to life!
If the campaign doesn't meet the goal then it pretty much means that the release will be delayed indefinitely. There's no telling when I'll have time to finish the game without the proper funding. It's sad but true. This project NEEDS your support. Thank you for helping, if you can!
If you can't support the game financially, but you have a twitter account, then today is the day to Tweet @Kickstarter for the project. Just tweet "Hey, @Kickstarter! Feature History of the Demon Girl! Kck.st" If we can get that going around enough it might help the project get featured and with more attention we might make it in these final days. $5000 is a long way to go, but campaigns have done it. It is possible!
In other news, I've been working on more art for the game. You may have noticed a couple of images popping up, but I haven't explained them. Here's the WIP background art for the new ending to the 9th Circle:
You can see the original sketch as well as the current version. I think it's coming along nicely. This background will have a bit of animation when it's finished. Here's an older version done as an animatic:
I think the game is going to look really beautiful when it's done. I've also been working on some of the character animation for the 8th Circle. Here's the walk cycle for the hypocrites:
These little guys will just sort of saunter towards Roku, but if she bumps into them, they'll stop her cold by turning completely to lead:
The game still has a lot of work left to be done, but I'm doing my best to work on it every single day. I think that when it's done it will be one of those games that you really remember for having a complete style unique to itself. I really hope that you agree and that the game can find its funding.
Thanks for supporting the project in whatever way you can!
Take care!
Your Friendly Neighborhood
Shadow64We first wrote this article back in 2014. We wanted to help people find Material Design apps back when there really weren’t that many. These days, Material Design is everywhere. Most popular apps use it in one form or another. Thus, we have redone the list to show some of the best examples of Material Design that you can find. These apps are colorful and gorgeous. Even if they aren’t the best or most useful, they really rock that Material Design. Here are the best Material Design apps for Android!
Here are some more app lists you might like! 15 best Android launcher apps of 2019! 10 best icon packs for Android (by developer)
B&H Photo Price: Free DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY B&H Photo is a popular online retailer. Their app is also beautiful. It uses Material Design pretty much wherever it can. The shopping experience, search, and even cart functions are all draped in it. The categories page is not only color coded for easy distinguishing by eye, but the design of the little icons are clear and flat. At no point does the design feel overblown or ridiculous. It's just a good design all around. We wish more shopping apps looked like this one. DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY
Houzz Interior Design Price: Free DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Houzz won an actual design award from Google Play. Who are we to argue that? The app is also pretty good It's a home design app. You can look around at decoration and design ideas for your home. You can also save ideas and check out some really unique stuff. It's almost like Pinterest but specifically for home design products. It covers a lot of bases in very little space. Its design lets you move about and view a lot of information in a very short period of time without feeling overwhelming. It just looks and works so well. Truly one of the better Material Design apps. DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY
LocalCast Price: Free / Optional donation DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY LocalCast is a streaming app. It casts video, images, and pretty much whatever else to your Chromecast from your device. The app also has a good design. It uses Material Design to its strengths. However, it manages to keep from feeling bloated or unnecessary. The colors contrast nicely without being annoying. The controls look good as well. It also supports Roku, Amazon Fire Sticks, Apple TV, and a variety of smart TVs. It's really good for what it is. DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY
Lyft Price: Free (rides cost money) DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Lyft is still an up and coming transit service. However, its app design is probably the best in the transit apps space. It uses layers in Material Design effectively. Apps like this are very busy. Having a bunch of controls and a map can is a ton of information at once. Lyft does a great job of providing a lot of information without feeling uncomfortable to use. The color palette is consistent and good looking. It's already one of the better transit apps, but its design definitely makes it a little more appealing. DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY
Material Design Demo Price: Free / Up to $9.99 DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Material Design Demo is a boon for developers. It allows you to easily and quickly check out Material Design. It shows use on a lot of the elements of Material Design. That includes transitions, page layouts, card views, the floating action button, |
much like the brilliant work Tomáš Dvořák (aka Floex) did for Machinarium, the music of Botanicula stands alone and is a treat to listen to on its own, which is rare in video game music.
Then there’s the gameplay. When done right, point-and-clicking can make for a very smooth gaming experience, and Botanicula stands as a testament to that. As you guide your little pals about their shenanigans (yes, I like that word), clicking to where you want them to go or on the objects you want them to interact with, the experience is seamless. This is amplified by the clever design of all the different tasks and puzzles, which are varied enough to never get old. Some include collecting strange objects found in unsuspected places, which you later need to figure out what to use for. Some involve interacting with other beings, whether to help them, evade them, or something else entirely.
I like to imagine that playing Botanicula is not dissimilar to hang gliding. You ride the wind effortlessly, with total abandon, as you contemplate the landscape before you (of course, I know nothing about hang gliding whatsoever, so it might not be like that at all, but you get the picture!). It’s no coincidence that someone who used the word “contemplative” in their blog title would also happen to enjoy Botanicula.
In contrast, Machinarium is less smooth in this sense, because of its difficulty (when a game incorporates its own walkthrough, you know it’s going to be tough!) Both games are very similar, but this is a key difference. The two styles have a lot going for them, and I don’t really prefer any one to the other. They’re just different experiences.
I don’t have much more to say about the game, so I’ll leave you with another screenshot. One closing thought, though: Botanicula embodies everything I love about good indie games. Simple, concise, cohesive. The smaller the team working on a game, the easier it is to maintain a unified, compact vision. When done right, indie games are true little gems.
fusionchamberlain likes slippery handrails, Pink Floyd and games that make you think. When he encounters such games, he usually writes about them here.
AdvertisementsKnowing the GOPe road map to nominate Jeb Bush depends upon a strategy of diminished primary voter turnout, the Stump for Trump ladies make a video showing how to change party registration.
Voting for Donald Trump in the primary is CRITICAL to defeating the GOPe scheme.
In addition to the things Trump is doing (exposing their money constructs and their actual unwillingness to address immigration reform), and beyond supporting Trump as he exposes them, there are things WE MUST ALSO DO in order to defeat their plan.
The GOPe will want to push Trump supporters out of the official Republican party. This is by design. This is why you are seeing such vitriolic statements being made about registered Republican primary voters by the leadership inside the GOPe that need to control the registered Republican primary voters.
Don’t fall for their manipulations.
Many states have “closed primaries”, meaning only Registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. If you live in one of these states, and you leave the Republican party, you are playing into their hands. Don’t fall for it.
CLOSED PRIMARY STATES INCLUDE: Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Washington DC, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Wyoming. (Link I ~AND~ Link II)
Many other states are either “open” or “modified”. Open meaning you can vote in any primary regardless of party registration. Modified meaning registered independents can vote in any single party primary. IMPORTANT – Call your county elections office and find out which one you are in.
So long as Donald Trump remains in the Republican Party, in order to support the insurgency, you too must remain registered inside the republican party. If you leave it, you won’t be able to support him.
Remember, the RNC/GOPe will want to lose the general election rather than have Donald Trump win the White House. If they say differently, you know they are full of lies – four years worth of track records and specific behavior proves it.
AdvertisementsKushal wrote a nice post about how package updates get into repositories. However he glosses over rawhide by saying it happens automatically. This is true, but I want to elaborate on the mechanism of how it happens..
A package build for Rawhide is not available in the repositories immediately. It has to wait until a nightly Rawhide compose runs that updates the repo.
Let's take a dive into what exactly the compose does and is.
Terminology
A compose is a snapshot of a release with a specific identity (which is determined by the actual release and date when it was created, like Fedora-Rawhide-20170710.n.0 ). It consists of at least one variant (such as Server, Workstation or Everything ). A variant is a subset of the content from a release that is aimed for particular use case.
Generally a variant in the final compose contains a repo with RPMs and other artefacts like images of various kinds.
The compose is created by a tool called Pungi. Current major version 4 is significantly different to previous version in that it integrates with Koji and delegates as much work as possible to it (for better tracking and reproducibility).
The main input for Pungi is a configuration file that can get quite complicated, due to all the extra artifacts like images. I'm only going to focus on the most common use case here.
Getting the packages
The process for defining what packages will go into the compose actually consists of two steps. First we need to find out the latest builds in Koji and find appropriately signed copies of the packages on the local file system (we need to have the same volume that Koji uses mounted locally).
For nightly composes of Rawhide or branched the appropriate f2X tag is used. In milestone composes (where packages with freeze exception or fixes for accepted blockers are supposed to get in), there's a special f2X-compose tag that inherits from f2X and this way other packages can get into the compose.
$ koji list-tag-inheritance f26-compose f26-compose (368) └─ f26 (357)
The second step is to determine which packages are supposed to go into each variant. Each variant defines a list of comps groups. Packages from those groups will be pulled in together with all of their dependencies. This process needs to run once for each architecture on each variant.
There are of course exceptions here: additional packages not in comps can be pulled in, and also there are configuration options to customize multilib rules and tweak other things.
Creating repositories
Once we have the package lists, we can call createrepo_c and create the actual metadata. The list of packages is actually part of the metadata in the final compose. Usually it's a really big file located in compose/metadata/rpms.json (which is way too big to link here, but you can read description of the format).
Building images
There are multiple different images that can be built as part of the compose. Most work starts by calling lorax to create boot.iso and boot configuration files. This image is directly used as the netinstall media.
Pungi can then create DVD images that include the repository. In Fedora this is currently only used for Server variant. This is done by basically taking the boot.iso and adding additional stuff to it.
Spins and Labs are created in Koji using livemedia-creator (a livemedia task). This takes additional input of a kickstart file defining how that particular image should be created. The packages that are installed are taken from the repos created in the compose.
How is it triggered?
The nightly compose is started by a cron job that clones the latest configuration, runs the compose, and if it finishes successfully, it syncs the content to mirrors and sends e-mails about changes in packages.
Branched composes have the same nightly process. Milestone composes are created in a similar way, but are started manually (because they require label via a command line argument).
Conclusion
That concludes the high level overview. The official documentation will go into a bit more detail once Pungi 4.1.17 is released.EU politics: a Pegida-lite? 30/01/2015
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When the Pegida "walks" started in Dresden, I immediately though that they could have considerable repercussions on the body politic in Germany. Such demonstrations have bad vibes, in the Fatherland, and even now – or especially now – memories are too raw for such events to be ignored.
But if the creation of Pegida was important, I suppose its
Pegida's "disintegration" – as the Independent puts it - began just over a week ago after the movement’s 42-year-old leader Lutz Bachmann was forced to resign following the publication of photographs from his Facebook page.
They showed him wearing a toothbrush moustache, posing as Adolf Hitler. "He's back", read an accompanying caption. Mr Bachmann, a trained cook with convictions for drink-driving and causing bodily harm, was also found to have used racist language on Facebook. He described asylum seekers and foreign immigrants as "cattle", "riff raff", "a pack of dirt" and concluded: "There is no such thing as real war refugees".
That was always going to be disastrous for this infant movement, and indeed it has been – more so that five of its leading members have resigned in disgust, fearing it was being hijacked by the extreme right. They have announced plans to set up a more moderate rival "direct democracy" protest group
Now this is where it gets interesting, if some sort of comparison with the British situation can be allowed, and is relevant. If we suggest that BNP was too "raw" for most people's tastes, and position Ukip as a BNP-lite that is just sufficiently house trained to allow closet racists to support it, then we can posit that Pegida is the BNP equivalent – or was about to become so.
As for the Ukip equivalent, we've seen AfD sniffing round the edges of the Pegida movement, but it's never really committed itself to supporting it. But if the bulk of Pegida is to slough off to become a more moderate group, perhaps that is the opportunity for AfD to link up, to create a genuine mass movement – one that is just about "moderate" enough for Germans to support.
The five ex-Pegida leaders are saying that they want to re-group and re-form, and then, they say: "We want to fight for our objectives such as more direct democracy at a federal level", declaring that their new organisation would be named Movement for Direct Democracy in Europe.
AfD has one of its senior leaders saying that he opposed joining forces with Pegida, and it is likely to decide on its future relations with the movement at a party conference in Bremen this weekend. But at that conference, it could decide – in principle at least – to entertain relations with the "Pegida-lite", ready to exploit the opportunities for enlarging its membership that an association could create.
Germany's main parties, we are told, were scarcely able to conceal their delight at the prospect of Pegida's total implosion, but they may live to rue the day. If the movement has deeply worried mainstream politicians, with many MPs at odds over how best to respond to such a spontaneous grassroots, yet xenophobic organisation, then a "Pegida-lite" should worry them even more.
A serious opposition to the stultifying conformism of German politics could galvanise not only Germany, but the whole of Europe, paving the way for a centre-right grouping that could drive the left back into the hole where it belongs.
But there is another possibility – that Pegida confounds its critics, growing in strength without diluting its message. In that case, we're in serious trouble … or Germany is. Either way, that is not something we can feel relaxed about. When the Pegida "walks" started in Dresden, I immediately though that they could have considerable repercussions on the body politic in Germany. Such demonstrations have bad vibes, in the Fatherland, and even now – or especially now – memories are too raw for such events to be ignored.But if the creation of Pegida was important, I suppose its spectacular collapse is equally so, if only because, if it goes away, the German political leaders can breathe a sigh of relief and forget about whatever concessions they were going to have to offer the mob.Pegida's "disintegration" – as theputs it - began just over a week ago after the movement’s 42-year-old leader Lutz Bachmann was forced to resign following the publication of photographs from his Facebook page.They showed him wearing a toothbrush moustache, posing as Adolf Hitler. "He's back", read an accompanying caption. Mr Bachmann, a trained cook with convictions for drink-driving and causing bodily harm, was also found to have used racist language on Facebook. He described asylum seekers and foreign immigrants as "cattle", "riff raff", "a pack of dirt" and concluded: "There is no such thing as real war refugees".That was always going to be disastrous for this infant movement, and indeed it has been – more so that five of its leading members have resigned in disgust, fearing it was being hijacked by the extreme right. They have announced plans to set up a more moderate rival "direct democracy" protest groupNow this is where it gets interesting, if some sort of comparison with the British situation can be allowed, and is relevant. If we suggest that BNP was too "raw" for most people's tastes, and position Ukip as a BNP-lite that is just sufficiently house trained to allow closet racists to support it, then we can posit that Pegida is the BNP equivalent – or was about to become so.As for the Ukip equivalent, we've seen AfD sniffing round the edges of the Pegida movement, but it's never really committed itself to supporting it. But if the bulk of Pegida is to slough off to become a more moderate group, perhaps that is the opportunity for AfD to link up, to create a genuine mass movement – one that is just about "moderate" enough for Germans to support.The five ex-Pegida leaders are saying that they want to re-group and re-form, and then, they say: "We want to fight for our objectives such as more direct democracy at a federal level", declaring that their new organisation would be named Movement for Direct Democracy in Europe.AfD has one of its senior leaders saying that he opposed joining forces with Pegida, and it is likely to decide on its future relations with the movement at a party conference in Bremen this weekend. But at that conference, it could decide – in principle at least – to entertain relations with the "Pegida-lite", ready to exploit the opportunities for enlarging its membership that an association could create.Germany's main parties, we are told, were scarcely able to conceal their delight at the prospect of Pegida's total implosion, but they may live to rue the day. If the movement has deeply worried mainstream politicians, with many MPs at odds over how best to respond to such a spontaneous grassroots, yet xenophobic organisation, then a "Pegida-lite" should worry them even more.A serious opposition to the stultifying conformism of German politics could galvanise not only Germany, but the whole of Europe, paving the way for a centre-right grouping that could drive the left back into the hole where it belongs.But there is another possibility – that Pegida confounds its critics, growing in strength without diluting its message. In that case, we're in serious trouble … or Germany is. Either way, that is not something we can feel relaxed about.By |
I can remember it vividly: it was the day before my birthday, and I was babysitting at a neighbor’s house. I was 14 at the time, and after an unfortunate scooter accident, I fell, broke my wrist, and landed myself in the hospital. It wasn’t a very traumatic experience, and when I went to the orthopedist he asked what color cast I wanted. I said I didn’t care, but I did have one request that sort of baffled him at first. I asked him if he could cut some extra room around my thumb, so I had more dexterity. I also wanted my fingers to be more exposed as to move them around more. He complied, and asked why this was so, since it was a very unusual wish. I stated emphatically and unequivocally: “Resident Evil 4 comes out next week.”
2005 was that awkward period in the gaming industry (and in my life), the one where a new generation of consoles was on the horizon, and things slowed down as the future loomed bright and mysterious. The Xbox 360 had yet to be formally introduced, and publishers were releasing the last great games of the Gamecube and PS2 era. We were just coming out of one of the greatest holiday seasons ever, with Sly 2, Burnout 3, Katamari Damacy, GTA: San Andreas, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Halo 2, and Half-Life 2 all being released in a four month period at the end of 2004. I don’t think anyone was expecting to have their minds blown so early in the new year, but Resident Evil 4 was something that surprised a lot of people.
The franchise, at that point, has seen a slew of spin-offs and prequels. Resident Evil Zero, Dead Aim, Outbreak, and Outbreak File #2 all weren’t exactly titles that met the quality of previous installments. Expectations were high, and they always are with numbered sequels to gigantic franchises, especially the size of Resident Evil. It had been (and still is) the flagship survival horror series, but I don’t think anyone was ready for how truly transcendent RE4 would be. It’s astonishing to think that God of War came out around then too; RE4 really was at the center of a golden age of video games, and I don’t think we’re bound for too many more of them to come.
Since RE6 is out, I thought it would be a good idea to not spend $60 and instead do a Resident Evil 4 Retrospective. Thankfully, there is an HD rerelease on Xbox Live, and like a lot of HD remasters I went in expecting nothing more than a fun look back at a game I love. I planned on playing for a day, maybe saying “it was better when I played it seven years ago”, and going on with my life. WRONG. Suffice it to say, Resident Evil 4 sucked me into its world, and never let go. I was shocked to see how well it held up over time, and it looked and played like any contemporary game on the market today. But what RE4 does better than anything else is how amazing the atmosphere is. From the second it starts, every single detail is meant to grab you and shake you to your core. There is a certain ambience that hasn’t been surpassed since, and the only thing that comes close to matching it has been Bioshock. Immersion is something that’s really been lacking in a lot of games, and I feel that it can help make a good game turn into a great game.
There is an eerie sense of story that lingers throughout Leon’s adventure, one that gives an impression of events long passed. It creates a mystery that is only alluded to, and every level tells its own version of history of what happened. Doors marked with notes, villagers harpooned into walls, a castle filled with gothic architecture, churches splattered with blood, island strongholds housing the remains of experiments gone wrong; RE4 has that special feel that pushes the player forward narratively, and paints a haunting tale without shoving it down your throat. The music is somber, the level design gets progressively tighter and narrower, and the game makes you question what is around every corner. There is no safe place to hide anywhere, and that inherently creates tension within the gameplay. Every bullet counts, every herb matters. There is an amazing meta-game of resource management at play here, and it’s just another example of how RE4’s gameplay adds to the survival horror genre. It always makes any upcoming danger ever present within our minds.
The biggest difference from other Resident Evil games has been that infamously frustrating camera. It was a staple of the horror genre, to have clunky controls and an unwelcoming camera impede your character. The slower you moved and the harder it was to defend yourself, the scarier it became. Over time, two analog sticks dominated all 3D games, and with this innovation in controller design came an increase in demand for better controls. What RE4 established with its over the shoulder style of shooting was two things: that the older games were no longer a blueprint and were essentially too archaic, and there was a new need to implement more action into the gameplay. It could have backfired on them, but thankfully it gave birth to what is now the norm in terms of third person shooters. Gears, Dead Space, Vanquish, Army of Two, Transformer: War for Cybertron, Uncharted, and others all had RE4 to thank for its shooting mechanics. Even though some of those games aren’t as slow paced, and some rely on a cover system, I don’t think they would have succeeded without there being a precedent for a blockbuster third person shooter. FPS games littered the store shelves, and it took RE4 to really remind people that not all games had to be in first person.
What’s also nice about the shift in the series was the eclusion of outright zombies, and this makes the game feel so liberated from its roots. The enemies are just people, or were people, and they have this irrational horror to them, where they’ll kill their own and are part of a religious cult, and I still have no idea what is exactly going on. I love how the culmination of gameplay, and story, and setting, and atmosphere all come together to make the game scary 100% of the time. Even playing it again made me panic; enemies will crowd around you slowly, and no matter where you are in the campaign they will ALWAYS catch up to you, and this ever present tension of claustrophobia is what makes it so memorable. Memorable like all of the boss battles, the locales, the items, the guns, the cameos, it is all absolutely unforgettable and to this day I know that game like the back of my hand. It’s outstanding to think a game like that holds up so well. It’s suspenseful when it’s quiet, exciting when its action packed, and frightening when you encounter something new, whether it be giant bugs, giant monsters, freakish lake creatures, walking knights in armor, a blind wolverine type guy, a midget with two predators for body guards, or a formless mutant who regenerates limbs and never seems to die. Most games would kill for so many types of enemies, and they all behave in different ways, as to make the combat always interesting and never boring. The simple evolution of the enemies, that they’re heads transform into a whole other creature adds a lot of depth to the game, forcing you to not simply rely on upgrading weapons but changing your strategy on how you approach fights.
From the opening shootout it hooks you, where you don’t know how long it’s going to last, and a crazy man with a potato sack wields a chainsaw at you, so you climb a ladder and kick it down, but there are already people in the house, so you grab the shotgun and jump out the window. That was one hell of a way to start a game, and then the title hits the screen and you know you’re in for some shit. Every facet of this game is as intuitive as jumping to grab coins: shooting axes out of the air, lighting people on fire when they hold a torch, knifing boxes and vases so you don’t waste ammo; these things are ingrained in me, and it’s sad to think most contemporary games on the market lose these distinctive gameplays touches. No need for shoehorned multiplayer (or whatever contrived thing they put in games these days), it’s one of the few single player games that has infinite replay value, and gives you an incentive to go back through it again and again. I must have played through that game a dozen times, it really is that monumental. RE4 is so good it even makes me forget the plot is “save the president’s daughter”, which is the longest running plot for a US president in an artistic medium.
I don’t think there is a better personification of the advancement RE4 made than of the laser sight. With that sole addition, RE4 blows by all of the previous RE games. No more save ribbon nonsense, no more laughable dialogue or Jill sandwiches. The laser sight and precision aiming embody all of the steps forward the franchise was taking. Context sensitive controls, quick time events, an audacious scale, RE4 was quite ahead of its time. It was a genre blending and defying horror game, and it all worked; the game went on to sell millions and receive every award there is to receive. It deserved it all, of course, and RE4 still stands today as a seminal effort by Capcom. An influential game that garnered its significance from spooky yet smart sound design, realistic animations, wild enemies, creative puzzles, and thrills per minute, Resident Evil 4 is a masterpiece, pure and simple.
So many of RE4’s elements came together in such a terrific culmination; the art direction, the graphics, the presentation, the sound, they all were console defining back in 2005, and they still hold up today. Every detail of the levels, every secret path, the way the merchant greeted you, it all stands the test of time, and RE4 reaches a pinnacle of gaming that few other games reach. I’ll never forget the ending credits, which in my mind is still the most haunting and disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in a game. That little story of how the villagers came to become infected, and the old timey presentation, and the music, I cringe at how surreal it all is. And that’s how I feel about RE4, it’s surreal. Why can’t more developers make games like this anymore? Spend the time to craft a wholly satisfying and cohesive product, devoid of petty flaws and only giving cerebral and chilling challenges to the player? I hope we see something like this come again, and if I’m wrong, then I’ll cut off my head.
-JaredIn some of the coverage of augmented and virtual reality, it feels like there are efforts to make it a “versus”: AR vs. VR, like one has to win and the other has to lose. But even though the most basic fundamentals of the technologies are similar – a graphical overlay that is directed at a single user’s experience, and that moves according to the physical movements of the user – they’re actually very different technologies.
While both can feel immersive, only one (VR) is definitely immersive, as in, the goal is to minimize other inputs. The visor eliminates other visual inputs, and often comes with headphones to control auditory inputs. In the Samsung 837 Experience in New York, VR users stand on platforms that vibrate or rock, to give movement inputs as well. Studies are starting to show that people accept VR inputs with the same visceral reactions as real life, bringing new dimensions of care to people with post-traumatic stress disorder to phobias to end of life.
AR, on the other hand, requires interaction with reality – it is an overlay of virtual onto the physical world, with the intent of creating interesting interactions between the two. Eliminating other inputs actually reduces what AR can deliver.
So it shouldn’t be a case of AR versus VR, like VHS vs. Beta, but just because one technology is good for one application does not mean the other will work just as well. Which is why, in retail, it seems to be shaping up that AR will have more consumer applications, while VR will have more management applications.
Here’s a round-up of some of the innovations in each.
AR for Consumers:
What does it look like in my home?
This kind of AR technology overlays products in the consumer’s home setting, so that they can see if it looks good or will fit or get a better sense for if it will go with pieces the consumer already owns. Consumer electronics have been on board with enabling “what’s the best sized TV for my space” (which someone will have to then wisecrack “the biggest you can afford to put there”) for years. It could easily be the oldest application of AR in retail. Home furnishings retailers have jumped on board as well, with companies like IKEA and Wayfair letting you figure out if you really like that sofa. You can even digitally test out paint colors on your walls without having to break out any paint.
What does it look like on me?
Retailers also have rolled out consumer-facing applications that let them virtually try on clothing, makeup, and accessories. Memomi, a smart mirror technology company, has developed solutions that support all three scenarios, from sunglasses to sundresses. Neiman Marcus has been testing a clothing-oriented version of the technology. Sephora has a virtual makeup app. Jura lets you try on virtual watches on your wrist. The list goes on and on, and doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon – aside from the conversion rate benefits of making consumers feel comfortable about a purchase, there is a lot to say these days about any technology that helps reduce return rates from consumers making purchase mistakes.
Tell me more about this product / how to use this product.
Brands want to reach consumers at the shelf, and combining products at shelves with consumers’ phones will help them do that. Be on the lookout now for Sauza and Hornitos bottles in your local liquor store, which will offer an augmented reality experience around Cinco de Mayo, provided in partnership with Shazam. These experiences can focus on the practicalities of how to use the product or recipe ideas, or can be fun, entertaining branded experiences that cut through the clutter of traditional shelf-edge advertising.
VR for business users:
Store design
For retail, nothing is more asset intensive than the decision to remodel or redesign a store layout. Virtual reality has already been around for awhile to help businesses visualize store layouts and potential traffic issues, but as the technology becomes more accepted, it’s becoming a greater part of testing consumer acceptance, A/B testing different format options, and more. It’s far cheaper to build out a virtual store than a real one, and the feedback retailers get about virtual store designs is close enough to what they would get in a physical environment as to make no difference.
Shelf / assortment layout
Retailers have been using VR for shelf and assortment layout, and packaging performance tests for even longer than for store design.
Contextual store walks / real-time views of store performance
Where VR is entering new territory in terms of business use is around the application of analytics to a VR experience. For an executive sitting in headquarters, there is nothing that helps you stay in touch with where the business is at than walking a store, but most important is the ability to “walk” through far-flung stores, or drop into any store in the chain – virtually – and see how it’s doing. Posting analytics through a VR interface that is driven off of the actual store design provides a lot of important context and can potentially surface connections between things like product categories that are physically proximate, which might not be easily found from a chart or a graph. This is much more cutting edge than some of the shelf layout or store design, but it’s definitely coming to retail – there are just too many advantages to being able to dive into the performance of a store, in the context of that store’s layout – to have this not someday be a staple of how a retail executive team evaluates performance.
The Bottom Line
Just because AR is tending toward consumer experiences and VR toward business use in retail does not mean that the respective technologies are exclusive in their applications. I’m certain there will be a shoppable VR experience soon, if I just haven’t missed it already. There is the London bar that offers a VR experience of the Scottish Highlands while you sip whiskey. And there are AR overlays for retailers too, like planogram compliance AR tools that show what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s missing. And I’m sure there are many more innovations to come on all fronts, as we’re really just in the early days of both AR and VR acceptance and use, both in businesses and among consumers. But in the end, for an office-bound executive, VR is going to shine light into parts of the business that an executive doesn’t get to see often enough, like far flung retail stores, while AR will more ably serve consumers looking to interact with real products in a digital way.CLOSE Zach Benson was born in South Korea and raised in Iowa. He's now a "digital nomad" who, within his first decade after college, has built a life and career around his passion for dance and his own social media firm. Wochit
Zach Benson, a Korean-American raised in Des Moines, now dances and works his way around the globe as a "digital nomad" trying to balance his business plans with life's serendipity. (Photo: Daniel Chae/Special to The Register)
My best advice for newly minted graduates: Dance your way around the world and chase your dreams while you’re young.
Zach Benson didn’t tell me that in so many words. He merely outlined his lifestyle as a “digital nomad” in which he has strung together a globe-trotting career as a self-described “entrepreneur, hustler, connector and professional dancer.”
For him, it all began with dancing.
He has danced and taught people around the world how to dance, from Mexico to India to South Korea. He also works as a social media consultant, helping companies build their followings on Instagram and other apps.
Benson, 31, migrates every few months, and in recent weeks has been back in the Des Moines metro where he grew up.
He was 4 months old when he arrived from South Korea and was swept into the arms of his adoptive parents in Des Moines.
He felt out of place as “pretty much the only Asian kid” at Rolling Green Elementary in Urbandale.
He also was haunted by his inability to pronounce the letter “r,” even after his parents enrolled him in speech therapy.
Benson’s dad, Paul, would hear his son practicing saying “r” for hours in his bedroom, in the shower, wherever possible.
“I didn’t say any word that had the letter ‘r’ in it until my 20s,” Benson said.
I can’t imagine how that riddled his everyday life with anxiety.
So maybe it’s no surprise that Benson poured his passion into the nonverbal communication of dance. He became a self-taught hip-hop break dancer by learning from DVDs and YouTube videos.
Buy Photo Zach Benson, born in South Korea and raised in Urbandale, now migrates around the globe throughout the year as he pursues a career in dance and social media. (Photo: Kyle Munson/The Register)
He followed a group of high school friends to Central College in Pella, where he began to assert himself.
It was during a leadership conference in 2007 at Upper Iowa University that a student from another school handed him an encouraging note. She wrote to him that she couldn’t even tell that he had a speech impediment. What you have to say matters, she insisted, and your ideas need to be heard.
It was as if the note flipped a switch in his head. That fleeting moment of kindness from a stranger, whom he could accept as more of an objective observer, made a difference. Benson stopped avoiding the letter “r." He expanded the scope his ambitions as he finished his degree in Spanish and health promotion.
One of his key mentors at Central was Brandyn Woodard, the director of intercultural life who now fulfills a similar role at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in Minnesota.
Woodard remembers Benson sitting in his office as a senior as he began to counsel the student to take practical steps after his May 2008 graduation.
But 15 minutes later, Woodard contradicted himself: Disregard what I just said, Woodard told Benson. Follow your dreams. Give it your all.
That sudden turnabout was triggered, Woodard said, by “listening to how (Benson) was able to articulate all the hurdles and obstacles he had overcome.”
And Benson’s life ever since has been “a consistent reminder to me, just on a human level, of what it looks like when you actually follow through on your own commitments to yourself.”
From Atlanta to reality TV to Korea
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After college, Benson followed his idealism and Christian faith to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was team captain for an urban ministries program that helped refugees settle into homes and jobs.
A year later, he traveled to Korea to find his birth mom who had given him up for adoption when she was 20. The reunion has been hard work — more real life than storybook. But it's important to him to nurture the relationship.
Benson returned to Iowa in 2011 and worked as a personal trainer at a fitness center in suburban Des Moines while also honing his dance moves. His older clients echoed the advice of his college counselor: Do what you want. Just go for it.
That spurred him to repeatedly try out for the reality TV show "So You Think You Can Dance." He had auditioned for the first time 2010 and he kept at it until he made it to the fourth round.
He was disheartened ultimately to hear that he lacked formal training in ballroom and other partner dances to succeed on the show. But he also received encouragement from a veteran dancer: You have skills, Benson was told. Go out and make a name for yourself, develop your brand.
So Benson moved to Los Angeles, signed with a dance agency, ended up in a music video and TV ads and says he was on the cusp of major gigs with pop stars.
But he felt adrift from his core values and sense of purpose.
He moved to South Korea and for three years worked as a resident adviser and taught at a private international Christian school in Daejeon. In his first year he met a woman, Hyelim Park, who became his girlfriend.
During summer vacations, he began to piece together his side hustle. He founded Assistagram to help companies and brands grow their social media following, primarily on Instagram.
He works with a staff of freelancers in the |
writing is a chancy job, and it makes a man watchful…and a little lonely.
Still more yrthak mail—uwtartarus wrote:
For once, an issue of Dragon that I have read and cherish! That issue [Dragon #325] alone drove me down the dark path of New Weird, “Bugs and Drugs” fantasy. Plus the Ythrak Kaiju was pretty solid too!
Yep, I can confirm that that issue of Dragon was directly responsible for me buying Perdido Street Station.
And as I mentioned above, the Silvanshee entry is now up. Go read!If John Kerry has been working to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, he just made a convincing case about how miserably he has failed.
So why would anyone think his 11th-hour, 8,709-word scolding to Israel Wednesday will suddenly move the ball forward?
Kerry believes only a two-state solution can bring lasting peace. Yet, “despite our best efforts over the years,” he admitted, that goal “is now in serious jeopardy. The truth is that trends on the ground... are destroying hopes for peace” and “leading in the opposite direction.”
A secretary of state with more integrity might offer his resignation, given such a failure. Not Kerry. He actually went on to lay out “principles” of a peace deal — one that exists mostly in his own mind and the minds of those who think like him, starting with his boss, President Obama.
Fact is, there’s no consensus on any part of the Kerry-Obama vision in the United States or the Middle East — and Team Obama knows it. Why else would they wait until the last three weeks of their tenure to make their plan public, and spell it out only after delivering a swift blow to Israel at the UN Security Council (on the Friday before Christmas weekend, no less)?
Here’s the core problem: Kerry and Obama suffer under the delusion that the parties to such a deal both want it. Yet Palestinians have had numerous opportunities — going back decades — to reach a compromise and have rejected it every time. Kerry himself noted that it was the Palestinians who nixed the United Nations’ 1947 partition plan, not the Israelis.
And while he spent most of his speech blasting Israel for putting a future agreement at risk by “expanding settlements,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas wouldn’t agree to talks even when Israel froze its settlement activity for 10 months in 2010. So settlements are clearly not the problem.
As a livid Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it, “For over an hour, Kerry obsessively dealt with settlements and barely touched upon the root of the conflict — Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries.”
Kerry claimed his administration wasn’t turning its back on Israel but instead preserving its “future.” Yet given his failures so far, what makes him think he knows better than Israel what’s good for the Jewish state? (Recall that the Obama-Kerry nuclear deal with Iran rested on similar conceits.)
“Friends need to tell each other the hard truth,” Kerry said, in attempting to justify his slap at the Jewish state. That’s true. But as Netanyahu rightly retorted, “Friends don’t take friends to the Security Council.”
How pathetic and harmful that after years of failure — not just on the Israel-Palestinian front, but throughout the world — Team Obama is now desperately looking to lock in terms and tie the hands of a Trump team that is vowing a new direction.
Frankly, that day can’t come soon enough.Detainees sleep in a Customs and Border Protection holding cell in Brownsville, Texas. | AP Photo Liberals outraged by Obama's deportation plan
Democratic presidential candidates on Thursday criticized the Obama administration's plans to begin deporting potentially hundreds of families that arrived in the United States illegally since last year.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday night that federal immigration officials are preparing raids that would target the families and could begin as soon as January. A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to confirm the plans, nor dispute the details of the Post report.
Story Continued Below
The news, arriving on the eve of the holidays, sparked concerns and outrage from Democrats and immigration advocates. They argued that the effort would target largely women and children fleeing violence from Central America, whom critics say should be treated as refugees.
"Hillary Clinton has real concerns about these reports, especially as families are coming together during this holiday season," said Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. "She believes it is critical that everyone has a full and fair hearing, and that our country provides refuge to those that need it. And we should be guided by a spirit of humanity and generosity as we approach these issues."
Her chief rival for the nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said he was "very disturbed" by the reports, adding: “As we spend time with our families this holiday season, we who are parents should ask ourselves what we would do if our children faced the danger and violence these children do? How far would we go to protect them?”
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, another Democratic presidential candidate, called for an end to "mindless deportations."
“DHS’ Christmas Eve announcement that they are planning to launch mass holiday raids and deport families who risked their lives to flee violence in Central America is completely at odds with our character as a nation," O'Malley said in a statement.
The issue of migrant families crossing the border since last year has been particularly tricky for Clinton. Though the former secretary of state has endorsed liberal immigration policies, Clinton drew criticism in 2014 when she said unaccompanied migrant children — coming here primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — “should be sent back” to their home countries. Clinton defended those comments earlier this year, arguing that it was important to send a message to families in Central America to not allow children to “take this very dangerous journey.”
Administration officials said the plans, which have not been finalized, are consistent with new deportation priorities announced last year. Now, federal immigration officials are focusing their deportation efforts on criminal immigrants and those who had recently crossed the border illegally.
“As [Homeland Security] Secretary [Jeh] Johnson has consistently said, our border is not open to illegal immigration,” ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said on Thursday. “If individuals come here illegally, do not qualify for asylum or other relief, and have final orders of removal, they will be sent back consistent with our laws and our values.”
In an interview with POLITICO earlier this month, Johnson said Homeland Security officials were zeroing in on criminals and recent border-crossers, as opposed to undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for a longer period of time.
DHS announced this week that federal immigration officials deported 235,413 immigrants from October 2014 to September 2015 — the lowest figure in at least eight years.
“We’re focusing more sharply on felons over families, so fewer deportations, but more focused on convicted criminals, more focused on apprehensions at the border,” Johnson said during the interview. “I’ve encouraged our immigration enforcement personnel to engage in a mission more like law enforcement.”
In the past two months, the number of families crossing the southern border illegally has risen sharply compared with the same period last year. Just over 12,500 families were apprehended in October and November, compared with 4,577 during the same two months in 2014. The planned raids would target immigrants who had already been ordered by an immigration judge to be removed from the United States, according to the Post report.
Separately, the numbers of children from Central America traveling alone has also spiked in recent months. In October and November, 10,588 unaccompanied children were apprehended at the southern border, according to federal officials — more than double the number of minors who tried to cross into the United States during the same period in 2014.
Immigration advocates reacted with outrage to the report of the Obama administration’s plans.
“These are mostly women and children fleeing violence. Surely the Obama administration has a better Christmas in mind than the threat of deportation raids,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. “To punish these families for our lack of a functioning refugee program that meets the needs of Central America would be a moral tragedy.”
Michelle Brané, director of the migrant rights and justice program of the Women’s Refugee Commission, called it “outrageous that the administration plans to conduct raids on families who have fled persecution and violence.”
“Instead of focusing on deporting families, the administration should finally recognize what this influx is about,” Brané said. “Refugees seeking protection at our border who, instead of being locked up, should be given a real chance to find a lawyer, understand how the process works, and make their case for asylum before a judge.”LA Galaxy present Rise Faith Night
The LA Galaxy will host RISE, pre-game event of live music, a motivating message, and a time of worship ahead of the Galaxy's match on Saturday, July 29 against Seattle Sounders FC. The pregame concert will feature Christian hip hop artist, Tedashii, Contemporary Christian musician, Blanca and worship with Grammy Award winning artist, Matt Redman.
Those in attendance can enjoy a special message from Global Senior Pastor of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, as well as a special Q&A with LA Galaxy & USMNT star, Gyasi Zardes.
Gates open at 2:00 p.m. with the concert starting at 3:00 p.m. Click here to purchase tickets.
Tickets for the RISE concert include soccer game admission for the MLS matchup vs. Western Conference rival, Seattle Sounders at 7 p.m.
Each RISE ticket corresponds with a match day ticket in the main soccer stadium. For floor seating for the RISE event, please select either Reserved Sideline East or the Endline Plus options when purchasing your LA Galaxy ticket. For General Admission RISE tickets, please select Sideline East or General Admission options when purchasing your LA Galaxy ticket.
For questions, ADA seating or purchases above 9 tickets, please contact Michael Demko at 310.630.2166 or [email protected].Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption No fights necessary over sun beds at hotels in Antalya
The group of British tourists playing water polo in the pool could shriek as loudly as they liked: there were virtually no other guests they'd disturb.
The four-star Garden Resort Bergamot Hotel in Kemer, just outside Antalya, should be 70% full at this time of year. But just 25 of the 233 rooms are taken.
"We've had to reduce our staff from 80 to 50 and prices have dropped by a third," says Suha Sen, the owner.
"If it goes on like this next year, we may have to close."
Around the pool, the few guests soaking up the sun say they clinched bargains.
"We paid just over £500 (€630) for two of us for a week, an all-inclusive package," says Diane Roberts from North Wales. "Most of the cheap deals now are for Turkey - we didn't expect it, but people are too afraid to come here."
It is a picture repeated across Antalya and throughout the country: Turkish tourism is in crisis. A country that welcomed 37 million visitors in 2014 - then the sixth most popular tourist destination in the world - is expected to see a drop of at least 40% this year.
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption Amid the downturn, tourists are being offered cheap deals for holidays in Turkey
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption A former hotspot for Russian tourists now empty - the Delphin Imperial in Antalya
The main decline is the Russian market, the four-and-a-half million Russian tourists who were coming have fallen in number by around 95%. The trigger was Turkey shooting down a Russian military jet which violated Turkish airspace last November, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
The Kremlin seethed, barring Russian tour companies from selling package deals to Turkey. President Vladimir Putin told Russians to holiday elsewhere.
The two strongmen leaders - Mr Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan - are still at loggerheads, although Mr Erdogan did send a note to his counterpart this week to mark Russia's national day, in the hope of healing wounds.
What's more, a series of bombings across Turkey in the past year has scared off many others. Since violence resumed with the PKK Kurdish militants last summer, attacks by them and by the Islamic State group have occurred nationwide, some targeting tourists in Istanbul.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Tensions between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured) and Russian President Vladimir Putin has led to a steep decline in Russian visitors
British and German visitors are down by a third.
Political instability, with a president who makes the headlines for lambasting the West, prosecuting critics and labelling birth control "treason", hasn't helped.
It's not just the 8% of the workforce directly employed in tourism that are affected but also those that depend on the custom from foreign visitors.
In the old town of Antalya, shopkeepers sit idly in front of their businesses in the hope of passing trade, which simply isn't coming. Bright bougainvillea is draped over stone shops selling carpets and leather bags. But the streets are quiet.
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption Jewellery shop owner Istiklal Sevuk says President Erdogan is hurting Turkey's image
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption Repeated terror attacks on major cities in recent months have played an important part in deterring tourists
Istiklal Sevuk has run his jewellery shop for almost 30 years and says it's never been so bad. "Yes we have terror attacks in the main cities - but our biggest problem is our government and President Erdogan," he says.
"He doesn't follow peace with our neighbours and he's damaging the image of the country. We don't have a government anymore - we have one man who does everything. Erdogan is why we're in this mess."
Mr Erdogan has blamed the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for Turkey's current instability and rejected Western criticism of his policies.
In the once Russian-dominated area of Belek, businesses have been crushed. One tour operator, Pegas, used to bring 19 planes a day to Antalya, full of Russians. Now the company has had to ditch the fleet and fire 3,000 staff.
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption Tourism is at 'rock bottom', Delphin Imperial hotel director Tolga Comertoglu says
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption Geo-political and security factors are both responsible for the decline in Turkey's tourism
At the flashy Delphin Imperial hotel and private beach, where Russians used to flock, it's hard to hear a word of Russian spoken.
The place screams lavishness, from the design - modelled on New York's Chrysler Tower - to the giant crystal chandelier in the lobby to the neo-Baroque gold-plated furniture.
But wealthy Russians are staying away and it's less than 40% full.
Its director, Tolga Comertoglu, is also on the board of the Antalya Hotel Association. With dyed blonde hair and tight-fitting suits, he fits into the Delphin's eccentric style. And he says he's deeply worried about the empty beaches, which he scans from above in his private helicopter.
"My family has had 40 years in tourism and I've never seen it like this", he says. "We've hit rock bottom - I don't want to think what will happen if it gets worse."
And then what, I ask?
"It could mean the whole tourism sector could virtually end here," he says. "And that means minus $28bn."
Image copyright Goktay Koraltan Image caption Claire Smith, from Blackpool, says tourists shouldn't be scared off by terror attacks in Turkey
Strolling through Antalya old town is an English couple from Blackpool, Mark and Claire Smith. The souvenir shopkeepers jump on them - but today they're not buying. "It's incredibly sad to see what's happening," she says. "Turkey is such a wonderful country but people aren't visiting. How can they survive?"
I ask whether they had concerns about booking here. "My husband plays golf with someone who said 'oh I wouldn't go to Turkey right now'. So he went off to Orlando instead. And look what happened there! We have to come - or the terrorists will just win."
On the quiet beaches of Antalya, the June sun has warmed the Mediterranean, the sand is soft and the mountains silhouetted in the distance give a picturesque backdrop.
But the tide of tourism has turned in Turkey - and with attacks continuing and an increasingly unpredictable president, there's little sign of improvement on the horizon.The US Navy says an African-American sailor who claimed that a fellow shipmate had vandalized his bunk with racial slurs actually faked the whole incident.
Marquie Little, 27, an African-American aviation boatswain's mate airman aboard the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush claimed in a Facebook post that one of his shipmates had vandalized his sleeping area with the word 'n*****' and trashing it.
In the November 15 post, which was apparently written under an alias Facebook account and has since been shared 20,500 times, Little had written, 'I proudly serve the Navy and this is what I’m receiving in return,' the NavyTimes.com reported.
African-American sailor Marquie Little, 27, posted pictures of what he claimed was vandalism of his bunk aboard the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush on November 15
The pictures, showing that his bunk had been trashed and the word 'n*****' scrawled everywhere, went viral and prompted an NCIS investigation
Shortly after the post, Little told NavyTimes that he worried about the vandalism and seeing the vandal out and about in town. 'I constantly have to look who’s giving me the side eye,' Little said at the time.
On Friday, however, Commander Dave Hecht, a spokesman for Naval Air Force Atlantic, said that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigated the 'claims of racially-motivated vandalism' and discovered inconsistencies in Little's account of what happened, determining that he'staged the incident himself.'
Hecht declined to name the sailor who made the claims, because he had not been charged with a crime, but noted that the sailor would continue to serve aboard the George H.W. Bush and had'received appropriate administrative actions and additional counseling and training.'
The NavyTimes said that Little, via text message on Friday, denied staging the vandalism and said that NCIS' investigation was not properly done.
On Friday, the Navy said that they found inconsistencies with Little's (pictured) statements and determined that the vandalism had been staged
Little will continue to serve aboard the George H.W. Bush (pictured). He denied that he staged the vandalism and claimed that he had nothing to gain by doing so
Little added that he had 'nothing to gain from doing such an incident but I have everything to lose.'
Even though NCIS had proven Little's claims to be false, Hecht said that the Navy was using the incident as the basis for giving the crew additional training and emphasizing that the Navy does not tolerate vandalism or racism of any kind.
'The well-being of our Sailors is our top priority,' Hecht noted, adding that the Navy has an 'open door policy for reporting incidents of misconduct.'By LAURA CLARK AND SARAH HARRIS
Last updated at 22:35 28 December 2007
Playing with toy weapons helps the development of young boys, according to new Government advice to nurseries and playgroups.
Staff have been told they must resist their "natural instinct" to stop boys using pretend weapons such as guns or light sabres in games with other toddlers.
Fantasy play involving weapons and superheroes allows healthy and safe risk-taking and can also make learning more appealing, says the guidance.
It conflicts with years of "political correctness" in nurseries and playgroups which has led to the banning of toy guns, action hero games and children pretending to fire "guns" using their fingers or Lego bricks.
But teachers' leaders insisted last night that guns "symbolise aggression" and said many nurseries and playgroups would ignore the change.
Scroll down for more...
The guidance, called Confident, Capable and Creative: Supporting Boys' Achievements, is issued by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
It says some members of staff "find the chosen play of boys more difficult to understand and value than that of girls." This is mainly because they tend to choose activities with more action, often based outdoors.
"Images and ideas gleaned from the media are common starting points in boys' play and may involve characters with special powers or weapons.
"Adults can find this particularly challenging and have a natural instinct to stop it.
"This is not necessary as long as practitioners help the boys to understand and respect the rights of other children and to take responsibility for the resources and environment."
The report says: "Creating situations so that boys' interests in these forms of play can be fostered through healthy and safe risk-taking will enhance every aspect of their learning and development."
It cites a North London children's centre which helped boys create a "Spiderman House" and print pictures of the superhero from the internet.
This led to improvements in their communication, ability to develop storylines in their play and skills in drawing, reading and writing.
The guidance is aimed at boosting boys' achievement. They often fall behind girls even before starting school and the trend can continue throughout their academic careers.
Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said: "The guidance simply takes a commonsense approach to the fact that many young children and perhaps particularly many boys, like boisterous, physical activity."
"Although noisy for adults such imaginary games are good for their development as well as good fun."
But Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The real problem with weapons is that they symbolise aggression.
"The reason teachers often intervene when kids have toy guns is that the boy is usually being very aggressive. We do need to ensure, whether the playing is rumbustious or not, that there is a respect for your peers, however young they are."
Chris Keates, general secretary of the The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) union said: "Many parents take the decision that their children won't have toy weapons."
Research by Penny Holland, academic leader for early childhood at London Metropolitan University, has also concluded that boys should be allowed to play gun games.
She found boys became dispirited and withdrawn when they are told such play-fighting is wrong.Microsoft today launched a new version of Outlook for Mac, available to Office 365 customers. At the same time, the company announced its plans to release a new Office for Mac version next year.
The release comes just a few days after Outlook for Mac screenshots leaked on October 27 over at Chinese site cnBeta. That was Monday. On Friday, Microsoft pulled the trigger.
Outlook for Mac
The new Outlook for Mac is available today to Office 365 commercial customers, as well as to Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal, and Office 365 University subscribers. The former group can get the new application by accessing their Office 365 Portal (Gear icon => Office 365 Settings => Software => Outlook for Mac icon) or visiting the Software page. The latter group can get it by going to their My Account page.
Here are the new Office for Mac features Microsoft wants to highlight:
Better performance and reliability as a result of a new threading model and database improvements
A new modern user interface with improved scrolling and agility when switching between Ribbon tabs
Online archive support for searching Exchange (online or on-premises) archived mail
Master Category List support and enhancements delivering access to category lists (name and color) and sync between Mac, Windows, and OWA clients
Office 365 push email support for real-time email delivery
Faster first-run and email download experience with improved Exchange Web Services syncing
The most obvious difference compared to Outlook 2011 will be the second point: a complete redesign. Microsoft says the goal of this release is to provide OS X users with a “more familiar and consistent experience” that matches Outlook for Windows, the Outlook on the Web, as well as the Outlook Web App (OWA) for Android and iOS devices.
Office for Mac
While the new Outlook for Mac was clearly ready to be pushed out early, Microsoft is still working on the other four main Office for Mac applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. The company is sharing today that a public beta for the next version of Office for Mac will be released in the first half of 2015. The final release will arrive in the second half of 2015.
Microsoft is promising Office 365 commercial and consumer subscribers will get the next version at no additional cost. At the same time, the company plans to release a standalone version: a perpetual license of Office for Mac will arrive “in the same timeframe.”
Mac owners who use Microsoft products may be scratching their heads right now. Yes, the Microsoft Office team is changing the timing of its OS X releases.
Historically, a new version of Office for Mac arrived approximately six to eight months after a new Office for Windows release. Following the arrival of Office 365, however, Microsoft said it “made the conscious decision to prioritize mobile first and cloud first scenarios.”
In other words, Office has been getting frequent updates for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Microsoft wants to pick up the pace for Mac as well.Barring injuries or other unexpected developments, the Braves plan to start Freddie Freeman at first base and Nick Markakis in right field for almost every game in 2016 and have newcomer Ender Inciarte as the primary center fielder — at least until prospect Mallex Smith is ready, at which point they could possibly share the duties.
But what of the other five non-pitching positions? In a pivotal year of the Braves’ rebuilding project, this figures to be an interesting season watching things unfold at these five positions.
Braves beat writer David O’Brien looks at catcher, second base, shortstop, third base and left field in his preview of spring training, which begins when pitchers and catcher report Feb. 19.
In the preview, he assesses:
• The competitors at each position.
• How the competition may play out.
• Which newcomers have a chance to crack the lineup.
Read the full article here.
Other Braves articles of interest:
Pitching prospects to compete for spots in starting rotation.
The Braves offer propose a solution to Hank Aaron statue issue.
Braves farm system rises rapidly in rankings.Two of the music industry’s most elusive characters agreed to an interview and share a track from their upcoming album “High Desert Low Tide”.
“High desert crunch meets city life punch for this collaborative project in sound”. Instrumental elements of Soul, Jazz, Hip Hop, Rock and tons more resonate throughout the record. Acoustic and electric instrumentation set the tone, and in their individual styles Clutchy & Fatty navigate your journey through psych-folk caverns of cactus dust to bloodshot rust-covered marine layer funk. It’s completely distinctive, original, and fresh, paying homage to the past, present and future. Visionary Folk-Funk.
Mike Jones: To be honest I’m surprised you two agreed to an interview so let’s dive on in. Clutchy, you’re now 12 years into the Clutchy Hopkins project. How has it evolved since its inception?
Clutchy: It has grown from making music with family and friends in mom’s garage to touching people across the world. It is a trip and thank you to everyone for your love and support.
You’ve released collaboration records with Shawn Lee and Lord Kenjamin in the past, and now Fat Albert Einstein (or Fatty). What sparked this particular collaboration between you two and how did you guys connect?
Clutchy: I met Fat Albert Einstein through Los Angeles emcee Dr. Oop. He invited me to Monmouth Temple to meet which led to jamming with him and a couple of his roommates. Fatty was playing some funky drums resulting in a friendship and recording. Now it is recorded history!
Fatty: It’s been an organic friendship from the beginning. I first heard Clutchy Hopkins when I was living at the Monmouth Temple. Dr. Oop was playing a new “beat tape” that caught my attention. I was drawn instantly… and as it turned out it was Clutchy. A week or two later, the phone rings, I answer and it was a call for Droop. He wasn’t home, so I ask to take a message, “Yeah this is Clutchy Hopkins”. I was like “Yo! that beat tape is so fresh man!” I asked if he played the instruments and he said “yeah”. I was like “Yeah! That’s right!” We talked for a bit about music and records and hit it off. He said he was digging a CD of my band Team Scrub that Droop laced him with so we decided to link up for some sessions. We had lots of fun. This was in 2005… that led to trips back and forth from LA to the Mojave… lots of sounds put down and blessed up that resulted in this record here.
Amazing! It sounds like it was meant to be. Because of your elusive personas will you be bringing the Clutchy & Fatty project to a live performance setting?
Fatty: Ha! We’ve talked about that, but then usually start recording stuff and forget about it.
Clutchy: Possibly, time will tell! Would love to travel to South America, Central America, Mexico, Canada, Africa, Mideast, Europe, Asia, Australia, Greenland, and Antarctica.
Can you give us a bit of a peak into the studio? It sounds like you guys were using a hundred different instruments, most of which sound modified or hand made. What did you use and where did you get them from?
Clutchy: We probably do have a hundred different instruments. We used drums, bass, guitar (Estin Lipscomb), piano, organ, keyboards (Rhodes, Wurly, Korg Polyphonic Ensemble to name a few), assorted flutes, horns and whistles, vibes, marimba, and tons of assorted percussions. I pick up any interesting instrument I see. Most are thrift and swap pickups and the rest are gifts. I do hand make some percussions and flutes and definitely use modifications to get the sound I am looking for.
A lot of the songs have a very visual or cinematic feeling to them. Have you ever considered doing a movie score or soundtrack?
Fatty: Yes bring the film work! It’s always a fun challenge to create differently than the normal studio process. Having visual cues and themes bring sounds that can grow and live in a different way. In a way I always feel as if I’m scoring the now.
Clutchy: Yes, for the right project… you hiring? I was fortunate to contribute a song to the film “My Beautiful Broken Brain” by Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland. It is a heartfelt and inspiring documentary of Lotje’s journey to recover and rehabilitate after a hemorrhagic stroke. Peep it!
I will for sure. There are a ton of different styles and genres referenced in this album. What were your biggest influences? (not limited to musical styles).
Fatty: I’m driven by the music first. I get lost in it, consumed. Then comes the feelings for my wife and children, family, earth… the elements. All things become the direct influence be it natural or not. The nature of our surroundings, living or animated. Emotions tend to arrange my colour palate and are reflected in it some way, be they in light or dark tones. I will say that, while recording, I fall under the influence of the composition as a whole, like in painting, allowing the song to guide me to its destination.
Clutchy: Biggest influences are Spirit, family, friends, nature, stars, wildlife, trees, plants, flowers, herbs, flavours, spices, Art & Music, J.S. Valencia, vinyl, cassettes, books, film, music from other countries (Cumbia, Arabic, Ethiopian), Jazz, Blues, Hip Hop, graffiti, Mochilla Productions, public and college radio, life experience, sights and sounds!
This one is more for Clutchy, but if there was a Clutchy Hopkins biopic, who would play the lead?
Clutchy: Ralph Macchio with a full grown beard and flannel directed by Shaw Brothers.
Fatty: Hahahaha! I’ll do all your stunts.
Follow Fat Albert Einstein:
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“High Desert Low Tide” releases March 3, 2017
high desert low tide by CLUTCHY HOPKINS & FAT ALBERT EINSTEIN
Preorder AlbumPresident Donald Trump will huddle behind closed doors with his attorney general today as he contemplates the source of numerous leaks from within the intel community and Department of Justice that have been hamstringing his administration.
Trump suspects that the FBI, which is under Jeff Sessions' purview at Justice, is giving classified information to reporters. He has not publicly called for an investigation but warned leakers this morning that they 'will be caught!'
He's particularly incensed about a New York Times report that relies on anonymous sourcing to accuse his campaign of having improper ties with Russia as the country was hacking people close to his opponent.
Senate Democrats on Wednesday called for Sessions to recuse himself from any executive branch investigation into the allegations being levied against Trump and his associates, before the White House released today's schedule.
President Donald Trump will huddle behind closed doors with his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, as he contemplates the source of numerous leaks that have been hamstringing his administration
Matt House, a top aide to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, released a snippet of the listing last night and commented that the meeting 'would be a lot less suspicious' if Sessions 'followed DOJ guidelines and recused himself' from an investigation into Trump.
Schumer said Wednesday that Sessions, a senator from Alabama until he was confirmed as attorney general earlier this month, should not be involved because of potential conflicts of interest.
Justice Department regulations prohibit individuals with political ties to the subjects of an investigation from leading it, he' said.
'When the FBI looks into a matter, they do so alongside prosecutors from the Justice Department,' Schumer stated. 'Those prosecutors should not be reporting to the first senator who endorsed Donald Trump's campaign.'
Sessions was one of Trump's earliest and staunchest backers in Congress.
Republicans have continued to brush off demands from Democrats for a Watergate-style probe, insisting investigations underway by the House and Senate intelligence committees are adequate.
And nothing requires Sessions to appoint a special prosecutor. A statute mandating the use of independent counsel in certain situations was allowed to expire in 1999.
Senate Democrats on Wednesday called for Sessions to recuse himself from any executive branch investigation into the allegations being levied against Trump and his associates. An aide to Chuck Schumer, center, said today's meeting is'suspicious'
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pointed out the president's meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions - while suggesting Sessions should recuse himself
Schumer and other Democrats spoke to reporters as Trump criticized the intelligence agencies that he oversees and the media for what he described as unfair treatment of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and for 'illegally leaked' information about reported contacts between his campaign aides and Russian officials.
Flynn was forced to resign Monday following reports he misled Vice President Mike Pence about contacts with a Russian diplomat.
Late Tuesday, The New York Times reported that U.S. agencies had intercepted phone calls last year between Russian intelligence officials and members of Trump's 2016 campaign team.
A group of 11 Democrats wrote to Sessions and urged him to appoint an independent special counsel to investigate possible illegal communications between Flynn and representatives of the Russian government.
The special counsel would also examine any attempts by Flynn and other White House officials to hide any wrongdoing, they said.
The group, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, included Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Schumer did not sign the letter to Sessions.
Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, recommended a streamlined approach as the best way to speed the inquiry along.
'I think sooner is better than later,' Blunt told reporters. 'And I think we can be a long way down the road in 90 days.'
Trump suspects that the FBI, which is under Jeff Sessions' purview at Justice, is giving classified information to reporters. He has not publicly called for an investigation but warned leakers this morning that they 'will be caught!' Sessions is seen meeting with the FBI's James Comey last week
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, didn't rule out an independent probe, but said he and other lawmakers 'need to find out a lot of basic information' first about Flynn's communications and the alleged contacts involving Trump's campaign.
'Something like this always sucks the oxygen out of the room,' McCain said. 'The president's national security adviser did not tell the vice president of the United States the truth and had to be fired.
'It brings up a lot of questions and those questions need to be answered. Right now, without a national security adviser and everything else that's going on in the White House, it is dysfunctional on national security.'
Separately, Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, a Republican who represents Iowa, and the panel's top Democrat, California's Dianne Feinstein, sent a letter late Wednesday to Sessions and FBI Director James Comey seeking a briefing on Flynn's resignation the week of Feb. 27.The Olympic village has been known as a hot spot for athlete hookups, and now it's become easier than ever.
Jamie Anderson, the gold medal-winning snowboarder, told US Weekly that the dating app Tinder is extremely popular among Olympians.
"Tinder in the Olympic Village is next level," Anderson said. "It's all athletes! In the mountain village it's all athletes. It's hilarious. There are some cuties on there."
Ryan Lochte once estimated that 70 to 75 percent of Olympians were having sex in the Olympic village. While we'll never know if that's accurate, we can only imagine how that number increases now that athletes can find a match on their phone in the comforts of their room.
That is, unless other athletes have followed in Anderson's lead and turned off Tinder to focus on their competitions.
"There was a point where I had to be like OK, this is way too distracting," Anderson said. "I deleted my account to focus on the Olympics."Jack Larson, best know for his role as reporter Jimmy Olsen on the first Superman TV show, died Sunday at his home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. He was 87.
Larson played George Reeves’ (Clark Kent/Superman) wide-eyed coworker at The Daily Planet — a role he tried, in vain, to escape throughout his |
‐ranging ravens in Maine (USA) that dominants allowed the subordinates to approach a new pile of meat first, although they went first if there was only a small amount of meat available that one raven could carry away. This indicates that the balance between risk and benefit may affect who approaches first. Greenberg & Mettke‐Hoffmann (2001) hypothesised that if pay‐offs are asymmetrical and the rank hierarchy is linear, subordinates should take the risk to approach first. This has been observed in several studies (e.g. response to novel space in jackdaws, Corvus monedula, Katzir 1982, predator inspection in angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare, Gómez‐Laplaza 2002). With one exception, dominant ravens of our tests did not approach first when being in groups.
The delayed approach to novel objects when together with conspecifics could be due to an increase in neophobia and thus social inhibition, as it was found in fish such as chum salmon, Oncorhynchus keta, and the atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, in which social context delayed or even inhibited approach to, and intake of, novel food (Ryer & Olla 1991; Brown & Laland 2001, 2002). When approaching a novel object ravens do jumping‐jacks and thereby test, whether the object is potentially dangerous (Heinrich 1988a). In our study, the ravens conducted significantly more jumping‐jacks when approaching the novel object alone than when being with conspecifics. This indicates that they approached more cautiously when being alone and supports our ‘negotiation hypothesis’, where one raven waits for the other to be the first and take the risk. If the delayed approach when tested with conspecifics would be due to a contagion of fear, we would expect to observe more jumping‐jacks in the social conditions as compared to the single‐bird condition. This was not the case.
We matched the number of novel objects with the number of birds in each test, to minimize potential effects of competition over novel objects. It is possible that a larger number of novel objects may increase neophobia, which would mean that our results of approach latency may be an artefact. However, we argue that this explanation is unlikely. When we tested the entire KLF group with only one novel object, the birds approached the novel object significantly later than when tested in sibling sub‐groups with the number of objects being equal to the number of birds. The appropriate control would have been testing the sibling sub‐groups with one novel object only and not the entire group to keep group composition constant. Still, if the number of objects would determine approach latency, ravens should have been faster when tested in the entire group with one novel object than when being in sibling sub‐groups with several novel objects, which was not the case.
In contrast to our results, Marzluff & Heinrich (1991) found that ravens approached new piles of meat quicker when in the group than alone. This was interpreted as a decrease of neophobia due to the presence of conspecifics. They worked with wild ravens which were trapped and habituated to the aviary before the onset of the experiments. Despite habituation to living in the aviary, the birds might have still been stressed by the isolation from the other birds and may therefore have been slower when approaching the new food piles alone compared to when being with conspecifics. In fact, the formerly free‐ranging ravens flushed away from the food more often when being alone than when being with conspecifics. Our ravens were habituated to being in an aviary and to being temporarily separated from conspecifics.
The behavioural phenotype of individuals (Koolhaas et al. 1999) may be an important component determining exploratory behaviour in ravens. Indeed, individuals of both groups differed significantly in their response to novel objects. Within individuals we observed some consistency: birds readily approaching and staying close to novel objects in the single‐bird condition tended to do so in the dyadic condition. However, when tested in groups individuals partly differed in their approach patterns compared to when tested alone or in dyads. These within‐individual variance might be due to effects of social status and the sex of the birds they were combined with (Stöwe et al. 2006). This influence of social context might increase with group size. In addition, individuals also vary in their response to a social setting depending on their coping style (Oers van et al. 2005). These factors might account for the observed inconsistencies in approach behaviour of the birds when tested with conspecifics.
Although the presence of conspecifics (in dyads and groups) delayed the initial approach to novel objects, once a raven approached, it facilitated exploration (ravens spent more time close to and manipulating novel objects in the presence of conspecifics). Facilitating effects were more pronounced in group sizes >2. Since non‐breeding ravens regularly forage in groups and actively recruit conspecifics at food sources, the potential benefits of feeding in a group (Heinrich & Marzluff 1995) seem to outweigh the disadvantage of a delayed initial approach.
In conclusion, when there are individuals in the group which approach novel objects quickly (due to their coping style, their experience or other factors), their presence may increase the motivation of others to approach as well. On the functional level, social context may dilute risk. However, the presence of some more nervous conspecifics may also lead to an increase in neophobia and inhibit or delay the approach. Alternatively, our results may reflect a strategic decision of the birds instead of a proximate constraint. An individual being tested alone must take the risk if interested in using a resource, while when others are present, it might wait until one of them takes the risk of prime exploration (war of attrition).
Apparently, there is no simple answer to the question of whether social context facilitates or inhibits the approach and exploration of novel objects, because it will depend on the species, group composition, individual dispositions and on individual decisions.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.
Several Palestinian media outlets on Saturday quoted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as accusing Israel of using “wild pigs” against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Abbas’s allegation was made during a speech he delivered at a pro-Palestinian conference in Ramallah on Friday night.
The charge was omitted from reports published by official PA media.This was not the first time the PA accused Israel of releasing pigs to destroy agricultural fields in the West Bank.In the past, the PA has claimed the IDF and settlers released wild pigs in Palestinian- owned lands to damage crops and intimidate farmers.“Every night, they [Israelis] release wild pigs against us,” Abbas was quoted as saying in his speech. “Why are they doing this to us?” He also accused Israel of using false pretexts to prevent Palestinians from entering their lands in the West Bank.Abbas also called for establishing “bridges of love” with Israelis “instead of the racist separation fence,” and warned, once again, against the eruption of a religious war while calling on Israelis “not to come close to our holy sites, just as we don’t come near your synagogues.”Abbas added: “The Jews know very well that we seek peace and not war. We want to live as a free people in our land Palestine. We don’t want war and violence. We are opposed to all forms of violence, here and abroad.”On Saturday, Abbas told Fatah leaders in Ramallah he was determined to pursue his statehood bid with the UN Security Council.Arab League foreign ministers were scheduled to meet at the end of this month to discuss the Palestinian bid, which calls for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, he said.An Israeli government official responded to Abbas’s charge about the wild boars, saying it would “be laughable, if it wasn’t so dangerous.”The official said this allegation was similar to one made in 2010 by the Egyptian governor of the south Sinai claiming a shark attack near Sharm e-Sheikh may have been triggered by the Mossad to harm Egyptian tourism.“It’s a pity the Palestinian Authority president choses to propagate such rubbish, and it raises questions about his real position on Israel,” the official said, adding that the remarks were dangerous because “they fit into a consistent and ongoing pattern of incitement.”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>TO-126, TO-92, SOT-23. Assorted discrete transistors. Packages in order from top to bottom: TO-3
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power. It is composed of semiconductor material usually with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Today, some transistors are packaged individually, but many more are found embedded in integrated circuits.
The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is ubiquitous in modern electronic systems. Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented a field-effect transistor in 1926[1] but it was not possible to actually construct a working device at that time. The first practically implemented device was a point-contact transistor invented in 1947 by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley. The transistor revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, among other things. The transistor is on the list of IEEE milestones in electronics,[2] and Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement.[3]
Most transistors are made from very pure silicon or germanium, but certain other semiconductor materials can also be used. A transistor may have only one kind of charge carrier, in a field effect transistor, or may have two kinds of charge carriers in bipolar junction transistor devices. Compared with the vacuum tube, transistors are generally smaller, and require less power to operate. Certain vacuum tubes have advantages over transistors at very high operating frequencies or high operating voltages. Many types of transistors are made to standardized specifications by multiple manufacturers.
History [ edit ]
A replica of the first working transistor.
The thermionic triode, a vacuum tube invented in 1907, enabled amplified radio technology and long-distance telephony. The triode, however, was a fragile device that consumed a substantial amount of power. In 1909 physicist William Eccles discovered the crystal diode oscillator.[4] Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent for a field-effect transistor (FET) in Canada in 1925[5], which was intended to be a solid-state replacement for the triode.[6][7] Lilienfeld also filed identical patents in the United States in 1926[8] and 1928.[9][10] However, Lilienfeld did not publish any research articles about his devices nor did his patents cite any specific examples of a working prototype. Because the production of high-quality semiconductor materials was still decades away, Lilienfeld's solid-state amplifier ideas would not have found practical use in the 1920s and 1930s, even if such a device had been built.[11] In 1934, German inventor Oskar Heil patented a similar device in Europe.[12]
From November 17, 1947, to December 23, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey of the United States performed experiments and observed that when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input.[13] Solid State Physics Group leader William Shockley saw the potential in this, and over the next few months worked to greatly expand the knowledge of semiconductors. The term transistor was coined by John R. Pierce as a contraction of the term transresistance.[14][15][16] According to Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch, authors of a biography of John Bardeen, Shockley had proposed that Bell Labs' first patent for a transistor should be based on the field-effect and that he be named as the inventor. Having unearthed Lilienfeld’s patents that went into obscurity years earlier, lawyers at Bell Labs advised against Shockley's proposal because the idea of a field-effect transistor that used an electric field as a "grid" was not new. Instead, what Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley invented in 1947 was the first point-contact transistor.[11] In acknowledgement of this accomplishment, Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".[17][18]
Herbert F. Mataré (1950)
In 1948, the point-contact transistor was independently invented by German physicists Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker while working at the Compagnie des Freins et Signaux, a Westinghouse subsidiary located in Paris. Mataré had previous experience in developing crystal rectifiers from silicon and germanium in the German radar effort during World War II. Using this knowledge, he began researching the phenomenon of "interference" in 1947. By June 1948, witnessing currents flowing through point-contacts, Mataré produced consistent results using samples of germanium produced by Welker, similar to what Bardeen and Brattain had accomplished earlier in December 1947. Realizing that Bell Labs' scientists had already invented the transistor before them, the company rushed to get its "transistron" into production for amplified use in France's telephone network.[19]
The first bipolar junction transistors were invented by Bell Labs' William Shockley, which applied for patent (2,569,347) on June 26, 1948. On April 12, 1950, Bell Labs chemists Gordon Teal and Morgan Sparks had successfully produced a working bipolar NPN junction amplifying germanium transistor. Bell Labs had announced the discovery of this new "sandwich" transistor in a press release on July 4, 1951.[20][21]
Philco surface-barrier transistor developed and produced in 1953
The first high-frequency transistor was the surface-barrier germanium transistor developed by Philco in 1953, capable of operating up to 60 MHz.[22] These were made by etching depressions into an N-type germanium base from both sides with jets of Indium(III) sulfate until it was a few ten-thousandths of an inch thick. Indium electroplated into the depressions formed the collector and emitter.[23][24]
The first "prototype" pocket transistor radio was shown by INTERMETALL (a company founded by Herbert Mataré in 1952) at the Internationale Funkausstellung Düsseldorf between August 29, 1953 and September 9, 1953.[25]
The first "production" pocket transistor radio was the Regency TR-1, released in October 1954.[18] Produced as a joint venture between the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates, I.D.E.A. and Texas Instruments of Dallas Texas, the TR-1 was manufactured in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was a near pocket-sized radio featuring 4 transistors and one germanium diode. The industrial design was outsourced to the Chicago firm of Painter, Teague and Petertil. It was initially released in one of four different colours: black, bone white, red, and gray. Other colours were to shortly follow.[26][27][28]
The first "production" all-transistor car radio was developed by Chrysler and Philco corporations and it was announced in the April 28th 1955 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Chrysler had made the all-transistor car radio, Mopar model 914HR, available as an option starting in fall 1955 for its new line of 1956 Chrysler and Imperial cars which first hit the dealership showroom floors on October 21, 1955.[29][30][31]
The first working silicon transistor was developed at Bell Labs on January 26, 1954 by Morris Tanenbaum. The first commercial silicon transistor was produced by Texas Instruments in 1954. This was the work of Gordon Teal, an expert in growing crystals of high purity, who had previously worked at Bell Labs.[32][33][34] The first MOSFET actually built was by Kahng and Atalla at Bell Labs in 1960.[35]
Importance [ edit ]
Darlington transistor opened up so the actual transistor chip (the small square) can be seen inside. A Darlington transistor is effectively two transistors on the same chip. One transistor is much larger than the other, but both are large in comparison to transistors in large-scale integration because this particular example is intended for power applications.
The transistor is the key active component in practically all modern electronics. Many consider it to be one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.[36] Its importance in today's society rests on its ability to be mass-produced using a highly automated process (semiconductor device fabrication) that achieves astonishingly low per-transistor costs. The invention of the first transistor at Bell Labs was named an IEEE Milestone in 2009.[37]
Although several companies each produce over a billion individually packaged (known as discrete) transistors every year,[38] the vast majority of transistors are now produced in integrated circuits (often shortened to IC, microchips or simply chips), along with diodes, resistors, capacitors and other electronic components, to produce complete electronic circuits. A logic gate consists of up to about twenty transistors whereas an advanced microprocessor, as of 2009, can use as many as 3 billion transistors (MOSFETs).[39] "About 60 million transistors were built in 2002… for [each] man, woman, and child on Earth."[40]
The transistor's low cost, flexibility, and reliability have made it a ubiquitous device. Transistorized mechatronic circuits have replaced electromechanical devices in controlling appliances and machinery. It is often easier and cheaper to use a standard microcontroller and write a computer program to carry out a control function than to design an equivalent mechanical system to control that same function.
Simplified operation [ edit ]
A simple circuit diagram to show the labels of a n–p–n bipolar transistor.
The essential usefulness of a transistor comes from its ability to use a small signal applied between one pair of its terminals to control a much larger signal at another pair of terminals. This property is called gain. It can produce a stronger output signal, a voltage or current, which is proportional to a weaker input signal; that is, it can act as an amplifier. Alternatively, the transistor can be used to turn current on or off in a circuit as an electrically controlled switch, where the amount of current is determined by other circuit elements.
There are two types of transistors, which have slight differences in how they are used in a circuit. A bipolar transistor has terminals labeled base, collector, and emitter. A small current at the base terminal (that is, flowing between the base and the emitter) can control or switch a much larger current between the collector and emitter terminals. For a field-effect transistor, the terminals are labeled gate, source, and drain, and a voltage at the gate can control a current between source and drain.
The image represents a typical bipolar transistor in a circuit. Charge will flow between emitter and collector terminals depending on the current in the base. Because internally the base and emitter connections behave like a semiconductor diode, a voltage drop develops between base and emitter while the base current exists. The amount of this voltage depends on the material the transistor is made from, and is referred to as V BE.
Transistor as a switch [ edit ]
BJT used as an electronic switch, in grounded-emitter configuration.
Transistors are commonly used in digital circuits as electronic switches which can be either in an "on" or "off" state, both for high-power applications such as switched-mode power supplies and for low-power applications such as logic gates. Important parameters for this application include the current switched, the voltage handled, and the switching speed, characterised by the rise and fall times.
In a grounded-emitter transistor circuit, such as the light-switch circuit shown, as the base voltage rises, the emitter and collector currents rise exponentially. The collector voltage drops because of reduced resistance from collector to emitter. If the voltage difference between the collector and emitter were zero (or near zero), the collector current would be limited only by the load resistance (light bulb) and the supply voltage. This is called saturation because current is flowing from collector to emitter freely. When saturated, the switch is said to be on.[41]
Providing sufficient base drive current is a key problem in the use of bipolar transistors as switches. The transistor provides current gain, allowing a relatively large current in the collector to be switched by a much smaller current into the base terminal. The ratio of these currents varies depending on the type of transistor, and even for a particular type, varies depending on the collector current. In the example light-switch circuit shown, the resistor is chosen to provide enough base current to ensure the transistor will be saturated.
In a switching circuit, the idea is to simulate, as near as possible, the ideal switch having the properties of open circuit when off, short circuit when on, and an instantaneous transition between the two states. Parameters are chosen such that the "off" output is limited to leakage currents too small to affect connected circuitry; the resistance of the transistor in the "on" state is too small to affect circuitry; and the transition between the two states is fast enough not to have a detrimental effect.
Transistor as an amplifier [ edit ]
Amplifier circuit, common-emitter configuration with a voltage-divider bias circuit.
The common-emitter amplifier is designed so that a small change in voltage (V in ) changes the small current through the base of the transistor; the transistor's current amplification combined with the properties of the circuit means that small swings in V in produce large changes in V out.
Various configurations of single transistor amplifier are possible, with some providing current gain, some voltage gain, and some both.
From mobile phones to televisions, vast numbers of products include amplifiers for sound reproduction, radio transmission, and signal processing. The first discrete-transistor audio amplifiers barely supplied a few hundred milliwatts, but power and audio fidelity gradually increased as better transistors became available and amplifier architecture evolved.
Modern transistor audio amplifiers of up to a few hundred watts are common and relatively inexpensive.
Comparison with vacuum tubes [ edit ]
Before transistors were developed, vacuum (electron) tubes (or in the UK "thermionic valves" or just "valves") were the main active components in electronic equipment.
Advantages [ edit ]
The key advantages that have allowed transistors to replace vacuum tubes in most applications are
no cathode heater (which produces the characteristic orange glow of tubes), reducing power consumption, eliminating delay as tube heaters warm up, and immune from cathode poisoning and depletion;
very small size and weight, reducing equipment size;
large numbers of extremely small transistors can be manufactured as a single integrated circuit;
low operating voltages compatible with batteries of only a few cells;
circuits with greater energy efficiency are usually possible. For low-power applications (e.g., voltage amplification) in particular, energy consumption can be very much less than for tubes;
complementary devices available, providing design flexibility including complementary-symmetry circuits, not possible with vacuum tubes;
very low sensitivity to mechanical shock and vibration, providing physical ruggedness and virtually eliminating shock-induced spurious signals (e.g., microphonics in audio applications);
not susceptible to breakage of a glass envelope, leakage, outgassing, and other physical damage.
Limitations [ edit ]
Transistors have the following limitations:
high-power, high-frequency operation, such as that used in over-the-air television broadcasting, is better achieved in vacuum tubes due to improved electron mobility in a vacuum;
solid-state devices are susceptible to damage from very brief electrical and thermal events, including electrostatic discharge in handling; vacuum tubes are electrically much more rugged;
sensitivity to radiation and cosmic rays (special radiation-hardened chips are used for spacecraft devices);
vacuum tubes in audio applications create significant lower-harmonic distortion, the so-called tube sound, which some people prefer.[42]
Types [ edit ]
PNP P-channel NPN N-channel BJT JFET BJT and JFET symbols
P-channel N-channel JFET MOSFET enh MOSFET dep JFET and MOSFET symbols
Transistors are categorized by
Hence, a particular transistor may be described as silicon, surface-mount, BJT, n–p–n, low-power, high-frequency switch.
A popular way to remember which symbol represents which type of transistor is to look at the arrow and how it is arranged. Within an NPN transistor symbol, the arrow will Not Point iN. Conversely, within the PNP symbol you see that the arrow Points iN Proudly.
Bipolar junction transistor (BJT) [ edit ]
Bipolar transistors are so named because they conduct by using both majority and minority carriers. The bipolar junction transistor, the first type of transistor to be mass-produced, is a combination of two junction diodes, and is formed of either a thin layer of p-type semiconductor sandwiched between two n-type semiconductors (an n–p–n transistor), or a thin layer of n-type semiconductor sandwiched between two p-type semiconductors (a p–n–p transistor). This construction produces two p–n junctions: a base–emitter junction and a base–collector junction, separated by a thin region of semiconductor known as the base region (two junction diodes wired together without sharing an intervening semiconducting region will not make a transistor).
BJTs have three terminals, corresponding to the three layers of semiconductor—an emitter, a base, and a collector. They are useful in amplifiers because the currents at the emitter and collector are controllable by a relatively small base current.[44] In an n–p–n transistor operating in the active region, the emitter–base junction is forward biased (electrons and holes recombine at the junction), and the base-collector junction is reverse biased (electrons and holes are formed at, and move away from the junction), and electrons are injected into the base region. Because the base is narrow, most of these electrons will diffuse into the reverse-biased base–collector junction and be swept into the collector; perhaps one-hundredth of the electrons will recombine in the base, which is the dominant mechanism in the base current. As well, as the base is lightly doped (in comparison to the emitter and collector regions), recombination rates are low, permitting more carriers to diffuse across the base region. By controlling the number of electrons that can leave the base, the number of electrons entering the collector can be controlled.[44] Collector current is approximately β (common-emitter current gain) times the base current. It is typically greater than 100 for small-signal transistors but can be smaller in transistors designed for high-power applications.
Unlike the field-effect transistor (see below), the BJT is a low-input-impedance device. Also, as the base–emitter voltage (V BE ) is increased the base–emitter current and hence the collector–emitter current (I CE ) increase exponentially according to the Shockley diode model and the Ebers-Moll model. Because of this exponential relationship, the BJT has a higher transconductance than the FET.
Bipolar transistors can be made to conduct by exposure to light, because absorption of photons in the base region generates a photocurrent that acts as a base current; the collector current is approximately β times the photocurrent. Devices designed for this purpose have a transparent window in the package and are called phototransistors.
Field-effect transistor (FET) [ edit ]
Operation of a FET and its Id-Vg curve. At first, when no gate voltage is applied. There is no inversion electron in the channel, the device is OFF. As gate voltage increase, inversion electron density in the channel increase, current increase, the device turns on.
The field-effect transistor, sometimes called a unipolar transistor, uses either electrons (in n-channel FET) or holes (in p-channel FET) for conduction. The four terminals of the FET are named source, gate, drain, and body (substrate). On most FETs, the body is connected to the source inside the package, and this will be assumed for the following description.
In a FET, the drain-to-source current flows via a conducting channel that connects the source region to the drain region. The conductivity is varied by the electric field that is produced when a voltage is applied between the gate and source terminals; hence the current flowing between the drain and source is controlled by the voltage applied between the gate and source. As the gate–source voltage (V GS ) is increased, the drain–source current (I DS ) increases exponentially for V GS below threshold, and then at a roughly quadratic rate (I DS ∝ (V GS − V T )2) (where V T is the threshold voltage at which drain current begins)[45] in the "space-charge-limited" region above threshold. A quadratic behavior is not observed in modern devices, for example, at the 65 nm technology node.[46]
For low noise at narrow bandwidth the higher input resistance of the FET is advantageous.
FETs are divided into two families: junction FET (JFET) and insulated gate FET (IGFET). The IGFET is more commonly known as a metal–oxide–semiconductor FET (MOSFET), reflecting its original construction from layers of metal (the gate), oxide (the insulation), and semiconductor. Unlike IGFETs, the JFET gate forms a p–n diode with the channel which lies between the source and drain. Functionally, this makes the n-channel JFET the solid-state equivalent of the vacuum tube triode which, similarly, forms a diode between its grid and cathode. Also, both devices operate in the depletion mode, they both have a high input impedance, and they both conduct current under the control of an input voltage.
Metal–semiconductor FETs (MESFETs) are JFETs in which the reverse biased p–n junction is replaced by a metal–semiconductor junction. These, and the HEMTs (high-electron-mobility transistors, or HFETs), in which a two-dimensional electron gas with very high carrier mobility is used for charge transport, are especially suitable for use at very high frequencies (microwave frequencies; several GHz).
FETs are further divided into depletion-mode and enhancement-mode types, depending on whether the channel is turned on or off with zero gate-to-source voltage. For enhancement mode, the channel is off at zero bias, and a gate potential can "enhance" the conduction. For the depletion mode, the channel is on at zero bias, and a gate potential (of the opposite polarity) can "deplete" the channel, reducing conduction. For either mode, a more positive gate voltage corresponds to a higher current for n-channel devices and a lower current for p-channel devices. Nearly all JFETs are depletion-mode because the diode junctions would forward bias and conduct if they were enhancement-mode devices; most IGFETs are enhancement-mode types.
Usage of bipolar and field-effect transistors [ edit ]
The bipolar junction transistor (BJT) was the most commonly used transistor in the 1960s and 70s. Even after MOSFETs became widely available, the BJT remained the transistor of choice for many analog circuits such as amplifiers because of their greater linearity and ease of manufacture. In integrated circuits, the desirable properties of MOSFETs allowed them to capture nearly all market share for digital circuits. Discrete MOSFETs can be applied in transistor applications, including analog circuits, voltage regulators, amplifiers, power transmitters and motor drivers.
Other transistor types [ edit ]
Part numbering standards/specifications [ edit ]
The types of some transistors can be parsed from the part number. There are three major semiconductor naming standards; in each the alphanumeric prefix provides clues to type of the device.
Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) [ edit ]
JIS transistor prefix table Prefix Type of transistor 2SA high-frequency p–n–p BJT 2SB audio-frequency p–n–p BJT 2SC high-frequency n–p–n BJT 2SD audio-frequency n–p–n BJT 2SJ P-channel FET (both JFET and MOSFET) 2SK N-channel FET (both JFET and MOSFET)
The JIS-C-7012 specification for transistor part numbers starts with "2S",[54] e.g. 2SD965, but sometimes the "2S" prefix is not marked on the package – a 2SD965 might only be marked "D965"; a 2SC1815 might be listed by a supplier as simply "C1815". This series sometimes has suffixes (such as "R", "O", "BL", standing for "red", "orange", "blue", etc.) to denote variants, such as tighter h FE (gain) groupings.
European Electronic Component Manufacturers Association (EECA) [ edit ]
The Pro Electron standard, the European Electronic Component Manufacturers Association part numbering scheme, begins with two letters: the first gives the semiconductor type (A for germanium, B for silicon, and C for materials like GaAs); the second letter denotes the intended use (A for diode, C for general-purpose transistor, etc.). A 3-digit sequence number (or one letter then two digits, for industrial types) follows. With early devices this indicated the case type. Suffixes may be used, with a letter (e.g. "C" often means high h FE, such as in: BC549C[55]) or other codes may follow to show gain (e.g. BC327-25) or voltage rating (e.g. BUK854-800A[56]). The more common prefixes are:
Pro Electron / EECA transistor prefix table Prefix class Type and usage Example Equivalent Reference AC Germanium small-signal AF transistor AC126 NTE102A Datasheet AD Germanium AF power transistor AD133 NTE179 Datasheet AF Germanium small-signal RF transistor AF117 NTE160 Datasheet AL Germanium RF power transistor ALZ10 NTE100 Datasheet AS Germanium switching transistor ASY28 NTE101 Datasheet AU Germanium power switching transistor AU103 NTE127 Datasheet BC Silicon, small-signal transistor ("general purpose") BC548 2N3904 Datasheet BD Silicon, power transistor BD139 NTE375 Datasheet BF Silicon, RF (high frequency) BJT or FET BF245 NTE133 Datasheet BS Silicon, switching transistor (BJT or MOSFET) BS170 2N7000 Datasheet BL Silicon, high frequency, high power (for transmitters) BLW60 NTE325 Datasheet BU Silicon, high voltage (for CRT horizontal deflection circuits) BU2520A NTE2354 Datasheet CF Gallium arsenide small-signal microwave transistor (MESFET) CF739 — Datasheet CL Gallium arsenide microwave power transistor (FET) CLY10 — Datasheet
Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) [ edit ]
The JEDEC EIA370 transistor device numbers usually start with "2N", indicating a three-terminal device (dual-gate field-effect transistors are four-terminal devices, so begin with 3N), then a 2, 3 or 4-digit sequential number with no significance as to device properties (although early devices with low numbers tend to be germanium). For example, 2N3055 is a silicon n–p–n power transistor, 2N1301 is a p–n–p germanium switching transistor. A letter suffix (such as "A") is sometimes used to indicate a newer variant, but rarely gain groupings.
Proprietary [ edit ]
Manufacturers of devices may have their own proprietary numbering system, for example CK722. Since devices are second-sourced, a manufacturer's prefix (like "MPF" in MPF102, which originally would denote a Motorola FET) now is an unreliable indicator of who made the device. Some proprietary naming schemes adopt parts of other naming schemes, for example a PN2222A is a (possibly Fairchild Semiconductor) 2N2222A in a plastic case (but a PN108 is a plastic version of a BC108, not a 2N108, while the PN100 is unrelated to other xx100 devices).
Military part numbers sometimes are assigned their own codes, such as the British Military CV Naming System.
Manufacturers buying large numbers of similar parts may have them supplied with "house numbers", identifying a particular purchasing specification and not necessarily a device with a standardized registered number. For example, an HP part 1854,0053 is a (JEDEC) 2N2218 transistor[57][58] which is also assigned the CV number: CV7763[59]
Naming problems [ edit ]
With so many independent naming schemes, and the abbreviation of part numbers when printed on the devices, ambiguity sometimes occurs. For example, two different devices may be marked "J176" (one the J176 low-power JFET, the other the higher-powered MOSFET 2SJ176).
As older "through-hole" transistors are given surface-mount packaged counterparts, they tend to be assigned many different part numbers because manufacturers have their own systems to cope with the variety in pinout arrangements and options for dual or matched n–p–n + p–n–p devices in one pack. So even when the original device (such as a 2N3904) may have been assigned by a standards authority, and well known by engineers over the years, the new versions are far from standardized in their naming.
Construction [ edit ]
Semiconductor material [ edit ]
Sem |
war, for example), or because huge masses (especially of peasants and petit-bourgeois intellectuals) have passed suddenly from a state of political passivity to a certain activity” (Gramsci, 'State and Civil Society').
It is precisely such a generalised crisis that rescues the "Forty Eightist" position from a purely niche, antiquarian, or fetishistic interest, justifying the idea of a permanent revolution taking on the state directly. The ruling order suddenly seems brittle, the civil society no longer as robust, existing channels for popular expression no longer capable of deflating radical critique. Something like this could be said to have occurred in the Middle East. However, in the short-run, such crises are dangerous for the Left. Not all strata can reorient themselves at the same pace - traditional ruling classes have numerous trained cadres, and changes men and programmes with greater speed than opponents. For example, the Left was initially wrong-footed by the crisis of 2008, not helped by it.
One might argue that the revolutionary process in the Middle East reinforces the view that such scenarios only unfold in states with weak civil society organisations, frail or non-existent democratic legitimacy, overwhelmingly dependent on force. This, however, would overstate the extent to which the ancien regimes in the recent revolutionary states, Tunisia and Egypt, were dependent on consent. It was precisely because such consent broke down, and the social basis of their regimes narrowed, that they eventually fell. Mubarak's fall, for example, was precipitated by: a financial crisis; the weakening of state capacity; the defection of important class fractions (particularly the middle class and rural poor); the shattering of elite self-confidence; the transfer of loyalties of strategically significant intellectuals to opposition, which cultivates its own cadres of organic intellectuals; and finally a popular unwillingness to tolerate the old order, even at the cost of privation, injury and a number of deaths. These processes would have been accelerated by the regime's undemocratic nature, and its considerable cultural and socioeconomic distance from the ruled, but they are far from unique to such regimes. An organic crisis can afflict any regime. It would be historically short-sighted not to expect the features of such crises to recur not just in Third World autocracies, but in the Euro-American capitalist core in the near future.
Five years ago, a little noted article appeared in The International Political Science Review. By Adam Webb, the article entitled 'The Calm Before the Storm? Revolutionary Pressures and Global Governance' anticipated "a global revolutionary crisis". This would probably take place within a generation, he forecast, and would be prefaced by a systemic global economic crisis equivalent to the prolonged 'troughs' of the 1930s and 1970s. Such a crisis would intersect with an existing sense of injustice about the inequity of global wealth accumulation, and drive political radicalisation. But this would not result in revolution if the world system and the national regimes comprising it enjoyed sufficient legitimacy to weather the storm. The reason why such a crisis can become revolutionary is because the existing order is brittle, increasingly lacking democratic legitimacy even within the 'developed' capitalist core.
This is a feature of neoliberal governance, which saw "that ‘unstable equilibrium’ between coercion and consent which characterizes all democratic class politics" tilt "decisively towards the ‘authoritarian’ pole" (Stuart Hall). Limited democratic participation was replaced by market-driven decision-making. The fragile, antagonistic nature of this hegemonic project, which involved somehow suturing together a series of 'contradictory' subject-positions, meant that it could only survive through the weakness of its opponents. Indeed, it had derived its initial energy from exploiting unpopular aspects of the old social democratic centre, and of certain labour movement practises, in order to divide and weaken opponents. But given a sufficiently ecumenical crisis, and the revival of radical forces of opposition, the patent weakness of its civil society bases, the lack of popular participation in the regime (even in its limited corporatist forms), and its lack of ability to absorbe and 'transform' popular demands, all become abundantly plain.
On top of this, the national regimes founded on such social pacts are increasingly integrated into global transgovernmental institutions designed to reinforce their lack of responsiveness to popular pressure, to insulate their law-making and economic decision-making processes from popular majorities, while capital has sought to free itself somewhat from controls by national states. The Middle East revolutions show that those who expect 'globalization' in this sense to render the capture of national states irrelevant are mistaken. But if there is a scalar shift taking place in the operation of capitalist power, it is not as yet matched by a global civil society capable of buttressing this transnational power's legitimacy. This affects the level at which revolutionary struggles are pitched, as they increasingly have a regional dimension analogous to the regionalising tendencies within capitalism itself. It also means, however, that reactionary 'anti-capitalist' forces could emerge predicated on national, ethnic or religious revival, particularly if the contending forces reach an impasse, neither able to impose a solution, allowing a charismatic Bonapartist/Caesarist leadership to emerge and carry through a 'passive revolution' that preserves the basic class structure while introducing substantial social changes. Such a tendency is not restricted to, but is most dangerous in, the imperialist states.
Labels: bourgeoisie, capitalist crisis, civil society, gramsci, hegemony, organic crisis, passive revolution, revolution, ruling classThe brutal murders of two land rights activists in Honduras last night are the latest tragedies in a seemingly unstoppable wave of deadly attacks turning Honduras into a no-go zone for human rights defenders, said Amnesty International.
José Angel Flores, 64, President of the Movimiento Unificado Campesino, was shot dead by a group of unidentified men in the department of Colón, northern Honduras, in the afternoon of 18 October.
Another community leader, Silmer Dionisio George, was also shot in the incident and died at a local hospital hours later.
“Honduras has turned into a ‘no-go zone’ for anyone daring to campaign for the protection of the environment. How many more activists have to be brutally murdered before the authorities take effective action to protect them, or even be willing to talk about this crisis?” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.
José Angel Flores had reported threats in relation to his human rights work. In 2014, he had been granted precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requesting the state to provide him with protection.
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José Angel and Silmer´s murders came amid a wave of threats against their community and are the latest in a series of killings of human rights defenders, including that of indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, who was shot dead in March this year.
The lack of exhaustive investigations into the attacks and threats against activists, as well as the unwillingness of the authorities to implement effective mechanisms to protect them, are fuelling the increasing violence.
“Authorities in Honduras must take immediate action to effectively protect those who work to promote and defend the basic human rights of all in the country. Anything less will only put more brave human rights defenders in mortal danger,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas.
Last week, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández declined a meeting with Amnesty International’s Secretary General Salil Shetty to discuss the human rights crisis in the country, including the increasing wave of attacks against human rights activists.Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny says he rejected interest from other clubs in the past and could end up finishing his career with the Gunners.
On Sunday, Koscielny, 30, helped Arsenal return to the top of the Premier League, ahead of Leicester City on goal difference, after they dug out a 0-0 draw at Stoke City.
The France international has been a key part of a defence that has conceded only 21 goals in 22 league matches this season.
Koscielny's club form has him well placed to start for France at Euro 2016 alongside Real Madrid's Raphael Varane.
Laurent Koscielny has made 19 Premier League appearances this season.
Now in his sixth season in London, the former Lorient player has not given much thought to quitting a team that has brought him success at club and international level.
"For the moment, I have no reason to go and look elsewhere," he told Le Journal du Dimanche, in an interview published before the game at Stoke. "I have everything I need to blossom.
"There were teams interested in me but I always asked myself if it was worth taking the risk. I've seen a good few players leave for a bigger club and find themselves on the substitutes' bench.
"At the start of my career I was often on the bench. I hated it. I said to myself -- never again."
With 16 matches left, Koscielny believes Arsenal are well placed to win the league thanks to the confidence they have gained from lifting the FA Cup two years in a row.
Having been part of the team that beat Hull City and Aston Villa in the past two FA Cup finals, he is hopeful that the Gunners can claim the Premier League trophy for the first time since 2004.
"The title can't be taken for granted but I prefer to be in this position than to be chasing after the others," he said.
Koscielny said that the Premier League had become "more and more homogenous" and that TV money had allowed "average teams" to sign "very good players who would have signed for the big five until now."
"But after 10 years without a trophy, the cup wins have done us good," he continued. "We had to pass that milestone.
"For the past three years, we've kept our spine. We know each other better so that allows us to win matches that we would have lost before."The Cleveland Indians are World Series losers, and when they report back to their home field on April 3, it should be without their racist logo, once and for all.
The Indians wore their second alternate uniforms all postseason long—15 games across three series without ever switching up their gear. Home or away, the day after a win or the day after a loss, the Indians trotted out their racist logo for the world to see.
We’re past the point of arguing the various virtues of keeping the logo in the franchise’s back pocket for the sake of nostalgia. It doesn’t matter what origin story you’ve heard about the logo, or that Cleveland baseball is something you shared with your dad. It doesn’t matter that it’s their second alternate logo, or that postseason merchandise has featured the block C instead. It doesn’t matter if the team means no offense by it, or if fans only show up in redface and headdresses for postseason games. It doesn’t matter if you know a Native American who says they don’t care about the logo, or if the old version of the logo used to be worse.
Cleveland fans can kick and scream and shit their pants all they want over what the logo means to them and twist themselves into knots to justify what’s plainly racist. It’s gotta go, and the franchise should do it in the wake of its World Series loss.
Discontinuing use of the logo won’t stop fans from wearing the Wahoo merch they own or attending games in stereotypical garb, but those are the choices of individuals, rather than the choice of a major league franchise.
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Major League Baseball is clearly sick of this shit. Commissioner Rob Manfred has tried to take the “gotta hear both sides” approach to the issue during the World Series:
I know that that particular logo is offensive to some people, and all of us at Major League Baseball understand why. Logos are, however, primarily a local matter. The local club makes decisions about its logos. Fans get attached to logos. They become part of a team’s history. So it’s not easy as coming to the conclusion and realizing that the logo is offensive to some segment.
It’s clear, though, that Manfred was frustrated to have to spend his showpony World Series talking about Wahoo:
You know, I’ve said what I want to say about Chief Wahoo. Obviously when a team is in the World Series, there is a spotlight on that team. Everything about that team attracts more attention, and I think that’s probably the case with respect to the logo issue.
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Manfred will meet with team owner Paul Dolan in the offseason to “discuss” what to do about the logo going forward. Major League Baseball is habitually deferential to its clubs, and yet if Manfred is publicly announcing a meeting with a team owner over concerns about a longtime franchise logo, you can bet he’s not going in without something to say and evidence to back it up. He is a lawyer, after all.
The Indians have included in fan surveys this year—and a few years in the past—questions for season ticket holders and fans who have bought a lot of tickets over the season about their feelings on each of the logos. The questions about the logo were buried at the end of a lengthy survey, and are clearly tilted toward gauging fan opinion on Wahoo:
The logo makes me proud of the Indians
The logo reflects the heritage of the Indians
The logo is an important part of my support for the Indians
I feel a strong, positive, emotional connection to this logo
This logo represents more than the team - it represents the city of Cleveland
Pride and heritage have become obvious dog-whistles for any discussions about the use of Native American imagery for sports teams, and the nature of distributing a survey to uniquely dedicated fans limits the perspective the team will hear. The first two questions are leading, and they are followed by the most obvious lead-in of all: “The logo is an important part of my support for the Indians.” It gives the cowardly Indians an out from responsibility over their logo: Well, the fans said they’d revolt, so Wahoo stays.
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The fans won’t revolt. Fans take principled stands against all sorts of shit, either good or bad. The quickest way for the Indians to lose rabid fan support—and the money that comes with it—is to return to irrelevance, which shouldn’t be the case for a handful of years given the team they have assembled.
The silver lining on the Indians’ collapse is that they now have even less reason to hang onto the racist logo. A victory may have convinced the team to hang onto the logo and the “tradition” it represents until the end of time, but they blew a 3-1 lead in the World Series—their third championship loss since 1995, and their fourth since 1948—and Chief Wahoo is an even bigger avatar of failure than he was yesterday.
Cubs and their fans might have gone into this series with the longer championship drought and the more vaunted agony to go with it, but the Indians are the ones with the more recent failure, and they are the one whose wounds will be undoubtedly worsened by the undignified way the team pissed away three games that would have won them the ring.
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It’s past time for the Indians to give an unceremonious exit to their racist logo, and they should take their chance to leave it in the ashes of the World Series, as they attempt to rid themselves of the stink that comes with such a massive collapse. Take the chance and run, Cleveland. Take it and run.The Education Department is considering changing how civil rights investigations are conducted at schools.
Currently, investigations into discrimination complaints in schools look beyond the specific incident of discrimination and probe for any possible "systemic" or institutional issues that lead to civil rights issues in the first place. The education department could change that so future probes focus instead on the main complaint at hand.
The proposed change, which was revealed in a document obtained by The Associated Press, removes the word “systemic” from guidelines on how to probe civil rights violations.
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Discrimination advocates told the AP that the change could allow for the continuation of the same widespread behaviors that lead to investigations in the first place.
The policy change was included in a draft of new policy proposals, and a final version of the policies will be published next year, The AP reported.
Another proposed change would allow the department to negotiate agreements with schools or school districts without releasing the findings of an investigation to the students and parents involved in discrimination complaints.
Education experts told the AP that change would also leave parents out of the process and give them less of an opportunity to advocate for their children.
These policy changes come as the Education Department streamlines policies amid an administration-wide push to roll back regulations that are considered unnecessary.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Elizabeth (Betsy) Dee DeVosWest Virginia teachers just struck against a windfall for public schools Students call on DeVos to offer free tampons, pads in schools to address 'period poverty' DeVos recovering from broken pelvis, hip socket after bicycle accident MORE has come under fire for rolling back several Obama-era policies since her confirmation.
The department rescinded Obama rules on campus sexual assault and guidelines on the rights of students with disabilities earlier this year.LOS ANGELES – The engagement of Andrew Bynum comes and goes, and that's why the best center in these NBA playoffs sat for hours on a bus inside of Arco Arena on Thursday night. Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol chatted on the Los Angeles Lakers bench, cheering on teammates and resting themselves for the start of the NBA playoffs. Bynum never joined them, sources said. He never left the bus. He strapped his earphones around his head, bobbing to beats. For hours, Bynum curled up into a seat, waiting for the Lakers to drive him back to the airport, back to the playoffs.
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He had come into these playoffs the way he left them a year ago: All alone. The forever memory of that Lakers collapse was Bynum crushing little Jose Barea late in Game 4 of the Dallas Mavericks' sweep. There would come an ejection, embarrassment and a suspension, a monument to a lost season, a last dance for Phil Jackson.
And so, Bynum reached one final time into the air of the Staples Center on Sunday, reached toward the rafters and those 16 championship banners and sent one more Denver Nuggets shot careening back. He had been historically dominant on Sunday, punctuating the first triple-double of his career with his 10th block late in the Lakers' 103-88 Game 1 victory.
No one missed Metta World Peace. No one talked about Kobe Bryant's 31 points. Pau Gasol had 13 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, and it still felt so much smaller when Bynum went for 10 points, 13 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. Only Hakeem Olajuwon and Mark Eaton had ever turned back so many shots in a playoff game.
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For all the blocks, there were so many more shots that changed course, that were disrupted. Nuggets coach George Karl called it a "nice illegal defense," but even the referees can't bail out his team should Bynum be so inclined to destroy it.
"If he continues to play like he did, we'll be playing a long time," Lakers coach Mike Brown said. "He can control a game without shooting a single shot if he wanted to."
[Related: Andrew Bynum's 10 blocks tie NBA playoff record]
Well, Andrew Bynum doesn't want to do that. He wants the ball, wants to score and wants to dominate everywhere on the floor. Only, the ball is spread through the genius offensive talents of Bryant and Gasol, and that's something that Bynum still struggles to accept. Sometimes, he holds the defense and rebounding hostage on these Lakers: Give me some shots, and I'll give you what you need.
When someone asked how a record 10 blocked shots compares to, say, a 30-point performance, Bynum knew the political response everyone wanted to hear. Well, he wasn't giving it. He's supposed to say that blocking those shots is the most important thing in the world to him, because that's what the Lakers mostly need out of him. Yet, Bynum wants to be a superstar, and superstars score the ball. This was his best, most complete offensive season with nearly 19 points a game, but he can do more, and everyone knows it.
"Obviously, I want to score points, but that's not always available to me," Bynum said. The blocked shots? "The next best thing," he called them.
Bynum is so young, 24 years old, and yet this is his seventh season in the NBA. Habits form. Development slows. Slowly, surely, you become what you will always be: Sometimes brilliant, sometimes detached and forever an enigma. At the trade deadline in February, the Lakers were willing to part with Bynum for Orlando center Dwight Howard. The Lakers wanted an assurance that Howard would sign a contract extension, and he wouldn't give it, sources in the talks said.
Looking back, the irony is unmistakable now. Howard was the sure thing, the indestructible force who never got injured, never missed games. Bynum was the gamble, with major parts of three seasons lost to knee injuries. Now, Howard is rehabilitating his back after surgery and struggling to sit up straight in a chair. He'll be back again, but he would've gone down with the Lakers, just like he did with the Magic.
Once the trade deadline passed in February, perhaps it was no coincidence that Bynum's petulance surfaced more and more. When Brown punished him for shooting 3-pointers, Bynum disconnected from huddles, slid down the bench and became isolated. He's always been private, always been an independent thinker.
[Also: Celtics' Rajon Rondo ejected after bumping ref]
No one should ever underestimate Bynum. He didn't go to college, but had he enrolled at Connecticut, he would've majored in engineering. He loves to take machinery apart, study how it works and put it back together again. He's a voracious reader. He's curious of a world far beyond basketball, but there's a petulance about him borne out of so many gifted young prodigies: What he's willing to give versus what he's willing to get.
Yes, the engagement of Andrew Bynum comes and goes. Bynum gathered 30 rebounds in a victory over the San Antonio Spurs and then got benched in an immense game with Oklahoma City because Jordan Hill was playing harder than him. In a lot of ways, Jackson knew how to reach Bynum, but Bynum faded in and out with him, too. Now, Brown's had to forge partnerships with Bryant and Gasol. Brown's clashed with World Peace. And for the progress made this season, Bynum's still something of a mystery to Brown.
As time passes, Brown has learned to carefully choose his battles with Bynum. That's what Bryant was trying to tell Brown, it seemed, when the coach was so obsessed with Bynum tossing an occasional 3-pointer toward the rim.
When the regular season ended Thursday in Sacramento, no one made too big of a deal over Bynum sitting on the bus for a few hours, listening to his music, letting a forgettable game go on without his presence. He likes the peace and quiet, so they left him alone. The Lakers needed Bynum in Game 1 on Sunday, and he was there for them. That big, strong body, those long arms, that spectacular set of skills change everything for the Lakers. The Lakers need him in these playoffs. They need him on a championship chase. He knows it, too. Oh, how he knows it.
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• Y! News: World Trade Center claims height record but experts disagreeABOARD CARRIER DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER IN THE ATLANTIC — Across the board success was how the test pilots scored the second carrier testing run for the Navy's F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, which wrapped up Oct. 9 aboard the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The multifaceted two-week flight test was used to develop launch and recovery bulletins. The former focused on 55,000 and 60,000-pound catapult shots at military, the catapult shot with standard jet thrust, and maximum power. The launches included internal stores such as simulated 2,000 pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions and AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles.
Test pilots found the jet’s slowest airspeed cat shot. Officials were not ready to reveal that number, but there were launches in which the F-35C dipped well below the flight deck. The Navy typically sets the standard launch speed at 15 knots above the minimum.
Development of recovery bulletins saw multiple wind scenarios — some as high as 40 knots over deck. Cmdr. Christian "Wilson" Sewell, the flight test director, lauded "Delta flight path," in which flight controls capture the glide slope once the pilot has a center ball on their flight deck approach. The pilot then adjusts with minor tweaks via the stick.
"Easy," Sewell said. "We put it on the deck exactly where we want just about every time."
Sewell, who started off in F/A-18 Hornets, has been flying 16 years. He has roughly 40 shots and traps in the JSF, and another 230 in the Hornet.
"It's a dream to fly," he said of the F-35C, built to fire off a flattop's catapult and catch its tailhook on the arresting cable upon return. "The mission systems, the flight controls, everything has a little more capability and a little more precision to it."
The flight deck was equally impressed. A number of specific parameters were necessary — for example, two jet blast deflectors were modified so that the salt water flows through at a higher rate, a necessity for the heat produced when JSF hits afterburners.
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Capt. Steve Koehler, Ike's commanding officer, said the event was a challenge to the air and navigation departments, as well as bridge watch standers, but nothing his team couldn't handle. After 23 months in the yard, his crew was ready for any challenge — as long as it was at sea.
Yellow shirts said the JSF taxis and maneuvers well on the flight deck. Sailors found it to be similar to the F/A-18 Super Hornet — it uses the same repeatable release holdback bar, the Catapult Capacity Selector Valve is set the same, and suspend procedures are the same. The one difference is location of the intakes.
"Our hold back operators and topside safety petty officers have to approach the aircraft similar to the way they would approach a EA-6B Prowler or A-6 Intruder," said Lt. Cmdr. Karl Murray, V-2 division officer and senior catapult and arresting gear officer, a.k.a. "Top Cat." "The intakes are closer to the nose launch bar, and some of these sailors aren't used to seeing that."
The flight deck saw about 20 shots per day, with flight ops running about seven hours each day. The two test birds were then used for logistics testing in the hangar bay.
"We are a single engine, but we are a single huge engine," Sewell said. "A 10,000-pound engine presents some unique logistical considerations: how to get it aboard the ship, how to unpack it and move it around, where can maintenance be done, etc."
The team did not do an engine swap, but simulated a swap of the power module, which is the largest component. The team also tested the integrated power package that provides electrical power to start the engine. While such gear is nothing new, the exhaust in this IPP points upward. The team ran the IPP for 20 minutes to ensure the hangar bay ceiling didn’t get too hot.
This also marked the first carrier operations for the $600,000 Generation 3 helmet, and it was a huge hit. Its visor replaces the traditional Heads-up Display. Every detail the pilot needs, from flight data to targeting information, is displayed.
While the ship’s crew and JSF’s pilots put a future jet fighter to the test, one two-star pilot was engaged in a different kind of battle. Many media outlets reported earlier this year that the stealth fighter had lost in a dogfight with the Air Force's F-16 Falcon earlier this summer. Is the JSF inferior? Is it a waste of money? Did the designers fail to build a better plane?
Such assertions "makes me cringe," said Rear Adm. John Haley, the head of Naval Air Force Atlantic. "It makes me think the people that are looking at this don't understand what the future holds for us."
"If you wanted us to design an airplane that optimized going out and beating an F-16 or F-15, we could do that. It wouldn't be this airplane. If you tell me to optimize an airplane that's going to do the mission we need to do, which is power projection and force protection, in a modern cyber and threat environment, this airplane does that without sacrificing your capabilities to do a close-in fight."
Haley reiterated the JSF's stand-off capabilities, unmatched situational awareness, and the fact that it won't travel into the battlespace alone.
"With this airplane and how were going to fight with it, [a close-in dogfight] will not be typical," he said. "I'm pretty confident I'm not going to have that happen. However, if it happens, we're not just going to stop training guys on [air combat maneuvering].
"I'm not saying that there aren't airplanes out there that can beat this thing if you put it in a bad position. I'm saying that the airplane had such great situational awareness, the chances of getting in that position are slim. An adversary coming off aspect would be identified long before he could recognize you."���Never Trump” agitators continue to work themselves up into a sanctimonious lather, indulging in a puritanical alarmism about Trump they normally pooh-pooh when it threatens one of their favored heterodox candidates. Gone are the “half a loaf is better than none” lectures they delivered to hector conservatives into supporting Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many other imperfect and idiosyncratic candidates warmly welcomed into their “Big Tent.”
In Trump, they see untold horrors. But Hillary, as the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens put it, is a “survivable event.” George Will, who has made a career out of tailoring his stuffy but substanceless conservatism to the sensibilities of pretentious, PBS-style liberals, now punctuates with it one more act of preening about supposed GOP indecency.
He is the shocked puritan, who can’t understand how Paul Ryan could end up endorsing such an imperfect man, as if Ryan were presiding over a canonization proceeding rather than a party convention. Like other shocked puritans opposed to Trump, Will is a supporter of gay marriage. From the anti-Trump, David Brooks-style moralists have come a whole literature of the “conservative case” for this or that social change to our vulgar society. But their flexible moralizing excludes Trump, who is treated as uniquely evil. Yet what exactly has he done? Whenever they draw up a list of his monstrous deeds on the campaign trail, it consists mainly of transgressions against taste and nitpicking about this or that overinterpreted moment of the campaign. There is a lot of straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel.
That the tastemakers can be so hysterical about Trump and so blasé about Hillary testifies to the hollowness of the prevailing political culture: it is far more concerned with words than deeds. Recall the horror over 2012 Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, whom Karl Rove wished “mysteriously murdered.” Akin was deemed hopelessly indecent for nothing more than garbling an answer to a question about abortion. Had he performed an abortion or paid for one, he would have been treated far less severely.
To “conservatives” who take their cues from the chattering class’s criterion of “decency,” Trump’s bombast is worse than Hillary’s corruption. They can live with her felonies; they can’t live with his contempt for the received wisdom. She falls within the political parameters drawn up by the ruling class; he doesn’t. Even if Trump were as unassuming and proper as Senator Sessions, one of his few supporters in the Senate, they would still oppose him, because in the end what places Trump outside of normal political discourse in their eyes is not his personality but his positions.
While posturing as gatekeepers of conservative orthodoxy, they have more often attacked Trump from the fashionable left than from the right. He sees Islam as a religion of jihad; they don’t. He sees illegal immigration as harmful; they see it as benign. Many of their hair-on-fire hysterics have followed not his deviations from strict conservatism but from what they see as gauche ratifications of it, such as the time he entertained the possibility of punishment for abortion. Most of the insults they hurl at him—that he is a bigot, racist, xenophobe, chauvinist—are only persuasive if one accepts politically correct categories of thought. The anti-Trump conservatives have swallowed those categories whole in their evaluation of Trump.
Alternating between puritanism and pragmatism, they bash Trump at one moment as a low creature of the culture and then bash him in the next for not pandering to it. Playing this game, George Will sniffs at the conservatism of Trump while rebuking him for not paying homage to liberal pieties before which all must genuflect.
The other day Will was warning conservatives not to trust Trump’s judicial picks, just a few weeks after urging Republicans to embrace Obama’s nomination to the court. For Will, “conservatism” has always amounted to conserving liberal changes to society. He sometimes quibbles about their pace but never their direction. Before supporting gay marriage, he praised the rise of feminism and the welfare state, fretted over how the GOP could remain in the “contemporary political discussion” and made sure to keep his distance from conservatives deemed disreputable by his social peers. The great sin of those conservatives was to uphold a Burkean conservatism that Will was merely playing at. His celebrated status as a “conservative” came not from conservatives in the hinterland but from liberal mandarins in Washington, D.C., who saw him as harmless poseur and feckless foil on their contrived chat shows.
Safely ensconced in the ruling class, the Wills can be cavalier about a Hillary presidency. They will retain their roles as well-paid, non-threatening quibblers without having to deal with the disruption of Trump on the issues closest to their hearts—war, immigration, and trade. And even though they won’t admit it, the cultural liberalism that Hillary’s judiciary would cement in place represents a change to America with which they are perfectly comfortable. Far more frightening to them is the populism of Trump and his indifference to their privileges and influence. Unlike Obama, Trump won’t be trotting off to George Will’s house for dinner.The Philadelphia Flyers announced earlier today that they have re-signed center Corban Knight and signed center Phil Varone both to two-year contracts earlier today. Both are expected to be with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms come October. Mike Vecchione was also signed.
The #Flyers have signed forwards Mike Vecchione, Corban Knight and Phil Varone to two-year contracts: https://t.co/7DMyIgtRpS — Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) July 1, 2017
Corban Knight is entering his 5th season of professional hockey. Drafted in the 5th round of the 2009 draft by the Florida Panthers, the 26-year old played for the University of North Dakota for 4 seasons. In his junior and senior years, he was honored with the title of alternate captain by the school. He finished his collegiate career with 146 points in 161 games. After having his rights traded to the Calgary Flames, Knight played 92 games in their AHL system before being traded back to the Panthers. Knight was signed by the Phantoms on an AHL contract before the 2016-16 season and had his best season since his first stint with the Abbotsford Heat. In 233 AHL games, he has scored 132 points.
Phil Varone is entering his 7th season of professional hockey. Also drafted in the 2009 draft, he was selected in the 5th round by the San Jose Sharks. Since leaving the OHL with 230 points in 228 games, the 26-year old has been an AHL mainstay. Spending 5 years with the Buffalo Sabres organization before being traded to Ottawa in 2016, he was given a 28-game stint with the Sabres where he recorded 3 goals and 2 assists for 5 points. Last season, the 2014-15 All-Star played in 65 games with the Binghamton Senators in the AHL and was able to record 51 points for the team. In 392 career AHL games, he has scored 298 points.
Dylan was the President of GNGHockey from its beginnings to January 2018. http://DylanRCoyle.comBy email and mail
Deepak Chopra
President and Chief Executive Officer
Canada Post Corporation
2701 Riverside Drive, Suite N0060
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0B1
Dear Mr. Chopra:
As you are aware, Canada Post management has repeatedly raised the issue of cost at the bargaining table and in public statements in relation to this round of negotiations.
We too are aware that Canada Post needs to adjust its business model to ensure the long-term viability of our public postal service. However, postal workers and management have two different visions of how this should be done. While we have put forward a vision of a sustainable, green post office and proposed new services that could bring in revenue, management has offered nothing but cuts to services for the public and attacks against our members.
For two years, we have requested an uncensored copy of Canada Post’s postal banking work. We have raised this issue in writing, in public, at Canada Post’s annual public meetings, with members of parliament, with the media, with municipalities and every other avenue available to us. Still, silence from Canada Post.
Given that your negotiators and spokespeople continue to raise the |
After a hastily arranged divorce from Humphrey IV of Toron, Isabella was married to Conrad of Montferrat, who claimed the kingship in her name.
During the winter of 1190–91, there were further outbreaks of dysentery and fever, which claimed the lives of Frederick of Swabia, Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem, and Theobald V of Blois. When the sailing season began again in spring 1191, Leopold V of Austria arrived and took command of what remained of the imperial forces. Philip of France arrived with his troops from Sicily in May. A neighboring army under Leo II of Cilician Armenia also arrived.[24]
The Near East, c. 1190, at the inception of the Third Crusade
Richard arrived at Acre on 8 June 1191 and immediately began supervising the construction of siege weapons to assault the city, which was captured on 12 July. Richard, Philip, and Leopold quarrelled over the spoils of the victory. Richard cast down the German standard from the city, slighting Leopold. In the struggle for the kingship of Jerusalem, Richard supported Guy, while Philip and Leopold supported Conrad, who was related to them both. It was decided that Guy would continue to rule but that Conrad would receive the crown upon his death. Frustrated with Richard (and in Philip's case, in poor health), Philip and Leopold took their armies and left the Holy Land in August. Philip left 7,000 French crusaders and 5,000 silver marks to pay them.[3]
On 18 June 1191, soon after Richard's arrival at Acre, he sent a messenger to Saladin requesting a face to face meeting. Saladin refused, saying that it was customary for kings to meet each other only after a peace treaty had been agreed, and thereafter "it is not seemly for them to make war upon each other". The two therefore never met, although they did exchange gifts and Richard had a number of meetings with Al-Adil, Saladin's brother.[25] Saladin tried to negotiate with Richard for the release of the captured Muslim soldier garrison, which included their women and children. On 20 August, however, Richard thought Saladin had delayed too much and had 2,700 of the Muslim prisoners decapitated in full view of Saladin's army, which tried unsuccessfully to rescue them.[26] Saladin responded by killing all of the Christian prisoners he had captured.
Battle of Arsuf [ edit ]
Full article: Battle of Arsuf
After the capture of Acre, Richard decided to march to the city of Jaffa. Control of Jaffa was necessary before an attack on Jerusalem could be attempted. On 7 September 1191, however, Saladin attacked Richard's army at Arsuf, 30 miles (50 km) north of Jaffa. Saladin attempted to harass Richard's army into breaking its formation in order to defeat it in detail. Richard maintained his army's defensive formation, however, until the Hospitallers broke ranks to charge the right wing of Saladin's forces. Richard then ordered a general counterattack, which won the battle. Arsuf was an important victory. The Muslim army was not destroyed, despite losing 7,000[27] men, but it did rout; this was considered shameful by the Muslims and boosted the morale of the Crusaders. Arsuf had dented Saladin's reputation as an invincible warrior and proved Richard's courage as soldier and his skill as a commander. Richard was able to take, defend, and hold Jaffa, a strategically crucial move toward securing Jerusalem. By depriving Saladin of the coast, Richard seriously threatened his hold on Jerusalem.[28]
Advances on Jerusalem, regicide, and negotiations [ edit ]
Following his victory at Arsuf, Richard took Jaffa and established his new headquarters there. He offered to begin negotiations with Saladin, who sent his brother, Al-Adil (known as 'Saphadin' to the Franks), to meet with Richard. Negotiations, which included an attempt to marry Richard's sister Joan to Al-Adil, failed, and Richard marched to Ascalon, which had been recently demolished by Saladin.[29]
In November 1191 the Crusader army advanced inland towards Jerusalem. On 12 December Saladin was forced by pressure from his emirs to disband the greater part of his army. Learning this, Richard pushed his army forward, spending Christmas at Latrun. The army then marched to Beit Nuba, only 12 miles from Jerusalem. Muslim morale in Jerusalem was so low that the arrival of the Crusaders would probably have caused the city to fall quickly. Appallingly bad weather, cold with heavy rain and hailstorms, combined with fear that if the Crusader army besieged Jerusalem, it might be trapped by a relieving force, led to the decision to retreat back to the coast.[30]
Richard called on Conrad to join him on campaign, but he refused, citing Richard's alliance with King Guy. He too had been negotiating with Saladin as a defence against any attempt by Richard to wrest Tyre from him for Guy. However, in April, Richard was forced to accept Conrad as king of Jerusalem after an election by the nobles of the kingdom. Guy had received no votes at all; Richard sold him Cyprus as compensation. Before he could be crowned, Conrad was stabbed to death by two Hashshashin in the streets of Tyre. Eight days later, Richard's nephew Henry II of Champagne married Queen Isabella, who was pregnant with Conrad's child. It was strongly suspected that the king's killers had acted on instructions from Richard.
During the winter months, Richard's men occupied and refortified Ascalon, whose fortifications had earlier been razed by Saladin. The spring of 1192 saw continued negotiations and further skirmishing between the opposing forces. On 22 May the strategically important fortified town of Darum on the frontiers of Egypt fell to the crusaders, following five days of fierce fighting.[31] The Crusader army made another advance on Jerusalem, and in June it came within sight of the city before being forced to retreat again, this time because of dissention amongst its leaders. In particular, Richard and the majority of the army council wanted to force Saladin to relinquish Jerusalem by attacking the basis of his power through an invasion of Egypt. The leader of the French contingent, the Duke of Burgundy, however, was adamant that a direct attack on Jerusalem should be made. This split the Crusader army into two factions, and neither was strong enough to achieve its objective. Richard stated that he would accompany any attack on Jerusalem but only as a simple soldier; he refused to lead the army. Without a united command the army had little choice but to retreat back to the coast.[32]
Saladin's attempt to recapture Jaffa and the end of the Crusade [ edit ]
Saladin and Richard assured the rights and protection of pilgrim and caravan routes that allowed travel to distant lands.
In July 1192, Saladin's army suddenly attacked and captured Jaffa with thousands of men, but Saladin lost control of his army due to their anger for the massacre at Acre. It is believed that Saladin even told the Crusaders to shield themselves in the Citadel until he had regained control of his army.
Richard had intended to return to England when he heard the news that Saladin and his army had captured Jaffa. Richard and a small force of little more than 2,000 men went to Jaffa by sea in a surprise attack. Richard's forces stormed Jaffa from their ships and the Ayyubids, who had been unprepared for a naval attack, were driven from the city. Richard freed those of the Crusader garrison who had been made prisoner, and these troops helped to reinforce the numbers of his army. Saladin's army still had numerical superiority, however, and they counter-attacked. Saladin intended a stealthy surprise attack at dawn, but his forces were discovered; he proceeded with his attack, but his men were lightly armoured and lost 700 men killed due to the missiles of the large numbers of Crusader crossbowmen.[33] The battle to retake Jaffa ended in complete failure for Saladin, who was forced to retreat. This battle greatly strengthened the position of the coastal Crusader states.[34]
On 2 September 1192, following his defeat at Jaffa, Saladin was forced to finalize a treaty with Richard providing that Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, while allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims and traders to visit the city. Ascalon was a contentious issue as it threatened communication between Saladin's dominions in Egypt and Syria; it was eventually agreed that Ascalon, with its defences demolished, be returned to Saladin's control. Richard departed the Holy Land on 9 October 1192.
Aftermath [ edit ]
The Levant in 1200, after the Third and German (1197) Crusades
Neither side was entirely satisfied with the results of the war. Though Richard's victories had deprived the Muslims of important coastal territories and re-established a viable Frankish state in Palestine, many Christians in the Latin West felt disappointed that he had elected not to pursue the recapture of Jerusalem.[35] Likewise, many in the Islamic world felt disturbed that Saladin had failed to drive the Christians out of Syria and Palestine. Trade flourished, however, throughout the Middle East and in port cities along the Mediterranean coastline.[36]
Saladin's scholar and biographer Baha al-Din recounted Saladin's distress at the successes of the Crusaders:
'I fear to make peace, not knowing what may become of me. Our enemy will grow strong, now that they have retained these lands. They will come forth to recover the rest of their lands and you will see every one of them ensconced on his hill-top,' meaning in his castle, 'having announced, "I shall stay put" and the Muslims will be ruined.' These were his words and it came about as he said.[37]
Richard was arrested and imprisoned in December 1192 by Leopold V, Duke of Austria, who suspected Richard of murdering Leopold's cousin Conrad of Montferrat. Leopold had also been offended by Richard casting down his standard from the walls of Acre. He was later transferred to the custody of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, and it took a ransom of one hundred and fifty thousand marks to obtain his release. Richard returned to England in 1194 and died of a crossbow bolt wound in 1199 at the age of 41.
In 1193, Saladin died of yellow fever. His heirs would quarrel over the succession and ultimately fragment his conquests.
Henry of Champagne was killed in an accidental fall in 1197. Queen Isabella then married for a fourth time, to Amalric of Lusignan, who had succeeded his brother Guy, positioned as King of Cyprus. After their deaths in 1205, her eldest daughter Maria of Montferrat (born after her father's murder) succeeded to the throne of Jerusalem.
Richard's decision not to attack Jerusalem would lead to the call for a Fourth Crusade six years after the third ended in 1192. However, Richard's victories facilitated the survival of a wealthy Crusader kingdom centred on Acre. Historian Thomas F. Madden summarises the achievements of the Third Crusade:
...the Third Crusade was by almost any measure a highly successful expedition. Most of Saladin's victories in the wake of Hattin were wiped away. The Crusader kingdom was healed of its divisions, restored to its coastal cities, and secured in a peace with its greatest enemy. Although he had failed to reclaim Jerusalem, Richard had put the Christians of the Levant back on their feet again.[38]
Accounts of events surrounding the Third Crusade were written by the anonymous authors of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi (a.k.a. the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi), the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (parts of which are attributed to Ernoul), and by Ambroise, Roger of Howden, Ralph of Diceto, and Giraldus Cambrensis.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
ReferencesTwice a year there’s a big insider only gear conference called Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City. This year, I went for the first time because I’ve taken a much more active role in the development of our apparel line. And when you’re on East Coast time for a West Coast gig, you wake up black is the sky early and you ruck around town for a few hours before you do anything else.
Adventure and there are things to see. If you haven’t spent any time in Utah, you’re missing out. A couple of my past adventures there included the GORUCK Challenge, hiking in Sundance where my uncle lives, and in my past life, we did some training in downtown where we called in simulated air strikes onto targets like the restaurant across the street in prep for heading to war in Iraq.
Yeah, that was pretty cool, gotta say.
Anyway, on to this life and gear and fabrics and brands and lots and lots of colors that clash aggressively with red, white, and blue – like fuchsia and lime green and magenta. As if the more louder pastel color, the more (fun)? I dunno, I guess it has its place. But I wouldn’t want to wear it off the ski slope (or on it, actually) and until I left the show in the afternoon for meetings at a local bar, which unites us all, I felt myself an outsider, which is a good thing because it’s a clear line of demarcation.
Mmmmmmm…organic.
Maybe you remember Joe, whose team in Spokane Washington builds all our apparel. We were at OR to have some fabric meetings with mills – “Hey feel this, isn’t it nice” type of meetings. And those meetings have their place, but most importantly for me was to check in face to face with Joe on where we are for 2017 (behind, but progressing rapidly) and beyond (moving aggressively with a solid growth plan). The good news is, he’s been around the block, and his company has been doing this for 48 years. That’s about 47 more years than we have, and his friendship and expertise are the reason why we’re able to do something different in the space.
My take is this. The outdoor industry, coupled with the military market (featured more at SHOT Show in Vegas Baby, Vegas) has done some amazing things that add greatly to human comfort. Which is the goal, even though clothing will never make the man. Or any man, for that matter.
Some big developments in the last, I dunno, since forever: synthetic fabrics, waterproof materials, glueing fabrics together so that seams don’t let moisture in, pastel colors and oh yeah, never forget the introduction of the environmental movement, pioneered by Patagonia, one of the two anchors of OR, the other being Arc’teryx. Both are great companies, and I love Patagonia’s brand because they stand for something besides just product, and they walk the walk. Theirs is a warm brand I associate with ski lodges and hot chocolate in Vail, or something. Arc is a different story. Their gear is precise, and cold – like the Russian in Rocky – who you definitely want on your side in an alley fight. They’ve pushed the industry to become a lot more technical, and infinitely better, by creating value for great products. Good on them because it’s raised the bar for all.
Of note, both brands are also involved in the military market at SHOT, though they brand themselves differently for those. It’s a different division of their company, if you will. And after my first OR trip (I’ve been to SHOT), now I really understand why. The military culture/environment/way is simply out of place at OR. The culture at OR seems transplanted from a west coast ski lodge where one day you’re on the slopes and the next you’re ice climbing some special something that requires new gear from the other mountain you ice climbed last year. And definitely you can’t wear the same jacket you wore skiing – no way, bro. You talk about the environmental impact of everything, sipping on something organic of course, even though there’s a stack of free print magazines the size of an acre of Brazilian rainforest just sitting there, at your disposal and definitely destined for a landfill, somewhere not right here.
Contradictions are always easy to point out, and don’t negate the good. The environmental movement has its heart in the right place and does a lot of good. I don’t want dirty rivers or smog in our cities that would remind me of some of the places I’ve been in the world where the black lung seems a certain fate. And the most right wing hunters and fishermen I know don’t want the game to disappear or the rivers to run with poisons in them. So the movement forces us to think about our choices, and that’s a good thing.
Anyway, let’s talk gear, sort of. In Special Forces, we had all the best shit, pardon my French. But it had to be versatile. Too specific and it couldn’t adapt with you. Adaptation being a great way to avoid extinction, after all. The military stuff has a military look, usually too much so — you know, camo and Velcro and straps and too many pockets everywhere. But between high end military gear and high end outdoor gear, the technology and the fabrics and the construction are basically the same.
It’s the brands and the aesthetics (how many logos and different colored stitch lines do you want everywhere all over you to look that out of place), that are different. In terms of quality, the brands being the ones to cut corners, or not, of course. And our goal at GORUCK is to build a bridge between the toughness and the functionality of military gear, cutting no corners, but making it more adoptable for city folks who want to transition to literally any environment. Or the converse. Hence GR1. Hence our initial apparel line. The outdoor industry has pushed everything forward, as has military demand, but at this point it seems we’re not on the verge of anything new new like if the zipper went away and there were a better way for all of us to close a jacket. Because of course, the zipper is the weakest part of any piece of gear or apparel. The revolution would be to reduce the features, to simplify everything to its essence. Less is more, more is lazy is our philosophy.
That leads to Rule #1 in Special Forces: Always Look Cool.
So, this year from us you can expect a few new pieces, in classic colors (think black, grey, navy, coyote) in our growing line. And you can expect us not to expand too much from tried and tested fabrics, that we like and that we wear every day at work, to ruck, at the bar. Tough apparel that works and that doesn’t come in lime green. Subtle if any exterior logo placement, and strong reminders internal to the piece, where it’s made. Think: USA and that means red, white and blue. And when we show up in Salt Lake again, the place we’re most comfortable is not the convention center, but all around town in the wee early hours when we’re still on East Coast time. Further testing the next round of stuff that’ll be out next season. Salt Lake and the surrounding areas are beautiful, and worth the trek. And all the days end up at the bar with everyone else, good people we like. And somehow, at OR, that’s kinda how it works.
Which is pretty cool.
Check out our Made in USA apparel line here.Welp, you no longer have to refer to Edward Nygma as proto-Riddler.
Even though Gotham is going on hiatus until April 24, FOX has released a trailer for its spring premiere—which is titled "Mad City: How the Riddler Got His Name."
The sneak preview features our first look at Nygma as The Riddler. After shooting Penguin (who confessed his love for Ed and his role in Isabella's death) in tonight's winter finale, Nygma has begun his transformation into the formidable, riddle-speaking supervillain we know and love. And as you can see in the trailer, he's now wearing his signature green suit (and the question mark)—though he doesn't have his trademark cane yet. "I do not have a cane yet," actor Cory Michael Smith told Cinema Blend, "but I want one so badly for a few different reasons; I won't tell you all of them so I don't spoil anything, but I'm pitching very had for a cane. He does think they'll get him one eventually, but cryptically teased, "I want him to be someone who deserves a f--king cane. He needs to be someone that's just begging for a cane."Just look at it glow! Above, you can catch a glimpse of a very special find — what may be the first instance of biofluorescence ever spotted in a reptile.
In other words, it glows in the dark. Sort of.
Unlike bioluminescent creatures, those with biofluorescence don't create their own glow through chemical reactions. But they are able to absorb blue light and re-emit it as a different color entirely — usually red, green or orange. You need a high-energy light, like an ultraviolet lightbulb, to make the colors appear.
National Geographic Emerging Explorer David Gruber, a marine biologist from the City University of New York, spotted the turtle by chance while filming more common biofluorescent critters in Solomon Islands.
(Nat Geo via YouTube)
Gruber let the turtle — a critically endangered hawksbill — go on its way, so it's not as if the glowing has been closely studied. "It'd be fairly difficult to study this turtle because there are so few left and they're so protected," he told National Geographic.
Based on his brief observation, however, Gruber suspects that the red color seen on the turtle may come from biofluorescing algae stuck to its shell — but that the green is all turtle.
Since the hawksbill was found in an area full of glowing sharks and coral, it's possible that the biofluorescence is a camouflage adaptation. But with just one brief look at this very special reptile, it's impossible to know how common the adaptation is, how the turtle manages it, or what its purpose is.
Read More:
Ever wondered what it would be like to ride a sea turtle through the Great Barrier Reef?
Scientists discover an unexpectedly beautiful rainbow of fluorescent corals in the Red Sea
Here’s why mushrooms glow in the dark
More than half the world’s sea turtles have eaten plastic, new study claims
Turtle gets a 3-D printed titanium jaw, now looks like a supervillain
How glow-in-the-dark tampons can fight pollutionWashington: India is a leading producer and exporter of vaccines but two-thirds of Indian children do not receive vaccinations on time which makes them susceptible to diseases and contributes to untimely deaths, according to American researchers.
A research conducted by the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health found that only 18 per cent of children are vaccinated with the recommended three doses of DPT vaccine, while about a third receive the measles vaccination by 10 months under the government-supported immunisation program.
“This is a systemic problem,” said the study’s lead author, Nijika Shrivastwa, who recently finished her doctorate in epidemiology at University of Michigan (U-M) and is now at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
“Immunising a child six months after the recommended time period can have dramatic implications for a child’s vulnerability to diseases,” Ms Nijika said.
Although India is a leading producer and exporter of vaccines, the country has the greatest number of deaths among children under 5, the majority are from vaccine-preventable diseases.
“Every year, 26 million children are born in India — the greatest number by far of any country in the world,” said Matthew Boulton, senior associate dean for global public health at the U-M School of Public Health.
“Adding vast numbers of new children who need vaccination, while the older ones remain under or unvaccinated because of immunization delays, is like walking too slowly on a moving treadmill-you continuously fall further back,” he said.
According to University of Michigan, the researchers found that only 12 per cent of children are vaccinated with the measles vaccine by the required age of 9 months, although 75 per cent are vaccinated by age 5.
This delay in vaccination can contribute to frequent outbreaks of measles in India.
“Approximately, 95 per cent vaccination is required in a population to successfully stop measles outbreaks. India’s childhood vaccination rate is simply too low to successfully control transmission of disease and prevent measles-related childhood illnesses and deaths,” Mr Boulton said.
The study looked at the vaccination rate of nearly 270,000 children in the District Level Household and Facility survey data from 2008, a nationally representative sample.BOSTON (CBS) — Early in training camp, Bruins coach Claude Julien alluded to the idea that he would retain eight defensemen at the start of the regular season as the Bruins adapt to a tweak in their breakout plan and also learn to live without Dougie Hamilton.
Wouldn’t you know that the Bruins have cut down to eight defensemen, including the injured (and famously day-to-day) Zdeno Chara. Although the Bruins don’t have to finalize their roster until 5 p.m. Tuesday, the current group of defensemen looks like the one Julien will have at his disposal on opening night against the Winnipeg Jets at TD Garden on Thursday.
That means Joe Morrow, who had a 15-game stint in the NHL with Boston last season, has made the post-training camp roster. But don’t expect Morrow to do any public celebrating or boasting. The 22-year-old native of Edmonton might not have the nickname “Joe Cool” just yet, but his appearance and his play should earn him that moniker soon.
“I remember, you know, complimenting him on being calm and not getting rattled,” Julien explained early in training camp when asked about Morrow. “And yet, as much as that’s a strength sometimes it can be a weakness too. You want him to be a little bit more, not so maybe high-risk at times, but you know there’s good portions to that.”
If you’re looking for someone to get frantic out on the ice, Morrow’s not your man. He’s not going to slam his stick or give the opponent an edge by losing his cool. His moment of Zen comes every time he steps onto the ice.
“Every day, every minute I’m out there having a blast and it’s always fun for me,” Morrow said. “It’s something that I’ve just grown up with and kind of accepted and everybody that’s dealt with me and seen me in the past has kind of accepted it as well.”
He’s dealt with criticism from coaches and others about looking aloof on the ice, but Morrow has produced a solid career doing things his way. He had one goal for his only point with the Bruins last season. He had three goals and 12 points in 33 games for the Providence (AHL) farm club. The prior season, he showed more of the offensive flair teams have been searching for when he had 29 points in 56 games for the P-Bruins. Morrow was a 2011 first-round draft pick of Pittsburgh and he had 64 points in 62 games in his last season of junior hockey with Portland in the WHL.
Coaches are always talking about their teams needing a calming influence. That’s why the Bruins should embrace Morrow’s attitude. With Hamilton gone to Calgary and Dennis Seidenberg out eight weeks after back surgery, the Bruins can’t afford to exclude a talented defenseman because they’re not fond of his demeanor. On a young defense corps, Morrow could be the type of player that helps the team keep its wits when the pressure rises.
Julien and his staff have clearly gotten comfortable with Morrow now that they’ve learned more about him. He’s been used in all situations, including penalty kill, during the preseason. With a little nurturing from the coaches and experience, Morrow feels like his game is blossoming.
“I do feel a little bit better [than last season]. I feel like I can try and contribute more to the offense side of things, take a little more ownership on that side of my game and just play with a little more confidence and not be afraid to make a mistake,” Morrow said. “Now it’s to that point where you will make a mistake, it’s kind of inevitable in that sense. So as long as you can make up for those and do a lot more good than you are bad then you’ll definitely benefit the team. So that’s what I’m trying to focus on.”
It’s easier to focus when you’re not panicking, and Morrow knows the key.
“I just keep telling myself it’s a simple game,” he said.
It’s probably appropriate that off the ice Morrow’s blond locks and beard make him look like a “Hang 10” surfer dude. As long as his laid-back style doesn’t cause the Bruins to wipe out, his calming presence will be welcome on Boston’s back end.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.A major mystery about the origins of life has been resolved. According to a study published in the journal Nature, two Université de Montréal scientists have proposed a new theory for how a universal molecular machine, the ribosome, managed to self-assemble as a critical step in the genesis of all life on Earth.
"While the ribosome is a complex structure it features a clear hierarchy that emerged based on basic chemical principles," says Sergey Steinberg, a Université de Montréal biochemistry professor who made his discovery with student Konstantin Bokov. "In the absence of such explanations, some people could imagine unseen forces at work when such complex structures emerge in nature."
What is a ribosome?
The ribosome is an enormous molecule responsible for translating the messages carried in the genetic code of all organisms into the workhorse molecules of the cell – proteins – that carry out all functions, including replicating the genome itself. As the world celebrates the bicentennial anniversary of the Father of Evolution, Charles Darwin, Prof. Steinberg's theory brings the scientific community even deeper into the study of the origins of life.
By examining the molecular self-organizing processes that preceded the living cell, the point where time begins for biologists, Prof. Steinberg goes further than Darwin and the many evolutionary biologists who followed could have imagined
By the standards of biological molecules, ribosomes are immense. Though visible only through lenses of the most powerful microscopes, comparing most other biological molecules to this behemoth is like comparing a tricycle to a jumbo jet. Having spent years gazing at the detailed structure of the ribosome, Prof. Steinberg pondered how such an immense and complex structure could have assembled itself from smaller building blocks that existed on the early Earth.
From the simple to the complex
The key breakthrough came when he realized that the ribosome is organized by a set of simple structural rules and that it had to be assembled from basic building blocks in a very specific order; otherwise it would have fallen apart. He then showed with mathematical rigor that the construction of the ribosome likely followed an ordered series of steps to form the structure found in the first living cell. To this day, that structure exists almost unchanged in our own cells.
Chemists have been able to observe many examples of self-organizing behavior with simple molecules, yet explaining the complex self-assembly of biomolecules had not been so obvious.
"Thanks to the research of Sergey Steinberg and Konstantin Bokov, scientists now have a glimpse of one key event that emerged spontaneously out of the primordial chemical soup of the early Earth," explains Stephen Michnick, a Université de Montréal biochemistry professor and Canada Research Chair in Integrative Genomics. "Perhaps in the near future we may look forward to more discoveries that will take us beyond the world of Darwin into an understanding of the basic chemical principles that drove the emergence of life on our planet and perhaps beyond."
Professor Steinberg's research is supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research and by the National Science and Engineering Research Council.Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said Sunday that opponents of Texas' tough new anti-abortion measures are welcome to stage another filibuster in the state Senate, but decried what he called "mob rule" by crowds in the gallery after state Sen. Wendy Davis prevented the bill's passage with an 11-hour filibuster during a special legislative session two weeks ago.
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Perry said that "never in the history of Texas have they seen that kind of a mob rule," referring to protesters in the area overlooking the Senate floor, whose cries prevented votes from being counted for the bill until after the end of the special session. The legislation would have banned abortions in Texas after 20 weeks of pregnancy and shut down most abortion clinics in the state.
"Rules were followed on the Senate floor; it was the decorum of the Senate floor that was put in a bad light," Perry said on the show. The governor also suggested that future visitors to the Senate gallery who "disrupt the democratic process" may be escorted out of the chamber.
Perry is not the only Texas Republican who has hurled insults at the crowds in the gallery. Republican Sen. Bill Zedler tweeted on June 26, "We had terrorist [sic] in the Texas State Senate opposing SB 5."
Speaking Sunday, Perry also addressed inflammatory comments he made last week about Davis' own history as a teen mother. In the wake of Davis' filibuster, Perry gave a speech saying it was "unfortunate" that Davis "hasn’t learned from her own example."
"Those comments were meant to be a compliment to her," Perry said on Sunday.
While Perry expressed confidence that the Texas abortion bill will pass during a special session he's called, he hedged on whether he would support a 20-week abortion ban nationally.United States international Bobby Wood is set to move to the Bundesliga top flight with Hamburg, according to kicker.
Wood, 23, was in Hamburg on Friday to sort out final talks with the permission of his current club Union Berlin, the newspaper reported.
The striker has scored 17 goals in 30 matches in the second tier this season, setting a record for goals scored by an American in Germany.
The standout performances for Union have not only won Wood a place in the 40-man preliminary squad for next month's Copa America, but also brought him to the attention of a wider audience in Germany.
Union president Dirk Zingler said earlier this week that they will not stop Wood from leaving the club, and kicker said he has a €4 million release clause in his contract.
Hamburg are safe from relegation ahead of their final game at Augsburg on Saturday, while mid-table Union Berlin play their final game of the season on Sunday.
Wood flies out to join the U.S. squad on Monday, so Friday was the last day to hold talks.‘Did she win?” My bleary-eyed nine-year-old had fallen asleep on our couch the previous night, as the polls closed in Florida. When she sat across the breakfast table from me, I had to break the news that, while her own state of Virginia might have (narrowly) opted for Hillary Clinton, most of the other swing states – Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan – went with Donald Trump. “So we won’t have a female president?” she asked, looking disconsolate.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she, we, minority communities across the board, had bigger problems to worry about. The normalisation of racism, of antisemitism, of misogyny, but, above all else – in terms of the impact on her own life and future – Islamophobia.
How do I tell her about the Ku Klux Klan, now recruiting new members “to fight the spread of Islam”?
How do I reveal to my Muslim daughter that women who look and dress like her mother have had their hijabs torn from their heads, as part of a wave of physical attacks on people of colour since election day? Or that her fellow schoolkids aren’t inoculated from this sort of violent hatred either? A Muslim high-school teacher in Georgia was left a note on her desk telling her to “hang” herself with her hijab, which “isn’t allowed any more”. The note was signed, “America”.
How do I explain to my daughter, a proud US citizen who recites the pledge of allegiance in class every morning, that millions of her fellow Americans elected as her next president a man who claims her faith “hates” America, and who falsely accused Muslim Americans of celebrating on 9/11 and of not reporting terrorists to the authorities? On Monday, the FBI revealed that hate crimes against Muslims in the US increased by 67% in 2015, to reach a level of attacks not seen since the aftermath of 9/11.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Newt Gingrich ‘wants to “test” Muslim Americans and “deport” those who believe in sharia law’. Photograph: Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters
How do I share with her that one of his signature policy plans was to prevent her grandparents, her cousins, her uncles and aunts – basically every single Muslim relative of hers living abroad – from entering the US purely on the basis of their religion? (The notorious “Muslim ban” proposal is still up on his website after having temporarily disappeared the day after the election.)
How do I break it to her that the “ban” isn’t the only Trump proposal to brazenly discriminate against peaceful, law-abiding Muslims? That the president-elect has also said that my daughter and other Muslim Americans have to be registered on a database and, when asked by a reporter how his proposal differed from the Nazi registry of German Jews, he replied: “You tell me.”
How do I talk to her about Trump foreign policy adviser Walid Phares, subject of an investigation by Mother Jones magazine. There is no suggestion that he has carried out acts of violence, but the magazine claimed that he was an official for “an umbrella group of Christian militias … accused of committing atrocities” against Muslims in 1980s Lebanon, and yet is now tipped for a senior White House role? Or former House speaker Newt Gingrich – who wants to “test” Muslim Americans and “deport” those who believe in sharia law, and has called for a new House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate “Islamic supremacists” – who is in line for a big Cabinet job under Trump? Or retired general Michael Flynn, who has tweeted that “fear of Muslims is rational”, and is now tipped to become either defence secretary or national security adviser?
Or former mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has bragged about sending undercover police into New York and New Jersey mosques, and who is now a hot favourite for the |
Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs delivers its interim report, calling for the decriminalization of all drugs."
(Le Dain Commission report: Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry - Cannabis Report) ---
Handout: How many more studies are needed? (PDF, 36k) Description:List of cannabis studies 1894-2002. TOP
Fact #6: The so-called "decriminalization" bill proposed by the Liberal government was actually an "alternative penalties" bill. The core flaw of this bill is that it was crafted without acknowledging the dynamics of the black market and the considerable harms being caused by the policy of prohibition. This bill would actually make matters worse with its contradictory and confused approach.
Under this bill, possession of small amounts of cannabis would remain illegal, but a fine would be rendered instead of a criminal charges being laid. In addition, this bill proposes to double the maximum penalties for growing cannabis. Details of the Cannabis Reform Bill (Bill C-17) Definition: "Decriminalization"
Source: The "Glossary of key terms" in the Senate Report.
Removal of a behaviour or activity from the scope of the criminal justice system. A distinction is usually made between de jure decriminalization, which entails an amendment to criminal legislation, and de facto decriminalization, which involves an administrative decision not to prosecute acts that nonetheless remain against the law. Decriminalization concerns only criminal legislation, and does not mean that the legal system has no further jurisdiction of any kind in this regard: other, non-criminal, laws may regulate the behaviour or activity that has been decriminalized (civil or regulatory offences, etc.).
"We're not decriminalizing marijuana, to be technical, it will remain a criminal offense. What we are putting in place are alternative penalties, in using the Contraventions Act. I admit that using "decrim" at the beginning was not a good start, but over the past few months we have been quite clear about what we're doing." - Martin Cauchon - former Justice Minister, during questioning by the House of Commons Committee on Illegal Drugs regarding the proposed "decriminalization" bill. November 2003.
Source: Ottawa revives plan to relax pot laws
November 2, 2004 - Globe and Mail
Excerpt:
Mr. Cotler avoided any mention of decriminalization -- instead calling his cannabis enforcement reform "alternate penalty frameworks."
Obviously the government has not been "quite clear" about what they're doing. The term "decriminalization" continues to be used by politicians and by the media regardless of the facts. The correct description of this bill is an "alternative penalties" bill and the media needs to be urged to be more accurate about the details of this bill and not simply pass along misinformation.
UPDATE: February 2005 Poll [source: PDF, 110k]
The survey asked questions regarding the government's plans to "decriminalize" the personal possession of marijuana. Here are some statistics on how "clear" the government was about what they're doing:
49% of Canadians believe that decriminalizing marijuana actually makes possession legal
41% said they believed decriminalization leaves possession illegal As noted in Alan Young's article "Marijuana mountain built out of molehill" in the Toronto Star, "The best way to forestall change in a democracy is to confuse the masses." The "decriminalization" bill does NOT represent a more relaxed attitude toward cannabis users. The intended outcome of using a ticketing approach is to INCREASE the likelihood that someone caught in possession of a small amount of cannabis will be punished. "A ticket would be more immediate and a police officer would be MORE LIKELY TO WRITE A TICKET. Right now the laws are not evenly enforced, often police will turn a blind eye, which teaches disrespect for the law. We want fines to be rendered." "There is an uneven application of the law. In many places the police warn an individual and don't charge. We think, actually, with what we're proposing a person with a small amount will be more likely to suffer a consequence for breaking the law. So we actually think we're being a little tougher on people by suggesting that there would be a fine for the breaking of the law and police officers would be more likely to write that ticket rather than it walk away." - Paddy Torsney - member of the House of Commons Special Committee on the Non-medical use of Drugs. [Martin Cauchon told] reporters that the legislation was needed because current pot laws, under which possession is a criminal offence, are "disproportionate." "Does it make sense that a person who makes a bad choice should receive the lasting burden of a criminal conviction? This bill will ensure that the punishment fits the crime."
Source: "Critics say pot bill sends the wrong message" - CTV.ca News, May 28, 2003 - Martin Cauchon - former Justice Minister of Canada.
What is "Net-Widening"?
A ticketing approach has already been implemented in Australia. The result was a "net widening" effect; more people being punished due to the "efficiency" of ticketing a person versus arresting. Tickets mean MORE punishment, not less.
TOPTrollers around St. Clements Island using small bucktails are doing well on stripers in the 20- to 26-inch range. Chummers using ground alewives are catching their limits in the same area in the deeper water in the middle of the (Potomac) river. Some of these fish are in the 30-inch range.
The mouth of the Patuxent is home to plenty of rockfish, but most do not measure up to the 20-inch minimum. Two experienced fishermen fished in separate boats in the Patuxent from Point Patience to the Three Legged marker Tuesday morning and each caught around 50 fish most of which were from 17 to 19¾ inches. Jacob Caldwell got a 22-incher near Hog Point in the Patuxent fishing in his kayak that same morning.
The rockfish migration has brought the main body of fish north in the Bay from Deale to the Bay Bridge, a pattern that has developed over the past five seasons. Trollers there are finding fish from 24 to 32 inches in profusion. There were some in the 40-inch category up until this past week's heat wave. Boat captains are trolling until spot show up enough to allow some live lining. We are at mid-June and still no spot in any numbers.
Mike at Buzz's Marina in Ridge reports plenty of small rockfish and good catches of bluefish. Two Spanish mackerel were reported, the first of the year. A cobia was caught this week. We hope this kicks off another good cobia season on the middle grounds.
Perch are everywhere in the Potomac. Good-sized perch are on all the ledges and oyster bars. Bloodworms or peelers fished on the bottom in 30 feet of water will bring plenty of tasty perch, many in the 10- to 12-inch size. The Patuxent has great white perch fishing too.
There were several reports of croaker catches this week in many areas including the mouth of the Patuxent off the seawalls on the Naval Air Station and on the fishing pier under the Solomons Bridge. The croaker are in the 8- to 12-inch range. We are waiting for spot. An old fisherman used to say that spot arrive on the fourth of July, and looking for them any earlier is a non-starter.
Freshwater fishing at St. Mary's Lake is producing bass, crappie, and bluegill. The heat of the day is not a good time to fish, but dusk and dawn are great.Jeb Bush delivers a foreign policy address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Aug. 11, 2015, in Simi Valley, California. Photo by David McNew/AFP/Getty Images
Most presidential candidates who deliver a “major foreign policy address” have something original, potent, or insightful to say. On Tuesday night, as with most other aspects of his campaign to date, Jeb Bush defied expectations.
His 40-minute speech, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, was a hodgepodge of revisionist history, shallow analysis, and vague prescriptions.
The history—his effort to hide the scar of his own family history—was where he placed most of his chips, and he lost them all. As a preface, he admitted that “no leader or policymaker” got “everything right” in the Middle East, “Iraq especially” (his single indirect acknowledgment of his brother’s mistakes). But, he added, “one moment stands out in memory as the turning point” of the war in that country—namely, the “surge,” which “turned events toward victory.”
“Why,” he asked, “was the success of the surge followed by a withdrawal from Iraq?” The “fatal error,” he answered, was the “premature withdrawal” ordered by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who “stood by” as our “hard-won victory” was “thrown away” in “a blind haste to get out”—leaving a vacuum that Iran and ISIS filled.
Bush got a crucial fact wrong in this chronicle: His brother’s administration—not Obama’s—signed the status of forces agreement, on Nov. 17, 2008, which stated, in Article 24: “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.”
Article 30 of that same agreement stated that its terms could be amended “only with the official agreement of the Parties in writing and in accordance with the constitutional procedures in effect in both countries.” These “constitutional procedures” included a vote by the Iraqi Parliament—and at no time between 2008 and 2011 was the Iraqi Parliament going to take such a vote.
Granted, President Obama did want to get out of Iraq; he won the White House in large part on that promise, and there was no more support in the United States than in Iraq for a continued presence of American troops. And yet Obama did send emissaries—among them former aides to George W. Bush—to seek an amendment to allow a few thousand residual forces. The Iraqi government refused. Unless Obama wanted to re-invade the country, there was nothing to be done.
There was another fallacy in Bush’s description of the surge: Though it was a huge tactical success, it did not pave the way toward “victory.” As its architect, Gen. David Petraeus, said on several occasions, the surge was meant merely to create some “breathing space,” a “zone of security,” so that Iraq’s political factions could form a unified government. The problem was that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki didn’t want unity: He didn’t want to make a deal on power-sharing, oil revenues, or land settlements with Sunni or Kurdish leaders; he wanted to maintain Shiite dominance—and it was Maliki’s stubbornness that revived the sectarian violence and left a lane open for ISIS, whose leaders exploited their fellow Sunnis’ resentments.
Later in Tuesday night’s speech, Bush said that the Iraq surge can serve as a model for how “Islamic moderates can be pulled away from extremist forces” in Syria. I doubt that he was proposing to send 100,000 U.S. troops to Syria, as his brother did in Iraq—an idea that would appeal to almost no American generals or voters. But what he was proposing isn’t at all clear.
Bush also decried Obama’s “limited strikes and other half-measures” against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria. But does this mean that he’s proposing all-out strikes and full measures? As president, he said, he would “take the offensive” and “prevail” against radical Islam. He would embed the current U.S. advisers in Iraq alongside local forces—though here, he added, “We do not need, and our friends do not ask for, a major commitment of American combat forces.” Isn’t this some sort of “half-measure”? Or might embedding troops (essentially turning the advisers into combat forces) escalate our involvement to a full measure, “a major commitment”—the sort of slippery slope that Obama is taking care to avoid, rightly or wrongly. And would Bush escalate the fight if mere embedding didn’t do the job? He didn’t say.
He did say, “In all of this,” referring to the fight against jihadists, “the United States must engage with friends and allies, and lead again in that vital region.” Which friends and allies does he mean? The Saudis try to rope us into a savage, fruitless war against the Houthi rebels, whom it portrays as Iranian proxies. The Turks lend us an air base to step up strikes against ISIS but then use the moment of goodwill as cover to attack their bigger enemy, the Kurds, who rank as the jihadists’ most potent foe (and to whom Bush promised in his speech to send heavy armaments). ISIS derives much of its strength from the deep disunity of its natural foes, some of whom are our allies, some of whom aren’t. “Action, coordination and American leadership,” the solutions Bush calls for, are more complex than he—and many other Republicans who have never held national office—seems to recognize.
He criticized Obama for drawing a “red line” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, then failing to follow through. Many of Obama’s defenders have filed the same complaint. But what would Bush do? “Under my strategy,” he said, “the aim would be to draw the [Syrian] moderates together and back them up as one force … not just in taking the fight to the enemy but in helping them to form a stable moderate government once ISIS is defeated and Assad is gone.” How would he do this? By replicating his brother’s surge in Iraq. After all, he added with blithe confidence, “the strategic elements in both cases [Iraq circa 2007 and Syria today] are the same”—thus demonstrating that he and his speechwriters have no understanding of the tangled politics in Syria or of what made the Iraqi surge work to the extent that it did.
As a first step to boosting American influence, Bush said he would reverse the “significant dismantling of our own military” of the past seven years, ignoring that defense spending has been on the rise and that the current budget, amounting to $620 billion, is larger than at any time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. One could argue for some sort of rejiggering in defense spending, but Bush didn’t do that.
Finally, Bush made a strong showing in the competition to see which Republican candidate can most pummel Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Like the others, he promised to undo the deal “immediately” upon taking office—ignoring that five other nations also signed the deal and are unlikely to follow such a lead. He mischaracterized the accord in a number of ways. He lambasted “the Obama-Clinton-Kerry policy of treating the mullahs in Iran as a stabilizing force” (there is no such policy), complained that the deal says nothing about Iran’s support for terrorism (true, but a generation of Soviet-American arms-control treaties, including some signed by the hero of this speech, Ronald Reagan, said nothing about the ravages of Communism), and scoffed that “least of all does it prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability” (when, in fact, it does and, despite another common claim, for more than 10 years).
Throughout the speech, Bush spoke of restoring trust in American leadership. But what he proposed doing in his first days as president—scuttling a deal that the nation’s top diplomats and scientists negotiated alongside five great powers of Europe and Asia, and that the U.N. Security Council then unanimously endorsed—would shatter that trust and diminish that leadership.
When Jeb Bush entered the race, pundits and politicians proclaimed him the front-runner. At the moment, the most encouraging poll puts him barely into double digits, drawing half as much support as “Undecided.” A poll out Tuesday night has him in seventh place in Iowa, luring just 5 percent of those surveyed. Of course, all this could change, especially after—or if—Donald Trump flames out. Meanwhile, if Bush hopes to get a boost from his ideas in foreign policy, this speech isn’t likely to do the trick.Atmosphere Announces 2011 European Tour Dates
Written by Tyler Hakes. Published: the_date('l, F j, Y');?>.
The Rhymesayers clan is taking the show overseas.
This week, Atmosphere announced plans to extend their Family Tour to include a slew of dates across the pond, starting in mid-June.
After recently kicking off their state-side tour in support of their newest release, The Family Sign, Slug and the boys are now tacking on some additional dates, picking up stops in Spain, Poland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, France, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany.
The new dates will add a total of 15 stops to their international romp, starting on June 17 in Barcelona, Spain and wrapping up on July 10 in Leipzig, Germany. Additionally, the group has signed up alongside Evidence and Blueprint to play the annual KahBang Festival in Bangor Maine on August 12.
As of now, the boys of Atmos are on the road in the states, with a scheduled appearance tonight in Asheville, NC. Check out all of the Atmosphere Family Tour dates.
Check out below for the list of Atmosphere European The Family Tour dates.
06.17.11 – Barcelona, Spain @ Sonar Festival: Info | Tickets
06.18.11 – Lodz, Poland @ Lodz Hip Hop Arena: Info | Tickets
06.19.11 – Ljubeljana, Slovenia @ Gala Hala: Info
06.21.11 – Prague, Czech Republic @ Lucerna: Info
06.22.11 – Linz, Austria @ Kapu: Info
06.25.11 – Evreux, France @ Le Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats: Info | Tickets
06.30.11 – Borlange, Sweden @ Peace & Love: Info | Tickets
07.01.11 – Roskilde, Denmark @ Roskilde: Info | Tickets
07.02.11 – Cologne, Germany @ Summerjam Festival: Info | Tickets
07.03.11 – Larz, Germany @ Fusion Festival: Info | Tickets
07.05.11 – Munich, Germany @ Ampere: Info | Tickets
07.06.11 – Heidelberg, Germany @ Karlstorbahnhof: Info | Tickets
07.07.11 – Stuttgart, Germany @ Universum: Info
07.08.11 – Frauenfeld, Switzerland @ Frauenfeld Festival: Info | Tickets
07.10.11 – Leipzig, Germany @ Splash Festival: Info | Tickets
Get The Latest
More Tours
CommentsFirst published in The Natural Parent Magazine (New Zealand and Australia)
"Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment." ~ Gandhi
When requests, limits and boundaries are asserted by a parent or teacher with the threat of enforced consequences, a culture of conflict rather than cooperation is established.
Threatening unpleasant consequences tends to cause children to feel stressed and defensive and is no more effective in gaining genuine listening, calm communication and willing cooperation from our children as it would be from another adult.
“If you don’t clean your room, I’ll take away your favourite toys/ devices for a week”
“If you fight with your sister again, you won’t be allowed to have your friend come to play”
“I don’t want you to.. and if I catch you doing it, I’ll make you../ you won’t be allowed to..”
When a child carries the fear that their parent can threaten them with an unpleasant consequence, it creates a tense and emotionally insecure environment for children to live and learn in. This tension and consequent insecurity can greatly reduce a child’s drive to follow their parent’s guidance and greatly increase their tendency to be resistant or rebellious and reactive.
What’s the difference between imposing a consequence and a natural consequence? Imposing consequences is often referred to as “logical consequences” or “natural consequences”, yet if the intention is to motivate using fear or shame, then it isn't a natural consequence, the emotional impact makes it completely different. If a child forgets their lunch box, they may experience the natural consequence of becoming hungry or will need to ask for some food. If they grab the toy from the baby and the baby cries, they see their sibling’s upset. The child can clearly see that the consequence created was their own doing. Imposed consequences, on the other hand, cause a child to feel criticized and controlled.
Child's behaviour results in an action which the child doesn't like. Sometimes it's a grey area in that the parent needs to take action that will affect the child because of the child's behaviour, like perhaps they need to leave the audience of a performance because the child is unable to be quiet enough. The parent can frame this as a punishment to the child; "we had to leave because you were so disruptive, why must you make life so difficult for everyone!" or they can frame it as the natural consequence; "we've come outside because people around us couldn't hear the performance because your voice was too loud and you weren't staying in your seat. We can go back in if you an reassure me that you will sit quietly beside me or on my knee and only whisper. What would help you sit quietly do you think?"
As a natural consequence of eating healthy food, we feel better, when we eat junk, we don’t feel so good. When we meditate, we feel calmer, when we stay up too late, we feel tired and frazzled. Truly natural consequences are the direct results of our actions, which are much easier for us to learn from than consequences that someone else imposes with the intention of trying to make us learn.
Similarly, it's well understood that it generally takes a person much longer to recover when a trauma occurred through an act of deliberate harm as opposed to incidents where no harm was intended. Children thrive when guided with love, rather than fear.
I hear a lot of questions from parents in my work, and “what’s wrong with imposing consequences?” is a very common one. Here’s a fairly typical question that was recently shared by a parent:
“How will they learn if there are no consequences? Just like in life, there are consequences to your actions. If you steal, you can go to jail or if you lie at work you might get fired. In school, if a kid fights with another kid, they get detention. I feel like if I don't allow natural consequences my teenage son will never learn that there are consequences to his behaviour in the real world.”
It’s interesting that when asked this question, the focus is nearly always on the repercussions to the person crossing another person’s boundary. If a person steals, the real consequence that needs to be connected with to bring about change relates to how the person was affected by something being stolen from them. Maybe they felt shocked, sad, disappointed, there may have been a financial consequence for them, which may cause them stress and possibly have other knock on effects on their family. The adult sent to jail or the ten year old who is put in time out and grounded for a week may learn to avoid future punishment by either not stealing or getting better at not getting caught, but have they truly gained help in developing their social conscience and integrity?
So if a parent doesn’t impose a consequence when a child steals or lies or hits, how will they learn? Imposed consequences are not necessary or helpful in helping children understand and respect other people's boundaries. Imagine if the child was supported with kindness and love to sit and have a genuinely open conversation with the person they, for example, stole an item from, maybe a sibling or a relative. The parent reassures the child that “we can work this out”. The parent sits with the child as they hear how stealing the item affected the other person, perhaps they hear about the person’s attachment to the item or other ways that they were affected by the loss and the child is also given the chance to express their thoughts and feelings. If no punishment or solution is imposed, a child is much more likely to feel and express remorse, to freely make amends and will, in fact, gain much more satisfaction and confidence in making amends when it comes from their own free will.
In this second scenario something much more valuable would likely be learned from the situation. Hopefully the child’s thinking and sense of empathy would have been expanded to truly get the effects of stealing on another person. Something that often surprises parents when they facilitate this kind of conflict resolution is that the combination of the emotions stirred by the situation and the parent’s loving support often results in a child opening up about what’s been really bothering them that was previously all bottled up inside and resulting in them acting out.
Aggression amongst siblings. To explore another example, the girl whose sent to her room as a “consequence” of calling her brother names and pushing him over will likely feel so consumed by the grief, anger (and possible shame) of the forced isolation that she’ll have little head or heart space to empathize with her brother’s feelings. The same will likely be true if the parent lectures, imposes a consequence of doing her brother’s jobs and is ordered to say sorry. These “consequences” do little to teach a child how to work their way through differences. She’s not being helped to take responsibility. She doesn’t gain the emotional support and guidance she needs to express her feelings and needs non-aggressively. She doesn't learn any useful strategies for how to manage her anger and resolve conflicts non-aggressively.
And, in fact, the imposed consequence distracts her from the real interpersonal consequence of how her brother is now feeling and what’s needed to repair the connection.
Confidence in communicating well to problem solve or resolve conflict is what allows children to take responsibility and mend differences. If the parent consistently takes the time to mediate conflicts calmly without judgment, this will help them both dissipate much of their upset resulting in a much greater chance of each child hearing and actually connecting with empathy to how their sibling is feeling. The children are helped to learn some good communication and problem solving skills. They listen, reflect what they hear, are guided to acknowledge the other’s feelings, share what they wish they’d done differently and work together to find a solution to the original problem.
When my children were younger and still needed my help a lot with their differences, I would often simply ask “what do you kids each need to come back to peace with each other?” and more often than not, they would relax and go straight to expressing regrets, compromises and making amends. Other times the mediation would be very lengthy, but what an important investment in time.
Imposing consequences sadly attunes children from a young age to weigh up whether the action is worth risking the punishment as opposed to attuning to what feels right, to integrity and to how their actions truly affect others.
The child is trained to think “I know I shouldn’t do this because I’ll be sent to my room” as opposed to “if I do this, he’ll feel really upset”.
Talking things through with a kid to help them expand their mind and heart to consider the natural consequences of their actions, is so much more effective in terms of helping them build the necessary skills and meet the underlying needs as opposed to imposing consequences, which simply aims to motivate children through fear.
It’s instinctive for people of all ages to have an urge to resist those who threaten them. Parents can only discover a child’s potential for more willing cooperation and more positive social skills when they consistently model a truly respectful, threat free environment in the home. The same is true for teachers in the classroom.
It’s not what we say, it’s the way that we say it. Parents often believe that the child is being reactive just because they don’t want to do what they’ve been asked to do (or not do) and that the child’s resistance to cooperating leaves a parent no choice but to bring in a warning. But in actuality the child’s lack of cooperation is often related to important needs that require attention.
Learning to identify when our child is stressed and frustrated and learning to notice when we’re stressed and frustrated are key elements of peaceful parenting. When a build up of stress blocks their mental clarity and their motivation levels, we need to temporarily shift the focus from trying to achieve tasks or solve problems to dissipating some of the tension in ourselves and our child. Maybe some quality time is needed, or some stress releasing fun and laughter, or to move in and become very present and caring when their upsets bubble to the surface in response to hurting themselves or you expressing a limit.
When frustration builds up for our child, this shuts down their clear thinking and they tend to react from the stress response of fight, flight or freeze. Fighting can sound like “NO!” and their flight can look like storming out of the room, running away and their freeze can look like completely ignoring you, turning their head away and often being nearly desperate for distractions like screens or sugary food.
The next time you’re tempted to threaten your child with a consequence, maybe pause and ask yourself “what is my child feeling, what might they need?” and “what am I feeling, what do I need?” Here are some possible needs to consider when your child digs their heels in and doesn’t appear to be very into the family’s team spirit.
Children often resist being cooperative when;
the request doesn’t make sense or doesn’t sound fair,
the request is expressed with a tone that’s either too critical or too blasé,
they need more information but don’t feel comfortable to ask,
they fear negative repercussions if they “get it wrong”,
they need to again feel connected to and appreciated by their parent or the family in general,
there’s a build up of stress and frustration and they need some emotional release through crying, talking or play and laughter to get their energy back,
they have some more immediate needs like hunger, rest or finishing a project they’re engaged in,
they need to be given achievable steps to avoid overwhelm, set them up for success,
or when they need their parent’s help in doing the tasks, maybe making it into a game.
Parents want children to do their tasks. Kids just want to play! Instead of repeating, nagging, criticizing, threatening consequences or raising your voice; centre yourself, go to your child, seek eye contact, be warm, even affectionate and inviting. A gentle touch or a little humour lets the child know that their parent is being patient and kind with them. Whenever possible, show interest in their world, whatever they’re currently engaged with before explaining what needs to be achieved or rectified and then calmly ask what they would suggest.
It’s overall the parent’s responsibility to take the first step to drain the tension out of difficult such interactions, thereby modelling respectful communication.LOS ANGELES — Shigeru Miyamoto has a lot on his mind.
In a one-on-one interview at last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo, the head of Nintendo's game design department and creator of Mario touched on a wide variety of topics: His new Mario and Zelda games, of course, but also what he thinks of the competition's new camera-based motion controllers, which are intended to compete with Wii.
The full Q&A is below.
Wired.com: I'm really into Wario Ware: DIY. Have you made any games with it?
Shigeru Miyamoto: I made some games, but I'm pretending like I didn't because they all turned out weird.
Wired.com: You said you had the idea to do a four-player Mario game for a long time. Had you ever actually done any prototypes of such a game on other hardware?
Miyamoto: With each (Mario) project, we do different experiments. It's something I've always wanted to do. We've done games in the past where we've had the idea and worked on it. But with side-scrolling games, the challenge was that the screen continues to scroll forward, and what happens when the other player falls off the screen? With Mario 64, we had an experiment that took advantage of the idea of the screen growing larger and smaller depending on how far apart the characters were. So we had Mario and Luigi running around in that 3-D world, but we ended up not using it.
There's also the issue of the resolution of the graphics. If you were to try to do a system where the camera zoomed in and out, and the graphics grew and shrunk in relation to the camera, back on the NES, the resolution of the graphics there, if the Mario character got too small you wouldn't be able to distinguish the character easily. But with the Wii, because the resolution of the graphics is strong enough, you can pull the camera back very far and still see the character.
Wired.com: Why did you decide not to use that Nintendo 64 game with Mario and Luigi?
Miyamoto: Ultimately, it's the idea of processing speed and working within the constraints of the hardware. The DS Mario 64 had a mode with something similar to that, where you were playing with four characters.
Wired.com: With Microsoft and Sony introducing camera controllers, it's interesting that Nintendo has never shown any sort of camera controller off. What's your opinion on what the competition is doing?
Miyamoto: I'm sure you're aware, but obviously this type of motion-sensing camera technology has been around for quite a while. Over the years we've looked at a variety of different technologies and seen what could be done with that, and ultimately made the decision not to take advantage of what they can do.
Of course, we've, in terms of looking at that, felt that it wasn't time to take advantage of technology like that yet. Particularly from a cost standpoint, we don't think the time is right. Of course, looking at what we've done with Wii Sports Resort, we feel that with Wii MotionPlus we feel that we've pursued a very deepened gameplay experience, and we're delivering it in a way that's cost-effective. And with up to four players, it's very easy to purchase the initial devices. We think that overall, Wii Sports Resort is a very good real demonstration of what precise motion control can be.
Wired.com: Nintendo had done experiments with camera control in the past. What do you think of the idea of controlling a game with nothing, no controller, in your hands? Do you think that costs aside that that's a good idea, or that you do need something physical to hold on to?
Miyamoto: You ask sharp questions, don't you? As someone who thinks of things from the perspective of creating interactive experiences, I really think that you do need something. I don't think as a creator that I could create an experience that truly feels interactive if you don't have something to hold in your hand, if you don't have something like force feedback that you can feel from the controller. That's why I think the Wii remote, particularly with Wii MotionPlus, makes for such a strong experience.
I think that some of their designers are going to be faced with that question going forward, and they'll have to find solutions to that, and perhaps that's why you see for one of the devices that it's not simply a camera, but that you're holding some kind of wand with lights that change colors. I think those are interesting ideas, and there are interesting ways that that could be developed, but those are challenges that they're still facing and trying to learn to overcome.
Raising a couple of examples, the archery in Wii Sports Resort feels very, very good. Another one that I think is very interesting is Frisbee. Because with Frisbee, you not only have that precision motion, but when you throw the Frisbee you hear that sound of the Frisbee flying through the air coming out of the Wii remote speaker. And that does an amazing job of making it feel like you've just thrown a Frisbee. We've been working with motion control for several years now, and have really learned how to take advantage of it and what can be done with it. Looking at what the other companies have shown here at E3, it feels like they have finally obtained the very basic technology for doing motion control, but perhaps they still have to learn how to use that and take advantage of it in an interactive experience.
Hopefully you won't write this in too great detail. Maybe you won't write that I said those things specifically.
__Wired.com: __Unfortunately, I'm planning on writing everything. And I have another sharp question: Super Mario Galaxy 2. I was surprised to see this announced, because as was said, typically Nintendo doesn't do two Mario games on one console, and beyond that it's a very straightforward follow-up with similar levels, which is something that we rarely see in the Mario series. Why the change in philosophy that says it's ok to do a sequel?
Miyamoto: The biggest reason is because we simply hadn't run out of ideas within the system that we'd created for* Super Mario Galaxy*. One of the biggest ideas that we felt we didn't take good enough advantage of in the first one was "China Syndrome," or the idea that if you drill a hole straight through the earth in one place, you would end up on the other side, so if you drill a hole from Tokyo you would end up in New York. We had some elements of that but the first thing that we did in *Super Mario Galaxy 2 *was to create the drill item that you saw in the trailer. We felt that as soon as we completed the drill item and began playing around with it, we felt that with just that one item there was a lot that we could do that would really make the game a lot of fun.
Wired.com: You've added Yoshi, which is something that people are really interested in. How does that change the gameplay mechanics?
Miyamoto: In Super Mario Galaxy, one of the features of the game was the pointer functionality – you were able to point at things in the game, and grab onto them, and pull yourself through, and things like that. We felt that was somewhat similar to one of the things that Yoshi could do, and in bringing Yoshi in, it felt like a new approach to it and that there was a lot of fun that could be had.
I think it's kind of difficult for us to have Mario running around and carrying things in the world, but by incorporating Yoshi there's a variety of different ways that we can have Yoshi carrying things and using that as a new gameplay element as well.
Graduate students from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts demonstrate their Qurious app, which displays information about actors appearing in a given scene.
Wired.com: Super Mario Galaxy was also the first time where we saw a story in a Mario game that was more than just window dressing, that was a really interesting narrative. Are we going to see more of that?
__Miyamoto: __I've talked to (Galaxy director Yoshiaki) Koizumi about that a lot, but this time I'd like to go with as little story as possible. I've always felt that the Mario games themselves aren't particularly suited to having a very heavy story, whereas the Zelda series is something that lends itself more |
is slightly stiffer than top-grain leather but has a more consistent texture. Patent leather is leather that has been given a high-gloss finish by the addition of a coating. Dating to the late 1700s, it became widely popular after inventor Seth Boyden developed the first mass-production process, using a linseed oil-based lacquer, in Newark, New Jersey, in 1818. Modern versions are usually a form of bicast leather.
is created from the corium left once the top-grain has been separated from the hide, known as the drop split. In thicker hides, the drop split can be further split into a middle split and a flesh split. Bonded leather, also called reconstituted leather, is a material that uses leather scraps that are shredded and bonded together with polyurethane or latex onto a fiber mesh. The amount of leather fibers in the mix varies from 10% to 90%, affecting the properties of the product.[2]
From other animals [ edit ]
Today, most leather is made of cattle hides, which constitute about 65% of all leather produced. Other animals that are used include sheep, about 13%, goats, about 11%, and pigs, about 10%. Obtaining accurate figures from around the world is difficult, especially for areas where the skin may be eaten.[3][4] Other animals mentioned below only constitute a fraction of a percent of total leather production.
Horse hides are used to make particularly durable leathers. Shell cordovan is a horse leather made not from the outer skin but an under layer found only in equine species called the shell. It is prized for its mirror-like finish and anti-creasing properties.
Lamb and deerskin are used for soft leather in more expensive apparel. Deerskin is widely used in work gloves and indoor shoes.
Reptilian skins, such as alligator, crocodile, and snake, are noted for their distinct patterns that reflect the scales of their species. This has led to hunting and farming of these species in part for their skins.
Kangaroo leather is used to make items that must be strong and flexible. It is the material most commonly used in bullwhips. Some motorcyclists favor kangaroo leather for motorcycle leathers because of its light weight and abrasion resistance.[5] Kangaroo leather is also used for falconry jesses, soccer footwear,[6] and boxing speed bags.[7]
Although originally raised for their feathers in the 19th century, ostriches are now more popular for both meat and leather.[8] Ostrich leather has a characteristic "goose bump" look because of the large follicles where the feathers grew. Different processes produce different finishes for many applications, including upholstery, footwear, automotive products, accessories, and clothing.
In Thailand, stingray leather is used in wallets and belts. Stingray leather is tough and durable. The leather is often dyed black and covered with tiny round bumps in the natural pattern of the back ridge of an animal. These bumps are then usually dyed white to highlight the decoration. Stingray rawhide is also used as grips on Chinese swords, Scottish basket hilted swords, and Japanese katanas. Stingray leather is also used for high abrasion areas in motorcycle racing leathers (especially in gloves, where its high abrasion resistance helps prevent wear through in the event of an accident.)
Environmental impact [ edit ]
Leather produces some environmental impact, most notably due to:
The carbon footprint of cattle rearing
Use of chemicals in the tanning process (e.g., chromium, formic acid, mercury and solvents)
Air pollution due to the transformation process (hydrogen sulfide during dehairing and ammonia during deliming, solvent vapors)
One estimate of the carbon footprint of leather goods is 0.51 kg of CO 2 equivalent per £1 of output at 2010 retail prices, or 0.71 kg CO 2 eq per £1 of output at 2010 industry prices.[9]
One ton of hide or skin generally produces 20 to 80 m3 of waste water, including chromium levels of 100–400 mg/l, sulfide levels of 200–800 mg/l, high levels of fat and other solid wastes, and notable pathogen contamination. Producers often add pesticides to protect hides during transport. With solid wastes representing up to 70% of the wet weight of the original hides, the tanning process represents a considerable strain on water treatment installations.[10]
Disposal [ edit ]
Leather biodegrades slowly—taking 25 to 40 years to decompose.[11] However, vinyl and petrochemical-derived materials take 500 or more years to decompose.[12]
Chemical waste disposal [ edit ]
Tanning is especially polluting in countries where environmental regulations are lax, such as in India, the world's third-largest producer and exporter of leather. To give an example of an efficient pollution prevention system, chromium loads per produced tonne are generally abated from 8 kg to 1.5 kg. VOC emissions are typically reduced from 30 kg/t to 2 kg/t in a properly managed facility. A review of the total pollution load decrease achievable according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization[13] posts precise data on the abatement achievable through industrially proven low-waste advanced methods, while noting, "even though the chrome pollution load can be decreased by 94% on introducing advanced technologies, the minimum residual load 0.15 kg/t raw hide can still cause difficulties when using landfills and composting sludge from wastewater treatment on account of the regulations currently in force in some countries."
In Kanpur, the self-proclaimed "Leather City of World"—with 10,000 tanneries as of 2011 and a city of three million on the banks of the Ganges—pollution levels were so high, that despite an industry crisis, the pollution control board decided to shut down 49 high-polluting tanneries out of 404 in July 2009.[14] In 2003 for instance, the main tanneries' effluent disposal unit was dumping 22 tonnes of chromium-laden solid waste per day in the open.[15]
In the Hazaribagh neighborhood of Dhaka in Bangladesh, chemicals from tanneries end up in Dhaka's main river. Besides the environmental damage, the health of both local factory workers and the end consumer is also negatively affected.[16] After approximately 15 years of ignoring high court rulings, the government shut down more than 100 tanneries the weekend of 8 April 2017 in the neighborhood.[17]
The higher cost associated with the treatment of effluents than to untreated effluent discharging leads to illegal dumping to save on costs. For instance, in Croatia in 2001, proper pollution abatement cost US$70–100 per ton of raw hides processed against $43/t for irresponsible behavior.[18] In November 2009, one of Uganda's main leather making companies was caught directly dumping waste water into a wetland adjacent to Lake Victoria.[19]
Role of enzymes [ edit ]
Enzymes like proteases, lipases, and amylases have an important role in the soaking, dehairing, degreasing, and bating operations of leather manufacturing. Proteases are the most commonly used enzymes in leather production. The enzyme must not damage or dissolve collagen or keratin, but should hydrolyze casein, elastin, albumin, globulin-like proteins, and nonstructural proteins that are not essential for leather making. This process is called bating.[20]
Lipases are used in the degreasing operation to hydrolyze fat particles embedded in the skin.[21]
Amylases are used to soften skin, to bring out the grain, and to impart strength and flexibility to the skin. These enzymes are rarely used.
Preservation and conditioning [ edit ]
The natural fibers of leather break down with the passage of time. Acidic leathers are particularly vulnerable to red rot, which causes powdering of the surface and a change in consistency. Damage from red rot is aggravated by high temperatures and relative humidities. Although it is chemically irreversible, treatments can add handling strength and prevent disintegration of red rotted leather.
Exposure to long periods of low relative humidities (below 40%) can cause leather to become desiccated, irreversibly changing the fibrous structure of the leather. Chemical damage can also occur from exposure to environmental factors, including ultraviolet light, ozone, acid from sulfurous and nitrous pollutants in the air, or through a chemical action following any treatment with tallow or oil compounds. Both oxidation and chemical damage occur faster at higher temperatures.
Various treatments are available such as conditioners. Saddle soap is used for cleaning, conditioning, and softening leather. Leather shoes are widely conditioned with shoe polish.[22]
In modern culture [ edit ]
Due to its excellent resistance to abrasion and wind, leather found a use in rugged occupations. The enduring image of a cowboy in leather chaps gave way to the leather-jacketed and leather-helmeted aviator. When motorcycles were invented, some riders took to wearing heavy leather jackets to protect from road rash and wind blast; some also wear chaps or full leather pants to protect the lower body.
Leather's flexibility allows it to be formed and shaped into balls and protective gear. Subsequently, many sports use equipment made from leather, such as baseball gloves and the ball used in American football.
Leather fetishism is the name popularly used to describe a fetishistic attraction to people wearing leather, or in certain cases, to the garments themselves.
Many rock groups (particularly heavy metal and punk groups in the 1980s) are well known for wearing leather clothing. Extreme metal bands (especially black metal bands) and Goth rock groups have extensive leather clothing. Leather has become less common in the punk community over the last three decades, as there is opposition to the use of leather from punks who support animal rights.
Many cars and trucks come with optional or standard leather or "leather faced" seating.
Religious sensitivities [ edit ]
In countries with significant populations of individuals observing religions which place restrictions on material choices, leather vendors typically clarify the kinds of leather in their products. For example, leather shoes bear a label that identifies the animal from which the leather came. This helps a Muslim not accidentally purchase pigskin, and a Hindu avoid cattle. Many vegetarian Hindus do not use any kind of leather. Such taboos increase the demand for religiously neutral leathers such as ostrich and deer.
Judaism forbids the comfort of wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur, Tisha B'Av, and during mourning.[23] Also, see Teffilin and Torah Scroll.
Jainism prohibits the use of leather, since it is obtained by killing animals.
Alternatives [ edit ]
Many artificial leather substitutes have been developed, usually involving polyurethane or vinyl coatings applied to a cloth backing. Many names and brands for such artificial leathers exist, including "pleather", a portmanteau of "plastic leather", and the brand name Naugahyde.[24]
References [ edit ]A pair of new guys figure in the scoring as veteran Eric O'Dell had a pair of goals and rookie sensation Tobias Lindberg had two assists as goaltender Chris Driedger came up with 32 saves in the win.
Newly named Captain Zack Stortini provided some physical play as that line with Max McCormick at center and David Dziurzynski on wing were bouncing players around all night. Binghamton opened up the scoring at 9:48 in the first with Colin Greening getting a tip in from a Patrick Mullen slapper from the blue line for a power play tally that got the home crowd into it.
O'Dell scored his first on a two on one break with Lindberg as he slid a saucer pass over the stick of Devils defenseman Reece Scarlett to O'Dell as he pushed the puck up high past netminder Yann Danis. O'Dell and Lindberg would team up again on the Senators' fourth goal off the corner faceoff as Lindberg made a sweet drop pass from behind the cage finding O'Dell near the net as he chips it home by Danis' side of the goalmouth.
There was some bitterness between the two clubs as lots of milling around after many whistle stoppages as they combined for 78 PIM's. Ex-Devil Mark Fraser was involved trying to protect some of the younger guys, particularly Ben Harpur on one occasion, and later ended up dropping the gloves with Corey Tropp as the two would try to throw but not doing any serious damage landing punches.
Another break out would occur as Stortini and Raman Hrabarenka decide to make a date with one another but neither would deliver as the linesmen broke it up much to a chorus of boos from the home crowd.
The lone goal from Albany was off the skate of defenseman Fredrik Claesson as he was in the slot trying to narrow the passing lane but Joseph Blandisi's attempt caught the blade and re-directed by Driedger to tie it up in the first. Dziurzynski would be the other Binghamton scorer netting his first of the season from high in the slot from a Michael Kostka pass from behind the net.
LINES
- Forwards
Dzingel-O'Dell-Lindberg
Puempel-Paul-Schneider
Ewanyk-Hobbs-Greening
Dziurzynski-McCormick-Stortini*
- Defense
Fraser/Mullen*
Lepine/Kostka
Claesson/Harpur
Scott Greenham back-up
- Scratched
Mike Sdao, Buddy Robinson, Alex Guptill all out with injuries; Alex Wideman, Ryan Penny and Nick Tuzzolino healthy
Started*
NOTES
- There was a scratch your head call late in the second period as Albany's Tropp was called for a helmet violation. The rule states that a player must immediately skate to the bench as Tropp continued to play the puck.
- Lindberg looked smooth and poised on the first line with O'Dell as Ryan Dzingel also was contributing on the wing.
- Nick Paul scored his first professional point passing from around the back of the net finding Mullen on the blueline.
- Driedger was solid and played with confidence all night. Really good to see as that will be one of the team's strong points.
- Sens played shorthanded and was effective giving Albany little opportunities and when they did get organized Driedger was steady holding the line.
- Michael Kostka made his premier felt early (and painful) as he caught a rut on the ice and fell awkwardly giving himself a fat lip.
- Besides Storts being named Captain, Fraser and Mullen wore the 'A'.
- Shots ended up 33-32 Albany as that was one of the major problems the team faced last season. We'll keep an eye on this moving forward.
*Cover Pic & Insert Courtesy of Alicia Strauch.Dear RadOwl, Last night I dreamed about aliens. I was in a maze of corridors and rooms, trying to find my way out with another person. We ran across three aliens. At first I was scared, and the person I was with ran away. I was going to run away, too, but stopped when one of the aliens held out a hand to me as if to say “wait.” I asked what it wanted, and it replied in my mind “want.” The next part of the dream is three years in the future, and I’ve been teaching the aliens about human culture and language. I run across two of them in the kitchen preparing food, and think at first they are planning something malicious, but when I eavesdrop I hear them say they don’t like the taste of carrots. The scene is at a party, and the other people avoid the aliens. Next the dream jumps ahead two years, and the alien I’ve been teaching language to can communicate fully with me. He says that it is time, and that I’m the one “who will see.” He sends me an image of a person with the Third Eye opening in the forehead and tells me that I need to “open.” I sit in lotus and imagine it happening to me. When my Third Eye opens I see an image of a sandstorm colliding with a blizzard. High above it I see an image of spaceships in the air fighting each other. My friendly alien tells me this is the result of human technology. He then takes me to a little cone-shaped craft with no controls. I open my Third Eye and use it to navigate through the fighting and fly to a desert planet like Mars. Signed, Alien Agenda
Dear Alien Agenda,
What an amazing dream! Thank you for sharing it. Let’s analyze it a detail at a time and see how it all fits together to tell a story.
The opening scene of a dream is often where you find the subject. To begin understanding the maze of corridors, think of it as a metaphor for “the maze of life.” You make choices in life about which way to go and where to turn, not quite sure where you’ll end up, an idea ready-made for comparison to a maze. By the end of the dream you find yourself in a completely new and unexpected place. My guess is, you are also finding out new and unexpected things about yourself.
Now expand the possibilities for the meaning of the symbolism in the opening scene. What I see is the maze-like process of self-discovery. The “psychonauts” among us — people who explore their inner depths — know what a maze the inner world is like. Like exploring an ocean, the deeper you go, the stranger and more mysterious things get. Every twist and turn reveals something new.
Symbolism of aliens in dreams
This leads us to the aliens in your dream. Nothing says “strange and mysterious” quite like aliens. Think expansively about what is “alien” and it can describe anything that is foreign to you or originating beyond your comprehension. For example, I might dream of lessons in Tibetan Buddhism as coming from an alien because my Western background does not prepare me for such encounters. At the bottom of this post I give you a resource to thoroughly explore the dream symbolism of UFOs and aliens.
The dream provides a few clues to what the aliens represent to you. The first is when the person you are with runs away. It says to me that there is something about the subject most people avoid, or that scares them away. That idea is reinforced in the scene where the aliens are at the party and people avoid them.
Another clue is when you suspect the aliens of being malicious but they turn out to be benign, saying, perhaps, there is something about this process of inner exploration you initially don’t trust, but in time you realize fully that it’s good, it’s for your benefit. Going back to my Tibetan Buddhism example, I might not trust the teachings at first because they don’t “speak my native language,” which is Christianity, but with time and exposure I find it isn’t so “foreign” as I initially think. This is true in my case as I have found many parallels between Tibetan Buddhism and Gnostic Christianity. People who go deep down the rabbit hole can mistrust what’s happening to them. They might even decide they want nothing to do with it. They turn and run, like the person with you in the opening scene.
That person could even represent fear that going where this inner process is leading will separate you from the rest of humanity and dispel the illusions that most people believe to survive in society. The blinders no longer work. Once the Third Eye opens, there’s no going back. You, in a sense, will be the alien. We know that something behind the meaning of this dream scares you — you say it near the beginning — but we can also tell by your reaction that you’re willing to push ahead despite the fear.
Whatever the aliens represent, it’s something you have adopted slowly and only after testing the truthfulness, judging by the long process of getting to know the aliens in the dream and discovering that their intentions are good. Life is full of slow changes, and you go through changes in the dream, from frightened of the aliens to friendly with them. You learn to communicate, and that reminds me of the process of self-discovery. Learn to communicate with parts of yourself that used to be closed off, foreign…
Alien!
Groups of three characters in dreams –in this case, three aliens — can symbolize something about you that’s incomplete. I find this symbolism quite often in the dreams of people who are looking for something to complete themselves. However, groups of three are used symbolically to show unity and strength, such as in the Trinity.
Something deeper might be at work in this detail. Notice that you are initially with the three aliens, and three years pass as you learn to communicate with them. Then you are with two of the aliens in the kitchen, then two years pass. The dream deliberately creates those parallels. My initial thinking on this subject might miss an important clue: 3+2=5. In numerology, five is a number of imminent change. The dream creates a five-year timeline to go from the maze, to flying a spacecraft with your mind. That’s a huge change!
[Symbolism of numbers in dreams]
The symbolism of cooking in dreams
The detail about the aliens making something in the kitchen makes sense when viewed as a metaphor for an internal process. Cooking is a commonly used metaphor for internal processes. Ingredients in the form of knowledge, personality traits, mental functions and so forth are combined to create something new in you. The heat is supplied by your passion and desire to pursue new directions in your life. You don’t become a psychonaut by passively waiting for things to come to you! Yes, patience is necessary — it doesn’t happen overnight — but you will continually struggle against inertia, entropy, and social pressure to conform. Transformation is something you have to really want and pursue.
What doesn’t make sense to me is the detail about the aliens disliking carrots. Who doesn’t like carrots! All kidding aside, I have pondered this detail and came up with ideas:
Carrots are associated with good eyesight (which is a myth, by the way), but if the aliens are teaching you about opening your Third Eye and that’s what’s meant by the symbolism of the carrots, you’d think that the aliens would love carrots.
Carrots are associated with the color orange, which is associated with the sacral chakra. The Third Eye, however, is associated with a different chakra (see illustration).
Carrots are a root vegetable, and that connection with the ground can symbolize the need for psychonauts to be well-grounded in their everyday lives. But again, you’d expect the aliens to like carrots if that symbolism applied.
This is all a way of saying I don’t know what the heck that carrot detail is really about. Perhaps someone will read this post and offer suggestions in the comments.
The Third Eye in this Dream
Your dream appears to define alien in the scene involving opening the Third Eye, which at its essence means seeing the world in a new way, with more insight and awareness. The Third Eye is a “foreign” idea, like Tibetan Buddhism is to a Midwest-born American such as myself. You might say then that dream is about opening yourself up to new ideas, new experiences, and new abilities. In the dream you gain some awesome new abilities. The Third Eye is described in some places as a portal to other dimensions of reality. With it you can view and experience mystery and wonder as you’ve never known it before.
And dude, you get your own spaceship! How cool is that. You get to leave the conflict behind, where the humans battle it out with their mind-sucking technology, and use the ancient technology of consciousness to explore the universe.
Hmm, where have I heard before about a study showing that dreams about aliens can connect with awaking of special abilities….
What you see when you open the Third Eye is the archetypal image of the conflict of opposites. A sandstorm blasting against a blizzard is a great metaphor for opposite energies, and the ways opposite energies interact is the fundamental dynamic that creates physical reality. Even our very atoms are made of opposing energies, so it’s a concept you find around the world and in the dreams of people everywhere. Your dream gave you a tremendous insight into how to use your Third Eye as a vehicle for exploring the universe, even if that universe is contained within you.
I think this dream shows you are developing your personal potential and have much to look forward to if you continue on this path.
Hey, do you love dreams? They sure are interesting and mysterious. I have a newsletter about dreams and will send you everything you need to know to get started interpreting them.
Explore further:SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Hundreds of people rushed to withdraw money from a branch of a small Chinese bank after rumors spread about its solvency, reflecting growing anxiety among investors as regulators signal greater tolerance for credit defaults.
People gather in front of a branch of Jiangsu Sheyang Rural Commercial Bank, in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, March 25, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
The case highlights the urgency of plans to implement a deposit insurance system to protect investors’ deposits in case of bank insolvency, given that Chinese are growing increasingly nervous about the impact that slowing economic growth will have on the viability of financial institutions.
Regulators have said they will roll out deposit insurance as soon as possible, without giving a firm deadline.
Domestic media reported, and a local official confirmed, that ordinary depositors swarmed a branch of Jiangsu Sheyang Rural Commercial Bank in Yancheng in economically troubled Jiangsu province on Monday.
Bank Chairman Zang Zhengzhi was quoted as saying the bank would ensure payments to all the depositors. The report did not say how the rumor originated.
Why Yancheng investors suddenly lost confidence in the security of their bank deposits is not clear, given that the Sheyang bank is subject to formal reserve requirements, loan-to-deposit ratios and other rules to ensure they keep sufficient cash on hand to meet demand.
Bank failures in China are virtually unknown, as Chinese banks are considered to operate under an implicit guarantee from the government.
Finally, the central bank has eased up on money rates since February, and traders say liquidity in the interbank market — where banks like Sheyang bank can tap short-term funds to meet depositor demand — remains relatively relaxed.
“It’s true that these rumors exist, but actually (the bank going bankrupt) is impossible. It’s a completely different situation from the problem with the cooperatives,” said Zhang Chaoyang, an official at the propaganda department of the Communist Party committee in Tinghu district, where the bank branch is located.
Zhang was referring to an incident that rattled depositors in Yancheng in January, when some local rural cooperatives — which are not subject to the supervision of the bank regulator — ran out of cash and locked their doors.
Local officials say several co-op bosses fled after committing fraud.
China’s central bank governor said earlier this month that deposit rates are likely to liberalized in one to two years - the most explicit timeframe to date for what would be the final step in freeing up banks to set their own interest rates.
It is widely expected to introduce a deposit insurance scheme before liberalizing deposit rates to protect savers in case a freed-up market leads to major strains on smaller banks and alarms the public. Analysts also expect the controls on deposit rates to be lifted gradually. Is China’s debt nightmare a province called Jiangsu?
DEFAULT FEARS
Local and global investors in China have taken note of Beijing’s recent decision to allow China’s first domestic bond default by Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science and Technology Co Ltd in March. Officials have indicated publicly that they are not worried that more defaults will damage economic stability.
In the past, domestic bond issuers were routinely bailed out by local governments and banks, and the willingness of regulators to let Chaori miss interest payments negatively impacted rates in Chinese offshore credit markets.
More recently, media also reported a heavily indebted real estate developer in Zhejiang province was at risk of defaulting on 3.5 billion yuan ($565 million) worth of loans — a situation that has yet to be resolved.
When contacted by Reuters by phone on Tuesday, an official at the Jiangsu Sheyang Rural Commercial Bank branch hung up, saying she was busy.
An official at the administrative office at Jiangsu Sheyang Rural Commercial Bank said the bank would publish a statement shortly. On its website, the bank says it is capitalized at 525 million yuan ($85 million) and had total deposits of 12 billion yuan as of end-February,
Officials at the Jiangsu branch offices of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) declined to comment. The Yancheng branch of CBRC and the propaganda offices in Yancheng city and Sheyang county did not answer calls seeking comment.
($1 = 6.1888 Chinese Yuan)By |
Sexy is a really difficult concept for me.
Growing up with a deep love for Barbie and Seventeen magazine, I would spend hours comparing myself to the beautiful faces, perfect curves, and amazing clothes that other girls seemed to pull off effortlessly, garnering them piles of sex-crazed boys lusting after them. And then there was how I saw myself: a potato.
I had been told I was cute, funny, smart, and every other word except sexy. I wanted to be sexy SO BAD. But I had just decided it was never an adjective I could embody.
After growing up *just a little*, I was trying to reinvent myself. I had begun to realize that sex wasn’t so difficult to come by as I had thought, and I began using it as a way to feel good about myself. I was convinced that being sexy simply meant people wanting to sex me up, and if people wanted to sleep with me, I would finally feel sexy.
Uh, nope. Not that how works, just fyi. While there was definitely some fun had and feeling wanted and desired was amazing, it didn’t internalize my own belief in my level of sexiness.
I’m growing up a *little more* and realizing that if I want to truly feel sexy, I need to believe I’m sexy, just for me. So I decided I wanted to do a boudoir photoshoot.
Let me just preface it with, I was ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED.
The thought of wearing skimpy lingerie in front of someone I didn’t know was horrifying. What if I came out of the dressing room and she laughed at me? What if she can’t get a single sexy picture and I just look like some sort of Chris Farley fat-guy-in-a-little-coat comedy bit? WHAT IF PEOPLE SEE THEM AND SEE HOW UNSEXY AND HIDEOUS I REALLY AM AND NOBODY EVER WANTS TO DATE ME AND I’LL DIE ALONE AND NOBODY WILL NOTICE UNTIL MY DOG HAS EATEN MY FACE OFF?
But. I’m working on being brave, and this was a perfect chance to exercise that. Part of my being brave has been just committing to things I’m afraid of and doing them before I can back out.
So. I did it.
I reached out to Bluehouse Boudoir (@bluehouse_boudoir) on Instagram and scheduled a shoot a couple weeks later. She told me to bring my own lingerie, but they would do hair and makeup for me.
I was HORRIFIED. I went out and bought new lingerie, freaked out and packed like a million outfits, then nearly drove away when I pulled up to her studio. But she had already seen me pull up, so that would’ve been hella awkward.
Immediately after walking in, I felt comfortable. Mary Kate, my amazing photographer, talked me through her ideas, went through my lingerie with me and we picked our favorites, and she even brought me brownies, which is basically the way to my heart.
Her AMAZING makeup artist Adele (@adele.belle) listened to my makeup requests, including a red lip and eyelashes that hit my eyebrows. If I were rich, I would hire her to do my makeup every day. For reals. Not only did I look and feel like a sexy goddess, but she was so much fun to talk to and made me feel safe in her hands.
Then it was time to shoot.
As I laid down on the mattress curled up on blankets and pillows, I started to freak. My potato feelings began resurfacing.
But immediately, Mary Kate gave me specific poses and ideas, encouraging me the entire way. Her running commentary of encouragement, smiles, and playful banter made me feel safe, and I felt incredibly relaxed.
I felt good. I felt beautiful. I felt comfortable. And I felt sexy. But this wasn’t the sexy I was used to feeling. It wasn’t tied to a boy wanting to see me naked. It wasn’t compared to a magazine shoot. I felt sexy because I knew I was sexy. I loved how I looked and felt, and I knew it was radiating out of me.
When I got the pictures, everything I felt was visible in every shot. Of course there were some pictures I like better than others, but overall I was in love with me. I truly felt sexy because I knew I was.
For anyone who has ever considered doing a boudoir shoot, I say GO DO IT NOW ASAP IMMEDIATELY. But do it for you! Obviously gifting said photos is amazing. And if I wasn’t single AF and knew somebody who deserved them, I would’ve Kim Kardashianed that shit and made a calendar for a boyfriend.
Sexy is not determined by someone else. Sexy is a state of mind. Did I feel sexy in my fancy ass lingerie while seductively hugging a wall? Absolutely. But I’ve also felt just as sexy in my sweatpants and tank top with no makeup on. But sometimes that state of mind needs a little wake up call, and this photoshoot was exactly what I needed.
If you’re in the Houston area and want to shoot with an AMAZING photographer and makeup artist, here’s a little coupon for a free shoot with Bluehouse! I want to see all your sexy selves too!You might have heard that Marvel cancelled the solicitation for the last issue of Powers they’d solicited (a long time ago).
Brian Bendis had a little bit of snark about that over on Twitter:
media: if a book is pulled from the publisher by the author for a new publisher, it is not ‘cancelled’ so much as it is ‘switching publishers.’ not as sexy a click bait headline, but whatever. HUGE jinxworld news coming. VERY soon. pic.twitter.com/aR30RxhAKA — BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (@BRIANMBENDIS) November 17, 2017
That animation makes a person wonder in Jinxworld is about to become a DC imprint. And DC _has_ been talking about “pop up imprints” lately…
Todd Allen wears a lot of hats. At various times he’s been (alphabetically), a bouncer, college professor, humor columnist, Internet producer and an NBA/WNBA Beat Writer, among other things. He’s the author of Economics of Digital Comics. You should probably read it.
Like this: Like Loading...Jim Callaghan would have had some sympathy for Theresa May as she struggled with her croaky voice and the prankster handing her a mock P45. Back in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was on the brink of power, the then Labour prime minister summed up what it was like to feel authority slipping away. “There are times, perhaps once every 30 years, when there is a sea change in politics,” Callaghan said. “It then does not matter what you say or what you do. There is a shift in what the public wants and what it approves of.”
Theresa May’s conference speech: the verdict | The panel Read more
It goes without saying that this was not the parallel with the late 1970s that the Conservatives were hoping the public would recognise. Indeed, all the old favourite tunes were sung lustily at their conference: runaway inflation, overmighty union barons, the run on the pound, the bailout from the International Monetary Fund, and of course the Winter of Discontent. Speaker after speaker warned voters of what would await them should they be daft enough to elect Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister. Boris Johnson even managed to dredge up the three-day week – even though Ted Heath was prime minister for that.
Much to the horror of Tory ministers, as they sought to conjure up memories of a dystopian 1970s, however, Corbyn seems to better articulate the new mood than they do. The attacks on Labour, coupled with the cherry-picking of some of the opposition’s policies – from building more council houses to a cap on energy prices – were a compliment to Corbyn, who is taken far more seriously by the Tories than he was before the general election. In Brighton, the mood was upbeat, even though Labour still needs to capture a lot of seats to win an overall majority. By contrast, the Conservatives in Manchester acted as if they had lost. Which, in an important sense, they have.
The free-market thinktank Legatum last week published the result of a poll testing public attitudes, and was horrified to find that voters – including Conservative supporters – strongly support nationalisation of rail, water, electricity and gas. But that was just the start. Britain wants the pay of chief executives to be curbed, favours paying more tax to boost spending on the NHS, and seeks more, not less, market regulation. When the preferred adjectives to describe capitalism are “greedy”, “selfish” and “corrupt”, it is easy to see why Legatum concludes that the capitalist brand is in crisis. Against that backdrop, branding Corbyn a 1970s Marxist throwback or banging on about his support for Venezuela is not going to cut it.
Voters, particularly those under 50, couldn’t care less that inflation reached almost 27% in the summer of 1975 or that the rubbish wasn’t collected in the winter of 1978. For them, the real issues are why real wages have flatlined for a decade and why home ownership rates are collapsing. Corbyn still has work to do to persuade the public that his policies would deliver on the bread-and-butter issues that it cares about, but he will not be beaten by summoning up the spectres of the past.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Theresa May struggles with her croaky voice during her speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Historically, there is nothing surprising about the current discontent. There have been three colossal economic shocks in the past 100 years, and each has led to a political shift. Postwar welfare states in the UK and elsewhere were the result of the Great Depression. The privatisation and liberalisation agenda of the new right emerged from the wreckage of social democracy, overwhelmed by inflation in the mid-1970s. Then in 2008 global capitalism had its near-death experience, and only survived because governments used taxpayers’ money to bail out the banks. The failings of a model built around deregulation, debt and a shift in economic power from labour to capital were brutally exposed.
More difficult to explain is why it has |
some reflect issues as i forgot my resistance flask so room for improvement but hopefully this can show it off fairly well, i will post more vids soon.-Area Contain's many totems-Monsters have 30% increased Area of Effect- +60% Monster Lightning Resistance-Monsters Deal 88% Extra Damage as ColdThe map wasn't too bad and went quite smoothly despite having to back track a bit as the mods weren't too bad as some of the others im gonna post to show that while the build is strong it has it's limits, mainly limited by player choices and paying attention.-22% More Monster life-Monster's Have 266% Increased Critical Strike Chance-Monster's Have 30% Increased Critical Strike Multiplier-20% Increased Monster Movement Speed-34% Increased Monster Attack Speed-31% Increased Monster Cast Speed-Monsters can Not Be Stunned-Monsters deal 75% Extra Damage as Cold-Monsters Gain 2 Frenzy Charges Every 20 secondsThis Map Definitely Pushed my builds Defensive Abilities to the limits and took me a while to complete because of how careful i was being but still managed to pull through, surprisingly not the closest call out of some of the videos i recorded for the build, i guess i get a bit of stage fright and make more mistakes then i should.-22% More Magic Monsters- -11% Maximum Player Resistances-Players Recover life, mana, and energy shield 40% Slower-Unique Boss Has 25% Increased attack and cast speed-Unique Boss has 30% Increased Life-Unique Boss-Magic Monster Packs Each Have a Bloodlines modThis map wasn't too bad after i switched in abyssal cry for my rallying cry and wasn't having too much problems besides getting very distracted and making 2 fairly big mistakes and nearly dying twice. Otherwise this shows how to deal with porcupines in a map.
FAQ’s
Why doesn’t Vaal RF kill you? I heard it kills you. This build is bad because it kills you!
Spoiler The important thing to remember about Vaal RF is that it is not regular RF and regen is useless for it, as the damage is dealt all at once. Because the base damage of RF is insanely high, we use Vaal Pact to instantly leech back from our massive damage. Being a mid range - close range caster, the instant leech is also highly relevant for defense. As long as you have Vaal Pact, your HP never actually hits 1, as the leech happens at the same time you deal damage, which is also when the hp adjustment happens. I have used Vaal RF while taking a variety of degeneration effects, and have yet to die when I cast.
Carcass Jack. Why don’t you use it?
Spoiler There’s a few reasons, the chief one being that you can craft ignite duration with Catarina, which is sort of important for resist maps, tanky blue packs, and key to burning down tanky rares and bosses. The aoe is good, but we have enough already that Carcass Jack is overkill. Vaal RF damage is calculated based off your max hp, so the mediocre hp on Carcass Jack is also a drawback. Also, Carcass is a Dexterity/Intelligence base, and the build requires 3 blue and 3 red. This kills the Chromes.
What the hell is that green thing on your neck?
Spoiler. A good roll has life at an amount comparable to a rare item, it gives us status ailment chance, as well as duration, which is important for burning down high HP targets. Rashkaldor’s Patience. A good roll has life at an amount comparable to a rare item, it gives us status ailment chance, as well as duration, which is important for burning down high HP targets.
Those Kaoms Roots though.
Spoiler Stun immunity is important, because a stun while casting Vaal Righteous Fire means you’re in a bad spot without your best aoe skill. Eye of Chayula is a poor choice because it reduces our max life, and Unwavering is light years out of our way.
Thanks to Lloydicus for all the help with the post <3
Hello gents and ladies, I am back to make an attempt to update this build as best I can without a character to functionally test this on but in theory should work with the new ascendancy classes.+Very High Base Damage,+Kills most things instantly+If it isn’t dead, it will be soon+Large AoE+Prolif Provides a defensive and offensive zone that kills mostly anything upon entering+Looks awesome+Scares the shit out of public parties+Budget friendly!- Leech changes hit single target leech a problem. Single Target Leech makes it suicide to hit less than 3 mobs- Difficult Playstyle- If your party kills mobs too quickly, you may whiff a vaal rf and be on low hp. You have to take the lead, and pay close attention, no Netflix allowed.- Chaining Vaal RF requires a Flesh and SpiritElementalist is the clear choice here and we will take beacon of ruin and liege of primordial.For leveling, I would use whatever the strongest fire skills are at the moment, which for now is firestorm until you hit flameblast. From there till around 60 when you have vaal pact and at least a 4l for vaal righteous fire. Make sure to setup a orb of storms with increased critical strike chance as soon as possible for triggering Elemental overload.Leveling Point ProgressionVaal RF - Life Leech - Chance to Ignite - Increased Aoe - Fire Penetration - Increased Burning DamageFlameblast - Life Leech - Chance to Ignite - Concentrated Effect(Swap increased aoe and conc effect as needed for single target damage until you can sustain Vaal RF easily with Flesh and Spirit + Sacrificial Harvest)Arctic Armour - Blasphemy Flamability - DisciplineFlesh and spirit for the 20% life recovery on Rampage, plus 5 vaal souls on rampage.Flesh and Spirit are so low on the rarity tier that they are fairly easy to to scour/chance early on.Kaom's roots for the most important stun immunity and highest life you can get on bootsRashkaldor’s Patience with a good life roll is very powerful and cheap to acquire. Rashkaldor’s provides a significant boost to ignite duration and is a good candidate for mass vaaling for fire leech% because of its low cost.Sacrificial Harvest is a great option to help chain Vaal Righteous Fire, but, funnily enough, is probably spendier than Flesh and Spirit. Sac Harvest is a strong jewel, however, and a well- rolled one contributes significantly to the ability to chain Vaal RF. Make picking one up a priority after your 5 link and a Flesh and Spirit.Kaom's Heart is a good option if you can afford it.Searing Touch is a great choice as it provides great fire damage and burning damage.Kaoms Heart and Searing Touch 5l/6l will take you all the way.After you get Sacrificial Harvest you're gonna want to get Jewels with 6-7% Maximum Life, and some increases to your Fire damage via Increased Aoe damage, spell damage, fire damage and even ignite chance and duration if you want. After you're all set up with gear and around the end game try and pick up another sacrificial harvest to put in as this will greatly increase your clear speed. Last edited by GooGeish on Apr 7, 2016, 2:30:26 PM Last bumped on Jun 5, 2016, 5:33:40 PMA small plot of land directly beneath the Hollywood sign on Mulholland Drive could soon be home to a Los Angeles landmark of its own. At least, that’s the hope of Steve Alper, a dentist and native-born Angeleno who purchased the property several years ago.
Working with Archoutloud, Alper put together an architectural competition seeking proposals for a truly groundbreaking project that would “forever leave its mark on the Los Angeles landscape.”
Now, a panel of judges that included such luminaries as Thom Mayne, Tom Kundig, and Ron Radziner has chosen a winning design called “Ambivalent House,” which was submitted by local firm Hirsuta.
Like other famous LA residences that have pushed the boundaries of residential architecture (John Lautner’s Chemosphere and Frank Gehry’s own Santa Monica residence are two notable examples), Hirsuta’s design defies nearly every expectation of what a home should look like.
Vaguely spherical, with asymmetrical surfaces and small, porthole windows, the home might not even be assumed to be a work of human design at first glance. Hirsuta Principal Jason Payne tells Curbed that’s part of the idea.
“What I would like [observers] to come away with is more a sense of something,” he says. “For example, a sense of strangeness—like, this is a very strange object. Or this is an otherworldly object.”
For Payne, the parameters of the contest, which encouraged bold design choices, suggested an emphasis on the experience of onlookers, as opposed to the home’s occupant. Located on one of LA’s most famous streets, within a stone’s throw of its most famous icon, any project built on the site is bound to capture the attention of residents and visitors alike—simply by virtue of its existence.
To take full advantage of this built-in audience, the team at Hirsuta designed the house with an unusual quirk: it rotates. The slow movement of the home would be essentially imperceptible, but over the course of a year or so, it would spin around in a complete circle. As a result, drivers on Mulholland Drive might glance at the home sometime in spring and find it looking completely different by the fall.
“The idea is that it would be almost subliminal,” Payne says.
But the home’s design isn’t entirely tailored for onlookers. It’s fortress-like structure protects the privacy of occupants even as it invites the stares of tourists seeking a selfie with the Hollywood sign.
The result, as Payne acknowledges, is the complete abandonment of the Southern California indoor-outdoor living concept, but he maintains that the design encourages residents to fully venture outside, rather than simulate the experience with well-framed views of the mountains.
Alper, who chose a design by Italian firm A2.0 Studio di Architettura as his favorite entry in the competition, tells Curbed that he’s looking to “get the dialogue started” to construct a home on the project site.
It’s not clear which design he’ll choose, but even if Hirsuta’s proposal is never built, its truly unique design could influence future residential projects in Los Angeles and beyond.
Asked whether he had considered the reaction from Hollywood homeowners, should the house be constructed in its proposed location, Payne said he was optimistic that the home would be embraced—in spite of its unusual appearance.
“People in LA are some of the most liberal-minded thinkers about architecture,” he said. “And we have our history of experimental architecture here to thank for that.”Last week I was a guest on a regional TV talk show where politicians and other public figures in my town discuss civic issues over wine. During the audience Q&A, a man leapt quickly to the mic. His question was succinct and seemingly rehearsed: “What have you done and what do you plan to do to hold Stephen Colbert to account for his gay joke regarding the relationship between Mr Trump and Mr Putin?”
If you’ve not been following the Colbert “gay joke” dust-up (I hadn’t really), the short of it is that the comedian, host of America’s The Late Show, referred to Donald Trump’s mouth as “Vladimir Putin’s cock holster” at the peak of a short but furious monologue lambasting the US president for being a tacky clown who has earned exactly as much respect as Colbert was offering.
I’d watched the video earlier that day. It was behind some clickbait headline like, “Stephen Colbert SNAPS and Does ALL THE THINGS to DESTROY Donald Trump Once and for ALL: You Won’t BELIEVE How Much Trump Wishes He Was Never BORN, or He Would Wish That, If He Hadn’t Already Been VAPORIZED by Colbert’s VERBAL LASER!” I didn’t think much more about it. Later, I came across a couple of lovely, heartfelt takes from gay comedians I respect, explaining why the joke was irritating at best, harmful at worst (abridged version: there is no coherent reading that does not hinge on the implication that people who put penises in their mouths are weak and people who put their penises in other people’s mouths are powerful, an assumption that reinforces damaging stigmas against people who are already in disproportionate peril under the Trump administration). I made a mental note that they were right and headed to my taping.
Principles aren’t a game, a card you can sanctimoniously deploy when you want to control young women’s lives
“I don’t like the joke,” I told the man from the audience, who I assumed was gay and felt hurt, despite the strange trajectory of his question (why was it about me, not the joke?). “I don’t think it was a good joke. It relies on cheap misogyny and homophobia. In terms of holding people accountable, we have really good social processes in place – we have Twitter, we have email, we have Facebook – and that’s kind of all you can do. Make sure people know we have standards and it’s not helpful. It’s not helpful to fight this homophobic, misogynist administration with homophobia and misogyny.”
As for what I “[planned] to do” personally to destroy Colbert, I clarified, “I don’t think that Stephen Colbert deserves to be fired from his job for a joke.”
At this point, the man began shaking his head vigorously and mouthing, “YES, HE DOES,” so I amended my opinion (far be it from me to tell a presumably gay person how to feel about a gay joke):
“I mean, maybe he does! That’s a valid argument. All you can do is express your displeasure publicly and let him know. I personally believe that Stephen Colbert is trying to be on the right side of history, and hopefully he would be mortified to realise that he did a bad job on that joke, but I don’t know. Really, all you can do is use your voice to make sure that these ideas are not being bulldozed and ignored.”
Stephen Colbert to be investigated by FCC after 'offensive' Trump joke Read more
It’s important for progressives to have in-group conversations about how we talk about our political enemies and the people who hurt us. It matters (and it’s telling) when men jump straight to misogynist tropes when criticising rightwing commentator Ann Coulter, or when thin people use fatphobic slurs to decry New Jersey governor Chris Christie. It’s also important to keep a grip on nuance in those conversations, taking into account a person’s track record (Colbert was a staunch advocate of marriage equality) and intent and willingness to listen and change. And criticism within the arts is a living dialogue, not a hard-and-fast binary.
But as the Colbert situation mushroomed over the next few days, I realised that there was another potential reading of the man’s question. The far right, smelling an opportunity to manipulate the left into eating their own powerful and popular satirist, had pounced on Colbert. Oh, the homophobia, they wailed! Wasn’t it terrible? #FireColbert took hold on Twitter – strangely, not on the feeds of those oppressed by homophobia, but on the feeds of homophobes. That same week, Trump signed his executive order on religious liberty, which turned out to be a toothless dud, but was a symbolic nod to religious homophobes all the same. Colbert is now being investigated by the Federal Communications Commission, a relatively routine procedure, but alarming in the context of Trump’s obsession with punishing unfriendly media outlets and flirtation with amending the first amendment.
I’ve spent much of my career writing at the intersection of feminism and comedy, being called “too fat to rape” by men outraged that I suggested comedy might have a misogyny problem, being called a “censor” by the same people now salivating over the FCC investigation, being called a “special snowflake” by conservatives so delicate they cannot even stand to share a four-million-square-mile landmass with gay florists and Muslim librarians and trans dentists who have to go to the bathroom. I don’t know if the Q&A guy was sincerely hurt by Colbert’s joke or just thought he could use my own principles to trap me. I’m happy to believe the former, but if it’s the latter, sorry, that’s not how principles work.
I’m happy to criticise Colbert (and my mentors and my enemies and myself), and to have a nuanced conversation about language and power with other good-faith actors. What I won’t do is fight some proxy battle against justice and equality because disingenuous bigots think they’ve found a loophole and I’m gullible enough to fall through it. Principles aren’t a game, a card you can sanctimoniously deploy when you want to control young women’s lives or get elected to Congress and secretly withdraw when your teenage mistress gets pregnant or you see a hot guy’s foot in the next bathroom stall. Pretending to care about gay people’s safety and humanity so you can use it as leverage to further your agenda of destroying gay lives is one of the most repulsively cynical ploys I’ve ever seen from a repulsive, cynical party.
Republicans have been fighting to strip gay people of legal protections and equal rights for decades. Suddenly, they’re demanding apologies and doling out pink slips for homophobia? Fine. I expect your apologies in writing and your resignations by Friday.LAWRENCE — A new study that is the first to use Social Security Administration’s personal income tax data tracking the same individuals over 20 years to measure individual lifetime earnings has confirmed significant long-term economic benefits of college education.
ChangHwan Kim, a University of Kansas researcher, said the research team was also able to account for shortcomings in previous studies by including factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, place of birth and high school performance that would influence a person's lifetime earnings and the probability of college completion.
The study estimates that the lifetime earnings gap between high school and college graduates, including those with a graduate degree, is around $1.13 million for men and $792,000 for women. These results are similar to past findings.
However, when important socio-demographic variables that influence both earnings and the probability of college completion are accounted for, the study shows that a man who earned a bachelor's degree would earn $840,000 more over 50 years than a man with a high school diploma. For a woman on average the gap is $587,000 between earning a bachelor's degree and a high school diploma.
Further, the study applies a 4 percent discount rate over time to account for psychological depreciation of dollar value for future earnings. When taking this into account the net value of a college education at age 20 is around $314,000 for men and around $232,000 for women. From this view, the net present lifetime value of college education at age 20 for those who have similar likelihood of obtaining a bachelor’s degree is still six times greater than the total cost of college education for men and 4.5 times greater for women.
"This corroborates a college education still yields a substantially more financial reward than it costs," said Kim, associate professor of sociology. "Our results show higher growth rates in median earnings over the lifetime of college graduates relative to high school graduates, which suggests greater intra-generational mobility."
Kim said the findings actually show previous studies overestimated lifetime earnings by about one-third, but he said the objective was to give a more accurate picture of the value of post-secondary education.
"The results reconfirm that the lifetime return on a college education is large," Kim said. "However, the net lifetime value of a college education is smaller than what previous studies claim without controlling for these certain factors."
Kim conducted the study — funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and The Spencer Foundation — with Christopher Tamborini of the U.S. Social Security Administration and Arthur Sakamoto, a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University. The paper is forthcoming in the August edition of Demography, the top-ranked journal in demographic studies.
Kim said a major key to the study was to match respondents to the Survey of Income and Program Participation to longitudinal earnings recorded by the Social Security Administration, giving the team the ability to estimate 50-year lifetime earnings.
"Most research about differentials in lifetime earnings by education is based on earnings for only a single or limited number of years," Kim said. "This is informative, but it typically entails unrealistic assumptions."
The study examined educational attainment and other data of four groups of men and women born in each decade from the 1930s to 1960s. Then the team examined the lifetime earnings data from 1982 to 2008 to compare with the birth cohort data.
He said a number of studies have used the Social Security earnings data, but none had applied them to the lifetime earnings of education.
"Our analysis uses long-term earnings for the same individual, which provides a better description of the relationship between education attainment and lifetime earnings than estimating cross-sectional data would," Kim said. "Also, our results show the importance of adjusting for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics to disentangle the effect of education from other factors. This study assesses the adequacy of the measurement of lifetime earnings using cross-sectional survey data.”
He said the persistence of the net effect of college education on cumulative earnings was noteworthy. The study also found the effects of a graduate degree on earnings persist for people into their 60s – more so than someone who only earned a bachelor's degree. The disadvantages of high school dropouts also appear to be mitigated compared with high school graduates later in their work careers, a point that likely further illustrates the importance of a college degree.
Kim, who studies inequality, said future research would focus on differences in lifetime earnings by college majors and other factors, like race and demographic groups. He said the broad study has findings that would be important for public policy related to student loans and retirement and aging.Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Carousel of Progress
As you might guess given I’m the guy who co-founded LaughingPlace.com, my son Gideon is a huge Disney fan. Over the years his favorite attraction has morphed from Carousel of Progress to Lights! Motors! Action! to Great Movie Ride to Haunted Mansion back to Carousel of Progress and now Journey Into Imagination (and I know I’m missing quite a few).
Last month Gideon turned seven years old, so we figured it was high time to put him to work. So today I’m very pleased to present his very first article for LaughingPlace.com based on his favorite attraction (last month), the Carousel of Progress. He wrote the questions, he knew the answers and he came up with the incorrect multiple choice answers. Today, I’m a proud daddy 🙂
After the World’s Fair, where did the Carousel of Progress go? Disneyland Magic Kingdom EPCOT Disney California Adventure Correct! Wrong! What was the name of the pavilion Carousel of Progress was in at the World’s Fair? Carousel of Progress The Land of Progress Progress Progressland Correct! Wrong! What is on the side of the Carousel of Progress building in Disney World? Outer Space Space Mountain Gears Rockets Correct! Wrong! In what years does the first scene take place? 1920s 1940s Present Day Turn of the Century Correct! Wrong! What year does Christmas take place? 1940s Turn of the Century 1920s Present Day Correct! Wrong! What year does Halloween take place? Present Day 1940s Turn of the Century 1920s Correct! Wrong! What year does Fourth of July take place? Present Day 1920s 1940s Turn of the Century Correct! Wrong! What was the sponsor at the World’s Fair? General Electric New Appliances WDI Ford Correct! Wrong! Who is the original voice of the father? Thurl Ravenscroft Paul Freese Rex Allen Walt Disney Correct! Wrong! What was the name of the original theme song at Walt Disney World’s Carousel of Progress? There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow The Best Time of our Life Live Life Now Progress is the Best Correct! Wrong! Who is the current voice of the father Rex Allen Jean Shephard Sam McKim Paul Freese Correct! Wrong! What is the name of the dog in the current Carousel of Progress? Rex Sport Buster Rover Correct! Wrong! What is the name of the father in the current Carousel of Progress? Jeff George James John Correct! Wrong! What is the name of the daughter in the current Carousel of Progress? Rosie Summer Patricia Jane Correct! Wrong! What is the name of the son in the current Carousel of Progress? Jimmy Henry Jack John Correct! Wrong! Share the quiz to show your results! Facebook Facebook Just tell us who you are to view your results! Show my results >> Carousel of Progress Quiz I got %%score%% of %%total%% right Share your results : Facebook Facebook ↺ PLAY AGAIN!Come have a silly time with us at KakuJomics’ Facebook page and my Twitter, where I post updates, concept art, WIPs, doodles, edits and other forms of aforementioned silliness~!! Join the Bits and Bytes, today~
Aannnd, I’ve hit 30 comics~! It’s not a typical point of celebration, but I like-a the multiples of 10. Yaaaaaay!
I feel bad for Brock. Accomplishments aside, he’s ALWAYS getting *AHERM-HERM*-blocked by someone. Misty, May, Max, Dawn, Croagunk… Can’t they just let a guy find love? Ehhh…
Anyhow, I have exHAUSTED myself with this one. Maybe, next week, I can come up with a joke that won’t take so much drawing. XD
I’m amusing myself, watching the exchange between the hacking community and Sony. You hear people say “Don’t mess with Sony,” “Sony’s sue-happy,” etc. But don’t count out Anon. Both are giant, sleeping beasts; if left to themselves, they cause relatively little real damage. Stir up the pot, however (i.e. – Hack a PS3 or kill a cat on camera or whatever), and you’ve got some retribution on your hands. We find ourselves in the peculiar situation to have two such entities, enraged at one another, and we can only watch as they tear into each other.
I’m not going to claim either side, but I will say that I’m not against homebrew in its purest form.Attention! This news was published on the old version of the website. There may be some problems with news display in specific browser versions.
T-34 Model 1942 - A Tough Nut to Crack
The T-34 Model 1942 is the third variant of the T-34 in the main tree of War Thunder, following (logically enough) the Model 1940 and 1941. Like its predecessors it is not a long-range sniper, it excels in close-up brawls and has good mobility to close the distance to opponents. On maps with capture zones it can pay dividends to head straight for an objective as soon as the match starts; quicker enemy light tanks might get there first but you should have the edge in firepower and armour, and enough time to take the zone before slower, heavier tanks arrive.
Click here to read the full article!
At the time of its introduction the T-34 offered an unprecedented blend of speed, protection and firepower. It was a formidable opponent for German forces whose 37mm and 50mm guns had little chance of penetrating its armour. Issues including technical teething troubles, poor ergonomics and lack of crew experience and training reduced its impact, but the strengths of the tank forced the Germans to respond, increasing the armour and firepower of the Panzer III and IV and accelerating the development of the Panther and Tiger.
Most of the T-34’s armour is well sloped, increasing the effective thickness and helping to deflect shots. This gives it good protection, but high velocity 75mm and 76mm guns can penetrate even the thicker frontal armour at medium range, and there are flat areas and weak points that are vulnerable to a knowledgeable (or lucky) opponent with smaller guns.
Try to avoid facing the enemy head-on; if you keep moving it is more difficult to pick out your weak spots, if stationary then turning your turret at an angle while reloading can help slightly. As a battle develops avoid wide-open spaces where you are at a disadvantage, try to use terrain or buildings for cover to get close to opponents. Once the Artillery Support modification is unlocked this is a useful option for defending capture points, or dropping on enemy-held points prior to making an attack.
By 1942 the teething troubles of the T-34 had been resolved, though changes on the production line were limited to keep the supply of new tanks flowing. The key difference in the Model 1942 was a slightly larger new turret nicknamed ‘Gaika’ (hex-nut) for the shape, with two separate hatches rather than the single large hatch of previous models.
The 76mm F-34 gun of the Model 1942 is the same as the Model 1941, but can fire an additional type of ammunition: BR-350P APCR. This offers the best penetration out to about 500 metres, and it is worth carrying some of these shells to use against heavily armoured tanks. For less heavily armoured opponents the penetration of the BR-350B APHEBC should be sufficient, and the explosive content causes greater damage.
The 76mm-armed T-34 continued in production through 1943 but the thick armour of heavy German tanks demanded a more powerful weapon, so from 1944 the T-34 was armed with an 85mm gun in a new three-man turret. This had enough space for a dedicated gunner, allowing the tank commander to focus on directing the vehicle. Though withdrawn from front-line service after World War II T-34s saw combat over subsequent decades in places such as Korea, the Middle East and Angola; at least one T-34 was photographed in the Yemeni Civil War in 2015.
If you like to get up close and personal with the enemy the T-34 Model 1942 is an excellent tank that can be put into a line-up with heavy tanks, SPGs or SPAA to offer a variety of options, or alongside several other T-34s if you prefer.
Author: John “Zoso” Moore
Want to read more about the vehicles in War Thunder? Find other Vehicle Profiles on our website!Miscellanea April 26, 2011
We have three short exercises today.
FizzBuzz: Looking back over past exercises, I was surprised to find that we haven’t done this classic interview question. You are to write a function that displays the numbers from 1 to an input parameter n, one per line, except that if the current number is divisible by 3 the function should write “Fizz” instead of the number, if the current number is divisible by 5 the function should write “Buzz” instead of the number, and if the current number is divisible by both 3 and 5 the function should write “FizzBuzz” instead of the number. For instance, if n is 20, the program should write 1, 2, Fizz, 4, Buzz, Fizz, 7, 8, Fizz, Buzz, 11, Fizz, 13, 14, FizzBuzz, 16, 17, Fizz, 19, and Buzz on twenty successive lines.
Prime Words: Consider that a word consisting of digits and the letters A through Z can represent an integer in base 36, where the digits represent their base-10 counterparts, A is a decimal 10, B is a decimal 11, and so on, until Z is a decimal 35. For instance, PRAXIS 36 = P 36 × 365 + R 36 × 364 + A 36 × 363 + X 36 × 362 + I 36 × 361 + S 36 × 360 = 25 × 365 + 27 × 364 + 10 × 363 + 33 × 362 + 18 × 361 + 28 × 360 = 25 × 60466176 + 27 × 1679616 + 10 × 46656 + 33 × 1296 + 18 × 36 + 28 × 1 = 1557514036. You are to write a function that takes a base-36 number as input and returns true if the number is prime and false if the number is composite.
Split A List: You are to write a function that takes an input list and returns two lists, the first half of the input list and the second half of the input list. If the input list has an odd number of elements, it is your choice in which half to place the center element. You are only permitted to scan the list once.
Your task is to write the three functions described above. When you are finished, you are welcome to read or run a suggested solution, or to post your own solution or discuss the exercise in the comments below.
AdvertisementsMass starvation, disease and hopelessness abound in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Although a UN agency has managed to make its first food aid delivery to the rebel-held camp in weeks, many people are on the brink of starvation.
The camp is located on the edge of the territory the Syrian government considers under its control, in a southern Damascus neighborhood, just five miles away from the capital’s center.
Rebel forces have been holding the camp for more than a year and the army started a siege in June. Nothing and no one comes in or out, as 18,000 people continue to be kept in a state of limbo.
Some of the Palestinian refugees living in the camp have been there for decades, victims of the Palestinian people’s conflict with Israel. Now they are hoping desperately for a resolution to this conflict, in Syria.
RT made it as close as possible to the edge of the camp under government supervision, to observe as the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), in league with Syrian and Palestinian authorities, delivers the much-needed food aid.
There were cases when people were let out to come back with supplies; but only women and elderly men. They knew they could not leave because their families continue to be trapped inside.
“It’s as bad as it can get, I’m desperately hungry...we have nothing to eat,” one woman told RT’s Maria Finoshina. There is no free passage deeper into the camp, as snipers are on the ready to shoot anyone who ventures in.
The UNRWA hopes it will be able to continue food deliveries. On Thursday, it managed its first delivery in two weeks, consisting of 1,000 food parcels – the biggest yet.
"The distribution is ongoing. This is the first aid to enter the camp since January 21, when UNRWA distributed 138 food parcels," UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said.
Another convoy entered the camp Friday.
Speaking to Reuters, Gunness said that they hope “to continue and increase substantially the amount of aid being delivered... with each passing hour, their need increases.”
Even in this climate of desperation, versions as to what exactly is going on differ massively. So much so that Reuters claims that the UNRWA has knowledged that one of its latest convoys was fired upon by government forces determined to starve the Palestinian refugees. The same tune is being sung by opposition activists, claiming that the government is using hunger as a weapon.
Yarmouk families, meanwhile, continue to perish – and seem to be rather blaming the rebel forces.
“There is no food, nothing to eat or drink, the militants are inside,” one resident told RT. “I swear by the soul of the Prophet we want this to stop. What is our guilt? We want to go out!”
“We cannot leave – the militants prevent us,” another resident said.
A total of 85 people in the camp have died since June, and many fear the number will continue to rise if the aid situation is not restored and supplies do not start running normally.
The stalemate has been going on for months now, with no end in sight – despite the Palestinian authorities stepping in.
Palestinian ambassador to Syria Mahmoud Al Khaldi told RT that the authorities “are negotiating with the militants to convince them to go out. We tell them that this is of no importance and these are just people – they’ll not gain any strategic goal. We had three rounds of talks, but we failed. And I don’t think they’ll accept this – it’s clear.”
Sieges have been a tried and tested rebel tactic for three years now. Just outside Damascus, the town of Adra has been held since mid-December 2013, with 5,000 of those who did not flee in time held prisoner in their own homes and used as human shields, just in case the government forces decide to storm the town by force. They are now encamped just outside the town – but cannot storm it for fear of causing civilian deaths.
Anwar Raja, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, sees the rebels’ tactics as an obvious move to insinuate the government’s complicity in the suffering of its own people.
“The Nusra Front and the Takfiri groups are trading on the hunger of the people. They want to say to the world: ‘See: the people are hungry.’ It’s like the residents are kidnapped inside their own camp, inside their own home, and the militants are negotiating over them, negotiating their souls,” Raja said.
“They claim that the Syrian state is besieging Palestinians in the camp. They want to invert the image and the truth, saying that the Syrian government is part of the killing force, as they don't do anything to protect the people. They want people to hate the regime.”
According to Raja, an evacuation plan has been worked out with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to evacuate "hundreds" of Yarmouk residents. The evacuees were transported to several hospitals, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday, but the Red Crescent could not be reached to confirm the details of the operation.By MICHAEL SEAMARK and LUKE SALKELD
Last updated at 12:01 22 February 2008
The death toll in a small town hit by a spate of suicides rose to 16 yesterday when two young cousins were found hanged. They died hours apart, leaving the South Wales community of Bridgend reeling from the continuing string of tragedies.
Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, was still alive when he was discovered in an attic room at the family home on Wednesday but died yesterday morning when his life-support machine was turned off.
His cousin Kelly Stephenson, 20, had been told of Nathaniel's suicide bid |
Even a single nuclear blast would unleash “inconceivable death and destruction,” James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, told CNN last night.
To lessen the chances of catastrophe on the US side, senior leaders in Congress from both parties should immediately communicate to the White House that the president must not launch a nuclear first strike without obtaining a congressional declaration of war. Congressional leaders should also urge the president’s top military advisers—the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Adviser—to take all measures available to assure that the president does not launch a nuclear attack without the advisers’ express agreement that such an attack is unavoidable to protect the American homeland. Meanwhile, efforts to engage in diplomatic dialogue with North Korea—aided by its sponsor state and neighbor, China, which doesn’t want nuclear war either—must redouble.
Whoever might start it, everyone loses in a nuclear war. It is by no means clear that Donald Trump understands this core truth of the nuclear era. Until he does, we need to get his finger off the nuclear button, or at least broaden the circle of officials with the authority to make that awesome decision. We need to demand dialogue rather than escalation. Public servants with inside influence should be sending this message loudly and clearly to the White House, and so should ordinary citizens. Now is the time for marches in the streets urging no nuclear war, and especially no first strike. Related Article Nuclear Weapons Don’t Belong in Anyone’s Hands Tim Wright
Leave politics and ideology aside for the moment; this is not a partisan plea. It is not a call to lower America’s guard against potential nuclear attack by North Korea, which is an undeniably dangerous and nasty regime. But North Korea now has the capacity to strike the US mainland with a nuclear weapon, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency and independent analysts, and that changes everything. The United States must proceed with steadiness and resolve but also reason and prudence. Alas, the current commander-in-chief demonstrates none of these qualities. Common sense dictates that a president with Donald Trump’s volatile temperament and erratic judgment should not be empowered to single-handedly start a nuclear war.
At present, US law and long-standing policy give president Trump unilateral, unstoppable authority to launch a nuclear attack. He need not present a compelling reason for such an attack; perhaps he simply decides that it’s time to teach North Korea a lesson. He need not notify, much less obtain agreement from, leaders in Congress or the secretary of defense or other military officials. Trump’s status as commander in chief empowers him and him alone to unleash nuclear weapons at a moment’s notice.
“Seven hundred strategic warheads in silos and submarines are poised for immediate launch, and the president has absolute, unchecked authority to order their launch with a single verbal command to the Pentagon War Room,” Bruce Blair, a former nuclear-launch officer for the US Air Force and current scholar with Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, told The Nation. Trump need only turn to the military officer who carries the nuclear-codes suitcase, who is never more than a few feet away. The officer opens the suitcase (the so-called “football”), Trump makes one phone call authenticating his identity, and he orders the warheads unleashed—warheads that, once launched, cannot be called back. Current Issue View our current issue
“Four minutes after he gave the order, missiles would fly; 30 minutes later, they would explode on their targets,” explained Joe Cirincione, a former staff member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services and current president of the Ploughshares Fund. “Hundreds of targets. As quickly as he could post a tweet, Trump could destroy human civilization.”
All US presidents of the nuclear age have possessed the same awesome, unfettered authority Trump currently holds. But none of those presidents, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon during the darkest days of Watergate, displayed the psychological profile of the current commander in chief. Donald Trump “has shown himself time and again to be easily baited and quick to lash out, dismissive of expert consultation and ill-informed of even basic military and international affairs—including, most especially, nuclear weapons,” stated a public letter Blair and nine other former US nuclear launch officers released a month before the 2016 presidential election. Ready to Fight Back? Sign Up For Take Action Now
Could the military veto an ill-advised attack order from Trump? There is precedent: When Nixon was brooding and drinking heavily in the final months of his presidency, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger reportedly instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that “any emergency order coming from the president” should first be cleared with Schlesinger or the secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Have Trump’s secretary of defense or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff implemented any similar measures? The Pentagon press office declined to comment.
Defense Secretary Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dunford “are sober, prudent, and intelligent individuals who must be concerned about Trump’s impulsiveness and have surely considered how to ensure that he does not make a bad nuclear call,” said Blair. “They may well have taken extraordinary steps to ensure that a presidential command to use nuclear weapons would require their approval under unusual circumstances—e.g., out of the blue the president orders a preventive nuclear strike against [North Korea].” Steven Pifer, an arms-control expert at the Brookings Institution, also praised Mattis and Dunford as “sober-minded individuals” who “might try to intercede if they saw an inappropriate order.” However, Pifer stressed, “the system is not designed to give others a veto over a presidential decision.”
The system, then, must be changed. Set aside political ideology and partisan calculations for the moment. For the sake of the nation and indeed humanity, it is imperative to reform US nuclear-weapons policy. Start with three concrete, common-sense measures: The United States should take its nuclear weapons off of “hair-trigger” status; it should declare a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons; and it should prohibit this or any president from unilaterally launching a nuclear attack. Instead, it should require the president to act in concert with military and congressional leaders—except under exceptional circumstances, such as an adversary’s imminent nuclear attack.
Launching a nuclear attack is “a decision [so] momentous for all of civilization [that it] should have the kinds of checks and balances on executive powers called for by our Constitution,” said William Perry, the US defense secretary from 1994 to 1997. Perry has urged Congress to pass the Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, introduced in January by Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California. To bring Congress into the decision-making loop and prohibit the president from acting unilaterally, the bill stipulates that “the President may not use the Armed Forces of the United States to conduct a first-use nuclear strike unless such strike is conducted pursuant to a declaration of war by Congress that expressly authorizes such strike.”
“In addition to passing Markey-Lieu, the single most important other step would be to take our nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert,” said Cirincione. “Currently, four minutes after Donald Trump gives an order, hundreds of nuclear warheads could be launched. Each is many times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is insane. There is no need for this rapid-launch capability. Having our missiles ready to launch in hours, days, or weeks instead of seconds would provide some time for reflection, debate, and possible reversal of a launch command. Secretary Mattis could do the nation a great service by recommending in his Nuclear Posture Review, due out late this year, that this Cold War practice be ended.”
None of these reforms will happen without strong, sustained public pressure. “Removing nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert, adopting a no-first-use policy, and passing the Markey-Lieu legislation…will require grassroots energy and political will that, until Trump, has been dormant for decades,” Meredith Horowski, the global campaign director for the NGO Global Zero, told The Nation. “Now many Americans are waking up to the nuclear danger posed by Donald Trump,” she said. “That’s why in the coming weeks Global Zero and partners are mounting a new large-scale grassroots campaign—of students, activists, community leaders, universities, institutions, cities, and elected officials—to powerfully reject Donald Trump’s sole authority to launch us into nuclear war.” The campaign is slated to begin with a Day of Action in Washington, DC, on September 25.
There is no more urgent issue confronting the nation than Donald Trump and the nuclear button. Climate change, which likewise poses an existential threat to civilization, does not have such a short fuse. Fights over health care, immigration, budgets, and taxes—these can be won or lost today but resumed tomorrow. Go wrong with nuclear weapons, and there may be no tomorrow.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated in light of recent news events on August 9, 2017.None of India’s submarines have systems to protect themselves against enemy torpedoes. Indian warships are currently fitted with locally-developed Mareech decoy systems but their compatibility with submarines is yet to be confirmed.
New Delhi (Sputnik) — India has floated a global request for information (RFI) for anti-torpedo defense systems (ATDS) and associated equipment. Sources told Sputnik that 12 ATDS would be purchased on a priority basis and minimal bureaucratic hiccups would be ensured. Indian Navy is desirous of inducting the first such system within two years from now and expects delivery of each ATDS at intervals of 9-12 months.
India is interested in a system that comprises sensor, processor and small interceptor missile to defeat oncoming torpedoes and has said that it would conduct feasibility trials at its own littorals.
© AP Photo / Rafiq Maqbool India Bags Myanmar Torpedo Order Worth $38 Million
Russian, German and American companies are expected to respond to the RFI which entrails transfer of production and transfer of technology of such ATDS.
“The submarine ATDS is intended to be installed and exploited on board all classes of submarines of the Indian Navy and provide reliable defense against modern and future anti-submarine torpedoes. The ATDS shall enable timely defense against incoming torpedoes at sufficient range from the submarine so as to guarantee safety and survivability of own platform. The expendables launched by the ATDS to engage the incoming torpedo shall be in sufficient quantity so as to provide anti-torpedo defense to cater for at-least six engagements in deep/shallow waters in one mission,” the RFI states.
Indian warships are currently fitted with home-made decoys termed Mareech developed by local defense scientists of Visakhapatnam-based Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL). The system was inducted into the Indian Navy in 2015. Maareech has been termed a complete package involving sensors and decoys for defense against torpedoes yet it has not been made clear whether they are suited for submarines.Vitamin D is essential for healthy bones and people get most of what they need from exposure to sunlight during the summer months.
NHS advice says that while there is not one recommendation to suit everybody, short daily periods (10 to 15 minutes) of sun exposure without sunscreen during the summer months (April to October) are enough for most.
But a new study funded by Cancer Research UK has found that people with very pale skin may not be able to spend long enough in the sun while also avoiding sunburn.
It suggests that the increased risk of skin cancer from excessive sun exposure outweighs any vitamin D benefit for people who are fair-skinned.
The study, from the University of Leeds and published in the journal Cancer Causes and Control, suggests the optimal amount of vitamin D required by the body is at least 60nmol/L.
Some studies have indicated that levels lower than this are linked to an increased risk of heart disease and poorer survival from breast cancer.
Meanwhile, levels below 25nmol/L are linked to poor bone health.
In the new study, people with fair skin did not, on average, reach 60nmol/L unless they were taking supplements, but they did reach above 25nmol/L.
Researchers also found that sunlight and supplements are not the only factors that can determine the level of vitamin D in the human body.
Genetic differences in how the body processes vitamin D have a strong effect on vitamin D levels.
The researchers also found that patients with melanoma skin cancer may need vitamin D supplements.
Professor Julia Newton-Bishop, lead author of the study, said: ''Fair-skinned individuals who burn easily are not able to make enough vitamin D from sunlight and so may need to take vitamin D supplements.
''This should be considered for fair-skinned people living in a mild climate like the UK and melanoma patients in particular.''
Experts analysed vitamin D levels for 1,203 people and found that around 732 had a sub-optimal level.
Those with fair skin had significantly lower levels than others in the group.
Sara Hiom, director of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: ''We must be careful about raising the definition of deficiency or sufficiency to higher levels until we have more results from trials showing that maintaining such levels has clear health benefits and no health risks.
''If you are worried about your vitamin D levels, our advice is to go see your doctor.''Outside a creche on Lower Rutland Street, between Mountjoy Square and the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin, dealers sell prescription drugs openly and blister packets of tablets crackle underfoot.
A local community-development worker, Karina O’Brien, explains why the area has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country. “There’s open dealing going on,” says O’Brien, of Icon, the Inner City Organisations Network. “Elderly residents being terrorised in their homes by people coming in from outside and taking tablets in their doorways... “Crime is totally normalised. Jobs haven’t penetrated this area, so talk about tax breaks means nothing, and there have been huge cuts in community services in the last five years. People don’t necessarily see that voting makes any difference.”
According to Adrian Kavanagh, the Maynooth University academic who has made voter turnout a speciality, inner-city Dublin has consistently established itself as “the low-turnout area”.
Election turnouts are higher in urban areas and lower in rural ones. Still, within Dublin the differences from neighbourhood to neighbourhood are startling. Electoral divisions in Clontarf, for example, have recorded turnouts of more than 70 per cent. In parts of the nearby inner city the percentage is 30 per cent. And this is the proportion that votes out of the people who have registered, so the figure for the population as a whole is lower.
In some electoral divisions the difference comes down to a preponderance of gated developments and renting populations who have little stake in the community. In others – for example, the areas around Gardiner Street, Mountjoy Square, Summerhill, Lower Rutland Street and Sean McDermott Street, in Dublin 1 – the low turnout is also a product of political alienation.
It’s a vicious circle, says Ger Doherty, the programme co-ordinator at Lourdes Youth and Community Services (LYCS). Because people in these communities don’t vote the political system is less motivated to help them – which makes them less likely to vote.
“A lot of people indigenous to the area say that politicians are all the same, that they may be idealistic at the start but that they very soon become part of a system that isn’t interested in people,” he says. “That perspective is based on broken promises and bad living conditions.”
Doherty sighs. “It’s very hard to argue with... Some of the young people who argue most strongly against voting are often the ones who put the most thought into it.”
‘Now I vote how I like’
The Right 2 Change protest movement and the Union of Students of Ireland have run national voter-registration campaigns in recent months, but Doherty hasn’t heard of any groups registering people in this area.
He gives me a flyer for an event they’re running at which locals can come and discuss the election. Karina O’Brien mentions a planned “speed-dating” event, at which people can meet candidates. Doherty suggests that I come meet people from the area.
"We’ve been doing voter education as long as I’ve been here,” says Doherty. Before the local elections they approached parents at the gates of the local school. "We got between 600 and 700 people on the register. That’s a heck of a lot of people. Normally you’d struggle to get twenty in a few months."
At the LYCS, based in a building known as the schools on stilts, he introduces me to six women who form a weekly knitting circle. They listen to my questions while making cardigans and blankets. Some are more vocal than others.
Will anything change in this election? “It’s the usual promises, promises. ‘I’ll do this and that,’ and then they do nothing,” says Valerie Byrne, who has lived in the area all her life. Do they vote? “Reluctantly.”
Linda says, “I was brought up on Fianna Fáil, and that was in my head, so I had no choice but to vote for them. Now I vote how I like.”
Bernie says that she votes but her sons do not.
“That generation just don’t feel the Government is doing anything for them,” says Valerie. “There’s no work. There’s the hassle of being on the labour... trying to get apartments. It disheartens them, so they just give up.”
“And education is so expensive now,” says Bernie. “The young people are disheartened.”
“My son left [the country] because the Government let him down,” says Valerie. “He says: ‘This country has done nothing for me, Ma. How can I have a life and build a family?’ ”
Have people been influenced by the water protests?
“It’s a constant conversation in the pub,” says Valerie.
“It’s a big thing,” says Bernie. “My husband was on the phone before the last march – ‘I’ll meet you here. I’ll meet you there.’ He goes to all the marches.”
Will it make people more likely to vote? “There’s definitely been a change,” says Bernie.
Marian, a “blow-in” from Clontarf, observes that there’s now more political engagement in her area. “People can’t take all the extra charges and taxes.”
What are the big issues here? “At the moment, people throwing bags of dirt,” says Bernie. “It’s scandalous. People come in and throw rubbish out of their cars.”
“There’s a road you have to go down to get to the IFSC,” says Valerie. “Every Sunday they come and clean the rubbish there for the people going down to the IFSC. But around the corner, oh my God... You’d think they’d clean that up. That’s where children play.”
‘Right on my corner’
And then there’s the drug dealing.
“Right on my corner,” says Valerie. “When people ask me where I live I just say the Bronx. You can get what you want: hash, speed, E, heroin, grass.”
“It’s prescription drugs at the moment,” says Bernie.
“It’s going into the third generation of families,” says Valerie. “You see a 14-year-old selling it and giving to the eight-year-old to take it around the corner. There’s no future for the kids down there... They used to hide it. Now they don’t care. They fight with you.”
Homelessness is another pressing issue. “There’s a local group that’s set up bringing out food and blankets,” says Bernie.
“That’s the Inner City Helping Homeless group,” Karina O’Brien explains. “About two years ago a load of people got together in Lloyds pub to do something. They got SuperValu to donate food, and they started going out at night. Now they have an office.”
“It was just a bunch of local people who played bingo,” says Valerie. “Now there’s young people involved. You look at some of them and say, ‘You wouldn’t think he’d be doing that!’”
The group are distributing statistics on homelessness and questions to ask politicians. “Young people who would never have asked a question of a politician,” says O’Brien. This is so they can “have something ready”.
“I can’t wait till the politicians come to the door,” says Valerie. “I hope I’ll be up to high doh with my hormones and menopause.”
“You’ll be up for murder, Valerie,” says Marian.
They talk about politicians in the neighbourhood. “People vote for Christy Burke because he’s loyal,” says Bernie (Burke’s posters declare him to be “one of your own”).
Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein, says Linda, “is everywhere”.
Valerie reveals that she once voted Fine Gael.
“You didn’t!” says Linda in mock outrage.
“I’ll vote for Nick the Devil if he gets my windows done,” says Valerie.
Are people more or less likely to vote this time?
“They’re more likely to vote now,” says Valerie.
“People are sick of everything,” says Bernie.
“I was amazed so many people were coming up to the protests, buses from the country,” says Valerie. “People have had enough.”
“I can’t see who’s going to get in,” says Bernie. “But they’ll come up with something.” She sighs. “And then they’re going to be the same anyway.”
‘The left is coming into play’
Nearby six people are taking a pottery class. They’re a bit less talkative than the knitting group. Each is focused on a pot, a figurine or, in one instance, a replica of a human face.
“I think the water charges activated the classes not normally represented by voting,” says Ray Wall, who’s actually from Malahide. “Up to now, if they voted Fianna Fáil out they were voting Fine Gael in and vice versa. People stopped feeling like they had a choice. Now is the first time that people see the left is coming into play.”
“I was always Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael,” says Sarah. “But then they let down the country. It’s the independents or Sinn Féin.”
Marie McGurk doesn’t vote. “It’s the same thing all the time,” she says. “All promises. I used to vote. I’m registered, but now I don’t bother... People are dumping rubbish everywhere. They don’t care any more. They’re sick of everything. They find it very hard. The reason we turn off is we’re promised the world and then it goes out the window.”
‘Just talking, talking’
“People are engaged in surviving from one month to another, not really engaged in politics,” says a young Polish woman, Maggie Anna Glubiak.
Though Maggie can’t vote here she’d like to set up her own party, “a new general party about everything: immigration issues, the environment. I go out with my dogs, and there’s trash after trash after trash. People dump things on the road.
“There’s no party gives you faith in anything different. Just talking, talking, talking – and nothing changes.”
In the community training centre Tom O’Reilly, its manager, tells me about the young people educated here. He’s proud of them. He doesn’t like them being stereotyped and maligned.
“If you’re a young person in the north inner city wearing a tracksuit and hoody on the way somewhere,” he says, “there’s a fair chance of being stopped and searched. Every morning our young people are stopped and searched.”
Are they political? “If anger is politicising then, yes, they are political,” O’Reilly says. But he sometimes worries that they are “just angry” – “They feel powerless because it seems to be such a hopeless place for young people.”
He brings me into a small meeting room where seven very young men tell me that they’re uninterested in politics.
Why? “Politicians just don’t care about this area,” says Luke.
Does he really think so? He looks at me like I’m mad. “Look at the state of the place: the drug dealers, the rubbish. Maybe [politicians] are doing something for people in Blackrock. They’re not doing anything in Dublin 1.”
Were the water-charge protests big around here?
“My maths teacher was really into it,” says Chad. “He was going mental over it. Whenever we had maths he would take us out of class to go to the protests.”
Did he go? “No, I didn’t! I just went home. I’m not standing around with a sign.”
What do they know about the water charges? “That no one’s paying them,” says Ciaran.
Have the protests made their families or neighbours more political? There’s a number of murmured nos, but Luke says: “I suppose some people are paying a bit more attention to politics because of the water charges.”
What about the marriage-equality referendum? “I wanted to vote for that, but I was too young then,” says Luke with noticeably more enthusiasm.
Why did he care about that so much? “It was something that matters. Anybody should have the right to marriage. You fall in love with a person, not a gender. That was a straightforward Yes.”
He turns to the others. “Would you have voted Yes for that?” he asks.
They all nod, although only one of them was old enough to vote then. (He didn’t vote.) “There was only one county in Ireland with a higher No percentage than Yes,” says Chad. “I saw a map. The whole country was green. That county was red.”
“It’d be a bit funny voting No,” says Luke. “There are plenty of gay people around this area, and we all know them.”
‘Them stupid posters’
Is there a good sense of community around here? “It’s the best community you can find,” says Luke. “But that doesn’t turn into politics.”
“People take care of each other,” says Ciaran.
“Every corner you see seven cousins,” says Chad. “Everyone’s related.”
A lot of their mothers vote, they say. “My mam brings my nanny around to vote,” says Mark.
Who do their mothers vote for? They don’t know, for the most part. “Mine votes for Joe Costello,” says Luke, referring to the Labour TD. “But I don’t have to do what my ma does. He’s done a lot getting people houses, but sometimes he’s a dose bag.” He sighs. “In the next few weeks those streets will be flooded with them stupid posters.”
“Those things are dangerous,” says Chad. “I saw one fly off a pole and cut a man’s face open.”
“Think of how much money it takes to put them around,” says Luke. “Think what that money could do.”
What things would they like to change around here? There’s a pause. “Getting stopped all the time by the police,” says Eric, who was stopped this morning.
Do they get stopped much? “Every morning,” says Chad. “We can’t walk out your front door without being pulled in. In Blackrock you could walk around with bundles of drugs and they’d just walk by you.”
“What people in Blackrock see when they open the door is not what I see when I open mine,” says Luke, sighing.
What if someone said they’d stop those searches?
“You can’t stop them,” says Chad.
“Gardaí can do anything they want,” says Luke.
“Can these politicians have a say in what gets voted on?” asks Chad. “Because I know how to win an election: say, ‘I’m going to legalise weed.’ ”
They laugh. I tell Chad about Luke “Ming” Flanagan.
Luke considers the question again. “Homelessness, litter, drug abuse,” he says. “I don’t like to see it around my area. I have a four-year-old little brother. I had to grow up around that, but I don’t want him growing up around that.
“It’s getting worse, to be honest. As a kid I wasn’t really paying attention to all the drugs and homeless. But when you turn 12 you start to see it. And then you get used to it.”
“I’d get the drug addicts off the streets,” says Chad.
“Where would you put them?” asks Luke.
“In the grave,” says Chad. “They’re out there trying to mug people!”
“But why do they start taking drugs?” says Luke. “Because they got f***ed out of their gaffs and they’ve nothing else to do. They probably need drugs just to get through the day.”
“I got f***ed out of my gaff, and you didn’t see me doing that,” says one of the young men.
What if a politician were promising to help drug addicts and the homeless? “They should be doing that now!” says Luke.
Are they registered to vote? Some of them were registered at the centre before Christmas.
Will they vote? “No,” says Eric quietly. “I don’t want to.”
“He doesn’t think it’ll make a difference,” says Luke. “I don’t care about it either, to be honest,” says Ciaran.
“I don’t understand the parties,” says Chad. “Sinn Féin, Fine Gael: I honestly have no clue about the difference. They’re all in it for the money.”
“Not all of them,” says Luke.
There’s a discussion about politicians they know and like, such as Gary Gannon, a Social Democrats candidate who once worked at LYCS.
“I will never vote in my life,” promises Chad. “When I’m older I’ll be sitting back making money, living out in Clontarf. If this place is in a heap I won’t give a rat’s.”
“But what about your mates? Your family?” asks Luke.
“They’ll all be coming out there with me,” says Chad.
“He’ll be a councillor in 20 years,” says Luke.
Luke, it turns out, is the only one interested in voting. Who will he vote for? “I don’t know yet. But I’ll do a little background check on a few people. Then we’ll see.”
Later, Karina O’Brien from Icon says that the water protest movement is less significant here than elsewhere. (“There are so many issues that are more immediate”.) People were engaged by marriage equality, and many are currently active about homelessness. If anything, she says, the latter might mobilise people to vote.
Diana O’Dwyer, running for the Anti-Austerity Alliance, is optimistic. She feels people have been mobilised by marriage equality; the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment; water protests; and housing issues.
“I got the supplementary register, and there were thousands of new people on it,” O’Dwyer says. “I think this election is going to be quite significant in terms of new people who haven’t registered before.”
This is the hope on the left in general. Recent elections saw big increases in turnout in many urban working-class communities, which led to increased support for left-wing and Independent candidates.
“In those areas, I think, a new political engagement probably will translate into electoral support and increased turnout rates,” says Claire McGing, a geography lecturer at Maynooth University. That’s assuming the parties have done their homework, she adds.
The Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan isn’t so sure that this will happen in the inner city, where she has found turnouts disappointing. O’Sullivan does say she is impressed by the relative enthusiasm of young people and new citizens. However, “I can’t say I’ve noticed any voter-registration drives around this area.”
She sometimes wishes Ireland had the Australian model, she says, “where people have to vote. Where they have no choice.”7 SHARES Share Tweet
I finally finished with all the foam that came from the Kitchen Aid mixer box. I’m pretty sure I’ll make some more like this at some point but I’ll be using XPS foam hopefully. As with all the other pieces, the process goes like this:
Cut foam. Sculpt it, smooth it, figure out exactly what it is and plan out the surfaces. Make all the cuts to make the brick effects or other textures, don’t skip any. Coat the entire thing in black gesso. I used Bob Ross gesso and it works awesome, but it’s a bit expensive. I think I’ll be switching to a cheaper alternative black or grey gesso that I can get in a larger container. Dry brush with progressively lighter shades, at least four of them. I just have one large bottle each of black and white acrylic paint.
That’s it. So, here are the pics of the last piece of ruins, a keep that has managed to keep all the main walls intact at at the base level.
RelatedIt's almost Christmas and Yoenis Cespedes still is on the hunt for a mega contract.
The longer this goes on, maybe the right-handed-hitting slugger circles back to the Mets and re-signs with them for something both sides can live with.
Noah Syndergaard, one of the Mets aces, wants Cespedes back next season.
"Of course we're hoping," Syndergaard told the New York Post last Friday. "We all saw the tear he went on from July through the end of the season. We'd love to have that bat back in the lineup, so as long as he's out there, we're hoping for that."
The rumor mill has Cespedes ending up with the Los Angeles Angels, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles or Detroit Tigers.
As for the Mets, management reportedly believes it won't be able to afford keeping Cespedes, who had a great half-season for the club.
Cespedes was traded from Detroit to the Mets last July 31, then went on to hit.287 with 17 homers and 44 RBIs in 54 games to help New York win the NL East and go on to win a pennant before losing the World Series to Kansas City.
Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Republicans have failed to muster enough votes to overrule U.S. President Barack Obama's recent veto of a bill that would have approved the Keystone XL pipeline.
A vote that would have overridden Obama's recent veto lost 62-37 on Wednesday. The move was not a surprise — proponents of the bill had telegraphed in advance that they doubted they had the two-thirds majority (66 votes) that would have overruled his decision.
"If we don't win the battle today, we will win the war because we will find another bill to attach this pipeline to," said North Dakota Republican Senator John Hoeven, the chief sponsor of the bill that would have effectively taken the decision on the pipeline out of the president's hands.
The $8 billion, 1,800-kilometre pipeline, proposed by the TransCanada Corporation, would bring 800,000 barrels of Canadian oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast every day. It is proving to be one of the major political footballs of the year leading up to the 2016 presidential election, when there will be someone new elected to the White House.
The project's backers say it will create jobs and bolster American energy self-sufficiency, while opponents have largely rallied against Keystone based on environmental grounds.
"Senate Republicans have shown just how out of touch they are with the priorities of American families with their repeated attempts to force approval of the Keystone XL tarsands pipeline," the Sierra Club's executive director Michael Brune said. "The decision to deny this dangerous project belongs to President Obama alone, and we are confident he has all he needs to reject it once and for all."
For his part, Obama has said all along that the bill circumvented the well-established process for approving cross-border pipelines, which must be determined to be in the national interest.
The Keystone XL bill was only the third time in his presidency that he has vetoed a bill.It was August 1980, in Jesolo, Italy. Ayrton Senna, aged 20, lay in a deck chair by the hotel pool—steely-eyed, angry. He had been beaten the day before in one of the world’s most prestigious karting events, a race he had dominated until the final lap.
His rival, a British guy with a piercing mustache who won every race he competed that year (bar one where his engine blew), stood on the edge of the swimming pool, laughing and joking with his mechanic. Senna could contain his fury no more. He leaped onto his feet, stormed over, and pushed his competitor into the pool.
After all, Senna hated finishing second, and of all the racers he would go onto dominate, Terry Fullerton was the one driver he could never master.
Today, Fullerton, 63, lives in a small house in Leicester, England, with his wife Nilda, 11-year-old daughter and two dogs. By his own admission, he has very little money, and few people outside the world of professional karting know his name.
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He spends most of his days covered in oil, fingers raw, imparting wisdom to young racers as they dream of making it big. Fullerton’s talent never saw Formula One, or any race car for that matter. He made his mark on karting, proved he had the ingredients to become a legend, and then that was it.
His profile did raise when the “Senna” documentary aired in 2010. In it, an interview was played from 1993, where Senna—then a three-time F1 world champion—shocked the media by declaring not Prost or Mansell or Piquet but Fullerton the most satisfying driver he ever raced against: “He was fast, he was consistent, he was for me a very complete driver,” Senna said.
In fact, Fullerton recently received a letter from a longtime secretary of Senna’s, noting how the Brazilian F1 great talked of Fullerton as the best all-round driver he ever competed against. The reason he picked that time in 1993 to speak of his admiration, the letter said, was to do justice to all that Fullerton achieved, stating he deserved credit as the brilliant racer he was—something to that day he had never received.
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And it wasn’t just Senna that couldn’t master Fullerton. He competed against the likes of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and many more—and he had the measure of all of them. Fullerton was the undisputed king of karting, perhaps the greatest to have ever competed.
It begs the question: if he was so blindingly brilliant, the best driver Senna ever raced against, the only man the Brazilian could never beat, then why did he not become an F1 superstar like his rivals?
To understand, you need to go back to 1964, when Fullerton was just 11-years-old.
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“My older brother Alec decided he wanted to race motorbikes,” |
thal,” and “toxic” to boot. “Drink is a Cancer,” asserted one campaign ad, “a racial poison and a national curse.” “Whether in the form of beer, wine or spirits,” noted a newspaper column, “alcohol poisons those higher centres of the brain which control the moral faculties, such as patience, kindness, unselfishness, generosity.”
As with contemporary debates about the legalization of marijuana and gay marriage, the late nineteenth-century issue of Prohibition split Canadians more or less down the middle. South of the border, the federal government has the power to prohibit both the production and the distribution of booze, but control here is split between the federal and provincial governments. In each of the provinces (with the exception of PEI, which had gone dry in 1901), the drys failed to convince a majority to embrace their cause, until World War I. Nearly everyone agreed that the war in Europe demanded a higher level of personal sacrifice at home, and temperance advocates saw an opportunity, arguing with missionary zeal that “King Alcohol” was an enemy as great as any overseas, weakening the nation from within, and that those who kept drinking were hindering victory. The patriotic appeal struck a chord with those seeking a way to martyr themselves without venturing onto a battlefield.
Beginning in 1916, one province after another joined PEI, passing laws that prohibited the retail sale of “intoxicating beverages.” By 1919, a year before Prohibition would come into effect in the United States, Canada was dry from sea to sea to sea. But Prohibition was short lived in some provinces; Quebec’s bottle ban ended after a few months. In every one, though, dry legislation looked the same: drinking establishments were closed down, and the sale of alcoholic beverages was forbidden. Only “near beers”—non-intoxicating, with no more than 2.5 percent proof—could be sold in public places. Anything higher had to be consumed in a private dwelling.
Huge sums were spent enforcing these laws, but thousands of people each year continued to pour into “blind pigs” (Canadian slang for a speakeasy) during the dry regime, as historian Craig Heron points out in his insightful treatise Booze: A Distilled History. The police exhibited little enthusiasm for enforcing the law, in part because so many of them were drinkers. Corruption was rampant among the customs officials charged with monitoring the international stream of alcohol, bootlegging was common, and organized crime was on the rise. In 1921, Hugh Labatt and his older brother, John, handed over management of the company to Edmund Burke, a hard-nosed Irishman who had cut his teeth selling tobacco and whisky in the US. Burke set up a “snake fund” to bribe customs officials, and to influence politicians and the Bermuda Export Company—a consortium of eleven of Ontario’s largest breweries—to put an end to the province’s costly price wars and control the lucrative traffic of beer to the US, where Prohibition was in full force. Smuggling Labatt’s “export-strength” bottles back into Ontario generated huge profits, and Prohibition, in the words of one Canadian, was “one hell of a farce.”
In 1924, Labatt formed an alliance with the Moderation League and began shoring up support among organized labour and veterans. They maintained that society would be a better place (not to mention more profitable) without Prohibition, and together they presented provincial governments across the country with long petitions demanding a plebiscite. These often listed tens of thousands of names, and went a long way toward changing politicians’ minds. Attorney General John Brownlee, once a staunch prohibitionist, later told the Edmonton Bulletin that Prohibition was not a “delicate flower to be shielded from every adverse blast. If it was not implanted deep in the hearts of the people it could not last.” He became premier in 1925 and upheld his predecessor’s legalization of public drinking. Petitioning provincial governments was just the first step for the brewers. To win the battle against Prohibition, they would have to fight for the hearts and minds of Canadians, to convince them to imagine beer in a more favourable light. They would have to win the propaganda war.
During a stirring sixty-second Molson commercial for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the narrator asks us to consider what makes us Canadian: “You might ask yourself, why are we the way we are? ” he says. “Well, the answer is lying right under our feet, literally.” The company first associated its product with the land three-quarters of a century earlier, in calendars with depictions of countrified settings positioned above a nostalgic text that read, “The Ale Your Great Grandfather Drank.” The page for January 1931 featured a painting by Cornelius Krieghoff, perhaps Canada’s most popular artist of the 1800s. His mid-nineteenth-century winter ball at a country inn was accompanied by a text that conjured up more images of a simpler time, one “without motors or radios,” when “life in Quebec was merry.”
Between the wars, the land held a special place in the hearts and minds of Canadians. It was considered a sanctuary from the dangers and chaos of the urban world, and its products were seen as wholesome and pure. This anti-modern back-to-nature sentiment was expressed in various cultural manifestations of the period, from the works of the Group of Seven, to the writings of Harold Adams Innis, to the creation of summer camps and national parks.
The anti-modernist language and imagery utilized by Molson and other companies was aimed at distancing their products from the sins of the city. By linking beer, brewing, and drinking to country places and rural folk—who, like the majority of Canadian consumers in today’s ads, were white, male, and middle class—they endeavoured to sanitize them and make them more appealing to the mainstream. Then as now, the ads conveyed a deep-rooted conservatism that reflected a past reality rather than the current one.
Labatt manager Hugh Mackenzie wanted to go even further: the time had come, he said in 1935, to elevate beer’s status in society by making its consumption an expression of Canadianness. A chartered accountant by training, he had joined the company shortly after Prohibition ended in Ontario in 1927, and he was instrumental in shepherding the brewery through the worst years of the Depression. He was athletically built, bright, and polished, and had roots in the educational elite of central Canada. A potent mixture of skill and ambition helped to propel him rapidly up the ranks at the old London brewery, but Hugh Labatt resented him for it.
Before the Black Christmas of 1936, Mackenzie approached J. Walter Thompson Co., a major global advertising agency. Mark Napier of the Toronto office had an uncanny feel for the cultural logic of the age, and wanted to portray brewers like Labatt as instrumental, not detrimental, to the nation’s development. In a series of advertisements published in the national monthly Canadian Homes and Gardens, he highlighted Labatt’s long, influential past. “It really all began 70 years ago,” read the text of one ad in 1937, under the tag line “Then As Now.” In others, he linked the company’s evolution to watershed moments in our history, such as Confederation and the Boer War, when “soldiers knew good ale.” As Canadians searched for uniquely Canadian ideas, events, experiences, and commodities—the makings of a national identity—Napier served up Labatt’s product as an age-old piece of Canadiana.
The strategy worked, and—along with increased immigration from other beer-drinking countries and beer’s relative affordability during the Depression—it helped push sales to new heights. Per capita consumption had grown by 50 percent since the turn of the century, while hard liquor use declined by half. By 1936, Canadians drank twenty litres of beer per year on average, compared with just one litre of spirits.
Since the birth of brewing in Canada in the seventeenth century, companies had maintained that their products were not harmful, and that beer’s lower alcohol content made it an ideal temperance beverage. When Black Christmas threatened to push it back into the shadows, they launched an educational campaign to encourage the population to drink beer moderately and responsibly, and reframed the debate around individual liberty. “Government control,” their ads insisted, “cannot be effective without self-control,” and self-control was learned behaviour. In a widely circulated propaganda piece entitled “Let’s teach Temperance!,” they argued for teaching people “to use any of nature’s gifts temperately.” Such an education, they said, was best received in the barrooms of the nation, where “public opinion discourages excess.”
Only by drinking publicly, they suggested, would Canadians learn the rituals and habits of imbibing responsibly and thereby become good citizens. Like eating and smoking, drinking was a social custom, determined by the cultural norms and ideals of society. Prohibition had deprived a whole generation of the opportunity to learn moderation. “The present propaganda against beverage rooms,” the companies warned, “if successful… would defeat the object of true temperance.”
As they saw it, wisdom through the ages had shown that lasting enjoyment of life’s pleasures depended on moderation, an ethos and approach to drinking largely absent during the age of excess that prompted Prohibition in Canada. The ideal citizen, as described by Ontario brewers in “A Dialogue on Moderation,” understood the obligation to community and country, and reflected this by “avoiding of extremes, being temperate in conduct.” Moderation was a Canadian way of life, a means of reconciling the tension between self-indulgence and social well-being, between the pursuit of pleasure and delayed gratification. Beer was an excellent temperance drink: “wholesome” and “mildly stimulating.” A few years later, the research department at J. Walter Thompson interviewed 1,767 people from a cross-section of society: rich and poor, rural and urban, wet and dry. The pollsters determined that roughly three-quarters of those who had read the Ontario brewers’ ads to promote moderation “thought them convincing.”
In working to steer the country clear of a second Prohibition era, the companies fashioned a Canadian story drawn from mainstream values, a strategy still employed today with great success. Consider Molson’s now famous Joe Canada rant, first aired in 2000. It may stand as one of our most naked displays of patriotism, far more stirring than those well-meaning Heritage Minutes. In the following year, the Canadian brand (which the company promotes with the tag line “Made from Canada”) grew its market share by 2.5 percent.
A more recent Molson ad, “The Canadians,” taps into national pride by portraying Canadians as a friendly, beer-loving bunch, adored and respected around the world. Molson and Labatt are now owned by global corporations, and while they are no longer Canadian the ethos of beer drinking remains so. This, fortuitously, has given rise to a burgeoning community of microbreweries. The language and imagery of beer ads continue to promote unity and social cohesion in ways that the major companies likely did not intend: Jon Montgomery recently parodied the “I Am Canadian” rant to galvanize support for our Olympic team.
Today beer is to Canada what wine is to France, vodka is to Russia, tequila is to Mexico, ouzo is to Greece, and sake is to Japan. Our athletes publicly celebrate their victories with it; Canadian musicians rejoice about it in song; comedians poke fun at our collective thirst for it; and even our prime minister allows himself to be caught on camera enjoying it by the glass. It is not the quantity that we drink, but rather the way we drink it and imagine it that makes beer quintessentially Canadian. It is what Roland Barthes terms a “totem drink.” Just as a primitive totem united all who worshipped it, so it is with our beer: we drink, therefore we are.
The Walrus thanks the Writers’ Trust of Canada for its financial support of this story.Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., indicated Tuesday during a speech on the Senate floor that she may be planning to endorse Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic nomination. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, which contained a possible clue about who she may be planning endorse -- or not endorse -- for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
Warren's speech, which commemorated the sixth anniversary of a key Supreme Court decision that loosened campaign spending regulations, proposed a constitutional amendment to outlaw excessive spending for candidates.
"The first votes will be cast in Iowa in just 11 days. Anyone who shrugs and claims it is too hard has crawled into bed with the billionaires who want to run this country like some private club," she said. "We are headed into another presidential election, and I speak out today because I'm genuinely alarmed for our democracy."
Some analysts believe her remarks Tuesday indicate Warren will not be endorsing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has received substantial financial backing for her present bid as well as her 2008 run.
RELATED Democrats already looking at possible VP candidates to run on Clinton ticket
In recent weeks, Warren has been under pressure from Senate colleagues to endorse Clinton -- but that's a move that may never come.
Warren is the only Democratic woman in the Senate who hasn't backed the former New York senator. In November, she was the only female Democratic senator to skip a Clinton fundraiser, and last July she seemed critical of Clinton during a liberal convention.
Warren also has emphasized that her signature on a 2013 letter encouraging Clinton to run in 2016 was not to be construed as an endorsement.
RELATED Bernie Sanders leads proposal to ban drilling on public land
She has promised to endorse someone, but at this point analysts aren't sure whether she will lean toward Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -- or perhaps someone else. What does seem clear is that the candidate of her choice will be someone who shares her desire for greater campaign spending controls.
"All of us were sent here to do our best to make government work, not just for those at the top, but to make government work for all the people. It's time we start acting like it," Warren said Tuesday. "Six years ago the Supreme Court turned loose a flood of hidden money that is about to drown our democracy. We can blame the Supreme Court. We should blame the Supreme Court."
Sanders, a fervent opponent of unrestricted campaign spending, has said his litmus test for appointees to the high court bench would be to ask whether they would overturn the decision in Citizens United v. FEC.
RELATED Boston Globe calls on Elizabeth Warren to run for president
Clinton, though, has said she would use the same test -- and stated she would support a constitutional amendment to reverse the high court decision when she announced her candidacy in April -- the same proposal Warren pitched Tuesday.
The top three outside groups supporting Clinton, though, are super PACs. Clinton has received more than $5 million in contributions from Wall Street donors alone and has run more campaign ads in the current election cycle than anyone else, data from the Center for Public Integrity indicate.
Since the 2010 decision, Citizens United has kept after Clinton. In October, the group sued to obtain Clinton's schedules from her time as secretary of state.An upper crust New York City school is teaching white students from age 6 that they are born racist and should feel guilt over “white privilege.” Black peers are elevated and praised.
This is anti-white racism, it’s harmful to a young child, and it’s going to ruin our United States.
The prestigious Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claims it’s fighting discrimination.
The liberal parents have complained the K-8 school of 430 kids is separating whites in classes where they’re made to feel awful about their “whiteness,” and all the “kids of color” in other rooms where they’re taught to feel proud about their race and are rewarded with treats and other privileges.
No one could possibly think this is healthy. One parent said this anti-white propaganda which began to ramp up after Ferguson.
Bank Street has created a “dedicated space” in the school for “kids of color,” where they’re “embraced” by minority instructors and encouraged to “voice their feelings” and “share experiences about being a kid of color,” according to school presentation slides obtained by The Post.
You will be unhappy to know that other schools are doing the same thing.
White kids are herded into separate classrooms and taught to raise their “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” challenge “notions of colorblindness (and) assumptions of ‘normal,’ ‘good,’ and ‘American’” and “understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege.”
“One hundred percent of the curriculum is what whites have done to other races,” said one Bank Street parent. “They offer nothing that would balance the story.”
Added the parent, who also asked to go unnamed: “Any questions they can’t answer they rationalize under the pretense of ‘institutional racism,’ which is never really defined.”
The program, these parents say, deliberately instills in white children a strong sense of guilt about their race. Some kids come home in tears, saying, “I’m a bad person.”
Their time would be better spent listening to Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
“I have a dream today!”
We have to start speaking out against this lunacy. It smacks of no common sense and since when did strangers and teachers get the right to indoctrinate children?
Source: NY PostYou love animals. And what’s more, animals really take to you.
So, working with animals has probably crossed your mind more than once. Which is why an animal care course might be right for you.
Have you thought what fun it could be working in a vet’s practice? Feeding, grooming and caring for all kinds of creatures would be amazing – you’d really get to know them.
Or maybe you’ve thought about working in an animal shelter, giving aid to abandoned or abused animals that have no one else to take care of them?
But how will you achieve that goal? What steps can you take to get a job in animal care?
One of the best choices you can make when setting out in a new career is taking a course. Nothing can take the place of formal learning when it comes to impressing prospective employers and proving yourself.
To learn how to work with animals, register on the course now.
A job with animals is what you were made for. And this course will help you achieve that.
Why work with small animals?
The creatures in the animal kingdom are many and varied. And it takes a lifetime to understand them all.
So the best place to start is with the ones that are most familiar to us, such as cats and dogs.
Moreover, these are the animals most likely to need caring for in a kennel or vets – the places where you’re most likely to find work.
So a good knowledge of how to feed and care for dogs and cats is the best starting point.
But it’s also a good idea to become familiar with other small creatures, such as mice, rats and amphibians.
They all have personalities
Some people are surprised at how attached they become to such small creatures. But if you’ve handled different kinds of animals, you know that even the tiniest creatures have personalities and need the same kind of love and attention.
The value of a life isn’t based on the size of the creature. And neither should the quality of their life depend on it.
Most people who have followed a career in animal care have felt a calling to it. People who love animals love them with all their hearts, and caring for them every day just seems like a natural choice for a career path.
However, if you do choose animal care as a profession, a certain amount of education and training is necessary. After all, you want to make sure you’re giving these creatures the best possible care you can.
And one way to get your foot in the door of the pet care industry is to register for our Small Animal Care Diploma Course. After your studies, you can look for work in:
Veterinary clinics
Animal hospitals
Rescue Shelters
Grooming Salons
Training Facilities
Breeding
Pet Sitting Facilities
Zoos
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AdvertisementsDonald Trump‘s administration is wasting little time making its presence known at the major institutions of power around Washington, D.C. Over the weekend, Trump gave what many are calling a controversial speech at the Central Intelligence Agency and on Thursday he is reportedly causing a major shake up at the State Department.
CNN is reporting from “two senior [Trump] administration officials” that four top individuals in management positions at the State Department have been essentially told they are no longer needed. It is all part of a “house cleaning” effort by the incoming administration. One of the four is said to be longtime State Department career employee Patrick Kennedy, a man who became a sort of lightening rod because of his role in the Hillary Clinton email affair that plagued her candidacy. He served in the powerful position of Undersecretary for Management during Clinton’s term.
Back in October, Sen. Marco Rubio issued a harsh statement about Kennedy amid reports that he allegedly attempted “to influence the FBI to change” classification of documents found on Clinton’s server, in what some suggested was evidence of a quid pro quo.
His involvement at the center of the email scandal and his alleged attempts to obtain a quid pro quo led some of his critics to refer to him as “Clinton’s fixer.”
Kennedy was also deposed by Judicial Watch as part of its lawsuit against the State Department regarding its response to FOIA requests. Judicial Watch has alleged that Kennedy played a crucial role in the delayed FOIA responses, but he denied playing any significant role during his deposition. In his position, Kennedy oversaw three of the four departments that had responsibility for ensuring State Department policies and procedures were followed. Nonetheless, when it came time to answer questions, he testified that it never occurred to him that she might have a significant amount of State Department records in her possession until reading a March 2015 New York Times story about her private email server.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told LawNewz Kennedy’s “accountability may have been a long time coming, but it was sorely needed.” He also said that he hopes the new replacements make sure to take “steps to ensure records are secured” for the ongoing litigation his organization still has against the State Department.
“A new crop [of leaders was] sorely needed” around Foggy Bottom, he added.
Michele Bond and Joyce Anne Barr, both Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs and the director of the Office for Foreign Missions, Ambassador Gentry Smith, were the other three who reportedly received notice they were no longer needed in the new administration.
According to the report, the four individuals signed formal letters of resignation — as is customary when asked to leave by a new administration.
One senior State Department official wanted to make it clear that these people did not quit, telling the news outlet, ”Any implication that that these four people quit is wrong. These people are loyal to the secretary, the President and to the State Department. There is just not any attempt here to dis the President. People are not quitting and running away in disgust. This is the White House cleaning house.”
However, another official told the outlet the State Department will not fall apart without Kennedy and the others.
“The department will not collapse,” a second official told the network. “Everyone has good deputies... the department has excellent subordinates and the career people will step up. They will take up the responsibility.”
Put more bluntly, a senior Republican aide formerly responsible for conducting oversight of the State Department, told LawNewz:
It’s good to see the new administration cleaning house and providing the State Department with a fresh start. The lack of accountability at the most senior levels – particularly as it relates to the handling of Benghazi and the former Secretary of State’s personal email system – shows the blatant disregard senior officials had for policies and procedures, many of which are in place to save lives. Accountability is essential at all levels of government and something that was seriously lacking in recent years.
Meanwhile, an acting State Department spokesman told CNN, “These positions are political appointments, and require the President to nominate and the Senate to confirm them in these roles. They are not career appointments but of limited term. “Of the officers whose resignations were accepted, some will continue in the Foreign Service in other positions, and others will retire by choice or because they have exceeded the time limits of their grade in service.”
LawNewz also reached out to the State Department media office, but we also have not received a response.
We will update this post with any additional information as it becomes available.
Update:
Acting State Department Spokesman Mark Toner released the following statement to LawNewz:
“Patrick Kennedy will resign as Under Secretary for Management on January 27, and retire from the Department of State on January 31. A career Foreign Service Officer, Under Secretary Kennedy joined the Department in 1973.”
[image via State Department]Today (Aug. 16) in Rio, some of the world’s most talented runners will contest the 1,500 meters.
That’s too bad. They should be running the mile instead.
The 1,500 meters has been part of the Olympic program since 1896, reflecting the French origins of the modern Olympic movement and its founder, Pierre de Coubertin. It’s also the distance used at the world championships and at the NCAAs. But the mile, just 109 meters longer, is a far superior experience for athletes and spectators.
While the 1,500 meters takes three-and-three-quarter laps of a standard 400-meter track, the mile is run in just a shade more than four laps. The symmetry of the four laps makes the mile easy to follow, and is particularly useful when watching elite runners capable of challenging the four-minute mile. Cheering athletes against the clock, knowing each lap has to be run in under a minute, is one of the great spectacles in track, a sport that has far too few of them.
Thanks to Roger Bannister, who famously broke the four-minute mile in 1954, the mile has transcended sport and moved into metaphor. The four-minute mile is an almost universally recognized benchmark, even if the world record, set in 1999 by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, is now an impossibly fast 3:43. Meanwhile, only die-hard track fans could tell you the time of a world-class 1,500.
The mile makes more sense for the runners, too. I was a mediocre high school miler, who progressed into an (even more) mediocre collegiate 1,500-meter runner. In the mile, I always knew where I stood in relation to the rest of the race, and how far I had come and had yet to go. But the 1,500 was always disorienting. Was I gauging my laps from the start of the race? Or from the finish? When I had completed two laps, the natural halfway point, I was more than halfway done, which meant the final lap came up on me faster than I felt it should. I was already running in a state of near-panic, desperately trying to keep up with the leaders, and the weirdly abbreviated distance didn’t help.
Complicating it all is the problem of splits. In distance races, the key to the race is your pace. Go out too fast and you’ll fade in the final lap; start too slow and you’ll struggle to make back the time before the finish. In the mile, keeping track of your pace is simple—after every lap, a coach would read out quarter-mile splits. In the 1,500, depending on where the coach is standing, you may have to calculate your pace after 300 and 700 meters.
I wasn’t sure if I was the only ex-miler who felt this way about the 1,500, so I tracked down my former college teammate Pete Brady. Rather than hang up his spikes as adulthood set in, Pete never stopped running, and is nationally competitive in over-40 races. He finished fourth in a masters exhibition 1,500 held at the US Olympic trials, and the official results illustrate the peculiar nature of the 1,500, with splits at 300, 700, and 1,100 meters.
Pete, who works in finance, says that after years of racing, he still struggles with the 1,500 splits. “I’m a math guy. But when you’re running—running hard—it’s not easy.”
The mile is easy to explain to non-track people, he says. Everyone understands a fast mile.
But even word-class athletes get befuddled by the 1,500 meters. Steve Scott, now 60, held the US mile record of 3:47 for 25 years, and ran more sub-four-minute miles—136—than anyone in history. He also finished second in the 1,500 meters at the 1983 world championships.
Given a choice, Scott, who now coaches track at Cal State San Marcos, said he always chose the mile over the 1,500. But when he competed internationally, sometimes the 1,500 meters was the only choice.
“There were times when I would lose count,” he says. “You get to 400 meters to go quicker than you expect. I would get caught off guard; I’d hear the bell (for the final lap) and think, ‘Oh, crap.'”
Scott concedes that his ambivalence toward the 1,500 stemmed from his familiarity with the longer distance, and that he never committed to the 1,500 as its own race with its own demands. In theory, he says, he could have run the 1,500 at a slightly faster pace because of the slightly shorter distance. “I never really made that investment,” he says.
Europeans who grew up racing the 1,500 may feel differently; for them the mile may seem abnormally long. And for women, running the 1,500 in four minutes is still a significant barrier that separates the elite from the very good.
But while the 1,500 has the advantage of being a round number, it otherwise doesn’t make much sense. It’s an awkward fit on the track, it’s not a distance that has any history or symbolism. There’s a reason it’s called “the metric mile.”
While most Americans’ grasp of the metric system hasn’t progressed beyond 2-liter Cokes, even the US running world has gone metric. The mile, once a fixture at US track meets, has slowly been phased out in favor of the 1,500 meters as the sport and its events become more international.
A campaign called Bring Back the Mile is trying to return the race to the US. Its founder, Ryan Lamppa, says displacing the 1,500 at the Olympics is beyond the group’s ambitions.
But the Olympics include another famously non-metric race: the 26.2 mile, or 42.195 kilometer, marathon.
Contrary to popular myth, the modern marathon’s length wasn’t set by the ancient Greeks to mark the distance run by Pheidippides from the battle of Marathon to Athens (that’s about 24 miles). Rather, it’s widely believed that the official distance was set in 1908 so that Britain’s royal family could see the start from their window at Windsor Castle, 26.2 miles from the finish, in that year’s London Olympics.
The marathon, one of the marquee events of the Olympics, is still a stubborn outlier in a sports world that has otherwise gone metric. Maybe there’s still room for the mile.Sporting Kansas City announced on Wednesday that forward Dom Dwyer has signed a contract extension with the club. Per club policy, terms of the agreement will not be disclosed.
"I am ecstatic to commit my future to Kansas City," Dwyer said. "I want to thank the coaches and ownership for having faith in me. Also, a special thanks to the fans for all of their continued support. I am excited to get going again. Last year was a starting point for what is to come in the future, which is scoring a lot more goals, driving to win championships and enjoying myself on and off the field in a city with supporters to which I have grown to love and embrace."
“Dom’s new contract is well-deserved. I am very happy for him and for the club to have reached this deal,” Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes said. “He has performed at a very high level on a consistent basis and this contract again shows a strong commitment to keeping players of his caliber in Kansas City.”
Dwyer’s breakout season in 2014 garnered Sporting Kansas City’s Offensive Player of the Year and co-Most Valuable Player awards, as well as MLS All-Star honors. The 24-year-old Englishman set the club’s single-season record with 22 goals, second most in MLS, and his 24 career goals in the regular season now rank ninth most in team history.
Dwyer also added goals in the CONCACAF Champions League and MLS Cup Playoffs for the second straight year, giving him 50 goals scored across all competitions since the start of 2013:
MLS Regular Season: 24 goals
MLS Cup Playoffs: 2 goals
CONCACAF Champions League: 2 goals
USL PRO Regular Season: 15 goals
USL PRO Playoffs: 4 goals
U.S. Open Cup: 3 goals
Dwyer was selected in the first round of the 2012 MLS SuperDraft as a Generation adidas member out of the University of South Florida. After making three appearances across all competition during his rookie season, Dwyer scored 15 goals in 13 regular season games while on loan with USL PRO affiliate Orlando City SC in 2013 to set the league’s single-season scoring record at the time and claim All-League honors. He returned to the Lions for the USL PRO final, scoring four goals to earn championship MVP recognition.
His record-setting 2014 campaign placed Dwyer’s name on the Sporting Kansas City and Major League Soccer all-time charts in the following categories:
SINGLE SEASON (2014)
Second in goals (22), game-winning goals (6) and multi-goal games (5) in MLS for 2014
Six game-winning goals in 2014 were most in a season in Sporting KC history
Seven penalty kick goals in 2014 were most in a season in Sporting KC history
0.67 goals per game in 2014 ranks second best in a season in Sporting KC history
CAREER
0.63 goals per 90 minutes average is highest all-time for a Sporting KC player and sixth-highest in MLS history*
Highest goals per game average (0.48) in Sporting KC history*
Second in penalty kick goals (7) in Sporting KC history
Third in multi-goal games (5) in Sporting KC history
Third in scoring percentage (17.0) in Sporting KC history*
*Among players with a minimum of 20 goals
DOM DWYER: SPORTING KANSAS CITY CAREER STATS (2012-2014)
COMPETITION GP GS MIN G A MLS Regular Season 50 38 3402 24 3 MLS Cup Playoffs 7 4 372 2 0 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup 3 3 205 0 0 CONACAF Champions League 9 4 317 2 0 69 49 4296 28 3To provide affordable emergency health care services to commuters, Indian Railways in conjunction with Magicdil Health opened a two-cent 24-hour health clinic, popularly known as the ‘One Rupee Clinic’.
By Jagdish Kumar
The first clinic was opened in Central Railway, one of seventeen railway zones headquartered in Mumbai in a joint venture with the organisation Magicdil Health For All.
An Indian Railways official told INDVSTRVS that this clinic will provide health care services to all travellers on its rail network across Mumbai’s 19 stations on central suburban and harbour line routes.
Currently, only five clinics are operational with two more ready to open its doors on 1 July 2017.
This comes after a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed by an activist in the Bombay High Court pointing out the lack of prompt medical help in case of accidents on railway tracks. Hearing the PIL, the court directed the railways to set up emergency medical rooms (EMRs) at all stations on suburban services operated by two zones, Central Railway and Western Railway in a phased manner.
All EMRs will be manned by paramedics with 3-4 qualified doctors in-house, who will conduct regular check-ups, write prescriptions and referrals for a mere one rupee consultancy fee.
The concept was the brainchild of Dr Rahul Ghule, who bagged the contract from railways to set up EMRs at all selected stations.
For this, Magicdil will provide services along with doctors at the stations, whereby, railways will offer free space along with water and electricity.
Dr Ghule says that EMRs would be equipped with all necessary lifesaving tools and medicine including electro-cardiogram (ECG) machines, Artificial Resuscitator (Ambu Type Bag), pulse-oxymeter, oxygen cylinders etc.
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156]
The first Australian state to deal with marital rape was South Australia. The changes came in 1976, but these were only partly removing the exemption. The Criminal Law Consolidation Act Amendment Act 1976 read:[157] "No person shall, by reason only of the fact that he is married to some other person, be presumed to have consented to sexual intercourse with that other person". Nevertheless, the laws did not go as far as equating marital with non-marital rape; the law required violence, or other aggravating circumstances, in order for an act of marital intercourse to be rape; which remained law until 1992. The first Australian jurisdiction to completely remove the marital exemption was New South Wales in 1981. The same happened in Western Australia, Victoria, and ACT in 1985; and Tasmania in 1987. In 1991, in R v L, the High Court of Australia ruled that if the common law exemption had ever been part of the Australian law, it no longer was.[158]
Marriage after rape [ edit ]
In a variety of cultures, marriage after a rape of an unmarried woman has been treated historically as a "resolution" to the rape, that is, a "reparatory marriage". Although laws that exonerate the perpetrator if he marries his victim after the rape are often associated with the Middle East,[159] such laws were very common around the world until the second half of the 20th century. For instance, as late as 1997, 14 Latin American countries had such laws,[160] although most of these countries have now abolished them.
Whether women were forced to marry their rapist, or the marriage was concluded before the violence began, many victims remain in chronically violent relationships. While there are many reasons for which victims of marital rape remain in their marriages, one important reason is that divorce may be hard to obtain and/or is stigmatized (Kwiatowski, 70). Cross-culturally, one of the barriers that keep victims within their marriages is the shame and guilt they feel surrounding marital rape (Bergen, 2016), or general taboos around sexuality(Kwiatkowski, 2016) (Torres, 2016). Lastly, some victims do not categorize their abuse as marital rape in order to minimize the violence they endure. This is used as a defense mechanism so they can continue to endure their abuse (Menjívar, 2016).
Prevalence [ edit ]
The earliest study in the Western World attempting to survey marital rape was an unpublished study by Joan Seites in the spring of 1975. Seites sent questionnaires to 40 rape-crisis centers from a list compiled by the Center for Women Policy Studies (Washington, DC). 16 Centers completed questionnaire for a response rate of 40%. Of the 3,709 reported calls dealing with rape and attempted rape received by the 16 centers, 12 calls dealt with marital rape (0.3%). Because rape-crisis centers did not always record the relationships of the callers, whether the 12 reported calls fully represent the number of married relationships cannot be certainly known.[161]
Feminist sociologist Pauline Bart published in June 1975 her review of 1,070 questionnaires filled out by victims of rape and considered that 0.4% were raped by their husbands.[162]
Researcher Richard Giles conducted research through in-depth interviews on violence between husbands and wives in a series of three studies between 1974 and 1976. Although the questions asked in the course of the interviews did not specifically pertain to the subject of marital rape, a subsequent analysis of the transcriptions of the interviews identified 4 women who discussed sex-related violence which might be viewed as instances of either attempted or completed marital rape. In all 4 cases, however, there was no instance a wife actually forced into having sex, although this may have been to avoid the possibility of force. Although the four women did not view themselves as having been raped, Giles raised the question of whether engaging in the sex act, as an act itself, constitutes violence.[163]
In 1982 Diana E. H. Russell, a feminist writer and activist, conducted the seminal study on marital rape. Her study surveyed a total of 930 women from San Francisco, California (50% non-response rate, non-English speaking Asian women were specifically excluded as non-reliable respondents), of whom 644 were married, divorced, or who self-identified as having a husband although not married. Six of these women (1%) self-assessed that they had been raped by their husbands, ex-husband, or de facto husbands. The survey interviewers, however, classified 74 (12%) of these women as having been raped. Of the 286 non-married women in the sample, 228 (80%) were classified by the survey interviewers as having been raped. Russell found that when repeated instances of rape as classified by the survey interviewers, by husbands or ex-husbands, over the entire course of the marriage are included, these account for 38% of all rape instances, in comparison to the remaining 62% occurring in non-marital instances.[164]
David Finkelhor and Kersti Yllo published a study in 1985 on marital rape that drew on a scientifically-selected area probability sample from the metropolitan Boston area of 323 women who were either married or previously married who had a child living with them between the ages of six and fourteen. The study found that of the women who were married the instance of sexual relations through physical force or the threat thereof was 3%.[165]
In 1994, Patricia Easteal, then Senior Criminologist at the Australian Institute of Criminology, published the results of survey on sexual assault in many settings. The respondents had all been victims of numerous forms of sexual assault. Of the victim sub-sample, 10.4% had been raped by husbands or de facto husbands, with a further 2.3% raped by estranged husbands/de factos.
In 2002 Basile published research intended to address the lack of a nationally probability sample to-date that measured intimate sexual coercion faced by married women. Data were collected in a 1997 national poll by a random telephone survey of 1,108 residents in the continental U.S. of persons 18 years old or older. The survey had a 50% response rate. Of the 1,108 respondents, the 506 men were excluded from any inquiry into unwanted sexual experiences, leaving 602 (54%) women respondents for the study. 398 (66%) women indicated no unwanted sexual relations (their marital status is not given), and 204 (34%) women responded as having engaged in unwanted sex after being subject to some level of sexual coercion; types of sexual coercion included receiving ‘a gift’, ‘ a nice dinner’, ‘a back rub’, ‘kissing’, etc. through threatened harm and physical coercion. Of this group, a sub-sample of 120 (59%) were married, of which 9% responded as having been subject to physical force.[166]
Notwithstanding the six scientific studies specifically on marital rape by husbands in the Western world cited above, not one gives an estimation of a rate of marital rape. The first study, by Giles, does attempt to calculate a rate, but acknowledges that the study was not so designed, and the result (0%) may not be valid. The next study by Russell which is often cited as the seminal study, conflates ex-husbands and those whom, though unmarried, are counted as putative husbands or de facto “husbands.” While the data would allow estimation of a marital rape rate, it is not given. Moreover, the study's design classifies 80% of non-married women as having been raped is vastly inconsistent with other studies. The Yllo and Finkelhor 1985 study is not a nationally representative sample, i.e., limited to Boston, of women who are divorced or married, and who also have a child living with them between the ages of six and fourteen. The study did not separately estimate rates for claims of rape and situations deemed rape-threatening. In the Giles study, once threatening situations are distinguished, the findings differed significantly. Easteal's study restricts estimation of prevalence to within only the sub-sample of victims, even though the estimation could similarly be applied to the population. Basile study, which purportedly was to address the hitherto lack of a nationally probability sample regarding marital rape, omits the number of married women in the sample, thereby precluding the estimation of rape reports by married women in the sample population. The lack of such estimations make inter-study comparisons difficult, and citation of national statistics subject to the qualification made in the studies.
The prevalence of marital rape is difficult to assess, especially outside the Western World. Discussing sexual matters in many cultures is taboo. One problem with studies on marital rape is that the Western concept of consent is not understood in many parts of the world. Because many societies operate on social norms which create a dual system of sexual morality—one for sexual intercourse that is marital which is seen as an obligation that cannot be refused, and extra-marital, which is seen as wrong (or illicit/illegal). Issues of consent are poorly understood, especially by young wives (which are often young girls who do not have a proper understanding of sexual rights). For instance in an interview in a study for the World Health Organization, a woman from Bangladesh who described being hit by her husband and forced to have sex said that: "I thought this is only natural. This is the way a husband behaves."[167] Research has, nevertheless, associated specific regions with a very high level of violence, including sexual violence, against women by husbands/partners. An example of such a place is Ethiopia.[168][169][170]
The prevalence of marital rape depends on the particularly legal, national, and cultural context. In 1999, the World Health Organization conducted a study on violence against women in Tajikistan, surveying 900 women above the age of 14 in three districts of the country and found that 47% of married women reported having been forced to have sex by their husband.[171] In Turkey 35.6% of women have experienced marital rape sometimes and 16.3% often.[172]
Physical and psychological damage [ edit ]
Rape by a spouse, partner or ex-partner is more often associated with physical violence. A nine-nation study within the European Union found that current or ex-partners were the perpetrators of around 25% of all sexual assaults, and that violence was more common in assaults by ex-partners (50% of the time) and partners (40%) than in assaults by strangers or recent acquaintances (25%).[173]
Attributing the effects of marital rape in research is problematic as it is nearly impossible to find a large enough sample of spouses to study who have experienced sexual violence but have not also been physically assaulted by their spouse.[174] Marital rape can spread sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, adversely affecting a victim's physical and psychological health. In sub-Saharan countries with very high prevalence rates of HIV, such as Lesotho, instances of multiple partnerships and marital rape exacerbate the spread of HIV.[175]
While rape by a stranger is highly traumatic, it is typically a one-time event and is clearly understood as rape. In the case of rape by a spouse or long term sexual partner, the history of the relationship affects the victim's reactions. There is research showing that marital rape can be more emotionally and physically damaging than rape by a stranger.[176] Marital rape may occur as part of an abusive relationship. Trauma from the rape adds to the effect of other abusive acts or abusive and demeaning talk. Furthermore, marital rape is rarely a one-time event, but a repeated if not frequent occurrence.[177] Whether it takes place once or is part of an established pattern of domestic violence, trauma from rape has serious long term consequences for victims regardless of whether the assault is prosecuted or not.
Unlike other forms of rape, where the victim can remove themselves from the company of the rapist and never interact with them again, in the case of marital rape the victim often has no choice but to continue living with their spouse: in many parts of the world divorce is very difficult to obtain and is also highly stigmatized. The researchers Finkelhor and Yllö remarked in their 1985 metropolitan Boston area study that:[178]
"When a woman is raped by a stranger, she has to live with a frightening memory. When she is raped by her husband, she has to live with the rapist".
In the context of forced and child marriage [ edit ]
Forced marriage and child marriage are prevalent in many parts of the world, especially in parts of Asia and Africa. A forced marriage is a marriage where one or both participants are married without their freely given consent;[179] while a child marriage is a marriage where one or both parties are younger than 18.[180] These types of marriages are associated with a higher rate of domestic violence, including marital rape.[180][181][182][183] These forms of marriage are most common in traditional societies which have no laws against sexual violence in marriage, and where it is also very difficult to leave a marriage. Incidents taking place in some of these countries (such as Yemen) have received international attention.[184][185] The World Health Organization states, under the rubric "Customary forms of sexual violence", (pp. 156):[186]
"Marriage is often used to legitimize a range of forms of sexual violence against women. The custom of marrying off young children, particularly girls, is found in many parts of the world. This practice – legal in many countries – is a form of sexual violence, since the children involved are unable to give or withhold their consent. The majority of them know little or nothing about sex before they are married."
One type of forced marriages occurs in Guatemala (called robadas) and Mexico (called rapto). Robadas refers to "…abductions, in which women are ‘taken’ during the period of courtship, sometimes semivoluntarily but other times by force, by a suitor who wants to start a marital relationship with them" (Menjívar, 2016). Rapto refers to "…an abduction for sexual or erotic purposes or marriage" (Bovarnik, 2007). Following the abduction, marriage is often encouraged to maintain the family honor (Bovarnik, 2007).
In these types of forced marriages, the marital union begins with the man's intense sense of control over the woman, combined with the understanding that the wife is the possession of her husband (Menjívar, 2016). This foundation of marriage had direct implications for sexual violence within the marriage. In reference to the practice of robadas, Cecilia Menjívar (2016) writes, "…unions that start out from the violent act of a robada can continue to breed violence, abuse, and mistreatment in the union." In addition, women victims of robadas often face embarrassment and blame, despite the act usually being initiated by male perpetrators (Menjívar, 2016). Women are blamed for disobeying their parents or not resisting their abductor strong enough (Menjívar, 2016). This notion of blaming the woman also occurs in reference to rapto in rural Mexico. Silvie Bovarnik (2007) writes, "In many cases, men and women alike look for the fault of responsibility in women's behavior due to traditional conceptualisations of women as ‘pillars of honour.’" Abduction and rape compromises a woman's moral integrity, and therefore her honor (Bovarnik, 2007). Many of these women, who were given little choice in their marriage, are left to live with their abusers.
Relation to other forms of marital violence [ edit ]
The historical (and present day in jurisdictions where it still applies) immunity of husbands to have sexual relations with their wives without consent was not the only marital immunity in regard to abuse; immunity from the use of violence was (and still is in some countries) common—in the form of a husband's right to use "moderate chastisement" against a 'disobedient' wife. In the US, many states, especially Southern ones, maintained this immunity until the mid-19th century. For instance, in 1824, in Calvin Bradley v. the State, the Mississippi Supreme Court uphold this right of the husband; ruling as follows:[187]
"Family broils and dissentions cannot be investigated before the tribunals of the country, without casting a shade over the character of those who are unfortunately engaged in the controversy. To screen from public reproach those who may be thus unhappily situated, let the husband be permitted to exercise the right of moderate chastisement, in cases of great emergency, and use salutary restraints in every case of misbehaviour, without being subjected to vexatious prosecutions, resulting in the mutual discredit and shame of all parties concerned."
Although by the late 19th century courts were unanimously agreeing that husbands no longer had the right to inflict "chastisement" on their wives, the public policy was set at ignoring incidents deemed not'serious enough' for legal intervention. In 1874, the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled:[188]
"We may assume that the old doctrine, that a husband had a right to whip his wife, provided he used a switch no larger than his thumb, is not law in North Carolina. Indeed, the Courts have advanced from that barbarism until they have reached the position, that the husband has no right to chastise his wife, under any circumstances.
But from motives of public policy,--in order to preserve the sanctity of the domestic circle, the Courts will not listen to trivial complaints.
If no permanent injury has been inflicted, nor malice, cruelty nor dangerous violence shown by the husband, it is better to draw the curtain, shut out the public gaze, and leave the parties to forget and forgive.
No general rule can be applied, but each case must depend upon the circumstances surrounding it."
Today, husbands continue to be immune from prosecution in case of certain forms of physical abuse against their wives in some countries. For instance, in Iraq husbands have a legal right to "punish" their wives. The criminal code states that there is no crime if an act is committed while exercising a legal right. Examples of legal rights include: "The punishment of a wife by her husband, the disciplining by parents and teachers of children under their authority within certain limits prescribed by law or by custom".[189] In 2010, the United Arab Emirates's Supreme Court ruled that a man has the right to physically discipline his wife and children as long as he does not leave physical marks.[190]
Wife-on-husband violence [ edit ]
Although most research is focused on wives as victims of marital rape, husbands experience marital rape as well. Little research exists focusing on the specific situation of non-consensual wife-to-husband sexual relations, but evidence suggests that 13%-16% of men are victims of assault by marital or cohabitating partners in their lifetime (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000). Research conducted by Morse (1995), Straus (1977-1978), and Straus and Gelles (1985) suggest that men and women have nearly the same annual rates of victimization of violence by a marital or cohabitating partner (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000). One study that looked at lifetime experiences of marital and cohabitating partner violence found nearly equal rates of victimization among men and women (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000). However, these statistics convey the larger topic of partner violence and do not reflect rates of marital rape.
Same-sex couples [ edit ]
Given that same-sex marriage is a relatively new concept, and only minimally accepted globally, little research has explored marital rape in same-sex relationships. More research must be conducted to look at these relationships within the marital context.
Sustaining factors [ edit ]
Legal [ edit ]
Legally, governments have direct impact on the occurrence of marital rape. The state "…engages in the definition, monitoring, and sanctioning of appropriate behavior" (Torres, 2016). This can play out in criminalizing or not criminalizing marital rape and therefore deeming what is appropriate. Catharine MacKinnon argues that rape laws in male dominated societies exist to regulate access to women from a male perspective, not to protect women's right to freely decide whether to engage in sexual intercourse or not. Whatever the reason behind such laws, even when state laws have criminalized marital rape, state institutions perpetuate it. For example, although marital rape has been criminalized throughout the United States, the original laws of the 1980s and 1990s treated marital rape differently from non-marital rape, and in some states this continues to be the case even today (see Marital rape (United States law)). As these laws exemplify, marital rape is seen as somehow less reprehensible than rape outside of marriage (Bergen, 2016). Even when marital rape is prosecuted successfully, courts often pass shorter sentences - even if the law itself does not stipulate this - based on the view that sexual violation is less serious if it occurs within marriage. Following this same understanding, British courts often pass lower sentences to marital rape than to other cases of rape because it is believed that it causes less harm to the victim (Mandal, 2014).
Police departments are another state institution that treats domestic violence differently than other forms of violence. Police often label domestic abuse calls as low priority, respond slower, and focus on what provoked the abuse rather than the violent actions of the perpetrator (Schelong, 1994). Also, they often act as mediators in the situation because they may feel that domestic violence is a family matter and therefore not their business (Schelong, 1994).
While government institutional influences are vast, marital rape is often sustained by cultural ideologies. According to Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, the issue of sexual violence, including within marriage, has not been a political spectrum issue - that is a left wing vs. right wing issue - but a general ubiquitous part of the culture, "The Left and the Right have consistently had different positions on rape; but neither has acknowledged rape from the point of view of the women who experienced it.[191]
Culturally unrecognizable [ edit ]
For many cultures, ideas of marital rape seem often foreign imposed and contradict the belief that such matters should be dealt with privately rather than by the government (Smith, 2016). In other instances, notably in the country of India, members of the government have spoken publicly that marital rape cannot be recognized in their culture. The Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs, Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary, stated in April 2015, "The concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors, including levels of education, illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, [and] the mindset of the society to treat the marriage as sacrament" (Torres, 2016). For many other countries, the concept of marital rape is itself an oxymoron (Smith, 2016). Women in these cultures largely "…share the cultural logic that marital rape is a contradiction in terms…" while men simultaneously "…see women's sexual consent in marriage as taken for granted…" and therefore "…reject the very concept of marital rape" (Smith, 2016).
The act of imposing sexual intercourse against the will of the wife is often not identified as morally wrong, and so it is difficult to attempt to stop the practice, "Often, men who coerce a spouse into a sexual act believe their actions are legitimate because they are married to the woman." (WHO, pp. 149).[186] This idea that sexual intercourse in marriage is 'legitimate' and so it cannot be illegal even when forced, is in some parts of the world fueled by the custom of bride price: its paying is seen as earning the man the right to sexual and reproductive control of his wife. UN Women recommended the abolition of giving bride price, and stated that: "Legislation should [...] State that a perpetrator of domestic violence, including marital rape, cannot use the fact that he paid bride price as a defense to a domestic violence charge. (pp. 25) "[192]
Young women from various settings in South Asia explained in surveys that even if they felt discomfort and didn't want to have sex, they accepted their husbands' wishes and submitted, fearing that otherwise they would be beaten.[193] In many developing countries it is believed—by both men and women—that a husband is entitled to sex any time he demands it, and that if his wife refuses him, he has the right to use force.[193] These women, most of them either illiterate or very poorly educated, are married at very young ages (in Bangladesh, for example, according to statistics from 2005, 45% of women then aged between 25–29 had been married by the age of 15[194]), and depend on their husbands for their entire life. This situation leaves women with very little sexual autonomy. The notion that women are sexually autonomous and therefore have the ability to give or retract consent is not universally understood. Gabriella Torres writes, "The degree to which women and men view themselves as unique social beings with a full ability to make choices and suffer consequences varies by culture" (Torres, 2016). As a result, in cultures where women are not considered autonomous, they are not in a position to refuse sex: they have to choose between unwanted sex and being subjected to violence; or between unwanted sex and being abandoned by their husbands and ending up living in abject poverty.
According to Sheila Jeffreys, in Western countries, "sexual liberation" ideologies have aggravated the problem of male sexual entitlement, leading to women submitting to unwanted sex not only due to physical force or illegal threat, but due to societal pressure: "The force which has operated on them [women] all their lives and continues to operate on them within marriages and relationships remains largely invisible. [...] Such forces include the massive industry of sexology, sex therapy, sex advice literature, all of which make women feel guilty and inadequate for any unwillingness to fulfill a man's sexual desires."[195]
The prohibition of rape serves other purposes, such as protection of the rights of male relatives or husband, enforcing of religious laws against sex outside of marriage, or preservation of a woman's respect and reputation in society. Under such ideologies it is difficult to accept the concept of marital rape. Richard A. Posner writes that, "Traditionally, rape was the offense of depriving a father or husband of a valuable asset — his wife's chastity or his daughter's virginity".[196] In many countries of the world, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, the severity of the legal punishment for rape depends on whether the victim was a virgin.[197][198] Rhonda Copleon writes that, "Where rape is treated as a crime against honor, the honor of women is called into question and virginity or chastity is often a precondition."
The way marriages are arranged [ edit ]
In many cultures, marriages are still arranged for the purpose of procreation, property, and consolidation of extended family relations, often including a bride price or a dowry. In such situations, marriages are pre-arranged as an affair between families and clans. In some cultures, refusal of an arranged marriage is often a cause of an honor killing, because the family which has prearranged the marriage risks disgrace if the marriage does not proceed.[199][200][201] Since consent to marriage is irrelevant, it follows that consent to marital sex is also irrelevant. Similarly, a woman attempting to obtain a divorce or separation without the consent of the husband/extended family can also be a trigger for honor killings. In cultures where marriages are arranged and goods are often exchanged between families, a woman's desire to seek a divorce is often viewed as an insult to the men who negotiated the deal.[202][203]
However, the fact that people in developing countries are increasingly selecting marriage partners by whether they are in love – a much more Western world view – does not necessarily improve the situation. These types of marriages, especially in southeastern Nigeria, are putting women in more difficult positions: if one chooses to marry based on love against their family's wishes, admitting violence in the relationship is a disgrace because it means admitting that one made the wrong judgement (Smith, 2016).
Religion [ edit ]
Most of the Western World has been strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian Bible. The paradisaical narrative of man and woman in Genesis establishes a foundation of marriage:
“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.[204]
This doctrine is repeated in the Gospel by Jesus, but with the added conclusion “so then they are no longer two, but one flesh".[205] The same doctrine is continued in the Epistles in the writings of the Apostle Paul.[206]
It is further explicated by the Apostle Paul, writing,
“The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again.[207]
On the standing of each party to determine how this biblical principle—denial of conjugal relations—was to be effected was codified as an ecclesiastical canon in 280 A.D. by St. Dionysian of Alexandria: "Persons who are self-sufficient and married ought to be judges of themselves." [208][209] The canon was given ecumenical application by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 691 A.D.[210] Ecclesiastical canons continued to adjudicate marital issues well into the modern era until all but entirely superseded by the civil courts.
The Christian religion teaches that pre-marital sex is fornication, and sexual relations by a married person with someone other than his or her spouse is adultery, both of which are sins, while sex within marriage is a duty. This concept of 'conjugal sexual rights' has the purpose to prevent sin (in the form of adultery and temptation) as well as to enable procreation.
The above is interpreted by some religious figures as to render marital rape an impossibility.[211][212] However, not all religious figures hold this view.[213]
Further, Pentecostal Christianity prescribes gender expectations for married individuals that "…reestablish a patriarchal bargain…" in which "…women acquiesce to men's authority in return for certain kinds of support" (Smith, 2016). Husbands are expected to provide for the family, and in return, wives are to submit to their husband's authority (Smith, 2016). Ultimately, this "…strengthens some of the gender dynamics that make intimate partner violence possible in the first place" (Smith, 2016).
By contrast, Pope Paul VI in his 1968 encyclical letter Humanae vitae wrote that "Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one's partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife."[214] This teaching, which has been reaffirmed more recently by Pope Francis,[215] and has been interpreted by Bertrand de Margerie to condemn "intra-marital rape", and the use of force in marriage more generally.[216]
Other religions [ edit ]
In other areas around the world, religion is intertwined with the state and directs how people are governed. In Pakistan, there is legal pluralism where the state's legal system intertwines secular and religious law of Islam (Bovarnik, 2007). The result is Shari’a law which represents the religious aspects of the Pakistani legal system. This religious aspect of Pakistani law has many implications for marital rape. For example, Shari’a law requires a female rape victim to provide four Muslim adult male witnesses on her behalf (Bovarnik, 2007). Silvie Bovarnik (2007) argues that "This law hence scrutinizes women's sexual behaviour by criminalising sex outside and decriminalising rape within the context of marriage, while failing to protect women from sexual violence in both contexts." In other words, there seems to be a preoccupation with a woman's sexual misconduct and a simultaneous lack of protection for victims of rape within their own marriage (Bovarnik, 2007). Religious ideologies emphasize a woman's honor, specifically, her virginity (Bovarnik, 2007). In general, "…women are traditionally conceptualized as the property of and a symbol of honour for her own family and later that of her husband." (Bovoarnik, 2007). In addition, Islamic norms have traditionally placed restrictions on women's behavior (Bovarnik, 2007). Women are to stay at home, please the men in one's family, raise the children, and to not become involved with the world outside the home (Bovarnik, 2007). As a result, having no connection with the world outside one's family may isolate women victims of marital rape.
Unlike Pakistan, the country of Sudan is ruled by Islamic law; there is no legal pluralism (Tonnesson, 2014). In Sudanese Islamic law, there is an understood exchange in marriage: A man is responsible for providing adequate support (food, shelter, etc.) and in return the woman is supposed to be obedient to her husband (Tonnesson, 2014). This follows the notion of qawama which states that male guardianship is ultimate and therefore a women's role is to obey her male guardianship (Tonnesson, 2014). In reference to marital rape, religious law in Sudan has implications for divorce. Under Sudanese Islamic law, disobedience from a wife is grounds for divorce, but a husband raping his wife is not (Tonnesson, 2014). Due to this understanding of a contractual exchange between husband and wife, forcing a wife to have sex without her consent is not considered rape (Tonnesson, 2014). However, activists with opposing views argue that consent is central to Islam (Tonnesson, 2014). Abdel Halim (2011) argues that without consent, "…a sexual act loses its legitimacy" (Tonnesson, 2014).
In India, classical Hindu law defines the state's understanding of marriage. Therefore, marriage is "not viewed as a contract but as a sacrament" (Mandal, 2014). This understanding is the basis for the lack of criminalization of marital rape. India's religious context defines marriages as "divinely ordained" and therefore the "…rights and obligations of spouses in conjugal relations [are] beyond the scope of regulation by criminal law" (Mandal, 2014). In other words, criminal law cannot touch that which is deemed sacred under the Hindu religion. As a result, marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, and other family practices are governed by religious law of each community (Mandal, 2014). However, this statement is controversial because legally marriage any person who is a Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or Sikh by religion is governed by The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 in India, which has provisions to prohibit possession of multiple wives, and has a provision of divorce similar to other western marriage laws. These both provisions was not existing in classical Sanskrit law. This law faced religious opposition but yet implemented the government at that time. The law is now widely acceptable, and implemented in present Indian society. Therefore, stating "In India, classical Hindu Law defines the states understanding of marriage" can be a misleading statement.
Gender expectations [ edit ]
Another sustaining factor is the obligatory roles placed on wives and what they come to understand as their "duty". For example, "Vietnamese women are expected to sacrifice for their families, especially for their children, which includes, for some, acceding to husbands’ sexual demands" (Kwiatkowski, 2016). Their "duty" is to maintain family harmony and happiness (Kwiatkowski, 2016). In Guatemala, violence within marriage is so normalized that wives come to believe that this is ‘the way things are’ and it is simply their role as a wife to endure the violence (Menjívar, 2016). This "…normalization of violence…rests on a continuum of coercive power that makes possible the mistreatment of women not only in their homes but also in the community, neighborhood, and society at large" (Menjívar, 2016). Further, because many of these women believe giving sex is their duty, they do not characterize their experience as marital rape (Bergen, 2016). However, "…women who have experienced forced sex in marriage understand this experience as an abuse or violation", they just may not characterize it as marital rape (Torres, 2016). Violence is so entrenched in many cultures it simply becomes a way of life, and wives are left to believe they must learn to endure it (Menjívar, 2016).
On the other hand, husbands are influenced by the expectations of their masculinity. In Africa, these expectations include being a husband, father, and head of the household which requires men to provide food, shelter and protection (Smith, 2016). Along with this "…obligation of being the provider comes the privilege and authority of patriarchy" (Smith, 2016). As a result, it is often the man's perception that his wife has challenged his authority that leads to the violence (Smith, 2016).
In the United States, masculinity is understood as a fixed entity that exists despite the changes of everyday life (Connell, 45). It is understood as being in comparison to femininity, and more specifically, in opposition to femininity: Masculinity is to superiority as femininity is to subservience (Connell). Therefore, masculinity is correlated with aggression in such a way that scholars argue violence is a way for men to show their masculine identity (Umberson et al., 2003). Another expectation of masculinity is that men are not to show their emotion (Umberson et al., 2003). Instead, as Robert Connell argues, the "masculine prototype" is a strong and stoic man who appears to remain in control of the situation and his emotions (Umberson et al., 2003). This sense of control in Western masculinity has direct implications for domestic violence. Scholars argue that some men use violence to regain this sense of control when it is lost (Umberson et al., 2003).
However, not all men who subscribe to masculinity expectations are violent. In fact, most men, in general, are not violent (Umberson et al., 2003). For those who are violent, ideals of masculinity seem to play some causal role in their violence. Research shows that "violence is more likely among |
ic, Dejan Lovren and Kevin Stewart.
As well as Kavlan, Klopp gave starts to fellow recent arrivals Sadio Mane and Loris Karius in a match which was watched by more than 53,000 in California.
The closest his team came to a goal was in the 35th minute, when Roberto Firmino’s effort was ruled out for offside.Details Created: Thursday, 02 November 2017 16:34 Written by Nicki Jameson
Birmingham prison, December 2016: prisoner protected then and again in August 2017
On 26 August prisoners at Haverigg in Cumbria staged an angry protest as the prison joined the increasingly long list of those introducing a ban on tobacco. A further upheaval occurred the following week at Birmingham prison. Such disturbances are now routine within a prison system that has always been punitive and austere, and which is once again at a tipping point as both numbers and violence continue to increase. The prison population has doubled since 1980. According to the National Audit Office, there is no consistent correlation between prison numbers and levels of crime. Nicki Jameson reports.
Overcrowded and dangerous
On 7 September the House of Lords debated prison overcrowding, highlighting how ‘The percentage of our population serving prison sentences is almost twice that in Germany, let alone Scandinavia, and very substantially higher than in most of the developed world’.
There are 116 prisons in England and Wales; as of 30 June 2017, they held 85,863 men and women, with 282 children detained in ‘secure training centres’ or secure children’s homes. In Scotland, which has a separate criminal justice system, 7,453 men, women and children were in custody at the same date, while a further 340 were serving the final part of their sentences at home subject to electronic tagging. Out of every 100,000 people, 182 in England and Wales and 170 in Scotland are in prison.
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) measures overcrowding by counting the number of prisoners held in cells in which the number of occupants exceeds the ‘uncrowded capacity’. For example, two prisoners in a cell designed for one person, or three in a cell designed for two, are each said to be living in ‘crowded’ conditions. Using this measure, a quarter of prisoners in England and Wales are in ‘crowded conditions’, a figure which has remained stable since 2003 irrespective of changes in overall prison numbers.
Overcrowding is also assessed by comparing a prison’s ‘certified normal accommodation’ (CNA) to its actual population. As of 30 June 2017, the population of 75 out of 116 prisons (65%) exceeded their CNA.
In practice – as has been the case for over 30 years – overcrowding is concentrated within certain types of prison. High security prisons, in which all the cells are built for one and are never shared, are never full beyond capacity. At the other end of the spectrum, low security open prisons are not overcrowded. It is ‘local’ and so-called ‘training’ prisons, housing Category B and C prisoners on remand or serving short to medium length sentences, which remain overcrowded, insanitary and volatile. Other than the introduction of integral sanitation so prisoners no longer have to ‘slop out’, little has changed since the early 1990s when similar conditions, together with the vicious behaviour of prison staff, led prisoners at Strangeways and other inner-city gaols to stage the biggest wave of protests the British prison system has ever seen.
Overcrowded prisons are dangerous and deadly: in the year to March 2017, 344 people died in prison in England and Wales – the highest number on record. A third of these deaths were self-inflicted. Self harm is at the highest ever recorded level.
Although the Lords’ debate was dominated by well-meaning liberal peers who see a clear link between prison overcrowding and a broken society which sends too many people to prison, the government spokesperson Baroness Vere made it apparent that reducing numbers is far lower on the political agenda than creating yet more prison places. Her only boast in relation to reducing numbers was ‘our focus on deporting foreign national offenders. Last year we deported 6,171 – a record number.’
‘Reshaping the prison system’
In November 2016, against a backdrop of dramatic headlines about a prison system in crisis, the MOJ published the White Paper, Prison Safety and Reform. The White Paper, which set out the Conservative government’s plans for reshaping the prison system, was the brainchild of previous Justice Secretary Michael Gove. It promised: ‘the most far-reaching reform of our prisons in a generation and a key part of the government’s social reform programme – creating a society that works for everyone’ and to spend £1.3bn on building up to 10,000 new adult prison places.
The White Paper was followed in February 2017 by the Prisons and Courts Bill, which was then kicked into the parliamentary long grass after Theresa May called her snap general election. While reformers lamented that the government had ditched its ‘reform agenda’, and prisons such as Wandsworth, which had piloted the Bill’s devolved power arrangements for prison governors, became even more chaotic than before the experiment, the government announced that it was all fine as the plan to build more prisons would still go ahead. On 22 March Justice Secretary Elizabeth Truss announced plans for four new prisons, providing places for 5,000 prisoners, with another 2,000 places having recently been created at newly opened HMP Berwyn in north Wales. She also confirmed further expansion at two other sites, Glen Parva and Wellingborough, which had been named in an earlier announcement in 2016.
Three of the planned new mega-prisons are next to or will replace existing prisons at Full Sutton, Hindley and Rochester, with the addition of a new site in Port Talbot in Wales. The new Full Sutton prison, which will house 1,000 Category C male prisoners on a site next to the existing high security prison, was granted planning permission in May. The MOJ’s planning application is being handled by property company GVA, which also advertises ‘Holloway prison coming to market – expressions of interest sought for this unique development opportunity’ on its website.
While overall all this new prison building will undoubtedly increase the already excessively high prison population, the government continues to be keen to close further old prisons and make money from the prime land they occupy.
Long sentences – Labour government legacy
As the Lords noted, ‘in England and Wales, more people are sentenced to an indeterminate term than in all the other 46 countries of the Council of Europe combined.’
Both the invidious Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP) and the longer and longer minimum terms handed out to life sentence prisoners are a direct result of changes to the sentencing framework brought in by means of the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, which was brought in by David Blunkett, one of a succession of vicious Home Secretaries under the Blair government.
An IPP consists of a usually relatively short minimum custodial period, following which the prisoner can be released if they persuade a panel of the Parole Board that they have sufficiently ‘reduced their risk of harm’. Multiple obstacles prevent this happening and prisoners are routinely held for years beyond their minimum tariff. Despite the IPP having been abolished in 2012, all those already sentenced continue to be subject to the scheme, with around 3,300 prisoners yet to be released, many having served years beyond their minimum term, and those who have been still liable to be recalled to prison if they breach the terms of their licence.
Sustained campaigning by prisoners’ families and supporters, together with a general consensus around the injustice of the IPP sentence, has finally compelled the Parole Board to speed up consideration of these cases and release some of those who would otherwise have remained inside indefinitely. Following a hearing on 4 September, the Parole Board directed the release of James Ward, who received an IPP in 2006 with a minimum period of 10 months. James, who has self-harmed and attempted suicide during his 11-year ordeal, was given the indeterminate sentence after he set fire to his bed in prison, while already serving a sentence for assault.
Short sentences – Conservative government chaos
While such lengthy sentencing with no certainty of release is clearly the system’s most glaring injustice, the revolving door effect of repeated short sentences, recalls and re-release, only to recall again for the next supposed transgression, also takes its toll on the mental health of those concerned and plays its part in racheting up the numbers in the most overcrowded parts of the prison system.
The only bit of the previous sentencing framework under the 1991 Criminal Justice Act which the Labour government left alone was the part which dealt with sentences of less than 12 months. These were administered in a simple fashion in that, unless granted an earlier tagging date, prisoners were released at the halfway point. There was no ‘licence’ associated with release and consequently no possibility of being taken back into custody for minor misdemeanours that did not amount to a crime.
As the start of the Coalition government in 2010, then Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke favoured abolishing such short sentences altogether, but the government backed away from doing so, in the face of opposition both from its own right wing and from Labour Party spokespeople such as Hazel Blears and Sadiq Khan.
The current government has now created a further nightmare out of short prison sentences. Since February 2015, under the guise of the ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ agenda, which has seen the privatisation of large swathes of probation work, anyone leaving custody in England and Wales, who has served two days or more in prison is subject to at least 12 months of ‘community supervision’. (Scotland has not implemented such measures and is moving towards less use of short sentences.)
As a result, the number of people recalled to custody following release, for breaching the terms of this supervision, has increased by nearly 1,000. Nearly 8,000 people serving less than 12 months were sent back to prison in the year to December 2016. At the end of March 2017, 6,554 people were in prison on recall.
Going up in smoke
Not content with presiding over an overcrowded, volatile prison system the government is setting about making levels of stress, bullying and racketeering reach new heights by banning smoking. The majority of Category C prisons are now officially ‘smoke free’ and the MOJ plans to have the ban in place in all closed prisons by summer 2018.
‘Smoke free’ does not of course mean that no one is smoking or that there is no tobacco, any more than a ‘drug free’ prison wing really means there are no drugs. But the possession of a highly addictive substance which is perfectly legal outside prison has now become an offence inside. So, while the black market tobacco price rockets and prisoners roll up nicotine patches issued by health care to smoke, levels of stress mount. According to press reports, prisoners at the recent Haverigg and Birmingham disturbances could be heard chanting ‘We want burn [tobacco]’. They will almost certainly not be the last prisoners to be pushed to the edge in this way.
Statistical information in this article was drawn from Prison: the facts Summer 2017, produced by the Prison Reform Trust www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Publications/Factfile
Criminal justice system – racist to the core
Over a quarter (26%) of the prison population of England and Wales, 22,432 people, are from a minority ethnic group, compared to 14% of the general population. 11% of British prisoners are black and 7% Asian.
On 8 September the government published the report of the review by Labour MP David Lammy into the ‘treatment of and outcomes for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system’. Lammy found a clear, direct link between ethnicity and the likelihood of receiving a custodial sentence, with black people 53%, Asian 55% and other ethnic groups 81% more likely to be sent to prison for an indictable offence.
The number of mixed ethnicity prisoners has nearly doubled since 2004 and there are nearly 80% more Asian prisoners – during the same period the number of white prisoners increased by 22%. Black men are 26% more likely than white men to be remanded in custody.
The number of Muslim prisoners more than doubled between 2002 and 2016, from 5,502 to 12,663. Muslims now account for 15% of the prison population.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 260 October/November 2017CEDAR RAPIDS — City leaders are stepping back from plans for a massive and expensive overpass at Collins Road NE near Lindale Mall, shifting gears to cheaper and less cumbersome improvements for pedestrians and aesthetics near one of the city’s busiest commercial areas.
As recently as October, Cedar Rapids targeted early this year to begin expanding Collins Road to six lanes from Northland Avenue to Twixt Town Road and to raise it 14 feet over a lowered Lindale Drive NE.
But with soaring costs and timelines, the project is off the books. The city is seeking community input to guide a new path forward, which still will include widening Collins.
“We wanted to step back to see if there were other improvements we could do that would cost less, be less intrusive to the traveling public and still provide opportunities for pedestrian improvements and streetscaping improvements,” said city spokeswoman Emily Muhlbach.
The city still is committed to the same goals of reducing congestion, moving traffic efficiently and increasing walkability and bikeability, Muhlbach said.
The city is hosting a meeting to take public feedback on ways to improve Collins between Northland and Twixt Town. The meeting is from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Kirkwood Training and Outreach Center, 3375 Armar Drive in Marion. It will be an open house where people can come and go.
Muhlbach said the city is particularly looking for input on what aesthetics are preferred, possible stormwater infiltration upgrades and pedestrian connectivity.
The area is a heavily traveled commuter route packed with destinations, including retailers, movies and restaurants. “Our interest is in how people can access all of that,” Muhlbach said.
At least one business owner is glad to see a new course.
“The thought of a pedestrian underpass is a complete waste of money,” said Bruce Taylor, owner of Collins Road Theater. “No one would walk that far.”
The overpass had its roots in a 1997 study, which city leaders say no longer meshes with a pedestrian-focused vision.
In recent years, the city was working with consultants Anderson-Bogert Engineers and Surveyors and HR Green to design the now-shelved plan, which included 8-foot-wide paths and more pedestrian-friendly connections between the Lindale, Collins Crossing and Collins Road Square shopping centers.
City staff had presented an overview of the plan to a supportive City Council Infrastructure Committee in October, with some calling it “critical.” But by Jan. 7, the city had changed course, according to City Engineer Nate Kampman.
The city asked the Iowa Department of Transportation, which is involved in the project, to remove it from the budget and from its February contract lettings.
“The estimated construction costs kept rising, the long-term maintenance costs of the bridges kept rising, the long-term budgeting kept rising,” Kampman said. “The feeling I had gotten was the schedule had gotten much longer. All of those things combined prompted us to take a step back and look at the project as a whole.”
The project was estimated to cost $12.5 million for construction, including incidentals, and $15.4 million in all when considering design, engineering, property acquisition and other needs, according to city documents and Kampman. Federal and state grants would have covered most costs, with the city covering about $3 million.
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The city still plans to widen Collins from east of Northland to Twixt Town, Kampman said. It is part of a long-range plan to widen Collins Road NE from just east of First Avenue E to west of Council Street NE and to the ramps at Center Point Road NE.
Kampman said the city is negotiating with Anderson-Bogert and HR Green to redesign the project with a focus on aesthetics and pedestrian access. A “very preliminary” cost estimate is $7.5 to $8.5 million.
While the removal of the overpass means Cedar Rapids has to return a $1.5 million grant, federal and state aid remains available, Kampman said. A timetable estimate envisions relocating utilities in 2017 and beginning construction in 2018 or 2019, lasting one or two years.
“I totally agree with (stepping back) because the impact — a project of this magnitude with bridges and Collins Road torn up for three years would be hard on businesses and people,” Scott Olson, a City Council member said in March upon hearing the new direction.
He noted a lengthy intersection project in the area had previously led several businesses to close.Nobody seems to know precisely what Donald Trump has said or wants in the way of compulsory registration of “Muslims” in the United States. This is what he said last year. This is where he is on the issue now. (Fixed a link that previously went to the wrong place. For an update, see below.*)
It’s all mud, and it’s all insane. It doesn’t much matter whether he intends to put all Muslim refugees on the list, or all committed Muslims on the list, or or all nominal or committed Muslims on the list, or everyone on the list who could be Muslim, or everyone who looks like a Muslim, or everyone who looks like he could be a Muslim, or everyone who was born a Muslim, or was born and raised a Muslim, or looks like he could have been born a Muslim, or is currently a declared atheist but could legitimately be suspected of undue nostalgia for having once been a Muslim…etc. The list can be extended ad nauseum. The problem is, it might well be extended ad nauseum. Trump’s explanations are incoherent and meaningless enough to require registration by anyone somehow problematically “linked” to Islam (to use a favorite piece of jargon), no matter what they actually believe. In other words, what we have on our hands is an incipient witch hunt.
No legitimate law enforcement purpose is served by the demand to disclose one’s religious belief, absent a prior showing of either reasonable suspicion or probable cause in cases where belief in Islam is relevant to the elements of the suspected crime. No procedure short of torture or the threat of punishment can produce an accurate answer in cases where the person questioned decides to dissimulate, which could in principle be most cases. The policy has to be implemented by force–and it’s worth remembering that, as Locke puts it, political power means the power to inflict death (Second Treatise, sect. 3). Already in this country we’ve seen notable cases of people being killed for their failure to comply fully with police orders (this is an understatement). It is not implausible to think that if Trump’s policy is somehow given the force of law, people could be shot dead for refusing to comply with it. And incarceration and fines are a given in cases of a failure to comply. Speaking of fines, I should add that in 2011, I predicted that the hijab law in France would be implemented by armed force (pp. 179-181), and that’s not only what happened, but understates what was to happen.
So far, no one in favor of the proposal has defined the relevant criteria for someone’s being a Muslim. On orthodox criteria–belief in God plus belief in the prophecy of Muhammad–the declaration has little or no political significance. Whatever you think is logically entailed by a commitment to belief in God plus the prophecy of Muhammad, as an actual matter, the vast majority of Americans Muslims do not think it requires illegality or violence. The self-proclaimed “experts” who are asserting otherwise have no fucking idea what they’re talking about, and lack even a minimal interest in respecting the rights of Muslims in this country. The credibility being granted such claims is on par with the credibility so easily granted to the 9/11 celebration rumors. The current proposal operates at the same hysterical level as those rumors, and cashes in on the same underlying deception–that Muslims are bloodthirsty savages theologically commanded to subvert the U.S. government, that we the American people are at war with them, and that we ought to treat them, en masse, as a hostile enemy in our midst, and do with them as we please. (And then, of course, there’s stupid shit like this and this.)
I’m not a constitutional lawyer (or a lawyer), but I think it’s clear that as applied to American citizens, the proposal is unconstitutional on its face: it violates the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. First: It would be a law (or policy or regulation) directly concerning an establishment of religion. Fourth: It illegitimately treats religious affiliation as a predicate for search and/or seizure. Fifth: It violates the right against self-incrimination (in a context where “being a Muslim” is being regarded as incriminatory). Ninth: Unenumerated rights are reserved to the people, and if there is one right we absolutely have, it is the right to keep our counsel about metaphysical beliefs the sheer possession of which is never a crime. Whatever you think about its truth or falsity, rationality or irrationality, it simply is not a crime to believe in God and the prophecy of Muhammad (or the inerrancy of the Qur’an, or any of the rest of Islam, etc.). If so, you cannot legitimately be compelled by anyone to answer for having the relevant beliefs. Notice that the rights implicit in the Ninth Amendment are held not just held by citizens, but by the people.
I wrote the following post on Facebook. Maybe it sounds over-heated to some, but I didn’t write it in haste or heat. I wrote it with all due deliberation. I posted it because I mean it. And if you think I’m jumping the gun, so to speak, because we haven’t yet gotten a clear declaration that he’s coming after the likes of me, my response is: don’t hold your breath for one of those. (He pulled the same stunt on his so-called Muslim ban.) Because when the time it comes, it’ll be too late. The time to oppose this, on the maximalist interpretation of what he could mean, is now. I’ll cut Trump and his supporters some interpretive charity when they manage to be clear enough to have earned it. And not a minute before.
*The latest, from Vox, as of late on November 16, 2016. From NBC.
A bit of background: I have a Muslim name and had a Muslim upbringing. The first thing you see when you walk into my office is a plaque with a brass inscription of a verse from the Qur’an (Ayat ul Qursi). At face value, I seem as Muslim as the next Muslim. And who knows what’s going on in my head? Even the people who know me best don’t know that. Suppose the government wants to know whether I really am a “Muslim,” and if I am, wants me to register on its Official List of Muslims. Suppose that I absolutely refuse to answer the first question, and therefore absolutely refuse to register for the list. Now what? “Oh, but let’s be positive and heal, and work with our president elect in the name of national unity.” I have a better idea. Why don’t those of you who voted for Trump take some responsibility for your vote? And why don’t those of you who don’t have to register but want to engage in accommodationist baby talk do the same? If you want me on a list, say so. If you don’t, tell your Fuhrer to dial it back. But if you’re going to put me on a list, don’t get “uncomfortable” if I get confrontational with you in person when I see you. Now is not the time for me to give much of a shit about your comfort. Now is the time for me to show you that I’m a lot more confrontational than you ever realized–a lot more of an asshole, and a lot more willing to “lose friends over politics” than you could possibly have imagined. What you need to realize is that I’m not just willing to “lose friends over politics.” If a friend of mine showed up at my door armed, with an order for me to divulge the contents of my conscience and put me on a registry, I wouldn’t just de-friend them. I’d kill them if I could get away with it. Because friends of this sort are indistinguishable from enemies. Friendship without justice is not friendship at all. It’s an extended exercise in simultaneous self-deception.. What did you think was going to happen when someone decided to put me on a list like this? Was I supposed to remember all the J.D Vance hillbilly sob stories I’d heard? Was I supposed to call to mind the fears, opioid addictions, chronic unemployment, and military service of the heartland of this great country, and just let it go? Was I supposed to break down in guilt, sigh, sign the register, and tell myself, “But people are afraid…”? Or was I supposed to focus on the fact that my rights, my liberty, and my life were at stake, and act accordingly? But hey…though you may have voted for Trump, there’s no need to demonize you, right? I mean, you’re a veteran, you’re a cop, you’re an IT worker, you work for the postal service, you’re an opioid addict, you’re a nice guy, you’re up for a beer, you love the Giants, you have a dog, you’re the father of daughters, you lost your job to the Mexicans and it’s been rough since then, you’re my neighbor and my pal, etc. …Guess what? I don’t fucking care. You’re my enemy now. And I’m going to treat you as one. You think you can make ad hoc excuses for me because I’m one of the “good Muslims” or a “purely nominal Muslim” and the registry is only for the “bad guys”? Problem is, that’s not how Trump is selling it–not that the “only for the bad guys” idea made any sense in the first place. Too bad it didn’t occur to you to figure out how to operationalize any of the relevant variables. Too bad it didn’t occur to you that you’re not permitted to operationalize variables like that in the law at all. And if you don’t understand the preceding few sentences because you lack the education to understand them–unfortunately for you, that’s not my problem. You’re my problem. And from now on, expect to be dealt with that way. You can’t expect civility when you’ve got a gun to my head. What gun? Well, if I refuse to comply with a demand to register, will I be arrested? If I resist arrest, will I be forced to submit? If I resist the latter coercion in a violent but self-defensive way, will I be shot? Not too many nice options here. And believe it or not, “patriotic” horseshit about “healing” and “accommodation” and “non-partisanship” doesn’t generate any nicer ones. You may never have had to deal with these questions in the little bubble you inhabit. But I’m facing them now. I’d like to hear about this from people in law enforcement–presumably federal law enforcement, or from members of any local agencies who might be deputized to carry out federal functions of this sort. Are you willing to enforce a policy of this kind, or if it comes down to it, will you refuse to enforce it on grounds of unconstitutionality? You swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. What does that oath say or imply about this? Relatedly: It would be nice to hear our sitting president and sitting FBI director ask our president-elect pointblank what he’s talking about. We need more specificity from Trump than his transparent attempt to evade the issue. We spent a lot of time, effort, and money investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails and her responsibility for events in Benghazi–and came up with nothing. How about investigating this? This is the world that Trump’s supporters have brought us. But they want our respect, and get so very angry when we criticize their lack of intelligence, their lack of integrity, their dishonesty, and their tendency to treat minorities as the collateral damage of their fascist policies. I guess all I can say to Trump’s supporters, sympathizers, and excuse-makers is: feel free to cry me a river over your grievances. And feel free to drown yourselves in it, too. But whatever you do, don’t expect compliance. You won’t get it, until you put a gun to my head and threaten to pull the trigger. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, if we do. I don’t agree with the tactic of having everyone register for this registry. That just confuses the issue. There is only one legitimate response: categorical refusal. You want to make me register? Come get me. But come armed. Because you’re “absolutely” going to need it.Baal teshuvas think that because they’re new to the world of yiddishkeit that their words dont’ matter. Or they’re afraid that they’ll say something wrong, something that will turn people away from Judaism or condemn their family so their kids will get a horrible education.
Baal teshuvas are so afraid, so afraid to mess up because they are aware of how fallible they are. They’re aware of how imperfect they are.
And so all those worries, any worries they have about failing, are magnified a hundred times because to fail just on your own is bad enough, but when you fail G-d, fail Judaism, fail your fellow Jew, well, that’s just too much.
And so you, you baal teshuvas who have so much passion, are quiet. You work on your stuff, thinking it needs to be perfected over and over and over until there’s no hint of anything ungodly or controversial or inappropriate. You polish it down until it’s sparkling.
But here’s the thing. When something is polished too much, it loses the rawness that made it beautiful in the first place. The shine replaces the content. The perfection hides the truth.
And, in the end, you either recognize that, and hide the work away, hidden, never to see the light of day, or you put it out there, and you wonder why no one likes it.
Listen to me: it’s time to accept what it means to create something special. To create something real.
Creating truth means accepting that you will fail. Creating something beautiful means accepting that it won’t be perfect.
I remember my wife and I went to speak to this incredible artist she had met in Israel. She wanted advice on how to become a “real” artist.
This artist, Dan Groover, has sold his work all over the world, and is know for the incredible graffiti art he did in Paris. His art is gorgeous and people pay him for it. But it wasn’t always like that.
He said to her, “The best advice I can give to you is to just make stuff and sell it as quickly and cheaply as possible. Just get rid of it so that you’ll be forced to continue creating.”
When this artist started off, he graffitied his way through Paris for no money, just because he wanted to. He was in touch with an essential truth: that you can only succeed if you do. If you keep going. Whether you’re failing or succeeding.
And baal teshuvas need to accept that their work will probably never be completely G-dly, never 100% perfect.
But the only way they’ll get closer to that ideal is if they do. If they create, over and over and over, and get rid of it as soon as possible. Before it’s polished. Before it’s perfect.
My G-d, we have so much beautiful potential, us baal teshuvas. We have the benefits of wordly skills combined with insights into the world few have without experience. And we know Judaism is true.
All we need to do is tap into that potential. And then fail at it. Never reach it. But always rising, always growing, always learning and improving.
Sure, some people will criticize us when we fail at being perfectly G-dly. Or when our creations aren’t that good. And sure, lots of people won’t get it at first. And sure, the stuff we put out there might even hurt people.
But damnit, that’s the way the world works. It’s the only way anything was ever made. By taking risks.
I’m ready to make an idiot of myself. I’m ready to fail miserably. Who wants to join me?
Other posts about art on Pop Chassid:
What Is A Jewish Artist?
Calling All Creators
Free The Jewish Artist!Michelle Omoruyi, a Canadian resident, arrested as part of investigation into smugglers allegedly facilitating illegal crossings of foreign nationals from US
Police in Canada have charged a woman with human smuggling after intercepting nine asylum seekers from west Africa who crossed irregularly into the country from the US.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Wednesday that a 43-year-old woman had been arrested days earlier after she was found driving nine people in an isolated area north of the Canada-US border.
US immigrants make sub-zero trek for slim chance at asylum in Canada Read more
The following day, police seized a significant amount of cash at a home in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan connected to the same woman.
Michelle Omoruyi, a Canadian resident, has been charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling.
The arrest was part of an investigation launched in December 2016, said Jason Evert of the Canadian Border Services Agency. “Throughout the course of the investigation, the CBSA uncovered evidence to suggest suspected smugglers were allegedly bringing foreign nationals into Canada from the United States by facilitating their illegal crossing between designated ports of entry.”
The US Border Patrol has also arrested several others in connection with the investigation, but has yet to release details.
The nine migrants were handed over to border officials. All of them have applied for refugee status and have since been released while they wait for their claims to be heard. Police declined to give any other information about the group, citing privacy concerns.
Recent months have seen at least 1,860 asylum seekers brave freezing temperatures, waist-deep snow and icy rivers to cross into Canada from the US by foot.
Entering the country at remote, unguarded locations allows migrants – many of whom are anxiously fleeing Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants – to skirt a longstanding pact that bars most refugee claimants in the US from applying for asylum in Canada.
Refugees crossing into Canada from US on foot despite freezing temperatures Read more
The 2004 pact, known as the Safe Third Country Agreement, forces most migrants to apply for asylum in the first country in which they arrive. Advocates on both sides of the border have long urged the Canadian government to suspend the agreement, warning that it leaves asylum seekers looking to enter Canada from the US with little choice but to resort to hazardous journeys.
“At the moment, one of the byproducts of the agreement is that we create incentives for people to cross irregularly and that gives business to smugglers and puts peoples’ lives and their safety at risk,” Janet Dench of the Canadian Council for Refugees told the Guardian earlier this year.
The human smuggling charge is the first of its kind in Saskatchewan this year, said police. The province has been among the few that has not seen a substantial rise in asylum seekers streaming in across the US border, perhaps due to its status as one of the few provinces that does not offer legal aid to refugee claimants.
On Wednesday, police gave few other details about the charges, describing them as part of an ongoing investigation. Donovan Fisher of the RCMP said human smuggling charges are generally not laid if humanitarian reasons are believed to be the motive for aiding or facilitating the migrants.
“Of course we had to take the interest of these immigrants into consideration as well; generally they’re coming from a state where they’re potentially at risk or looking for a better life and sometimes desperate,” he said. “They’re vulnerable and may be taken advantage of by people looking to gain financially from their situation. So that’s generically what we would be looking at.”In a few weeks time, London’s latest tourist attraction opens as the viewing floors at the top of The Shard skyscraper start welcoming their first paying customers.
Between now and then, around 12,000 locals will get to test out the facilities, and a few of us were up there earlier this week for a look around.
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the building. From a distance, it is OK, even if the glassy blue shard of glass we were promised looks more like a galvanized steel nail. It is up close that I have concerns, as frankly, it looks cheap. There seems to be very little external detailing such as how the building rams into the ground rather than having neat edging around the pillars and walls. Subtle, but a few thousand pounds here and there at the point that the public can get closest to the structure makes a huge difference.
Compare the Gherkin to the Shard at the ground level and the difference in quality is clear, and important.
So, will I be a petulant Guy de Maupassant and declare that the best place to be is at the top of The Shard as it is the only place I can’t see it?
What is formally known as The View from The Shard has its entrance in one of the rather fetching brick arches underneath London Bridge and once through the ubiquitous security scanners, there are now two lift journeys to the top.
Straight up to the 33rd floor, which is a dark room with a huge map of London on the floor (and soon to cover the walls), but around the corner and up in the second lift to the 68th floor. Ears may pop on the trip.
Leaving the lift, you are faced with the glass windows that should provide a vista across London – except that they are covered in blue clouds, which if you look carefully are representations of actual clouds you can see over London. But they don’t want you to linger too long, so deliberately obscuring the view is to get you away from the lift and up a final flight of stairs to the viewing floor itself.
Frankly, this is a very polished area and has a quality that is in marked contrast to the exterior of the building at ground level. Even the building facade appears more detailed and interesting now that |
to put up with, to see him being questioned I find it remarkable. Especially when supporters there look up to him and respect him for what he's done."French dance duo have parted ways with long-term label Virgin/EMI
Daft Punk have signed to Sony-owned Columbia and will release their fourth album this spring.
The French dance duo, which consists of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, have left Virgin, with whom they signed in 1996.
The pair, who made a cameo in an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ last year, have been working with Chic’s Nile Rodgers, who previously hinted their fourth album would appear in 2013, as well as Oscar-winning songwriter Paul Williams and disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder. Animal Collective’s Panda Bear and Feist collaborator Chilly Gonzales are also rumoured to have collaborated with the Gallic duo.
There were strong rumours Daft Punk would be among the headliners announced for April’s Coachella Festival, with many disappointed when their names were absent, although Bestival organiser and BBC Radio 1 DJ Rob Da Bank told eFestivals earlier this year that the band would definitely not be touring during 2013.
He said: “There’s all kinds of crazy rumours flying about at the moment about Daft Punk at Coachella, and The Rolling Stones playing Glastonbury. We got told months ago that Daft Punk were definitely not touring next year, but it keeps the rumour mill going.”
Daft Punk released their debut album ‘Homework’ in 1997, followed by ‘Discovery’ and ‘Human After All’ in 2001 and 2005 respectively. Their most recent release was the soundtrack for ‘Tron: Legacy’ in 2010.RIO DE JANEIRO — Sailing from the Angolan coast across the Atlantic, the slave ships docked here in the 19th century at the huge stone wharf, delivering their human cargo to the “fattening houses” on Valongo Street. Foreign chroniclers described the depravity in the teeming slave market, including so-called boutiques selling emaciated and diseased African children.
The newly arrived slaves who died before they even started toiling in Brazil’s mines were hauled to a mass grave nearby, their corpses left to decay amid piles of garbage. As imperial plantations flourished, diggers at the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos — Cemetery of New Blacks — crushed the bones of the dead, making way for thousands of new cadavers.
Now, with construction crews tearing apart areas of Rio de Janeiro in the building spree ahead of this year’s World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, stunning archaeological discoveries around the work sites are providing new insight into the city’s brutal distinction as a nerve center for the Atlantic slave trade.
But as developers press ahead in the surroundings of the unearthed slave port — with futuristic projects like the Museum of Tomorrow, costing about $100 million and designed in the shape of a fish by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava — the frenzied overhaul is setting off a debate over whether Rio is neglecting its past in the all-consuming rush to build its future.Cross-Posted from Washington’s Blog.
We’ve extensively documented that mass surveillance does NOT help prevent terror attacks.
Top experts have said that treating everyone like a potential terrorist WEAKENS our ability to protect America.
The former head of the NSA’s global intelligence gathering operations – William Binney – says that the current spying program not only violates Americans’ privacy, but sucks up so much data that it INTERFERES with the government’s ability to catch bad guys.
Binney told Washington’s Blog:
The zone of suspects was for us limited to two degrees (hops). Beyond that increases the problem exponentially. So, three hops is going much too far.
(Explanation of degrees and hops).
In the following brief excerpt from an interview by PBS NewsHour, Binney explains that over-the-top spying actually interfered with the government’s ability to stop the Boston bombing:
Judy Woodruff: You know the government says that it is only doing this to keep us safe. This is the only way we can have that information at our fingertips when we then have a reason to believe that someone would do this country or its people harm.
Binney: That in my mind has been nonsense from the beginning. Because we had zero problem tracking all of these terrorists all along. We had no difficulty doing that.
And I left those principles in place at the NSA when I retired there. One was to use the 2 degree principle for zones of suspicion. That is, if a terrorist called someone in the U.S., that was the first degree from the terrorist. And the second degree was who that terrorist called inside the United States.
So far, all of the testimony I’ve been listening to by people down in D.C. about this program – and they refer to different cases they’ve been talking about, in terms of terrorists – everyone one fit into that zone of suspicion. None of them were outside it.
The rest of it means they’re collecting more data, making the haystack so much bigger so that’s making it more difficult to find the needles. That’s why they’re missing people, like the bombers in Boston.
Similarly, Israeli-American terrorism expert Barry Rubins points out:To celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday, Tampa Bay Rays third baseman, three-time All-Star and father of two, Evan Longoria, penned this piece for FOXSports.com on what it’s like to be a baseball dad.
My job is everything that I dreamed of as a kid, and more — except for the trips that force me to miss some of the biggest moments in my children’s lives.
I have two kids, Elle Leona who is 2 and Nash is my 7-month-old boy. Elle was born during spring training 2013. My wife Jaime had been in the hospital for a few days, and I was stressed to say the least because I was in Port Charlotte and she was down in Fort Lauderdale. She had her mom with her, but I felt I should be there, too. Around 8 p.m. the day before Elle was born, I got the call and had the "Go Bag" packed and ready. I hopped in the car and made the drive down, arriving at the hotel in the late evening. She was born the next night on February 20.
Article continues below...
The Longoria family.
Nash Harrison, my son, was a bit of a different tale. I decided to put my name in the hat for the MLB All-Star Tour that was traveling to Japan to play in the offseason of 2014. I talked about it with Jaime in spring training knowing full well that we were trying for a second baby. Of course, as fate would have it, Jaime became pregnant and the baby was due in November. Not only November, but the exact same day that the trip was scheduled to arrive back home.
I’ll have a great story to tell my son one day when he asks about what happened the day he was born. I watched it on FaceTime from the manager’s office at the Tokyo Dome! I wish I was at the hospital, and I’m happy all went well and that we have a beautiful baby boy, but I can’t wait to tell him what happened.
The best thing about being a dad is that my kids don’t care what I do for a living. They don’t care if I haven’t gotten a hit in my last 30 at-bats, they don’t care if I made an error, they don’t care if we won or lost. They smile when they see me and give me the kind of hugs only a dad can understand. There is nothing in the world that compares to knowing what unconditional love is, and understanding that it is your responsibility to teach them right from wrong and how to grow up and be good people.
There are some downfalls to being a ballplayer and a dad. Being on the road and away from them for long stretches is torturous. I’m getting to the age now with Elle where she knows when I am gone for a long time and it’s sad when I have to go. Nash is starting to crawl. As I am writing this on a team bus ride from from D.C. to Cleveland, Jaime just sent me a video of him pretty much crawling. It’s moments like this I wish I could be home to be a part of that memory. I’ve missed my daughter’s first dance recital, her birthday party with the family in spring, multiple picture days, and trips to museums, parks, beach, various outings with Nash and Jaime, you name it.
At the end of the day, I love what I do and understand that there are so many others who would love to have this job. I am writing this to express my love of being a father, the love and appreciation I have for my family’s understanding of my job, and to all of the people that help us while I’m away. Although some of the moments I miss won’t be as cool as they were the first time, it’s my goal as a dad to be the best I can be when I’m home. I’m excited for the years ahead when I can spend time with my kids at the ballpark and hopefully share my love of the game with them.
Happy Father’s Day to all the awesome Dads out there. Keep inspiring our young people to be the best they can be at whatever they love.Polling in the Children's Referendum has finished, with reports from around the country suggesting turnout of around 30%.
Counting of votes will begin at 9am tomorrow.
When questioned earlier about the low turnout, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said: "It's a democracy, we can't force people to vote."
Most areas seem to have seen between a quarter and a third of those eligible to vote actually cast their ballot.
Saturday voting has only been tried once before in a referendum.
The first time it was tried was the second vote on the Nice Treaty a decade ago.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said last week that future weekend polls hinged on the turnout figure today.
On weekday votes, there is usually a surge in turnout as people return home from work in the evening.
The lowest turnout to date was the 28.5% recorded in a referendum in July 1979.
A result from today's vote is expected some time tomorrow afternoon.
Some voters in south Dublin cast their votes using mobile phone lights and emergency lighting.
The ESB said power cut has been restored again to parts of south Dublin that experienced the outage.WASHINGTON — In the final weeks of the Obama administration, the Justice Department won the first hate-crime case involving a transgender victim and sued two cities for blocking mosques from opening. Prosecutors settled lending-discrimination charges with two banks, then sued a third. They filed legal briefs on behalf of New York teenagers being held in solitary confinement, and accused Louisiana of forcing mentally ill patients into nursing homes.
And then, with days remaining, prosecutors announced a deal to overhaul Baltimore’s Police Department and accused Chicago of unconstitutional police abuses.
The moves capped a historic and sometimes controversial eight-year span in which the Justice Department pushed the frontiers of civil rights laws, inserting itself into private lawsuits and siding with transgender students, juvenile prisoners, the homeless, the blind, and people who videotape police officers. On issues of gay rights, policing, criminal justice, voting and more, government lawyers argued for a broad interpretation of civil rights laws, a view that they consistently said would put them on the right side of history.
Few areas of federal policy are likely to change so definitively. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, opposes not only the Justice Department’s specific policies on civil rights but its entire approach. While liberal Democrats have criticized Mr. Sessions’s views on specific issues like gay marriage and voting, the larger difference is how differently the Trump administration will view the government’s role in those areas.A strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck northeast India early today, sending panicked residents fleeing into the streets. The epicentre of the earthquake, which occurred at 4.37 am at a depth of 17 km below the ground, was at Tamenglong which is located 33 kilometers from Imphal in Manipur. Here are the LIVE updates:
Manipur government decides to close all schools for a week.
Another aftershock of 3.4 magnitude felt at 2.30 pm.
Telecom connectivity more or less normal in Imphal.
Union power secretary says a team of engineers from Power Grid Corporation will be reaching to Imphal assist the state govt in restoration of power.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju has reached Imphal to take stock of the damage done by earthquake.
Atleast 9 people have been killed and another 100 injured due to earthquake, reports said
The injured have been admitted at state government hospital JNIMS in Imphal
Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh and his team inspected JNIMS hospital where injured are being treated
The MHA is actively monitoring the situation and teams from the National Disaster Response Force have been instructed to move from Guwahati to areas affected by the quake
One AN-32 and one Avro of Indian Air Force on way to Imphal from Guwahati with NDRF team
An aftershock of magnitude 3.6 was felt at about 9:27 am. The epicentre of this earthquake was Tamenglong, Manipur.
There is continuous communication with the state government. NDMA is monitoring and coordinating all relief activities: Home Ministry.
National Crisis Management Committee meeting scheduled to take place at 10.30 am to assess the situation after earthquake.
Manipur CM to visit Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Imphal where injured persons are being treated.
Around 40-45 have suffered minor injuries in Manipur: Home Minister Rajnath Singh
Due to a mud house collapse in Manipur, one person has died: Rajnath Singh.
Spoke to Assam CM and Manipur Chief Secy regarding the situation post the earthquake. Assured them of all possible help: Rajnath Singh
I am contacting CMs, contact could not be established with Manipur CM, so had conversation with Chief Secretary: Rajnath Singh
PMO closely monitoring earthquake affected areas, Centre in touch with affected state governments: Union minister Jitendra Singh.
Help line numbers (Imphal):
Police Control Room: 2220100
Fire Service: 101
RIMS: 2414478
JNIMS: 2450385
IMPHAL HOSPITAL: 2411353
SHIJA HOSPITAL: 2414214-2414252
LANGOL VIEW: 2414679-2416288
RAJ MEDICITY: 2441653-2459553
Tremors were felt in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal apart from all northeastern states.
Manipur earthquake report. Manipur earthquake report.
List of nearby cities from epicentre
33km (21mi) WNW of Imphal, India
38km (24mi) NW of Mayang Imphal, India
43km (27mi) NNW of Moirang, India
47km (29mi) NW of Thoubal, India
351km (218mi) ENE of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Cracks have appeared in several building in Imphal and the city is without electricity.
Social media posts also indicated that some buildings in Imphal, including a major women-run market in the city centre, had been damaged.
Cities like Kolkata and Guwahati were also rattled by the strong quake but no damage has been reported so far.
Police in Dhaka said 40 people were being treated at a major hospital in the Bangladeshi capital, including one university student who jumped from a fourth-floor balcony and was in a critical condition.
People sit in an open area following the earthquake. People sit in an open area following the earthquake.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Arunachal Pradesh CM Nabam Tuki to take stock of the situation.
Spoke to Arunachal Pradesh CM Shri Nabam Tuki on the situation arising in the wake of the earthquake. &; Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 4, 2016
Had a telephone conversation with Assam CM Shri Tarun Gogoi on the earthquake in the state & the region. &; Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 4, 2016
Spoke to Rajnath ji, who is in Assam, on the situation arising due to the earthquake & asked him to oversee the situation. &; Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 4, 2016
Northeast India is considered the sixth major earthquake-prone belt in the world.
The northeast has seen some of the biggest quakes in history. In 1897, the Shillong-epicentred quake measured 8.2 on the Richter scale.
In 1950, an earthquake in Assam measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale forced the mighty Brahmaputra river to change its course. In September 2011, Sikkim underwent heavy damage after a quake hit the state.A man allegedly gouged out his former wife's eyes and fractured her legs in five places in order to “teach her a lesson for having loose morals”, local media has reported.
Rasheed Ahmad attacked Shama Bibi, his wife of 19 years, on Sunday when she went to visit their five children at his house in Minchinabad in Bahawalnagar.
The couple had divorced in February after Ms Bibi started working as a maid in when they hit a period of financial hardship.
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.
Ahmed had allegedly been angered because she had started working “without his permission”, The Express Tribune reports, and he had accused her of having bad character before filing for divorce. Ms Bibi then moved to Lahore with her eldest son, while her four other children stayed with their father.
When she went to visit her children, Ahmed allegedly attacked her, breaking her legs and gouging her eyes out before fleeing the scene.
Her family rushed Ms Bibi to a hospital in Minchinabad while Ahmed was apprehended by police two hours later. He allegedly admitted to attacking and blinding his ex-wife, telling police: “I wanted to send a message through her to all women with loose morals.”
Ms Bibi was transferred to a hospital in Bahawalnagar, but her current condition remains unknown.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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Subscribe nowScreenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET
Apple and Australia are still at odds over the branding of a 4G iPad that doesn't support Australia's 4G networks.
Mediation between Apple and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ended today without an agreement on one sticking point -- the actual name used to sell the iPad. The two parties have been trying to hammer out a compromise since late last month when Australia's consumer commission filed a legal action against Apple over the use of the term 4G.
In its grievance, the ACCC has contended that labeling the tablet "iPad Wi-Fi + 4G" in Australia is misleading since the device's flavor of 4G doesn't work in the country. Australia does offer 4G service through its Telstra carrier. But that service operates under an 1800MHz frequency band, according to ZDNet Australia, while the iPad requires 700MHz or 2100MHz frequencies for 4G. Hence, the two are incompatible, leaving Australian 4G iPad buyers stuck at 3G.
Some progress has been made between Apple and the ACCC, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Apple has already put up notices on its Web site alerting customers that the 4G iPad is not compatible with Australia's 4G networks. The company has also agreed to alert existing buyers of the issue and offer them refunds.
But the ACCC also wants Apple to change the name of the iPad as sold in Australia to remove the term 4G. And that's apparently where the talks broke down earlier today.
The next steps in the case will be determined at a hearing scheduled for later today at the Federal Court in Melbourne, the Sydney Morning Herald added.
Similar 4G compatibility issues have vexed iPad users in Sweden and the U.K., according to The Verge and other sources.
Complaints from unhappy consumers have led both countries to also consider investigating whether Apple's use of the term "iPad Wi-Fi + 4G" is misleading.
Apple did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.By Yoon Ja-young
Demand for imported beef is rapidly rising, while that for relatively expensive local beef is decreasing following the implementation of an anti-graft law.
According to the Korea Customs Service, imports of beef recorded 320,219 tons between January and October this year, surging 28.4 percent from a year ago.
Imports from the United States surged especially, jumping 47.6 percent from a year ago to 131,466 tons. Imports of Australian beef, which makes up the biggest share in the imported beef market, meanwhile, increased 14.9 percent to 162,794 tons.
Behind the surging beef imports is the anti-graft law, which went into effect in September. It restricts government officials, journalists and private school teachers from receiving paid for meals costing more than 30,000 won ($25.7) or a gift of over 50,000 won.
The measure hit restaurants that served local "hanwoo" beef, as it is difficult to meet the 30,000 won price cap with relatively expensive meat. It also changed traditional holiday gifts. Hanwoo was one of the most popular gifts for the traditional holidays of Chuseok and Lunar New Year's Day, but the 50,000 won price cap made Koreans think twice before choosing it. As a result, demand for hanwoo has been falling while imported beef has been increasing its market share. Korean beef, which made up 50.1 percent of the market in 2013, dropped to 46.2 percent last year.
Market watchers expect that imported beef will continue to substitute for hanwoo due to the law. As consumers increasingly prioritize price, demand is also likely to be affected. The Nonghyup Research Center expects the market share of local beef to fall below 40 percent this year.
Retailers report that imported beef has already caught up with hanwoo in sales. According to a retail outlet E-Mart, hanwoo took 45.2 percent of its beef sales so far this year as of November, which is smaller than the 54.8 percent market share of imported beef. This compares with two years ago when hanwoo took up 54.9 percent of sales. The sales of hanwoo at E-Mart fell 12.7 percent this year as of November.
"Though the price of hanwoo has been falling recently, consumers still think it is expensive, and an increasing number of them are switching to imported beef," said Oh Hyun-jun, an E-Mart hanwoo buyer.MOSCOW -- A respected Russian newspaper says it has uncovered information that police in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya have rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and that at least three have been killed.
The Saturday report in Novaya Gazeta said it had confirmed the information with sources in the Chechen police and government, but gave no details.
The report was denied by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s spokesman, who suggested there are no homosexuals in the Muslim-majority region. Ali Karimov said, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti, “it’s impossible to persecute those who are not in the republic.”
The Kremlin-backed Kadyrov is widely accused of extensive human rights violations. He has brought Islam to the fore of Chechnya’s daily life, including opening what is called Europe’s biggest mosque.The World Health Organization (WHO) mostly works to reduce the physical toll of disease. But last week it turned to another kind of harm: the insult and stigma inflicted by diseases named for people, places, and animals. Among the existing monikers that its new guidelines “for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases” would discourage: Ebola, swine flu, Rift Valley Fever, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and monkey pox. Instead, WHO says researchers, health officials, and journalists should use more neutral, generic terms, such as severe respiratory disease or novel neurologic syndrome.
Many scientists agree that disease names can be problematic, but they aren’t sure the new rulebook is necessarily an improvement. “It will certainly lead to boring names and a lot of confusion,” predicts Linfa Wang, an expert on emerging infectious diseases at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong. “You should not take political correctness so far that in the end no one is able to distinguish these diseases,” says Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn, Germany.
Naming diseases has long been a fraught process. Badly chosen names can stigmatize people, as did gay-related immune deficiency, an early name for AIDS. They can also lead to confusion and hurt tourism and trade. The so-called swine flu, for instance, is not transmitted by pigs, but some countries still banned pork imports or slaughtered pigs after a 2009 outbreak. More recently, some Arab countries were unhappy that a new disease caused by a coronavirus was dubbed Middle East respiratory syndrome.
Although “it’s usually scientists who come up with these names … the WHO gets the diplomatic pressure” if someone takes offense, Drosten says. The new guidelines, released 8 May, aim to smooth the process. “The WHO had to do something to take itself out of the firing line,” Drosten says.
Given that news of a new pathogen often spreads quickly, “it is important that an appropriate disease name is assigned by those who first report” the disease, WHO's guidance notes. Following the guidelines, it adds, could “minimize unnecessary negative impact of disease names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.”
To that end, new disease names should not include geographic locations; the names of people, occupations, animals, or food; or “terms that incite undue fear” (such as unknown, fatal, and epidemic). Instead, the names should use generic descriptions of symptoms (respiratory disease or watery diarrhea) and specific terms describing patients, epidemiology or the environment (juvenile, maternal, seasonal, summer, coastal), as well as pathogen names and arbitrary identifiers (alpha, beta, 1, 2, 3).
The group that came up with these recommendations met “more than a few times” over the course of a year, says Kazuaki Miyagishima, director for food safety, zoonoses, and foodborne diseases at WHO, and a member of the panel. Among the ideas they discussed: naming diseases after Greek gods, using a system similar to the one used to name comets or alternating male and female names as is done with hurricanes.”But while naming a hurricane Katrina may not offend people, if we do it for a disease, it’s not just a hurricane for 1 week. It will make its way into the history of human suffering," Miyagishima says.
The guide is well intentioned, but goes too far, says Ian Lipkin, a virologist at Columbia University. “I don’t see how it will be helpful to eliminate names like monkey pox that provide insights into natural hosts and potential sources of infection,” he says.
It could also become harder to easily distinguish diseases. For instance, under the new rules, Marburg disease (named after a city in Germany) might have been called filovirus-associated haemorrhagic fever 1, while Ebola (named after a river) might have been filovirus-associated haemorrhagic fever 2. Such bland names “lose something that is more than just quaint,” says Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Drosten adds that geographic names are sometimes justified. It was clear that MERS, for example, was associated with the Middle East. “Would it have been better if we had named it novel betacoronavirus clade C, type 1?” he asks.
The new rules make for more difficult names, Miyagishima admits. “But we think we have left a fairly large area for freedom. We do not want to kill the creativity of researchers completely.”
Linfa Wang knows all about the difficulty of naming diseases. Two decades ago, he named a virus and the disease it causes after Hendra, a suburb of Brisbane, Australia; he still gets angry calls from residents complaining that the name has hurt property values. These days his strategy is to “go small.” Recently, he named a new henipavirus isolated in a neighborhood called Cedar Grove simply Cedar virus.
Virologists encountered other sensitivities with Norwalk virus, named for a city in Ohio. The pathogen is the only species in the genus Norovirus and usually that name is used. In 2011, however, a Japanese individual asked for a change because many people in Japan carry the surname Noro. The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses recommended using "Norwalk virus” instead.
Acronyms are another good solution, says Ab Osterhaus, a virologist at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, because they keep names short (another WHO recommendation) and people often forget what the letters stand for. But even acronyms can cause controversy. In 2003, WHO officials coined SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) to describe a novel pneumonia spreading in Asia, partly to avoid a name like “Chinese flu.” SARS did not go down well in Hong Kong, however, which is officially known as Hong Kong SAR, for special administrative region.
Giving new diseases a number may be the only way to avoid such issues, researchers say. There is precedent. Growing up in China in the late 1960s, Wang remembers that diseases had digits. “I was really scared of number 5 disease,” he recalls. “I don’t know why, you just really did not want to get disease number 5.”A former FBI explosives expert who investigated high-profile bombings for the bureau over several decades has been arrested and charged with distributing child pornography over unsecured wireless networks using the screen name “pedodave69.”
Donald J. Sachtleben, 54, joined the FBI in 1983 and retired in 2008. Until the Indiana resident’s arrest he was working as an FBI contractor and a visiting assistant professor of forensic sciences at Oklahoma State University.
During his FBI career, Sachtleben served as team leader at the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya and the USS Cole in Yemen, and investigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. He also coordinated the search of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s cabin in Lincoln, Mont., even writing Kaczynski’s arrest affidavit, calling removing a live bomb from Kaczynski’s shack “the toughest experience I had.”
According to an affidavit from FBI agent Kerri Reifel, Sachtleben apparently used an unsecured wireless network belonging to a 73-year-old Illinois man to share 220 images of child pornography one night in September 2010 (the FBI obtained a search warrant for the elderly man’s home and found no child pornography on the computers at the residence).
FBI agents later arrested a man who had allegedly traded child pornography with Sachtleben via email. Sachtleben was caught because he allegedly accessed the email address pedodave69@yahoo.com from his home. Investigators found 30 child pornography pictures and movies on a Sony laptop he kept in his red Chevy Suburban, which also contained various work files, according to the FBI.
The government believes Sachtleben’s training and background would make him a flight risk, noting that he had spent time in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. A detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
“Based upon his training and experience, he would be challenging and dangerous to locate if he was released pending trial and attempted to flee,” federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Joseph H. Hogsett said in a statement that the announcement “should make clear that no matter who you are, you will be brought to justice if you are found guilty of such criminal behavior.
Image from Shutterstock.Due to server issues we had to temporarily disable the shop.
The shop will remain closed until all issues are resolved.
In the meanwhile you can download and run our Cube World Mini Demo to test if Cube World will run on your system.
It's basically just a starting screen with a rotating landscape in the background. If it runs smoothly and you can see the logo and the text below it, your PC is ready for Cube World.
On many PCs where the demo doesn't start, it helps to install the latest DirectX End-User Runtime: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
Some computers have an Intel/on-board video card and a dedicated video card. To make sure your computer can run Cube World smoothly, right-click the Demo/Game and hover over "Run with graphics processor" if it is there to make sure you run it off a dedicated GPU if you have one.
If the Demo is not running, the full Cube World version won't run on your PC.
Especially laptops with integrated Intel graphics chips are not well supported.
are not well supported. On some computers the text is not visible.
On some computers there are issues with low resolutions.
If you have trouble with the demo, please wait with buying Cube World until we have found a solution or you have found another PC on which it's running.
We're currently fixing our download/update system. We don't have an ETA for it yet. Thanks for your understanding, we're doing our best.The Bachelor‘s Ashley Iaconetti Reveals Tommy Lee ‘Basically Sexually Assaulted’ Her Backstage At A M├â┬╢tley Cr├â┬╝e Concert!
Ashley Iaconetti spilled lots of tea during an interview on The Tomorrow Show on Monday night.
During the lengthy podcast, the 29-year-old dished on lots of The Bachelor secrets and that one time she was “basically sexually assaulted” by rocker Tommy Lee.
Related: Dancing With The Stars Brings Disney Classics To Life
Of the “creepy” experience, the reality star told host Keven Undergaro:
“I have a story about Tommy Lee. He basically sexually assaulted me in a very strange way where I was weirdly found myself backstage at a Motley Crue concert. He like pushed me against a couch very similar to this, and like licked me from my chin to my forehead, which apparently I found out is something that he just does. Then I said like I have a boyfriend and I was like, ‘Please don’t touch me.’ You don’t tell Tommy Lee that you have a boyfriend and then he’s– Whatever. He didn’t really care…Then he grabbed me by my shoulders and he said ‘I’m gonna have my way with you right here on the floor’ in front of everyone. And I was like, Okay, I think I’m going to leave now. And then I walked out of the room and I just like hung out backstage with my sister…I just walked out….Yeah, It was kind of creepy. Then I was like ‘my sister’s into you, my sister’s into you,’ and he’s like ‘I’m so over blondes.’ Apparently, he had like just broken up with Pam for like the thirteenth time.”
Sheesh!
Rock star or not, this is NOT cool, ever!!
Honestly, it’s kinda strange she would even offer up her sister after having experienced that, but what do we know!
Related: Corinne Calls Out Nick Viall’s ‘Phony’ Relationship With Vanessa!
As for a celeb who does interest the outspoken virgin, Ashley says she has a huge crush on none other than Scott Eastwood:
“I’m obsessed with Scott Eastwood right now├óΓé¼┬ªI met him last Monday at a Fast and the Furious screening├óΓé¼┬ªI don’t care about that whole franchise and actually never seen one of the movies before that – but I knew he was going to be there so I was like okay well I’m gonna like go, be really pretty and then I’m just gonna like let the magic happen├óΓé¼┬ªI always thought he was really hot, he’s like always been somebody I’ve named for like the past couple of years. But like now after I met him I’m just like, in like fantasy land as if like I’m a teenager├óΓé¼┬ªI wanted it to like happen naturally and it didn’t really so his publicist was there with Ludacris and then I was talking to Ludacris for a second and then she was like Ashley this is Scott and I was like ├óΓé¼╦£hey its really nice to meet you’ it was like nothing and then he was leaving. I just wanted to stay cool.”
There’s such a thing as too cool, gurl!
You can listen to Miz Iaconetti dish on Bachelor secrets in the full interview (below)!!
[Image via Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.]Ralph Boes, 54, has not eaten since November 1 and, he told the Stuttgarter Zeitung on Monday he would not stop his protest until his demands are heard. Until then the occasional cup of vegetable stock will have to do.
Boes refuses to label his protest as a hunger strike, preferring the idea that the government has punished him with starvation. The job centre recently cut his monthly jobseeker's payment to €37.50 – a tenth of what it was. It still pays his rent.
He denies bringing the situation upon himself by turning down multiple job offers, saying that as a trained and experienced occupational therapist, it would be unthinkable to work in a badly paid, unskilled job.
He turned down shifts at a call centre for €7 an hour, calling it “slave labour”, while a job in the office of a temping agency would make Boes what he called a “slave master” both of which were, morally, not options for him.
Instead, he wants an unconditional basic income paid by the government for everyone. In the fight for this, it was time that someone trying to be heard, “replaced their voice with their life.”
“I'm being punished to the point of death,” he added. “ |
active roster from the practice squad on Nov. 21 after he was signed initially on Nov. 2 after previous stints with the New York Giants and Baltimore Ravens.
With 4.37 speed in the 40-yard dash, a 37.5-inch vertical leap, a 3.96 short shuttle and a 10-2 broad jump, Hunt's athleticism provided a change of pace to the Texans' offense.
Hunt finished his Purdue career with more than 4,600 all-purpose yards, rushing for 949 yards and catching 48 passes in his final season for the Boilermakers.
The Texans primarily used Hunt on sweeps and swing passes.
"They found ways to get me in space," said Hunt, who's under contract for this season with a $525,000 base salary. "I just want to keep their trust. It was fun. I just want to have a great offseason, keep getting strong and do more and more."
Between Hunt, new starter Lamar Miller and backups Alfred Blue and Jonathan Grimes, the Texans like the way the running back position is shaping up.
"I think our backfield situation is a pretty good one right now as far as different types of players, they're all having different types of skillsets from Lamar, Alfred, Grimes," O'Brien said. "You've got Akeem. You've got Kenny Hilliard. You have a lot of different types of backs there and Akeem is doing a good job."This is a couple days old, but it’s worth paying attention to. The two most powerful teachers’ unions blasted the President and his education policies at their annual conventions. In particular, they decried the veto threat the President offered on the war supplemental if the House passed legislation keeping teachers in their jobs, partially offset by cuts to the Race to the Top fund:
In a skirmish last week over federal education financing, the administration and the teachers’ unions were bitterly at odds. Last year, Congress approved $100 billion in education stimulus funds, about half of it to help states avoid school layoffs. With that money now running out, House Democrats proposed spending $10 billion more to shore up school district budgets, paying for it, in part, with $800 million in cuts to Race to the Top and two other competitive grant programs Mr. Duncan created to spur his initiatives. Mr. Duncan and the White House supported the $10 billion in new spending, but objected to trimming the grant programs, infuriating union leaders. “For the Department of Education to say, ‘Everybody else has to sacrifice, but our pet programs must be spared’— that makes me so angry I don’t even know how to say it,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has often been more supportive of administration initiatives than the National Education Association.
The cuts to Race to the Top would constitute a small percentage – under 20% – of their total funding. But Arne Duncan clearly values bribing states to change their education policies in directions that have not been fully tested, rather than saving teachers and keeping class sizes low, policies which have been rigorously tested and show results. Students perform better when they have a teacher than when they don’t, to simplify this debate as much as possible. It makes no sense to hoard money for competitive grants when teachers face layoffs. But clearly the White House and the Education Department doesn’t see it that way. In fact, despite the grassroots action from the teacher community, they fully expect the funding to be restored:
E-mail messages pleading for the jobs measure rained down on Congress from thousands of union teachers, and despite a veto threat by the White House, Democrats in the House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to create the $10 billion school jobs fund and to trim Mr. Duncan’s grant programs. The bill must be reworked by the Senate. On Friday, Mr. Duncan shrugged off what appeared to be an administration setback, expressing confidence that lawmakers would eventually find a way to spare Race to the Top.
I’m sure he’s quite confident. But that full funding of Race to the Top will most likely come at the expense of up to 140,000 school personnel.
Education leaders have been told by this Administration at every turn that they must bend, shake up their entrenched system and change the status quo. They must sacrifice by changing teacher pay policies, or tenure policies, or charter school policies. But absolutely no such sacrifice must come from the White House on this front. They don’t have to meet anyone halfway. They don’t have to give up even a sliver of this reform to save teacher jobs. At the base level, that’s why teacher unions, which have gone extremely far in the direction of the reformers thus far, are so angry.UPDATE: It is election time in British Columbia and our politicians are starting to make commitments to protect our wild salmon from effects of salmon farms. This is the key moment where fly fishing guides and enthusiasts in BC can add their voice and help save our wild salmon forever.
Alexandra Morton a marine biologist and environmentalist has extensively studied the effects of salmon farming on the wild fish stocks of the Pacific North West. Here she lays out what the voting public can do and there’s a link to her petition at the bottom of this page:
Here is where you come in – tell BC political candidates that you support them in removing salmon farms. The Province of BC can terminate salmon feedlot Licences of Occupation in 60 days, with no compensation to the companies, if it is in the public interest. This is the only way we will actually protect Pacific wild salmon from salmon feedlot disease.
In 2 weeks the province of British Columbia will go to the polls, and one of the crucial issues as far as we’re concerned are wild salmon stocks. One of the key advocates for wild salmon is Alexandra Morton, featured in the film anyone who enjoys fly fishing in BC should see, Salmon Confidential, that we wrote about a few weeks ago. Alex began her life in Canada through her work as a biologist studying orcas in the Broughton Archipelago, and was instrumental in documenting both residential and transient populations.
Her relationship with the peak predators also connected her to their prey in a profound way, so when she witnessed the numerous negative effects salmon farming was having on the wild fish stocks beginning in the late 80s, she was moved to action. Her scientific work now focuses on Pacific salmon, and includes documenting the loss of whales, the effects that the escaped Atlantic salmon have had on Pacific species, lethal outbreaks of sea lice, and antibiotic resistance that arises in species near salmon farms.
Alexandra is sharply critical of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and analyses the approach each party is taking towards salmon policy.
When British Columbians go to the polls, as fly fishing guides and enthusiasts, Holy Waters wants our wild salmon stocks to be on the agenda. Here’s a link to Alexandra’s petition on change.org, to Restore wild salmon, Ban salmon Feedlots in BC.Update: HP just upgraded its offer even further this morning. It’s now offering $2 billion for 3Par, or $30 a share. Earlier story below.
—
The back and forth between Dell and HP regarding the acquisition of data storage company 3Par continues. Only a few hours after 3Par accepted Dell’s increased $1.6 billion offer, HP upped the ante again by offering $1.8 billion for the company, or $27 per share in cash.
Dell’s new offer was a mere 30 cents above HP’s previous $24 per share offer, and given HP’s much deeper pockets (it reported $115 billion in 2009 revenue, compared to Dell’s $53 billion), it’s no surprise that HP retaliated. Dell’s minor increase over HP’s previous offer signaled to some analysts that it may give up the battle if HP comes back with a much higher offer, according to the New York Times.
The battle for 3Par’s hand began last week when Dell offered to buy the company for $1.15 billion. HP reportedly made an earlier offer for the company as well, but was rejected.
In a letter to 3Par CEO David Scott, HP CTO Shane Robison argued that there are strategic advantages for 3Par to join his company: “HP is uniquely positioned to capitalize on 3Par’s next-generation storage technology by utilizing our global reach and superior routes to market to deliver 3Par’s products to customers around the world.”
HP says that the addition of 3Par’s advanced server technology “would accelerate its Converged Infrastructure strategy, which provides customers with a portfolio of intellectual property across storage, server and networking solutions.”
Given the increasing importance of cloud computing — in which users would rely on the internet instead of their local computer for applications and storage — having a company like 3Par in your corner would allow you to offer services in the cloud at a lower cost. That’s certainly what Dell and HP are looking for, and I suspect we’ll see further plays in this field in the coming months.
3Par has raised over $183 million since its founding in 1999, with backing by Integral Capital Partners, Alliance Bernstein, Open Field Capital, Mayfield Fund, Worldview Technology Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Van Wagoner Capital Management. It went public in 2007, even though it was losing money at the time.
Companies: 3Par, Dell, Hp
People: Shane RobisonAMD emerged as a serious threat to Intel in servers more than a decade ago, but after a series of missteps and bad chips, the company's server business is hanging on by a thread.
Now, AMD is rebooting its server chip business with the upcoming Zen CPU, which will also be used in PCs. AMD is getting creative with Zen and considering merging the CPU with a high-performance GPU to create a mega-chip for high-performance tasks.
"It's fair to say we do believe we can combine a high-performance CPU with the high-performance GPU," AMD CEO Lisa Su said during an earnings call on Thursday.
Su's comment was in response to a question on whether AMD would ultimately combine its Zen CPU with a GPU based on the upcoming Vega architecture into one big chip for enterprise servers and supercomputing.
"Obviously, it'll come in time," Su said. "It's an area where combining the two technologies makes a lot of sense."
It wouldn't be the first time AMD has built a mega-chip. It has already combined full-featured CPUs and GPUs on made-to-order chips for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles. The 5-billion transistor Xbox One chip uses an eight-core AMD CPU code-named Jaguar and a Radeon graphics processor.
GPUs are being used as co-processors in some of the world's fastest computers for tasks like weather modeling, economic forecasting, and weapons design. They are also used by Google in data centers for deep learning tasks. Nvidia has cornered the supercomputing space while AMD has struggled with its FirePro high-performance GPUs.
But AMD's integrated mega-chip would be unique. Nvidia has high-performance GPUs but lacks a CPU. Intel's CPUs dominate servers, but it does not offer a GPU. Some supercomputers combine Nvidia GPUs with CPUs from Intel or AMD.
Intel offers a supercomputing mega-chip called Xeon Phi 7290 with 72 cores as a primary chip, but it does not integrate a GPU. The Xeon Phi has Atom CPUs and vector processors to carry out complex calculations.
A new mega-chip would be a bold gamble for AMD. A single CPU and GPU chip could be priced competitively, and it would reduce the need for companies to buy separate chips.
AMD became a major player in servers with the introduction of 64-bit chips in 2003 and dual-core chips shortly after, but delays and the failure of chips based on the Bulldozer core ultimately doomed the company's server efforts.
Believing ARM-based chips would be the future of servers, AMD also inexplicably abandoned the development of x86 server chips. But ARM chips haven't caught on in servers, and Intel cashed in on AMD's missteps. Intel has cornered more than 90 percent of the server chip market.
AMD's server plans have returned to the x86 architecture, and Zen is generating excitement. The first Zen-based servers will be available in the first half of next year from multiple vendors, Su said. The chips are being tested in dual-socket systems by AMD and server makers, and the results are encouraging, Su said.
The company will make server chips for select markets instead of pursuing all segments, Su said. Unlike Intel, AMD isn't rich on resources and is initially focusing on what it believes will be the most profitable markets.The main nationalist opposition party in Northern Ireland has called for joint London and Dublin rule if attempts to establish devolution fail after elections to the Stormont assembly.
As the British prime minister, Theresa May, and Irish taoiseach, Enda Kenny, pledged on Wednesday to work together to deal with the political crisis caused by the resignation of Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister, the Social Democratic and Labour party suggested that joint authority should be imposed if an administration in Belfast could not be formed.
Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, said if the parties in the assembly failed to piece together a devolved administration, there could be no return to direct rule with London-based ministers in charge of the region.
The demand for joint authority will be bitterly opposed by the Democratic Unionist party and Ulster Unionist party. The UUP sits with the SDLP on the opposition benches at Stormont, and the former’s leader, Mike Nesbitt, has previously suggested that the two parties could offer an alternative government to the outgoing DUP-Sinn Féin coalition.
Eastwood said: “If post election an executive cannot be formed, the only acceptable position for the nationalist community is joint authority between the Irish and British governments. We cannot allow a DUP-run government to be solely replaced by British direct rule ministers.
“Theresa May, the British secretary of state [for Northern Ireland, James Brokenshire] and the DUP need to understand that there can be no return to what has gone before.”
He added: “Joint authority allows a balance of voices between the two traditions on this island. That balance is the basis of all our agreements and it is the accommodation we all signed up to. In the absence of a functioning assembly and executive, that balance can only be served through joint authority.
“This is particularly important in the context of Brexit.
“In the absence of an executive, British direct rule would mean we are at the mercy of a hard Brexit British government. Joint authority will mean we have a voice at the Brexit table, a voice that could stand against attempts to ignore the will of our people, a voice that could represent the interests of the entire island and represent the majority of the people in the north, who voted to remain in the European Union.”
Sinn Féin has ruled out any 11th-hour negotiations to prevent elections to the assembly, saying it was “not interested” in crisis talks suggested by the outgoing first minister and DUP leader, Arlene Foster.
Speaking after meeting Brokenshire, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill said: “What we need is fundamental change. We believe the public need to have their say.
“There’s been a disrespect to the public by the DUP over a number of weeks and months in relation to [the green energy crisis], a disrespect for the public in relation to listening to the views and the concerns out there.”
The line advocated by Sinn Féin means that on Monday next week, the assembly will likely be dissolved and elections will have to take place within eight weeks.
Given the renewed rancour between Sinn Féin and the DUP, piecing together a new coalition to run a devolved administration is likely to be challenging.
McGuinness, the former chief negotiator for Sinn Féin during the peace process that led to the Good Friday agreement in 1998, said on Monday he was leaving his post because of Foster’s refusal to stand down temporarily from her job over the renewable heat incentive (RHI).
Serious questions have been raised by opposition parties about the “cash for ash” scandal, which could cost taxpayers up to £500m.
Foster had been under pressure to stand down for the duration of a proposed independent inquiry into the RHI.
Under the scheme, large financial incentives were offered to farms, businesses and other non-domestic consumers to use biomass boilers that mostly burned wooden pellets, as well as solar thermal and heat pumps.
In February 2016, a whistleblower claimed that the scheme was being abused and one farmer had made at least £1m from renting an empty shed with one boiler.
Sinn Féin initially refused to take part in a vote of no confidence against Foster last December, tabled by opposition parties. But it came under intense pressure internally to take a stronger line against the DUP, resulting in McGuinness’s resignation.
There are doubts as to whether he will stand for re-election as deputy first minister. McGuinness appeared weak and ill during the press conference announcing his resignation, and reports in Dublin suggest he has a rare heart condition.
A spokesman for Kenny said: “The taoiseach and prime minister agreed that the situation is very serious. They agreed that the two governments would work closely over the coming period.
“The taoiseach and prime minister agreed to maintain close contact ahead of Theresa May’s planned visit to Dublin at the end of January.”
The Irish foreign affairs and trade minister, Charlie Flanagan, and Brokenshire have scheduled a series of meetings with parties in the assembly in an attempt to find a solution to the crisis.Originally Posted by jitschix Originally Posted by
Bullshido, much as I love it, is not the end-all-be-all. People post things here to inform the community. They don't have to provide proof if all they're doing is saying "be aware." If you think about it for a minute, anyone posting under their real name, with "proof" (which probably wouldn't be video or photos... probably some kind of testimonial statement from someone else about what happened?) then they would stand to be sued for slander. Even if true.
No one seems to get that slander lawsuits aren't free to defend, just because what you say is the truth. You still have to hire a lawyer and spend thousands of dollars.
So what do you want for your community? do you want people to stay silent about abuse? What about abuse that isn't criminal (i.e. isn't sexual assault, per se) and thus cannot be the subject of a criminal complaint. Do you want people to be silent unless they are affluent enough to afford lawyers to defend them in lawsuits?The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced that they signed wide receiver Lavelle Hawkins to a contract Monday.
Free-Agent Tracker Follow all the developments on the NFL's open market with our up-to-the-minute tracking of 2014's free agents.
Follow all the developments on the NFL's open market with our up-to-the-minute tracking of 2014's free agents. More...
Hawkins joined the San Diego Chargers midway through last season, appearing in four games without a catch and returning eight kickoffs for 176 yards. The 27-year-old receiver spent the previous five seasons with the Tennessee Titans, where he caught 71 passes for 771 yards and one touchdown.
Hawkins adds depth, but is closer to a No. 4 receiver than a No. 3. After trading Mike Williams to the Buffalo Bills last week, we still expect Tampa to draft a receiver in the 2014 NFL Draft, perhaps with the No. 7 overall pick.
As of today, the Buccaneers receiving corps sits as follows: Vincent Jackson, Louis Murphy, Lavelle Hawkins, Chris Owusu, Skye Dawson, Eric Page and Russell Shepard.
There is a steep drop-off from Jackson, which could especially be troublesome for Josh McCown, who walked away from the NFL's top receiver duo to sign with the Bucs.
In the latest edition of the "Around The League Podcast", the guys welcome Browns star Joe Haden to the studio and talk about the uncertain future of Chris Johnson.We’ve had a lot of Intel news over the last 24 hours and while we have managed to tackle the bigger announcements, there was one small but interesting detail that snuck by during the Intel conference at Computex. In the midst of the big reveal for X299 and Skylake-X, Intel began talking about its future 8th generation CPUs, promising a 30 percent performance increase and availability before the end of the year.
Intel’s upcoming 8th generation CPUs are currently code-named ‘Coffee Lake’ and during the press briefing, Intel claimed that while engineers were initially planning on a 15 percent performance improvement over 7th gen. However, it seems that the competitive landscape has now caused this to be bumped up to a 30 percent improvement.
A 30 percent performance boost would be a very impressive generational bump, particularly given that yearly performance improvements have generally sat in the 10 to 15 percent range for the last few years.
Aside from that, Intel says that great progress has been made with 8th gen already, so the company plans on having the first Coffee Lake CPUs out by the end of 2017, both in laptop and desktop form. For laptops, it is likely that we will see low-power U-series chips first, alongside OEM availability of some Coffee Lake CPUs some time before we get around to the 8600K or 8800K though. The usual Core i7s and Core i5s that the average custom PC builder can go out and buy will likely arrive later in the first half of 2018. This release timetable would be similar to what we observed with Kaby Lake last year.
KitGuru Says: A 30 percent generational leap certainly isn’t anything to scoff at. It will certainly keep things in the CPU market interesting as we edge closer to 2018.The Railways will build coaches to run at a 200-km per hour speed at its Chennai facility in keeping with the Modi government's 'Make in India' initiative.
Introduction of AC rakes in the inter-city services to make the journey more comfortable will also be proposed in the Rail Budget 2015-16.
As per this year's Rail Budget proposal, it will manufacture a prototype rake consisting of 20 coaches for the 200-km per hour speed train at its Chennai coach factory.
At present, the railways builds coaches to run at a maximum speed of 160-km per hour.
Besides indigenous manufacture of semi-high speed coaches for 200 km per hour, Railway Ministry will make a concerted effort to give fillip to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' initiative.
Manufacturing of many locomotive components like cranks shaft, alternators and forged wheels will also be proposed to be undertaken indigenously instead of importing these parts from outside, sources in the railways said.
In his first Rail Budget, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu would be pitching for improving financial health of the ailing public transporter as well as passenger services.
Prabhu, in his bid to make the railways disabled- friendly, is likely make proposal to prove for Braille signages in all new coaches to facilitate vision-impaired passengers.
Customer satisfaction will be a focus area of this year's Rail Budget as a series of steps including air-conditioning of Diesel Electric Multiple Unit (DEMU) trains for inter-city services and noise reduction in diesel locomotive cabs are likely to be proposed, the sources said.
An inter-city service covers up to 160-km distance and caters to mostly daily commuters.
An attempt is being made to make the inter-city travel more comfortable and faster in the Rail Budget 2015-16, the sources said.
In order to promote north-east connectivity, Prabhu will also announce introduction of DEMU services in north eastern states as a national project.SEVEN wounded in mass shooting at Oakland park - and two are in critical condition
Seven people have been wounded in a mass shooting in Oakland, California.
The shooting took place in a residential neighborhood, not far from a park in East Oakland, a part of the city that has become infamous for its high crime rate.
Gunmen sprayed streets corners with bullets for three blocks in a running shooting spree about 6pm on Monday that left shell-shocked neighbors ducking for cover.
Two of the victims are in critical condition. The remaining five had minor wounds.
Scroll down for video
The shooting started outside this bodega in a residential neighborhood of East Oakland, California
The Oakland Tribune reports that the shootings happened near Verdese Carter Park.
'This is fairly outrageous. Six o'clock at night isn't that late at night and you've got a fair number of rounds fired at here. Really pretty brazen stuff out here for this time of day,' Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent told the newspaper.
All seven of the victims are men - age 23 to 31.
He said he hopes witnesses come forward to identify the gunmen behind the shooting.
No suspects have been named and Oakland police are searching for the culprits.
The shooting continued three blocks later near Verdese Carter Park. They took place about 6pm, not long after dark
Some of the wounded victims were taken to Highland Hospital. Others were taken to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley.
The shooting started a bodega and continued up the block to a second location.
A witness described dropping to the ground when she saw the gunmen coming and feeling bullets wiz by her.Many have agreed with the rationale that Lin, based on the sampling of his work, just was not worth it. Then again, did Dolan banish Lin — who was about 20 minutes from being a former N.B.A. player while vegetating on the end of the Knicks’ bench early last season — from New York on the grounds of his being an ingrate and daring to exploit his leverage for what could be the one time in his basketball career?
In contrast to Lin’s work, there is more than a sampling of Dolan’s, enabling us to make an educated guess as to how cool and calculated he was upon learning that Lin and the Rockets had conspired to make their deal even more tax punitive for him to match. Anthony, inhabiting the place in Dolan’s heart once reserved for Isiah Thomas, chimed in by calling the Lin deal “ridiculous,” as if his time in New York had produced anything close to the surge in interest and profit resulting from Lin’s achievements, however limited, last season.
The argument has been made that the financial risks of matching the offer were not necessarily that daunting, given the possibility that Lin could become the player he was for most of February (if Anthony allowed it) and continue being a marketing gold mine. If he did not, there would have been several avenues for salary cap and tax relief — using Amar’e Stoudemire’s expiring contract as a trade chip, for one — going into the third year of Lin’s deal.
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We can also debate until opening night the basketball merits of retaining Lin versus letting him go, without reaching a satisfying conclusion. But that is exactly the point for long-suffering Knicks fans. A majority, I am betting, wanted Lin on their team next season, if only because they wished this compelling saga would continue in the Garden, where it started and where they have been extraordinarily loyal to a franchise that has not really deserved it.
To that end, one season-ticket holder for decades whom I have known for many years expressed exasperation over Dolan’s unwillingness to do what he has asked of his fans over and over: keep the faith and invest in the potential for success, in this case that of the 23-year-old Lin.
“After sitting there all those years and watching all that horrible basketball, we finally had such a feel-good story that felt like our own,” said the ticket-holder, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from a management that has been notoriously contentious. “How many times can they hurt me?”
Her ticket renewals for next season have long been mailed in (with yet another incremental increase of $30 per game ticket). Even with the materialization of the Nets in Brooklyn and the alienation of the large outer-borough Asian-American population, she knows the Garden will be packed come opening night. Lin’s replacement, Raymond Felton, will probably be welcomed back with a hopeful roar.
But on some level the fans will also know that what Dolan asks of his patrons is not necessarily what he demands of himself. He lets Lin walk and tells them to keep writing those painful checks and keep believing in a franchise that within a handful of months has managed to turn its most alluring episode in more than a decade into a requiem for a point guard.An Apple Store. Michael Nagle/Getty Images Apple has found itself at the centre of a photo-stealing scandal in Australia after a bombshell report from The Courier-Mail published Thursday alleged that multiple employees from an Apple Store in Brisbane have been fired for stealing customers' photos from their phones, and secretly taking photos of them, in order to "rank their bodies."
The Australian Privacy Commissioner is now looking into the alleged covert photo-sharing ring.
Apple denies that any customers' photos were stolen — telling The Guardian that it has seen "no evidence that customer data or photos were inappropriately transferred or that anyone was photographed by these former employees."
But it has confirmed that "several employees" have been fired, and that the company is investigating a "violation of Apple's business conduct policy."
Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Here are the key details of The Courier-Mail's initial report:
Apple Store employees working at the Carindale store were allegedly stealing photos from customers' phones without their knowledge.
They were also allegedly taking photos of female customers and staff. "More than 100 close-up and explicit photos" were apparently taken, the newspaper said.
Employees then allegedly traded them among themselves. "One person would take a photo and add it to the chat and others would give the person or their butt or their boobs a rating out of 10 and they would add their own side commentary," an Apple employee said.
This behaviour was allegedly discovered after an Apple employee found a technician using a customer's phone in the repair room.
Four employees, all male, have been fired.One of the first indications in “Serial” that something was not quite right with the murder case against Maryland teen Adnan Syed came with the so-called Asia Letters: In 1999, Asia McClain wrote Adnan an affidavit swearing that she was with him in a library at the time his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee was murdered. Then, in one of the podcast’s earliest twists, listeners learned that McClain had later recanted her testimony, telling prosecutor Kevin Urick that she only gave Adnan an alibi under pressure from his family.
Now, as Adnan’s real-life appeal hinges on the question of whether or not his attorney should have investigated the alibi more fully, the story of the Asia Letters has only gotten more complex: McClain now tells the Blaze that she never recanted her testimony and never told Urick she had been forced to give Adnan an alibi. “I did not write the March 1999 letters or the affidavit because of pressure from Syed’s family,” McClain swears in a new affidavit. “I did not write them to please Syed’s family or to get them off my back. What actually happened is that I wrote the affidavit because I wanted to provide the truth about what I remembered. My only goal has always been to provide the truth about what I remembered.” For his part, Urick tells the Blaze that McClain’s new assertions are “absolutely false.”Like pasta, cannellini beans are a good staple to have on hand in a city kitchen pantry, and an hour of gentle simmering is usually all it takes. Obviously, they take a little advance planning. You can’t hurry a pot of beans, but you can cook them the day or even the morning before you need them. This a good habit to get into, as a small batch of freshly cooked beans is well worth the little effort it takes to get them cooked. (And by all means, use a real stovetop if you have one.) Don’t cave and go the canned-bean route — save those for emergencies or camping trips.
Featured in: Small Space, Big Flavor: First, Start The Beans.
Learn: How to Make Salad
Learn: How to Cook Asparagus
Learn: How to Cook Beanswindow._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-c', container: 'taboola-interstitial-gallery-thumbnails-5', placement: 'Interstitial Gallery Thumbnails 5', target_type:'mix' });
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Photo: Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Image 2 of 12 Hakeem Olajuwon Even the most recognizable player in team history had a beef with the Rockets. In the twilight of his career, he rejected an offer from the Rockets and requested to be traded. They granted him his wish. "Hakeem's decision is disappointing for the entire Rockets organization,'' Rockets owner Les Alexander said at the time. ''Hakeem Olajuwon has meant more to this franchise and this city than any other athlete in Houston history. We desperately wanted to keep him in a Rockets uniform for the remainder of his career and made every attempt to do so. It is with a heavy heart that we have agreed to his request.'' less Hakeem Olajuwon Even the most recognizable player in team history had a beef with the Rockets. In the twilight of his career, he rejected an offer from the Rockets and requested to be... more Photo: Houston Chronicle file photo Image 3 of 12 The Rockets disagreement with Hakeem Olajuwon resulted in a strange sight - Olajuwon wearing a jersey that wasn't the Rockets. After 17 years as a Rocket, Olajuwon played his 18th and final season for the Toronto Raptors. Both sides have made nice since the bitter breakup, as Olajuwon has been hired by the Rockets as a special assistant. less The Rockets disagreement with Hakeem Olajuwon resulted in a strange sight - Olajuwon wearing a jersey that wasn't the Rockets. After 17 years as a Rocket, Olajuwon played his 18th and final season for the... more Photo: Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle Image 4 of 12 Tracy McGrady T-Mac's tenure started with promise and ended in a trade. A severe back condition hindered McGrady's career. After returning from a prolonged absence, coach Rick Adelman and McGrady disagreed on playing time. He was eventually traded to the New York Knicks in 2010 in a deal that brought Kevin Martin to the Rockets. less Tracy McGrady T-Mac's tenure started with promise and ended in a trade. A severe back condition hindered McGrady's career. After returning from a prolonged absence, coach Rick Adelman and... more Photo: James Nielsen / Houston Chronicle Image 5 of 12 Image 6 of 12 Scottie Pippen Michael Jordan's legendary sidekick was never a good fit with the Rockets. The Rockets traded for Pippen in the lockout-shortened 1998-1999 season in hopes of him being the final piece to a championship with Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon. But there would be no postseason glory. Pippen and Barkley didn't get along very well, and he was dealt the following offseason to the Portland Trail Blazers. less Scottie Pippen Michael Jordan's legendary sidekick was never a good fit with the Rockets. The Rockets traded for Pippen in the lockout-shortened 1998-1999 season in hopes of him being the... more Photo: Houston Chronicle file photo Image 7 of 12 Kyle Lowry After a series of injuries in the 2012 season, Lowry returned and split time at point guard with Goran Dragic. Unsatisfied with the change, Lowry expressed his desire to be moved. The Rockets traded him to Toronto for Gary Forbes and a future draft pick. less Kyle Lowry After a series of injuries in the 2012 season, Lowry returned and split time at point guard with Goran Dragic. Unsatisfied with the change, Lowry expressed his desire to... more Photo: Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle Image 8 of 12 Vernon Maxwell 'Mad Max' played a crucial role in the Rockets' first NBA championship in 1994, but he was prone to trouble. He had an incident with a fan in Portland among other legal woes. When the Rockets acquired Clyde Drexler it disappointed Maxwell and signaled the end of his time in Houston. He was waived by the team and picked up by the Philadelphia 76ers. less Vernon Maxwell 'Mad Max' played a crucial role in the Rockets' first NBA championship in 1994, but he was prone to trouble. He had an incident with a fan in Portland among other legal... more Photo: Houston Chronicle file photo Image 9 of 12 Royce White The Rockets drafted White No. 16 overall in the 2012 - but the forward will likely never play an NBA game. He has a highly-publicized fear of flying as a part of an anxiety disorder. He demanded the NBA institute a protocol for players with his condition, initially refused an assignment to the Rockets' D-League affiliate and was a general headache for the franchise's management. White was traded to the 76ers the same day Houston reached an agreement with Dwight Howard. Philadelphia cut White after an inconsistent preseason, and it's unlikely any other organization will take a risk on him. less Royce White The Rockets drafted White No. 16 overall in the 2012 - but the forward will likely never play an NBA game. He has a highly-publicized fear of flying as a part of an anxiety... more Photo: Cody Duty / Houston Chronicle Image 10 of 12 Image 11 of 12 Omer Asik The Turkish center's days are numbered in Houston. Asik's feelings have been hurt ever since the team signed Dwight Howard after he had the best season of his career. Asik requested a trade in the aftermath of the Howard signing, but his wish was not granted. The Rockets tried a lineup with him and Howard but chose to make Asik a bench player. Television cameras caught him sulking on the bench and he missed two games because of his diminished minutes. It's not a matter of if but when Asik is sent to another team. less Omer Asik The Turkish center's days are numbered in Houston. Asik's feelings have been hurt ever since the team signed Dwight Howard after he had the best season of his career. Asik... more Photo: Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle Image 12 of 12 Rockets GM Morey speaks on Asik, Royce White 1 / 12 Back to Gallery
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey spoke on an array of topics in a Q&A discussion with season ticket holders before |
a Department for Transport spokesman said: "As a result of the economic policies that this government has put in place, the most recent forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility are that by around 2015, fares will be rising in line with wages and salaries."
'Prohibitively expensive'
The chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement in early December that the regulated fare price cap of RPI inflation plus 1% was being changed to RPI plus 0%.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Commuters on their journeys: "I have to stand up every day"
Jason Torrance, policy director of sustainable transport organisation Sustrans, said commuters would still feel the effects of the rise.
"The chancellor's move to bring an end to the inflation-busting fare rises we've seen over the last decade shows a recognition that rising transport costs are a barrier to economic recovery," he said.
"But commuters will still feel the pinch this new year because salaries aren't increasing by anywhere near the level of inflation.
"If transport remains so prohibitively expensive, we will continue to restrict travel choices and opportunities to access essential services and employment."
Transport Minister Stephen Hammond also commented on a plan to boost capacity by converting some first class carriages into standard class.
Earlier this month, First Great Western confirmed it was in talks with the Department for Transport about converting first class carriages on some of its services.
Mr Hammond said: "There are some new ideas we are looking at. This is one of them. Is it going to happen? It may. It may not."Are We Ready To Hack The Animal Kingdom?
More From This Episode The Hackers
Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Hackers.
About Stewart Brand's TEDTalk
Mankind has driven species after species extinct. Now Stewart Brand says, we have the technology to bring back the species that we wiped out. So should we? Which ones? He asks a big question whose answer is closer than you may think.
About Stewart Brand
The revival of extinct species is becoming a possibility and Stewart Brand plans to not only bring species back but restore them to the wild. Brand is already a legend in the tech industry for things he's created: the Whole Earth Catalog, The WELL, the Long Now Foundation, and the notion that "information wants to be free."
Now Brand, a lifelong environmentalist, wants to re-create — or "de-extinct" — a few animals that have disappeared from the planet. Resurrecting the woolly mammoth using ancient DNA may sound like mad science.
But Brand's Revive and Restore project has an entirely rational goal: to learn what causes extinctions so we can protect currently endangered species, preserve genetic and biological diversity, repair depleted ecosystems, and essentially "undo harm that humans have caused in the past."For other people of the same name, see Josiah (given name)
Josiah ( or )[1][2] or Yoshiyahu[a] was a seventh-century BCE king of Judah (c. 649–609) who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms. Josiah is credited by most biblical scholars with having established or compiled important Hebrew Scriptures during the "Deuteronomic reform" which probably occurred during his rule. Josiah became king of Judah at the age of eight, after the assassination of his father, King Amon, and reigned for thirty-one years, from 641/640 to 610/609 BCE.[3] Josiah is known only from biblical texts; no reference to him exists in surviving texts of the period from Egypt or Babylon, and no clear archaeological evidence, such as inscriptions bearing his name, has ever been found.[4] Nevertheless, most scholars believe he existed and that the absence of documents is due to few documents of any sort surviving from this very early period, and to Jerusalem having been occupied, conquered, and rebuilt for thousands of years.[5]
The Bible describes him as a very righteous king, a king who "walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left" (2 Kings 22:2). He is also one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, one of the two divergent genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament.Matthew 1:10–11
Family [ edit ]
According to the Hebrew Bible, Josiah was the son of King Amon and Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.[6] His grandfather Manasseh was one of the kings blamed for turning away from the worship of Yahweh. Manasseh adapted the Temple for idolatrous worship. Josiah's great-grandfather was King Hezekiah, a noted reformer.
Josiah had four sons: Johanan, and Eliakim (born c. 634 BCE), whose mother was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah; and Mattanyahu (c. 618 BCE) and Shallum (633/632 BCE), whose mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.(1 Chronicles 3:15, 2 Kings 23:36, 24:18, 23:31) Eliakim had his name changed by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt to Jehoiakim.(2 Kings 23:34)
His youngest son Shallum succeeded Josiah as king of Judah, under the name Jehoahaz.(1 Chronicles 3:15, Jeremiah 22:11) Shallum was succeeded by Eliakim, under the name Jehoiakim,(2 Chronicles 36:4) who was succeeded by his own son Jeconiah;(2 Chronicles 36:8) then, Jeconiah was succeeded to the throne by his uncle Mattanyahu, under the name Zedekiah.(2 Kings 24:17) Zedekiah was the last king of Judah before the kingdom was conquered by Babylon and the people exiled.
Religious reform [ edit ]
Closer view of the inner court and House of the Temple of Solomon as depicted in a 3-D computer model
According to the Hebrew Bible, in the eighteenth year of his rule, Josiah ordered the High Priest Hilkiah to use the tax money which had been collected over the years to renovate the temple. It was during this time that Hilkiah discovered the Book of the Law. While Hilkiah was clearing the treasure room of the Temple he discovered a scroll described as "the book of the Law" or as "the book of the law of Yahweh by the hand of Moses".[7] The phrase "the book of the Torah" ( ספר התורה, sefer ha-torah) in 2 Kings 22:8 is identical to the phrase used in Joshua 1:8 and 8:34 to describe the sacred writings that Joshua had received from Moses. The book is not identified in the text as the Torah and many scholars believe this was either a copy of the Book of Deuteronomy or a text that became a part of Deuteronomy.[8]
However it has been noted that the story of the repairs to the Temple is based on those ordered by an earlier Judean king, Joash (who ruled c. 836 – 796 BCE) in 2 Kings 12.[9]
Hilkiah brought this scroll to Josiah's attention. Josiah consulted the prophetess Huldah, who assured him that the evil foretold in the document for nonobservance of its instructions, would come, but not in his day; "because", she said, "thine heart was tender and thou didst humble thyself before the Lord".[6] An assembly of the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and of all the people was called, and Josiah then encouraged the exclusive worship of Yahweh, forbidding all other forms of worship. The instruments and emblems of the worship of Baal and "the host of heaven" were removed from the Jerusalem Temple. Local sanctuaries, or High Places, were destroyed, from Beer-sheba in the south to Beth-el and the cities of Samaria in the north.[6] Josiah had pagan priests executed and even had the bones of the dead priests of Bethel exhumed from their graves and burned on their altars. Josiah also reinstituted the Passover celebrations.
View of the Temple of Solomon with ceiling removed as depicted in a 3-D computer model
According to 1 Kings 13:1–3 an unnamed "man of God" (sometimes identified as Iddo) had prophesied to King Jeroboam of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), approximately three hundred years earlier, that "a son named Josiah will be born to the house of David" and that he would destroy the altar at Bethel. And the only exception to this destruction was for the grave of an unnamed prophet he found in Bethel (2 Kings 23:15–19), who had foretold that these religious sites Jeroboam erected would one day be destroyed (see 1 Kings 13). Josiah ordered the double grave of the "man of God" and of the Bethel prophet to be let alone as these prophecies had come true.
Josiah's reforms are described in two biblical accounts, 2 Kings 22–23, and 2 Chronicles 34–35. They began with the ending of ancient Israelite religious practices, and the astral cults that had become popular in the 8th Century, and led to centralisation of worship in Jerusalem, and the destruction of the temple at Bethel.[10]
According to the later account in 2 Chronicles, Josiah destroyed altars and images of pagan deities in cities of the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, "and Simeon, as far as Naphtali" (2 Chronicles 34:6–7), which were outside of his kingdom, Judah, and returned the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple.[11]
Foreign relations [ edit ]
When Josiah became king of Judah in about 641/640 BCE, the international situation was in flux. The Assyrian Empire was beginning to disintegrate, the Neo-Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it, and Egypt to the west was still recovering from Assyrian rule. In this power vacuum, Jerusalem was able to govern itself for the time being without foreign intervention.
In the spring of 609 BCE, Pharaoh Necho II led a sizable army up to the Euphrates River to aid the Assyrians against the Babylonians.[12] Taking the coast route Via Maris into Syria at the head of a large army, consisting mainly of mercenaries, and supported by his Mediterranean fleet along the shore, Necho passed the low tracts of Philistia and Sharon. However, the passage over the ridge of hills which shuts in on the south of the great Jezreel Valley was blocked by the Judean army led by Josiah, who may have considered that the Assyrians and Egyptians were weakened by the death of the pharaoh Psamtik I only a year earlier (610 BCE), who had been appointed and confirmed by Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal.[12] Josiah attempted to block the advance at Megiddo, where a fierce battle was fought and Josiah was killed.[13] Necho then joined forces with the Assyrian Ashur-uballit II and together they crossed the Euphrates and lay siege to Harran. The combined forces failed to capture the city, and Necho retreated to northern Syria.
Death [ edit ]
Death of king Josiah as illustrated by Francesco Conti
There are two accounts of Josiah's death in the Bible. The Second Book of Kings merely states that Necho II met Josiah in battle at Megiddo and killed him (2 Kings 23:29), whereas the second book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 35:20–27) gives a lengthier account and states that Josiah was fatally wounded by Egyptian archers and was brought back to Jerusalem to die. His death in the latter account was attributed to him "not listening to what Necho had said at God's command..." when Necho stated: "What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I am not coming against you today, but against the house with which I am at war; and God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, so that he will not destroy you."[14] According to 2 Chronicles 35:25, Jeremiah wrote a lament for Josiah's death.[15]
The account in Chronicles is considered unreliable by some scholars,[16] as it is based on the description of the death of a different king, Ahab, in 1 Kings, and it meets the Chronicler's religious agenda to attribute the death of a righteous king to some form of sin.[17]
Succession [ edit ]
After the setback in Harran, Necho left a sizable force behind, and returned to Egypt. On his return march, Necho found that Jehoahaz had been selected to succeed his father, Josiah. (2 Kings 23:31) Necho deposed Jehoahaz, who had been king for only three months, and replaced him with his older brother, Jehoiakim. Necho imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver (about 33⁄ 4 tons or about 3.4 metric tons) and a talent of gold (about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms). Necho then took Jehoahaz back to Egypt as his prisoner. The defeat of Josiah at Megiddo essentially represents the end of the rule of the Davidic line, since not only were Josiah's successors short-lived, but also Judah's relative independence had crumbled in the face of a resurgent Egypt bent on regaining its traditional control of the region, and the imminent rise of the Babylonian empire which also sought control.
Necho had left Egypt in 609 BCE to relieve the Assyrian Harran under Babylonian siege. Josiah's actions may have provided aid to the Babylonians by engaging the Egyptian army.[18]
Book of the Law [ edit ]
Josiah hearing the book of the law (1873) (1873)
The Hebrew Bible states that the priest Hilkiah found a "Book of the Law" in the temple during the early stages of Josiah's temple renovation. Hilkiah then gave the scroll to his secretary Shaphan, who took it to King Josiah. According to the Bible, King Josiah then changed his form of leadership entirely, entering into a new form of covenant with the Lord. He wiped out all of the pagan cults that had formed within his land. He, along with his people, then entered into this new covenant with the Lord to keep the commandments of the Lord.[19]
For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was agreed among biblical scholars that this "Book of the Law" was an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, but recent biblical scholarship sees it as a largely legendary narrative about one of the earliest stages of the creation of Deuteronomistic work.[20] That is, historical-critical biblical scholars generally believe that the "Book of the Law"—an early predecessor of the Torah—was invented by Josiah's priests, who were driven by ideological interests to centralize power under Josiah in the Temple in Jerusalem. Many scholars see the whole core narrative, from Joshua to 2 Kings, as comprising a Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) written during Josiah's reign.[21] In fact, some recent European theologians even go so far as to posit that most of the Torah and Deuteronomistic History was composed and finalized several centuries later, during the Persian period.[22] However, most biblical scholars are coming to believe that the Deuteronomistic History was composed using other earlier sources, including a brief chronicle of king's names, age at the beginning of their reign, and their mother's names.[23]
Sources [ edit ]
The only textual sources of information for Josiah's reign are from the Bible,[4] notably 2 Kings 22–23 and 2 Chronicles 34–35. No archaeological evidence for Josiah as a person exists. Seals and seal impressions from the period show a transition from those of an earlier period which bear images of stars and the moon, to seals that carry only names, a possible indication of Josiah's enforcement of monotheism.[24] No other archaeological evidence of Josiah's religious reforms has been discovered.[24]
The date of Josiah's death can be established fairly accurately. The Babylonian Chronicle dates the battle at Harran between the Assyrians and their Egyptian allies against the Babylonians from Tammuz (July–August) to Elul (August–September) 609 BCE. On that basis, Josiah was killed in the month of Tammuz (July–August) 609 BCE, when the Egyptians were on their way to Harran.[25]
Prophets and King Josiah [ edit ]
According to Rabbinic interpretation, Huldah said to the messengers of King Josiah, "Tell the man that sent you to me..." (2 Kings 22:15), indicating by her unceremonious language that for her Josiah was like any other man. The king addressed her, and not Jeremiah, because he thought that women are more easily stirred to pity than men, and that therefore the prophetess would be more likely than Jeremiah to intercede with God in his behalf (Meg. 14a, b; comp. Seder 'Olam R. xxi.). Huldah was a relative of Jeremiah, both being descendants of Rahab by her marriage with Joshua (Sifre, Num. 78; Meg. 14a, b). While Jeremiah admonished and preached repentance to the men, she did the same to the women (Pesiḳ. R. 26 [ed. Friedmann, p. 129]). Huldah was not only a prophetess, but taught publicly in the school (Targ. to 2 Kings 22:14), according to some teaching especially the oral doctrine. It is doubtful whether "the Gate of Huldah" in the Second Temple (Mid. i. 3) has any connection with the prophetess Huldah; it may have meant "Cat's Gate"; some scholars, however, associate the gate with Huldah's schoolhouse (Rashi to Kings l.c.).E. C. L. G.
The prophetic activity of Jeremiah began in the reign of Josiah; he was a contemporary of his relative the prophetess Hulda and of his teacher Zephaniah (comp. Maimonides in the introduction to "Yad"; in Lam. R. i. 18 Isaiah is mentioned as Jeremiah's teacher). These three prophets divided their activity in such wise that Hulda spoke to the women and Jeremiah to the men in the street, while Zephaniah preached in the synagogue (Pesiḳ. R. l.c.). When Josiah restored the true worship, Jeremiah went to the exiled ten tribes, whom he brought to Israel under the rule of the pious king ('Ar. 33a). Although Josiah went to war with Egypt against the prophet's advice, yet the latter knew that the pious king did so only in error (Lam. R. l.c.); and in his dirges he bitterly laments the king's death, the fourth chapter of the Lamentations beginning with a dirge on Josiah (Lam. R. iv. 1; Targ. II Chron. xxxv. 25).
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Hebrew: יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ, Modern: Yōšiyahū, Tiberian: Yôšiyāhû, literally meaning "healed by Ἰωσίας ; Latin: Iosias, literally meaning "healed by Yah " or "supported of Yah"; Greek
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Google has taken what its officials call an “experimental first step” into online education, releasing open-source software called Course Builder in hopes that universities will use it to deliver free online courses.
The search giant says it is in talks with edX—a partnership among Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley to offer free online courses—though officials declined to comment further. A post on Google’s research blog this week also cited nine universities interested in using the platform, including Stanford University.
“We’ve been in touch with a number of universities, and I think it’s a confusing time or an exciting time,” said Peter Norvig, Google’s director of research, in an interview with The Chronicle late Wednesday. “We’re close with Stanford—Coursera and Udacity both came out of Stanford. They’re working on their own open-source project, and they’re also interested in working with us. I think schools are experimenting and they don’t know quite yet what they want to do.”
Google tested the software when it offered a free open course this summer called Power Searching, which attracted 155,000 registered students. The software is available for download, but installing it requires some technical prowess and a server to run it on. Google has also released suggestions for designing online courses.
This first version of Course Builder will be updated and could become a more polished Google service in the future depending on how it is received, Mr. Norvig said. The service could become a tool for anyone to build and deliver their own courses, he added.
Mr. Norvig is not a stranger to MOOC’s—he co-taught a free online artificial-intelligence course that helped spark interest in their potential and attracted some 160,000 students. He announced the release of Course Builder in a YouTube video Wednesday.
(Updated at 7:50 a.m. with comment from Google.)Texas drought will lighten up by winter, report says
Click through the slideshow to see how the 2014 drought affected some of Texas' major reservoirs. less See where Texas' major reservoirs were at in the drought of 2014 compared to almost 20 years earlier using data from the Texas Water Development Board.
Click through the slideshow to see how the 2014 drought... more See where Texas' major reservoirs were at in the drought of 2014 compared to almost 20 years earlier using data from the Texas Water Development Board. Image 1 of / 145 Caption Close Texas drought will lighten up by winter, report says 1 / 145 Back to Gallery
SAN ANTONIO – Three years have passed since Texas endured one of the worst droughts in history. In September and October of 2011, more than 80 percent of the state was in an exceptional drought, the highest category on the U.S. drought monitor scale.
Today, 59 percent of the state is experiencing drought conditions from moderate to exceptional, while 22 percent is experiencing dry conditions and 19 percent is experiencing no drought.
A new report from the Climate Prediction Center states that drought conditions in Texas most likely will improve or end by the end of the year. The only area in Texas that will experience persistent or intensified drought conditions is the southern point of the state.
Victor Murphy, climate services program manager for the National Weather Service, said the drought already has been lifted in some eastern portions of the state, including Houston. But, the land from the Panhandle to Wichita Falls, have remained in an extreme drought, he said.
For Bexar County, Murphy said conditions range from dry to a moderate drought.
"Areas right now that are only in moderate drought should probably improve and get out of drought," he said.
Unfortunately, Murphy said although wet conditions will return, the drought's symptoms may never leave. For example, he said Medina Lake's low capacity may never return to normal, unless there is an "extremely unusual" amount of rainfall.
"I'll be honest, I'm not sure it's ever going get to back to where it was," he said. "It's going to take a protracted period of heavy rain over a long period of time to get Medina Lake back to normal."
Medina Lake, just west of San Antonio, is 4.1 percent full, and has climbed since the record low of 2.7 percent capacity in May, when the lake was 91 feet below normal.
"This drought's been so persistent for so long, that normal rainfall is not good enough," he said.
He also stated that the Edwards Aquifer currently sits at 627.1 feet, the lowest since the drought began in October 2010.
Dry conditions began after tropical storm Hermine hit the southern coast in early September.
"It's almost like some flipped a light switch," Murphy said, referring to the sudden drought, which has been the worst Texas has seen since the 1950s.
The U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook report is valid through Nov. 30, and was based on both short and long term conditions, climatology and El Niño forecasts.
For the nation, dry conditions are expected to worsen throughout California, Nevada, Oregon and parts of Utah, Idaho and Washington, the report states.
California is facing one of the worst droughts on record, and Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought State of Emergency in January. Even celebrities, such as Lady Gaga and Conan O'Brien, have urged Californians to conserve water to help to ease drought symptoms.
California's drought has quickly intensified since late 2011, when majority of the state was experiencing do drought, the drought monitor states. Drought conditions climbed slowly on a weekly basis until January. Since January, exceptional drought conditions have increased from nonexistent to the current reading of 58 percent.
rsalinas@mysa.comIn their book Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations, published prior to the Paris climate change meeting last December, Chris Wright and Daniel Nyberg highlighted how the dominance of neoliberalism in recent decades has locked the global economy on to a path of “creative self-destruction”, built around the oxymoron of “green capitalism”. Events since Paris have confirmed their thesis.
Just before Paris, the New York state attorney general, via the US Securities and Exchange Commission, secured undertakings from the world’s largest coal company, Peabody Energy, for violating state laws prohibiting false and misleading conduct in regard to Peabody’s public statements on risks posed by climate change. In part by misrepresenting the projections of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
For the past two decades, major companies, industry bodies, media and governments have been guilty of similar disinformation in Australia, a practice which is again evident in this election campaign.
The truth behind Peabody's campaign to rebrand coal as a poverty cure Read more
Long ago, the IEA recognised the risks posed by human-induced climate change. It accepted that climate and energy were inextricably linked and dangerous climate change could only be avoided with fundamental change to the global energy system. Specifically by rapidly weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon energy supply.
The IEA has become a leading authority exploring this transition, regularly quoted by governments and business alike. It is subjected to great pressure by them to lean in suitably accommodating directions.
It handles this pressure by publishing, in its annual World Energy Outlooks (WEOs), its perspectives on the energy sector over the next 25 years. These explore the implications of taking alternative climate and energy pathways. Key scenarios are: current policies (CP) which assumes business-as-usual, new policies (NP) which extends CP with policy governments have committed to but not yet implemented, and the 450 scenario which is the pathway to keep global average temperature increase below 2C.
The best thing a business could do for the environment is shut down Read more
These scenarios are highly influential in justifying investment decisions. For Australia, global coal demand is one of the factors of greatest interest. In the WEO 2015 released last November, under CP assumptions demand would increase by 43% by 2040 compared to current levels, under NP by 12%, but under 450 scenario it declines by 36%.
The IEA takes NP as their central scenario as this is where we are headed if governments implement their commitments. However the IEA make it clear that NP is not a sustainable future. In its report, executive director Fatih Birol says: “We look to the negotiators in Paris to destroy our projections in our central scenario, which we show to be unsustainable, in order to create a new world in which energy needs are met without dangerously overheating the planet.” The Paris meeting agreed to keep global average temperature below 2C and pursue efforts to limit to 1.5C.
Warming would see global population and economic growth in steep decline or stalled. Poverty would massively increase as poorer countries are disproportionately hit by climate extremes. This is already happening.
As with Peabody, Australian organisations, through the Minerals Council, regularly misrepresent the IEA’s position. Typically they publicise the CP or NP outcomes and ignore the 450 scenario despite the fact that they publicly support the 2C limit. These inflated coal demand figures are then claimed to be IEA “forecasts”, justifying further coal investment and government support.
These organisations participate in IEA advisory committees and should be aware that scenarios are not forecasts. Scenarios demonstrate the outcome of certain choices and the IEA make it clear that CP and NP are choices we must not make. To suggest otherwise is blatant disinformation of the worst kind given the potentially catastrophic implications of distorting the IEA’s advice.
Coal executive turned climate change activist fights for seat on BHP board Read more
The Minerals Council of Australia has been one of the worst offenders, even in the current election campaign inconsistently using NP outcomes while claiming to support the 2C limit. The Minerals Council represents companies like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, who vehemently proclaim leadership on climate change and the urgent need to follow a 2C path, yet this disinformation is allowed to continue from the Minerals Council.
This propaganda is parroted by ill-informed politicians, such as energy minister Josh Frydenberg, claiming that,“The IEA tells us that 40% of today’s electricity demand is met by coal and by 2040 it will still be 30%”, and trade minister Steve Ciobo: “Global demand for coal is still going through the roof”. NP figures again, which imply an absolute increase in coal use of 23%. However the 450 scenario, to which the government supposedly committed to in Paris, shows coal’s share of electricity demand falling from 40% to 12% by 2040, an absolute reduction in coal use of 57%, which certainly requires no new coal mines.
Parts of media also to be blamed. The Australian has been an offenderbut even the more balanced Fairfax press falls into the same trap. Not surprisingly, it still features prominently on coal company websites.
The government and opposition, who accept donations from fossil fuel interests which Wright and Nyberg refer to, both sing the praises of the Adani Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin, Shenhua’s Watermark Mine on the Liverpool Plains, Kepco’s Bylong Valley adventure and Hume Coal in the Southern Highlands. All based on ill-informed premises and substantially contributing to increasing global temperatures well above 2C.
The cost to Australia, if this irresponsible misallocation of resources proceeds, would be enormous. Among other things, stranded assets as these mines are forced to shut down as climate impact intensifies; the lost opportunity of not investing in low-carbon future; the loss of agricultural productivity as mining disrupts prime farming land and water supply; and the social disruption caused to regional communities from abandoned operations. Plus, the full impact of potentially catastrophic climate change in a country more at risk than any other.
In the national interest, Australian regulators, including federal and state attorney generals, ASIC, the ASX and the Press Council urgently need to stamp out this misinformation as their overseas counterparts are doing. Particularly if we are serious about promoting “innovation, jobs and growth”.The supposed plans for a Formula 1 race in Las Vegas have so impressed the city’s media that the Las Vegas Review-Journal laughed the suggestion off, although just to make sure the newspaper rang Las Vegas Events (LVE) president Pat Christenson, who said that he had not been involved in any discussions with anyone about bringing F1 back to Las Vegas. LVE is a non-profit organization which serves as the EXCLUSIVE major special events agency for the city. If he does not know about it, one has to wonder who does.
Bernie Ecclestone himself has said that Steve Wynn and Guy Laliberté, who had been named as possible backers, are not in fact involved at all.
The mayor of Las Vegas is Carolyn Goodman, who replaced her husband in the role in 2011. From what I hear Mayor Goodman (Mark I) promised the casinos that he would never again close down streets in Las Vegas for a car race after the Champ Car flop in 2007 and Mayor Goodman (Mark II) will no doubt know the full story and will be thinking along similar lines. The 2007 event attracted an estimated 40,000 spectators but the promoters lost millions and many downtown businesses complained that they lost revenues as a result. The promoter – DDB Ventures – closed down afterwards.
The other thing to bear in mind is that Las Vegas Motor Speedway has a vested interest in NOT having rivals races in the city. The facility is owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc, which is run by Bruton Smith and back in 1998 when Las Vegas last tried to host an F1 race, local sources told the Las Vegas Sun newspaper that speedway officials were doing everything they could to block a bid to build a golf course/race track because they did not want the competition.
The fact that the F1 to Vegas reports appeared in Forbes might suggest that there is some credibility to the story, but then again it might simply suggest that the quality of the Forbes reporting had gone down since the company was sold to Hong Kong’s Integrated Whale Media Investments in the summer.The California National Guard has blocked Infowars reporters Joe Biggs and Jakari Jackson from attending a dirty bomb exercise set to take place tomorrow in Richmond, with one official citing the “nature” of their work as the reason.
In an email to Joe Biggs, Capt. Will Martin, Deputy Director of Public Affairs at the California Military Department, made clear that Biggs and Jackson would be refused access due to the content of their previous reporting.
“Upon reviewing your body of work, the California Military Department has chosen to decline you and Jakari Jackson media access to the emergency-response exercise involving the California National Guard on April 11, 2015, in Richmond, California,” states the email.
“The nature of your work and the media programs in which you regularly participate (e.g. The Alex Jones Show) are consistently conspiratorial and inflammatory in nature. Therefore, we hold little confidence that granting you access to the exercise would result in a fair and responsible report for your audience.”
Martin is essentially saying that only media outlets who put a positive spin on the exercise or who regurgitate National Guard talking points will be allowed to cover the drill.
It’s not the National Guard’s place to decide what constitutes a “fair and responsible” report on their activities. America is supposed to have something called the First Amendment and freedom of the press. The U.S. military does not have control over the Fourth Estate.
The Guard’s refusal to allow Infowars to report on the exercise will only prompt further skepticism as to why they’re so afraid of the dirty bomb drill being covered by independent media.
The exercise will include, “more than 200 soldiers, airmen, local law enforcement and firefighting personnel” who “will descend upon the city in order to defuse the situation,” reports the Richmond Standard.
The drill will also involve the California National Guard’s 49th Military Police Brigade, which is home to FEMA’s Region IX Homeland Response Force (HRF).
The exercise is one of many upcoming military drills which some fear are being used to acclimate the public to martial law should troops ever be used to patrol the streets in the event of a national emergency or civil unrest.
Jade Helm, a “realistic” military training exercise involving nine states, which will involve the Green Berets, Navy Seals, and the 82nd Airborne Division and is set to take place from July 15-Sepember 15, has prompted concerns after Texas and Utah were labeled “hostile” territory in documents related to the exercise.
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.The SNP’s firm pro-EU stance ahead of the snap general election in June was a significant factor in the party failing to repeat its success at the previous poll in 2015, a report has found.
The EU referendum cut across divisions over Scottish independence and led to a number of those who had previously backed the Nationalists switching their votes to the Conservatives or Labour, according to a post-election analysis by the University of Manchester.
The report found that in the space of three general elections the Scottish party system had been “completely transformed”, with successive referendums on Scottish independence and the UK’s membership of the EU the catalyst.
While nine out of 10 SNP voters in 2015 who backed continued membership of the EU stayed loyal at June’s poll, as many as four out of 10 who supported Brexit looked elsewhere - with Kezia Dugdale and Ruth Davidson’s parties the main beneficiaries.
Although the SNP remained the largest party in Scotland, it lost more than a quarter of its vote share and 21 of the 56 seats it won in 2015.
The Scottish Conservatives, meanwhile, nearly doubled its vote share from 2015, picking up 12 seats, becoming the second largest party in Scotland in the process - the first time it had finished ahead of Labour north of the border since 1959.
Angus Robertson, the leader of the SNP group at Westminster, was among the high-profile casualties at the snap election. His Moray constituency, won by the Tories, returned the largest pro-Brexit vote in Scotland at the 2016 EU vote.
Dr Chris Prosser and Professor Ed Fieldhouse examined how the two referendums interacted to produce the outcome of the 2017 election in Scotland. The authors examined the 2015 to 2017 vote flows amongst four categories of respondents, grouped according to their combination of referendum votes
“Unlike the Yes/Remain SNP voter, Yes/Leave voters were much more likely to defect from the SNP in 2017, with 4 in 10 switching to another party, with similar proportions going to the Conservatives and Labour,” the report said.
“It appears that just as Labour’s position on the independence referendum lost them votes to the SNP, many 2015 SNP voters were driven away by the party’s strong pro-remain stance.”
The report also found that the Scottish Conservatives were gaining ground with No/Remain voters - the largest of |
an about milk prices, cold winters, trespassers, badgers and supermarkets, but White bubbles like the 400,000 bottles of fizz and other vintages he expects to make in November.
The prospect, says the manager of Denbies vineyard near Dorking, is for record sales and record quality. "2013 has been a quite perfect year so far with ideal conditions for growing grapes," he says. "It's been really stunning. We've seldom, maybe never, seen it like this before.
"The cold, hard snap got rid of the bugs; then in April, the critical time in vineyards, we had no frosts at all and when the vines flowered in June it was over in seven to 10 days. This year we expect, at a very worst case, to harvest 350 tonnes of the best grapes we have ever grown."
Britain now has 420 vineyards and around 100 wineries – nothing compared with France's 110,000 growers and 27,000 wineries – and Denbies, set up 25 years ago, is the largest of the lot. Its 300,000 vines produce around 10% of all the grapes grown.
"It's not just us. UK vineyards are on a roll," White says. "From being a doubtful grape-growing country only a few years ago, we are turning out to be a spectacular place to grow them. Our vintners are winning awards and demand now exceeds supply. We are even exporting it. We had a busload of French growers here the other week and they were dead impressed."
White puts the unlikely British success down to climate change and, in southern England, the chalk soils, which match those of Champagne and are perfect for sparkling wines. "Global warming is definitely happening. We know because we are getting fewer frosts, we have better harvests more frequently and we can now grow varieties of grape like carbernet sauvignon that we never could before.
"We are also harvesting earlier than we used to. We still see the droughts and have the cold snaps, but the temperatures are definitely improving."
But 2012, he says, was a disaster for nearly every British grape grower. Denbies harvested less than a quarter of what it expected, and other vineyards had to abandon whole crops in the wettest, coldest summer in 100 years. "It was once-in-a-lifetime bad. The fruit just did not set. We were due a good one this year."
Cultural attitudes towards English wine have changed in the last 20 years and more than four million bottles are now drunk each year. "The idea that it is expensive and poor quality is going out the window. You used to drink it to be patriotic but now there's wine for the connoisseur and Joe Public. It's being sold in Tesco and Sainsbury's. The jubilee and the Olympics helped, too.
"What has also changed is that all the vineyards are getting bigger. The average size 10 years ago was around 2.5 acres. Now it is eight or nine acres. They used to be trophy assets for rich people, but now you need about £1m just for an average-size vineyard. You need very deep pockets now because it takes four years or more before you can harvest the grape and land has become far more expensive.
"Round here, lots of farmers have seen the benefits and are turning a few acres to grape-growing. Some are linking up in the French way like a co-operative. But there is big money going in, too."
A £20m venture in East Sussex, financed by a former hedge fund operator, plans to produce more than 1m bottles a year by 2020. That would increase the amount on the market by 20% and turn it into a mass produced industry.
"I can see southern England turning into a major grape-growing region," says White. "All you need are deep pockets, a vision and nerve."Japanese graffiti artist 281_Anti Nuke says his politically charged placards plastered around central Tokyo are meant to serve as a warning to the dangers of new U.S. President Donald Trump.
Amid the bustling night life of Shibuya, a major shopping and entertainment hub in Tokyo, the artist often attaches the placards dealing with social issues to lamp posts and walls to attract the attention of passersby.
His latest postings target the controversial remarks made by Trump about women and minorities during his 2016 campaign.
The newest placards show a figure resembling the U.S. president standing between similar figures in white capes, which symbolise members of the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group.
“My art was produced out of the fear of what may happen to Japan because of such a horrifying leader,” 281_Anti Nuke said.
Trump “is saying white supremacist things, things that are much more than America first,” he said.
Wearing sunglasses and a white surgical mask, 281_Anti Nuke declined to give his name or reveal his face, saying he feared retaliation for the political views contained in his art.
Graffiti is also punishable by heavy penalties and frowned upon by Japanese society.
Much of 281_Anti Nuke’s previous artwork criticized nuclear power, inspired by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The artist said the more political a placard — such as his work that criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — the faster it is taken down.
On the busy streets of Shibuya, people who stopped to take a look were initially confused by his work.
“My first impression is that they are hard to understand, but once I get the context of it, it’s very expressive as an art form,” said Tokyo resident Manato Kato.MILWAUKEE -- Steve Nash is still experiencing nerve discomfort in his back and right hamstring and will not play during the Los Angeles Lakers' two-game trip to Milwaukee and Minnesota, the 18-year veteran said after shootaround Thursday.
"Probably next week," said Nash, who has missed the Lakers' last two games after tweaking his hamstring late in L.A.'s 117-107 loss to the Washington Wizards last week.
Steve Nash has targeted "probably next week" for his return. Nerve discomfort in his back and right hamstring will force him to miss the next two games. Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images
The Wizards game was the first on-court action in more than five weeks for Nash, who had previously been considered finished for the season but ramped up his rehabilitation in order to help a team that was down to one healthy point guard in Kendall Marshall.
Nash, 40, is averaging 7.4 points and 5.3 assists while shooting 36.7 percent from the floor in 11 games this season.
Nash joked his motivation to return next week is to beat Jordan Farmar back to the lineup, because once Farmar is over his strained right groin, there won't be any playing time left for the two-time league MVP.
Farmar has missed the last four games after injuring his groin in practice last week. He is expected to be sidelined at least another week before being re-evaluated.
"He just hasn't been able to stay healthy," coach Mike D'Antoni said of Farmar, who has played in just 36 of the Lakers' 70 games this season. "I'm sure it's frustrating to him, but he has played well. I think he established what he wanted to."
L.A. won't only be thin at point guard on Thursday. The Lakers are also undermanned in the middle.
Pau Gasol is not with the team because he is still experiencing symptoms stemming from his bout with vertigo, and Chris Kaman also did not travel on the team charter Wednesday because of personal reasons. Kaman plans to fly to Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon, but D'Antoni said he will start Jordan Hill and Ryan Kelly in the front court.
The Lakers come into the Bucks game having won two games in a row, while Milwaukee has the worst record in the league at 13-58 and announced Thursday that Ersan Ilyasova (ankle) is expected to miss the rest of the season. The unexpected win streak may have hurt the Lakers' lottery positioning for the draft in June, but D'Antoni said that is the last thing on his team's mind.
"We don't want to get into that one," D'Antoni said. "It's not fair to these guys to even think about that. We're trying to win every game we can and put these guys in a great spot to get better.... Why not just do the best job that we can do and then wherever it falls, it falls?"In a shocking court reveal over the fate of one of the world’s most beloved and influential comics characters, a Dutch court has ruled that Moulinsart, the company that runs the publishing and licensing business of Tintin, does not own all the rights.
The stunning result came about during a court case in which Moulinsart sued a Dutch Tintin fanclub over using images of George “Hergé” Remi’s beloved boy reporter. Moulinsart is known for pursuing any and all outside uses of the character, even benign ones such as fanzines.
During the case, a legal document from 1942 was produced showing that Hergé had assigned the rights to the character to his publisher, Casterman.
The Hergé estate is currently run by the man who married Hergé’s widow, and he’s quite unpopular with fans and industry watchers, for running the estate with an iron fist, including such things as suing fanclubs over use. That this stunning document showed up in just such a case is a twist that you’d find incredulous in a film. But it really happened.
It’s kind of hard to give context to this, but it’s like, let’s say sometime in the future Prince George is about to ascend to the throne of England, and someone suddenly produces a paper saying Queen Elizabeth was actually from New Jersey and was never queen.
“It appears from a 1942 document… that Herge gave publishing rights for the books of the adventures of Tintin to publisher Casterman so Moulinsart is not the one to decide who can use material from the books,” said the Hague court’s ruling, seen by AFP on Monday. The document came from a Herge expert who wishes to remain anonymous and its validity has not been contested by Moulinsart or the author’s family. “The big question is to know whether they (other fanclubs) have to continue paying Moulinsart,” said Herge Society secretary Stijn Verbeek.
So yeah, some Tintin fan was sitting there going “Suffering succotash!” while sitting on an explosive document that would affect the ownership of the character considered the most influential in the history of Franco-Belgian comics. And to think that perhaps people at Casterman or even the Hergé family themselves knew of it…and kept this secret for years. Like I said, it’s an amazing storyline.
Tom Spurgeon has a lot more background on this including comments from euro-comics expert Bart Beaty:
“Reaction in my social media has been a mixture of pure shock — my own first reaction — and a good deal of joy. It is important to bear in mind that Nick Rodwell, who runs Moulinsart, is one of the most disliked people in European comics amongst fans. The husband of Hergé’s second wife, he has taken hold of the Tintin empire and consistently reined over it in a way that antagonizes fans and scholars (Moulinsart is relentless in the protection of the Tintin copyrights even to the point of discouraging academic study of the Tintin books). More than a few people feel that Casterman would be better stewards of the Hergé legacy than the man who married his widow.
Here’s some more from a 2010 newspaper piece that documents growing unease with Rodwell’s running of the estate:
Hergé himself had given little thought to the business of merchandising. “He was involved only in his creation, in his works,” Vlamynck told a French television interviewer last year. He had all but forgone any oversight of Tintin merchandising as part of a deal to restore his reputation in 1945. Hergé had produced comic strips for Le Soir newspaper throughout the war, even after it came under the control of the occupying Germans. His perceived collaboration barred him from newspaper work at the end of the war. Raymond Leblanc, a prominent Belgian resistance figure, offered him a solution: Leblanc lent Hergé some of his anti-Nazi credentials by going into partnership with him; in exchange, Hergé licensed his hero’s image for use as a marketing tool. Forever conscious of the favour, he never broke off the deal; the Tintin-branded mustard pots and more were the result. Under Rodwell, this began to change. Moulinsart terminated all but a few of its long-running licensing contracts. It was not that the group wanted to curb Tintin’s appearances totally but Rodwell hoped to control the brand more effectively and apply more consistent standards by developing products in-house. What emerged over time was a centralised merchandising policy that pushed the brand relentlessly upmarket. The number of retailers authorised to sell the goods was reduced, creating a scarcity that had not existed before. It reflected the new ambitions: Rodwell began speaking of Tintin as the “Rolls-Royce” of comics, unworthy of being associated with cheap trinkets and give-aways.
Lots more background in that link.
This stunning result will doubtless have major implications for the Tintin books going forward—a publishing series that has already been published in more than 70 languages and sold more than 200 million copies. Back royalties? Refunded rights? Oh boy…developing.
Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.
Like this: Like Loading...ANAHEIM -- Emerson Etem could have gravitated toward a number of sports. He sometimes played soccer and tennis when he was younger, and his parents and sister have backgrounds in rowing and swimming.
Actually, if it wasn't for his chosen profession, Etem might not have ended up in sports at all.
Emerson Etem: Local player makes good Emerson Etem is one of the more promising young forwards in the Anaheim Ducks organization and likely would be an NHL regular on any other team without the logjam of talented forwards on the Ducks roster. He was the American Hockey League Player of the Month for December. Etem has a unique background, born from the roller hockey rinks near his hometown Long Beach, Calif., halfway between the locations the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks call home. My parents put me in roller hockey classes at the local YMCA when I was 3. I don't know why they picked hockey. My brother Martin played and I picked it up. It was just out of curiosity. I played soccer in the summer and tennis when I was younger but I stuck with hockey. I just wanted to try it out and I liked it. READ MORE ›
"I think I'd be an artist," Etem said. "Or maybe a surfer."
Instead, Etem followed his brother Martin and put on roller-hockey skates at the YMCA in his hometown of Long Beach, Calif.
It proved not to be a fleeting interest.
He transitioned to ice hockey, made the highly regarded prep team at Shattuck-St. Mary's in Faribault, Minn., and then played for the United States National Team Development Program. He became a 61-goal scorer in the Western Hockey League and made his NHL debut with the Anaheim Ducks on Jan. 29, 2013.
"I don't know why it was hockey," Etem said. "My brother picked it up and I did it just out of curiosity. I just wanted to try it out and I liked it."
Etem isn't an outlier.
Twenty-five years after the arrival of Wayne Gretzky in Los Angeles, NHL rosters are spotted with California born-and-trained players, including Etem, Jonathon Blum of the Minnesota Wild, Beau Bennett of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Matt Nieto of the San Jose Sharks. More are in the pipeline; goalie Thatcher Demko of San Diego and wing Nicolas Kerdiles of Irvine were on the U.S. team at the 2014 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship. Demko is No. 1 on NHL Central Scouting's midterm ranking of North American goaltenders for the 2014 NHL Draft.
"I tell people this quite often," Gretzky said. "You can pick 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds [from California], put together a couple of teams, and they can go all through Canada and handle themselves extremely well. They can compete with the best of Canadian kids at 10 and 12.
"More importantly there's room for hockey here. It's something the kids want to do now. I think the proof of that is in how many kids [there are] now in junior hockey and college hockey, but in the National Hockey League. There's a lot more kids that are from this area. Chris Chelios isn't the only guy now from California."
There is symmetry to it all.
The 2013-14 NHL season was prefaced by the anniversary of Gretzky's trade to the Los Angeles Kings and began with the 20th anniversary of the Anaheim Ducks franchise. California will be front and center Jan. 25 with the first regular-season outdoor game on the West Coast, when the Kings and Ducks meet at Dodger Stadium as part of the 2014 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series.
Has California become a hockey hotbed?
"Something's bound to happen when you have 35 million [people] in your state," Etem said. "It's a great feeling to represent California."
Hockey fans in California owe a debt of gratitude to William Jennings. Without the governor of the New York Rangers in the early 1960s, the NHL might have taken a lot longer to get to the Golden State.
Jennings brought up the topic of expanding to the West Coast in September 1963, beginning with two teams that would begin play in the fall of 1964. Not only would bringing the NHL to California make it a truly national league, it would eliminate any concerns the Western Hockey League would try to become a major league.
Expansion was a hot topic within the NHL until it finally approved the addition of six franchises to begin play in the 1967-68 season. Two of them were to be based in California: the Los Angeles Kings, and the California (soon to be Oakland) Seals.
The Seals never found much traction in the Bay Area and moved to Cleveland in 1976; not until 1991, with the arrival of the San Jose Sharks did the NHL successfully put down roots in Northern California.
By then the Kings were firmly established.
Transplanted Canadian Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association, beat out Los Angeles Rams owner Dan Reeves for the right to pay $2 million to join the NHL.
Cooke hired former NHL player Larry Regan as his general manager and grabbed longtime NHL star Red Kelly as his first coach. The best-known of the Kings' picks in the expansion draft was goaltender Terry Sawchuk, who along with Kelly helped the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup in 1967.
"I remember after the [expansion] draft that Mr. Cooke asked me to rate all the teams, after the draft," Regan said in the Kings' 25th anniversary video. "After about four hours working on it I told him that we would end up either first or second, with Philadelphia, and I picked Oakland last. He kept that paper, and I think there was only one team out of place at the end of the year."
Nelson Emerson: A player pays it forward Nelson Emerson is a former Los Angeles Kings player who works in player development for the team. Following a 13-year NHL career as a five-time 20-goal scorer, Emerson spent two seasons as an assistant coach before his current role. He is involved with the Junior Kings youth program and co-coaches his sons with Kings assistant general manager Rob Blake. Coincidentally, Emerson and Blake were sitting in a dorm room at Bowling Green State University in 1988 when they heard the news that Wayne Gretzky had been traded to the Los Angeles Kings. I have twin 12-year-old boys who have been playing youth hockey here since 6 or 7. They're both forwards. One's a goal-scorer and the other's a grinder but they don't play on the same line. They started playing on ice. Some kids do start on roller hockey, but I think now, because of the facilities available, they're able to start on ice earlier. READ MORE ›
Kelly was excited about making the transition from player to coach.
"This was a new franchise and we were going to start building from the ground up," Kelly told the Kings website. "It was going to be exciting and I was looking forward to that. It was a real exciting time for me and I thought we were going to build something that would last and go on."
To the surprise of many, Cooke opted not to play at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, then a few years old. Instead, Cooke promised a 16,000-seat building that would house the Lakers and his new hockey team.
"I can remember driving around L.A. with Jack and his chauffer, looking for spots to build The Forum," Regan said. "I can remember when we chose Hollywood Park, although anyone who knew Jack Kent Cooke knew that he [was the one who] chose Hollywood Park."
Cooke's new arena in Inglewood, Calif., dubbed The Forum and located next to the racetrack, wasn't ready for the Kings' debut, so they played their first two games at the Long Beach Arena, defeating the Philadelphia Flyers 4-2 on Oct. 14, 1967 and topping the Minnesota North Stars 5-3 one night later. After a six-game trip, the Kings' next 14 home games were played at the L.A. Sports Arena.
On Dec. 30, 1967, a crowd of 14,366 turned out for the opening of The Forum; the Flyers spoiled the festivities with a 2-0 victory.
That loss wound up costing the Kings first place in the West Division; L.A.'s 31-33-10 record was good for 72 points, leaving it one behind Philadelphia. Little did the Kings, or their fans, know that was as close as they'd get to a first-place finish for more than two decades. The Gretzky-led Kings in 1990-91, coached by Tom Webster, was the first team in franchise history to finish in first place.
The Kings' first opponent in the Stanley Cup Playoffs was the North Stars, but after taking leads of 2-0 and 3-2 in the best-of-7 series, Los Angeles lost Game 6 in Minnesota and was routed 9-4 in Game 7 at The Forum.
The second season didn't go nearly as well during the regular season, though a 24-42-10 mark was good enough for second place in the all-expansion Western Division. The Kings ousted the Seals in seven games to win a playoff series for the first time but then were swept by the St. Louis Blues.
Kelly left for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Hal Laycoe took over as coach, beginning a stretch of four consecutive non-playoff seasons marked by numerous deals for veterans at the expense of high draft picks.
"What we did at the end of the second year was say that we've got to bring in some names, because everyone always said that Los Angeles is a star town," Regan said. "We made changes. We got Eddie Shack, Dickie Duff and Terry Harper and different players, but it wasn't done with the idea that we were going down the right path; we thought we had the immediate chore of getting the fan interest in the team."
Not until 1975 would the Kings have a star just coming into his prime. Los Angeles acquired forward Marcel Dionne in a trade from the Detroit Red Wings. Dionne, one of six 700-goal scorers in NHL history, keyed a run of nine consecutive playoff seasons, culminating with the 1982 "Miracle on Manchester," a comeback from trailing 5-0 in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series against the Edmonton Oilers that led to an upset victory.
By then the Kings were the only NHL franchise in California; in fact, they were the only U.S.-based team west of St. Louis. They had loyal fans but were often overshadowed on the local sports scene by the higher-profile Lakers and Dodgers. It took a few more years and the biggest trade in hockey history for that to change and for hockey in California to really take off.
In the summer of 1988 Kings right wing Jim Fox was rehabilitating a knee injury and working in the community relations department. To hear him tell it, the job wasn't eventful.
"The requests weren't flying in for our activity in the community," Fox said. "There was no need for a formalized department. When Wayne came, there was a need."
Hockey was well off the radar in Southern California, where the sports landscape revolved around the Lakers, Dodgers, USC football and UCLA basketball.
The metaphorical earthquake happened Aug. 9, 1988, when Gretzky, the biggest name in hockey and the sport's most-prolific scorer, was traded to the Kings.
"I was in my parents' house in Montreal," said Luc Robitaille, then a 22-year-old left wing and now Kings president of business operations. "My mom can never say no, and everyone was calling. I remember I had a [note pad] and I wrote everyone's name and I had to call back everyone. Our PR guy at the time called me and said, 'Can you do some interviews?' He gave me a list. I think I spent about four hours talking to everybody about what it meant. That was my afternoon.
"It wasn't about hockey. It was about the fact that there was such an image about the Kings."
Within months kids were playing ball hockey in the suburban streets trying to be like No. 99. When Gretzky switched to an Easton composite stick with a shiny shaft, those who could afford it were using the model on local streets and ice hockey rinks.
Fox immediately saw the trickle-down effect at the Kings' youth hockey camp, held at Culver City rink, which had one sheet of ice.
Alec Martinez: Transplant finds home Alec Martinez is a fifth-year defenseman for the Los Angeles Kings. He grew up in Michigan but spent his junior-high years playing for the Junior San Jose Sharks and Santa Clara Blackhawks before his family moved back to the Midwest. He was a fixture during the Kings' 2011-12 Stanley Cup championship run. My father, Frank, worked for General Motors for 30 years and he got transferred. GM had a joint venture with Toyota just outside of Fremont, Calif., and my family had to move out here for two or three years before we moved back to Michigan. The hockey scene was a lot different. In Michigan, there were a lot more teams and lot more kids played. There were only a select few clubs in Northern California, so you had to come down to L.A. a lot. In Michigan, in terms of tournaments growing up, you don't really have to leave except for Chicago or Toronto. But, really, that's not very far. When you move to California, the tournaments are in Alaska or Las Vegas. READ MORE ›
"We had to borrow equipment," said Fox, now the team's television color commentator. "[Prominent local youth hockey coach] Ronny Van Gompel had a whole bunch of equipment that he used for helping kids. Well, we had to borrow from him. I would say 50 percent of the enrollment of 120 kids did not have their own equipment.
"Something we learned from Day 1: My wife and I spent a lot of time showing kids had to put the equipment on. They didn't know how to put it on. This was grassroots. These kids were just starting."
The notion one of those kids could be born and trained in Southern California and make it to the NHL was inconceivable.
Six or seven years after the start of the Gretzky Era in Los Angeles the thought patterns started to change. For Fox it was seeing a gifted defenseman named Brian Salcido from Hermosa Beach who was beginning a journey to the top levels of the sport.
In 2009 Salcido became the first Southern California born-and-trained player to play for the Ducks. The Etems of the hockey world were well on their way, and more are coming 25 years after Gretzky pulled on a Kings sweater for the first time.
Kings assistant general manager Rob Blake, a coach in the Junior Kings program, sometimes meets adults who began playing hockey when Gretzky arrived.
"A lot of it was because of Wayne coming here and they all started on roller hockey," Blake said. "That tendency has changed now. Now there's enough rinks around that they're all starting right on the ice. I think when I first moved here, the popularity of Wayne being here, and the Kings in their run in the '93 Final, combined with the roller-hockey era, that's where they all got their start and then they transfer to ice.
"I still meet kids today and their parents [were] involved because of Wayne Gretzky. I've seen the generation switch. At first I saw kids, and 20 years later I'm seeing kids of the parents involved."
Fox said Gretzky's impact went beyond the gaudy stats and highlight-reel goals, because when the layers of his legendary status were peeled, he was just a humble guy from Brantford, Ontario.
"I think the way Wayne handled his entire career was the reason," Fox said. "He was accessible. He was a true superstar but he was an everyday man in his treatment of media, in his treatment of sponsors, in his treatment of fans. That attracted not only the kids themselves but parents. They said, 'Hey, I'm going to have my kid playing hockey now because this Gretzky guy is a pretty good guy.'
"I've been asked over the years, 'Who could have done that?' Maybe Mario Lemieux. Wayne had more than the on-ice attraction. He had that polite superstar [aura]."
Gretzky made hockey a part of Southern California culture as much as surfers, skateboarders, hot rods and beachside taco stands. Even Gretzky, living with his wife, Janet, in the San Fernando Valley, couldn't ignore the cultural shift during his first year on the scene.
"We used to go by this set of tennis courts," Gretzky said. "I remember we were stopped at a stoplight one time and I said to my wife, 'You know, back home, kids are playing inline hockey or ball hockey on these tennis courts.' We didn't' think much of it. Two years later, I went by the same tennis courts and I saw a sign that said, "No Ball Hockey Allowed.' I remember thinking, 'We've come a long way.'"
Jack Ferreira was convinced he hadn't landed the general manager job with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, an expansion team about to join the NHL.
In the first week of January 1993, Ferreira met with top Disney executive Michael Eisner to discuss managing a new NHL franchise named after the 1992 Disney movie, "The Mighty Ducks." Ferreira, already a seasoned hockey personnel man, served as GM of the expansion San Jose Sharks during their first two years. He was coming off a Stanley Cup championship season as director of pro scouting for the Montreal Canadiens.
But Ferreira had a bad feeling about this Anaheim gig after meeting Eisner.
"I went to dinner with him," Ferreira said. "After that I never heard a word back until St. Patrick's Day, March 17. I never heard a word. I met with [Mighty Ducks president] Tony Tavares and that interview didn't go well. I told my wife, 'I'm not getting this job.'"
Ferreira was hired shortly before the 1993 NHL Expansion Draft and he would help the Mighty Ducks find an identity other than the cartoon-logoed jerseys and eggplant-and-teal uniforms. Knowing his team would get no respect, Ferreira acquired tough guys Stu Grimson and Todd McEwen to keep opponents honest.
Jonathan Blum: Accidental hockey player Jonathan Blum was born in Long Beach, Calif., and grew up in nearby Rancho Santa Margarita. He was a first-round pick of the Nashville Predators in the 2007 NHL Draft. The defenseman played 91 NHL games for the Predators before recently returning to the League with the Minnesota Wild. Playing hockey where I grew up wasn't traditional at all, for sure. I owe a lot to my parents. It's very expensive playing in Southern California, traveling four or five times a year just to help me develop, paying for lessons. The ice time was $600, $700 an hour back then. I was probably about 5 or 6 years old when I started. We lived on a cul de sac and there were probably about 10 or 15 kids on my block. When school was done we'd get on rollerblades or sneakers and we'd play street hockey or roller hockey. If we didn't have nets we'd use little sewer holes as nets and try to shoot the balls into them. That's how I started. READ MORE ›
Those first seasons were spiked with novelty and the occasional pratfall. There was the famous clip of the Wild Wing mascot falling over a ring of fire. There were comical variations of the jersey which mocked all notions of traditional hockey. The Kings later used "Serious Hockey" as their motto, a presumed jab at their cartoonish rivals.
Teemu Selanne, who arrived in 1995, took it in stride.
"It was kind of fun," Selanne said. "Disney was the owner and they brought the cartoon and the Disney atmosphere. I think [it was good] for the kids coming to the games … sometimes the show is more important than the game. It was fun. Disney started a really good thing. Without them, there's no Ducks. I think this is a good place to play hockey."
Ferreira made Anaheim relevant with the acquisition of Paul Kariya, the fourth pick of the 1993 NHL Draft, two-way forward Steve Rucchin, and Selanne, whom Ferreira shrewdly secured from the Winnipeg Jets in a trade for defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky and forward Chad Kilger.
With a top line that could play with any in the NHL, the Ducks were at least fun to watch.
"Our fourth or fifth year, we went to New York and won," Ferreira said. "[Rangers coach] John Muckler came up to me and said, 'Jack, I've never seen anything like that since Gretzky and [Jari] Kurri.' Paul and Teemu had four or five points that night. There were some nights they could really light it up."
Anaheim made the playoffs for the first time in 1997, eliminating the Phoenix Coyotes. It would be another six years before it won another playoff game, but the Ducks were on their way to expanding the Southern California fan base that exploded with Gretzky.
Nieto, the future San Jose Sharks player, was born the year of the first of three Mighty Ducks films (1992) and he remembers having two NHL teams to follow locally.
"It was great, and that was the time when the Mighty Ducks movies came out and they were popular," Nieto said. "So I was all into that too. It was just perfect timing, I guess."
Attracting kids like Nieto was precisely the effect expected from Gretzky, whose career with the Kings reached its apex with a run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1993, four months before the Mighty Ducks made their debut.
"Everything was kind of lined up," Ferreira said.
Anaheim became the first modern-day expansion team to win a Final game, in 2003 against the New Jersey Devils. Selanne had stints with San Jose and the Colorado Avalanche but returned to Anaheim and won a Cup in 2007. Having seen both phases of the franchise, he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
"For me, I've seen all the good days and bad days," said the 43-year-old, who repeatedly has cited Anaheim's contender status as a reason for putting off retirement. "Now it's any player's dream to come to an organization that wants to win and has a lot of pride to play well and take your steps to win the Stanley Cup. It's a dream to win the Stanley Cup and to know you have a chance at it. That's pretty much all a player can ask."
When the Ducks were pummeling the Ottawa Senators on their way to the Cup in 2007, Blum, then 18, was watching from the stands at Honda Center. About two weeks later Blum, from nearby Rancho Santa Margarita, became the highest-drafted California player when was chosen at No. 23 by the Nashville Predators.
"Jonathon Blum definitely paved the way for California players," Etem said.
Three years later Etem and former Junior Kings teammate Bennett were picked No. 20 and No. 29, respectively, at the 2010 NHL Draft, aptly held in Staples Center in Los Angeles. It marked the first time two California players were picked in the first round.
Chase De Leo, a forward from La Mirada, is eligible for the 2014 NHL Draft and is expected to continue the trend of top prospects from the Golden State. He is friends with Etem, Bennett and Blum and able to use them as an example.
"It's definitely good to see California hockey spread like that," said De Leo, who plays in the Western Hockey League for the Portland Winterhawks and competed in the NHL/CHL Top Prospects Game on Jan. 15. "It's reassuring. I can't compare myself to them. I've got a long way to go, but it's nice to see them making it."
The common denominator is they all started in local youth hockey.
The Junior Kings boast 11 NHL players as alumni, including Etem, Bennett and Ottawa Senators forward Bobby Ryan, who played for the Junior Kings and called El Segundo home for part of his development after moving from New Jersey.
Thatcher Demko: A Gull takes flight San Diego native Thatcher Demko is a freshman goaltender at Boston College, and he recently represented the United States at the 2014 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship. He was the top-rated North |
>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/ahauslohner" target="_blank">@ahauslohner</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/Alastair_Beach" target="_blank">@Alastair_Beach</a>, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/SteveNegusMasr" target="_blank">@SteveNegusMasr</a></noframe>
09.46 Gehad El-Haddad, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman, continues to revise his death toll estimate upwards. It now stands at 600. So far most reliable number is 43 dead, coming from AFP reporter in a morgue, although that will no doubt increase.
<noframe>Twitter: Gehad El-Haddad - death toll now estimated at 600, bodies still coming, no end in sight. god save egypt</noframe>
09.43 Louisa Loveluck, outside Rabaa al-Adawiya, says protesters have told her that hospitals are turning away the wounded for fear they will attract the authorities' anger:
A car full of young girls tells me that they left the sit-in two hours ago. Their friends tried to take injured protesters, but hospitals have apparently turned multiple cases away for fear of being involved in controversial cases.
<noframe>Twitter: Alistair Burt - <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Egypt" target="_blank">#Egypt</a>: Deeply concerned at events continuing today in <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Cairo" target="_blank">#Cairo</a> leading to deaths and injury. Restraint and dialogue more urgent than ever</noframe>
09.30 Only reliable death toll is coming from AFP reporter at a makeshift morgue at Rabaa al-Adawiya camp, who has counted 43 bodies. Victims all men - mostly from gunshot wounds. Number will probably rise all morning.
09.28 Interior Ministry says it has rounded up leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. General Abdel Fattah Othman, a senior official, tells the privately owned CBC TV Channel:
We have arrested a number of Brotherhood leaders but it's too early to announce their names.
09.24 Pictures emerging of protesters rounded up at Nahda Square, the smaller of the two camps, where the Egyptian authorities say they have now taken control.
Egyptian security forces stand next to protesters arrested during the clearing of one of the two sit-ins of ousted president Morsi supporters, at Nahda square, near Cairo University
<noframe>Twitter: Claire Read - Cairo emergency services are reporting 5 dead and 52 injured <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Egypt" target="_blank">#Egypt</a> <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Rabaa" target="_blank">#Rabaa</a> <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Nahda" target="_blank">#Nahda</a></noframe>
09.17 Protesters also seem pretty well prepared. At Rabaa al-Adawiya camp, reporters say they watched men in gas masks collect tear gas cannisters as they rained in, dropping them into buckets of water to neutralise the choking smoke.
09.14 This picture gives a sense of what the protesters are up against:
Egyptian security forces throw tear gas towards supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi at a sit-in in Cairo.
09.02 Reports that protesters are gathering in other Egyptian cities in protest at the bloodshed in Cairo, blocking a main road in Alexandria.
<noframe>Twitter: Journalists Club - Crowds gathering is being reported in <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Alexandria" target="_blank">#Alexandria</a> and <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Suez" target="_blank">#Suez</a> to protest against clearing of sit-ins <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Egypt" target="_blank">#Egypt</a> <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Rabaa" target="_blank">#Rabaa</a> <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Nahda" target="_blank">#Nahda</a></noframe>
08.52 Only yesterday - even as eviction loomed - visitors were reporting a relaxed atmosphere in the camps, where children played on bouncy castles or took part in water fights. Talat Mahmoud, an interior designer, told Reuters:
We play football, we play ping-pong, we just don't want to get bored. We want this to be a happy atmosphere.
<noframe>Twitter: Abigail Hauslohner - Police officer who told me earlier I was "provoking" him by writing in my notebook now says: "if I see u again I will shoot you in the leg"</noframe>
<noframe>Twitter: Maajid Nawaz - Egypt's military once more demonstrating its ability to reinforce illiberal Islamists' image of themselves as martyrs by shooting them</noframe>
08.40 Lots of details remain unclear. Casualty figures vary wildly. But one thing is clear: the idea that this would be some kind of gradual, phased operation to clear the camps was nonsense.
08.32 The Telegraph's Louisa Loveluck reports that she is standing with a group of women worried about the safety of their husbands in Rabaa al-Adawiya... but there's no way through...
People trying to enter the Rabaa encampment from sidestreets have been shot at with teargas, birdshot pellets and live ammunition. Shots are still ringing out from inside the sit-in, and military and police helicopters are circling overhead.
An image grab taken from Egyptian state TV shows police forces moving in to disperse a huge protest camp set up outside the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo
08.29 Egypt has halted all trains in an effort to prevent protests moving beyond Cairo, according to the AFP news agency.
08.25 Muslim Brotherhood's UK spokesman, Mona al-Qazzaz, has spoken to the BBC and called for international help to end the clearance:
I'm asking the international community, please step in and stop this massacre. We all knew that this massacre was going to happen, but the international community has been silent.
08.15 - Widely varying accounts of casualties. Gehad El-Haddad, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman now claiming more than 250 dead and more than 5000 wounded. Almost certainly an exaggeration.
08.11 Here's a reminder of how pro-Morsi protesters were preparing to defend themselves against the police: "At the main Cairo sit-in, vendors said they have sold hundreds of gas masks, goggles and gloves to protesters readying for police tear gas. Three waist-high barriers of concrete and wood have been built against armored vehicles."
08.06 Witnesses say they can hear more live rounds being fired:
<noframe>Twitter: Bel Trew - بل تر٠- They've got every road blocked off and are firing at anyone trying to get in: tear gas, birdshot bullets and what sounds like live ammo</noframe>
08.02 Egyptian police are claiming to have finished clearing smaller of the two camps at Nahda Square. Access currently blocked to reporters so impossible to verify for now.
07.59 Muslim Brotherhood continues to revise death toll upwards. The spokesman's latest tweet:
<noframe>Twitter: Gehad El-Haddad - 100+ dead & 2000+ wounded <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Egypt" target="_blank">#Egypt</a></noframe>
07.52 Louisa Loveluck, The Telegraph's woman on the ground, is standing in a sidestreet to the south-eastern side of Rabaa al-Adawiya where pro-Morsi supportes are burning tyres and trying to recover from repeated exposure from tear gas:
I saw the men carrying at least one makeshift handgun, and birdshot pellets have been fired. A large plume of black smoke is emanating from the protest camp, suggesting that tents, as well as tyres, may be on fire. Outside, local residents are gathering by army lines and cheering, "the people and the army are one hand". As they chant, the sound of gunfire sporadically rings out in the distance.
07.43 AFP reporter has counted 17 bodies at a makeshift morgue at Rabaa al-Adawiya. Most appear to have died from gunshot wounds.
07.35 Reporters who are being kept well back from one the camps say they can see a huge plume of black smoke rising into the air as tents are set alight.
07.29 State news agency reporting two members of Egypt security forces killed by gunfire.
07.17 The Muslim Brotherhood is now reporting that 30 of its protesters have been killed. There was no independent verification of the death toll. Gehad El-Haddad, Brotherhood spokesman, said on Twitter:
<noframe>Twitter: Gehad El-Haddad - blood everywhere, bodies mounting, cries of agony, tearful eyes & loud breaths. & world just watches as <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=military_coup" target="_blank">#military_coup</a> kills ppf of <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=egypt" target="_blank">#egypt</a></noframe>
07.15 Canisters of tear gas rained down on tents set up by the protesters at one end of the Rabaa al-Adawiya camp as police vehicles, one blaring a siren, advanced on the protesters. A security official told AFP that similar steps were being taken at the Nahda square camp:
It is the beginning of the operation to disperse the protesters.
07.10 BST London (08.10 EET Cairo) Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage as Egyptian security forces move in to clear protest camps of Mohammed Morsi supporters.Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
According to the traditional story of the founding of Mormonism, after Joseph Smith received the golden plates containing the text of the Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni, he had to guard them from his covetous neighbors, going to great lengths to hide them and refusing to let anyone see the ancient language inscribed upon them.
Now Republicans in the House of Representatives are basically doing the same thing, except instead of a mystical set of artifacts it's a healthcare plan. And instead of worrying about the jealousy of yokels in 19th-century upstate New York, the plan's GOP authors are concerned that nearly everyone will hate what they've come up with. So Republican leaders have placed this top-secret plan in an office building basement—really—near the Capitol in Washington, DC, and only allowing Republicans who are members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to see it.
Congressional Republicans have been working toward repealing the Affordable Care Act—a goal of theirs since Donald Trump was just a guy playing a rich man on TV—for months, but have been stymied by their own inability to agree on what should replace it. Conservatives and libertarians want to peel back government involvement in healthcare; Republican governors who expanded Medicaid under the ACA don't want to have to take insurance away from their constituents; some Republicans floated a "repeal and delay" plan that would allow them to vote against the ACA before they came up with a replacement; there are conflicting plans floating around the Senate; Trump himself has sent confusing signals.
For weeks, House Speaker Paul Ryan—famous for his attention to policy—has been teasing a plan to replace the ACA, though he's kept it vague because whatever gets proposed will be politically unpopular. The Ryan plan is expected to replaced ACA subsidies people can use to pay for insurance with tax credits and roll back the Medicaid expansion, in other words making it harder for the uninsured to buy insurance and kicking some poor people off the government rolls. More broadly, if Republicans want to replace the ACA with something that requires less government spending, it's going to involve some people losing benefits they have now, a point made obvious from the details of a recently leaked draft of House GOP legislation.
Obviously, liberals and Democrats will hate whatever Ryan and his crew come up with. But a lot of conservatives also hate the details of the plan that have leaked because it involves too much government spending. On Thursday, informed about the whole secret-plan-in-a-basement idea, libertarian-ish Republican Senator Rand Paul took to Twitter to denounce the plan as falling short of the #FullRepeal he and other hard-liners want. "I will not vote for Obamacare Lite nor will many of my colleagues," he said. Though Paul is in the Senate and therefore doesn't have any direct influence on what happens in the House, that sentiment has been echoed by the House's far-right Freedom Caucus. (Some of what the Freedom Caucus wants in a repeal package, like cutting funds to Planned Parenthood, will likely be opposed by moderate Republicans in the Senate.)
By Thursday afternoon, demands from politicians from both parties to see the bill had degenerated into an absurd spectacle, as reporters followed those politicians around as they searched for the bill. Paul found the room with the bill, but was barred from seeing it as the press looked on:
For now, no one knows what's in the basement except for those few legislators who have seen it. Reportedly, the economic impacts of the plan won't even be scored by the Congressional Budget Office before the committee votes on it. But sooner or later, the plan will have to be made public and Ryan will have to defend it publicly. That the speaker is putting that day off for as long as possible likely indicates that he knows just how impossible his situation is—and maybe, he knows just how unlikely it is that that top-secret document will become reality.
Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.“Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man? “
“No. Have you?”
Few films are as compulsively quotable as Aliens, that über-action flick that established Ellen Ripley as a science-fiction virago of the ass-kicking kind. But one of its biggest legacies was happening in the background. The movie’s structure—a blend of old-fashioned corporate distrust and even more old-fashioned war-movie shootouts—allowed for the best jargon of both worlds, and James Cameron’s R-rated patter is a sea of one-liners and rapid-fire back-and-forth. With the wrong cast, those characters could have been little more than expository placeholders, and the slow burn before the monsters come out could have been a stilted roll call of those about to die. But Aliens’ supporting cast is one of the most perfectly suited ever assembled, and it crystallized how viewers think of ensemble blockbusters.
Given that the movie doesn’t engage with its first in situ xenomorph until nearly an hour in, the time spent establishing the Marines and their shifting dynamic with Ripley is so significant, it becomes more of a primary focus in the movie than the bugs themselves. (A war movie is a movie about the soldiers, not the fight.) And what soldiers! Unflappable Sergeant Apone, even more unflappable Corporal Hicks, whiny chatterbox Hudson, enigmatic android Bishop, and fearlessly tough Vasquez vault from the shadow of their 1970s-disaster-movie forebears into characters who don’t even need a disaster to be interesting. Cameron’s script lavishes attention on them, including backstories that aren’t relevant, but provided actors with permission to imagine themselves distinctive rather than merely cannon fodder.
In particular, Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) and Drake (Mark Rolston) exchange perhaps two dozen words throughout the movie, but shot after shot frames their wordless communication—rolling their eyes at their CO, prepping their guns, glancing at each other before the firefighting gets heavy. Cameron gives them the visual and narrative space for that relationship, which he noted in the shooting script: “Dobermans playing. Conscripted from juvenile prison, the two of them were trained to operate the formidable ‘SMART-GUNS.’ That is part of their bond.” Vasquez also gets several other small arcs that play out in the background—her blossoming respect for Ripley, her antagonism with Hudson (whom she slaps down decisively with the Tallulah Bankhead classic, “No, have you?”), and her grudging, last-minute acceptance of Lt. Gorman moments before they blow themselves to pieces in a corridor packed with xenomorphs.
The film makes time for her, and for several other supporting characters: Hicks is forced to become a leader under pressure, Gorman goes from panicked by-the-booker to get-it-done Marine, and even Hudson eventually discovers the noive. (Bishop is the movie’s slowest surprise reveal—he stays the same, while Ripley slowly changes her mind about him.) These mini-arcs amid the gunshots have become industry standard for ensemble action, though it’s clear when the arcs are being centralized in the narrative (Pacific Rim, which gave teamwork-is-magic arcs to whoever lived long enough to get lines) and when they’re an afterthought (Edge Of Tomorrow, which was too busy masterfully editing its time loops to devote much time to the hardscrabble Army squad whose third-act sacrifice was meant to be so moving).
In order to let the actors perfect the dynamic that carried the tone of the film beyond the horror of Alien into action history, Cameron sent his Colonial Marines to boot camp for weeks before filming to give them military body language and familiarity with each other. That sort of forced Method prep has become standard operating procedure since. (Sigourney Weaver and Lance Henriksen did not attend, separating them from the camaraderie of the rest of the ensemble; Michael Biehn, who played Hicks, also did not attend, since he replaced James Remar a few days after shooting began, but maybe he was so laid-back that nobody noticed.) Cameron also smartly waited until the end of filming to shoot his lengthy establishing scenes, so the rapport between the Marines would be enhanced by everything they’d been through during production, which by all accounts was troubled. Cameron was a newcomer (Terminator hadn’t yet rocked the box office when Aliens production started), and he often clashed with a crew who didn’t take him seriously.
But it helped that not every actor there was a newcomer to Cameron’s direction. During his rise to king of the box office, Cameron assembled a roster of rotating supporting cast members that had the feeling of a fleeting Hammer Film (the studio maintained an on-call ensemble, and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee popped up together at least once a year), or particularly violent summer stock. Part of this is because Cameron was planning Aliens while directing Terminator (in 1986, he told The L.A. Times he thought of several elements of Terminator as “a good dry run”), but part of it is that whatever his shortcomings, Cameron has an eye for how the pieces of a movie fit together. Some of the Aliens supporting cast Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd carried over from their previous joint project, The Terminator (Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton), and others appear in Cameron’s later work (Paxton in Titanic, Jenette Goldstein in Terminator 2 and Titanic) in small, reliable roles. Director Kathryn Bigelow also took notice of the cast chemistry in Aliens, casting Paxton, Henriksen, and Goldstein in her vampire Western Near Dark, and Aliens cast members occasionally worked together for a decade (as with Goldstein and Mark Rolston in 1989’s Lethal Weapon 2, or Paxton and Biehn in 1993’s Tombstone).
This recurring overlap brought a fourth-wall sense of a shared universe to many of these disparate stories—supporting-actor Easter eggs before the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And though few of them rose to headliner heights, familiarity made their collective faces a signature for that particular brand of late-’80s genre. While repeat ensemble casting has become more associated with auteur filmmaking, there are still a few filmmakers who use the technique to evoke that Hammer-stable blend of highbrow and pulp. (Currently, the director attempting this with the most aplomb might be Christopher Nolan, whose casting overlap from project to project is so ambitious, it’s become an unofficial trademark.)
Ripley rightly remains the anchor who carries the movie from its opening moments to its final ones. However, it’s hard to discount the effect of Cameron’s particular blockbuster alchemy in Aliens; the script deftly sketches the cast’s personalities through vicious banter and iconic one-liners, and the actors pick up the subtext and run with it, creating an ensemble interesting enough that many of their deaths still register in pop culture. (Whither Vasquez, dammit?) At heart, this is a demonstration of Cameron’s understanding that even an action flick is a character piece, and how a good actor will be able to create a memorable character in less than a dozen lines. It’s the sort of recognition that means Lance Henriksen recurred as Bishop (in one form or another) in Alien movies for two more decades, and it meant that for a while, “Hey, It’s That Actor!” became a much more fun game.
The action-movie ensemble cast has been around in one form or another since Georges Méliès’ “A Trip To The Moon,” and it’s gone through hundreds of iterations: diverse samurai, fresh-faced infantry, the passengers on an upturned boat, a street gang that has to get back to Coney Island. But though The Warriors is a timeless classic, its characters are as stylized and static as the roles in a medieval play, and disaster movies tend to be more concerned with the disaster than the performances. Aliens provided the modern architecture of the all-action supporting cast: bursting with banter, not so big as to slow down the pace, and fleshed out just enough to matter. These days, we expect those ensembles. We look forward to a handful of characters to root for. The crew of the Sulaco has become the narrative gold standard—and it’s no wonder.
This wraps our Movie Of The Week coverage of James Cameron’s Aliens. Game over, man, game over. Don’t miss our early-week Keynote on the way the film plays with motherhood in the wake of Alien’s twisted take on fatherhood, and today’s Forum on Aliens’ conceptual audacity, its special effects, and that corporate-stooge asshole Burke. Next week, we leave space aliens and delve into a different kind of alienation with Sofia Coppola’s feature debut, The Virgin Suicides.WASHINGTON — Representative Don Young and his family routinely used campaign funds for personal expenses, like hunting trips, meals and charter flights to his home in Alaska, a former campaign aide to Mr. Young told federal criminal investigators.
The allegations came to light Friday when the Federal Bureau of Investigation released hundreds of pages of documents from a now-closed investigation into Mr. Young’s role in 2005 in helping steer $10 million to a road project in Florida favored by a campaign supporter.
The investigators ultimately concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Young with wrongdoing in connection with the budget earmark for a highway interchange in Florida that would have benefited a Michigan real estate developer who was a major political donor to Mr. Young, a Republican who has represented Alaska in Congress since 1973.
While gathering evidence in this case, federal investigators examined many other aspects of Mr. Young’s professional and political life, including allegations that he and his wife, Lu Young, used campaign money to support their personal lifestyle.
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The former aide to Mr. Young — whose identity had been redacted from the documents released Friday — told investigators in April 2008 that Mrs. Young insisted that the campaign reimburse the couple for meals with friends or family and other expenses.To Whom It May Concern,
If I hear one more time on Facebook, Twitter, et al that Israel’s field hospital in Nepal is somehow connected to the conflict with the Palestinians, I’m going to permanently block the person saying so on the grounds that they’re stupid.
Here’s the thing: Israel is an entire country, with all the complicated impulses and competing agendas of any human society. It is perfectly capable of being involved in two completely different things at once, of being angelic in one arena and terrible in another, just like every other country. The IDF doesn’t go to Nepal to avoid the Palestinian issue. It goes because Israelis have honed emergency medicine into an art form, and because the IDF has never quite shed its founding culture of adventurousness, and, above all, because there are people out there who desperately need help.
Those who see in every good news from Israel “hasbara” (propaganda) are missing the single most important fact you can know about Israel — that it isn’t a political campaign begging for your vote. It is a nation. With two million schoolchildren, dozens of cities, its own cinema scene and a language spoken nowhere else in the world. It doesn’t go away if it loses some imaginary popularity contest. And as with any human society, it offers an endless stream of failures and successes that will let you “prove” any narrative you want.
So go ahead and hate Israel. Or love it. It doesn’t really matter. The reality of Israel isn’t affected by whatever story might be playing out in your imagination.
Like so many of my fellow Israelis, I’m desperately proud of our countrymen who are saving lives today in Nepal. And also like them, I don’t give a damn what the global chattering classes think about it.
With deep sincerity and utmost respect,
HavivThe Progressive Conservative candidate in the new Carleton riding will lose and would be a bad MPP even if she won the next election, Ottawa’s most prominent provincial Tory said in a private email Tuesday.
Lisa MacLeod has represented Nepean-Carleton in the Ontario legislature since 2006 but the riding is being split at the next election. MacLeod is running in the northern suburban section, called Nepean. After one of their now-routine ugly nomination squabbles, the Tories nominated young trade lawyer Goldie Ghamari in the rural Carleton section last November.
Ghamari is a dangerous pick, the email says.
“For 22 years John Baird and I have kept Carleton deep Tory Blue and now that is at risk,” says the email. “I chose a tougher, urban seat and I do not regret the choice, but I am gutted by what comes next in Carleton as I not only believe the current candidate will not win but worse, if she does win, she will not be a suitable representative for my constituents who I remain loyal to.”
The email went to prominent Nepean conservatives, including former senator Marjory LeBreton and fundraiser Thom Bennett, and was forwarded several times before I saw it. At first, MacLeod said she didn’t know anything about the email. Later in the day, she acknowledged it was genuine.
“I have remained silent on the choice of the new PC Candidate in Carleton,” MacLeod’s email said. “I know it is clear to many that she does not enjoy my support-.my sign crew in Carleton has all quit the party- not one remains as a result of the shady founding meeting and subsequent nomination (you may recall my speech at the founding meeting where I warned against splitting the party but clear as day, it is split now). Tories are looking for new parties in parts of the riding to support and I have dealt with many constituents who call me in tears asking me to come back. So evident is the poor choice of candidate that Kathleen Wynne actually went to Carleton last Friday as a target seat for the Liberals (I do not need to remind anyone that Pierre Poilievre only narrowly maintained his seat in the last election!).”
Berry picking is a classic part of summer in Ontario. There’s nothing like fresh, local produce! Thanks for the strawberries, @shouldicefarm pic.twitter.com/phxDbBnQEY — Kathleen Wynne (@Kathleen_Wynne) July 22, 2017
Indeed, on an Ottawa swing, Wynne made campaign-type stops in Kanata-Carleton and Carleton, admiring self-driving cars, picking strawberries and visiting Saunders Farm. The Liberals don’t have a candidate in Carleton yet but if they found a strong one with deep local roots, he or she could give the Tories a fight.
MacLeod concluded that “strong Tory voices” in Carleton have to “figure out next steps, otherwise a 22 year old legacy will all be for not (sic).”
What those “next steps” might be isn’t clear. A party leader can dismiss a candidate. But Brown has approved candidates chosen in plainly tainted nomination meetings, endured mass resignations of riding-association leaders and gone to court to defend his choices. Ditching a candidate he’s already approved, welcomed and campaigned for, without some new obvious outrage, would be astounding.
The email refers to a dossier on Ghamari that made the rounds on the sly during the party nomination campaign, which includes some allegations that are legitimate (Ghamari toyed with other political parties when she was a student, not all that long ago) and some less so (basically piling in stuff from all over the internet connected to the handle “Persian Cat” or its variations, which the Iranian-born Ghamari sometimes used but obviously she’s not the only one in the world ever to call herself that).
On Monday, much of the material was turned into a video on the alt-right website The Rebel, attacking both Ghamari and party leader Patrick Brown for allowing her to be a candidate.
The dossier suggests Ghamari’s not a real conservative, and maybe even a closet Islamist who’s used aliases to attack Christianity.
“I am horrified at the idea that anyone could believe I would write something so vile,” Ghamari said. “It is not even in a language that I speak, read or write.”
More generally, she said, “While it is true that in the past, when I was much younger, I criticised some policies of the previous federal Conservative government, that does not negate the fact that I am a proud Progressive Conservative.”
Although MacLeod’s criticisms of Ghamari were wide-ranging, she said in a written statement that the video prompted her Tuesday email.
“Yesterday evening, a number of people forwarded me a video by the Rebel about the PC candidate in Carleton, Goldie Ghamari and I was alarmed,” MacLeod wrote. “I have since read her denial that she made the statements about Christianity attributed to her in the video, which initially caused me concern. I was pleased to see her denial that those comments were hers. I believe Ontario PCs have put forward a strong and diverse team of candidates in Eastern Ontario, and the rest of the province, and I look forward to serving with all of them under PC Leader Patrick Brown’s leadership.”
MacLeod’s antipathy to Ghamari isn’t a secret. There are too many layers to disentangle completely, but it’s wrapped up in Brown’s attempts to assert himself in the party’s Eastern Ontario operation as a newcomer to provincial politics.
MacLeod was a top lieutenant to former Tory leader Tim Hudak and ran against Brown for the leadership after Hudak lost the last election and resigned; after Brown won, he favoured Kanata MPP Jack MacLaren, who was one of his earliest caucus supporters, and demoted MacLeod.
Then MacLaren’s career in the Progressive Conservative party blew up like a multistage firework, ending up in Brown’s tossing MacLaren from the Tory caucus seconds before he quit. That left Brown without a reliable Eastern Ontario ally.
The upshot is that Ghamari is Brown’s candidate in Carleton and MacLeod would have preferred someone closer to her, like Rideau-Goulbourn Coun. Scott Moffatt or former Osgoode councillor Doug Thompson. Moffatt declined to run; Thompson did declare he’d seek the nomination, then bowed out, saying he’d discovered party politics was dirtier than he’d expected. A candidate from the populist Ontario Landowners Association also left the race and right-wing party activist Jay Tysick was disqualified by the Tories’ nominating authorities at the last minute.
Although she doesn’t live in Carleton, Ghamari put in a lot of campaign work and drew endorsements from people such as longtime Rideau politician Glenn Brooks. The nomination vote came down to her and Parliament Hill political staffer Brandon Purcell and Ghamari won.
“I am incredibly grateful and humbled that the people of Carleton voted for me to become their Ontario PC Candidate. Since then, I have been working tirelessly to bring their issues and concerns to light. I look forward to running a clean, positive and inspiring campaign, earning the votes of everyone in Carleton, and working with the PC caucus, including Lisa MacLeod,” Ghamari said.
So everything’s back to normal in the Progressive Conservative party.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevelyHigh school removes doors from bathrooms to 'prevent students from having sex in them'
One high school in McKinney, Texas has removed the doors to bathrooms, invoking an outcry from both parents and students.
McKinney North High School says removing the doors to the bathroom entrances are a preventative measure to ‘keep kids safe.’
But rumours have been circulating among students that the doors were removed because of illicit sexual behaviour in the loos.
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Privacy's a privilege: McKinney High School in Texas removed all exterior bathroom doors
One high school student said she’s seen some questionable activities in the women’s restroom. ‘I’ve walked into the bathroom and seen girls in the bathroom with guys,’ Sarah O’Kerke told KDAF-TV.
Another student agreed. ‘I heard the reason they took (the doors) off was because they caught a freshman couple having sex in the bathroom,’ Avniel Guerra said.
But the high school disagrees. McKinney High School spokesperson Cody Cunningham said in this instance, the measure was carried for student’s safety and is because of reports of students fighting.
‘The students felt like the reason we were removing them was because of some inappropriate sexual behaviour in the restrooms, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,’ Mr Cunningham told nbcdfw.com.
Wrong idea: District spokesperson Cody Cunningham said the door removals were only to allow better student safety
Different side of the story: But students say it was because their classmates were having sex in the bathrooms
He told CBS Local in Dallas-Fort Worth that it’s a common practice in newer schools. ‘Often times…they do take off or omit the exterior doors to the restroom and really it’s just a supervision issue.’
Parents are upset that it’s an invasion of their children’s privacy, but Mr Cunningham argues that many changes have been made in the last 50 years to protect their student’s safety.
TEEN PREGNANCIES IN TEXAS ON THE RISE
Teen pregnancy in Texas is regularly one of the highest in the nation, a Guttmacher Institute study shows.
The state ranks fourth in the nation for the number of teen pregnancies - one in 86 in teens aged 15 to 19. Though it has received funding for abstinence-only sex education, the numbers continue to remain alarmingly high.
The restrooms, the schools say, still allow privacy, as there is no line of sight from the hallway into the restrooms, thanks to a half-wall.
However, Texas has consistently been a state with alarmingly high teen pregnancy rates.
According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, Texas ranks fourth in the nation for the number of teen pregnancies, with 88 pregnancies per 1,000 women, aged 15-19. The report ranked pregnancy trends from 1986 to 2006.
It is first in the country for teen birth rates, according to study. While the state - along with Florida and New York - has received considerable abstinence-education funding in recent years, the numbers are alarming.
This isn’t the first disruption to mar the high school.
View to the loo: Removing the external bathroom door would still allow a small amount of privacy, as there's a turn at the entrance
In 2006, the McKinney high school made national news for a band of cheerleaders, dubbed ‘the Fab Five,’ who acted out by skipping class, terrorising their cheer-leading coach, and posting sexually suggestive pictures of themselves on MySpace.
The then-principal ended up resigning as part of a settlement.
View more videos at: http://nbcdfw.com.The Strehler-Mildvan Correlation
The scientific team of biotech company Gero recently published a study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology that debunks a long-held misconception regarding two parameters of the Gompertz mortality law — a mortality model that represents human death as the sum of two components that exponentially increases with age. The Gero team studied what’s called the Strehler-Mildvan (SM) correlation and found no real biological reasoning behind it, despite having been held true for more than a half a century now.
The SM correlation, derived from the Strehler-Mildvan general theory of aging and mortality, is a mechanism-based explanation of Gompertz law. Specifically, the SM correlation uses two Gompertz coefficients called the Mortality Rate Doubling Time (MRDT) and Initial Mortality Rate (IMR). Popularized in the 1960s in a paper published in Science, the SM correlation suggests that reducing mortality rate through any intervention at a young age could lower the MRDT, thus accelerating aging. As such, the hypothesis disrupts the development of any anti-aging therapy, effectively making optimal aging treatments impossible.
The Gero team, however, realized that the SM correlation is a flawed assumption. Instead of using machine learning techniques for anti-aging therapy design, the researchers relied on an evidence-based science approach. Peter Fedichev and his team tried to determine the physical processes behind the SM correlation. In doing so, they realized the fundamental discrepancy between analytical considerations and the possibility of SM correlation. “We worked through the entire life histories of thousands of C. elegans that were genetically identical, and the results showed that this correlation was indeed a pure fitting artifact,” Fedichev said in a press release.
Human Life Extension
Other studies have questioned the validity of the SM correlation, but in their published study, Fedichev and his team were able to show how the SM correlation arises naturally as “a degenerate manifold of Gompertz fit.” This suggests that, instead of understanding SM correlation as a biological fact, it is really an artifactual property of the fit.The Indian Army during World War I contributed a large number of divisions and independent brigades to the European, Mediterranean and the Middle East theatres of war in World War I. Over one million Indian troops served overseas, of whom 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded. In total at least 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war.
In World War I the Indian Army fought against the German Empire in German East Africa and on the Western Front. At the First Battle of Ypres, Khudadad Khan became the first Indian to be awarded a Victoria Cross. Indian divisions were also sent to Egypt, |
so that a public revelation about his relationship with state Rep. Cindy Gamrat would seem “mild by comparison.”
The Detroit News interviews suggested that the freshman representatives used their taxpayer-funded offices to maintain and cover up their relationship. The newspaper describes the two as “socially conservative legislators who often invoke their Christian faith in pursuit of new legislation governing gun rights, abortion and marriage.” They found support through tea-party activism and formed their own legislative coalition.
Calls to Courser and Gamrat were not returned immediately on Friday.
Courser in mid-May told a former House aide to send a mass e-mail to Republican activists and operatives appearing to be from an anonymous political enemy who said Courser was “caught behind a Lansing nightclub” having sex with a man, according to the News. Both representatives fired their aides, including the aide who sent the e-mail, without explanation.
During two meetings recorded by the aide, Courser and Gamrat, who is also married and has three children, did not dispute the aide’s characterization of their relationship as an extramarital affair. Courser and Gamrat combined their office operations, having three aides work for both of them.
Courser confirmed that it was his voice as a Detroit News reporter played the recording but disputed the legality of the recording. Laws regarding permission to audio record vary by state. A Michigan Court of Appeals ruling said participants in a conversation may record a discussion without receiving the permission of other participants.
In April, House Speaker Kevin Cotter kicked Gamrat out of Republican caucus meetings after she was caught leaking confidential discussions. The mass e-mail Courser sent on May 20 called Gamrat “a tramp,” suggesting she covered for Courser “and her involvement is the real reason she was thrown out” of the House Republican caucus in April, according to the News.
“In a controlled burn, you do a little bit of truth mixed in with a lot of lies,” Courser told his aide, according to the News.
In one clip, Courser told his aide he was concerned that video could be released pointing to a personal relationship with Gamrat. “We decided to destroy ourselves,” he said, referring to the pending e-mail. “If this is the lead-in, they go for the sham, the scam. She’s working through it with her husband, and they’ve been working through it.”
Cotter has ordered an investigation into allegations the two used their offices and staff in an apparent coverup.
“The office will review the matter and determine whether there was a violation of House rules or any evidence of illegal behavior, and will follow-up with any and all appropriate measures, including disciplinary steps,” Cotter said in a statement. “We will not stand for any violation of House rules or law, and we will not let anyone’s actions tarnish this institution or take away from the work we do every day to improve the lives of the hard-working men and women of this great state.”
Courser’s state representative bio includes quite a bit about his faith, including how his parents raised him in a Christian home.
“The love and compassion that Courser’s parents emulated shaped the ‘religious’ part of Courser, one of genuine faith,” the bio states. He currently attends Lapeer Assembly of God.
Gamrat’s bio notes that she home-schools her children and is married to her high school sweetheart. Her Web site says she is “very active at Gracespring Bible Church.”
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Which presidential candidate leads among evangelicals? Right now, it’s Donald Trump.
How the Planned Parenthood videos set off a renewed wave of activism on abortion
Skipping church? Facial recognition software could be tracking youWe sat down with Aitor Throup to learn about his latest collaboration with experimental musician Flying Lotus.
Following their first collaboration for A Portrait of Noomi Rapace, British artist and designer Aitor Throup has once again teamed up with experimental musician Flying Lotus. Together, the two present the Death Veil Mask (v.002), a multi-component product developed especially for the Los Angeles creative to wear during his live shows. Throup and Ellison first started discussing and working on this unique New Object Research piece since early 2014, and it embodies their shared passion in the aesthetics of the exaggerated “persona” (i.e: a Superhero), as well as a mutual interest in the subject of death itself.
The mask is actually the second version of a product which Ellison and Throup tested for the first leg of the You’re Dead! American tour during October 2014, and was first revealed at the sold-out Flying Lotus gig at the Roundhouse, London on November 7.
The eyes of the Death Veil Mask light up via an integrated switch, which allows Ellison to control it within the performance, giving him an identity on-stage as the audience get a real and direct representation of the orientation of Ellison’s face, even when surrounded by the immersive and progressive visual show which has now become synonymous with a Flying Lotus performance. The various components which form the final modular design can each be interchanged with more evolved and/or limited edition versions of them as the piece evolves through time.
To learn more about the unexpected collaboration we sat down with Aitor himself. Take a look at the full interview below and catch Flying Lotus in the Death Veil Mask when he stops in your town.
How did the collaboration come about?
I got an e-mail from Flying Lotus’s manager around a year ago saying that they really would like to hook up and he was a big fan of my work. At first I was like, “wow, that’s crazy, cause I’m a big fan of his work, too,” and he put us in touch. I was actually in LA the following week because I had an exhibition so I invited him over and we just connected straight away. We’re on the same wave aesthetically and he was like, “hey man, I like your work, it’s what my music looks like” and I was like, “I always said that your music is what my work sounds like.” So it was kinda crazy, we were already aligned in an aesthetic level and we were just convinced that something should happen and that it resulted in an ongoing conversation.
So we hung out for a while, we talked about early ideas, but we really came together when I found myself back in LA about three months later when I was working on a different project and he invited me over to the studio to come check out the new album. I went over and I heard the early version of the album and I tried to really go deep into the album and understand his thinking behind it. I even spent some time in the mastering studio and was able to see how intensively he works, and saw very direct parallels from the way he works, the way he approaches work, to the way that I work.
Where did the initial design cues for the mask come from?
He’s trying to invent new things, as I am, and so all of that and the concept behind the album, it being called You’re Dead! and the importance of death for him and the fact that death is actually an ongoing theme throughout my work was the starting point. You’ve got death as a theme throughout my work: Shiva references, The Funeral of New Orleans, terror police killing an innocent person, etc. All of these shared experiences came together in the studio with me and him sitting there, hanging out. It came together without personal reference, just us being grown-up versions of the kids we once were. We’re still into the same things we once were. We’re still into comic books, still into video games, I think we still entertain that child-like mind for our work in a very deep and sophisticated way but we’re into comic books and superheroes.
One of the first things I noticed when I walked into his studio was a Batman mask in the corner and I was taken aback. Basically my oldest memory of feeling passionate about something that you wear was Tim Burton’s original Batman film when you see the Batman mask and how it features an exaggerated version of Michael Keaton’s face. That always stayed inside of me and it’s such a powerful way to convey meaning into an object, for an object to be figurative without having the human body inside of it.
So all of those elements and showing his needs for the live show and his own life experiences etc., lead to us developing this mask. It had to incorporate not just his essence and my essence but also importantly the concept of the album, so it’s very much a death mask, it’s very much his identity, not just in the context of his album but also as a musician. It embodies him as a musician and it gives him an identity in a live scenario. The eyes light up and it has built-in electronics he can control throughout the show, even though he is surrounded by layers of visuals inside a very complex structure.
What materials did you use?
The core of the mask is made from melton wool and it goes through a very complex process of multilayered stiffening and then heat-bonding and sealing with different layers of heat-reactive film. Basically, what it creates is a compound material which allows us to give it shape. Every panel is individually heat-shaped and the last layer is a layer of open technical mesh that is actively glued and bonded on the upper layer of melton. That creates a very interesting effect which is actually the same effect that we use on one of my jackets, the Skanda jacket, and that effect reflects the light of the glue, which makes it look almost glittery. It looks like something sinister is going on in the material and the way it’s constructed using the same technology and techniques that I use in New Object Research. Its’ effectively a bespoke piece from New Object Research.
It looks like the mask has interchangeable parts.
There are three other components that can interact with the piece that can make it worn in different ways. First is like a top lip, that you can clip on, it matches the material, that’s basically the main piece. With the top lip and the jaw clipped on, that creates a skull – the complete product. But just like with an actual jaw you can detach the jaw and that’s where we really started to create something unique.
We talked about how cool it would be if there could be accessories for this mask, to make it different for every tour or a different addition for a special gig. We started looking at head gear that we like and Steve showed me this really cool image from a comic book where these hanging bits are coming off this ancient headwear, almost like Eastern tribalism. So we started talking about the idea of it moving through the air, when he performs. We also talked about the aesthetic of the Punisher and all these references coming together in these component additions. So it’s like this alien being created from all the components from New Object Research and combined them in this mask that represents death.
Have you guys considered working on more pieces like a jacket or suit?
We are working on it actually. We did a fitting on Friday – he already has one of my jackets – but I don’t think it’s the right kinda jacket for this. I actually want to do this, create a suit jacket, designed to work with the mask. We are also working on a tie as well and it’s gonna be a whole new tie design. I’m quite obsessed with ties.
One last question. Will the mask be available to the public?
Not anytime soon, it’s too personal. It seems like an identity but we could do something together in the future in terms of a product. I am very product focused and there’s a geeky beauty in the fact that we both appreciate the devil’s in the details.
One last question for real this time. How do you pronounce your name?
Eye-tore Throop.
Flying Lotus portraits and live photography by Neil Bedford
Product photography by Karl Axon
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Words by Brock Cardiner Director of Content Strategy Brock Cardiner is Highsnobiety's Director of Content Strategy. He oversees Highsnobiety's editorial approach across platforms & mediums. Brock splits his time between Berlin, Los Angeles and New York.For my first post I wanted to showcase something I’m especially proud of, and this “Fancy Car” seemed appropriate. I designed and built this a couple years ago, and every once in a while I see it on my shelf and think that it came together really well.
The seating area is LEGO Part 30149, which has been one of my favorite pieces since I got one in “Scorpion Tracker” (LEGO Set 5918). Despite the fact that it’s a piece that does a lot of the building work for you, which I generally shy away from, it worked really well here. I don’t get doors that open using the piece which is contradictory to form following function, a policy I heartily agree with, but in this case it didn’t bother me. Besides, with a car this awesome you don’t have time to open the doors, you just jump right in!
Side view of the car. I think it looks pretty sleek, thanks to all those curves! You can best see the height and length of the car here. Though the height, length, and width are nearly too big for what I think a minifig should be driving around town, I believe they’re within reason, especially considering all the features on the car.
The rear of the car with trunk, license plate, and tail lights. The tail lights are actually something I still think about changing. I’ve considered setting them in the same plane as the license plate by removing the 1×1 plates beneath the lights, but then the circular tiles look funny set in square recesses, and I don’t like the look of square lights.
I’ve also thought of putting the lights on either side of the trunk attached to the body of the car so there’s more space between them, like the headlights. The best way I thought of doing this is by switching out the 2×1 curved slopes in the rear (Part 11477) with a 2×1 straight slope (Part 92946) in such a way that you have the straight slope continuing the curve, and then the lights below, with either one or two 1×1 plates between the lights and Part 92946. I thought this kind of ruined the curve though, so I left it as it is.
Hey, it opens up! You probably picked up on the hinges already. If one got past you until this point I’ll take that as a compliment. The car has an opening hood, trunk, and rumble seat behind the two front seats.
The trunk. Not as much space as I’d like there to be back there, but it’s enough for a couple of tennis rackets or a small picnic. I thought about switching the engine to the rear and the trunk to the front so there would be more storage, but ultimately liked this better.
The third, or “rumble” seat. This also took away from trunk space, but I’d rather be able to fit a third passenger than have more room in the trunk. There is the extra bit of storage in front of the seat for a map, which is thanks to Part 30149. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make it like I did if the top edge of the seat couldn’t get by 30149 to close properly, but thankfully it worked out perfectly.
This car was almost entirely designed before I built any of it, but this rumble seat is one of the things I had to physically put together during design to make sure it would actually work.
The engine. Motor, I suppose, since I tried to design a little electric-looking deal. I’d prefer all cars in my town be electric, or I’ll eventually have to cover the place in brick-built smog, which is just a lot of extra work. The battery comes out, with colored pads beneath it so you know you put it in the right way. Before adding that color feature I put the battery in wrong a couple of times and the car wouldn’t go at all.
Inside the car. A couple of subtle features here, such as the two small slope pieces for pedals and the stud next to the steering wheel to act as a keyhole or starter button, whichever you like. That white decorated tile with gauges, part 3069bp52, was my favorite printed piece as a kid so I’m glad it found a home in this fancy car. You also might notice the right mirror coming up closer to the seats than the left, which was done so the driver can actually see it.
The seating in action. I like how the third seat in the rear puts the guy in the back centered, so he can see out the front easily, and higher than the other two. If I were a passenger in this car I think I’d rather sit in the back than front.
I liked this model so much I built it four more times with different colors! As I said, I made the initial car years ago. The black version was made right after since I was using all black pieces to test some design stuff out anyway. After a while I felt like making a few more, hoping to see them all driving around a gigantic city someday.
The two-tone ones were something I liked when playing with colors in LEGO Digital Designer. I think the tan and dark gray one has an older feel to it and the dark red and black one looks like a newer kind of car, which is kind of funny considering all the pieces are the same. I suppose that’s an impact that colors can have.
And that’s it! The LDD file for my fancy car can be downloaded by clicking on the icon below. If anyone gets around to building one with modifications or different colors and wants to show it off I’d be happy to post it on this website. Also, if anyone has questions about my fancy car I’d be happy to answer them here. Happy building!
LEGO Digital Designer File for “Fancy Car”1. Keep Your Cards Close To Your Chest
Control the power of the penis. Show her you are socially intelligent.
You have to come from a mindset that you’ve met many women like her before and she won’t be able to wrap you around her finger like she does with all the other guys.
You do this by BITING YOUR TONGUE. Keep compliments to a minimum before you become physically intimate with her.
You can do this in different ways.
The first and most obvious way is not to compliment her at all.
The second way is to only compliment her about non-physical stuff. This could be a character trait she has or something that she put a lot effort into.
Here’s how you would give her a compliment about a character trait.
First, make a list for yourself of the character traits that your dream woman would need to have. That way when a woman shows you this trait, your compliment will be sincere. Believe me, they notice.
Then during your conversation with her, you would have a purpose to find out more about her personality and see if she has the traits you like.
Let’s say you don’t like overly social butterflies, but prefer the more reserved type.
You could ask her questions like:
Are you a social butterfly with a big group of friends, or do you prefer deeper relationships with a smaller group of people?
If she answers with the character trait that you want, you can then validate her for it.
It’s important you do it in a cool, non-kissing-up way. Just tell her you like her answer and explain her the reasons why.
“Nice. We can be friends now (said with cheeky smirk). I think it’s better to have deeper relations with people than to be superficial. You just can’t have meaningful relationships with a ton of people. And I think today it’s even more important than ever before, because these days with social media people don’t know what it means to genuinely connect with each other anymore.”
Another chase trigger compliment is what I call The Double-Edged Compliment.
Basically, you are going to tell her you like some aspect of her, but you’ll also immediately give her a tip on how to improve herself.
For example: I like how the shades you put in your hair complement your skin. You made a good choice there, but have you considered wearing your hair up? I think it would better accentuate your neck.
The reason this compliment works so damn well is because it’s done in a way that keeps the power with you.
You were perceptive enough to see how she matched her hair shades with her skin tone, which is something she put a lot of attention into.
Believe me. Women put a ton of time into thinking about these details. When you compliment her about something that she put a lot of time into, she feels validated. And on top of that, you gave her some advice on how to improve it.
This totally keeps your power by implying that you are used to beauty and think she can do better. In other words, you didn’t idolize her. You kept the power.
This kind of compliment has the added effect that it will make her think about you, trying to figure you out. “What did he mean by this? Does he like me? Does he not like me?”
Chasing behavior starts in the mind. It starts by her mentally investing time in you.
And by the way, don’t be surprised if later she goes to the bathroom and puts her hair up.Share this infographic on your site!
Source: Math is Hard, But Reading is Harder Embed this infographic on your site!
Source: Math is Hard, But Reading is Harder
The editors at Top Education Degrees decided to research the topic of: Math is Hard, But Reading is Harder
Why math scores are higher than reading scores. Education is on everyone's mind. As a nation, we are often concerned with how our math scores compare to those of other countries. However, evidence suggests that the bigger concern should be our reading skills. Can you read this?
Troy Prep Middle School - Albany, NY (Charter school with mostly low-income students)
Teachers at Troy say it's easier to help students reach goals in math rather than in reading
Common finding throughout the nation
Fifth grade students are usually several years behind in both math and reading
2012: 100% of the 7th grade students had proficient or advanced scores in standardized math tests
Just over 50% met the same standards for reading
Similar results were found in 31 other schools in the district
These schools have many low-income students from NYC, Newark, Rochester and Boston
After attending these schools for 2 years
86% of students are proficient or advanced in math
Only 66% reach this level for reading
2011: 29% of low-income 8th graders showed proficient or advanced levels in standardized math tests
Only 17% showed the same levels in reading Why does income matter?
According to teachers, administrators and psychologists
One reason students struggle to improve reading comprehension is that deficits start at a very young age
1980's: psychologists, Betty Hart & Todd Risley found
By age 4, children from low-income families have heard 32m fewer words than children from higher income families
Many low-income students come from homes where English is not the spoken language
Over 10m US students are from immigrant households
1 out of every 5 public school students
78% do not speak English at home
Reading is much more ambiguous
Students with a disadvantaged vocabulary find it more difficult to catch up
Reading and comprehension require more abstract thought
Math has clearer rules which makes it easier to teach and to understand Look at the SAT. See the SAT scores drop.
2012: Reading scores for the SAT reached a four-decade low
Average reading scores = 496
Down by 34 points since 1972
Average writing scores = 488
Down by 9 points since 2006 (when that subject was first tested)
Math scores remain largely unchanged
The ability to answer questions about sentence structure, vocabulary and comprehension continues to decline for college-bound teens
Experts say the low SAT scores are related to the number of students taking the test
More than 1.6m students took the test last year
44% of students were from minority groups
1/4 of test takers are from low-income families
More than 1/4 were from families where English is not the spoken language
Scores dropped for every racial group except for Asian
Only 43% of test takers scored high enough to indicate likely success in college
Family income and test scores are definitely related
(on average) Scores increase with every $20k in additional family income Children are being left behind
Experts say Bush's No Child Left Behind law plays a major role in the decline of test scores
The law does not address barriers faced by many students
Low-income students are more likely to face
hunger
lack of health care
vocabulary deficiency
The law also narrows the curriculum for teachers
Teachers are required to try to teach within the limits of students who are at lower levels
The needs of some are not being met
The proficiency of others is not being expanded It may be time to reconsider the notion that "one-size-fits-all" isn't working in our schools. What do you think? Sources
- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/education/reading-gains-lag-improvements-in-math.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
- http://www.cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population
- http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-24/local/35495510_1_scores-board-president-gaston-caperton-test-takers
- http://www.npr.org/2011/09/15/140513396/sat-reading-scores-reach-record-lowNow there’s a bang! Mayim Bialik, 38, is the perfect balance of practical and prepared. “I’m not a fancy person,” admits The Big Bang Theory actress. “I’ve had this Army surplus bag since high school!” What does the mom of Miles, 8, and Frederick, 6, (with ex Michael Stone) carry around in her purse? Mayim spills her must have essentials just for Us Weekly.
Small Fortune
“I use a Chinese satin jewelry roll as a wallet. I got it in Chinatown in L.A. It’s so tiny I need to fold my bills in thirds to fit.”
Teen Choice
“Votre Vu in Claire is my favorite lipstick. It reminds me of the bronzy Clinique shade I was first allowed to wear in junior high.”
Write of Passage
“When I was 16, the creator of Blossom gave me a Montblanc pen and said, ‘Don’t treat this pen special. Throw it in your bag and it’ll last forever.’ I always use it.”
Mind the Gap
“Yes, I still wear a retainer — just not when filming.”
Liftoff luck
“I’m jewish, so I sometimes carry an ArtScroll prayer book. I also have a copy of the traveler’s prayer slipped in the back of my phone case. When I’m on a plane I say it to wish myself safety.”
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!One of the things that I can truly appreciate from 2K every year is that they leave no mode behind. No matter which one is the most popular or doing the best, they make an effort every year to improve everything from MyCareer and MyTeam to Blacktop and Play Now Online. Coming from LD2K himself, “We don’t like to leave any mode unturned. There’s so many people working on different modes and we try to give them all their fair share of TLC.” With that being said, let’s take a look at what’s new for each mode in NBA 2K17.
Play Now Online
PNO was a huge step up from just having normal ranked matches over and over. It gave some organization with team tiers and allowed us to work our way up through the rankings and be rewarded for using teams other than the Warriors and Cavs. This year, there will be new tiers and the ability to even customize your matchmaking preferences. So if you wanna only face people in your tier? All good. Wanna look specifically for people in higher tiers? You can do that too. You can even choose to look for people using a specific team. So if you wanna be the Robin Hood of 2K to search and destroy all the trolls using the Warriors online, you will be forever remembered. And yes, for the people asking, there are new leaderboards!
Blacktop
In my experience anyway, blacktop is the mode you jump into when a friend is over your house and they wanna talk trash like you won’t just kick them out. So instead, y’all pick up the sticks and go head-to-head, Kobe v. Lebron. Whoever wins gets the bragging rights. So to make that experience more entertaining, they’ve added an entire crowd and set the stage almost in a Rucker Park scene on a court outside of Harlem, NY. You can now play half-court or full-court and have the power to dictate every single win condition possible.
*flashes back to NBA Ballers*
Pro-Am
For the most part, Pro-Am is already a mode with leagues of potential. So instead of messing with the base recipe, they’re just trying to get better quality ingredients.
You can now earn park rep through playing Pro-Am
There are now 10 roster spots on a team and the owner does not HAVE to be there for new additions
Your team can now shoot around together on one court before games
Scouting is now available and you can look at a stat breakdown of your matchups
3 team tiers (Amateur, Pro and Elite) with Elite tier teams having the most features available to them. More VC, sponsors, court/arena customization, and the ability to import pictures
Finally, we were given the honor of being able to be the first to announce their All-Star Game Pro-Am tourney where Elite ranked teams will face off for a 250K prize and tickets to the 2016-2017 NBA All-Star Game.
MyLeague/MyGM
Eric Boesnisch took a minute, before walking us through the shiny new features of these two modes, to let us know that the main things that were kept in mind during development of MyGM/MyLeague were innovation, authenticity and engagement. Recreating the realism that is building, running and maintaining a team(s). This, outside of MyCareer, was their longest mode presentation. There were so many new improvements that it would probably take near a full 5 page research paper format to describe it all, so instead, here’s the rundown:
You can now choose to start either in the playoffs or that exact day of the calendar year with updated injuries, trades, ect.
The ability to start in the offseason prior to this season. So if you wanted to go back and try to land D-Wade on the Knicks before the season started, you could! #KnicksTape
Every season, just like in this offseason with Free Throws, new rules will be considered to shake things up in your league. For example, one incredibly hilarious rule that we were shown was called “Sudden Death.” Basically, whenever a game would go into OT, the first team to score would win (trolly, right?). However, we were assured that any rules we weren’t fond of could be rejected for the future.
Advanced rotations have been introduced to allow you to control who is playing, how much, and who you prefer them to be on the court with.
Pick swaps and pick protections have (finally) been introduced to add some more realism to the league and stop the people (like me) who would cheat the 76ers out of their picks every year before the season started.
Finally, League Expansion. The option of stretching your online league to 36 teams and the ability to design any team of your own; whether it be a historic Supersonics squad or the Flint Michigan Tropics. Team templates by 2K will already be set in place but, as always, they give the community the power and freedom to create whatever and whoever they want. That should definitely eat up some time.
The above mentioned modes, in all honesty, are ones that I maybe play a couple times throughout the entire year of 2K. But with these new features, I feel like I’ve been given more incentive to try them out because just like 2K has done with the actual gameplay, all the modes now try to mirror real life. A MyTeam breakdown will be a full video due to the non-exaggerated length and information that was provided; you’ll find that on my main YouTube channel. As far as MyCareer goes, we’re technically not allowed to speak on that until a future date but all I can say in regards to how it’s looking? It’s lit fam. *Drops mic*
Any specific questions you may have, be sure to hit me up on Twitter: @TheSurrealAndre and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability! Be sure to subscribe to Sports Gamers Online for all of your NBA 2K17 needs!Albany's plan to build a connector between the Mohawk Hudson Bike Hike Trail and the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail got funding.
The Capital Region scored $85 million in the state's annual Region Economic Development Council awards/game show porktacular on Wednesday. The region was a "top performer" for the second year in a row, and again landed the second-highest total of grants.
Here are details on the specific projects getting funding in the Capital Region are below, along with a bunch of that caught our eye. There are also region-by-region totals for the awards.
All Capital Region grant awards
They're at the top in a large-format table -- click or scroll all the way up.
Capital Region projects awards that caught our eye
Soldier On Project - $100,000
Albany County
"Albany County will renovate the former Ann Lee Nursing Home and partner with Soldier On, a veterans organization, to create a full service homeless veterans campus, providing education, training and services to support homeless veterans."
City of Albany Floatables Control Facilities - $5 million
Albany Water Board
"The Albany Water Board will build two Floatables Control Facilities to collect floatable debris and materials associated with several combined sewer outfalls in the City. The project will reduce the floatable materials conveyed to the Hudson River and serve to treat urban stormwater runoff, thereby reducing phosphorus, nitrogen, metals and other suspended solids."
This might sound like a boring thing, but combined sewer overflows -- in which Albany's old combined stormwater/sanitary sewer system overflows during storms, allowing sewage into the Hudson River -- is a serious problem. And Albany, along with other municipalities in the "Albany Pool," are working on a longterm plan to fix the CSO problem.
Albany Broadway Streetscape Project - $150,000
City of Albany
"The City of Albany will make major streetscape improvements to link Albany's Warehouse District with the Business Downtown Improvement District. The City will invest in new lighting, sidewalks, intersections/crosswalks, street trees and furniture to improve vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian safety, and improve transit connections to facilitate new investment in businesses, housing and commercial development in the Warehouse District."
See recently: What's up with the Albany Skyway, and a few bits about plans to makeover a key piece of downtown
South End Connector Lowline Project - $200,000
City of Albany
"The South End Connector Lowline Project will be the second phase of the Albany Waterfront Connector, a critical 1.5 mile link between the Albany County Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail and the Mohawk Hudson Bike Hike Trail. This link will transform an inactive, underutilized space into a vibrant active link from the south end to the waterfront and downtown."
See from earlier this year: The plan to connect two major bike paths at the Albany waterfront
Cohoes Canal Square Park - $915,000 (two grants)
City of Cohoes
"The City of Cohoes will install porous pavers, bioretention, street trees and a rainwater harvest and reuse system at Canal Square Park. This project will revitalize a deteriorating city park by establishing the Remsen Street Arts and Heritage District and also improve water quality in the Hudson River by reducing runoff to a combined sewer system." And: "The City of Cohoes has prepared a plan to construct improvements and to expand Canal Square Park. The acquisition of the adjacent parking area (84 Remsen Street) facilitates this expanded park/site programming. Canal Square Park will serve as a gathering and event space and broaden programming on the site to spur additional visitation, recreation, and investment in downtown."
Cohoes also got another $836,000 for sidewalk and street infrastructure for its downtown. It could use the boost after the huge fire.
Matton Shipyard / photo: Duncan Crary
Matton Shipyard Preservation Adaptive Reuse Initiative - $373,400 (two grants)
Erie Canalway Heritage Fund Inc.
"Matton Shipyard is a rare surviving example of an early 20th century civilian ship building and repair facility. The site is located directly adjacent to the Mohawk Hudson Bike-Hike Path and the Erie Canalway Trail, which are both included as part of the Governor's Empire State Trail initiative. Project Funding will complete a series of implementation strategies identified as part of the Phase 1 Feasibility Study and Master Plan." And: "The project includes the stabilization of three original structures, environmental remediation of the shipyard buildings, stabilization of the Hudson River shoreline to prevent further erosion, and evaluation of cultural resources through Phase 2 archeological surveys to assess areas of potential ground disturbance."
Palace Theatre Renovation and Revitalization Project - $2.5 million
Palace Performing Arts Center Inc
"The Palace Performing Arts Center Inc. will renovate and modernize the Palace Theater's infrastructure, improve seating and accessibility, enhance the stage and backstage support services, and create an off-street loading dock."
Starbuck Island Development - $1.79 million
South Island Apartments, LLC
"Remediation and redevelopment to transform Starbuck Island (Green Island, Albany County) into a vibrant, sustainable waterfront community with a restaurant, mixed-use commercial building, amphitheater, dock and boat house, marina, seawall and a boardwalk to facilitate a walkable link between Green Island and Troy."
This is the project directly across from downtown Troy just south of the Green Island Bridge.
Capital Roots Urban Grow Center - $700,000
Capital Roots
"Capital Roots will construct an addition to include an incubator kitchen and a greenhouse to provide assistance to underserved communities."
HVCC Advanced Manufacturing Training Program - $2.9 million
Hudson Valley Community College
"Hudson Valley Community College will construct labs and classrooms and purchase machinery and equipment to create the Advanced Manufacturing Technology facility, a one-stop manufacturing technology center that will train students on the latest machine tools, equipment, tooling and software for employment with manufacturers in the Capital Region."
Hart-Cluett/Carriage House Restoration - $361,620
Rensselaer County Historical Society
"Rensselaer County Historical Society will restore/secure the envelope of the |
pay back the settlement she received from Ronaldo in addition to possible damages.
It's possible that this is the reason Susan K. declined to speak with DER SPIEGEL about what is alleged to have happened inside Ronaldo's suite or about the agreement that was negotiated between her and the world-famous football star seven months after that night in Las Vegas.
The exchange of text messages between Ronaldo and Osório de Castro suggest that the settlement negotiations in Las Vegas were protracted. In one, he wrote to his client: "We are finally finalizing this after 12 hours for 260,000 euros. On top of that will be the costs for mediation that I already told you about, plus a few payments to the lawyers who are now trying to formalize the transaction. I know that is a lot of money, but I think it was the best way out -- and it also wasn't easy to get at all."
Ronaldo has vehemently denied the rape allegation. His Munich lawyer Johannes Kreile informed DER SPIEGEL the week before last that, "We categorically reject the accusations raised" by Susan K.
Why, then, did Ronaldo need a "way out" in 2010?
A few days after DER SPIEGEL published its original story, the soccer star posted a photo of himself. It shows him diagonally from behind, wearing nothing but underwear. Ronaldo is standing in front of a door or a window, with his legs apart and hands on his hips. A hero's pose. One could interpret the image as a statement.
Ein Beitrag geteilt von Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) am 17. Apr 2017 um 5:09 Uhr
Ronaldo is fond of using images to communicate. For the most part, he likes to present himself as the strongman, the king of the pitch. In one recent photograph, he appears together with fellow Real Madrid players showing off their muscles. Ronaldo, of course, has the biggest biceps.
One does not become a global football star without boundless perseverance. Ronaldo scored five goals in the two recent Champions League quarter-final matches against Bayern Munich. He is a great football player and earns around 40 million euros a year at Real Madrid. He owns a private plane. But it's also possible that Ronaldo is a person who, despite all the success, is never truly at peace with himself. It appears that he constantly has something to prove.
Ganadores Ein Beitrag geteilt von Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) am 16. Apr 2017 um 4:56 Uhr
His behavior in 2009, the year in which he transferred from Manchester United to Real Madrid for what was then a record sum of 94 million euros, also indicates as much. Ronaldo spent his summer vacation that year in the United States, where he partied a lot. He enjoyed the nightlife in Los Angeles, met up with other celebrities and then took a short trip to Las Vegas.
He met Susan K. in the VIP area of a club. They partied together and later wound up at Ronaldo's suite at the Palms Place Hotel. What happened there, the alleged rape, is detailed in a letter that K. wrote to Ronaldo months later. DER SPIEGEL has a copy of it. The football player disputes Susan K.'s account of events. A document his lawyers introduced during the mediation on January 12, 2010, presents his version of events that night in Las Vegas. It claims that what took place was consensual sex.
So why did Ronaldo then agree to pay a sum of money to K.? Was he blackmailed? Was he himself the victim? Did the man who always seems to emerge victorious pay in order to prevent the potential unpleasantness that a court case might have created?
It would be easy to lay the blame at the feet of Susan K., as a woman whose sole intent was to land a famous football player. Professional players are idolized. And are there not tons of women who would love to spend a night with Ronaldo? He's an attractive man widely viewed as a sex symbol.
Susan K. did flirt with Ronaldo. She gave him her number. She went to Ronaldo's suite. The two kissed. She described all that in the letter that she wrote one year after the night in the Palm Place Hotel. When he wanted more, she said "no." When he then grabbed her, as she alleges, and forced her onto the bed in the bedroom, she claims to have said "no" again.
No means no.
In the letter to Ronaldo, Susan K. describes in detail what she claims the football player did to her. She claims that he anally raped her.
Did Susan K. really make all that up to swindle a European superstar?
American lawyer Gloria Allred of Los Angeles is an expert on sexual assault cases. She is currently representing the alleged sexual abuse victims of Bill Cosby as well as women claiming to have been harassed by Donald Trump. "Very often the victims do not go to the police or to a lawyer at all," Allred says.
K., though, did notify the police -- on the day of the alleged crime, at 2:16 p.m. DER SPIEGEL has a copy of the transcript of the call. She permitted officers who came to her place to drive her to the University Medical Center, where she underwent a "rape kit" -- a special examination for victims of sexual assaults that entails securing any possible evidence and photographing injuries.
DER SPIEGEL is also in possession of the results of that examination. It first notes how Susan K. described the alleged sequence of events. It notes that the alleged perpetrator is a "well-known celebrity," and that she did not provide his name. Subsequently, the doctors examined the patient. They noted swelling and a "laceration" in her anal region. They gave Susan K. Zithromax and Rocephin, two antibiotics. Afterward, they sent her to Rape Crisis, a counseling center for victims of sexual assault.
Why didn't K. take Ronaldo to court? Why didn't she press charges against him? Why did she choose to take the path of an out-of-court settlement?
It's common procedure in the United States for victims of alleged sexual assault to agree to out-of-court settlements negotiated by lawyers with the suspected perpetrator.
Not everyone is a fan of the system. Indeed, it's disconcerting that a person who is potentially guilty can simply buy their way out of it. Nor does it sound very reasonable that the victim would be satisfied with this kind of compensation. Surely, this kind of agreement, which looks more like a deal, does little to help resolve an alleged crime, because it in no way delves into what has happened. No investigation takes place and there is no judge to administer justice in the end. What actually happened remains in the dark.
Despite this, American lawyer Allred says that out-of-court settlements "are often the best way for all parties." "At all costs, the celebrities want to prevent the matter from becoming public." And, anyway, she says, the victims would have "little chance" of winning in court because the opposing parties usually hire a "whole army of attorneys."
It appears that K. shied away from a trial because she feared the publicity the case would attract. In talks with Ronaldo's lawyers, Susan K.'s lawyer is alleged to have suggested that her client was "scared that something is going to happen to her." She apparently feared Ronaldo's fans might "do something" to her.
But as the documents that DER SPIEGEL has been able to view indicate, she did want to punish Ronaldo. She wanted him to at least pay a lot of money for her silence.
"A-list celebrities are usually able to pay a lot of money," says Gloria Allred. "But the sum varies from case to case. It is based on the facts. How strong is the evidence? How hard is the victim impacted by the crime; in physical, psychological, as well as in economic terms? How well are these damages documented by experts?"
Those are precisely the kinds of questions that were debated during the mediation in Las Vegas on January 12, 2010. In the end, the parties agreed that Ronaldo had to pay Susan K. a sum of $375,000.
In the course of its reporting, DER SPIEGEL found that Ronaldo's lawyers decided to conduct the transfer of $375,000 from an account belonging to a firm called Tollin. The company is registered on the British Virgin Islands, a well-known tax haven in the Caribbean. The invoices from Ronaldo's lawyers went to the firm Multisports & Image Management (MIM), which is located in Ireland, also a tax haven. Tollin and MIM have administered Ronaldo's earnings from advertising and sponsoring deals for years.
Thus, it appears that Ronaldo paid for the Las Vegas case using money earned from sponsors. A request for comment by DER SPIEGEL on the matter went unanswered.
So far, Ronaldo has not made any personal remarks about the events in Las Vegas. The statement issued by his adviser Mendes' sports management agency Gestifute does make reference to the letter written by Susan K. This "alleged letter" from the "so-called victim," it states, "was never received" by Ronaldo.
But if that's true, then the people working on Ronaldo's behalf would have violated one of the clauses of the out-of-court agreement. It stipulates that the letter in which the American describes events from her point of view -- and in which she accuses Ronaldo and also alleges that he ruined her life -- must be read to the football player within two weeks of receipt.
The U.S. lawyers then reminded Ronaldo's attorney Osório de Castro of precisely that stipulation. "By my calculation," one female lawyer wrote to her colleagues, "tomorrow is two weeks since the letter was delivered to you. Accordingly, please confirm if the letter has been read to Topher."
An hour later, Osório de Castro answered: "I confirm that the letter has been read to Topher by me."Story highlights Local media report Louisiana toddler is only fatality
Georgia has five cases, the most in one state
Cause is unknown, but local and federal officials are investigating
Federal health officials say 14 people in six states have been sickened by the same strain of E. coli over the past couple of months.
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokeswoman Lola Russell, 14 cases of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli 0145 infection with the same DNA fingerprint have been identified in six states.
"Their illness onsets range from April 15 to May 12," she said, adding that the most recent case was reported June 4. "Three ill persons have been hospitalized. One death has been reported in Louisiana."
Cases have been reported in Alabama (2), California (1), Florida (1), Georgia (5), Louisiana (4) and Tennessee (1), according to the CDC.
Louisiana health officials would confirm only that one child died and three adults were sickened in the New Orleans area. CNN affiliate WWL reported that the child was 21-month-old Maelan Elizabeth Graffagnini, who fought the infection for weeks at a local hospital.
Georgia is reporting five cases, the most in one state.
"Four of five are female, and their ages range from 18 to 52, with a median of 34. Illness onsets range from (April 15-28); one case was hospitalized overnight for this illness, and no cases have died," said Suleima Salgado, deputy director of communications for the Georgia Department of Public Health.
The cases in Georgia have been mild, according to Dr. J. Patrick O'Neal, who heads the Division of Health Protection within the Georgia Department of Public Health.
He said Thursday, "I don't think there's need for great concern. I think awareness, yes, concern, no. We have outbreaks of various diarrheal diseases quite frequently."
Neither of the Alabamans was hospitalized; both have recovered, the state's Department of Public Health said in a news release.
According to the CDC, the most common strain is E. coli O157. The strain in this outbreak is 0145. "As whole, the non-O157 serogroup is less likely to cause severe illness than E. coli O157," it said. "However, some non-O157 (Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli) serogroups can cause the most severe manifestations of STEC illness."
Russell said many clinical laboratories do not regularly test for this particular strain of E. coli. However, the O145 strain is one of six additional strains for which the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Services has begun testing for in ground beef
The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and the investigation is ongoing on the federal and local levels. Infectious disease investigators will interview the victims to determine what exposures they have in common.
The CDC says it's looking at both food and non-food exposures as a source of the outbreak. However, Louisiana health officials say they suspect that food may be to blame, according to a statement from the state's Department of Health and Hospitals.
"People usually get sick from STEC 2-8 days (average of 3-4 days) after swallowing the organism," Russell said in a statement. She added that most people infected with the 0145 strain develop diarrhea (usually watery and often bloody) and abdominal cramps. "Most illnesses resolve on their own within seven days, but sometimes the symptoms can last longer and can be more severe."
So investigators are dependent on people accurately remembering what they ate or came into contact with before they got sick.
Food such as meat and poultry but also fruit and vegetables is often the source of E. coli infections. However, unpasteurized or raw milk, water that has not been disinfected, contact with cattle or contact with the feces of infected people are other sources of infections.
Young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people who have weakened immune systems (like cancer or HIV patients) are at greater risk for severe illness and death.
The best way to avoid getting sick is by washing hands frequently when preparing food as well as avoiding cross-contamination of food preparation areas by washing cutting boards, counters and utensils with hot, soapy water.
Properly washing hands after using the bathroom and after coming into contact with animals or being in their environments -- anywhere there may be traces of feces, where the bacteria could be lurking -- also helps.
Cooking meats thoroughly to at least 160°F or 70˚C kills the bacteria and prevents infection as well. Using a meat thermometer will most accurately help you determine that the food is thoroughly cooked.I was weightless. We all were. Thirty-three thousand feet up in a cloudless sky, our plane had suddenly pitched into a steep dive. I felt my body float upwards and strain against my seatbelt. Passengers around me screamed. There was a loud crash in the back — a coffeepot clattering to the floor and tumbling down the aisle. Our tray tables began rattling in unison as the 757 strained through the kind of maneuver meant more for a fighter jet. Top Gun this was not, though. Our flight that Friday, April 25th, was mostly heavy-set tourists returning to California from Hawaii. More Tommy Bahama than Tom Cruise. Weightless and staring downhill at the thirty-some rows of passengers ahead of me, I had a rare and terrible reminder of the absurd improbability of human flight. We were hairless apes crowded into a thin metal tube hurtling through the sky at a speed and height beyond anything evolution prepared us to comprehend. The violence was over after a few seconds. United 1205 leveled out, having dropped at least 600 feet without warning.
The voice of an audibly flustered flight attendant came over the speaker. “OK. That was obviously unexpected.” An understatement. The fasten-seat-belt sign was still off. A moment later, after we’d laughed and settled back into the friendly fiction of air travel as a mundane commute, her voice returned to notify us that “the pilot took evasive action to avoid an aircraft in our flight path.” Then a few minutes later: “Aloha! United Airlines will be offering today’s DirecTV entertainment free of charge. Anyone who has already purchased in-flight entertainment will receive a reimbursement on their credit card.” In 2014, when checked luggage, snacks, and movies have all become nickel-and-dime profit centers for modern air carriers, this announcement surprised me. Something bad must have occurred. Something truly unusual and unexpected. After we landed safely in LAX, I spoke with members of the flight crew and learned what happened. Air Crashes and Miracl... Christopher Bartlett Best Price: $11.39 Buy New $39.65 (as of 04:45 EST - Details)
Soon after reaching our cruising altitude of 33,000 feet, the collision alert system sounded an alarm. Our plane was on an imminent path with a US Airways flight over the Pacific, I learned. In these situations, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) communicates between the two planes, alerts the crew, and gives instruction to either dive or climb (ensuring that one plane dives while the other climbs). On United 1205, after the alarm went off, the captain looked out the windshield, exclaimed “Holy s***, there it is!” and immediately took the plane into a sharp dive. The first officer later told me the US Airways flight was “certainly too close for comfort.” Two details in particular are unsettling: Visual Confirmation — At altitude, a pilot can see a long way from the cockpit. Even so, at our speed, long distances can close incredibly quickly. Our plane was cruising at 600 mph. Two planes coming at each other at that speed will close a distance of five miles in fifteen seconds. The Response — Our aircraft was a 757-300, the longest narrow-body twinjet ever made. Violent maneuvers like Friday’s incident are not taken for minor events. According to an Aviation Safety Inspector with the FAA in Hawaii, the severity of the response in United 1205 speaks to the severity of the threat perceived by the pilot. The Deadliest Aviation Accident in History The Tenerife Airport Disaster is the deadliest aviation accident in history. In 1977, on the Spanish island of Tenerife, two 747s collided on the runway. The death toll was 583. On United 1205, I was one of 289 passengers. With the five or six crew members, the total count for our flight was around 295. We were six miles over the middle of the Pacific, so it’s safe to assume two things: 1) The US Airways flight coming at us was a passenger jet of similar size and 2) Everyone on both flights would have died. Had there been a collision, it would have been the new record, with an estimated 590 deaths, one of them mine. The Timeline Cruising Altitude FlightAware data on United 1205 between Kona and Los Angeles (Data corresponds to red line) On April 25th, our flight left Kona a little after our scheduled 12:35pm takeoff. Normally, the above graph of FlightAware data would be a flat line of cruising altitude 33,000 between takeoff and landing. But the data shows a small but unmistakable anomaly around 1:15pm: our speed and altitude quickly drop and recover. Bottom of the Dive FlightAware data on United 1205 between Kona and Los Angeles (Data corresponds to red line) This second version of the same graph shows the lowest altitude reached (the data on the left corresponds to the moveable red line on the graph). The lowest altitude in the data is 32,400 feet — making our dive at least 600 feet. Given the poor granularity of the data here, the drop may well exceed that number.
I’ve spoken to both airlines and FAA representatives in Hawaii and Los Angeles. United Airlines confirmed that an incident occurred and that it was significant enough to merit their own internal investigation. US Airways was unwilling to comment. US Airways 663 and 692 were in that neighborhood of the Pacific Ocean at that time, but without further information, I can’t determine the other side of the near miss. After we landed safely in Los Angeles, thankful to survive the near miss, the passenger next to me laughed and reminded me of George Carlin’s riff on word choice in air travel. “It’s not a near miss, it’s a near hit!”
Not A Problem Until It Is
I spoke with FAA representatives at length this week and my conversations led me to a shocking conclusion: airlines are essentially self-policed. With all its barefoot body scans in the TSA line, air travel doesn’t seem to suffer from a lack of oversight. And that’s true. We devote tremendous resources to ensuring security in air travel. However, the more I learn about the industry, the more it becomes clear that our safety in the air does not have the system of oversight we might imagine. Two airliners colliding six miles over the ocean would be a disaster of such proportion to be unthinkable to us. It was similarly unthinkable only two months ago though, that a passenger jet could simply disappear. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 ended that fiction. It showed us that, even on a commercial flight with hundreds of other passengers, there is no global blanket of tracking enveloping us and keeping us safe. It’s still the open ocean out there.
The FAA might learn about the April 25th near miss in one of two ways: direct reporting by air-traffic controllers and indirect reporting (through the Aviation Safety Reporting System administered by NASA) by members of the flight crew. An hour east of Hawaii, “there’s no one out there but the pilot — that’s the only one seeing it” according to an FAA investigator in Hawaii. And so, when reporting the incident, the pilot decides if he wants to report the event. If reported, different points in the chain can determine it a “significant” or “non-significant” incident. The event on April 25th, which United Airlines itself considers a significant enough event to internally investigate, was either unreported or “non-significant” in the eyes of the FAA until this week. On Friday, two weeks after the near miss and my initial call with the FAA, I followed up with the agency and learned that the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) was looking into the incident. According to the FAA official I spoke with, the sheer fact that they’re exploring the event implied to him that they saw it as “significant,” even though they’d never passed it on to the FAA with any formal categorization. Two weeks of daily ATO reports to the FAA had gone by without a mention of this likely “significant” event. This official took issue with ATO not sharing the event, but admitted that there is no requirement for sharing, only common practice. I was shocked at the number of links in the reporting chain; not to mention how weak each appeared to be. The FAA even admitted that my initial information, the random phone call from a passenger, was “essential to [their] fact-finding.” Without the basic information I provided to them, they would not, by their own admission, have been able to connect the dots when the ATO began asking questions. Thankful as I am that someone is examining what happened, the system appears broken. The FAA is the only regulatory body with the authority to turn lessons of a near catastrophe into improvements in policy, procedure, or training. Yet, the FAA is in the dark on a near miss that could have taken more lives than any air accident in history. Air travel has a tremendous modern safety record. My experience asking questions about United 1205 however, has painted the picture of a safety system resting on its laurels.
Automation AddictionThat Gareth Edwards is a busy man. After completing this year’s hit Godzilla, he moved immediately to a 2016-dated Star Wars spinoff film. From there, he’ll now have to move directly to Godzilla 2. Warner Bros. and Legendary have set June 8, 2018 as the Godzilla 2 release date.
The Wrap reported on the Godzilla 2 release date. We know Edwards is directing the film and that Legendary plans on bringing in three adversaries for Godzilla this time around: Rodan, Mothra and Ghidorah.
As of now, Godzilla 2 is the only film on that release date, but it does have a Pixar film opening the week after.
Here’s part of Peter’s report from Comic-Con where those aforementioned monsters were revealed:
A couple years back, Legendary Pictures surprised San Diego Comic Con International with an FX test for Godzilla created by director Gareth Edwards. The footage was the talk of Comic Con that year, and in 2014 Legendary has once again surprised Hall H with a reveal of the potential Godzilla 2 monsters.
Legendary Pictures head Thomas Tull first presented a video from Gareth Edwards which was recorded in San Francisco where he is working hard on Star Wars. Edwards thanked fans for supporting Godzilla and joked that while he is just doing a small little sci-fi movie next, he will return to Godzilla 2 afterwards. He also jokingly revealed a list of monsters who will be in the sequel, but the names were bleeped out.
Tull, in attendance, then presented some classified footage from Monarch “to show what we are thinking about for the sequel.”
The black and white video was filled with footage of destruction from around the world with a voice over from John F Kennedy. Text on the screen reads: “There is still one secret that remains hidden… There are others.”
The video then revealed three Godzilla universe monsters: the giant pteranodon kaiju Rodan, the giant divine moth kaiju Mothra and the three-headed dragon kaiju Ghidorah.
Mothra first appeared alongside Godzilla in the 1964 Godzilla film, Mothra vs. Godzilla. Here is some information on Mothra from the Godzilla database:
Since her first film, Mothra has been depicted in various stages of the lepidopteran life cycle: Mothra’s mammoth egg is decoratively colored in blue and yellow waves. The egg hatches into her larva, a massive brown, segmented caterpillar (resembling a silkworm) with glowing blue, sometimes red, eyes. In rare circumstances, twins may emerge from the egg. The caterpillar eventually spins a silken cocoon around itself (the pupa stage), and from this cocoon the imago (adult) Mothra emerges, a gigantic moth-like creature with brightly-colored wings. Mothra’s life cycle—particularly the tendency of an imago’s death to coincide with its larvae hatching—echoes that of the Phoenix, resembling resurrection and suggesting divinity. She is among Toho’s most popular characters, primarily among female fans, and she has appeared in every Godzilla film era.
Rodan first appeared in the 1956 Toho film, Rodan. Here is some information on Rodan from the Godzilla database:
Aside from his impressive speed and agility, Rodan possesses a variety of special abilities. He is capable of creating destructive shockwaves when flying, which he has used to demolish major cities such as Tokyo and Moscow. In addition, Rodan can cause powerful winds while on the ground by simply flapping his wings. He also uses his beak and talons effectively in battle(as shown in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2, where his beak was powerful enough to crush boulders), and his wings, despite their delicate appearance, are quite durable. Rodan can lift creatures several times his weight, for instance, Godzilla. Rodan also usually has spikes on his head and chest, which he may use in battle.
The video ended with the words “Let them fight”.
Thomas Tull would not confirm that the monsters will definitely appear in the sequel, but repeated that those are the Kaiju that Legendary are interested in exploring in a Godzilla sequel.Just when you think Obama has done enough damage to the country implementing radical Saul Alinsky methods to transform the country, another sly move pops up. This time, he’s trying to dictate where people live. That’s right, although we fought so hard to stop segregation last century, he is implementing policies that will dictate where people end up living.
BizPacReview reports on Kelly’s expose,
“The man who changed your healthcare system forever is now pushing to change your neighborhood,” she said. “That is, if Uncle Sam feels it is not inclusive enough.”
Kelly said the Obama administration is calling this a “plan to diversify neighborhoods,” but she said it’s much more.
Trending: The 15 Best Conservative News Sites On The Internet
“Experts say this is more than an attempt to change the way America’s neighborhoods look. It may also be an attempt to change the way they vote,” Kelly said.
Mark Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, called the plan “insidious” and observed that the president was engaging in “social engineering of local communities.”
Thiessen also called the president’s proposed actions, to be administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, an act of bribery or blackmail to get communities to “change their zoning policies.”
He said the problem of rich versus poor wasn’t rooted in bad local zoning laws but was the result of policies that limit opportunities for success and keep the downtrodden down.
Kelly stated her view of the plan’s purpose.
“They don’t want, quote, ‘unequal neighborhoods,’” she said. “They think too many cities are too white, too privileged, with too big McMansions, too big McMansions, and they – they want to diverse the communities whether the communities want it or not.”
Syndicated radio host Richard Fowler disagreed.
“I think what the president is trying to do is to create opportunity for all,” Fowler said. He compared it to the Supreme Court’s of Brown v. Board of Education case, which sought to eliminate segregation in public schools.
Kelly countered that anyone can live anywhere, no matter what his skin color. It just comes down to money.The Central Washington communities of Wenatchee, in Chelan County, and East Wenatchee, across the Columbia River in Douglas County, got world attention in 1994 and 1995, when they found themselves in the midst of what was characterized as history's most extensive child-sex-abuse investigation. Three years later, the investigations had fallen apart amid accusations of abuses by police and state social workers, and alleged false confessions, badgered child witnesses, and evidence based on the generally discredited "recovered memory" theory. The cases eventually came to be known as the Wenatchee Witch Hunt.
Sensational Allegations, Questionable Confessions
Sensational allegations included the existence of a group called "The Circle" made up of mothers and fathers trading their children for ritual sex abuse, and black-clad adults in sunglasses holding large scale orgies around Wenatchee.
Forty-three adults were arrested and accused of 29,726 counts of sexually abusing 60 children. Some were released. Eighteen pleaded guilty, mostly on the basis of signed confessions. Ten were convicted at trial. Three were acquitted. Eighteen went to prison.
Many witnesses and defendants later said they were pressured into making false confessions and accusations by caseworkers from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and by Wenatchee Police Department Lieutenant Bob Perez.
All who confessed later recanted. Some defendants said that when threatened with life imprisonment, they pled guilty to lesser charges. Some said they were told that if they confessed they wouldn't go to jail but would be treated in the community. Many were told they would never see their children again unless they signed a confession. Those questioned also said they were told that their children wouldn't be placed in foster care or put up for adoption if they signed confessions.
Children Grilled, Called Liars
Child witnesses, mostly from 9 to 13 years old, were often taken from their families and placed in foster care. Many said later that they were subjected to hours of frightening grilling and if they didn't believe they had been sexually abused, they were told they were "in denial" or had suppressed the memory of the abuse. They were also told that siblings and other children had witnessed their abuse, or that that their parents had already confessed.
Interrogators called some children who denied abuse liars. Children were told that if they agreed to accusations they wouldn't be separated from parents or siblings. Many of them later recanted. Lieutenant Perez neither recorded nor kept notes of his interrogations.
Recantations were ignored. "It's well known that children are telling the truth when they say they've been abused," Wenatchee Child Protective Services (CPS) supervisor Tim Abbey later told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "But (they) are usually lying when they deny it." Abbey also told an investigator that CPS interviews in the Wenatchee cases were not taped because tapes of the interviews in the California's notorious McMartin pre-school case, in which no one was convicted, had been thrown out on "technicalities." In fact, the McMartin tapes showed investigators browbeating and prompting children, and successfully getting them to weave fantastic stories.
Some children and adolescents were involuntarily committed by DSHS to Pine Crest Hospital across the Washington state line, in Idaho where laws allowing involuntarily commitment of juveniles are more lax. One teenaged girl was taken to Pine Crest strapped to a gurney. There, they say they were drugged and pressured to testify against parents and other adults before they could be released.
Many of the accused were poor, and some were developmentally disabled, and illiterate. These defendants mostly relied on public defenders. The few with private attorneys fared better.
How It All Began
It began in February of 1992, when school authorities questioned Donna Everett, the seven-year-old daughter of Harold and Idella Everett. The Everetts were a large, poor family. Harold was illiterate and Idella was developmentally disabled with an IQ of 58.
When questioned, Donna said two six-year-old boys had touched her genitals, a statement corroborated by her brother. Child Protective Services (CPS), a division of the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), and police investigated. Suspicious of sex abuse in the Everett home, the authorities convinced the Everetts to voluntarily put Donna in foster care.
A month later, after repeated questioning, Donna said she had been molested by a family acquaintance. This man initially denied molesting Donna, but then signed a confession, which he may not have understood, as he spoke little English. He was later convicted.
Nevertheless the Everett family continued to be questioned and investigated. A year later, Donna's twin brothers told authorities their father had hit them with a belt. Everett was then ordered out of the home, leaving Idella to manage the family alone.
The twins were placed in separate foster homes. At one point, three of the children were sent to the mental hospital in Idaho, and CPS placed another child in therapy. Donna was placed in foster care with Robert Devereux, the divorced foster-father of several girls. Eventually, Devereux said he couldn't handle Donna. She was then placed as a foster child in the home of Lieutenant Bob Perez.
Perez had recently been put in charge of sex abuse cases by the Wenatchee Police Department as part of a routine rotation system.
In August 1994, one of the girls at the Devereux home tried to poison the foster-father with iodine after he grounded her. She was taken to juvenile hall. While there, Bob Perez interviewed her, and she accused Devereux of molesting her. The other girls in the Devereux home didn't back up her story, and the accuser later recanted to her DSHS caseworker, Paul Glassen, saying Perez had pressured and intimidated her.
Devereux was arrested, however, and another foster daughter in his home was re-interviewed by Perez. After several hours of questioning, she changed her story and said she too had been molested.
Devereux hired a lawyer and the charges against him were eventually dismissed after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for spanking a child and for warning two people that they were about to be arrested. He later received a settlement of $290,000 from the city of Wenatchee in exchange for his dropping a malicious prosecution and negligent investigation lawsuit.
Dissenters Fired and Arrested
Also arrested was caseworker Paul Glassen. After he had reported the recantation of the child witness who first accused Devereux, Glassen was handcuffed at work and arrested for witness tampering.
Those charges were eventually dropped, but Glassen was fired and was later investigated for being a participant in the alleged orgies run by "The Circle." After Glassen moved with his family to Vancouver, Canada, Perez and a CPS worker told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that he was being investigated for 50 counts of child abuse, and he lost his job there. Glassen later received a $295,000 settlement from the city of Wenatchee, and a letter clearing him of any charges.
Glassen's supervisor, Juana Vasquez, who questioned the investigation and the placement of children in foster care to facilitate criminal investigations, was also fired. A jury later awarded her a judgment of $1.57 million in her suit against the state for wrongful termination and retaliation.
In September 1994, Donna Everett, now living as a foster-daughter with Bob Perez and his wife Luci, accused her parents, Idella and Harold Everett, of molesting her. The next day Perez got a similar accusation from her sister Melinda. Idella and Everett were arrested and duly signed confessions. Their conviction was overturned in 1998, and they got back parental rights to four of their five children. The oldest had been adopted by a family in Wisconsin, and had become a legal adult. Melinda and Donna have now both recanted and say they were pressured by Perez to lie. The Everetts received an undisclosed settlement from the city of Wenatchee.
After the Everetts were arrested, their pastor, unordained Pentecostal minister, Robert "Roby" Roberson, tried to get custody of the oldest Everett child. Roberson had originally become involved when DSHS personnel asked them to keep an eye on the family look for signs of abuse. He believed the Everetts were innocent. A CPS caseworker told Roberson that Perez would arrest him if he attempted to contact his parishioners, the Everett children. At Idella Everett's sentencing, Roberson spoke up in her defense. Roberson later reported that Perez said, "We warned you, Roberson, we warned you," at the sentencing hearing.
Some of the Everett children were at the Children's Home Society, but Perez urged that they be moved since the counselors there wouldn't make good prosecution witnesses. State authorities went along with his request.
Perez continued to interview two Everett girls -- his foster daughter Donna and her sister Melinda, who was also a foster child in the Perez home for a time. Eventually, Donna accused almost every adult she knew in Douglas and Chelan counties. She named many children she knew as victims. Some of these children were then interviewed, and later said they were pressured to accuse their parents.
The sisters described adults standing in line to have |
his introduction, said that the act "provides no meaningful check by the FISA court, or by the Congress for that matter." Shortly after McConnell began his opening statement, Leahy testily cut him off. He mentioned McConnell's mistaken testimony about the relevance of the Protect America Act to the recent arrests in Germany. "Now, I'm just wondering, why did you testify to something that was false?" McConnell's ears turned bright red. He said that he had been referring to FISA in general, not the new reforms.
Leahy mentioned an attorney in his home state who is representing a client detained at the American-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "He's worried that his calls regarding his client are being monitored by the government," Leahy said. "He makes calls overseas, including to Afghanistan, on behalf of his client.... You can see why people worry."
That month, McConnell's office was forced to make another embarrassing disclosure. Silvestre Reyes, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, demanded that the O.D.N.I. release a time line of the kidnapping of the American soldiers in Iraq. McConnell had earlier testified that it took "somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve hours" to get the Attorney General to authorize an emergency FISA wiretap on insurgents.
The O.D.N.I.'s time line showed that the soldiers were kidnapped south of Baghdad on May 12th. Over the next two days, intelligence officials picked up signals that they believed were coming from the kidnappers, and they received FISA authorization to target the communications of insurgents. The record shows that the intelligence community had immediately assigned all available assets to search for the missing soldiers.
Then, on May 15th, at 10 A.M., leaders from several key intelligence agencies met to discuss other options for "enhanced" surveillance. (McConnell would not disclose what form of additional monitoring was being explored.) By 1 P.M., the N.S.A had determined that all the requirements for an emergency FISA authorization had been met. But intelligence officials and lawyers continued to debate minute legal issues for four more hours. At 5:15 P.M., hours after the N.S.A. made its determination, and three days after the soldiers disappeared, Justice Department lawyers delayed the process further by deciding that they needed to obtain direct authorization from Attorney General Gonzales, who was in Texas making a speech.
Gonzales finally called back, at 7:18 P.M., and within twenty minutes the enhanced surveillance began. It was not the FISA law that retarded the intensified monitoring of the insurgents but, rather, internal wrangling between the Justice Department and the intelligence community. That said, the confusion over the limits of American law when applied to a desperate situation in a foreign country underscored the need for legal clarity.
Despite his missteps, McConnell has so far succeeded in winning every important point in the FISA debate. The bills that are now under consideration award the intelligence community nearly as much authority as it enjoyed under the President's secret wiretapping program, although with somewhat more supervision and with the stipulation that warrants be obtained to monitor Americans inside the country. The battle has harmed McConnell's reputation, however. "It is convenient to say, 'McConnell was a bad guy, McConnell broke faith' -- it's easy to say that because they lost!" McConnell said, "We went to the mat, and they lost."
McConnell forced a debate upon the country that it was reluctant to have. In agreeing to reform FISA along the lines that McConnell proposed, Congress has acknowledged that technology has created new tools for terrorists and made a salad out of existing laws that distinguish between foreign and domestic intelligence. Instantaneous global communications, cell phones, the free flow of commercial data, an untethered Internet, and the unprecedented ease of travel have erased the once rigid distinction between what is native and what is foreign. American law needed to reflect these changes. But the reforms leave it up to the intelligence community to decide whether to monitor an American's international communications without a warrant and what to do with that knowledge. Moreover, by giving immunity to telecommunications companies for future actions, the legislation pressures them to turn over to the government any and all communication records, whenever they are asked for.
Unfortunately, intelligence officials have a poor record of safeguarding civil liberties within the country, nor do Americans have any obvious recourse if they learn that they have been spied upon.
When McConnell and I first met, he defended the President's warrantless-wiretapping initiative. To many, the program seemed to violate the spirit of FISA, because Americans were clearly involved in the conversations. McConnell didn't see it that way. "There's no spying on Americans," he had told me. "The issue was if a known bad guy, somebody associated with Al Qaeda, calls into the United States, the President authorized the community to monitor that call. If you have a different political point of view, you turn that into'spying on Americans.' "
"Let me make a disclosure," I said. "I have been monitored." I told him that, while I was researching "The Looming Tower," a book about Al Qaeda, the F.B.I. had come to my house, in Austin, Texas, to ask about some calls that I had made from my home office. I also said that a source in the intelligence community had read a summary of a telephone conversation that I had from my home with a source in Egypt.
"I'm not surprised at that," McConnell said. "Because you were getting a phone call from some telephone number that's associated with some known outfit -- O.K., that's monitored. In my view, it should be." Actually, I had placed the call.
On another occasion, at McConnell's prompting, I described more fully what had happened. After I published a Profile of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy of bin Laden, in this magazine, in February, 2002, I was asked by one of his relatives, a respected architect in Cairo who had been a useful source, if I could learn whether all of Zawahiri's children were dead. An F.B.I. source told me that they were, and that there was no reason the family shouldn't know that. I relayed the news to the architect. (The F.B.I. official turned out to be wrong.) Recently, a source in the intelligence community told me that a summary of that conversation was archived in an internal database. I was surprised, because the FISA law stated that my part of the conversation should have been "minimized" -- redacted or rendered anonymous -- because I am an American citizen.
"He's a terrorist, or he's associated with terrorists," McConnell said of my Egyptian contact. "Now, if I'm targeting, I'm looking at his number. If he places a call, I listen. If he gets called, I listen. I don't know who is going to call him, but once I got it, I gotta deal with it. Turns out it is Larry Wright. You would have been reported as 'U.S. Person 1.' You would never have been identified, except if the F.B.I. learns that this unidentified U.S. person is talking to a known terrorist. Then the F.B.I. would go in and request the identity of U.S. 1. The N.S.A. would have to go through a process to determine if the request was legitimate. So here's what I think -- I'm guessing. You called a bad guy, the system listened, tried to sort it out, and they did an intel report because it had foreign-intelligence value. That's our mission."
I then told him about the F.B.I. officials who visited my house. "They were members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force," I said. They wanted to know about phone calls made to a solicitor in England who represented several jihadis I had interviewed for my book. "The actual calls involved her telling me, 'Please don't talk to my clients,' " I said.
"Now if you ever became a target tor surveillance, they would go get a warrant and tap your telephone," McConnell said. "But they would have to have probable cause to do that." 'What bothers me is that my daughter's name came up in this," I said. The agents had told me they believed that she was the one making the calls. That was ridiculous, hut it placed her on the F.B.I.'s link chart as an Al Qaeda connection. "Her name is not on any of our phones," I continued. "So how did her name arise;
"I don't know," McConnell admitted. "Maybe you mentioned her name."
"That troubles me," I said.
"It may be troublesome, it may not be," McConnell said. "You don't know."
"That would make a great target," McConnell observed in early October as his government jet passed over the two cooling towers of a power plant in Pennsylvania. I had joined him on a trip to speak to a group of government contractors in Farmington, in the southwest corner of the state. The twin stacks looked dismayingly vulnerable from the air, and I recalled that the 9/11 plotters had considered attacking nuclear plants before settling on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol.
In July, the O.D.N.I. had released a National Intelligence Estimate titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland." The N.I.E., the most authoritative document that the intelligence community produces, represents the agencies' coordinated judgments about the various perils the nation faces. The reputation of the N.I.E. was seriously damaged, though, by the notoriously mistaken 2002 assessment that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This N.I.E. had been in the works for three years, an indication of how cautious the community had become in issuing consequential new findings. The new report declared that Al Qaeda was stronger than at any time since September 11th, and that it was "likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the U.S. population." It went on to say that the war in Iraq had helped the terrorist organization find new recruits.
The report reflects the continuing failure to capture or kill bin Laden and dismantle his organization. "The trail is cold," David Shedd, the deputy director of the O.D.N.I. for Policy, Plans and Requirements, admitted. "It's as hard a target as we've ever faced," McConnell bridled when I used the word "failure" to describe the bin Laden situation. He said, 'We're coming up on the sixth anniversary" -- of 9/11 -- "and we have not had a major terrorist event in the country." He claimed that the intelligence community had stopped "many, many" attacks on America in that span of time, but that most of those successful efforts were classified.
In late 2005, the director of the C.I.A. at the time, Porter Goss, shuttered Alec Station, a counterterrorism unit devoted exclusively to tracking down bin Laden. The C.I.A. now maintains that the unit was not actually disbanded but, rather, folded into the Counter-Terrorism Center. And yet former agency officials criticize the absence of a clear leader in the fight against Al Qaeda. "There's a sense that there's not a quarterback," one of them told me. "Part of me believes the people involved like this arrangement -- there's no one really to blame."
Bruce Riedel, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, who had a long career in the C.I.A. and also served in the current Administration as the senior director for Near East Affairs at the National Security Council, pointed to some recent successes: the capture in Afghanistan of Mir Amal Kansi, who murdered two C.I.A. employees outside the gates of the agency in January, 1993, and the arrest in Pakistan of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the February, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center.
"They were in some ways harder targets," Riedel said. "The reason we haven't captured bin Laden, I think, is Iraq. We took needed resources and transferred them out of the hunt for bin Laden." This happened, he told me, as early as the spring of 2002, when the Bush Administration was already secretly preparing for war in Iraq. "Who in American government is now responsible for the apprehension of Osama bin Laden?" Riedel asked. "There's the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, but I doubt that's his job. The D.N.I.? Who does the President think is responsible?"
McConnell, when asked this question, said, "If the President picked a single person, he'd probably point to Mike Hayden, the C.I.A. director. At another level, he might say Secretary of Defense. Depends on where bin Laden might be."
And where was that?
"He's in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan," McConnell replied.
McConnell was referring, in part, to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a mountainous expanse about the size of Massachusetts. Between 2004 and 2006, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan struck deals with the chieftains inside the tribal areas which permitted them to police their own territory. Al Qaeda and the Taliban quickly reconstituted themselves there. Capturing bin Laden, then, would possibly mean invading Pakistan, with the likely consequence of destabilizing an already volatile country. "You cannot indiscriminately attack a sovereign nation," McConnell observed, though he promised that if American officials pinpoint bin Laden's location "we'll bring it to closure."
For more than six years, Predator drones have crisscrossed the tribal areas, scanning the terrain for anyone who might resemble bin Laden. In February, 2002, a Predator near the border fired a Hellfire missile at a man because he was tall, killing him. The United States has paid the Pakistani government more than ten billion dollars since September 11th for its help in tracking down bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders. But for the past four years the special relationship with Pakistan has been unproductive; in a recent interview with CBS, President Musharraf said of bin Laden, "We are not particularly looking for him." John McLaughlin, the former deputy director of the c.I.A., told me, "It's not too hard to figure out why we haven't gotten bin Laden. We're not there."
Moreover, there is the quandary of what to do with bin Laden if he was actually captured. Killing him would only insure his "martyrdom" and seal his legacy; putting him on trial grants him a priceless venue for promoting his cause and invites acts of terror in response, including kidnappings designed to ransom the Al Qaeda leader. Wayne Murphy, the assistant director of the F.B.I. for Intelligence, told me that the radicalization of young Muslims will continue, regardless of bin Laden's mortal fate. "In the end, I don't know if the benefits of getting bin Laden would balance out," he said. "And I don't know if it buys us anything. Think about what we just went through with Saddam Hussein."
There is another reason that we haven't captured bin Laden. "Given the quality of Al Qaeda's operational security, you need trusted people who can penetrate the organization," Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of the O.D.N.I. for Analysis, said. Yet the American intelligence community has traditionally been a white-male enclave. Few agents can even pronounce Arabic names correctly. On September 11th, there were only eight fluent Arabic-speaking agents in the F.B.I.; now there are nine. The U.S. government ranks language proficiency on a zero-to-five scale, in which five is the equivalent of a native speaker. "Training a person up to a four-plus is almost impossible," Philip Mudd, who is in charge of staffing and training two thousand analysts for the F.B.I.'s National Security Branch, told me. "The people you want are first-generation immigrants. But the security guys will say, 'Wait!' "
Although McConnell recognizes the need to hire Americans with native foreign-language skills, the Office of Management and Budget oversees the government security-clearance process, which takes months or even years to complete, especially for candidates who are intimately familiar with the cultures deemed most critical in terms of America's safety. "We have mounted an unprecedented effort to recruit affinity groups," Michael Morell, the associate deputy director of the C.I.A., told me. The agency recently helped sponsor the Arab International Festival, in Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of the American-.Arab community. But few of those possible recruits are willing to put their lives on hold for a year or more as they await clearance. Michael Hayden, the C.I.A. director, told me that he could circumvent the security backlog in special cases, and he has done so on several occasions.
McConnell, upon landing in Farmington, delivered his speech before the government contractors. "There was a study done in 1955," he told them. "One conclusion it came to was that it was an abomination that the government takes fifteen months to clear someone! I'm happy to tell you we got that down to eighteen months." The contractors laughed in recognition. "When I agreed to take the D.N.I. post, the first surprise was being told, 'Fill out the form,' "McConnell continued. "I've been cleared for forty years! Then the agent shows up. He wants to know in am a Communist and do I advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S."
That experience prompted McConnell to reflect on what causes members of the intelligence community to turn into traitors. "Look back at all the spies we've had in our history," he said. "About a hundred and thirty. How many did it for money? A hundred and twenty-eight." He contrasted the government's security-clearing process with the vetting that multinational banks do for American and foreign employees -- the process can take less than ten working days. The opportunities for fraud at such a hank are obvious, he noted: "If I can slow down the movement of money by one single second, I can make millions through arbitrage." How do companies prevent such losses? "Every keystroke can be monitored." McConnell advocates a simplified clearance procedure that will take a month or less. Under his plan, it will be much easier for first- and second-generation Americans to enter the intelligence community. The trade-off will be that they will be subjected to what he calls "life-cycle monitoring" -- that is, constant surveillance.
Flying back to Washington after the speech in Pennsylvania, McConnell said, "I'm trying to change the rules, saying if you want to be in this community, here are the conditions of employment." He mentioned Jonathan Pollard, a former civilian analyst for U.S. Naval Intelligence, who pleaded guilty to espionage in 1986. "He transferred reams and reams and reams of data to the Israelis. Well, in today's world that stuff is not sitting on a shelf somewhere -- it's in a database. So if you want to transfer it you've got to print it or get an electronic copy or whatever. That's what I mean by monitoring."
I asked McConnell if he believed that Al Qaeda was really the greatest threat America faces.
"No, no, no, not at all," he said. "Terrorism can kill a lot of people, but it can't fundamentally challenge the ability of the nation to exist. Fascism could have done that. Communism could have. I think our issue going forward is more engagement with the world in terms of keeping it on a reasonable path, so another ism doesn't come along and drive it to one extreme or another. And we have to have some balance in terms of equitable distribution of wealth, containment of contagious disease, access to energy supplies, and development of free markets. There are national-security ramifications to global warming."
He looked down at the patchwork quilt of the Pennsylvania countryside. His thoughts quickly turned back to terrorism. "One of the things I worry about most would be something like a pandemic, particularly if it could be weaponized, like avian flu," he continued. "You could turn that into a human virus. You could have fifty million to five hundred million deaths."
In 2005, the intelligence community informed President Bush that the greatest danger in the Middle East came from Iran. An N.I.E. on the subject declared that Iran intended to build a nuclear weapon. Some of that information came from a purloined laptop containing drawings of an implosion device and information about the history of the Iranian nuclear effort. But there was little supporting evidence, and the President was frustrated that reliable intelligence was so difficult to obtain. Soon afterward, the C.I.A. created an Iran Operations Division. There was already an Iran mission manager in the O.D.N.I., whose job was to coordinate all the available resources in the community.
Those efforts were being folded into a new N.I.E. on Iran, which had been demanded by Congress; the report, expected last spring, was mysteriously delayed. In mid-November, McConnell said that he did not intend to declassify any part of the N.I.E. On occasion, the key judgments of N.I.E. reports have been made public, though they are generally kept secret so that analysts can present their findings with candor. "But here's the real reason," McConnell said. "If I have to inform the public, I am informing the adversary." He used the example of code breakers in the Second World War. "On Nebraska Avenue, where the Department of Homeland Security is located now, there was a girls' school. The nation recruited many young women gifted in science and math to that girls' schooL They were brought in and told, 'If you ever tell anybody what you are doing, you will go to prison for the rest of your life.' " The women operated the machinery that deciphered the German naval code, shaving months off the war. "Now, that is secrecy in its most powerful form," McConnell said. "Changed the course of history, I would argue, for the good."
Secrecy imposes its own risks, however. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was a distinguished social scientist before becoming a U.S. senator from New York, sought to understand why the American intelligence community had failed to anticipate the event. Examining the history of the Cold War, Moynihan saw a series of misguided adventures steered by incorrect or poorly understood intelligence -- from the purported "missile gap" that never existed to the confident assumption that the Cuban people would rise up against Fidel Castro following an American-sponsored invasion. In such instances, the community supported its findings with National Intelligence Estimates or authoritative studies that led American policymakers astray. In a 1998 book titled "Secrecy," Moynihan wrote that "too much of the information was secret, not sufficiently open to critique by persons outside government." Having served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, he had seen how the community hoarded secrets and overvalued them to the point of excluding common sense.
He spoke of a "culture of secrecy" that inevitably gave rise to conspiracy thinking and loyalty tests, and recommended that the C.I.A. be shut down.
McConnell strongly disputed Moynihan's analysis. Moreover, he told me that he intended to prosecute anyone who leaks classified information, such as the Iran N.I.E. That has rarely been done in the past, largely because a trial would have the unwanted consequence of exposing secret sources and methods. "I think we ought to step up and pay the price of going through an investigation, an indictment, and a trial -- and, hopefully, from my point of view, a conviction," he said.
Like many reporters, I've received classified information in the past; it was often full of errors. "Because it was secret, it had never been tested," I said. 'The secrecy was actually self-destructive."
"I disagree with that completely," McConnell said. "There's as much misinformation and trash in the system on the outside as there is on the inside." Many newspaper articles about him, he noted, contained errors of fact and of interpretation. "So it doesn't surprise me that you would see a classified document that had some incorrect information in it."
"You'd want to prosecute a guy that leaked something to me?"
"Absolutely," McConnell said. "He ought to be put in the slammer."
"You'd want to prosecute me as well?"
"Depending on what you did with it."
And yet, three weeks after our discussion, McConnell abruptly decided to declassify the key judgments of the N.I.E., which was titled "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities." Among the revelations was that Iran had decided in the fall of 2003 to halt a secret program to design nuclear weapons. This finding reversed the 2005 assessment that had portrayed the Iranian regime as determined to build a nuclear arsenaL If the former document had supported the Bush Administration's aggressive posture toward Iran, the new one introduced a confounding note of uncertainty. "We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted its nuclear program as of mid-2007," the N.I.E. stated, in the probabilistic language of intelligence. "But we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons."
The report came at a time when the Bush Administration was gathering international support at the United Nations to strengthen sanctions against the Iranian regime -- an effort that appears to have been quietly tabled. John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N, told the German magazine Der Spiegel that the N.I.E. was "politics disguised as intelligence," and that the release of the document amounted to a "quasi-putsch" by the intelligence community. Many Democratic political figures in Washington, however, welcomed McConnell's decision. "The key judgments show that the intelligence community has learned its lessons from the Iraq debacle," Senator Rockefeller stated. "This demonstrates a new willingness to question assumptions internally, and a level of independence from political leadership that was lacking in the recent past."
I asked McConnell what had changed his mind.
"The fear that, if we didn't release it, it would leak, and the Administration at that point would be accused of hiding information," he said. He had a personal conflict as well: the new information was at odds with his own testimony about Iran before Congress, and with remarks that he had made in a background press briefing. He knew how that might look if he kept the intelligence classified.
The N.I.E. had been nearly completed when, in July, new information caused the intelligence community to reevaluate its findings. Iranian nuclear officials were overheard complaining about the suspension of the military program. Analysis of photographs taken during a 2005 visit to Iran's uranium-enrichment plant, in Natanz, suggested that it was not designed for the high level of enrichment required to make nuclear weapons.
"We had to stop and consider the new information, run it to ground, compare it to hundreds of sources of data," McConnell said. "Does it correlate? Is it misinformation? Is this a counterintelligence plan?" He compared the process to a trial: the data are evaluated in terms of the level of confidence the community places in their veracity. 'We also examine what's missing," McConnell continued. "What are the gaps? What would let us know more?" From July to late November, Iran analysts vetted the information. "Every source is challenged," McConnell said. "We do alternative analysis. We take a set of smart people and say, 'All right, your mission is to figure out why we got this wrong. What could be an alternative?' We finish that, we have a Red Team. Red Team will attack and see if there are weaknesses. Did we challenge our hypotheses in the right way? Did we put too much emphasis on some evidence?" All this was done in the reflected glare of the failures of the past. "This community is consumed with not repeating the mistakes that were made in 2002," McConnell said. "I will tell you, the tradecraft and the professionalism that went into this N.I.E. was probably the best we have ever known."
While the intelligence community was digesting the new intelligence, the Administration continued its belligerent rhetoric toward Iran. In October, Vice-President Cheney warned, "We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," and President Bush invoked the spectre of a Third World War if Iran continued its supposed secret weapons program. Bush later said that McConnell had told him in August that there was new intelligence about Iran: "He didn't tell me what the information was. He did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze." Later, Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, admitted that the President was also told in the August meeting that Iran might have halted its nuclear-weapons program. "The President could have been more precise in that language," Perino told reporters. "But the President was being truthful."
McConnell wondered why, if Iran had a nuclear-weapons program up until the fall of 2003, it suddenly placed it on hold. He said, "They're still pursuing fissile material, they're still building and testing and weaponizing missiles, so why did they do it?" He pointed to the invasion of Iraq earlier that year. "Although we don't have senior Iranian officials telling us, 'We did this because we were worried about where you crazy Westerners were going to go with this invasion,' I believe, as an analyst, that certainly had some bearing on the decision."
On Wednesday, November 28th, McConnell went to the White House for the daily briefing and shared the N.I.E.'s key judgments with President Bush. He took with him the three principal analysts who had done the assessment. Cheney was also present, as were members of the National Security Council. "We handed the President the key judgments to read, which he skimmed through," McConnell said. "You could see him thinking about what this meant, how do we manage this information."
Secretary Gates was present at the meeting. "Mike was a little uneasy about releasing it," he said. "He doesn't want his analysts to write key judgments with the notion that they are going to be declassified." Gates said that he was strongly in favor of releasing the findings, and, in the end, the decision was unanimous.
The decision to declassify the key judgments was painful not only for the Administration but also for the intelligence community, both because the new N.I..E. refuted a previous assessment and because it inevitably raised the question of whether this one was any more reliable. McConnell also worried that the effect of the release would be to diminish the serious threat that he believes Iran still poses. "What's the difference between being on hold and not being on hold?" he asked rhetorically. "The Supreme Leader could say, 'Turn it back on.' "
When we last spoke, McConnell said, "There's no doubt in this observer's mind that Iran is on the path to get a nuclear weapon. It will force an arms race in the region." That would place the U.S. in a dangerous spot, for it stands as the security guarantor for many major oil producers.
I asked McConnell if he believed that, in releasing the key judgments of the N.I.E., he had compromised sources and methods, which was the reason he had given previously for withholding the document. "Our job is to steal the secrets of foreign governments, or foreign terrorist organizations, and so the more they know about the effectiveness of our tradecraft the more difficult it's going to be for us," he said. "I think putting it out was the right thing, but, as the leader of this community, I've got to tell you, we're going to need better information in the future. We got to go back and verify, 'Did they re-start it?' For the community I represent, I just made our life a lot harder."
The clock on his desk showed that he had four hundred and two days, fifteen hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-five seconds left.
NEWYORKER.COM
An audio interview with Lawrence Wright.SETH MEYERS (HOST): Very exciting. Our first climate scientist on the show.
BENJAMIN SANTER (ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTIST, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY): I'm honored.
MEYERS: Good. I'm honored to have you. I want to start by saying this though, you work at a national lab, but you want to make -- you want to stress that you are here tonight as an individual, as a private citizen. Why is that important for you to make that distinction?
SANTER: These are strange and unusual times, and it seems kind of important to talk about the science that we do, but I'm not sure how the folks who fund my research will feel about that so it just seems kind of safer to do it this way.
MEYERS: Right. For tonight you're just a rogue scientist. Yeah. You mentioned -- you mention interesting times. Obviously you're going from President Obama, who believed this was a serious issue and now we have a president who has called climate change a hoax. You have a new head of the EPA who has sued the EPA multiple times in the past. How does it feel right now to have what you do for a living challenged in this way?
SANTER: It feels tough. Imagine, if you will, that you spend your entire life trying to understand one thing and that thing is the cause of change in the climate system. Best of your ability you do that, and then someone comes and dismisses everything you've understood, all of that scientific understanding as a hoax, as a conspiracy, as worthless, as a contrived phony mess. You have a choice. What do you do with that? You can either retreat to your office, close the door, and be silent. Or you can choose to push back against ignorance and say, “Hey, this is not our understanding. We know something about the causes of climate change.”
[…]
MEYERS: I want to talk about this because I had Senator Ted Cruz on the show and we were talking about climate change. And he said something, and again, he's a very smart guy, and of course I did not have any research to debate what he said. I'm going to play what he said on this show. And then I'm going to let you answer to it. Let's take a look.
[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP]
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Many of the alarmists on global warming, they got a problem because the science doesn't back them up. And in particular, satellite data demonstrates for the last 17 years, there's been zero warming. None whatsoever.
[END VIDEO CLIP]
MEYERS: Okay, so the best I could have done then was, “Nuh-uh!” But, I'm going to turn it over to you. Satellite data, no change, 17 years. What do you have to say for yourself, you alarmist?
SANTER: Or warmist is the word en vogue.
MEYERS: Is that a climate change scientist joke?
SANTER: Yeah. So he made a testable claim on your show.
MEYERS: Yup.
SANTER: Listen to what he said. Satellite data. So satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature show no significant warming over the last 17 years, and we tested it. We looked at all of the satellite data in the world, from all groups, and wanted to see, was he right or not? And he was wrong. Even if you focus on a small segment of the now 38-year satellite temperature record -- the last 17 years -- he was demonstrably wrong. More importantly, if you look at the entire record it shows strong evidence of a human effect on climate. Warming of the lower atmosphere. Cooling of the upper atmosphere. And that's the fingerprint of human-caused changes in heat trapping greenhouse gases. So the bizarre thing is, Senator Cruz is a lawyer. He's got to look at all of the evidence when he's trying a case, when he's involved in a case, not just one tiny segment of the evidence.
MEYERS: I think you have a different estimation of lawyers than I do. As far as what they are trying to accomplish. But I want to finish with this. Obviously this is a scary time. It's an interesting time as you've called it, yet you remain optimistic. And I'm happy to hear that, but where are you finding optimism right now, considering this sort of deck that's stacked against you?
SANTER: Well, it seems like a real teachable moment. Climate science has been elevated in public discourse. Look at that. Look at Senator Cruz appearing on your program making testable claims. The President of the United States saying nobody really knows the causes of climate change. And we do. So this is a moment when people -- when people are willing to listen, when I can come on your show and say, "Nobody really knows" is wrong, it's fake news.
MEYERS: Yeah. I'm really --
SANTER: So, what I want, I want those teachable moments. I want to tell people, this is our understanding. These are the likely outcomes if we do nothing about the problem of human-caused climate change. And let's have a respectful, honest debate on what to do about it. But let's not dismiss this incorrectly as a hoax or a conspiracy. We all lose if we embrace ignorance with open arms.
MEYERS: Well, I couldn't agree with you more. And thank you so much for making the time. It's fantastic to have you here.If you need some inspiration for your next design venture let’s talk statement pieces. We hear that term being used a lot everywhere, but what exactly is it? A “statement piece” is a singular, standout piece (be clothing article, jewelry, in our case furniture) that is unique in some way. Since we are refering to furniture here, this piece should compliment your design and at the same time elevate it.
You may have heard people discuss about a new show-stopping item they’ve recently purchased and how it ties the room together, or maybe you came accross an item you couldn’t stop admiring – that could be a statement piece you purchased without knowing.
So, here are a few must haves for modernist design lovers.
Feather table – by Apiwat Chitapanya
Geode Table – by Lawrence Stoller
Wave City Coffee Table- by designer Stelios Mousarris
New Lands – Ben Young
Abyss Table – by Duffy LondonIt's no shock to us that the Subaru BRZ is selling extremely well. The insanely fun drift-happy coupe, which was joint-developed with Toyota, has captured the affection of journalists and enthusiasts alike.To that end, Subaru of America has requested – and is set to receive – 2,000 additional BRZs over the next four months. The aim is to meet demand that has been high enough to have kept the fun-to-drive coupes on dealer lots for very almost no time at all. According to Subaru of America COO Tom Doll, "We are selling all the BRZs we can get." He continued, "We have been sold out of the car since it was introduced."Initially going on sale in April of this year |
In fact, prompted by a growing concentration of troops at Fort Carson because of base closures and realignments, the military had been studying acquisition of additional land for years before that. But locals' first clue of the scale involved came in the form of a leaked map that looked a lot like this one: The map, which appears in a 2004 planning document, shows a series of phased-in purchases over many years, starting with modest strips of property adjoining the current site. But the entire deal would eventually encompass 6.9 million acres -- that's more than 10,000 square miles, a tenth of the entire state's land area. The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition promptly translated this into a more vividly colored map, on view below, to give a better idea of what the Army had in mind: The 2004 planning document states that the PCMS is ideally situated to become a training center for all the armed services -- and allied forces as well: "Given its size, remote location, diverse terrain, and infrastructure, PCMS far surpasses the training experience of any Combat Training Center in CONUS." (That's the contiguous United States, soldier.)MATTHEW Hayden has made the stunning revelation that Michael Clarke once threatened to hand his baggy green cap back if he was forced to field at bat-pad.
The Queensland cricket legend was giving an insight into how the retiring Test skipper has polarised teammates and the public.
“I’ll never forget the day that Justin Langer couldn’t go bat-pad because he had head injuries,’’ Hayden said on Triple M Brisbane.
“We needed someone and usually it goes to the youngest in the side.
”He (Clarke) said – “If I have to wear that, I will hand my baggy green back.”
”The thing is it’s an indictment on Michael. But it’s in context of this conversation to say that he knew that he didn’t want to do that, he was skilful in other places.
”But in hindsight we should have said mate that’s exactly what will happen, we will have your baggy green back and that’s the way it will roll.
“But he learnt from that, he became a much better person and a much better player through those lessons.’’
Hayden’s extraordinary insight came as Clarke rubbished reports of upheaval in the camp potentially leading to him retiring from international cricket.
BLAME GAME: Is it really the WAGs' fault? 3:22 Backlash brings you the latest opinions
Clarke claimed it was a “load of s--t” there was a split in the camp over players’ wives and girlfriends on tour and insisted the Australian players were as tight as any group he had been a part of.
Hayden said Clarke often ruffled his feathers and polarised Australian teammates.
“He would polarise people … the team is a reflection of people in society it’s no different,’’ Hayden said.
“Michael always had really strong opinions and when you’ve got strong opinions and you’re a young fella in the group, he would polarise people.
“He had a hot head, he wore his heart on his sleeve and he had a very definite opinion of who he was and where he wanted to go.
“Sometimes those (Clarke’s opinions) ruffled feathers, I know for a fact that they ruffled mine at times.”European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said EU membership talks with Turkey should continue. However, Juncker also told the German public broadcaster ARD that, at the moment, Turkey would not become a member of the European Union - comments that could further strain relations between the nation and the EU.
"Turkey, in the state it is currently in, cannot become a member of the European Union," Juncker told ARD in Brussels on Thursday. He said, however, that "I don't think it would be helpful if we would unilaterally tell Turkey that the negotiations are over." As for a blocwide consensus on breaking off talks, Juncker said, "I don't see this willingness among all member states at this point in time."
Officials in Ankara have said they could ditch a refugee swap with the bloc that sends rejected asylum-seekers to Turkey and requires the EU to take in displaced Syrians on a one-to-one basis. As part of that deal, the bloc had pledged to grant visa-free travel to Turks and accelerate membership talks - a process that began in 1999.
'A diplomatic fiction'
Turkey's post-coup crackdown has led to several rights violations. Authorities have detained 25,000 people, tens of thousands of civil servants - including soccer referees - have lost their jobs, and the government has arrested several journalists. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he might reintroduce capital punishment after the failed July 15 putsch.
Citing such events, on Wednesday Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern called for further discussion on membership talks, saying he would raise the issue at an EU summit on September 16. "We know that Turkey's democratic standards are far from sufficient to justify accession," Kern had told the Austrian daily "Die Presse." In a separate interview with the public broadcaster ORF, he called negotiations with Turkey "a diplomatic fiction."
Turkish European Affairs Minister Omer Celik said the criticism from Austrian officials had a nationalist bent. "To be honest, I find it extremely disturbing that this kind of statement bears such similarity to the statements of right-wing extremists in Europe," Celik said Thursday, according to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
It continued. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz took to Twitter on Thursday to refute Celik's charge: "Turkey has to do its homework and moderate its own language and actions."
Also on Thursday, an Istanbul court issued an arrest warrant for the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, stating that he had ordered the coup, Anadolu reported. Turkish officials say they have demanded Gulen's extradition from the United States, where he lives, but US authorities say they have received no such request.
mkg/kms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)New Delhi: A day after its dream poll debut in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) was today variedly praised by some political parties as a force good for the health of democracy and one that could provide a "credible alternative".
But some parties like NCP also took a dig at Arvind Kejriwal's nascent party describing them as "pseudo activists" who are not connected with the ground reality.
Congress stalwart and outgoing Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who was felled at the hustings by Kejriwal, was of the view that AAP just sold "dreams".
BJP ally Shiv Sena sounded a warning that Kejriwal's challenge is for all political parties across the country.
It is always good for the health of democracy when a new force emerges, BJP vice-president Smriti Irani said.
CPM said AAP has emerged as a credible alternative to Congress.
Its leader Sitaram Yechury said more than the anger against the policies of Congress what had helped AAP in the elections was they were seen as a possibility that can offer an alternative.
Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar congratulated AAP and said "it reaped the benefit of anti-corruption agitation of Gandhian Anna Hazare".
Praising Kejriwal, Shiv Sena said the keys of forming government in Delhi are with Kejriwal.
"A young person like Kejriwal wards off the challenge of Narendra Modi and massive Congress," the Sena said in its party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.
But Diskhit feels the AAP sold dreams.
She does not know what explains the AAP phenomenon which won it 28 seats to Congress' eight in 70-member Delhi Assembly where BJP emerged as the single largest party with 31 seats but five short of required majority.
Perhaps on second thoughts, the Congress veteran went on to remark, "I think it is just the dreams that they spun."
She had seen governance for 15 long years as chief minister.
"You cannot make dreams. You cannot sell dreams. But they have," Dikshit said.
Would the AAP phenomenon last? "No, they might once. But it does not mean it is going to be there for ever. The dream has to be also tested," she said.
NCP supremo Sharad Pawar said weak leadership in Congress had given rise to "pseudo activists" who are not connected with the ground reality, in an apparent dig at emergence of AAP in Delhi Assembly polls.
"We also need to think about the class of people trying to influence and change public opinion through their impractical ideas. The youth has clearly shown its anger in these elections and we need to find why they are angry," he said adding that people want "result-oriented leaders".
PTI
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Image caption The duo now plan to drive home from Land's End
Two men who converted a van to look like a Highland cow before driving it to Spain have missed out on taking part in Pamplona's Running of the Bulls.
Mikey Sandison, 29 and Gordie Mackay, 25, from Caithness, set out from John O'Groats and took part in the Ramshackle Rally across Europe.
The duo were among thousands of people gathering for the bull run after reaching Pamplona a few days earlier.
But they lost their places when police reduced the number of runners.
They had planned to complete the run in kilts.
The two men did manage to attend opening day of the San Fermin festival on Tuesday which Mr Sandison described as "complete madness".
He said: "We got up at five this morning and we were on the course, but at 7.30am the police threw everyone off at the end and with over 5,000 fighting for a place we didn't get one."
Prize winners
Mechanic Mr Sandison and his electrician friend Mr Mackay glued fur used for pillows to their vehicle.
The van made a big impression on other entrants to the Ramshackle Rally.
One of the prize winners - a team calling themselves El Toro - even donated their reward money to the Caithness pair's chosen charity the Alzheimer's Society.
Mr Sandison said: "The response that we have had has been unbelievable. We also won the award for Best Spirit of Ramshakle."
After taking a ferry from Spain to Plymouth, the pair plan to drive from Land's End back to John O'Groats.Original picture posted by Nathan | All images courstesy: Reddit
A grieving Ohio father, Nathan Steffel, made a heartbreaking request to strangers - a photo of his daughter, Sophia without the (hospital) tubes attached to her body."My daughter recently passed away after a long battle in the children's hospital. Since she was in the hospital her whole life we never were able to get a photo without all her tubes. Can someone remove the tubes from this photo?" he posted on social networking site, Reddit, on July 13. And the Internet responded.The six weeks old baby, who had fought a long battle with illness, died last week before the parents even had the chance to take her home. Heartbroken, the father posted this request and what followed thereafter is rather unbelievable and heartwarming at the same time.In just over three days, thousands of people responded enthusiastically sending Nathan warm messages and beautifully retouched pictures and sketches of his daughter. With about 2,876 comments, his request has since gone viral and so has this attempt by Reddit users to show their love and support to the grief-stricken family.Here are some of the best Photoshopped pictures shared by Reddit users:If this doesn't count as a victory for the Internet, nothing does.Belgium's government is ready to call in troops to increase security after a huge police swoop against a suspected Islamist cell that was planning attacks on police, Prime Minister Charles Michel said Friday.
“The army will be available to reinforce our levels of security,” Michel said after a special cabinet meeting, which discussed other steps such as isolating Islamist prisoners in special sections in jails.
The government raised the threat alert to three on a scale of four on Thursday, providing the basis for it to use the military, Interior Minister Jan Jambon said.
“A company of 150 men stands ready for deployment,” Jambon said.
Defence Minister Steven Vandeput said the men could deploy very quickly and would remain in place for “as long as the government believes it is necessary.”
This would be the first time the army has been called on to bolster security on Belgium’s streets since attacks in the 1980s by extreme leftist groups.One of the founders of Raspberry Pi, a Cambridge, UK-based foundation with a charitable aim – teaching kids how computer systems actually work – was “slightly worried” that the first production run of its affordable, credit-card sized computer wouldn’t sell out.
The goal was to produce about 10,000 units, but co-founder Eben Upton was concerned that they might be getting ahead of themselves a bit. When the pre-ordering process was opened, roughly 100,000 people jumped on board on the same day.
It’s a story relayed by Raspberry Pi’s director of engineering, Gordon Hollingworth, in a candid conversation with yours truly at the API Strategy & Practice Conference held in Amsterdam last this week.
Turns out the worry about the interest from kids and tinkerers was indeed unwarranted.
Approximately 2.5 million Raspberry Pis have been shipped by the foundation – or rather its distribution partners – to date, and Hollingworth says he’s now working on a number of exciting additional projects that he, unfortunately, can’t discuss in much detail.
In a video interview, which you can watch above, Hollingworth also tells me that the focus of the foundation is still squarely on its primary charitable aim – teaching kids what computers are, how they are built, and how they can be programmed.
But, of course, children are hardly the only ones using Raspberry Pi to build cool and useful stuff. Legions of ‘makers’ have jumped on the opportunity to purchase the cheap – the most powerful Raspberry Pi costs only $35 – hackable computer to create a wealth of applications and hardware setups on top of it (case in point: behold the ‘smart kegerator’).
Right now, the focus of Hollingworth and his team (which is surprisingly small, only 4-5 engineers strong) is on the improvement of the software. While there may at some point be a next iteration of the Raspberri Pi hardware, it certainly sounds like that’s quite some time away.
If you’re interested in learning more about Raspberry Pi’s future, you’re invited to watch the following 30-minute on-stage interview from the API Strategy conference:Participation in the prevalent discourses of society is one of the three areas of activity that the worldwide Baha’i community is trying to learn about (the other two being expansion and consolidation and social action). Broadly understood as a contribution to the evolution of thought, there are several principles and ideas that can help us understand how to contribute most effectively to the discourses around us. These are a few of my reflections on this weighty subject.
So let’s start with “what is a discourse?” To put it simply we can think of a discourse as all the aggregate articles, publications, conferences, talks and conversations about a given topic, such as governance, sustainability, human rights, and the role of religion in society, that unfold in any given space like a neighbourhood, university, workplace, or a parliament, to mention but a few. It is a fluid conversation with evolving ways of thinking and talking about a given subject in a given social space. The Universal House of Justice writes:
There are ‘a great many Baha’is who are engaged as individuals in social action and public discourse through their occupations.’ Every believer has the opportunity to examine the forces operating in society and introduce relevant aspects of the teachings within the discourse prevalent in whatever social space he or she is present.
And we can glean insights from a talk by Bani Dugal (who is the primary representative of the Baha’i International Community at the United Nations) given at the 2016 ABS conference (which you can listen to here):
Participating in the discourses of society is something we are already doing whether formally or informally, whether consciously or unconsciously in the many spaces we are present at whether as students at universities, professionals in our fields, family members in our homes, children class teachers in neighbourhoods, animators in JY groups or simply as individuals in the world at large … whatever the space we have the opportunity to elevate the conversation, uplift minds and, potentially, the opportunity to change the nature of discourse.
Such “participation can occur at all levels of society, from the local to the international” and one could broadly categorise this work in terms of four different levels: the level of the individual (who offers an understanding of the Faith to their communities or professions); the level of Baha’i-inspired NGOs (that share learning from particular experiences); the level of national offices of public affairs (that contribute to policy formulation on a variety of relevant social issues); and finally the level of the Baha’i International Community (that participates in the discourses of society at the international arena). The first two are generally not under the guidance of institutions and do not speak on behalf of the community while the latter two are more directly under the guidance of the institutions.
“What is important is for Baha’is to be present in the many social spaces in which thinking and policies evolve” the Universal House of Justice writes, and that when the occasion permits we should feel encouraged to “offer generously, unconditionally and with the utmost humility the teachings of the Faith and [our] experience in applying them as a contribution to the betterment of society.” It is important to collaborate in such spaces with other individuals and groups as Ms. Dugal noted that “the impact we can have when we collaborate with other like-minded organisations is much greater and the learning more pronounced than working alone.”
This contribution must be sincere, not directed at imposing a Baha’i view, but with the aim of learning to engage in genuine conversations. Ms. Dugal in her talk quoted the external affairs strategy document from The Universal House of Justice:
The purpose of such efforts is not to press others to accept a specific Baha’i proposal or to engage in direct teaching. Nor should activities be conceived as part of public relations or academic exercise, rather those involved are to adopt a posture of learning seeking to stimulate a consultative process by engaging in genuine conversations in a range of social spaces, standing shoulder to shoulder with others and offering insights drawn from the Baha’i Writings and the community’s growing experience in applying them.
At all levels of participation in the discourses of society, one of the best strategies for learning in action is for small teams to collaborate and generate insights over a period of time through the steps of action, consultation, reflection, and study. And one important implication of this mode of learning is to remain conscious that we have as much to learn as we do to offer and that our thoughts and insights should be continually informed by both science and religion.
As we nurture the capacity to learn systematically, we also develop our capacity to read our reality. In the case of discourses in society this means identifying spaces for discourse, and analyzing them and the discourses evolving within them. Ms. Dugal in this respect shared the experience of the BIC (Baha’i International Community) office:
Central to identification of space is reading those elements that influence and shape how discussions proceed within it. How does this look like? Key elements the office tries to be familiar with before committing significant resources to a space might include language and vocabulary used within it, assumptions and mental models that seem central to the discussions, issues of particular interest to focus within the discourse, areas of controversy that tend to spark contention, areas that seem particularly vibrant or fruitful and areas that seem particularly amenable, or averse, to principles of the Baha’i writings or experiences of the Baha’i World Community in putting them into practice.
Through participation in the sequence of courses of the Ruhi Institute we also learn about consultation, be it, for example, in the first course, Reflections on the Life of the Spirit, in examining the role of a “kindly tongue”, or in the second course, Arising to Serve, where we learn about the ways to build unity in the community – or through the dynamics of a study circle! And then armed with these capacities, we can increase our awareness that “content, volume, style, tact wisdom, timeliness are among the critical factors in determining the effects of speech for good or evil.” Ms. Dugal shared that the BIC was coming to a “deeper and deeper appreciation of the fact that the tone and approach used while participating in a discourse is every bit as important as the content conveyed.”
I don’t think that this tone should be confused as being apologetic: it is my understanding that we should hold an unshakeable inner belief in the power of the Revelation as a never ending source of guidance and an ocean for us to be continually immersed in and exploring; but we should equally acknowledge our very finite understanding of the Writings and our extremely limited experience in applying them.The “good” folks at FOX News still can’t seem to tell the difference between black people. You know … they all look alike in the FOXNation.
Anyhoo, being the helpful sort I am, I figured I’d provide descriptions of the featured black folk that were in attendance at Obama’s “Hip-Hop BBQ” … it’s the least I can do.
1. Charles Barkley. One of the greatest basketball players of all time. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006. Not a hip hopper.
2. PRESIDENT Barack Obama. Politician, PRESIDENT of the United States of America. Like him or not, agree with him or not … have some respect for the position and the man. Not a hip hopper.
3. Chris Rock. Emmy and Grammy award winning comedian and actor. One of the greatest comedians and stand-up comics of all time. Ambassador for UNICEF and supporter of many other very notable and worthwhile charities. Not a hip hopper.
4. Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z. Ok, now HE is a hip hopper. He’s also an entrepreneur. Founder of Rocawear, co-owner of the 40/40 Club and sports bar in NYC, Chicago and Atlantic City. He’s also worked with the United Nations to help raise money and awareness for issues like global water shortages.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, allow this 40-year-old white middle aged dude to reassure you …
The President’s PRIVATE 50th birthday bash was not a “Hip-Hop” BBQ – not that it matters – even though there were some black folk there and – as FOX News was sure to point out – they did serve chicken and ribs.
Know how you can tell it wasn’t a “Hip-Hop” BBQ?
Tom Hanks and Nancy Pelosi were there.
There’s no way in hell Tom Hanks and Nancy Pelosi are getting into any real “Hip-Hop” BBQ.
Nothing personal Tom. I’m sure you have mad game and your pimp hand is mighty strong.
Story Details: FOX NationSGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.)
This article on Grenada was selected by Military Colleges Online as one of the 99 Crucial Sites on 20th Century American Military History.
The invasion of the island-nation of Grenada is important because it was an early extension of American power that showed several weaknesses within the American military establishment. The problems and the confusion that occurred during the occupation of this tiny island led to changes in command and communication that was to benefit the United States Military in future campaigns.
Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard Maurice Bishop with Fidel Castro
The Grenada story began on 13 March 1979 when Maurice Bishop overthrew the legitimate government and established a communist society. The New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation (New Jewel Movement) ousted Sir Eric Gairy, Grenada's first Prime Minister, and established a people's revolutionary government. Grenada began construction of a 10,000 foot international airport with the help of Cuba. There was speculation that this airfield could be used to land military fighters and transports, threatening South America and the southern United States.
Stationery of the New Jewel Movement brought back by J. Scott Bowman of the 1st PSYOP Battalion. Notice the chained hand and the hand with the chain broken. Specialist Four J. Scott Bowman was a 96B (Intelligence Analyst) and a 96F (Psychological Operations specialist) and a member of the 1st PSYOP Battalion who deployed to Panama, El Salvador and Grenada. He was promoted to sergeant in June 1984. Bowman also collected this stationery fromGrenada Committee for Friendship with the Peoples. This would appear to be some kind of Marxist propaganda organization espousing friendship with the poor working class people of the world.
President Ronald Reagan accused Grenada of constructing facilities to aid a Soviet and Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean. There was also worry about the large number of weapons flowing into Grenada. One shipment in 1979 contained 3400 rifles and 3 million rounds of ammunition. In addition, there were about 600 American medical students studying in Grenada and another 400 foreign citizens.
Maurice Bishop in happier times at the height of his power
The safety of these Americans became a factor when Maurice Bishop and several members of his cabinet were murdered by elements of the people's revolutionary army on 13 October 1983. The even more reactionary and violent Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard who led a Marxist-influenced group within the Grenadian Army replaced Bishop. President Reagan called the leaders of the new government "a brutal group of leftist thugs."
SGT Barton of the 82nd Airborne Division stacks his
C-rations near a pile of captured Cuban weapons.
The United States reacted to the bloody coup in Grenada within two weeks. On 25 October 1983 American troops landed on the beaches of Grenada. They were assisted in part by members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), specifically Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, Dominica, St Lucia and St Vincent. They were opposed by Grenadian and Cuban military units and military advisors from the Soviet Union, North Korea, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Libya.
Grenada Invasion Plan Map
Almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong during this operation. A Navy SEAL reconnaissance mission floundered in heavy seas and four of the SEALs drowned after a night combat equipment water jump in the ocean about 40 kilometers off the north-northwest tip of Port Salinas, Grenada. They were dropped into the teeth of a squall along with a Boston Whaler from an Air Force C-130 and immediately went under. Navy SEALs John Butcher, Kevin Lundbergh, Stephen Morris and Robert Schamberger drowned during the drop. Later investigation found that the SEALs had never attempted the night drop of a team and a boat before.
There were navigation problems with the lead C-130 and the pilot could not guarantee finding the targeted drop zones. Ranger units could not communicate with each other directly and had to be transmitted through Air Force communications. The intelligence was faulty and the location of the medical students and enemy anti-aircraft weapons was incorrect. The mission got off late and the UH-60 helicopters that were supposed to reach Grenada in darkness arrived after dawn, eliminating all hope of surprise. When the helicopters attempted to test fire their machine guns they discovered that the ammunition was regular link instead of mini-gun ammunition, which caused the weapons to jam. When the 82nd Airborne was asked for an artillery barrage their shells fell short because the cannoneers had left their aiming circles behind and were unable to communicate with the supported force to adjust fire. Army helicopters flying wounded to the Navy ship Guam could not find it at first and did not have the frequencies to talk to the Navy and determine where the ship was located. Worse, as the Army helicopters ran out of fuel and were forced to land on the decks of Navy ships, they were refused fuel because a Navy Controller in Washington found that no payment arrangements had been worked out between the sister services. This order was of course, countermanded by the Navy Admiral in charge.
A 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment Death Card
We dont know if the Rangers actually brought this card to Grenada but it was prepared for the invasion and copies were found in the headquarters of the Ranger Regiment. It tells the government troops that the Rangers are in their rear area and cannot be stopped.
The Rangers originally expected to land at Salines airfield. When it was discovered that the enemy had set up runway obstacles, a decision was made to have them parachute (in some cases with double loads) from 500 feet altitude. Since the men had removed their gear, they had to refit in the aircraft. The aircraft were out of assigned order and the runway clearing team would not be the first on the field. The Air Force refused to conduct a mass parachute drop requested by the Rangers. There was an alleged problem with the prompt evacuation of the wounded because Army helicopter pilots were not qualified to land on Navy ships. This requirement was quickly waived. As an example of further interservice rivalry, Norman Schwarzkopf adds in It Doesnt take a Hero, Bantam Books, 1992, that he had to give a Marine Colonel a direct order and threat of court-martial to fly Army Rangers in Marine helicopters. The 82nd Airborne had serious dehydration problems and this led directly to the introduction of light-weight BDUs shortly after the operation.
The Grenada Radio Fiasco
Perhaps the most famous of the fiascoes was depicted in the Clint Eastwood movie Heartbreak Ridge. Enemy machine-guns pinned down navy SEALs assaulting the Governor-Generals mansion. Two American gunships flew overhead but the men on the ground were unable to communicate directly with them. There were major problems with the radios of the various services and communication was curtailed. As a result, one pinned-down American actually used his personal credit card to send a collect call from the mansion to Fort Bragg N.C to request a fire mission. The message was forwarded from North Carolina to the naval ships off shore and the fire order was carried out. Despite all this, the casualty rate for United States forces were only 19 dead and 116 wounded. The Grenada military suffered 49 dead and 358 wounded. The Cuban count was 29 dead and over a hundred wounded.
Colonel John T. Carney Jr. talks about the problems in No Room for Error: The Covert Operations of Americas Special Tactics Units from Iran to Afghanistan, Ballantine, N.Y., 2002:
We achieved our mission, but took heavy casualties. Nineteen men were killed in action and 123 wounded. The enemy was a hastily organized force of about 50 Cuban military advisers, over 700 Cuban construction workers, and one thousand two hundred members of Grenada s Peoples Revolutionary Army. Many of the casualties were from friendly fire. To this day, I doubt that any one person knows how ineptly Urgent Fury was planned and executed Operation Urgent Fury became the military equivalent of a Japanese Kabuki dance created by three or four choreographers speaking different languages, all working independently of each other. In the long run, however, the operation proved a defining moment for special operations, for it led directly to the creation, by Congressional mandate, three years later, of the U.S. Special Operations Command
British Major Mark Adkin, Commanding Officer of the Caribbean Peace-keeping Force (CPF), mentions the problems in Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada (Issues in Low Intensity Conflict), Lexington Books, 1989. He says that the U.S. armed forces came extremely close to a major political defeat due to poor planning on the part of senior officers. The Americans did not have topographical maps of the island and used old British touring maps. The location and strength of the enemy forces were almost completely unknown. This led directly to the loss of several helicopters and caused Delta Force to abort two missions. There was no fully integrated communications system. The Americans lacked precise data on the location of the medical students they were to rescue. More than a thousand American medical students were spread out over three locations instead of only at the True Blue campus in the southern tip of the island.
Major General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the task force's deputy commander, and never one to pull a punch commented on the operation:
Even though higher headquarters screws it up every way you can possibly screw it up, it is the initiative and valor of the small units, the small-unit leadership, and the Soldiers on the ground that will win for you every time.
During the entire operation from 25 October through 15 December 1983, 7,355 troops took part in Operation Urgent Fury. The Americans overcame poor planning and overwhelmed the defenders with mass, speed and firepower.
In all, this campaign went almost as badly as the ill-fated 1980 hostage rescue in Iran (Operation Eagleclaw). However, like that operation, the United States military studied the problems, published the lessons learned, and came away with a leaner and more efficient Special Operations force. The doctrine of the Special Operations groups for Low Intensity conflict was written to deal with military incursions such as Grenada and Panama. The confusion and inability to communicate that was Urgent Fury led directly to the improvements that would guarantee victory in future American military operations.
On the positive side, the cameras were rolling as the medical students were rescued. The entire world saw young men and women hugging and kissing U. S. troops. It was a genuine act of emotion and gratitude that could not be faked. One soldier who took part in the operation told me:
The best American PSYOP of Grenada was inadvertent. When the rescued students kissed U. S. Soil on national news, the political impact was enormous.
The battle for Grenada was the first combined-service campaign of the U.S. military in years. Afterwards, such operations would be practiced constantly resulting in the near flawless invasion of Panama in 1989, and perhaps the greatest military victory in American history, Operation Desert Storm, a year later.
An Evacuation Poster for American Citizens
Some aspects of the PSYOP campaign were carried out by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Reserve and National Guard. For instance, according to Retired Colonel Alfred H. Paddock, writing in an article entitled PSYOP: A Historical Perspective, for Perspectives, Volume 22, Number 5 & 6, 2012:
Working with the 4th Group, the Navys Reserve Audiovisual Unit (NARU 186) produced a cassette tape of PSYOP messages and music which the Pennsylvania Air National Guards 193d Special Operations Group (then Coronet Solo) broadcast over radio to the Grenadian people concurrent with the landing of U.S. Marines and Army Rangers. The Navy deployed its mobile 10 kilowatt radio station (AN/ULT-3) which, together with Coronet Solo, provided coverage of the island until the Armys 50 kilowatt set could be installed The Joint Psychological Operations Task Force electronically transmitted its initial leaflet with directions for its production and dissemination to the aircraft carrier USS Guam. After printing on the Guam, Marine helicopters distributed 50,000 leaflets as Marine forces landed in Grenada. Permanent presses at the 4th Groups headquarters at Fort Bragg, NC, printed and packaged leaflets targeting both the Grenadian population and Cubans on the island. Air force MC-130 aircraft dropped 300,000 of these in the St. Georges area and along the western coast on the second day of hostilities. Between 25 October and 8 December the PSYOP task force produced and disseminated more than 900,000 leaflets, handbills, and posters.
We learn more about the PSYOP broadcasts in Operation Urgent Fury - Grenada, Ronald H. Cole, Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997:
Navy Admiral McDonald requested guidance on themes for PSYOPS broadcasts to the Grenadian populace. He considered such operations essential to the speedy conclusion of military operations and the successful launching of a new government. Some of the proposed themes were: US involvement had been requested by Caribbean countries that feared the spread of Marxism by violent means; Caribbean and US forces were carefully avoiding civilian casualties or damage to private property; Cubans and Soviets were being offered safe conduct out of the country; and the presence of foreign troops would continue until the safety of the people of Grenada was assured. The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved McDonalds concept the following day; radio broadcasts began on 28 October.
The Los Angeles Times of 15 November 1983 also mentioned the radio operations in an article entitled U.S. Psychological Unit on Offensive in Grenada written by staff writer Rone Tempest. The article says in part:
In the hours before the American invasion of this island on October 25th, a powerful new radio station began broadcasting from a Navy ship somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. In Spanish, it asked Cubans on the island to give themselves up. In English it asked Grenadians to open their home and help the friendly soldiers find opposing soldiers. A review of a tape said to have been made of the broadcast disclosed at least one exaggeration: A British destroyer is on the way to help with the rescue effort. The exaggeration was intentional. This was the first phase of the psychological war for Grenada, conducted by officers of the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion of the U.S. Army. Since then, the so-called PSYOP unit, commander by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Ashworth, has plastered walls throughout Grenada with propaganda posters, dropped leaflets from helicopters on small villages, created a pro-American radio station to replace the former Radio Free Grenada and traveled hills and coastlines in specially equipped jeeps broadcasting anti-Cuban messages. Help protect your hard fought freedom one such message boomed. Help send the Cubans back to Havana where they belong. One particularly graphic poster produced by the psychological warfare group depicts several leaders of Grenadas former Marxist government with large red lines slashed across their face. These people attempted to sell Grenada out to the Communists; now they have surrendered. The Grenadian people will never allow such characters to assume such power and cause such hardship. Absent from the poster and broadcast campaign, which includes the playing of locally composed calypso songs praising the invasion and President Reagan, is any attack of former Marxist former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was executed on 19 October, along with a number of his supporters by hard line members of his regime. Bishop was personally popular with Grenadians and his execution was one of the justifications the United States has given for the invasion.
U.S. PSYOP soldier reads off a prepared script in Grenada
In regard to PSYOP in Grenada, Stanley Sandler says in Cease Resistance: It |
monitor and oversee” the litany of government bodies that make up what Ralph describes as the security and intelligence “architecture,” including, most prominently, CSIS and CSE, Canada’s civilian and electronic espionage agencies, respectively.
The “monitor and oversee” language is critical, because it implies that Ralph and company planned to move away from the existing “review” model of keeping watch over the watchers, where limp, underfunded, understaffed and somnolent review outfits like the Security Intelligence Review Committee keep tabs from time to time on CSIS only after the fact or if someone files a complaint about the spy service’s conduct.
The use of “monitor and oversee” in Liberal campaign bumph clearly implied that Ralph and friends were going to empower the soon to be revealed parliamentary committee to possibly act as an oversight agency over the security-intelligence architecture’s day-to-day operations.
However, in his column and during his lengthy testimony before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence on May 30, 2016, Ralph drops “monitor and oversee” and replaces it with “scrutinize and review.” That wasn’t an accident.
Pressed on this seminal distinction between “oversight” and “review” by senators, Ralph repeated again and again like a metronome that the proposed parliamentary committee’s principal function will be limited to “scrutinize and review” what our spooks are up to in the amorphous name of national security.
Make no mistake, that’s a reassuring signal by this savvy, career politician to CSIS, CSE, and all the other cogs involved in the security-intelligence “architecture” that they can relax since the status quo is going to prevail and his spooks can continue to break the law and stomp on Canadians’ rights and freedoms with impunity.
To add injury to insult, does Ralph seriously expect us to believe that a solitary parliamentary committee, however constituted, will be able to watch over the thousands of ‘civil servants’ that populate the 19 federal agencies and departments involved in intelligence-gathering of one sort or another?
If Mr. Perfect actually believes that fiction, then he still must believe in tooth fairies and Santa Claus, too.JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel insists Iran be denied uranium enrichment capabilities under a potentially imminent nuclear deal, a demand that risks opening a new Israeli-United States rift, officials said on Wednesday.
The dispute, a major topic for a visit to Jerusalem by U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Wednesday and Thursday, appeared part of Israeli efforts to weigh in on world powers’ difficult talks with Tehran before a July 20 date for a deal.
Though not at the table, Israel matters in Western capitals given its fear of a nuclear-armed Iran and threats to attack its arch-foe preemptively if it deem diplomacy a dead end.
A November interim accord easing sanctions on Iran made clear Washington and five other world powers would let it enrich uranium on a reduced scale under a final agreement distancing it from the means to make a bomb. But Israel wants the Iranians to be stripped of all disputed nuclear projects.
Highly enriched uranium can fuel nuclear warheads. Iran says it seeks peaceful atomic energy and medical isotopes only.
“Are we going to agree on enrichment? No,” an Israeli government adviser briefed on Rice’s visit told Reuters.
“We would be happy to see July 20 pass without a deal,” the adviser said, adding that there was worry in Israel that Obama, facing possible gains by Republican rivals in the mid-term U.S. elections of November, might be tempted to accommodate Iran now.
This view seems unlikely to go down well with Obama, a second-term Democrat who has sparred in the past with Israel’s right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over strategies for Iran and peacemaking with the Palestinians.
“INTENSIVE CONSULTATIONS”
The adviser described Israel’s hard line as sincere but declarative, rather than a prelude to a new Middle East war, and a signal to supporters in the U.S. Congress to keep up pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama not to compromise with Iran.
Rice tweeted that she was “looking forward to robust and intensive consultations” in Israel and that the allies’ security cooperation “has never been stronger”. On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said her visit to Israel would not produce any new developments regarding Iran.
Russia, which is among the six world powers negotiating with Iran, said parts of the final agreement could be agreed at a scheduled meeting in Vienna next week.
Some Western diplomats and experts privately acknowledge forcing Iran to halt all uranium enrichment activities, as stipulated in U.N. Security Council resolutions, is unrealistic given the scale of the program and resistance from Tehran.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. official said Rice came to Israel “representing the six powers”, adding: “The question of enrichment, how many (uranium purification) centrifuges Iran should keep, is the big one.”
The U.S. official voiced confidence that a deal with Iran, if achieved, would prevent its heavy water facility at Arak from producing significant amounts of plutonium - another fissile material that could be used for nuclear warheads.
While that would be welcomed by the Israelis, their main focus has long been Iran’s build-up of uranium stocks which might allow it to refine enough fuel for a bomb in short order.
Israel, widely assumed to have the region’s only atomic arsenal, was angered last month when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry suggested cautious openness to a nuclear deal that would keep Iran 6 to 12 months from the weapons threshold.
A former Israeli security official said Tehran would be five years away from the threshold if the demand for a full Iranian nuclear rollback were met. But the Israeli advisor said the government had not presented any such formulation.
“I’ve not seen or heard anything about what our ‘acceptable’ threshold would be,” the adviser said. “But I do know that less than a year would be unacceptable.”After Hurricane Harvey Failures in a Flood Zone
The disinformation and falsehoods that can accompany breaking news online — involving terror attacks or national elections — have become a familiar plague in recent years. Big weather stories, it now seems clear, are not immune.
On Twitter, Facebook and a handful of other venues, hundreds of thousands of people in recent days have clicked or shared items with headlines warning that Hurricane Irma was poised to become a Category 6 storm (on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity) that “could wipe entire cities off the map.”
The fact-checking website Snopes made quick work of debunking that claim. Still, the National Weather Service felt moved to post warnings about fake forecasts.
Meanwhile, Conservative News Today posted a Facebook Live video of a bus being toppled by Irma and a ship in enormous seas said to be carrying “hurricane chasers” heading into Irma. Neither was true. With help from social media, ProPublica tracked the original video of the endangered ship back to January 2013; it was shot in a terrible storm 60 miles or so off the coast of Portugal.
Over the last two weeks, there have also been a host of simplistic proclamations online about the role of human-driven climate change in Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey, both overstating and discounting it. As Irma approaches Florida, the issues with sifting fake and real news become more consequential.
With all that in mind, ProPublica reached out to Jane Lytvynenko, a Toronto-based journalist who’s been covering misinformation and disinformation for BuzzFeed since November and previously covered the media for Canadaland. On Wednesday, Lytvynenko posted what has become a running, and growing, list of Hurricane Irma fakery and disinformation.
We're starting to see fake images of Irma impact. This one is from a 2014 hurricane in Mexico. Round-up here: https://t.co/n4LgjLLWP2 pic.twitter.com/wTCtovJFp4 — Jane Lytvynenko (@JaneLytv) September 6, 2017
Here’s a condensed and edited version of our brief chat, followed by some reliable sources of information on Irma and other extreme storms.
Did you move to BuzzFeed specifically to cover mis/disinformation?
I did. We look at online mis/disinformation and how it spreads.
Does the flow of misinformation around weather events or climate change seem different in some ways to that around other breaking news?
In some ways, misinformation around weather is a little different. We see a lot of people share old photos or images seemingly by accident, without malice or a political agenda. During Harvey, many of the hyper-partisan and fake news sites that post false information were quiet during the first couple of days. That’s not the case during terror attacks or political events, for example. In those cases, the spin and misinformation come very quickly and each side tends to settle on a few key messages.
At the same time, what unites misinformation around weather and politics is emotion. If you scroll through fake news headlines, you’ll see that most of them want to inflame a sense of anger or injustice. Sometimes that means trash-talking a politician, other times that means playing on racial tensions. During Harvey, for example, we saw stories about Black Lives Matter blocking emergency crews from entering the city. BLM was actually helping hurricane victims, but the fake news went viral because it inflamed people’s emotions and biases.
Do you feel like you’re whistling in a Category 6 windstorm? In other words, do you feel it’s useful to attempt this?
Sometimes. With individual debunk posts, it’s unlikely that the person spreading misinformation will see me refuting it. At the same time, it’s an opportunity to teach the audience what to look for and how to identify misleading information. People appreciate having one go-to place in times of crisis. It’s good to see people use our posts to actively call out misinformation. That means some people still care about having a grip on reality.
Have you been fooled? I have, twice that I know of. The first time came in 2015, when I was writing a post hurriedly on the Nepal earthquake and included an embedded YouTube video of a sloshing hotel swimming pool that turned out to be from a previous Mexican quake. The second came August 27, when I joined those retweeting an image of planes submerged on a flooded runway — which of course turned out to be a bootlegged photo visualization of the impacts of sea-level rise from a 2013 Climate Central article. I was quickly rebuked.
I haven’t gotten fooled recently, but that’s because my trust levels are so low. If I read an article on an unfamiliar website, I immediately start checking for clues of it being fake — was the image stolen, was it registered recently, is it only masquerading as a legitimate source? My friends make fun of me for it, but it means I keep the fakes out of my feed.
What drives you to pursue this as a beat?
Misinformation can be dangerous. During a hurricane, misinformation can clog official messages from getting through. Sometimes it sways attitudes and public opinion. If people don’t know who to trust, they’ll put more faith in their own biases and that can be dangerous.
Who do you see, if anyone, as the competition on this beat?
This is a tough question because the field of misinformation is so wide. We’ve seen other mainstream publications start debunk roundups like ours, which is really great. But when it comes to the big projects (like this study we recently published) we’re unique because we dedicate reporters to uncovering online misinformation trends. Some of us do nothing else.
For those eager to sift reality from belief-affirming fantasy, there’s plenty of accurate online guidance on hurricanes and other meteorological hazards. On Wednesday, CrowdTangle, a company making platforms for news organizations or others tracking social media, created a dashboard with the social media flow from trustworthy sources on hurricanes.
The first stop, of course, is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center for guidance on current storms (including through its @NHC_Atlantic Twitter feed) and long-term patterns. The federal Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory posted an invaluable primer earlier this year on hurricanes and global warming.
To put current tropical storms in historical context, Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University is one of the top experts. On Wednesday, he posted a summary of Irma superlatives including the remarkable fact that this Atlantic Ocean giant had, as of Wednesday night, already become the extreme-wind endurance champion for such storms, maintaining winds of 185 miles per hour for 33 hours.
This roundly beat 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan in the Pacific, the previous record holder, which held such destructive velocities for 24 hours.For the past two years, Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire head of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire and major Mitt Romney benefactor, has remained quiet about a lawsuit filed by his former CEO of Sands China, Steve Jacobs. After Jacobs submitted a court memorandum on June 28 linking the Sands and Adelson to a strategy that promotes prostitution on his casino floors, Adelson is now ready to talk. "It's so outrageous," Adelson told me during a phone interview. "[Jacobs] would make a good fiction writer."
In 2010, Sands fired Steve Jacobs, then the CEO of its Sands China subsidiary, for what Adelson described as breaking company policy and pursuing unauthorized deals. Jacobs later retaliated, suing Sands for breach of contract and alleging he was let go after refusing orders from Adelson to break the law. He has since accused the Sands of promoting prostitution, working with mafia figures, bullying banks and potentially violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by putting a government official on its payroll. Jacobs is reportedly seeking roughly $100 million in damages.
The suit has also led to an ongoing SEC investigation. Neither Sands or Adelson have been charged--and Adelson promises he never will be charged: "There isn’t a shred of evidence. I’ll bet anyone a thousand to one that there will be no fire under the smoke that he’s blowing. If someone wants to put up a million they can hope to win one billion--but that won’t happen because there isn't a breach of FCPA. Not even a hint."
Jacobs, in his latest filing, claims the Sands is withholding thousands of documents from the court, including emails that outline a formal strategy to promote prostitution (legal in Macao) and loan sharks in its Macao casinos. In the document Jacobs says:
E-mail and documents missing from the Defendants production demonstrate LVSC’s Executive Las Vegas over acts of prostitution on Sands China’s properties. As background, shortly after my arrival to Macau in May 2009, I launched “Operation Clean Sweep,” designed to rid the casino floor of loan sharks and prostitution. This project was met with concern as LVSC Senior Executives informed me that the prior prostitution strategy has been personally approved by Adelson.”
Adelson says Jacobs is using court documents to publicly embarrass and vilify both him and the Sands. "He’s very cunning and [he] has decided to exploit the law concerning libel and defamation to cloak himself. He’s abusing the court and the court system to protect himself while he sues us for a hundred or two hundred million dollars that he obviously doesn’t deserve"
It was the latest accusation of prostitution that provoked Adelson to break his silence and fire back against Jacob’s allegations. Adelson says the fact that he and his wife Miriam (a physician who specializes in treating addiction) have given millions of dollars to set up clinics around the world to treat people with drug addictions (many of them prostitutes) makes the Jacob’s claims even more preposterous.
"I want to tell you how ridiculous that [accusation] is. There's a clinic known as the Adelson Clinic that treats prostitutes and drug addicts. We take prostitutes off the street. We have one clinic that we started almost 21 years ago in Tel Aviv and we have about are 350 patients there. We have another Clinic in Las Vegas with almost 200 patients. My wife is there today signing up another 100 people... And even in Macao we set up a clinic to treat prostitutes and drug addict. It’s not called the Adelson Clinic but we taught the health department to do this."
Adelson added:
"I don’t believe in prostitution. I feel sorry for the girls that do it.... How can I have a document that encourages prostitution? What do I say, go prostitute and then come into the clinic?... What's his next illusionist performance? Where will that take him? Maybe he thinks I’m responsible for the recession or the Great Depression—I was born during that. Was at Watergate, did I shoot Kennedy, what else is he going to say--I started a world war?"
Besides being morally opposed to prostitution, Adelson said crafting such a scheme would simply be bad for business. If caught, he would lose his gaming licenses in Las Vegas, Singapore and Macao--licenses that have given his gaming empire a $35 billion market valuation and have earned Adelson a net worth of roughly $25 billion. "Would I jeopardize being the 7th richest man in the US and the 14th or 15th richest person in the world to push prostitution? For what? I’m already the most profitable company in consumer services ever. What do I have to win?"
According to Adelson, the Jacobs’s suit and SEC investigation have shed $8 billion off LVS shares. Despite the attack on his wallet and reputation, Adelson say's he'll never settle the case out of court.
"I'm going through right to the end. It’s the only way I can prove unquestionably that everything he said was wrong. If I settle the case then people would say, 'He settled because there was evidence that would come out to show he truly was a criminal and truly had a prostitution strategy.'... When the time comes I’ll extract what's due."
(Follow me on Twitter at @StevenBertoni)If you like to cringe, you should watch Jimmy Kimmel's appearance, via Skype, on Rob Ford's show last night. Ford Nation is a unique phenomenon—part political campaign, part spectacle of addiction, part comedy. And so forget for a moment the pink-faced, sweat-drenched mayor of Toronto. Forget his gangster brother. Forget the show's production values, which make public access television look like a Coen brothers movie. All of that is to be expected. We have gone so far beyond mere embarrassment in Toronto that these kind of stupidities no longer even register. No, what was so cringe-inducing was watching Kimmel, who is not an idiot or an addict or a politician, playing along. His show has used Ford more than any other late night show, and has generated by far the best Ford material. But last night's encounter should be a wake-up call: It is officially time for Kimmel to stop joking about Rob Ford.
I understand why Kimmel does it, believe me. He's admitted he is "completely in love with Ford," and who isn't really? Rob Ford is unprecedented in the history of comedy. He's a walking joke, literally. When he walks, it's funny. When he runs, it's hilarious. You could never create a comic character with the levels of rich awkwardness and unforgettable timing that Rob Ford has. The man writes himself. On Ford Nation, with Kimmel, Ford turned himself into an improv skit, with Kimmel as an audience member:
Doug: Now, you know you're starting to sound like a politician when you say, "I don't know what happened that night." Kimmel: No, I'm just saying, I was so drunk I don't know what happened that night. Rob: [Laughing.] I've used that excuse one too many times myself.
For the first time, Kimmel found himself inside the joke, looking out. This is the exact position the citizens of Toronto find themselves in. And it's ugly. The biggest reason for Kimmel to quit telling Rob Ford jokes is the simplest: It's just not very funny anymore.
But as someone who lives in Toronto, I would like to implore Kimmel to stop joking about Ford for another reason: By keeping the idea of Ford as a joke alive so long, he is helping him get reelected. Why else do you think the Fords showed up on his program? Why do you think they asked him to be on their show? The man was elected as a buffoon, and he could easily be reelected as one. And so if the conversation about him remains focused on his drug abuse with no mention of his policies, then he might well win. At the moment, he has an image, as a drug abuser in private who keeps city costs down. The drug abuse has hidden the fact that he has completely failed at his appointed political task, which was to cut down the city's bureaucracy.
Policy remains in hiding, and the man is scandal-proof. It's a recipe for victory.
I was trying to think today of what
To turn it all into a joke plays right into Ford's hands. If I were him, I'd smoke a big fat crack pipe the week before the election, and let them come after me. He can't win on policy. But he might just be able to win as a crack smoker. There is, in Toronto, both among immigrants and the old WASP families, a profound respect for privacy and thrift. If he sticks to those stories, and nobody figures out how to change the subject, he wins.
I know this sounds wild. I know it might even sound hysterical. How could a few jokes help the guy that much? Surely Kimmel is doing political satire here. Showing Rob Ford as the idiot and addict that he is can only help get him kicked out. But the truth is that Rob Ford is utterly flummoxing. The standard playbooks of politics do not apply to him. Kimmel has to stop joking about him, or at least has to stop joking with him. Otherwise we might well have him for another four years. And that's too long a joke even for Jimmy Kimmel to run with.EXCLUSIVE: THIEVES have infiltrated Crown casino's surveillance system to pull off a $32 million sting.
A foreign high roller who was staying at Crown has been implicated in the rip-off, in which the venue's security cameras were used to spy for him.
A staff member has also been entangled in the colossal Ocean's 11-style rort.
Sources said cheating was exposed over eight hands of cards played in a short space of time.
Police have been called in to investigate the fraud, believed to be the biggest perpetrated on Crown since it opened 19 years ago.
The high roller was booted out of an opulent villa at Crown Towers in the dead of night after the scam was uncovered several weeks ago.
He had been staying there with his family.
Described by one source as a "whale" - a gambler who wins and loses huge amounts - he was hit with a withdrawal of licence notice, prohibiting him from entering the Southbank complex. It is believed he has since returned to his home country.
A VIP services manager who is believed to have been assigned to look after the high roller during his time at Crown has been sacked.
The VIP service is offered to wealthy clients who have big punting turnovers.
The Herald Sun understands remote access to the venue's security system was given to an unauthorised person.
Images relayed from cameras were then used to spy on a top-level gaming area where the high roller was playing.
Signals were given to him on how he should bet based on the advice of someone viewing the camera feeds. Sources said the total stolen was $32 million.
The cameras at Crown are state-of-the-art, high-resolution technology.
They are capable of transmitting the most intricate detail of goings-on inside the building.
A Crown casino spokesman said: "Crown's surveillance department recently reported concerns over a sophisticated betting scam. A Crown investigation is under way and is ongoing."
The spokesman confirmed a withdrawal of licence had been issued to one patron believed to be involved.
He said Crown believed it was "in a good position to recover a significant portion of the amount involved in the scam".
"Crown has been liaising with both the police and the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation regarding these matters," he said.
Originally published as Ocean's 11? Casino scam nets $32mSC-T25 - Thin Client, Broadcom VCM2837 Quad Core Cortex A53, Citrix HDX
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*Energy savings may vary based on actual usage and other factors.When I think of aluminum foil, I think of my gray cat Lucy. That may sound strange, but I’ll explain. My sons and I found her abandoned in our backyard, just before a hurricane in the summer of 2004. Merely 10 days old, we nursed her back to health. And since then, she’s turned into a chubby and happy kitty, who loves to play with crushed aluminum foil balls.
But aluminum foil may not be all ‘fun and games’. A recent study has shown that heat causes aluminum from the foil to leach out into foods in significantly harmful amounts.1
Aluminum Accumulates in the Bones and in the Brain
The researchers found dangerously high levels of aluminum in foods after being cooked, reheated, and even cooled on aluminum foil. The cause for alarm is that when aluminum accumulates in the body, it can lead to osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s.
What’s more, Dr. Zubaidy, one of the study authors, comments that:
“The higher the temperature, the more the leaching. Foil is not suitable for cooking and is not suitable for using with vegetables like tomatoes, citrus juice or spices.”2
On the other hand, the researchers also noted that foil can be considered safe to wrap cold foods, since no leaching was observed without heating. They also did not find a difference if the shiny or dull side were in contact with food.
Aluminum Competes With Calcium, Weakening Bones
High aluminum levels in the body alter bone mineralization, matrix formation, as well as parathyroid and bone cell activity.3 Ironically, one of the most common signs of excessive aluminum accumulation is hypercalcemia or high calcium levels in the blood.
This happens because the presence of aluminum impedes calcium deposition in bone, thus leading to elevated blood calcium levels.3 As a result, PTH secretion, the hormone secreted by the parathyroid hormone, is greatly depressed.3 Additionally, chronic aluminum toxicity greatly reduces osteoblast population and inhibits bone mineralization, resulting in osteoporosis.3
Mounting Evidence Links Aluminum to Alzheimer’s
While the study is less adamant about the link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s than it is about the osteoporosis connection, it does point to evidence that aluminum is deposited in brain tissue. The researchers note that previous studies have found an aluminum build-up in autopsies performed on Alzheimer’s sufferers.
Protect Your Bones and Your Brain
In view of this, you really should avoid using aluminum foil or aluminum utensils for cooking. So here are a few simple steps you can take right away:
Never cook, heat up, or place hot food on aluminum foil. Use foil only to store cold food in the refrigerator, or to wrap cold sandwiches. I use tempered glass pans. They are easily available in just about every supermarket or hardware store.
Avoid storing tomatoes, citrus fruits, or spices in foil.
Replace foil with wax paper if you wish to store food while still hot. Or use glass food storage containers. I keep a variety of sizes handy in my kitchen.
Never use aluminum pots or cooking utensils. Instead, invest in stainless steel pots and pans.
As you can see, it’s easy to avoid aluminum in the kitchen.
To your aluminum-free life!
ReferencesMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Women are allowed to vote and stand as candidates
Women in Saudi Arabia have cast their first votes in the country's history, in municipal elections.
Women were also standing as candidates, another first, despite the conservative kingdom being the only nation where women are not allowed to drive.
A total of 978 women have registered as candidates, alongside 5,938 men.
Female candidates have had to speak behind a partition while campaigning or be represented by a man. Turnout was high, state media reported.
About 130,000 women registered to vote, officials said. That figure still falls well short of male voter registration, which stands at 1.35 million.
Salma al-Rashed was the first woman to register to vote. "It felt really good," she told the BBC. "Change is a big word but the election is the way to make sure we are really represented."
Quiz: Life as a woman in Saudi Arabia
In pictures: Saudi women vote
Image caption Hatoon al-Fassi describes the election as a 'historical moment'
At the scene: The BBC's Orla Guerin in Riyadh
The election is for municipal councils with few powers, but it's a milestone for Saudi women. As soon as the polls were open at 0800 local time in Riyadh, Hatoon al-Fassi rushed to cast her vote. The Saudi academic and women's rights campaigner had to be driven there. Women are still banned from taking the wheel here.
She voted in an almost empty polling station, for women only. The election is segregated, like everything else in this deeply conservative society.
"It feels great," she said as she emerged, with a huge smile. "This is a historical moment. I thank God I am living it." She has been pushing for this day for more than a decade.
Ms Fassi said it did not matter how many women actually get elected. "I am not really worried about the number, or to have any women winning," she told us. "The fact that we have gone through this exercise is what really matters."
Elections themselves are a rare thing in the Saudi kingdom - Saturday will be only the third time in history that Saudis have gone to the polls.
There were no elections in the 40 years between 1965 and 2005.
The decision to allow women to take part was taken by the late King Abdullah and is seen as a key part of his legacy.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What it means for one new voter
In announcing the reforms, King Abdullah said women in Saudi Arabia "have demonstrated positions that expressed correct opinions and advice".
Before he died in January, he appointed 30 women to the country's top advisory Shura Council.
There are 2,100 council seats available in Saturday's vote. An additional 1,050 seats are appointed with approval from the king.
The results of the elections are expected to be announced later.
Saudi women have been commenting on the elections on Twitter:
Image copyright Reem Asaad/TwitterAt a moment when a certain flag popular in the southern United States is being met with exactly the sort of pushback it deserves, another flag closer to the hearts and minds of San Franciscans is being greeted by some criticism of its own. Sure, this time the complaint is aesthetic, rather than political, but that doesn't mean it's not worth hearing out.
The flag we fly over the Bay today was officially adopted by the City of San Francisco in 1940. It prominently features a phoenix as a symbol of the metropoles' rise from the ashes of the 1906 earthquake and fires. That's a good start, but it's a really ugly bird, and as many have pointed out, ours isn't the only city to emerge reborn from disaster. Plus, we're not Phoenix Arizona. Though the text of the flag does feature the unequivocally bad-ass slogan "Oro en Paz—Fierro en Guerra" ("Gold in Peace, Iron in War"), the design's got little else to commend it.
Enter one brave podcaster, Oakland's Roman Mars of 99% Invisible, who is wielding his power as a design critic to improve our flag and with it our sense of self. In case you hadn't noticed, podcasts are cool now: As Wired reports, they might even be saving National Public Radio. So, with a rapt audience all ears, Mars is daring us to rethink our city flag.
With the launch of a new website, covered here by Wired, Mars wants us to capture “inclusiveness and change [that] have been big points of pride for the city." Maybe Pride Week is getting to me, but could we get a rainbow on this thing?
Anyway, if you feel strongly that a better flag is what San Francisco deserves — nay, demands — go to the website and sign the petition.In the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) recent State of World Population report, access to contraception is described as a “universal human right.” While the report has no legal force, it declares that cultural and financial barriers to accessing contraception are an infringement on women’s rights.
While access to contraceptives may be a serious policy concern for groups like UNFPA, to label it a human right is to devalue the very principle of rights. Declaring it to be so is to cheapen the very serious need to defend true human rights—rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The principle of natural rights delineates those fundamental freedoms that government can neither create nor take away.
Moreover, demanding products and services supplied by UNFPA as a “right” means someone has the responsibility to provide them. And how much will this “right” cost others? The fund is calling for an additional $8 billion per year.
Ironically, the UNFPA’s report avoids considering actual human rights abuses in China, including incidents in which family-planning officials have dragged Chinese women into clinics and forced them to submit to abortions or sterilizations. In fact, for many years, the U.S. prohibited funding for UNFPA under the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prevents U.S. international aid from supporting coercive abortion procedures or involuntary sterilization, because of UNFPA’s ties to the Chinese family planning machine. In 2009, however, Congress exempted UNFPA funding from the Kemp-Kasten language and has since sent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to UNFPA each year.
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, which opposes China’s one-child birth policy, calls the UNFPA report’s title—“By Choice, Not By Chance”—ironic.
“What about the 600 million women in China who are unable to ‘decide on the number and spacing of [their] children,’ not because they lack access to contraception but because they will be forcibly aborted if they get pregnant without a birth permit,” Littlejohn said.
UNFPA’s irresponsible statement, coupled with the organization’s suggested ties to the Chinese family planning department, should make policymakers reconsider continuing to give U.S. taxpayer dollars to UNFPA.
Elevating access to contraceptives to the level of a human right not only exhibits poor judgment, but ignores the real and serious conflicts such a promotion can create with real constitutional rights. As Americans have witnessed in Obamacare’s anti-conscience mandate, the idea that contraception access should be governmentally ensured has trampled on religious freedom. The mandate’s requirement that almost all employers provide and pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization—regardless of moral or religious objections—represents an unprecedented assault on religious liberty.
Alexander Hamilton asserted, “The sacred rights of mankind…are written…in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by moral power.” UNFPA has no authority to devalue “human rights” by ever expanding them, and the international community would do well to ignore the organization’s self-serving opinions.Money cowry Live animal, with mantle visible Five views of a shell of Monetaria moneta Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Mollusca Class: Gastropoda (unranked):
clade
clade clade Caenogastropoda clade Hypsogastropoda clade Littorinimorpha Superfamily: Cypraeoidea Family: Cypraeidae Genus: Monetaria Species: M. moneta Binomial name Monetaria moneta
Linnaeus, 1758) Synonyms[1][2] Monetaria monetacongo Gmelin, J.F., 1791
Cypraea moneta Linnaeus, 1758 (basionym)
(basionym) Cypraea numisma Röding, P.F., 1798
Cypraea gibbosa Schröter, J.S., 1804
Cypraea marginata Kiesenwetter, 1872
Monetaria ethnographica Rochebrune, A.-T. de, 1884
Monetaria mercatorium Rochebrune, A.-T. de, 1884
Monetaria pleuronectes Rochebrune, A.-T. de, 1884
Monetaria vestimenti Rochebrune, A.-T. de, 1884
Monetaria chionella Sulliotti, G.R., 1924
Monetaria britannica Schilder, F.A., 1927
Monetaria candida Dautzenberg, Ph. & J.L. Bouge, 1933
Monetaria circumvallata Schilder, F.A. & M. Schilder, 1933
Monetaria ethnographica circumvallata Schilder, F.A. & M. Schilder, 1933
Monetaria moneta subalata (f) Schilder, F.A. & M. Schilder, 1933
Monetaria isomeres Iredale, T., 1939
Erosaria monetoides Iredale, T., 1939
Monetaria moneta endua Steadman, W.R. & B.C. Cotton, 1943
Monetaria moneta erua Steadman, W.R. & B.C. Cotton, 1943
Monetaria moneta etolu Steadman, W.R. & B.C. Cotton, 1943
Cypraea annulifera Coen, G.S., 1949
Monetaria bulgarica Kojumdgieva, E., 1960
Monetaria moneta, common name the money cowry, is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries.[ |
5 million in order to buy her "dream home" on Mercer Island. She was convicted of falsely claiming to the bank loan officer that Disney Interactive had agreed to buy part of Hulabee Entertainment and presenting forged documents to support that claim.>[2]
References [ edit ]SAN JOSE — Seven candidates are vying to succeed Assemblywoman Nora Campos in the state’s 27th Assembly District, which covers most of south San Jose and the Evergreen area. But two local politicians have emerged as front-runners in securing campaign funding and high-profile supporters: Former San Jose Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and current Councilman Ash Kalra.
“These two are the best known candidates in the district and their council positions covered parts of the district,” said Larry Gerston, a professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State. “Their name recognition immediately separates them from the others.”
Election Day is June 7, and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the November general election to replace Campos, a liberal Democrat who’s crafted policies to address homelessness and women’s rights. Campos, who also served on the San Jose City Council and has reached her Assembly term limit, is now challenging state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, in the primary election.
Although the District 27 race has been tame so far — only one attack mailer has gone out to voters — it has all the makings of a red-hot political fight next fall.
And like many other Silicon Valley races, it boils down to a clash between prominent business and labor interests, pitting the two leading Democrats against each other. With just one Republican running in the highly Democratic district and trailing in fundraising, the outcome isn’t expected to alter the political landscape in Sacramento.
Nguyen, 41, has the support of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, along with Mayor Sam Liccardo, Vice Mayor Rose Herrera and former Mayor Chuck Reed.
Kalra, 44, has endorsements from the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, state Sen. Jim Beall and Congressman Mike Honda.
Other contenders in the Assembly race are Santa Clara County Board of Education trustee Darcie Green; East Side Union High School District trustee Van Le; human rights activist and engineer Cong T. Do; attorney and former Alum Rock School District trustee Esau Herrera and Evergreen Valley College professor Andres Quintero, who once served as Campos’ district director.
As San Jose council members, Nguyen and Kalra clashed over how to deal with sharply rising retirement costs for city workers. Nguyen backed a successful ballot measure that sought to trim those benefits, while Kalra opposed it. The city is working to replace the measure with a negotiated settlement.
The Assembly race has been heavily funded by interest groups that have dropped more than a combined $1.1 million to support their favored candidates.
The California Farm Bureau’s political action committee spent $32,800 to support Nguyen. The California Charter Schools Association Advocates spent $946,145 to back her and $35,525 to oppose Kalra, according to state election filings.
Campaign mail from the group featured a picture of Kalra with the words “WANTED” scrawled on top — alleging Kalra is wanted for “hiking taxes on families and small businesses” — claims that Kalra disputes.
The mailer references a 2012 vote in which Kalra and four others supported a half-cent sales tax to fund city services including police, fire protection and roads. Nguyen was opposed. Kalra said he supported it, along with the city administration, because it would bring in much-needed revenue to restore services. The city now has a quarter-cent sales tax on the primary ballot.
Kalra’s supporters have not taken out hit pieces on Nguyen. One of his biggest backers, the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, spent $110,669.54 to promote him.
But the top two candidates are also raising a lot of dough on their own.
Nguyen has raised $153,798 through April.
Nguyen, who taught at various community colleges, served on the San Jose City Council from 2005 to 2014, including four years as vice mayor. She is one of three Vietnamese-American candidates in the race. Nguyen’s top priorities are education, job creation and housing affordability.
Kalra, who is being termed out on the City Council, raised $139,392 through April. An attorney who has represented District 2 on the San Jose council for eight years, Kalra said his top priorities are education, housing affordability and transportation.
Meanwhile, the other candidates are raising money, sending mailers and knocking on doors.
Herrera, 66, a Democrat who was endorsed by Campos’ mother and various school board leaders, raised $62,854 through April. Herrera said he would focus on affordable housing, creating clean energy jobs and making college affordable.
Quintero, 36, also a Democrat, has raised $21,865 through April. He is backed by Congressman Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz, and businessman Jose Calderon of Calderon’s Tires. His priorities are public safety, education and housing.
Le, 57, the only Republican in the race, reported raising $19,601 through April. She has garnered support from Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves, the county Republican Party and its chair, Bob Nunez. She said her focus is improving education, creating jobs and reducing housing costs.
Green, 34, who worked as a government relations manager for Kaiser, reported raising $13,964 through April. A Democrat, she won support from former Assemblyman Joe Coto, the California Latino Legislative Caucus, La Raza Roundtable and former Santa Clara County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado.
Green’s priorities are providing “excellent education” for children, improving access to affordable health care and creating economic opportunities.
Do, 57, a Democrat who is backed by organizations like the Vietnamese-American Voters and Little Saigon San Jose Foundation, raised $10,376 through April. His focus is on keeping jobs in California, housing affordability and transportation.
Gerston, who has been observing the race, said Nguyen will likely benefit from a traditionally low voter-turnout in June, in which voters tend to lean more conservative. But a higher turnout in the general election will help Kalra.
Gerston predicted the contest will heat up after October.
“It has every potential of becoming a very feisty race,” he said.
Contact Ramona Giwargis at 408-920-5705. Follow her at Twitter.com/ramonagiwargis.With brain training, paraplegics can once again move and sense their limbs despite having spinal cord injuries that were previously considered irreversible, an international team of researchers reports Thursday in Scientific Reports.
After a year of working with a brain-machine interface, virtual reality, and robotic exoskeletons, eight paraplegic patients began moving and feeling their lower bodies again. Some can now even walk with assistance. Half of them were upgraded from a classification of ‘complete’ paralysis to incomplete. And this group has continued to train and improve, according to the lead study author, Miguel Nicolelis, of Duke University.
“Nobody ever imagined that one day we would be talking about the possibility of using brain-machine interfaces to induce partial neurological recovery in patients who have been diagnosed as having a complete spinal cord injury,” Nicolelis told press during a conference call. “As you can imagine, for us this is a very important milestone."
Originally, Nicolelis and his colleagues had a humbler goal of helping paralyzed patients move around with mind-controlled robotic assistance—like high-tech walkers. They developed their own brain-machine interfaces, which intercept brain signals relating to motion and convert them into commands for robotic limbs, exoskeletons, or even actual limbs. With the help of immersive virtual reality training, the patients imagined themselves walking and moving and could actually pull it off with their robotic exoskeletons and assistance. But after seven months, something unexpected happened: researchers noted that the training seemed to be spurring the patients’ nervous systems to actually recover.
Until then, Nicolelis and colleagues had considered the technology “assistive” to their paralyzed patients, not rehabilitative. Yet, the patients’ partial recovery squares with previous studies that found that up to 80 percent of paralyzed patients still have functioning neural circuitry past their injuries. It also fits with other studies that have found twitches of recovery in other paralyzed patients that used such brain-machine interfaces.
Still, Nicolelis said theirs is the first study to document such recovery, which occurred over the course of 2014. The eight patients involved had suffered devastating spinal cord injuries three to 13 years prior to that and had signed up for the study to help refine an assistive mind-controlled exoskeleton. They showed up at a Neurorehabilitation Laboratory in São Paulo, Brazil twice a week for hour-long training sessions. They also went through standard physical therapy.
All of the patients showed improvement, regaining sensation and some movement in their limbs and body parts below their injuries. The researchers noted the recovery of voluntary movement in key muscles as well as the patients’ bowels. After 10 months, one patient went from not being able to stay standing when put in position in braces to being able to walk using a walker, braces, and therapist assistance.
While more research will be needed to validate and unpack what was going on in the patients, Nicolelis has a theory of how their recovery happened. The combination of technology that forced patients to imagine movement while pulling them up and actually moving them recharged dormant neural circuits that had survived the injury, he said.
If the theory holds up and researchers can figure out cheaper ways to pull it off, Nicolelis envisions future treatments of brain training and stem cell injections that could repair and enliven nerves for patients to make full recoveries.
Scientific Reports, 2016. DOI: 10.1038/srep30383 (About DOIs).We talk to Spotify's Dariusz Dziuk to get the inside story on Spotify Running, and how it uses the power of music to make you a better runner...
In the market for a new phone? If you decide to grab one of our Red Value Bundles you can nab yourself a subscription to Spotify Premium at no extra cost* as your choice of 4G entertainment pack. And if you’re a music-lover, why wouldn’t you? Spotify offers a massive catalogue of over 30 million songs, as well as offline playlists and a whole host of brand new features, including Spotify Running.
Whether you’re an occasional jogger or constantly training for the next marathon, we think you’ll find Spotify’s latest feature addition rather useful. Spotify Running boasts a boatload of clever new tech to help runners benefit from the power of music. But what spurred the decision to aim at running specifically, and how do the new features work? We recently sat down with Dariusz Dziuk – the project manager for Spotify Running – to ask him just that.
Power to the runners
“Obviously, we have a lot of data about what sort of music people are listening to,” explains Dariusz, “and we realised some time ago that lots of our users are explicitly listening to and creating their own running playlists.
“Music also has a functional aspect for runners – it helps them perform.”
“Running is an especially interesting area for us. Music comes into loads of different parts of our lives, but often it’s in a passive way: we’ll have it on whilst we’re working or having dinner, that sort of thing. But when you run with music, it’s one of the rare occasions where you really listen to the music. It has the power to entertain and distract you, but music also has a functional aspect for runners – it helps them perform.
“So, we felt like this was an area where we could innovate and create something that would help runners in all those different ways. The challenge? Figuring out: ‘what is the actual innovation here?’”
And that is fair question. Plenty of people are more than happy building their own running playlists, and Spotify could easily have just created more of them to satisfy their users. But this is a company that has always pushed to innovate the ways in which we interact with music, ever since they launched a free music streaming service in a world dominated by CDs and MP3s.
“The ideas actually came through something we have at Spotify called ‘Hack Week,’” says Dariusz. “Basically, the whole company gets to work on whatever they want for a week. We realised that lots of people had been working on ideas for running features, so we collected everything together and found that the concept of synchronised running was one that people really liked.”
Synchronised running here refers to the idea of matching the tempo of the song with your running pace, or more literally, synchronising the beats per minute of the music with the steps per minute of the runner.
“When you’re running to your own playlist, often the songs and tempos are a bit random,” Dariusz continues, “but sometimes there’s moment when a song comes on shuffle and has an impact on your performance. There’s a very distinctive feeling when you’re running to the beat – it almost feels like dancing.
“There is research that proves that running with synchronised music has benefits,” Dariusz adds, “so we wanted to create something that could bring that to mainstream runners, and make it flexible enough to adapt to whatever genre of music you like.”
Whilst we all have songs we enjoy running to, it can be next to impossible to find one that synchronises with your pace. And as Dariusz explains, Spotify ran into a few early challenges of its own when figuring out how to bring you the perfect tune at the perfect time:
“The distribution of tempos among runners is very different to the distribution of tempos in popular music.”
“The first challenge we came up against was that the distribution of tempos among runners is very different to the distribution of tempos in popular music,” he says. “Runners run at a tempo between 140 and 190 steps per minute, but if you look at the tempo of modern, electronic music, the vast majority of it is set to about 120 beats per minute. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so hard for people to find the right tempo when they run.
“So we spent a lot of time finding the tracks in our catalogue that fitted the correct tempo. We even created a machine-learning model to help us find those tracks, but we spent a lot of time listening to everything ourselves as well to make sure that these songs were good running songs, with plenty of energy.
“Even then, we realised that most songs have long intros and outros that vary in tempo, and that can really ruin the experience. So we implemented one system to recognise the parts of tracks that don’t work in terms of tempo, and also another piece of technology called ‘beat matched crossfading’. That’s our attempt at creating that seamless feeling, and because these tracks you’re listening to are in the same tempo, we can actually fade them into each other on the beat.”
When you jump in to Spotify Running, you’ll see this extensive running music catalogue right away. As soon as you start running – within the first few steps, thanks to Spotify’s home-coded algorithms – the app will detect your pace, and bring you music from a genre of your choice at the correct tempo. But that isn’t all that’s on offer…
Spotify Running Originals
“We have two types of music for running,” explains Dariusz. “You can run to tracks from our catalogue, or you can run to something we created that adapts to your pace called Running Originals.
“We wanted to create the ultimate experience for running, and it was only when we started talking to music producers, including Tiesto, that we came up with the idea of this new music format that would sound great at all different tempos. Whereas the regular catalogue is essentially a lot of different playlists at different tempos, we thought it would be useful if we could also have a collection of specially composed tracks that would adapt on the fly to your cadence.”
The idea sounds simple enough on the surface. But as Dariusz and team soon understood, there’s a lot to think about when you’re making one track at lots of different BPMs.
“It’s very tricky to alter the tempo and maintain the same structure and core music components.”
“It’s very tricky to alter the tempo and maintain the same structure and core music components,” says Dariusz. “With modern time-stretching techniques you can normally make a track sound pretty good, but the drum pattern always needs to be recomposed to fit. And obviously, if you speed up a 30 minute song, it’s going to get shorter too.
“Every time you change the tempo, all the other components of the tracks will recompose themselves, so you just have to produce the track separately in all the different tempos.”
In this context, music production is certainly an area that makes sense for Spotify. Not only is it adding loads of unique content to the service through the excellent Spotify Sessions recordings, but Running Originals adds to that, whilst using big name talent like Tiesto to tempt us into trying it out.
“From my perspective, I’m really interested in doing more stuff like this,” says Dariusz, “but only if it’s valuable to our users. In the case of running, we think this format really fits, and we can really improve people’s experiences.
“The feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive,” he continues. “A lot of people are experiencing the feeling of synchronised running for the first time, and it’s a very powerful feeling to have at your fingertips.
“The Tiesto track has been especially popular – it’s really energetic. We’ve had a lot of tweets from people saying that they tried out Spotify Running and they just broke their personal bests! That kind of thing is always great to hear.”
Dariusz is happy to confirm that this is just the beginning of Spotify’s running story, too. Alongside scheduled partnerships with Nike and Runkeeper, there’s plenty for runners to look forward further down the road.
“We have loads of ideas,” he says in closing, “but we’re not going to jump into new features until we know they’ll bring something useful to our users. Right now, it’s all about understanding how people are using Spotify Running, and then we’ll go back to the drawing board and think about where we’re going to take it next.”
Music to our ears… Running wasn’t the only new feature in Spotify’s big recent update. Click here to find out what else the streaming app added to its repertoire.
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4G: Limited coverage, see www.vodafone.co.uk/coverage... Google doesn't see wearable devices as full-fledged computers or smartphone replacements.
Those partnerships instantly make Android Wear a major platform in this nascent category. However, what's most interesting about Google's approach isn't the business model, which isn't that different from Microsoft's SPOT platform of a decade ago. What matters most about Android Wear is Google's approach to the category. Unlike, say, Samsung, which initially marketed Galaxy Gear as the real-life successor to Dick Tracy's wrist communicator, Google doesn't see wearable devices as full-fledged computers or smartphone replacements. They're designed to help you get snippets of crucial information -- like the weather, your flight status or whether there's a jellyfish warning in effect for your beach -- when you need them most, and then allow you to get on with the rest of your life.
The philosophy is consistent with Google's approach to its first wearable, Glass. The media may obsess about how Glass can be used to pirate movies and play games. But the device, first and foremost, is designed to make it easier to focus on the here and now, while still being able to check to see if your boss sent you that important email you were waiting for. As Glass Senior Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan said at Engadget Expand last year, the best apps for Glass "help technology get out of the user's way, but [are] there whenever they want [them]."
The philosophy is consistent with Google's approach to its first wearable, Glass.
The first Android Wear watches extend that idea further, bringing Glass' location awareness and voice control to a more socially acceptable design. Nobody is likely to ask if you're recording them, and cops probably won't pull you over, just for wearing a Moto 360. In today's Android Wear announcement, Google SVP Sundar Pichai called watches "the most familiar wearable," and said that devices based on the company's new platform "understand the context of the world around you, and you can interact with them simply and efficiently, with just a glance or a spoken word."
Google isn't the first to treat the smartwatch as a simple way to access actionable information without interrupting the flow of your life. Pebble, for one, takes a similar approach. CEO Eric Migicovsky says developers are encouraged to look for a "subsegment" of their smartphone apps that can work effectively on a small screen. Unlike Pebble, however, Google's ambitions are to give you access to just about all of the information you can get on your smartphone -- but to allow you to do so unobtrusively and with minimal effort. Android Wear apps, according to Google, should "provide the maximum payload of information with a minimum of fuss, optimized to provide tiny snippets of relevant information throughout the day." User input, according to Google, should take place only "when absolutely necessary."
In 1991, computer scientist Mark Weiser declared that "the most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." Weiser envisioned a future dominated by "ubiquitous computing," with invisible technology that is always there. Android Wear, with its Zen-like approach to "allowing you to be connected to the virtual world and present in the real world," and with a developers' guide that lists being "unobtrusive" as a key design principle, seems to be an attempt to deliver on Weiser's promise. The question is, in a world where it's become socially acceptable to pull out a smartphone in the middle of a meeting, and where the most exciting developments on the gaming front all involve immersive virtual reality environments, is there still a market for technology that just gets out of your way?It's been a season to remember so far for Watford as they continue to sit in the top half of the Premier League table and now Odion Ighalo and Quique Sanchez Flores have been named as Player and Manager of the Month for December.
The Hornets have performed above all expectations so far and currently lie in 10th but remain just five points outside the top six.
A major reason why they've been punching above their weight is the form of striker Ighalo, who netted five goals last month.
Watford duo Quique Sanchez Flores (left) and Odion Ighalo were named Manager and Player of the Month
The Nigerian has been in sensational goalscoring form and netted five times during December
The Nigerian has been a revelation so far and netted twice against Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool on December 20 to earn the Hornets a stunning 3-0 win.
The 26-year-old bullied Martin Sktrel for the first goal and terrorised the Reds defence alongside his strike partner Troy Deeney.
The 26-year-old is one of the main reasons Watford find themselves in the top half of the Premier League
Some of Europe's biggest clubs have been credited with an interest in Ighalo but he's reaffirmed his commitment to the project at Vicarage Road.
But the form of Ighalo comes down to Sanchez Flores, who only joined the club in the summer but has managed to get the best out of the striker.
The Spaniard saw off competition from Arsene Wenger, Claudio Ranieri and Alan Pardew to claim the coveted Manager of the Month award.
Sanchez Flores arrived in the Premier League following the surprise sacking Slavisa Jokanovic, who helped the club earn promotion from the Championship last season.
Sanchez Flores, who joined the club in the summer, oversaw his side beat Liverpool, Sunderland and Norwich
WATFORD IN DECEMBER 5 Dec - Watford 2-0 Norwich (Ighalo x1 goal) 12 Dec - Sunderland 0-1 Watford (Ighalo x1) 20 Dec - Watford 3-0 Liverpool (Ighalo x2) 26 Dec - Chelsea 2-2 Watford 28 Dec - Watford 1-2 Tottenham (Ighalo x1)
But the former Atletico Madrid boss has worked wonders at Vicarage Road and inspired his side to victories over Liverpool, Sunderland and Norwich to consolidate their position in the top half of the Premier League table.
The Hornets, who suffered a disappointing loss to Southampton in their last outing, will be looking to get back on track when travel to struggling Swansea on Monday.Cutting-edge technology and age-old techniques are being used in an effort to save one of Scotland’s last remaining fen meadows.
Grasslands and meadows were once a major feature of the British countryside, but 97 per cent have disappeared since the 1930s.
Millions of acres were ploughed up to grow cereals during the Second World War, sparking a decline that would continue over the next 40 years and result in a total loss of 7.5 million acres across the country.
Scotland has lost more than two-thirds of lowland meadows and grasslands that were once rich in native wildflowers such as eyebright, devil’s-bit scabious, field scabious and lesser butterfly-orchid.
Now a nationwide project is attempting to reverse the trend, targeting 15,000 acres across the UK. Save Our Magnificent Meadows, is a major collaboration between nature organisations including Plantlife, RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage, with backing from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The marshes at Loch of Strathbeg in Aberdeenshire, the UK’s largest dune loch, had become overgrown by willow scrub and soft rush. So experts brought in a herd of 33 untamed Konik ponies – native to Poland – to provide a natural mowing service to control the coarse grasses. The animals have GPS collars that monitor their activities, and Quadcopter drones are being used to survey the 28-acre Mosstown Fen site and record changes in the vegetation.
Richard Humpidge, RSPB’s coastal reserves manager for north-east Scotland, is leading the work at Mosstown Fen. He said: “Soft rush had grown to dominate quite large parts of the fen meadow. In places it can be more than 90 per cent cover. We want to knock that back to below 50 per cent. We’re cutting quite large areas of the rush, then the ponies graze the regrowth, keeping it nice and short.”
Results suggest efforts are paying off, with some rare plants making a comeback. Lesser butterfly orchid has declined by nearly two thirds across the UK, but numbers on the site have already increased by more than 50 per cent in 12 months.
Birds such as snipe and the endangered curlew are also benefitting from the project.
Members of the public can see the results at Mosstown Fen during National Meadows Day next Saturday. Events are also being staged at Williamswood Farm in Dumfriesshire, Monifieth Community Council Meadow in Angus and Weem Meadow in Perthshire.
Plantlife project manager Claire Parton says the celebrations will put local meadows “on the map”. “We hope they will act as a catalyst to raise awareness of this increasingly rare and fragile part of our natural heritage,” she said.Krista Kennell/Sipa Press via Newscom
Two years ago, in the throes of a Bush administration that disregarded states' rights whenever it felt like getting high on itself, there were fewer than two hundred medical-marijuana outlets in Los Angeles. Today, even the most conservative estimates say that number has quadrupled. On one stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard alone, four thriving pot shops estimate their tax payments at $4 million a year. Got an emergency radiation treatment and can't find the nearest store? There's an iPhone app for that.
With patient demand pushing dispensaries in several of the fourteen states that allow medical marijuana to expand their business, the Obama administration last week ordered the Justice Department to respect state laws and stop harassing them.
You would think, after our new president's ups and downs on what is ultimately the road to wholesale legalization, that calling off the pot bullies would be, by all accounts, A Good Thing. Hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of Americans have used the approved stuff, after all, whether as therapeutic medicine or therapeutic something else.
Trouble is, all this common sense seems to have fried the brains of the law-enforcement leaders in the City of Los Angeles. They've suddenly come up with a bizarre new interpretation of the law — that the requirement for pot dispensaries to be "nonprofit" actually means that they can't accept cash.
Yes, you read that right. This is how Deputy City Attorney David Berger put it: "We can still use state law to enforce, and we still believe that the only legal way to do that is to enforce against the selling of marijuana, as opposed to giving it away as a collective."
This has to be the first time in American history that the government is ordering its citizens to start collectivizing our farms.
The backwards logic was codified in the fourth version of a draft ordinance that City Attorney Carmen Trutanich submitted last Tuesday to the Los Angeles city council. Apparently a hard-core member of the Marxist-Leninist wing of the Republican party, Trutanich even argued that dispensary owners shouldn't use cash to pay for labor or fertilizer — that the voters of California actually intended for marijuana to be produced and dispensed, unlike all other drugs in the known universe, on a pure barter system. (This from the man who made Michael Jackson's funeral look like it switched from the Staples Center to Tammany Hall.)
Naturally, the government's marijuana bait-and-switch over the past eight days has producers and dispensers very upset. When I spoke with her late last week, Yamileth Bolanos, owner of a shop called PureLife Alternatives and president of an influential medical-marijuana trade group, summed up the general sentiment:
"They expect people who are sick and on chemotherapy to get up and farm their own crop? If you're not directly involved in growing the crop, you can't have any of it?"
Imagine the unintended consequences, Bolanos said. "They say there's between 250,000 and 300,000 medical marijuana patients in the city of Los Angeles, and we don't have wide-open spaces here where we can grow. That means every building in Los Angeles will be a grow site."
The draft ordinance is city's latest attempt to bring some kind of order to the explosion of pot stores, all of which have so far failed. Bolanos insists that she and the marijuana community want to be partners in this, helping to clean up the shady cannabis clubs that don't pay taxes or check prescriptions. "We've been screaming for regulation," she told me. "I've gone to the city council and said, 'Show us the rules. Tell us what to do, so we can provide for patients in a safe manner.' [But] the city let the situation get out of hand — they wouldn't give us regulations, so we made up our own regulations, we started accrediting clubs. We follow the rules very strictly, but what they're asking us to do now is impossible."
For example, the draft ordinance includes a clause saying you can't have a shop across an alley from a residential area. "That alone wipes us all out," Bolanos says. "Who doesn't have an alley behind a commercial property in Los Angeles? That's how the blocks were built — the outer block is commercial and there's residential behind it."
A true believer in medical marijuana, Bolanos began smoking when she was diagnosed with liver cancer. "I use cannabis every day — I have a new liver, I don't want to put any medicine in my body that will tax my liver. What are people supposed to do, go back to the streets? That's what they're doing: they're sending sick people out on the street to get their medication."
As a result, she has no sympathy for the argument that the government should just stop the charade and legalize pot altogether. "No, no, I am not for full legalization — this is medicine to me. There are real patients here. It's very sad that because of a few people who are abusing the system, the real patients have to suffer. What is the old line? Non-sinners pay for what sinners do?"
Despite all that, nobody really thinks this fight is about medicine. It's about the virtual legalization of drugs that is slowly but surely happening in California. Here's are some of the online reviews for a club in Reseda called Nature's Natural Collective Care, for example:
"They have a nice little smoke room where you can try your samples and they have a few water pipes, glass pipes, papers in there for you to use. I was asking about a certain strain and the guy busted out the Cannibible and gave me the low down on that strain. I like that type of service." "They have over 60 strains at times all capped at $50 an 1/8th and no more than $400 an oz on the highest quality. With ounces ranging from like $180-$400. They even let you have free samples." "Full O's are all sub $400 for great shit and the service here from the budtenders is beyond fantastic. Their knowledge and ability to work with you is amazing."
As the right-wingers warned from the beginning, medical marijuana is turning out to be the genie you can't stuff back in the bottle. Even if the L.A. city council's rushed vote comes down in favor of the Trutanich ordinance, it seems likely that the regulations will be overturned in the courts — which is exactly what happened with Trutanich's last attempt to shut down the clubs. The state attorney general has already gone on record saying — and reiterated to Esquire.com when we asked him for comment — that the law allows sales. In the end, this case of bureaucratic bullying — and others across the country as states come to terms with a (relatively) sane White House pot policy — will be just another pointless and expensive skirmish on the inevitable road to marijuana legalization.
But for now, the fight is on: One day after Trutanich submitted the draft ordinance, the LAPD raided Nature's Natural.
"We expect more," Bolanos says. "They told us there are going to be more. We are in the fight for our lives."
Got your own reports from the fronts of the California pot crackdown? New perspective on legalization? Click here to e-mail John H. Richardson about his weekly political column at Esquire.com.
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RELATED LINKS:There are a great number of wearables that are competing for room on your wrist these days, including Samsung’s Gear 2 and Gear Fit, Pebble, Sony’s Smartwatch 2, Fitbit and countless others. Most of these devices are either fitness trackers, smartwatches or both. The Carbon wearable doesn’t fit into either of these categories, but it’s still pretty intriguing.
Instead of giving us fitness tracking or advanced computing functionality, Carbon is nothing more than a bulky analog watch — at least on the surface. What really makes Carbon worthy of your attention is that it also functions as a solar charger designed to add roughly “three hours of extra talk time” to your smartphone.
The device charges as you go about your day and stores the energy to an on-board 800 mAh battery. When you need some more juice for your handset, you simple twist a cap on the side that reveals a port for inserting a microUSB cable, which you can hook up to your phone.
While Carbon is pretty thick looking, it’s actually reasonably attractive looking and comes with either a coal (black) or slate (silver) design alongside a leather strap. There are also additional color options for the accents, though it adds to the device’s overall cost.
So how do you get your hands on Carbon? Unfortunately, you can’t just yet, as it is currently a Kickstarter project. If you are interested in the wearable you can secure your copy for a pledge of $95 or $130. The $95 model is only a charger, however, and doesn’t include the analog watch component.
Overall, we like the idea of the Carbon wearable, though we find the price kind of hard to swallow when you can get a traditional battery backup device with much more power than this for a fraction of the cost. Of course, you can’t wear those or recharge them using the sun. What do you think, like the idea or not?
For more details on the Carbon solar charger wearable, be sure to check out the official Kickstarter page!More and more Democrats – also known as “Trumpocrats” – are pledging their allegiance to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in hopes that he will bring their communities jobs – jobs they are certain that his rival, Hillary Clinton, will do nothing to retain or create.
The Trumpocrats Political Action Committee (PAC) Executive Director Christian Rickers gave Clinton a vote of no confidence after his favorite in the Democratic Party primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), lost. He vowed that he would sever from the party and vote for the GOP candidate after Sanders was beaten by Clinton in what many believe were rigged elections.
“Early on, I decided if he was not going to win the primary that I was not going to support Hillary Clinton,” Rickers told WND and Radio America. “She is a career politician.”
Hillary no friend of workers
After witnessing the economic decay over the past eight years under President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, Rickers made the determination that another four years under his former secretary of state was not the direction the country should go.
“I came from a town with 25 manufacturing facilities 20 years ago, and now it has one,” the disillusioned Democrat shared. “Nobody is more responsible for that than the Clintons and the trade policies they’ve advocated over the years. We’ve just learned that Ford is leaving town and going to Mexico and taking all the jobs there. [It’s the same with] Carrier air conditioning and Maytag. When is this going to stop?”
Rickers blames the |
Rust Belt. His grandfather, Pete Stavrenos, had opened the lots after emigrating from Greece, being sure to Americanize the family name so customers could pronounce it. His son was born George Stavranos but always went by George Steve, even before he legally changed the family name to Steve after appearing before a World War II draft board.
Harry loved sports. He played basketball and baseball and volunteered as an assistant youth coach. He earned his undergraduate degree from Bowling Green before starting on a master’s in sports administration at Biscayne College in Miami. In his spare time, in 1979, he did some marketing for the Miami Amigos of the Inter-American League, an independent circuit with six teams in six countries. The league folded three months into its only season. The Amigos’ owner bought the Macon (Ga.) Peaches, another unaffiliated team, and asked Harry, who was two months shy of earning his master’s, to be the assistant general manager. Harry left school, figuring he could always finish the course work. He never would.
Midway through the 1980 season, making $300 a month while the last-place Peaches churned through four presidents and three managers in five months, Harry quit the team. The next year a fellow Ohioan, Woody Kern, who owned a chain of nursing homes, asked Harry to be general manager of a minor league team he owned in San Jose. The club had just gained an affiliation with the Montreal Expos. In 1982 it would be known as the San Jose Expos of the California League. Harry was only 26 years old. He didn’t even have his own bank account.
The first and only season of the San Jose Expos was awful. Harry distributed 30,000 free tickets to local merchants. Only about 120 were used. After the season the Expos pulled their affiliation, leaving the renamed San Jose Bees as an independent team. Harry, who earned $1,000 a month, told Kern, “We can’t make it like this.”
Kern came up with an idea: “Why don’t you lease the team off me?”
Harry would pay Kern $25,000 a year and call himself the owner. He would pay all the bills but keep whatever profit the team generated. “It was totally illegal,” Harry says. “It’s right there in the [National Association] blue book. But it didn’t bother him, and it didn’t bother me.”
One of Harry’s first moves was to visit Cal League statistician Bill Weiss, who knew everybody and even had contacts in Japan. Harry used Weiss to get the Seibu Lions to contribute five players to the Bees. The Lions would pay Harry $25,000 in 1983 and cover the salaries and costs of the five players. After the season, Harry negotiated a two-year $100,000 deal.
The Bees finished last in ’83, ’84 and ’85. They averaged about 700 fans per game. The San Jose Mercury News didn’t bother to run box scores of their games.
Meanwhile, in November ’85, Ueberroth summoned 24 players involved or implicated in drug use to a January meeting in New York City. Harry noticed that some of the players who did not have contracts for ’86 were getting no attention from major league clubs. Why not try to sign them? “These guys needed a second chance, but I wasn’t some noble guy,” Harry says. “It was self-preservation. I decided to start with the best and work my way down.”
He called around and got a telephone number in Whitefish, Mont., belonging to a 28-year-old host of a rock ’n’ roll radio show who happened to have one of the best left pitching arms in baseball.
José Luis Villegas
Steven Roy Howe, the son of an auto assembly line worker in Michigan, was a phenomenal youth athlete who starred at Michigan and dabbled in nothing stronger than his prescribed dosage of Ritalin. Success came quickly. He was a first-round pick by the Dodgers in 1979, the NL Rookie of the Year in ’80 and a world champion in ’81. He threw 95 mph with precision.
During those early years with the Dodgers, Howe met a woman who offered him cocaine. So began one of baseball’s most infamous slides down the rabbit hole of drug use. By ’82 Howe was spending as much as $1,000 a day on cocaine and snorting it in the Dodgers’ bullpen. By ’85 he had rehabbed and relapsed four times and been released by the Dodgers and the Twins.
Harry flew to Montana. He told Howe and his agent, John Lence, that he would pay Howe $2,000 a month—four times the standard player salary—to pitch for Bees, with the stipulation that Harry would get half the purchase price when a major league team inevitably called to give Howe another chance.
Lence and Howe refused the offer. The Mariners were interested in Howe, and he was scheduled to throw in Florida for other teams. But by March no major league club had made him an offer, not while Ueberroth was vowing to clean up the game. Finally Lence called Harry. “Harry-O,” he said, “we’ll sign.”
Harry held a news conference to announce the signing. The next morning, a Sunday, Harry ran to a street corner with one of those metal newspaper boxes. He peered through the window. Right there on page one of the Mercury News, above the fold, there was a big color picture of Howe with a San Jose Bees banner in the background. “I knew then,” Harry says, “we were on our way.”
Michael Kelvin Norris grew up in the tough, predominantly black Fillmore District of San Francisco. His father was murdered when Mike was seven years old. The A’s drafted Norris in 1973, and he was in the big leagues two years later, at age 20. When he arrived at his locker to make his debut start, he found a blue pill. Confused, he threw it in the garbage. He then asked a teammate about it. He was told it was an amphetamine.
Playing naked, as players said of the sober, Norris threw a three-hit shutout, becoming only the ninth pitcher in league history to debut with a shutout on so few hits. Nobody has done it since. It wasn’t until three years later that Norris tried amphetamines. “Lasted two and a third innings,” he says. “Thought I was Nolan Ryan, and all I did was back up third and home plate.”
Norris was one of the best pitchers of 1980. He could make a baseball move like a rabbit flushed from the brush. Long and loose-limbed, he unloosed curveballs and screwballs that darted this way and that. Under manager Billy Martin, he went 22–9 with a 2.53 ERA while completing 24 of 33 starts. No one has topped 24 complete games since then. Norris once faced 51 batters in a 14-inning complete game and five days later faced 41 in a nine-inning complete game. Asked how he could stay so strong through such arduous work, Norris said, “I get proper rest between starts—chasing women.”
Late in the ’82 season, Norris, a cigarette smoker, tried smoking cocaine and became hooked on it. He was one of at least 13 players connected to convicted drug dealer Chris Liebl, who provided cocaine at his suburban Kansas City home in exchange for memorabilia.
Meanwhile, Norris’s shoulder started to give out. He had surgery in 1983 and did not pitch in ‘84. By the fall of ’85 Norris had been through drug rehab five times. He went to the Dominican Republic to pitch winter ball. Oakland general manager Sandy Alderson visited him there to offer him a minor league contract for 1986. “I thought it was an insult. Triple A?” Norris says. “I refused it. Little did I know it was one of my two biggest mistakes: using cocaine and not taking that contract, which led to me not having a job.”
While in the Dominican, Norris was arrested on drug charges.
“They put some marijuana in my leather coat,” he claims. “I sat in a Dominican jail for four days. I’m sitting there in jail. My mother and my [winter league] team don’t know where I was. I finally had to kick my leg against a bench to cut my leg open so I could get out to the infirmary. There happened to be a doctor there who spoke English. I told her what my problem was. She said, ‘You’re going to court. Your case is coming up.’
“Now I’m in court. I don’t understand Spanish much. Then the judge pounds the gavel and I hear ‘seis meses’—six months! Suddenly the courtroom doors open up, sunlight comes in, and so does a tall man in a leisure suit. He says, ‘Excuse me. I am here for Michael Norris.’ It’s a lawyer for the ballclub, Licey. I went back with him. That was a nightmare.”
The following March, Norris met Harry. “He looked like he was 150 pounds,” Harry says. “He was depressed. He was a former 20-game winner who didn’t have a job. Mike was real easy to sign. He just wanted a place to play.”
José Luis Villegas
Kenneth John Reitz grew up next to Candlestick Park, where he would grab batting-practice home runs hit by Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. The kid made it to the big leagues himself in September 1972 with the Cardinals. What he saw in the clubhouse astonished him: “Cigarettes, chewing tobacco, candy, gum, a cooler full of beer. It was as if baseball promoted being a degenerate.”
He was such a spectacular fielder—he won a Gold Glove in 1975—that he was nicknamed Zamboni for his acumen at cleaning up anything on the Busch Stadium carpet. One day in 1978, Reitz says, he saw teammate Garry Templeton pull out a small vial with white powder. “Hey, what is that?” Reitz asked.
“Coke.”
“Let me try that.”
Down, down the rabbit hole went Reitz. After the 1980 season he was traded to the Cubs. On his first day with Chicago, in 1981, a stranger approached him near the players’ parking lot. The man threw Reitz a brown paper bag. Inside were four jars of amphetamines, each containing about 100 pills. “I’m a pharmacist,” the man said. “I got whatever you want and as much as you want. Tell the guys I like memorabilia: jerseys, bats, balls, whatever.’
Says Reitz, “It ruined my life.” He became hooked on pills. His marriage fell apart. He drank heavily. One day, high on amphetamines and having gone without sleep for two days, he was driving his new Jeep in Chicago when he became convinced that a group of girls were trying to steal his tires. He grabbed a.22 caliber gun, jumped out and shot his tires out so that the phantom girls couldn’t steal them. “That’s when I went to the treatment center,” he says.
The Cubs released him in ’82. The Pirates released him two months later. He played three games in ’83 for the Cardinals’ Triple A team, none in ’84 and 45 for the Rangers’ Triple A team in ’85. In March ’86 he was 34 years old and had played just 55 games over the previous four years, 48 of them in the minors.
“I felt like I could still play,” Reitz says. “My dad said, ‘Why don’t you try San Jose?’ So I called. I thought I was going in a rec league. I didn’t realize we were in the California League.”
The unwanted kept coming to San Jose. Daryl Sconiers, then 27, had been the sweet-swinging heir apparent to Rod Carew as the Angels’ first baseman. The athletic 6' 2" kid from San Bernardino hit.370,.354 and.329 in successive minor league seasons. When spring training began in 1985, he asked the Angels for permission to arrive three days late. They didn’t hear from him for 17 days. When he surfaced in camp, Sconiers admitted he had a drug problem. The Angels released him that November. Ueberroth named him as one of six players with “well-documented” drug problems who would be subject to drug testing. Nobody offered him even a minor league job.
Derrel Thomas, 35, a 15-year big-league utility player, was such a showboat that he had four nicknames: Hot Dog, Minute Man, Farmer John and Junkyard Dog. By any name, Thomas too could not get a job offer, not after Dave Parker named him in the Pittsburgh drug trials.
And Todd Cruz, 30, a scrappy infielder from Detroit who had had bounced among six teams in six seasons and battled alcohol problems, needed a place to play after finishing the previous year with the independent Miami Marlins.
All of them wound up with the Bees, as did several other former big leaguers with no connection to substance abuse. The roster included Steve McCatty, Norris’s fellow workhorse in Oakland’s rotation; Fernando Arroyo, 34, who had pitched seven years in the majors, but not since 1982 (he’s the one who slept in his van); outfielder Lorenzo Gray, 28, who once had a 40-game hitting streak in the minors; and catcher Darryl Cias, 29, who got in 19 games with the ’83 A’s. Such has-beens were joined by the never-weres—fringe players who hadn’t seen the big leagues and wouldn’t.
The man originally hired to manage this eclectic collection of players was someone who owned his own odd corner of baseball history. Frank Verdi made his major league debut with the New York Yankees on May 10, 1953 at Fenway Park. Manager Casey Stengel put him at shortstop after lifting Phil Rizzuto for a pinch hitter. The next inning Verdi, a righthanded hitter, excitedly stepped into the batter’s box for his first major league at-bat. Suddenly he heard someone yell, “Time!” Boston changed pitchers.
When play resumed, Verdi stepped back into the batter’s box. Digging in, just as he was about to hit, again he heard someone yell, “Time!” This time it was Stengel. He called Verdi back to the dugout so he could send another righthanded hitter, Bill Renna, to hit for him. Renna grounded out. Verdi played 18 years in the minors. He never did get an at-bat. He never played another day in the big leagues.
Verdi later became a coach and manager, including a stint as the manager of the 1983 Bees. Just before the 1986 Bees were to open camp, Verdi called Harry.
“I hate to do this to you, but I’m not coming,” he said.
The Yankees had offered him a scouting job. Verdi recommended his son, Mike, as his replacement. Harry wasn’t so sure.
“I had never met him,” Harry says. “I wasn’t about to turn over this team to somebody I didn’t know anything about or knew anything about these players. Another week went by and I said, ‘I signed all these guys and I know why I signed them.’ Back in your younger years you think you can do anything. That was me. I wasn’t fazed by it. I thought it would be really cool. So I said, ‘Shoot, I’ll manage.’”
José Luis Villegas
The Bees embraced their notoriety. On one of the first days of camp drug scofflaws Norris, Reitz, Howe and Sconiers posed for a picture at the batting cage with bandanas around the bottom of their face, as if they were about to rob a stagecoach. The picture ran on the front of the USA Today sports section.
Thomas and Norris posed for a wire service photographer: Thomas spread his feet and held his hands high against the outfield wall while Norris frisked him.
Harry ordered a limited set of baseball cards—the first (and only) run was capped at 1,000. The Bees posed in their white home uniforms with Bees plastered across the chest in ballpark mustard yellow.
Hot Dog never made it to Opening Day. Thomas pulled into Muni driving a hot rod with no hood on it. “He got out,” Harry says, “and I’m being polite when I say he was really cocky. It didn’t bother me, but it bothered the other guys. They realized if anybody messed up, if Norris or anybody stepped off the wagon, it was bad for all.”
Harry soon began to think that Thomas thought he should be managing the team. When the Bees worked on relays, for instance, Thomas would shake his head and complain, “That’s not how the Dodgers do it.”
“I think in his head he thought, ‘I know more than you,’” Harry says. “And he was right. But it wasn’t about getting along with me. It was the other guys. They hated him. I can remember Howe coming in and saying, ‘You need to get rid of him before somebody kills him.”’
So Harry cut Hot Dog. Thomas did get his own managing gig the next year, 1987, with the independent Boise Hawks. He was fired with a 9–29 record. The next year he put his management skills to the test with a curious combination of jobs: he coached the Leuzinger High School baseball team by day and managed a topless bar in Gardena, Ron’s Barbary Coast, by night. The Bees moved on without him and his hot rod.
“We had some nice cars in our parking lot,” Harry says, “Mercedes, Porsches.... Problem was, they went nowhere. A lot of guys couldn’t drive them because they had their licenses suspended.”
Reitzy was one of the guys with a suspended license. He pedaled around Muni on a girls 12-speed bike and lived in a stadium utility room with Cias and a pitcher named Mike (Stash) Bigusiak, the private detective whose previous job in Atlanta involved filming wandering spouses at motel rendezvous. The roommates called it “the Stadium Hilton.” It was tucked underneath the concrete grandstand; the ceiling sloped in the zig-zag pattern of the underside of the stands. The room had makeshift beds with sleeping bags, a hot-water heater, a washing machine (the roommates did the team’s laundry each morning; the team had no trainers or clubhouse managers), a black-and-white television, six stadium chairs, carpet remnants salvaged from the dumpster of a local flooring store, a Pepsi-Cola wall clock, a neon Coors beer sign, a Do Not Disturb side on the door pilfered from a Holiday Inn, a Led Zeppelin poster and a poster for Bubble Gum, a 1983 XXX film.
Cias was the Jimmy Buffett lookalike, artist and free spirit who was voted Best Optimist in high school in Granada, Calif. Cias liked to don a Superman cape and jump off the outfield wall, ride his skateboard around Muni and play golf in the outfield. He had painted the TraveLodge and Almaden Hyundai signs on the outfield wall and a Bees logo on the side of the team bus (a bee with a baseball-shaped body). On the back of the door to the Stadium Hilton he painted a portrait of a crazy-eyed Charles Manson over the words, Helter Skelter. He also painted caricatures of anyone who stayed at the Stadium Hilton.
(Stash, who hadn’t pitched in eight years, was released after only four games in which he gave up 10 runs in five innings. Explained Harry, “He stunk. He just plain stunk.”)
“I was Squiggy, the guy from the TV show,” Reitz says. “Darryl was a great artist. When other teams came in to play us they wanted to see this place.”
On Opening Night at Muni, Arroyo watched in amazement as Cias threw to the bases during pregame infield.
Wow, Arroyo thought, what an arm on that guy! His adrenalin must really be going!
Cias blew his arm out with that show of strength.
“Couldn’t throw the ball back to the pitcher [after that], like Mackey Sasser,” Reitz says. “He was a happy go lucky guy. I remember we went to Reno. He decided he was going to get a tan lying in the back of a pickup truck. He wound up with third-degree burns.”
The Bees drew almost 5,000 fans on Opening Night. The club selected a season ticketholder to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. It was a one-legged septuagenarian who had lost his limb after stepping on a rusty nail.
Everybody loved Mike Norris. Tall and angular with a handsome face, he looked like the comedian Eddie Murphy, he sounded like Eddie Murphy and he was as funny as Eddie Murphy. He cackled all the time in an infectious, gut-busting “ha-ha-HA-ha!” Norris made people laugh. People laughed when they saw him coming; he was that buoyant a spirit.
“Mike was about the happiest-go-lucky guy I ever met in my life,” Cat says. “As far as being on time? That was a constant problem for him.”
Like Reitzy, Norris had his license suspended. He often ran late because of his meetings with the IRS and the DMV and his responsibilities related to a court-ordered two-year drug diversion program (which allowed him to avoid a trial for his cocaine possession arrest). Without a license, Norris petitioned Harry to sign Kenny Foster, 27, a first baseman from Oakland who had been released by the Twins in 1984 after five minor league seasons. The mustachioed Foster stood 6-foot-2 and a muscular 200 pounds, with the kind of serious look that put people on notice. He was a walking Do Not Disturb sign. Foster hadn’t played baseball in a year, but to Norris he had one very important characteristic: he owned a car. It was a green, dented beater of an old Buick he called Bess. So Harry signed Kenny.
Between Norris’s legal issues and Bess’ mechanical issues, Harry had to keep postponing Norris’ starts on account of his tardiness.
“I warned them both about being late,” Harry says.
Howser thought it was funny. He would needle Norris about his lateness, saying, “I saw your work crew on the side of the highway when I was driving to the stadium. You must have been hiding in the ivy.”
One day Foster came puttering in late again with Bess and Mike. Harry had seen enough. He called Foster into his ratty 12-by-12 office, sat him down on his ratty couch and released him on the spot.
A few minutes later, a stunned Norris walked into Harry’s office.
“Harry, do you know what you just did?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just released Kenny Foster.”
“No. You just released one of the biggest gangsters in Oakland.”
“Uh, I didn’t know that.”
The next morning there was a knock on Harry’s door. It was Kenny, and the big man was not happy. He sat down on the couch. And then he started to weep.
“My momma told me to come in and apologize to you and to pray to the Lord that you’ll take me back,” Kenny said.
A relieved Harry said, “Are you going to do your best to be on time?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“So I took him back,” Harry says. “I had a couple of guys that wanted to hit me.”
Mike now says he only exaggerated the danger Kenny posed.
“Ah, maybe he wanted to be a big gang-banger, but he wasn’t,” Norris says. “Kenny was a big old teddy bear. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. He was a big kid kind of a guy.”
Harry scheduled Norris to start the first game of a series in Fresno, the first road games of the season. But Norris, Kenny and Bess showed up late for that one, too. Norris’ first start was postponed again.
After the series the team headed back to San Jose on the bus. After about an hour the players saw something burning on the side of the highway. It was.... “Bess!” they shouted. About a mile down the road they saw two black men in baseball uniforms, carrying bats and walking next to the shoulder. “You can imagine the bus,” Harry says. “They came in, and everybody was hooting and hollering.”
Foster picked up another beater. The tardiness of Mike and Kenny continued. One day Norris simply didn’t show. So on April 18, Harry released both of them. Foster had played in only five games. Norris had yet to throw a pitch in a game. Norris went home to Hayward to play shortstop on a softball team.
A few weeks later, Norris’ mother told him, “You should go apologize. You’ve got to make up your mind whether you want to play or not.”
So Mike went back to see Harry.
“Who am I to release you?” Harry said. “If you want to play, you can play. I’m okay with it. If not, that’s fine, too.”
Says Norris, “I looked at him and it came right out of his heart. It had no malice in it whatsoever. He had my interest in heart. He felt my empathy. He felt I was confused. I was in a funk. Imagine you are the Cy Young runnerup and a couple of years later you’re down in No-man’s Land like a piece of s---. Part of being a big leaguer is self-esteem. You have to have a certain amount of ego to perform. And that’s where I was: my ego was gone. I just quit this, like it was just no good any more. But you know, I’ve never been a quitter.”
The Bees needed Mike. They were 21-30. They were in last place. And Howser was gone.
José Luis Villegas
“Steve Howe,” Harry says, “was the ringleader. He was off-the-charts hilarious and very personable.”
Howser had a line ready for the national media: “Have rifle, will travel.” Harry sometimes would bring Howser to a luncheon with bankers or a local Kiwanis Club. He never failed to entertain and charm them.
“If you went to lunch with Howser and a couple of people from the front office it was like an outing,” Harry says. “Everything was more fun with him. He made even the most routine events fun. He had a magnetic personality. That’s why he got nine chances, or how many he got. Let’s face it, if he were a [jerk] nobody would want to help him.”
“I roomed with him on road trips a couple of times,” Cat says. “We’re both from Michigan. We sat in the room and talked baseball. I never saw him do any drugs.”
But the ones who were familiar with drugs were not as enamored with Howe.
“Steve Howe was a smart ass,” Reitz says. “He knew he was better than everyone and walked around like a pompous ass. He rubbed guys the wrong way. He acted like he didn’t have a problem. He was in and out of treatment about 25 times and he’s walking around like nothing happened. You can’t do that. You need a support group.”
Says Norris, “Howe and I had a lot of similarities. This guy was very talented. He was a very bright individual, which was his problem because he was a con man. He charmed my mother into her cooking a soul food dinner for him. She cooked it, she brings it to the ballpark for him, and he didn’t show up. He charmed her like a snake. Those demons, he just never shook.
“He would have teams come watch him. Then he’d go on one of his binges and not show up for three days. It takes three days for it to leave your system. And when that happens, that’s a blemish on the rest of us.”
There was a guy who hung around the team, especially around Howe, who wore his hair in a Mohawk. Nobody knew for sure what he did or his real name. They called him Rooster.
“I stayed away from Rooster,” Norris says. “He looked like an egregious character. He didn’t look like anybody I wanted to know, and I’m from the street.”
Says Harry, “He stayed clear of me. He was one of the guys hanging around. I got the sense after a while he was hanging around too much.”
“He supplied cocaine to Steve Howe,” Reitz says. “Rooster would show up and then Steve would disappear for three days, and everybody covered for him. ‘Family emergency.’ But he still had great stuff.”
Howser had major league stuff. The scouts saw it. He was on the verge of getting back to the big leagues. Harry scheduled Howe to start one night in mid-May against Fresno, knowing that veteran front office men Pat Gillick of the Blue Jays and Al Rosen of the Giants were scheduled to watch Howe in person. The rumor was that this would be Howe’s last game with the Bees; he would sign a major league contract that night.
At 11:30 that morning, Harry received a phone call in his office. It was John Johnson, the president of the National Association.
“There’s been a discrepancy in one of Steve Howe’s tests,” Johnson said. “You’re not to pitch him tonight.”
“What do you mean?” Harry said. “I need to know what ‘discrepancy’ means.”
“I can’t say anything else.”
Click!
Harry was confused. Discrepancy? If he flunked a test, just tell me he flunked a test. He kept kicking the brief conversation around in his head. Howser was throwing lights out. He had a chance to get back to the show as soon as tonight. And there’s a discrepancy?
At two o’clock Harry called back Johnson.
“I sent him back to the hotel.”
“Okay, Harry. You’re doing the right thing.”
When he hung up the phone, Harry thought about what Johnson had just said: You’re doing the right thing. Harry thought, am I? I’m just going along with the powers that be, which I’ve done many times … but this time it’s not the right thing to do.
At 6:15 p.m. Harry called Howser at the Holiday Inn, where he stayed under an assumed name.
“You still want to pitch tonight, Howser?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you get in a cab and get over here.”
Howe raced to the ballpark and did start the game. He pitched O.K. for five innings—nothing great, nothing terrible.
The next morning, at precisely 9:01, the phone rang in Harry’s office.
“Who... the... f---... do you think you are?”
It was Johnson.
“Nobody has ever disobeyed an order from this office. You are suspended immediately. Steve Howe is suspended immediately for a month and you are suspended immediately indefinitely.”
The test was confirmed positive for cocaine. Howser never did get out of San Jose that year. He posted a 1.47 ERA over 49 innings. He struck out 37 batters and walked only five. It would not be until the following July when he signed to pitch with Oklahoma City, the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. The contract stipulated that he could not return to the big leagues without the consent of Peter Ueberroth.
Harry, meanwhile, by taking a stand for Howe, had just managed his last game.
José Luis Villegas
Sconiers was the opposite of Howe: humble, quiet and not in demand. Everybody on the team loved him. He was afraid to fly, which was not a problem in the Cal League.
He had an ex-wife and a nine-year-old son, Darryl Jr., in Southern California to support. Most Bees were making anywhere from $400 to $1,000 a month. It was common for them to ask Harry for a loan, usually equivalent to their monthly paycheck. It also was common for Harry never to see the loan repaid in full.
“Sconiers would come in and say, ‘Can I borrow 22 bucks?’” Harry says. “’Yeah, that’s all I want.’ Boom, he’d pay me back. Pretty rare.
“Sconiers was the nicest, most humble man. Oh my God, he was handed Rod Carew’s job and just went down the wrong path. I have a special place in my heart for that guy. He was such a good person. I think he fell off the wagon once. We sent him home for a week. We said he twisted his knee and went to see a doctor and he’d be back in a week.”
Says Reitz, “Daryl Sconiers could hit like nobody I’ve ever seen.”
One day Sconiers asked Reitz if he could borrow his bicycle. He said he wanted to go to a convenience store. The Bees didn’t see him for three days. When they did, Reitz said he told him this story: he said he had seen a car in which he just knew that the people in it had crack. He rode the bike six miles to chase them down.
Sconiers took ownership of his cocaine use. He blamed himself for what he called “belligerent intolerance,” a clever way of capturing the sense of entitlement that can poison a major league life. But Sconiers came to regret coming forward with his 1985 admission of drug use. He felt his honesty prompted baseball and his family to abandon him.
“My own family won’t talk to me since the drug thing,” he told the Los Angeles Times in his second month with the Bees. “I’m dirt cheap to them. I don’t blame them. They warned me. They told me when I was young that if I ever got into that kind of problem not to expect people to have any mercy or understand.
“They warned me. They were right.”
Drugs were foreign to the Japanese players on loan from the Seibu Lions.
“In Japan, you have marijuana you go to jail,” said Hank Wada, then 49, who was in his fifth and final season as pitching coach of the Bees. Wada, a former catcher in Japan, also was chaperone, van driver, acupuncturist and disciplinarian to the Japanese players, who ranged in age from 18 to 23 and spoke no English—at least until their grizzled American teammates taught them the kind of words you might hear in Bubble Gum. The best of the lot was second baseman Norio Tanabe, 20, who led the Bees in hits (166), home runs (nine) and RBI (64). Tanabe went on to become a successful player and now manager for the Seibu Lions.
The Japanese players worked astonishingly hard. Starting pitchers would run five miles before their start. Hitters would routinely ask for more extra hitting. What also stood out to the American Bees was the harsh discipline the Japanese Bees faced. Routine mistakes were met with tongue lashings and slaps to the face from Wada. One player was slapped for talking on the telephone.
“He would line guys up,” McCatty says. “And in Japanese he would scream at them and slap them in the face and tell them how horses— they were. It was interesting how they did it.”
Says Arroyo, “One time one of the Japanese players struck out and he threw his helmet—not hard, he tossed it. It showed he was angered a little bit. He was in disgust with his strikeout. They called him into the office and they made him stand there in front of the coach and they slapped him.”
It made for a stark contrast: this band of misfit Americans, some of them repeat drug offenders, sharing space with youthful Japanese who incurred verbal and physical abuse for a simple transgression such as tossing a helmet. The Bad News Bees lived down to their name sometimes. And the trouble wasn’t just about drugs.
José Luis Villegas
“Don’t go back to St. Louis. There’s a warrant out for your arrest.”
There are better ways to start a season than the telephone call Reitz received from former Cardinals teammate Ken Dayley as the Bees opened California League play. The warrant was issued in eastern Missouri, accusing Reitz of writing a bad check for $1,083.40 to an Arnold, Missouri, car dealer. Reitz was classified as a fugitive from justice. California police were alerted to arrest him at any time.
“Here’s what happened,” Reitz explains. “I had a Camaro. Late one night a truck backed into me. I went down to the Chevy place to get it fixed. They sent an insurance check to me. I think I took the check and went to the horse track. And lost it. I didn’t know I was supposed to give it to the dealer.
“Later on, when I did come back to St. Louis, the warrant was over. Somebody paid it. I still don’t know who paid it.”
Besides being a fugitive from justice and a recovering drug addict, Reitz was an alcoholic.
“I was drunk all the time,” he says, “sometimes during games. It would take me two drinks and I was an idiot.”
The Bees went through Budweiser faster than the belching, wheezing 1959 GMC bus went through gasoline. There was Bud in the Stadium Hilton, Bud in the rooms of fleabag hotels on the road, Bud on the bus, Bud, Bud, Bud... always Bud, because this was Class A ball.
In the first week of the season, Harry called a team meeting. He brought in a San Jose police officer, Andy Trevino, and introduced him as “head of security” for the Bees. Trevino gave the players advice on how to stay out of trouble in San Jose. He made sure to be very specific in one case.
“There’s this bar, called J.P.’s,” Trevino said. “It’s on Market, about four blocks from the stadium. If there’s one place in town you don’t want to go, that’s J.P.’s on Market Street. Got it?”
The players nodded.
Three days later Harry decided to take a different route home after a game. He drove down Market Street, passing J.P.’s.
“And I saw basically every one of their cars was in the parking lot,” Harry says. “That’s basically how they were. The inner drug workings? I had no idea about the what, when and where. But I knew something about the other stuff. I knew these guys |
) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/File[/etc/httpd/conf.d/myserver.conf]/ensure: current_value absent, should be file (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Service[httpd]/ensure: current_value stopped, should be running (noop) Notice: Class[Mymodule::Httpd]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 4 events Notice: Stage[main]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 1 events Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.51 seconds Note The warning for the hiera.yaml file is safe to ignore. The highlighted lines show the creation of the configuration file and our web host directory
2.7. Configuring the Firewall The web server requires an open port so people can access the pages hosted on our web server. The open problem is that different versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses different methods for controlling the firewall. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and below, we use iptables. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, we use firewalld. This decision is something Puppet handles using conditional logic and system facts. For this step, we add a statement to check the operating system and run the appropriate firewall commands. Add the following code inside your mymodule::http class: if $operatingsystemmajrelease <= 6 { exec { 'iptables': command => "iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp -m multiport --ports ${httpd_port} -m comment --comment 'Custom HTTP Web Host' -j ACCEPT && iptables-save > /etc/sysconfig/iptables", path => "/sbin", refreshonly => true, subscribe => Package['httpd'], } service { 'iptables': ensure => running, enable => true, hasrestart => true, subscribe => Exec['iptables'], } } elsif $operatingsystemmajrelease == 7 { exec { 'firewall-cmd': command => "firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=${httpd_port}/tcp --permanent", path => "/usr/bin/", refreshonly => true, subscribe => Package['httpd'], } service { 'firewalld': ensure => running, enable => true, hasrestart => true, subscribe => Exec['firewall-cmd'], } } This code performs the following: Use the operatingsystemmajrelease fact to determine whether the operating system is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 or 7.
If using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, declare an executable ( exec ) resource that runs iptables and iptables-save to add a permanent firewall rule. The httpd_port variable is used in-line to define the port to open. After the exec resource completes, we trigger a refresh of the iptables service. To achieve this, we define a service resource that includes the subscribe attribute. This attribute checks if any there are any changes to another resource and, if so, performs a refresh. In this case, it checks the iptables executable resource.
If using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, declare a similar executable resource that runs firewall-cmd to add a permanent firewall rule. The httpd_port variable is also used in-line to define the port to open. After the exec resource completes, we trigger a refresh of the firewalld service but with a subscribe attribute pointing to the firewall-cmd executable resource.
The code for both firewall executable resources contains refreshonly => true and subscribe => Package['httpd'] attributes. This ensures the firewall commands only run after the httpd installs. Without these attributes, subsequent runs will add multiple instances of the same firewall rule. Run the puppet apply command again to test the changes to our module. The following example is a test of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: # puppet apply mymodule/tests/init.pp --noop Warning: Config file /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml not found, using Hiera defaults Notice: Compiled catalog for puppet.example.com in environment production in 0.82 seconds Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Exec[iptables]/returns: current_value notrun, should be 0 (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Service[iptables]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 1 events... The highlighted lines show the execution of the firewall rule creation and the subsequent service refresh as a result of the subscribe attribute. Important This configuration serves only as an example of using conditional statements. If you aim to manage multiple firewall rules for your system in the future, it is recommended to create a custom resource for firewalls. It is inadvisable to use executable resources to constantly chain many Bash commands.
2.8. Configuring SELinux SELinux restricts non-standard access to the HTTP server by default. If we define a custom port, we need to add configuration that allows SELinux to grant access. Puppet contains resource types to manage some SELinux functions, such as Booleans and modules. However, we need to execute the semanage command to manage port settings. This tool is a part of the policycoreutils-python package, which is not installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems by default. Add the following code inside your mymodule::http class: exec {'semanage-port': command => "semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp ${httpd_port}", path => "/usr/sbin", require => Package['policycoreutils-python'], before => Service ['httpd'], subscribe => Package['httpd'], refreshonly => true, } package { 'policycoreutils-python': ensure => installed, } This code performs the following: The require => Package['policycoreutils-python'] attribute makes sure the policycoreutils-python is installed prior to executing the command.
Puppet executes semanage to open a port using httpd_port as a variable.
The before => Service ['httpd'] makes sure to execute this command before the httpd service starts. If httpd starts before the SELinux command, SELinux denies access to the port and the service fails to start.
The code for the SELinux executable resource contains refreshonly => true and subscribe => Package['httpd'] attributes. This ensures the SELinux commands only run after the httpd installs. Without these attributes, subsequent runs result in failure. This is because SELinux detects the port is already enabled and reports an error. Run the puppet apply command again to test the changes to our module. # puppet apply mymodule/tests/init.pp --noop... Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Package[policycoreutils-python]/ensure: current_value absent, should be present (noop)... Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Exec[semanage-port]/returns: current_value notrun, should be 0 (noop)... Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Service[httpd]/ensure: current_value stopped, should be running (noop)... Puppet installs policycoreutils-python first, then configures port access before starting the httpd service.
2.9. Copying a HTML file to the Web Host The HTTP server configuration is now complete. This provides a platform for installing a web-based application, which Puppet can also configure. For this example, however, we will only copy over a simple index webpage to our web host. Create file named index.html in the files directory. Add the following content to this file: <html> <head> <title>Congratulations</title> <head> <body> <h1>Congratulations</h1> <p>Your puppet module has correctly applied your configuration.</p> </body> </html> Create manifest named app.pp in the manifests directory. Add the following content to this file: class mymodule::app { file { "/var/www/myserver/index.html": ensure => file, mode => 755, owner => root, group => root, source => "puppet:///modules/mymodule/index.html", require => Class["mymodule::httpd"], } } This new class contains a single resource declaration. This declaration copies a file from the module's file directory from the Puppet server to the system and sets its permissions. Additionally, the require attribute ensures the mymodule::http class completes configuration successfully before we apply mymodule::app. Finally, include this new manifest in our main init.pp manifest: class mymodule ( $http_port = 80 ) { include mymodule::httpd include mymodule::app } Run the puppet apply command again to test the changes to our module. The output should resemble the following: # puppet apply mymodule/tests/init.pp --noop Warning: Config file /etc/puppet/hiera.yaml not found, using Hiera defaults Notice: Compiled catalog for puppet.example.com in environment production in 0.66 seconds Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Exec[iptables]/returns: current_value notrun, should be 0 (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Package[policycoreutils-python]/ensure: current_value absent, should be present (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Service[iptables]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 1 events Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/File[/var/www/myserver]/ensure: current_value absent, should be directory (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Package[httpd]/ensure: current_value absent, should be present (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/File[/etc/httpd/conf.d/myserver.conf]/ensure: current_value absent, should be file (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Exec[semanage-port]/returns: current_value notrun, should be 0 (noop) Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::Httpd/Service[httpd]/ensure: current_value stopped, should be running (noop) Notice: Class[Mymodule::Httpd]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 8 events Notice: /Stage[main]/Mymodule::App/File[/var/www/myserver/index.html]/ensure: current_value absent, should be file (noop) Notice: Class[Mymodule::App]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 1 events Notice: Stage[main]: Would have triggered'refresh' from 2 events Notice: Finished catalog run in 0.74 seconds The highlighted line shows the result of the index.html file being copied to the webhost.NEW YORK, N.Y. – Jon Stewart joined New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to honour a cancer-stricken Sept. 11 first responder who helped win a fight for health care.
The mayor presented ex-firefighter Ray Pfeifer with a key to the city on Saturday.
Pfeifer rose from his wheelchair to say that the legislation passed by Congress last month extends health care to tens of thousands of World Trade Center first responders.
Stewart and Pfeifer spent weeks in the halls of Congress challenging lawmakers to vote for the legislation that extends federal health monitoring and treatment for Sept. 11 first responders through 2090.
Stewart made sure politicians who balked at supporting the bill were named in the media. The former “Daily Show” host says he was a “wingman” to Pfeifer and other responders.2011 Oklahoma State Fair Photo Contest: Finals
Last week, we posted the 20 semi-finalists for our 2011 Oklahoma State Fair Photo Contest (Group 1, Group 2). Now, just seven days and 6,000 votes later, only five photos remain.
View the photos and vote for your favorite after the jump! The photo that gets the most votes will be declared the champion, and the photographer/submitter will win a dinner for four to Deep Fork Grill!
Gold for Cash
Call me crazy, but I would bet the key to that woman’s heart is gold-plated and located on the end of a long chain. Seriously, that’s the blingiest outfit I’ve ever seen. She makes Mr. T look humble and reserved. Her farts probably smell like a Lil Wayne song.
– Photo submitted by Melissa
–
Lady in Red
Before you laugh, remember this lady is probably somebody’s grandma or aunt and that some poor soul had to install the chain attached her belly button. Now that you’re aware of those things, go ahead and laugh away.
– Photo submitted by Bradley
–
“Boomer Sooner” on my back
Notice how the dude standing next to her is wearing a burnt orange shirt? I don’t know if they were together, but if they were, I kind of like that girl. In other news, the University of Oklahoma just sued her for copyright infringement and brand defamation.
– Photo submitted by Evan
–
The Two Fister
Wow, I’m pretty sure I need an insulin shot just from looking at this guy. Could he not eat the turkey leg, enjoy it for a few seconds, and then order the double-fried, calorie-battered churro? Also, I think he needs another gallon of soda to put in his little basket.
– Photo submitted by Robert
–
Harry McCracker
Maybe instead of trying to own every key in the world, this guy should invest in a belt, wax treatment or two additional shirt sizes.
p.s. I originally wanted to name this picture Trabes. Would that have been wrong?
– Photo submitted by Mark
–
2011 Oklahoma State Fair Photo Contest: Finals “Boomer Sooner” on my back (51%, 652 Votes)
Lady in Red (20%, 261 Votes)
The Two Fister (16%, 206 Votes)
Gold for Cash (7%, 86 Votes)
Harry McCracker (6%, 83 Votes) Total Voters: 1,288Story highlights Authorities will be "passively" enforcing the governor's order
Protesters have vowed to stand their ground
(CNN) Anyone taking supplies to the activists protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline now face a $1,000 fine -- all part of the attempt to dislodge activists from camps set up there.
First, the US Army Corps of Engineers warned that activists who refuse to leave the camps could face arrest. That was last week and since then, officials have backtracked, saying they have no plans to forcibly remove anyone.
Now, the North Dakota governor, Jack Dalrymple, is taking a different tack. He's ordered protesters to clear out immediately, because winter's coming. He said the temporary dwellings pose serious public safety concerns.
And the $1,000 fine is part of that approach.
The Morton County Sheriff's Department could not be reached for comment. But this is how spokeswoman Maxine Herr explained it to CNN affiliate KFYR in a statement:
Read MoreImage caption The pouch contained less than a gram of heroin in 19 sachets
A sealed package containing heroin was found in an 80-year-old Foreign Office file at the National Archives, its managers have said.
The Class A drug was filed with a document from the British Consulate in Cairo about a 1928 court case.
The off-white powder, discovered by a member of the public who asked to see the file, was sent for analysis.
And having been confirmed as heroin, the substance was handed over to the Metropolitan Police.
The pouch - which contained less than a gram of heroin in 19 sachets - has been replaced with a photo and the file is now back on public display.
'Extremely rare'
National Archives director of operations Jeff James said the discovery hints at more mysteries to be found among the huge bank of archives.
"From time to time, unusual and occasionally valuable objects are unexpectedly discovered within our vast collection of 11 million records," he said. "However, finds of this nature are extremely rare."
The National Archives makes available to the public records dating back more than 1,000 years.
Alongside important historical records like MI5 files and the Domesday Book, researchers have also found unusual items, including a mummified rat and a red pyjama suit.Opinion: Columbus Taxpayers Should Not Fund a New Soccer Stadium
Photo via Rick Dikeman / Wikipedia.
I’ll cut straight to the point:
We don’t need to have a conversation on whether Columbus should spend a dime of taxpayer dollars on a new soccer stadium for the Columbus Crew SC, and our elected officials would do wisely to swiftly end the chance of any conversation pertaining to that. It is an election year and voters are watching closely. If Anthony Precourt wants to hold this city and fans hostage, then he knows where 71-S is and he can hit the road. Contrary to popular belief among our city leaders, we can say no to rich people asking for taxpayer money.
Here’s why:
1. More than 25,000 people are waiting on affordable housing.
2. The city is one of the most economically segregated cities in America.
3. We have one of the highest infant mortality rates in America.
4. We’re in the midst of an unprecedented drug epidemic.
5. Our air quality was recently given an “F” grade.
We should not spend tax dollars on sports. Not soccer, not hockey, not football… not a damn thing sports-related. Let’s get our priorities straight, Columbus.
We strive to be a city of the future, but how can we be when we’re not a city of the present?
— Atticus Hannel Coulter Garden
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About the Author Atticus Garden is a native of Columbus who currently resides in Southern Orchards on the South Side.
Tags:In light of the ongoing political fallout from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent trip to the Bahamas, I went back to see what Trudeau said about open and transparent government during last year’s federal election.
Here’s what he said:
“Our plan for a fair and open government … is a sweeping agenda for change … At its heart is a simple idea: transparent government is good government. If we want Canadians to trust their government, we need a government that trusts Canadians. For me, open government is effective government. Liberals believe in the ability of government to be a force for good in society. That is why it is especially important to us that government work well, and be seen to work well … People know that Ottawa is broken. We have a comprehensive plan to fix it. That’s real change. As the saying goes, sunlight is the world’s best disinfectant. Liberals will shed new light on the government and ensure that it is focused on the people it is meant to serve: Canadians.” That would seem to be a rather far cry from what Trudeau actually did on his Bahamas vacation, the details of which Postmedia’s David Akin has slowly been dragging out of the Prime Minister’s Office piece by embarrassing piece.
That is, Trudeau travelled with his family and some Liberals friends to a private island in the Bahamas owned by his friend, the Aga Khan, a foreign billionaire, whose foundation is a registered lobbyist with the Canadian government, and to which the Trudeau government has already given $55 million in foreign aid to help women and children in Afghanistan.
That’s a rather far cry from the explanation the PMO originally gave for refusing to disclose Trudeau’s whereabouts, that he was simply having some well-deserved vacation time with his family over the winter break and was entitled to his privacy.
Trudeau’s promise of open and transparent government would also appear to be a fair distance removed from his recent rather astonishing statement that when he talks with foreign billionaires and wealthy Canadians at private, cash-for-access, $1,500-a-ticket, Liberal fundraisers, he champions the middle class.
And further, that any Canadians who think he might be influenced to treat wealthy business people who donate to his party more favourably than those who don’t in terms of their dealings with the federal government, are not only wrong, but would have to be cynics to think such a thing.
Alas, a subsequent Nanos/Globe and Mail poll found that 62% of Canadians surveyed disapproved of the Liberals’ cash-for-access fundraising, while 48% believed that Trudeau could be influenced in his decision-making by such donations, compared to 46% who disagreed.
That said, there is a bright side to all this.
At least these recent controversies, perhaps because they call into question the prime minister’s personal judgment, appear to have ended the extended honeymoon Trudeau was enjoying in much of Canada’s mainstream media, which was becoming embarrassing.
lgoldstein@postmedia.comLast night’s Friars dinner for legendary comics Freddy Roman and Stewie Stone made history.
Nasal comedian Gilbert Gottfried told a joke “so dirty and disgusting” — according to sources– that legendary comic Shecky Greene up and left. He left not only the Pierre Hotel ballroom, but possibly the Friars Club as well. Joy Behar, who was in the audience, was asked to sub for him. “And she did a great job,” my source said.
I’m waiting now for Shecky to check in.
But sources say Greene on deck after Gottfried finished up. Gottfried, relieved of his duties as the voice of the AFLAC duck after another controversy, couldn’t resist. Apparently the joke he told was much much worse than the “Aristocrats,” a joke so filthy that a whole documentary was made about it.
I can’t really reprint the joke here. It has to do with hemorrhoids. And something else.
“People were throwing up, especially the older people,” says my source.
Greene, in his late 80s, was horrified. He’s so mad that he left the hotel and vowed to quit the Friars. Today he missed eating lunch with another legend, Larry Storch, 91, and former star of “F Troop.”
Storch was consoled by pals Stewie Stone, and the great Norm Crosby, who were already lunching at the Friars.
Other comic greats at the dinner included Robert Klein, Dick Capri and Lainie Kazan. Sopranos star Dominic Chianese and singer Tony Orlando also attended.Kevin and Matt go deep into the process behind making a Vsauce2 video to show how the YouTube sausage gets made… and it’s a lot more complex than you may think. We want to open viewers’ eyes to the many steps of the creative process that results in the content they love, and help creators themselves navigate the daunting, sisyphean journey of making videos. We plunge into the creative process by discussing how to generate an idea and how to narrow down the right topic for a video. Then we get into the action steps, which include researching and writing a script that’s both tight, accurate and interesting. Along the way, we enter Kevin's headspace as he deals with the emotional side of creators putting themselves out there for the audience to love… or criticize. One person can rarely do it all on their own, so most ideas flourish with some additional input. Throw in the natural back and forth of working efficiently in a creative team and we start to see how complex the YouTube creative process really is -- and we’re just scratching the surface. Oh, and there’s editing, technology and gear, participating in the community, VFX, music, audience trends, upload consistency, keeping up with related content, and about a hundred other critical elements to developing that initial idea into a piece of content that your audience actually likes. So, there’s a lot to talk about. Announcement: Season 2 is coming soon with full-featured guest episodes that span a range of massively popular creators. Kevin gives one weirdly cryptic hint about what to expect and what to get excited for. It’s gonna be huge! THE CREATE UNKNOWN Hosted by Kevin Lieber and Matt Tabor Executive Producer – Dave Keine Edited by Adam Ganong. Theme by Mega Drive. Host portraits by Tim Webster. "The Create Unknown" is a Vsauce2 production in association with Triangle Content. Official Website Twitter @createunknown Facebook @thecreateunknown Instagram @thecreateunknownAccording to kde.org, "aims to give everybody a personal cloud, letting them store, share and interact with their data from everywhere. But unlike competing implementations, ownCloud allows the user to easily mash up and connect data from different providers, decide where his or her data is stored and even run their own cloud server." ownCloud gives you universal access to your files through a web interface or WebDAV.ADrive uses cloud storage to provide online backup, file sharing, and online data storage. ADrive's browser-based file manager is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac. And then there is the highlight, 50GB of free storage! But there is a catch, unlike Dropbox and the likes we have seen so far, the client for ADrive is not free.AeroFS is designed to let you go beyond simple file syncing and collaboration. AeroFS is completely decentralized. You can sync files between any two or more devices with or without Internet access, over a LAN, and behind a firewall. Your files do not need to be uploaded to the cloud, so you will retain full control of your data. AeroFS is invite only for now.is perhaps the most recommended Dropbox alternative among the lot and the strange fact is that, Syncany is still a work in progress and no release has happened yet. But the hype building around Syncany is quite understandable. Syncany is an open-source cloud storage and filesharing application that allows users to backup and share files using any kind of storage like FTP, Amazon S3 or Google Storage. Syncany provides data encryption and uses a plug-in based storage system which can be used with any type of remote storage.is an online backup tool that stores its data in Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files. It was highlighted by Amazon as one of the earliest S3 clients. The basic Jungle Disk software is sold as a monthly subscription model, and the customer is billed directly by Amazon for data storage and transfer. The first 5 GB of storage with Jungle Disk is free of any charges. Windows, Linux and Mac clients are available.What does going over the bitumen cliff look like? The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy (WVCBP) produced a report last year that documents the state's dire condition in excruciating detail, although the title is innocuous: "Creating an Economic Diversification Trust Fund." It opens with a quote from the late Sen. Robert Byrd from his autobiography about his beloved home state.
It is a state whose rich resources have been largely owned and exploited by outside interests. Absentee owners, while living outside the state, wrested from the
West Virginia earth the wealth that made them rich — rich from the toil and sweat and blood and tears of the people in the hill country who worked out their lives, all
too often, for a pittance.
Those absentee landlords are coal and railroad companies; coal is the rich resource in question. As Byrd eloquently notes, those riches have not trickled down to the hills and hollers. Moreover, nearly 80% of the state's mineral resources remain in the hands of out-of-state companies.Here are some noteworthy statistics compiled by the WVCBP about how West Virginia stacks up in the nation: economic diversity (46th), workforce participation (50th), post-secondary education (50th), and fiscal capacity (47th). Crumbling infrastructure ($8 billion in unmet needs) and high rates of poverty and disability compound the nightmare. Dependence on coal has left the state at the bottom of the economic barrel with few resources to transition to a broader based, technologically-sophisticated economy.
Since the election of Barack Obama, politicians in West Virginia have blamed the state's woes on the president and the federal government. These politicians, whether from the Democratic or Republican Party, are calculated liars. Here are some clever deceptions in the inaugural address of Earl Tomblin as governor of West Virginia in January.
Our state budget is not just balanced; we continue to have a budget surplus! Our credit rating is higher than it has been in decades and our Rainy Day Fund is the envy of the nation.
In November 2011, only 775,600 state residents were in the labor force, the lowest number in 18 years. For more than 30 years, West Virginia consistently has had the lowest labor force participation rate in the country, even among prime age workers. In 2010, only 54.5 percent of the state’s potential workforce was working or seeking employment, compared with the national average rate of 64.7 percent. West Virginia’s participation rate is four percentage points below the next lowest state, Mississippi.
The state has cut spending on education, particularly higher education, and infrastructure while relying on the federal government to support many of its citizens, particularly the large percentage of disabled, old, and poor in the population. West Virginia has by far the lowest percentage of workforce participation of any state in the nation. Some numbers from WVCBP report:Having an economy built around coal is a major factor. Mechanization and reliance on mountaintop removal mining help cut the mining workforce from 70,000 to 21,000 in the past three decades, while allowing coal production to remain steady and industry profits to remain high. There are few non-coal employment opportunities to pick up the slack as the coal industry downsizes its labor force.
Tomblin went on to pledge allegiance to King Coal and Prince Gas.
We must continue to promote our energy industries. Our nation, our state, and our great citizens depend on West Virginia to power their future. I will work tirelessly to defend these industries. I will fight for our state's coal industry, the backbone of our economy.
We will continue to take on the federal government and oppose efforts by the EPA and others to stop production of the most efficient fuel our country knows.
Acid Mine Drainage
He also spoke of the state's sworn enemies.Tomblin received the most applause when he complained about the time he spends "fighting the federal government to get off our backs and leave us alone." recent editorial in the Charleston Gazette pointed out the disingenuous nature of those claims. The federal government contributes $11.5 billion to the state economy, paying the living expenses of 700,000 residents while the state government collects only $4.7 billion in taxes. And the federal contribution does not count federal highway and transportation funds, military retirement, and disaster relief. It also means that federal austerity programs will send West Virginia into an economic tailspin. By the way, the Rainy Fund that supposedly is the envy of the nation contains less than $1 billion
So how does a state that has generated enormous wealth from coal sit mired in a failed economy while political leaders continue to pursue policies that will only benefit the coal industry? The Bitumen Cliff warns of the potential for the oil industry to take over government.
In general, the notion of a petro-state has to do with the extent to which the petroleum industry exercises a disproportionate amount of power and influence over public policy, in comparison to and to the detriment of, other sectors of the economy and society.
In West Virginia, takeover by the coal industry is complete. Here are few indicators.
An analysis of the state's budget in 2009 by Downstream Strategies found that coal-related revenues barely covered costs from infrastructure and oversight.
Among the report's findings were that the coal industry in 2009 paid $307.3 million in severance taxes, corporate net income tax, business franchise tax and other taxes. But the state spent $113.7 million to support units of government that regulate mining and for the repair of the state's coal-haul roads. So, the report concluded that the industry in this respect provided a net benefit to the state budget of nearly $194 million. But the state provides a variety of a tax credits and subsidies that amounted to nearly $174 million in 2009 -- all of which show up in the report as "expenditures," or costs to the state budget of the industry. Charleston Gazette, article by Ken Ward Jr.
Revenues generated by coal have remained stable, government costs associated with coal have increased, and state officials have created enormous tax breaks and subsidies for the coal industry. Without $174 million in corporate welfare payments, West Virginia would have close toto invest in education, job training, and creating a more diverse economy. There is enormous potential for clean energy development in the state, but loyalty to King Coal means opposing development of alternatives.
Any talk of increasing severance taxes or decreasing subsidies is quickly shot down. The WVCDP report called for a small increase in severance taxes to create modest permanent fund to help state residents prepare for a life beyond coal. It was ignored. The only viable political option is to cut the budget for agencies responsible for environmental regulation and worker safety.
Rather than talk honestly about the future prospects for coal-related employment, state officials have resorted to fudge and fabrication on coal job numbers.
Very little in West Virginia government passes the smell test. Here are bills now up for consideration in the state legislature. HB 2571 creates a special exemption to allow coal company representatives with active or pending permits to serve on the Environmental Control Board. What possible harm could come from letting foxes decide henhouse security? HB 2579 amends the state's water quality standards so coal companies can discharge more selenium into streams and rivers. Selenium beyond naturally occurring trace levels is toxic to aquatic life and poses significant human health risks, but costs coal companies a great deal to clean up. Bills like these are the rule, not the exception.
The final report by the panel commissioned by the governor to investigate the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster has a chapter on "How could this happen in West Virginia." That chapter describes influence peddling by Massey kingpin Don Blankenship in great detail.
"What is factual and well documented is that Massey Energy Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship had a long history of wielding or attempting to wield influence in the seats of government."
No one in their right mind thinks that West Virginia regulates the coal industry. The coal industry regulates the state and has left the state in shambles.
There is no way to justify the costs of coal for the residents of West Virginia, even when it was the state's primary source of employment. Life with coal was a disaster for all but the coal industry. Bloody labor fights. Black lung disease. Mining disasters. Tricks and theft to hand mineral rights to corporate interests. Corrupt, stupid, and cowardly politicians making sure nothing but filth trickled down to residents. Cancer and chronic diseases rampant in people living near mines. Yet, even when the jobs are becoming scarce and recoverable reserves uncertain, few in power and in the media dare talk about life after coal. State political leaders simply lack the integrity to confront the toxic legacy of coal from poisoned waters, deadly slurry impoundments, millions of acres destroyed by mountaintop removal mining, and tens of thousands of abandoned mining sites.
Gunnoe is one of the toughest people I’ve ever hung out with. The first time I met her, back in 2001, she gave me a tour of her home in Boone County, West Virginia, which had recently been devastated by floods caused by run-off from a mountaintop removal mine above her home. Then she tucked a silver.32 caliber pistol under her belt and took me on a hike up through blasted rubble into the mine. Protection from bears? "Or angry coal miners," she told me. Gunnoe knows how rough things can get in the coalfields. I’ve been with her when she stared down a six-foot-tall miner at a gas station who clearly wanted to hurt her. Coal trucks have tried to force her car off the road, her brake lines have been slashed, and her family dog, a Rottweiler named Chaos, wound up dead at her son’s bus stop, shot in the chest – a clear warning to back off. Rolling Stone, article by Jeff Goodell
"No leader or potential leader can talk honestly about both the damage coal does to workers, the environment and the climate, but also express concern about the lack of any plan for doing anything else in our coalfield communities." Charleston Gazette, article by Ken Ward Jr.
The failure of West Virginia's coal-based economy also creates social conflict. People that question industry practices and political policies are now subject to intimidation. Taking a stand means risking your life. Just ask Marie Gunnoe, a vocal opponent of mountaintop removal mining.The " war on coal " propaganda has further inflamed passions. Even the once proud United Mine Workers of America supports the coal industry on virtually every policy, even the job-destroying transition to mountaintop removal mining. Progressive political leadership is hard to find. Democrats have gone from reliable advocates for workers rights and progressive social policies to coal industry cheerleaders.Most of my relatives that remain in coal country admit there are no opportunities beyond a few coal industry jobs. When I press them on the solution, they offer bromides like "maybe coal will make a comeback" or "we always find a way to get by." They have gone from fighting for decent pay and benefits to hoping a crumb or two will fall their way. In their minds, forcing the coal industry to pay more in taxes and clean up their messes will only make a bad situation worse. It feels like I am listening to Stockholm Syndrome victims.
I see little reason for optimism. It will take a miracle for progressive leadership to emerge in West Virginia until the coal industry collapses and coal money dries up in the political system. At that point, the challenges will be daunting and people will be desperate.
Those of us demanding action on climate change and fossil fuels industries pay to remediate their environmental impacts are often derided as naive. We are simply supposed to take it on faith that the economic benefits of everything from tar sands pipelines to mountaintop removal mining to the rush to fracture shale formations across the nation outweigh long-term costs and consequences. West Virginia is the perfect example for why we need to challenge those claims. Building an economy around fossil fuels extraction is guaranteed to fail and leave toxic wastes for future generations to clean up.MADRID (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters against Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro massed outside a cultural center in Madrid on Thursday evening as the country’s ambassador to Spain, who was stuck inside, decried what he called a “kidnapping” by demonstrators.
Several hundred people gathered outside the extension of the Venezuelan embassy at around 1630 GMT.
By 2100 GMT, dozens of protesters were still chanting “Venezuela, freedom!” at the site in central Madrid. Some banged pots and pans, though Spanish riot police had pushed back much of the thinning crowd behind a line of police vans.
Mario Isea, the Venezuelan ambassador in Madrid, earlier told state TV channel VTV that he was holed up inside the center with embassy staff.
“We are besieged,” Isea told the channel by telephone, adding that Spanish authorities had not moved rapidly enough to defuse the situation sooner. “They refuse to move and they want to set conditions for us to be able to leave. This is a kidnap.”
It was not clear when he would leave. The Venezuelan embassy could not be reached for comment.
Demonstrations against Maduro’s government have flared up across Venezuela over the last month, as opposition supporters pour onto the streets demanding elections and in protest against the economic crisis.
“What we want are elections and for Maduro to step down,” said Salvador Rocafull, a Spanish-Venezuelan urological surgeon who had joined the crowd in Madrid.It has just been |
could also use this, if private citizens have a question about materials they purchased, and could then send it to a private lab for testing of contaminants. If, for example, it tasted funny, they didn't experience the effect anticipated, or even had an allergic reaction, they could do independent testing as well, which is pretty standard in forensic science -- to have state and government labs, and also private labs.
Is the work you and your students are doing pretty unique compared to other programs around the country?
It certainly is, because we are a forensic science program, so we are allowed by law to use drug samples in small quantities for training purposes and for research and development. In that sense we are unique. There are many universities across the US that do biological testing but they don't necessarily work with drug substances so we have special precautions in place that allow us to do that.HALIFAX—Despite making an award-winning docudrama on Canada’s only all-black military unit in 2001, director Anthony Sherwood says he’s still amazed how little is known nationally about the No. 2 Construction Battalion. Sherwood will present a special screening of his film Honour Before Glory, at the new Halifax Central Library on Tuesday as part of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the formation of the battalion in 1916.
The No. 2 Construction Battalion was the only predominantly African-Canadian battalion since Confederation. The segregated battalion allowed black men who had previously been turned away by recruiters to enlist in the military. ( Maritime Command Museum )
“Nova Scotia is one of the provinces where the story has flourished and has been told several times,” said Sherwood. “But I’m amazed that there is still a lot of people who don’t know this story.” The military unit formed during the First World War was the only predominantly African-Canadian battalion since Confederation. The segregated battalion allowed black men who had previously been turned away by recruiters to enlist in the military. Sherwood said the unique story of the battalion is an important piece of Canadian history because it shows that there were black Canadians who served their country during the first great global conflict.
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“I think that participation and that service should be recognized,” said Sherwood. Sherwood, a Halifax native, said he came to be interested in the battalion through the diary of his great uncle, Reverend William White, who served as the unit’s chaplain. That diary became the basis for the film, which won a Gemini Award in 2002. “I strongly believe he wanted somebody to read this (diary) and tell this story,” said Sherwood. Formed on July 5, 1916 in Pictou, N.S., the more than 600-strong unit was mostly comprised of men from Nova Scotia, although volunteers also came from other parts of Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. After sailing overseas in 1917, the battalion served in various support roles along the Western Front in Europe digging trenches, building railroads, repairing roads and laying barbed wire. All the while its soldiers remained segregated from their white counterparts, living and sleeping in separate quarters.
The unit’s perseverance and service was recently recognized with a commemorative stamp issued by Canada Post and it was also the focal point for February’s Black Heritage Month celebrations in Nova Scotia. That kind of recognition is welcomed by Sylvia Parris, whose father Joseph enlisted in the battalion when he was only 17 years old.
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Parris said her father, who died in 1972 at the age of 73, never spoke about his war experiences. She said it’s only been in recent years that she came to realize the significant role men like her father played in Canada’s history. “It wasn’t in the public school system,” said Parris. “It’s really now that we are looking back and reflecting and asking questions.” Russell Grosse, executive director of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, said the battalion which once was at risk of becoming a “footnote in history,” has become a source of pride to the African Nova Scotian community. Grosse said the black soldiers of 100 years ago made an important statement that Canada was their home too. “They wanted to serve their country and were told they couldn’t,” said Grosse. “It was remarkable that they had to go through that legacy of fighting to fight.”
Read more about:This game was a blast to play for me, as a fan of the Comedy Central series - South Park. Crude humor that is very topical but also smart and snarky. Definitely an "M" rated game through and through with bad language, cartoon nudity and disturbing visuals. If you know who Mr. Slave is and what he has done on the show, then you can imagine what I mean.
The game play is old school turn based combat where when you run into an enemy it will take you to a battle screen. There are 4 "Classes" in the game that really only affect your special moves as anyone can use any weapon. There are some "Active" battle systems in place where you need to react to cues on screen for attacks to go off or to block for reduced damage. It reminded me a lot of the game "Penny Arcade on the rain-slick precipice of darkness" which I played on the Xbox 360 as a downloadable title. There is a lot of loot and much of it is a callback to the show. Weapons, armor, upgrades, consumables... almost all of them have been mentioned in the show. I explored a lot and did not rush through the game and finished it in about 18 hours, but I was soaking it all in and have walked around after the endgame collecting items and finishing up side quests. I have 26 hours in the game with only 1 character class so far, but anyone could see most of the game and beat it in 12 - 15 hours or so.
The graphics are identical to the show, which is exactly what the creators were going for. I had a few minor graphical issues that worked themselves out without restarting the game, but I have heard that some people have bigger issues. Such is life in PC gaming. It doesn't seem to require a Beefy computer to run well but perhaps it does. I run a custom built PC with a 3rd gen i5 3570K, 16GB RAM and an MSI 7870 2GB Video Card and had no real issues. Not the latest hardware by any means, but no slouch either.
The story lines up with the end of a 3 part episode of the show that involves the console wars (Xbox One and PS4), Black Friday, Game of Thrones and LARPing. They are probably the best episodes of the latest season of South Park and will certainly be considered for a best of South Park compilation in the future.
TL:DR - Great for fans of South Park, Not too difficult, requires a stronger PC than expected. 12 - 15 hours longIf Christy Zink had carried her pregnancy to term and the baby lived through it, which wasn’t guaranteed, it would have suffered a short life of seizures and near-constant pain. If H.R. 3803 were in effect in 2009, she and the doctors who advised her on her options and performed the procedure would have been subject to criminal prosecution.
D.C. resident Christy Zink was excited to be pregnant in 2009. She and her husband were looking forward to having their second child, and Zink made sure she was receiving excellent prenatal care. At 21 weeks into her pregnancy Zink found out the developing fetus was missing a central part of its brain.
In her congressional testimony Thursday against the so-called “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” Zink said she made the difficult decision to have an abortion at nearly 22 weeks.
H.R. 3803, Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-National Right to Life Committee) latest attempt to curb reproductive rights, would make abortions illegal 20 weeks after fertilization, and would only apply to Washington, D.C.
If Christy Zink had carried her pregnancy to term and the baby lived through it, which wasn’t guaranteed, it would have suffered a short life of seizures and near-constant pain. If H.R. 3803 were in effect in 2009, she and the doctors who advised her on her options and performed the procedure would have been subject to criminal prosecution.
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Zink was the only D.C. resident allowed to testify at yesterday’s hearing, as Arizona’s Franks, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, defied congressional custom and blocked D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton from speaking on a bill that would affect only her constituents.
The Republican majority called on three witnesses (from New Mexico, Chicago and West Virginia a.k.a. not D.C.) to speak on “fetal pain,” a concept dismissed by the majority of the medical community. Yet Franks and company found three “experts” to give testimony on something completely unrelated to the fact that this bill would only change the law for the more than 600,000 taxpaying residents of the nation’s capital.
While sitting only a few feet away from Zink, Franks’ witness Dr. Anthony Levatino, who currently operates a gynecology practice in New Mexico, testified that an abortion, particularly an abortion after 20 weeks, is “easier” on the patient than the doctor. This is incredibly offensive to anyone who has ever had an abortion, especially later in her pregnancy. Zink elected to have the procedure because something terrible happened during a wanted pregnancy. This is hardly an uncommon scenario, yet H.R. 3803 makes no exceptions for fetal anomalies. Other times, due to the numerous restrictions on funding, a woman might have trouble coming up with the money for her procedure before the 20-week mark. (The DC Abortion Fund is a great resource for local women who cannot afford their reproductive care.) Whatever the reason a woman may choose to have an abortion before or after 20 weeks, to imply a procedure is “easier” for women is completely out of touch with women and the many wonderful and compassionate abortion providers across the country.
Levatino said he performed abortions earlier in his career, and he described the procedure and his eventual dislike of it in explicit detail. Any medical procedure or routine trip to the doctor can sound positively gruesome when described with the proper adjectives (try detailing your last dental cleaning with the help of thesaurus.com). Anti-choice activists like Levatino are most successful when they have us all cringing instead of thinking rationally.
But H.R. 3803 doesn’t allow for much science and reason. Reason would dictate that legislation that’s based on legitimate science, instead of the sentiments of a few anti-choice activists, would be good enough for the whole country instead of just Washington, D.C. But, you know, that would be unconstitutional.Image copyright John Hawks Image caption Homo naledi has much in common with early forms of the genus Homo
A primitive type of human, once thought to be up to three million years old, actually lived much more recently, a study suggests.
The remains of 15 partial skeletons belonging to the species Homo naledi were described in 2015.
They were found deep in a cave system in South Africa by a team led by Lee Berger from Wits University.
In an interview, he now says the remains are probably just 200,000 to 300,000 years old.
Although its anatomy shares some similarities with modern people, other anatomical features of Homo naledi hark back to humans that lived in much earlier times - some two million years ago or more.
"These look like a primitive form of our own genus - Homo. It looks like it might be connected to early Homo erectus, or Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis," said Prof Berger's colleague, John Hawks, from the University of Wisconsin.
Although some experts guessed that naledi could had lived relatively recently, in 2015, Prof Berger told BBC News that the remains could be up to three million years old.
New dating evidence places the species in a time period where Homo naledi could have overlapped with early examples of our own kind, Homo sapiens.
Prof Hawks told the BBC's Inside Science radio programme: "They're the age of Neanderthals in Europe, they're the age of Denisovans in Asia, they're the age of early modern humans in Africa. They're part of this diversity in the world that's there as our species was originating."
"We have no idea what else is out there in Africa for us to find - for me that's the big message. If this lineage, which looks like it originated two million years ago was still hanging around 200,000 years ago, then maybe that's not the end of it. We haven't found the last [Homo naledi], we've found one."
The naledi remains were uncovered in 2013 inside a difficult-to-access chamber within the Rising Star cave system. At the time, Prof Berger said he believed the remains had been deposited in the chamber deliberately, perhaps over generations.
This idea, which would suggest that Homo naledi was capable of ritual behaviour, met with controversy because such practices are thought by some to be characteristic of human modernity.
Prof Hawks says that the team has since started exploring a second chamber.
"[The second] chamber has the remains of an additional three individuals, at least, including a really, really cool partial skeleton with a skull," said Prof Hawks.
Researchers have already attempted to extract DNA from the remains to gain more information about naledi's place in the human evolutionary tree. However, they have not yet been successful.
"[The remains] are obviously at an age where we have every reason to think there might be some chance. The cave is relatively warm compared to the cold caves in northern Europe and Asia where we have really good DNA preservation," said Prof Hawks.
A study outlining the dating evidence is due for publication in coming months.
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For more on the Homo naledi remains, Inside Science is broadcast on Thursday 27 April at 16:30 BST on BBC Radio 4.These came to me by way of a 10 count box I purchased. For those that track box codes, the box code on this was AUB JUL 12. I had the fortune of trying these for the first time when I was in Cuba, in November of 2013. A generous BoTL gave me one and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasted no time in grabbing a box not soon after I flew home.
Granted this is all a fairly big spoiler leading in, I hope you still enjoy the review.
Nose:
A really great nose to start out here. A mixture of nuts and light cedar.
Construction:
The Partagas Lusitanias measures 7.64” (194mm) by 49 ring gauge and is officially marked as a double corona vitola.
The Lusitanias has a long production history dating back pre-1960. Until 1976 the vitola was 7.24” (184mm) x 50 ring gauge. They are available in a 25 count dress box and a 50 count cab. In 2006 the 10 count dress box was added to the available line up.
Flavor:
First Third
Right up front the Partagas Lusitanias starts out with that definitive sweet Cuban tobacco taste. There’s also notes of hay, and hints of grass. The sweet tobacco develops into some complex creaminess, and the hay becomes more pronounced as the first third progresses.
It’s a very subtle first third but extremely savory.
Middle Third
The nuts that I picked up in the nose show up in the second third. Still quite savory and although the flavors strength is quite light, the flavors blend together to be extremely complex.
Last Third
Still extremely complex going into the final third. The hay that was quite pronounced in the first third is almost undetectable by the final third.
Burn/Draw:
Excellent burn which surprised me given the significant length. The cigar held the ash well. I did have to purge just before the final third and relight. I attribute that to the cool weather I was smoking in. Total smoking time was 2 hours and 40 minutes. I feel like I could have slowed it down to almost 3 hours because I was enjoying the flavors so much.
Value:
A single Partagas Lusitanias, if you can find them, will range from $17 – $22. The 10 count dress box comes in at approximately $155. If you’re really wanting to stock up, the 25 count dress box is roughly $342. For the collectors that can’t get enough, you can step up the 50 count box setting you back around $655.
Once I smoke through my 10 count box I will almost certainly be picking up a 25 count box. Given how much flavor the Partagas Lusitanias delivers, I think the value is excellent. Although the price point is well into the premium end, I think it’s worth it.
Final Word:
If you’ve been paying attention in the review up until now, it’s pretty obvious that I fell in love with this cigar from the first time I smoked it. Partagas is one of those brands for me that always delivers. The Lusitanias really seems to be the flagship cigar for Partagas, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Although priced well into premium territory, I think this is an amazing cigar that you deserve to treat yourself with.Hot on the success of the return of Will & Grace, NBC is looking to revive another of its beloved comedies: The Office.
Sources confirm to The Hollywood Reporter that the network is looking to bring back the former Steve Carell starrer for another season. Carell, however, will not return. A search is underway to find a new star to take over as the show's Michael Scott-like regional manager of paper supply company Dunder Mifflin. NBC and producers Universal Television declined comment. TV Line was first to report the news.
Sources told THR in August that The Office may be revived with a new cast and creator Greg Daniels attached. At the time, NBC and producers Universal Television said those rumors were not true. That speculation has now grown more real as the network is said to be in talks for a revival.
The Office ran for nine seasons on NBC as part of the network's Thursday comedy brand. The show — which made stars out of Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Craig Robinson, Ellie Kemper and Mindy Kaling, among others — was an awards-season staple, taking home multiple Emmys, Golden Globes and other top prizes. Carell exited after season seven, with The Office continuing on for two additional cycles before the star returned for the series finale in 2013.
Creator Greg Daniels, who adapted the show from the British comedy starring Ricky Gervais, told THR in November 2016 that he was happy with how the NBC series ultimately ended. "I feel like I did in the finale what that would have been because I jumped forward in time as, like a reunion of the characters, and so, to me, I think that was it. It said everything that the show had to say," he told THR when asked if he'd be open to a U.S. follow-up as Gervais was plotting a movie revival of his own. "Personally, I feel like we left on a good note. I’m not that anxious to open it up again myself, but I would be interested to see what David Brent’s up to. But also I think the American show became so much of an ensemble and to not have the whole ensemble there would just feel kind of, I don’t know, less than. So I don’t want to criticize what he’s doing, I think that’s great, but I’m okay with us having had our finale."
News of a potential continuation of The Office comes as NBC has found ratings and awards-season fortune with its Will & Grace revival. (The reboot scored an early renewal ahead of its return in September.)The Revenge Tour rolls on for Kevin Durant, whose new Nike signature shoes showcase all the negative terms he’s been called as well as all of his accomplishments last season.
The Warriors star’s latest kicks, the KD 10 Finals, apparently have terms like “snake” and “cupcake” and “traitor” inscribed on the insoles — along with the reminder that Golden State went 16-1 in the playoffs en route to the 2017 NBA championship behind Durant’s Finals MVP performance.
This is how you perpetually trod on the trolls and haters…
The insoles from the Nike KD 10 “Finals” 👀@KDTrey5 literally stepping on his haters pic.twitter.com/o6Ppqr50gs — B/R Kicks (@brkicks) September 12, 2017
You’ll notice nods to the “superteam” gripe some fans have, like with the phrases “can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and “they didn’t need him to win.” Similarly included are “weakest move ever” and “easy road” and “sellout.”
Warriors fans will now take issue with such derisions as “doesn’t care about fans” and “arrogant” and “cursed” and “loser” — likely because they’ve seen otherwise since Durant joined Golden State last summer. For complete Warriors coverage,
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Of course, the shoes are clearly more for those who called him a quitter, weak, pathetic and a coward for leaving the Thunder to come to Bay Area.
That’s seemingly why Durant also featured the phrases “16-1” and “2017 champs” and “Finals MVP” in yellow — honoring one of the Warriors colors — along with his statistics in each game of the 2017 NBA Finals.BitPay is “on pace” to process $1 bln per year in Bitcoin payments as its merchants see a combined 328 percent annual volume growth.
In a blog post released Monday, the flagship Bitcoin payments gateway said it had seen “major growth” in the last year particularly, with the majority of activity stemming from its US market.
“We're now on pace to process over $1 bln annually in Bitcoin payment acceptance and payouts, and we've already grown our payments dollar volume 328 percent year-over-year from 2016,” the company confirmed.
This year has seen BitPay grace the headlines, announcing exclusive partnerships such as the multimillion-dollar Dubai Aston Plaza real estate project with the UK’s Baroness Mone.
At the same time, its support of the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork has received mixed reactions, with cryptocurrency scam listings service Badbitcoin.org even explicitly threatening to remove BitPay from its safelist over the decision.
With Bitcoin remaining over $4,000, however, business is booming for merchants worldwide thanks to increased regulatory clarity. Japanese efforts to drastically increase its merchant acceptance of Bitcoin also continues.
“Merchants in the Asia-Pacific region now receive a significant portion of our monthly transactions,” BitPay commented on the growth in the sector.
Through its links with local payment outfit AsiaPay, major clients such as Tesla and Cathay Pacific “can choose to easily accept Bitcoin payments from their Asian customers by activating AsiaPay's BitPay integration.”
Announcements of Bitcoin acceptance by major corporations remain few and far between, however. This week, a rumor Amazon would finally begin accepting the virtual currency was debunked as likely fake news.Ben Griffiths lies on the MCG turf after he was concussed against Collingwood in round two
INJURY-PRONE Richmond forward Ben Griffiths suffered his second concussion of the season in the VFL on Saturday.
His teammate Jack Riewoldt said earlier this month Griffiths' history with head knocks was "extremely scary", with the big man having suffered more than five throughout his career.
Griffiths, 25, was concussed in round two of this AFL season against Collingwood after landing heavily in a marking contest.
He began wearing a helmet early last season after suffering repeated problems.
"Griffo played in the VFL on the weekend, and he copped another one (concussion) as well," Richmond football manager Neil Balme told 3AW on Monday.
"It's hard work and it's not looking good for him, and we're not quite sure where that will go either.
"We're probably over-conservative but I think that's the way we need to be."
Griffiths has never played more than 16 games in a season since being drafted at No.19 in the NAB AFL Draft in 2009.
Tough Tiger Nick Vlastuin sat out the 13-point win against Melbourne on Anzac Day eve after also having concussion problems.
"He's had two now," Balme said.
"They're almost subjective things, concussions, and that's the hard thing with it. We encourage our doctor to be really conservative with it.
"Five years ago he probably would've played, but he was a little bit tender or ginger after it and he's not quite right, so we didn't even put any sort of pressure on him for him to play.
"Hopefully he'll get up for next week."
Richmond is 5-0 and will fly to Adelaide to face the undefeated Crows on Sunday.Call me crazy, but one of the most underrated F1 drivers among fans nowadays is Alain Prost. Yes, he is a four-time champion and a 51-time winner, but very few people rate him as much as they should. In Prost’s 13-season career, he only failed to outscore his team-mate in two of the those years, one being his first season and the other when he was just half a point from Niki Lauda. With just 10 more points Prost could have won seven championships – and without the confusing ‘dropped points’ rule (which saw Prost score more points than Ayrton Senna in 1988 but still lose the championship), it could have been eight. In only two seasons of his career Prost failed to win a race. Statistically, he’s second best of all time, but he’s usually placed fourth in polls.It's a prank as old as time (or at least as old as 2012): Some chucklehead calls up a pizza chain, places an order, and then conferences in another location of the same chain. When the first one repeats the order back to the second, confusion ensues. Who ordered what? When does this shift end? How much weed can I buy with whatever's in the tip jar? Wait, am I stoned right now? It's all a mystery.
This stunt has been pulled by Howard Stern (that's how you know it's a cool and mature thing to do) and by a Deadspin reader named John (ditto), but Australian YouTuber Tyson Williams brought it back to the public consciousness this week.
Soon, every Domino's Pizza employee will either have some levity added to the workday by teenage prank imitators or wish that Australian YouTuber Tyson Williams had never been born, carefully molding an effigy of his face in pepperoni and then setting fire to it and watching it burn until only a pile of carbon soot remains.
[H/T Daily Dot]Further, the deal is not necessarily exclusive to Aphria as the drugstore may pursue similar deals with other licensed producers.
If approved, the Shoppers Drug Mart deal with Aphria would last for five years and require the drugstore to purchase a minimum amount of cannabis every year, Neufeld said during a teleconference on Monday. Neufeld added that Shoppers Drug Mart is interested in medical cannabis and not recreational cannabis, at least for the time being.
“We have an impeccable record cultivating and producing high-quality, medical-grade cannabis,” Aphria’s CEO Vic Neufeld wrote in a statement Monday evening. His Leamington, Ontario-based company was one of the first firms granted a Health Canada license to cultivate and sell medical cannabis when the department first launched its cannabis regime in 2013. Since then, the number of licensed producers has ballooned to 79, although experts have said there will need to be hundreds more in order to meet the demand of the future recreational market.
The Loblaw-owned drugstore chain is the largest in Canada with more than 1,200 stores and had applied through Health Canada for a license to sell medical cannabis last year. The company had been on the hunt for a medical marijuana brand manager. The drugstore chain had said at the outset it wanted to sell, not produce, medical cannabis.
Canadian medical marijuana company Aphria announced on Monday it will supply Shoppers Drug Mart with medical cannabis to be sold online. If Health Canada approves the pharmacy’s application to become a licensed producer, the deal will be one of the first of its kind ahead of the legalization of recreational cannabis by next summer.
Read more
Canadian medical marijuana company Aphria announced on Monday it will supply Shoppers Drug Mart with medical cannabis to be sold online. If Health Canada approves the pharmacy’s application to become a licensed producer, the deal will be one of the first of its kind ahead of the legalization of recreational cannabis by next summer.
The Loblaw-owned drugstore chain is the largest in Canada with more than 1,200 stores and had applied through Health Canada for a license to sell medical cannabis last year. The company had been on the hunt for a medical marijuana brand manager. The drugstore chain had said at the outset it wanted to sell, not produce, medical cannabis.
“We have an impeccable record cultivating and producing high-quality, medical-grade cannabis,” Aphria’s CEO Vic Neufeld wrote in a statement Monday evening. His Leamington, Ontario-based company was one of the first firms granted a Health Canada license to cultivate and sell medical cannabis when the department first launched its cannabis regime in 2013. Since then, the number of licensed producers has ballooned to 79, although experts have said there will need to be hundreds more in order to meet the demand of the future recreational market.
If approved, the Shoppers Drug Mart deal with Aphria would last for five years and require the drugstore to purchase a minimum amount of cannabis every year, Neufeld said during a teleconference on Monday. Neufeld added that Shoppers Drug Mart is interested in medical cannabis and not recreational cannabis, at least for the time being.
Further, the deal is not necessarily exclusive to Aphria as the drugstore may pursue similar deals with other licensed producers.
Aphria is slated to supply the company with dried bud and a selection of oils.
“Pharmacists should play an important role in the safe and informed use of medical cannabis,” a Shoppers Drug Mart spokesperson told VICE News in an email on Tuesday. “As the federal and provincial governments finalize their respective cannabis frameworks, we remain optimistic that they will allow pharmacists in stores, in communities to apply their professional care to medical cannabis patients. ”
Until the legal recreational market opens, only people with valid medical prescriptions for cannabis can purchase the product in Canada through a licensed producer, which must distribute it through the mail. There are more than 130,000 registered medical cannabis patients in Canada.
Earlier this year, another licensed cannabis producer, CanniMed, announced it had entered into a distribution agreement with PharmaChoice, a cooperative of pharmacies.SPOKANE, Wash. - The Ridpath Hotel has stood tall in downtown Spokane since 1904. Its last guest checked out 10 years ago.
But in just a few weeks, the hotel will open its doors to offer affordable housing.
"It just needed to be saved, it needed to be restored, renovated, brought up to life," said Ron Wells, who bought the hotel with several other investors.
"There are more people who want to live here than we ever imagined, and we're pretty optimistic," said Wells.
Nearly $22 million has been spent on renovating the hotel and turning guest rooms into apartments. Construction might not have happened without the historic tax credit - which has been around for decades - giving developers financial incentive to restore buildings like the Ridpath, and the historic steam plant downtown.
But that tax credit would go away if Congress passes the House GOP tax plan. Fortunately for Spokane developers, it won't affect Ridpath, but it could dramatically impact similar projects going forward.
Since June, contractors have worked around the clock to give the worn out hotel a new purpose. Of the 206 units, 30 will be available for tenants by mid December. Architect Ron Wendle's design offers apartments ranging from small, to spacious. More than 80 percent will be rented out to people earning between $20,000-$29,000 per year. Apartments range from $495 to $1575 per month. Rent includes utilities, wifi, and air conditioning.
"We are mixing all lifestyles and people. It will be workforce housing," said architect Ron Wendle.
26 of the units have no income limit. They are more spacious with better views, and some have a history of their own. Legend has it that Elvis Presley stayed in the hotel's presidential suite two times.
"This project just had tremendous support from the mayor, the City Council, business leaders - it was very humbling to have so many people help get us to the finish line," said Wells.
A sprint to the finish after a marathon of renovation - and a welcome sight for those longing to bring the historic section of downtown back to life.
The Ridpath is still accepting housing applications. For more information, click here.SPRINGFIELD -- U.S. Rep. Richard Neal said Wednesday that he was asked, but chose not to join dozens of members of Congress that are calling for a federal investigation of a Chinese rail car company whose manufacturing plans in Massachusetts include a $95 million factory in East Springfield.
Neal's comments followed news that 55 members of Congress have asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew for an investigation into China Railroad Rolling Stock Corp., or CRRC, which is building Red and Orange line subway cars for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston.
CRRC was selected for a rail car manufacturing contract in Massachusetts following the "due diligence" of the administrations of former Gov. Deval Patrick and current Gov. Charlie Baker, Neal said. It appears it was duly vetted and carefully examined by both administrations, he said.
Neal, D-Springfield, said he is confident that if Treasury does proceed with an examination of CRRC, "it will come to a conclusion all the T's have been crossed and the I's have been dotted."
The project is a "good news story for Western Massachusetts," and construction in Springfield is underway, Neal said.
According to news reports, the legislators calling for the probe questioned if subsidized financing from the Chinese government helped CRRC underbid private competitors in Boston and Chicago. Some members of Congress are also raising security concerns, with the letter to the Treasury saying that "critical rail infrastructure and the sensitive cargo that it carries will become increasingly vulnerable to hackers as the proliferation of Chinese state investment continues without adequate scrutiny."
Regarding the potential investigation, Neal said: "At the moment, I think I am not concerned about the consequences."
Citing the significant investment by CRRC in Massachusetts, Neal said there have not been manufacturing investments of this magnitude in this state in some time.
A CRRC spokeswoman was quoted by the State House News Service as saying that the company "completely complies with the specifications and provides vehicles of high quality and competitive pricing."The Gassy Gnoll: Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men with Nine Kids (New Year, New Game)
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The “New Year, New Game” efforts from the great folks at Gnome Stew and DriveThruRPG suggests something we should do as gamers anyway – try new games. Though not every game is for everybody, by trying new games, settings, tools, and techniques we can keep ourselves from falling in the ruts we sometimes fall into. And it also gives us the opportunity to glean new ideas we can integrate into our old favorite games or even introduce us to new favorites. (This post was written for the first annual New Year, New Game blog carnival hosted by Gnome Stew as part of the 2012 New Year, New Game challenge.)
A few weeks ago during Family RPG Day at Petries’ Family Games, my local game store, my daughters had a chance to play The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men by Annie Rush. It’s one of the most inspired RPGs I’ve seen in a long time, combining actual gingerbread cookies, candy pieces, and a childhood imagination to explore a magical world where cookies come to life for a short time on Christmas Eve and have grand adventures. They played with a couple of adults and a few kids for a total of 5 or 6 players, and the gentleman running the game was a teacher (with plenty of patience for the little ones). Though there was some teamwork and cooperative play, there was also some inter-party aggression, a few challenges here and there, and despite that all the cookies eventually made it to their destinations.
Immediately after that day at Petries’, my eldest daughter asked if I would run a game of Gingerbread for her and her friends at her 11th birthday party. Now fast forward to this past weekend when we actually had the party… We had nine kids, ages 6 to 11, with one boy and eight girls attend. And it was crazy.
Though Gingerbread was designed as more of a Christmas-themed game, I managed to come up with a New Years’ Eve scenario where the goals were to make it into the box going to the troops overseas, a plate bound for a local teen homeless charity, and the last possible opportunity to make it into the decorations box to go back on the tree next year. For two hours on New Years’ Eve (somehow the family was away at someone else’s house for a party), this group of nine cookies dealt with obstacles like the Frankencookie in a drawer below the counter where the cookies “wake up,” plus the two dogs and a cat scattered around the house. Like our initial exposure to the game, there was an interesting amount of cookie-on-cookie violence between friends. Not sure if the game evokes that or it was just the group of folks we’ve had play the game!
At any rate, one of my favorite parts of the session was when one cookie fell while climbing the Christmas tree and landed flat on his back on the cat sleeping in the warmth of the lights at the base of the tree. The cat freaked out of course, which was part of the fun. But there was another cookie in the tree, and she asked the Blue Fairy at the top to drop a rope down to save her friend. Instead, since the fairy didn’t have a 6 foot rope handy, she worked some magic and convinced the cat to climb back to the top with the cookie clinging for dear life to its back…
You’d think the insanity would stop there, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, as the cat was climbing up, the cookie on top decided to drop a little hot piece of candy onto the head of the cat, which flipped it out again. As the cat entered free fall, the cookie on its back somehow managed to do some ninja moves and survive the fall unscathed. Then with no time to spare, the cookie on top convinced the Blue Fairy to help again – she pulled |
blond hair, but also his play and size. Both are 6’5 and weigh around 260, and Williams is sneaky in the seam, just like Olsen.
Drills I’m watching: 40-yard dash, the gauntlet, over shoulder catch
Tyler Higbee, Western Kentucky
Higbee is a little bit smaller than Williams (6’4, 243), but is a more polished receiver. He only had one drop last season, has strong acceleration and can work all three levels of the field. Higbee also does not go down easy and fights for extra yards. Probably has the best catching skills out of any tight end in the draft. Did have a knee injury, need to see how it looks Saturday.
Drills I’m watching: verticle jump, block explosion, the gauntlet
Brandon’s List:
Ben Braunecker, Harvard
Listed at 6’4 Braunecker was the leading receiver for the Harvard Crimson in 2015. He finished off the season with eight touchdowns and 850 receiving yards on 48 receptions. I think he is quicker than some people may realize, but his 40 time will show us how quick he is. Braunecker is a solid blocker as well, still could use some improvement, but I have not seen too many players shed his blocks.
Drills I’m watching: 40-yard dash, vertical jump, the gauntlet
Austin Hooper, Stanford
Also standing 6’4, Hooper is entering the draft after his redshirt sophomore season. He is quite the athlete and has good hands to compliment his athletic skill set. I’m not sure if Hooper has fully grown into his body yet, meaning he can still put on some muscle and not lose a step down the field. He will be a big target to his future quarterback because of his tall frame and long arms.
Drills I’m watching: bench press, the gauntlet, over shoulder catch
Tomorrow we will break down the receivers that we find intriguing.
We don’t put it past Ryan Pace to draft another receiver this year, as he drafts “best available,” so certainly a wide out could be taken. Plus, it’s a position that could become a stronger need, dependent on how the Alshon scenario pans out.
And here is a special invitation for you …
After our day at the Combine, we will have a Special Combine Edition of Da Bears Brothers, where we will share our first-hand takeaways from throughout our day in Indy.
Join our email newsletter today to make sure you don’t miss the details about our live report, or to watch the replay if you can’t attend live.
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We’ll talk to you soon! #BearDownThere would be avenues for disputing charges, including with national regulators, if you think your carrier makes bad judgment calls. However, companies could regularly (if temporarily) apply those surcharges in "exceptional circumstances" where customers in their home markets face price hikes or other "negative effects." Telecoms would have to show that free roaming was threatening their domestic pricing model.
If the European Parliament likes the approach and puts into effect ahead of a June 15th, 2017 target date, it could be helpful for EU residents who spend large stretches of time away from their homeland. However, the fuzziness of this roaming plan has its problems. Where do carriers draw the line for abuse? There's a risk that carriers will keep the threshold artificially low, guaranteeing that you'd face surcharges if you use your phone even slightly more than usual (say, to share vacation photos). The EU may need to carefully define its definition of misuse if it wants to avoid a public outcry.The SEC is taking a very close look at all exchange-traded funds, and they might impose “enhanced attention” rules. Tightened regulation of funds could be on the horizon, which, if this proposal is approved, could end up affecting all Bitcoin ETFs on the market today.
SEC Chairwoman Focuses on ETFs
According to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White, “recent events” are forcing the hand of the institution to potentially impose stricter regulation on the popular funds. In most cases, this will affect stock and bonds trading, but it may very well extend well beyond the scope of traditional finance, and include cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
This decision was announced during Friday’s meeting, as the number of exchange-traded funds has quadrupled over the past ten years. With over US$2 trillion in net assets tied up in these funds, stricter regulation of these platforms seems justified, according to the SEC. However, no details were revealed as to how these changes would look, or when they will be implemented.
It is not the first time the SEC is taking a closer look at exchange-traded funds, as they announced a more thorough investigation of these investment vehicles in January of 2016. Although all of these funds have been quite lucrative and popular in their own right, they are “not without some turbulence”, according to White.
A study has been conducted regarding the role of market makers in operating and trading ETFs over the past few years, as well as investors’ understanding of these vehicles. While this study was not invasive by any means, the ETF market has felt the pressure since December of last year. At that time, the SEC had announced their decision to clamp down on how investment funds use derivatives. If this were to take place, some ETFs might have to be removed from the exchanges.
The most worrying part about these pending restrictions is how every ETF would have to comply with a portfolio limitation. This would not be beneficial to some of the most popular funds traded on an exchange, and Bitcoin ETFs may find themselves among the victims of this proposal in the long run. However, for now, this only remains a proposal, rather than a foregone conclusion.
Source: Reuters
Header image courtesy of NewsBTCHeavy Duty Touring Racks " If You Want Something Done Right, You Have To Do It Yourself " When I first began bicycle touring, I was pretty-well sold on the idea of an extremely light, minimalist approach. I even shunned a sleeping bag, instead donning all my cold-weather cycling clothes at night and rolling up in a sheet of 4-mil plastic vapour-barrier. Many times I was up at 4 A.M., shivering and soaked in condensation, forced to get on the bike and hammer down the road, in an effort to get warm. Obviously this wasn¹t a plan I could¹ve continued long-term (a 'Spartan' existence is best appreciated in small doses), so gradually I added bits and pieces for trips farther-afield, when I was on the road for longer periods. Presently I prefer long trips that are free from a 'city-to-city' mode of touring. I enjoy the independence (not to mention the economy) of being able to pull off anywhere for the night, and still be well-fed, warm, and comfortable. I¹m no longer a minimalist; I take what I need to be "at home" anywhere. This new approach has not been free of problems, though. On several of my tours in Asia and Australia I've been forced to carry up to 17 liters of water, not to mention 3-4 day's food, fuel for my stove, camping gear, tools, spares and all the rest, and I've yet to come across an aluminum rack that didn't break under the strain. I've spoken to a lot of other cyclists who do similar tours, and they all have disaster stories to relate: of time wasted looking for a welder, or of being marooned on the side of a road or trail mending broken racks with splints and wire cut out of fences, even wrapping spare spokes and twisting them,'rebar' fashion, to keep the whole together - honestly, what good is a manufacturer's guarantee, when you're stuck way-the-hell out in the middle of nowhere? I've seen expensive panniers patched with duct tape or secured on with shoelaces or inner-tubes, and once even a bound-and-knotted arrangement that utilized a pair of XC-ski long underwear! Those very up-market Gordon and Sakkit racks are out of my reach, price-wise; no point in even thinking about them. The money I'd have to spend, including exchange, duty, and shipping would keep me literally for months in India. I think it makes much more sense to save the money, to invest in Goan beer. So, to put an end to failures at the most inopportune time (as if there could ever be an opportune one), and considering the implausibility of my owning those beautifully-crafted tubular 'Cro-Moly' racks you Yanks make, I decided to cobble together my own racks and panniers. I no longer put any faith in aluminum as a material for racks, so I chose 1" x 1/8" '316' stainless-steel bar stock. I chose "316" Stainless Steel because of its high Nickel and Chromium content, which makes it highly resistant to corrosion. If I had to do it all over again, a choice of 3/4" rather than 1" x 1/8" flat bar stock would reduce the weight by 25%. However, I've no inclination to abandon what I've already made, since it has proven itself to be up to the task. I realize this translates as heavy, and it is, relative to the Blackburn's and Nagaoka's that I used-and-abused previously. But the finished articles are fairly close to the published weights of the aluminum Jandd racks, found in the Rivendell catalogue.
As to exact measurement of the parts, I'm a little hesitant to put forward a 'blueprint', since there are so many different bikes out there. I'm hoping the value of my ideas will be in demonstrating that individuals can be far more successful at coming up with their own solutions to a problem, and don't have to have their needs defined and dictated to them by the bike industry Grant Petersen of Rivendell Bicycles has seen them, and commented that they resemble racks he's seen in Japan on courier bikes, which were designed for up to 50 kilogram payloads - in fact I've pinched an idea from an Indian bicycle manufacturer's racks, by putting a twist in my front's single stays and in two of the rear's four stays, to stiffen them up They're not completely rigid, however; I've found that a little 'give' is a good thing, to absorb shocks - when expedition loads are mounted on a rock-solid rack, there's a risk that shock energy will be expressed not only in rack failures, but also in bent or broken bike frame eyelets and drop-outs; potentially a much more serious problem, if it were to occur in an isolated area far from water. Aussie readers will recognize this concern.... The choice of common, easily-obtained material with which to build my racks was part of my overall strategy to come up with equipment that was not only strong and dependable, but simple in design and execution; the rationale being that by keeping it simple, repairs or modifications in the future would also be simple, and which would reflect the reality of the non-technical (or often non- existent) support that's available on tours in my favorite places. This principle of simplicity is something I find conspicuously absent in a lot of modern equipment, with it becoming more and more esoteric in design and manufacture (possibly a market-driven development, rather than answering the needs of the consumer), and therefore much more difficult to fix, when it does pack-it-in; not a characteristic that makes one want to take kit like this too far from home...for my purposes, 'low-tech' actually becomes 'high-tech'. Does one really need welded racks? Well, I would've, had I used tubing rather than bar stock. Tubing would've necessitated a greater amount of time, money, and labor, and I would've been drifting farther away from my ideal of simplicity. And what if I welded something up, and I found I'd made a mistake in the dimensions, or something? I'd be stuck with scrap. Bar stock was the obvious choice: what could be simpler than bending and drilling holes, and then bolting a rack together? If there were ever a problem with dimensions, I could always drill another hole. I used the following tools, which are found universally in any metalworking shop: a bench-mounted vise; hacksaw; mill file; ball-pein hammer; center-punch; large Crescent wrench or 'adjustable spanner' (for bending); scriber (a nail works); electric drill, and drill bits (cobalt bits work best on stainless steel, but if you have a lot of time and patience and go slow, and use cutting oil (and know how to sharpen drill bits), High Speed Steel bits will be OK; and finally I used a chunk of 1 1/4" O.D. plumbing pipe to radius the bends. A by-product of my front racks' bolted-together construction is the simplicity of 'leveling' it on different bikes using spacers and pre-drilled holes, and also in its ability to fold flat in the bottom of a bike box, when the bike is packaged up to travel. Both racks feature a lot of clearance to allow me to mount them on bikes with wheel diameters larger than 26", and also to eliminate the interference problems encountered when cycling in 'gumbo', when bicycle tires start to look like their automotive counterparts. Australian 'bull-dust' is absolutely the WORST when it turns to mud; it sticks like glue, and sets like concrete. Due to this problem I've also ceased using ordinary fenders, which would quickly clog my wheels into immobility. Instead, I've adapted found license-plates for the purpose which, being flat, are MUCH easier to clear: "Tasmania/Holiday Isle" on the rear, and "Northern Territory/Outback Australia" on the front. Hint: my pump is normally situated behind my seat-tube, but when I¹m cycling in the muck I store it in my tent-pole bag to prevent it from getting similarly clogged. My fenders are also guaranteed ice-breakers and conversation-starters: when people are prompted to criticize them for the amount of air-resistance they must create, I get to reply (tongue-in-cheek) that, "they're my built-in headwind, to help keep my speed down". I don't find low-rider-type racks suitable for my kind of touring, due partly to the absence of a top platform - my front rack's platform provides a space on which to lay a tent and allows extra water, carried in 2-liter pop bottles slung together, to be draped over the top. And in Nepal, India, and Thailand I've cycled in water up to my hubs and b/b, and through foot-deep or more ruts - either the resistance of flowing water against low-rider-mounted panniers, or their contacting the ground would've made my bike unrideable. I've come to the conclusion that low-rider-type racks are far-better suited to the lesser rigors of road touring: the heavily-laden panniers expedition cyclists favor on the front can damage even the beefy steel low-riders that Japanese cyclists use - not solely from being overburdened, but because of the leverage panniers are able to exert on a rack when they contact anything, to bend and eventually break it. Another thing: the platforms on most'store-bought' racks are tiny, and it's difficult sometimes to set them up so that shoe heels don't rub rear panniers, and with all that must be piled on the bike there's soon a growing resemblance to a 'rubbish-heap'. My my rear rack has a platform of 7" x 17," which yields almost twice the area of the Blackburn's 5"x 12," allowing ample space for everything and still leaving room for heel clearance, working on brakes, and wheel truing. Regarding panniers: UV's really deteriorate nylon (noticeably so in Oz), and a lot of the expensive stuff seems to rely on chintzy, light metal hook attachments or complicated strapping, which only lasts while Velcro is new and dry. I decided to go with canvas after seeing a bike with a pre-war Carradice saddlebag still in good shape. My panniers are adapted from WW II Canadian army surplus, $10 each, and I re-inforced the seams with linen thread (dental floss) at points of strain. The stiffeners are fashioned out of scrap aluminum sheet with edges duct-taped, Kirtland-style, to prevent chaffing and then bolted inside. These stiffeners eliminate any sagging of the panniers into the wheel, even with the front rack's single stays. The hooks are 2" deep to lessen the chances of panniers being 'bucked off', and are made of the same material as the racks. Shock-corded S-hooks ensure my panniers stay put. Canvas is a very durable material and even though it's cotton, proves to be remarkably water-proof; the tightly-woven fibers expand with moisture and act as a seal. Even when the outside appears sodden, inside there's often no sign of moisture at all. Patching is easy, and if I were ever to damage a bag beyond repair, all I'd need to do is buy another bag, and install my stiffener, hooks, etc. into it. It appears that all Commonwealth countries share similar military equipment designs; I've seen the same bags for sale in Australia, at "Aussie Disposals" surplus stores, and a Brit friend confirmed the design was in use from WW I until well after WW II and is readily available in the UK. Sheldon Brown commented that with the loads I carry, I should consider using a trailer: I did consider a "B.O.B." once, but I concluded that pre- and post-tour travel by air or bus would become even more complicated.... Even with four 2-liter pop/water bottles draped over both front and rear racks, I find myself compensating naturally for sluggish steering when fully loaded. I don't share a typical MTBer's speed and need for maneuverability on expeditions, and it's not an issue when I'm on the road and have easy access to water: I simply discard the bottles and load down accordingly. I don't always tour 'kitchen sink'-like; most tours I carry 30 to 35 pounds - somewhat less than many of the purely-road tourists I encounter. I just like to have a large total capacity as an option that permits me the greatest leeway in choosing routes, since I often hear locals say things like: "There's a prettier way to go, but there's nothing out there at all...." Paul Woloshansky
By Paul WoloshanskyUPDATE with video: John Oliver has offered Donald Trump his Emmy Award if the GOP Presidential nominee would accept the election results November 8.
The Last Week Tonight host made the offer in the form of a bet. First, Oliver noted the most revealing moment in last Wednesday’s debate came when Hillary Clinton mentioned that time Trump, after failing to win an Emmy for his The Apprentice franchise three years running, started tweeting that the Emmy Awards were rigged – just like Trump now is saying about the presidential election. “I should have gotten it,” Trump muttered on the debate stage of his Emmy snub.
“Of course he wants an Emmy! It’s a woman, it’s gold, and its proportionate to his tiny hands,” Oliver snarked Sunday on his HBO show. “It’s basically Trump’s ideal mate.”
“Here’s the problem. It increasingly seems like, if Donald Trump loses, we are not going to get the concession speech that the country badly needs, because he is medically incapable of accepting that he is a loser,” Oliver said, stating the obvious. “So we need to find a way for him to give a concession speech, while he’s still able to claim that he won something.”
“And I think I might have the answer here. Because I have a proposition for Donald Trump,” Oliver continued.
“Let’s bet on the outcome of this election. I will take the side that you win,” Oliver said, now addressing the GOP candidate in absentia. “I will take the side that you win. You will take the side that you lose. That way, if you lose, you still win and, as for the stakes in the bet, I have something that I know you want!”
Oliver grabbed the Emmy he won last month, when the TV Academy named his HBO late-night show the best variety talk series. “You don’t even have to take her furniture shopping,” Oliver taunted, holding up the statuette for Trump to get a good look at. “Take the bet, Donald. Take the f*cking bet!”Pieter Weening has reacted to the claims of his former teammate Michael Rasmussen by stating that the Dane is probably frustrated.”He lost the court case against Rabobank which probably made him very frustrated,” the Orica-Greenedge rider told De Telegraaf. Related Articles Orica-GreenEdge asks Weening to confirm anti-doping statement
Freire seeks retraction from Rasmussen regarding doping at 2007 Tour
Rasmussen retracts doping allegations against Freire, Flecha
Orica-GreenEdge expresses support of Weening
Rasmussen: The bus driver hid EPO in his underpants
Michael Rasmussen settles with Rabobank
In a live web chat after an interview with Danish broadcaster DR, Michael Rasmussen claimed that 100% of the 2007 Rabobank Tour de France team was on doping. “Within the Rabobank team: 100% [used doping products]. Not everyone took the same products, but all riders were on some form of doping provided by the team,” he said.
The Danish rider later backtracked on his previous statement saying that he never actually saw Juan Antonio Flecha or Oscar Freire use banned substances. Triple world champion Freire had threatened to sue Rasmussen for his allegations.
In Curaçao, where Weening participated in the Amstel Curaçao Race, the Dutch rider reacted to Rasmussen’s allegations. “Desperate needs lead to desperate deeds,” Weening said. “Rasmussen comes up with different stories every time. He declared something else when he was under oath at the court. It’s obvious he is frustrated because he lost the case against Rabobank.”
Rasmussen received €665,000 in damages when a court found that Rabobank wrongfully sent him home from the 2007 Tour de France while the Dane was in the yellow jersey. Both parties appealed the decision and when Rasmussen eventually lost, he had to re-pay the original sum.
Grischa Niermann, who was also part of the 2007 Rabobank Tour de France team has also reacted to Rasmussen's statement that 100% of the team was on doping. “I don’t know where he gets that from,” the now-retired German rider said on national television. “I can say for myself that I only received vitamins and supplements from the team doctor but no banned substances.”
Niermann was supended for six months at the beginning of this year after he confessed to having used doping in 2003. “Thanks to the people around me I realised in 2003 that banned substances was not the path I wanted to follow. That’s why I stopped and for the past 10 years, I tried to set an example for the young riders at Rabobank as being honest, hardworking and professional,” he said in a statement in January. After his ban ended, he returned to his coaching job at the Rabobank Development Team.
Orica-Greenedge have asked Weening to re-confirm the anti-doping statement he signed prior to joining the Australian team.We’ve learned of a pretty ambitious PC MMO game called simply Crossout, from both Russian studio Gaijin Entertainment and Targem Games.
The game is currently in pre-alpha, and puts various players from around the world into a post apocalyptic world akin to Mad Max, where having a tough and mobile death machine is the key to ruling the wastelands. However, the apocalypse wasn’t brought on by a nuclear holocaust / struggle for oil resources, it was an alien invasion.
Oh, and human genetic experimentation went horribly wrong, leading to lots of exciting potential history to shoehorn into the game. Gaijin is promising that car customization is a crucial part of the experience, as no two cars will be the same.
There are reportedly “thousands of possibilities,” according to Gaijin Entertainment, each of which affecting your vehicle’s performance.
You can build a fast and agile buggy-styled car, or a heavy and unstoppable vehicle meant to plow through dangerous off-road terrain. You’ll be able to gather new parts and upgrades for your vehicles, via both completing tasks in game, or through merchants.
You’ll be able to step into your virtual garage and completely modify your vehicle to whatever means fits your preferred wasteland lifestyle. This includes customizing the car’s support systems, weapons, shape, cosmetics, and armor.
The weapons you can expect in game are reminiscent of Twisted Metal, and they include machine guns, rocket launchers, chainsaws, and even power drills. There’s even an in-game auction system, although Gaijin is mum on sharing details on how this works for right now.
The full gameplay reveal for Crossout is coming at this year’s E3. A beta is coming later, and if you want to get a spot – you better head over to their official website to sign up.The following statement was issued March 24 by the International Action Center in advance of a demonstration outside the United Nations in New York set for 5 p.m. on the same day. It was 15 years ago on this day that the United States began bombing Serbia in its quest to break up Yugoslavia and further expand NATO. The demonstration will demand recognition of Kosovo as part of Serbia and U.S./NATO hands off the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia.
On the 15th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Serbia, and as new, even more ominous dangers arise in Ukraine and Crimea, it is important to remember history.
Wall Street dominates peoples through the destructive strategy of “divide and rule.” In the Balkans and in Eastern Europe this has meant policies aimed at breaking solidarity among different nationalities and religions by imposing sanctions and economic destabilization and by funding right-wing and fascist organizations and granting immediate recognition to their regimes.
It was U.S. and European Union criminal policy that broke the Yugoslav Federation into six unstable, impoverished micro-states. They executed this crime by bombing Bosnia in 1994 and carrying out a 78-day bombing in 1999 of Serbia, especially the Serbian province of Kosovo. These wars aimed at expanding the U.S.-commanded NATO alliance into the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Republics.
Despite U.S. and German commitments to the former Soviet Union not to expand NATO one inch further if Soviet troops were withdrawn from East Germany, NATO has now expanded to 12 countries in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and former Soviet Republics.
After the massive destruction of schools, hospitals, industries and communication in Yugoslavia in 1999, Washington still agreed, in the imposed ceasefire and in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, that Kosovo is historically part of Serbia and would remain an autonomous part of sovereign Serbia, although under U.S./NATO occupation and administration. In 2008, in violation of this signed U.N. agreement, the U.S. recognized the puppet government it had set up and that government’s illegal declaration of independence for Kosovo. The overwhelming majority of the people of Serbia of all nationalities opposed this theft of Kosovo by NATO. They continue to raise the slogan: “Kosovo is Serbia.”Average hourly real wage series from the Labor Productivity and Costs (LPC) program and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program have evolved very differently over the past decades. While the LPC wage has grown consistently over time and become markedly more volatile since the mid-1980s, the CES wage stagnated from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s and experienced a substantial drop in volatility since the mid-1980s. These differences are due to the divergent evolution of average weekly earnings in the two data sets. Average weekly hours, by contrast, have evolved very similarly. Using information from the Current Population Survey and other publicly available data, we identify two principal sources for the divergent evolution of weekly earnings: differences in earnings concept (employer-paid supplements and irregular earnings of high-income individuals included in the LPC data but not in the CES data); and differences in worker coverage (all non-farm business workers for the LPC data versus production and nonsupervisory workers in private non-agricultural establishments for the CES data). The results have important implications for the appropriate choice of aggregate wage series in macroeconomic applications.Speaker John Boehner watched his hard-fought bill go down in instant defeat in the Senate Monday night, leaving him with just a few hours to rally his conference around a plan that will keep the government open.
It won’t be easy.
A dozen Republicans voted against his last plan, which would have kept the government open in exchange for some changes to Obamacare. And prominent Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul are starting to talk about a temporary fix that would at least avert a shutdown at midnight. Others, like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky are predicting Republicans will lose even as they urge Boehner to keep up the fight.
So while Boehner eked out a victory, moderates and conservatives alike are starting to rebel, leaving Boehner exposed on the left and the right just as he is supposed to show strength in the final hours before a shutdown. It means Boehner is heading into the final hours of a battle against a united Democratic front hobbled by an ugly civil war raging in his party.
On Boehner’s left flank, moderate Republicans who have long warned against a confrontation over Obamacare are arguing that this may be the stop on the shutdown train where they get off.
Congressman Peter King of New York, who supported the House’s previous bill to delay Obamacare, said he planned to vote against the new measure. Not only that, he predicted to MSNBC’s Luke Russert that as many as two dozen more moderate Republicans could join him in opposing the “Ted Cruz wing.”
“I can tell you about 25 people on Saturday night who told me they were definitely going to vote no,” he said. “Now, at high noon you don’t how many of that 25 are going to stay committed, but there’s real opposition.”
Moderate Republican Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania also called on Boehner to accede to Obama’s demands and offer a clean continuing resolution.
“The hour glass is already empty and it’s time that we pass a clean CR,” he told reporters.
Dent and King rebelled against a test vote on the rules governing the debate of over the bill Monday night, but they were it for the moderate caucus. They didn’t do much better in the final vote, either. But some supporters of the bill said their patience was running thin with brinksmanship.
Devin Nunes of California told reporters he was voting for the bill, but that the House GOP was acting “like lemmings with suicide vests” intent on provoking a crisis with unrealistic demands.
“They have to be more than just a lemming,” he said of the House’s conservative wing. “Because jumping to your death is not enough.”
On the right, tea party rabble rousers like Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota opposed the latest bill because it doesn’t go far enough in opposing Obamacare.
“For what I have done with my life as a federal tax lawyer, I wouldn’t negotiate with myself, because then I wouldn’t have a strong position,” Bachmann told reporters. “It’s important we come at this with strength.”
On the rules vote for the bill Bachmann voted nay along with three other tea party Republicans: Steve King, Paul Broun, and Louie Gohmert.
They were joined in the final vote by Joe Barton, Mario Diaz Balart, Phil Gingrey, Kay Granger, Thomas Massie, and Mike Rogers.
“We’re just rushing to the clean CR,” Massie, who voted against Boehner’s proposal because it was too weak on Obamacare, told reporters. “That’s where we’re going to end.”
Boehner can only afford to lose 16 Republicans votes, give or take a handful of Democrats who might cross over. If at any point one of his bills fail, it will severely damage his leverage by demonstrating his caucus is too divided to even reach a consensus starting point on negotiations.
A similar revolt during the 2012 fiscal cliff fight over the Bush tax cuts and sequestration ended with Boehner asking the Senate to reach a compromise instead, which he then passed over conservative objections with help from Democrats in the House. In this case, the damage would be greater as Democrats would likely assume Boehner’s position was compromised on the debt ceiling as well. After all, if moderates and conservatives revolt when a shutdown deadline gets close, why wouldn’t they do the same thing for the far more dangerous default deadline?Salvi said he asked Lerner if she would be willing to put the offer into writing.
But that was not Lerner's reaction. Instead, that's when she said to Salvi, "Promise me you'll never run for office again, and we'll drop the case."
During that call, Salvi said, he explained to Lerner exactly what happened -- that while the loan to himself was legal, there may be a difference of opinion on how the loan was reported to the FEC. Salvi explained it was a simple matter and said he thought Lerner would suggest an agreeable solution and dismiss the Democratic National Committee's complaint.
"Every time we talked, I refused the offer, and Colleen said she'd have to check with someone," Salvi said. "I finally told her I'd like to talk to whomever she reported. That's when I got a call from Lois Lerner."
Knowing his $1.1 million campaign loan to himself was legal, Salvi rejected the initial settlement offer from FEC attorney Colleen Sealander. In later conversations, Sealander lowered the amount to $100,000, then $40,000, but always with the additional promise to never run for office again.
"Before Lois Lerner (photo right) took us before the federal judge, her last offer was for me to promise to never run for office again. That was always part of their demands," Salvi said. "Before that last offer, another FEC representative that reported to Lerner wanted $200,000 and a promise not to run."
Without a settlement, the Salvi case went to federal court. After months and years of briefings, delays and court appearances, federal judge George Lindbergh dismissed the case on its merits. Lindbergh said the FEC's disagreement over filing, when two ways of reporting were acceptable, was groundless. The FEC appealed Lindbergh's decision, but their appeal was thrown back to Lindbergh's decision and the Salvi campaign won. Court documents show that Salvi was never fined or penalized.
Sealander and Lerner made similar offers to Salvi and his legal counsel in the process leading up to the court proceedings. Salvi's brother Mike and his wife Kathy led Salvi's defense against a team of D.C. attorneys, who were flown into Chicago to appear before the judge, Salvi said.
Negotiations with those facing FEC complaints are part of standard procedure, an FEC spokesperson told Illinois Review, but records of those negotiation conversations are not available in court documents.
Al Salvi with former law partner, Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL)
The FEC office in D.C. confirmed to Illinois Review that a person in the Litigation Department named Colleen Sealander did work there during the years the Salvi case was active, and very well could have negotiated with Salvi. Sealander is no longer employed at the FEC.
Public FEC records show Colleen Sealander was active in FEC litigation through 2007, and resident records show Sealander continues to live in Washington DC.
Open Secrets.org also shows Sealander made seven campaign contributions to Barack Obama in 2012.
Salvi said the FEC controversy filed in 1996 lingered through his 1998 challenge of Secretary of State Jesse White. The Democrats used the questions raised in campaign ads that implied he had been involved in criminal activity.
"I remember getting a pizza with my kids, and looking up to see the TV showing the [Democrat] ad, and I didn't want to upset my kids, so I distracted them away," he said. "I'll never forget the concern that went on for months, affecting my law firm and my business."
And Salvi said when he thinks of that, he recalls the shock on Lerner's face when the judge dismissed his case. "We never lose!" Lerner said, and then, he said she distinctly threatened, "We'll get you!"
Salvi said he told his wife right away to get ready for an IRS audit - that it would be coming. He instructed his firm's accountants to err on the conservative side when filing tax returns, just in case.
But after the May 2000 dismissal, there was no contact from the FEC or from the IRS. However, there was from the FBI. In the fall of 2000, FBI agents knocked on the door of the Salvis' home and said they wanted to ask him about his mother's $2000 donation to his 1996 U.S. Senate campaign.
"That visit from the FBI was significant," Salvi said. "That meant a criminal investigation, not a civil disagreement with the elections commission. And, if a person lies to the FBI, they can go to jail."
Salvi said he reviewed the situation with the agents, and told them they were being used for political purposes. The two agents visited with his elderly mother and soon after, notified Salvi they were terminating the investigation.
"It was a nightmare," Salvi said. "People ask me today why I've never run for office again after being a state representative for two terms, winning a GOP primary against the sitting lieutenant governor to run for U.S. Senate, and then finally losing an intense campaign against Durbin. All the time this long FEC ordeal continued while I ran for Secretary of State in 1998 and beyond. Why would anyone run for office again after all that? I'm very happy now, representing clients and raising my family. Never been happier."
Some would say Lerner and those pushing her to use the FEC to stop Salvi from running for office again got exactly what they wanted after all.By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns
L. Randall Wray has a post up at New Deal 2.0 which puts forward an idea which is pretty innovative. I would label it a private sector replacement for unemployment insurance. It’s the kind of thinking that might bring Obama out of a policy cul-de-sac as the economy hemorrhages jobs.
Let me present an excerpted version and mention a few concerns one might have with this idea. The link to the full |
the pancreas begins to pump out insulin, overshooting the mark and causing another drop in blood sugar. The result is a quick, short-lived lift followed by fatigue that can last for hours. If you continue to drink coffee and smoke, your body will pay a high price. Every one of our follow-up studies at HRC shows that the 20 to 25 percent of HRC clients who relapsed were those who could not (or would not) stop smoking cigarettes. Caffeine There is no question that caffeine can wire you and bring on restlessness, depression, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, shakiness, and bone-tired fatigue. Consider the case of Brent, a young waiter admitted to our clinic last year. He was subject to sudden panic attacks, spells of heart-pounding and overpowering fearfulness that his physician had been treating with the drug Inderal, a blood-pressure medication that has a calming effect. After we convinced Brent to give up the forty cups of coffee he had been drinking daily, his panic attacks, as well as his insomnia and tremors, disappeared. If you are drinking five or more cups of coffee a day, you may develop severe headaches, listlessness, and nervousness if you stop cold turkey. You will do better by reducing your daily intake gradually over the course of a week. Do not substitute decaffeinated coffee. Instead, switch to caffeine-free herbal teas or sparkling water with lime or lemon. You will soon be rewarded for all these sacrifices with more energy, more restful sleep, and, most important, reduced cravings for sugar and alcohol. Nicotine Addiction Almost every smoker admitted to HRC wants to quit smoking but can't. That isn't surprising. Nicotine is probably the most addictive substance known. Let me tell you about John, a client who came to us after his release from a detox center. He had been in detox almost every weekend that year. Although he was only twenty-eight, he had been in four treatment programs. None had worked for him. In the middle of our initial interview, John stood up and announced that he had to smoke a cigarette. He told me he smoked two and a half packs a day but wished he could quit. I suggested that by detoxing his brain and body systems, his cravings for alcohol would disappear. Although he was miserably ill with alcoholism, he had a bright, inquiring mind. He agreed to follow our biochemical repair program to the letter to see if I was right. Giving up cigarettes was almost harder for John than giving up alcohol. With the help of Nicorette gum and the very same nutrient program I am recommending to you, he went off to the north woods of Minnesota for a weekend and came back a nonsmoker. It has been almost a year since he completed treatment. He has remained free of all drugs and continues to maintain his healthy new lifestyle. Millions of people have successfully quit smoking. With the proper tools and support, you will too. But don't worry. You need not quit smoking... yet. Instead, concentrate on staying free of alcohol, refined sugars, and caffeine. After you rid your system of these toxic substances, your body will be much more cooperative when you stop smoking. For the time being, just be aware of how many cigarettes you smoke every day and try to cut down a little. Now, let's take a look at the diet you will be using to bring hypoglycemic symptoms under control.
The HRC Hypoglycemic (Anti-allergy) Diet
for Alcoholics This diet is extremely healthy. It is high in complex carbohydrates and temporarily eliminates dairy products and wheat. Before you begin, read the following instructions: One meal each day should consist largely of vegetables. Big salads will do the trick.
When buying food, read labels carefully. Most canned soup and juice, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressing, and canned vegetables contain sugar and/or starch. You can get sugar-free products at food co-ops or health-food stores.
Do not use any food that lists sugar among the first four ingredients on the label.
Throw out junk food containing refined sugar. You will be snacking on healthy foods frequently so you won't feel hungry.
Substitute soy milk or fresh goat's milk or Rice Dream (Imagine Foods, Palo Alto, California) for cow's milk. Some HRC clients are afraid that goat's milk will taste terrible, but most find that it tastes just like cow's milk (but, I admit, it depends on the goat).
Avoid aspirin compounds including Anacin; Empirin, cold tablets; Midol, Trigesic, and medications containing alcohol (read the labels). Bayer aspirin is caffeine-free and may be used. Suggested Daily menus can be found in the book, Seven Weeks to Sobriety.
Shopping Tips Choose foods that are as close to their natural state as possible: fresh vegetables and fruits; fresh meats, fish, chicken, and eggs; raw nuts and seeds; and fresh salad greens.
Avoid canned, processed, dyed, chemically flavored, frozen, additive-laden foods.
If you can't find millet bread or brown rice bread at your super-market, try a food cooperative. Some health-food stores also carry these whole-grain substitutes for wheat bread. Before you buy rye or oat bread, read the label. Wheat is usually the first ingredient listed.
Don't buy roasted nuts. The process of high-heat roasting cause undesirable changes in the natural oils the nuts contain. In the body, this altered oil can promote formation of free radicals, dangerously unstable molecules capable of damaging healthy tissue and promoting the development of cancer. Choose only raw nuts and seeds.
Pass up luncheon meats (Spam, bacon, ham, bologna). They are loaded with refined sugars and cancer-causing nitrates.
You can find fruit-sweetened jams at a food co-op or health food store.
Drink flavored sparkling water (read the label to confirm that it is sugar free).
Cut your salt intake by using lite salt, which is half potassium (needed for cellular energy) and half sodium.
Meal Preparation Tips Peel fruits and vegetables or remove outer layers to avoid pesticide residues.
Steam your vegetables (if you cook them in water, you will lose much of their vitamin and mineral content). You can get a steamer that fits inside any pot in most houseware departments. Cook vegetables until they are almost tender, not soggy.
Raw vegetables are your best choice; they also make excellent snacks.
Use fruit juice on cereal if you don't have soy, rice, or goat's milk (The ban on cow's milk is only a temporary measure until you have had your allergy test.)
Keep a lot of assorted nuts, sunflower seeds, apples, oranges, carrot sticks, celery, and other raw vegetables on hand for snacking. The HRC Modified Diet for
Carbohydrate Sensitive Persons Many alcoholics prove to be so reactive to simple sugars that the preceding diet is not suited to them. Over the last few years Health Recovery Center has discovered another effective approach that addresses carbohydrate sensitivity thereby reducing the overproduction of insulin. Insulin is the prime cause of hypoglycemic reactions, i.e., mood swings, dizziness, fatigue, inability to concentrate, headaches, irritability, and depression. And the overproduction of insulin is the number-one reason you can't lose weight. Insulin is the fat-storing hormone. The new low-fat craze has tricked many into trading fat for sugar. Every package that proclaims low fat or no fat has increased the carbohydrates to replace the missing fats. To the hypoglycemic this is a disaster because more carbos mean more insulin. Actually fats do not trigger insulin. They convert, slowly and steadily, to glucose, the brain's fuel. And natural fats, not the partially dehydrogenated man-made fats, are essential to our emotional stability. The gray matter of our brains is composed mainly of essential fatty acids (EFAs) made from fats. We need these EFAs to prevent depression, to create a sense of well-being, to control hormonal distribution, and to regulate cholesterol metabolism. Good fat can protect against heart disease, diabetes, hyperactivity, arthritis and PMS. Additional information can be found in the book Seven Weeks to Sobriety, chapter 7 (ISBN 0-449-00259-4): Suggested Daily Menus with a specific breakdown of safe foods and foods to avoid
A carbohydrate addiction screening test to determine if you are a candidate for the Low-Carbo Diet
The foods to consume and the foods to avoid on the Low-Carbohydrate Diet. Additional information can be found in the book Seven Weeks to Sobriety, Chapter 7 (ISBN 0-449-00259-4): The Hypoglycemia formula can be found at
www.Bio-RecoveryInc.com
(look for Formula #209 Gluco Balance Nutritional Support). Information on this website is reprinted from the book, Seven Weeks to Sobriety by Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D. (ISBN 0-449-00259-4) ©1991-2000.
All rights reserved. This information may not be reproduced without permission from Villard Books, a division of Random House Inc. and Joan Mathews Larson, Ph.D. If you wish to link your site to this information,
you can call 1-612-827-7800. | Individual Product Ordering |
| Formulas from Seven Weeks to Sobriety |The Buffalo Sabres missed the playoffs in 2015-2016, but it was a massively successful campaign that featured a 27-point improvement on their embarrassing 2014-2015 season.
Off-Season Game Plan looks at a Sabres squad that is putting together core pieces to be a consistent contender going forward, but isn’t quite there yet.
General manager Tim Murray was busy last summer, hiring a new coach and remodeling the roster with new centres for the top two lines, three new defencemen, a new starting goaltender and more. This year’s needs aren’t quite so vast. It’s more fine-tuning to surround the young talent with players that will allow them to grow and reach their potential.
After making a 27-point jump in the standings in one season, Buffalo now has to bridge the 12-point gap that kept them out of the playoffs in 2015-2016. "The goal is to make the playoffs," Murray said. "And next year it may actually be a realistic goal."
The Buffalo Sabres talking about the playoffs? Times are changing.
HOCKEY OPS/COACH
Tim Murray/Dan Bylsma
FREE AGENT FORWARDS NAME GP G A PTS CF% RelCF% PDO OZS% ATOI 2015-16 CAP STATUS Marcus Foligno 75 10 13 23 46.6 -2.6 100.9 40.6 13:11 $1.875M RFA Zemgus Girgensons 71 7 11 18 48.2 -1.1 100.2 48.8 15:02 $894K RFA David Legwand 79 5 9 14 45.1 -3.4 98.3 50.7 9:42 $3.0M UFA Nicolas Deslauriers 70 6 6 12 42.5 -7.9 97.7 48.7 10:20 $638K RFA
The Sabres aggressively sought out a trade for Ryan O’Reilly last summer, and signed him to a big-money long-term contract extension which kicks in next season. And they’d undoubtedly do it again (and again and again). He’s still facing a DUI charge from an incident in which he crashed into the drive-thru of a Tim Hortons last summer, but O’Reilly has every bit as good as advertised; a strong two-way player who has scored at least 55 points in four straight full seasons (excluding the 2012-2013 lockout campaign). It’s easy to believe in the idea of 25-year-old O’Reilly and Jack Eichel running one-two down the middle in Buffalo for the foreseeable future.
Evander Kane and Ryan O'Reilly were significant upgrades to Buffalo's attack.
Eichel came to Buffalo with all the hype that befits the second pick in the draft, and while comparisons to top pick Connor McDavid aren’t fair to Eichel, the 19-year-old was very impressive as a rookie. Putting together his size, speed, hands and shot gives him an opportunity to be a productive franchise centre. The next step is to find wingers that can suitably complement his high-end talent.
What a difference a year makes. In 2014-2015, Sam Reinhart had a nine-game trial with the Sabres during which he looked completely overmatched. But last season, he worked on his shot and as he got stronger, the second pick in the 2014 Draft turned quickly turned into a scoring threat. Reinhart processes the game at a high level, which makes him a good fit alongside other skilled forwards.
Evander Kane is unique, for a number of reasons, but on the ice it’s because he’s an elite-level shot generator, but finishes like a checking winger. There are only a handful of players in the league that have generated more than 500 shots over the past three seasons, while scoring on fewer than 8% of them, and none of those players are playing more than 21 minutes per game, as Kane did for the Sabres last season.
37-year-old winger Brian Gionta is the team captain and while he remains a solid enough contributor, it’s probably about time to have younger options taking some of his ice time. Gionta is heading into the final year of his contract.
It was a brutal season for 32-year-old Matt Moulson, who managed just eight goals, with career-lows in shots on goal (1.37 per game) and shooting percentage (7.2%) leading to such poor results. On the plus side, he remained a positive possession player, relative to his teammates, but he’s getting paid quite a bit to simply hang his hat on adequate possession stats. He might be considered a buyout candidate, but the Sabres have said that’s not happening. Considering the money involved, it’s not unreasonable to want to give Moulson another shot to fill a productive role next season. If he can’t, then the buyout option can be revisited.
23-year-old Johan Larsson has been developing as a shutdown-type centre, facing decent quality opposition with more defensive zone face-offs. He’s inexpensive depth with a little upside.
A concussion limited skilled, but small, winger Tyler Ennis to just 23 games last season, so his return would be a step in the right direction to upgrading Buffalo’s attack. He’s a three-time 20-goal scorer, but that’s come mostly with talent-deficient Sabres teams. An opportunity to play with O’Reilly or Eichel could result in a career year for Ennis, provided he’s healthy.
Cal O’Reilly is Ryan’s older brother and, last season, saw his first NHL action since 2011-2012. He’s a good playmaker at the AHL level, but doesn’t have a strong enough all-around game to be a consistent contributor in the NHL.
A physical winger who scored a career-high 23 points last season, Marcus Foligno fills a role as a hard-hitting checking winger. Aside from a brief flash (13 points in 14 games) when he was first called up to the league in 2011-2012, Foligno hasn’t been able to generate enough offensively to be considered for a more significant role.
Pushed down the depth chart by new Sabres acquisitions, 22-year-old Zemgus Girgensons has three years of NHL experience, but is still trying to find his niche in the lineup. Can he score enough to play in the top six? After seven goals and 18 points last season, that’s still in question.
Nicolas Deslauriers is a designated hitter on the fourth line, but he’s in his own end far too often.
While the Sabres have started to put together a nice core of forwards, they could use some immediate help if they are going to take a run at a playoff spot next season. A veteran scoring winger to complement Eichel would be great, but there are only so many available. Loui Eriksson or Kyle Okposo would be great, but Teddy Purcell, David Perron or Lee Stempniak could be decent contributors and not require quite the same premium price. Considering their forward depth, the Sabres may want to add a veteran or two near the bottom of the depth chart too.
RETURNING DEFENCEMEN NAME GP G A PTS CF% RelCF% PDO OZS% ATOI 2016-17 CAP Zach Bogosian 64 7 17 24 46.6 -2.3 99.0 50.8 22:21 $5.143M Cody Franson 59 4 13 17 49.7 2.1 98.9 50.2 16:50 $3.325M Josh Gorges 77 2 10 12 44.8 -5.6 100.0 40.8 20:28 $3.9M Mark Pysyk 55 1 10 11 51.9 4.3 99.2 55.0 15:54 $1.125M
FREE AGENT DEFENCEMEN NAME GP G A PTS CF% RelCF% PDO OZS% ATOI 2015-16 CAP STATUS Rasmus Ristolainen 82 9 32 41 45.4 -4.1 98.6 43.7 25:17 $925K RFA Jake McCabe 77 4 10 14 47.3 -0.3 100.8 48.6 19:07 $925K RFA Carlo Colaiacovo 36 1 4 5 48.5 -0.8 95.8 56.3 14:28 $900K UFA
Zach Bogosian is steady in a top-four role, but doesn’t exactly control tough match-ups either. Throughout his career, the 25-year-old has posted negative relative possession stats, and that included last season, even though he had the highest percentage of offensive zone face-offs in his career.
Signed to a reasonable cost as a free agent last summer, Cody Franson played a modest 16:50 per game for the Sabrest, his lowest average time on ice since 2011-2012. He’s a right-shot defenceman with good size and consistently favourable relative possession stats; he has one year left on his deal, so Franson could be a trade chip if it might help the Sabres in other areas.
31-year-old vet Josh Gorges has made his career the hard way, blocking shot after shot, but he gets caved-in when it comes to puck possession and still logs more than 20 minutes per game on the Buffalo blueline. For the Sabres to make appreciable defensive improvement, they need to find more capable puck-movers to move ahead of Gorges on the depth chart.
An internal candidate for more ice time could be Mark Pysyk, who doesn’t make the highlight reels, but has put up favourable possession numbers early in his career. He hasn’t played a lot, and certainly not against difficult matchups, but if young defenceman is generating those numbers against weaker competition, then it could be time to see if he’s capable of doing it against better opponents.
Rasmus Ristolainen is emerging as a No. 1 defenceman for the Sabres.
A rising star on the Sabres defence, Rasmus Ristolainen can improve his defensive play, but the 21-year-old had a breakout campaign in 2015-2016, scoring 41 points and playing more than 25 minutes per game. The next step may be to secure a better partner, one capable of matching Ristolainen’s big workload.
Jake McCabe stepped into the NHL and acquitted himself well as a rookie. He’s steady, reliable, safe;; that’s not code for “off-the-glass-and-out” either. Getting that for 19 minutes a night out of a 22-year-old shouldn’t be overlooked.
The Sabres figure to be on the hunt for a significant defensive upgrade this summer. Adding a legitimate top-pair guy would be ideal. Of course, that’s a game in which demand always exceeds supply, so if Buffalo can find some help on the free agent market, they should take it. Alex Goligoski, Keith Yandle, Brian Campbell and Dan Hamhuis are top free agents, and any one of them would be an upgrade on Buffalo’s blueline.
RETURNING GOALTENDERS NAME GP W L T SV% EV SV% 2016-17 CAP Robin Lehner 21 5 9 5.924.925 $2.225M Linus Ullmark 20 8 10 2.913.922 $776K
FREE AGENT GOALTENDER NAME GP W L T SV% EV SV% 2015-16 CAP STATUS Chad Johnson 45 22 16 4.920.927 $1.3M UFA
The Sabres gave Robin Lehner an opportunity to be a starting goaltender last season, and he promptly got hurt in the first game, not returning until the second half of the season. He’s never played more than 36 games in an NHL season, but Lehner has flashed potential and even with some ups-and-downs to this point, should be at least an average starting goaltender.
When Lehner and Chad Johnson were hurt last season, 22-year-old Linus Ullmark stepped into the void and, while he may have been overmatched in a starting role, he played well enough to be considered for the backup job next season if Johnson leaves via free agency.
TOP PROSPECTS PLAYER POS. GP G A PTS +/- TEAM (LEAGUE) Brendan Guhle D 63 10 18 28 -5 Prince Albert (WHL) Hudson Fasching RW 37 20 18 38 +12 Minnesota (Big 10) Justin Bailey RW 70 20 25 45 -7 Rochester (AHL) Will Borgen D 37 1 13 14 +17 St. Cloud St. (NCHC) Linus Ullmark G 28.902 Rochester (AHL) Cal Petersen G 37.927 Notre Dame (HE) Nick Baptiste RW 62 13 15 28 -3 Rochester (AHL) Casey Nelson D 40 6 16 22 +14 Minnesota St.-Mankato (WCHA) Giorgio Estephan C 59 30 44 74 +26 Lethbridge (WHL) Eric Cornel C 68 27 56 83 +19 Peterborough (OHL) William Carrier LW 56 13 17 30 +14 Rochester (AHL) Devante Stephens D 72 2 9 11 +12 Kelowna (WHL) Jean Dupuy LW 74 8 13 21 +8 Rochester (AHL) Brady Austin D 72 2 9 11 -2 Rochester (AHL) Andrey Makarov G 22.916 Rochester (AHL)
DRAFT
8th – Clayton Keller, Olli Juolevi, Jakob Chychrun
FREE AGENCY
The Sabres have approximately $46.6M committed to the 2016-2017 salary cap for 15 players.
NEEDS
One top-six forward, another forward, one top-pair defenceman, backup goaltender
WHAT I SAID THE SABRES NEEDED LAST YEAR
Three top-six forwards, two top-four defencemen, starting goaltender
THEY ADDED
Ryan O’Reilly, Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Jamie McGinn, Cody Franson, Jake McCabe, Mark Pysyk, Robin Lehner
TRADE MARKET
Matt Moulson, Cody Franson, draft picks
Much of the data included comes from www.war-on-ice.com, corsica.hockey, stats.hockeyanalysis.com www.hockey-reference.com, www.naturalstattrick.com, www.generalfanager.com and www.capfriendly.com.Yesterday, Queens of the Stone Age revealed that their new album will be called Villains and that Mark Ronson produced it. The news came in the form of a comedic trailer that also featured a few seconds of the new song “Feet Don’t Fail Me.” Today the first single is here. It’s called “The Way You Used To Do,” and it’s rather funky for QOTSA’s standards (Ronson’s influence?). The album drops on August 25 via Matador. Tracklist and new song stream below. Album artwork above.
QOTSA have also added more tour dates, including a small NYC-area show at Port Chester’s Capitol Theatre on September 6 and a way bigger NYC show on October 24 at Madison Square Garden. Both are with Royal Blood. Tickets for all dates, including the Cap and MSG, go on sale Thursday, June 22 at 10 AM. Various presales for the MSG show start beforehand. All dates are listed below.
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Tracklist
01 Feet Don’t Fail Me
02 The Way You Used to Do
03 Domesticated Animals
04 Fortress
05 Head Like a Haunted House
06 Un-Reborn Again
07 Hideaway
08 The Evil Has Landed
09 Villains of Circumstance
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Queens of the Stone Age — 2017 Tour Dates
Thursday, June 22 – Rapids Theater — Niagara Falls, NY SOLD OUT
Saturday, June 24 – Amnesia Rockfest 2017 — Montebello, QC
Thursday, July 13 – Logan Campbell, Auckland, New Zealand SOLD OUT
Sunday, July 16 – Convention Centre, Darwin, Australia
Wednesday, July 19 – Hodern Pavilion, Sydney NSW, Australia SOLD OUT
Thursday, July 20 – Festival Hall, Melbourne, Australia SOLD OUT
Saturday, July 22, Splendour In The Grass, Tenindewa, Australia SOLD OUT
Friday, July 28 – Fuji Rock Festival, Kinsasa, Japan
Thursday, August 10 – Ventura Theatre, Ventura CA
Saturday, August 12 – Outside Lands, San Francisco, CA
Wednesday, August 23 – Vital Fest, Belfast, Ireland
Wednesday, September 6 – Capitol Theatre, Port Chester NY
Thursday, September 7 – Festival Pier, Philadelphia PA
Saturday, September 9 – Moison Amphitheatre (Budweiser Stage), Toronto ON
Sunday, September 10 – 20 Monroe Live, Grand Rapids MI
Tuesday, September 12 – Express Live! Outdoor Pavilion, Columbus OH
Wednesday, September 13 – Stage AE (Outdoors), Pittsburgh PA
Friday, September 15 – Agora Theatre, Cleveland OH
Saturday, September 16 – Riot Fest, Chicago IL
Monday, October 9 – The Complex, Salt Lake City UT
Tuesday, October 10 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison CO
Thursday, October 12 – Peabody, St. Louis MO
Friday, October 13 – Crossroads KC, Kansas City MO
Saturday, October 14 – Roy Wilkins Auditorium, Saint Paul MN
Sunday, October 15 – Eagles Ballroom, Milwaukee WI
Tuesday, October 17 – Fox Theatre, Detroit MI
Wednesday, October 18 – Old Theatre Centre – Murat Theatre, Indianapolis IN
Friday, October 20 – The Anthem, Washington DC
Saturday, October 21 – Agganis Arena, Boston MA
Sunday, October 22 – State Theatre, Portland ME
Tuesday, October 24, Madison Square Garden, New York NY
Thursday, October 26 – Arena, Mexico City, Mexico
Saturday, November 4th – Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy
Sunday, November 5th – Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria
Monday, November 6th – Samsung Hall, Zurich, Switzerland
Tuesday, November 7th – AccorHotels Arena, Paris, France
Thursday, November 9th – König-Pilsener-Arena, Oberhausen, Germany
Friday, November 10th – Zenith, Munich, Germany
Saturday November 11th – Velodrom, Berlin, Germany
Sunday, November 12th – Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tuesday, November 14th – TAP1, Copenhagen, Denmark
Wednesday, November 15th – Sporthalle, Hamburg, Germany
Thursday, November 16th – Sportspaleis, Antwerp, Belgium
Sunday, November 19th – Manchester Arena, Manchester, UK
Tuesday, November 21st – The 02, London, UK
Thursday, November 23rd – Usher Hall, Edinburgh, UK
Friday, November 24th – 3Arena, Dublin, IrelandConservative Blogger Found Guilty On 21 Counts For Self-Defense With A Firearm, Faces Up To 50 Years In Prison
Conservative blogger, Michael Strickland, a former contributor at The Gateway Pundit and Progressives Today, was jailed in Portland, Oregon in July of 2016 after he pulled a gun on a gang of thugs who were going to attack him at a black lives matter protest.
In 2015 Michael was jumped by an anti-gun activist who broke his arm in three places at an anti-Second Amendment event.
Victoria Taft reported on Mr. Strickland’s 21 count felony indictment which you can read in full here.
Strickland, 37, was found guilty of 10 counts of unlawful use of a weapon, 10 counts of menacing and one count of second-degree disorderly conduct.
Here is the video of Michael Strickland pulling out his gun…This morning, the FCC released a Public Notice, announcing that the spectrum clearing target for the initial stage of the Incentive Auction will be 126 MHz. That means, that if the Incentive Auction is completed in the initial stage with the 126 MHz spectrum clearing target, TV channels 30-36 and 38-51 will be reallocated for mobile broadband and unlicensed wireless services, leaving UHF channels 14-29 for broadcast TV stations (along with VHF channels 2-13 which are not being auctioned). Channel 37 will remain allocated for wireless medical telemetry and radioastronomy services, with unlicensed services permitted. This is the maximum amount of spectrum that the FCC had initially indicated that it would potentially reclaim from broadcasters.
The Public Notice also announces that the actual bidding in the reverse auction, the so-called “clock rounds,” will begin on May 31, 2016. The initial two days of the auction will have one round per day, with subsequent days speeding up to have at least two rounds per day until further notice from the FCC’s Wireless Bureau which administers the auction.
The FCC also set out a number of educational efforts for parties participating in the auction, including a user’s guide that will be available May 5, tutorials and workshops on the bidding process, and mock auction dates that will precede the actual start of the “clock rounds.”
Finally, the Public Notice announces that the FCC will be sending today the Final Confidential Status Letter to inform each applicant that was permitted to make an initial commitment in the Reverse Auction of its status with respect to the clock phase of the Reverse Auction. In other words, this tells stations that accepted the FCC’s initial offers whether their stations may be needed in the auction. The FCC warns that stations that don’t receive this notice by Wednesday, May 4, should call the FCC to alert the FCC of issues with their distribution of this notice, as it contains information that will be needed to participate in the Mock Auctions, and in the clock rounds of the auction itself. Note that the anti-collusion rules apply until the end of the auction even for those applicants who are told that their stations are not needed in the auction (see our article on those restrictions here).
It has been a long road to this point, but it looks like the auction is for real now. TV stations that were interested in participating should now be hyper-alert to all news about the auction, as it is for real at this point!Did you ever begin Ulysses? Did you ever finish it? Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926–August 5, 1962) did both. She took great pains to be photographed reading or holding a book — insistence born not out of vain affectation but of a genuine love of literature. Her personal library contained four hundred books, including classics like Dostoyevsky and Milton, and modern staples like Hemingway and Kerouac. While she wasn’t shooting, she was taking literature and history night classes at UCLA. And yet, the public image of a breezy, bubbly blonde endures as a caricature of Monroe’s character, standing in stark contrast with whatever deep-seated demons led her to take her own life.
But her private poetry — fragmentary, poem-like texts scribbled in notebooks and on loose-leaf paper, published for the first time in Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters (public library) — reveals a complex, sensitive being who peered deeply into her own psyche and thought intensely about the world and other people. What these texts bespeak, above all, is the tragic disconnect between a highly visible public persona and a highly vulnerable private person, misunderstood by the world, longing to be truly seen.
Only parts of us will ever
touch only parts of others —
one’s own truth is just that really — one’s own truth.
We can only share the part that is understood by within another’s knowing acceptable to
the other — therefore so one
is for most part alone.
As it is meant to be in
evidently in nature — at best though perhaps it could make
our understanding seek
another’s loneliness out.
Life —
I am of both of your directions
Life
Somehow remaining hanging downward
the most
but strong as a cobweb in the
wind — I exist more with the cold glistening frost.
But my beaded rays have the colors I’ve
seen in a painting s — ah life they
have cheated you
Oh damn I wish that I were
dead — absolutely nonexistent —
gone away from here — from
everywhere but how would I do it
There is always bridges — the Brooklyn
bridge — no not the Brooklyn Bridge
because But I love that bridge (everything is beautiful from there and the air is so clean) walking it seems
peaceful there even with all those
cars going crazy underneath. So
it would have to be some other bridge
an ugly one and with no view — except
I particularly like in particular all bridges — there’s some-
thing about them and besides these I’ve
never seen an ugly bridge
Stones on the walk
every color there is
I stare down at you
like these the a horizon —
the space / the air is between us beckoning
and I am many stories besides up
my feet are frightened
from my as I grasp for towards you
Beyond her poems, the rest of Monroe’s intimate thoughts collected in Fragments are equally soul-stirring. Writing in her famous Record notebook in 1955, she echoes Kerouac’s famous line, “No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge”:
feel what I feel
within myself — that is trying to
become aware of it
also what I feel in others
not being ashamed of my feeling, thoughts — or ideas realize the thing that
they are —
In her 1955-1956 Italian diary engraved in green, she writes:
I’m finding that sincerity
and trying to be as simple or direct as (possible) I’d like
is often taken for sheer stupidity
but since it is not a sincere world —
it’s very probable that being sincere is stupid.
One probably is stupid to
be sincere since it’s in this world
and no other world that we know
for sure we exist — meaning that —
(since reality exists it should be must be dealt should be met and dealt with)
since there is reality to deal with
In 1956, Monroe traveled to London to shoot The Prince and the Showgirl. She stayed at the Parkside House, a luxurious manor outside the city, and used the hotel stationery for her thoughts:
To have your heart is
the only completely happy proud possession thing (that ever belonged
to me) I’ve ever possessed so
I guess I have always been
deeply terrified at to really be someone’s
wife
since I know from life
one cannot love another,
ever, really
Some of her undated notes live between the discipline of the to-do list and the expansive contemplation of philosophy:
for life
It is rather a determination not to be overwhelmed for work
The truth can only be recalled, never invented
Tender, tortured, thoughtful, the texts in Fragments hint at what playwright Arthur Miller, whom Monroe eventually married, must have meant when he said that she “had the instinct and reflexes of the poet, but she lacked the control.”
Images courtesy of FSG // thanks, SeanThe introduction of batted-ball data, first to the clubs and then to the public, certainly has caused a revolution in player evaluation. While the entirety of HITf/x and now Statcast data isn’t likely to be available to the masses anytime soon, the portions that are, including fairly complete PITCHf/x data, have changed the way fans, analysts, club personnel, and, yes, even players look at the game.
As I have often written on these pages, this data needs to be placed into context to be fully understood. There are ongoing issues with data capture, and the simple fact that not all hard or softly hit baseballs are created equal adds levels of nuance that must be understood before meaningful conclusions can be drawn. Another concern expressed by many is the uncertain predictive value of the batted-ball data, particularly with regard to pitchers. Today, let’s take a look at how this data correlates from year to year, from the pitcher’s perspective.
It’s been fairly well established over the years that a “ground ball” or “pop up” pitcher is a real thing: ball-in-play (BIP) type frequencies correlate quite well from year to year. The same applies to strikeout (K) and walk (BB) rates, both from the hitter and pitcher’s perspective. How about batted-ball authority? To examine this issue, I identified the 45 starting pitchers who qualified for the ERA title in either league in both 2014 and 2015. (Players who were traded mid-year and qualified overall but not in either league specifically were omitted.)
For each of these pitchers, the following statistics were scaled to 100 both for the 2014 and 2015 seaosns |
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There was an event where an analyst used it to describe one player beating another a couple of years ago in SC2. The fact that I remember it is due to how rare it was to hear that word used in the context of eSports as a profession. You just don't do it, the same reason you don't go and call someone "fag" in public though you might jokingly do it between friends, it's just going to get taken the wrong way regardless of what you intended. In this case, the fact that he said it to a woman is even more egregious. I mean what do we need a manual for progamers that says "yeah so maybe don't say you're going to rape your female opponent on twitter"? Common bloody sense surely. I think Kas is a big dumb idiot. I don't think he intended offense but it was the fairly obvious result. I mean come on, I'm all for trashtalking between opponents regardless of gender. It's a competitive scene, if you want to compete you've gotta be able to give and take a bit of trash-talk, but really, we have so few female progamers in SC2, could we try not to maybe say awful things to them?
It's not like I'm asking for special privileges, I'm asking that progamers act like professionals, at least to some degree. Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence. That applies to everyone. He said a stupid stupid thing and got punished for it. Sounds reasonable to me. Dumb shit like this happens in other sports to. That's not an excuse. Try to be better than that. So I mean y'know, maybe don't say you're going to rape someone over twitter? That sounds like a good idea, right? Maybe we do need that manual.The 2013 sale of 22 Swedish JAS 39E Gripen jet fighters to Switzerland was the last act in a very contentious competition between the Gripen, the French Rafale, and the Anglo-German (mainly) Eurofighter. Most of the secret evaluations of the three fighters were recently leaked to the media and provided some interesting insights on all three aircraft. The Gripen won the competition not because it was the best fighter but because it was OK on all counts and it was the cheapest. The fact that Sweden is, like Switzerland, a long-time neutral in European politics also apparently helped.
The evaluations found the Rafale to be the best combat aircraft. Actually, all three met the basic requirements set by the Swiss. The Gripen only excelled in initial and long-term (life cycle) costs (as the least expensive aircraft). The Eurofighter was the most expensive and time consuming to maintain. What particularly impressed the Swiss about the Rafale was how well all the active and passive sensors were integrated to give the pilot a very complete and real-time picture of what was out there. The Rafale and Eurofighter both had two engines, and that provided an edge over the single engine Gripen. But Switzerland is not a large country and a single engine aircraft has sufficient range to do what needs to be done. Moreover, the smaller Gripen was more suited to existing Swiss airfields and aircraft facilities, which were based on an older generation of aircraft that are more the size of Gripen than the larger Rafale and Eurofighter.
The 22 JAS 39Es cost $3.3 billion or about $150 million each. The cost includes training, spare parts, technical support, and so on and amounts to more than the actual cost of the aircraft. So it’s no wonder Sweden is willing to move some of the aircraft production to the nation buying the aircraft and all the accessories. That also helped Gripen get the sale.
The Swedes have always had to scramble to sell the Gripen in the face of intense competition from new and used American (especially used F-16s), Russia, and European jet fighters. EADS, the manufacturer of the Eurofighter, is threatening to upset the Swiss Gripen deal by offering 22 second hand Eurofighters for half of what the new JAS 39Es cost. This sort of thing is possible because several nations are cancelling orders for Eurofighters, an aircraft designed at the end of the Cold War. With the Soviet Union gone, orders for Eurofighters were cut and continue to be cut. This has created a market for used Eurofighters, which compete with used F-16s. While the new Gripen may be more suitable to Swiss needs, a 50 percent discount was very attractive. The Swedes had to sweeten their deal to handle the threat of second-hand Eurofighters.
Formerly known as the Gripen NG (Next Generation) fighters, the JAS 39E is heavier (17 tons) than the existing 39C, has better electronics, a heavier payload (over four tons), and has a two seater version better able to handle ground attack and electronic warfare duties. The Swedish Air Force already has 134 JAS 39Cs in service, and the prospect of more defense budget cuts made the purchase of 60 Gripen NGs (at a total cost of nearly $5 billion) seemingly impossible. But the JAS 39E excited several export customers and that made all the difference.
Sweden is describing the 39E as a "new aircraft" compared to the earlier JAS 39 models. There's some truth to that, as the 39E is a little longer and heavier but still looks like a Gripen. The 39E is full of more expensive, and capable, electronics, but that's not obvious by just looking at the new model. The first 39E is expected to fly this year and enter service in 2018.
The Gripen has already undergone one major upgrade for the JAS 39C model. Improvements included inflight refueling, better electronics, and improved ground attack capability. The C model was also compliant with NATO standards for warplanes. This was necessary for export sales. There was also a two seat D model for training.
The 14 ton JAS-39C is roughly comparable to the latest versions of the F-16. The Gripen is small but can carry up to 3.6 tons of weapons. With the increasing use of smart bombs, this is adequate. Often regarded as an also-ran in the current crop of "modern jet fighters", the Swedish Gripen is proving to be more competition than the major players (the F-16, F-18, F-35, Eurofighter, Rafale, MiG-29, and Su-27) expected. Put simply, Gripen does a lot of little (but important) things right and costs about half as much (at about $35 million each) as its major competitors. More importantly, Gripen also costs about half as much, per flight hour, to operate. In effect, Gripen provides the ruggedness and low cost of Russian aircraft with the high quality and reliability of Western aircraft. For many nations this is an appealing combination. The Gripen is easy to use (both for pilots and ground crews) and capable of doing all jet fighter jobs (air defense, ground support, and reconnaissance) well enough.
The JAS 39 entered active service in 1997, and has had an uphill battle getting export sales. Sweden does not have the diplomatic clout of its major competitors, so they have to push quality and service. Swedish warplanes and products in general have an excellent reputation in both categories. Nevertheless, the Gripen is still expected to lose out on some sales simply because politics took precedence over performance.Hello. This is the prologue to a story I started a couple of weeks ago on my tumblr. The first two chapters are going to be large, compiled chapters of what is already done on there. They may be edited in the future if I get the time just so they get better, but for now they are simply being uploaded onto here. I hope you all enjoy!
Pop.
Yet another button bursting, signaling the need for yet another shirt. Yet another trip to the school store, and yet another ridiculously high bill for a white uniform shirt.
"I hate these stupid things!" A burst of heat was sent through the hallway as Yang clenched her fists, raging at her shirt. The rest of her team kept their mouths quiet, having seen the rage that she had flown into the last time that her top had broken.
It was just a fact that the school didn't carry sizes that would work well for a slim girl that was so…top heavy.
Luckily they arrived at their dorm, and Yang was able to begin discarding the uniform after a long day of classes. If she had been forced to go any longer wearing the reminder of the school's failure, there would have been more than just a broken button.
Before even finding a replacement top, simply wearing a bright yellow bra, her team was confused to see Yang sit down and begin perusing her scroll.
"Yang?" Ruby was confused, substantially. "Aren't you gonna…I dunno, get dressed? What are you even looking at?"
"The school rules. I'm gotta find out if there's some other stupid option for a uniform. A winter or summer outfit or something that just doesn't have that stupid shirt!" The straining of her scroll could be heard as her anger threatened to make her crack the device.
"I doubt you will find anything," Weiss remarked as she changed clothes, "These outfits seem to be made of materials suitable for all weathers, and as huntresses, our aura can take care of most anything else."
"…You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
The three other girls weren't surprised by Yang's exclamation, only the strength behind it and the following crack.
Snapping their heads towards her, the girls looked to find Yang holding a broken scroll in her hands. They didn't need to ask what happened, their faces taking care of it via looks of utter bafflement.
"There is no dress code!"
Shaking her head, Blake was the first to address the statement. "What do you mean, 'there is no dress code'?"
"I mean in the rulebook it says that the uniform is just so everyone can show off "Beacon Pride" or whatever! It says we can wear whatever the fuck we want!"
"Are you just going to stop wearing it then? Imagine how much you'll stick out!" It was unthinkable to the heiress.
"Oh shut up, it's not like I'll be naked." At that point Yang's skirt joined her blazer and shirt on the floor, getting her a look from Weiss as the blond stood in only her underwear.
Speaking up, Blake made her own thoughts known. "You know…I do prefer my normal clothing…"
Ruby jumped into the air, pumping her fist. "Yeah! I get to wear my cool clothes all the time now!"
The only one who wasn't excited by the prospect was Weiss, who was looking fairly distressed. "I cannot believe that you all are just willing to throw away any prospect of fitting in…"
"Come on, Weiss…" Ruby gently tugged on her sleeve, drawing her attention. "Don't you want to be able to wear your combat skirts to class? You look so pretty in them…"
A flush appeared on Weiss' skin as she quickly turned her head away, not having expected the compliment. "I suppose…As long as someone doesn't draw too much attention!" A glare aimed at the nearly naked blond.
"What are you looking at me for?!"
"I'm looking at you because I fully expect you to walk up to Professor Goodwitch tomorrow and shove it in her face that we don't have to wear the uniforms!"
"As if I'd do that!" Three unbelieving looks were aimed at Yang. She quickly backed down from her statement. "Oh whatever! It won't be a big deal, we'll all just be wearing the only other clothes people always see us in."
The heiress scoffed. "As long as you don't go traipsing around in your underwear…" She gave a pointed look to Yang's attire.
Looking down at herself, Yang recalled her state of dress and flipped Weiss the bird. "Whatever, at least I'm not a total pansy like you when it comes to showing off my body."
"Excuse me?!"
The other two team members in the room had already changed clothes, simply waiting for their partners to finish.
"Yeah!" Yang was acting as if she were just getting started on insulting the Schnee. "You can't even imagine yourself wearing something like me because you're too nervous about how you look!"
"Oh I am quite confident in how I look! I just don't believe anyone would be comfortable showing more skin than you do on a daily basis!"
"Well look no further, princess! I could go to class and nothing and still be fine because I look damn~ good!" She accentuated the statement with a soft caressing of her large breasts.
"Fine!" There was a slight tremor around Weiss as she stamped her foot. "Wear less!I dare you!"
"I accept!" There was no way Yang was gonna lose a bet to Weiss. "And If I do it, then you have to do the same!"
"Very well!I accept!"The Boston Red Sox offseason has begun, and most rumors center around the team’s depleted pitching staff. After General Manager Ben Cherington dealt away four of the team’s top five starting pitchers at or before the July 31 trade deadline, Boston spent the rest of the season auditioning a group of prospects, with mixed results.
While most Red Sox rumors involve either the supposed return of Jon Lester via free agency, or the acquisition of Phillies’ ace Cole Hamels through a blockbuster trade, there is another possible acquisition on the Boston radar — another certified ace lefty who could anchor the Red Sox rotation.
In fact, this pitcher was arguably the best lefty in baseball in 2014, though he didn’t receive anywhere near the publicity of a Lester or a Hamels. His ERA+ (an adjusted metric that measures a pitcher’s performance against the rest of the league) of 174 led the American League, while he allowed a WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched) of under 1.0 and struck out almost 11 batters per nine innings.
But what would it take to pry 6’6″ southpaw Chris Sale from the White Sox? Sale’s contract keeps him under team control through 2017 at a bargain-basement average price of just over $9 million per year — exactly the type of contract to make the Boston front office salivate. And at age 26 when the 2015 season opens, the Red Sox would be obtaining a front-line pitcher just moving into the best years of his career.
White Sox ace lefty Chris Sale: A possible Red Sox trade target this offseason?
Sale’s contract comes complete with team options for 2018 and 2019, meaning that whatever team has his services could keep a superstar pitcher on the roster through the age of 30, his true prime.
The White Sox have two options with Sale following the team’s dismal 73-89 finish this year. They can hold on to Sale and focus their rebuilding efforts around him. Or they can trade him — a move that has been rumored at least since the 2013 offseason — for a crop of prospects that could serve as the White Sox foundation for years.
Few teams are as prospect-rich as the Red Sox — but they have at least one asset that the White Sox need, desperately. Namely — catching.
Tyler Flowers was a bust for the White Sox in 2014 behind the plate, and at age 28 he is unlikely to show much improvement. But the Boston Red Sox have young catching talent to spare, even though catching prospects are perhaps even more sought-after that young pitching arms.
The Red Sox were delighted with the way Christian Vasquez adapted to the Major League level this season and have pegged him as their catcher of the future. But Vasquez would also fill a gaping hole for the White Sox and could top a package that would bring Chris Sale to Boston. With a second prime catching prospect, Blake Swihart, in their system — a prospect they believe to be even more promising than Vasquez, and who has earned comparisons to Buster Posey — putting together a Sale trade may be almost painless for Boston.
Of course, in 22-year-old Henry Owens down at Triple-A Pawtucket, the Red Sox have one of the best lefty pitching prospects in baseball waiting in the wings as well. Could Owens being packaged by Boston in a deal for Chris Sale, too, before this offseason is over?
Would a trade package topped by Vasquez and Owens be enough for the the Boston Red Sox to bring Chris Sale from Chicago to Fenway Park? Expect the rumors to heat up once the World Series has finished and the offseason officially gets underway.About
Embarking on your first crowdfunding project is an incredibly daunting task. You may never have created a video before. How do you choose the prices for the individual backer levels? Will your idea be accepted by Kickstarter? Once you launch your project, how will you reach your potential backers? Will they back you? What happens if you fail or – perhaps an even bigger challenge – what happens if you reach your goal ten times over? Will you be able to deliver the project? What happens once you do? If you have all of these ideas swirling in your head, it’d be fantastic if there were somewhere you could turn for advice. And if there’s a question in that list you haven’t thought of yet, you definitely need some advice. That’s where this Kickstarter project comes in.
Why this book?
Haje Jan Kamps is one of Ilex Press's star authors, who turned into a startup founder after he ran a very successful Kickstarter project in 2011. When he was putting together the Kickstarter project for the Triggertrap v1, he desperately tried to find a book that would teach him how it was done. Back then, he couldn’t find the book he wanted to read, and made a mental note to write one himself.
Two years later Haje is the CEO of a very successful company built around the idea that sparked his original Kickstarter project. To bring their newest gadget to market, Triggertrap returned to Kickstarter (Haje's second campaign). In the name of research, he bought all the books about Kickstarter he could find, and ended up chucking them across the room in frustration – two years later, and the book he wanted to read still didn’t exist; there still wasn’t a book that is helpful enough to people creating Kickstarter projects.
So that's what this project is about; we're not guaranteeing you success in your projects, but we want to put together the best possible book for people planning to crowd-fund.
A selection of Haje's previous books for Ilex, and an open spread from The Ilex Introduction to Photography.
What’s this book about?
This book is a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know about running your own Kickstarter project. It’s split into two main parts. The most important part is, of course, what it takes to create a successful Kickstarter project. The other part is a series of masterclasses, walking you through some of the skills you will invariably need in the course of running a Kickstarter project.
Haje holds the dummy book in the Ilex meeting room (and library); at the moment it's just a cover waiting for you to help us fill it!
Obviously, the Table of Contents depends on a lot of things, not least on your feedback and questions about what you want this book to be, but we know what we want the book to do for the reader, and that’s what this Table of Contents demonstrates. There’s the short version first, if you’re in a hurry, but if that’s not enough for you, there’s a long version on the Ilex website (you can see we've done our homework):
Table of Contents (Short Version)
What is Kickstarter?
Where it came from, how it works, and what it can do for you – if you get it right
Top 10 tips for a successful Kickstarter project
Diving straight in, these are the most important things to bear in mind.
What’s the story?
The most successful Kickstarter projects have a powerful story which the backers feel part of. This chapter shows how you can tell your story most effectively and involve your backers in it.
Creating your Kickstarter Page
This hard-working section goes into the detail: how you should name your project, the importance of a good project cover photo, the crucial short project description, and every other part of the Kickstarter page. Tons of examples, checklists, and ideas will help you make your page compelling.
Creating your Kickstarter Video
The video is the most important single element of the page – and this chapter shows you how to play to your strengths, tell a compelling story, and convince the viewer that you are deadly serious about making the project happen.
Creating your Backer Rewards
Once you’ve convinced the viewer to join in, you need to give them different options: this chapter is a masterclass in creating rewards for every level of investment, from basic project up. There’s also a guide to budgeting – so that you don’t accidentally promise rewards that you can’t afford!
Choosing your funding goal
A big question – probably the biggest – and this chapter introduces the benefits and pitfalls of going high or low so you can make the right decision for your project. Features interviews with a number of veteran Kickstarters explaining their own thinking – whether they got it right or wrong!
Timing your Kickstarter project
Your finger is hovering over the beautiful green ‘Launch Project’ button. When in the month should you be launching your project? When in the year is best? And, does the time of day that you launch and finish your project make a difference?
Plugging your project
Once the project is out there, your job as a project owner completely changes - you’re going to have to dust off your networking skills, because this is when the real fight starts. This chapter takes you beyond facebook 'likes' and into the realm of journalism, PR, and the media.
Kickstarter Categories
It’s pretty obvious that categories like food, dance and technology are widely different – but how does this change the way you promote them?
Masterclasses
The key topics covered in the chapters above will also be covered in Masterclass sections – where you go beyond basic rules and learn exactly how the pros go about it.
1) Project Management
2) Communication
3) Producing a video
4) Creating a good project budget
5) Public Relations & Marketing
… and that’s it! Well, pretty much. We know that the book will follow this structure, and we know what we want it to do for its readers, but a lot of the detail will come in the research, writing and editing of the text – and, of course, in what you, the backers, request!
Additional masterclasses We’re considering a couple of bonus masterclasses, including potentially including a masterclass on patenting and intellectual property, marketing, and other topics. Which masterclasses we pick are up to you, backers – tell us what you want, and we’ll see if we can find a way to make them happen!
Why is this book on Kickstarter?
Ilex is a successful publishing company, so why are we using Kickstarter to publish a book? In short, because we're excited and we want to get the book out there long before we can persuade the suits that it's a good idea. That's where you come in; by backing the project early you'll not only get to shape the book you want, but you'll help us demonstrate to some of the less fast-moving parts of our own industry that there's a clear and present need for a high quality crowdfunding book.
We're looking to you not just to back the book, but – if you choose – to help influence the book's content. If you're reading this, the chances are you've got an idea you're thinking of crowdfunding one day soon; as a backer of this book, you'll be able to tell us about your plans and we can make sure they're covered.
Biographies
Haje Jan Kamps
If curiosity killed the cat, Haje Jan Kamps is lucky to be alive (about.me). He spent a lot of time being curious about a lot of things. His career path started with a degree in Journalism, after which he set up a series of successful websites. He wrote his first book aged 25, and proceeded to produce a healthy bibliography of books about photography. He worked for the Gadget Show and Fifth Gear at Channel Five in London, before producing a series of websites (including one for Nokia!). In 2011, he did a Kickstarter project which sparked his current company, Triggertrap, into life. In addition to the Kickstarted Triggertrap v1 products, Triggertrap went on to become a huge success with their mobile products. In October 2013, Triggertrap launched their second Kickstarter project, which was funded within 12 hours of going live on Kickstarter, and hit 580% of its goal. Haje loves Kickstarter as a platform, and is eager to help others succeed on the platform, and we’re very pleased he agreed to write this book!
Alastair Campbell, Roly Allen and Adam Juniper of Ilex Press
Alastair Campbell
As publisher of Ilex (and never having worked in Number 10), our Alastair Campbell has four decades experience in publishing illustrated non-fiction books, and it's his trained eye that oversees and finally signs off all Ilex books.
Roly Allen
As Executive Publisher, Roly handles Ilex Press's relationships with distributors and bookstores, and he'll be ultimately responsible for ensuring this book (with your name printed inside it) ends up in as many hands as possible.
Adam Juniper
As Associate Publisher and Head of Digital at Ilex Press, Adam's job title barely fits on a business card. His role is to develop new book projects from the moment the idea-bulb flashes on until the point it can be safely passed to Ilex's ultra-professional design and editorial team. Adam has over fifteen years experience in publishing, and sees this as a way to show the industry that the power should rest with you, not crusty publishing boards, something he's already been doing at Ilex Instant.
The Process
Ilex have a lot of experience publishing illustrated non-fiction books
Traditionally Ilex Press would work with an author to craft a book proposal that they call a 'blad', or 'book layout and design'. This is then taken to the publishing boards of different companies and Ilex makes a deal to share the distribution, Ilex handling it in the UK, Australia, NZ (and other places English language books are sold), but only doing so if a deal to sell the rights in the USA and Canada has been secured with another publisher first (this is explained in more detail on Ilex's website).
That means a lot of our most successful books have different covers, and different branding, in the USA and Canada, even though we do all the hard work! It's a great process in established areas like photography books, but it is time consuming and it puts the power into the hands of old-media publishers who have little interest in seeing Kickstarter projects succeed.
Ilex books often feature different covers in different markets.
We want this book to succeed, and to do so quickly (to help you guys as soon as we can), so what better way than to skip the co-edition wrangling and just get you, the readers, to show the world that you want a high quality, professionally designed, full-colour book on crowdfunding, and that you want it now?
So we've set this project up. The target price covers the editorial and design costs, so if we reach it we'll be confident that the book has a market and will be able to go ahead and publish worldwide (Ilex would still stump up the printing and shipping costs, which is why for what would be such a costly book to produce, we're able to set such a low target figure).
Back us today, and help make the publishing industry a slightly better place. More importantly, back us today to make your world a whole lot more successful.A view of the U.S.-Mexican border fence at Playas de Tijuana on Jan. 27 in Tijuana, Mexico. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Seven people were arrested Wednesday night at a protest aimed at impeding the deportation of Guadalupe García de Rayos, who was detained after checking in for her regular appointment at a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Phoenix. García de Rayos may be one of the first undocumented immigrants to be sent back to Mexico after President Trump’s executive order realigning the government’s deportation priorities. From Phoenix’s ABC 15:
Seven people were arrested Wednesday night as protesters blocked an ICE van that was believed to be transporting Garcia. The van moved back into the garage after several hours of people holding onto the tires and blocking the vehicle with their bodies. No injuries were reported.
Garcia’s attorneys say they are trying to buy the Valley mother more time in the U.S., but no one knows for sure how that will work. Garcia is among, if not the first, Arizonan to be deported under the President’s new executive order.
Scenes from the protest were tweeted by the New York Times’ Fernanda Santos.
I'm outside @ICEgov office in Phoenix, where protesters have surrounded a van taking Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos to Mexico. pic.twitter.com/NClTpqtyGb — Fernanda Santos (@ByFernandaS) February 9, 2017
Among people blocking van from backing up and returning to ICE is Emrys Stanton, a Unitarian Universalist pastor. He's the one on right. pic.twitter.com/5nMPuvxow3 — Fernanda Santos (@ByFernandaS) February 9, 2017
This is Manuel Saldana. He tied himself to one of the front wheels of the van. He said he's going to be here "for as long as it takes." pic.twitter.com/Q8mtzzIjnC — Fernanda Santos (@ByFernandaS) February 9, 2017
According to CNN, García de Rayos, who is 35, the mother of two teenagers, and has been in the U.S. since she was 14, is currently being detained by ICE. Santos reported Wednesday that García de Rayos had been checking in with ICE since 2008, after she was caught using a fake Social Security number:
Ms. Rayos was working at Golfland Sunsplash in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, when Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies swooped in on Dec. 16, 2008, arresting her and several other employees on charges of suspicion of identity theft and using forged documents to obtain employment. The raid was one of the first ordered by Joe Arpaio, who was sheriff at the time, under an Arizona law authorizing sanctions against employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants.
That offense moves Rayos up in the queue for deportation according to President Trump’s Jan. 25 executive order, which prioritizes the deportation of any undocumented immigrant convicted, charged, or liable to be charged for any criminal offense or guilty of misrepresentation to government officials. The Obama administration had previously prioritized the deportation of violent, serious, or repeat offenders and known threats to national security.
Santos writes that García de Rayos was “afraid to go to her appointment on Wednesday”:
Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente, an immigrants’ rights group, told her she could skip it and go into hiding or seek refuge at a church in North Phoenix, joining two other unauthorized immigrants facing deportation who have lived there for months.
She decided to face the odds — a risky gamble that was also a statement.
Update, Feb. 9, 4:19 PM: The immigrant advocacy group Puente Arizona has reported that García de Rayos has been deported.Roseanne Montillo is a part-time professor at Emerson College whose upcoming book is titled "The Wilderness of Ruin"; she wrote this piece for Crimesider
On April 23, 1874, the mutilated body of a young boy named Horace Millen was found in a pit on the beaches of South Boston. Two brothers, George and James Power, had gone there in search of clams. But, having miscalculated the tide's arrival, they took to wandering the area in search of other treasures. What they found instead was a small child left dead inside a ditch. Nearly naked, numerous stab wounds crisscrossed the child's body, one of which ran across his neck from end to end. It appeared that a sharp object had been shoved into one eye, while his genitals had been nearly severed. The body had also been set on fire.
William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins
There was no question in the minds of those who gathered at the site that only an individual with a monstrous constitution must have committed the crime. As it happened, as the detectives delved deeper into the case, they discovered that two witnesses had stood on the beach not far from the spot where the boy had died, and what they had seen pointed to someone even more disturbing than a monster. At around noon on that April 23rd, Edward and Benjamin Harrington had noticed a very young boy running away from the murder site. He was tall for his age, wore a cap, but the two men recognized him to be a boy nonetheless.
The community was disturbed that a child, or a young boy might have been the perpetrator of such an act. Yet, it was not impossible. Most recently, the area had seen a rush of crimes committed on young children by someone who was no more than a child himself. Could this boy have graduated to murder? The police wondered.
Jesse Pomeroy was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, on November 29, 1859. From the very beginning, he did not fit in. A defect in his right eye set him apart. A white film so thick and unappealing covered the pupil, the people who crossed his path were revolted by it, by him. Those people included his father. At school, Jesse Pomeroy became the target of many jokes, bullied viciously by those bigger, taller, and stronger than himself. In turn, he bullied those who were smaller, shorter, and weaker than he was.
He was a loner, preferring to spend his time reading the cheap "dime novels" published at the time, stories full of blood, gore, sex, wars, battles and mayhem, the equivalent of today's violent video games. His brother, Charles, older by seventeen months, ignored him in favor of girls, and his father, Thomas Pomeroy, frequently beat him up with a horsewhip or a leather belt, often demanding that he strip completely naked so as to inflict further punishment on his bare skin. The only person in Jesse's life who offered a measure of comfort, or, at the very least, understanding, was his mother, Ruth Ann Pomeroy. She believed her son's issues were due to bullying; if others stopped bullying him, then he would stop bullying others. Even when he began to torture and kill small animals, Ruth Ann saw this as a sign of his sadness.
In late 1871, in the city of Chelsea, just across the river from Charlestown, children began to suffer vicious beatings at the hands of a boy some described as bigger, taller, and stronger than they were. Some were sexually assaulted as well. The boy would befriend them, offer them money and treats, accompany them to a remote location, and there have his way with them. He became known as The Boy Torturer and The Red Devil. A description of the boy was subsequently published in the Boston Globe, which Ruth Ann Pomeroy read and recognized. Immediately, she transferred the family to South Boston.
In August of 1872, a young boy was found tortured on the sands of South Boston. That following September, another child was discovered beaten, assaulted and tied up to a telephone post, also in South Boston. But unlike the rest of the victims, this latest one gave a very good description of his assailant, including the fact that he had a very peculiar right eye, a white eye that resembled a marble. Jesse Pomeroy was arrested, and due to his age was sentenced to the State Reform School at Westborough for the term of his minority, six years.
Katie Curran death photo Charlestown Historical Society
Though the inhabitants of Boston were relieved, Ruth Ann Pomeroy had other plans in mind. Through her machinations, Jesse was released only months later, to the detriment of the community.
On March 18, 1874, Katie Curran disappeared from her home in South Boston. She had gone out to buy a notebook and was never seen again. Upon inquiry, it was discovered the last place she had been was the Pomeroys' shop, where Jesse worked. The place was searched and Jesse interrogated, but nothing was found.
Some five weeks after Katie's disappearance, the dead boy on
Horace Millen death photo Charlestown Historical Society
the beach, four-year-old Horace Millen, was discovered. When brought to the police, it was found that Jesse Pomeroy had blood on his clothes, scratches on his skin, and the sole of his boots matched the imprints left on the sands on the beach.
People wanted to know why a child had committed such atrocities, a tangible reason why Jesse Pomeroy had done what he had done. Experts were hired, and, much like in today's trials where children are involved, each expert had an answer.
Jesse must have suffered from some kind of familial mental illness, although despite some thorough investigations, none was found in his relatives. He was the product of a broken family, they said. Indeed, his parents were separated and when they'd been together, there had been plenty of physical and mental abuse. He was bullied, they concluded, which had caused him to be a bully and want to kill others. Perhaps he was jealous, they said, jealous of the children's beauty and loving homes. Maybe he had been merely reenacting the violence he had seen depicted in the dime novels, much like psychologists today believe children react to the violence they see depicted on television. Or perhaps he had just been born bad. The truth was, all of the explanations were plausible reasons.
Jesse Pomeroy was not a singular case: following in his footsteps, in 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, teenagers themselves, kidnapped and murdered Bobby Franks just to see what it would feel like. In the 1960s, Mary Flora Bell, together with her friend, Norma Bell, barely children themselves, killed four-year-old Martin Brown, also for the sheer fun of it. In 1983, Cindy Collier and Shirley Wolf, 15 and 14 respectively, prowled condominiums in search of victims they could rob and stab to death. And in 1999, 11-year old Nathaniel Abraham was arrested for the shooting death of 18-year-old Ronnie Greene. They are members of a group that is large and becoming larger.
Jesse Pomeroy in prison, after his release from solitary confinement Charlestown Historical Society
Although psychologists prefer not to label children and young adults who commit such crimes as psychopaths, they have come up with a pattern of behavior that falls under the umbrella of conduct disorders |
who manages the farm with her three teen-agers, was arrested. A fifty-nine-year-old graphic designer named Eugenie Victoria Bloch, a Rawesome member who helped sell Palmer’s products at farmers’ markets, was also arrested, outside her home in Los Angeles. Stewart, Palmer, and Bloch were charged with felony counts of conspiracy; Stewart and Palmer were charged with an additional two felonies, for running an unlicensed milk plant and processing milk products without pasteurization, and with various misdemeanors, including counts of poor sanitation and improper labelling. (All three pleaded not guilty to all the charges.) Stewart’s bail was set at a hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars, with the stipulation, common in drug cases, that he be held until the court could ascertain that the bail was not “feloniously obtained”—high stakes for a grocer. At a hearing in October, thirty supporters wearing white T-shirts that read “RAW MILK HEALS” gathered outside the courtroom. Many were baffled by what had befallen their neighborhood market. “Rawesome was an intelligent local food ecosystem. It was alive, and it was regulating itself on a level so far beyond what the U.S.D.A. or the F.D.A. means when it says ‘food safety,’ ” Camilla Griggers, who teaches English at a nearby college, said. “That we would be dragged through the court system on a food-safety issue is so laughable. Rawesome was a gourmet club par excellence of the best food you could get anywhere in the world.”
Raw milk stirs the hedonism of food lovers in a special way. Because it is not heated or homogenized and often comes from animals raised on pasture, it tends to be richer and sweeter, and, sometimes, to retain a whiff of the farm—the slightly discomfiting flavor known to connoisseurs as “cow butt.” “Pasteurization strips away layers of complexity, layers of aromatics,” Daniel Patterson, a chef who has used raw milk to make custard and eggless ice cream at Coi, his two-Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco, said. “Right now, at the beginning of spring, the milk is at its sweetest. The cows are getting a lot of herbs that are really verdant and green, and the milk has a higher fat content.” Another respected California chef, who uses raw cream to make butter, ice cream, and a cajeta he describes as “haunting,” told me, “Dairy is the single most delicate and sensitive indicator of terroir I have encountered. When you take milk or cream and pasteurize it and homogenize it, you’ve killed the originality.” He helped a nearby farmer buy three cows (from a breed carefully picked for the character of its milk) and is part of a small herd share, an agreement of uncertain legality whereby consumers own a percentage of a herd and are entitled to a certain amount of the milk. The chef said that his farmer insisted on cash payments, no paper trail. “Only recently have they allowed receipts to go through my bookkeeper, but even now we don’t say what it’s for,” he told me. “We say ‘cow services.’ ” The new wave of refined American cuisine has a regressive side, wrapped up in nostalgia for an imagined past. Never mind the immersion circulators and the hydrocolloids; progressive cooking is an act of recovery. Patterson, who is both a kitchen technologist and a forager, told me, “We make a huge effort at Coi to look like we’re making no effort at all.” To chefs like him, unprocessed milk does not just taste better; it is sentimental and, more important, it is pure. “Raw milk is a primary touchstone of that sort of agrarian, old-fashioned way of life,” Patterson said. Suspicion of technology has long been associated with the raw-milk movement. In the nineteen-thirties, a Cleveland dentist named Weston A. Price travelled around the world studying isolated populations experiencing their first exposure to “the displacing foods of modern commerce.” In “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,” which has become a central text for the movement, he wrote that people who ate unprocessed, indigenous foods had strong teeth, regular bone structure, and over-all good health, whereas those who had adopted an American diet—refined sugar, white flour, pasteurized and skim milk, and hydrogenated oils—had cavities, facial deformities, and other problems, which they passed along to their children. Advocates of raw milk hold that pasteurization kills enzymes that make food digestible and bacteria that contribute to a healthy immune system. Drinking raw milk, they say, confers numerous health benefits—vitality, digestive vigor, strong teeth, clear skin—and even has the power to treat serious ailments, such as diabetes, cancer, and autism. Sally Fallon Morell, the founder of an advocacy group informed by Price’s work, recommends feeding raw milk to infants. Carola Caldwell, a registered nurse who drove several hours from Lake Arrowhead to shop at Rawesome, overrode years of medical training to feed her son raw milk and meat. She told me that the diet had cured him of extreme allergies, chemical sensitivity, and moodiness. “Within three weeks of starting raw food, he became a different child,” she said. There has been little science to support these claims. The closest thing to an objective body of data appeared last August, with the publication of a large-sample study linking children’s consumption of unheated “farm milk” to reduced rates of asthma and allergies. The researchers, based in Europe, where raw milk is more widely accepted, determined that whey protein was the protective element, but they stopped short of advising people to consume raw milk, because of the risk of pathogens. The next step, they wrote, would be to develop “ways of processing and preserving a safe and preventive milk.”
Milk—rich in protein, low in acid—is one of the best growth mediums on the planet. Bacteria love it. Unpasteurized milk can carry salmonella, campylobacter, and E. coli O157:H7, the strain that came to public attention in the nineties, when four children died after eating contaminated meat at Jack in the Box. Listeria has been traced to queso-fresco-style raw-milk cheeses, sometimes known as “bathtub cheese,” a reference to unsanitary home-production methods. A study published by the C.D.C. in February found that pathogens in raw milk can be especially harmful to children and others with weakened immune systems; in the sixty raw-dairy outbreaks between 1993 and 2006 in which the victims’ ages were known, two-thirds were younger than twenty. Only a small fraction of the population—between one and three per cent—drinks raw milk, and fewer than two hundred cases of foodborne illness are attributed to it each year. Still, its popularity is rising, which is a great concern to regulators. The C.D.C. study reported that raw dairy was a hundred and fifty times more likely than pasteurized products to cause an outbreak. Pasteurization was introduced to the American dairy industry to solve a crisis. By the mid-nineteenth century, most of the milk available in cities was supplied by “swill dairies”: stables built alongside distilleries, where cows were fed macerated grain left over from the production of whiskey. The spent grains boosted milk production temporarily, but left the cows—confined to dirty, crowded pens—malnourished and prone to disease. In 1858, the Times published an editorial titled “How We Poison Our Children,” decrying the “bluish, white compound of true milk, pus and dirty water” and blaming swill milk for eight thousand infant deaths in the city the previous year. Four years later, Louis Pasteur came up with a heat treatment to kill bacteria in wine, and his method was soon applied to milk. When Nathan Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s, set up depots where poor families could get pasteurized milk at discounted prices, the number of New York City babies dying dropped precipitously. What began as an argument for treating milk produced under unsanitary conditions became an argument for treating all milk. Speaking at the Pasteur Institute in 1905, the director of the depots read a statement from Straus saying, “It is milk—raw milk, diseased milk—which is responsible for the largest percentage of sickness in the world.... I hold that the only safe rule is—Pasteurize the entire milk supply and make it a function of the municipality.” Raw-milk sales are now illegal in eleven states and permitted in a number of others only through herd-share agreements and on-farm sales; in four states, it can be sold only as pet food. Since 1987, when Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen sued the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit interstate commerce in raw milk, it has been a crime to transport it for sale across state lines. The resulting underground market is by definition unregulated; consumers must take it on faith that the milk is clean, something that, without testing, even the farmer can’t know for sure. Good standards for inspection and proper labelling could significantly reduce the likelihood of outbreaks, but for now the two sides—those who call for unfettered access and those who completely oppose it—are deadlocked. “The conversation needs to start with really solid facts about the incidence of bacteria in raw milk,” Jo Robinson, an investigative journalist who runs the Web site Eat Wild, says. “We’re not doing enough to reduce those risks.” Raw milk has always been legal in California, but the preponderance of regulation has made it hard to come by. In the late nineties, not long after James Stewart started selling raw milk, the state’s largest provider shut down its raw operation, leaving, by Stewart’s count, eight licensed raw-milk cows in California. As he searched for new supplies, he heard from Mark McAfee, a former paramedic who had inherited his grandparents’ farm, in Fresno. “I called up James and said, ‘I’ve got two hundred and fifty cows here, all certified organic or on grass,’ ” McAfee told me. “He says, ‘I’ll be there in three hours.’ ” According to McAfee, Stewart single-handedly rebuilt the market for raw milk in Southern California, and introduced him to the nutritionist Aajonus Vonderplanitz, a former “General Hospital” actor who claims to have cured himself of multiple cancers by eating a diet of raw meat, eggs, and milk, and sharply restricting his water intake. (Vonderplanitz, who calls his approach the Primal Diet, says that for a treat he bleeds meat into raw milk: “Tastes like ice cream!”) Vonderplanitz became an investor in the farm, and his followers became McAfee’s customers. Organic Pastures is now, by McAfee’s estimation, the largest raw dairy in the world, with four hundred and thirty cows. It produces twenty-four hundred gallons of milk a day, which retails for sixteen dollars a gallon. On a chilly day in November, I drove out to Organic Pastures with McAfee, an energetic, trim man who was wearing a thick parka and clean bluejeans. “When people start drinking raw milk, it’s like this awakening,” he said. “It’s a phenomenally transforming immune-system food that is largely oppressed, suppressed, ignored, vilified, hated by processors and those that are involved with the structure of the American Dairy Association,” he said. “It’s a massive food fight.” That day, McAfee was waiting for the state to lift a monthlong embargo on his milk. For the second time in five years, Organic Pastures had been implicated in an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7. Five young children had fallen ill; three were hospitalized and treated for hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to kidney failure. The same strain had been found in his calving pen, and he had instituted new safety procedures at the farm. Still, the embargo was costing him a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a week, and he felt that the state was bleeding him intentionally. The recall had driven the price of raw milk in some stores up to forty dollars a gallon, with priority going to mothers. “We’ve been trying to keep the peace with all of our consumers,” he told me. McAfee pulled into the farm and stopped beside a village of neat trailers: an office, a retail store, and a creamery, where hundreds of bottles stood waiting to be sent out. He talked with a manager, and said grimly, “It looks like we won’t be getting released today.” We drove down an unpaved road, past McAfee’s house, a large Mediterranean spread with a pool, a pair of pet goats, and a hangar where he keeps a plane. In the dairy barn, a row of cows with steaming, swollen undercarriages lined up to be milked. Workers hosed them down—manure is a major potential source of pathogens—then stripped their teats with iodine. The state requires frequent testing, and McAfee takes expensive precautions to keep the milk clean. But, he said, “Manure is the carrier of the beneficial bacteria found in raw milk. The whole pasteurization community does not understand that at all.” In recent years, people have been drinking less milk, instead choosing alternatives like soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, and other beverages. At the same time, prices for feed and fuel have escalated, and many dairies have gone out of business. There has been a spate of dairyman suicides, several of them in California. But, since McAfee’s last E. coli recall, in 2006, when six children got sick after drinking his products, Organic Pastures has grown steadily. McAfee is doing far better than most of his pasteurizing counterparts; the company, he says, has sold nearly eight million dollars’ worth of milk products in the past year. “I had a scary dream that I wasn’t getting any attention.” Many public-health workers are puzzled by the raw-milk phenomenon. The F.D.A. “strongly advises against the consumption of raw milk,” maintaining that there is no nutritional advantage and a great health risk; John Sheehan, the agency’s director of dairy food safety, has likened it to “playing Russian roulette with your health.” Gevork Kazanchyan, a former Los Angeles County health inspector who teaches food safety and sanitation, told me, “We know this food can contain a hazard that is possibly life-altering; it’s the extremity of the hazard that governs the response to it. There is a population that is particularly vulnerable, and these are the ones who are fed raw milk. We have this thing—pasteurization—that works. You’re choosing to go around it. We can’t give carte blanche.” But embracing bacteria is part of the raw-milk ethos. In order to shop at Rawesome, you had to sign an agreement saying that you preferred your food to “contain microbes, including but not limited to salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, listeria, gangrene and parasites” and liked your eggs “completely unrefrigerated and unwashed from the chicken and covered with bacteria and poultry feces.” Members not only rejected government food-safety standards as inapplicable to their nutritional requirements; they found them to be dangerous, because they allow for food to be treated with radiation and antibacterial chemicals. In an earlier raid on Rawesome, in 2010, the California Department of Food and Agriculture took samples of cheese made by a dairy in Missouri and found that they tested positive for trace amounts of listeria. “We told them we threw it out, but I don’t think we did,” a former U.S.D.A. employee who worked at Rawesome for two years told me. “Listeria really didn’t matter.” Milk, be it human or cow, is the first food to which most humans are exposed; it is unlike other products both for consumers, who associate it with basic nourishment, and for regulators, who see its oversight as a grave responsibility. Michele Jay-Russell, of the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at U.C. Davis, said, “From a public-health perspective, milk has fallen into the category of water. Providing a clean milk and water supply is fundamental to what the government sees as its job. If the government were stopping people from selling impure water, it’s hard to imagine there would be a great public outcry.” But Jay-Russell acknowledges the frustration of consumers who can’t get a product that they feel they need. “The crux of the conundrum is: why shouldn’t it be their choice?”
One winter morning, with a heavy fog lying over Los Angeles, the Dairy Fairy, a Rawesome member who quietly assumed Stewart’s procurement responsibilities after the bust, got in her car and headed for the drop. Every week, she takes orders from the Rawesome diaspora for raw dairy, sauerkraut, and meat, most of it transported from out of state in truck space rented from a large produce operation. To compensate her for her time, she is given a box of groceries, which is meaningful, since she works freelance, and she and her boyfriend spend about five hundred dollars a week on food. (Their dog eats raw, too.) Since August, the drop had gone down in public parks across the city, but the Dairy Fairy had decided that was too risky. One day, at a convenience store, she noticed a man selling cars off the lot. “I was like, That’s kind of shady,” she said. “So I went and talked to the owner. He said, ‘I’m from Egypt—I love raw milk!’ I trade him milk for us to park our truck here.” The beauty of the location, she said, is that trucks come and go all day long; no one notices the milk truck, unmarked and inconspicuous, parked in a corner of the lot. The truck was waiting when she arrived. A young couple popped out; the woman had a pixie cut and was wearing knee-high yellow-and-black athletic socks from a CrossFit gym. The man helped the Dairy Fairy unload from her trunk two cases of black-market raw butter, made with cream from a nonfat-yogurt operation in New England, which sold for sixteen dollars a pound. “This stuff is sacred!” the Dairy Fairy said. The butter-maker, she said, demanded that they rendezvous in strange spots to make the handoff: cash up front for butter. The last time, it had been at LAX. This time, she had had to meet him by the side of the road in Pasadena. As the sun burned through the fog, the former members of Rawesome started to arrive: skinny women on bicycles, old ladies with tote bags, a C.P.A. in a shiny black BMW S.U.V. Vincent Gallo—pink sunglasses, lumberjack shirt, moccasins—came for his box, which included goat yogurt made by someone who used to work at Rawesome. “I go up in the mountains and get the raw goat milk,” the yogurt-maker said. “I actually have to sign a waiver saying I won’t bring anyone up there or say who they are. They are top secret.” A few weeks later, the Dairy Fairy called me. She’d had an uncomfortable conversation with the butter-maker, who has a successful gourmet business and sees no advantage in exposing his dealings in contraband dairy. “He said, ‘You were the drug dealer! The drug dealer does not talk to the media!’ ”
To many in the national food-freedom movement, raw milk is the test case. Two years ago, a nonprofit legal organization that helps raw-milk farmers sued the F.D.A. to lift the ban on interstate sales. (The suit was dismissed in March.) In responding, the F.D.A. asserted, “There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food.” Statements like this stoke anxiety about the government’s intentions. “Raw milk is just symbolic of this attitude of government regulators that they are the ones that make the decisions about what foods we can have,” David Gumpert, a journalist who advocates for raw milk on his blog, The Complete Patient, says. “You have this trend now toward irradiation. It’s not required, but it’s been sanctioned by the F.D.A. The next step may be for the F.D.A. to require that all spinach has to be irradiated.” The story of Stewart and his club was taken up by bloggers outraged at what they saw as federal overreach and disproportionate enforcement. In recent years, the F.D.A. has raided Amish and Mennonite farms that supply unpasteurized dairy products to out-of-state food clubs; earlier this year, a farmer in Pennsylvania was driven out of business. The raid at Rawesome appeared to be an escalation of a strategy that raw milkers think aims to kill the business entirely. Mike Adams, the editor of the Web site Natural News, compared undercover regulating agents to the East German Stasi, and warned of reprisals. “I believe we are very close to entering the age of a shooting war between farmers and the FDA,” he wrote. “I would encourage the FDA agents who are no doubt reading this to strongly consider: Is your war against raw milk worth risking your life?” Lately, raw milk has found political support in a somewhat unexpected quarter: among Tea Partiers and libertarians. At a December town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, Ron Paul, who introduced legislation to overturn the federal ban on interstate sales, received a round of applause when he said, “I would like to restore your right to drink raw milk anytime you want.” At the end of January, James Stewart and a group of supporters converged at a hotel in Las Vegas, to attend the Constitutional Sheriffs Convention, an event put on by Richard Mack, a former sheriff from Arizona who successfully challenged a provision of the Brady Bill before the Supreme Court and is now running for Congress as a Republican from Texas. Mack, who told me that he’d spoken at “more Tea Party events than Sarah Palin,” had drawn a hundred sheriffs, from across the country, who feel that the federal government is infringing on individual rights. Among the booths—Gun Owners of America, the John Birch Society, Freeze-Dry Guy (“Freeze-dried foods for uncertainties”)—was a table piled with raw cheeses and fresh produce. The vegetables had come from a sustainable Nevada farm that had recently become a food-freedom darling when a health inspector showed up at a “farm to table” dinner and made the farmer pour bleach on the vegetables, maintaining that, because she could not determine how long ago they had been cut, they were unfit even for pigs. That night, Stewart and the sheriffs would attend an “ice-cream speakeasy” hosted by several Raw Milk Freedom Riders—mothers who practice civil disobedience by crossing state lines with raw milk—featuring product that had been criminally transported from California. Stewart was in a buoyant mood. The Rawesome trial was proceeding slowly, but he was meeting people he thought might be able to help him—like-minded California sheriffs and Oath Keepers, a group of soldiers, cops, and concerned civilians whose purpose is to remind officials that they have sworn to uphold the Constitution. Several of them, wearing black T-shirts with the silhouette of a Lexington minuteman holding a musket, stood near the entrance, checking credentials. “I know why the crackdown is happening,” Stewart said. “Because we’re winning. They’re in freak-out mode. They’re seeing all these fires going all over the place, and the only way they believe they can crack down is to do it on a nationwide basis, so they create fear and hysteria.” A buffet was set up in the middle of the room, with cold cuts, pasta salad, and bags of chips. Mack, an imposing figure in cowboy boots, a turquoise shirt, and a loosened teal-colored tie, loaded up a plate. “I grew up absolutely hating milk,” he told me. “I would gag on it! Now when I drink their milk, maybe it tastes better to me because it’s freedom milk. It just has a little rebellious flavor in it. To me, it’s the new civil rights. It’s Rosa Parks.” Mack wandered over to the farm booth and asked one of the women there if she had eaten. “We brought our food, ’cause this is genetically modified,” she said, pointing at the bag of popcorn in his hand. Someone poured Mack a glass of milk, and he turned to face the roomful of sheriffs—old fellows, mostly, with holstered handguns at their hips. The raw milkers cheered as Mack took a big, showy sip and called out, “Freedom milk! Freedom milk!”How to set up and run the native Vita Hack “Rejuvenate”
Remember: This is still a beta release and only for those of you who were able to obtain a publisher’s license in time (whose application was approved by Sony before the deadline on May 31). For everyone else: The license workaround (PSM+) will be released at a later point once PSM is revoked.
For now this will let you run the obligatory “Hello World” PoC only!
Let’s get to it!
1) Download the public beta files Rejuvenate 0.2
2) Download the PSM_SDK_1.21.02.exe
3) Extract the Rejuvenate ZIP and place the PSM_SDK_1.21.02.exe inside the same folder
4) Run the SETUP.BAT and simply follow the instructions
v1.07 = FW 2.11 or later
v1.09 = FW 3.00 or later
v1.12 = FW 3.01 or later
v1.14 = FW 3.15 or later
v1.15 = FW 3.35 or later
5) Once done you can connect your Vita to the PC and start up the Dev assistant app
6) As mentioned earlier, Rejuvenate can only run a Hello World for now. To run said Proof of Concept drag and drop the hello_world.elf file onto the run_homebrew.bat file.
7) From now you’re basically done and everything else will be taken care of automatically!
If everything goes right you will notice that the VitaDefiler Programm will be copied over to your Vita automatically and you can follow the progress of exploitation and launching right in the terminal.
8) And if you see this.. your Done!
However, if you shouldn’t get it to run right at the first time and return error messages try redoing the progress of setting up Rejuvenate and maybe open the PSMStudio and run a Demo like described here first!
Now once again: Since this hack needs your Vita to be connected to the PC, it won’t work with a PlayStation TV at all!
Official Download page: http://yifan.lu/p/rejuvenate/
Catch me on twitter: @freakler94Patent Judges Completely Out Of Touch With How Much Patents Hinder Technology Innovation
from the and-that's-sad dept
Some scholars have collected facts and figures. For example, a 2008 book by James Bessen and Michael Meurer attempted to compute the costs and benefits of the patent system to various industries. They found that benefits significantly exceeded costs for the pharmaceutical industry, but the costs of litigation exceeded the benefits of holding patents in many other industries. Their work suggests that the patent system has become a net disincentive to innovation in those industries. The problem was particularly severe in software.
Strangely, Michel singled out Bessen and Meurer's book as an example of a text that relied too much on anecdotes and not enough on data, declaring it "very disappointing." We pressed him on this. Michel conceded the problem was less that it was too anecdotal and more that he disagreed with the book's premise—that high litigation costs were a sign the patent system wasn't working.
Judge Michel seemed unaware of the depth of the software industry's dissatisfaction with the patent system. He suggested the patent system's critics were relatively marginal figures not representative of the views of the broader technology industry. And he didn't seem to understand the dynamics of the patent arms race currently affecting the software industry. "If software is less dependent on patents, fine then. Let software use patents less as they choose," Michel said. "If other industries are terribly dependent on patents, then let's not wreck the system just because software people are unhappy."
Rader and Michel's perspectives are likely skewed by the fact they spent their time on the bench surrounded by patent lawyers (who by definition work with firms that have the resources to hire patent attorneys). For the typical software-producing firm, patent lawyers are simply too expensive. Most firms never get patents, and they typically settle patent claims rather than taking them to court. As a result, Judges Michel and Rader rarely hear from smaller firms for whom the patent system is nothing but a burden.
Last year, we were quite disappointed (but not surprised) to see former CAFC Judge Paul Michel argue publicly that we need many more patents to encourage innovation. He went so far as to suggest a tax credit for getting patents. He also argued that more patents would mean more technology jobs -- ignoring pretty much all of the research out there. CAFC, of course, is the appeals court that handles most patent appeals cases, and since its establishment has been a major part of the problem. You can trace the massive expansion of bogus patents to CAFC's views on patenting, expanding what was thought to be patentable, and generally doing tremendous harm to the important limits on such government granted monopolies.Tim Lee recently got to talk to Michel following a talk he gave, and what becomes clear is that Michel is completely out of touch with how much of a problem patents are in the tech world today. Lee knows this subject better than probably anyone else, and when he tried to dig in on key points, it was obvious that Michel's knowledge of what actually is happening in the industry is based on myths and imagination, rather than reality. For example, when Michel pointed out that he's "a facts and figures guy" rather than one who focuses on "anecdotes and assumptions," Lee quickly points to James Bessen and Michael Meurer's comprehensive book on why patents hurt the tech industry. Michel does not appear to have actually read the book:Indeed, anyone who claims that the Bessen and Meurer book is about anecdotes either hasn't read it or is lying. It goes through so much data and so much evidence that, at times, it's a daunting read. But what Lee's discussion with Michel shows is that, while he insists he's not about "anecdotes and assumptions," that appears to be what he's entirely about. This comes to light quite clearly when Michel finally suggests that if software patents are so bad for innovation, that software companies can just "opt out":I don't know if Michel has ever spent any time around the startup community, but the vast majority of entrepreneurs I talk to would absolutely love to "use patents less." But they can't. Because there are all sorts of patent lawyers and trolls who get patents on all sorts of crap and then sue these companies. You can't just opt out. How the hell do you opt out of getting sued by a bogus patent troll?Lee notes that current CAFC chief judge Randall Rader was at the same event and complained about how unfortunate it was that "the patent system [is] coming under attack." We've written about Judge Rader before, and he seems equally out of touch -- simply refusing to believe that there are significant problems with the patent system. As Lee notes, these judges don't actually have the slightest clue what actually happens in the world of technology and innovation. Instead, their worldview is filtered through the very distorting lens of patent attorneys who profit off of the system:It would be nice if there were some way to teach judges about what's actually happening out in the world, rather than the very, very distorted view they get on the bench.
Filed Under: cafc, jim bessen, michael meurer, paul michel, randall rader, tech industryAre the Oscars moving even later into March next year? All signs say ‘yes’ and the Academy would be wise to announce this sooner than later.
Despite annual (and always wrong) media speculation (including a recent column in a well-known show biz trade) that the Academy Awards are planning to move a month earlier into January insiders have repeatedly told me the Academy’s Board has no taste for that, and as at least one former top officer in the organization told me over the weekend, contractually they can’t do it.
Though they haven’t yet announced any dates for the next Oscar race, the schedule of the Winter Olympics being held in Sochi, Russia February 7 through the 23rd puts a big crimp in any plans to keep the Oscars even on in its current berth on the last Sunday of February where it would run smack into the Closing Night ceremonies. In the past when this has come up the Academy has always moved the Oscar show to the first Sunday in March which would be on the 2nd next year. Quite frankly there is nowhere else for the show to go. Do the math.
With the Super Bowl already claiming Sunday February 2nd and the Olympics taking the remaining three Sundays, the earliest date available would be January 26th and every source with whom I have spoken tells me that is the date CBS is claiming for the Grammys next year (moving two weeks earlier than their February 10, 2013 date). Also getting the message are the major show biz Guilds which have all already staked out their 2014 dates and sprayed the territory.
SAG jumped the gun on February 8 and quickly announced their show would be Saturday January 18, a week earlier than usual. On February 21, the Producers Guild followed and took Sunday January 19, also a week earlier than this year’s event was held. Last week the Directors Guild announced they too would go a week earlier than 2013 and will present their awards on January 25. A top executive with one of those guilds told me they have been assured by Academy officials that the Oscars will move on to that March 2nd date, so no conflict is expected and there will likely be an even bigger gap than usual between the guild shows and the Oscars. Of course the Golden Globes will almost definitely stay on the weekend where they usually reside, and so Sunday January 12th is their likely date (but not yet announced).
With the difficulties Academy members encountered seeing everything in time to vote for nominations which were moved up to a January 10th announcement this year (with voting taking place over the holidays Dec 17-Jan 4), it is just not feasible to move the actual Oscar show any earlier than it already is, and top sources in the Academy tell me ABC also has a lot to say about the date too. Contractually the Academy has to adhere to certain guidelines regarding the date.
And with ratings up for this year’s Seth MacFarlane-hosted show, the pressure to move for ratings improvements would seem to be off for this year at least. The fact that the Academy smartly had six weeks instead of four between nominations and the show also allowed the nominated films more playing time in theaters and grosses increased markedly. Silver Linings Playbook for instance nearly doubled its gross and shot over $100 million in that period. The longer gap actually turned out to be good news for exhibitors and that was part of the Academy’s thinking in allowing more time for distributors to exploit their nominations. It also probably actually helped the ratings by giving the viewers more time to see the nominated films and develop a rooting interest. Six of the nine Best Picture nominees grossed well over $100 million and a seventh (Zero Dark Thirty) almost hit the mark.
With a March 2nd Oscar show all but a done deal, it will be interesting to see what date the Academy chooses to announce their nominations next year. With one more week to play with they could give more time up front and announce around January 16th and still have that six-week period leading up to the show. Of course they could also choose to keep the nomination announcement just three days before the Globes as they did this year. Many observers thought the Academy did this in part to blunt attention for the rival Golden Globes, but in fact it may have inadvertently brought even more attention to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s show as ratings for that NBC juggernaut were up 17% from the previous edition and the highest in six years.
At any rate it’s looking like exactly one year from today we will all be nursing our Monday morning Oscar hangover and celebrating the end of an even longer awards season.Immigration
Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill.
That’s too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, it’s noteworthy that nobody has argued that the U.S. look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve
our illegal immigration problem. Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:
in the country legally;
have the means to sustain themselves economically;
not destined to be burdens on society;
of economic and social benefit to society;
of good character and have no criminal records; and
contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.
Who could disagree with such a law? It makes perfect sense. The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens — and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, illegal and illegal. Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or
General Law on Population, spells out specifically the country’s immigration policy.
It is an interesting law — and one that should cause us all to ask, Why is our great southern neighbor pushing us to water down our own immigration laws and policies, when its own immigration restrictions are the toughest on the continent? If a felony is a
crime punishable by more than one year in prison, then Mexican law makes it a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
If the United States adopted such statutes, Mexico no doubt would denounce it as a manifestation of American racism and bigotry.
We looked at the immigration provisions of the Mexican constitution. [1] Now let’s look at Mexico’s main immigration law.
Mexico welcomes only foreigners who will be useful to Mexican society:
Foreigners are admitted into Mexico “according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress.” |
, is killing more and more people in rural America.
One Mexican cartel has seeded low-cost heroin around rural towns in the Southwest and Midwest, selling it cheap and easy, almost like pizza.
Madison, Neb. — population 2,500 — is just a speck of a town, a two-hour drive from the big-city bustle of Omaha. But it's not far enough away to avoid the growing impact of heroin.
"The world's gotten smaller," says Police Chief Rod Waterbury. "If drugs can make it to Chicago, they can make it here."
It takes Waterbury just 15 minutes to patrol Madison. On Main Street, he rolls by a couple of taquerias, a pharmacy and a beauty parlor.
In many parts of Nebraska, a dose of heroin sells for as little as $10. Over the past decade, 13 people in the state have died from the drug; six of those deaths happened just last year.
"It used to be all meth, before that it was all coke," says Madison County Attorney Joe Smith. "Now we're seeing on a routine basis some heroin."
Smith says one heroin death in particular shook Madison's growing Latino community.
"We know it's a problem because, in this case, Sabas Sanchez died," he says.
Sabas Sanchez Jr. was known around town as "Gordo," meaning chubby in Spanish. He was 32 when he died. Sanchez's mother, Rosa, can't forget that cold September morning two years ago. She was startled awake by pounding at her door.
"'[My son is dead, my son is dead!]'" she recalls her husband yelling in Spanish. "I ran down the stairs, and I went outside and started touching my son's cheeks, and he was cold."
Rosa says she knew Sabas was fond of all kinds of drugs, but she didn't know about the heroin.
"He would tell me: 'Mom, this is such a small town. Everybody does drugs,' " she says.
Across Nebraska, authorities are keeping a watchful eye on the spread of heroin. Michael Sanders is with the Drug Enforcement Administration. He says the drug has already overwhelmed parts of neighboring Iowa.
"We are seeing a creeping further west from Iowa City and Cedar Rapids," he says. "Luckily, it hasn't been moving as rapidly as what we were expecting, which we're very thankful of."
Back in Madison, Waterbury says small town police departments
like his don't have the resources or the experience for long-term drug investigations.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Bobby Caina Calvan/Heartland Reporting Project Bobby Caina Calvan/Heartland Reporting Project
"Our department is small. There's only four of us," he says. "It means we're usually busy with the minor day-to-day traffic patrols, school patrol, chasing dogs."
What makes it worse? Drug abusers in rural areas, like Sabas Sanchez, don't get the help they need.
"Down here we have a picture of Sabas and my brother Richard on our first Christmas in this house," says Michelle Andrews, Sabas' sister. She wants authorities to find the source of the heroin that killed her brother.
"The worst part about it is no one's paying for what they did," she says.
She remembers Gordo as playful.
"He liked to joke around, laugh. He had a good heart," she said.
Andrews adds that the memory of his death still haunts her. Sometimes she hears him singing along to a favorite song, one in particular.
It's called "El Columpio," or "The Swing." The lyrics read: "It feels good when you're up, but it hurts to come down.For government and its intelligence apparatus, so-called metadata is only a Stasi state baby step.
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
December 31, 2013
The former boss of the CIA and the NSA, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, tells USA Today the Constitution and the Bill of Rights impede the smooth functioning of a Stasi police state. He said the NSA should not be required to seek court warrants in its widespread surveillance.
“Right now, since there have been no abuses and almost all the court decisions on this program have held that it’s constitutional, I really don’t know what problem we’re trying to solve by changing how we do this,” he said in reference to recommendations proposed by Obama’s task force on surveillance.
Hayden sidestepped a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon issued earlier this month. Leon, a Bush appointee, said “the almost-Orwellian technology that enables the Government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979,” when the case of Smith v. Maryland presented before the Supreme Court permitted the government to collect data without a court warrant. “The notion that the Government could collect similar data on hundreds of millions of people and retain that data for a five-year period, updating it with new data every day in perpetuity, was at best, in 1979, the stuff of science fiction.”
For the government and its intelligence apparatus, so-called metadata is only a Stasi state baby step. Michael Morell, a former acting director of the CIA and a member of the task force, has recommended expanding the massive surveillance program to include email. “I would argue actually that the email data is probably more valuable than the telephony data,” he said last week. He believes listening in on telephone calls and reading the email of Americans will prevent another 9/11.
Prior to a ruling by U.S. District Judge William Paley on December 27 stating that the NSA’s rampant violations of the Fourth Amendment are legal, Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor who is a member of a White House panel established to investigate NSA violations unearthed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, said evidence that massive surveillance prevents terrorist attacks is “very thin.”
Hayden said Snowden “stirred up the crowd” with his revelations about the NSA and Obama will need to show “some political courage” in order “to keep doing these things.”
During the interview, Hayden underplayed the constitutional ramifications of the NSA program. He said phone records are “far safer and privacy is far more secured with NSA holding the data than some third party.”
Hayden displayed remarkable ignorance of the Constitution and its underlying principles. “The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution is not an international treaty,” he said. For those who aren’t covered by its protections, he said, “if your communications contain information that make Americans more safe and more free, game on.”
The Fourth Amendment reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The language does not limit this protection to Americans. “The people are protected, not just the American people,” writes Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. “For the sake of reference, one need recall the statement in the Declaration of Independence that ‘all men are created equal.’ Furthermore, all men are endowed by their Creator with rights, rights they enjoy as offspring of the Almighty. Thus, as there is no man, woman, or child that is not the creation of God, there is none of them that is not a beneficiary of the rights He bestowed upon them.”
In 1967, the Supreme Court overturned Olmstead v. United States, which ruled that the Fourth Amendment protects non-tangible possessions such as phone calls and electronic transmissions. An amendment added to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 further eroded the Fourth Amendment, but the coup de grâce to liberty occurred in 2001 with the passage of the Patriot Act and its notorious Section 215 allowing the sharing of “any tangible thing” as part of a supposed terror investigation.
Hayden’s arrogant defense in favor of violating the Fourth Amendment will ultimately come back to haunt us, writes David Cole. “How would we feel if we had recently learned that France – or China – was collecting data on millions of Americans’ communications, or directly monitoring President Obama’s cell phone? If we extend no protection to other countries’ nationals, why should we expect them to respect our privacy rights? Thus, it’s in our own interest to identify some reciprocal principles to preserve privacy in the digital age,” he writes.
The Daily Beast, understandably, thinks Obama has a conscience and is something more than merely a stand-up teleprompter reader for the global elite. “Obama’s counterterrorism polices have continued to tug at his conscience. He has prodded his aides to re-address unfulfilled promises and occasionally chastised himself for not acting more in accordance with his personal convictions,” writes Daniel Klaidman for the Newsweek Daily Beast Company. “Before he left for Hawaii, the president was sending signals that government surveillance programs need an overhaul to restore the public’s faith on issues of national security.”
Obama’s tête-à-tête with the intelligence “community” prior to his choreographed response to increasingly vocal outrage will not result in significant, if any, reform. In order to ensure the Constitution is followed, the NSA would need to be dismantled, along with the CIA and the rest of the intelligence monolith that now exacts considerable control over a government that the establishment media laughingly insists represents the American people.
In the mid-1970s, when there was still a modicum of dignity in Congress, the Church Committee discovered and revealed Project Shamrock, an effort hatched in 1945 by the Armed Forces Security Agency and subsequently taken up by the NSA to conduct widespread surveillance on the international communications of American citizens. The committee discovered hundreds of instances of the CIA and the FBI conducting electronic surveillance without court ordered warrants.
Short of dismantling and outlawing the national security state and repealing in total the Patriot Act, anything Obama does following his vacation in Hawaii will be little more than Kabuki theater.The Toronto Transit Commission says it will not cut service to cope with a projected $25-million shortfall this year caused by declining ridership.
TTC CEO Andy Byford said at a TTC board meeting on Monday that the transit agency may delay service improvements planned for September and October this year to save $1.5 million and freeze non-essential hiring to save another $10 million. The TTC will have to review its operating budget to identify other ways to reduce costs.
"At the end of the day, we are certainly not looking at cutting service," Byford told reporters.
"We may defer some improvements and I think that's only prudent, when there are only finite tax dollars available and subsidy available to run the service."
A staff report says the TTC estimates there will between 540 million and 545 million actual rides in 2016, a slight increase of the 538 million actual rides in 2015.
When the TTC drafted its budget last November, it projected between 553 million and 555 million rides for this year, but it has had to revise that number.
"If ridership is softening, which it is, then clearly it makes little sense to add yet more service, when the existing service can cope with the number that is slightly less than we anticipated," he said.
Byford blamed a weakening local economy, slow employment growth, lower gas prices and ridesharing apps for the decline in ridership.
"TTC ridership over the years has shown to be very closely linked to the economy and with jobs."
Byford said ridership is declining in many Canadian and U.S. cities, although it is increasing in Mississauga, Ont., Brampton, Ont. and York region, north of Toronto.
Jessica Bell, a spokesperson for an advocacy group called TTCriders, said delaying service improvements is not wise.
'Race to the bottom'
"If you want to increase ridership, which everyone wants, you need to look at lowering fares and increasing service. What they are looking at doing is cancelling the planned service improvements that they were looking at rolling out later this year. That is a dumb idea," she said.
"That will bring about a race to the bottom. If you lower service, you are going to get fewer riders. And if you get fewer riders, you are going to get less money," she said.
Bell said the fare should be $3 or lower. A single cash fare is currently $3.25.
The TTC monitors trends in ridership on a monthly basis. If ridership increases unexpectedly later this year, then the service improvements could still be rolled out in later months, MIke DeToma, spokesperson for the TTC, told CBC News.Barbara is a passionate writer and animal lover who has been professionally blogging for over 10 years and counting.
Abusive relationships are not only emotionally scarring, but the physical feat of having to move from one place to another can feel nearly impossible. Sometimes, abuse victims must pack their belongings, gather their children, secure a new location, and flee the home before the abuser returns home. The financial burden alone may cause victims to stay in abusive living situations.
A California-based moving company is going viral with its incredible mission. Meathead Movers, founded in 1997 by student athletes, helps victims of domestic violence move out of their homes — completely free of charge. The company recently partnered with domestic violence-prevention nonprofit Good Shepherd. “Meathead Movers will work directly with the nonprofit to identify the abusive situations and provide moving services at no cost,” a spokeswoman says. “Not only do these services help the victims of domestic abuse but they directly impact Meathead employees — consisting of predominantly young men who believe that real men don’t hit women, real men help those in need.”
In just one week, the burly, big-hearted movers have already helped four families leave their homes for a fresh new start. Meathead Movers, you guys are absolutely amazing.
Read on to learn more, and please SHARE this brilliant organization with your friends on Facebook, and let’s help get their mission out there!Marco Rubio speaks at a campaign rally in Shelby Township, Mich., on March 2, 2016. | AP Photo Rubio ignores calls to quit Short of delegates, the 2016 contender implores Republicans to reject Donald Trump.
SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. — After bungling a debate and falling to fifth place in New Hampshire, Marco Rubio’s campaign immediately recognized it had a problem and adjusted accordingly, loosening the reins on a tightly scripted candidate and opening up access to the press.
But after a disappointing Super Tuesday that saw Rubio fall further behind Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in the delegate count, the Florida senator is sticking to the script and batting away questions about whether he’s in denial.
Story Continued Below
Ignoring Cruz’s call for him to leave the race and the increasingly difficult delegate math, Rubio is focusing only on the contests ahead and continuing to prosecute his case against the clear GOP front-runner.
The only change Wednesday for Rubio was a slightly tempered tone. After responding to Trump’s brand of personal insults in kind over the weekend with a mix of blistering mockery and sophomoric jokes about the billionaire’s manhood, the Florida senator attempted to regain his aspirational, future-focused message while laying out his case against Trump.
“The conservative movement is at its best when it appeals to people’s hopes and their dreams,” Rubio told a crowd of 500 people in this Detroit suburb Wednesday afternoon. “We are at our worst when we appeal to those fears and people’s anger and frustrations as the base of our movement. There has never been in the history of the world a great movement built on anger and frustration.”
Although Tuesday night finally brought Rubio his first outright victory of the nomination fight, he himself is feeling increasing pressure to perform better or to leave the race as a frustrated Republican establishment panics over the prospect of being powerless to stop Trump.
After Super Tuesday’s results, Trump has 243 delegates while Cruz, largely as a result of winning his delegate-rich home state of Texas, has 220. Rubio, by comparison, has won just 101 delegates. His campaign argues that he can catch up as the race moves north and west, to states such as Michigan on March 8, and to his home state of Florida the following week.
The problem for Rubio: At the moment, he trails Trump in Florida, where establishment groups and super PACs supporting him are prepared to spend millions on anti-Trump TV ads in order to save his candidacy, and in Michigan. A new poll of Michigan GOP voters out Wednesday showed Trump leading with 29 percent, followed by Cruz with 19 percent and Rubio with 18 percent.
Although he didn’t specifically address the stalemate within the Republican primary — the three candidates who are dividing up the anti-Trump vote are enabling the billionaire to keep winning — Rubio attempted to explain why he and so many conservatives refuse to fall in line behind the Manhattan mogul.
“Usually, when you’re the front-runner, everyone is saying, ‘Please, everyone get out of the race so we can unify around the front-runner,’” Rubio said. “What people are saying now is, ‘Please, everyone get together so we can keep this front-runner from winning and destroying our party.’”
Not everyone, of course, is saying that. Increasingly, top Republicans from Congress to K Street, either resigned to the fact that Trump’s nomination is inevitable or newly optimistic about harnessing Trump’s unlikely appeal to a new audience of disaffected white Democratic and independent voters, are signaling their openness to anointing him the GOP’s standard-bearer.
Rubio, who has vowed to fight Trump “as long as it takes” to defeat him, remains a vehicle for those establishment Republicans who simply cannot give the keys to the party to a Manhattan billionaire with conservative credentials that are thin at best — even though those people now acknowledge that the only way Rubio or Cruz can reasonably stop Trump is with a floor fight at the Republican convention in July.
“If we choose Donald Trump as our nominee, we will lose in November,” Rubio said. “If we choose Donald Trump as our nominee, we will put in charge of the conservative movement someone who is not really a conservative. And if we choose Donald Trump as our nominee, he will have carried out the most elaborate con job in the history of American politics.”This adapter ring lets you use your Canon 50mm F1.8 lens (AKA the Nifty-Fifty) with the HONDO Garage 50-Dollar Follow Focus (and most other follow focuses) in either belted or geared mode.
The Nifty-Fifty is a great and very affordable prime lens, but it's got this wonky focus ring that's skinny and tapered, making it impossible to use with a follow-focus for cinematic work. But we've changed that. The HONDO Garage Nifty-Fifty Adapter snaps onto the focus ring of your lens, providing an industry-standard 32-pitch (.8 mod) gear ring for use with most follow focuses. It also has an MXL-pitch timing belt groove designed specifically for use with our own Kickstarter-funded 50-Dollar Follow Focus (shown in the photo.)
A lot of work went into this model. The Adapter snaps onto the front of the lens and requires no glue or other fastening methods. If you opt for the black material, it almost looks like part of the original lens when installed. A lot of our follow focus customers have asked for this, so here it is.
Naturally, it doesn't include the camera, the lens, or the lovely follow focus.
INSTRUCTIONS: When you get your Nifty-Fifty Adapter, you'll install it by gently pressing it onto the front of your lens. Note that on the inside of the ring, there are eight drive dogs (little ridges) that must engage with the teeth on your focus ring. Slowly rotate the adapter as you press it in until the drive dogs engage the focus ring teeth. Once engaged, continue gently pressing until the snap tabs snap over the back side of the little ridge behind the focus ring. That's it! If the adapter makes the focus ring difficult to turn, just take some fine sandpaper and sand the inner ring a bit. It shouldn't take much. There are variations in the print and variations in the lens manufacture. Sometimes they add up in the wrong way and you get a tight fit. It's only a few thousandths of an inch, so some light sanding will take care of it. You want as tight a fit as possible without binding. I could open the hole up a bit but then it would be too sloppy for some people. It's easier to sand away material than it is to add it.Spiller becomes first former Clemson RB to make Pro Bowl since 1996
C.J. Spiller Pos: RB Height: 5-11 Weight: 195 Hometown: Lake Butler, FL (Union County HS)
Years Played: 2006 - 2009
CLEMSON, SC - Former Clemson and current Buffalo Bills running back C.J. Spiller C.J. Spiller
Pro Running Back
#28 5-11, 195
Lake Butler, FL
View Full Profile will play for the AFC in the 2013 Pro Bowl in Honolulu, Hawaii. The game will be played on Sunday, January 27 at Aloha Stadium and will be televised on NBC at 7 PM.
Spiller replaces Ray Rice as one of three running backs on the AFC roster, as Rice will be playing in the Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens on February 3.
Spiller is the first former Tiger running back selected to play in the Pro Bowl since Terry Allen in 1996. On December 16, 2012, he became just the third former running back in Clemson history to gain at least 1000 yards in an NFL season, joining Allen and Kevin Mack, who also played in the Pro Bowl (1985 and 1987).
Spiller finished the 2012 campaign, his third year in the NFL, with 1240 rushing yards, a 6.0 yards per carry average and six rushing touchdowns. He also added 459 receiving yards and two touchdown receptions on the season for the Bills.Facebook today announced further plans to clean up the News Feed by reducing stories with click-bait headlines as well as stories that have links shared in the captions of photos or within status updates. The move comes just four months after the social network reduced Like-baiting posts, repeated content, and spammy links.
First up, “click-baiting” refers to posting links with a headline that piques your curiosity without actually telling you much information. In other words, you click to see more, and you aren’t told enough about what to expect.
Facebook explains why it’s finally cracking down on posts like the one above:
Posts like these tend to get a lot of clicks, which means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed. However, when we asked people in an initial survey what type of content they preferred to see in their News Feeds, 80% of the time people preferred headlines that helped them decide if they wanted to read the full article before they had to click through. Over time, stories with “click-bait” headlines can drown out content from friends and Pages that people really care about.
In short, this method may drive traffic, but it’s not a very candid way of doing so. The content may be of high quality (though it usually isn’t), but if it is, it should be able to speak for itself.
The News Feed algorithm now considers how long people spend reading the given content and the ratio of people clicking on the content compared to people discussing and sharing it with their friends. The company argues that if users click on an article, spend time reading it, and maybe even came back to interact with it on Facebook, they clicked through to something valuable, while if they came straight back to Facebook and didn’t engage with the story, they likely didn’t find something that they wanted.
This brings to mind an obvious flaw: what if you open multiple links from Facebook in background tabs for later reading and stay on the social network? Hopefully Facebook will be making ongoing adjustments so it isn’t penalizing stories unnecessarily. The company expects this change to impact “a small set of publishers” in the next few months.
As for sharing links in posts, Facebook says it is reducing stories with links in status updates or in the text caption above photos:
The company explains why:
We’ve found that people often prefer to click on links that are displayed in the link format (which appears when you paste a link while drafting a post), rather than links that are buried in photo captions. The link format shows some additional information associated with the link, such as the beginning of the article, which makes it easier for someone to decide if they want to click through. This format also makes it easier for someone to click through on mobile devices, which have a smaller screen.
In short, Facebook will now prioritize showing stories shared in the link format, and show fewer posts with links in captions or status updates. If you’re still sharing links the old-fashioned way, expect a decrease in traffic.
Top Image Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Read next: Bing Maps update makes it easier to travel around Japan using public transportSenator files bill after son-in-law lands in hot water
Sen. Sylvia Allen (Photo: Jack Kurtz)
Turns out Sen. Sylvia Allen is a champion of unions. Who knew?
The "constitutional conservative" best known for her efforts to create state militias and close public meetings is hoping this year to boost protections in the future for detention officers who find themselves in hot water.
Like, say, her son-in-law.
Last year, then-Navajo County Supervisor Allen tried to interfere with an internal investigation into her son-in-law's conduct with female inmates in the Navajo County jail.
This year, Allen has moved on to the state Senate where she sponsored a bill aimed at ensuring that others don't have to endure what she sees as a witch hunt against her son-in-law.
"I just did not know what to do to help," she recently told the Senate Public Safety, Military and Technology Committee, which approved a watered-down version of her bill after she read a letter from her daughter about the family's ordeal. "There was no way to help. It was hard watching."
Hard enough that I suppose Allen figured it was OK to use her position as an elected county official to intervene.
"She was interfering in the investigation," Navajo County Sheriff K.C. Clark told me this week. "At one point, I had to go to the county attorney and say if she gets in my way, I'm going to book her for interfering in the criminal investigation."
MORE: Relative's job woes prompt senator's bill
MACEACHERN: Allen's right to (finally) bring home the bacon
Allen's son-in-law, Timothy Hunt, was working as a detention officer in Navajo County jail in April 2014, when a former inmate alerted authorities to possible questionable conduct with female inmates while working nights, according to county records.
Hunt was reassigned to a desk job while an investigation was launched – a point that didn't please Supervisor Allen, who immediately texted Sheriff Clark.
"I need to talk to you about what is going on in the jail," she texted on April 29. "The commander put up a note in the control room telling EVERYONE that Tim Hunt was not allowed into the jail this was before he got to work then they made him sit out front all day not telling him why he was being investigated. He was humiliated and no one said WHY."
NEWSLETTERS Get the Opinions Newsletter newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Our best and latest in commentary in daily digest form. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-332-6733. Delivery: Mon-Fri Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Opinions Newsletter Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters
Hunt would soon find out why, if he didn't already know.
As part of an independent investigation into his activities, six women claimed that he made sexually suggestive remarks and gestures to female inmates and passed along cigarettes and matches to one female inmate in exchange for oral sex.
Hunt denied it, contending that his command staff was framing him and that other detention officers and inmates were lying.
Allen texted Clark again in May, telling him to "see me". Clarks says she wanted to discuss the case but he refused, telling her that he would await the results of the investigation.
A few weeks later, Allen got further involved.
"I have been doing some research on my responsibilities as a Supervisor one important oversight is protecting county liability," she wrote, in a June 3 e-mail to Navajo County Manager James Jayne and Sheriff Clark. "This recent administrative investigation of my son-in-law has brought some problems to light that directly affect county liability."
Allen claimed that there were documents missing from the sheriff's computer system and attached several pages from the investigation into her son-in-law, with comments hand-written in the margins, suggesting that missing documents would shed light on Hunt's accusers.
In a subsequent email, Allen acknowledged that she asked the county's deputy director of Information Technology to recover those missing documents.
In a June 4 e-mail to Navajo County Attorney Brad Carlyon, she wrote, "I am making an official Public Records Request for IT to go into the (database) to see if there is a record of deleted or changed documents from October 2013 to May 30th of 2014. Depending on what is found by IT I will be requesting that they try to recover some of those documents in the backup system. Thank you. Supervisor Sylvia Allen."
It's unclear whether a search was made for Allen's missing documents. Clark, in an email, responded that the sheriff's office has used the computer system since 1998 and never had a problem.
"Never once had a missing report except for Tim Hunts, odd to say the least and hard to believe," he wrote.
Several weeks later, the independent investigator sustained four of the five allegations against Hunt, finding that "the preponderance of evidence" suggests among other things that he provided cigarettes to an inmate after she performed a sex act on him in a shower.
"Despite Hunt's denial of wrongdoing, there was significant consistency between the accounts of the witness female inmates, and there is no credible evidence of any conspiracy," the investigator wrote, in a June 25, 2014, report to the Navajo County Sheriff's Office.
In July, Hunt took a polygraph test and was deemed "not truthful" when he denied engaging in oral sex with a female inmate, according to the polygraph report.
He later resigned and the file was sent to the Yavapai County Attorney's Office, to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.
Allen, meanwhile, ran for the state Senate, to replace the late Sen. Chester Crandell, and in January became a member of the Arizona Legislature and the Senate pro tempore no less.
Enter Senate Bill 1467. Allen's bill would strengthen the rights of law enforcement officials who face disciplinary proceedings. It was a surprise to many in the law enforcement community, given that the Peace Officers Bill of Rights was just passed last year and didn't take effect until Jan. 1.
Among Allen's proposals: to allow full-blown appeals trials rather than summary reviews if an officer is disciplined and to get rid of polygraph examinations.
Like the one her son-in-law failed.
The Arizona Police Association, which represents dozens of police unions across the state, supports Allen's bill while the Arizona Association of Police Chiefs, the Arizona Sheriffs Association and the Arizona Association of Counties oppose it.
SB 1467 has been amended and the no-polygraph provision removed, but there are still things in there that give police officials heartburn. The bill flew through the Senate and is awaiting a final vote on the House floor.
I tried to reach Allen to talk to her both about her bill and her son-in-law. She didn't return my call.
If Allen had called, I would have asked the Snowflake Republican – one of the most conservative members of the Legislature -- when she became such a big fan of union bills.
If Allen had called, I would have asked her if her son-in-law's experience is why she's urging former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack to move to Navajo County and run for sheriff. Mack's a regular on the state sovereignty, pro-militia, anti-government circuit. In December, he announced he was running as part a movement by "constitutional conservatives" to take over the county and "reassert the United States Constitution as the supreme law of the land." Allen is among those who has endorsed Mack's move as part of the Constitutional County Project.
Finally, if she'd called, I would have asked Allen whether it's appropriate for an elected official to throw her weight around for her relatives and to write new laws as a result of what happens to them.
Alas, she didn't call.
I can't imagine why.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1bgOs5yThe U.S. military conducted a parachuting drill Thursday at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa’s main island for the third time this year, despite calls from the Japanese government and local authorities to suspend it due to safety concerns.
“It is regrettable. Japan urges the U.S. military to conduct the drill at the Ie Jima Auxiliary Airfield” based on a 1996 bilateral agreement, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters in Tokyo, referring to the base in a far less populated area of the prefecture.
The drill, held from around 7:30 a.m. Thursday, involved a total of 16 servicemen who parachuted down to the base from MC-130 aircraft. Similar exercises were held in April and May.
Safety concerns remain over the drill as local residents remember a 1965 incident in the Okinawa village of Yomitan, in which a young girl was fatally crushed by a trailer that had been parachuted down during a U.S. military exercise.
Under the 1996 accord, the U.S. military is allowed to conduct parachuting drills at the Ie Jima airfield, and the Japanese government has accepted such drills at Kadena in exceptional cases.
Tokyo has not received sufficient explanation from the United States for the use of Kadena in the latest drill, a government source said.
After confirming the drill, Kadena Mayor Hiroshi Toyama told reporters, “It is an act that ignores the voices of residents near the base. We can never tolerate it.”
Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga told reporters he is “indignant” over repeated U.S. parachuting drills at Kadena.
Antibase sentiment runs high in Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in the country, as the local and the central governments remain at odds over a planned U.S. base relocation within the prefecture.
Meanwhile, the U.S. forces in Japan said in a statement that the Ie auxiliary airfield is “the primary drop zone” for the parachute training.
But the statement also said, “Under certain circumstances, the U.S. military is required to use alternate drop zones,” such as the Kadena base.
At the Ie auxiliary airfield, the U.S. forces carried out parachute training 63 times this year.Get the biggest Newcastle United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Newcastle United coach Paul Simpson told 13,000 excited fans that the Magpies are “raring to go” ahead of Sunday’s clash with Southampton.
Victory against the Saints would help to close the book on last season’s torrid campaign.
But Steve McClaren and his coaching staff will go into the first game of the season against the Saints at least feeling that there was good will in the air at the club’s open training session. The East Stand filled up so quickly that supporters ended up flowing into the Gallowgate End to get a glimpse of their heroes.
Simpson has previously spoken about the club having a more open policy going forward and that the new backroom team don’t want to have “any secrets” when it comes to their relationship with fans.
Newcastle worked mainly with the ball as their build up to the Southampton game continued. Simpson told the crowd: “The sessions are harder at the start of the week and are then tailored down. It will be more tactical as we approach Southampton. By then we will all be raring to go.”
Attacking drills offered a glimpse of the urgency that Newcastle are trying to inject into their game plan as McClaren looks to create more chances.
The drills resulted in quick breaks from left to right with McClaren giving his players just 10 seconds to fathom a chance.
Simpson told fans: “The attacking team has 10 seconds to get the goal. We are talking about quick breaks and quick goals.”
Simpson also spoke of how the new Magpies coaching staff are trying to create competition for places. He said: “We always do an old v young drill, it creates a bit of rivalry. We want a winning mentality which I’m sure the fans want as well.”
McClaren must now decide who plays centre-back against the Saints this weekend.
Mike Williamson and Steven Taylor certainly seem in the box seat as far as match fitness is concerned. However, Fabricio Coloccini and Chancel Mbemba also trained yesterday and McClaren tried both partnerships out in a practice game.
Cheick Tiote also trained well after making just one appearance so far this summer while Remy Cabella and Paul Dummett are also back in light training. Newcastle fans deemed the team wearing bibs as the potential XI that could face Ronald Koeman’s side.
The line-up was: Krul, Janmaat, Williamson, Taylor, Haidara, Colback, Anita, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Obertan, Cisse, but Simpson told the crowd not to read anything into the teams during the practice game.Tottenham Hotspur are confident of signing Michy Batshuayi in spite of Crystal Palace having agreed to pay £31million for the Marseille striker.
The Belgium international has yet to agree to any move but the French club need to sell before July 5 to avoid a transfer embargo.
Marseille have been told to raise £21m or risk sanctions from the DNCG which regulates the finances of football clubs in France.
Marseille and Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi could be set for a switch to the Premier League
Crystal Palace agreed a £31million fee for Batshuayi but Tottenham are still confident
Batshuayi celebrates with a back flip after scoring in Belgium's 4-0 win over Hungary on Sunday
West Ham United have also made an offer for Batshuayi, while Juventus maintain interest but they, and Spurs, have yet to match Palace's offer, believing the player can be obtained for a better price.
Marseille are eager for a deal to be completed at Palace's price which would include a bonus payment and sell-on clause.
Batshuayi's former club Standard Liege are also due a 35 per cent sell on fee.
Palace are also in talks about a deal for Marseille and France goalkeeper Steve Mandanda
Newcastle United winger Andros Townsend, who has a £10.5m release clause in his deal, is |
NhRP is successful in New York, it could be a significant step toward upending millennia of law defining animals as property and could set off a “chain reaction” that could bleed over to other jurisdictions, says Richard Cupp, a law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, and a proponent of focusing on animal welfare rather than animal rights. “But if they lose it could be a significant step backward for the movement. They’re playing with fire.”
The litigation has been in the works since 2007, when animal rights attorney Steven Wise founded NhRP, an association of about 60 lawyers, scientists, and policy experts. The group argues that cognitively advanced animals like chimpanzees and dolphins are so self-aware that keeping them in captivity—whether a zoo or research laboratory—is tantamount to slavery. “It’s a terrible torture we inflict on them, and it has to stop,” Wise says. “And all of human law says the way things stop is when courts and legislatures recognize that the being imprisoned is a legal person.”
NhRP spent 5 years researching the best legal strategy—and best jurisdiction—for its first cases. The upshot: a total of three lawsuits to be filed in three New York trial courts this week on behalf of four resident chimpanzees. One, named Tommy, lives in Gloversville in a “used trailer lot … isolated in a cage in a dark shed,” according to an NhRP press release. Another, Kiko, resides in a cage on private property in Niagara Falls, the group says. The final two, Hercules and Leo, are research chimps at Stony Brook University. Wise says that 11 scientists have filed affidavits in support of the group’s claims; most of them, including Jane Goodall, have worked with nonhuman primates.
In each case, NhRP is petitioning judges with a writ of habeas corpus, which allows a person being held captive to have a say in court. In a famous 1772 case, an English judge allowed such a writ for a black slave named James Somerset, tacitly acknowledging that he was a person—not a piece of property—and subsequently freed him. The case helped spark the eventual abolition of slavery in England and the United States. Wise is hoping for something similar for the captive chimps. If his group wins any of the current cases, it will ask that the animals be transferred to a chimpanzee sanctuary in Florida. Any loss, he says, will immediately be appealed.
Regardless of what happens, NhRP is already preparing litigation for other states, and not all of it involves chimpanzees. “Gorillas, orangutans, elephants, whales, dolphins—any animal that has these sorts of cognitive capabilities, we would be comfortable bringing suit on behalf of,” Wise says. Some would be research animals; others would be creatures that simply live in confined spaces, such as zoos and aquariums. “No matter how these first cases turn out, we’re going to move onto other cases, other states, other species of animals,” he says. “We’re going to file as many lawsuits as we can over the next 10 or 20 years.”
Frankie Trull, the president of the National Association for Biomedical Research in Washington, D.C., says her organization will fight any attempts at personhood in the courts. Chimpanzees, she notes, are important models for behavioral research, as well as for developing vaccines against viruses like hepatitis C. “Assigning rights to animals akin to what humans have would be chaotic for the research community.”
Anatomist Susan Larson, who studies the Stony Brook chimpanzees to shed light on the origin of bipedalism in humans, says she is "very shocked and upset" by the lawsuit. She says the chimps live in an indoor enclosure comprised of three rooms—“about the size of an average bedroom”—plus another room where they can climb, hang, and jump from ladders and tree trunks. “Everything I do with these animals I’ve done on myself,” she says. “I understand that animal rights activists don’t want these animals mistreated, but they’re hampering our ability to study them before they become extinct.”
The more immediate threat to Larson’s research isn’t NhRP, however—it is the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In June, NIH announced plans to retire all but 50 of its 360 research chimpanzees and phase out much of the chimp research it supports. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, meanwhile, has recommended that captive chimps be listed as endangered, which would limit any research that isn’t in their best interest. “Soon, the type of work I do will no longer be possible,” Larson says. “They have effectively ended my research program.”
Stephen Ross, the director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, wonders if there’s a compromise. Ross, who has studied chimpanzees for more than 20 years and played a role in crafting NIH’s new policy, advocates ending private ownership of chimps and invasive research. All other chimpanzees, he says, whether located at zoos or universities, should live in large enclosures, with access to the outside, and in group sizes of at least seven individuals. “You don’t need personhood to do that,” he says. “I think we share a common philosophy,” he says of NhRP. “We want to make things better for chimps. We just disagree on how to get there.”
To participate in a live video chat on this topic, check out this week's ScienceLIVE: Should Animals be Granted Legal Rights?
A more detailed version of this story will appear in the 6 December issue of Science.
*Clarification, 2 December, 4 p.m.: This item has been updated to reflect Richard Cupp's position on animal rights.Canadians are "stupid" and post far too much information online, a former head of the national electronic spying agency says, leaving the country with a "long ways to go" in protecting personal information in an Internet era.
John Adams made the comment in a Senate meeting Wednesday as he and other witnesses discussed a bill that would create an all-party parliamentary committee to oversee the top-secret efforts of Canada's intelligence and security agencies – a notion backed by Mr. Adams, who led Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) from 2005-11.
The bill comes as the government faces growing complaints about other bills expanding surveillance powers online.
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Mr. Adams told the committee one perception he'd heard of Web-surfing Canadians. "One half is stupid, and the other half is stupid," Mr. Adams said, recalling a view of Canadians in their online habits. "I can confirm that. We put more online, [on] Facebook, than any other country in the world." Mr. Adams later added: "We're not very smart, so we've got a long ways to go."
Interim privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier instead said Canadians are trusting – adding Mr. Adams's choice of words were not hers.
"I believe Canadians are very smart and Canadians appreciate the fact they live in a democracy, a real democracy where we are lucky to have robust government structures" protecting privacy, Ms. Bernier said. "Where there is confusion is in relation, I believe, to the power of the Internet … we're at a crossroads at this point where we use the Internet without having fully understood its powers and its risks."
Wednesday's meeting of the Senate Liberal caucus was dedicated to consideration of Bill S-220, which would create a parliamentary committee to boost oversight of Canada's surveillance regime. Senator Hugh Segal, the bill's sponsor, said national security is a struggle between a democracy's freedoms and protecting the public.
"And if we lose that balance, then we fall into a potential dead-end of doing things in defence of our freedom that are, in and of themselves, perhaps unwittingly a violation," Mr. Segal said.
Senator and former Canadian lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire, who announced his resignation the same day, is co-sponsoring the bill – and believes the intelligence community backs it. "I do not believe the institutions are reticent of having that [parliamentary] capability. I just feel that we on this [Parliament] Hill have a problem of grappling with this," he said.UPDATE: Charlottesville and Gov. Terry McAuliffe are responsible for the James Fields, Jr. car wreck. National Guard was supposed to be “providing for the safe movement of traffic and pedestrians.”
Here’s one of the biggest mysteries of August 12th in Charlottesville: why was Antifa allowed to parade through the streets for nearly three hours during a “state of emergency”?
The #UniteTheRight protesters had come from all over the United States to participate in a legally permitted rally in Lee Park. After the “unlawful assembly” and “state of emergency” was declared though after 11:06 AM, we were ordered to disperse or be arrested.
We complied with the “state of emergency.” The crowd gathered in Lee Park dispersed in two streams back to McIntire Park and the Market Street parking garage where our vehicles were located. The League of the South was scattered by the surprise turn of events, but we regrouped, rounded up our members and after everyone was accounted for we left Charlottesville by 1 PM.
Heather Heyer, Courtney Commander, Marissa Blair and Marcus Martin allegedly arrived shortly before 1 PM. In other words, they arrived to participate in the Antifa march around the time that the League of the South was leaving Charlottesville because of the “state of emergency.” Antifa were still parading through the streets of Charlottesville nearly three hours into the “state of emergency.” The car crash happened around 1:46 PM by which time there should have been no unlawful assemblies in Charlottesville.
This was illegal:
1.) Everyone in the Antifa mob that was parading through the streets was guilty of § 18.2-415. Disorderly conduct in public places by obstructing traffic. A woman of Heather’s size and agility was an especially obvious and dangerous traffic hazard. Couldn’t someone have told her to get out of the street?
2.) Everyone in the Antifa mob that was parading through the streets were guilty of § 18.2-406 Unlawful assembly. The ones who were carrying weapons who attacked James Fields Jr.’s car were guilty of Class 5 Felonies.
3.) Everyone in the Antifa mob who attacked the Dodge Challenger was guilty of § 18.2-42 Assault or battery by mob.
4.) Everyone in the Antifa mob who stalked and attacked #UniteTheRight protesters returning to the vehicles is guilty of § 18.2-60.4 Violation of protective orders; penalty.
Now, the obvious question is why the hell was this allowed to continue for nearly three hours and what the hell was the point of issuing the “state of emergency” only to have the Charlottesville Police, Virginia State Police and Virginia National Guard stand around with their thumbs up their asses?
The Charlottesville Police should have told Heather Heyer to disperse and go home. There has to be a reason why they didn’t do this and why a state of anarchy still existed in the streets of Charlottesville nearly three hours into the “state of emergency.” The City of Charlottesville was also supposed to have closed Fourth Street which crosses the downtown mall until 7 PM:
Charlottesville failed to 1.) protect people dispersing to their cars, 2.) enforce the "state of emergency" and 3.) close 4th Street pic.twitter.com/sqiyJZKeD5 — Hunter Wallace (@occdissent) September 6, 2017
My guess is that the whole point of declaring the “unlawful assembly” and “state of emergency” in Charlottesville was to shutdown the #UniteTheRight rally. This is why the Charlottesville police had stood down earlier in the day and allowed the violence to escalate for nearly an hour. It is also why the “state of emergency” was meaningless because no assets were deployed.
Note: This little gem from Wes Bellamy at the Charlottesville City Council meeting last night sheds light on what happened on August 12th.Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Sicily protesting against Trident Juncture 2015, the largest military maneuvers in more than a decade, which NATO claims are designed to adapt the alliance to “emerging security challenges.”
The protesters marched through the streets of the city of Marsala, less than 10 miles (16km) from Vincenzo Florio Airport. The airport is a base for the 37th Wing of the Italian air force and is one of the forward operating bases (FOBs) used by NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control.
Organized by the “No war, no NATO” group, activists from all corners of the Italian island marched with banners reading “Sicily is not laboratory of the war” and "Sicily is no war zone". People urged the Italian government to better invest in education and the medical sector rather than military activity.
A Marsala bel corteo contro #TridentJuncture 2015 prova di forza della #NATOpic.twitter.com/a1LOiiKSeh — luca cangemi (@luca_cangemi) October 31, 2015
Accompanied by police in riot gear, the procession blocked traffic in the city center as protesters proceeded to reach Victory Square. A large portion of the crowd expressed concern with NATO activities disturbing the local tourism industry.
The US-led Trident Juncture 2015 military exercises which began on October 19 involve 36,000 troops from 30 countries. More than 160 aircraft including fighter jets, helicopters, surveillance planes, and drones, operating from 15 air bases in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the three Allies hosting Trident Juncture are also taken part in the maneuvers. The exercises are the biggest NATO military exercise to take place since 2002.
In mille a Marsala contro la maxiesercitazione Nato di Birgi https://t.co/qwWfQB4xX6#cronacapic.twitter.com/4JOR9NNS0O — Palermo 24 (@palermo24) October 31, 2015
NATO has significantly stepped up its military presence and activity along the Russian border, including in the Baltic states and eastern Europe, since Russia’s reunification with Crimea and the outbreak of conflict in eastern Ukraine, which the alliance blames on Moscow. Russia views NATO’s ongoing expansion and constant military activity as hostile and destabilizing.(San Diego, CA) – The latest from AleSmith, as excerpted from the brewery’s newsletter…
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Our third Reserve Series release of 2013 will be AleSmith Barrel Aged Grand Cru. This is the first time AleSmith has ever Barrel Aged Grand Cru and our first use of red wine barrels to age a beer. A little bit about Barrel Aged Grand Cru:
Barrel Aged Grand Cru is our Belgian-Style Ale that has been matured in American and French oak red wine barrels for a year to add layers of complexity to its rich flavor profile of dark fruit and Belgian caramel malts. The oak and red wine flavors imparted by the barrel-aging process blend seamlessly with subtle hints of raisin, plum, and bittersweet chocolate from the beer!
Starting Monday, April 22nd at Noon, you will be able to purchase up to three (3) bottles of Barrel Aged Grand Cru and your name will be registered (you will need to use your name for each bottle). Any duplicate sales to the same name will be voided! We want to make this as fair as possible and get as many bottles into our wonderful customer’s hands!
Please USE ONLY YOUR NAME TO PURCHASE THE BOTTLES. YOUR PURCHASE IS JUST FOR YOUR BOTTLES. YOU CANNOT PURCHASE BOTTLES UNDER SOMEONE ELSE’S NAME OR FOR SOMEONE ELSE. IF YOU BUY THEM, YOU MUST PICK THEM UP.
Bottles can be picked up starting Sunday, April 28th in the AleSmith Tasting Room. Bottles can be retrieved during tasting room hours from Sunday, April 28th through Sunday, June 23rd (Tue/Wed/Thur: 2-8pm, Fri: 2-9pm, Sat: 11am-8pm & Sun: 11am-6pm.) Any bottles not retrieved by SUNDAY, JUNE 23RD will be surrendered back to the brewery (no exceptions).
Please DO NOT PURCHASE BOTTLES UNLESS YOU ARE SURE YOU CAN MAKE IT TO THE BREWERY BY JUNE 23, 2013.
Proxies will not be allowed for this release, you will need to show your proof of purchase (in the form of CONFIRMATION EMAIL FROM BROWN PAPER TICKETS) and valid id to retrieve your bottles. NO EXCEPTIONS WILL BE MADE. This means you will NOT be able to pick up anyone else’s bottles, and we will not release the bottles to you without a confirmation and valid id matching the name on the sale!
Please ensure you only pick up bottles during the following dates/times: Tue/Wed/Thur: 2-8pm, Fri: 2-9pm, Sat: 11am-8pm & Sun: 11am-6pm. Please do not purchase bottles until you’ve read the terms and conditions listed on the sale page and can ensure you will be able to pick up your bottles by SUNDAY, JUNE 23rd, 2013!
To purchase tickets, please visit our Brown Paper Tickets sale page located here. The page will not go live until twenty four hours prior to the start of bottle sales! For more information about our release party celebration, see below.Christmas is usually a time for carols, good tidings and presents. Usually.
The recession however, has worked its way into every household and personal budget, causing much uncertainty surrounding the holiday season this year. You might have a reason to celebrate, but here are 10 reasons it’s going to be a bad Christmas for the U.S.
1. The Grinch has nothing to steal.
According to a recent study by McClatchy Newspapers, 43% of 233 police departments saw a rise in crime this year, which most attribute to the recession.
2. The only gift Santa can afford to give is love.
76% of families are expecting to cut back on holiday spending according to a ConsumerReports holiday shopping poll.
3. The elves are going back to their own country to find work.
Immigrants take the brunt of the recession and are often the first casualties. Many are leaving the U.S. to head back home, where they might actually find work.
4. Rudolph can’t find any seasonal work.
Many employers are cutting seasonal jobs, and more people are expected to compete for each open position. We’re pretty sure Rudolph and many of the high-schoolers in the nation are going to be funemployed this season.
5. The ghost of Christmas Future broke the bad news about employment to the ghost of Christmas Present.
Although the broader economy shows signs of recovering, unemployment is expected to remain high for a prolonged period of time because jobs will be the last thing to recover.
6. The gingerbread man has become a cannibal to survive.
The number of people on food stamps, especially in urban areas, has climbed dramatically in the past two years.
7. People are actually planning on giving birth in mangers to save on health care.
Health care costs are on the rise again for 2009, and many people without health insurance won’t seek any new coverage.
8. Parents will tell their kids that there is no Santa Claus to avoid buying presents.
There is an actual article on how to tell your kids Santa doesn’t exist on eHow. We’re not kidding.
9. Tim Burton was hired to write two sequels, “The Nightmare During Christmas” and “The Nightmare After Christmas.”
The box office definitely reflects reality, especially when there are more disaster movies for the holidays, including post-apocalyptic thrillers like 2012.
10. Charlie Brown has a right to be depressed since Barack Obama will steal his limelight. Good grief.
President Barack Obama is expected to address the nation about sending 300,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in a televised appearance that will push back the time slot reserved for the Charlie Brown Christmas special.I n yesterday's Ask Wizards question, Magic Creative Director Brady Dommermuth explained the flavor relationship between a player, his hand, and his library of spells. It's not the first time that someone has undertaken the challenge of explaining the flavor of such abstract game concepts and mechanics, however.
Below is a document written by Daneen McDermott, formerly of the Magic Continuity Team, on July 27, 2000 (during the design of the "graveyard matters" Odyssey block). It attempts to explain, in analogical terms, what it means for a card to be in your library, for you to play a spell, for a card to end up in your graveyard, and other, more exotic variations possible in Magic.
While this should not be considered the authoritative canon on the subject, it is one interesting way of looking at the flavor of these real-world game mechanics.
Without further adieu, we present: Magic spellcasting as cake-baking.
Daneen McDermott
July 27, 2000
The Baking a Cake Example
I know how to bake a cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your library)
I bake a cake (Playing the card, it goes to the graveyard)
I remember baking the cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your graveyard)
The "Milling" a Cake Example
I know how to bake a cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your library)
I remember baking the cake, but there's no cake?!? (Someone mills the "Bake A Cake" card into your Graveyard)
The "Flashback" a Cake Example
I know how to bake a cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your library)
I bake a cake (Playing the card, it goes to the graveyard)
I remember baking the cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your graveyard)
I really, really remember baking that cake, and I can do it again from memory (Paying the Flashback cost and playing the card again)
The Restocking a Cake Example
I know how to bake a cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your library)
I bake a cake (Playing the card, it goes to the graveyard)
I remember baking the cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your graveyard)
Now, if I just relax while I make this pie, I'll be able to remember how to bake that cake (Play the "Make a Pie" card, which allows you to Restock the "Bake A Cake" card)
The Ultimate Cake Example
(Wherein, the "Bake a Cake" Card has the Flashback ability, which is used after it is Milled...)
I know how to bake a cake (The "Bake A Cake" card in your library)
I remember baking the cake, but there's no cake?!? (Someone mills the "Bake A Cake" card into your Graveyard)
I really, really remember baking that cake, and I can do it again from memory (Paying the Flashback cost and playing the card again)
Cake? What Cake? (The "Bake A Cake" Card is purged after it has been played through Flashback)
It may not answer all flavor questions about basic Magic mechanics, but it's an interesting analogy using the relatively familiar concepts of knowledge (cards in your library), memory (cards in your graveyard), and physical results (the effects of spells you've previously cast). When you sit down to reason out the flavor of a Golgari mage dredging back a Life from the Loam dumped into his graveyard by his Dimir opponent by Glimpse the Unthinkable, however, remember that cake might not explain all of Magic's intricacies!In a short video produced by Vice News and the New York Review of Books, Mark Danner states that the US unintentionally created the Islamic State (IS). He argues that a series of bad political and military-strategical choices – for example the decision to go to war in Iraq in the first place, the dissolution of the Iraqi security forces and the de-Ba’athisation during the US occupation, the humiliation of the Sunnis etc. – planted the seed for the creation of the IS. In fact, since the beginning of the US occupation there were different active offshoots of al-Qaeda in Iraq. IS’s brutality is fueled through Sunni insurgence, their hate against the former US occupiers and against the dominant, rivalling Shias.
Yes, the US invasion in Iraq was a stupid move by former US president George W. Bush. Plenty of decisions of the US during the campaign and the occupation in Iraq were terrible wrong. Even worse, the torture and prisoner abuses in Abu Ghraib represent a moral bankruptcy of the US. Nevertheless, Danner tells us only one aspect of the story. After the US occupation, the creation of IS wasn’t unavoidable and probably the Shia government under Nouri al-Maliki had even a greater impact on the creation of the Islamic State (see also the articles by Hauke Feickert). The Sunni “Sons of Iraq” were never integrated into the Iraqi Armed Forces, despite according promises and the Sunni dominated Anbar province remained underdeveloped. The powerful positions of Shiite politicians in the Iraqi government, Iraq’s political system is even a greater frustration for the Sunni – once more again, election alone makes no democracy.
Another important point, which Danner doesn’t take into consideration is the effect of the civil war in Syria in the rising of IS. In Syria again, the Sunnis were one of the main targets of the operations conducted by Assad’s forces. According to a yesterday released publication of the Center for Security Studies at the ETH Zurich, the civil war in Syria gave IS a strategic depth in Iraq. Last but not least the poor morale of the Iraqi Armed Forces facilitated the strategic gains of IS in Northern Iraq.
Danner’s remarks are interesting, but the problem with such retrospective assessment is that afterwards all seems so clear. There is a suggestion of a direct causality from one to another decision, but that is the result of a personal interpretation. The final outcome today is only one possibility of many. When the US troops pulled out of Iraq, everybody knew the huge challenges the government in Iraq has to master — but at this time nobody could forecast the rise of the IS as a reasonable threat for the whole region.
Some people say that history repeats itself. Should that be true, then ask yourself what kind of seed US and NATO troops planted in Afghanistan. Will the Afghan government master the challenges ahead or will we see there another rise of a powerful terror organization in a few years?
Please write your opinion in the comment section below or on our Facebook page “Sicherheitspolitik“. Who is responsible for the creation of the IS? Who should now clean up the mess? Will history repeats itself in Afghanistan? Will we see another save heaven for terrorists in Afghanistan in a few years? How can we deal with this future threat?
More information
Mark Danner, “Iraq: The New War“, The New York Review of Books, September 25, 2003.The State Fair of Texas has revealed the eight finalists for its 2016 Big Tex Choice Awards, more commonly known as the fried food awards. High-five to fried Jell-O! You made it.
Fried Jell-O is probably the most outrageous among the finalists, but it has plenty of competition. The list also includes hot pockets, food on a stick, and something called injectable balls.
Each year, State Fair concessionaires devise boundary-busting foods for a chance to compete for the winning titles of Best Taste and Most Creative. This year’s winners will be announced with much hoopla on August 28.
These eight finalists were culled from a larger list, released in July, that included lots of things on sticks and loads of bacon: bacon-wrapped churros, bacon-wrapped pork belly on a stick, bacon-wrapped tater dog, bacon burger dogs on a stick, a "Bacontilla," and Dorito bacon fried cheese stick. Only the bacon burger dog slider on a stick emerged from the bacon field.
Pineapple was a popular ingredient, as well, with three entries: Caribbean pineapple "Korn-a-Copia," fried "Pinatacolupa," deep fried Hawaiian hoops, and an entry called "Pina-A lot-Ta." One pineapple made it through.
These are the eight finalists for the 2016 Big Tex Choice Awards:
Caribbean Pineapple Korn-a-Copia
Marinated grilled chicken and shrimp are served over a bed of yellow Caribbean fried rice and topped with a tropical salsa and pineapple rum glaze. Served in a pineapple half shell.
Deep Fried Bacon Burger Dog Slider on a Stick
A miniature ground beef patty is stuffed with shredded cheddar cheese, bacon, and a hot dog on a Hawaiian roll, then placed on a skewer topped with a pickle, dipped in a tempura batter, and deep fried. Served on a bed of shoestring fries with ranch dipping sauce.
Deep Fried Pulled Pork Funyun Dings
A Funyun is stuffed with pulled pork, pepper Jack cheese, pineapple slices, and bacon, then dipped in a batter and deep fried. Served with sweet barbecue sauce.
Fernie’s Down Home Chicken Pot Pie Pocket with Mac ’n’Cheese Dip
Shredded chicken, potatoes, carrots, peas, and corn in a white sauce is ladled into pastry dough, then folded Hot Pocket-style, and fried. Served with a side of mac-and-cheese-inspired dip.
Fried Jell-O
Cherry Jell-O in a panko-crusted breading, flash-fried, and dusted with powdered sugar. Served with whipped cream and a cherry.
Injectable Great Balls of BBQ
Beef brisket and bock barbecue sauce is molded into balls, rolled in seasoned breadcrumbs and fried. Served on a bed of coleslaw, each order comes with its own pipette of bock barbecue sauce to be injected into the brisket balls.
Southern Fried Chicken & Dumplins
Shredded chicken is mixed with seasoning, dough, and gravy; rolled into balls; coated with breadcrumbs; and deep fried. Served with fried biscuit bites and a side of gravy.
State Fair Cookie Fries
Looks like a classic crinkle-cut fry but offered in traditional cookie flavors like chocolate chip or sprinkles. Served with choice of strawberry or milk chocolate sauce.Oh You’ve Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me
Caitlin Johnstone Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 6, 2017
Well, we’ve done it folks. We’ve hit peak corporate fauxgressivism.
Go home, Hillary’s hot sauce. Go home, Chuck Schumer’s fake tears for immigrant families. Go home, Bill Maher taking a knee. You’ve all been blown clean off the pages of establishment liberal vanity politics history forever.
This is always the way it happens. They always do this. You get a cool, real anti-establishment movement happening, and the establishment finds a way to hijack its momentum and divert it toward corporatist oligarchic interests. Important civil rights grievances get used to blackmail vulnerable populations into voting Democrat. Bernie’s revolution got warped and twisted into phony establishment “Resistance” cronyism. Now we’re seeing it taken to its most obscene extreme in Colin Kaepernick’s recent meeting with Bana Alabed, a child who has been used and exploited in blatant acts of war propaganda.
Kaepernick has arguably done more than any other living individual to bring attention to the present-day epidemic of US police brutality in general and to law enforcement’s disproportionate violence toward black Americans in particular. His grievances are legitimate, the movement he’s helped lead is very important, and his influence presents a very real obstacle for those who wish to keep expanding the militarization of America’s depraved police state. So naturally he’s been selected to help publicize the book of a known psy-op whose sole purpose has been to manufacture western support for military interventionism in Syria.
And it’s not just Kaepernick. The Malala Fund, the nonprofit girls’ education organization founded by Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, has been promoting the new Bana Alabed book as well.
This is a standard tactic we’re seeing used again and again by these manipulative fucksticks. Humanity’s natural impulse toward goodness and harmony gives birth to something beautiful, and the psychopathic elites who have seized control of our world find a way to corrupt it toward their interests. Humanity is constantly striving to wake up from its illusions and begin functioning in a sane way, but these bastards are so adept at the science of social manipulation that they always find a way to divert the momentum of those efforts, aikido-like, toward lulling humanity back to sleep.
This is the entire purpose of the Democratic party right now, while we’re on the subject. The so-called “two-party system” is really just one corporate party with two different functions: the Republican party which blatantly advances plutocratic interests, and the Democratic party which hijacks any revolutionary movement against those interests and diverts it back into less obvious establishment loyalism. Any attempt to rally people together to advance the interests of humanity over plutocracy gets instantly infiltrated by Democrats saying “Yes! Absolutely! We’re on your side! Let’s fight the man together! Just elect this pro-fracking Democratic war hawk with extensive ties to Goldman Sachs so we can help stick up for people like you!”
Bana Alabed is undeniably a deceitful war psy-op which has been advanced by the highest levels of the mainstream media. There is a mountain of irrefutable evidence for this fact, including hard proof that CNN knowingly staged a fake, scripted interview with a little girl who can’t speak English for the purpose of selling an anti-Assad, pro-interventionist narrative against Syria to the American people. They presented that fake interview to their audience as real, and CNN’s Alisyn Camerota necessarily had the other half of the script they used.
And now we’re seeing her paraded around with the likes of Malala and Colin Kaepernick to lend the psy-op the illusion of legitimacy and to pied piper all well-intentioned revolutionary sentiment into support for the US war machine.
Last week, one year after he called Colin Kaepernick “a fucking idiot” for criticizing Hillary Clinton, sleazy plutocratic ball tickler Bill Maher took a knee. He didn’t do this in support of the African American community, and he didn’t do it to protest police brutality. He did it because the Republican president had recently made some asinine tweets, and he wanted to rally Democrats in opposition. The establishment manipulation — the exact variety we’re discussing in this article — could not have been more blatant.
Bill should have little Bana on his show.
— — —
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The Swiss manufacturer has announced its own iPad Pro accessory, the Logitech Create Keyboard Case.
It will be the first third-party keyboard compatible with the iPad Pro's Smart Connector, which means the case itself doesn't require its own power source to charge, unlike Logitech equivalents for the iPad and iPad mini. The iPad Pro charges the keyboard when in use, so it will always work the moment you want it to.
The connection also means that it pairs with the new iPad every time it is placed in the typing position, you no longer have to pair it over Bluetooth.
It is also custom designed to work well with iOS 9 and has full-size keys. It also offers thin and lightweight protection as a case when no in use.
READ: Apple iPad Pro first-look: Trying out the Pencil and keyboard with the new bigger iPad
Apple iPad Pro 9.7 review: The tablet to beat all tablets
The keyboard case is made of tightly-woven premium fabric, so helps resist accidental bumps, scratches and spills.
It will be available in the UK, US and other select countries in Europe and Asia at the same time as Apple launches its new device in November.
Pricing details for the Logitech keyboard case will be available nearer release.In a setback for a global eradication campaign, two children in southwestern Ukraine have been paralysed by polio in the first outbreak of the disease in Europe since 2010, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.
The WHO said Ukraine had been at particular risk of an outbreak because of inadequate vaccination coverage. In 2014, only 50% of children were fully immunised against polio and other preventable diseases, it said.
The risk of further spread within the country is high, although the threat to nearby Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia is low, a WHO statement said.
There is no cure for polio, which attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. It mainly affects young children in areas of poor sanitation.
A global vaccination campaign has largely stamped out the virus, and only Pakistan and Afghanistan have reported cases of wild polio virus this year. Madagascar and Nigeria have suffered vaccine-derived outbreaks, like Ukraine.
The oral vaccine contains a very weak live virus and is considered very safe and effective in preventing the disease. But immunised children excrete the vaccine, and within about 12 months it can mutate in the environment and begin causing paralysis again in unvaccinated children.
"This is an epidemic-prone disease," said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesperson for WHO's polio eradication department. "This is a virus that's very good at finding susceptible children."
He said the two cases in Ukraine -- a 4-year-old and a 10-month-old -- were merely the visible cases among many silent carriers.
"You don't have two kids infected with this strain. There are a lot of other children and adults who will have it. It's in the sewage system. Now is the time to boost the immunity levels."
Vaccine-derived polio strains tend to spread less easily and not cause as many cases as the wild virus, he said, and a full outbreak response could stop the spread in its tracks. The cost of such a response was still being worked out, he said.
Ukraine, where a conflict between government forces and pro-Russian separatists erupted in the east in April 2014, has been rid of wild polio virus since 1996.
Turkey was the last country in Europe where polio was endemic, but it has been rid of the disease since 1999. Europe's last outbreak was in 2010, after the virus was imported from Tajikistan to Russia, leading to 14 cases, Rosenbauer said.
First Published: Sep 02, 2015 21:38 ISTErika Gir |
an epidemic of heroin overdose right now. And there are things that we can do -- there’s a bill in Maine right now, for example, to allow treatment to be made available to people…
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From a policy perspective, do you think Maine would be better off if heroin were decriminalized?
I think it is really is too soon to have that conversation. I think the issue with heroin addiction right now is that government -- Republicans, including Governor Paul LePage, are blocking meaningful treatment alternatives. They have slashed funding for treatment in our communities, and we have seen a rise of addiction. And as a result, really harrowing overdoses that are really hurting our community.
So it’s time to reduce overdoses and addiction, and that means investment in treatment and prevention. That does not mean immediately going to making heroin and cocaine legal…
Where we need to start is meaningful drug law reform in a sensible, common-sense way. And that starts with the decriminalization of marijuana. I think all policy needs to start with a common-sense approach, bringing together stakeholders, bringing together the health community and the law enforcement and the medical community to come together around what the best pathway forward is.
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Should marijuana be legalized as well as decriminalized?
I absolutely support marijuana legalization… What we see is racial disparities that are creating, as Michelle Alexander says, “The New Jim Crow.”
The ACLU has faced a good deal of internal and external controversy over its stance on Citizens United. The national ACLU currently maintains that “any rule that requires the government to determine what political speech is legitimate and how much political speech is appropriate is difficult to reconcile with the First Amendment.” Is that correct?
I support meaningful campaign finance reform… Maine has a clean elections system, so in the Maine legislature we see a diverse array of elected officials… I think we need to see national public funding mechanisms that are very similar to what we have in Maine…
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And the regulations that were overturned in Citizens United -- should they have been overturned?
I think Citizens United is one of the gravest threats to our democracy…
Susan Collins is on the wrong side… She opposes disclosures of corporate contributions into the system, and she voted to confirm Sam Alito and John Roberts to the court…
Who should President Obama appoint to the Supreme Court if he gets another appointee?
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There are many worthy nominees…
As senator, I will never vote to confirm a justice who is anti-abortion…
Why did you join the NRA, and why did you leave?
I’m passionate about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights… I joined the NRA because I do believe strongly in the Second Amendment. And at the same time, what I observed reading the NRA magazine month after month was that the NRA became too extreme…
I also think the NRA could have done more to oppose the USA Patriot Act… and could be advocating now for meaningful NSA spying reform and meaningful Fourth Amendment protections in all areas. I mean, look at the issues of domestic drone surveillance for example…
Should the Assault Weapons Ban be revived?
This is an area that’s hotly debated in Maine. Because the meaning of “assault weapon” is hotly debated…
I think it’s a conversation worth having, again, with reasonable people on all sides… I think we can have meaningful checks and balances and gun safety laws that also comply with the Second Amendment. But it needs to be -- we need to have a debate that is not black or white, but instead is sitting down and having a reasonable conversation with all sides. I think that’s been missing in a lot of areas in Congress. That we’ve become so polarized…
The Assault Weapons Ban that was law and then expired, would you have voted for that?
In 1994?
Or to revive it?
[Pause] The reason I’m reflecting is, I’m going back to me in 1994. In 1994, I was definitely of the side of the NRA, and probably would have been against it. But again, I think both technology has evolved and our views as a society have evolved, and I think it’s really important to have a nuanced conversation about this.
So I honestly would have to see the legislation. It would really depend on the details. That would be extraordinarily important to me -- extraordinarily important to a lot of Mainers.
And the Manchin-Toomey proposal, would you have voted for that?
I would have voted for Manchin-Toomey. It was legislation that was the best sort of bipartisan compromise.
If the Obama administration approves the [Keystone] pipeline, what will that mean for the president’s environmental record?
…We’re already seeing both the health and economic consequences of climate change. I oppose the Keystone pipeline, and I hope the Obama administration will too…
Would you support fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
No, I oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and I oppose fast-track authority…
Is there any hope at this point in your view of the Trans-Pacific Partnership becoming a good deal then?
What was unfortunate about the Trans-Pacific Partnership is that it was negotiated in secret. Lobbyists from business interests were at the table, but advocates for workers and environmentalists were not…
Is Race to the Top good policy?
…What I think we’ve seen in the last few decades is congressional underfunding of education in both urban and rural communities. Truly, a lack of investment in teachers and also in facilities. So across the country there’s been an emphasis on testing and an emphasis on measurements -- sometimes at the expense of an investment in education itself. And I think that the trends in education nationally toward privatization of education are somewhat concerning…
In Maine… teacher pay has not kept pace with the professional sector in general, and we need to recruit more good teachers…
I also support universal pre-K…
We need to confront the crisis that is student debt… We are losing an entire generation that is truly hampered by high student interest rates and student debt burdens.
Should we tax financial transactions?
Yes.
Should we expand Social Security?
Yes… If we were to scrap the cap, and make sure that higher-income earners pay their fair share, we could, in a fiscally responsible way, expand Social Security…
Last month, you told The Hill, “We certainly need to eliminate the individual mandate as it currently stands.” Given the insurance regulations in the Affordable Care Act, would that lead to a collapse of the private insurance market?
Honestly, I support universal healthcare. I think we need Medicare For All. I think that some of the biggest challenges with the Affordable Care Act were compromises struck with insurance companies, that have really undermined its implementation and the goal of getting universal access.
That’s partly a result of Republican obstructionism… Maine’s governor has been blocking expansion of Medicaid…
So would you propose, or would you support, just getting rid of the individual mandate without creating a “Medicare For All” system?
As we work on the Affordable Care Act, we need to make sure that we’re doing it in an integrated way, that we’re not just addressing one problem without putting in place a solution. So I think that it is important that we not just eliminate unpopular provisions without moving toward our goal of universal access…
Should there be public accommodations protections like the ones in the Civil Rights Act for LGBT people under federal law?
Absolutely…
We need a federal Freedom to Marry. I think it is flawed that lesbian and gay couples in one state, like Maine, have a higher level of protections from discrimination than couples in any other state…
What should be the federal minimum wage?
I support President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10. I also think that we need to make sure that it’s indexed to inflation so that it continues to increase to keep pace with the cost of living.
And the minimum wage for tipped workers -- how much should that be?
I’d have to review the president’s proposal. I waited tables throughout high school and college, so I think it’s really important that we make sure that tipped workers’ wages are also increasing at the same time that other workers’ are increasing as well.
What should the president be doing with executive authority that he hasn’t so far?
He could place limits on the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.
What would those limits be?
Well, he could end the mass surveillance program. He could end the executive orders that allow for backdoor surveillance by the NSA.It takes a left-wing rock star fronting Today to reveal how impoverished public debate has become, writes Joyce McMillan
As I write, it’s the second day of a brand new year, and the airwaves are loud with debate over one of the special holiday editions of the Radio 4 Today programme.
It is the annual custom of the Today team to invite a series of celebrity guest editors to shape their programmes over Christmas and New Year and yesterday the guest was none other than PJ Harvey, the brilliant English rock star, artist and writer, who set the nation all a-quiver both with her news agenda – which included long-term problems of torture and British involvement in the arms trade, more immediate concerns with current austerity policies and attacks on the NHS, and almost nothing from the familiar daily menu of pseudo-crises thrown up by the popular press - and with her choice of contributors, which included such controversial figures as Julian Assange of Wikileaks, and the radical journalist John Pilger. Some listeners loved the programme, relishing it as a serious challenge both to Today’s normal news agenda, and to its highly conventional style. Now in her early 40s, and a famously smart woman, Harvey recognised that form and content are intimately linked, and sought to shake up the rigid Today format, combining traditional reports and interviews with protest songs, poetry and opinion pieces. As former Newsnight editor Paul Mason pointed out in an appreciative Twitter message, the programme was so strikingly different from a normal edition of Today that it raised some profound questions about the versions of “truth” and “balance” routinely applied by the BBC.
For the 21st-century British Right, though – used to seeing their sense of what is important go largely unchallenged in day-to-day political broadcasting – the programme was an outrage. The phrase “Left-wing tosh” was bandied about, the cultural elements of the programme were mocked (how they hate and fear human creativity, these masters of the universe), and one Tory MP wondered, in vaguely menacing style, who was responsible for extending the invitation to Harvey. Since this year’s group of guest editors also included such establishment figures as Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, former head of MI5, and Anthony Jenkins, CEO of Barclays Bank, there are clearly no grounds for complaint from the Right about the overall balance of this year’s holiday editions. The British boss class, though, increasingly demand not so much balance as total hegemony. Where a generation ago they would have had the wisdom to welcome Harvey as an alternative voice that demonstrated Britain’s commitment to diversity and freedom, now they just want her and her kind to shut up, before they put any wild ideas into the heads of the compliant masses.
The row over Harvey’s edition of Today is likely, of course, to be little more than a brief storm in a media teacup. Yet it comes as a sharp reminder that what was once a normal left-of-centre agenda in Britain has now become so exotic that people react to its presence on Radio 4 with various degrees of shock. Most of the points made by Harvey’s contributors may have been accurate, truthful and based on fact. But, in terms of contemporary British political debate, they nonetheless remain marginal, because they are not part of the dominant grand narrative of our time, which requires constant deference to the priorities of rich so-called “wealth creators”, and a rapid refocusing of any popular anger towards other vulnerable groups, such as this New Year’s imaginary tidal wave of new migrants from Romania and Bulgaria.
The great political question of our time, in other words – in the UK and across the West – is whether any political force will emerge, in the 21st century, that seriously challenges this dominant narrative; or whether we are now trapped by an account of reality so far adrift of the truth, and so rarely challenged, that a long age of social, moral and intellectual decline seems almost inevitable.
It is a damning indictment of the current state of British politics – and particularly of the recent history of the Labour Party – that it takes a rock star to create a Today programme that seriously challenges and shifts the conventional news agenda.
Nor is it surprising that many centre-Left voters in Scotland are looking to next year’s independence referendum as a unique and vital opportunity to escape from this stale and ugly politics of reaction, and to start reinventing a more just and creative form of national community for the 21st century.
And as for Ed Miliband, the Labour leader who should be mustering the poetry, the imagination, the music, the international alliances and the clear political vision that might help a new generation to break the dead grip of neoliberalism at last – alas, he remains hopelessly earthbound, stuck in a groove of language that ranges from the tediously technocratic to the reductively blokeish, reduced to making a New Year video for Scottish voters which implies that hospitals in Liverpool would refuse to treat Scottish patients after independence, and forever conscious that in order to win the key south-eastern marginals that determine Westminster victory, he can afford to deviate barely at all from the mean-minded politics of austerity and victim-bashing that makes the return of progressive social policy at UK level ever more unlikely.
Yet just for a moment, in Harvey’s Today, we caught a glimpse of what it would be like truly to change those terms of debate. The vision was so startlingly unfamiliar that it reduced Today presenters Sarah Montague and Mishal Husain to breathless, apologetic giggles.
We also learned, though, just how efficiently the new establishment now moves to sweep such ideas aside, before they can begin to change minds and lives.
And we also learned how far we are from seeing the emergence, under 21st-century conditions, of a mainstream UK party with the courage and energy to embody this kind of alternative vision of our economy and our world; and to return to the dangerous, high-stakes business of offering voters not two or three different sales pitches for the same failing system, but a genuine choice between an old world that has had its day, and a new one, now struggling to be born.by Lucy Gellman | Sep 10, 2014 1:26 pm
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Ever had that sudden, delayed sinking feeling that you were doing something horribly destructive in a relationship, and there was no way to stop it? An inkling of that “emotional and psychological impact that one has in realizing too late that one’s actions and consequences of those actions have gradually killed the hopes that your lover had that this was going to become a long term monogamous relationship”?
Well now there’s a word for that. Òňxeizvakcîspourboi, to be exact.
Or at least there is in Ithkuil, a “hypothetical language” of semantic succinctness that has been fascinating everyone from locals Joshua Foer and Natalie Elicker to Slavic Nationalists in Kiev over the past two to three years.
On Tuesday evening, lingual engineer and Ithkuil inventor John Quijada arrived at the Institute Library’s September installment of its “Amateur Hour” series to discuss the language, as well as its myriad meanings and uses, in detail.
In conversation with longtime “Amateur Hour” host Joshua Foer, Quijada described Ithkuil to a packed house as “a grand matrix of grammatical concepts, lexical components, word stems and a morphology,” adding that “I basically created a systematic way of taking semantic components. I’m able to mix and match them synergistically to create a way of describing reality that... instead of it just being linear...is very holistic.”
And in practice, it is. Born out of a desire to convert intellectual concepts into crisp eloquence – and on a wider level, to eradicate scholarly obfuscation – Ithkuil can handle ideas like gestalt and aesthetics very transparently, boiling entire concepts or strings of concepts and their accompanying intellectual and emotional baggage into just a few words. A lecture Quijada gave in the Russian town of Kalmykia, for instance, centered on Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, which might be described in six words of Ithkuil instead of sixty or six hundred in English.
“In English it would take a whole paragraph to try to convey what you’re looking at in this painting... You can convey what you’re seeing in six words in the Ithkuil language. I picked words apart... to describe how this collection of planes and lines and shapes was being used to describe a nude descending a staircase, including the act of descent, the fact that there were stairs and incremental elements going on through time that gives rise to a gestalt that in turn gives rise to an aesthetic reaction on the part of the viewer, an intellectual response, and an emotional one. And all that was contained in these six words.”
Which is to say, Quijada has thought Ithkuil through for the better part of 30 years. But he isn’t a stuffy academic. Not even close. His story, the subject of a 2012 New Yorker essay by Foer, takes a far different route, at times as confounding and quirky as language itself. After tabling plans for graduate school and taking a civil service exam after college, the amateur linguist accepted a job at the DMV, where he has remained since. Inventing a language promised to keep him engaged where his job could not.
“Grad school just slipped from the back burner... right off the stove. But my brain’s always going all the time. Well I didn’t get a chance to exercise that at work... my work [at the DMV] was just drudgery. If I had had an interesting career, one that was mentally stimulating, I’m sure I would not have been spending my off hours creating a language. I would have been off at a bar watching the ballgame or shooting pool with the guys... but I needed to keep my brain alive. So instead I spent my evenings and weekends working on this just as a hobby.”
Foer suggested that with the discovery and popularization of Ithkuil, Quijada’s dream had come true. Quijada corrected him. “To say it was a dream come true implies that I was hoping I would be discovered. That was never my motive. This was just an intellectual experiment,” he said.
And one he is proud of, precisely the magic of “Amateur Hour.” As Institute Library President Natalie Elicker said at the beginning of the evening, Quijada was there in part to “continue the conversation” that the institution’s founders had started in the19th Century, a quest for the expansion of knowledge that fosters, in turn, fruitful discussion and a chance for education on the broader community level.
Which it does, if you think about it. While Ithkuil is a language – or at the very least, a concept-language – capable of harnessing entire intellectual constellations, there is also something deeply human about it. How many times have you wanted to explain that the person on your arm or in your bed is your current companion, but not specifically the one you want to be with forever (Lebensabschnittspartner)? Or to describe the look of scattered light falling through the trees on your first hike of the fall (komorebi, 木漏れ日)? Or that you were the cramped and scowling person on the L train this morning, on that long commute to work (Kaapshljmurslis)?
And how much more emotion did you wish to infuse into each?
You’d have to crisscross several languages (German, Japanese, Latvian) to do it. Bring your English-Ithkuil dictionary, though, and these thoughts become complex, weighty things, with glittering webs of emotion spun into them.
“The key thing about the language that differentiates it from other languages is the degree of expressiveness... semantic expressiveness. You can very succinctly create words on the fly for concepts that you had no idea were even possible to lexicalize,” Quijada said.
At its core, this layered language was even simpler than that, he added.
“Languages open up ideas, right?”
To find out more about events at the Institute Library, visit their events page.Beetroot hummus! This is where I get really excited. It’s the taste. It’s the incredible nutritional profile. Oh my goodness – it’s that colour!
When I make food for groups, it brings me a lot of joy to make sure there is a magical dance of colours on the table at lunch time. Nothing quite makes people go ‘wow’ like a big bowl of beetroot hummus.
It’s easy to make. The only thing that takes time is having to bake the beetroot ahead of time. I like to do that the evening before when I have the oven on for something else. So when it comes to making the hummus the next day I simply have to pop all ingredients into the food processor and it’s done.
You can make this recipe without baking the beets. I’ve done that before, by simply grating the raw beetroot. It works and has that gorgeous colour, although it doesn’t quite hit the spot for me – so I do recommend baking if you can.
Baking not only softens the beetroot, it brings out an amazing depth of sweet, earthy flavour. It’s definitely worth that little bit of extra time and planning ahead.
People often think of hummus as the perfect accompaniment to falafels and pita. Yes indeed, that works a treat. However, I usually have it with salad and homemade oatcakes or rice cakes.
I can’t over state how incredible beetroot actually is. It gets my top vote for it’s incredible nutritional profile and it’s ability to help lower blood pressure, improve stamina and support healthy liver function. Read on here for more about beetroot…
Use a good tahini for this recipe. Tahini does vary from brand to brand. Some are out of this world, whilst others are bitter and ‘grainy’. In the UK Sunita, Suma, Essentials and Cypress all do delicious versions.
Beetroot Hummus - naturally vegan, super healthy and gluten-free Print Ingredients 200g beetroots (2 beets just under tennis ball in size)
1 1/2 lemons
2 cloves garlic
200g chickpeas (cooked) (1 cup approx)
1 teaspoon sea salt
7 tablespoons tahini
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon tamari Instructions Clean the beetroot and then cut the rough end off and discard. Cube the beetroot (1.5cm/half an inch works well) or slice it and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. Juice the lemon. Crush the garlic. Blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender until smooth. Allow to chill before serving. Notes You can also do this with raw beetroot, grated. However, I prefer the flavour of the baked beets. Baking brings out a delicious, earthy sweetness that works amazingly in this recipe.
Pin for later…Updated at 3:50 p.m.
Chevron is scrambling to deal with an elaborate lampoon of a major advertising campaign that the company introduced on Monday.
An environmental organization, the Rainforest Action Network, sent an e-mail on Monday afternoon claiming credit for the spoof, along with Amazon Watch and the Yes Men.
Chevron announced the campaign to reporters on Monday morning in e-mails, which were sent after the publication of an article about the ads in the Monday editions of The Wall Street Journal. There was also a news release about the campaign posted to a section of the Chevron Web site.
The campaign, by McGarryBowen in New York, carries the theme “We agree.” The ads seek to address critics of energy companies by affirming statements like “Oil companies should support the communities they’re part of” and “Oil companies should put their profits to good use.” A section of the Chevron Web site is also devoted to the campaign.
However, hours before the e-mails were sent, e-mails intended to resemble Chevron corporate missives also went out. They cited a different Web address, chevron-weagree.com, and included a link to what seemed to be an authentic news release on the official Chevron site.
The spoof news release carries the headline “Radical Chevron Ad Campaign Highlights Victims,” compared with the actual Chevron news release headline, “Chevron Launches New Global Advertising Campaign: ‘We Agree.’”
The spoof news release echoed language from the actual news release and included concocted quotations from actual Chevron executives. The main difference between the lampoon and the real one was that the fake release described the ads as addressing environmental issues in which Chevron is embroiled, including a dispute in Ecuador over oil pollution; the real ads do not directly address those matters.
At least one news outlet, the Web site of Fast Company magazine, was fooled by the prank.
The fake e-mail was followed by another, purporting to reproduce a news release that Chevron supposedly posted on the Business Wire service. It described how “a group of environmentalists cyber-posing as Chevron officials illegally spoofed Chevron’s just-launched ‘We Agree’ advertising campaign, confusing reporters.”
The second fake release, like the first, also attributed made-up quotes to real Chevron executives.
Morgan Crinklaw, a spokesman for Chevron in San Ramon, Calif., said the company was “taking down the Web sites that purport to be Chevron’s.”
“We expected something like this would be done,” he said in a phone interview on Monday afternoon, because “there are activist groups whose sole focus is attacking Chevron and not engaging in rational conversations on energy issues.”
Mr. Crinklaw also forwarded by e-mail a statement from Chevron that called the lampoon “rhetoric and stunts” and condemned the “fake press release” and “counterfeit Web site, which are not affiliated with Chevron.”
The e-mail asked reporters to contact the company “to ensure the accuracy of the information they have received” about the campaign.
Asked who might have been behind the spoof, Mr. Crinklaw replied: “I don’t want to speculate. I don’t know the answer.”
The e-mail from the Rainforest Action Network described the hoax as a “satirical counter-campaign.”
“When it comes to oil spills, climate change and human rights abuses, we need real action from Chevron,” said the e-mail. “Instead, the oil giant has prioritized a high-priced glossy advertising campaign that attempts to trick the American people into believing it is different than BP.”
Fast Company, in updating the article on its Web site, said that the pranksters known as the Yes Men were behind the hoax. The Yes Men are known for mocking big business and what they perceive to be corporate misdeeds.
Some environmental organizations welcomed the lampoon, whatever its provenance.
“The spoof is a direct consequence of Chevron’s trying to fool people into thinking it is an environmentally conscious when the company is responsible for the extensive contamination found in Ecuador’s rain forest and in other places as well,” Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing Chevron, said in an e-mail on Monday afternoon.
Earlier, before the spoof became widely known, Ms. Hinton sent an e-mail in which the plaintiffs criticized the actual Chevron campaign as “greenwashing.”Indian fishermen sit in a police station in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, March 5, 2015, after the Pakistani Maritime Security Agency arrested 46 for violating its waters in the Arabian Sea. (Source: AP)
The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (MSA) on Friday apprehended 48 Indian fishermen and seized 8 of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast, officials of National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) said.
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The Forum claimed that the Pakistani agency guards fired several rounds in the air to overpower these fishermen before taking them to Karachi from Indian waters.
[related-post]
NFF secretary Manish Lodhari said, “The Pakistan MSA apprehended 48 Indian fishermen along with 8 of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast in the Arabian sea this morning.”
According to him, they came to know about the incident from other fishermen, who came back.
“We learned that all the fishermen and boats belonged to Porbandar and Veraval. The Pakistani agency abducted these fishermen from Indian waters by firing several rounds in the air. They were taken to Karachi and lodged in jail,” he said.
In December last year, the MSA had captured 58 fishermen and seized 11 of their boats near the International Maritime Boundary near Jakhau port.
Thereafter, on January 4, the MSA had apprehended 12 Indian fishermen and seized their two boats near the International Maritime Boundary.
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This incident had come close on the heels of the Indian Coast Guard intercepting a Pakistani fishing boat off the coast of Gujarat. The boat, which was said to be carrying explosives, was intercepted on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 around 365-km off the Porbandar coast, before it reportedly exploded, caught fire and sunk with four crew members on board.Volunteers line up yogurt boxes to be distributed at Casa NGO in Azeitao, 25 km (15 miles) south of Lisbon January 17, 2013. REUTERS/Jose Manuel Ribeiro
By Laila Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yogurt became New York's official state snack on Wednesday, joining the likes of popcorn and salty boiled peanuts among popular foods honored by U.S. states.
New York has become the nation's top yogurt producer amid the booming popularity of strained Greek-style yogurt, the office of Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
Cuomo signed a bill making it the official state snack.
"Designating yogurt as the official state snack will continue to raise public awareness of the economic and health benefits of yogurt and the dairy industry," the governor's office said.
Only a handful of states have official snacks. South Carolina has boiled peanuts, Texas has tortilla chips and salsa, Illinois has popcorn and Utah has Jell-O.
New York state produced 741 million pounds (336 million kg) of yogurt last year, accounting for 16 percent of total U.S. production, the governor's statement said.
Two leading brands of the thick Greek-style yogurt, Ciobani and Fage, have large production plants in New York.
Dairy manufacturers in New York employed about 9,500 people with total wages of $513 million in 2013, up from about 8,000 jobs and $401 million in wages in 2010.
(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Peter Cooney)It was nearly a year ago when an astute Lend Academy reader first noticed Lending Club’s plan to start a small business lending operation. Then, in October, Lending Club announced the hiring of Sid Jajodia, the former head of small business lending at Capital One Bank. Today, after what has clearly been a deliberately planned process, Lending Club announced the launch of their small business lending operation.
Lending Club began a pilot operation a couple of weeks ago and has been running a small test with Google ads to ensure all their systems are working. They expect to begin issuing loans in the next two weeks.
Last month I chatted with Sid Jajodia, the Vice President of Small Business and Tom Green, the Vice President of New Business Initiatives just before the launch of Lending Club’s pilot program. They provided some more information about the kinds of loans Lending Club will issue and more information about this new program.
Before I delve into the details of this new program I want to stress one point. Some investors may think that Lending Club has been providing “small business loans” for many years because that is one of the stated purposes of the loans we see on the platform today. But these are not true small business loans. They are consumer loans that are completely dependent on the credit of the individual. The small business does not receive these funds directly, it is the individual, so they are not true small business loans.
Details of Lending Club’s New Small Business Loan Program
Lending Club will offer a variety of term loans: 1, 2, 3-year and some 5-year. Initially, they want to issue a mix of all four loan durations but will limit the number of 5-year loans issued. These loans will be unsecured but Lending Club will require a personal guarantee from the business owner. Down the road they may provide secured loans backed by the assets of the business but that is not the plan right now.
The target market for these loans will be small businesses with less than $5 million in sales. But they are not focused on micro-businesses or hobbyists. These are small businesses with some track record that are looking to grow. Larger companies have plenty of lending options and will not be a target for Lending Club.
While these loans will leverage the expertise of Lending Club’s consumer lending operation, particularly when it comes to analyzing the credit of the business owner, Lending Club has put together a team, headed by Jajodia, that are small business underwriting experts.
“One of Lending Club’s key areas of expertise is integrating data sources. In the small business area there is a lot of heterogeneous data coming from multiple sources,” said Jajodia. Lending Club will be using a combination of traditional data sources as well as alternative data but they would not disclose exactly which sources they will be using.
Interest Rates ranging from 5.9% to 29.9%
As you can see in this graphic there will be a broad range of interest rates offered by Lending Club that will be dependent on the creditworthiness of the business. These small business loans will be graded in a similar way to consumer loans and the data for issued loans will begin appearing in the data download shortly.
The online process to obtain a loan is a little more complicated than a consumer loan because you have to enter in your personal information as well as your business financials. But when I ran through the application myself it took just three minutes before I was able to obtain a decision from Lending Club. And for the record I was denied for a small business loan, which tells me they do have reasonably strict underwriting standards.
What’s in it for the Investor?
This is the big question, I am sure, for most Lend Academy readers. As was mentioned in earlier articles small business loans will not be available to retail investors any time soon. Lending Club has hand picked a small number of institutions to partner with in this pilot project.
While Lending Club has a high level of confidence in this new program they pointed out that it is a pilot program and therefore has a higher level of risk than the consumer loans. They wanted investor partners who understood these risks and were comfortable with them. These initial investors have committed to fund every loan issued by Lending Club during this pilot period.
The good news for retail investors is that Lending Club has stated several times now that they intend to make this product available for retail investors eventually. But given this is a new program that change is not imminent and may not happen for a year or more.
What about returns? While Lending Club is not making any specific claims regarding investor returns they did say this. Their intention is to provide returns to investors on their small business loan product that are equivalent to returns on consumer loans.
My Take
I think it is difficult to overstate the importance of this news today. Lending Club is the world leader in p2p lending and this is their first foray into a new loan product. If they execute well and provide a great product for investors, then they are well on their way to becoming the future leader in financial services. If small business loans end up performing badly and investors flee the product then Lending Club runs the risk of remaining a one-trick pony – providing unsecured consumer loans.
Most banks have been reducing their lending to small businesses over the last few years, so there are many people watching this move closely. While Lending Club will have competition from the likes of Funding Circle USA and Dealstruck, there are very limited options today in the market Lending Club is going after, and no clear winners in the online term loan market more broadly.
The timing is good for Lending Club and I happen to think they will do very well. They have clearly not rushed into this; they have taken their time and put the necessary infrastructure in place in terms of people and processes.
As a long time entrepreneur I love supporting small business. And most small businesses are being underserved when it comes to access to capital today. Lending Club can play a significant role in changing that.
What do you think? Is this a good move by Lending Club? Or would you prefer they remain focused just on consumer loans? As always I am interested to hear your comments.
There is more coverage of this news from The Wall Street Journal and Techcrunch.Big Sur >> Caltrans said Monday its unclear how long Highway 1 in southern Big Sur will remain closed after a landslide covering between a quarter and a half mile brought millions of cubic yards of dirt and rock down the hillside at Mud Creek on Saturday.
According to Caltrans spokeswoman Susana Cruz, there are five active landslides in the area, which is about 9 miles north of the southern Monterey County border. It’s believed four of the slides came down together at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Springs in the area keep the soil muddy, she said.
“There was so much saturation and so much weight,” Cruz said.
Kirk Gafill, president of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce and Nepenthe Restaurant’s owner and general manager, grew up in Big Sur. Gafill, 55, said the only landslide in the area he can remember that was as big as the one at Mud Creek was in 1983 just north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
“That location was closed for 14 months,” he said.
Both Gafill and Cruz said it would be conjecture to say how long Highway 1 will remain closed this time.
Gafill’s grandparents founded Nepenthe. He said it can be hard to compare the scale of the two events, but the Mud Creek slide was one of the largest in his lifetime along the Big Sur coast.
“If it’s not the biggest, it’s certainly right up there,” he said.
Cruz said the Mud Creek slide is the biggest she can remember since joining Caltrans in 2001. She said a slide near Mud Creek at Duck Pond during the El Niño winter of 1998 caused major damage.
Caltrans closed Highway 1 at Ragged Point, near the county border, months ago because of the landslides at Mud Creek.
The slide activity at Mud Creek started back in January and hasn’t relented all year. Cruz said the road and the hillside were at a steep angle. Highway 1 had already been down to only a partial lane before the slide. She said the remaining part of the road was likely wiped out by the slide and Caltrans says the road bed is covered in 35-40 feet of rock and dirt.
“We have no idea how to assess it right now until it stops moving,” she said. “So we have no idea |
D’Souza rose to prominence in the early 1990s as a critic of liberal political correctness, with the publication of Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. The text was warmly received by critics and the book-buying public alike, the latter of whom kept it on The New York Times’ bestseller list for 15 weeks.
D’Souza, a rare young, non-white conservative intellectual, became a media star.
But over the ensuing decades, he seemed to move further away from his intellectual, Dartmouth roots and closer and closer to telling the public to buy gold and build a bunker.
He’s written 18 books in total since 1984, and you can plainly see the shift in his thinking in their titles.
In 2000, he was still producing earnest work like, The Virtue of Prosperity. But around 2007, with the publication of The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, things started to go off the rails.
In 2012, he made a movie (or a “documentary,” if you work for Fox News), 2016: Obama’s America. The picture, which has one star on Rotten Tomatoes, was shred apart by critics.
The New Yorker’s Richard Brody called it “a work of propaganda that offers base innuendo in lieu of argument,” but beloved by audiences, who went to see it in droves.
In 2014, the same year he was indicted on the felony charge, he released a sequel of sorts.
America: Imagine the World Without Her also has one star on Rotten Tomatoes and was similarly dismissed by critics but supported by moviegoers.
D’Souza had all of the commercial incentive in the world—and timing on his side, with the election mere months away—to make his descent into madness a trilogy.
In response to an interview request from The Daily Beast, D’Souza, who puts two spaces after periods, said, “I’m open to doing this but it’s premature now. You need to see the movie before you go ape on it. Good principle of journalism.”
Asked why it was too soon to be interviewed about his movie by The Daily Beast but not too soon to talk about it on a primetime Fox News show, D’Souza said, “Hahaha. Because a trailer is just a ‘teaser.’ You want to debate the trailer?”
That D’Souza would find his work promoted on Fox News’s most-watched programming is no surprise—he remains a conservative star, and what he produces, though of dubious journalistic or educational merit, is immensely popular. The difference, in 2016, is that D’Souza is not alone.
Conspiracy theories and theorists have found a home in the mainstream media and, in fact, on the campaign trail itself thanks to Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump. The de facto GOP nominee, has batted around all sorts of nutty ideas, even going as far as to suggest one of his Republican primary opponent’s father’s was somehow wrapped up in the assassination of JFK.
This type of rhetoric, employed day in and day out on the stump, has led to a normalizing of sorts. When Trump brought up the 1993 suicide of Vince Foster, deputy White House Counsel in the Clinton administration and friend to the then-president and First Lady, a subject conspiracy theorists have long seized-on, hardly anyone batted an eye.
The irony, of course, is that the outrageous pomp of D’Souza’s anti-Clinton propaganda obscures a very good point: that illegal or corrupt behavior performed on a large scale by elites is often hidden in plain sight—so broad and institutionalized as to cease to appear illicit—while petty crimes which harm fewer people, or no people at all, are vigorously prosecuted.
That’s not quite as sexy as blaming the likely Democratic nominee for slavery, though, in D’Souza’s defense.LANSING -- Snow is falling for the third time this week in Lansing and one lawmaker is once again considering expanding the amount of snow days Michigan school districts may take. Rep. Phil Potvin, R-Cadillac, introduced a House Bill 4157 Wednesday to increase the allowable amount of snow days from six days per year to nine per year. Currently, state law allows six snow days per year and requires 180 days of school each year. If school districts
, they can lose out on some state funding. In 2014, Potvin
to make up for extra snow days taken. That bill didn't get any real traction in the Legislature and never became law, so Potvin came back this year with a new proposal. "The most important piece of this is safety," he said in an interview with MLive Wednesday. "Not only student safety, but driver safety and parent safety." There have been previous one-year fixes to school districts taking additional snow days. In the 2012-13 school year,
to either extend their days or extend their school year in order to make sure they got funding from the state of Michigan. This bill proposed by Potvin would be a permanent resolution and not a one-year fix.
Rep. Phil Potvin, R-Cadillac
Potvin said it's important to him to make sure schools have flexibility because it works out best for all members of the school community. "There are parents who want to take off on summer break and teachers who want to continue their education," he said in an interview posted on the House GOP website. "And, summer school starts for them almost immediately out of the gate in June." He said if school districts were forced to cancel a number of school days for winter weather and not have the required amount of instruction time, "We'd find ourselves in the middle of June and let's hope not going to school on the Fourth of July." Some school districts
needed two snow days to start the week due to the
that hit the state on Sunday night. Potvin said his own home district in Cadillac canceled school on Monday, despite not getting hit by the winter storm nearly as hard as parts of the southern Lower Peninsula. He hopes to get the bill into a law by the end of the school year. "By getting both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor, I'm hopeful that we'll be moving forward in a very positive, very quick way," he said.
Kyle Feldscher is the Capitol education and MSU reporter for MLive Media Group. Reach him via email at kylefeldscher@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter at @Kyle_Feldscher. Read more stories here.A new approach to killing cancer cells that uses a patient’s own immune system has beaten back leukemia in 88 percent of adults, US researchers said.
The report by scientists in New York offers more good news for the burgeoning field of cancer immunotherapy, which uses what some describe as a “living drug” that was hailed by Science magazine as the breakthrough of 2013.
The latest trial, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, involved 16 people with a kind of blood cancer known as adult B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Some 1,400 people die of ALL in the United States each year, and while it is among the most treatable cancers, patients often become resistant to chemotherapy and eventually relapse.
For this study, 14 of 16 adult patients achieved complete remission after their T cells were genetically engineered so that they could focus on eradicating cancer.
The patients’ median age was 50, and they were all on the brink of death when they entered the trial, having relapsed or discovered that chemotherapy was no longer working.
The longest remission among them so far is about two years, and that patient is still going strong, said lead author Renier Brentjens, director of cellular therapeutics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Without this therapy, just 30 percent of relapsed patients would be expected to respond to salvage chemotherapy.
– ‘Re-educating’ T cells –
The process involves removing some of the patient’s T-cells and altering them with a gene to make them recognize a protein, known as CD19, on the cancer cells, so that they can attack them.
Left to their own devices, T cells can attack other harmful invaders in the body but will allow cancer to grow uninterrupted.
“Basically, what we do is re-educate the T cell in the laboratory with gene therapy to recognize and now kill tumor cells,” Brentjens said.
After 15 years of work on the technology, known as tumor-targeted chimeric antigen receptor?modified T cells, “it seems to really work in patients with this particular type of cancer,” Brentjens told AFP.
Last year, his team reported the first promising results in five adult patients who achieved remission after the therapy.
He estimated that between 60 and 80 people in the United States have since entered experimental trials of the new treatment, which is also being studied in Europe.
– ‘Not a fluke’ –
In December 2013, experts from multiple US centers where trials are ongoing presented their findings at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting, including the University of Pennsylvania, which is also studying the approach in adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is enrolling pediatric patients in trials of T-cell therapy.
Brentjens said other US centers have shown similar remission rates in their studies so far, “demonstrating that this isn’t a fluke.”
“This is a real phenomenon,” he told AFP. “This could be a paradigm shift in the way we approach cancer therapy.”
Kanti Rai, chief of the CLL Research and Treatment Program at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New York, described the latest study as “a major service to all of us.”
Rai, who was not involved in the research, noted that it has been a few years since scientists first reported on their initial success against CLL.
“In the present report, we are told that equally dramatic and excellent results were obtained when a more frightening and fatal disease, such as adult ALL was the enemy,” said Rai.
Researchers are still trying to figure out why it does not work in all patients.
Efforts are also ongoing to identify cancer-specific receptor cells that could allow the technique to tackle other types of tumors.
“The expansion to other kinds of cancers is next on the to-do list,” said Brentjens.
In the meantime, the therapy remains expensive, costing around $100,000 per patient, a price tag experts believe will come down once pharmaceutical companies get more involved and the technique becomes more widespread.The Vulcan-1 engine is a bigger, better, but completely different design compared to our original Tri-D engine. We were the first students in the world to design, print, and test a 3D printed rocket engine, and now we are going bigger! The Vulcan-1 will be placed into the rocket body and launched in June making us both the first student organization to do so as well as the record holders for highest flight of a rocket powered by a 3D printed engine.
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF OUR CAMPAIGN!!!!! We thank all our generous backers, but we still believe WE CAN DO MORE!!! Time is running out to make yourself a part of history!!!
Above are the design specifications for the Vulcan-1 Rocket Body. We believe that with this design we can achieve an altitude of 10,000 feet!Photographer: Neal Hamberg/Bloomberg News
As participants in "No Shave November" and its mustachioed counterpart, "Movember," men across America will dedicate this month to keeping sharp objects away from their five o'clock shadows or bushy beards. But for a growing number of them, this month won't feel that different. American spending on shaving razors and blades fell last year, to $2.3 billion, for the first time since the recession.
Shavers, analysts said, are sick of spending more money every year on different combinations of tiny knives. "Men, tired of putting up with the ever-increasing prices of refill shaving heads from the top producers, have fled to cheaper options," analysts with consumer research firm Euromonitor wrote recently. "Some have even stopped shaving altogether."
It's a scary prospect for traditional shaving companies. But for those with brands outside the blades business, it comes with an unexpected side benefit. Last year, men's skin care saw faster growth than any part of the broader men's grooming category, with sales rising 7 percent to more than $260 million, which Euromonitor analysts said was "a marked indicator of the changing nature of men’s grooming."
Another sign of the increasing metro-ification of American men? Maybe. Men, analysts said, are becoming seemingly less hesitant at spending toward their personal style. The unshorn lifestyle is also accepted in today's more relaxed workplaces, which don't ban whiskers as often as in the traditional corporate milieu.
"Facial hair is a lot more acceptable now, especially in the workplace. It’s no longer required that everyone shave every single day," said Gabriela Elani, a personal care analyst with market researcher Mintel. In a survey last year, she said, just half of men said they were daily shavers.
Since 2012, the U.S. market for replaceable shaving cartridges has dropped by $85 million, while disposable razor sales have grown by $23 million, Mintel data show. Men of all ages are switching to cheaper shaves, including subscription start-ups like Shave Mob, Harry's and the socially savvy Dollar Shave Club, which sells five cartridges of its basic blade, the "Humble Twin," for $1 a month. The company is on track to earn $60 million in revenue this year, three times as much as in 2013.
Some companies think men are willing to pay more for their shavers, they just want to know they're getting something for the extra price. Shaving giant Gillette, which spent $750 million in the late '90s designing and building its Mach3 razor, has unveiled versions of its industry-leading Fusion ProGlide that include power razors, precision trimmers and swiveling "Flexball" heads. Last year, sales of the ProGlide line still fell to their lowest point since 2010.
Meanwhile, the men's "personal care" market, including shower gels, skin creams and hair care products, has grown 15 percent since 2008, to $3.9 billion last year, Mintel data show. Stalwarts of the cosmetic aisle are, for many men, increasingly becoming routine: About 60 percent of men between 18 and 34, and about 30 percent of men over 65, said they use a face moisturizer.
There are still a few predictable obstacles keeping men from tending to their skin, analysts said, including everything from worries over their manhood to simple laziness. Some companies are trying to gloss over the beauty factor of their skin-care products by linking them to shaving, selling handfuls of post-shave butters, moisturizers and "repair serums."
It's not just young men powering the industry, but old men who want to look like young men -- or at least have the money to try. "Men who can afford to look good can be seen flocking to premium men’s grooming products in order to maintain an aura of youth and energy," Euromonitor analysts wrote. "As baby boomers grow older but still compete with men of all ages for jobs and romantic partners, they will continue to spend what they can to look as good as they can and advertise their worth."Opinion writer
Attorney General Jeff Sessions apparently convinced President Trump he had no choice but to pull the plug on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, using a phony deadline as the pretext. Stephen K. Bannon and the alt-right may think this was a terrific idea, but the polls say otherwise — as does Trump’s newfound interest in finding a fix to his own political malpractice.
According to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll, 65 percent of voters think that “passing a bill that grants young people who were brought to the United States illegally when they were children, often with their parents, protection from deportation” should be a top or at least important priority. A plurality (45 percent) think ending DACA was wrong.
Asked “When it comes to legislation regarding Dreamers, which of the following would you most like Congress to pass?” 54 percent say they want dreamers “to stay and become citizens if they meet certain requirements” while an additional 19 percent want to afford them legal residence. That includes 41 percent of Republicans who voted for Trump. Only 12 percent want to deport them. Repealing DACA looks like it’s even less popular than Trumpcare.
In addition, a plurality (45 percent) think a DACA fix should be a stand-alone bill while only a third think it should be part of a larger immigration package.
The DACA repeal therefore has done several things, none of them helpful to the anti-immigrant crowd. First, it has galvanized sympathy for dreamers to such an extent that a significant majority now want them to be citizens. Second, it has made Trump as anxious about passing a DACA fix as Democrats are. He’s so concerned, the White House already threw in the towel on tying it to funding for the wall. In all likelihood, DACA will be fixed and the wall will never be built. It’s a result Hillary Clinton might not have been able to obtain (certainly not with a GOP House and Senate). Third, Trump’s decision will force a good number of Republicans to cast votes for the Dream Act (or some variation), thereby emphasizing the split between the Bannonites and the rest of the GOP. This offers traditional Republicans an opportunity to rebuke the ethno-nationalist agenda (oddly, with Trump’s help) but puts anti-immigrant but pro-Trump lawmakers (e.g., Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas) in a precarious position.
No one should consider a DACA fix to be a small or insignificant part of the immigration problem. About 1.9 million people were eligible for DACA — more than 17 percent of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. About 788,000 successfully applied for DACA status, about 7 percent of the illegal immigrant population. Taking care of dreamers, without giving up much of anything, would be a huge win for the pro-immigrant community. Getting Americans to think of immigrants as assets, not burdens, and certainly not as a bunch of “murderers,” as Trump described them, would represent an important precursor to a humane, reasonable immigration solution that takes care of those already here, provides workable border and visa overstay-prevention and reform of our legal immigration system (not slashing of legal immigration, an immensely stupid and destructive proposal). It would be what the die-hard anti-immigrant groups used to call “amnesty.” And it will be largely due to the handiwork of Jeff Sessions.By Jimmy Carter
Director of UNRWA operations John Ging, thank you for inviting me to Gaza. Distinguished guests, children of Gaza, I am grateful for your warm reception.
I first visited Gaza 36 years ago and returned during the 1980s and later for the very successful Palestinian elections. Although under occupation, this community was relatively peaceful and prosperous. Now, the aftermath of bombs, missiles, tanks, bulldozers and the continuing economic siege have brought death, destruction, pain, and suffering to the people here. Tragically, the international community largely ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are being treated more like animals than human beings.
Last week, a group of Israelis and Americans tried to cross into Gaza through Erez, bringing toys and children's playground equipment – slides, swings, kites, and magic castles for your children. They were stopped at the gate and prevented from coming. I understand even paper and crayons are treated as "security hazards" and not permitted to enter Gaza. I sought an explanation for this policy in Israel, but did not receive a satisfactory answer – because there is none.
The responsibility for this terrible human rights crime lies in Jerusalem, Cairo, Washington, and throughout the international community. This abuse must cease; the crimes must be investigated; the walls must be brought down, and the basic right of freedom must come to you.
Almost one-half of Gaza's 1.5 million people are children, whose lives are being shaped by poverty, hunger, violence, and despair. More than 50,000 families had their homes destroyed or damaged in January, and parents are in mourning for the 313 innocent children who were killed.
The situation in Gaza is grim, but all hope is not lost. Amidst adversity, you continue to possess both dignity and determination to work towards a brighter tomorrow. That is why educating children is so important.
I have come to Gaza to help the world know what important work you are doing. UNRWA is here to ensure that the 200,000 children in its schools can develop their talent, express their dynamism, and help create the path to a better future.
The human rights curriculum is teaching children about their rights and also about their responsibilities. UNRWA is teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the struggle for these rights all over the world, Gaza's children are learning that as you seek justice for yourselves, you must be sure that your behavior provides justice for others.
They are learning that it is wrong to fire rockets that may kill Israeli children. They are learning that arbitrary detention and the summary execution of political opponents is not acceptable. They are learning that the rule of law must be honored here in Gaza.
I would like to congratulate both UNRWA and the children who have completed the human rights curriculum with distinction. They are tomorrow's leaders.
In addition to the tragedy of occupation, the lack of unity among Palestinians is causing a deteriorating atmosphere here in Gaza, in Ramallah, and throughout the West Bank.
Palestinians want more than just to survive. They hope to lead the Arab world, to be a bridge between modern political life and traditions that date back to the Biblical era. The nation you will create must be pluralistic and democratic – the new Palestine that your intellectuals have dreamt about. Palestine must combine the best of the East and the West. The Palestinian state, like the land, must be blessed for all people. Jerusalem must be shared with everyone who loves it – Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
With our new leaders in Washington, my country will move into the forefront of this birth of a new Palestine We were all reminded of this renewed hope and commitment by President Obama's recent speech in Cairo.
President Obama's resolve to resume the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process based on the principle of two states for two peoples must be welcomed. This vision of two sovereign nations living as neighbors is not a mere convenient phrase. It is the basis for a lasting peace for this entire region, including Syria and Lebanon.
We all know that a necessary step is the ending of the siege of Gaza – the starving of 1 ½ million people of the necessities of life. Never before in history has a large community been savaged by bombs and missiles and then deprived of the means to repair itself. The issue of who controls Gaza is not an obstacle. As the World Bank has pointed out, funds can be channeled through a number of independent mechanisms and effective implementing agencies.
Although funds are available, not a sack of cement nor a piece of lumber has been permitted to enter the closed gates from Israel and Egypt. I have seen with my own eyes that progress is negligible.
My country and our friends in Europe must do all that is necessary to persuade Israel and Egypt to allow basic materials into Gaza. At the same time, there must be no more rockets and mortar shells falling on Israeli citizens.
I met this week with the parents of Corporal Gilad Shalit, and have with me a letter that I hope can be delivered to their son. I have also met with many Palestinians who plead for the freedom of their 11,700 loved ones imprisoned by the Israelis, including 400 women and children. Many of them have been imprisoned for many years, held without trial, with no access to their families or to legal counsel. Rational negotiations and a comprehensive peace can end this suffering on both sides.
I know it is difficult now, surrounded by terrible destruction, to see a future of independence and dignity in a Palestinian state, but this goal can and must be achieved. I know too that it is hard for you to accept Israel and live in peace with those who have caused your suffering. However, Palestinian statehood cannot come at the expense of Israel's security, just as Israel's security can not come at the expense of Palestinian statehood.
In his speech in Cairo, President Obama said that Hamas has support among Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a full role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, accept existing peace agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.
I have urged Hamas leaders to accept these conditions, and they have made statements and taken actions that suggest they are ready to join the peace process and move toward the creation of an independent and just Palestinian state.
Khaled Mashaal has assured me that Hamas will accept a final status agreement negotiated by the Palestinian Authority and Israel if the Palestinian people approve it in a referendum. Hamas has offered a reciprocal ceasefire with Israel throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Unfortunately, neither the Israeli leaders nor Hamas accept the terms of the Oslo Agreement of 1993, but the Arab Peace Initiative is being considered now by all sides.
I have personally witnessed free and fair elections in Palestine when Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and when legislative members were chosen for your parliament. I hope to return next January for a similar event that will unite all Palestinians as you seek a proud and peaceful future.
Ladies and gentlemen, children of Gaza, thank you for inviting me and for sharing this happy occasion with me. Congratulations for your achievements.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Visits Syria, Israel, West Bank, and Gaza Following Lebanon ElectionsTons of unwanted commodity materials could be repurposed for a second life outside of the landfill via a new B2B marketplace, which opened today online.
RecycleMatch.com functions as an eBay for industrial waste. Businesses anonymously list volumes of building materials, chemicals, glass, metal, minerals, paper, plastics, textiles, wood -- and even food waste -- to donate or sell.
Just as on eBay, sellers pick the party that offers them the best deal. Buyers are able to ask questions about the materials and request samples if necessary. An escrow service handles the payments.
Today’s listings include an assortment of items including recycled billboards, porcelain scrap, or even sulphate wastewater from the manufacturing of detergents.
“Due to changing customer demands and supply chain mandates by industry leaders, companies are scrambling to reach zero waste. 70 percent of materials that get dumped into landfills can be repurposed, and the RecycleMatch marketplace finds those alternative uses,” CEO Chris Porch said.
“Even commodity recyclables already being diverted benefit from better market exposure and pricing. We’re the first marketplace designed specifically for the needs of large corporations who want control, protection, and trust in the entire process. This is a large and exciting opportunity to help companies reduce costs, strengthen their brands and help the environment,” he continued.
RecycleMatch first launched as a beta last year. The company says that waste diversion represents a $90 billion market opportunity.
Related on SmartPlanet:
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.comAn American study has found that students who spend their time adding friends, chatting and "poking" others on the website may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work.
About 83 per cent of British 16 to 24-year-olds are thought to use social networking sites to keep in touch with friends and organise their social lives.
Many offices across Britain have banned sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Bebo in a bid to stop their workers wasting time.
The study by Ohio State University questioned 219 US undergraduates and graduates about their study practices and general internet use, as well as their specific use of Facebook.
They found that 65 per cent of Facebook users accessed their account daily, usually checking it several times to see if they had received new messages. The amount of time spent on Facebook at each login varied from just a few minutes to more than an hour.
The Ohio report shows that students who used Facebook had a "significantly" lower grade point average – the marking system used in US universities – than those who did not use the site.
Aryn Karpinski, a researcher in the education department at Ohio State University said: "Every generation has its distractions, but I think Facebook is a unique phenomenon."
"Our study shows people who spend more time on Facebook spend less time studying" she said.
"It is the equivalent of the difference between getting an A and a B," added Miss Karpynski, who will present her findings this week to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
According to the research, 79 per cent of Facebook-using students believed the time they spent on the site had no impact on their work.
Social networking sites have seen a backlash in recent months.
Final year students at Bournemouth University started a campaign against Facebook on university computers, after complaining they could not get their work done as the computers were constantly monopolised.
Baroness Greenfield, a neuroscientist and the director of the Royal Institution, said sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo risked "infantilising" the minds of users, creating a generation of children who demand instant gratification.
She warned recently that conversations in chat rooms, message boards and on networking websites were replacing the face-to-face interactions that are key to developing a child's sociability and urged more research into a possible connections between high computer use among young people and the rising rates of autism.
Teenagers spend an average of 31 hours a week online, according to research.
A spokesman for Facebook said: "There is also academic research that shows the benefits of services like Facebook. It's in the hands of students, in consultation with their parents, to decide how to spend their time."'Assassin’s Creed: The Best of Jesper Kyd' collects some of the top music from the Ubisoft video game franchise.
Assassin’s Creed fans don't need to wait until the video game's big-screen adaptation in December to get their fix.
Assassin’s Creed: The Best of Jesper Kyd picture disk LP will collect some of the best music from the acclaimed game series, and Heat Vision has an exclusive preview from the album.
The album features 10 tracks from composer Jesper Kyd, including two previously unheard tracks from 2009's Assassin's Creed 2. It will be available at Hot Topic stores and its website Oct. 21, while a longer version of the album, featuring 33 songs, will be available Friday on all platforms. Here is "Leonardo's Inventions," a previously unreleased track:
In addition to his work on the Ubisoft property, Kyd is also known for composing music for the Borderlands series, the Hitman series, State of Decay and Darksiders 2. His work has been credited as a key component for immersing players in the world of the games he works on.
Here's the full tracklist for the 10-song album, as well as the back cover.
Side A:
1. Ezio's Family [Assassin's Creed 2]
2. Venice Rooftops [Assassin's Creed 2]
3. Dreams of Venice [Assassin's Creed 2]
4. Florence Rooftops [Assassin's Creed 2] (Previously Unreleased)
5. Sanctuary [Assassin's Creed 2]
Side B:
6. City of Rome [Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]
7. The Brotherhood Escapes [Assassin's Creed Brotherhood]
8. Leonardo's Inventions (Extended) [Assassin's Creed 2] (Previously Unreleased)
9. Welcome to Kostantiniyye [Assassin's Creed Revelations]
10. City of Jerusalem [Assassin's Creed]
The new album comes two months ahead of Fox's big-screen adaptation of Assassins Creed, which hits theaters Dec. 21 and stars Michael Fassbender.Parents often ask – “what is the best nipple to use for bottle-feeding my baby?” For most healthy, full-term babies, it really might not matter. Most of these babies will be able to manage the flow from any bottle nipple intended for newborns. Healthy, full-term babies are able to reduce sucking pressure or alter their sucking rate to manage milk flow. These babies also tend to have relatively good overall tone and are able to effectively swallow and protect their airway from fluid penetration. On the other hand, for babies who are born preterm (even late preterm at 34-37 weeks) or with other conditions that contribute to feeding difficulty (e.g., congenital heart disease, low tone), FLOW MATTERS!
Why does flow matter?
When a baby is exposed to milk flow from a bottle, he has four options: swallow, drool, pool or refuse all together. Every time a baby swallows, their airway is closed for about a second. The higher the flow, the more they are going to be required to swallow in order to keep from drooling or pooling. Alternatively, as milk flow is slowed, it takes longer to accumulate a bolus, swallowing rate is reduced, and the infant has more time to breathe during feeding. For the infant with respiratory or cardiac disease, this difference in flow may the difference that allows them to maintain oxygenation throughout feeding and keep from becoming fatigued to the point that they are no longer able to continue. For the baby with low tone or with swallowing difficulty, slowing the flow allows them a longer period of time to coordinate a safe swallow and to completely clear the oropharynx of fluid before another bolus accumulates, reducing the likelihood of aspiration.
When flow is fast, the infant with feeding difficulty often creates a loose latch in order to slow the flow. From the feeder’s perspective, the nipple is easily pulled from the baby’s mouth or it sometimes looks like the baby is chewing on the nipple. This is an effective strategy to keep from becoming overwhelmed by fluid, but it is usually not an effective feeding strategy for transferring the nutritional content needed for adequate growth. It also does not “exercise” the musculature that is required for long-term bottle and breast-feeding, and for later oral feeding and language skills.
Nipples are labeled with names such as slow, standard, preemie, level 1, newborn flow – what does it all mean? Parents and clinicians are often overwhelmed with options for bottle-feeding infants, but there really is very little information to help guide decision-making, especially for medically fragile infants who need to be supported during their learning to orally feed.
Nipple Flow Rate Study
We tested the nipples most frequently used for feeding infants in the hospital and in the community. We developed a standardized testing procedure using a breast pump to simulate sucking and measured the amount of formula expressed in one minute. 45 different types of nipples were tested. For each nipple type, 10 nipples were tested to give us information about the average flow rate and variability. The milk flow rates described are not necessarily the rates that an infant will achieve when feeding. Infants feed with varying sucking pressures and rates, so they will achieve varying flow rates even from the same nipple. The results of this study should be interpreted as a means of comparing nipples to one another. For more information about our methods, please feel free to contact me.
Testing Set-up
Results
Milk Flow Rates
(double click on graph to enlarge)
Pados Graph 1 for Blog Post PDF-2 copy
What we found was very interesting. There was a wide range of flow rates from the nipples tested, from less than 2 mL/min to more than 80 mL/min. The name of a nipple does not always give an accurate indication of how fast or slow it may actually be. Among the nipples used for feeding hospitalized infants, we were interested to find that for both the Enfamil and Similac brands, their single-use premature nipples were faster than either their slow or standard flow nipples. This is not entirely surprising as many clinicians have suspected that the Similac Premature (red nipple) was a very fast nipple. Interestingly, the Enfamil Slow nipple was found to be quite fast, even faster than the Similac Premature. The Avent Natural Newborn was the slowest nipple we tested, followed by the Enfamil Cross-cut, new Dr. Brown’s Ultra-Preemie nipple, and Bionix level 1. Please note that Dr. Brown’s Y-cut nipple was tested with standard-thickness formula. In practice, this is often used with thickened milk. Also, the results of the cross-cut should be interpreted with caution since only negative pressure was applied during our testing. The application of positive pressure during feeding changes the shape of the cross-cut and likely changes the flow rate.
Variability
(double click on graph to enlarge)
Pados Graph 2 for Blog Post PDF copy
There is also a lot of variability in the flow rates of certain nipples. This means one nipple to the next of the same type varies in flow rate. Only 10 of the 45 nipples tested were found to have low variability (less than 10% variation between nipples). The Dr. Brown’s brand was the most consistent brand with 6 of their nipples having low variability. Tommee Tippee, The First Years Breastflow, Medela Calma, and Enfamil Standard were the other nipples with low variability. 19 of the nipples tested were found to have high variability (more than 20% variation).
The idea of variability among nipples is important. As medically fragile infants are learning to eat, we often find that there is significant variability in how they feed from one feeding to another. We often assume that this is variability within the infant (i.e, level of fatigue), but some of that variability may actually come from the nipple as well. We need to keep this in mind. For example, if an infant is not feeding well, this study shows that it may be worth trying a different nipple of the same type or it may be worth changing to a nipple which has been shown to have less variability than others.
Other interesting findings:
Some of the nipple holes were not open.
As formula was exposed to air for a period of time, it thickened and slowed flow rate. We periodically changed the formula to prevent this from affecting our results.
Tightening the nipple to the bottle too much can prevent the equilibration of pressure within the bottle. This results in a build-up of suction pressure in the bottle and can cause the nipple to collapse. In practice, this would make it harder and harder for an infant to suck fluid from the nipple. We tightened the nipple to the bottle until it felt tight and then loosened about a ¼ of a turn.
The more fluid there is in the bottle, the more gravitational pressure will be placed on the nipple, increasing flow. Alternatively, less fluid in the bottle will decrease flow rate. We made sure we adjusted for this in our tests.
Take away points
There is a wide variety of flow rates of nipples available for feeding infants.
Infants at risk for or who have feeding difficulty should start with the slow |
division’s most accomplished strikers, Overeem is a veteran of over 70 professional fights and has won titles in Strikeforce and DREAM, and is one of two fighters to hold a K-1 Grand Prix title and an MMA world title concurrently. Like Arlovski, Overeem has experienced the extreme highs and lows of a long career in fighting, from the glory of knocking out Brock Lesnar in his UFC debut at UFC 141 to suffering consecutive knockout victories to Antonio Silva and Travis Browne.
Both Overeem and Arlovski technically train at the same gym, Jackson-Wink MMA Academy in Albuquerque, NM, but will not present a conflict of interest for head trainer Greg Jackson. In an interview with MMA Mania, Greg Jackson explains why this situation will not precipitate internal conflict. Jackson indicates that he has learned from his mistake when Jon Jones fought Rashad Evans at UFC 145 back in 2012.
Jackson has stated that he will corner Arlovski, and that they have a very large gym, with each fighter training at different times.
Both fighters have flirted with a title shot in the heavyweight division, with the winner likely facing the victor of the upcoming title bout between Stipe Miocic and Fabricio Werdum. However, despite the fact that heavyweights tend to reach the zenith of their careers later than other divisions, there is little doubt that time is of the essence.
Overeem, who fights just nine days before his 36th birthday, looked excellent in his last performance, knocking out Junior dos Santos with a leaping left hook before finishing him with hammer fists. Notwithstanding that performance, he needs to capitalize on this opportunity and prove to the UFC and to the fans that he is still in his prime and poses a legitimate threat to the title.
Arlovski finds himself in an oddly similar position. At 37-years-old and coming off a knockout loss to Miocic, he needs a strong performance to establish himself as the next title challenger. A loss for either fighter could spell doom, especially considering the consequences of staying in the sport too long. Both fighters are fearsome strikers with devastating knock out power in both hands, and both will likely try to keep this fight on the feet.
The keys to victory for Andrei Arlovski are simple: he needs to be the quicker fighter, use good head movement and establish a strong jab early in the fight. Because he tends to get over-aggressive, he must exercise discipline and not just headhunt. Assuming he shows up in good shape, he needs to utilize proper footwork to keep himself just out of the striking range of Overeem. Footwork is key, since standing and lingering in the pocket is likely to leave openings for Overeem’s patented knees of destruction, which he throws to the head and body with reckless abandon.
Arlovski can avoid those knees if he keeps moving his head and immediately throws uppercuts whenever Overeem looks to clinch or close the distance. Overeem has the tendency to wade in, hoping his opponent will lean into the clinch where he can throw those knees and send his opponent crashing into the canvas.
Arlovski has a good chance to win this fight by knockout, especially if he maintains forward pressure and emphasizes speed over power. Overeem has demonstrated a vulnerable chin, and Arlovski doesn’t need to land with 100% to put the towering Dutchman down.
Likewise, Arlovski himself has demonstrated a questionable chin, and Overeem only needs one opening to shut the lights off with a pinpoint strike. Typically a slow starter, Overeem has the propensity to plod forward, relying on his ability to counter rather than evade entirely. Therefore, Overeem needs to be vigilant to utilize lateral movement, mixing up his footwork with shuffles, slides, and skips rather than his simply raising his lead leg as a knee shield and inching forward with his back foot. Overeem has some holes in his defense, which Ben Rothwell exploited perfectly in Overeem’s last defeat inside the octagon. He can learn from this mistake, however, and shore up his defensive striking to frustrate the Belarusian warrior and bait him into over-extending himself.
Overeem has superb kickboxing and a vastly underrated ground game, so it would be wise to mix up his striking with the occasional takedown attempt. He has excellent foot sweeps and solid top control, as he thoroughly demonstrated in the one-sided drubbing of Frank Mir (a common opponent) at UFC 169. One interesting point is that Overeem controlled Mir on the ground, dishing out vicious ground-and-pound and dominating the fight, while the most Arlovski could do was stifle Frank Mir’s venerated ground game.
If the fight does hit the floor, expect Overeem to have the advantage, possibly opening up some cuts on Arlovski with his elbows and ground-and-pound. Arlovski isn’t known for his offensive jiu jitsu, and will most likely try to hold on and stall to prompt a referee stand-up rather than work escapes and submissions. Overeem has an excellent base and is very difficult to sweep, so don’t expect Arlovski to throw up any scissor sweeps or triangles from his back.
By most accounts, Overeem stands at a healthy -220 favorite, which is entirely justifiable if you look at each fighter’s last performance. The main event bout is nonetheless difficult to call, given the unpredictability of the sport, let alone the heavyweight division, where one shot can dramatically alter the course of the fight.
Taking all of these factors into account, don’t be surprised to see Overeem play it safe as he did in the Mir fight at UFC 169 in order to secure a victory and perhaps the next shot at the heavyweight title.
Alistair Overeem by Unanimous Decision
Main Photo: LAS VEGAS, NV – MARCH 04: (L-R) Opponents Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski face off during the UFC Unstoppable launch press conference at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on March 4, 2016 in Henderson, Nevada. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)Video narrated by Concussion Legacy Foundation CEO Dr. Chris Nowinski
A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head or by a hit to the body that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth. Rapid movement causes brain tissue to change shape, which can stretch and damage brain cells. This damage also causes chemical and metabolic changes within the brain cells, making it more difficult for cells to function and communicate. Since the brain is the body’s control center, the effects of a concussion can be far-reaching.
Concussions are usually not life-threatening, but the effects of a concussion can change a life and the injury should be treated seriously.
The CDC estimates as many as 3.8 million concussions occur in the U.S. annually through sports and recreational activities, however only a fraction are recognized by athletes, coaches, parents, and are treated by medical professionals.
Teenagers are especially vulnerable to concussion. A 2017 survey of teenagers by the CDC found that 2.5 million teenagers experienced a concussion in a sport or recreational activity, and 1 million teenagers reported two concussions in the previous year.
Signs and Symptoms of a Concussion
The signs and symptoms of a concussion are incredibly important because a concussion doesn’t show up on imaging like an x-ray, CT, or MRI scan and there is no objective test, like a blood or saliva test, that can determine if a patient has a concussion. A doctor makes a concussion diagnosis based on the results of a comprehensive examination, which includes observing signs of concussion and patients reporting symptoms of concussion appearing after an impact to the head or body. Concussion signs and symptoms are the brain’s way of showing it is injured and not functioning normally.
Concussion Signs
Concussion signs are what someone could observe about you to determine if you have a concussion. Signs of a concussion range from obvious to much more nuanced, but even one sign of a concussion after a hit to the head should be reported to a medical professional.
Common concussion signs include:
Loss of consciousness
Problems with balance
Glazed look in the eyes
Amnesia
Delayed response to questions
Forgetting an instruction, confusion about an assignment or position, or confusion of the game, score, or opponent
Inappropriate crying
Inappropriate laughter
Vomiting
Concussion Symptoms
Concussion symptoms are what someone who is concussed will tell you that they are experiencing. Concussion symptoms typically fall into four major categories:
1- Somatic (Physical) Symptoms
Headache
Light-headedness
Dizziness
Nausea
Sensitivity to light
Sensitivity to noise
2- Cognitive Symptoms
Difficulties with attention
Memory problems
Loss of focus
Difficulty multitasking
Difficulty completing mental tasks
3- Sleep Symptoms
Sleeping more than usual
Sleeping less than usual
Having trouble falling asleep
4- Emotional Symptoms
Anxiety
Depression
Panic attacks
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of concussion signs and symptoms, and it may take a few days for concussion symptoms to appear after the initial injury.
Concussion Response
If you suspect a concussion in an athlete, it is extremely important to remove that athlete from play immediately so they can be evaluated by a trained professional. A 2018 University of Florida study found that among college athletes across 18 sports who ceased activity once they were injured missed three fewer days of competition than those who delayed reporting. Additionally, immediate removal from activity reduced concussion symptoms by about two days and decreased the likelihood of missing more than two weeks of participation by 39 percent. To learn more about what you should do after a concussion, visit our Concussion Response page.
After removal from play, doctors recommend physical and cognitive rest for a few days following a concussion, or until you see a medical professional. Hear from Dr. Robert Cantu, medical director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, about why the brain needs rest after it has been injured:
Recovering from concussion means your brain cells must return to the normal function by rebalancing levels of chemicals, like sodium and calcium, inside and outside of the cell. This process takes a lot of energy, so it is important to conserve energy during recovery. When properly managed, the majority of concussion symptoms will resolve within a couple of weeks, however over-exertion of brain cells during recovery can cause symptoms to persist for months or even years. A significant percentage (estimates vary between 10% and 30%) of concussion patients suffer from extended recovery, known as Post-Concussion Syndrome.
Finding the right doctor to help you with your concussion is key to making a full recovery. To help you find treatment in your area, we developed our Concussion Clinics Tool. Just type in your area code and find specialized concussion treatment near you.
The importance of prompt concussion reporting inspired our Team Up Speak Up campaign. The goal of Team Up Speak Up is to make sure that every youth athlete knows that being a good teammate means getting them help as soon as they might have a concussion. Sign your team up for Team Up Speak Up today.
Catastrophic re-injury: Second Impact Syndrome
During recovery, the brain is more vulnerable to re-injury. In rare cases, a second concussion sustained during recovery can cause the brain to undergo massive swelling. This extremely rare condition is known as Second Impact Syndrome (SIS). Approximately half of SIS patients die from their injuries, and the survivors often suffer from life-long disability.
Read the heartbreaking stories of Rowan Stringer and Nathan Stiles to learn about young athletes who lost their lives to SIS.
A preventable epidemic
The good news is we can stop concussions before they happen. There are many opportunities to reduce concussions through smart policy decisions. Research has shown more than half of all head impacts and concussions in football occur during practice; in middle school soccer players there are 100,000 concussions caused by heading every three years. The Concussion Legacy Foundation has led the movement to reduce hitting in football practices at the youth, college and professional levels. Our Safer Soccer campaign led to a rule change in soccer that prohibits players 10 and younger from heading the ball and reduces headers for 11 to 13-year-old players. There is still a lot to do to make sports safer for all athletes and the Concussion Legacy Foundation will continue to be on the forefront of research and education.There is a stark choice before us: on the one hand we have a new vision for Britain, on the other nothing less than the break-up of the United Kingdom. We cannot allow this important debate to be dominated by the SNP. Likewise, it cannot be addressed by a "Little England" mentality which seeks to build walls around the Tory heartland. That is why I've called for a convention to debate a new constitutional settlement for Britain. This is not just overdue, but is now a political and constitutional imperative.
In 1997, the example of Scotland helped give the people of Wales the confidence to vote "yes". Since then, both countries have made devolution work to the benefit of our people. A Welsh Labour government led the way by introducing free prescriptions, and free bus travel for pensioners and disabled people, while Scotland found a more generous approach to student tuition fees.
We have learned from each other, adapting policies to suit our own situations – delivering different approaches to meet our respective needs and aspirations. Wales does not need independence to follow a progressive path. However, devolution has to deliver, and the UK government must play its part, if we are to remain a constitutional entity. In Whitehall, devolution has for too long been viewed as a sideshow, a distraction. However, as we are now witnessing, this approach has failed spectacularly. Old certainties are being shaken by the independence debate in Scotland. I believe a constitutional convention will allow us to begin to redefine a modern UK and to reshape the context in which we all co-exist.There should now be an open debate about how the UK might function more responsively to the needs of its constituent nations. It must consider all options. I don't want the UK to break up into different parts, but it is better we consider this possibility now and not in two years' time. You can't just take Scotland out and expect the UK to continue as before.
One option could be for the House of Commons to be balanced by a new upper house with equal representation from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This newly shaped Lords would be similar to the Senate in the United States. I realise this would move us to a more federal structure, but it would allow full and equal representation of the individual nations.
However, this re-definition and re-shaping is not just the responsibility of the government, parliament and the devolved nations. There is a heavy onus now on the fourth estate too. The coverage of the regions in the London-based media is woefully inadequate.
Lip-service is often paid to informing and educating readers, listeners and viewers as to what devolution is and what it means to constituent parts of the UK. But health and education stories, for example, emanating from London, almost always ignore the fact that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own control over what happens in those devolved areas of responsibility. Even after a decade of devolution, an unwillingness to accept our "differences" prevails.
If the media don't respect, reflect and report on a devolved UK, is it any wonder that the break-up of our country is now being debated? I believe it's time for us all to lay our cards on the table. We need to accept that devolution is here to stay and will, in all likelihood, deepen in the years ahead. This is not a reason to fear and retreat – this is a reason to celebrate. However, this can only be done through the auspices of a constitutional convention.
The time has arrived for the UK as a whole to define itself. Only then can we move forward to the satisfaction of all our people and secure the modern and dynamic state we deserve.From Ted Rall: Months after declaring her presidential candidacy and decades after entering political life, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in Roosevelt Island, New York in which she came out as a liberal. Given that this is a major departure from her history as a right-wing Democrat, how can progressives who have walked the walk all along deal with this leftie-come-lately
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This post was was presented as a comment by Robert Gonzales on “Progressives Against Hillary..” Facebook page and labeled “Everything you need to know about Hillary but didn’t know to ask”
https://ghostbin.com/paste/fumkt“
fumkt – Ghostbin
GHOSTBIN.COM
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It obviously involved a tremendous amount of research to compile this listing so I recommend as a minimum a perusal of the content. I have not attempted to edit what was posted but will continue to study the document. It appears to be a very thorough jobs of vetting a candidate for president and is certainly worthwhile to preserve the record!
Thomas Baldwin, April 23, 2016
Biloxi, MS 39530
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Hillary Clinton:
Greetings, We are Anonymous This is an Open Message to You Hillary Clinton,
We Know What You and Your People Stand For and We Do Not Forget, It Seems Lying has Become a Second Nature to You.. Should we Say your only Nature and Many Blindly Support You, but we know your real Motives, your Real Plans,
You Will Not Bring About Change, At least not in a Positive Way, and you will remain a puppet like all those before you..
Remember the 30,000 Emails You Deleted, Remember the Shady Weapons Deals that Helped Arm Isis?
Remember you telling your aides to Delete Classification Tags?
Remember the Jokes about “Wiping” your server?
Remember All your lies? Hillary, there is a reason that they say to tell the truth the first time around so you don’t have to remember your lies.. they add up, your behavior and your actions they all add up..
Oh but Hillary, you will learn today why Anonymous doesn’t forget and how we took the liberty to Archive All of your corruption, your lies, shady deals, and even family history..
We even went as far to include your past scandals, we told you back in January we were going to dig up all of your closet skeletons and We Weren’t Lying.. Included Below is All of Your History.. We Even Included the Clinton Body Count Because Frankly, We Feel 80 Dead People Around One Family Name is Suspicious Especially When Lawyers, and your Associates are Included in Such a List with Suspicious Deaths Surrounding investigations and When Women like Kathleen Willey and Others Have Come Forward Saying they were Threatened by your henchman..
But What Really Did it for Us Was the Blatant Display of Electioneering by YOU and YOUR Husband Slick Willy..so we Also Compiled a List of All the Election Rigging We’ve Been Seeing.. but We didn’t Only Include the DNC Oh No,
We Are Fed Up with the Bull shit, our voice and vote is being suppressed and where as we take no Political Affiliation Here and just Seek to See you Destroyed We can Not Ignore Super Delegates and Delegates Ruining Democracy..
It’s Over, Hillary your Presidential Run Ends Here and Your Prison Run Starts Now.. We Demand the FBI Indict and Imprisons this Career Criminal.. The Evidence, provided Below Should Be Enough, You Are Welcome We DID your Research.. In the Next Couple Weeks, We Will Be Campaigning with a Fax Bomb Campaign For Everyone to Call their Senators, and Congressman to Demand a Special Council is Put together to Prosecute Hillary Clinton.. Because We Know the DOJ and Loretta Lynch Will Not Do Their Job Against their Own..
We Do Not Forgive,
We Do Not Forget,
You Should’ve Expected Us..
Will update when we see fit..
Without Further Ado We Present, the Clinton Show..:
PR:
Anonymous – Message to Hillary Clinton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTMaIX_JPE4
The Clinton Show Returns:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303448104579151942508574108
Woman Pushed Aside So Clinton Can Enter Subway:
http://mrctv.org/blog/woman-pushed-aside-so-clinton-can-enter-subway
Snowden slams Clinton double standard on classified information:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/snowden-slams-clintons-double-standard-on-classified-information/article/2588434
Obama: Not going to help Hillary get out of FBI investigation:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2588109
Cornyn: Obama ‘trying to influence’ FBI Clinton probe:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/cornyn-obama-trying-to-influence-fbi-clinton-probe/article/2588579
Carter: Clinton did ‘very little’ to promote Middle East peace:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/carter-clinton-did-very-little-to-promote-middle-east-peace/article/2588568
Video: “You’d have to be really, really stupid” to buy Hillary’s “ridiculous” denials:
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/09/02/video-youd-have-to-be-really-really-stupid-to-buy-hillarys-ridiculous-denials/comment-page-1/
Judge Nap to Hillary: ‘Laughing at the FBI Is Not a Good Thing to Do’ (SHE’S FINISHED BUT WE WILL DESTROY HER FURTHER NAO AND PUT THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN):
http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/04/08/judge-nap-hillary-laughing-fbi-not-good-thing-do
What the Clintons Haven’t Learned:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-04/clinton-foundation-fundraising-should-be-a-blip-not-a-scandal
Proof Hillary isn’t fit to be president
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/proof-hillary-isnt-fit-to-be-president/
Clinton says right-wing conspiracy still exists (LOL! BITCH NO RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY UR CORRUPT CHANGE UR TAMPON GET OVER IT):
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/268176-hillary-clinton-says-right-wing-conspiracy-still-exists
Source: No ‘coincidence’ Romanian hacker Guccifer extradited amid Clinton probe:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/08/source-no-coincidence-romanian-hacker-guccifer-extradited-amid-clinton-probe.html
Clinton Surrogate Ed Rendell: Clinton “Took Plenty Of Money From Wall Street” As Senator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pP_fWCGX14
‘Panama Papers’ Implicate Client of Clinton-Linked Lobbying Firm:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/panama-papers-implicate-podesta-client/
Clinton campaign chief linked to Russian bank listed in Panama Papers:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-campaign-chief-linked-to-russian-bank-listed-in-panama-papers/article/2587741?custom_click=rss
With Saudi and Russian ties, Clinton machine’s tentacles are far reaching, according to Panama Papers:
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/08/with_saudi_and_russian_ties_clinton_machines_tentacles_are_far_reaching_according_to_panama_papers/
Experts: Hillary Broke the Law:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/article/experts-hillary-broke-law/873502#.VQJQ8KdAS2U.twitter
Ex-Obama aide Robert Gibbs on Hillary Clinton using personal email: ‘Highly unusual’:
http://www.today.com/news/ex-obama-aide-robert-gibbs-hillary-clinton-using-personal-email-t6316
EXCLUSIVE: Top executive at Hillary’s server company was sued for ‘fraud’ after ‘receiving proceeds’ from $500m Ponzi scheme run by Backstreet Boys impresario (PEDOPHILE Lou Pearlman):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3198509/Top-executive-Hillary-s-server-company-sued-fraud-receiving-proceeds-500m-Ponzi-scheme-run-Backstreet-Boys-impresario.html
Hillary’s team copied intel off top-secret server to email:
http://nypost.com/2016/01/24/hillarys-team-copied-intel-off-top-secret-server-to-email/
Hillary’s emails WERE backed up to another server – and it may still exist – as the FBI works to figure out how well the data was scrubbed:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3198323/Hillary-s-emails-backed-server-exist-FBI-works-figure-data-scrubbed.html#ixzz45IKFaHFI
SMOKING GUN EVIDENCE EMAIL SCANDAL FBI DENY THESE!:
Tips on Deleting Emails From Email Book Hillary Clinton Wanted to Read:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tips-deleting-emails-email-book-hillary-clinton-wanted/story?id=33046042
Hillary Clinton’s emails, data erased from server before handed to FBI : (Obstruction Of Justice)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/20/hillary-clintons-emails-data-erased-from-server-before-handed-to-fbi
“I Didn’t send Classified Material”
~Hillary
Bombshell: In Email, Hillary Ordered Aide to Strip Classified Marking and Send Sensitive Material:
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/01/08/boom-in-newlyreleased-email-hillary-orders-aide-to-strip-classified-marking-n2101680
A Very Good Collection of Why Hillary shouldn’t be The President [VIDEO]:
http://www.anonews.co/this-video-could-hurt-hillary-clinton-really-badly/
Hillary’s ‘classified’ smokescreen hides real crime: Column:Hillary, Not as in the Mount Everest Guy
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/04/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-legal-definition-national-defense-information-classification-column/82446130/
Another computer scandal
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/new-clinton-computer-scandal?
Twelve point summary of Hillary’s email scandal
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/03/29/devastating-nine-key-quotes-from-the-washington-posts-hillary-email-scandal-report-n2140038
Inspector General: Clinton emails had intel from most secretive, classified programs:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/19/inspector-general-clinton-emails-had-intel-from-most-secretive-classified-programs.html
Who Is Eric Hoteham? Clinton Private Server Listed Under Mysterious, Untraceable Name:
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/03/04/clinton-private-server-listed-under-mysterious-untraceable-name/#.VQJSjlJ3JjY.twitter
Maybe Hillary Clinton Should Retire Her White House Dreams:
https://www.nationaljournal.com/twentysixteen/2015/03/03/maybe-hillary-clinton-should-retire-her-white-house-dreams
NYT: Blumenthal documents show State or Hillary held back e-mails from Congress:
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/16/nyt-blumenthal-documents-show-state-or-hillary-held-back-e-mails-from-congress/
Bill’s Alleged Mistress ex Miss America: Hillary Had ‘Several Abortions,’ Kept Chelsea to Advance Her Career :
http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/29/bills-alleged-mistress-hillary-had-several-abortions-video/
Bill Clinton’s Alleged Former Mistress: ‘Hillary Is A Lesbian:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/16/bill-clintons-alleged-former-mistress-hillary-is-a-lesbian/
Forget Hillary’s Emails, Here’s Her Real Scandal That Nobody’s Talking About:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/forget-hillary-clintons-emails-heres-her-real-scandal-that-nobodys-talking-about/203258/
The Democrats’ Likely Nominee Appears to Be a Felon — This Is Not Business as Usual:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431254/hillary-clinton-email-classified-criminal-democratic-nominee
Hillary Clinton’s staff told to hide any documents that could make her inner circle look bad in aftermath of Benghazi, whistle-blower claims:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2756601/State-Department-conducted-basement-operation-damaging-information-Benghazi-review-board-claims-former-senior-diplomat.html#ixzz44oR8heMG
Secret ‘mafia’ list serv of Democratic aides who want to run Hillary’s presidential campaign leaked – as are YEARS of their emails:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2835203/Secret-mafia-listserv-Democratic-aides-want-run-Hillary-s-presidential-campaign-leaked-YEARS-emails.html#ixzz44oRlVgKJ
This Is The Most Common Reaction Americans Have To Hillary Clinton:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-23/most-common-reaction-americans-have-hillary-clinton
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/02/04/what-voters-know-about-hillary-clinton-shes-crook.html
Maybe it’s time to just arrest both Clintons:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/03/maybe-its-time-to-just-arrest-both-clintons/?utm_source=akdart
Hillary Clinton Likely to Be Indicted by May 2016 for Breach of National Security:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7sOS597SS0
Hillary Will Be Indicted, Says Former US Attorney:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/07/hillary-clinton-will-be-indicted-says-former-us-attorney/#ixzz43rQmmzKx
Indictment Looms For Hillary As FBI Declares 22 Home-Server Emails “Top Secret”:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/213241-2/213241/
Top 5 Hillary Clinton Crimes:
http://www.mofopolitics.com/2014/02/05/top-5-hillary-clinton-crimes/
More proof she’s a criminal
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/klayman/130126
Article written by justice department former employee showing she’s a criminal:
http://observer.com/2015/08/the-countless-crimes-of-hillary-clinton-special-prosecutor-needed-now/
Hillary’s state department record
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/19/politics/hillary-clinton-state-department-record/
Clinton Legacy
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2013-04-03/clinton-legacy
State department report card
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/was-hillary-clinton-a-good-secretary-of-state/2014/05/30/16daf9c0-e5d4-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html
State Department staff send out thank you notes for Clinton Foundation
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/mar/28/grover-norquist/grover-norquist-says-state-department-employees-se/
Hilary Clinton State Department Hawk or humanitarian
http://www.thenation.com/article/opinionnation-hillary-clinton-state-department-hawk-or-humanitarian/
Documents show coordination with Clinton Foundation after Benghazi attacks
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/documents-show-state-dept-closely-coordinated-with-clinton-foundation-after-benghazi-attacks/
From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton-Scandal Primer:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/
http://www.clintonmemoriallibrary.com/clintcrimefamily.html
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/us/must-watch-video-the-ugly-truth-about-hillary-clintons-criminal-career
Hillary’s Chappaquiddick,
http://www.wnd.com/2006/03/35457/
The Clinton Conspiracy to Muzzle Internet Journalists
http://www.wnd.com/2004/04/24101/
Clinton and the Panama Papers
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/05/hillary-clinton-ties-emerge-in-panama-papers/
Collusion between DNC and Hillary Clinton
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic-parties/
Hillary Clinton and Boeing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-hillary-clinton-and-boeing-a-beneficial-relationship/2014/04/13/21fe84ec-bc09-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2015/05/13/hillary-and-boeing-profit-together/
http://freebeacon.com/politics/boeing-shareholder-challenges-ethics-of-companys-relationship-to-clintons/
Claudio Osorio and Hillary Clinton
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clintons-facilitated-donors-haiti-project-that-defrauded-u-s-out-of-millions/
Hansjorg Wyss and Hillary Clinton
http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/06/exclusive-major-clinton-donor-faces-criminal-profiteering-charges/
Dow Chemical and Hillary Clinton
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/27/hillary-draft/
Clinton Foundation
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-foundation-received-subpoena-from-state-department-investigators/2016/02/11/ca5125b2-cce4-11e5-88ff-e2d1b4289c2f_story.html
https://capitalresearch.org/2015/05/the-clinton-foundation-a-cauldron-of-conflicts-and-cronyism/
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/tag/clinton-foundation/
http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/drip-drip-drip-new-clinton-foundation-scandal/
http://freebeacon.com/blog/the-clinton-foundation-scandals-explained/
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/03/31/hillary-believe-me-weve-been-very-transparent-about-clinton-foundation-donations-n2141514
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mercedes-schlapp/2015/04/24/clinton-foundation-scandals-show-america-cant-trust-hillary-clinton
http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/10/hillary-clinton-foundation-donors-ethics/
https://www.byline.com/project/27/article/520
http://nypost.com/2015/07/30/ubs-increased-donations-to-clinton-foundation-after-hillarys-help-with-irs/
Storm Clouds Form: Bob Woodward Compares Hillary Scandal to Watergate:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429526/hillarys-e-mail-scandal-grows-latest-batch-shows-she-broke-rules-again
RNC Sues to see All Of Hillarys Emails:
http://www.reuters.tv/gNq/2016/03/09/rnc-sues-to-see-hillary-s-emails
FRANCE’S CLIENT & QADDAFI’S GOLD (ASSASSINATED FOR HIS GOLD):
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12659
REPORT: Leaked Emails Reveal Hillary Clinton’s ‘Mafia’:
http://www.businessinsider.com/report-leaked-emails-reveal-hillary-clintons-mafia-2014-11?IR=T
At least 1,730 Clinton emails contain classified material:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article61383137.html
Arkansas GOP Leader Resigns After Clinton Comment
“Hillary Clinton “would probably get shot at the state line,” if she ran for president in 2016 She’s Not Popular in Arkansas it wouldn’t be well recieved”
~Johnny Rhoda (WE CAN ONLY HOPE SO!!):
http://5newsonline.com/2014/06/25/arkansas-gop-leader-resigns-after-clinton-comment/
A Message From One Of Your Own Agents:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cd0e2KMWEAEkRKw.jpg
Hillary Clinton’s hatred of Police: Trained Pigs story – Gary Aldrich:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/533412/posts
Obama exposes Hillary’s lies
http://www.infowars.com/obama-exposes-hillarys-lies/
Hillary Clinton’s Long History of Hiding Documents:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/03/04/hillary-clintons-long-history-of-hiding-documents/
REMINDER FBI FILEGATE LIST OF CLINTON ENEMIES ILLEGAL FBI FILES TO BE OBTAINED IF WE DID THIS WE WOULD BE V&:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/FILEGATE.html
FBI FILE GATE:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/?s=filegate
http://www.freedomwatchusa.org/hillary-clinton-tries-to-escape-from-on-going-filegate-case
`Filegate’ Prosecutor Clears White House (LOL):
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-03-17/news/0003170208_1_white-house-confidential-fbi-background-files-hillary-clinton
Hillary Clintons hatred of Israel
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261443/hillarys-emails-hating-israel-ari-lieberman
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/810600/posts
Law License Was Under Review:
Arkansas committee reviewing first lady’s law license:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080405225439/http |
authors said in the report. "Chick-fil-A and McDonald's have established policies limiting antibiotic use in their chicken with implementation timelines, while Dunkin' Donuts has a policy covering all meats, but has no reported timeline for implementation.
"Most top U.S. chain restaurants have so far failed to effectively respond to this growing public health threat by publicly adopting policies restricting routine antibiotic use by their meat suppliers."
Terry Fleck, the executive director of the Center for Food Integrity, whose members include the National Restaurant Association, said that responsible use of antibiotics makes food safer and more affordable.
"Antibiotic resistance is a serious public health concern that should be addressed both in human and animal medicine," Fleck said in a statement emailed to CNN. "But just as with you or me, when animals get sick with a bacterial infection, treating them with antibiotics is the ethical thing to do. Farmers work closely with veterinarians to responsibly administer antibiotics in the care for their animals, benefiting each of us by making food safer and more affordable."
Hormones in the food supply
The report's authors said they also asked restaurants about use of hormones in meat and poultry supply chains out of concern that meat producers might increase use of those growth-promoting drugs as they phased out antibiotics. Hormones did not factor into the restaurants' grades, but the authors said the use of hormones raise animal welfare concerns and possible human health risks.
JUST WATCHED 5 foods you should never eat Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH 5 foods you should never eat 05:25
"A good rule of thumb is to avoid eating foods that contain ingredients you can't pronounce," says Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.
The report lists recommendations ranging from diners to restaurants, government officials and farmers.
Restaurants, the report said, should "use their considerable purchasing power to make meat and poultry produced without the routine use of antibiotics more readily available to consumers."
The Food and Drug Administration should mandate greater transparency on antibiotic use among livestock producers, the report said, and "policies that prohibit use of medically important antibiotics for both growth promotion and disease prevention."
The report urges consumers to ask about meat sources in restaurants and on social media.
"As more consumers demand better meat options, they will become more widely available," the authors wrote. "Remember: it's your money, your health and your future."Voters in the special election for the 34th Congressional District appeared to send Democrats Jimmy Gomez and Robert Ahn to a runoff, according to semi-official results from election officials.
No candidate won more than 50 percent of the votes, and so the top two candidates will face off in a June 6 runoff. A final tally of votes may not be released until Friday, but with 100 percent of precincts reporting, Gomez – who currently represents much of the district in the state Assembly – led with 28 percent of the vote. Ahn, a former L.A. city planning commissioner, followed with 19 percent.
Maria Cabildo, who earned the endorsement of the L.A. Times, came in third, with 9.6 percent of the vote – trailing Ahn by more than 2,700 votes.
In all, 23 candidates were on the ballot. The list included 19 Democrats, as well as a Republican, a Green Party member, a Libertarian and one candidate with no party preference. Of the candidates running, 12 were women.
The Los Angeles-area district, which was previously represented by California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra, includes communities like Boyle Heights, Chinatown, El Sereno, Glassell Park and Mount Washington. Becerra resigned from the seat following the election of Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate and his appointment to her former post as California's attorney general.
Gomez was early on seen as the front-runner in the race. He earned the endorsements of much of the Democratic party establishment, including Becerra, State Senate leader Kevin de León, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.
The success of Ahn – who, if elected, would be the only Korean American in Congress – has been a bit more surprising to political observers. Ahn leveraged significant resources to turn out Korean American voters, who early numbers showed outpaced other voters by three to one in vote by mail.
In the crowded field, Ahn and Gomez had emerged as frontrunners in fundraising. Gomez raised more than quarter million dollars, while Ahn added $300,000 of his own money to the more than $330,000 he raised from donors.
The results will come as a disappointment to progressive supporters of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The district went for Sanders in last year's Democratic presidential primary, and political observers have been closely watching this race for signals about the future of the party. But Sanders did not endorse in the race and the three candidates in the field who were closely aligned with him – Wendy Carrillo, Arturo Carmona and Kenneth Mejia – appear to have split their votes, each with similar levels of support.
About 306,000 registered voters were eligible to participate. As of early Wednesday morning, county registrar Dean Logan announced that 29,407 ballots had been counted, with 9.6 percent of eligible registered voters casting ballots.
Those numbers will rise in the days to come as more ballots are counted. The next round of counting is set for Friday. Election results are set to be certified on April 13.
The special election cost more than $1.3 million, according to an estimate by the County of Los Angeles. In all, 190 polling locations were available throughout the district on Tuesday.
The special general election is scheduled for June 6.Former mayor Rudy Giuliani stumped for Donald Trump in Youngstown, Ohio Monday and was excoriated in the press for allegedly forgetting there were no terrorist attacks on US soil before Barack Obama. Giuliani’s words were taken out of context by the media so they could deceive the public but it wasn’t only one media outlet that did it.
They don’t care that they will be caught in the lie because the damage is done and most people don’t hear the rebuttal — they control the news.
Slate actually corrected them but don’t think they did it magnanimously, they used the opportunity to knock Giuliani and Trump.
The facts are that right before this section of his speech, the former mayor said that “[on] Sept. 11, when we went through the worst foreign attack in our history since the War of 1812.”
Giuliani was praising Pence’s work “during the time of 9/11” before he switched to the comments about eight years without another attack.
Giuliani clearly meant there wasn’t an attack during the 2001–2009 period after 9/11 and not the entirety of the eight years before Obama took office.
This is the full clip:
On Reddit, the lie continues under Politics but the correction is under Donald Trump (who is not included in Politics) with only a handful of comments.
It would be nice to know if these outlets met and planned this before they posted this misleading video and the corresponding deceitful headlines. We know they do that.
Every one of these outlets taped the full speech.
Rudy Giuliani, NYC mayor on 9/11, said there were no US terror attacks in 8 years pre-Obama https://t.co/q00PIBrQTg pic.twitter.com/RkILPxJh8y — CNN (@CNN) August 16, 2016
Rudy Giuliani: In 8 years before Pres. Obama “we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack” in US https://t.co/K9oYGhJq8l — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 15, 2016
Tomorrow’s front page…
RUDY’S MOST PATHETIC POLITICIZING OF 9/11 YET: ex-mayor “forgets” https://t.co/GIgYSvkz5U pic.twitter.com/szM2NbrcnZ — New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) August 16, 2016
Rudy Giuliani, mayor of NYC on 9/11: “Before Obama, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic attacks in the US” pic.twitter.com/YcSNOVeZaP — Mashable News (@MashableNews) August 15, 2016
This was posted at Buzzed and reposted by the LA Times:
Video of Rudy saying we didn’t “have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the U.S.” before Obama: pic.twitter.com/3tC1InfZj0 — andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 15, 2016
Talking Points Memo:
Then there is Washington Post which corrected themselves by saying he “conveniently omitted it”.Late last week, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei took issue with the United States’ characterization of the recently negotiated nuclear framework, though the White House was dismissive of the Iranian leader’s posturing.
“The test of whether or not that framework can be memorialized in a deal is not going to be a comment on any given day by a particular Iranian leader,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters Friday.
But in a bizarre twist, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) seemed to endorse the Ayatollah’s credibility over the U.S. Secretary of State’s. “I think you’re going to find out that they had never agreed to the things that John Kerry claimed that they had,” McCain said Friday. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made similar remarks
To put it mildly, it was an unexpected development. For months, Republicans insisted, “We can’t trust Iranian leaders.” And yet, on Friday, McCain and Graham suggested rhetoric from Ayatollah Khamenei should be accepted at face value – while arguments from the American White House should not.
During a press conference at the Summit of the Americas, President Obama seemed visibly frustrated by the GOP’s increasingly unhinged approach to international affairs.
“When I hear some, like Senator McCain recently, suggest that our Secretary of State, John Kerry, who served in the United States Senate, a Vietnam veteran, who’s provided exemplary service to this nation, is somehow less trustworthy in the interpretation of what’s in a political agreement than the Supreme Leader of Iran – that’s an indication of the degree to which partisanship has crossed all boundaries. And we’re seeing this again and again. We saw it with the letter by the 47 senators who communicated directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran – the person that they say can’t be trusted at all – warning him not to trust the United States government. “We have Mitch McConnell trying to tell the world, ‘Oh, don’t have confidence in the U.S. government’s abilities to fulfill any climate change pledge that we might make.’ And now we have a senator suggesting that our Secretary of State is purposely misinterpreting the deal and giving the Supreme Leader of Iran the benefit of the doubt in the interpretations.”
Obama added this isn’t how the United States is “supposed to run foreign policy, regardless of who’s president or secretary of state.” The president concluded that this is “a problem” that “needs to stop.”
I think even the most ardent Republicans, if they were to pause and think about this objectively, would be hard pressed to disagree with the underlying principles Obama presented. Put aside the GOP’s bitter, often ugly, contempt for the president and consider a more fundamental question: has American foreign policy ever worked this way?
Is there a scenario in which it can work this way? What signal does it send to the world when the legislative branch of the United States tries to undermine the executive branch of the United States on matters of international affairs?Washington (CNN) President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. President to visit Cuba in 88 years, when he visits Havana in March, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced Thursday.
The visit, which is scheduled for March 21-22, is another big step by the administration in ongoing efforts to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba.
The President announced the news via Twitter on Thursday.
"14 months ago, I announced that we would begin normalizing relations with Cuba - and we've already made significant progress," he tweeted. "Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again. More Americans are traveling to Cuba than at any time in the last 50 years."
Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again. More Americans are traveling to Cuba than at any time in the last 50 years.
"We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world," he tweeted. "Next month, I'll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people."
We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world.
The White House also announced Thursday that the President will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, as well as entrepreneurs and different members of Cuban society.
The President aims to continue to "chart a new course" for U.S.- Cuban relations by connecting U.S. and Cuban citizens through travel, commerce and access to information, according to Earnest.
The President will be joined by the first lady on his trip to Cuba, after which they will visit Argentina for two days.
The last sitting U.S. President to visit Cuba was Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
"President Coolidge traveled to Cuba on a U.S. battleship, so this will be a very different kind of visit," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote in a post on Medium
In the Medium post, Rhodes cited the progress made between the two countries since Obama took office, but also acknowledged there is more to be done especially on human rights and added that the President will continue to raise those issues to Castro.
"As the President has said, Cuba will not change overnight, nor will all of the various differences between our countries go away," Rhodes wrote. "But the guiding principle of our Cuba policy -- our North Star -- remains taking steps that will improve the lives of the Cuban people."
The trip, long expected, comes after Obama's administration formally reopened ties with Havana in late 2014, following a half-century of enmity.
Cuban officials reacted positively to the announcement Thursday.
"U.S. President Barack Obama will be welcomed by the government of Cuba and the Cuban people with our traditional hospitality. It will be an opportunity for (the) President to appreciate the Cuban reality," Josefina Vidal, the general director for U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry said at a news conference in Havana Thursday. "His visit will represent a step forward in relations between Cuba and the US."
At the news conference, Vidal also called for the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba to be lifted and the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo to be returned to Cuban control.
Speaking at CNN's GOP town hall on Wednesday night, presidential candidate Marco Rubio slammed the announcement.
The Florida senator said that if he were president, he would not visit the island nation -- unless it were a "free Cuba."
The Cuban government is "an anti-American communist dictatorship," said the Cuban-American senator, who has been an outspoken critic of Obama's Cuba policy. "They're a repressive regime."
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father emigrated from Cuba, also disparaged the prospect of a presidential visit.
"I think it's a real mistake. I think the President ought to be pushing for a free Cuba," Cruz said at the same town hall. "My family has seen firsthand the evil and the oppression in Cuba. We need a president who stands up to our enemies."
The American embassy was reopened and a U.S. flag raised at the compound on Havana harbor in August.
Since then, high level U.S. officials have traveled to the island, including Secretary of State John Kerry and transportation chief Anthony Foxx.
Travel restrictions have been loosened and economic channels revived. Obama shook Cuban leader Raul Castro's hand during an historic face-to-face meeting last spring.
That meeting, which transpired during a summit in Panama, was regarded as a breakthrough. But images of the American President stepping onto Cuban soil will provide Obama a lasting illustration of his adage that diplomacy with traditional U.S. foes can yield concrete results.
Last week, U.S. air carriers entered a bidding war to secure routes to Cuba after both nations signed an agreement to resume flights between the island and the United States.
U.S. travelers, who previously were required to adhere to strict conditions for visits to Cuba, are now able to apply for a broad range of travel licenses, included trips for cultural exchanges and humanitarian work.
But travel purely for tourism won't be allowed until the U.S. Congress lifts a longstanding embargo, which also restricts most trade with Cuba.
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who launched a bipartisan Cuba Working Group in December, said Obama's trip would help "close the book on the outdated Cold War policy that divided us for so many years."
Many lawmakers stand opposed to such a move, arguing the regime in Cuba restricts dissent and tramples on citizens' freedom of expression.
Leading up to the announcement of Obama's trip, White House officials said Cuba would need to demonstrate human rights reforms before the President would travel there.
Rhodes said in a briefing that Obama will meet with dissidents when he visits Cuba in March.
He noted Obama met with dissidents at the Summit of the Americas in Panama last year -- where he shook Raul Castro's hand -- and said Obama engages with a "broad range of actors" around the world, and that Cuba is no different.
He said Obama was not likely to meet with Fidel Castro on the island.
Officials say Obama could visit the island to witness a signing of a peace accord between the government of Colombia and the FARC rebel group. Obama committed $400 million to the Colombian government in his most recent budget proposal to implement the deal.Brook Lopez of the Brooklyn Nets blocks a shot against the Houston Rockets on Nov. 11, 2015 at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bill Baptist/NBAE via Getty Images)
By Steve Lichtenstein
Former Nets coach Jason Kidd famously discarded his necktie at the onset of the 2014 New Year. Brooklyn rebounded from a gruesome 10-21 start to win 34 of its final 47 games and gain entry into the postseason.
Lionel Hollins, who is now in his second season leading the Nets, saw his team stumble out of the gate to an 0-7 start so he shaved his beard prior to Wednesday’s game in Houston. The Nets responded by pulling off the upset, 106-98, to end all worries that this group would knock the 2009-10 version — which lost its first 18 contests — out of the record books.
Of course, neither of the two appearance adjustments had anything to do with subsequent events on the court. And there’s certainly no comparison between the talent levels on those two rosters. These Nets have no shot at playing beyond Game 82.
That’s why you haven’t heard me call for Hollins’ head, even though I ranted in this space seemingly every other week from the day Kidd was hired until he bolted for Milwaukee the following June that he was the wrong man at the wrong time for the job.
A week ago, Bovada listed Hollins as the second-most likely coach to be fired this season — at 3-to-1 odds, which prompted Brooklyn general manager Billy King to respond on Monday that Hollins is not on the hot seat despite the team’s early struggles.
It’s very easy for fans to pin the blame on the coach when their team is lousy. In New York City, the complaints can get loud. Social media has only increased the decibel levels.
In this situation, it’s not warranted.
I certainly don’t agree with some of Hollins’ major and minor choices in games. It was reported that he had to be prodded by management last week to insert Rondae Hollis-Jefferson into the starting lineup despite the obvious nature of the energetic rookie’s much-needed skillset. Watching Andrea Bargnani play defense makes me want to poor salt into my eyes, yet he is often paired with immobile center Brook Lopez. And why has the useless Wayne Ellington been getting crunch-time minutes while Thaddeus Young rots on the bench?
Still, it’s hard to argue that the Nets’ record would have been substantially better with someone else in charge. Other than last Friday’s loss to the Lakers, the Nets have been the underdog in every affair.
It took the Rockets missing a LOT of wide-open looks for the Nets to pull out Wednesday’s game. Brooklyn, which entered the game as the league’s worst 3-point shooting team, actually made as many treys (eight) as the Morey-ballers despite 17 fewer attempts.
Hustle plays by reserves Shane Larkin and Thomas Robinson and efficient passing from Joe Johnson (10 assists, no turnovers) offset a rare off-shooting night by Lopez (6-for-17, including 0-for-5 in the second half) and allowed Brooklyn to break the century mark for the first time since opening night.
While there’s a fair chance that the Nets can extend the winning streak to two on Friday against the combusting Sacramento Kings, the rest of November’s schedule is pretty daunting.
It could get ugly — like possibly 3-14 ugly.
That doesn’t mean it will be Hollins’ fault.
There’s only so much he can do with this mix. I mean, how can you concoct a defensive scheme when your point guards can’t stay in front of penetrators or fight through screens, you get inconsistent help at the rim from your bigs, and your wings (other than Hollis-Jefferson) are too slow to close out on 3-point shots?
Bojan Bogdanovich had a sensational game against Houston from a statistical point of view (22 points, 9 rebounds), but he couldn’t guard anyone. Former Net chucker Marcus Thornton blew by him at will and the few times Bogdanovich was face to face with Rockets star James Harden, well, that just wasn’t fair.
That Harden finished with only 23 points was a miracle in itself. Even Johnson admitted that Harden misfired on a good number of shots he normally makes, including an uncontested corner 3-pointer with just under a minute remaining that could have cut it to a one-possession game.
Give Johnson some credit for playing a savvy game by keeping Harden off the foul line, where ‘The Beard” normally earns a substantial living. Harden had been averaging 12.7 free-throw attempts per game; the Nets limited him to five.
It’s kind of ironic that Johnson, who is known around the league as “Iso-Joe” for his one-on-one offensive prowess, is now more leaned on for his defensive and distribution attributes. But that’s probably how Hollins has to have the Nets play to be competitive, especially until Johnson gets his shooting percentage up from its current 32.6 percent atrocity.
Johnson may move at a snail’s pace, but he still sees the floor off the dribble infinitely better than either of the Nets’ point guards (Jarrett Jack and Larkin).
Only Johnson could have made the pass to Bogdanovich at the weak-side corner for an open 3-pointer that gave Brooklyn a 102-96 lead with 1:37 remaining. Larkin wouldn’t have seen it, while Jack would have floated up a prayer from the middle of the paint.
With so many one-dimensional players — scorers who can’t defend and defenders who can’t shoot — as well as players in the rotation like Bargnani and Ellington who are bad at everything, Hollins’ options are limited. In addition to not having a true point guard, there’s no “3 & D” wing who can both lock up the opposition’s top offensive threat and then convert open 3-pointers at the other end at a rate better than the league average.
Up front, much was made of the Lopez/Young re-signings in the summer, but they have a net rating of minus-12.1 in the 202 minutes they’ve played together this season, according to NBA.com. That’s not as awful as the minus-17.1 rating produced by Lopez and Bargnani, but it could explain why Hollins has only paired Lopez with Young for 29 fourth-quarter minutes over seven games.
I don’t believe Young and Lopez complement one another, contrary to those who didn’t notice that the Nets’ 13-6 dash to the 2014-15 season finish line was predominantly accumulated against tired and/or injury-depleted opponents.
Young works best close to the basket. So does Lopez. Young is not an elite rebounder. Neither is Lopez.
Of course, that didn’t matter much to King, who has no concept as to what makes a player valuable in today’s game, nor has he any clue as to how to fit pieces into a puzzle.
I believe King when he told the media in the preseason that he thought this group could contend for a playoff berth. It’s just further proof of his incompetence.
Not only is the Nets’ present depressing, King destroyed the franchise’s near future by failing to protect all the first-round draft picks he dealt/swapped in the various blockbuster deals over the years that didn’t pan out. The Nets do not own their own first-round selection until 2019, taking tanking this season out of the equation.
Let’s not also forget that it was King who swore by Kidd after one interview two years ago, even though he was less than two weeks into retirement as a player. King expected Kidd to immediately gain the respect of a veteran, win-now group despite having no experience at any aspect of coaching basketball at any level.
When Kidd left, King sought the man he should have hired in the first place. Hollins, unfortunately, took over a team in regression.
If anyone is to take the fall for this mess in Brooklyn, it should be the one who created it, not the one trying to work through it.
For a FAN’s perspective of the Nets, Jets and the NHL, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1With his dominating win in Indiana this week, followed by the withdrawal of both Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich from the race, Donald Trump is now essentially the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidency. Once he is officially anointed as the GOP’s choice this July in Cleveland, Mr. Trump—whom hardly any pundits, this one included, expected to get the nomination when he joined the race—will enter a new, decisive phase of his campaign.
Part of being the presidential nominee of one of our two major political parties is getting classified intelligence briefings. Since the days of Harry Truman, the Democratic and Republican nominees have received top secret updates from our Intelligence Community, to prepare them for the weighty job they have made the shortlist for, should they move into the White House in a few months.
Thus it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Trump starts getting classified briefings from Intelligence Community experts, something the putative GOP nominee has expressed interest in receiving. These presentations, while classified, are not especially detailed. Seldom are sensitive matters like intelligence sources and methods presented to nominees. In essence, the briefings are a more detailed take on the day’s foreign headlines than presented in the media, with a side of secret juiciness. It’s a teaser for what nominees will get if things go well for them in early November.
That said, for people like Mr. Trump—who have never served in the Federal government—such classified updates can be a genuine eye-opener, since they reveal aspects of the top secret side of Washington, a world to which even well-connected citizens like New York real estate moguls are not normally privy.
Predictably, the news that Mr. Trump will soon be getting intelligence briefings has driven his critics to gloating on social media about what a security risk the likely GOP nominee is, based on his tendency to speak freely on almost any subject. It’s clear that few of Mr. Trump’s social media critics have any experience with intelligence briefings or secrecy rules themselves.
More seriously, Mr. Trump’s political opponents have joined the fray, deriding him as a security risk. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, denounced Mr. Trump as having “no moral or ethical grounding,” adding, “he wouldn’t think twice of taking classified information and putting it out in the public realm if he thought it served his political purposes.”
For every spy who can’t stand Trump, there’s at least one who despises Clinton, because she walks around free after breaking rules that any IC employee would be arrested for violating.
There is no small irony in this, given that the Democrats’ likely nominee, Hillary Clinton, is a proven security risk of a serious kind. This column has reported in detail on Ms. Clinton’s troubles with our nation’s secrecy laws, the year-long scandal known as EmailGate that is currently under far-reaching investigation by the FBI. More than a thousand of the “unclassified” emails on Ms. Clinton’s private server of bathroom infamy were actually classified, with at least 22 of them being top secret, the highest official classification level.
Some of those top secret emails include incredibly sensitive information about intelligence sources and methods, such as details about our spies operating abroad under deep cover. Other emails Ms. Clinton and her staff considered unclassified actually included top secret-plus intelligence reports, including verbatim lifting of highly classified information, a felonious sort of plagiarism.
There is every reason to think that multiple foreign intelligence services had access to Ms. Clinton’s unencrypted email. The Romanian hacker who was extradited to the United States for his successful cracking into Ms. Clinton’s email in 2013 stated, “it was easy… easy for me, for everybody.” If a lone Balkan hacker was able to do this, imagine how simple a task this would have been for the Russian and Chinese intelligence services, with their thousands of highly trained cyber experts.
Nevertheless, the mainstream media continues to low-ball the national security implications of EmailGate, resorting to wordsmithing to obfuscate what Ms. Clinton and her staff we really up to at the State Department. The Obama White House has followed suit, insisting that, despite the FBI investigation into EmailGate, Ms. Clinton represents no security risk, and she should receive intelligence briefings as the putative Democratic nominee—while they seem less certain that Mr. Trump should get them too.
The Washington Post has now joined the fray, with assertions that Mr. Trump may represent an unacceptable security risk, bolstered by comments from former top intelligence officials indicating that giving Mr. Trump access to any secrets may be a bad idea.
Furthermore, The Daily Beast has alleged that the Intelligence Community is up in arms about giving classified presentations to Mr. Trump, based on his well-honed tendency to speak off the cuff, plus his occasional indulgence of conspiracy theories. There’s no doubt that plenty of individuals in the Intelligence Community loathe Mr. Trump and hope he never becomes president. However, there’s nothing like a consensus among our spies that the putative GOP nominee is a security risk.
In the first place, the IC, as insiders call it, is a vast, sprawling enterprise, with 16 different agencies that employ tens of thousands of Americans of every race, background, sexual orientation, and political persuasion. There is no “IC position” on much of anything, except that the sun rises in the East. For every spy who can’t stand Mr. Trump, there’s at least one who despises Ms. Clinton, particularly because she and her staff are walking around free after flagrantly breaking security rules that any IC employee would be arrested for violating.
It seems doubtful Barack Obama could have obtained a top secret clearance, given his admitted drug use, associations with convicted terrorists, and trips to strange places like Pakistan in his youth—Ms. Clinton definitely couldn’t.
I’ve heard IC friends rail against Mr. Trump for all the reasons many average Americans do: his gracelessness, his preference for glib slogans over actual policy, his gleeful willingness to offend large swathes of the American population. However, I’ve also heard IC veterans speak warmly of Mr. Trump. Some see him as a welcome antidote to the political correctness that has stifled operations in our spy agencies under Mr. Obama. “With the Donald, we’ll be able to go out and really break some china—finally,” explained a senior CIA operations official. If you ask a dozen IC employees their views on Mr. Trump, you’re likely to get a dozen different opinions.
There is reason to doubt that Mr. Trump could qualify for a top secret security clearance if he applied for any IC job. Investigators would have questions about his multiple foreign wives, his bankruptcies, his rumored ties to organized crime, plus the fact that several of his top campaign officials possess curious ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Similarly, it seems doubtful that Barack Obama could have obtained a top secret clearance either, given his admitted drug use, associations with convicted terrorists, and trips to strange places like Pakistan in his youth. Ms. Clinton definitely could not “get cleared,” as the spies say, while she is under FBI investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act. Not to mention that some of her top campaign official possess ties to the Kremlin that are every bit as questionable as the Trump campaign’s. The rules are different when you’ve got a 50-50 shot of moving into the Oval Office.
I don’t envy the IC briefers who will deal with Mr. Trump, in case he plans to treat them like cast members of The Apprentice. All the same, I’ve briefed cabinet officials during my time in the intelligence business, and it’s difficult to guess in advance how they will react to what they hear. In many cases, businesspeople with zero background in security matters—much less spying—turned out to be savvy consumers of intelligence, listening intently, asking astute questions, and generally having no patience for the sort of hedging non-answers that too many IC officials are known for.
This is true of inhabitants of the White House, too. Some presidents have placed high value on intelligence while others have not (Mr. Obama tends towards the latter). Partisan politics is a poor barometer here. There have been liberals who thought regular spy briefings were a vital part of their presidency—always wanting top secret updates—just as there have been conservatives who found them of dubious value, even an annoyance in the Oval Office.
It’s too soon to guess how Donald Trump will react when he has the veil of secrecy lifted and IC briefers start giving him classified presentations. He may find them valuable—or not. As always, much will depend on the quality of the briefers and how Mr. Trump interacts with them.
What’s not in doubt is that, just like everyone else who is “read on” for top secret information, he will learn the rules governing how the IC keeps its secrets. If Mr. Trump chooses to violate those rules, for instance blabbing in public about what he’s learned from the spy agencies, he will face grave legal consequences. The country would then be in the unenviable position of having the presidential nominees of both our parties under FBI investigation for violating our secrecy laws.
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.As always, you shouldn't take the specific figure too seriously. Polling on insurance status is really, really difficult. The most definitive, reliable information comes from government surveys and academic studies, the kind that won't be available for many months. The real rate of uninsurance among adults could be higher or lower. So could the magnitude of the change.
But Republicans and other critics of the health care law keep saying the law isn't having much impact on the number of uninsured Americans. A few even suggest it's having no impact at all. These arguments are just not credible anymore.
At this point, the trend in the Gallup polling clearly isn't a blip. It points in the same direction as previous surveys, from the Rand Corporation and the Urban Institute. And it's consistent with evidence about the raw number of people who have signed up for insurance through the new marketplaces—and, yes, who have paid their premiums.
"The evidence is mounting," says Jonathan Gruber, economist at MIT and one of the health law's architects. "What is nice about these results is that the Gallup poll is somewhat noisy, but this large and consistent decline is beyond any of the noise shown in earlier years. I think it is impossible to look at this and conclude that the uninsurance rate isn't declining in the U.S. It's hard to say by how much, but the direction is clear."
Obamacare's critics would point out that expanding insurance has its costs, from higher taxes to reduced spending on Medicare to new regulations that forced some people to give up their old insurance. All of that is true.What is the Worst Man Drafted (WMD) Tournament? To celebrate March Madness, the FanSided.com sports network compiled a field of the 64 worst NFL Draft busts of all time. A blogger from each NFL team nominated their team’s worst two draft picks of all time. 32 teams x 2 = 64. After we had our field of 64, the staff here at NFL Mocks did some serious NCAA-style research to seed the field. (hat tip: Mike from Bear Goggles On on the concept)
Why the name WMD? Because like the weapons of mass destruction that never showed up in Iraq, these accidental weapons of mass destruction never showed up for their teams once drafted. In fact, for fans these draft busts caused mass destruction on our souls.
That’s why we take great pleasure in hosting this tournament here on NFL Mocks. These clowns deserve every bit of this dubious honor. And as die-hard fans you deserve to have a little fun at their expense. That’s why it will be the fans who ultimately decide who will be crowned the Worst Man Drafted.
The voting for the round of 64 kicks off today. Results will be tallied, and then the round of 32 will kick off next Monday. The Sweet 16 will take place next Wednesday, the Elite 8 a week from Friday, the Final 4 a week from Saturday (through Sunday), and then the WMD Finals will take place a week from this upcoming Monday.
Let’s get it on with our bracket full of busts!
VIEW BRACKET HERE
(HIT GREEN ARROW FOR MAX SIZE)
Vote Here:March 13, 2009
Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet, of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM, by its French initials), examine the renewed prominence of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as the world economy sinks deeper into crisis.
THE INTERNATIONAL crisis that broke in summer 2008 demolished all the neoliberal dogmas and exposed the deception behind them. Unable to deny their failure, the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) claim they no longer uphold the set of neoliberal policies known as the Washington consensus. Yet discredited though they may be, these two institutions are using the international crisis to return to the limelight.
For decades, they |
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