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a press event hosted by the hardware manufacturer themselves. Utilizing the new Zen microarchitecture which was initially showcased back at E3 2016 and was fully previewed at a press event during August of last year, the Ryzen, or more specifically Ryzen 7 is looking to directly go head-on against Intel’s latest i7 line promising on par or even better performance at a lower price point. The lineup will initially include 3 different models, the Ryzen 7 1700, Ryzen 7 1700X, and Ryzen 7 1800X, each with varying clock speeds depending and catered to different user levels, but all supporting dual-channel DDR4 memory modules and operating on TDPs less than 100 Watts. The flagship model, Ryzen 7 1800X boasts a base clock speed of 3.6Ghz and will reach 4.0Ghz when boosted, and even goes beyond using AMD’s XFR, or Extended Frequency Range tech, and proper cooling. AMD Ryzen 7 Variants and Specifications Model Cores/ Threads Base Clock Boost Clock L3 Cache TDP Pricing (PHP) Ryzen R7 1800X 8/16 3.6 Ghz 4.0 Ghz 16MB 95 Watts PHP 27,000 Ryzen R7 1700X 8/16 3.4 Ghz 3.8 Ghz 16MB 95 Watts PHP 21,000 Ryzen R7 1700 8/16 3.2 Ghz 3.7 Ghz 16MB 65 Watts PHP 17,500 As for the Motherboards, AMD, together with other hardware manufacturers is said to have 80 or more motherboard models for the Ryzen, with currently confirmed models to hail from ASRock, ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI. The boards are assumed to have NVME and PCIe 3.0 interfaces, M.2 SATA support, and as well as USB 3.1 (Gen 1 and Gen 2) ports. AMD Ryzen Compatible Motherboards ASRock X370 Taichi ASRock X370 Fatal1ty Professional Gaming K4 ASRock X370 Professional Gaming K4 ASRock X370 Killer SLI ASRock AB350 Gaming K4 ASRock AB350 Pro4 ASRock AB350M ASRock A320M Pro4 ASUS X370 ROG Crosshair IV Hero ASUS X370 Prime Pro ASUS B350 Prime Plus ASUS B350 Prime-A ASUS A320M-C MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon MSI B35o Tomahawk Gaming MSI B350M Mortar MSI A320M Pro-VD GIGABYTE AX270 AORUS Gaming K7 GIGABYTE AX370 AORUS Gaming K5 GIGABYTE AX370 AORUS Gaming K3 GIGABYTE X370 AORUS Gaming K5 GIGABYTE X370 AORUS D3 GIGABYTE AB350 Gaming GIGABYTE AB350 Gaming 3 GIGABYTE B350M Gaming 3 GIGABYTE B350M D2 GIGABYTE A320M-HD2 GIGABYTE A320-D2 Biostar X370 Racing GTN Biostar X370 Racing GT7 Biostar X370 Racing GT5 Biostar X370 Racing GT3 Biostar B350 Racing GTN Biostar B350 Racing GT5 Biostar B350 Racing GT3 Biostar B350 Hi-Fi S1 Biostar B350 ET2 Note that there is still no news regarding the local availability and pricing of the listed motherboards although we are expecting the same launch together with the Ryzen 7’s actual launch date or perhaps a few weeks, that is if the manufacturers opt for a sequential regional release rather than an overall global unveiling. The AMD Ryzen 7 processor line is now open for pre-orders through AMD’s website, AMD.com, and will become available worldwide this coming March 2, 2017. If in case you find the Ryzen 7’s pricing to still be a little too steep for your preferences, then worry not for AMD also has the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 at the ready with the release to soon follow after the flagship Ryzen 7.Snow is vital to the environmental health of the western United States. Unlike rainfall, it doesn't come as one burst that's here and then quickly gone. Instead, it tends to accrue over the winter and slowly melt as the temperatures rise in the spring. The melt typically continues into the early summer, providing a steady, consistent level of water in mountain watersheds. This is particularly important for a state like California, which receives almost no summer rainfall. Snow comes in a variety of forms. It can be light and airy, almost dry, or it can heavy and dense. For example, light, fluffy snow that measures four feet deep might actually have the same volume of water as heavier, denser snow that is two feet deep.To account for this variation a measure called snow water equivalence is used to normalize the amount of liquid water in a given level of snow. Compare the average snow/water levels by year and elevation. The general trend is towards drier conditions, but wet years are interspersed with drier years. Notice that 2011 was a very wet year across all elevations, while 2015 was extremely dry.With astrolabes in Harvard's Scientific Instrument Collection In our newest series on the Women in Astronomy blog, we'd like to introduce our readers to the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. Jessica Mink has been a positional astronomer and developer of astronomical tools, data pipelines, and archives at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for over 30 years, working with data from ground-based (and one space-based) telescopes. Between her MIT BS and MS degrees and this job, she was involved in solar system optical spectroscopy, high-speed occultation photometry, and the geometrical astronomy and catalog development needed to predict the occulations she observed with her colleagues. Her life story is complicated by the fact that she has undergone some major changes that headed her toward the AAS CSWA and CSGMA. Describe the first time you made a personal connection with the planets and stars? Reading from the letters of Sophia Ripley, a cofounder of the Brook Farm Community I started out interested in the Earth: a large bag of mineral crystals we bought when I was seven from a grizzled prospector in the Black Hills of South Dakota got me interested in the stuff from which it was made. The astronauts were selected at about the same time, and I became a space buff, too, asking for a telescope for my birthday and getting interested in the moon and planets. I grew up far enough into the country that the Milky Way was visible on any clear night from my yard, too. How did you end up working in the field? After high school, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to study particle physics, planetary geology, or architecture. I went to MIT because I could go in any of these directions, and it turned out to be a good place for changing majors when I found out that I wasn't very good at physics but could make a computer do anything I wanted it to. I wrote code to model gravitational fields on the moon, map planet surfaces and reduce digital spectra. I also took courses to learn all of the ways that one could study planets in the early 1970's, putting together my own major in what I now call Planetary Astronomy or Comparative Planetology, depending on how Earth-centered I'm feeling. When I got married the day before I graduated, I became half of a two-body problem. After we spent a couple of years programming in areas unrelated to our scientific interests, during which time my spouse switched from artificial intelligence to wildlife ecology, we both applied to Cornell (attractions being Carl Sagan and a colony of skunks; it's complicated.). I didn't get in, but my spouse did, but in my rejection letter, Carl said there was a possibility of a job in his lab so I could prove my value and apply to the PhD program the following year.We moved, I got the job, which involved helping discover the Uranian rings (see below), and I started doing research and publishing papers. I didn't want to stop doing science to go back to school and get a PhD, so I just kept working. I have probably done a couple of theses worth of work over the years. And I know a lot about Eastern Striped Skunks, too, as my relationship with them turned out to last longer than the marriage. Who inspired you? My third grade teacher, Mrs. Higgins, got me interested in nature and everything around me. She was tough, and a lot of my classmates didn't like her, but I tried to meet her challenges, sometimes succeeding. When I was in high school, Carl Sagan started to become well-known to the general public, and I went into the local big city, Chicago, to hear him give a series of lectures, which strengthened my interest in solar system astronomy. I treasure a signed first edition of “Cosmic Connections”, published while I was in grad school at MIT, and the two and a half years I worked down the hall from him and got to hear him ask pertinent questions at colloquia. Jim Elliot was the most generous scientist I have ever known, making sure that everyone on our occultation team, including engineers and programmers, was involved in every aspect of the work and always got credit for their contributions. I was lucky to be able to work with him for 8 years. What is an astronomical software developer? I turn scientific knowledge into modeling and analysis software, performing many of the computations astrophysicists need to do their work but would rather have someone else do. The trick is to make that software accessible to everyone who can use it by turning it into a set of well-documented and testable tools, which I have done with RVSAO, an IRAF package for redshifts and radial velocities, which I wrote over 25 years ago and still maintain, and WCSTools, a standalone package of software tools for manipulating image files, catalogs, coordinates, and the world coordinate systems which tie them together. Along the way, I wrote data pipelines to make data usable, starting with one for one of the first digital spectrographs for my Masters thesis at MIT. This was followed by a suite of reduction and analysis software for high speed photometry (at Cornell and MIT), scan mapping of the infrared sky from the Spacelab 2 Infrared Telescope on the space shuttle (at SAO), and a series of one- and two-dimensional high and low resolution spectrographs (at SAO). Why are community issues important to you? Wearing the solar system I like people and think that a diverse group of people is more creative than a bunch of people who are alike. When I joined the AAS almost 35 years ago, I was the only one in my research group to be a member of the Division for Planetary Science and the Division on Dynamical Astronomy because my work involved combining precise solar system motions and star positions to study both the nature of planets and their environment and the nature of the stars they occulted. I got involved in both communities, serving on local organizing committees for both and the DDA division committee, as well as running the DDA's web site for 15 years. I value the community of astronomers as friends and colleagues and want it to be as good as it can be. When I changed gender, I simultaneously joined two professional minorities ( women astronomers and the much smaller group of transgender astronomers ). I found myself in the middle of a new unified campaign for inclusion of people from diverse backgrounds and identities. In the past year, I have learned a lot about what is still to be done through involvement with the first Inclusive Astronomy conference and the AAS Diversity Summit. Tell us about a favorite moment so far in your career. My favorite moment occurred when I was 25, less than 6 months into that new job at Cornell almost 40 years ago, while flying in the Kuiper Airborne Observatory somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean, when Jim Elliott, Ted Dunham, and I saw a star's signal from out high-speed photometer drop well before and well after it was blocked by Uranus, the atmosphere of which we were planning to probe. My exclamation,“Uranus has its own asteroid belt, obviously”, recorded and published in Jim Elliot's and Dick Kerr's “Rings”, turned out not to quite be true, as we were discovering the second known set of planetary rings in the solar system. What advice would you give to someone who wants to take the same career path as you? Be patient, work hard, and think about how to plan your life so you can do things you like to do in addition to astronomy. Finding partners who support what you do helps a lot, too, though lives change, and relationships aren't permanent. Sometimes, this takes sacrifices. What do you do for fun? Leading women cyclists on the Neponset River Greenway What are your goals as a part of the CSWA? I want to make sure that men, women, and others, both young and old, know that there are lots of ways for a woman to be a scientist, and that diversity makes for better science. What's next? I turn 65 in 2016, and want to keep on doing all of things I'm currently doing for as long as I can and get more involved with exoplanet research and the history of astronomical data. I have several older role models around me that have shown how productive one can remain.New York City's rank-and-file police union is urging cops to tell Mayor Bill de Blasio not to attend their funerals in the event that they are killed in the line of duty. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association posted a link on its website telling members not to let de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito "insult their sacrifice" should they be killed. The union posted a “Don’t Insult My Sacrifice” waiver officers can sign requesting the two politicians not attend their funerals due to their "consistent refusal to show police officers the support and respect they deserve." The waiver says that attendance of the two elected officials “at the funeral of a fallen New York City police officer is an insult to that officer’s memory and sacrifice.” The New York Post reports the mayor and council speaker are calling the effort "deeply disappointing." "Incendiary rhetoric like this serves only to divide the city, and New Yorkers reject these tactics," they said in a joint statement. Sources told the Post the union is angry that the mayor did not show more support for the NYPD after a grand jury decided not to indict the officer involved in the death of Staten Islander Eric Garner. In a press conference about the grand jury’s decision not to charge the officer, de Blasio announced that he had warned his 17-year-old, mixed-race son, Dante, to be careful around police officers, which caused PBA President Patrick Lynch to claim de Blasio had thrown NYPD officers “under the bus.” Click for more from the New York Post. The Associated Press contributed to this report.People with serious mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have higher morbidity and mortality rates due to physical illness. It’s estimated that people with SMI die 10-15 years earlier than the general population (DeHert et al, 2011). Increasingly attention is being paid to ways to improve the physical health of people with SMI, for example looking at reducing smoking or increasing exercise. This new review (Kaltenthaler et al, 2014) was commissioned to examine a particularly sensitive and neglected physical health issue, namely sexual health. People with SMI are more likely to engage in sexually risky behaviours and there is a higher HIV infection rate amongst people with SMI compared to the general population. However, the sexual health needs of people with SMI have tended to be ignored. The team from Sheffield health research group ScHARR aimed to review the available evidence on the effectiveness of sexual health promotion in this population, to identify where further research is needed. Methods The authors systematically searched for any controlled trials (both randomised and non-randomised) of sexual health promotion interventions. They included all types of interventions – educational, behavioural, psychological and so on, delivered at any level (group, individual or community.) They included studies looking at adults (over 18) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. They excluded populations with dementia, personality or intellectual disability. They conducted a narrative review as the differences in study design and type of outcomes measured meant they couldn’t pool the statistical outcomes to perform a meta-analysis. Results 13 randomised controlled trials were found to meet the inclusion criteria The trials varied widely in terms of duration of the intervention, length of follow up and what type of comparator groups were used (for example whether the sexual health promotion intervention was compared to a waiting list or to educational sessions) The participants included also varied widely, in terms of demographics (for example ethnicity, whether only males or females were included) and where they were recruited from, ranging across a substance abuse treatment programme, drop-in centres, outpatient clinics and homeless shelters. There was similarly a mixed bag in terms of effectiveness: 4 of the studies reported improvements across all outcomes 4 reported improvements on some outcomes outcomes 2 reported improvements for certain subgroups only (based on gender and ethnicity) 2 reported no differences between the intervention and comparison groups Only 2 of the studies were considered to have ‘very few’ methodological limitations Notably, all of the trials were from the USA, so the authors note that it’s uncertain whether the findings generalise to the UK and beyond. Conclusions The authors state: There is insufficient evidence to fully support or reject the identified sexual health interventions for people with SMI. The authors reported that there was a lack of detail about what happened in the interventions, which makes it hard to judge whether the intervention would be applicable in different settings. This has implications for assessing how feasible it would be to provide such interventions, for example whether they can be provided in routine care. The authors comment that: There needs to be an assessment of whether or not sexual health interventions could be integrated into the current care provision provided for people with SMI on the NHS. The authors recommend that robust and well-designed trials are now run here in the UK. The cost of delivering sexual promotion interventions and the acceptability of the intervention to patients also need to be researched. Acceptability and feasibility are crucial questions for any complex intervention, and likely to be particularly important in this context given the sensitivity of the issue and the uncertainties around how best to improve physical health care for this group. Limitations The broad inclusion criteria, for example not differentiating based on type of intervention, make it difficult to compare across the studies. Most of the studies included participants with a range of disorders. For example, several of the included studies included people with major depressive disorder, and the authors’ state it wasn’t possible to pull out the findings only for people with SMI. The included studies tended to report self-reported outcomes which may be open to bias. None of the studies provided data on objective behavioural outcomes such as unintended pregnancy or uptake of screening. The fact that people with SMI have higher risk of poor sexual health may be related to other vulnerabilities such as substance abuse, homelessness and childhood abuse which we know are also more prevalent amongst people with SMI and are linked to sexually risky behaviours. Addressing these complex combinations of risk is likely to be especially challenging, so future studies may need to specifically explore whether interventions are effective for these particularly vulnerable subgroups. Links Kaltenthaler E, Pandor A, Wong R. The effectiveness of sexual health interventions for people with severe mental illness: a systematic review (PDF). Health Technol Assess 2014;18(1). De Hert M, Correll CU, Bobes J, Cetkovich-Bakmas M, Cohen D, Asai I, Detraux J, Gautam S, Möller HJ, Ndetei DM, Newcomer JW, Uwakwe R, Leucht S. Physical illness in patients with severe mental disorders. I. Prevalence, impact of medications and disparities in health care. World Psychiatry. 2011 Feb;10(1):52-77.How can people vote early if they can't get to their polling place? The answer is they can't. But in Hamilton County, Ohio, following a vote to move the county's Board of Elections from its current location in densely-populated downtown Cincinnati, the county's only in-person early voting site may soon become inaccessible to thousands of Hamilton County residents. As the above map makes clear, for the members of the 40 to 55 percent of households in downtown Cincinnati who don't have access to a vehicle (many of whom are below the poverty line ), moving the in-person early voting site to the remote suburb of Mount Airy could be tantamount to removing their access to the ballot. You see, early in-person voting makes casting a ballot more convenient, and therefore more accessible, especially for voters on tight schedules, who tend to come from traditionally- underrepresented groups. In addition to extending the vote to the overextended, early in-person voting shortens Election Day lines, and reduces the administrative toll on poll workers and electors alike, thereby reducing the potential for mistakes. In fact, increased access to early-in person voting was one of the key recommendations of the bipartisan Presidential Commission of Election Administration (PCEA) report released last month. The PCEA was established last year, partially in response to complaints about long lines on Election Day in 2012. What makes early in-person voting such an important tool to increasing voter accessibility is that it's convenient; it is precisely this aspect that the proposed move most threatens. In its current location, Hamilton County's early in-person voting site is within five miles of 59 percent of Cincinnati residents, and is easily accessible by public transportation. This site is also accessible to residents throughout the county, as over 80 percent of households in and around Mount Airy have access to a car. By contrast, the Mount Airy site is convenient to only 29 percent of Cincinnati's residents, and is a staggering 1.5 hour bus ride from downtown Cincinnati. This means that, for many downtown residents, early in-person voting comes at the cost of three-hour round trip bus ride. State and municipal authorities have voiced their opposition to moving the early in-person voting site. Cincinnati Mayor John Cranely is so convinced that moving the county's early in-person voting site away from downtown will have a negative impact on downtown voters that he agreed to let the Board of Elections use a downtown Cincinnati building in lieu of a move. Secretary of State John Husted agreed that it would be the most "logical" decision to keep early in-person voting in downtown Cincinnati. We hope that the Hamilton County BOE applies Secretary of State Husted's logic and works to keep Hamilton County's in-person early voting convenient and accessible.Image caption The element plutonium was used to create one of the new additions to the Periodic Table Scientists have put forward their suggested names for the newest additions to the Periodic Table. If the names are accepted, element 114 will become Flerovium (Fl) in honour of the physicist Georgiy Flerov. While element 116 will become Livermorium (Lv), after the Californian laboratory where it was discovered. The table's governing body will officially endorse the names in five month's time, 10 years after the elements were discovered. The newest elements were among a handful of elements put forward for inclusion in the table in recent years. They were accredited in June this year after a three year review by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). The other putative heavy elements, 113, 115, and 118, are still under review. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in collaboration with a team at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna, Russia, discovered the newest additions to the periodic table by smashing calcium ions into the element curium to create element 116, which quickly decays to element 114. The teams also created element 114 separately by replacing curium with a plutonium target. IUPAC will officially accept the proposed names after giving the public time to comment on the discoverers' choice.A crew sets out to retrieve a measurement device in a Greenland fjord and passes by a small hanging glacier on its side wall that is unleashing a stream of water into the ocean. (Dustin Carroll) There were no scientists around circa 11,000 years ago, when the great Laurentide Ice Sheet, which once covered much of present day North America, began to collapse in numerous stages and eventually dwindled into a collection of much smaller ice caps across Alaska and Canada, raising seas by tens of feet. So no one could observe all of the processes that, as the Northern Hemisphere warmed, led to its undoing. Today, though, scientists studying the ice sheet covering Greenland — which survived when the Laurentide Ice Sheet didn’t — are watching something that may be highly analogous. And this time, they’re taking measurements. As a result, what is coming into focus is that there appears to be a crucial interaction between ice melting on an ice sheet’s surface, forming into pools and lakes, and ice falling directly into the ocean where glaciers, extending out from the ice sheet’s center, terminate in often extremely deep waters. But precisely how they work together — and how much they could speed Greenland’s melt — is only beginning to reveal itself. Two recent studies in Geophysical Research Letters each home in on different aspects of this linkage. And they do so by studying two apparently connected phenomena: The formation of sometimes vast lakes of meltwater on the ice sheet’s surface, and the release of huge “plumes” of meltwater beneath outlet glaciers that themselves are mostly submerged in the ocean. [As Trump denies climate change, scientists fear we’re about to blow past the 2-degree red line] One of the most remarkable features of Greenland’s melting — and this is probably true of all ice sheets — is the formation of what scientists term “supraglacial lakes” on its surface. In Greenland, these lakes can be very large — with an area of 2 square miles in one case — and can also suddenly disappear, draining down into the depths of the ice sheet below. That’s very bad, because researchers suspect that this drainage has what they often refer to as a lubricating effect on the bottom of the ice sheet, helping it slide toward the sea. But Greenland’s future should include many more of these kinds of lakes, say Ádám Ignéczi of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and a group of colleagues at British and Belgian universities in one of the studies. Taking inventories and measurements of depressions in the current ice sheet where supraglacial lakes could potentially form, and then using a climate model to project future temperatures, the researchers found that the number of these lakes could expand greatly and that the volume of water they contain could grow by between 113 and 174 percent by the end of the century, depending upon the amount of greenhouse gases humans emit. By that time, the lakes could potentially hold between 10 billion and 12.5 billion tons of water. “In the future, with warming, the meltwater volume could increase, and that can cause lakes to form,” Ignéczi said. Moreover, the greatest potential for the lakes to grow is not in the southwestern region of Greenland, where temperatures are warmer and lakes are already abundant, but rather, in the ice sheet’s remote northeast, which will melt more and more as the years advance. The northeast ice stream of Greenland drains 12 percent of all of the ice sheet’s ice through two enormous glaciers named Zachariae Isstrom and Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden. Greenland would contribute 1.1 meters to total sea level rise if these glaciers were lost. And this broad sector of Greenland is expected to experience a 191 to 320 percent growth in surface lakes by 2100, the study finds, depending on the emissions scenario. Supraglacial lake on the Store Glacier, Greenland (Photo: Sam Doyle, Aberystwyth University) That’s bad enough, but a key issue is what happens when lakes drain — which some percentage do, sometimes quite rapidly — and where the water goes. And here we turn to the study of Greenland’s underwater “plumes,” taken up in a second paper by Dustin Carroll of the University of Oregon and his colleagues based at several universities in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. These plumes are huge pulses of meltwater that originate at Greenland’s surface but somehow make their way below the ice sheet and ultimately exit deep underwater at the bases of marine-terminating, or “tidewater,” glaciers. That’s right: For at least some percentage of Greenland’s surface lakes, when they drain the water ends up exiting the ice sheet not only far away from where it entered at the surface but also deep below the ocean surface. We can’t easily observe where these plumes come out, because it is often hundreds of meters deep in waters that are dangerously cold — but the image at the top of this article captures a close analogue from a glacier that is perched on the rocky side of a fjord and doesn’t extend down into the sea. In essence, a vast flow of water has hollowed out a space beneath the glacier and enters the ocean as a waterfall. According to Carroll, though, this is a small side-glacier in a fjord containing a much deeper and more vast main glacier. In other words, under water, the flow of fresh water could be more massive than this. The key aspect of these underwater plumes, though, is how they behave — which is not dissimilar from other types of plumes with which we have more experience. “Almost everybody knows from looking at plumes — you walk outside, you see a smokestack or fire — is that they tend to get larger as they rise; they tend to grown and spread,” Carroll said. “And that’s because as the plume rises, it’s mixing more and more of the surrounding air and water into it. The same thing happens at the base of these glaciers in Greenland. As the plumes rise, they incorporate more and more of this ocean water into the plume. It’s bringing in all that warm ocean water.” (In deep Greenland fjords, the warmest and saltiest water is found at the greatest depths.) [The Arctic is being utterly transformed — and we’re just starting to grasp the consequences] Carroll’s study finds that for really large and deep glaciers, whose ice fronts may extend close to a kilometer deep into the water, plumes can emerge very deep and melt the glacier base, causing it to become unstable and retreat. For shallower glaciers, though, rather than undercutting a glacier, plumes tend to have the opposite role, undermining the ice on top, rather than at the bottom. This is bad news, because it means that the biggest, deepest glaciers get it the worst. “This kind of erosion at depth, this undercutting, could really lead to substantial retreat in the right conditions,” Carroll said. “I think this is a potential feedback,” he continued. “The more melt we have on the Greenland ice sheet, the more water drains down to the bed, the plumes are more vigorous, and they’re going to draw in more ocean water and transport heat to the ice. This is a direct ocean feedback that’s really going to amplify as there’s more melting on the ice sheet.” Scientists continue to learn about how melting on Greenland’s surface can also cause it to melt from below. The question now is whether, after taking all of this into account, they are able to predict a significantly faster rate of ice loss during this century — which, if they do, would have consequences for coasts around the globe.This article originally appeared at Strategic Culture Foundation U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry either has a blind spot when it comes to the last 15 years of U.S. foreign policy or he told a big whopping lie in Geneva. Kerry, in defining U.S. action in Ukraine, said that «We [the United States] are not involved in multiple color revolutions». Someone in Kerry’s position should know better. After all, he is not only the chief foreign policy officer of the United States but he served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2009 to 2013 and was a member of the committee from the very outset of America’s «themed» or «color» revolutions, beginning with the October 5th Revolution, which overthrew Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The chief of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, correctly said that the United States is funding Russian opposition groups and using sanctions over Ukraine to promote civil society discontent leading to a color revolution in Russia. The alarming record of U.S. support for color revolutions around the world speaks for itself. What is even more galling about Kerry’s denial of U.S. operations aimed at overthrowing various governments is that it was he who chaired a series of hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1987 to 1989 on the covert Central Intelligence Agency war to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. In 25 years, Kerry has gone from a firebrand opponent of CIA coup d’état and destabilization operations to a consummate cover-up artist for these activities. After the overthrow of Milosevic in 2000 in a street protest-turned-revolution that followed the Gene Sharp/CIA manual to the tee and which was backed by the granddaddy of all NGO protest groups, OTPOR!, there were some 20 themed revolutions in rapid succession. These were followed by the «Arab Spring» themed revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Soros and his NGOs’ fingerprints were found on smaller attempted revolutions from Honduras to Maldives. OTPOR personnel were even dispatched to some of these countries, courtesy of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to assist in the fomenting of rebellion. Mr. Kerry says Washington was not involved in «multiple color revolutions». Why did he use the term «multiple color revolutions?» Because there has been repeated U.S. support for multiple color revolutions as the following list attests: The United States supported the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the Olive Tree Revolution in Palestine (that saw Hamas come to power and effectively split the Palestinian independence movement), the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, the Purple Revolution in Iraq (that saw a Shi'a-dominated government friendly to Iran come to power, spelling the end of the unified Iraqi state), Blue Revolution in Kuwait, Saffron Revolution in Burma (one that was crushed by the military) and the Crimson Revolution in Tibet (put down by the Chinese security forces), and the abortive Green Revolution in Iran. There were also attempted themed revolutions in Moldova (the Grape Revolution), Mongolia (the Yellow Revolution, which was partially successful), Uzbekistan (the Cotton Revolution), the autonomous Russian Republic of Bashkortostan (Orange Revolution), Ecuador (the Police Revolution), Bolivia (the Gas Revolution in the four secessionist natural gas-producing provinces), and Belarus (the Denim Revolution). Not to be omitted is the Orange Democratic Movement's uprising in Kenya, one that saw thousands murdered before the Orange movement's leader Raila Odinga became Prime Minister in a power-sharing government. These color revolutions were followed by the U.S. - and Soros - supported Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, the Lotus Revolution in Egypt, the Twitter Revolution in Syria, and the uprising in Yemen. From the Middle East, the revolution engineers set out to attempt themed coups in Maldives (Yellow Revolution), Indonesia (the ill-fated «Sandal Revolution»), and the «Pots and Pans Revolution in Venezuela. Soros's "Yellow Revolution" government in Maldives was ousted in a counter-coup by the vice president and police. After the CIA-engineered coup against the democratically-elected president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya in 2009, the military-backed junta received the support of the wealthy elites who marched in the streets in support of the junta and adopted the color white in support of the military-installed president Roberto Micheletti. What did then-Senator Kerry say about that themed coup, the first carried out by the Obama administration? Kerry supported Zelaya’s goal of returning to power because Zelaya was the democratically-elected president of Honduras. Today, Kerry does not support the return of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to power in Kiev even though he too was democratically-elected and forced out unconstitutionally. When the Law Library of the U.S. Congress concluded that Zelaya’s removal was unconstitutional, it was Senator Kerry who demanded that the finding be reversed. Surely, Mr. Kerry learned the meaning of the word «hypocrite» while attending Yale and Boston College. The history of U.S. support for themed revolutions continued well after the Arab Spring. After the second Ukrainian themed revolution against the Yanukovych presidency, the so-called «Euromaidan Revolution,» there were also attempted themed uprisings in Russia (the «Blue Bucket Revolution») and Macedonia. There is no way on earth that Kerry can deny the themed color nature of U.S.-funded uprisings. As first seen with the Orange Revolution in Kiev in 2004, which was most definitely a Soros- and CIA-funded revolution that denied presidential winner Yanukovych the presidency and installed pro-U.S. Viktor Yushchenko and the corrupt Yulia Tymoshenko into power, flags and orange banners were ubiquitous on Kiev's Central Square. In the most recent Ukrainian «Euromaidan» revolution, revealed by America's bread-distributing maven of European affairs, Victoria Nuland, to have cost the U.S. taxpayers $5 billion, factory fresh red and black Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) flags appeared on Kiev's Central Square, renamed Maidan Square, and throughout Kiev. In the NED- and USAID-financed themed revolutions in Libya and Syria, factory-fresh flags of the former regimes, the King Idris regime of Libya and post-colonial and pro-French «Syrian Republic,» respectively, appeared practically overnight on the streets of Benghazi and Tripoli, as well as Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus. The old Kingdom of Libya standard is now the national flag of the dysfunctional "Republic of Libya," which is split between rival governments in Tripoli and Tobruk. In the case of Syria, the pre-Assad flag is now used by the Salafist-allied Free Syrian Army and is recognized as the flag of Syria by the United States, NATO, and the European Union. China has not been immune to the American color revolutions. China’s defenses against such operations were tested first in Tibet and most recently in Hong Kong. Soros's daughter, Andrea Soros Colombel, is the founder and president
and foreign policy, who stood a chance in the general election, and who was more plugged in to the party apparatus would be totally acceptable to the #NeverTrumpers, in spite of his obvious and dangerous bigotry. That's disturbing. It suggests that #NeverTrumpers listen to Trump's anti-Muslim, anti-Latino invective and think, "This guy is unacceptable because he doesn't want to cut Medicare."WASHINGTON—Donald Trump’s secretary of state nominee painted a vision for a pragmatic, stronger U.S. foreign policy and faced extensive questions on Russia during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. “We will never apologize for who we are or what we hold dear,” said Rex Tillerson, ExxonMobil’s CEO from 2006 to 2016. “We will see the world for what it is, be honest with ourselves and the American people, follow the facts where they lead us, and hold ourselves and others accountable.” Tillerson criticized the Obama administration for not following through on its promises and not holding other countries to their commitments. He cited dangers from China and Russia but identified Islamic terrorism as the greatest threat to the United States. “Defeating ISIS must be our foremost priority in the Middle East,” said Tillerson, who pledged also to win the war of ideas. “I will ensure the State Department does its part in supporting Muslims around the world who reject radical Islam in all its forms.” Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Texas Republicans who are not on the committee, introduced Tillerson, 64, as a lifelong Texan whose 41-year career with ExxonMobil made him well-qualified to become the nation’s top diplomat. Former Secretary of State Robert Gates and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., also spoke in support of his confirmation. Tillerson said he would, if confirmed, fully divest himself of financial interest in ExxonMobil and for the first year would recuse himself from any matters involving his former company, in accordance with the law. He said after that he would consult with counsel, spurning Democratic calls to recuse himself for his entire tenure. Lawmakers repeatedly drilled Tillerson about his views on Russia, where ExxonMobil has vast business interests, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Tillerson knows personally. The most explosive exchange came from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who asked a string of questions about Putin—including whether he was a war criminal. “I would not use that term,” Tillerson said. Rubio launched into a detailed account of Putin’s offenses, including attacks on civilians in Aleppo, Syria, the deaths of numerous political opponents, and wars in Chechnya, which some estimate killed as many as 300,000 people. Tillerson noted his lack of access to classified information and said he would need all of it before making a judgment (reasoning he later used when asked if Saudi Arabia was a human rights abuser). “There’s so much info out there about what’s happened in Aleppo,” Rubio shot back. “It should not be hard to say Vladimir Putin has committed war crimes in Aleppo.” Committee chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., sensing the significance of the exchange, twice circled back for clarification. He asked Tillerson if he would acknowledge Putin’s actions as war crimes if he had sufficient information to prove they occurred. Tillerson said yes, but Democrats later pressed him more on the issue. Rubio’s questioning signaled he’s not close to supporting Tillerson’s confirmation, which is crucial: Republicans hold a single-seat advantage on the committee, 11-10, so Rubio and 10 Democrats could block Tillerson. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also seemed skeptical. Members of both parties pressed Tillerson on the role of sanctions, citing past statements in which he called them ineffective. Tillerson told lawmakers he never lobbied against sanctions and considers them “an important, powerful tool,” but “poorly designed sanctions can be worse than no sanctions at all if they convey a weak response.” Tillerson said a perceived weak response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea emboldened Putin, whose goal is to reassert his country’s importance on the global stage. Tillerson said his response would have included urging Ukraine to put all of its military assets on its border with Russia and announcing arms, intelligence, and air surveillance cooperation with Ukraine. “What Russia would have understood was a powerful response that showed ‘this stops right here,’” said Tillerson, who vowed to live up to America’s NATO obligations, including use of force, if necessary. On multiple occasions, Tillerson said aid is a key lever of foreign policy that he would use when possible. “Our values are our interests when it comes to human rights and humanitarian assistance,” Tillerson said. “Our leadership demands action specifically focused on improving the conditions of people the world over, utilizing both aid and economic sanctions.” Tillerson said he’s seen first-hand the positive effects of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) in Africa, a program started under President George W. Bush and continued under the Obama administration: “It’s probably brought more goodwill than any other program on the continent.” In nine hours of testimony, no senator asked Tillerson about his tenure running the Boy Scouts or LGBT issues, which Secretary of State John Kerry called “the core of our commitment to advancing human rights” in 2015 when he unveiled the first-ever special envoy for LGBT rights. Critics say the Obama State Department has often prioritized LGBT rights at the expense of traditional human rights and lethal persecution against numerous people groups, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shiite Muslims.Photo via Getty Images American Century hosts an annual celebrity golf tournament at the Edgewood Tahoe South golf course in Lake Tahoe, Calif every July. This year, many current and former Oakland Raiders are expected to compete including Raiders kicker Sebastian Janikowski, retired legendary Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson, retired running back Marcus Allen and wide receiver Tim Brown, per Bay Area News Group’s Jimmy Durkin. Tim Brown, Marcus Allen and Sebastian Janikowski are the other current/former #Raiders scheduled to play July 14-16. — Jimmy Durkin (@Jimmy_Durkin) April 19, 2017 For any of Raider Nation who wants to watch the tournament, it will be live on NBC Sports and streaming online on NBC’s Golf Live Extra at 3 p.m. (PT) on Friday, July 14, and at 12 p.m. (PT) on July 14-15. For fans interested in attending the event to watch their favorite Raiders hack it around the course, they can purchase their tickets on the American Century Championship website. Ryan is currently a student at the University of North Carolina. He grew up in the Bay Area and has had Raiders season tickets his entire life fostering his love for the NFL. He has founded his own sports website, thejrreport.com and works at the Sports Desk for the Daily Tar Heel. You can follow Ryan on twitter @rytime98 if you want to discuss anything sports. http://thejrreport.com Advertisements Like this: Like Loading...Author: Bruce Byfield For many average users, GNU/Linux support for PDF files may seem reasonably advanced. They can create PDF files in programs like OpenOffice.org, read them with programs like Kpdf, and edit them in programs like pdftk or PDFedit. But that's not the whole story, says José Marchesi, founder of the recently created GNU PDF project. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of missing features in the existing free implementations," he says. That's the main reason why the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has declared GNU PDF a high priority project, and is actively seeking donations to speed its progress. Marchesi is a long-time support of the GNU Project, the umbrella organization for free software projects connected to the FSF. In 1999, he founded GNU Spain, and he later assisted in the creation of GNU Italy and GNU Mexico. He has also contributed to GNU Ghostscript, GNU gv, and GNU Ferret, the first two of which provide support for both PDF and the closely related PostScript format. In addition, Marchesi performs what he calls "random works" in the GNU Project, such as writing internal code and editing Web pages as needed. Marchesi says he first became aware of the need for better free PDF support a few years ago in his role as maintainer of gv. In December 2005, Marchesi tried to update the Ghostscript PDF interpreter that gv uses, only to find it was technically impractical. The solution, he decided, was to attack the problem at a more basic level, and, after he discussed the problem with members of the FSF and GNU Project, GNU PDF was born. The reasons for a new PDF project According to Marchesi, full support for PDF is urgent for a number of reasons, both technical and political. On the technical level, once Marchesi started investigating, he discovered a great deal of PDF functionality that is either missing or incomplete: "interactive features (forms, annotations), the management of embedded contents (sounds and movies), execution of JavaScript to perform forms validation, 3-D artwork, accessibility, Web capturing, [and] management of document collections." Many users are unaware of these lacks, either because they never use such features or because, Marchesi says, "The PDF standard is quite careful when providing backward compatibility: When a PDF consumer application (such as a viewer) finds an unknown construct (such as 3-D artwork), it can (and should) ignore it. But in fact you may be missing information." The GNU Project would like to see a full implementation of the upcoming ISO 32000 standard for PDF. Despite the increasing frequency with which PDF is used for corporate and academic purposes, all software that provides the highest levels of support for the ISO standard is proprietary, which means that, without a concerted effort, free software users could be left behind. Marchesi also says, "We want a GPLv3 implementation of PDF. Almost all of the existing alternatives are licensed under GPLv2 only." Besides the obvious credibility involved in having the new version of the license used, no doubt an important consideration is the conviction that a GPLv3 program will provide greater protection of users' freedoms. The approach Marchesi considered adding the missing functionality to existing free PDF libraries, the project quickly discovered that this idea was impractical, given GNU PDF's engineering goals. "Our objective is to provide the same level of PDF support as Adobe [Acrobat]," Marchesi says, referring to the leading proprietary PDF program. "So we need a general and complete library that provides enough functionality to build an Acrobat-like program on top of it. This requires capabilities to both read and manipulate PDF files in an integrated library. None of the existing free implementations provides that [integration]. Some of them are designed to provide rasterization of PDF pages, such as Ghostscript, Xpdf, and Poppler, while others are designed to provide facilities for PDF manipulation, such as PoDoFo." Each is suitable for its particular purposes, but not for the integrated support envisioned by GNU PDF. GNU PDF's first goal is to write a library in the C programming language "intended to be used by both PDF consumer and PDF product applications," Marchesi says. "The library will be similar to the Adobe PDF Library, providing access to several layers of abstraction. In this way, the library will be useful for many kinds of applications, not just viewers." The next step will be to write an application that has already been labelled GNU Juggler, "an Acrobat-like application on top of the library." GNU Juggler, Marchesi says, "will be a specialized PDF viewer and editor." To help with the application's creation, a member of GNU PDF project is already performing a functional analysis of the latest edition of Acrobat Professional, Adobe's flagship PDF product, in order to reverse-engineer it. One thing GNU PDF will not have to do is write a graphics library. Project members have already concluded that they can use libcairo. The members of the Cairo project are aware of GNU PDF, and some have already started discussing having the GNU PDF library being integrated with their work. Realizing the project goals The FSF has set up a Web page for donations to GNU PDF -- a first for any of its ongoing high-priority projects, although the FSF did briefly help collect pledges for the Free Ryzom campaign last year. However, Marchesi emphasizes that "we will go ahead with the project in any case." Donations would allow the project to hire full-time developers, instead of the volunteers more usual in a new free software project. "To write the GNU PDF library and GNU Juggler is a really big task, and we want to do it really fast," Marchesi says. "It is crucial for us to have a free, complete, and high-quality implementation of the PDF standard as soon as possible."PoliZette Handicapping the First Trump-Clinton Debate LifeZette's 'Debate Squad' says what to watch for in the first critical showdown of 2016 LifeZette asked leading conservatives, debate experts, political scientists, and GOP consultants what they expect from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their first presidential debate showdown. Most agreed Clinton, in one way or another, could suffer from over-preparation against a more unpredictable and nimble GOP nominee. But the experts urged plenty of caution for Trump: Tthe line between winning the debate and appearing too aggressive will be thin and easily crossed — particularly with a hungry media waiting for any slip to attack. Trump dispatched … a number of the best and brightest the Republican Party had to offer. And he did it with ease. Expect unlikable and dishonest Hillary to emerge, be exposed, and lose. Advertisement Some suggest Trump needs to bring out the policy detail, while others think he needs to solely focus on hammering Clinton on her weaknesses. Everyone agrees, the showdown will have a huge implications for which candidate hits the trail Tuesday with momentum at their back. Grover Norquist Donald Trump can win the election in tonight’s debate if he simply and clearly states this truth: He will reduce the tax burden carried by the American people, while Hillary Clinton has promised to increase the burden by more than $1.3 trillion. Trump’s tax reduction will lower taxes on American businesses — which are now higher than even the 25-percent European average — to 15 percent. This will make America truly competitive again. Trump’s plan will cut taxes on people with children, people with retirement savings, people who are self-employed, and for the old and the young and for those who have health insurance. Taking the country in the opposite direction would be Hillary Clinton, who will raise taxes on everyone. Clinton has promised to increase taxes on small businesses, on individuals, on people who die, on people who drink soda, on people who buy guns, and on people who earn a wage of any amount. (The last tax hike proposal being one she borrowed from Bernie Sanders, by the way.) Advertisement [lz_jwplayer video=0KMqmjN3] For public transparency, Americans for Tax Reform has made the complete list of Hillary’s tax increases available at www.HighTaxHillary.com. Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform. Brian Darling Donald Trump’s anti-establishment message is a debate winner and he will be squared off against the poster child of the establishment – first lady, senator, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump’s tough talk will be his biggest advantage. He can attack her from the opening bell and immediately point to Clinton’s accusation that half the Republican Party is made up of deplorable racists. Trump can also make Hillary’s time at the State Department a liability because of Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation corruption scandal, and her mishandling of classified information. Expect Trump’s aggressive and politically unorthodox debate tactics to keep Clinton on the defensive. He proved to be a competent wrecking ball in the Republican primary, debate after debate. Trump dispatched Republican establishment darling Jeb Bush, scrappy Sen. Ted Cruz, and a number of the best and brightest the Republican Party had to offer. And he did it with ease. Expect unlikable and dishonest Hillary to emerge, be exposed, and lose. Brian Darling is a former senior communications director and counsel for Sen. Rand Paul. Ron Bonjean The first debate should be the most impactful and defining one of the series and could determine the outcome of the November elections. The stakes are so high that it feels like the equivalent of the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Heavy Weight Boxing Title match combined. Hillary Clinton will shine with her knowledge of policy and has surely memorized several soundbites to try and frame her opponent. However, Trump has the edge because she is defending the status quo of the Obama administration and her lack of transparency over numerous issues. [lz_graphiq id=6EpKzEhOQNT] Trump should be careful and not to overplay his hand like he did with Carly Fiorina and come across as arrogant or womanizing to the millions of female voters tuning into the event. He’ll need to make his case respectfully, even when he comes at her with one-line attacks that are outside the box. Trump must show the American people that he represents change they can trust and will be a positive alternative. He cannot allow Hillary to bait him into traps that paint him as a risky choice or the election could be decided without allowing a real chance for a comeback. Ron Bonjean is a partner of the public affairs firm Rokk Solutions. He remains the first person to serve as the lead spokesman in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He has served as a strategist for the Republican National Committee in numerous senior communications roles for high-ranking officials. Eddie Zipperer This debate is expected to be a Super Bowl-level event. I’m the biggest Falcons fan there is, and even I’m skipping out on Monday Night Football. With so many eyes on it, everything that happens in this debate will be magnified, and it will have a way more pronounced effect on the polls than any debate in modern history. Advertisement Trump should be on his best behavior. He’s debated several times now, but this will be the first debate where he’s trying to attract a majority of the nation instead of a plurality of the GOP — two very different goals. He’ll still be Trump, but he’ll hold back enough to show the temperament swing voters are watching for. Fair or not, everyone will be watching to see if Hillary Clinton can make it through the debate without collapsing. 90 minutes of standing is tough no matter what, but she’s supposedly getting over pneumonia which makes it much tougher. Will her legs give out? Will she have another hack attack? With the video of her collapse still fresh in the minds of voters, she desperately needs to come across as strong and healthy. Eddie Zipperer is assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College and a regular LifeZette contributor. Ben Voth On Monday, Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in New York, records are likely to be broken regarding the U.S. presidential debate viewership ratings. The record is 80 million viewers in 1980 for the first debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. The second largest audience was a vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden in 2008. The unique dynamics of this election and radically different styles and personalities will likely draw an unusually large audience that would be a minimum of 50 million viewers. Some predict upwards of 100 million. Clinton will argue that she has the best temperament and experience to be president. She will argue that her work as secretary of state and a U.S. senator makes her a relatively strong expert on both American domestic and foreign policy. She will also attack the temperament of Donald Trump. Trump will argue that he is the best change agent for the nation. He will argue that he is dramatically needed change. The points of change will likely focus on economic strength and the risks of terrorism at home and abroad. He will argue that Clinton is an emphatic reflection of corruption. Advertisement The critical question for the viewing audience will be the extent to which they believe change in American politics is in fact necessary. If the audience concludes that change is necessary, then Trump will likely be judged the winner. If the audience concludes that change is not necessary, then Clinton will be deemed the winner by most. Clinton tends to be more reserved and will try to be a calm contrast to Trump. Trump will also try to enact a more calm presidential persona. Both will try to provoke the opponent to act out in a manner that can be understood as “un-presidential.” That will not likely prevent both sides from becoming quite animated and even frustrated over the 90 minutes that the debate will last. Historically, debates tend not to score decisive results on who will win the election in November. The largest polling change in the month of October as measured by Gallup was the 2000 election where George W. Bush went from -4 to +8 in relation to sitting Vice President Al Gore. Most poll positions change in a significantly smaller range at the end of one month of debating. Incumbents almost always lose the first debate. 2012 debate #1 was the worst loss in history — with Gallup scoring Obama’s loss at roughly 70 to 20. It is difficult to predict who will win this debate. The role of the moderators is important and not given enough scrutiny. If the moderators intervene heavily, this will lead to more preference for Trump. If there is less intervention, Clinton would likely prevail. It would be best if candidates fact-checked one another instead of the moderator. It will also be important to see whether each is given the same amount of time to speak. Clinton’s lower amount of campaign activity and debating compared to Trump will be a preparation limitation she will need to overcome in order to win the debate. Advertisement Dr. Ben Voth is director of debate and associate professor at Southern Methodist University. Cleta Mitchell Donald Trump should demonstrate through his demeanor the false narrative painted of him over the last several months by Hillary Clinton, her super-wealthy allies, and the liberal media. Advertisement Three ways: Smile (no frown lines, be friendly to the viewers). Be calm (this isn’t a campaign rally, and people don’t like yelling from presidential candidates). Reiterate his values and principles. Hillary is a policy wonk but presidential campaigns are about values and principles, not just issues. Trump must stand firm for the principles that made America great to begin with, and will make America great again — safety at home and abroad. Secure borders. Legal immigration. Strong military. Economic growth for more than the elites. Constitutional judges. Weave the story of his life’s success as a result of America’s great opportunity society, compared to Hillary’s wealth built upon cronyism, and her family’s vast influence-peddling enterprise. Donald Trump just needs to be true to his principles in a way that reassures the American people that she is lying about him, as she lies about everything. Cleta Mitchell is an attorney for several conservative organizations. Robert Kaufman Clinton would make a huge mistake underestimating or condescending to Donald Trump in tonight’s debate, as his Republican opponents in the primaries he demolished could attest. She has the added burden of defending an indefensible record as secretary of state, just as domestic terrorism and foreign defiance of Obama’s weakness has surged. If history offers any guide, the experienced Clinton will lose the debate if she does not win; whereas the challenger wins if he does not lose. Think of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, where the public construed Kennedy holding his own as a victory. Think likewise of the Reagan-Carter debate of 1980 where Reagan reassured an anxious nation in a neck-and-neck race that he offered a safer, saner, alternative to Carter’s domestic and international vacillations and incompetence. Advertisement Whether Trump can sustain his momentum and exploit Clinton’s mounting problems on multiple fronts depends on his ability to appear more plausibly presidential than usual. Trump would benefit enormously from ending his flirtation with Putin and by acknowledging America’s vital role in the world, including our alliances in East Asia to contain China’s bid for hegemony in the most vital geopolitical region of the 21st Century. He should also stop referring to himself as an America Firster, a term associated with the execrable legacy of Charles Lindbergh, isolationism, and opposition to America’s entry into World War II. Instead, Trump should cast himself as a realist without illusions, as someone who understands the importance of American power and the dangers our enemies pose, while at the same time demanding our allies do more and insisting on fair trade as the condition for free trade. Trump can expose Clinton as the first mate on Obama’s foreign policy Titanic — the advocate of a dangerous doctrine that has weakened America by shrinking the military precipitously, conciliating our adversaries, undermining our democratic friends, and treating American power as a greater danger than ISIS, Putin, Iran, or China. If Trump squanders his opportunity in this debate to create inexorable momentum for victory, he has only himself, his imprudence, and his lack of self-control and seriousness to blame. Robert G. Kaufman is professor of public policy at Pepperdine University and author of “Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America.” Heather Richardson Higgins “Fascinating” is opposite things occurring simultaneously. This year’s presidential debates have that: fun AND deadly serious. Trump has turned presidential debates into appointment television. [lz_related_box id=”211554″] The media says they want a focus on policy — and I personally would love it if Trump would point out how Obamacare is collapsing and we will get single payer if Hillary wins. But hey, that’s me. Those are crocodile tears: The networks know that dull debates won’t drive viewership. And the candidates know that this is about winning the audience. Their real concern is: For loyal fans — How do I give you what you want and expect, plus some surprises to remind you why you like yourself for having supported me? For those on the fence — How do I help you answer: “Who can I vote for and still like myself?” So bring out the popcorn, and let the deadly serious games begin! Heather Richardson Higgins is president and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice.1. GraphQL all the things There seems to be a big push for the use of GraphQL, now it’s a little more mature and developers have been releasing language implementations it’s gaining some popularity. I think it’s important to remember that GraphQL is only relevant if you’re dealing with data structures that have graph-like many to many relationships. There was a question during the last Q&A, someone asked something like, “How do I deal with deleting data in GraphQL” (if I remember correctly it was Lee Byron) the panel replied “don’t ever delete anything”. To me this make sense as deletes could potentially start to break those many to many relationships causing nulls to be thrown. Edit: Thanks Ash for clarifying in the comments — I misinterpreted both the question and the answer. The question was about changing the schema of the data and the answer was tread carefully and keep schema changes to a minimum. Again, if you’re not dealing with many to many — you don’t need GraphQL. 2. Guys, React Native is totally ready, get on that shit! Bonnie Eisenman’s run down of React Native was a really great opportunity to see how quickly it’s come from a single platform, unstable, barely documented experiment to a well supported, multi-platform contender in the native space. She highlighted the recent announcement of Windows & Samsung platform support and the drive to get React Native on to more platforms, not just phone/tablet devices. For me this is the area that excites me the most, if harks back to aspirations of Adobe Air and that panacea of learn once, write for anywhere. It seems like React Native has a really strong chance of being one of the platforms that reaches that goal. Adobe’s solution always felt like it was doing something it shouldn’t, but now at least with React Native platforms see the advantages to opening up and allowing alternatives to true native development. 3. People are making some awesome things with React These include in no particular order: i) Phil Holden’s subdivide, a library for doing split pane layouts in React, very useful for debugging, he has a great screencast showing it off ii) Max and Nik’s Carte Blanche, which gives developers an environment to test their components with lots of different props iii) Krzysztof’s Animated.js for creating declarative animations in React and React Native I’m sure there’s plenty that I’ve missed as my notes are a little sparse, I highly recommend subscribing to ReactEurope’s YouTube channel as I expect them to be posting videos of all the sessions soon. I for sure will be going and re-watching my favourites. A quick hat tip to RedBadger who not only arrange and sponsored React Europe, but also London’s React meetup they announced they’re starting a London’s first React conference next year. Head on over to React.London to signup for updates.Further demonstrating how concerned Wall Street is about the possibility of U.S. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren being elected, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is blasting the consumer advocate in a bizarre new ad. The ad, a $560,000 buy, ties Warren to the oh-so-“radical” Occupy Wall Street protests. The selectively edited ad isn’t the first time Wall Street has gone after Warren, the former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it certainly won’t be the last. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has been quite a friend to the big banks (as I wrote about), and the 1 percent would continue to thrive if he remained in office. According to the Boston Globe, Warren has clearly stated that she has urged Occupy Wall Street protestors to stay within the law, but she does support their mission. The most threatening thing about Warren for Karl Rove and the big bankers though is that Warren has not merely stated her support; she has acted on behalf of the 99 percent. This is exactly why we need her in office. These big money, Wall Street slush funds are going to launch one ridiculous attack after another on Warren. Progressives need to be ready to help her fight back every single time. Here is where you can send her some money, so please do.Billionaires who spurned Donald Trump during the primaries are now rallying around the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — pledging six- and seven-figure donations for the general election against Hillary Clinton. Among the big-money contributors to the pro-Trump Great America PAC are oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens. Pickens earlier talked up Jeb Bush, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina and even took a veiled shot at The Donald in a Web posting. “We’ve turned our presidential selection process into a reality TV show,” Pickens complained of the former “Apprentice” show star. Broadcasting mogul Stanley Hubbard is also aboard the Trump bandwagon. He had previously written checks to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC. Other wealthy donors joining Team Trump are banking billionaire Andy Beal, California hotel owner Kelly Roberts and Ali Janagiri of EB5 investors. The goal is to raise $25 million before the GOP national convention in July and $150 million for the general election, said PAC co-chairman Eric Beach. “We’re rocking and rolling,” said Beach, noting the pro-Trump group now has 30,000 contributors. Great America PAC has also brought on veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who managed President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign, as co-chairman. During the primary, Trump blasted his GOP rivals for relying on large super PAC donations from “special interests” and largely self-funded his campaign. But now that he’s facing well-funded Democratic forces backing Clinton in the general election, Trump is warming up to soliciting help from fellow billionaires. Pro-Clinton super PACs are already running TV attack ads against him.The National News Agency reported that Syrian war planes conducted on Saturday an air raid near Beqaa’s Arsal, killing nine Syrians and injuring six others. The raid took place in Kherbet Daoud east of Arsal, the NNA added. It also noted that the wounded, among which are women and kids, were transferred to the Universal Hospital and other Baalbek medical centers. Meanwhile, an injured woman in her early 30s told an AFP photographer, "We were targeted by an air strike while we were making our way from Syria to Lebanon." At least two children were among the injured, the photographer said. This raid was the last of a series of offensives on the Beqaa town whose majority Sunni residents back the revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In June, a Syrian helicopter fired a series of missiles on Arsal which prompted the Lebanese Armed Forces to issue a rare warning against the Syrian regime. While Lebanon has adopted an official position of neutrality over the conflict, the Mediterranean country is sharply divided into pro- and anti-Assad camps. The Shiite movement Hezbollah and its allies back Assad, and the Sunni-led March 14 movement supports the insurgency.PACIFIC, Mo. — The floodwaters that swept away cars and swamped living rooms decorated for Christmas slowly drained from homes and businesses outside St. Louis on Friday, leaving behind months of cleanup as the threat of record-breaking floods headed south toward towns and farm communities flanking the Mississippi River. As people in southern Missouri and Illinois evacuated their homes or moved furniture to the second floor, nervously eyeing the river rising along flood walls, highways that flooded around St. Louis were reopened on Friday, and some soaked communities began allowing residents to return to survey the damage. In Pacific, one of several hard-hit towns southwest of St. Louis, about 20 people lined up at a police checkpoint on Friday morning, home-inspection papers in hand, anxiously waiting to learn whether they would be allowed back in to see what was left. They were among hundreds who fled when the rain-engorged Meramec River spilled across highways and through neighborhoods, shattering flood records and rising to 27 feet above flood stage in some places. Mitchell Duncan, 25, kept cycling through the line as the police told him he could not return to his rented duplex because it had yet to be inspected. He said he was impatient — he had left six days earlier without taking anything because he did not think the floods would be so bad.As was the case with almost every desert mine ever worked, the Eldorado suffered from water shortages. Mining uses up a lot of water and there was no close, dependable source in the area. This problem was solved by building a nine-mile pipeline to Pinyon Well, which was completed in 1918. Pinyon Well was such an important asset in the area, that a pump tender actually lived at the well site, to keep the water flowing. The Eldorado went dormant for a number of years after WWI, but was again redeveloped and worked from 1936 to 1938. The total gold production over the life of the mine is estimated at around 2,000 ounces (roughly $2.5 million at today's gold price). The mine itself is situated on the north wall of a small canyon in the Hexie Mountains. A review in 1959 measured about 2,000 feet of drifts, shafts and minor crosscuts. The south side of the wash was home to the workers, as the remains of at least three buildings are present, as well as can dumps, stone foundations and outhouse debris. The Eldorado contained both a stamp mill and a cyanide operation and provided custom milling work to the local mines nearby. Most of the mill was removed in 1941-42, probably as scrap for the war effort. While there's not really much left at the Eldorado mine, compared to what it once was, it's still easy to spend a day there poking around what is left to see.All eyes were on U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday when they sat down for their first face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. The meeting, which had been scheduled to last 30 minutes, stretched to more than two hours. Trump reportedly raised the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, though Putin denied any meddling on Moscow’s part. The two leaders’ conversation included discussions on “Ukraine, Syria, some bilateral and other issues,” according to the Associated Press. They also discussed “fighting terrorism and cybersecurity.” Trump and Putin gave brief public remarks before their meeting. “We look forward to a lot of very positive things happening for Russia, for the United States and for everybody concerned,” Trump said. “And it’s an honor to be with you.” “I’m delighted to be able to meet you personally, Mr. President,” Putin said through an interpreter. “And I hope, as you have said, our meeting will yield positive results.” TIME spoke with Patti Wood, a body language expert, to read between the lines. Here are some key takeaways: ‘He’s the one that’s initiating’ The first glimpse of Trump and Putin came before their official meeting, when they were seen shaking hands in a video shared by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet. Wood spotted something unusual in that footage. “If you look at that handshake, Trump does something that is different than many other handshakes I’ve seen him do with other world leaders. He’s the one that’s initiating. His body — and whole body, actually — steps forward and leans forward as he goes to shake hands. And he offers his hand... more palm-up, more in supplication, which again is unusual. Usually he offers it palm down to be on top. And if you look at his demeanor, he seems to be happy.” By comparison, Wood said Trump’s handshake with Merkel on Thursday showed the German leader making the first move. “She offers her hand with the palm up in supplication to him and at the same time she has her head down and tilted to make eye contact with him to say, ‘Hey, we need to shake hands.’ That’s letting go of some of her power... he’s just standing there, and she has to make the effort to shake hands with him. And then when he shakes hands with her, it’s very brief. He’s not really in-the-moment with her. It’s just ‘O.K., this is a photo op.'” ‘He’s supportive underneath Putin’s arm’ In the same video, Trump taps Putin’s arm with his left hand during their handshake and later pats his back — a gesture that typically indicates support, Wood said. “When you use your left hand in a handshake, typically it’s a power move, it’s a controlling move to say, ‘I surround you.’ But there are variances in that. There are slight nuances. And in this particular case, Trump puts his left hand up underneath, which is the supportive cue, up underneath Putin’s arm and taps it three times. Now that’s going to sound odd, but three actually has a strong symbolic reference in nonverbal communication, and typically it means a true feeling or a true emotion. So you combine all those together: He’s supportive underneath Putin’s arm, he’s touching it three times in a gentle pat. It means, ‘I support you, I really support you.’ Now that is also interesting if you compare it to other handshakes where he takes that outside hand and he might grip above the elbow or grip all the way up on top of the arm or hit —
gers, quarter-staff, fury, rage, and resolution will prevail, our friends shall not meet with a disappointment." The reply: "We, James and Elizabeth Stokes, of the city of London, having already gained an universal approbation by our ability of body, dexterous hands, and courageous hearts, need not perambulate on this occasion, but rather choose to exercise the sword to their sorrow, and corroborate the general opinion of the town, than to follow the custom of our repartee antagonists. This will be the last time of (Elizabeth) Stokes performing on the stage..." Then the announcement said: "Attendance will be given at three, and the combatants mount at six. They all fight in the same dresses as before." 19th century American diplomat George Perkins Marsh during his lectures on the English language in 1861 (in context of bombastic language) mentioned a pugilistic challenge of 1720s, in the New York Tribune as of October 1858. It is said to have been taken from an old newspaper: "I, Felix Maguire, first master on the Kingdom of Ireland, tutor to the noted Mister Holmes, who has fought the celebrated Mister Figg this season to general applause, the last of which battles I was engaged with him myself, whereas I hit the said Mister Figg on the belly and gave him other convincing proof of my judgment therein, on Wednesday, the 11th instant, when, contrary to all expectations, Missus Stokes, styled the invincible, matchless, unconquerable city championess, took on her to condemn the method of Mister Holmes; displaying his skill before a grand appearance assembled, which, with regret, I was obliged to hear, and in regard, though said gentleman was my pupil, I so far resent it that I hereby invite Mister James Stokes, together with his said Elizabeth, his wife, at their own seat of valor, and at the time appointed, to face and fight me and a woman I have trained up to the science from her infancy, one of my own country, and who I doubt not will as far exceed Missus Stokes as she is said to have done those she has hitherto been concerned with." In fact, success of Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes along with James Figg, gave them a reputation that encouraged challenges. It is unclear in what fighting style Felix Maguire managed to hit his opponent ‘on the belly’ - it could be a bare-knuckle punch but more likely a weapon landed against Mr./ Figg given that he was the champion swordsman rather than a boxer as many think. The above mentioned challenge is another example of mixed-team gender MMA fighting. While most people have heard of the gladiators of ancient Rome, far fewer know of those who fought in London and other places in the British Isles and British colonies during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although these highly ritualized combats took place in locations as remote as Jamaica, Barbados, and rural Ireland, during the seventeenth century the most popular setting for such fights was undoubtedly the infamous “Bear Garden” in Southwark, London. In 1672, a Frenchman named Josevin de Rocheford visited the Bear Garden and observed: “We went to the ‘Bergiardin’, where combats are fought by all sorts of animals, and sometimes men, as we once saw. Commonly, when any fencing-masters are desirous of showing their courage and great skill, they issue mutual challenges, and before they engage parade the town with drums and trumpets sounding, to inform the public there is a challenge between two brave masters of the science of defence, and that the battle will be fought on such a day.” What followed these processions was violent and often gruesome. On the appointed day, to the sound of trumpets and beating drums, the two combatants would ascend the stage, strip to their chests, and, on a signal from the drum, draw their weapons and commence fighting. The combat would continue until one man conceded, or was unable to continue. In de Rocheford’s account, the combatants continue fighting while enduring horrific wounds, including severed ears, sliced-off scalps and half-severed wrists. Bouts occurred with different types of weapons, including longsword, backsword, cudgel , foil, single rapier, rapier and dagger, sword and buckler, sword and gauntlet, falchion, flail, pike, halberd, and quarterstaff. Although such fights were not intended to end in death, the wounds received were often serious enough to incur it. During the 18th century, the ampitheatre of renowned fencer and pugilist James Figg became “the resort of all the most celebrated masters and mistresses of the art.” On Nov. 20, 1725, Guests Journal announced the imminent arrangement of a gladiatorial fight involving females: “We hear that the gentlemen of Ireland have been long picking out an Hibernian heroine to match Mrs. Stokes, the bold and famous city championess. There is now one arrived in London, who by her make and stature seems likely enough to eat her up. However, Mrs. Stokes being true English blood (and remembering some of the late reflections that were cast upon her husband by some of the country folk) is resolved to see out ‘vi et armis.’ This being likely to prove a notable and diverting entertainment, it is not at all doubted but that there will be abundance of gentlemen crowding to Mr. Figg’s ampitheatre to see this uncommon performance.” ) Cudgel or singlestick - a slender, round wooden rod, traditionally of ash, with a “basket hilt” (a hand protecting guard). Popular fencing weapon in the 18th century Britain. She Made the History English Historical Boxing Championship Timeline says: “Male: 1725/26, Whittaker, Peartree, Gritton. 1727, John Gritton. Female: 1720?s, Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes." Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes was an important bare-knuckle pugilist, irrespective of gender. There is little reason for James Figg’s inclusion in the International Boxing Hall of Fame other than as a businessman or promoter. Historical proof concurs that Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes fought bare-knuckle during the 1720?s, but not James Figg. Despite handling a dagger, fighting with a quarter-staff, wielding a fencing sword against men, while landing and receiving punches, the 1720?s “Invincible English Championess" has not been included in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. ‘The Boxing Baroness’ Lady Barrymore Sometimes, when experiencing the human history, it is tempting to view someone as an innovative link to the future. In fact, Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes was a forerunner in the area female combat sports, at that not in several of them at once – in boxing, kickboxing (remember, prize fighters used not only their fists), stickfighting, fencing with variety of weapons. Although no female fighters of her level are known since her time until the modern era, her followers are traced throughout 18th and 19th centuries and various cases of female combat activities have been recorded. Throughout the 18th century, women's boxing was practiced and promoted alongside that of their male compatriots. In 1795, the legendary champions Daniel Mendoza and 'Gentleman" John Jackson even acted as seconds in a fight for a prize of 11 guineas, between Mrs. Mary Ann Fielding and a woman known only as the "Jewess of Wentworth Street". For that sum, the two fought for 80 minutes during which there were over 70 knockdowns between them. Fistfighting in a fish market in Billinsgate Sketch by Henry Thomas Alken. 1820 From PastPages Another testimony about the attire of female fighters: "In 1768 at the Amphitheatre, the 'Bruising Peg', dressed in white stockings and Holland drawers, outclassed her opponent to the delight of several hundred spectators." In 1776, famous American boxer George Maddox and his sister Grace travelled throughout the country and challenged men and women. Pierce Egan writing in 1812 recalls Grace Maddox who boxed women and offered to fight any man present after her brother won a routine bout. An Essex local report said: "In August 1793, a pitched battle was fought in Elmstead, near Chelmsford, Essex, by two LADIES of pugilistic spirit. Being stripped, without caps, and their hair closely tied up, they set to, and for 45 minutes supported a most desperate conflict; when, although one of them was so dreadfully beat as to excite apprehension for her life, her husband possessed brutality enough still to prompt her to fight; but, through the interference separated." A brutal bout between two women in 1794 was described as follows: "Great intensity between them was maintained for about two hours (!), whereupon the elder fell into great difficulty through the closure of her left eye from the extent of swelling above and below it which rendered her blind through having the sight of the other considerably obscured by a flux of blood which had then continued greatly for over forty minutes... not more than a place even as large as a penny-piece remained upon their bodies which was free of the most evident signs of the harshness of the struggle. Their bosoms were much enlarged but yet they each continued to rain blows upon this most feeling of tissue without regard to the pitiful cries issuing forth at each success which was evidently to the delight of the spectators since many a shout was raised causing each female to mightily increase her effort." In April 1795 the most famous pugilists of the epoch, Mendoza and Jackson acted as seconds in a fight near the New Road in London between Mrs. Mary Ann Fielding and "a Jewess of Wentworth Street", won by the former in 80 (!) minutes. There were 70 knockdowns - and a prize of 11 guineas. Not just working class women participated in bare-knuckle boxing. The etching "The Boxing Baroness" represents one of the most remarkable early works of art dealing with the sport of boxing. Fashionably dressed in the mode of 1819, the etching depicts a woman in full pugilistic stance. Even more remarkable is that this etching portrays an actual boxer. Lady Barrymore, who was married to the Seventh Earl Barrymore. Both the Earl and his wife were amateur boxers. An account of women boxers appears in "Famous Fights", published in 1803. In this the writer described an incident from the first half of the 19th Century which occurred outside "The Crown" in Cranbourne Alley, in London. "The Crown" was owned by Stunning Joe Banks, a well-known publican at the time and a close friend of the pugilist fraternity. The protagonists, Amy Russell and Julie Pyne, are described as ladies both well-known to the residents of St Giles and the police. During an argument, the ladies decided to settle their differences according to the rules of the prize ring, with Stunning Joe acting as the referee. "Then the two Amazons stripped to the waist, tied up their hair, chose seconds of their own sex, and then set-to stunning Joe himself being referee. For 20 minutes they fought fiercely, with an excited crowd cheering them on. Once or twice, forgetful of the rules of the Prize Ring, they went for each other, literally with tooth and nail, but Joe interfered, and savage though they were, the two females (we cannot call them women) restrained their natural inclination to tear and claw, and standing up like men punched each other with their fists till the blood ran in streams down their faces and breasts." Women's boxing continued into the early 19th century. The March 24, 1807 edition of the Morning Chronicle reported: "Several fights amongst the lower orders on Sunday morning near Hornsey Wood but the one which afforded the most diversion was between two women the opponents were Betty Dyson a vender of sprats and Mary Mahony a market woman. These Amazons fought in regular order upwards of forty minutes until they were both hideously disfigured by hard blows. Betty was once completely blind but the lancet restored her sight and Mary was at length obliged to resign to her the palm of victory. The contest was for five guineas." Bare-knuckle fighting for women drew an ever-rougher crowd. Fights were often staged at dawn before everyone went to work, or as they were coming home. In early 1790s, there lived ‘The Boxing Baroness’ Lady Barrymore, who used boxing to amuse her sport-mad husband. The story of the boxing baroness is quite interesting. Boxing, or pugilism as it was then frequently called, was one of the Earl of Barrymore's particular pleasures. It was fashionable for aristocratic young men to exercise themselves at a sport that even the Prince of Wales had enjoyed in his younger and slimmer days, so the Earl kept a pugilist as his constant companion. He also boxed with his mistress, Miss Charlotte Goulding. The lady - hardly the right word, in this case--was neither rich nor well-born, being the daughter of a sedan chairman. It must have been true love for in June, 1792, the couple claimed to have eloped to Gretna Green. Seems they may never have reached Scotland but perhaps they were married soon after. The new Lady Barrymore enjoyed sparring with her husband---bare-fisted, as was the practice in those days. Their pleasure was short-lived. In 1793, the Earle's musket accidentally discharged and killed him at the age of 24. He was on the verge of financial ruin. After that, she seemed to live long among low class artisans and prostitutes where her pugilistic skills were very helpful. Satirical sketch by Thomas Rowlandson (see the full version below) From HistoricEngland From the serie "Miseries of London" by Thomas Rowlandson Resource MagnoliaBox William Hickey, a Hogarthian rake fond of eighteen-century low life, wrote memoirs that include a vivid account of a ferocious fight at Wetherby’s in Drury Lane: "The whole room was in an uproar, men and women promiscuously mounted upon chairs, tables and benches, in order to see a sort of general conflict carrying on upon the floor. Two she-devils, for they scarce had a human appearance, were engaged in a scratching and boxing match, their faces entirely covered with blood, bosoms bare, and the clothes nearly torn from their backs. For several minutes, not a creature interfered between them, or seemed to care a straw what mishap they might do each other, and the contest went on with unabated fury." The fight may have been simply a bar-room brawl, but the "London Times" continued to publish accounts on regular matches conducted under the same rules as men’s fights. The tone of the reports changed, however, early in the nineteen century when pugilism began to seem intolerable to middle-class sensibilities. When Betty Dyson, a vendor of sprats, met Mary Mahoney, a market woman, "The Times" (March 24, 1807) commented that "the Amazons fought for over forty minutes and were both hideously disfigured by hard blows. It was a sight that "afforded the most disgust." The "Sporting Magazine" of December 1811 had also carried a report of what it declared to be "Amazonian boxing". Two women, Molly Flower and Nanny Gent, fought to settle a family dispute for the price of a pint of gin and a new shawl. Flower won after a 20-minute struggle, and the writer was impressed: "Both were good hitters, and they were worse hit the head than is witnessed amongst many second-rate pugilists. Nanny jibbed a bit in the twelfth round and gave in from a dexterous hit down in the following round." Another match, which took place in 1822, fifteen years before Victoria’s ascent to the throne, signaled a sea-changed in British manners. It pitted Martha Flaherty against Peg Carey. As was often the case, the promoters of the bout counted on English-Irish antagonisms to increase the crowd’s excitement. The social class of the two participants was obvious: they fought for a prize of nearly £17, 10s; they began at 5:30 am, before the fighters and the spectators had to be at work; and Flaharty consumed half a pint of gin before she stepped into the ring. Perhaps the gin deadened the pain of the blows she received. She won despite severe injuries. In the 18th century, the popularisation of the sport of boxing coincided with a sudden shift in attitudes towards the playful transgression of gender roles which had characterised elite social activities. People began realizing that women were capable to inflict violence and to take the heat. See the artwork by Thomas Rowlandson at right and explanation what was behind that in the illustrations below. In Victorian Era, female prize fights went underground until the end of the 19th Century when the new era of emancipation of women came (especially in USA) and first "world boxing championesses" appeared (but it happened in America). In the middle of XIX century, women’s prize fighting was taking place on both sides of the Atlantic. Because there were relatively few women competitors, exhibition matches were often against men and sometimes women were the victors. More usually, women were seriously injured; at least one may even have been killed. On-the-spot stitching of large cuts was sometimes carried out so that a bout could continue, and women fought on with broken noses and jaws, smashed teeth and swollen eyes. American women from “Wild West” (cowgirls) were especially brave and pugnacious. They wielded both – guns and fists. In 1856, this report was published in the [New York] Times: “A female Prize fight. - An interesting place [in Chicago] is that called The Sands. On Sunday last a prize fight took place on the lake shore between a couple of whiskey-bloated female denizens of that locality, in presence of an audience of fifty of sixty people of both sexes. A ring was made, seconds were chosen and stripping themselves to the waist the two degraded creatures went at it. The fight lasted some twenty minutes, and the yells and curses of the combatants might have been heard a full quarter of a mile.” A local New Hampshire newspaper reported in 1860 about a planned fight occurred in Manchester, New Hampshire: “Last evening, a disgraceful female prize fight came off in the vicinity of Rumford School House. Eighteen rounds were fought lasting twenty minutes, in the presence of a large number of roughs who reside in that section of the city. Our informant, who didn’t arrive in season to witness the fight couldn’t learn the name of the champion, as she had fled from the field. The name of the one left upon the field of battle was the notorious Mrs. Storin who had received severe punishment. One who was present reports that both the parties went in to win on the first heat and that Mrs. Storin was knocked completely off her pins in nearly every round. Mrs. Storin drew the first blood. Both parties have been training for the fight for several weeks past.” Such wild and brutal fights until submission became better regulated and organized after Marques of Queensberry in 1867 introduced new boxing rules based on the ideas of John Graham Chambers. The most important novelty was mandatory wearing boxing gloves. Many parameters of a boxing match were determined: sizes of the ring, weight of the gloves, introduction of the ten counts in the event of a knockdown, three minutes in duration followed by a one-minute interval. The Chambers-Queensberry regulations made boxing bouts shorter and more humane. Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes provided a point of imperial pride for authors that pointed to her as proof that the British of both genders were strong and brave. This began to change at the end of the nineteenth century. As the British Empire seemed in danger of collapse and the American economy shifted unpredictably, men on both sides of the Atlantic basin began to redefine Their masculinity. They embraced a new form of passionate manhood that judged men as lovers, athletes, and for their ability to give and withstand pain in the boxing ring. Boxing, which had long been British regardless of gender, now became male, regardless of nationality. Men built a mythical past for boxing that ignored Wilkinson and crowned one of her contemporaries, James Figg, even though being a fighter and boxing promoter, he was not a great boxer and didn’t pretend he was. In fact, permanent British love of both genders to fistfighting (specifically existence such fighters as Elizabeth) reflects their national character including proud, persistency, toughness, and purposefulness, vigor, self-dependence. Not without reason the song is still popular: "Rule, Britannia! Rule the waves, Britons never will be slaves!" It might be rephrased referring to a female pugilist: "Rule, Britoness…" Prize fighting in a London's street, 18th century. Sketch. Since very little first-hand information is available about the first female prize fighters, we just can speculate. We should try to answer the following questions: - What social class they belonged to? - How they looked like and what attire they wore when fought? - How they fought (rules, terms, techniques)? Prize fighting in a London's street, 18th century. An old engraving. "The ladies decided to settle their differences according to the rules of the prize ring, stripped to the waist, tied up their hair and fought fiercely, with an excited crowd cheering them on. Forgetful of the rules of the Prize Ring, they went for each other, literally with tooth and nail." It seems to be the most valid depiction of topless female fighting which usually involved prostitutes. (Illustrations - at right and at left - from the book "Women’s Sports: A History" by Allen Guttman. Columbia University press, 1991.) Unlike male fighters, female ones mostly belonged to the low class who had to put themselves into real danger in order to earn a few pence. Famous Elizabeth Wilkinson-Stokes started her prize fighting career as a low class woman who competed with market girls or ass drivers. However, she eventually grew up into a skillful performer who fought on stages against women and men not only with her fists but also with fencing weapons. Perhaps, in her late career period she moved socially, even though stage performing was still not considered as too respectful occupation. By the way, the prize to the winner was not necessarily money; it might be a glass of gin, new clothes and even a man. So, any fight or brawl based on the principal "the winner takes all" might be considered as prizefighting. The most if female prize-fighters were extremely poor, they might possess very few pieces of clothing; considering it was a pre-loom era. Since the prize fights were bloody, female fighters "tied up their hair and stripped to waist" in order to safe their clothing. The most of available reports testifies that the most of female fighters (particularly prostitutes) fought topless. It is unclear though whether they were able to strip down the upper parts of their costumes or put in separate skirts. It is also possible they fought in underwear breeches or even naked. But why it was common for female boxers to fight bare-breasted in the ages when women wore strict clothing in public? To excite male spectators? An interesting explanation has been offered: "In fact, women did box and "free fight" in front of commoner crowds for money during the late 18th and 19th centuries and could make quite a bit of money doing it (compared with their less than subsistence wages). And yes, they did often fight bare-breasted. These fights were long and bloody and many of the blows were aimed at the upper torso. Given the scarcity of medication and the fact that any upper garment they would normally wear would be somewhat dirty, a skin-breaking blow with such a garment on could cause a life-threatening infection. So the 'healthy' alternative was topless boxing!" Elizabeth Stokes in her attire for outdoor training. Reconstruction by Pauline Goodwyn In fact, professional stage performers (like later Elizabeth) had special attire or uniform if performed in front of decent audience. According to the ads of the match between Mrs. Stokes and May Welch in October 1726, they fought in close jackets, short petticoats, coming just below the knee, Holland drawers, white stockings, and pumps. It is interesting and significant that the clothing of the combatants is described (nobody cared what men wore), and sounds very practical and modest. Female fighters probably set their hair into bins in order not to obstruct the view. In the 2012 documentary “Fight Club: a History of Violence“, female fights in the 18th and 19th were illustrated as the no rules catfights of the stews rather than pugilism. Although the girls in the video footage were not topless and fought in typical underwear clothing of commoners of that time, in the program they said the girls would have worn considerably less than in the video footage. The historian from the British Library said they had no actual accounts of any fights for Elizabeth but that her public shows of martial arts skills were documented. Referring to the documentary, Pauline Goodwyn, a professional in historical clothing, says Elizabeth Stokes would more likely have dressed in similar fashion but wearing a simple chemise top especially as her public displays had her demonstrating her skills with men. Tight breeches and what look like buckled dancing shoes rather than the boots. She depicted Elizabeth who she thinks as a big girl, in outdoor training. 'No-holds barred' fight. 1897 Artwork by Jean Veber According to available records about female prize fights, most of them were extremely brutal and bloody until one of two fighters is incapable to continue. However, more humane prizefighting terms were introduced specifically for women' contests. It is so-called "half-crown rule" (allegedly invented by Mrs. Stokes) - women fought with half a crown in each of their fists, and the first to drip a coin lost the bout. Elizabeth Stokes preferred to fight according to this rule. The quality of English fighting women received patriotic endorsement in the anonymous print Sal Dab Giving Monsieur a Receipt in Full of 1766. Sal bloodies the nose of a dandyish Frenchman who, despite his general hopelessness, has managed to lay bare her bosoms; another woman, meanwhile, applies a lobster to his naked bottom. Her husband shakes his fist at him. Perhaps, Sal was confident in her boxing skills and preferred to punish the insolent French herself not relying on her husband. Now, the last (but not least) question: what techniques female prizefighters used? Some records described some female fights as brutal no holds barred (closer to the mixed martial arts) - not only punches were used but also kicks, holds, throws as well as scratching and hairpulling. These matches actually were "no rules" and no time limits and it was thought particularly effective to punch and scratch an opponent on the face and breasts, this rough boxing was popular with the Irish, both as fighters and as spectators and as it was fought on such a low level, few records remain. However, under the half-crown rules, the contestants just punched each other (mostly in the face) holding a half a crown in each hand - until someone dropped it. (The half-crown had the diameter 1.3" or 32mm.) It was quite clever, as it stopped scratching and gouging, and put a time limit on the fight. It was really pure decent boxing in which women were pioneering (while men fights were bloody until the knockout). In fact, old prize fights would involve wrestling techniques, so some such fights more look like as wrestling. Italian artist Luca Signorelli in 1794 drew his famous print "Two men fighting, two women fighting" ("Deux hommes nus luttant, et deux femmes nues luttant") exhibited in the Louvre museum. The artwork by French artist Amedee-Charles-Henri Cham "Female wrestling in Rouen before public in 1868" depicts two dressed women wrestling before male audience. We don’t know from the drawing what was the fight rules and how a winner was determined. At the turn of the 19th century women's fighting for a prize and audience pleasure became popular in Europe, particularly in France which was reported by writers and artists. These reports also tell about brutal no-holds barred style of such fights - see the illustration by Jeane Veber (below left): he depicted a fierce fighting for prize between two nude legless women in front of blessing out spectators (mostly women) and a dish with a few coins. The victorious fighter holds her opponent by neck while punching her - quite similar to contemporary MMA. As it was said, in the early 18th century Britain women began their prize fighting experience at the dogfight arenas; that's probably why women’s fights were called catfights at that time. So, originally, the term catfight was related to real bloody and brutal fight for prize between women. In fact, since not only punches were allowed, those fights could be called no-hold barred or mixed martial arts (while then it was a term for multi-weapon martial arts). Other usual venues for female prize fights were barns and bars. As Elizabeth got married Mr. Stokes, a prize arena owner, she performed in his amphitheater and perhaps, she acted more as a fencer and stickfighter rather than a fistfighter. Finaly, it is right to say that British women first began no-hold barred hand-to-hand contests for prize, in front of spectators. Moreover, they invented a decent term of a boxing match which allowed avoid brutality and made the bout as noble as a fistfight even can be. In this regard, Elizabeth Stokes is remembered not just as the first prize fighting championess but also as an inventor of a decent boxing style. Not to mention, she was also the best in fighting with the quarter-stuff, dagger, short sword and cudgel. The Female Bruisers By Isabella Bradford & Susan Holloway Scott. April 30, 2013 Click on the image For some inexplicable reason, many men have a weird fascination with brawling women. I don't know if this has to do with unbridled animal passions, or the hope that clothes will be torn off, or the fact that ordinary women are too sane to engage in fisticuffs, but whether it's mud wrestling or Mob Wives, guys will watch. This is, of course, nothing new; this painting of "The Female Bruisers" (at right) by John Collett dates from 1768, and became one of his most popular prints, doubtless pinned to the walls of hundreds of taverns and alehouses for the edification of the male patrons. (As always, click the image to enlarge it.) Like all of Collett's pictures, there's a great deal going on here. The two combatants are likely prostitutes, perhaps old rivals with a long-standing feud. This isn't the best of neighborhoods, with a house selling Neat Wine on the right and a likely brothel on the left, with an amorous couple kissing in the upstairs window. A pair of fighting cocks in the lower left squawk at one another. A tattered playbill on the wall advertises a performance of The Rival Queens. The battling woman on the left is the more prosperous, with a sheer embroidered apron, an elegant bracelet, and a watch on a chatelaine at her waist. In the heat of battle, she has dropped her ermine-trimmed cape to the street, while a pair of barefoot, soot-covered chimney-sweeps have made a prize of her ermine muff. Damage has been done: her sleeve ruffles are tattered, her hat's been torn off, and her hair's been pulled. Beside her, a butcher has left his shop in the background to dab something - I'm guessing a half-lemon?- at her battered nose, and to offer a go-get-'em pat on her back. He's protecting his striped jacket (similar to this one) from his trade with tie-on blue sleeve cuffs (disturbingly like the ones worn by Georgian surgeons!) and an apron tied around his waist. The other combatant isn't as well-dressed, even before her clothes were torn. She's not wearing stays, the way a respectable woman would, which allows the man who's helping her back to her feet help himself to a squeeze of her breast. The woman seemed to have just been knocked down by her opponent. Another, older woman (perhaps the madame to one or both of the fighters) is charging forward; she's ready to jump into the fray, but is being held back by a laughing man. In fact, while there are a couple of fascinated girls watching, most of the onlookers are male of every rank, from bemused gentlemen to the gawking country-man who is having his pocket picked. Some are astonished, but most seem to be enjoying the spectacle. You can almost hear the frat-boy chants of "cat fight!", can't you? Two more sarcastic testimonies enabling to feel the flavor of women's fistfights which contemporaries conceived. Bare knuckled and bare chested women fight. C.1870. Unknown author Letter to the editor of "The Times". September 1, 1852 Sir, - “G.W.” in to-day’s Times, expresses his surprise that no man was found who would assist in the capture of the brute who knocked a woman down. Your correspondent will probably cease to wonder when he reads the following: - About a month ago I was at breakfast with my family at Kensal-green, when I perceived a number of persons passing through the field adjoining my house. I endeavoured to ascertain the cause. With much difficulty I did so. The stream of men and women had come from Paddington to a prize-fight between two - no, not men - women! One of my family, being incredulous, contrived to look across the fields, and there saw the combatants stripped to the waist and fighting. Men took them there, men backed them, men were the bottle-holders and time-keepers. Bare knuckle duel between Mabel Herbett and Mamie Brown. They fought for about half-an-hour, some say for 5s., some say for a sovereign, and some say they will do it again. I saw the winner led back in triumph by men. After the above, I think your correspondent will cease to wonder at the indifference of a Paddington mob. You, Sir, have already drawn the moral from such things. Perhaps you will permit me to add my matured conviction that some vices and some crimes are too disgraceful for mere punishment of a clean, well-ordered, and well-fed prison. Let us have the whipping-post again, and at the flogging let the crime of “unmanly brutes” be written over their heads. Incident in Pleasantville, New Jersey. The National Police Gazette - September 27, 1890 Source Night Stick Mabel Herbett and Mamie Brown fight for George Woodward in Pleasantville, N.J. Two lovely daughters of two prominent Pleasantville, N.J., families have created a sensation in that town. Mabel Herbett and Mamie Brown nearly scratched each other's eyes out one day recently. It is true that they didn't bark and bite, but they came as near as they could without actually doing the dawgie act. From what we can learn, Mamie and Mabel were enamored of George Woodward and determined to settle their difficulties according to pugilistic rules. The two girls consulted with their nearest friends, and decided that nothing but a personal encounter could settle the question. A prize fight was arranged, the winner to have George. The other girls went into it with a vim; that is, the lively girls did; and Pleasantville has a full quota of lively girls. They arranged to have the affair come off in an old barn on the edge of the village, and after studying up on the subject settled on a 16-foot ring. Three o’clock one Sunday morning recently was the hour set. Of course, only girls were admitted, and they had to sneak out of their bedrooms to attend in regular elopement style. The bevy of beauties repaired to the barn and there had it out in grand style. The two combatants, when they got through with each other, had neither one won the prize, but both were considerably damaged... Original version: July 30, 2008 Last renewal: July 7, 2017 Exclusive of the Female Single Combat Club References "Georgian fighting women" Fragment from the documentary "Fight Club - A History of Violence" Artistic glance at Elizabeth Wilkinson, her combative contemporaries and other female pugilists TO ENLARGE AN IMAGE CLICK ON IT; CLICK ON IT AGAIN TO RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL THUMBNAIL SIZE All images are reprinted in accordance with the "Fair Use" concept and the international copyright lawThe Tottenham and Leicester hitmen are easily the Three Lions’ most in-form attackers, but with Wayne Rooney skipper and other options also available, will Roy take the plunge? We are part of The Trust Project What is it? There are just four months to go before England’s opening Euro 2016 fixture, a meeting with Russia in Marseille. Usually, you’d expect Roy Hodgson to be relatively confident of his starting XI by now, especially after England’s impressive 100% record in qualification. In reality, however, there are various question marks about his side – particularly in the final third. The uncertainty has various causes – some negative, some positive. First, the two men who were competing for England’s central striking role at the start of qualifying, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck, have both endured an injury-hit year. Sturridge has managed just two Premier League goals this season, while Welbeck hasn’t played a single minute for Arsenal. A knee knack has ruled Welbeck out of action all season These would previously have been considered surefire squad members, but Hodgson can’t afford to take any risks, and it remains to be seen whether either can prove their fitness before the end of the campaign. Loyalty bonus When Hodgson named his squad for Brazil, Kane had managed three career goals in the Premier League, while Jamie Vardy hadn’t even made his top-level debut On a brighter note, however, two other forwards have emerged from nowhere since World Cup 2014. When Hodgson named his squad for Brazil, Kane had managed three career goals in the Premier League, while Jamie Vardy hadn’t even made his top-level debut. Now, Vardy is the Premier League’s top goalscorer for Leicester and Kane is just three behind, having
you knew that they would run on your gaming console. Jos Burger: That’s exactly what it is. At the same time, we don’t want to lock out material that is not certified – that way people can experiment and try out new things … All3DP: … that you then can integrate into the next version of your soft- or hardware when you see a market for that kind of material. “We don’t want to hold our customers hostage.” Jos Burger: Right. We make recommendations, but our system is open. And we don’t want to produce our own materials. However, we don’t want to hold our customers hostage like ink printer manufacturers sometimes do. All3DP: Which team is bigger right now, your software or your hardware team? Jos Burger: Today it’s more or less even, but we will invest more and more into software. For example, we now have a dedicated team that’s responsible for print farm management, caused by a shift in small-series manufacturing. What we see happening is that people install 50 to 150 printers but need the software to manage that amount of machines – so we will develop that. Siert Wijnia: We might have 200, 300 parameters in a printer, but they are all controlled by software. After we launched the original Ultimaker, all the improvements that happened to it in the first year were done by software changes – and the results were dramatically different. All3DP: We talked about the tectonic shifts in the 3D printing industry: Makerbot is in the doldrums, the Cube printers aren’t produced anymore – is the 3D printing market still healthy in 2016? Is it still a good business to be in? “Our segment is growing and growing and growing” Jos Burger: If you look into our segment that is defined by printers between 2000 and 3500 Euros, then you see that it’s growing and growing and growing – specifically in industrial and educational environments. We even see them eating into the market of bigger machines as smaller machines become more powerful, especially if you install them in a cluster. Siert Wijnia: I believe that we are past the hype phase now. It also means that one needs to be serious about their business – how many Kickstarters have there been making a new printer basically from the same things? For us, the openness of how we operate and the human-to-human interactions are very important. We’re not trying to be big – if there’s something big, it’s our clients. They are creating amazing things, and we always try to put them on stage. In the end, our printers are just a tool. All3DP: So you don’t see all the Kickstarters as potential rivals who might be eating into your revenue? Jos Burger: No, to the contrary. Siert Wijnia: If you look into Kickstarter, 3D printer ones aren’t even funded anymore. If I sit down with a few engineers, we can make a new model, no problem. But scaling up production, putting it into the market with a decent distribution network – how do you do that? And with whom? We have been doing this for over four years already. And you need a backchannel as well. We are not deciding what our clients should use – we hear back from them, and we are trying to figure out what they need from us. “Kickstarter projects can’t take care of the customers like we can” Ultimaker was originally launched as a Kickstarter campaign image: (iGo3D) Jos Burger: I told you about the kind of customers that we have. When you buy one or two machines, you can put them on an expense account so you can sneakily enter the 3D printing space. Then they are happy what they are seeing and want to order 50 machines. But that’s too big for the expense account, so now they have to go through the purchasing department and the compliance guys. And what about support? Making a 3D printer is about much more than just making the machine, writing the software and having the printing material ready. It’s about the partners you have in the market to support the bigger companies that happily pay ten, 15 percent more for the partner to help them manage their order and install the machines. And there’s no way a Kickstarter project can take care of this. All3DP: Unless they are lucky … or are called Palmer Luckey and manage to sell their company to a big player like Facebook. And they could also buy a 3D printer Kickstarter and open their own Facebook 3D Print Shop, where they could sell Facebook users relatively simple items like doorknobs or clothes hooks that they could then print at home. Or is this science fiction? Siert Wijnia: No, that’s a viable thought. But we also discovered that we can dream about a lot of things in some fields, but if the market isn’t ready yet to accept it … You can have the best invention ever, but if the world doesn’t see its purpose or usefulness … It’s all about the right timing – where does it fit and when? We do a sanity check every day – which is very important. Otherwise, you blow up your own company, and then some people might become very rich, but others will become very poor. And that’s not what we are in for. “We double our revenues every year” All3DP: You mentioned that some clients are now buying triple-digit amounts of printers. How does this reflect on your finances? Jos Burger: Let’s put it like this: we double our revenues every year. And we expect to sell about 32.000 machines in 2016. All3DP: Will that growth rate remain exponential in the long run? Jos Burger: It’s tough to predict the future. We can just look back at the last years and take it from there. Of course we won’t double forever, eventually the curve will flatten out. And we want to remain relevant – it should be sustainable revenue, which can only come through things we talked about: like being close the customer and translating their needs into functionalities. That’s the most rewarding part of the business: we love visiting people, and we love having customers over. It’s simply fantastic to see what they are doing and what we can jointly do. Siert Wijnia: Since we started this company, I’ve constantly been amazed what people are doing with our printers. That’s the most rewarding thing of it. It’s not a thing that you give someone to use, but it’s a meta-tool to make everything. When I look at the Enable Project (http://enablingthefuture.org/), I see kids that have had a birth defect but now they have a hand that fits them for a few Euros – wow. Then you see a dad going all out and making his kid a Star Wars or Iron Man hand. These kids had a disability, and now they are the coolest guys in the classroom. “Surgeons are making body parts for hip surgery with our printers” Jos Burger: We even know about surgeons who are making body parts for hip replacement surgery with Ultimaker printers – they just do it. Of course, they have to be careful, because it’s a serious application. Others use it to give their patients a preview of what’s going to happen during their heart surgery. All3DP: Looking at these great cases, is there one model of your printers that sells especially well? Or are the sales all spread out evenly? Jos Burger: There is an ongoing need for bigger machines, We started with the Ultimaker 2 and then offered an extended version that was ten centimeters higher. And the market is really buying into these, even though they cost 500 US-Dollars more – because you can make taller things. Right now we are working on a machine that we will launch this year that is not just higher, but bigger in general. But it’s not us defining the size of these printers, but the market. Many are saying: if you can make a shoe-size printer – size 46 in Europe -, that would be great. Our customers are not counting the Cent – they want reliable machines that can do what they want to do, so whether they are 2500 or 3000 US-Dollars doesn’t really make a difference. All3DP: So you could even say: “Here is our new machine that measures one cubic meter!” Jos Burger: (laughs) That’s a good question! “Bigger is better, but it’s not that easy” “We have built large machines like that just for fun” Siert Wijnia: (laughs as well) People forget that volume means the power of three. So if you are printing something in the range of a cubic meter with a single nozzle, it takes 10³ times as long – compared to ten centimeters. So you would have to speed up the material flow and the machine, have different layer sizes. But then the cool-down shrinkage of the material will also be bigger … It’s not just scaling up. We have built large machines like that just for fun, to see what we would encounter, knowing that it would be hard. And we had a few guys from the community at the beginning of the Ultimaker Original making a really huge one. But they had trouble even printing a small Ultimaker logo in that one. So yes: Bigger is better, but it’s not that easy. Did you hear about the 3D printed Canal House in Amsterdam? I was involved in that, and we decided to take a shipping container, set it upright and make a 3D printer out of it. But we started to do completely different calculations. We wanted to be able to carry out the things we printed with four people, so we were wondering: how much can we carry? 50 kilograms each? Aside from not weighing more than 200 kilograms, we wanted results within 24 hours, which means that we have to print about ten kilograms per hour. But then you don’t do it with this small nozzle. Size changes everything. New at CES: the Ultimaker 2+ and Ultimaker 2 Extended+ The New Ultimaker 2+ is already available (image: Ultimaker) Siert Wijnia: The Ultimaker 2+, which we are presenting at CES 2016 for the first time, has swappable nozzles in different sizes. Larger nozzles like the 0.8 mm one allow for much faster printing, but, of course, need different profiles in Cura. But just having a bigger nozzle isn’t the whole story. You have to ask yourself: what layer size do you want to print? Can a 0.8 mm nozzle print at the same accuracy than a 0.25 mm nozzle? All3DP: Does that mean that we will see a cubic meter machine eventually? Jos Burger: Oh yeah, we are going to see those. There is actually a German company launching one, and we know of customers wanting to try them out. But that size is endangering something that we call the “overnight factor” in the industry: when it’s five in the afternoon and you start the printing process before going home, you can be sure that the model will be done by early next morning. But if the printer is one cubic meter, it can take three to five days. Siert Wijnia: It’s a bit like the Internet. Everything I see I want today, not tomorrow. But the longer you wait, the more reliable it will be – and not fail on you on day four of five. In our experiments, we had the huge printer connected to a Windows PC. But when Windows went into sleep mode, it stopped the printer … “We know who is using our printers, but not how creative they are” All3DP: Of all the makers out there, can you tell us who the most creative ones are? Are they all from one specific region or country, or is a breakdown like this impossible? Jos Burger: Let’s look at our customers. 35 percent are in the US, 40 percent in Europe, the rest are countries like Japan, Korea, and Australia. China is catching up, South Africa and Israel are okay. Not too many makers in South America yet. But that has other reasons: if you want to sell to Brazil, for example, you have to have a local office – else the printers are being hit by horrendous import taxes that are putting them out of reach for almost everybody. All3DP: Do the numbers correlate with creativity? Siert Wijnia: That’s a tough call to make. Engineers who order a lot of machines are probably very creative people, but their creativity might be different from what we are calling creative in everyday life. Jos Burger: Take a company like BMW. We know that they are using Ultimaker printers big time, but we have no idea what they are doing. So we don’t know to what extent they are creative or not – and that is true for a lot of companies. (laughs) All3DP: Jos, Siert, thanks so much for your time and your insights.Minecraft Forum - Source Code - Issue Tracker Pick Block Plus is a lightweight, clientside mod that significantly improves the vanilla pick block function. Features After using the Pick Block Plus keybind on a block, if you have the block anywhere in your inventory, it will be moved to your currently selected hotbar slot -- unlike in pre-1.9 vanilla, where the block must be in your hotbar for this to occur. After using the keybind on a block, if you do not have the corresponding block anywhere in your inventory, but you do have a "broken state" of the block, it will be moved to your currently selected hotbar slot. Examples: dirt from grass, cobblestone from stone, etc. After using the keybind on an entity, if you have a spawn egg for the entity anywhere in your inventory, it will be moved to your currently selected hotbar slot. After using the keybind on a block while sneaking, the most efficient tool to break the block will be moved to your currently selected hotbar slot. After using the keybind on an entity while sneaking, the item with the highest attack damage in your inventory will be moved to your currently selected hotbar slot. If two or more items share the highest attack damage in your inventory, the item with the higher attack speed will be moved. After double-tapping the keybind while sneaking, it will behave as it would without sneaking. In creative mode, the keybind will function as it normally would, and will place the corresponding block or spawn egg in your currently selected hotbar slot. Demonstrations Installation Install Forge Navigate to your.minecraft folder Download Pick Block Plus and place the jar file in.minecraft/mods Play! NOTE: Do not install this mod on a server! This mod is clientside only! Modpacks Yes, you can use this mod in your modpack. I'd prefer if you provide a link to the mod's CurseForge page, but that's up to you. Support If you enjoy the mod and would like to support the project, feel free to drop me a pledge on Patreon or a donation on PayPal. Support is greatly appreciated!We conventionally think of college as a place where you can discover new ideas, indulge curiosities and learn for the sake of learning. As tuition skyrockets and becomes less accessible for everyone, however, students have been compelled to think of college from a business perspective instead. In the 2010s, much of the discussion surrounding higher education is less about education and more about its suitability as an investment, like real estate or publicly traded stock. While there are conflicting opinions on the cause of rising tuition, students are relying on loans now more than ever to fund their education, leading student debt in the United States to top $1 trillion. “In absolute dollars, the price of college has increased by 1,120 percent since 1978, more than any other good or service in the entire U.S. economy,” said the filmmaker Andrew Rossi, who directed the student debt documentary “Ivory Tower.” “The entire model of American higher education is predicated on a constantly expanding cost structure which has resulted in a broader cultural transition from viewing college as a public good to a private benefit pursued by students and parents as consumers.” As “Ivory Tower” shows, colleges invest in facilities and amenities, like multimillion-dollar recreation centers or luxury dorms, to attract attendees, who have increasingly become more like customers than students. It’s what many critics call the “corporatism” of college. There’s an important discussion on what this means for the economy, but it’s also worth looking at the effect this corporatization has on the philosophy of higher learning in general.About Our Story “So here’s what we’re doing,” a friend and I would say at parties. “We’re researching cooling devices and the male…anatomy...in order to create comfortable underwear that will chill your balls.” This was a conversation starter, to put it mildly. Several months later, when an unsuspecting lunch guest caught us in the kitchen holding freezer bags to the fronts of our pants, we were already convinced that we were onto something big. The lunch guest had her doubts. Male infertility accounts for roughly 40% of all infertility, but it’s still tough to sound cool when talking about it. That’s why we loved the name we'd dreamed up for this still-imaginary product: Snowballs! Some thought it was insensitive, or inappropriate, but for us it was just a punch line for a story we were dying to tell. You see, my friend and I had both been through the “fertility factory” with our wives, losing our money and our minds until we began to look more closely at the actual causes of infertility…and became obsessed by heat. It was my friend and his wife who really provided the breakthrough. It had been a painful year. There had been a silent miscarriage after two years of trying, and the best doctor that money could buy had said that their chances were now zero. They ignored his advice and saw another doctor, and then another, until finally one gynecologist took the time to sit down with them and listen carefully. Almost immediately, he had a new plan. First, my friend should begin icing his balls. Huh? And then he should have himself tested for a varicocele. Again, huh? But they went home that day thinking, Why not? They had tried just about everything else. And so they began to do some research into heat and varicoceles, which are enlarged veins in the scrotum that bring more blood and raise scrotal temperatures (see our site for more). This heat thing made sense. We were guys, we knew how to fix things, and maybe we could hack our fertility. So my friend began to ice… And a beautiful daughter was born about a year later… And I committed myself to sharing what we had learned with anyone who would listen. I researched cooling devices, chemical compounds, organic cottons, and ergonomic underwear. I perused dozens of scientific studies and solicited factories all over the world to help produce a cooling underwear that would be comfortable and convenient. Over the past year I've gone through a half dozen prototypes, and now I'm confident that we’re ready to produce a quality product that can have real benefits for millions of couples out there. The Design Each order of Snowballs will include: three pair of specially designed underwear, so that you can always have one on hand to wear anywhere - at home, at the gym, or at the office; three of our unique SnowWedges™, so that there’s always one around to help you cool down; and a guide to what else you can be doing to maximize your chances at fatherhood. The package The underwear The SnowWedge Kickstarter Goals Our market price will be somewhere between $65 and $80, but those who support us here on Kickstarter can get theirs for less. I have already filed a patent and have developed the prototype, etc., so the money raised here will go entirely to a first order from partner factories. The more money raised, the more stock I'll be able to purchase. Please see the site – www.procreativity.net - for lots more information about Snowballs and male infertility, please don’t hesitate to ask even the smallest question, and please help us make Snowballs a reality for all those men out there who are attempting to conceive!This is one of those cases where I just hit an absolute wall on titles (I'm currently sick and thinking is hard) so I just went with the one word that really sums everything up. Also: first appearance of a human that's not shown from behind or in a suit! I don't consider myself very good at drawing people, but for some of the stuff I have planned, seeing faces is a bit necessary. Damn comic, making me work outside my comfort zone.Forgive Dante's hint of a mullet. It was the 80s; hair mistakes were made.Previous: fav.me/db2uzu9 Next: fav.me/db4fs22 PANEL 1:Fredbear: How do I... sigh Yes. Springtrap...misbehaved on the flipside.Springtrap: That's some pretty light words you're using there.Fredbear: I'm trying to-the differences make this complicated.PANEL 2:Spring Bonnie: You're still not explaining anything.Fredbear: He...hurt people, very badly, and he has to make up for it.Spring Bonnie:...What, with puzzles?PANEL 3:Springtrap: SEE?!Spring Bonnie: Okay, but... yeah, hurting people is bad-but accidents happen. Friendly fire happens.PANEL 4:Spring Bonnie: Why didn't you apologize after they got back up again?Springtrap: Heh. Yeah, they weren't really in the mood for that.PANEL 5:Dante: God, I hope these things are as half-blind in the suits as I am.FNAF and all its characters belong to Scott Cawthon, not me.Anna was completely mesmerized, looking out the car window. The amount of people going in with an invitation letter, dressed up with such beauty and sophistication… wasn't what she expected. Many were wearing gorgeous masks that only covered their eyes. She could almost feel her heart leaping to her throat. Anna was slightly nervous, seeing that she hadn't been to any fancy parties before. Yes, there were parties she'd been to but... nothing like this. It was always frat parties that would leave her feeling disgusted the next morning. "Miss?" Olaf handed Elsa the two masks. She took one, offering another to Anna with a raised eyebrow. She gazed at her strangely. "Do I have to?" Elsa's lips stretched into a small smile. "You'll look beautiful. Here." She tied the mask around Anna's head. Perhaps, slightly nervous was an understatement. Gods, she was going to meet Elsa's parents right now - both, maybe, a copy of her girlfriend. "I-I thought it was just a regular party," Anna mumbled. "Hm, I didn't tell you, did I? I'm sorry." She shrugged. "I don't mind." Anna turned to see Elsa putting on a black mask. Olaf too. Oh, she's so beautiful. "Well, are you nervous?" "Nervous? Yeah!" She scoffed. "I mean… I am going to see y-your parents." The woman held her hand. "You will be wearing this mask the whole time. They won't know what you look like. I… am hoping this will help you." Ah. Help me. "I'm glad you're trying to help me but…" She bit her lips, only holding a smile when her fingers ran through Anna's hair. "But?" Elsa tilted her head. "N-Nothing. Do you have… you know, the invitations?" "Right here, Anna." Olaf waved the golden letters to her, a big smile crossing her face. "Miss, shall we head out? Your father will be pleased." "I didn't come here to just please him." What? Anna eyed Elsa's lips in shock. Those words that came out of her… was nothing she'd ever heard. How could she even say that? Anna didn't know why she was all confused and frustrated about it-she never had a real father to feel such hatred. Elsa's relationship with her father was badly shattered… but she didn't expect this. "Elsa…" Anna whispered. The blonde took a deep breath, turning to her with a smile to replace her displeasure. "Come, let us go greet my parents. Olaf." The young man immediately got out of the car and opened the door to Elsa's side. "Ma'am." He offered his hand, prompting her to take it and got out. She scooted over, eyeing the smile she had. Elsa mimicked him. "Princess." Anna rolled her eyes playfully. She's something special, alright. She took her lover's arm, huffing out a cold breath when she looked out to the building. Must be a big party. She shivered. "God, it's cold-" A jacket swung around her shoulders. Ah, Elsa... "We shouldn't be standing here for long." Anna turned to her. The realization of how much she knew what she had in her mind-not that this wasn't obvious already… but in a span of just a few months, Elsa knew more about her than Anna did herself. Anna wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or not. She had always depended on herself… and then, Elsa came along to the rescue. Oh, what could Anna do, really? She leaned in to kiss Elsa's cheek, as Olaf went ahead to present their invitations. Mm, warm. "I'm glad you like the cold more than I do." Grinning, Elsa let go of Anna's shoulders to hold her hand. The place was glowing with light and so was the carpet as they walked, red and bright with colors. Anna almost felt intimidated. And even more so when she noticed the people in front of them were announcing themselves to Elsa, bowing their head and all. She seemed to really be getting a lot of attention-receiving compliments and questions about the business. The woman only stayed silent, nodding in acknowledgment when she had to. Even Anna had received quite a few compliments. "Sorry, sorry… Miss Arendelle is with me. Whoops, excuse me. Sorry... " Olaf grabbed Elsa's arm, his eyes glaring at her. "Girls, we should hurry in and greet your father," he whispered. Elsa mirrored his expression, playfully. "I was quite enjoying that." "You will enjoy more of that inside." Olaf gritted his teeth. Anna was surprised. So he could get frustrated sometimes. He turned to the redhead. "My apologies, Anna." "N-No, Olaf's right, we should probably get inside." She sighed in defeat. "Anything for you." Walking up, the security in a blue suit bowed his head to Elsa. "Miss Arendelle! Glad you could make it to your father's birthday." "When have I ever missed one, Daniel?" She looked around. "It is quite a big party this evening… despite my opposition to how he spends his money." He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, everything that he does, he does for you, Miss. Don't you like parties too, ma'am?" "He sees me as a child." "He sees you as a wonderful daughter." He turned. "And you are…?" Anna froze. Should I tell him my name? No, this would cause some complications. She wouldn't know if this Daniel guy had seen her in the club before, but she wasn't taking any chances. Even with a mask on. "U-Uh…" Elsa squeezed her hand. "Don't worry about it. Right now, continue doing your job." The man immediately stood aside and welcomed us in with no more questions asked. Thank God. Elsa had quite a bit of power here. Like she doesn't anywhere else. Anna waved goodbye to him as they passed. Her heart stopped once they stepped in. There were chandeliers shining above them, round tables covered in beautiful white sheets and utensils all around the room. Decorations were everywhere, ranging from balloons to little ice statues. Down the long marble stairs, waiters and waitresses were walking around with trays of champagne and little appetizers to serve the guests. Anna was completely stunned. And there was a little stage up front with musicians playing in the background of guests-all wonderfully dressed-talking and laughing. To the far sides, there were plates of appetizers and desserts, a large chocolate cake standing tall with multiple layers catching Anna's eyes. Wow… I didn't think Elsa's family was… "Anna." Anna blinked, turning to her lover. "W-What?" "I know you are speechless." Are you kidding? "I… I am! Wow… I don't even know… how I'm supposed to react." The woman smirked and led them deeper into the party. Anna leaned in to whisper, her hand propped on Elsa's for attention. "But uh, thank you for not making me say my name. Even though, we are wearing masks." "Well, I wouldn't want to hurt your reputation, would I? I had to be careful." She grinned and kissed her cheek. "You're the best." "Ma'am, will you be okay if I left you and Anna to your own accord?" Olaf spoke, eyes glancing to both of us, and in time of realization, he blushed. "Oh… you two were having a conversation. My apologies." Elsa smiled. "Go on, Olaf. Have fun, we will be fine." Olaf raised an eyebrow and turned to Anna. "Anna?" "Y-Yeah, don't worry about us." He bowed his head. "Well, call out if you need anything. I'll be grabbing some food. As always." Olaf smiled so widely in excitement as he picked his head up. Anna had never seen him so happy before. Was he usually like this? She glanced at Elsa in astonishment but did not say anything. "Anna." "O-Oh. Yeah, have fun, Olaf. I'll probably be with you in a few." The escort chuckled nervously. "And I will be waiting." He winked, and Anna watched him go through the crowd of people-greeting some even. So the man actually knew quite a few people here even if he was just someone Elsa was working with. Well, and were friends too. "You seem comfortable with him." Elsa grabbed two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter and offered one to Anna. The woman raised her eyebrows, taking the glass. "W-Who, me?" Elsa hummed, taking a small drink of the alcohol. But even if she didn't say anything and gave Anna this blank expression… oh, Anna knew how she felt. It was cute-she just didn't know Elsa could get jealous so easily. Anna giggled. "You're jealous." The blonde nearly choked, blue eyes widening at her like Anna was crazy. "Jealous? No, I think you meant, cautious." "Oh my god, Elsa. You're denying it." Anna cocked her eyebrows up. "It seems like it. Jealousy, I mean." Not that Anna minded. She had never seen Elsa jealous-threatening, she had seen-but at the way Elsa turned to the man picking out plates of food with a scoff… Gods, Anna wanted to see more of that side. Elsa huffed. "When did you two get so close anyway?" "Uh… when he brought me to your loft. Elsa, admit it." She shook her head. "Why would I be jealous when I have everything in the world? When I know I have you." Oh? Anna bit her lip and came closer to her lover, body pressed to her. Blue eyes fell up and down her body… the leg that was exposed from the slit of her dress. "Then tell me you were not," she pressed, her lips whispering against her cheek. Mm… seducing. Good plan. "Tell me…" Anna smiled, teasingly. Her hand fell down to Anna's waist. "You… are quite feisty today." Oh, it was so hard to see what her expression was. "Don't enjoy it too much." "And yes…" She sighed, head tilted down in defeat. "I was… a bit." A bit, huh? A beat passed, and Anna continued to look into her dishonest eyes. Oh, she could just taste the jealousy at the tip of her tongue. "Though, who wouldn't be?" Ah, how cute. Anna chuckled and pulled away. This was enough for this evening. "You are so cute sometimes." Immediately, the woman came into her ear, her hand grasping hard on her arm to bring them together, their cheeks touching each other. "Say that I am cute one more time, and tonight, you will get a… handful." Chills were just running down her back, and Anna wasn't sure if it was because of her fingers touching her or because of her words. And the itching thought of wanting to feel what would happen tonight… Oh, she was quite enjoying this. Anna gulped and watched Elsa pull away with a cocky smirk on her face. Gods, wasn't she glad this mask was covering her blush? "Elsa?" A man stood beside them in a white suit and a golden colored mask, a glass of champagne in his hand. His expression was stoic, but Anna could see a small smile slipping out. Anna almost felt her heart stop, when she noticed some familiar blue eyes. Who the hell…? Elsa's hand dropped from her waist. "Father." Oh. Father?! Her heart almost halted. She quickly turned to see Elsa giving him the same exact expression. Ah, now she could see it. Her father was tall and fit, standing in front of them with such confidence and pride. Just like her. "You came, Elsa." She turned away. "When have I ever missed a single one of these pointless parties?" What? Anna was completely shocked, and her mind continued to race. How Elsa could speak about her father like this. Anna hadn't thought much about it until now. The man took a deep breath. "Please, play nice." Elsa let out a low growl before retorting quietly. "Play nice, you say…" "Don't do this now, Elsa." His voice boomed. Elsa took in a deep breath, her glowing eyes matching her father. Anna didn't know what to do-she should've gone with Olaf when she had the chance. This was a little too awkward for her, and for an awkward person like her… she didn't know how to deal with this. Anna quickly grabbed hold of Elsa's arm, easing the tension. "Elsa, this is…" He turned to her, eyes widening. "Oh, my apologies. I didn't know Elsa was bringing a guest. You are?" "My name is…" Quick, think of a name. "Annie." "Annie, ah." He smiled. "And who are you to Elsa?" "I'm-" "She's an intern," Elsa interrupted, turning to her. "She recently got hired to the company. I wanted to show her around." "Oh, personally." He crossed his arms. "Well, I'll be… Lucky you, Elsa never greet interns so personally, what changed?" "A lot has changed, father." Anna felt a hard squeeze on her waist. "Without you, that is." Oh dear Lord. Anna hated confrontations like this. How could Elsa be so stubborn? For fuck's sake, it was her father's birthday! She could almost feel her insides boiling in anger-and even then, she didn't know why. Before her father could open his mouth, Anna interrupted. "By the way, happy birthday, Mr. Arendelle. I didn't bring a gift but… I can only give you my best wishes." The man smiled. How handsome. "Well, thank you. No need to bring anything. In fact, just enjoy yourself. Elsa, your intern is lovely. Please don't lose her." She looked away. "I won't. Where is Mother?" "She's still doing her makeup-do you want to…" "No, that's alright." This wasn't good enough. Oh, if only Elsa could see how badly Anna's expression was. How… frustrated she was. But even Anna knew, this wasn't her problem to solve. She could only be there to guide Elsa and… that is it. "Well then." He cleared his throat, dipping his head to a bow. "Annie, it was a pleasure meeting you. Please look after my daughter for me." She smiled. "I will." "And if I may say… I would love to dance with you later on tonight." "That would be great." No. No, why did I say that?! He turned to Elsa, his blue eyes glowing just like Elsa's. And they stared at each other like they were going to hunt each other down. He straightened himself up. "Elsa." "Father." Both of them watched him leave to greet other guests in silence. Anna didn't know what to say and when the man turned out of their sight, she immediately got in front of her lover, eyebrows furrowed tightly together. Elsa couldn't see the fury in her eyes but… no, but whatever. It didn't matter what Elsa thought about her now. She gritted her teeth, her hand grasping on Elsa's arm towards her. "What the hell was that?!" she whispered angrily. The woman looked away coldly. "This is none of your business." Anna almost backed away. None of her business? Are you kidding me? She squinted her eyes. "No. No, you do not get to back out on me-you do not get to shut me out when you've been so open to me all this time. You do not bring me to a party and not have an explanation for that!" Anna stomped her foot as she came closer to her. "This is your father's birthday!" "Regardless, you wouldn't understand." She grasped her arm. "Then, God, please help me understand." Elsa let out a breath. "Please… we shouldn't do this." What shouldn't they do, was shut each other out, and Elsa knew it. They gazed at each other, almost wanting to get something out of this. Elsa almost looked like she was in tears. And Anna knew, no matter how many times Elsa had been strong-had been there for her, she had her own weakness too. Oh, how could I not notice that? Anna finally let her go, huffing a soft breath out. Behind that mask… Elsa really looked in pain. Oh, but she just needed a little push. "I'm sorry… we don't have to talk about it. I shouldn't be pushing you." Elsa let out a small grin and mouthed a thank you. Anna was left unsatisfied, but that was alright for now if she could just keep Elsa happy.
the decline in state spending approximated the federal stimulus. So the aggregate fiscal expenditure stimulus was flat. There was no stimulus. That’s according to a study, recent study, by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the standard source of economic information. Well, the center is clearly not holding, and those who are harmed are once again shooting themselves in the foot. The immediate consequence in Massachusetts was to provide another vote to block the appointment of a pro-union voice at the National Labor Relations Board, which has been virtually defunct since Reagan’s successful war against working people. Well, that’s what can be expected in the absence of constructive alternatives. Well, are there constructive alternatives? Take a look at the industrial heartland, in Ohio, where General Motors, among others, continues to close plants. There’s one of the few journalists in the United States who pays any attention to labor issues, Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times. He reported recently from the scene of one recently closed plant. He writes that President Obama “never sought to reopen the factory even after the federal government became controlling shareholder in GM during the auto bailout,” so they could do what they wanted. What Obama has done instead is to “try to ease some of the pain by sending an ambassador as a salve for the community’s wounds, offer[ing] hope” — remember that — “and aid.” The aid is suggestions which can’t be implemented. Meanwhile, there’s another ambassador, who he doesn’t mention, the Secretary of Transportation Roy LaHood, and that other ambassador is in Spain. He’s offering federal stimulus money to Spanish firms to produce the high-speed rail facilities that the US badly needs and that could surely be produced by the highly skilled work force that’s reduced to penury in Ohio, while Obama shuts down the factories. That’s Joe Stack’s experience in Harrisburg again. In 1999, LaHood, who was then a Republican congressman, introduced a bill that would have provided federal funding for transportation infrastructure. It would have authorized the Treasury to provide $72 billion a year in interest-free loans to state and local governments for capital investments. That includes investments in transportation, in transportation infrastructure. And interestingly, his bill called for, not borrowing the money, but using US notes. That’s much as Abraham Lincoln did to finance the Civil War and as FDR did during the Great Depression. Well, that was 1999. Today LaHood is using federal stimulus money to obtain contracts in Spain for the same purpose. It’s another sign of how the center has been disappearing in recent years, the past thirty years. Well, the radical imagination should suggest an answer. The factory in question, and many others, could be taken over by the workforce with the support of — that would, of course, require the support of the communities that are left desolate, and in fact the rest of us. And they could be converted to production of high-speed rail facilities and other badly needed goods. Now, I said “radical imagination,” but the idea is not particularly radical. In the nineteenth century, it was intuitively obvious to New England workers — quoting them, quoting their papers — that “those who work in the mills should own them,” and the idea that wage labor differed from slavery only in that it was temporary was so common that it was even a slogan of Lincoln’s Republican Party. Well, during the recent years of financialization and deindustrialization, there have been repeated efforts to implement worker and community takeover of closing plants. A few have succeeded, but not most. The ideas have immediate moral appeal to the affected workforce and the communities, and they should be quite feasible with sufficient public support. And they would be very far-reaching in their implications. Well, for the radical imagination to be rekindled and to lead the way out of this desert, what is needed is people who will work to sweep away the mists of carefully contrived illusion, reveal the stark reality, and also to be directly engaged in popular struggles that they sometimes help galvanize. So what is needed, in short, is the late Howard Zinn. Terrible loss. Well, there won’t be another Howard Zinn, but we can take to heart his praise for “the countless small actions of unknown people” that lie at the roots of the great moments of history, the countless Joe Stacks who are destroying themselves, and maybe the world, when they could be leading the way to a better future. AMY GOODMAN: MIT professor, author, activist, Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist and political dissident, speaking at Pace University in New York on March 21st, addressing more than a thousand people at the Left Forum.United States national monument The Statue of Liberty National Monument is a United States National Monument located in the U.S. states of New Jersey and New York comprising Liberty Island and Ellis Island.[5] It includes Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, situated on Liberty Island, and the former immigration station at Ellis Island, including the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital. The monument is managed by the National Park Service as part of the National Parks of New York Harbor office. History [ edit ] President Calvin Coolidge used his authority under the Antiquities Act to declare the statue a national monument in 1924.[1] In 1937, by proclamation 2250, President Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded the monument to include all of Bedloe's Island, and in 1956, an act of Congress officially renamed it Liberty Island.[6] Ellis Island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument by proclamation of President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.[2] The United States historic district, a single listing on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, was designated in 1966.[7] The islands were closed during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and suffered severe damage.[8][9][10][11][12] Liberty Island reopened July 4, 2013; Ellis Island re-opened October 24, 2013.[13] Significance [ edit ] Inside the statue, a plaque is engraved with words from "The New Colossus", the poem by Emma Lazarus: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! Location and access [ edit ] The national monument is located in Upper New York Bay east of Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey and southwest of Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan in New York City. Entrance is free, but there is a charge for the ferry service that all visitors must use. In 2007, a concession was granted to Statue Cruises to operate the transportation and ticketing facilities, replacing the Circle Line which had operated the service since 1953.[14] The waters are patrolled by the U.S. Park Police[15][16] to enforce the restriction on private boat landings. Ferries depart from both parks and all boats stop at both islands, enabling passengers to visit both islands and choose either destination on the return trip.[17][18] Tickets can be purchased at Castle Clinton in Battery Park or at the Communipaw Terminal in Liberty State Park. Along with the ferry ticket, visitors intending to enter the statue's pedestal must also obtain a complimentary ticket[19] Those wishing to climb the 154 stairs to the crown within the statue must obtain a special ticket, which may be reserved up to a year in advance. Ten people per group, three groups per hour, are permitted to ascend, allowing for a total of 240 per day. After an obligatory second security screening, they may bring only medication and cameras, leaving all other items in lockers provided.[19] Jurisdiction [ edit ] Liberty and Ellis Islands Liberty Island and Ellis Island have been the property of the United States government since 1800[6] and 1808, respectively.[20] Historical circumstances have led to the unusual situation of Liberty Island and 3.3 acres (13,000 m2) of Ellis Island being exclaves of one state, New York, located completely within another state, New Jersey. The dominion, jurisdiction, and sovereignty of the islands have variously been the subject of a colonial land grant,[21] a provincial governor's directive,[22] and an interstate compact,[23] as well as several court cases and U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Liberty Island and the acreage on Ellis Island are part of New York City which are completely surrounded by the municipal borders of Jersey City, including 24 acres (97,000 m2) created by land reclamation at Ellis Island and riparian areas. Jurisdiction not superseded by the federal government falls to the appropriate state.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] Related sites [ edit ] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] Further reading [ edit ] Statue of Liberty: Ellis Island: Jurisdiction: Ellis Island:Assistant treasurer Sinodinos, in his previous post as a director of Australian Water Holdings, stood to earn $20 million for his influence. Just five days before Christmas, he announced his amendments to the Future of Financial Advice reforms. FOFA had been designed to make advice more transparent. Although enfeebled by the former government, the reforms did place the interests of the powerless before those of the powerful - before those of the big banks, that is, who control the market for financial advice. The amendments roll back FOFA. They are a boon for the banks. Sinodinos had previously worked for the National Australia Bank, one of the four big winners in the FOFA cave-in. Here was another triumph of the powerful over the powerless. If there were any further evidence required of the disadvantages in our superannuation system faced by the poor and unwitting, a study just published in The Australian Economic Review fleshes out how ''low-cost default'' super has higher costs and lower returns. In other words, the least-informed are most exploited by the rollicking superannuation gravy train. The study's authors, Anup Basu and Stephanie Andrews from Queensland University of Technology, examined how much in default funds were placed with active managers despite the overwhelming evidence of inferior performance by active managers. Industry funds, too, are at fault. Contrast the policy treatment of these consumers with the slew of tax breaks enjoyed by wealthy superannuants. The Sinodinos amendments only entrench the institutionalised ripoff. It was no small irony that the senator did receive some support this week, from the Financial Services Council, the lobbyists for the banks and their vertically integrated financial advice operations, whose submission on FOFA was unsurprisingly in favour of the rollback. Plutocracies Governments of both hues have been protecting the powerful at the expense of the powerless for years. But it's getting worse. Not only is power more concentrated now in the hands of a few big banks, but these few enjoy taxpayer guarantees to boot. The rewards are privatised, the risks socialised. The upshot from this ''moral hazard'' that arises from Too Big to Fail policy is not just an unfair society but a pernicious drag on the economy. Risk is not priced properly, nor is capital allocated correctly. There is no more dramatic example of this than Wall Street, which surges on a sea of printed money while growth in the broader economy remains tepid. The bankers have their swagger back, but some 47 million Americans are on food stamps. That's one in five households. Meanwhile, Wall Street forked out more than $100 million on lobbyists last year. They bought Capitol Hill. Some 285 members of Congress were registered lobbyists. Sadly, Australia is headed the way of this withering plutocracy. Social welfare spending may be a problem but corporate welfare is worse. It is small business, not big business, whose cause should be championed by government. Intrepid deal Still on the theme of influence: while Canberra tiptoes about in fear of offending Jakarta, the Indonesians routinely take Australian business people for a joyride. Readers may recall the most scintillating example of this in our coverage of Intrepid Mines, a company stripped of its jumbo gold project in Java by its conniving local partners. When Intrepid's junior partners gave it the bird in 2012, the miner signed up Jakarta businessman and TV network owner Surya Paloh to try to get the project back. Paloh had ''vast experience in navigating the waters of Indonesian business'' and was appointed to the board and given 5 per cent of the stock. Intrepid has still lost its mine but it managed to jag $90 million in a settlement from its Indonesian partners., Paloh stands to reap his 5 per cent. So if Intrepid shareholders vote for a return of capital, he stands to make 5 per cent of the cash returned on top of his 51 million shares - perhaps $9 million. Sources say he did not do much in the way of influence to bring home the Intrepid settlement. But he is running for president of Indonesia, so - what with being a well-connected Indonesian bloke with a TV station and all that cash - he could do quite well in the elections. mwest@fairfaxmedia.com.au Twitter: @MichaelWestBiz"Sandcastle" redirects here. For other uses, see Sandcastle (disambiguation) Australia Sand art has progressed well beyond simple sand castles, such as this elaborate sand sculpting display in Frankston, Victoria Sand art is the practice of modelling sand into an artistic form, such as a sand brushing, sand sculpture, sandpainting, or sand bottles. A sandcastle is a type of sand sculpture resembling a miniature building, often a castle, originating in Hawaii, though some reports suggest the art form originated in Japan[citation needed]. The two basic building ingredients, sand and water, are available in abundance on a sandy beach, so most sand play takes place there, or in a sandpit. Tidal beaches generally have sand that limits height and structure because of the shape of the sand grains. Good sculpture sand is somewhat dirty, having silt and clay that helps lock the irregular-shaped sand grains together. Sand castles are typically made by children for fun, but there are also sand-sculpture contests for adults that involve large, complex constructions. The largest sandcastle made in a contest was 18 feet tall; the owner, Ronald Malcnujio, a five-foot-high man, had to use several ladders, each the height of the sandcastle. His sculpture consisted of one ton of sand and 10 litres of water to sculpt. Construction [ edit ] from a shaped plastic bucket A simple sandcastle builtfrom a shaped plastic bucket Sand grains will always stick together unless the sand is reasonably fine. While dry sand is loose, wet sand is adherent if the proper amounts of sand and water are used in the mixture. The reason for this is that water forms little "bridges" between the grains of sand when it is damp due to the forces of surface tension.[1] When the sand dries out or gets wet, the shape of a structure may change, and "landslides" are common. Furthermore, the mixture of fine (mostly sharper) and coarse sand granules is very important to achieve good "sand construction" results. Fine granules that have been rounded by the natural influences of seas, rivers or fluvials, in turn negatively influence the bonding between the individual granules as they more easily slide past each other. Research[2] is thus necessary to find the most suitable sand to achieve an optimal, landslide-free construction. Shovels and buckets are the main construction tools used in creating sand castles and sand sculptures, although some people use only their hands. A simple sand castle can be made by filling a bucket with damp sand, placing it upside-down on the beach, and removing the bucket. For larger constructions, water from the sea to mix with the sand can be brought to the building site with a bucket or other container. Sometimes other materials, such as pieces of wood and plastic are constructed to hold piles of sand in place and in specific shapes - these are called forms. Sand sculpting as an art form has become very popular in recent years, especially in coastal beach areas. Hundreds of annual competitions are held all over the world. Techniques[3] can be quite sophisticated, and record-breaking achievements have been noted in the Guinness World Records. Sometimes, contests are staged as advertising or promotional events. Most Sand sculptors come from other disciplines but there are a few that earn their living solely from Sand related activities. Drip castles [ edit ] A variant on the sandcastle is the drip castle, made by mixing the sand with water and dripping it from a fist held above. Some refer to the technique as "dribbling". When the slurry of sand and water lands on existing sand structures, the effect is Gaudi-esque. Girl making a sand angel of June 10, 2017 in World's record of 1,387 sand angelsof June 10, 2017 in Ludington, Michigan Festivals and competitions [ edit ] From 1989 until 2009, a World Championship in Sand Sculpture was held in Harrison Hot Springs in Harrison, British Columbia, Canada, also known as "Harrisand". The competition had solo, double and team categories. The "World championship was held in ft Myers, Florida and other venues for a limited time. Other countries hold their own versions of the world championships as it is not possible to get all the people who may qualify in the same place at the same time due to the expense and logistics. The world's tallest sand castle was built on Myrtle Beach in South Carolina by Team Sandtastic as part of the 2007 Sun Fun Festival. The structure was 49.55 feet (15.1 m) high. It took 10 days to construct and used 300 truckloads of sand.[4] The world's record for the most simultaneous sand angels made at one time was done in Ludington, Michigan, on June 10, 2017. It was performed by 1,387 sand angel people at the same time. This is almost 4 times the previous record of 352 made in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on June 6, 2015. The duration they lasted making sand angels was for 30 seconds - twice as long as the 15 seconds at Pembrokeshire.[5][6] Fight against the tide [ edit ] A popular game is building a heap of sand, as high as possible, to withstand the upcoming tide. A sandcastle with a moat, at low tide The sea moving in to surround the castle The castle as an island An example of a drip castle Other sand games [ edit ] A father and child son team starting a sandcastle project One person is buried in sand by another; their sand castle is visible in the background One of the main attractions of a sandy beach, especially for children, is playing with the sand, as it presents more possibilities than an ordinary sandbox. One can make a mountain, a pit (encountering clay or the water table), canals, tunnels, bridges, a sculpture (representing a person, animal, etc., like a statue, or a scale model of a building), and many other things. Tunnels large enough to enter are extremely hazardous; children and adults die every year when such underground chambers collapsed under weight and instability of sand, or due to the tide coming up or the structure being hit by a wave. Sometimes, a dam can be built to hold back the water, tidal forts, which are incredibly large sandcastles with thick walls to protect the keep from the sea, can be built, or canals can be dug to contain the water. Burying someone up to his or her neck in sand, or burying oneself, is another popular beach activity. A sand glass is a display in which there are multiple colors of sand in water between two sheets of glass. Unlike sand paintings, a sand glass is meant to be turned; the sand, traditionally in black and a light color, moves into new shapes with each turn. The term "sand glass" is a translation of the Portuguese phrase quadro de areia, literally "sand frame" or "sand picture". Unlike sand paintings, which are a traditional craft, these are found around the world in many colors and sizes. A sand glass just after being turned See also [ edit ]Madrid ask Juve for Pogba meeting By Football Italia staff Real Madrid have asked Juventus for a meeting to discuss the possibility of signing Paul Pogba, it’s suggested. El Confidencial report that Los Blancos have requested to meet with the Bianconeri hierarchy to enquire about the France international. The former Manchester United youngster has been heavily linked with a switch away from Turin this summer, with Paris Saint-Germain, the Spanish giants and his previous employers all supposedly keen. Marca claimed over the weekend that Madrid assistant Zinedine Zidane had set his sights of signing Pogba for the Santiago Bernabeu outfit. And El Confidencial believe that the wheels have been put in motion to start that process, by asking members of the Juve board to meet. Whether they will accept that proposal however, is another matter.Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, may not attend a town hall meeting on health care in Vista Tuesday night, but organizers said they will go ahead without him. UPDATE: 10:43 a.m., Feb. 21, 2017 Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) may not attend a town hall meeting on health care in Vista on Tuesday, but organizers said they will go ahead without him. A coalition of local and statewide groups, including faith leaders, community health advocates and labor groups have called the town hall. They invited Issa and took out a full-page advertisement in The San Diego Union-Tribune after they did not hear back from him. RELATED: Rep. Issa's Constituents Call On Him To Attend Town Hall On Health Care Organizers said the event is the second in a series of statewide town halls to draw attention to the danger of repealing the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan. They said 300 people attended a town hall in Modesto last week, hoping to hear from their representative, Rep. Jeff Dunham (R-Turlock). He did not attend. RELATED: Town Halls Not On The Agenda Of Most Local Congressional Reps Earlier this month Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) of Northern California was met by angry crowds at a town hall and had to be escorted out by police. Issa’s office said he has a prior commitment Tuesday. Issa spokesman Calvin Moore said district staff have met with coalition members and relayed their concerns to the congressman. “Large numbers of these groups were able to participate our first telephone town hall and ask him questions directly on that call,” Moore said. “The congressman has written back and responded to their letters and phone calls to our office.” Issa has proposed replacing the Affordable Care Act with access to the health benefit plan that federal employees use. He released a draft of his proposal Tuesday. In a statement, Issa said he encourages "feedback so that together we can advance a solution that protects patients, and truly puts your needs first.” He said he hears every day from constituents who have lost coverage or are worried they will lose it. "The plan I’m proposing frees us from Obamacare’s burdens, while focusing on what works, to create a simpler, patient-centered, market-based health care alternative that puts patients back in the driver’s seat of their health care,” he said in a press release. Issa has supported federal block grants that could leave states or counties responsible for much of the subsidies to make that insurance coverage affordable. More than 370,000 San Diego county residents are enrolled in health insurance plans under Covered California or the expanded Medi-Cal coverage provided under Obamacare. RELATED: Medi-Cal Recipients Statewide Would Feel The Pain Of Obamacare Repeal To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.Trouble in Paradise Of late, Patrick Manning, the prime minister of the tiny island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, has been publicly contemplating deploying the country’s navy to patrol the Antilles for drug smugglers. His statements might come as a surprise. For one, Trinidad and Tobago barely has a navy: just three 140-foot offshore patrol vessels and some patrol crafts. Additionally, the country, renowned as a Caribbean vacation spot, generally has no need to defend itself. But not everyone in Trinidad was caught off guard. The drug trade has made the island paradise a very violent place. At the same time, oil wealth has given the Manning government the means to assert Trinidad and Tobago as a regional power. Over the past decade, Trinidad’s murder rate has risen nearly 400 percent; last year, the rate in the capital city of Port of Spain rivaled those in Johannesburg and Baghdad. Proliferating gangs, mostly composed of impoverished young men, are behind many of the killings, centered in the dense suburbs of Port of Spain. But shootings are not confined to the slums. Last year, a witness against a gang boss was gunned down as she left the central courthouse; another gang leader was shot to death at a popular outdoor bar. What has emboldened the gangs and caused the violence? Mostly, drugs. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Trinidad and Tobago has become a major transshipment point for illegal substances heading north from South America. Traffickers send cocaine and small arms from Venezuela, just 7 miles off the coast of Trinidad, via fast boat. The drugs are then shipped out on container ships, planes, and private yachts. Between June and November, hurricane season in the northern Caribbean but not as far south as Trinidad, the trade increases, with drug runners packing the cocaine into boats, sometimes with extra-wide decoy hulls, and sending it on to the United States and other consumer countries. Cocaine mostly passes through Trinidad and Tobago, but marijuana and small arms often stick around. Clandestine fast boats carrying large quantities of marijuana come from nearby islands such as St. Vincent and Grenada. Lately, assault rifles decommissioned by Venezuela’s military have been turning up in Trinidad. Between 2001 and 2008, the number of guns seized by authorities quadrupled. Manning has tackled these problems head-on — claiming he will build "Fortress Trinidad and Tobago," buying helicopters and summoning his security forces. But, unfortunately, the Port of Spain government helps stoke the drug trade and the gangs. The country’s annual per capita GDP has risen from about $11,000 to $18,800 in the past decade due to strong exports of natural gas and steel. Still, unemployment remains high, and to create jobs, the government spends about $400 million per year on make-work projects. The bulk of this money is ultimately funneled to gang leaders, who administer "grants" and distribute "salaries." Indeed, corruption — always a problem in the country — is reaching new heights. According to several security analysts, a damning unofficial study carried out by the government in 2009 suggested that almost 90 percent of police officers were regularly involved in illegal activities. Those pursuits ranged from running and selling drugs, to colluding with gangs by renting out weapons to criminals, to performing extralegal killings. Plus, despite Manning’s saber rattling, Trinidad and Tobago’s security teams have not been terribly effective. Trinidad’s security forces have never intercepted a cocaine-carrying fast boat or made a significant bust. In 2005, officers did impound a shipment of cocaine said to be worth $800 million. But this find was accidental. Late one night, officers investigating suspicious lights on a deserted beach literally tripped over the contraband. Senior intelligence officials cite the lack of arrests as proof that claims that major cartels operate in their country are mistaken. They claim the allegations are the invention of local muckracking reporters. Residents and workers on offshore oil rigs near those drug channels disagree. According to one foreign oil worker, so many fast boats cruise toward Trinidad’s sheltered coves that "It’s like the Normandy invasion." A few years ago, Trinidad purchased a sophisticated new 360-degree radar system. According to one senior official, the government has yet to turn it on. Another analyst disputes this, saying the problem is that too few staff members understand how to use the radar technology. Thus, whether or not Manning is effective in protecting Trinidad and Tobago from drugs and guns from overseas, it is clear he needs just as badly to tackle problems at home. To do so, he needs help — and international supervision. A coalition of governments — including the United States and Britain, whose navies patrol the region — should step in to help patrol the lane between Trinidad and Venezuela. Training should also be supplied to Trinidad’s Coast Guard so it can vigorously pursue smugglers. With its new navy, the largest in the English-speaking Caribbean, Trinidad may be able to fill a real void in detecting cocaine smuggling. But it has to secure its own borders first and purge its security forces of corrupt members. Until Trinidad gets serious about this, the United States should disinvite the country from regional security dialogues. With its wealth and strategic location, Trinidad and Tobago is a natural partner. Yet these countries would be wise to make sure that they do not let the fox guard the henhouse.An Edmonton-area candidate running in the federal election is looking for a sure-fire way to raise campaign funds. Cory Lystang is running in the Yellowhead riding west of Edmonton. (Facebook) Cory Lystang, a candidate for the Libertarian Party of Canada in the Yellowhead riding west of Edmonton, is raffling off an AR-15 semi-automatic carbine. "I accept the idea that not everybody's going to accept the fact that I'm giving away a firearm," he said. "But it also brings up a great opportunity to have the conversation that it's not the firearm that's hurting anyone, it's the wrong people that have them." The AR 15, which is restricted in Canada, may look like an automatic weapon but it was originally sold as a hunting firearm, Lystang said. The gun was later adapted by the U.S. military into the fully automatic M16, he said. "That is what everybody sees as a machine gun." The carbine was restricted because it resembles the M16 closely, so it cannot be used for hunting in Canada, Lystang said. The firearm, valued at $1,200, was offered to his campaign as a way to raise money. For a $20 donation, the donor gets one chance to win the high-powered firearm. Participants over the age of 18 who can legally own a gun are eligible to participate, Lystang said. So far, the raffle has raised a little over $2,000. "The major parties are still getting taxpayers dollars," Lystang said. "I'm trying to raise anything I can to get some (election) signs out there. "It's working OK. It's not a major, huge amount of money." The Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission said it is looking into the giveaway to ensure provincial regulations are being followed. Elections Canada says there are rules about contribution limits but nothing about raffling a firearm to raise funds.The move can severely impact water flows in India In a recent development amid intense tensions between India and Pakistan, China has blocked a tributary of the Brahmaputra River in Tibet which can severely impact water flows in India. The move is part of the construction of China’s most expensive hydro Lalho project in Xigaze, Zhang Yunbao, head of the said project, was quoted by the state-run Xinhua as saying. The development comes in the wake of Indian PM Narendra Modi’s threats to scrap the Indus Water Treaty. In a meeting earlier this week, the he reportedly zeroed in on adopting an aggressive strategy to raise pressure on Pakistan, days after he threatened the Pakistani nation with global ‘isolation’ following the recent Uri attack. Indian prime minister reviews Indus Waters Treaty Blocking of the tributary would be a cause of concern for India as its flow goes into Arunachal Pradesh, one of India’s states, and provides water to Bangladesh as well. Dubbed as the ‘most expensive project’ by China, this project was initiated in 2014 and will have an investment of $740 million before it gets completed in 2019. The announcement had already raised concerns for New Delhi for various reasons. Moreover, Beijing also had also started its Zam Hydropower Station last year on the same river which further caught India off guard. However, the Chinese authorities have maintained that it would take into account the Modi goernment’s apprehension, saying that its dams are not designed to hold water. TDAP calls off New Delhi event as Pak-India tensions simmer Besides, China’s 12th Five Year Plan reveals that three more such power projects will be created on the river. Although China and India have had no water treaty, the two countries founded Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) on trans-border rivers while also signing in October 2013 MoU on bolstering cooperation which makes Beijing provide India with data on the water flows. The article originally appeared on Times of India. Read full storyOf the many things China is good at, making realistic imitation products takes the cake. China’s copycat $37 iPhone 6s is ridiculously cheap compared to the actual Apple manufactured device and it functions fairly well. The fake iPhone replica is hard to tell apart from the real one. Apple unveiled its new smartphone in September. The iPhone clone has similar features including a 5-inch screen and color options in silver, gold, and rose gold. While the imitation product is offered at an affordable $37, the original iPhone model starts at $649 in the United States. The noticeable differences between the two are apparent in their screen resolutions. China’s make has a resolution of 960 x 540 while the iPhone 6s has a resolution of 1334 x 750. Their operating systems are also different. The replica operates on an Android with a weak Spreadtrum SC773 processor, 4GB of storage, and 512 MB RAM. The price paid for Apple’s iPhone might be worth it as it starts with a minimum storage capacity of 16 GB that goes up to 128 GB. Apple also reportedly runs on 2GB of RAM. Three days after launching their replica iPhone 6s, the “Fruit company” set a record after selling more than 13 million new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models. The copycat offers features specially tailored for Chinese consumers such as two SIM card slots and a 3G module.I ran into a great excerpt from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson in 1813 about the nature of ideas. It’s not the first time I’ve run across it, and like my Ben Franklin quote it has seen a lot of use in patent discussions, but it’s the kind of thing I think needs to be found on movingtofreedom.org. Looking at more of the letter: It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices. —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson, 13 August 1813Misty Copeland is adding one more history-making move to her already illustrious career. The beloved ballerina was promoted to principal dancer by American Ballet Theatre today, making her the first African-American female principal dancer in the company’s 75-year history, reports the New York Times. Copeland, 32, has been a soloist in the company since 2007. Last week she made her debut as the first African-American lead in the company’s production of “Swan Lake.” The Kansas City native began her dance career at 13; late according to ballet standards. A junior high school drill team coach encouraged her to take ballet classes since she was a natural dancer. “I went to my first class and hated it,” she told ESSENCE. Four years after she began taking ballet lessons, she accepted a scholarship to American Ballet Theatre. She has been with the company ever since, occasionally performing with the Dance Theatre of Harlem as well. Copeland is credited with bringing a new, and diverse, audience to ballet. It was all part of her plan. She also
' crime stories, Civil War era melodramas, historical epics, social commentaries and adventure tales. Two of his Biograph films included the 18-minute urban gangster film The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) (with notable menacing close-ups) and the early 29-minute western The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913). In many of these short films, he realized the potential of the new film medium, with his cameraman Billy Bitzer. He experimented with early lighting and camera techniques (closeups for reaction shots, fade-outs, varied shot depths including establishing shots, far shots and medium shots, backlighting, naturalistic, low-key light sources, increased use of locations, etc.) and systematized their use - and would later bring them to artistic perfection in order to shape the film's narrative. In the one-reel chase film The Lonely Villa (1909) with Mary Pickford, Griffith employed his most sophisticated use to date of the cinematic technique of "cross-cutting" to build up tension within scenes. He also used the same technique with rapid editing in The Girl and Her Trust (1912) - another film with a suspenseful last-minute action sequence of a rescue (a Griffith trademark). The film also featured outdoor filming, and an early use of a tracking shot of a train. He also trained and created his own company or stock of 'players' - including such newcomers (and future stars) as Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Harry Carey, Henry B. Walthall, Mack Sennett, Florence Turner, Constance Talmadge, Donald Crisp, and Lionel Barrymore. Biograph insisted that the actors' names remain uncredited. Griffith's 15-minute, one-reel thriller An Unseen Enemy (1912) introduced two young actresses: Dorothy and Lillian Gish to the screen, as they were menaced by a closeup of a gun pointed at them - and at the camera to scare the audience. Contributing to the modern language of cinema, he used the camera and film in new, more functional, mobile ways with composed shots, traveling shots and camera movement, split-screens, flashbacks, cross-cutting (showing two simultaneous actions that built toward a tense climax), frequent closeups to observe details, fades, irises, intercutting, insert shots, parallel editing, dissolves, changing camera angles, soft-focus, lens filters, and experimental/artificial lighting and shading/tinting. Toward the end of his time at Biograph, his most artistic film was the two-reel, 23-minute The Mothering Heart (1913) with Lillian Gish in an early lead role. The First Feature-Length Films - Inspired by Foreign Competition: In the early years of cinema, film producers were worried that the American public could not last through a film that was an hour long, thereby delaying the advent of feature films (usually 60-90 minutes in length) in the US. It took quite awhile for films, at first viewed as technical curiosities, to transition from shorter novelty stories to longer, epic-length feature films with more complex narrative structures. Although US production and exhibition of longer feature films started slowly, tremendous growth and development was encouraged when foreign competition (with often superior products) proved to be successful and popular. There were three feature-length films that convinced studios that features could be commercially viable: The Crusaders (1911, It.) - a four-reeler, d. Enrico Guazzoni Queen Elizabeth (1912, Fr.) (aka Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth) - a four-reel silent costume drama (starring Sarah Bernhardt); it was the third film to be shown whole in its US premiere in July at the Lyceum Theatre in NYC Quo Vadis? (1913, It.) - a nine-reeler, d. Enrico Guazzoni, with spectacular special effects and crowd scenes (with over 5,000 extras); it was the first film to run for 120 minutes! According to most sources, the first continuous, full-length narrative feature film (defined as a commercially-made film at least an hour in length) was writer/director Charles Tait's five-reel biopic of a notorious outback folk hero and bushranger, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906, Australia), with a running time of between 60-70 minutes. Only fragments of the film survive to this day. Australia was the only country set up to regularly produce feature-length films prior to 1911. [Note: The film was remade many times, notably as director Tony Richardson's Ned Kelly (1970) with rock star Mick Jagger in the lead role, and as Ned Kelly (2003) with Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Naomi Watts.] The first US documentary re-creation, Sigmund Lubin's one-reel film The Unwritten Law (1907) (subtitled "A Thrilling Drama Based on the Thaw-White Case/Tragedy") dramatized the true-life murder -- on June 25, 1906 -- of prominent architect Stanford White by mentally unstable and jealous millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw over the affections of model/showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (who appeared as herself), Thaw's wife. The film was considered quite controversial for its sensational and scandalous story of murder and sex. [Note: Alluring chorine Nesbit would become a brief sensation, and the basis for Richard Fleischer's biopic film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), portrayed by Joan Collins, and E.L. Doctorow's musical and film Ragtime (1981), portrayed by an Oscar-nominated Elizabeth McGovern.] The first feature-length film made in Europe was from France - Michel Carre's L'Enfant Prodigue (1907, Fr.), an adaptation of a stage play, that premiered in Paris on June 20, 1907. The first feature-length film produced in the US was Vitagraph's Les Miserables (1909) (each reel of the four-reel production was released separately). A second feature film, Stuart Blackton's Vitagraph five-reel production titled The Life of Moses (1909) was also released in separate installments. The first feature-length film to be released in its entirety in the US was the 69-minute epic Dante's Inferno (1911, It.) (aka L’Inferno), inspired by Dante's 14th century poem The Divine Comedy. It opened in New York on December 10, 1911 at Gane’s Manhattan Theatre. It was made by three directors Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro, and Adolfo Padovan, took two years to make, and cost over $180,000. The first US feature film to be shown in its entirety was H. A. Spanuth's five-reel production of Oliver Twist (1912). The five-reel Richard III (1912) is thought to be the earliest surviving complete feature film made in the US. Grand and Modern Picture Houses - "Movie Palaces": An era of movie-palace building began in 1909 and continued until the introduction of sound in films. Motion pictures moved out of often ill-equipped nickelodeons and into real theaters - splendid pleasure domes built specifically for the purpose of showing movies. Vast urban populations were eager for a cheap form of entertainment. By definition, a movie 'palace' held thousands of patrons. Grand, modern movie theaters or 'picture houses' (palaces) that charged from ten to fifteen cents admission began to appear (and replaced nickelodeons). The first movie palaces began to appear in 1909, starting with the City Theatre on 5th Street in NYC, followed by the Regent Theatre movie palace in Harlem in 1913 with a capacity of 1,800 (often considered America's first major motion picture palace). The first'real' and elaborate theater built for movies only and without a stage opened in 1914. It was the opulent 2,800 seat Mark Strand Theater in New York's Times Square. Later in 1919, the plush Capitol Theatre opened on Broadway. Eventually, luxurious movie palaces were built in all the major American cities and on the West Coast. The trend was toward larger, opulent 'picture palaces' to cater to increasing upper-class audiences. The first US air-conditioned theatre was established in Chicago at Central Park Theatre in 1917 by chain operators Sam Katz and Barney and A. J. Balaban (known as "B & K"). [In 1925 B&K merged with Famous Players-Lasky Studio to become the foundation of the national Publix chain, that existed until the mid 1940s, at which time federal laws dismantled the film industry's vertical integration.] Film History of the Pre-1920s Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5There are an estimated 4.5 million United States-born children who were given birthright citizenship despite at least one of their parents being an illegal alien. These children are commonly known as “anchor babies,” as they are able to eventually bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. through the process known as “chain migration.” A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report reveals the extent to which the illegal alien population in the U.S. has had children that are given automatic citizenship simply for being born within the borders of the country. According to the CBO, there are 4.5 million anchor babies in the U.S. under the age of 18-years-old. This estimate does not include the potentially millions of anchor babies who are older than 18-years-old. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Director of Policy Jessica Vaughan told Breitbart News that there are more anchor babies than estimated because the CBO data does not include the U.S.-born children who have departed the country when their parents were deported. Vaughan said these anchor babies can still eventually return to the U.S. as citizens and sponsor foreign relatives through chain migration. Should President Trump’s administration not enact major reforms to end illegal immigration — including constructing a border wall and ending birthright citizenship — the CBO estimates that at least another 600,000 anchor babies will be born to illegal alien parents in the next 10 years. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) filed legislation at the beginning of 2017 to permanently end birthright citizenship, putting the U.S. on par with other Western nations, but the bill has not moved in the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. The birthright citizenship debate was not always partisan as it currently is with establishment Republicans and Democrats supporting anchor babies. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) once opposed birthright citizenship, saying in 1993 that “no sane country” would reward illegal aliens with U.S. citizenship for their children. As Breitbart News reported, the U.S. is nearly alone in granting citizenship to illegal aliens’ children. For example, the U.S. and Canada are the two only developed nations with birthright citizenship. On the other hand, countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, and Germany all have either outlawed birthright citizenship or never had such a policy to begin with. Proponents of birthright citizenship often claim the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the policy. The Supreme Court, however, has never explicitly ruled that the children of illegal aliens must be granted automatic citizenship and many legal scholars dispute the idea.Rainbow Six: Siege won't have a campaign mode, nor will Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 on the PS3 and Xbox 360 or Star Wars: Battlefront. From a greedy, consumer perspective I'm not bothered by this. I don't feel like I'll be robbed somehow if this year's £40 disc doesn't have the same amount of "content" as last year's. I'm also not worried about missing out on anything wild or creative. Ubisoft, Rainbow Six's developer, hasn't turned out a good story since Far Cry 2, and CoD has been rubbish since the first Black Ops, if not before. The world hasn't lost anything. It's just a sad indicator of video games moving – even if it's only slightly – away from narrative and closer to mechanics-led design and pretensions of sport. At a single studio there's room for everything – narrative games, multiplayer games, mechanics-heavy games – and I don't think Rainbow Six is an apocalyptic sign that video games are done trying to entertain with writing. Multiplayer, though, has always smacked to me of games as a service. It's designed using feedback from fans and players – either directly or through things like heat maps – and prides itself on fairness, functionality and accessibility. It's certainly a craft, but it represents what are to me the most boring aspects of video games, the things that, as the definition of "video game" broadens, feel increasingly redundant. I don't care about skill ladders, weapon balancing and fair matchmaking. If I had to choose it would be multiplayer not single-player that was excised from Rainbow Six, largely because, since they're each based on the same immovable, cold rules of game design, multiplayer modes feel to me all inherently the same. 'Reductive notions about game design are still being given preferential treatment' Maybe it's just a gut preference. Debating which is the harder or more valid thing to create between single and multiplayer video games seems unfair and ludicrous – I think personally I just feel slightly grubby with multiplayer, like I'm not getting much out of it aside from base, gameplay thrills. I like a story. I like some structure. And I don't like to think of games as rigorously tested, tweaked and re-tested products. That seems to me a dispassionate illustration of gaming. However flawed, I'd sooner play a game with writing, designed by as small a committee as possible, that's attempting to do something regardless of support or appreciation of would-be consumers. Those games seem noble and honest in a way that smoothed through, built-to-function multiplayer never can be. If the news about Rainbow Six: Siege is emblematic of one thing, it's that reductive notions about video game design – games must be fun, fair and intellectually accessible – are still being given preferential treatment. It's a shame the mainstream is still, evidently, struggling to absorb much inspiration from what you might call gaming's counter-culture, but who ever had high hopes for the mainstream anyway? Rainbow Six: Siege and Black Ops 3: this is the kind of thing big games do all the time. It used to be that first-person shooters, even war shooters, had pretensions of story – you play the old Medal Of Honor games and they don't just attempt a narrative, they try to be educational. Part of me wants to lament those days and write about how Big Gaming has lost its way, and people aren't trying like they used to, but I passed that point years ago. 'Single player campaigns in shooters have been hanging by a thread for years' The mainstream is just grotesque at the moment. I know that's cynical and jaded and unhelpful, but I'd like to think Rainbow Six et al provide the game-makers doing genuinely good work even more impetus, since it's something tangible and awful to push back against. There are good stories being told. There are great single-player games still being made. If big shooters want to lose themselves in boring multiplayer, I guess that was inevitable, but it doesn't mean video games are backsliding generally. The grand tradition of single-player campaigns in first-person shooters has been hanging by a thread for years anyway – I bely anyone to play Advanced Warfare's single-player, and then say it's anything except a reluctant add-on, built chiefly out of a sense of obligation. Rainbow Six is a big game doing what big games have been doing for a long time, except nakedly. Games as products have always existed, and now they exist even more out in the open. I doubt this'll create a groundswell of gaming enthusiasts, who demand that stories go back into shooting games, but at least the choice now is that little bit clearer: if you want products, support the mainstream. If you want something else, support something else. For all the latest video game news follow us on Twitter @IBTGamesUK.Israel is busily attempting to disrupt the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in support of Palestinian liberation and self-determination. Anne Paq The Electronic Intifada Anti-boycott campaigners in Washington state were dealt a significant — and expensive — court defeat yesterday. The Washington State Court of Appeals upheld a 2012 ruling that affirmed the dismissal of a frivolous lawsuit against board members of the Olympia Food Co-op for their 2011 decision to boycott Israeli goods and products. The co-op was the first US grocery store to adopt and implement a consumer boycott of Israeli goods. The lawsuit, filed by individuals in collusion with national anti-Palestinian organization StandWithUs, attempted to force co-op board members into rescinding their decision to implement the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. They are now mandated to pay $160,000 in statutory damages — $10,000 to each of the 16 co-op board members — as well as other legal fees. “Those who would try to intimidate concerned citizens speaking out on behalf of Palestinian human rights should take note,” said Maria LaHood, senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, in a press release. “The law and history are on the side of peaceful boycotts for social change, and today’s ruling reaffirms that this time-honored tradition is protected by the First Amendment. Instead of trying to suppress speech calling for Palestinian human rights, opponents should address such speech on the merits,” she added. In the 7 April press release, the Center for Constitutional Rights states: Today, the Washington State Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by five members of the Olympia Food Co-op against current and former members of the Co-op’s Board of Directors for their decision to boycott Israeli goods. The court held that the lawsuit was a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP, and that participation in the boycott is protected by the First Amendment. The court also affirmed $160,000 in statutory damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs for the board members, and awarded attorneys’ fees for the appeal. The lawsuit is part of a broader pattern of targeting pro-Palestinian activists in the United States, particularly in legislatures and across college campuses. … The lawsuit was filed in 2011 and sought both monetary damages and to end the Co-op’s boycott of Israeli goods, claiming that the defendants had acted beyond the scope of their authority and breached their fiduciary duties as board members. The boycott is part of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against violations of international law and the denial of Palestinian human rights by Israel. Said Bruce Johnson of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, “I’m delighted that this new state law, which I drafted and the legislature adopted in 2010, has protected the free speech rights of the Olympia Food Co-op from a retaliatory lawsuit targeting board members because of their views on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This is an excellent decision reaffirming the state’s anti-SLAPP law, which protects the rights of all Washington citizens against meritless lawsuits penalizing public discussion.” In today’s ruling, the Court of Appeals also upheld the constitutionality of Washington’s anti-SLAPP statute, which the plaintiffs had challenged. “We are thrilled to hear that, as 16 individual co-defendants, our right to freedom of speech has been upheld. We are also excited that Washington’s anti-SLAPP law has been upheld. Boycotts are a longstanding form of non-violent political expression; using the Court system to attempt to silence our right of expression clearly qualifies as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation,” said Grace Cox, co-defendant and Co-op staff member. The case is Davis, et al., v. Cox, et al. The court ruling comes as efforts by Israel lobby organizations to disrupt the global boycott movement continue to be characterized by failure, embarrassment and incompetence.The Coalition government has finally put its cards on the table, calling for the completion of a ‘free trade’ agreement with the United States of America that will end democracy as we know it today. Do you think this statement is needlessly hyperbolic? In fact, it probably does not make the point strongly enough! You will lose the ability to affect government policy – particularly on the National Health Service; after the Health and Social Care Act, the trade agreement would put every decision relating to its work on a commercial footing. The rights of transnational corporations would become the priority, health would become primarily a trade issue and your personal well-being would be of no consequence whatsoever. Profit will rule. Also threatened would be any other public service that has been privatised by this and previous governments, along with any that are privatised in the future; all would fall under the proposed agreement. So the debate over energy bills would be lost because gas and electricity provision would come under the agreement, along with water and the Royal Mail, among others. Speaking today (Wednesday), Osborne announced: “We should set ourselves the urgent task of completing the transatlantic trade and investment partnership – the EU-US Free Trade agreement. “This would be the world’s biggest ever trade deal – together our economies would account for half of global output. “The Commission estimate it would boost the European economy by 120 billion euros a year – that’s over 500 euros for every family in the EU. It would bring £10 billion pounds a year to the UK alone. “Some in the European Parliament talk about stalling this Trans-Atlantic Partnership to pursue other agendas. “But when a quarter of young people looking for work in Europe are unemployed, this would be a complete betrayal. “We need to create jobs, increase trade, support business growth – we’ve got the European tools to help with the job, let’s get on and use them.” Did you notice that, for him, it’s all about the money? Yes – he mentions job creation. But these jobs would be provided under terms dictated by the hugely powerful global corporations. Their bosses would take the profits and ground-level employees would be treated like – well, like Orwell’s metaphor for the future: a giant boot, stamping on your face, forever. You may have heard very little about this – and for a good reason. The architects of the planned agreement want the deal done before anybody realises what is going on and organises robust protest against it. So let’s give you some of the facts: The US/EU Trade and Investment partnership (TTIP), called Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) in the US, is a bilateral trade agreement between the US and the EU. It goes much further than any previous EU trade agreement in deregulating, in establishing the rights of transnational corporations and in undermining the ability of governments to control corporations. It is set to completely change our society, and is already in process, as with the NHS. ‘Trade’ and ‘international trade agreements’ are different. While most people would consider trade to be good thing, international trade agreements give rights to transnational corporations while reducing states’ rights to regulate them, thus reducing democracy. All free trade agreements include goods, services and intellectual property rights – but the additional elements of the TTIP that are the main part of the agreement are much more far-reaching. These are regulatory harmonisation, investor state dispute settlement and the intention to establish global rules via these trade agreements. ‘Regulatory harmonisation’ means ‘harmonising’ regulation between the EU and US, downwards to the most lax form, across all areas, to suit transnational corporations. This will mean the degrading of regulation on health and safety, food, environment, labour standards, privacy and much more, including financial services regulation. The NHS is now already ‘harmonised’ with the US corporate-access public health model – and this was always the Conservative Party’s plan. TTIP will also include ‘Investor State Dispute Settlement’ (ISDS), allowing transnational corporations to sue governments directly for the loss of any future profits resulting from any government action, at any level, such as new legislation. Where ISDS is already included in ‘trade’ deals, it is shown to lead either to big payouts from governments to transnational corporations or to deter governments from legislating – the ‘chill’ effect. In theory, this means that if a national government had banned a product – a toy, perhaps – on the grounds that it was harmful to health because it contained lead – for example – the manufacturer could then sue that government for infringement of the TTIP. The national government would lose, and our children would come down with lead poisoning. In practice, we can see a classic example in the current lawsuit taken out by Philip Morris, the antipodean tobacco giant, against the Australian government over the law that enforces plain packaging on all tobacco products there. The law was enacted to discourage people from smoking – an act with proven health risks – but it seems likely that Philip Morris will win because Australia’s government has restricted its ability to make massive profits. TTIP and the TPP are intended to set global ‘trade’ rules which will eventually become the norms for the multilateral World Trade Organisation, but formulated outside of a structure that allows other countries to jointly resist the corporate-dominated agenda. As with all bilateral ‘trade’ agreements, TTIP negotiations and agreement texts are secret until the negotiations are completed – ensuring that the public cannot protest against them until it is too late. Trade agreements are effectively permanent. Although international ‘trade’ agreements are negotiated government-to-government (by the Trade Commission for EU member states), they are promoted and driven by transnational corporations, which benefit from states being bound by international trade law – these are the the same transnational financial service corporations that caused the global financial crisis. As part of the TTIP, a framework for the ongoing ‘harmonisation’ of all future regulation is being put in place with the setting up of a Regulatory Co-operation Council. This non-elected Council will be able to override national and EU legislation. ‘Public procurement’ – government spending – is a major target in the international trade agenda. The TTIP is being rushed through, with the aim of completion by the end of this year (2014). TTIP will include provision for the movement of temporary workers across borders. This will inevitably mean cheap labour, and the undermining of working conditions and labour rights, especially in a context of degraded regulation. These are the jobs George Osborne wants for you! The Trade Commission has set up a communications ‘spin’ unit to manage public opinion on the TTIP. Once TTIP negotiations are completed, the European Parliament will only have the right to say yes or no, to the deal, with no amendment allowed. It will then, as with all EU ‘trade’ agreements, be provisionally implemented before it comes to member state parliaments for ratification. In the US, the government is seeking ‘Fast Track’ provision or Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) from the Congress. If granted, US representatives will similarly only be allowed to pass the agreement or not, without amendment. You may wish to examine the following documents for further evidence: EU Commission’s (leaked) mandate from EU Council to negotiate TTIP http://www.s2bnetwork.org/fileadmin/dateien/downloads/EU-TTIP-Mandate-from-bfmtv-June17-2013.pdf EU Commission’s (leaked) PR strategy “Communicating on TTIP” http://corporateeurope.org/trade/2013/11/leaked-european-commission-pr-strategy-communicating-ttip EU Commission’s (leaked) concept paper on regulatory coherence http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/ttip-regulatory-coherence-2-12-2013.pdf Corporate Europe Observatory’s analysis of the regulatory coherence document http://corporateeurope.org/publications/regulation-none-our-business George Monbiot’s articles on TTIP: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy Big business control of UK policy-making,including the UK government White Paper on Trade: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/04/us-trade-deal-full-frontal-assault-on-democracy These blog articles on TTIP: http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/seeing-red.html http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/seeing-red.html http://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2013/12/06/the-coming-corporatocracy-and-the-death-of-democracy/ This Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/waatt.org Action against TTIP is already taking place. Petitions are available to be signed: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_EUUS_free_trade_agreement/?aTAVNbb http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_champagne_for_monsanto_loc/?bJcgccb&v=32207 http://action.sumofus.org/a/tpp-lawsuits/?akid=3025.1529716.rGZEQN&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=1 But more must be done. You – that’s right, YOU – need to contact your MP and your MEP and make sure they oppose this evil plan to stamp on your rights. Then you – that’s right, STILL YOU – need to get involved in setting up and building local and national groups to fight it, while you still can. DON’T expect someone else to do it for you or you’ll end up a corporate slave. … which is exactly what George Osborne wants. Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike Join the Vox Political Facebook page. Vox Political needs your help! This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions. Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going. You can make a one-off donation here: Alternatively, you can buy Vox Political books! The second – Health Warning: Government! is now available in either print or eBook format here: The first, Strong Words and Hard Times is still available in either print or eBook format here: AdvertisementsI have nothing against Stephen Elop. The former and future Microsoft executive seems to have done a pretty good job running Nokia. It’s a little awkward that he was offered $7.3 million to move from Microsoft to the Finnish phone-maker and stands to receive $25.4 million to rejoin the his former employer. But the tech industry often has a slightly incestuous feeling, and there were plausible strategic arguments for both moves. Elop did what almost any senior American executive would have done – negotiated and renegotiated favourable contracts. However, Elop’s packages are part of an outrageous system of executive remuneration. It features pointlessly complex arrangements – base salary, cash bonus, a small collection of share plans plus substantial payments for coming and going. The deals are rigged in the executive’s favour; Elop obtained highly attractive last minute alterations just before the sale of the phone business. And the numbers are all unjustly large, by any relevant standard. The announcement of Elop’s terms was understandably met with widespread disgust. The same response is typical whenever executive pay comes up. Such an unpopular system could be changed quite easily. Just pass a few laws or enact a few regulations. The wish list is quite simple: ban deferred pay and bonuses for people with very high salaries, and impose a ratio capping the highest pay at no more than 15, 20 or 40 times the average. These changes should be easy to enact. After all, a more straightforward and less generous remuneration regime would be politically popular. The affected executives and some free-market purists would be opposed, but most economists should be strongly in favour, since bosses who were less distracted by pay negotiations and less interested in short-term share price moves would be more effective. Why, then, have the ultra-high top executive pay practices continued almost unabated? I have three basic answers to this question: financial-psychological, conspiratorial and sociological. The financial-psychological argument is that top executives all think they deserve above-average pay, while the members of the boards who negotiate contracts all think their companies should have above-average executives. The result: pay ratchets up each year to keep ahead of the pack. That explanation is not wrong, but it just begs a larger question about the economic system: why do shareholders, regulators and voters go along with this expensive delusion? The conspiratorial reasoning goes something like this: the elite are all in it together, and they have the power to distract or ignore the will of the people. That’s not exactly wrong, either, although it is less of a conscious conspiracy than a sort of noxious group-think. Rich people do not sit around cackling greedily about their ability to mistreat the rest of society; they are mostly persuaded that the social arrangements which they perpetuate are helpful, fair or unavoidable. The conspiracy analysis raises a broader question – whatever happened to the egalitarian spirit which dominated political thinking in many developed economies, including the United States, for most of the last century? If that spirit still prevailed, the masses could outvote the elite and change things. In fact, though, protests against the privileged “one percent” have not gone very far. That leaves a possible sociological explanation: egalitarianism has given way to a sort of neo-feudalism. Society was never level, but for decades the very wealthy accepted high marginal tax rates and relatively narrow pay differentials. They had to, since that was what the less well-off wanted – and in democracies the people’s views prevailed. Now, though, the elite can get away with a grasping self-confidence reminiscent of pre-revolutionary aristocrats, while everyone else is left having to accept grudgingly that their social and economic betters will always end up with a disproportionate share of the wealth. If that is right, is neo-feudalism here for good? Perhaps the century of egalitarian social democracy was no more than an aberration. After all, pre-industrial societies were typically aristocracies and successful revolts almost always ended with a new aristocratic group in power. Perhaps it has just taken a while for advanced industrial societies to find their own type of aristocracy. I hope that’s not right. I would love to see much more than the tiny steps made so far – a Swiss ban on Elop-type leaving payments and a European Union limit on the ratio of bonus to salary for bankers. I would welcome a democratic revolution which swept away the current executive pay arrangements, as well as the political influence of the financial-corporate complex. But I fear that the future, like the past, belongs to the Elops of this world.Reserve center Joffrey Lauvergne missed his fifth consecutive game with a right ankle sprain suffered in an Oct. 21 win over Toronto. Popovich said he was surprised at the severity of Lauvergne's injury. "It was worse than we thought, I guess," Popovich said. "I thought he would be out for three or four days but I guess it was a higher sprain than what I thought initially." Popovich said it could be "four, five or six days" before Lauvergne returns to the floor. In the meantime, Lauvergne's absence has forced Popovich to play smaller on his second unit than he normally would. At 6-foot-11, Lauvergne is the lone traditional big off the Spurs' bench. "I think he has been doing a good job for us," Popovich said. "He's a valuable big man off the bench. He's very mobile and can do some things, so we miss him." jmcdonald@express-news.net Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAENHey There Polished People! Today brings us to Galaxy Nails!!! I am honestly not that big of a fan so I decided to try something different. It’s not that galaxy nails aren’t fun, they are; it’s not that they are too hard, they’re pretty easy; I just don’t care much for them. I think I’m just a little too OCD to like galaxy nails. They just aren’t uniform enough or symmetrical enough for me, I guess. Maybe your galaxy nails are nice and symmetrical, but mine are not. Anyway- I do kind of like what I did with them, although I don’t know if they still technically qualify as galaxy nails. Have a peek and let me know what you think! Galaxy Nails How To Get These Nails: Apply base coat. Paint your nails with Cult Nails Time Traveler. Sponge on some China Glaze White On White in a small circle. Sponge a little Jessica Beat The Heat (super light pink) around the white. Sponge on a a little Julep Claire (sky blue) around the pink and white. Sponge a little WnW Speak When Spoken To (multichromatic glitter) at the base of the nails. Add a few tiny spots of sponged on FP Black Expressionism to add some depth. Apply a coat of Seche Vite and allow your nails to dry. At this point you have “regular” galaxy nails. If you need more information on how to do regular galaxy nails, just google it. There are a million tutorials. When your galaxy nails are totally dry, place french manicure guides sideways along your nails (not across the top like usual, but instead have the curve going from the cuticle to the free edge). Paint over the guides with FP Black Expressionism. Immediately peel off the manicure guides. Allow the black to dry to avoid smearing and then cover with a coat of Seche Vite. Check out your cool nails! 🙂 How do you like my take on galaxy nails? Too weird? Not galaxy enough? Let me know what you think. Don’t forget to check out Cynthia’s galaxy nails by clicking here. Thanks for reading and till next time- Happy Polishing! 😀 AdvertisementsDonald Trump has had dealings with members or associates of at least three Mafia families, but you can be sure that he never never groped their wives, girlfriends, or daughters. The widow of Gambino family boss John Gotti makes clear that she would not have allowed her own husband even to speak as Trump did on the now infamous Access Hollywood outtake. “I was married to #1 gangster and would have cut his throat if he ever said such a foul thing to me,” Victoria Gotti said in an email to a longtime pen pal at The Daily Beast whom she has nicknamed “Dimples.” She noted in the email that she and her family had been the subject of various false accusations, adding, “Dimples, It’s hard to tell anymore as to what is ‘truth or fiction.’” But she had reached a decision regarding Trump. “No, definitely not for Trump, a full of himself spoiled rich brat.” She
support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail. “A business must have freedom to locate where it wishes,” the piece continued. “In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions.” She warned that “picking and choosing” which company darlings receive “corporate welfare” is a “hallmark of corruption” and “socialism.” A “$20 trillion debt-ridden country can’t afford this sinfully stupid practice, so vigilantly guard against its continuance, or we’re doomed,” she urged. Palin left wiggle room in the piece for Trump to redeem himself. “Gotta have faith that the Trump team knows all of this,” she wrote hopefully, and promised to be the first to dismiss concerns if details of the deal prove her wrong once they’re publicly released. In a bit of cognitive dissonance, Palin also said she was “ecstatic” for Carrier workers. “What a relief for hundreds of workers. Merry Christmas Indiana!” she gushed. Palin is hardly the only “free market” Republican disturbed by the deal. The Wall Street Journal issued its own op-ed Thursday called “Trump’s Carrier Shakedown” noting that real job security depends on a company’s strength in the marketplace. “If the extra costs of staying in Indianapolis erode that business, those workers will lose their jobs eventually in any case,” the Journal warned, adding: “Workers don’t prosper when politicians force companies to make noneconomic decisions.” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also attacked Trump’s deal, saying it signals to corporations that they can get significant tax breaks as long as they threaten to export jobs. Despite the deal, Carrier is still shifting some production to Mexico, and at least 600 Carrier positions will be cut. Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies, will also move ahead with closing a separate Indiana plant and laying off 700 workers. The union at the Carrier factory was cut out of negotiations to save their jobs, Chuck Jones, president of the local chapter of the United Steelworkers union that represents the plant, told The Huffington Post. There was no immediate reaction from Trump on the criticisms from Palin or the Journal.It is hard to imagine to two people more diametrically dissimilar than President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Xi, the son of a Chinese Communist Party leader who was a confidant of Mao Zedong, is a strident party apparatchik known for his cautious approach in politics and following strict protocols. He keeps his private life out of view and rarely goes off script from his core message when speaking publically. Trump, on the other hand, is a billionaire real estate mogul-turned-politician whose political outsider status paired with his off-the-cuff populism propelled him into the White House. During his decades as a boisterous New York businessman, Trump’s personal life was a constant fodder for the tabloids. So there is a great deal of speculation among observers about what will happen when Xi arrives at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday for the first meeting between these two very different world leaders. “This meeting will set the tone in looking at the strategic framework between the U.S. and China for the next few years,” Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told Fox News. “China wants to know what President Trump’s framework toward Beijing will be and if he is a man they can work with.” During his time on the campaign trail last year, Trump was harshly critical of China – accusing the country of “raping” the U.S. economically – and he has threatened to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports. As president, he has kept his tough stance on trade relations between Washington and Beijing. Just last week, the president tweeted that he expects his meeting with Xi to be “very difficult” and added on Friday that “we’re going to get down to some serious business” in reference to the trade deficit with China and Trump’s perception that the China is negatively impacting the U.S. economy, especially in regards to the manufacturing sector. To this end, Trump signed a pair of executive orders last Friday that – despite assertions from White House aides that the timing was coincidental – appear to take a shot a China ahead of Xi’s visit. The two orders focused primarily on reducing the trade deficit, which accounted for the majority, $347 billion, of last year’s total $502 billion trade deficit. China downplayed Trump’s tweet and executive orders by portraying the issue as one in which both nations had an equal stake in. This meeting will set the tone in looking at the strategic framework between the U.S. and China for the next few years. — Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center “China will continue to work with the United States to think creatively and keeping pushing for greater balance in China-U.S. trade,” Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters in Beijing. Experts tend to agree with the Chinese government’s assertion – noting also that there are many other factors to take into account when looking at the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. “It is very important—very important—to keep China engaged in the world economy,” Frances Rosenbluth, a political science professor at Yale University, told Fox News. “We want them to have an economic stake in our prosperity and in global economic stability and growth, more generally. So trade protectionism is just a bad idea.” Rosenbluth said while it may be convenient to blame China for the loss of American job “the far bigger cause is automation.” While there are very low expectations that any major trade deal will come out of the meeting between Trump and Xi, observers have noted that China could grant Trump some minor economic concession. This would give the president – still smarting from the failure of health care reform – a publicity victory, while also allowing Xi to tout that the relationship with Washington is still strong as he prepares to consolidate his power at the 19th Chinese Communist Party congress later this year. “They’re probably going to do some chalkboard diplomacy that will enable Trump to have a successful summit at Mar-a-Lago,” Daly said. “Xi just wants to stabilize the relationship for the rest of this year.” Another issue that has rankled Trump is China’s refusal to take a stronger stance toward North Korea and its burgeoning hopes of developing nuclear weapons. Early Wednesday morning North Korea fired an apparent ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan, just hours after Trump described the country's pursuit of a nuclear arsenal as a "humanity problem" and a senior U.S. official told reporters that the "clock has now run out" on Pyongyang. Speaking last week to the Financial Times, Trump said that if China doesn’t get tough on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions, the U.S. is prepared to act unilaterally. “China has great influence over North Korea,” Trump said. “And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone.” North Korea has overshadowed much of the talk in the region, but the U.S. has a slew of other concerns with China when it comes to their role in East Asian affairs. China recently provoked the ire of Japan and heightened tensions throughout East Asia, when they flew a pair of nuclear-capable bombers around Taiwan for the first time, as the Japanese scrambled eight F-15 fighter jets to intercept the Chinese flight while it was circling the island. China in December also placed hundreds of surface-to-air missiles on Hainan Island off mainland China, which intelligence officials say could one day be moved to China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea to better defend them. “Those islands are already built and they will be operational soon,” Shelia Smith, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, told Fox News. “It’s like the Death Star in Star Wars.” For his part, Trump irked the Chinese by taking a phone call with the Taiwanese president soon after winning the election and there are rumors that his administration wants to build a stronger relationship with the self-governing island democracy. “The U.S. has always sold weapons to China but done so in carefully crafted packages,” Smith said. “The Trump administration may not be as hesitant as previous administrations have been at selling all types of weapons to Taiwan.” Despite the marked differences both economically and strategically, longstanding Chinese tradition has been to have outwardly cordial relations with U.S. leaders. If this continues under a Trump administration is still up for debate, but experts say one thing is clear: Beijing knows more about the Trump administration than the White House knows about China. Trump’s State Department under Rex Tillerson has yet to appoint an assistant Secretary of State for East Asia – although there are rumors that the Chinese favor Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for the post – and the U.S. has been focused more on mounting issues in the Middle East and Russian hacking than on affairs in East Asia. “Right now we don’t know what we want and China is not our biggest concern,” Daly said. “China knows exactly what it wants and thinks about the U.S. all the time.”AN ENFIELD man, allegedly linked by new nation-first DNA technology to a “horrendous rape” in North Adelaide in 2012 and another assault has been refused bail. Chilling allegations of a “horrendous” rape were read to the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday as prosecutors said further DNA investigations were being tested for links to other similar sexual crimes. The 56-year-old Enfield man faced court charged over the assaults in North Adelaide where a woman, 23, was assaulted on Gover St on September 6, 2012, and another woman, 21, who was assaulted on November 23 that year at Pennington Tce. Police linked DNA samples taken from the crime scene using a “familial” search which identified the suspect as a close biological relative of an offender whose DNA was in the national register. During the November 23 incident, a woman was walking past St Peters Cathedral about 2am when a man sitting on the church steps grabbed her from behind and dragged her into the grounds of the church. She managed to break free and run away. In the earlier incident on September 6, a 23-year-old woman was sexually assaulted after she was attacked while walking east along Gover St about 12.10am. The man is yet to plead to three counts of engaging in sexual intercourse without consent and assault with intent over the cowardly attacks. Prosecutor Aaron Galwey told the court that on the day of his arrest on Thursday, the man had admitted to being at the scene of the alleged crimes but claimed he did not do anything illegal. “On the 23rd of July he admitted having sex with her (the 23-year-old) but says it was consensual,” he said. “He admitted she was a stranger.” Sen-Sgt Galwey said the man had told police the second incident was not sexual and involved a scuffle between himself and the 21-year-old woman. He said the man had also been spotted stalking another woman along the River Torrens but, when he was spoken to by police, claimed he was going for a walk. The court heard a DNA sample has been taken from the man and is being analysed. media_camera Detective Superintendent Damian Powell at a media conference at St Peters Cathedral during the hunt for the North Adelaide rapist. Picture: Campbell Brodie Earlier on Friday, Assistant Commissioner Linda Fellows said it was believed to be the first time the “familial” DNA technology had led to criminal charges being laid in South Australia. “This type of DNA searching is complex and painstaking and as such it has taken a great deal of time,” she said. “FSSA has done an outstanding job in helping detectives achieve a breakthrough in this case. She said investigators had used DNA samples from a relative of the man to link the two assaults. media_camera Gover Street, North Adelaide, where one of the rapes occurred. Police have described the attack as a “horrendous crime”. Police say they used a sophisticated DNA technique to help compile evidence after obtaining DNA from both crime scenes. media_camera SA Police's Sexual Crimes Investigation Branch officers (from left) Detective Brevet Sergeant David Fitzgerald, Detective Acting Sergeant Matt Lyons and Officer-in-Charge Detective Superintendent Steve Ryan during the hunt for the rapist. Police say there was no direct match on the national DNA data base. However, detectives worked with experts from Forensic Sciences of South Australia (FSSA) to determine if a “familial” match could be made. Familial searching can identify close relatives, such as siblings, a parent or a child as they have genetic data in common. Police said detectives were able to match the DNA from the crime scenes with that of a close relative of the accused. The relative’s DNA had been previously recorded on the national database. Police said it was not appropriate to disclose what the familial link was, nor what offences led to the relative’s DNA being on the database. media_camera Detective Superintendent Damian Powell at a media conference at St Peters Cathedral during the hunt for the North Adelaide rapist. Picture: Campbell Brodie media_camera Sexual Crimes Investigation Branch officers (from left) Detective Brevet Sergeant David Fitzgerald, Detective Acting Sergeant Matt Lyons and Officer-in-Charge Detective Superintendent Steve Ryan in Gover Street in North Adelaide. Assistant Commissioner Fellows said police were very pleased they had finally caught the man they believed was responsible for the heinous crimes. “This is a really good result in terms of public safety, people should feel really pleased that we’ve been able to arrest someone over such serous offences,” she said. “These investigations have been ongoing for time some time and we’ve known there has been a link (between the rapes) but we haven’t been able to arrest anybody so we’re very pleased to do so.” Asst Comm Fellows said the investigation continued into the North Adelaide rapes and police would examine other incidents of sexual assault to determine if there were any links between them and the arrested man. She urged women to remain vigilant at night, especially if they were walking alone. “Our advice for anybody who is out late at night in areas such as North Adelaide or anywhere else is to be alert and just be aware of your surroundings,” she said. “Being out late at night walking alone in dark areas can result in these sort of incidents because there are people in the community who want to take advantage of people. “So our advice is the same to everybody if you are going to walk around late at night be with other people and walk in lit areas.” Forensic Science SA Director Chris Pearman said technological advancements in the past year had helped his team of around 40 make the breakthrough for SA, which they delivered about three weeks ago. “Over the last 12 months we’ve developed some sophisticated algorithms which we’ve used in our developed in our laboratory in conjunction with the forensic science laboratory in Auckland,” he said. “This software is called Starmix... one of the spin-offs is it gives us greater searching capabilities. “Sometimes we can get a close match so it’s not an exact match but it’s a close match and that suggests that the person on the database is related to the person who left the DNA at the crime scene. “Relationships such as parent child or siblings have a much greater chance of having similar DNA profiles than unrelated people.” Following the Gover St attack, police urged North Adelaide residents to form a united front in a bid to prevent any more sexual assaults. The community called for increased lighting across the suburb to work as a deterrent for late-night crime and North Adelaide started a new Neighbourhood Watch Group. About 20 people attended the renewed Neighbourhood Watch Group meeting which was held in February 2013. Magistrate Harrap refused the man bail and remanded him in custody. He will appear again in October. Members of the public who have any information regarding these incidents are urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online. media_camera Police have urged women to remain vigilant while walking at night, especially if they are alone. Previous neighbourhood watch groups had disbanded in the area during periods of low crime. Kathleen Lumley College professor Felix Patrikeef had been pushing for more lighting following a string of assaults in the neighbourhood in 2011. Adelaide City Council installed better lighting in Childers St and Gover St West in response to the attacks. But the Women’s and Children’s Hospital wanted more lighting in the parklands to protect its nurses who had to walk to their homes or cars in the dark. Nurses from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital started arming themselves with makeshift-weapons for protection on their walk to and from work. Nurses were carrying scissors, hairspray cans and whistles for protection as they walked alone through the parklands to their homes and cars because of a lack of parking near hospitals. media_camera Women have been warned to remain vigilant on Adelaide’s streets, despite the arrest of a man suspected of two rapes in North Adelaide. The hospital also employed guards to escort staff to cars after shifts following a series of sexual assaults in North Adelaide dating back to 2006. The hospital backed calls for better lighting in the parklands. Members of the public who have any information regarding these incidents are urged to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online.I asked what his annual costs were. Schoener said he didn’t know. When I asked him to estimate, he paused for a moment before saying, “Maybe half a million?” Some of his overhead, Schoener acknowledged, goes to things like “purchasing a lot of Champagne for wine education” and hosting dinner parties with customers both at home and in restaurants — “and it’s demonstrable,” he said, “that my entertainment has a value to the business.” He added, with diminished gusto, “In the next few days I’ll hire a rent-a-C.F.O. to remind me to fill out forms and help with the financial planning.” Schoener’s fuzzy-headed business acumen is, of course, thoroughly in keeping with his persona — that of the groovy and somewhat hedonistic liberal-arts professor who taught philosophy, kept a garden, communed with his students on the basketball court and on dance floors and was blissfully at home in academia until his collapsing marriage spurred a midlife crisis that ultimately, in 1999, propelled him into the winemaker’s life. He all but liquidated his college pension, borrowed $15,000 from friends, procured another $20,000 from designing a company’s Web site and financed the bottling of his first few vintages. “I was initially just driven by the desire to learn,” he recalls, “and sort of hoping that I would please people — which is not the same thing as having the confidence that I could do so, which I have now, for sure.” From the outset, Schoener was bent on what his fellow winemaker Steve Matthiasson terms “fearless experimentation” — reflected in the winery’s emblem, a diagram from Isaac Newton’s “Principia” that shows how gravity accounts for planetary motion. That schematic, plus the Scholium Project’s name and the specific wine’s vineyard, would be his lone descriptors on the bottles’ labels. He tinkered endlessly with obscure vineyards and varietals, with temperatures, with juice extraction, with acidity levels, with tannic structure, with rotting grapes. Sometimes he didn’t tinker at all and simply let a seemingly doomed wine repose in barrels for years, until the day came that a brilliant identity suddenly materialized. (Or not. “I’ve still got a 2003 botrytis-infected Malbec that’s turning into some interesting form of balsamic vinegar,” he told me.) Along the way, the ex-professor’s daring earned him the respect of fellow cult winemakers who would then alert him to small and tricky but promising vineyards, as Andy Erickson, the former Screaming Eagle winemaker, did in 2005, when he introduced Schoener to the Farina property high up Sonoma Mountain, owned by a farmer who had been kicking himself for switching from growing pinot noir to sauvignon blanc, just before the movie “Sideways” immortalized the pinot noir. Since that time, the Scholium Project’s singular Prince in His Caves has been made from the Farina vineyards. “All of us experiment with weird wines, which we then serve at home or at parties,” the winemaker Alex Kongsgaard told me. “What sets Abe apart is that he’ll publish his results — he’ll bottle and release his wine to the market. So when people complain that ‘I had this wine of his, and I didn’t like it,’ well, that’s not the point. The point is to try his wines and learn about them and think about why they taste the way they do. People who are into Abe’s wines are interested in those ideas.” In fact, it did not take very long for Abe Schoener to distinguish himself as the leading protagonist in a niche market cluttered with tiny and unorthodox viticultural artisans like Matthiasson, Salinia, Arnot-Roberts, Forlorn Hope and Donkey & Goat. “I feel completely lucky,” Schoener told me, “because there were forces at work, completely independent of my efforts. I caught, at the very beginning, a desire for wines that were outside of the Napa paradigm. A whole new generation of 25- and 30-year-old sommeliers who hadn’t grown up on Burgundy and Bordeaux were making it their mission to seek out unconventional wines.” One of them, Cory Lane, a wine director in David Chang’s Momofuku empire, cracked open a bottle of the Prince in His Caves during a dinner party with fellow wine geeks one night in 2008 on the Lower East Side, and within weeks the Scholium Project had taken up residence on about a dozen elite wine lists throughout Manhattan. Some restaurants, like Sepia in Chicago, would come to devote whole paragraphs on its menu to preparing customers for Schoener’s eccentric product: “The best way to experience the Scholium Project is by total immersion, letting your sense of adventure erase any preconceptions.” For all of his iconoclasm, Schoener had stumbled upon a cherished gambit of Madison Avenue: he was selling a lifestyle, the pursuit of the “interesting.” One evening over dinner last month at a restaurant in Napa, Schoener told me that henceforth he would offer his wines only as a package: “I thought, the right way to finance what I’m doing is to tell people that if they like the fact that I’m making 12 different wines, then get on board and buy all 12.” (Price for the mixed case: $500.) I asked Schoener which of these 12 wines he considered his favorite. He did not hesitate for more than a second before replying, with a subversive grin, “I think my desert-island wine would have to be Naucratis” — referring to a $24 white wine he makes from the Portuguese verdelho grape, which Schoener harvests from an undistinguished vineyard otherwise monopolized by a large commercial winery and residing below sea level in the Sacramento River delta. His choice was fitting, because it was his impulsive decision to purchase 34 tons of verdelho grapes from this vineyard in 2009 that brought him to the edge of financial ruin. With the recession in full swing, the winemaker found himself wandering from restaurant to restaurant, trying to sell thousands of bottles of wine made from a grape that few Americans have heard of. Eventually Schoener came to his senses, more or less: he took out a $250,000 bank loan, paid his debts and drastically scaled back his production of Naucratis. Eventually he sold all 3,400 cases. Nonetheless, there remain a few uncharitable souls in Napa who recall his early folly and refer to Schoener as the Verdelho King.BRAITHWAITE, LA - SEPTEMBER 03: Melanie Martinez (R) and Eric DeSalvo salvage items from their flooded home in Plaquemines Parish on September 3, 2012 in Braithwaite, Louisiana. Martinez, along with her husband and mother, was forced to ride out the storm in the home when their car broke down. The house quickly flooded and they were rescued by a neighbor who was able to break into their attic to save them. This is the fifth home Martinez has had destroyed due to hurricanes in Louisiana. Damage totals from the hurricane could top $2 billion and more than 125,000 customers are still without power six days after the storm made landfall. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) After losing four homes to four separate hurricanes, Melanie Martinez knew to pack out when Isaac began barreling through her hometown of Braithwaite, La. But the lifelong resident’s truck broke down, leaving her and her family stranded, fighting for their lives and witnessing the destruction of their fifth house. When Braithwaite was ordered to evacuate on Monday, Martinez tried fleeing with her husband and 74-year-old mother who relies on dialysis, the Guardian reports. But when the family’s vehicle wouldn’t start, the three raced to the attic for refuge, which was quickly flooded with water. “We thought we were going to die in that house; the water was coming up so fast,” Martinez told the news outlet. “My husband used a hammer to put a hole in the roof but it broke. We used our hands and feet to punch the hole." Click through the slideshow to see photos of the wreckage the Martinez family faces.Story continues below SLIDESHOW: PHOTO GALLERY Louisiana Family Loses 5th Home To Isaac A concerned neighbor was able to break into the attic and save the three victims, Getty photographer Mario Tama reports. But the house -- which the A&E Channel recently remodeled with a $20,000 makeover -- simply couldn’t withstand the storm that has claimed at least seven lives, caused more than $2 billion in damage and left 125,000 people without power six days after it hit, according to Getty. The mother of three, who has now lost her beloved abodes to Hurricanes Katrina, Betsy, Juan, George, Martinez -- and now Isaac -- told the Huffington Post that everything was destroyed by the most recent storm. She, and six family members, are now living in a one-bedroom apartment. Yet, despite her heartbreaking losses, the school bus driver remains hopeful. She doesn't see herself as the "unluckiest" person out there and is even considering remaining in the only place she's ever called home. "I been born and raised there," Martinez told the Huffington Post. "It's hard to leave. We got friends and family." To help the Martinez family recover, consider making a donation via PayPal.ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — University of New Mexico researchers say the legal availability of medical marijuana has the potential to reduce opioid use among chronic pain patients. The work of associate psychology professor Jacob Miguel Vigil and assistant economics professor Sarah See Stith was recently published in the journal PLOS ONE. The results indicate a strong correlation between enrollment in New Mexico’s medical marijuana program and cessation or reduction of opioid use. Vigil says informal surveys showed a significant proportion of patients substituted their opioid prescriptions with cannabis. The study tracked 37 habitual opioid using, chronic pain patients who enrolled in the state medical marijuana program between 2010 and 2015, compared to 29 patients with similar health conditions who didn’t enroll. As of October, more than 44,000 people were enrolled in the state program.WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) -- An administrative law judge has temporarily halted work on Sunoco's Mariner East 2 pipeline in eastern Pennsylvania. That happened because the judge wants the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to hear and rule whether Sunoco violated a 2015 settlement agreement with West Goshen Township. The township contends Sunoco jumped the gun on some construction earlier this month and also disputes Sunoco's decision to move a valve control station. Sunoco says it moves the station for safety reasons, and says it looks forward to convincing the PUC that it has otherwise complied with the agreement. The pipeline project has been protested by other Pennsylvanians who blame it for fouling their well water or spilling a clay lubricant at various sites. The $2.5 billion, 350-mile pipeline will carry propane, butane and ethane. Pipeline construction causes drilling fluid spills, resulting in DEP notices of violationThe fact that men are paid more than women for doing the same or similar job is well-known. Feminist organisations have campaigned to close this gap, and also to make it clear that women are not standing for it. One recent analysis estimated that at the current pace of change, the UK pay gap will not be eradicated until 2069, which would be 99 years after the Equal Pay Act became law. Now the actor Salma Hayek has spoken out against this sexist discrimination and has added her own delicious caveat: that not only do men “do a lot less” for more pay, but feel entitled to more. More than 60 women consider suing Google, claiming sexism and a pay gap Read more “Men do a lot less,” she told Net-a-Porter’s magazine, The Edit, “they are less demanding on themselves and their standards are lower, yet they feel entitled to ask for a raise or a promotion.” This will not surprise any woman who has seen her male counterparts spend an hour playing online poker before striding into the boss’s office and cockily asking for a pay rise. This is all fuel to the fire in our sexist culture. Women rarely feel good enough about themselves, and tend to feel under pressure to do more for less praise and fewer pounds. Whereas men can roll into the office looking like death in a carrier bag, women tend to be under pressure to look as fresh as a daisy. I was once asked why lesbians always looked scruffy and overweight, which I interpreted as over a size 10 and devoid of make-up and heels. I explained that many heterosexual women would dress as I do if they did not feel the need to compensate for being, well, women in a man’s world, and that it was terrible that every part of the female form – from our hair to our toes – is up for a preen, paint, spray or squeeze. Men, even in today’s metrosexual culture, make far less effort, and yet seem to get away with it. Celebrity men can be adored while wearing grubby shorts, scuffed trainers and hair sticking up at the crown, while women get the front page of Take a Break or Heat for going to the shops in trackies – and not in a good way. Men get younger models despite being over the hill, whereas women get pity and Netflix. Even when it comes to poor performance in the sack, men enjoy affectionate, sympathetic portrayals in Hollywood films, for example, I Think I Love My Wife and Bonnie and Clyde, whereas directors portray their female counterparts as desperate, pathetic, frigid and often even psychotic. Men who stay at home to look after kids, or turn up at the school gates, are seen as selfless gods When it comes to household chores, women’s time cleaning up children’s’ poo and vomit is not so much undervalued as dismissed altogether. But men who stay at home to look after kids, or turn up at the school gates, are seen as selfless gods. These days, after decades of feminism, men do more chores and childcare – but not much more, and still far less than women. According to research by the feminist writer Beatrix Campbell, over the past three decades, the time that men dedicated to childcare rose at a rate of about 30 seconds per day, per year. Their contribution to housework rose at a rate of one minute per day, per year. My final point about men doing less and getting more money, praise (or both) is one most women are united on: men cooking. It is clear, watching men with their BBQ sets, or assembling a curry in the kitchen, that to them, cooking does not feel like “housework” in the way cleaning does. Let’s face it, if it did, they probably would not be so keen to wreck the kitchen or patio while wearing an apron adorned with a “dude with the food” slogan. Feminists still have much left to do before we are even close to being liberated from the shackles of patriarchal privilege, and this is yet more unpaid work we women will have to undertake. • Julie Bindel is a freelance journalist and political activist, and a founder of Justice for WomenLashonn White is a deaf woman who called 911 after being attacked in her apartment. Instead of helping her, Tacoma police tasered her and put her in jail for 60 hours without an interpreter. Two police officers were dispatched who had been told that she is deaf. She ran outside to meet them, and immediately, Officer Koskovich tasered her in her rib and stomach. Because of the fall, she suffered heavy bleeding from her knuckles, injuries to her cheek, chin, ribs, neck, and arms, and swelling on the right side of her face. Then they handcuffed her. White was incredibly confused as to why she was under arrest, and couldn't talk to the officers because they don't know sign language. Koskovich said that he had yelled for White to stop, but she had ignored him -- in reality, she couldn't hear him. Tell the Tacoma Police Department that all officers need to receive training concerning disabled individuals and to do a full investigation of the incident. Demand justice for Lashonn White!At the same time, the agency established an otter-free zone to address the concerns of fishermen and Navy officials, who feared that the otters would deplete sea urchin and shellfish stocks and that they would necessitate burdensome paperwork requirements before military training exercises. Yet most of the relocated otters quickly swam away from San Nicolas and roamed where they chose, including the otter-free zone south of Point Conception. Fishermen’s groups sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over the issue in the 1990s after dozens of otters from the original Central Coast population moved into the otter-free zone. That suit was withdrawn when the agency said it would review the entire management plan. Like the endangered wolves of the Rocky Mountains, the otters are still viewed as predators competing with humans for a food source. About 300 divers, who are part of a multimillion-dollar industry, collect sea urchins for sale to sushi restaurants, said David Goldenberg, executive director of the California Sea Urchin Commission. Photo He said the group was “hugely disappointed” by the government’s decision. Mr. Goldenberg asserted that the service took “the easiest and path of least resistance,” letting the otter population expand southward “and take the commercial fishery away from 300 fishermen.” The recovery of the otters proved not to be a substantial problem for the Navy. Officials had feared that having an endangered species in the vicinity, however small, might require the military to conduct extensive environmental impact reviews before each training exercise and to face penalties if otters were killed. Navy officials worried that they could face legal challenges to these operations, just as the presence of endangered whales off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts more recently led environmentalists to file a lawsuit to curb Navy experiments with low-frequency sonar. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. As part of the agreement on the otter-free zone, the Navy was exempted from any penalties associated with harm done to the otters during operations. In the end, it was the agency’s failure to establish a robust auxiliary population and the tendency of the central California otters to migrate southward regardless of the zone’s limits that prompted the agency to begin rethinking its policy. It took a decade to reach a formal decision eliminating the no-otter zone, however. Advertisement Continue reading the main story For now, the ultimate status of the otter population remains unclear, Ms. Carswell of the Fish and Wildlife Service said. The animal has rebounded in fits and starts over the last decade but has not increased recently, she explained. “Right now we’re in a period of stagnation,” she said. “There are things going on that we don’t understand,” including an increased incidence of otters being killed by sharks. Nonetheless, the elimination of restrictions on the otters’ expansion is a victory for the natural environment, she said. “There really are real ecosystem benefits when we allow these predators to return,” Ms. Carswell said. “It gives a richness and integrity to our natural system.” Jim Curland, who directs advocacy programs for Friends of the Sea Otter, said in a statement, “It’s long overdue, but a great day for sea otters to have this impediment to natural range expansion lifted.”Absoption of water through the cloaca/vent I thought I would start a topic where we could discuss the topic of bathing and water uptake through the vent/cloaca. I have heard often that people say that bathing is a sure way to increase the hydration of a bearded dragon, as well as other lizards, and on the surface it seems to make sense. The cloaca is the end of the digestive tract of reptiles that, among other functions, is the site of where some of the water of the feces of the dragon, as well as the urine, is reabsorbed. So at first glance it would seem to make sense that water could then also be absorbed by soaking a dragon in standing water. The problem is that there seems to be no evidence to support this and much to support the opposite. Ive heard conjecturally, though Ive never seen it myself, that some have lizards who they have seen in the bath opening and closing their external cloacal vent. Just to give a bit of framework, there are two sphincters, one at the beginning or upper end of the cloaca, and one on the way out. The lower, or external sphincter, is a voluntary muscle group, while the upper sphincter is involuntary. Wastes are passed into the cloaca, where some water will be reabsorbed based on the hydration levels of the lizard. The rest will be excreted as uric acid and other wastes. This is an ingenious adaptation for conserving water, and a carefully balanced one based on colloidal osmotic action
prisoner and discreditable conduct. These charges would not be dealt with until his criminal appeal is complete, Pugash said. It would be up to a disciplinary tribunal whether he loses his job, Pugash said.Mozilla has launched an ambitious new project aimed at breaking down the proprietary app systems on today's mobile devices. The project, dubbed WebAPI, is Mozilla's effort to provide a consistent, cross-platform, web-based API for mobile app developers. Using WebAPI, developers would write HTML5 applications rather than native apps for iOS, Android, and other mobile platforms. Mozilla isn't just talking about WebAPI, it's already hard at work and plans to develop the APIs necessary to provide “a basic HTML5 phone experience” within six months. After that, the APIs will be submitted to the W3C for standardization. Among the APIs Mozilla wants to develop are a telephone and messaging API for calls and SMS, a contacts API, a camera API and half a dozen more. If those APIs sound vaguely familiar it might be because the W3C's Device APIs Working Group is covering similar ground. So why the new effort from Mozilla? Well, Mozilla's WebAPI is a part of its larger Boot to Gecko Project, which aims to eventually develop an operating system that emphasizes standards-based Web technologies. With that end goal in mind, WebAPI may end up somewhat different than what the W3C is trying to build. It's also possible that Mozilla simply doesn't want to wait for the Device APIs Working Group. Mozilla wants WebAPI up and running in a mere six months, the W3C's Device APIs Work Group is unlikely to move that fast. But as Mozilla Technical Evangelist Robert Nyman notes in a comment on his post announcing WebAPI, "the idea is to collaborate with W3C and all players and together form a good solution, and not just dump it on them." The dream of write-once, run-anywhere software is nothing new and, if history is any guide, Mozilla's WebAPI efforts may well be doomed. The open source giant does have one thing going for it that most other efforts don't have—the open Web. Most write-once, run-anywhere attempts have come from companies like Adobe and were built around proprietary frameworks. WebAPI doesn't suffer from vender lock-in the way some projects have. WebAPI's main roadblock is convincing other mobile Web browsers to support the APIs. In order for WebAPI to be appealing for developers, Mozilla will need Apple, Google and other mobile browser makers to implement the APIs so that WebAPI can compete with native applications. Before you dismiss that as an impossibility, bear in mind that Apple's original vision for iOS app development was based around HTML applications, and you'd be hard pressed to find a company more eager to embrace Web apps than Google. Whether or not either company will devote any resources to implementing WebAPI remains to be seen, but if Mozilla can get WebAPI standardized by the W3C other browser makers would likely support it. While Mozilla's plans for WebAPI are certainly ambitious the company is certainly putting its money where its mouth is—Mozilla is currently hiring several full-time engineers to work on WebAPI.It is entirely possible that towards the end of this year -- or into 2018 -- Sprint will be able to claim the fastest 4G LTE network speeds in parts of the US with a completely straight face. This is because Kansas City-based Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) is likely to be the first operator to get its hands on so-called "Massive MIMO" smart antenna arrays, which will boost the speed and capacity of its 2.5GHz 4G network. Sprint already has 8x8 antenna arrays in its network, and expects to test 64x64 arrays at 2.5GHz this year. (See Sprint Lights Fire Under High-Band 4G, Builds for 5G.) "The coming benchmark" is 64x64, Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)'s North American CTO, Michael Murphy, told me recently. "Customers are asking for it." And the first customer in the US is likely to be Sprint. Murphy says that 64x64 antenna arrays "will be coming very soon" for higher frequency TDD networks, such as Sprint's 2.5GHz LTE network, for example. This is because the higher frequency the network, the simpler it is to build denser antenna arrays in a smaller space. Sprint's single-channel time division duplex (TDD) operates at a higher frequency than any of the other big three's cellular networks in the US. By contrast, for 2-channel low and medium band networks in the US, Murphy is expecting 8X8 antenna arrays to arrive in 2017. 64X64 arrays are "not too far in the distance," Murphy says, but he does not give an actual date. Sprint clearly already has some prototypes from Nokia kicking around. CTO John Saw brought one with him to New York City in December 2016 (see photo below). Sprint parent SoftBank Corp. has been testing such large arrays and started deploying 128-element MIMO systems in Toyko late last year. (See Massive MIMO Key to 5G, Says SoftBank.) Along with other LTE-Advanced Pro (4.5G) features, such as bonding together radio channels to boost performance, upgraded MIMO should help Sprint head towards gigabit LTE and give it more know-how about a 5G future. (See Sprint Ups the 4G Speed Ante to 230 Mbit/s.) Users, however, will -- as usual -- need to upgrade their devices to get the most out of MIMO upgrades on a network. (See New Qualcomm Chip Promises 'Gigabit' 4G.) — Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light ReadingBitcoin Transactions Declared VAT-Exempt in Norway The Norwegian Tax Administration changed its stance and declared Bitcoin transactions exempt from Value Added Tax (VAT) this week. Previously, they were not exempt from VAT, and some claim Bitcoin adoption in the country has been stifled due to the high tax rate. Also read: High Tax Slows Bitcoin Development In Norway Bitcoin Trade Subject to VAT In November 2013, the Norwegian Tax Administration issued a statement that bitcoins will be treated as capital property, not a currency, for tax-related purposes. The tax authority found in the case of ‘Bruk av bitcoins – skatte- og avgiftsmessige konsekvenser, supra’ (translates into “usage of bitcoins – tax and fee consequenses”) that: Any trade in bitcoins is subject to the 25% Norwegian VAT. EU Considers Bitcoin VAT Exempt The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in October 2015, however, that Bitcoin exchange transactions are exempt from VAT. On Monday, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance sent a letter to the country’s Tax Administration, asking them to reconsider their position regarding the Bitcoin VAT. The letter refers to the EU’s judgment to exempt Bitcoin transactions from VAT obligation under the EU’s VAT Directive and urges the tax authority to follow the ECJ’s decision in their interpretation of VAT. The translated letter reads: We pray that the directorate makes the necessary adjustments and clarifications to earlier statements about this, so that these are in line with the practice in force in the EU. Adoption Obstacle Removed Following the letter by the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday, the Tax Administration changed its stance and ruled Bitcoin transactions VAT-exempt. The Minister of Finance, Siv Jensen (FRP), commented on the tax authority’s decision that “some have experienced uncertainty about the tax treatment of Bitcoin. I am very pleased that it has now come to a clarification on this question. This safeguards equal treatment and predictability.” VAT has reportedly slowed Bitcoin adoption in Norway. In December, a board member of the Norway Bitcoin Association, Therese Helland, told Bitcoin.com that local merchant adoption slowed down, and that there was “a largely untapped market within remittance.” At the same time, she named six different exchanges that Norwegians could buy bitcoins from. She noted that: The main obstacle [for mainstream Bitcoin adoption in Norway] is that there is a 25% VAT being charged for exchanging between NOK and BTC, and this must be removed. And now it has. Do you think Norwegian Bitcoin adoption will jump significantly now that bitcoin transactions are exempt from VAT? Let us know in the comments below… Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Norwegian Ministry of Finance Bitcoin.com is the most unique online destination in the bitcoin universe. Buying bitcoin? Do it here. Want to speak your mind to other bitcoin users? Our forum is always open and censorship-free. Like to gamble? We even have a casino.Here's a really quick analysis of This House Has People in It and the surrounding ARG: The house is American ideology. Here are some of the main signs of this. First, a vacation is planned for Orlando, Florida. Tom has the idea to go to South Africa instead, but Subject 1 protests that Africa has too many terrorists. This reflects America's xenophobia and ignorance about the rest of the world, as well as a paranoia over "terrorism". In another situation, Subject 2 complains that a Chinese state-owned company is building a railway in America. This alludes to America's declining position in the world, and perhaps the crumbling infrastructure, as well as debt to foreign countries. Also note that the house is perpetually under construction with a live-in handy man, and many parts of the house are in disarray. In the main 11-minute clip where Miranda goes through the floor, Subject 2 responds by thinking it's a test of their family bond. This could be referring to how a national crises will only strengthen senses of American pride, rather than cause us to question the national ideology. Subject 2 also leads the family in a national-anthem-sounding song, and they all salute each other. This parallels America's nationalism. Notice how robotic these actions all are, as if to say that belief in American exceptionalsm is so normalized it's routine and automatic. People in the room don't even seem to notice Tom's boisterous, desperate sounding song about the flag. Finally, Alan (as they Clayground host), says on his website that "capitalism doesn't work". Not much symbolism here, an on-the-nose hint about what the program is all about. So in summary, the crumbling household is like America's crumbling infrastructure and democracy, which the family responds to with heightened, robotic patriotism. The insanity in the house mirror's the cognitive dissonance in America and the West as we champion a system that is constant crises, and while other countries excel beyond us. The fact that the family's every meal seems to be pizza, and the son's favourite cartoon character lives on garbage, are also likely criticisms of American "fast" food consumer culture. The use of surveillance cameras also comments the U.S. surveillance state as revealed by Edward Snowden. There's much more symbolism here too, and maybe I'll go into it later.Obama Tells Senators to Use Cap and Trade to Make Polluters Pay Carbon Cost June 29th, 2010 by Susan Kraemer Today, President Obama told twenty three senators who met at the White House to discuss proposed climate legislation, to use the funds of polluters, not taxpayers, in order to fund the replacement of existing fossil energy with new climate-safe energy. Senators coming out of the meeting say that President Obama told them that the climate and clean energy bill must put a price on carbon emissions. “The president was very clear about putting a price on carbon and limiting greenhouse gas emissions,” said Senator John Kerry. “He was very strong about the need to put a price on carbon and make polluters pay,” said Senator Joe Lieberman, adding “He made a very passionate and, I think, effective argument that polluters should pay.” And Obama’s own words, even before the Gulf Coast gusher this year made it clear that he believes a price on pollution is needed. [social_buttons] “Does it make sense for us to start pricing in the fact that this thing is really bad for the environment? And if we do, then can we do it in a way that doesn’t involve some big bureaucracy in a control and command system, but just says, look, we’re just going to — there’s going to be a price to pollution. And then everybody can adapt and decide which are the — which are the best energies.” Olympia Snowe, one of the only two Republicans to consistently vote with the Democrats to advance clean energy said: “I’ve long asserted that placing a price on carbon will send the appropriate signals to entrepreneurs that would unleash the innovation to position America as a global clean energy industry leader”, but also that she would limit it to the utility sector. George LiMieux of Florida was not at the meeting, like recent “bra-waver” Lindsay Graham who spent months working with Kerry and Lieberman on creating the illusion that he was working on a bill, yet a glance through the last 50 roll call votes on clean energy/climate would reveal that Graham has yet to vote for clean energy legislation. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was conspicuously absent, as the epitome of Republican do-nothing-ism that has befallen the last few decades of Senate Republicans, during which time, coincidentally, their donations from fossil industries increased. However, at the meeting were these Senators who voted for the Dirty Air Act this month, because “it is the job of congress, not “faceless bureaucrats at the EPA” to regulate pollution from carbon dioxide.” Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Susan Collins (R-ME) Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Agriculture Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Commerce Chair Olympia Snowe (R-ME) George Voinovich (R-OH) We eagerly await the help of these Senators in passing the climate and clean energy bill that America needs, passed by congress, since God forbid that the EPA should decide the fate of humanity in Humanity v. The Fossil Fuel Industry. Better it should be Senators funded by the fossil fuel industry that make that decision for us. Image: Flikr member Whitehouse.govLeona Lewis helped boost online music downloads The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said although downloads rose by 40% in 2007, losses are still being made. The organisation blames music piracy for the shortfall. It is calling on internet providers to disconnect people who repeatedly download illegally. 'Significant milestone' In November French President Nicholas Sarkozy backed an industry agreement which could make internet providers block customers involved in piracy. IFPI chief John Kennedy called the idea "the most significant milestone yet in the task of curbing piracy on the internet". In Belgium last year a court ordered the internet provider Tiscali to block users from file sharing. "If the internet service providers played their role it would have a dramatic effect," said Kennedy. More and more people are downloading music "Unpaid copying and downloading lies at the root of the recording industry's problems, and internet service providers must be at the heart of the solution," said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of industry body the BPI. "2008 must become the year when talk becomes action." Eammon Forde, editor of music business and strategy magazine Five Eight, does not think the shift in the music business is all down to one issue. "Obviously piracy is playing a part, but also there's competition from other entertainment sectors and consumers aren't as loyal to artists as they used to be," he said. "Digital has opened things up. It's made consumers more able to access more music," he added. Mr Forde believes the decline in physical sales is not a new thing. "This is something that has been talked about for a number of years," he said. "Physicals have been on decline on average year-on-year since 1999 and 2000. The physical market is in freefall, both in terms of units and in terms of value," he added. Earlier this month the music industry body the BPI revealed album sales in the UK alone suffered a drop of nearly 11% in 2007. It blamed the drop on copyright theft and difficult retail conditions, but added that sales were still 26% higher than a decade ago.Michelle Obama commanded the stage at the Obama Foundation summit in Chicago on Wednesday, wearing an eye-catching plaid dress. The former first lady paired her look with strappy, black heels, $295 hoop earrings, and a $2,000 chain choker with white diamonds and sea pearls — both pieces by Jennifer Fisher. View photos Michelle Obama looked edgy in plaid while giving a speech at the Obama Foundation summit. (Photo: Getty Images) More With husband Barack Obama listening in the audience, Michelle sat for a conversation about friendship, social media, and parenting with her poet pal Elizabeth Alexander. “I love my husband and he is my rock, but my girlfriends are my sanity,” said Michelle, according to People. “And when you live eight years in the White House, and you can’t even open a window, you can’t walk out on your balcony without notifying three people, your walk outside is you walk around the same circle in the South Lawn over and over again, because the thought of you leaving those gates requires 50 people’s attention, and work and convenience. … When you live like that for eight years, you need your girlfriends. And nothing is spontaneous. All our spontaneity was basically taken away from us. I even do this now, like, ‘Can I leave?’ I don’t leave until some 30-year-old tells me ‘Ma’am, you can leave now.’ I had to plan my time with my GFs that kept me grounded and brought me laughter.” View photos Michelle Obama (Photo: Getty Images) More Michelle also shared her thoughts on male friendships — or lack thereof — saying, “Women, we do it better than men. I’m, you know, sad for you guys. Y’all should get you some friends. Get you some friends and talk to each other, ‘cause that’s the other thing we do; we straighten each other out on some things, our girlfriends.” She even name-checked her husband. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Barack, who you talking to? And it can’t just be [Chicago businessman] Marty [Nesbitt].’ Ya’ll need to go talk to each other about your stuff because there’s so much of it. It’s so messy.” Michelle also reflected on the unique experience of parenting daughters Malia, 19, and Sasha, 16, in the White House. “We could have spent eight years feeling sorry for them, that they were living in a bubble, that every misstep for them would be on YouTube or that they had to drive around in their teenage years with men with guns … that they didn’t have access to their father in a way. We could’ve felt bad for them and there would’ve been a truth there.” She continued, “But our view was, this is their life, and we can’t apologize for the life they have, because a whole lot of it is good. So it was like, ‘Get up, go to school, don’t feel sorry for yourself. Yes, it’s hard but it’s hard for everybody.’ We have to raise our children to be the adults we want them to be, and that starts young. You can’t be so afraid that life will break them that you don’t prepare them for life.” The first lady added that she was proud of her daughters’ composure in the spotlight, saying, “They have brought me so much happiness and pride, how they have carried themselves and responded to the pressures that they didn’t ask for, living a life they didn’t want but coming out on the other end as good, solid people. That happiness and pride can bring me to tears.”CANNABIS CULTURE – Watch Cannabis Culture News LIVE for the latest news and views on pot politics and the marijuana community. In this episode: As the Conservatives win a majority government in Canada and Obama cracks down on medical marijuana in the US, thousands of cannabis users take to the streets to show they will never stop fighting for freedom. In our first show since the Canadian Conservatives swept the Federal Election, wining a majority and putting the marijuana community directly at risk (the same ones who sent Marc Emery to the US a year ago), we discuss the ongoing fight over pot legalization including the massive show of force against prohibition at the May 7 Global Marijuana March and Toronto Freedom Festival. The Global Marijuana March takes place in cities around the world – over 250 this year – and we’ll show you video from the huge rally in Toronto, which in combination with the Toronto Freedom Festival is one of the largest gatherings of marijuana users in the world. TFF organizer Gabe Simms joins the show for a post-mortem and discussion of the TFF’s future. We will also play other videos including Marijuana Man’s latest from the Vancouver Global Marijuana March. Go to the Pot TV Livestream page to join the chat. WATCH the show BELOW Click here to watch MORE EPISODES of CCN LIVE. Discussed on today’s show: Canada’s 2011 Election: As the Smoke Clears https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/04/Canadas-2011-Election-Smoke-Clears One Year Since Marc Emery Ordered Extradited by Conservative Government https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/11/One-Year-Marc-Emery-Ordered-Extradited-Conservative-Government Feds on New Medical Marijuana Offensive https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/05/Feds-New-Medical-Marijuana-Offensive ACLU to Holder: Tell Feds to Back off Medical Pot https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/12/ACLU-Holder-Tell-Feds-Back-Medical-Pot NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up http://blog.norml.org/2011/05/12/norml%E2%80%99s-weekly-legislative-round-up-18/ World Marches For Marijuana on May 7 https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/05/World-Marches-Marijuana-May-7 Global Marijuana March Shows International Support For Pot Legalization https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/11/Global-Marijuana-March-Shows-International-Support-Pot-Legalization Thousands March For Marijuana Freedom in Toronto https://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/content/2011/05/11/Thousands-March-Marijuana-Freedom-Toronto Jeremiah Vandermeer is editor of Cannabis Culture. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.1 of 58 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × A look at President Trump’s first six months in office View Photos Scenes from the Republican’s beginning months in the White House. Caption Scenes from the Republican’s beginning months in the White House. Jan. 25, 2017 Trump signs an executive order for border security and immigration enforcement improvements at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington. Chip Somodevilla/Pool photo via Bloomberg News Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. THE MORNING PLUM: Are Republicans prepared for the possibility that President Trump’s abuses of power could continue their slide to depths of madness or autocracy that make the current moment look relatively tame by comparison? This isn’t meant as a rhetorical question. It is genuinely unclear — from the public statements of Republicans and the reporting on their private deliberations — whether they envision a point at which Trump’s conduct could grow unhinged enough, or threaten serious enough damage to our democracy, to warrant meaningful acknowledgment, never mind action. Politico’s Playbook this morning tries to sum up the thinking among Republicans. The gist: Republicans are increasingly worried they will lose the House amid a “toxic political environment that appears to be worsening.” They cite the possibility that they won’t secure any serious legislative wins, as well as “serious concerns” about “more revelations” coming on Trump. In the background, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation “remains the wild card.” President Trump launched fresh accusations against former FBI director James B. Comey on Twitter June 11 while senators of both parties reacted to the feud. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) For sure, but how much worse could this get? The chatter on the Sunday shows hinted at where we may be headed. Here are a few things to watch for: The tapes Trump hinted at turn out not to exist. On ABC’s “This Week,” Jay Sekulow, a member of Trump’s legal team, said Trump will make a decision very soon on whether to release the tapes he may have made of his conversations with then-FBI Director James B. Comey. After the news broke that Trump may have demanded a “loyalty” pledge from Comey, the president tweeted that Comey had better hope he doesn’t have tapes of their conversations. Trump has since hinted he still might release them, and congressional investigators have demanded them. This state of play is utter lunacy in its current form — the White House has still not said whether these tapes exist, even as Trump hints they might still be coming, and we are so numb to Trump’s daily crazy at this point that we now oddly treat this as somewhat unremarkable. Maybe they do exist. But what happens if the White House, in response to those congressional demands, ultimately confirms that they don’t? Experts think the White House will have to come clean in some way. At that point, it would be confirmed that Trump invented the existence of these tapes to chill Comey from offering a full public accounting of the events leading up to his firing — which itself was a massive abuse of power, given that Trump allowed it was because of the FBI’s Russia probe — in the full knowledge that Comey was going to serve as a witness before long. What will Republicans say about that? Trump tries to get the special prosecutor fired. Also on ABC’s “This Week,” Sekulow refused to rule out the possibility that Trump might end up trying to order Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to fire Mueller. It is possible that Trump is cognizant enough of the history here (Richard Nixon tried pretty much the same thing) to avoid the drastic step of trying to get Mueller axed mainly because he’s closing in on wrongdoing. But Trump is not inclined to let institutional constraints limit his options, and he and his team have already shown themselves to be less than shrewd at gaming out the consequences of trampling on them. The circumstances of Trump’s firing of Comey are a case in point. The White House thought it could get away with floating the idea that Rosenstein had provided the rationale (his memo fingered Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe). But that story fell apart, raising the possibility that Rosenstein had provided Trump cover for the real rationale, which Trump subsequently admitted on national television was Comey’s handling of the Russia probe. This basically required Rosenstein to appoint the special counsel. So can we really count on Trump refraining from trying to get Mueller removed? Nope. Somewhat unlike in Nixon’s time, Republicans may well still stand by Trump even if this happens. If so, they’d be in a considerably darker place than they are even now. And so would we all. President Trump denied asking former FBI director James B. Comey for a loyalty pledge, or to end the FBI's investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, at a news conference on June 9 at the White House. (Reuters) MEANWHILE, WHAT HAPPENS IF TRUMP TESTIFIES UNDER OATH? Trump has now said that he’s “100 percent” ready to testify under oath to special counsel Mueller about his interactions with Comey. But Bloomberg Politics’ Paul Barrett points out that this could create a big problem later: Trump, through his comments, has limited his lawyer’s maneuvering room. The “100 percent” promise means that if Mueller asks the president to testify under oath — and Mueller eventually will ask — the president has unilaterally disarmed himself from arguing that there’s some reason he shouldn’t have to be questioned under penalty of perjury. If so, what does Trump say under oath? His lead lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is flatly contesting Comey’s contention that Trump tried to influence his ongoing probe, and Trump has claimed Comey is lying. But as Brian Beutler points out, even many Republicans are not doing that, which amounts to a “tacit acknowledgment that Trump is lying” about his conversations with Comey, even as they are vaguely defending Trump’s conduct in them. If Trump should end up testifying, the president would now be under dramatically increased pressure to tell the truth. And Republicans would be under dramatically increased pressure to clarify whom they really believe. * GOP SENATOR SAYS TRUMP PRESSURE WAS ‘WRONG’: On CNN’s State of the Nation, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) had this to say about Comey’s testimony about Trump’s pressure on him to end the Michael Flynn probe: “Certainly, Mr. Comey understood it as a directive. The exact language makes it more ambiguous, because the president says, ‘I hope’ you can see your way to letting the Flynn matter go. That’s still wrong for him to do that. Whether it’s illegal is a whole other issue, and that’s up to the independent counsel. But it was wrong of the president to even bring up the subject.” It’s odd how few Republicans will admit to this obvious state of affairs. By the way, Comey was also asked by another senator if he took Trump’s “hope” as an “order,” and he said: “Yes.” * DUMB GOP SPIN ABOUT TRUMP AND COMEY CONTINUES: Here’s Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, on “Fox News Sunday,” explaining why Trump’s directive to Comey regarding Flynn is no biggie: “Say his version is true, and he said, the president said: ‘I hope you let this go.’ Listen, I’m a mom of kids. There’s a difference between saying ‘I hope you do your homework’ and ‘Go do your homework.’ Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, is someone who speaks definitively. He’s somebody who, when he talks to you, you know what he means.” Uh, okay, but according to Comey, Trump previously demanded his loyalty multiple times, which is to say, he had already demanded that Comey shed his institutional independence. Attorneys general for D.C. and Maryland filed a lawsuit against President Trump on June 12, alleging that he violated anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution by retaining ownership of his company as president. (Amber Ferguson,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) * TRUMP HIT WITH NEW LAWSUIT: The Post reports that the attorneys general of Washington, D.C., and Maryland, Karl Racine and Brian Frosh, will file a lawsuit charging that Trump’s acceptance of payments from foreign governments is unconstitutional: If a federal judge allows the case to proceed, Racine and Frosh say, one of the first steps will be to demand through the discovery process copies of Trump’s personal tax returns to gauge the extent of his foreign business dealings. That fight would most likely end up before the Supreme Court, the two said, with Trump’s attorneys having to defend why the returns should remain private. If there is to be any hope of chipping away at Trump’s serial breaking of our norms, it’s through the sum total of many, many efforts such as this one. * GOP HEALTH BILL COULD CRAMP WORKERS’ FLEXIBILITY: The New York Times talks to people who are worried that if the GOP repeal bill goes through, it could limit the flexibility of workers to move from job to job or start their own businesses: The Affordable Care Act has enabled many of those workers to get transitional coverage that provides a bridge to the next phase of their lives — a stopgap to get health insurance if they leave a job, are laid off, start a business or retire early. If the Republican replacement plan approved by the House becomes law, changing jobs or careers could become much more difficult. This is the reality lurking behind GOP rhetoric about how getting rid of the ACA will bring more flexibility, choice and freedom. * REPUBLICANS WORRY ABOUT MISSTEPS IN GEORGIA: The Washington Examiner reports that GOP insiders are privately beginning to blame Karen Handel, the GOP candidate in the special House election in the Atlanta suburbs, for the possibility of a loss: Republicans’ biggest fears, and why the race is so close, they say, are the money Ossoff is raising — a staggering $23 million from Jan. 1 through the end of May — and missteps by Handel, 55, the former Georgia secretary of state. Handel has kept a light campaign schedule, and raised nowhere near as much money as Ossoff. That has drawn criticism from GOP insiders, albeit privately. It has allowed Ossoff to dominate media coverage — and the airwaves. It seems obvious that Republicans are still narrowly favored to win here — it is a very red district — but the fact that finger-pointing has already begun isn’t a great sign for them. * AND TRUMP BERATES PRIEBUS FOR DYSFUNCTION: Politico reports that Trump has given White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus a hard deadline for cleaning up all the chaos: Days after his return from his first foreign trip late last month, Trump berated Priebus in the Oval Office in front of his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie for the dysfunction in the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversation. … “I’m giving you until July 4,” Trump said, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. What could an internal shake-up do about the fact that Trump has thrown in with deeply unpopular policy (the GOP health bill); has shown pretty much zero interest in the details of governing; and has fired his FBI director over the Russia probe, which led directly to the special counsel and the rest of the current mess?Image copyright AP Image caption Greenpeace activist Mikhail Kreindlin suffered a broken nose in the attack At least two people have been seriously injured after armed masked men attacked volunteer firefighters, who had travelled to southern Russia to help put out forest fires, activists say. Environmental group Greenpeace said the men attacked the camp at night, beating people up and damaging tents and cars. Cuts to fire services have prompted local and foreign NGOS to send volunteers to affected areas. But some nationalists say foreign NGOs are a front for Western spies. The attackers - armed with a gun, knives and stun grenades - described themselves as "Cossacks", called the volunteers "traitors" and daubed a derogatory word for American on a fence at the camp in the Krasnodar region, according to Greenpeace. "They said if we don't get out of here till the morning, no one will ever find us, [they said] we should get the hell out of here to 'our America'," Greenpeace wildfire prevention coordinator Grigory Kuksin said. The head of Greenpeace's protected areas programme, Mikhail Kreindlin, suffered a broken nose while another volunteer suffered suspected broken ribs, Mr Kuksin said. Volunteers also suffered chemical burns from a "substance in glass vials" thrown by the attackers, he added. The head of a regional environmental protection group, which also had activists in the expedition, alleged the attack may have been coordinated with the security services. Andrei Rudomakha from Environmental Watch on North Caucasus described it as a "professional attack".Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday touted as a victory a federal judge's decision temporarily blocking the Justice Department from withholding federal grant funds to so-called sanctuary cities. "Progress is never easy, but it is always worth fighting for. In Chicago we will always fight for our values and the rights of our residents,” Emanuel, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Today’s ruling means essential resources for public safety in Chicago and across the country cannot come with unlawful strings attached from the Trump Justice Department," he added. "This is not just a victory for the City of Chicago, but a win for cities, counties and states across America.” ADVERTISEMENT U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber issued a preliminary injunction on Friday, temporarily barring the Trump administration from withholding the funds while the case makes its way through the court system. In a 41-page opinion, Leinenweber said that Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE likely exceeded his authority when he put in place restrictions on law enforcement grants that would withhold funding from sanctuary cities – jurisdictions that are typically resistant to cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts. In April, another federal judge in California blocked the Trump administration's effort to block sanctuary cities from receiving federal funds. Trump and his attorney general have vowed to crackdown on localities that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts, arguing that such jurisdictions are susceptible to high crime rates and turn a blind eye to immigrants who are in the country illegally.On 13 August, Firstpost noted a major shift in India's Pakistan policy. In his Independence Day speech on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned Balochistan. Here's an assessment by a fellow at Observer Research Foundation in Delhi, written before the prime minister's speech this morning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement about Pakistan's human rights violations in Balochistan (and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) is a welcome turning point for India's Pakistan policy, which has been more-of-the-same in the recent past. As such, it has been in the making since the Modi government came to power. National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval's now-infamous reference to India's potential to disrupt Pakistan's status quo through Balochistan (albeit made before he became NSA) and the emergence of a Modi/Doval national security doctrine based on a more forceful use of what Doval calls “coercive state instrumentalities” implies that it is not too fanciful to imagine India playing the Balochi card more forcefully in the future. The implicit governmental backing of exiled leader Naela Quadri Baloch's much-publicised India visit in April will now be viewed through the lens of a nascent Balochistan strategy. The contours of this strategy will be drawn using diplomatic as well as intelligence assets. It will range from being vocal about Pakistan's excesses in that region, to creating sub-conventional space in order to deter Pakistan's nefarious Kashmir policy. But it is exceedingly important that this strategy be sensitive to the region's geopolitics. Principally, there are two other states India will have to deftly handle when it comes to using Balochistan to pay Pakistan using its own coin: China and Iran. Each of these states have a convoluted relationship with both India and Pakistan, and how they are handled will largely determine the success or failure of India's
han Wuchang train station East square noodles Museum, February 18 murder noodles Museum bosses were hacked to death by a man. Surging News (www.thepaper.CN) release from the official micro-blog in Wuchang district of Wuhan City Public Security Bureau branch informed the police learn that murder angle dispute, suspects have now been arrested. About 4:30 P.M. February 18, news on the scene saw the surging noodles Museum building is closed, bloodstains on the floor has been cleaned. Surging nearby witness told press, noodle shop owner, born in 1975, has three children, the killer after the murder, has not left the scene. The afternoon of February 18, Wuchang district of Wuhan City Public Security Bureau branch official Micro-Blog "green Wuchang" publishing alert reported,February 18, 12:25, suspect Hu (male, 22) due to spats disputes, noodle kitchen knife holder Wu in Wuchang district South Gate of the 71st, a noodle restaurant, noodle shop owner Yao a hacked to death. Police quickly out of the police, the suspects arrested and cases currently under review. I guess it's stuff like this that's the reason my wife always tells me not to talk back, avoid arguments, confront bad behaviour and such. She always says something like "Treat every Chinese as if they have a knife and mental issues", and then she goes to eat PLACENTA SOUP, hah Scummis. What are you gonna do now? My wife tells me the same thing. I never listen to her except when we are in Yunnan, those fuckers really carry knives. source: http://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1621692 ISIS KILLS 75 IN PAKISTAN 🇵🇰💀 click READ MOREHUNTSVILLE, AL—In the seven months since she got herself knocked up, graphic designer Amy Glennon, 27, has been walking around the Calendarz, Inc. office acting like the Queen of Sheba just because she's pregnant, coworker Stephen DeGrassio announced Monday. "Amy thinks she's Big Miss Important," DeGrassio said Monday. "She's behaving like a total priss. It's like, 'Ooh, look at me! I'm pregnant! I'm gonna have a baby!' Hey, calm down. People have babies all the time." Advertisement DeGrassio and Glennon have worked together at Calendarz for three years. In spite of the proximity of their workstations, the two have found few common interests. According to DeGrassio, Glennon's way of "walking around like she's a member of the founding board of Calendarz" ever since she got pregnant has not brought the two any closer together. "Amy goes on and on about food now," DeGrassio said. "She's all hung up on folic acid or something. I told her, 'Hey, if you lose this one, it's not like you can't make another one.' C'mon, it's a joke. Lighten up." DeGrassio also expressed annoyance over the special treatment Glennon has received ever since she proved her ability to lay on her back and get nailed. Advertisement "Last week, she asked me to get some food out of the fridge for her," DeGrassio said. "She said she didn't want to have to bend down to dig in the bottom drawer. Please! When I sprained my ankle, I didn't have people wait on me hand and foot. Christ, what a joke." Glennon has updated coworkers on every stage of her pregnancy and provided them with full reports on each of her visits to the obstetrician, because that's exactly the sort of thing people are interested in hearing about when they're trying to sell some goddamn calendars. "So she had an ultrasound," DeGrassio said. "Big whoop. It's a non-invasive medical procedure. I could get one if I wanted, and I'm not even a lady. It's just a black-and-white smear, and she's got it pinned up there like it's a goddamned Sears Christmas portrait." Advertisement Of course, Glennon had a baby shower last week and everyone in the office was invited—how gracious of her. "Her friends sold the baby shower so hard," DeGrassio said. "They were all like, 'We play games and open presents'—as if I don't know what a shower is. I'll tell you what it is: four hours of chattering and cooing over stuff from Target. I always give the same gift when I go to one: a pair of overalls. But everyone acts like it's the Bicentennial fireworks display." As the blessed event approaches, DeGrassio admitted that he's having a hard time playing along when Her Royal Highness makes him feel the baby. Advertisement "Every time that thing moves, Amy freaks out," DeGrassio said. "She came up to me the other day, grabbed my hand, and put it on her stomach. She kept asking me if I could feel it kick. Does the baby get to feel me kick? I'm sorry, that was too much, but this is making me crazy." DeGrassio said that, while he understands why the pregnancy might be exciting for Glennon, he looks forward to the day when the baby is finally born, already. "Her due date is April 23, and it can't come fast enough," DeGrassio said. "Of course, once the damn kid finally pops out, I'll have to sit through all the stories about breastfeeding and its first steps. I guess the only way I'm ever going to get a word in edgewise at this office is if I knock up some skank."Text size Shares of (INTC) are down 45 cents, or 1.2%, at $35.75, after Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon cut his rating on the shares to Underperform from Market Perform, after concluding the company's facing a bad "" where its chip franchise is "cracking," it has nothing to replace in similar volume, its vaunted advantage in manufacturing means less and less, and its stock is expensive. "Datacenter is showing real signs of cracking," writes Rasgon, "competition is increasing, growth opportunities are declining in quality, and competitor advantages in design/architecture are beginning to blunt whatever process advantages the company has left." "In that context valuations (currently at decade-long highs on EV/FCF) seem unsustainable, and ripe for re-rating." The stock, he writes, sports a, even though he thinks the bull arguments for Intel have "one by one" been "knocked down": One by one these cases have been knocked down. PCs peaked in 2011, and the argument now is not whether they will grow again, but rather around how rapidly they might decline. Datacenter growth goals have never played out as expected, and have now been reset in more ways than one. New growth opportunities are coming with increased investment levels, and worse economics, than the current business. And not even mighty Intel can keep pace with Moore's law, suffering significant problems yielding 14nm, and stretching out their migration cadence while competitors attempt to pull their own trajectory in. Competition is increasing across all major portions of the business to levels we haven't seen in years. And spending (on both opex and capex) is hitting new records as Intel fights to keep their moat wide. This doesn’t sound like a company in their best position in years. And yet valuation tells a different story. While relatively inexpensive on (recently-adjusted) earnings, cash isn't fooled by accounting changes or capex increases, and INTC's stock trades at near decade-long highs on EV/FCF (>18x, close to where TXN is trading). This makes no sense to us. With what appears to be the start of a potentially multi-year structural case beginning to play out, we could be in front of a multi-year re- rating as well. Rasgon digs into : The company has reset growth goals (low double digits over the next 5 years, down from 15%+). But even sustaining these lowered growth targets relies heavily on "adjacencies" (memory, silicon photonics, etc) which are less attractive than CPUs. Additionally we are seeing an increasing number of credible competitive threats emerge, including AMD (with their first major offering in half a decade) and NVDA (whose GPU offerings appear preferable in high growth AI efforts where INTC seems to be on their back foot), not to mention internal activities at customers, renewed efforts out of China, etc. As a result INTC is spiking investments here, pressuring margins. Further risk exists not only from possible share losses, but also from pricing pressure, should new competition, in whatever form, prove credible enough to crack Intel's strong pricing umbrella. Rasgon, although still somewhat skeptical about competitor (AMD), sees that company's forthcoming server chip offerings as a definite threat: While we have too much history with Advanced Micro Devices to get behind the AMD bull case, it is apparent that the market is willing to believe. And if the market is right, especially on AMD's server offerings, we see few scenarios where this doesn't translate into problems for Intel given they currently own more than 99% of the marketplace. We note that the last time AMD launched a high end desktop and server chip was in 2012, and the company has since been limping along in those markets and ceding share to Intel (indeed, today AMD is virtually an afterthought in servers).However, the newest Zen products have just had their official launch (initially for high-end desktop), with a 52%+ improvement in instructions per clock on the back of a brand-new architecture and a 2-node process jump. This puts AMD products (at least in theory) back in competition with Intel, whose own IPC improvements over the past couple of years have been marginal at best, and minimal over the last few generations. AMD's new Ryzen products' initial performance, power envelope and pricing looks (at least on the surface) decently positioned vs comparable Intel chips in the high-end desktop space, at lower price points (Exhibit 10), and we'll see how they do in practice once shipping in high volume. Success in desktop, if it occurs, will potentially foreshadow future success in server (with Naples server chips launching in Q2, and likely ramping into the 2H and 2018). He notes, too, the rise of alternatives in the data center in the form of : Additionally, the company faces further competitive challenges. Customers are beginning to build custom chips for specific workloads (we note for example Google's Tensor Processing Units for machine-learning applications, and Amazon's renewed semiconductor efforts). Google is also pushing their efforts in the OpenPower alliance, with servers (based on the Power9 architecture) coming soon. Qualcomm has taken up the ARM mantle with their own server efforts. And China appears to be making their own push, both on ARM (including a JV with Qualcomm) as well as x86, having licensed x86 server IP from (again) AMD3. In addition, Rasgon sees the company's long-time lead in semiconductor meaning less and less as chip "architecture" takes over and Moore's Law slows: For example, AMD's Ryzen chip squeezes 4.8b transistors into a ~195mm die size (~25M transistors per mm2), significantly more than Intel's high-end Broadwell (3.4B transistors in 246mm2, or ~14M transistors per mm2). With Skylake INTC ceased providing transistor counts, but we have little reason to believe density metrics have been hugely improved. While metrics like this are admittedly crude, they point to the fact that Intel's theoretical density arguments are likely less important in practice; in the real world their architecture (which will remain relatively unchanged through the Skylake, Kaby Lake, and Coffee Lake generations) appears demonstrably less efficient than the competition. And this feels like a problem. Intel has always been a fab company. They continue to think of themselves as a fab company. But in a world where process technology migration is slowing, design expertise and architecture are likely to become more critical, and the company cannot make claims of superiority on that front; indeed, they have chosen this moment to de-invest in their PC efforts (where until this point has borne the brunt of their microarchitectural efforts).The Mad and the Bad Jean-Patrick Manchette. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith NYRB Classics, 184pp, $14.95 Fatale Jean-Patrick Manchette. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith Serpent’s Tail, 98pp, £8.99 The Gunman Jean-Patrick Manchette. Translated by James Brook Serpent’s Tail, 154pp, £7.99 The tense mood of Paris following the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks echoes that of the French capital in the 1960s. Then, too, the city was marked by both the reality and the nervous anticipation of violence. That decade opened under the shadow of a colonial war with Algeria and closed with the street riots of May 1968. It was a period when many had their political consciousness shaped, including Jean-Patrick Manchette, growing up in the Paris suburbs. Manchette, an erstwhile contributor to Charlie Hebdo, started the decade as a committed leftist activist and finished it equally dedicated to change but having abandoned direct action for the more oblique tool of the detective novel, channelling 1960s anti-authoritarianism through his inventive approach to genre fiction. Over the next two decades, Manchette emerged as a distinctive voice in French writing for his socially attuned and stylish, swaggering novels. In addition to his columns for Charlie, he had a prolific career as a screenwriter and translator but he is best known for his uncompromising fiction. After his death from cancer in 1995, Manchette is still cited by heavyweights from Jean Echenoz to Michel Houellebecq for his fusion of radical politics with taut plotting but is little read in the English-speaking world. This looks likely to change following the reissue in translation of three viscerally enjoyable novels: The Mad and the Bad, Fatale and The Gunman. The last of these has also been adapted into a film by Pierre Morel, starring Sean Penn and Javier Bardem. Three to Kill, starring Colin Firth, in advanced movie development, is also based on a Manchette book. An attentive reader of Marx, Herbert Marcuse and Guy Debord, Manchette used his novels to offer diagnoses of contemporary societal ills. He rejected physical violence but his writing is brutal: a character has a blade plunged into his heart on the first page of one book. He used the detective story as an assault weapon to draw the reader’s attention to the state of the world or as a channel for “violent social intervention”. When they were first published in the 1970s and early 1980s, when French detective fiction was largely concerned with conservative tales of neutralised subversion and restored order, Manchette’s novels came as a shock. Influenced by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, he evokes a recognisably more ambiguous contemporary world, in which bad guys are as likely to be cops, capitalists or the clergy as lurking in the sleazy Pigalle shadows. His protagonists are liminal figures: the alienated, the mentally disturbed or, as with the average executive of Three to Kill, ordinary people caught up in circumstances beyond their control. For Manchette, like Debord, it is the upper echelons rather than the underworld that are viewed with most suspicion. Such suspicion pervades The Mad and the Bad, which tells the story of the wealthy architect Michel Hartog. Following a family bereavement, he is awarded guardianship of his nephew, Peter. Nonplussed by this arrival, Hartog employs the beautiful Julie – recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital – as the child’s nanny. Quickly, the pair are the focus of a kidnapping led by the psychotic Thompson, whose bloodlust drives him to eat living animals. Julie, however, is made of tough stuff and the bulk of the novel recounts the pair’s flight from the killer and his bumbling henchmen. The tension never lets up but Manchette’s main skill lies in how his plots subtly extend to shrewd social analysis. The Mad and the Bad becomes a consideration of contemporary “madness” and “badness” that points out the pernicious influence of money on morality and mental well-being and, pre-empting the psychologist Oliver James’s work on “selfish capitalism”, it explores a relationship between commodity fetishism and illness. This is highlighted by one of the book’s cinematic set pieces: a shoot-out in the aisles of a supermarket that eerily prefigures the Hyper Cacher siege. An orgy of consumerism is transformed into one of bloody destruction or, as Manchette describes it, “a madhouse”. Ironically, it is the mentally ill Julie – a poor outsider, a former patient at the more conventional kind of “madhouse” – who is best adapted to survive. The Gunman is just as brutal and similarly politically and morally engaged. A near-first-person narrative technique borrowed from Hammett draws the reader close to Martin Terrier – but never close enough to know what is going on behind his calculating blue eyes. Terrier is a soldier-turned-hitman working for a shadowy organisation known as “the Company”. He wants to retire but his handler, the shadowy American Cox, leaves him with no option but to take one final high-profile job. Terrier kills “only for the money”. The son of a scrap metal merchant, he has a chip on his shoulder, having been shunned by the family of his childhood sweetheart because of his poor social standing. Again, Manchette showcases the noxious influence of cash. Aimée, the hit woman heroine of Fatale, is, like Terrier, ruled by an ambiguous mix of mercantile and moral preoccupations. In the corrupt, middle-class Bléville (“Dough Town”), she launches into a series of assassinations, taking out industrialists, doctors and engineers. It’s hard not to share Manchette’s glee in orchestrating the systematic destruction of la bourgeoisie. For all their politics, Manchette’s books are great, anarchic fun. His prose, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith and James Brook, is as precise as a sniper’s bullet, often cased in black irony. In the supermarket shoot-out of The Mad and the Bad, one of Thompson’s goons is set alight: “His legs were frying and he caught the smell of bacon emanating from his burnt skin.” Ultimately, we are all consumable products in Manchette’s world. His descriptions of dress and decor add a pleasing note of 1970s Gallic kitsch: Thompson stalks his prey in a fetching “white turtleneck and an oak-brown sports suit”. Striking, too, is Manchette’s obsessive attention to consumer brands. Guns and cars become Colts and 2CVs and the novels are filtered through a haze of Gitanes smoke, strong booze and classic jazz. Despite their period touches, these novels pack an intense contemporary punch. Whether the pro-Charlie street mobilisations throughout France will inspire a wave of writers whose critique is as trenchant and as readable as that of Manchette remains to be seen.- In the above "#IMPACT365" former TNA Women's Knockout Champion Brooke and her family celebrate "Twerksgiving." - Rockstar Spud, TNA Wrestling President Dixie Carter's Chief of Staff, is looking to impress his boss. He remarked the following on Twitter today: "Have been on several Black Friday shopping errands for Madam @TNADixie today! Hope she like the cream cake I bought for her #HailToTheChief." - The stars of TNA Wrestling are heading back to high school. The promotion announced four live event dates for January, and two shows are slated to emanate from high schools (in Arkansas and Tennessee). Adding to the uniqueness, tickets to the Tennessee event are being sold through a cupcake shopHaliHannigan's Cupcakery. Details on these upcoming events, which includes a date at a community center in Arkansas, are as follows: January 3: Batesville, Arkansas (Live Event) Southside High School 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale at Mark Martin Ford or online at www.ShopTNA.com/tickets Tickets on sale Friday, December 6 January 4: Jonesboro, Arkansas (Live Event) Earl Bell Community Center 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale at Front Page Cafe or online at www.ShopTNA.com/tickets Tickets on sale Friday, December 6 January 5: Jackson, Tennessee (Live Event) Jackson Northside High School 6 p.m. Tickets are on sale at HaliHannigan's Cupcakery or online at www.ShopTNA.com/tickets Tickets on sale Friday, December 6 January 19: Albany, Georgia (Live Event) Albany Civic Center 5 p.m. Tickets are on sale at www.ticketmaster.com or by phone at 800-745-3000 Tickets on sale Friday, December 6The March issue of Kadokawa's Dengeki G's magazine is revealing the cast of the original anime Plastic Memories on Friday. Yasuaki Takumi as Tsukasa Mizugaki, a new employee at SA Corp.'s terminal service who joined after graduating high school. However, he does not know much about his job. Sora Amamiya as Isla, a Giftia who doesn't show much emotion. She starts working in a team with Tsukasa, and supports him, since he does not know much. It is said that Giftias only have approximately nine years to function. Chinatsu Akasaki as Michiru Kinushima, Tsukasa's senior at work. Although they have no age difference, she teaches Tsukasa as his work superior. Sayuri Yahagi as Zack, a Giftia paired with Michiru. His appearance is that of a high-class young boy, but he has the power to complete all work smoothly. Megumi Toyoguchi as Kazuki Kuwanomi, Tsukasa's direct superior at work. Satoshi Hino as Constance, a Giftia modeled as an agreeable young man that works for Kazuki. Has an obviously gentle personality, and performs everything smoothly. Supports Kazuki. Kenjiro Tsuda as Yasutaka Hanada, a veteran employee that has 10 years experience in the terminal service. His ease at conversation, casual attitude, and lack of motivation belie his age and years of employment. Aimi Terakawa as Sherry, a Giftia modeled as a career woman, partnered with Yasutaka. Serious to a fault, and has a rigid rapport with Yasutaka. Nobuo Tobita as Takao Yamanobe, the section manager of Terminal Service 1 and Tsukasa's team. A stereotypical salaryman who is content with peace and quiet, and loathe to go against his superior's orders. Originally worked in sales, so has no actual field experience with the terminal service. Sumire Uesaka as Eru Miru, a novice engineer with two years in the Giftia maintenance team. She is assigned to Isla and Zack, and acts overly familiar and talkative to anyone. An android geek. The anime will premiere on Japanese television on April. The official website began streaming a promo video last October. The website also previews the story: This story takes place in a future not too far away when androids that look exactly like humans begin to spread across the world. The android production company SA Corp. produced Giftia, a new kind of android that has the most amount of emotion and human-like qualities out of any other model ever seen. However, due to problems in technology, the androids have a service life, and once they pass that, they... Well, it gets pretty bad. For this reason, SA Corp. creates a terminal service in order to retrieve Giftia that have gone past their service life. A new employee at the terminal service named Tsukasa Mizugaki forms a team with the Giftia Isla to retrieve the other androids, but... Yoshiyuki Fujiwara ( GJ Club, Engaged to the Unidentified ) is directing the project at Dogakobo (Yuruyuri - Happy Go Lily, Laughing Under the Clouds). Chiaki Nakajima ( Yuruyuri - Happy Go Lily, Love Lab ) is adapt the original character designs by okiura (Infinite Stratos). Naotaka Hayashi (Robotics;Notes, Steins;Gate, Chaos;Head) is credited as the project's original creator and he pens the scripts for the "story of meetings and partings." [Via 0takomu]U.S. President Obama meets with Philippine's President Aquino inside Malacanang presidential palace in Manila Thomson Reuters MANILA (Reuters) - A U.S.-Philippine defense agreement that would help counter China's growing naval power in the disputed South China Sea has yet to be implemented more than a year after it was signed, and could now face a fresh political hurdle in Manila. The deal gives U.S. troops wide access to local military bases and approval to build facilities to store fuel and equipment for maritime security, but it was effectively frozen after left-wing politicians and other opponents challenged its constitutionality in the Philippine Supreme Court last year. The court is expected to issue a ruling before U.S. President Barack Obama visits Manila for an Asia-Pacific summit in November. The deal, called an Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), was signed just days before Obama last traveled to Manila in April 2014. In another complication, 13 senators in the 24-member Philippine Senate have signed a draft resolution insisting the upper house scrutinize the deal before it takes effect. "In this resolution, we are saying we will not allow the power of the Senate to be eroded," Senator Miriam Santiago, the principal author of the measure, said in a statement last week. The proposed resolution will be lodged in late July, when the Senate reconvenes after a recess. While a Senate resolution would not be binding on President Benigno Aquino, it would put pressure on him to allow senators to debate the agreement, which would delay it further, Philippine political experts told Reuters. With national elections due in May 2016, politicians are already focusing on who will contest the presidency when Aquino steps down, possibly putting some congressional business on the back-burner. The Philippine constitution allows presidents to only serve a single six-year term. "Aquino is increasingly losing his power to influence Congress," said political expert Ramon Casiple. Further delays might raise eyebrows in Washington, experts said, given Manila has been the most vocal critic of Beijing among the claimants to the South China Sea and has urged the United States to be more assertive in pushing back against China's rapid land reclamation in the waterway. Senators have said they also want to review an agreement to be negotiated with Tokyo that would allow Japanese military aircraft and naval vessels to use bases in the Philippines for refueling and picking up supplies. The Senate has ratified previous Philippine defense agreements, including a decades-old security treaty with the United States. Aquino has said the EDCA only needs executive approval because it's an addition to existing security arrangements. Troops stand at attention during the celebration of the 118th Founding Anniversary of the Philippine Army at the military headquarters in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, Metro Manila March 23, 2015. REUTERS/ROMEO RANOCO Base access To be sure, U.S.-Philippine military ties are already robust. Philippine military officials say there has been an increase in U.S. exercises, training and ship and aircraft visits in the past year under Obama's "rebalance" to Asia. But the EDCA would take the relationship a step further, partly by giving U.S. forces broad access to the Philippines. Washington for example wants to use Philippine military bases in eight locations to rotate troops, aircraft and ships, the Philippine military chief said in April. One of those is a base on Palawan island, about 160 km (100 miles) from the Spratly islands, where China's creation of seven artificial outposts will allow Beijing to project power into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. The agreement would also allow the U.S. military to build infrastructure such as barracks, logistic warehouses and fuel depots for its visiting forces. U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Pool, a Pentagon spokesman, acknowledged that the court process had delayed implementation. "There have been informal, working-level discussions of potential locations and next steps, but no final decisions have been made nor are there any plans to begin implementing the EDCA until the Supreme Court completes its review," said Pool. Filipino residents and soldiers conduct a flag raising ceremony during the visit of Armed Forces of the Philippines military chief General Gregorio Catapang in Pagasa Island (Thitu Island) at the Spratly group of islands in the South China Sea, west of Palawan, Philippines, May 11, 2015. REUTERS/Ritchie A. Tongo Wrong signal A Senate resolution on the EDCA would not go unnoticed at the court, the Philippine political experts added. While the court is independent, it would be taking note of the political winds while also paying attention to concerns over China's muscle flexing in the South China Sea, they said. Even if the court ruled the agreement was constitutional, it might say it needed Senate approval, they said. Theodore Te, the Supreme Court spokesman, said the resolution would not influence the court's decision, although he noted that the issue of a Senate review of the defense deal had been raised during oral arguments in court. Any delays in the court decision could send a signal to Beijing that Manila was uncertain about its alliance with the United States, said Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "If the Supreme Court does not move expeditiously on the EDCA and the agreement is not in place before Obama's visit, the White House will have to ask whether the Philippines is serious about implementing its treaty alliance with the United States," Bower wrote recently. (Editing by Dean Yates)Why is a partisan California Democrat making a'statement against interest' by sounding the alarm over soaring Obamacare premiums? In order to arrogate more price-control power for himself, of course. He wants voters to approve a ballot measure that would hand the government -- and him, specifically -- the power to reject proposed rate increases deemed to be 'excessive.' Insurers oppose the measure, which they (understandably) argue would not solve the problem of higher costs -- not to mention the significant risk of providers pulling out of the market. Nevertheless, state health commissioner Dave Jones' statistics paint a picture of steep 2014 premium hikes in California. Obamacare at work: The cost of health insurance for individuals skyrocketed this year in California, with some paying almost twice what they did last year, the state's insurance commissioner said...For 2014, consumers purchasing individual policies paid between 22% and 88% more for health insurance than they did last year, depending on age, gender, type of policy and where they lived, Jones said Tuesday. He said he has authorized a study of health insurance rates after receiving numerous complaints about rising costs. "The rate increase from 2013 to 2014, on average, was significantly higher than rate increases in the past," Jones said in a news conference in Sacramento. The hardest-hit were young people, he said. In one region of Los Angeles County, people age 25 paid 52% more for a silver plan than they had for a similar plan the year before, while someone age 55 paid 38% more, according to a report that Jones released Tuesday. Jones cautions that the 2015 rate bumps will likely be artificially "modest," as insurance companies try to avoid a backlash at the ballot box. Keep in mind that those relatively less painful increases will come on top of 2014's "significantly higher" than usual spikes, caused by Obamacare's costly mandates. Another reason behind the hikes are the law's problematic risk pools, which are sicker and older (and therefore more expensive to cover) than the administration projected. Aetna's CEO spelled this out on CNBC, calling the demographics "worse than we expected:" He also says that his company is experiencing "some attrition" when it comes to premium payments, meaning that some percentage of enrollees' coverage is lapsing. We've discussed premium non-payment among Obamacare's sign-ups over many months, so that isn't new. But Bertolini isn't talking about people who selected coverage but never initiated it by paying an initial premium; he's talking about people who began by paying premiums, then dropped off. One of the CNBC anchors speculates that young, healthy people have the strongest incentive to kick their plans to the curb. Let's see how this fluidity and instability impacts 2016 premiums. Bertolini also reminds viewers that the "back end operating system of the exchanges is not yet up and running." Recent reports suggest that task isn't even close to completion. Down in Louisiana, the bad news continues to roll in: The state's largest insurer says close to 45,000 Louisiana policyholders could see the rates for their health coverage jump anywhere from 10 percent to nearly 20 percent next year, and the Affordable Care Act is a major reason. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana accounts for the bulk of those individual policies, which people buy directly from an insurance company rather than through their employer. Blue Cross spokesman John Maginnis said the Affordable Care Act expanded access to health insurance to millions of Americans, regardless of age or health status, and guaranteed richer benefits. He says those things come at a cost. Of course they do, but that's not what the president and his Congressional foot soldiers told the American people. They claimed that Obamacare would lower everybody's rates, with reductions saving the average family $2,500. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who cast the deciding vote for Obamacare, slammed conservatives' predictions of higher costs as "a pathetic lie" during the pre-passage debate. Now tens of thousands of her constituents are experiencing that "lie" first hand. The nationwide "summer drumbeat" isn't slowing down. Florida: "State insurance officials are preparing to release figures next week on how much health plans will cost under the Affordable Care Act for 2015, and rate increases seem inevitable as insurers say their new consumers are older and sicker than anticipated. Top executives at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and Cigna said rate increases are likely, but declined specifics." I'll leave you with a link to Peter Suderman's definitive piece on the wonky Halbig controversy that's been raging for days. We covered the court decision when it broke last week, as well as the humiliating evidence subsequently unearthed against one of Obamacare's most prominent defenders and architects. The Left has been working like mad to recover from this embarrassment, but some of their flailing has inadvertently weakened their case.BOMs new data set, ACORN, so bad it should be withdrawn (954 min temps larger than the max!) When independent auditors found errors, gaps and deep questions about the HQ (High Quality) dataset for the official record of Australian temperatures, the BOM responded by producing a completely new set called ACORN in March 2012. But this set is also plagued with errors. One of the independent auditors, Ed Thurstan writes to me to explain that though the BOM says it aimed for the “best possible data set” and specified that they check internal consistency of data (one such check is to make sure that the maximum on any given day is larger than the minimum) when Thurstan double checked ACORN he found nearly 1000 instances where the max temperatures were lower than the minimums recorded the same day. This raises serious questions about the quality control of the Australian data that are so serious, Thurstan asks whether the whole set should be withdrawn. Why are basic checks like these left to unpaid volunteers, while Australian citizens pay $10 billion a year to reduce a warming trend recorded in a data set so poor that it’s not possible to draw any conclusions about the real current trend we are supposedly so concerned about. — Jo Anomalies Errors in ACORN_SAT Data Ed Thurstan July 14, 2012 Ever since the documentation for ACORN-SAT was released, I have had doubts about the ability of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to honour their published intention to release all software that generated the ACORN-SAT data. ( I might amplify that thought later.) In March 2012 the BOM released the report “Techniques involved in developing the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset CAWCR Technical Report No. 049 Blair Trewin This specifies in great detail both the background to the development of the database, and the checks applied to the data. As Blair Trewin writes in the Abstract of this report: “The purpose of this data set is to provide the best possible data set to underlie analyses of variability and change of temperature in Australia, including both analyses of annual and seasonal mean temperatures, and of extremes of temperature and other information derived from daily temperatures.” I decided to take that document as a Program Specification, and write code to perform those data checks. The very first check specified in section 6.1 of the above report is “1. Internal consistency of daily maximum and minimum temperature Since the temperature recorded at the time of observation (09:00 under current practice) is an upper bound for minimum temperature on both the day of observation and the following day (i.e. Tnd ≤ T0900,d and Tnd+1 ≤ T0900,d), and a lower bound for maximum temperature on both the day of observation and the preceding day (i.e. Txd ≥ T0900,d and Txd-1 ≥ T0900,d), daily maximum and minimum temperatures must satisfy the relationships: Txd ≥ Tnd Txd ≥ Tnd+1 If one or both of these relationships was violated, both maximum and minimum temperatures were flagged as suspect unless there was strong evidence that any error was confined to one of the two observations.” In testing my code for the first of the two conditions specified above (which says simply that the maximum temperature recorded on any day must be greater than the minimum temperature recorded for that day), I found violations of this condition in the BOM data. The following are extracts from the full violation log. The errors occur in many different sites and are spread across many decades: In total, the ACORN-SAT database released in March displays about 1,000 (one
"Best Game" and "Best Online and Multiplayer."[69] Computer Games Magazine named Half-Life 2 the fourth-best computer game of 2004. The editors call it "a masterful single-player experience that plays a constant game of one-upmanship with itself." It won the magazine's "Best Technology" and "Best Writing" awards, and was a runner-up in the "Best Sound Effects", "Best AI" and "Best Voice Acting" categories.[70] Guinness World Records awarded Half-Life 2 the world record for "Highest Rated Shooter by PC Gamer Magazine" in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. Other records awarded the game in the book include, "Largest Digital Distribution Channel" for Valve's Steam service, "First Game to Feature a Gravity Gun", and "First PC Game to Feature Developer Commentary".[71] In 2009, Game Informer put Half-Life 2 5th on their list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time", saying that "With Half-Life 2, Valve redefined the way first-person shooters were created".[72] Half-Life 2 was selected by readers of The Guardian as the best game of the decade, with praise given especially to the environment design throughout the game. According to the newspaper, it "pushed the envelope for the genre, and set a new high watermark for FPS narrative". One author commented: "Half-Life 2 always felt like the European arthouse answer to the Hollywood bluster of Halo and Call of Duty".[73] Half-Life 2 won Crispy Gamer's Game of the Decade[74] tournament style poll. It also won Reviews on the Run's,[75] IGN's[76] Best Game of the Decade and Spike Video Game Awards 2012 Game of the Decade.[77] Mods [ edit ] Since the release of the Source engine SDK, a large number of modifications (mods) have been developed by the Half-Life 2 community. Mods vary in scale, from fan-created levels and weapons, to partial conversions such as Rock 24, Half-Life 2 Substance and SMOD (which modify the storyline and gameplay of the pre-existing game), SourceForts and Garry's Mod (which allow the player to experiment with the physics system in a sandbox mode), to total conversions such as Black Mesa, Dystopia, Zombie Master or Iron Grip: The Oppression, the last of which transforms the game from a first-person shooter into a real-time strategy game.[78][79] Some mods take place in the Half-Life universe; others in completely original settings. Many more mods are still in development, including Lift, The Myriad, Operation Black Mesa, and the episodic single-player mod Minerva.[80] Several multiplayer mods, such as Pirates, Vikings and Knights II, a predominately sword-fighting game; Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat, which focuses on realistic modern infantry combat; and Jailbreak Source have been opened to the public as a beta.[81][82] As part of its community support, Valve announced in September 2008 that several mods, with more planned in the future, were being integrated into the Steamworks program, allowing the mods to make full use of Steam's distribution and update capabilities.[83] Sequels [ edit ] Since the release of Half-Life 2, Valve Corporation has released an additional level and two additional "expansion" sequels. The level, released as Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, was meant to take place between the levels "Highway 17" and "Sandtraps".[84] It serves primarily as a showcase for high-dynamic-range rendering (HDR) technology. The first expansion sequel, Half-Life 2: Episode One, takes place immediately after the events of Half-Life 2, with the player taking on the role of Gordon Freeman once again and with Alyx Vance playing a more prominent role. Half-Life 2: Episode Two continues directly from the ending of Episode One, with Alyx and Gordon making their way to White Forest Missile base, a hideout of the resistance. A third episode is set to be released in the future, completing an intended trilogy.[85] In a June 2006 interview with Eurogamer, Gabe Newell revealed that the Half-Life 2 "episodes" are essentially Half-Life 3.[86] He reasons that rather than force fans to wait another six years for a full sequel, Valve Corporation would release the game in episodic installments.[86] Newell stated that a more accurate title for these episodes would have been "Half-Life 3: Episode One" and so forth, having referred to the episodes as Half-Life 3 repeatedly throughout the interview.[86] In a May 2011 interview with Develop, Newell stated that the episodic model had been replaced by even shorter development cycles and continuous updates via Steam.[87]This would be a very presidential move for the president — decisive, direct, and somewhat demanding. After all, the folks on Capitol Hill have so far been super ambivalent about the issue. It was not included in the official Senate proposal after details leaked earlier Monday, but lawmakers had discussed including same-sex couples in the new set of laws. However, when asked why the initial proposal lacked LGBT provision. Sen. John McCain, one of four Republicans working on the proposal simply said, "We'll be working out those details." Rep. Jerrold Nadler was a little more opinionated about the issue, calling it "madness" that same-sex couples were left out — that it was a "major omission." No matter what happens from here on out, it's becoming apparent that the gay rights movement is about to latch on to the push for immigration reform. And why shouldn't they? The point of reform is to fix things that are broken, and as the country moves towards greater equality for people of all sexual orientations, why should same sex couples be left out? Well, it could get tricky. If the conversation turns too sharply in the direction of gay rights, the larger immigration reform process could get bogged down or even stuck in the mud completely. Let's leave the ifs alone for now, though, and see what the president actually does. Obama is expected to deliver his address at 11:55 Pacific time "on the need to fix the broken immigration system so that it is fairer for and helps grow the middle class by ensuring everyone plays by the same rules," according to the White House. The speech, while praising the Senate plan, is expected to offer some differing proposals. Per The Washington Post: But the president’s remarks also are likely to emphasize differences that could foreshadow roadblocks to passage in Congress at a time when both parties saythere is momentum for a comprehensive deal. For example, the Senate proposal would let illegal immigrants obtain legal residency quickly. But it would not allow them to seek full citizenship until border security had been improved and a new system was in place for employers to verify the employment status of workers. Obama will not endorse such a proposal, the administration official said. Meanwhile, the Post says Obama's support of including same-sex couples in immigration reform "is almost certain to draw opposition from Catholic and Baptist groups that have been supportive of comprehensive reform." Whether that pushback could scuttle the entire legislation, of course, could take months to play out. The Senate plan apparently "landed with a thud" when the House Republicans got their hands on it, just as White House officials were describing the speech's whole purpose on Monday night as not about legislative language so much as "building momentum for reform in Congress." This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The NFL filed a motion on Friday seeking all evidence from Greg Hardy's first trial in which he was found guilty by a Mecklenburg County judge of assaulting and threatening to kill ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder. That July 15 verdict was set aside when the Pro Bowl defensive end asked for an appeal in front of the jury, as is allowed under North Carolina law. The district attorney's office dropped all the charges on Monday, saying Holder would not cooperate and there was evidence she reached a financial settlement with Hardy. The NFL is seeking all evidence from Greg Hardy's first trial in which he was found guilty of assaulting and threatening to kill ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky The NFL then announced it would conduct its own investigation into whether Hardy violated the league's new personal conduct code. The league said Hardy would remain on the commissioner's exempt list until that investigation. Hardy would be subject to a minimum six-game suspension if he is found to have violated the policy. The league's investigation is being conducted by Lisa Friel, a New York City prosecutor who was hired by the NFL in September to help handle cases involving domestic violence and sexual assault. To further that investigation, the league is seeking all the material filed in connection with the July 15 trial. The motion the NFL filed on Friday argued that since the case against Hardy is over, there is no reason not to make the evidence public. A league spokesman said there has not yet been a response to the motion. Hardy's attorney, Chris Fialko, did not immediately return messages. Fialko commissioned the only transcript of the first trial. The NFL likely is interested in pictures of Holder from the night of Hardy's May 13 arrest, among other evidence. Those pictures were not made available to reporters during the first trial. The Panthers are not expected to re-sign Hardy, who was paid $13.1 million by the team in 2014 despite playing in only one game. Hardy was placed on the inactive list before the second game and then on the commissioner's exempt list before the third. Hardy is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on March 10. Neither Hardy nor his attorney spoke to reporters after Monday's court appearance in which the charges were dropped.Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. President Barack Obama just marked Earth Day with a speech on climate change, given from a podium in Florida’s Everglades National Park. The choice of venue was appropriate from an environmental perspective—the Everglades is already acutely feeling the impacts of sea level rise—but it was also telling from a political standpoint. Although our swampiest national park has a long history of bipartisan support, it’s located in a state that has recently produced some of the most absurdist climate denial in recent memory—and Obama didn’t forget to mention it. Florida is home not just to Sen. Marco Rubio, a GOP presidential contender who maintains that humans can’t affect the climate, but also to Gov. Rick Scott, who landed in headlines last month after apparently barring state employees from talking about climate change. “Climate change can no longer be denied,” Obama said today. “It can’t be edited out. It can’t be omitted from the conversation…Simply refusing to say the words ‘climate change’ doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening.” Obama also took a jab at Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) for bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor. “If you have a coming storm, you don’t stick your head in the sand,” he said. “You prepare for the storm.” You can watch the full speech below (starts at 48:00):Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Officers say a 60-year-old was recovered from a small farm in St Brides on Tuesday A third man has been found by police in an anti-slavery inquiry in south Wales. The 60-year-old British man, discovered after a raid on a farm at St Brides, near Newport, is having his health checked by specialist Red Cross staff. Three men from the village have been arrested bringing the total number of arrests in the operation to seven. On Monday a Polish man was found at Cariad Farm, in nearby Peterstone, living in poor conditions. A British man was found there in March. It is understood the third man was found following a police raid at the former Oakfields plant nursery in St Brides on Tuesday afternoon. Three men from St Brides - aged 53, 38 and 20 - were arrested on suspicion of slavery and servitude offences. Body search The "unprecedented inquiry" was sparked after Darrell Simester, 43, from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, was found in March at Cariad Farm, about a mile from St Brides. Mr Simester had gone missing 13 years ago while on holiday in the south Wales resort of Porthcawl. He was found living in poor conditions with torn clothes and teeth missing and was described as being "vulnerable". Image caption Darrell Simester had been missing for 13 years It sparked a major police inquiry which led to dawn raids at three sites in south Wales on Monday, including Cariad Farm, listed by Newport Council as a Gypsy/traveller site. The four arrested on Monday - a 66-year-old man and a 42-year-old both from the Marshfield area, a 36-year-old man from the Cardiff area, and a 42-year-old woman from Penhow - remain in police custody. As part of the inquiry, police have been searching a compost heap at Cariad Farm following intelligence that a body may be buried there. They have been searching for three days using mechanical diggers. Speaking at a press conference at Cariad Farm on Wednesday, Ch Insp Huw Nicholas of Gwent Police said specialist officers would remain there at least until the weekend. "There's no sign of us leaving this site," he said. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption It is understood the third man was found at a former plant nursery in St Brides "The excavation has been larger than we expected. It's been more than we had anticipated. "We don't know what we're going to find or what's going to come to light." When asked why police had waited six months after the discovery of Mr Simester before carrying out the raids, he said: "It's an unprecedented inquiry. You can't imagine slavery going on in this day and age in Wales Cath Whatley, Inn at the Elm Tree pub "There aren't many investigations like this. We had to understand fully what the situation was. "We can't just jump into a situation like this." Mr Nicholas said officers had received an "awful lot of information" from members of the public following the arrests. He said they were still keen to hear from the author of an anonymous letter which was sent to another police force making certain allegations and providing information relevant to the inquiry. Mr Nicholas added that the condition of the Polish man who was found on Monday was still being assessed. Local residents in the small community of St Brides were shocked by the latest developments. Cath Whatley, housekeeper at the Inn at the Elm Tree pub, said: "Everybody is talking about it and wanting to know what's gone on. They are stunned, I would say. It's very scary. "You can't imagine slavery going on in this day and age in Wales." Gwent Police has urged anyone with information to contact them on 101 quoting log 66 23/09/13 or via Crimestoppers, which is independent of the police and guarantees complete anonymity, on 0800 555 111.Wreck-It Ralph longs to be as beloved as his game's perfect Good Guy, Fix-It Felix. Problem is, nobody loves a Bad Guy. But they do love heroes... so when a modern, first-person shooter game arrives featuring tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun, Ralph sees it as his ticket to heroism and happiness. He sneaks into the game with a simple plan -- win a medal -- but soon wrecks everything, and accidentally unleashes a deadly enemy that threatens every game in the arcade. Ralph's only hope? Vanellope von Schweetz, a young troublemaking "glitch" from a candy-coated cart racing game who might just be the one to teach Ralph what it means to be a Good Guy. But will he realize he is good enough to become a hero before it's "Game Over" for the entire arcade? Written by Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesWasted Portal H. A. Eugene Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 2, 2016 H.A. Eugene The first time he smoked salvia it didn’t do anything. It was described as 20x, and so he made a mental note to maybe next time buy the stuff marked with the larger numbers, despite the protests of his friends, who begged him, please, don’t turn your back on real drugs. The second attempt was a different story. He took a series of hits, each held in for longer than felt natural and, in no time, felt himself taken aback by a warmth in his ears, which coincided with a ringing, some muscular twitching, and pressure in his joints. Finally, he thought. He closed his eyes and shook his head until the feeling of movement became disconnected from the behavior itself. He opened his eyes to find a slit of pinkish purple warbling its way open. It presented itself like a gift to him, one that had taken advantage of the stillness in time to incubate, to grow. Ooh, portal, he thought, as the slit yawned and swelled like an envelope of plasticized rubber melting in the heat of some foreign sun, then fell open, completely. He peered in. There was a world on the other side and, he could see that, unlike his dungeon of an apartment, this world was bright. There was real natural light over there. Lots of it. Classrooms in his memory were almost always lit by fluorescent lights that buzzed like insects and made the room feel dead. This classroom was nothing like that. This classroom was most definitely alive. The smiles of the students — about twenty grade schoolers — were wide, and enthusiastic. They wore uniforms that consisted of little white Bermuda shorts and little white button-up shirts. The room radiated with a chocolate-and-China effect that played the white classroom walls against the dark brown skin of the students and their teacher, who wore the same white Bermuda shorts and white button-up shirt that his charges wore, only the grown-up version. Behind them, through glassless windows, he could see white sand, along which the shadows of palm trees fell. He sensed the Caribbean. Everything glowed. The kids burbled with an energy that couldn’t be quieted, though the teacher attempted to shush them with hand gestures and gentle admonishments. This calmed their tittering just long enough for him to notice that the teacher was trying to get them to recite something, to perform something. Perhaps for him. Me? he thought, as he pushed his hair back into place with his hands, realizing that they were seeing him, too; though this also meant that they could see the rest of him, splayed out on a bean bag, in boxer shorts and a wife-beater. He closed his thighs, mortified, as this also meant that the water bong between his legs was the only thing between him and the indignity of a classroom full of kids in the Caribbean breaking up in hysterics because his balls had fallen out of his shorts. Before he could do anything else, the slit contracted and faded. The portal was closed.Save this picture! Mali - Niongono village House of the head (patron) of one of the big families of Niongono. Image © Daniel Schumann Architecture is a unique component of a country's culture just as much as its language, music, art, literature or food. Architecture is also the most visual of those cultural components; the pyramids in Egypt, skyscrapers in New York, a temple in Japan, and onion domes in Russia all convey a unique image. This is called “genius loci,” the “spirit of a place”. Every country has its own genius loci, its own uniqueness. Vernacular architecture is composed of local materials and derived from local customs, techniques that have been passed on from generation to generation. But vernacular architecture in most (if not all) African countries is disappearing, being abandoned for western materials and techniques. + 14 Save this picture! Rwanda - Kings Hut interior. Image © Larsen Payá There are many reasons why this is occurring, but the main reason is the biggest myth of vernacular architecture: the negative perceptions attached to the term. Whereas Western materials and construction techniques are seen as correct, modern, permanent, and for the affluent, the vernacular is viewed as substandard, outdated, temporary, or for the poor. These views are not only the ones of Western societies, but more importantly the beliefs of people in Africa as well. Save this picture! Ethiopia - chicken coop constructed with woven reeds. Image © Abby Morris For example, in Malawi walls are constructed utilizing mud in three different ways; in one, a frame is constructed of wood, reeds or bamboo and mud is applied to it. Another technique is rammed earth construction, mud compressed into a wood frame. Yet another technique is the making of bricks with mud compressed into a form and then dried either by laying out in the sun or stacked in a pattern, called a kiln, with openings at the bottom in which wood is set alight. Recently I spent three weeks conducting research in Malawi, documenting vernacular architecture, and while there I noticed the strong desire for modern materials, in particular metal roofs and burnt bricks. Here, burnt bricks are frequently used for their durability but the cost is the incredibly large amount of wood needed to burn the bricks, which is contributing to Malawi's devastating deforestation problem. Through interviews I learned that while structures built of sun dried bricks have lasted close to 20 years, rammed earth walls survive even longer. In terms of durability, this makes them comparable to burnt brick construction. Save this picture! Malawi - a brick kiln in the background, with the wood required to burn them in the foreground. Image © Jon Sojkowski via Malawi Architecture Yet, walls constructed with burnt bricks are considered modern and thus desirable. In my research, I noticed an interesting detail throughout the country: mud structures are plastered to provide protection from the elements, but structures built with burnt bricks often leave a side wall, or a portion of it, unplastered. This serves the purpose of showing the community that the structure was built using burnt bricks, a billboard of sorts. Save this picture! Malawi - part of end wall left unplastered to indicate that burnt bricks are used. Image © Jon Sojkowski via Malawi Architecture Is there validity in these beliefs? The short answer is yes. When one thinks of a mud hut, an image of a dilapidated mud and thatch structure comes to mind. The fact is that people build according to economy - they can only build what they can afford. Another example is thatched roofs, which make use of a realistic and viable material. Thatch is used in many European countries where roofs have to support snow loads. The important factor is the thickness of the roof: a properly thatched roof (12 inches or 30.5 centimeters) is watertight and can last up to 50 years. The problem is that people living in African villages cannot afford that amount of thatch. The result is a much thinner roof which needs to be repaired and added to on a yearly basis. This then leads to the desire to have a metal roof. Save this picture! South Sudan - home constructed with mud walls. Image © Fernando Nestor Murillo Metal roofs are a definitive status symbol of wealth and if they can be afforded, the metal panels are purchased. One home owner I interviewed in my research stated that he wanted a metal roof because then “he would be somebody.” That is how powerful this perception is. Though it is true that a metal roof does not require repairing or replacing every year and is not a fire hazard as thatch is, the benefits end there. In order to increase their affordability for the masses, metal panels are produced as thin as possible. The panels are so thin that they are purchased in stores, rolled up and transported by bicycle. This means that the panels, not properly fastened, can be blown away on windy days. But the biggest issue is the transfer of heat through the panels. Heat from the sun is transferred directly into the interior of the structure making it seem like a sauna. People are aware of this fact, yet because the metal roof is a status symbol, it is still preferable. Save this picture! Zambia - thatch stored in bundles being applied to roof. Image © Jon Sojkowski via Zambia Architecture While metal roofs have no insulation properties, thatch roofs do. Thatch absorbs the heat of the sun as well as allowing interior heat to escape because the material is able to breathe. The same is also true of mud walls or adobe construction. The walls absorb the heat in the daytime, making the interior cooler, and radiate the heat at night making the interior warmer than the exterior night air. Save this picture! Malawi - thatch collected in Salima which is regarded as the best. Image © Landirani Trust In addition to these functional benefits, vernacular architecture utilizes materials that are locally sourced, making it a very sustainable architecture. Mud used in construction is often taken just yards away from where the structures are built. Importing foreign materials, such as metal panels, that in reality do not perform as well as time proven materials and techniques just does not make sense. But the biggest loss is this cultural identity, the genius loci. It is ironic that the only structures truly constructed of vernacular materials are game lodges for tourists who want to experience the real Africa. Save this picture! Zambian woman plastering her home. Image © Jon Sojkowski via Zambia Architecture Currently, there exists very little information on African vernacular architecture available online. These negative perceptions continue because there is no resource that promotes the beauty and functionality of vernacular architecture. Save this picture! Rwanda - a recently re-plastered wall. The exposure and unfinsished quality of the plastering means that it requires repeated maintenance. Image © Philip Poduie To change this, in April 2014 I created a database to preserve images of vernacular architecture from every African country, which showcases its diversity and importance. The goal of the database is to have people submit their own photos to populate the site. Proper research in every African country is prohibitively expensive, but in this day and age of technology, taking a picture and submitting to the database is quite realistic. An app has also been created for iPhones to make this task easier. Already pictures have been submitted from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zambia, Benin, Swaziland, Nigeria, Malawi and South Sudan. Save this picture! Swaziland - wall constructed of a wood frame with rocks as filler. The wall will be plastered over. Image © Jon Sojkowski via Swaziland Architecture For too long, African vernacular architecture has been a topic that has been both under-documented and, unfortunately, ignored. People say there needs to be documentation but yet nothing is done. Whether this is due to difficulties in obtaining funding or just apathy, the fact remains that very little data can be found online. There has been a trend for some time now in Western architecture to be more sustainable. Are there lessons to be learned from African vernacular architecture? With so little information to study it is hard to say, as one cannot make observations with incomplete or partial facts. The database is a platform to showcase images, which leads to awareness, which leads to appreciation, and when value is placed on vernacular structures perhaps these myths will change. The time for documentation is now, before this part of culture is gone forever. Jon Sojkowski is a registered architect with a passion for African vernacular architecture. The interest began when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer, living in a mud hut in Zambia. He was provided the opportunity to document the vernacular architecture in the entire country. In 2014 he ran an Indie GoGo campaign to conduct similar research in Malawi. In addition to his African Vernacular Architecture Database, his research can be seen on his websites Zambia Vernacular Architecture, Malawi Vernacular Architecture, and Swaziland Vernacular Architecture. Jon lives in Beaufort, South Carolina and is actively looking for opportunities to conduct more documentation in Africa.This all without the help of his privileged family, he rushes to point out. "The bad thing is," Tamir says of peoples' perceptions of his upbringing, "people think I can just fund my own projects, that I can do it all myself. But the reality is, my parents haven't given me a single cent. Every time I start a new project, my dad tells me that I'm not getting a cent from him." Tamir is behind smartphone game Impossible Dial, which he started with his mate Ben Pasternak at age 16 after he was sent by his parents to Victoria's Geelong Grammar boarding school following his attendance at Sydney's eastern suburbs school, Moriah College. Impossible Dial was sold for $85,000, a figure Fairfax Media can reveal for the first time. Tamir is now using his portion of the funds (50 per cent) to fund his new venture Contra, "a social platform that enables young people to voice their opinions on social issues and affairs", according to Tamir. "I built Contra because I felt our generation needed a greater voice and influence," says Tamir, who is currently studying property economics at University of Technology Sydney. "There is a lot of politically correct pressure in our society that shuts down debate on controversial topics," he says. "We saw on Facebook that so many people were writing opinions on news articles but it was very cluttered. We wanted to make a specific platform where people could debate on controversial topics such as sports, cars, food and politics." Contra is an app based on voting and discussion. So far Contra has gained 11,000 downloads with no marketing, according to Tamir. Meanwhile each topic is averaging 65 votes, with the highest topic garnering 15,000 votes, says Tamir, who surprisingly for someone so young has a public relations agency representing him. He says this is because he's "quite a nervous guy" and that he had been held back by his parents from speaking to journalists about his business ventures until now. "My mum and dad are still very iffy about the whole PR thing," he says. "It's the first time I'm doing any media, so I needed someone to hold my hand." Contra's business model? Market research. "We'll sell the data," Tamir says. "Let's say Coca Cola come to us and want to know which is better: Coke Zero or Diet Coke? We will be able to ask our users and tell them what young people say." Contra was originally launched in a beta in April this year to test scalability, however was quickly recognised by Apple and featured in Best New Apps, Top 20 Networking Apps, and Top 20 Under 20 (apps developed by people under 20 years old). Apple then invited Tamir to the United States to attend its high profile developer conference, WWDC, and he and his co-founders have been working on the new version since, which went live last month and is more refined. His partners in Contra, introduced to him by his mate Ben, include Rohan Kapur, from Singapore, and Lenny Khazan, from New York, both aged 18. While Tamir and his co-founders were not initially seeking capital for Contra, it is expected that they will commence meetings in San Francisco with potential partners and VCs this month, where Tamir says he hopes to finally meet his co-founders in person. "I'm very excited to meet them," he says. With no background in how to create apps himself, Tamir says he's now focussing on learning how to code so that he doesn't have to outsource development to people he has hired overseas. To do this, he has a tutor visiting him to teach him. "I want to rebuild Contra from the ground up," he says. Asked why he didn't go down the property route as his family have, he says that while he did work for his great-uncle's company Meriton for a short period of time, he felt that tech was the way to go for him. "When I went to boarding school, I didn't really like it," he says. "That's where I found my passion in technology. It was a very good distraction." The secret to his past apps' successes? Using influential social media accounts to promote them. "There is this guy in St. Louis called Carlos," Tamir says.TO: Impetor Fela Malle Living Blood of Steel, I have it. It is at the top of the tower, in a room my soldiers cleared of tables and chairs and old shelves. The room is bare, and it stands in the centre. Forgive me if my handwriting reveals my tiredness, I will set the words alone for clarity: I have it. I spent the last night, awake, watching it and its light was so bright. It did not burn my eyes. One of my soldiers tried to draw it, and when they were finished I looked down at the paper and the difference—it was more than an inaccurate representation. To look at it, to trace the drawing’s imperfections with my eyes, made me furious. At around five or six in the morning I left the tower to get some air. The streets were, as they always are, dark. I looked up at the tower, expecting to see light streaming from its windows, but there was nothing. When I returned to the tower room, I found it fully furnished once again, but denser. Warmer. My men could not tell me how it had happened. Loyal Always to Ordenna’s Shores, Jerod Shiraz Vicereine of Ordenna This week on Friends at the Table: Settle Your Matters TO: Jerod Shiraz Be thankful that it does not cast light from the windows. You have a great mystery and a treasure. Hold it close. The Blood of Fire must not know. She must not know. - FM Hosted by Austin Walker ( @austin_walker Featuring Ali Acampora ( @ali_west ), Art Tebbel ( @atebbel ), Janine Hawkins ( @bleatingheart ) Jack de Quidt ( @notquitereal ), Andi Clare ( @captaintrash ), Keith J Carberry ( @keithjcarberry ) and Andrew Lee Swan ( @swandre3000 Produced by Ali Acampora ( @ali_west Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot) Episode description by Jack de Quidt Music by Jack de QuidtSherman reportedly had a child on the way, according to a GoFundMe page that described him as a loving person. "He just had a recent birthday and turned 18," the page said. "Ryan could not wait to be a father, especially after losing his own father eight years ago, and promised he was going to give his child the life he always wanted." The money raised will go towards burying him, and any remaining funds will go towards his unborn child, the GoFundMe page said. At least two vehicles hit Sherman about 4:30 a.m. as he stopped to pick up something -- possibly a flip flop -- on I-20 near State Highway 360, police spokesman Lyle Gensler said. Witnesses told police they saw the other teens huddling in the parking lot of an LA Fitness, looking over at the people who stopped to help the teen who was struck. The teens ran south, possibly to a residential area, Gensler said. Police hope they will come forward and help with the investigation.Aug 25 2014 9:56AM GMT ISO 29119 is a 5 part standard for software testing process and practice that was published in 2013. Standards are commonly used in other professions such as law and medicine to protect the consumers of these services. Medicine and law have existed for quite a while now and have had time to mature to the point where they have mostly accepted bodies of knowledge. Software is a very young profession, and software testing younger still and very much in flux. Some problems this standard creates When I first began in software testing, I worked for a company that required all test documentation to be developed according to the format defined by IEEE 829. This company was not in a regulated space. The idea was that we would end up with uniform documentation across different test groups in the business. And, that was exactly the outcome. We also ended up with a mass of documentation that did not accurately portray what testing happened or how it happened. This documentation was not often referenced but took increasing amounts of time to maintain. The result was a slower business doing less work to conform to a standard that did not support the ultimate goal, producing good software. One interesting thing to note, is that if you search for IEEE 829 on google, after wikipedia, many of the top hits are for consulting firms selling services to help you conform to the standard. Standards like this do more to disrupt the development of a field than they do to ensure good work. Software testing has been stuck in adolescence for quite a while now. Partly because of standards like this which try to freeze how we do our work when we are just discovering how to be effective. Fellow ITKE blogger, Matt Heusser, signed the petition and added the following note: The AA battery is standardized on current and size — and interface standard. It was the /lack/ of a content standard that allowed the battery to improve over the past 30 years – from standard to heavy-duty to alkaline, all the while getting longer-lasting, less likely to leak, able to withstand greater temperatures, longer storable, and so on. ISO 29119 is a content standard; it will inhibit the progress of testing. Not only that, there is no consensus within the field on this and the methods advocated haven’t been tried – that is, the standard does not emerge from practice. For comparison, consider IEEE 829, and how that turned out. ISO29119 is a content and process standard. If enforced, it will control and restrict not only the documentation of work, which is what IEEE 829 focused on, but also how the work is done. Any new discoveries and developments in the field of software testing could potentially be deemed illegal without expressed consent from ISO. The standard for creating standards The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) created a standard to guide the formation of standards in professional organizations. Some of the attributes of the process to create a standard according to ANSI are transparency, openness, impartiality, and consensus. All of these were lacking in the creation of 29119, especially industry consensus. A search on twitter for the #stop29119 hashtag will quickly show how little consensus there really is. ISO 29119 should not be considered as a software testing standard according to ANSI because the formation did not seek to involve all parties with stake in the standards creation. The creation of this standard was monopolized by a group that stands to make a significant amount of money by selling consulting and certification services
appear here from everywhere else. Kristhin has a heart of gold to match to her golden locks! One place this is is particularly apparent is her love of animals. Always warms our heart to see that. As far as pleasing her followers, Kristhin has a “no limits” approach to her photos and it’s hard to tell who enjoys it more: her or her fans! Not only do her pics never fail to showcase her fabaulous form in all it’s glory, she regular engages with her many followers. This lovely lady clearly appreciates the support she gets. Now it’s time to appreciate more of her! Use the links below to keep with up with Kristhin. If you can, that is. Twitter @KristhinX Instagram @Kristhin_G-Awesome pics! Get social with us! @divaspotlight @DivaSpotlight1 @TheDivaSpotlight @DivaSpotlight SaveTop 5 Places to Relocate Your Franchise in Madden NFL 25 In Madden NFL 25’s Connected Franchise Mode you can move your team from their current city to one of 17 different cities as an owner. While each city has their own attributes like how big the market size is, fan personality, fan interest, and unique team names, it can be a daunting task to relocate your franchise. Because it might be another 10 years before you can relocate again, it’s important to choose the right city the first time, and that’s where I am here to help. Here are my Top 5 Places to Relocate Your Franchise: 1. Brooklyn, New York – Brooklyn is the #1 place to relocate your franchise in my eyes. Not only is the market size huge, but the fan interest is sky high for getting a team in the Bronx, meaning people will flock to your new stadium. I know this would make it the 3rd team in New York, but having a stadium in Brooklyn is not going to be an issue. Plus you’ll be able to bring the Brooklyn Dodgers back into the league. Brooklyn is the hottest choice among professional teams. Huge market and hardcore fans make this a perfect destination. Team Name Choices: Yanks, Beats, Dodgers 2. Los Angeles, California – Los Angeles has always been the ‘Next’ destination for an NFL Franchise owner looking for a new home for their team. The fans there are fair weather fans, but since the Rams and the Raiders left, they are ready to support another team. Los Angeles is the easiest city choice financially. They’ll pay for a large percentage of your stadium, so if you are short on money and need some help, LA may just be the option for you. Team Name Choices: Dreams, All Stars, Aftershocks 3. Houston, Texas – Some might think bringing a second team to Houston would be a mistake but it may be worth it to select the Oilers name and uniform options. Those Oilers uniforms were nice, plus the fanbase is loyal and want the Oilers back bad. You’ll sell a lot of merchandise in Houston and in time make that your city. No doubt moving a 2nd team to Houston is a bold move but it could pay dividends in the long run. Team Name Choices: Oilers, Gunners, Voyagers 4. London, England – There’s no doubt that the Commissioner of the NFL wants to have a team overseas, but will you move your team to London? London is a huge market that would love an NFL Team, but the fans are fair weather fans. So what makes London a great destination to move your Franchise? It’s London and you can choose the Monarchs as your team name and logo. There is no clue as if teams will be tired traveling overseas for 1 week but who knows. Team Name Choices: Bulldogs, Black Knights, Monarchs (NFL Europe) 5. Mexico City – Mexico – The last place you want to go is to a place that has bad names to choose from, so that’s why Mexico City rounds out the bottom of my top 5 places to relocate your franchise. Being able to choose the Diablos or Conquistadors team names and logos are the lure of Mexico City. Not only that but Mexico City is a prime destination it has hardcore fans, and big time stadium funding if you need it. They really want a team in Mexico City, so you won’t have trouble building that big stadium that will be filled up with some hardcore fans, rooting on the Mexico City Conquistadors! Team Name Choices: Diablos, Conquistadors, Golden Eagles What is your top place to relocate your franchise? Here are some tables that will help you make your decision: [sws_csv_data_ui ui_theme=”ui-smoothness”] City Market Size Fan Personality Fan Interest Description London, England Huge Fair Weather 45% London is a huge market that would love an NFL Team Los Angeles, California Huge Fair Weather 95% Los Angeles is the easiest city choice financially. They’ll pay for a large percentage of your stadium Mexico City, Mexico Huge Hardcore 90% Mexico City is a prime destination. It offers hardcore fans and big time stadium funding. Toronto, Canada Large Laid Back 20% Toronto is an interesting destination. Good fans and decent stadium funding. San Antonio, Texas Average Loyal 65% San Antonio is a fairly large market with loyal fans. You’ll have to compete with basketball though. Orlando, Florida Decent FrontRunner 20% Orlando is home to boy bands, theme parks and strip malls. Where do I sign? Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Small Laid Back 15% OKC doesn’t offer much stadium funding but their fans are pretty laid back! Salt Lake City, Utah Small Fair Weather 45% Salt Lake City can’t offer much stadium funding but their fans are pretty loyal. Brooklyn, New York Huge Hardcore 90% Brooklyn is the hottest choice among professional teams. Huge market and hardcore fans make this a perfect destination. Memphis, Tennessee Small Laid Back 17% You might have the blues if you move here. Very little funding means an expensive stadium bill! Chicago Illinois Huge Hardcore 80% Chicago is the perfect city for an NFL team. Fans in the Windy City are as loyal as you get and the market size means more jersey sales. Sacramento, California Average Laid Back 42% Sacramento supports an NBA team, so you should be fine moving here. Columbus, Ohio Decent FrontRunner 20% Columbus offers fanatic fans that love their team. The market size is small, but you’ll be adorned here. Portland, Oregon Decent Fair Weather 45% Portland is not a bad spot to relocate to. Good fans and decent stadium funding can be found here. Austin, Texas Decent FrontRunner 45% Austin is the perfect place to relocate. Good BBQ, great fans and warm temperatures year round. Dublin, Ireland Decent Laid Back 60% If you’re interested in going International, Dublin is a great spot. Good food and adoring fans can be found in Dublin! Houston, Texas Huge Loyal 95% Moving a 2nd team to Houston is a bold move. Choose this city and you can bring the Oilers back. Please note that this all is subject to change from early may when I got this. [/sws_csv_data_ui] [sws_csv_data_ui ui_theme=”ui-smoothness”] City Name Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 Los Angeles, California Dreams All Stars Aftershock Toronto, Canada Mounties Huskies Thunderbirds London, England Bulldogs Black Knights Monarchs (NFL Europe) Mexico City, Mexico Diablos Conquistadors Golden Eagles San Antonio, Texas Dreadnoughts Marshalls Express Orlando, Florida Orbits Wizards Sentinels Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Night Hawks Bisons Salt Lake City, Utah Elks Pioneers Flyers Brooklyn, New York Dodgers (Defunct) Beats Yanks Memphis, Tennessee Hounds Egyptians Steamers Chicago, Illinois Cougars Blues Tigers (Defunct) Sacramento, California Miners Condors Redwoods Columbus, Ohio Aviaters Panhandles (Defunct) Caps Portland, Oregon Snowhawks Lumberjacks River Hogs Austin, Texas Bats Armadillos Desperados Dublin, Ireland Derbys Shamrocks Celtic Tigers Houston, Texas Oilers (Defunct) Gunners Voyagers [/sws_csv_data_ui] For more impressions about Madden NFL 25 Gameplay and Connected Franchise, follow me on Twitter @Shopmaster and leave your thoughts and comments below. Be sure to read some of my other “Madden NFL 25 Quick Hits” articles. Also be sure to check out the Madden NFL 25 News and Information Central with all of the news from around the web and updated daily to get you ready for the release of Madden NFL 25. Share and Enjoy Link to this post!Illegal models terkin' our jerbs! The Associated Press dropped a whole new November Surprise into the presidential election Friday night by revealing employment contracts and other documents which show Melania Trump worked in the United States on ten modeling jobs while still on a visitor visa that did not allow her to work legally. However, it should be noted that she remained white at all times, so the news is not expected to make any difference to Donald Trump's immigration-obsessed supporters. The wife of the GOP presidential nominee, who sometimes worked as a model under just her first name, has said through an attorney that she first came to the U.S. from Slovenia on Aug. 27, 1996, on a B1/B2 visitor visa and then obtained an H-1B work visa on Oct. 18, 1996. The documents obtained by the AP show she was paid for 10 modeling assignments between Sept. 10 and Oct. 15, during a time when her visa allowed her generally to be in the U.S. and look for work but not perform paid work in the country. The documents examined by the AP indicate that the modeling assignments would have been outside the bounds of her visa. Now, before all you liberals start calling her an illegal immigrant, do note that Melanija Knaus was in the country legally -- she was merely working in violation of immigration law, taking some American model's job, no doubt. The AP's story is based on records from the now-defunct modeling agency Metropolitan International Management, which somehow managed to go belly-up in the late 1990s even without being owed any money by Donald Trump. The documents included "ledgers, other accounting documents and a management agreement signed by Mrs. Trump," and had been in storage since a legal dispute involving the agency's dissolution. The AP notes they were authenticated by a former employee of the agency who "spoke on condition of anonymity because this person feared retaliation and threats from Trump's presidential campaign." Can't imagine why anyone would fear the Trump Online Flying Monkey Brigade. The AP's story appears to be far more solid than an August Politico story suggesting Ms. Trump had modeled illegally on a tourist visa. Politico's story was mostly based on circumstantial evidence, including statements Melania had made about traveling back to Slovenia to renew her visa, as well as the the assumption that hott girl-on-girl photos republished by the New York Post had to have been taken in 1995, since they were published in a French magazine's January 1996 issue. In reality, it was later determined the pix had appeared in the January 1997 issue, which debunked the idea that Ms. Trump had been worked illegally in 1995. In any case, without a stitch on, it's quite clear Ms. Trump was in fact very Caucasian. The newly-uncovered documents indicate Ms. Trump worked for clients including the Bergdorf Goodman and Fitness magazine, with gross earnings of $20,056. The agreement includes a handwritten date of August 27, 1996, the day she arrived in the USA, as well as a typed date of September 4, both of which preceded her H-1B visa. However, we must emphasize the documents give no indication Ms. Trump ever had brown skin, so she's good. The AP asked a former partner of the modeling firm, Paolo Zampoli, to examine the documents, and he confirmed his signature was on the management agreement, which he also said used contract language common for the firm. He also explained the two dates on the agreement: he usually was on vacation in Europe for all of August and would arrange to have contracts formalized after he got back to New York following Labor Day, although in this case Melania Trump signed the the document eight days beforehand. He had previously told the AP he was certain she had a work visa before modeling, but said about the newly-found documents, he did not recall Mrs. Trump working without legal permission. "Honestly, I don't know. It's like 20 years ago," he said. "The contract looks (like) a real one and the standard one." Also, it should be noted, Donald Trump has never called for a wall to keep out Slovenian immigrants, so this is really no big. Just a paperwork error. Even if she was technically violating immigration law, everyone knows hot Slovenian models in their 20s were never part of the flood of immigrants Trump and his supporters are worried about. Who Sent The New York Times Donald Trump's Taxes? We're Gonna Go With 'Marla Maples' Clip and save to refute your idiot Facebook pal who thinks Trump paid property taxes, or real estate taxes, or city and state taxes, or... Besides, as the AP story notes, the modeling agency deducted taxes from Melania's modeling fees, so we can at least take comfort that she paid more income tax in the late 1990s than Donald did. [Associated Press]I couldn't have been more happy with my Rematched Secret Santa. My wife and I have had some turbulent months with twins on the way and her being in the hospital during the Christmas holidays, so i asked my rematch if he/she could maybe gift my wife instead. What followed were questionaires, messages - it was awesome. I told my SS that my wife loves Dr. Who. Little did i know that Santa was also a Dr. Who fan. So, a package soon arrived from Gallifrey, from John Smith with the following, amazing contents: A wollen Dr. Who hat, which my wife wore for the rest of the evening (inside...) A Dr. Who tea-mug, which is amazing because my wife drinks tea all day and i don't rememnber mentioning it. Oh, it has a disappearing Tardis! A Dr. Who Sonic Screwdriver (according to my wife it's the female version) Dalek socks! But surprisingly enough, that wasn't all. For our two cats SS bought an automated laser light, moving around the room. Our cats go nuts if they see a laser light, but ours was kind of broken. Now that we have to look out for twins, we don't even have to hold it ourselves, we can just turn it on! Two stuffed Cartoon Network animals for our little boys as well! And a Wonder Woman comic book, i guess both as a gesture towards my own Wonder Woman, as well as something for me to read :) We got a personalized note as well, very much appreciated, in which SS stated that he/she was going to send something personalized later as well, which is awesome, but almost too much to ask for. Thank you Santa, for your awesome presents and thank you for giving my wife a little bit of the Christmas she had to miss last December.Two-time "Worst Company In America" winner Electronic Arts isn't doing its publicity department any favors. The company's new freemium game Dungeon Keeper tricks frustrated players into leaving bad reviews on its own site, instead of on the Google Play Store, Gamasutra reports. Here's exactly how the ruse plays out: Dungeon Keeper, like most mobile apps, prompts players every so often to give it a rating on the Google Play Store or App Store. In the Android version of the game, there are two possible outcomes when you get a rating prompt. If you choose five stars, you're gently nudged over to the Google Play Store to leave a review. If you choose between one and four stars, Dungeon Keeper pops up an email form where you can only send feedback to developer EA instead of publicly voicing your concerns. You can still, of course, manually visit the Google Play Store and leave a bad review, but in a world where the difference between a success or failure of an app often comes down to its reviews, EA is stacking the deck in its favor. "The 'rate this app' feature was designed to help us collect valuable feedback." Gaming mobile app reviews isn't exactly an uncommon practice, but given Dungeon Keeper's cult following and EA's allegedly greedy reboot of the game in freemium form, gamers are particularly ruffled by the scheme. EA issued a brief response to Gamasutra: "The 'rate this app' feature in the Google Play version of Dungeon Keeper was designed to help us collect valuable feedback from players who don't feel the game is worth a top rating." Yet, the 'rate this app' screen reads "5-Star ratings from you help us provide free updates!" effectively holding new content hostage. EA Mythic's Jeff Skalski told Tab Times that the company is "committed to continuously fine tuning the player experience based upon fan feedback." EA may seemingly change the game, or at least its rating system on Android, to address reviews — but what if the only reviews are good ones? Tapping one star is the easiest way to say "I'm angry," but EA won't let you.Hosted by Jonathan Wojcik It's hard to believe this is our fourth year of scary stories; almost half an entire decade. With over 200 entries this year, it's our biggest since year one, and our total archived entries have now exceeded one thousand stories. One thousand stories, and you still don't seem to have run out of ideas or surprises. The overall quality this year even felt tighter and more consistent than ever before, as if you all started bringing your A+ game for round five. No joke, picking winners is STILL getting reliably more difficult every single time, with a majority of you having at least been considered for it this time around, and those who weren't can still boast stories I loved to pieces all the same. IMPORTANT STUFF: - If you don't see your entry, it's an ERROR! I never exclude one without contacting the author about it first! I have to do a lot of copy/pasting, typing and editing to assemble the archive, so mistakes are inevitable, but can be fixed if you contact me by email! - If you were working on a story and didn't finish it in time, I want to see it anyway! I will even add some late entries, if you're really just now finishing them up! - If you need your story to be changed or removed, just ask! Like I said, some errors are inevitable! Authors have also been known to remove stories from the public archive so they can be published in a real book! - "Creepypasta" does not necessarily mean "public domain." All of these stories are copyright their respective creators and may not be published (including youtube reads) for any kind of profit without their author's consent, so please get in touch with their respective owners if possible! Reposting these stories to a blog or forum is acceptable so long as you retain the correct author credit; everyone deserves recognition for their work! - If you don't agree with the winners, that's fine! I aim to reward a diverse selection that can appeal to varying tastes and interests. Have a favorite story that didn't make the finalists, semifinalists or other special mention? I do too! Feel free to share your picks in the comments. - "Anonymous" entries this year are REALLY Anonymous! Previously, I accepted entries only by e-mail, which meant that I still had a route to contact anonymous authors. This year, we used a form that required no working e-mail address, so for better or for worse, anonymous authors are now impossible to contact unless they choose to come forward. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may present, but I believe it may be the reason we saw a higher number of entries, and made entering more accessible in general. - PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS ON STORIES YOU READ! Authors love to hear what stood out to you about their work! - DON'T BE RUDE! If you don't like a story, that's why there are plenty more for you to check out. If you don't like something specific about a story that truly feels important to discuss, please be respectful, constructive, and remember that all of this is for fun. - THESE ARE HORROR STORIES! What gives one person an entertaining sense of dread can be more viscerally, personally disturbing and even entirely unfun for another; tread carefully if you're sensitive to certain topics, but don't feel bad, and don't shame or belittle anyone else for their limits. All us humans have them! - NEW: I HAVE LIFTED MY POLICY ON REPEAT WINNERS. I've given special consideration to writers who haven't won before, but the same author winning two or more years in a row is no longer going to be off the table. We broke this at least once before, anyway. CONTEST WINNERS: If your name is here, e-mail me for a shirt of your choice from the store! If you know of any other art I've made that you want on a shirt, I can make it available! I realize the list looks a bit cluttered this year, but we can just owe that to how productive these writers have been. It's impossible to narrow some of their submissions down to only one per person! SEMIFINALISTS: RETURNING CHAMPIONS ALL STORIES: - By Luke Jones - In some other writer's hands, this UFO-inspired story might not have especially stood out, but the scene setting, the pacing, the detail and characterization are- it's an entry that yanked us into nearly nail-biting narration from beginning to end. It's my own last-minute idea to include an optional little audio bonus at the very end, which should only play if you click. It just seemed right.- Brendan was a semifinalist last year, but really upped the game this time with a wide selection of amazing entries. The bizarre "All of This is Happening Right Now" trilogy includes Hand Museum Performance, and A Lovely Lion Unwanted Signs features an imaginatively unexpected threat to a small town, and our favorite, They Don't Have Tentacles, is a darkly funny tear-down of Lovecraft's legacy.- By Ariel Jay - The fact that us humans can so easily see faces in just about anything... : )... is a pretty interesting psychological phenomenon, andtakes it as inspiration for something much weirder andmore threatening.- By Miranda Johansson - the author of last year's winningpresents one of the most unique and bizarre interpretations of a "haunting" I've possibly ever read. She also submitted the epic post-apocalyptic Undermoss, the outrageous Halloween Special, and finally Wheel-of-Five-Spokes, a nautical yarn featuring mermaids!- Hisham has been submitting some our best stories since year one, and it was pretty unanimous that he deserved another spot. Greater Striped Tanzanite subjects our own kind to a very real horror of the insect world, Disaster Park plays hilariously with how little we can know about extinct animals, Surgery Bot Log is about as terrifying as its title could ever entail, Nepenthes Chimaera is one of Hasan's now-classic botanical monster stories, and The Corner Sitter is a fun little bonus entry consisting of a single sketch. THE HARRISON APE, however, is the biggest reason Hisham is here again. This one never quite descends into explicit horror territory, yet my wife and I agreed it was one of the most chilling things we've read in ages.- Stroud submitted three extremely different stories this year, and, on their own merits, were immediately considered surefire winners. Fannie Huber's Angel Book is a darkly sweet exploration of truly abstract entities, Louisa Francesca finds horror in handwriting with a slow, dreadful build and The Last Collection finds an even more outrageous monstrosity (or two) in the world of fashion.- By Cassie Heath -, this storytelling poem includes both graphic body horror and sexual violence orchestrated by the titular fairy folk...but the prose, atmosphere, and feel of an authentic fairy tale - as dark as they once came centuries ago - is executed with all too dreadful talent. Cassie Heath also submitted The Little Old Man From Number 22! - By Rahkshasarani - Our first returning winner, Rahkshasarani always submits something interesting, and I personally thought this simple but highly original story was one of the scariest of the year. Rahkshasarani also submitted What the Sea Leaves, which I previewed a few weeks ago, Homo Parkinsoni about a rather unusual fossil, and a good old fashioned killer bug piece, Grasshopper Glacier! - By Jared Ludy - I loved this one right away, and it was also one of my wife's favorites, though it's difficult to describe it without spoiling everything that makes it engaging. Ludy also submitted two wildly different and highly entertaining dream-inspired tales, Jamie and Apotheosis! - By Nelke - Last year, Nelke won for the positively harrowingmaking this only our second-ever case of an author winning two years consecutively.is a little more strange and humorous than last year's winner, but still quite grim with an incredibly inventive premise that also feels more than a little timely. Nelke also submitted A Place in Heaven, the beautiful and surreal story of one woman's dream wanderings.- Kaivo doesn't quite win for any one entry in particular, but submitted a mix of poems and stories with a remarkable range of themes and consistently solid quality, so enjoy The Dead Village The Night Light, and our personal favorite, Let Cake Eat Them - By Eliot Lefebvre - A slightly different perspective on the old "spacecraft computer gone rogue."- By Bloodworx - I previewed this one not long ago, and it still creeps the hell out of me.- By James B. Davis - A short, seemingly straightforward monster story is turned completely and outlandishly on its head by its very last line.- By Nausicaa Harris - We loved this original folk tale by 2015 winner Nausicaa Harris, but don't miss the author's other entries either; To Raise a Family is a fresh take on a familiar (to Bogleech readers) organism, and Assembly Line is a horrific interpretation of something fairly popular right now. Popular, and ridiculous.- By Kirby Mongerr - Another one whose source of horror is just wholly original.- By Enderlord99 - One of our favorite short comedy entries of the year.- By Keetah Spacecat - Swine-based farming-town horror that hits pretty close to home for us. Keetah also submitted the awesome science fiction piece, From the Stars! - By Erika Bachman - Difficult to summarize, but creative and exciting!- By Xionahri - A short, sweet story about whatare really up to.- By Tristan Tanner - (PDF Download) our first entry in the format of a playable Dungeons & Dragons module, and a pretty killer one!- By Streicher Hennessy - Another in the "tragic artificial intelligence" subgenre and another by a 2015 finalist. It doesn't take long to figure out where this one's headed, but it still does an incredible job of it. And seriously,- By Brittanny Handiboe - A short glimpse into the paranatural via a beautiful little comic!- By ZippyWharrgarbl - A brave noble follows a talking bird to a fair maiden and it goes exactly how you and I wanted it to go. Don't lie now.- By Jacob Roberts - This peculiar, funny and tragic tale of old skin cells and body fluids is our favorite of Jacob Robert's stories, but it was a pretty tough call. He also submitted the fascinating Pastermole about the nature of simulated realities, the ghastly Rose Hollow he has said was loosely inspired by real events, and the uniquely formatted, more down to earth Landscaping - By Friendlytroll - One of our very rare video entries - and I'm always a big fan of object monsters!- By Doctor Wither - a lighthearted and fun one with myriad cameo appearances by genuine, real-world mythological bogeymen!- By Anonymous - A highly original monster that could have just as easily been played for truly disturbing horror...but our author went a lighter route with it, and I think it was a good choice.- By Carpcave - A fun romp through employee notes exchanged around an anomalous medical facility.- By Austin Brooks - This is one with some explicit sexual content and a modern take on aof "succubus," but it doesn't quite go to the dark places it could have, taking a decidedly more whimsical turn by the end.- By Luna - Very strange....and in the end, very, very sweet.- By Anonymous - The only thing worse than getting killed is getting killed because someone - or some- is a complete and utter buffoon.- By Dave Lerner - Short, funny, and frightening.- By Kira M. - a little explicit, but not viscerally so.offers betentacled cosmic horror from a very different angle than usual. Kira M. also submitted Zero A Portrait in Flesh, and Pyramid Lake, differing madly in theme and content!New stories, sequels and continuations by more of our past winners!- By Emma G. - From the author of the popular selfie.jpg from last year! This one reminds me of a certain sort of folkloric entity...one that usually only resembles a flitting, dancing light in the forest...- By Joseph Bashaw -is a short, eerie and interesting poem. The Beast in the Dome is another!- By Brian Shadensack - The humorous account of an unconventional lycanthrope. Shadensack also submitted a revision, or sequel of sorts, to last year's Zombie Guide. - a continuation ofseries includes Bootleg, which is indeed aboutthe body-swapping Cabinet, and NEIGHSAYERS, which features the triumphant return of H O R S E! Miller also submitted Creepy Pasta, which feels like a story we should have gotten a long time ago.- this year, Hartman wraps up(?) thesaga and also presents the dreadful Prison Game and Shadow on the Wall - By Izzy Winchester - Another creative short by one of our first-year winners, squeezing some supernatural horror out of- By C. Lonnquist - A single entry from Lonnquist this year, set in an office building with a very abnormal stairwell.- By Huw Saunders - A sort of anti-homage to H.P. Lovecraft, building to a pretty big kick in his teeth. Saunders also submitted Clock Struck One about an eerily familiar rodent problem, and Nocebo, about an eerily talented deejay.are an exponentially expanding universe of absurd monsters tying in to over a dozen entries this year, and they still aren't the only thing Jacob submitted. Hiscomplete stories are a few too many to link and explain here, but you'll find them throughout the archive! (Or you can do the old ctrl+F!)- By Elliot Avery - Elliot was previously the first author to win two years in a row, and continues his demonstration of sheer writing skill with. Be, this black,story of religious indoctrination and domestic abuse has proven particularly harrowing to get through, and its finale may not offer all readers relief from its sometimes sadistic darkness.- By Echo Lavender -- By Anonymous -- By Joseph Romero -- By Brendan Cleary -- By Brendan Cleary -- By Brendan Cleary -- By Thomas Wisdom -- By Lokal -- By Sygg - (explicit content: sexual themes, humorous)- By Lokal -- By Fluffy the Doombringer -- By Anonymous -- By Nelke -- By Kira M. -- By Jared Ludy -- By Nausicaa Harris -- By Ron MacGillivray -- By Streicher Hennessy -- By Kobester T. Jester -- By Joseph Bashaw -- By Albatoonoe -- By Jackson Hinkle -- By Anonymous -- By Sabedile -- By Retro -- By Erika Bachman -- By O. Hybridity -- By Sam Miller -- By Sam Miller -- By Sam Miller -- By TangleF23 -- By Acyde -- By Fluffy the Doombringer -- By Promestein -- By Kira M. - (explicit content: sexual themes, general)- By Jacobguy -- By Daren H -- By Anonymous -- By Hisham H. -- By Fluffy the Doombringer -- By Cassie Heath - (explicit content: disturbing sexual horror)- By Luna Raydue -- By Luna Raydue -- By Luna Raydue -- By Luna Raydue -- By Huw Saunders - (explicit content: reproductive body horror)- By Mr Stickman -- By James B. Davis -- By Jacobguy -- By Thomas Nelson Gunderloy -- By River Langham -- By Sam Miller -- By Lady de Selby -- By Rahkshasarani -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By Toldentops -- By TheRedRage -- By TheRedRage -- By James B. Davis -- By Erin Drinnon -- By Huw Saunders -- By Daniel Hale -- By Marcus Hardges -- By Hisham Hasan -- By MeeptheCreep -- By Anonymous -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By Neon Minerva -- By Thomas Gunderloy -- By Bloodworx -- By James B. Davis -- By J. D. Stroud -- By Gwendolynn Anathema Macglower -- By Thomas Nelson Gunderloy -- By Xionahri -- By Carpcave -- By Keetah Spacecat -- By robertdye -- By James B. Davis -- By Anonymous -- By Nick Noir -- By James B. Davis -- By Rahkshasarani -- By Hisham H. -- By James B. Davis -- By Luna -- By Paracosmos -- By Hisham Hasan -- By Gareth Barsby -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Jacobguy -- By Sabedile -- By Miranda Johansson -- By Tyler Spicknell -- By Sabedile -- By Anonymous -- By Charred Newt -- By R. Pickman -- By Rahkshasarani -- By Jacobguy -- By Anonymous -- By Elliot Avery - (explicit content: themes of physical and sexual domestic abuse, abusive religious indoctrination)- By Jacobguy -- By Zombard -- By Chamjari -- By Sigil -- By Paracosmos -- By Jacobguy -- By Jared Ludy -- By Florence Whateley -- By Jacobguy -- By Paracosmos -- By Axe Burner -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By J. D. Stroud -- By Jacob Roberts -- By Nelke -- By Emergence -- By HareTrinity -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By Tyler Spicknell -- By J.D. Stroud -- By Cassie Heath -- By Xionahri -- By Daren H -- By Eliot Lefebvre -- By ZippyWharrgarbl -- By Tristan Tanner - (PDF Download - a playable D&D adventure!)- By Anonymous -- By Brian Shadensack -- By Daniel Hale -- By Anonymous -- By Paracosmos -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By Hisham H. -- By Anonymous -- By Huw Saunders -- By Luke Jones -- By Kirbymongerr -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By Jacob Roberts -- By Doctor Wither -- By Alcy W. -- By Dandelion Steph - (content warning)- By Brendan Cleary -- By Thomas Gunderloy -- By Joseph Hartman -- By Devon Palmer -- By Ariel Jay -- By Jacob Roberts -- By Retro -- By Anonymous -- By Dandelion Steph -- By Austin Brooks -- By Anonymous -- By Anonymous -- By James B. Davis -- By Kira M. -- By Mr. Stickman -- By Emma G. -- By Brittanny Handiboe -- By Lokal -- By Eli -- By Kirbymongerr -- By Erin Drinnon -- By Brian Shadensack -- By Jacob Roberts -- By Gwendolynn Anathema Macglower -- By Nausicaa Harris -- By Benjamin Lupine -- By Ben L Wolf -- By Luna -- By Anonymous -- By Daniel Hale -- By Anonymous -- By Ron Macgillivray -- By Garetch Barsby -- By Joe Cool -- By Joseph Hartman -- By Miranda Johansson -- By Izzy Winchester -- By Dave Lerner -- By Carson Albrecht -- By C. Lonnquist -- By Gray -- By Anonymous -- By Keetah Spacecat -- By Hisham H. -- By Jenne Kaivo -- By Erin Drinnon -- By Keebored -- By Joseph Bashaw -- By Retro -- By Luna -- By Brendan Cleary -- By Enderlord99 -- By Enderlord99 -- By Daren H -- By Nausicaa Harris -- By Nelke -- By Jared Ludy -- By Miranda Johansson -- By Brendan Cleary -- By Friendlytroll -- By Luis -- By Nuclearxpotato -- By SIGIL -- By HareTrinity -- By HareTrinity -- By The Six Verses -- By Millien -- By Anonymous -- By creepy pasťák -- By Dandelion Steph -- By Joseph Hartman -- By rahkshasarani -- By Miranda Johansson -- By Devon Palmer -- By Austin Brooks -- By Joseph Bashaw -- By Joseph Bashaw -- By Kirby Mongerr -- By Hannah -you.- By Tyler Spicknell -- By Kira M. -- By Anonymous -Having mauled the Caribbean island of St. Martin overnight, where this morning the French government said that the four "most solid" buildings have been destroyed, Hurricane Irma - now at 185mps for a record 33 straight hours - has just passed north of Puerto Rico, buffeting the US island territory’s capital, San Juan, with heavy downpours and strong winds that scattered tree limbs across roadways, but not before “totally demolishing” the island of Barbuda, with 90% of all dwellings leveled, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said. Images show Irma damage in Barbuda; officials say destruction could be "upwards of 90%" https://t.co/5WpCIuCk4d https://t.co/GBjTj9ZeXz — CNN (@CNN) September 6, 2017 Browne said that Irma has unleashed "absolute devastation" on the island making Barbuda, home to some 1,800 people, "basically uninhabitable" with preliminary damage estimated at some $150 million. Antigua & Barbuda's Prime Minister: "The way it stands now, #Barbuda is basically uninhabitable." Photos: ABS Television/Radio. pic.twitter.com/SxJDknTvy3 — TTWeatherCenter (@TTWeatherCenter) September 6, 2017 First images out of Barbuda from a Facebook
It'll set up your mouse, keyboard, send & receive files and you can browse for devices. KSSHAskPass: if you access computers with ssh keys but those keys have passwords this module will give you a graphical UI to enter those passwords. Muon: install and manage software and other addons for your computer. Login theme configuration (SDDM): SDDM is now the login manager of choice for Plasma and this new System Settings module allows you to configure the theme. KScreen: getting its first release for Plasma 5 is the System Settings module to set up multiple monitor support. GTK Application Style: this new module lets you configure themeing of applications from Gnome. KDecoration: this new library makes it easier and more reliable to make themes for KWin, Plasma's window manager. It has impressive memory, performance and stability improvements. If you are missing a feature don't worry it'll be back in Plasma 5.3. Other highlights Undo changes to Plasma desktop layout Undo changes to desktop layout Undo changes to desktop layout Smarter sorting of results in KRunner, press Alt-space to easily search through your computer Smart sorting in KRunner Smart sorting in KRunner Breeze window decoration theme adds a new look to your desktop and is now used by default New Breeze Window Decoration New Breeze Window Decoration The artists in the visual design group have been hard at work on many new Breeze icons More Breeze Icons More Breeze Icons They have added a new white mouse cursor theme for Breeze. New plasma widgets: 15 puzzle, web browser, show desktop Web browser plasmoid Web browser plasmoid Audio Player controls in KRunner, press Alt-Space and type next to change music track The Kicker alternative application menu can install applications from the menu and adds menu editing features. Our desktop search feature Baloo sees optimisations on startup. It now consumes 2-3x less CPU on startup. The query parser supports "type" / "kind" properties, so you can type "kind:Audio" in krunner to filter out Audio results. In the screen locker we improved the integration with logind to ensure the screen is properly locked before suspend. The background of the lock screen can be configured. Internally this uses part of the Wayland protocol which is the future of the Linux desktop. There are improvements in the handling of multiple monitors. The detection code for multiple monitors got ported to use the XRandR extension directly and multiple bugs related to it were fixed. Default applications in Kickoff panel menu have been updated to list Instant Messaging, Kontact and Kate. There is a welcome return to the touchpad enable/disable feature for laptop keypads with these keys. Breeze will set up GTK themes on first login to match. Over 300 bugs fixed throughout Plasma modules. Plasma modules 5.2 full changelog Live Images The easiest way to try it out is the with a live image booted off a USB disk. Images which use Plasma 5.2 beta are available for development versions of Kubuntu Vivid Beta and Fedora 21 remix. We expect Plasma 5 to be picked up as the default desktop in leading distributions in the coming months. Package Downloads Distributions have created, or are in the process of creating, packages listed on our wiki page. Source Downloads You can install Plasma 5 directly from source. KDE's community wiki has instructions to compile it. Note that Plasma 5 does not co-install with Plasma 4, you will need to uninstall older versions or install into a separate prefix. Feedback You can give us feedback and get updates on Facebook or Twitter or Google+. Discuss Plasma 5 on the KDE Forums Plasma 5 board. You can provide feedback direct to the developers via the #Plasma IRC channel, Plasma-devel mailing list or report issues via bugzilla. If you like what the team is doing, please let them know! Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Supporting KDE KDE is a Free Software community that exists and grows only because of the help of many volunteers that donate their time and effort. KDE is always looking for new volunteers and contributions, whether it is help with coding, bug fixing or reporting, writing documentation, translations, promotion, money, etc. All contributions are gratefully appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please read through the Supporting KDE page for further information or become a KDE e.V. supporting member through our Join the Game initiative.by Miguel de Icaza Some great announcements today from the Microsoft world. #1 Open Source ASP.NET stack The first one is that Microsoft's next generation web stack (ASP.NET vNext) is open source from the ground up, and runs on Mono on both Linux and Mac. There are plenty of other design principles in this new version of ASP.NET. I provide a translation from Microsoft speak into Unix speak in parenthesis: Cloud-ready out of the box (this is code name for "can run with different versions of.NET side by side"). A single programming model for Web sites and services Low-latency developer experience (Refresh on browser recompiles) Make high-performance and high-productivity APIs and patterns available - enable them both to be used and compose together within a single app. Fine-grained control available via command-line tools and standard file formats. Delivered via NuGet (package manager, similar to Node's NPM or Ruby Gems). Release as open source via the.NET Foundation. Can run on Mono, on Mac and Linux. Update: And the software is live at http://github.com/aspnet Client Libraries to Microsoft Services They are shipping a number of new components to talk to their online services, and they all have a license suitable for being used from platforms other than Windows.Photos courtesy of the author In November, we ran a story about a NASA study that was paying Andrew Iwanicki $18,000 to lie in bed for three months. This is how the remainder of the study went. I woke up on December 2, and for the first time in 70 days, I stood up. Or at least I tried to. The nurses wheeled me over to a hospital bed that would be tilted vertically, with blood pressure cuffs hugging my arm and my finger, an ultrasound machine pointing at my heart. Then they told me, with the encouragement that you'd give a toddler learning to walk, to try standing for 15 minutes. As soon as the bed was tilted to the vertical position, my legs felt heavier than ever before. My heart started to beat at 150 BPMs. My skin became itchy; I was covered in sweat. Blood rushed into my legs, expanding the veins that had become increasingly elastic throughout the past several months of bed rest. I felt like I was going to faint. I was fighting to remain standing from the start, and it only became more difficult. Around the eight-minute mark, my pulse dropped from 150 down to 70. My body was about to collapse. As my vision started to go black, the staff saw my numbers drop on the machines and promptly returned the bed to the horizontal position. It was only later that they told me that none of the NASA bed-rest subjects have lasted the full 15 minutes. Related: "Taxi to Mars" It was no surprise my body acted this way, of course. After spending 70 days tilted at a negative-six-degree angle, I had lost about 20 percent of my total blood volume. The standing test simulated the effects on astronauts' cardiovascular systems during spacecraft reentry to Earth or Mars. But it was easy to forget all that because most of the NASA bed-rest study had been, despite my expectations, kind of boring. When I last wrote about my experiences in the study, I was still in the honeymoon phase—there was a parade of researchers poking and prodding me, sure, but it was also one of the most relaxing times of my adult life. For years, I had continually been in a rush: cramming for tests in college, staying ahead in the workplace, and fulfilling social obligations during whatever gaps I could find. All of that was suddenly gone. Beyond following the program protocol, I had no real responsibilities. I was free to do as I pleased—as long as it didn't involve leaving my bed, or eating a snack, or taking a nap. Some days, I read from morning until night. On others, I spent several hours on the phone with friends and family. I spent an ungodly amount of time fiddling with my fantasy football teams and playing StarCraft 2. Sometimes, I would simply lie peacefully, reflecting on the past, planning for the future, or basking in a quiet moment. I was truly appreciative of these opportunities afforded by my state of isolation. But eventually, the novelty wore off. The following eight weeks in bed were a drastic departure from that early period. While the days were punctuated by regular meals, exercise, vital-sign readings, and intermittent testing, the bulk of my time was empty. Even the testing became increasingly monotonous: I was often asked to lie completely still while data was collected. An MRI machine measured the growth and decay of my muscles. An X-ray checked my bone density. A plastic bubble captured my air intake. I was left alone for extended periods of time with only my thoughts and a view of foam-tile ceiling. By the fourth week, I could feel a significant psychological shift. I became accustomed to my isolated antisocial state. I wrote fewer emails to friends. Conversations with the staff became shorter, more practical. I made phone calls to family less often. I often felt I had nothing to share. "Hey, Drew! What have you been up to?" "Not much. Still in bed..." That's not to say my days were completely blithe. I was still shitting in a bedpan, after all. I still experienced moments of fear and anxiety. I was certain that I was one bad day away from a mental breakdown—how could I possibly just drift through ten weeks in bed? The most intense anxiety during this time actually stemmed from my girlfriend's upcoming visit. I was fully aware of my odd mental state, and I was certain I looked pretty foul, though I hadn't glanced in a mirror in more than a month. What would our visit be like when I couldn't even stand up to properly greet her? Was I even capable of extended conversation after so many hours of solitude? How would she react when she saw me in shambles: detached, vulnerable, and dependent? Tears were inevitable, and I wouldn't even be able to comfort her the way I should. As soon as she came into the hospital wing, she jumped on the bed to hug and kiss me. A rush of euphoric release was immediately interrupted as a nurse rushed in to inform her that she could not be on the bed at any time. In fact, she wasn't allowed to even touch the bed "for safety reasons." We had been waiting for more than two months to see each other, and this was how it had to be. She sat in a chair by my side as we talked for three days. Physical contact was limited. We couldn't explore the town together. We couldn't even share a meal, since guests weren't allowed to bring outside food into the unit. When lights out came around, she drove back to her hotel to sleep alone. It was a cruel tease that reminded us both of what we were missing. It shook me from my meditative state and reawakened a desire for my former life outside the hospital walls. That was the last truly personal interaction I had for another two months. An average meal in the research unit The following weeks held few details of note. The days blurred together. I tried to avoid counting down my time left; rather, I measured my stay by my increasing sensitivity to the small, daily frustrations that were slowly chipping away at my mind. Why did I have to drink water out of an open glass, even though at the angle of my bed, it inevitably spilled all over my table and chest? Why did they serve soup in shallow bowls? Why were they serving soup to people in bed anyway? Did any of the staff have any idea what it was like to be stuck in bed? After the fifth time I ate a soggy, microwaved filet of fish, I finally asked if I could be served something else—anything else. During orientation, the staff had assured us that they would do their best to cater to individuals' tastes, but the dietitian's response was simply a friendly apology and explanation that they must keep all participants' diets consistent. I asked if I might be able to substitute dry cereal for the oatmeal we were often served for breakfast. Again, the answer was no. My biggest win was the addition of one packet of black pepper to each meal. Around week seven, the other two participants in CFT 70 finished their part of the study. I congratulated them as they left, but considering how isolated we all were, I hardly noticed a difference when they were gone. Without them, I was the last man lying and the only subject on the hospital wing. In the home stretch, I forced myself to think about all that I had gained from the past 70 days. I had read hundreds of pages. I was meditating regularly. I was rediscovering my love of video games and kicking ass in fantasy football. And I was putting some serious money in the bank—almost $18,000, when all was said and done. And so I found myself at the end of the ten weeks in good sprits and feeling healthy—until the last day of the study, when they tilted me upright and asked me to stand. I remained horizontal until the following day. That morning, I was strapped to a stretcher and put in the back of a van to head to Johnson Space Center for the first of four rounds of marathon testing. As I was wheeled through the sliding glass doors of the hospital, sunlight touched my skin for the first time in more than two months. This was the first time I had a good look at the sky or anything that wasn't the stark white walls of the hospital, and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. My deprivation renewed my appreciation for the simple pleasures of the world. I performed the same slew of testing that I did pre-bed rest: running through mazes, jumping off of platforms, standing on force plates, executing hand-eye coordination tasks, testing my balance, measuring my leg and arm strength. And yes, the muscle-twitch test, a.k.a. the blast-your-fucking-leg-full-of-electricity test. But the anxiety I felt in pre-bed-rest tests was replaced with anticipation. The finish line was in sight, and each electrical shock brought me one measurement closer to my freedom. I was a mere two weeks away from completing my 108-day stay. The author's fond farewell to urinating into a "pee jug" rather than the toilet As I was wheeled into the testing facility, I was greeted by many familiar and unfamiliar faces. A number of the research staff had decided to come to watch the final participant of the CFT 70 project take his first steps. I was certainly excited, but I imagine many of them were even more thrilled than me. While this project had consumed my life for the last three months, it had been the primary focus of their work for four years. It was an important moment for all of us. With a staff member on each side and an audience on hand, I sat up on the stretcher and stepped down onto the ground. My feet tingled like they were asleep. My legs felt strong, but my balance was weak. My first steps were sluggish and short as I dragged my feet across the ground and kicked my ankles. I lacked all the fine coordination skills that I hadn't used for months. I felt sharp pains in my ankles and feet as I pivoted through the obstacle course, and I certainly couldn't walk a straight line well, but I completed all the tests without any real troubles. Within a few days of casual strolling and formal reconditioning exercise, my balance returned and my endurance began to recover. By the end of the two-week post-bed-rest period, I felt 95 percent physically normal. I was ready to go. On the 108th day, I packed my bags as I fantasized about everything that awaited me outside the hospital walls: On the way to the airport, I would have a breakfast burrito, maybe even a Bloody Mary. I was moments away from delicious food, bountiful liquor, the sun, and my girlfriend. I said a round of farewells to the staff and thanked them profusely. Despite any of my complaints, the team was full of good-hearted people who had intelligently designed and executed a remarkable feat. I was truly appreciative of their focus, hard work, and support. With $18,000 added to my bank account, an open calendar, and freedom from any protocol beyond state and federal law, I felt better than I had in years. I had no regrets. And so, as I sipped an overpriced Bloody Mary in the airport terminal, I found myself looking into new research studies. There was one infecting participants with a new flu strain, which paid $4,000 for ten days... Who says I couldn't do it all over again? Follow Andrew Iwanicki on Twitter and Instagram.Adult Swim Sued Thou Hath Jacked My 'Black Jesus' Adult Swim Sued by Author Claiming 'Black Jesus' was His Idea EXCLUSIVE "Black Jesus" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim is an impostor of the original black Jesus -- the one created by an author in 1999 (not the Bethlehem one)... according to a new suit. New York author Saint Solomon says "Black Jesus" -- the live action comedy on TV -- picks up where his short story titled "Thank You, Jesus" left off. He says the TV character is just like the protagonist in his story -- black, homeless, and named Jesus. In his lawsuit, Solomon says his story ends with his Jesus being kicked out of the house to go live on the streets, and he believes episode 1 of "Black Jesus" picks up the tale 15 years later. According to the docs... there are other similarities, like the fact TV Black Jesus has a friend who is always trying to get rich quick, just like in the short story. And both Black Jesuses dress the same, curse a lot and drink booze. Can we get an Amen? Solomon's suing Adult Swim for ripping off his idea... and wants more than $75 million to make it right.As one door closes, another opens on Holt Street in Surry Hills. Those still reeling from the news of MoVida Sydney's closure at the end of June will breathe a sigh of relief at the news that the Porteño team will take over the site on Holt Street, opening for business come October. They're taking reservations already. Porteño's Cleveland Street address isn't closing; it will transform into a permanent function space for private events, weddings and live music gigs. So, why the move? "We were getting so many requests for weddings and events at the Cleveland Street site that it was hard to keep the restaurant a priority," says Porteño's Sarah Doyle. "We've always wanted to do live music, and we have a lot of friends in that industry that are keen to play there. It also has a 3am licence, so it made sense." Construction on the Holt Street space will start in July, though Doyle admits the site was so well-built and cared for by the MoVida team that there's not much to be done. "We're going to have a cellar and a private dining room," she says. "The space is really beautiful. It also has a refrigerated bin room! That's the fanciest thing I've ever heard. The extraction is already in there, so it will be great for what we do." Doyle adds that both Porteño's parilla and asado fire pit will make the move to the new site. Doyle and chef Elvis Abrahanowicz are flying out to Argentina on Monday for a two-week trip to research and re-inspire themselves, while chef Ben Milgate holds the fort. "We haven't had a break in three years. It's a good excuse to go over and see what we find and get back to what we love about Argentina, which is everything," says Doyle. Menu changes are afoot, which the team can't speak of yet, but Doyle insists the classics will remain. "There's no way we can take those Brussels sprouts away," she says. Though the MoVida team did cite low foot-traffic issues as one of the reasons for closure, the Porteño crew isn't too worried. "I think Sydney's become a bit more savvy than that now - people seek things out, they'll find us. There's definitely value in foot traffic, but when we opened Bodega it was a wasteland. We just made it work. [The Holt St venue] is a really beautiful space; that whole building is so well done. It can't be any worse than Cleveland Street."Note: the "debate" between Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens will be presented in chronological order. Click on the link at the bottom of this page to see Hitchens's "reply" to this Chomsky column (and others like it). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.com September 12, 2001 A Quick Reaction By Noam Chomsky The September 11 attacks were major atrocities. In terms of number of victims they do not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and probably killing tens of thousands of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom. The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of ideas about "missile defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed out repeatedly by strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense damage in the US, including weapons of mass destruction, they are highly unlikely to launch a missile attack, thus guaranteeing their immediate destruction. There are innumerable easier ways that are basically unstoppable. But these events will, nonetheless, be used to increase the pressure to develop these systems and put them into place. "Defense" is a thin cover for plans for militarization of space, and with good PR, even the flimsiest arguments will carry some weight among a frightened public. In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope to use force to control their domains. That is even putting aside the likely US actions, and what they will trigger -- possibly more attacks like this one, or worse. The prospects ahead are even more ominous than they appeared to be before the latest atrocities. As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we choose the latter course, we can do no better, I think, than to listen to the words of Robert Fisk, whose direct knowledge and insight into affairs of the region is unmatched after many years of distinguished reporting. Describing "The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people," he writes that "this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia - paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." And much more. Again, we have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead. Go to Hitchens's "reply"Penguin Taking Underperforming Authors To Court To Recoup Paid Advances from the a-publisher's-greatest-revenue-stream-is-sometimes-the-authors-themselves dept * Blogger Ana Marie Cox, who signed in 2006 to author a "humorous examination of the next generation of political activists," is being dunned for her $81,250 advance (and at least $50,000 in interest). Her Penguin contract totaled $325,000. * Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat was signed for $40,000 in 2008 to describe how he "survived a concentration camp because of a young girl who snuck him food. 17 years later the two met on a blind date and have been together ever since, married 50 years." While Rosenblat’s story was hailed by Oprah Winfrey as the "single greatest love story" she had told on the air, it turned out to be a fabrication. Penguin wants him to repay a $30,000 advance (and at least $10,000 in interest). Authors beware. Books are rejected for reasons other than editorially and publishers then want their money back. Publishers want to reject manuscripts for any reason after an author has put time and effort into writing them all the while paying their bills. Another reason to have strong representation. If Penguin did this to one of Trident’s authors we could cut them out of all our submissions. Why did Penguin wait until NOW to go after advances? Has Ducksworth been settled? And are authors having to pay up for discrimination? This looks like it might be a new sign of the disrupted times. With major publishing houses competing with damn near everyone for readers, they can longer be expected to hand out hefty advances, especially in exchange for the literary equivalent of vaporware.Penguin has decided to reclaim a bit of the money it threw at a selection of authors and, in one case, a potentially heartwarming tale of love and concentration camp survival that turned out to be completely fabricated. The Smoking Gun has published the names and amounts sought by Penguin in the lawsuits filed for "breach of contract/unjust enrichment." Here's a couple of defendants from the list: Ten more authors were named, including "Prozac Nation" author Elizabeth Wurtzel, who failed to deliver a "book for teenagers to help them cope with depression." The total amount, including interest, totals to over a half million dollars. Authors failing to deliver something printable (or anything at all) to publishers is nothing new, but a shotgun blast of legal filings against authors is a bit novel. (Oh, ho! A book pun.) It would be tempting to call this a new "revenue stream," but only the interest would be "new" money.Theories as to ulterior motives or possible underhandedness on Penguin's part are being advanced (and another pun! completely unintentional!). In The Smoking Gun's comment thread, Trident Media Group chairman Robert Gottlieb speculates (strongly) that Penguin's treatment of its authors is disingenuous, at best:Another possible angle is offered by literary blogger Edward Champion Champion refers to the age discrimination lawsuit filed earlier this month against Penguin by Marilyn Duckworth, who alleges the publisher forced her out after 27 years of employment to pursue employees that were "faster, stronger and more nimble."At this point, it's tough to judge the merits of the lawsuits based on anything other than Penguin's claims. It looks like straight-up breach of contract and the range of topics left unpublished (the rise of Bass Pro Shops, an "analytical forecast arguing for the future success of gold," a second book from the "dynamic pastor of the Empowerment Temple") suggest that Penguin's not limiting legal action to trendy bloggers or other "next big things." If this action proves to be successful, it's not tough to imagine other publishers following suit (Pun trifecta!), especially with the possibility of collecting 25-30% interest thrown into the mix.But, if you're an author-to-be, and choosing to sign a publishing deal with a major publishing house, you'd have to think that this kind of thing would make you a lot less willing to sign with Penguin. Who wants the added stress of possibly being sued for the advance the publisher gave you? It would seem that authors may start to be a lot less interested in publishing with Penguin. Filed Under: authors, lawsuit, publishing, recoup Companies: penguinOne Pot Paleo by Jenny Castaneda is a busy mom’s dream come true! Minimal dishes – check, healthy, healthy, healthy – check, full of flavor – check! When cooking nourishing meals from scratch, we can spend much of our time at the kitchen sink and prepping our ingredients. Equipped with Jenny’s tantalizing recipes we will keep our taste buds happy, our bodies healthy and save time in the kitchen! We’ve loved everything we have tried from One Pot Paleo. The fajitas and this Cauliflower Pork Fried Rice will definitely make it on our menu regularly. They were both loaded with flavor, easy to make (and clean up!), plus we had leftovers for days! There is so much variety in this book. Jenny often draws from her Filipono background for delicious recipes like Arroz Caldo. But, you will also find mainstream dishes, such as Hamburger Steak and even Italian influenced recipes, such as Easy Cioppino. Grab your copy HERE! I loved eating this leftover fried rice in Nori wraps – topped with avocado, fresh herbs and hot sauce. Makes for such a delicious and easy lunch! It’s really good cold… so even less dishes! CAULIFLOWER PORK FRIED RICE Serves: 4 1 tablespoon ghee or bacon fat (this brand is my favorite!) 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 cup sweet onion, chopped 1 lb ground pork 1 cup carrots, chopped 3 tablespoons coconut aminos (find it here) 1 teaspoon fish sauce (I like this paleo-friendly brand!) ¼ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper 2 large eggs 4 cups cauliflower rice (cut into florets and process in the food processor until it has the consistency of rice or buy cauliflower rice in a bag at TJs 😉 ) ½ cup green onions, chopped Add ghee to a wok over medium high heat. Add the garlic and onions. Sauté for 3 minutes. Add the ground pork and cook for 7 to 8 minutes while breaking apart big pieces with the back of a wooden spoon. Stir in the carrots and season with the coconut aminos, fish sauce and black pepper. Remove from the wok and set aside in a bowl. Crack the eggs into the wok and scramble for 1 minute. Return the pork mixture to the pan and stir together with the eggs. Add the cauliflower rice and green onions. Mix until everything is thoroughly combined. Cook for 5 minutes until cauliflower is soft but not mushy. Top with more green onions before serving. Click HERE to PIN this post! Related PAID ENDORSEMENT DISCLOSURE: In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. I only recommend products that I wholeheartedly believe to be valuable or that I use myself. Rubies & Radishes is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.comStory highlights French candidate Francois Hollande stars in an online video with a profanity-laced rap song The song, "N**gas in Paris," is by Jay-Z and Kanye West Hollande's aide said it's not a campaign video, but she likes it Analysts say the effort could help improve his image, but it could also backfire Jay-Z and Kanye West's recent hit "Niggas in Paris" is about them. They rap about being so phenomenally rich, about how they "ball so hard," buy Rolexes and cars, pop gold bottles with models in Paris nightclubs, that the rest of us slobs couldn't fathom their lives. It may seem like an odd choice for a campaign song for a politician trying to appeal to oppressed racial and ethnic minorities. But it's apparently working for -- or at least not hurting -- Francois Hollande. The French Socialist eked out a win last Sunday in the first round of presidential voting to decide who will run France for the next five years. He will face President Nicolas Sarkozy in a run-off May 6. "Got my niggas in Paris, and they going gorillas," West raps as Hollande is shown leading discussions between men in suits and then talking to voters of multiple races and ages. Crowds in the street and the subway smile excitedly as Hollande approaches them. Supporters raise their voter cards to the camera. A man shouts, "To hell with Sarko!" - a common shorthand reference to Sarkozy. A black woman holds the French flag and exclaims, "François, president! Inshallah, Inshallah!" -- Arabic for "God willing." "We support François because he supports us," says a young black man wearing a hoodie. "All of Creil, all of us." JUST WATCHED Hollande claims victory in France Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Hollande claims victory in France 01:24 JUST WATCHED Messages to French election candidates Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Messages to French election candidates 02:28 JUST WATCHED How cartoons impact French politics Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH How cartoons impact French politics 05:28 A lyric in Jay-Z and Kanye's song sounds like "Creil," which is pronounced "cray," although the context suggests they mean "crazy." Although the video appeared to be a campaign advertisement, the Hollande campaign denied producing it. Hollande's video is edgy, has a good beat and shows people having a good time: all the ingredients for successful marketing. So what if it uses a racial slur, not to mention frequent profane and sexually degrading language? The consumer behavior researcher said the song's racial slur is universally offensive. Using it, or being perceived as tacitly endorsing it, could backfire for Hollande. "In France, 'negro' is definitely defamatory," he said. "It isn't a matter of whether or not minority Parisians or suburbanites are even able to make the translation." The video has more than 300,000 YouTube views since its April 10th posting and has made numerous international headlines. Hollande's campaign ad could be considered a form of ethnic or multicultural marketing. The term generally refers to a kind of advertising that emerged several decades ago in the West. The idea was that in order to stay competitive, businesses had to pay greater attention to minorities' growing ability to buy. One example is McDonald's "I'm Lovin It!" campaign from a few years ago, which used hip-hop beats and more black and Latino actors in commercials to sell more burgers. But translating this marketing technique to politics is tricky, Angell said. He points to what became known as British Prime Minister David Cameron's "Hug a Hoodie" campaign in 2006. The Conservative leader was widely mocked when he urged politicians to try to understand what drove boys to wear hooded sweatshirts and to break the law. Other lawmakers roasted him, giving it the dismissive "Hug a Hoodie" name. Media pundits laughed it off, too. "Cameron attempted to endear himself to this group, and their parents, by arguing that society cared," Angell said. It didn't work because there was too much of a gap between the elite leaders of the country and the hooded youth for the latter group to feel like the gesture was sincere, Angell said. In that respect, the Hollande video could be another toxic drop in a cauldron of already boiling tensions in Europe, France in particular. It comes on the heels of an Amnesty International report that said Muslims in Europe face discrimination in education, employment and religious freedom, and as France's economy is limping due to a 12-year high unemployment rate and broader economic problems across the EU. And France's working suburban class is complaining that it is getting the shortest end of the economic stick, leading to frustration with the current government. Hollande, who is favored to win the May 6 runoff, hopes to capitalize on voters' frustration by convincing them that his left-wing party will listen to and answer their concerns, he said. When he first ran for president in 2005, he said that he'd like to wash out the suburbs "with a power hose." This year, Sarkozy was blasted for saying France has "too many foreigners" and vowing to limit benefits to legal migrants. Shortly after he won his first term, riots erupted in Parisian suburbs. Roving gangs of young people clashed with police. Sarkozy called the rioters "scum," wording that his critics said didn't help the situation but only drove frustrated French further toward the edge. In 2007, there was another, reportedly far worse outbreak of violence in the suburbs. Cars were torched, as was a car dealership and a library. More than 60 police officers were injured. Two teens on a motorcycle, both sons of African immigrants, were killed when their vehicle collided with a police car. That incident further enraged residents, particularly in the immigrant community. Hollande has promised repeatedly to improve life in poorer neighborhoods, from renovating decrepit housing to providing jobs. Lang said Hollande's campaign workers have studied how President Barack Obama used popular culture in his 2008 White House bid (culminating in a Jay-Z hit "My President is Black" after Obama won.) One of the U.S. president's campaign slogans was "Change we can believe in." The subtitle of the Hollande video: Change is now. French media have taken numerous critical looks at the video ad. It's hard to buy that Hollande wasn't behind the ad, a France24 online editorial suggests "How do you get young non-white people to vote for you when you're a middle-aged balding white man? François Hollande has the answer," the post said. "Take a popular song by two famous U.S. rap stars. Film yourself surrounded by black and Arab voters who say 'big up.' Change your name to initials only. Get some Final Cut whiz kid to paste it all together with a load of fast-forward and zoom. Set up a YouTube account with the word 'crew' in it. "The suburbs isn't only hooded youths who lap up American subculture and watch too much TV," France24 quotes a newspaper reader as saying. "There are also engineers, researchers, police officers and teachers here." Hollande's press officer Emilie Lang said, "We have heard that that it's artists in the Parisian suburbs (who produced the video), but we don't know." "But I like it," she added. "A lot of people do." To Angell, the racial slur
shore just hours ago, regardless of how far you are from shore. In actuality, many of the fish you eat at sushi restaurants was frozen at some point. And even when it’s not, flesh was aged for flavor. The obligatory mind blown gif Not your grandmother’s freezer Due to health concerns, a rising demand for sushi, and drastic improvements in refrigeration techniques, 50 to 60 percent of sushi served in the United States have been frozen at some point in its journey from ocean to plate. Many of the fish in the wild have parasites living in its flesh. By flash freezing the flesh, the parasites are killed, while retaining the texture of the fish. That’s not to say all wild caught fish have parasite in them, as some species are more prone to parasites than others. But you should know your fish before eating fish straight out of the ocean and streams. For example, maguro (tuna) has relatively clean flesh, compare to say mackerel which is prone to parasites. It’s partially the reason why saba (mackerel) is cured in salt for two hours, then marinated and soaked in vinegar. It’s not only for flavor, preservation, but also to kill parasites. With sake (salmon), it’s usually frozen, since it’s usually susceptible to parasites. The exception to this is that there are some farm-raised parasite-free Salmon, which requires no freezing for raw consumption. But as to which one, you’ll have to ask your local fish-monger. Frozen Tuna at Tsukiji Market — https://bestlivingjapan.com/tsukiji-tuna-auction-guide-2017/ But despite having clean flesh, even tuna is often flash frozen. Due to refrigerated shipping containers enabling year-round supermarkets, Americans don’t have a sense of seasonality of fruits, vegetables, or fish. Since Americans want to eat toro year round, the toro you’re eating may have been frozen months ago. Superfreezing is a relatively new technology that was developed in the 1990’s that drops the core temperature of a 500 pound tuna to minus 70 degrees below zero. According to Shin Tsujimura, a chef at Nobu, even he can’t tell the difference between unfrozen and flash frozen fish in a blind taste test. So don’t shy away from frozen sushi. Chances are, it makes sushi more available and safe to eat, while not losing any texture. Buckle up for maximum flavor But freezing isn’t all there is to preparing fish for sushi. There’s a technique called Ikejime (活け締め) used to butcher the fish and maintain the quality of its flesh and prepare it for aging. It’s considered the fastest and most humane way. It involves the quick insertion of a spike directly into the hindbrain. When spiked correctly, the fish fins flare and the fish relaxes, immediately ceasing all motion. Destroying the brain and the spinal cord of the fish will prevent reflex action from happening; such muscle movements would otherwise consume adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the muscle, and as a result produce lactic acid, making the fish sour. Furthermore, the blood contained in the fish flesh retracts to the gut cavity, which produces a better coloured and flavoured fillet. — Wikipedia Sushi chef performing Ikejime — From ikejime: the japanese way to butcher fish When butchered in this matter, the fish doesn’t know that it’s dead. The resulting flesh is pristine, and there’s no blood spots in the meat produced by violent flopping. This way of butchering also sets up the fish for aging to develop a deep umami flavor. If you remember back to HS biology, ATP (Adenosine triphosphate) powers cells. When you butcher a fish using ikejime, it doesn’t use up a lot of ATP floundering about, since it’s quick death. So rather than a lactic acid buildup due to all the flopping, which makes the muscles sour, you conserve the ATP in the muscles. ATP apparently breaks down over time into inosinic acid, which is a kind of nucleotide monophosphate, similar to in structure and taste to monosodium glutamate (MSG), giving you that umami flavor. Different types of fish are aged different amounts to maximize the flavor. Just because the fish is fresh, doesn’t mean it’s delicious. Often times, minutes after a fish is caught the flesh doesn’t have much flavor and is just chewy. Maguro and toro needs at least a week of aging, sometimes up to two weeks in refrigeration. Sake (salmon) and Ohyou (halibut) requires around five days of aging. On the other hand, according to Kaz Matsune, fish like binna maguro (albacore tuna) and katsuo (bonito) taste better without aging. While sushi might look simple — just a piece of fish on a ball of rice — the preparation that comes before it is deep. A sushi chef “cooks” the fish and develops flavor for it by butchering it in a specific way to enable umami flavors to develop over a specific period of time. So the next time you’re at a sushi restaurant where the chef takes particular care in preparation, don’t drown it in wasabi and soy sauce. Instead pay attention to the flavors and umami swirling around as a result of careful butchering and aging.I met with fellow Parrot hackers allison++, cotto++ and chromatic++ recently in Portland, OR (it was jokingly called YAPC::OR on IRC) to talk about what we call M0. M0 stands for "magic level 0" and it is a refactoring of Parrot internals in a fundamental way. cotto++ and I have been hacking on a detailed spec (over 35 pages now!) and a "final prototype" in Perl 5 in the last few weeks. M0 is as "magic level 0", which means it consists of the most basic building blocks of a virtual machine, which the rest of the VM can be built with. The term "magic" means high-level constructs and conveniences, such as objects, lexical variables, classes and their associated syntax sugar. M0 is not meant to be written by humans, except during bootstrapping. In the future, M0 will be probably be generated from Parrot Intermediate Representation (PIR), Not Quite Perl 6 (NQP) or other High Level Languages (HLLs). The most important reason for M0 is to correct the fact that too much of Parrot internals are written in C. Parrot internals is constantly switching between code written in PIR, other HLL's such as NQP and C. Many types of optimizations go right out the window when you cross a language boundary. It is best for a virtual machine to minimize crossing language boundaries if an efficient JIT compiler is wanted, which we definitely desire. Since many hotpaths in Parrot internals cross between PIR and C, they can't be inlined or optimized as much as we would like. A few years back, Parrot had a JIT compiler, from which many lessons were learned. I am sure some people were frustrated when we removed it in 1.7.0 but sometimes, it is best to start from a clean slate with many more lessons learned under your belt. Our old JIT did support multiple architectures but required maintaining a "JIT version" of every opcode on each architecture supported. Clearly, this method was not going to scale or be maintainable. I will venture to say that M0 is the culmination of the lessons learned from our failed JIT. I should note that "failure" does not have a negative connotation in my mind. Indeed, only through failure are we truly learning. If you do something absolutely perfectly, you aren't learning. We are at an exciting time in Parrot's history, in that for a long time, we wanted an elegant JIT, using all the latest spiffy techniques, but it was always an abstract idea, "just over there", but not enough to grab a-hold of. A new JIT that meets these goals absolutely requires something like M0, and is the driving force for its design. M0 will pave the way for an efficient JIT to be implemented on Parrot. M0 currently consists of under 40 opcodes from which (we wager) all the rest of Parrot can be built upon. This is radically different from how Parrot currently works, where all of the deepest internals of Parrot are written in heavily macroized ANSI 89 C. M0 has a source code, i.e. textual form and a bytecode form. chromatic++ brought up a good point at the beginning of the meeting about the bytecode file containing a cryptographic hash of the bytecode. This will allow one to distribute bytecode which can then be cryptographically verified by whoever eventually runs the bytecode. This is a very "fun" application of cryptography that I will be looking into further. allison++ brought up some good questions about how merging bytecode files would be done. We hadn't really thought about that, so it lead to some fruitful conversation about how Parrot Bytecode (PBC) is currently merged, what it does wrong, and how M0 can do it less wronger. We then talked about what exactly a "Continuation" in M0 means, and tried to clear up some definitions between what is actually meant by Context, State and Continuation. chromatic++ also mentioned that an optional optimization for the garbage collector (GC) would be for it to create a memory pool solely to store Continuations, since they will be heavily used and many of them will be short-lived and reference each other, so having them in a small confined memory region will reduce cache misses. We are filing this under "good to know and we will do that when we get there." Next we turned to concurrency, including how we would emulate the various concurrency models of the languages we want to support, such as Python's Global Interpreter Lock (GIL). We decided that M0 will totally ignorant of concurrency concepts, since it is a "magical" concept that will be implemented at a higher level. We have started to refer to the level above M0 as M1 and everything above M0 as M1+. allison++ also mentioned that many innovations and optimizations are possible in storing isolated register sets for each Continuation (a.k.a call frame). This area of Parrot may yield some interesting surprises and perhaps some publishable findings. We all agreed that M0 should be as ignorant about the GC as possible, but the GC will most likely learn about M0 as optimizations are implemented. The pluggability of our GC's were also talked about. allison++ raised the question "Are pluggable GC's easier to maintain/implement if they are only pluggable at compile-time?" Indeed, they probably are, but then we run into the issue that our current "make fulltest" runs our test suite under different GC's, which would require multiple compiles for a single test suite run. chromatic++ made a suggestion that we could instead make GC's pluggable at link-time (which would require a decent amount of reorganization) which would still allow developers to easily test different GC's without recompiling all of Parrot. chromatic++'s estimate is that removing runtime pluggability of GC's would result in an across the board speed improvement of 5%. This conversation then turned toward the fact that M0 bytecode might depend on what GC was used when it was generated, i.e. the same M0 source code run under two different GC's would generate two different bytecode representations. This would happen if the M0 alloc() opcode assumes C calling conventions. This was generally deemed distasteful, so our alloc() opcode will not "bake in C assumptions", which is a good general principle, as well. This will be a fun test to write. allison++ brought up the fact that we may need a way to tell the GC "this is allocated but uninitialized memory", a.k.a solve the "infant mortality" problem. chromatic++ suggested that we could add some kind of lifespan flag to our alloc opcode (which currently has an arbitrary/unused argument, since all M0 opcodes take 3 arguments for symmetry and performance reasons). This could be as simple as hints that a variable is local or global, or a more detailed delineation using bit flags. It was also decided that we didn't need an invoke opcode and that invoke properly belongs as a VTABLE method on invokables. We also talked about the fact that register machines greatly benefit from concentrating VM operations on either the caller or the callee side. Looking for more references about this. It seems that the callee side seems to be what we will try for, but I am not quite sure why. We finally talked about calling conventions and decided that goto_chunk should roughly be equivalent to a jmp (assembly unconditional jump to address) and the invoke VTABLE would setup a return continuation (i.e. make a copy of the program counter), do a goto_chunk, and let the callee handle the rest, such as looking up a return continuation and invoking it. After the main M0 meeting, cotto++, allison++ and I sat down at a coffee shop and came up with a list of next actions for M0: Write a recursive version of 'calculate the n-th Fibonacci number' in M0 Write a simple checksum algorithm in M0 (suggestions?) Create a working PMC in M0 M0 disassembler Create a "glossary brochure for Github cruisers" Implement function calls and returns Make sure each M0 opcode is tested via Devel::Cover Convert the M0 assembler to C Convert the M0 interpreter to C Link M0 into libparrot (no-op integration) I have been talking to cotto++ on IRC while typing up these notes and we have come to the conclusion that a "bytecode verifier" should also be put on that list. A verifier is a utility that detects invalid bytecode and prevent attacks via malicious bytecode. This is something that happens at runtime, where as a bytecode checksum happens before runtime, or at the end of compile time. They provide different kinds of insurance. The bytecode checksum feature will be an instrinsic feature that is not optional, since it prevents Parrot from running known-bad bytecode. But a bytecode verifier adds a significant amount of overhead. This overhead is reasonable if you are running untrusted code, but it is unreasonable when your are running trusted bytecode (i.e. bytecode that you created), so the verifier will have an option to be turned off. We obviously have a lot of fun stuff to work on, so if any of it sounds fun, come ask cotto++ or me (dukeleto) on #parrot on irc://irc.parrot.org for some M0 stuff to do. We especially need help with writing tests and documentation. There will be a Parrot hackathon at YAPC::NA this year, where I am sure some M0-related hacking will be happening. If you have never been to a hackathon before, I highly recommend them as a way to join a project and/or community. Meatspace is still the best medium for some things :) (UPDATE: Some factual errors about our old JIT were pointed out by rafl++ and corrected)Please enable Javascript to watch this video ROCKINGHAM COUNTY, N.C. – The State Bureau of Investigation won’t release the identity of the man killed in Sunday’s deputy involved shooting until an autopsy is completed, but family members say the victim is Todd Brent Burroughs. The SBI is investigating the Rockingham County deputy involved shooting, following Sheriff Sam Page’s request. The shooting happened around 2 a.m. Sunday in Stoneville, just south of the Virginia state line. Rockingham County deputies were conducting a routine patrol when they spotted a vehicle parked behind a local business. When the vehicle began to drive away, authorities said the deputies tried a traffic stop, but the vehicle did not stop. The deputies followed the vehicle for several miles with their blue lights on, according to the SBI. Officials said the vehicle pulled into a driveway off Garrett Road and the deputies confronted the driver when he got out of his vehicle. A struggle ensued and the man was shot and killed by one of the deputies, according to the SBI. Family members say at the time of the shooting, the victim’s wife and two of his kids were inside the vehicle. The identities of the deputies will be provided after each has been interviewed. Upon conclusion of the investigation, the SBI said they will provide the complete case file to the Rockingham County District Attorney. Page says one of the officers was wearing a body camera that may have captured the incident.EXTERNAL PHOTOGRAPHS LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 1 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 2 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 3 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 4 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 5 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 6 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 7 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 8 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 9 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016 LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A FCC ID: ZNFW280 External Photos © 2016 PCTEST Engineering Laboratory, Inc. EUT Type: Portable Wrist Device Model: LG-W280 Page 10 of 10 V 4.3 11/04/2016Some Republicans, including Mr. Boehner and Mr. McCarthy, are pressing Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s nominee for vice president in 2012, to step up. Mr. Ryan, however, has repeatedly said he does not want the job, a point he reiterated Thursday even before his colleagues left the meeting. Image Mr. McCarthy quit the speaker’s race. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times “I have spent more time trying to talk him into running than I did my wife into marrying me,” Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said. “Twenty-six years later, she’s still with me. I am just asking Paul for 14 months.” Mr. McCarthy’s decision leaves the House rudderless just weeks before the Treasury Department faces a debt default that could roil markets, and two months before a deadline for a budget deal to avoid another government shutdown. But it also represents another victory for the clutch of unyielding hard-line conservatives who toppled the ambitions of yet another member of the party leadership. The turmoil in the House only added to the uncertainty for the Republican Party, which is also dealing with a contentious presidential primary campaign in which obstreperous outsiders continue to ride the Tea Party swell against establishment politicians. While the presidential race has many months to sort itself out, House Republicans have little time to spare to restore order. After Mr. McCarthy’s announcement, many visibly shaken and nearly speechless Republicans emerged from a large hearing room in the Capitol complex. The acoustics inside were so poor that some had failed to fully take in what had happened: The man with the most votes to become the next speaker had just given up on what was once the most desired job in the House. “The first reaction was ‘Wow!’ or ‘What did he say?’ ” Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, said. “The next reaction was, ‘Let me sit down and process this while eating lunch at the same time, because this was a shock, a surprise.’ ”Apta railway station is a railway station on the Panvel - Roha route of Central Railway. The station is situated in Raigad district of Maharashtra, India. It is at a distance of 83.24 km from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus via Diva junction. Its station code is APTA. It belongs to the Mumbai division of Central Railway.[1] It is situated between Rasayani and Jite railway stations.[1] [2] The station is located amidst hills and greenery, making it visually attractive. It is also situated in a curve, which makes it possible to look at the whole train. The last scene of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol was shot here. The action scene of the Rajkumar Santoshi's Khakee has also been taken here. Other movies showing a railway station that were shot at this location include Fida, Swades, Bunty aur Babli, Shaadi No 1, Rang De Basanti and Chinatown.[2][3]Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch Orrin Grant HatchThe FDA crackdown on dietary supplements is inadequate Orrin Hatch Foundation seeking million in taxpayer money to fund new center in his honor Mitch McConnell has shown the nation his version of power grab MORE (R-Utah) on Tuesday derided bipartisan efforts to shore up ObamaCare's insurance market as a "bailout." "At this point, it’s pretty clear that the parties will need to work together if any of this is going to improve. That said, I am concerned that many of the proposals for a bipartisan solution would amount to little more than a bailout of the current system," Hatch said in his opening remarks at his committee's health-care hearing Tuesday. "This, in my view, would be a mistake." Hatch's comments come as the Senate Health Committee works on a bipartisan bill that would likely fund ObamaCare subsidy payments to insurers known as cost-sharing reductions. Those payments reimburse insurers for giving discounted deductibles and co-pays to low-income customers. Some Republicans have been critical of the payments, echoing Hatch in calling them a "bailout" for insurance companies. Insurers have threatened to leave the markets or hike premiums if the payments don't continue. Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander Andrew (Lamar) Lamar AlexanderPence meeting with Senate GOP ahead of vote to block emergency declaration Addressing repair backlog at national parks can give Congress a big win The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump MORE (R-Tenn.) supports funding the payments as a way to stabilize the insurance markets in conjunction with other reforms, like changes to ObamaCare's 1332 state waivers to provide for more flexibility. But Hatch said any bill that funds the subsidy payments also needs to make substantive changes to the health-care law. He specifically mentioned the possibility of rolling back some of ObamaCare's taxes and "rolling back, or at least amending the individual and employer mandates, two of the most unpopular components in Obamacare." "If we simply throw money into the system to maintain cost-sharing subsidies or make payments to insurers, without fixing any of the underlying problems, we would just be setting up yet another cliff, and likely another partisan showdown, in the future," Hatch said. "But let me be clear: In my view, an Obamacare bailout that is not accompanied by real reforms would be inadvisable. We can’t simply invest more resources into a broken system and hope that it fixes itself over time." Democratic and Republican health-care experts will testify at the Finance Committee hearing Tuesday about possible long-term reforms to ObamaCare.SPRINGFIELD – After building questions about the durability of her Senate candidacy, Elizabeth Warren displayed brute strength today by winning the endorsement of 96 percent of delegates to the state Democratic convention and blocking potential opponent Marisa DeFranco from the party’s primary ballot. The win allows Warren to instead focus on Republican Senator Scott Brown in the general election. “I’d love to see some debates with Scott Brown,’’ a bubbling Warren told reporters moments after her victory was announced. “Let’s get started on this. I’m ready.’’ DeFranco left the convention hall without a formal press conference. Before the results were announced, and as it was becoming evident that she would not make the ballot, she said would not commit to endorsing Warren. Advertisement But she also seemed prepared to return to her North Shore immigration law practice. “I’m a real person with a real job, so I have other obligations to take care of,’’ said DeFranco. DeFranco submitted the 10,000 voter signatures needed to meet state qualifications for appearing on the Sept. 6 primary ballot, but under party rules, she also needed to secure the vote of 15 percent of the convention delegates to qualify. Party officials said they could not recall such a large margin of victory in a two-person nominating contest. Addressing the delegates before the vote, Warren said Brown would rather attack her family than talk about his own voting record. “Well I say this, if that’s all you’ve got, Scott Brown, I’m ready,’’ the Harvard Law School professor said to sustained applause. “And let me be clear: I am not backing down. I didn’t get in this race to fold up for the first time I got punched,’’ Warren said. Warren, who called Brown a “Mitt Romney Republican’’ and a “Wall Street Republican,’’ listed a series of votes the incumbent had made, including votes against a Democratic bill to prevent a doubling of student loan interest rates and in favor of big oil subsidies. Advertisement She also invoked the memory of the late Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who for 47 years held the seat that Brown won in a special election in 2010. “It’s a long way from Ted Kennedy to Scott Brown,’’ said Warren. In the days leading up to the convention, Warren made perhaps her most concerted effort to address several weeks of questions about her past claim of Native American heritage, which she has been unable to formally document. First, Warren acknowledged that she had told Harvard Law School and her previous employer, the University of Pennsylvania, of her Native American heritage, but said she did so after she was hired and that it had never been a factor in advancing her academic career. Brown has said the issue raises questions about Warren’s truthfulness. In a series of follow-up interviews, Warren provided more detail about the “family lore’’ that had convinced her of Native American ancestry. She said her mother and father had been forced to elope because of her mother’s background in the Cherokee and Delaware tribes. Warren attributed the lag in her addressing the controversy to needing more time to go back and recall details of events that had occurred decades ago. DeFranco had little name recognition and through the first quarter of the year had raised just over $41,000 for her campaign, compared to the $15.8 million that Warren’s campaign had pulled in. “For those of you who know me I don’t scare easily. I have a proven track record of … taking on long odds and winning,’’ said DeFranco in asking for the votes of the delegates. Advertisement “Let’s have a good and healthy primary and go after Scott Brown’’ together, she said. “We’ll be stronger for it.’’ Party Chairman John Walsh opened the convention with a coy joke from the podium, predicting “we would send a strong woman to the US Senate from Massachusetts.’’ Peter Blute, deputy chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, panned the final vote, even though it mimicked the GOP’s action two years ago when it blocked Christy Mihos from appearing on the 2010 gubernatorial ballot in favor of giving Charles Baker a clear shot against incumbent Governor Deval Patrick. “They took the opportunity to snuff out a burgeoning campaign because they were afraid she might raise some uncomfortable issues in a primary debate,’’ said Blute. Labeling it a “very thorough and complete slapdown of a candidate,’’ Blute added: “To me, it shows the power of the big out-of-state money and interest groups that she has behind her.’’ Hours earlier, Patrick gave the most fiery speech of the day, telling delegates “it’s time for Democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe.’’ The governor said: “Democrats, quit waiting for pundits and pollsters and economic indicators to tell us who the next president or senator or member of congress is going to be. We shape our own future.’’ The speech, similar to those he often delivers to party activists across the country, excited the thousands in the audience, prompting many to repeatedly stand and cheer. Patrick’s speech was far more nationally oriented than those by other speakers, praising President Obama and criticizing Republicans as unprincipled bullies, seeking power rather than principle. He singled out his predecessor, Mitt Romney for what he characterized as bad economic stewardship. Patrick then exhorted Democrats to stand up for Obama. “I for one will not let him be bullied out of office,’’ he said. “I’m in for 2012, are you in?’’ Most of the state’s US House delegation also paid tribute to Barney Frank and John Olver, two retiring congressmen. “They stood up every day for men and women in the Commonwealth who wanted the opportunity to succeed,’’ said Representative William Keating, a Bourne Democrat. Representative James P. McGovern of Worcester called Frank “a Democrat who strikes terror in the hearts of Republicans’’ and alluded to the time the two men were arrested protesting the genocide in Sudan, joking that Frank was a lot of fun in jail. In his tribute, Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden, the dean of the delegation, said, “When they build a Mt. Rushmore for liberals, Barney Frank will be up there.’’ Olver, who lives in nearby Amherst, gave a short speech, but Frank did not appear on stage and was not evident in the convention hall. Also missing was Steve Lynch, the South Boston congressman who is the state’s most conservative Democrat.If you wear clothes and drink water, this story matters. Chances are that at least one article of clothing you're wearing now was made in China. The country's textile industry produced 1.24 trillion yuan ($197 billion) worth of garments in the first three months of the year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Since reforms started in 1978, China has grown to become the world's largest apparel manufacturer. The nation's textile industry has proven to be a vital source of low-skilled jobs, enabling countless workers, most of whom are women, to lift themselves out of poverty. The downside, however, is that it also takes a heavy toll on the environment, both within China and overseas. Textiles manufacturers discharge about 2.5 billion tons of wastewater per year in China, ranking it as the fourth worst water polluter among the country's 39 major industries, according to the China Environmental Statistical Yearbook 2010. Many factories have been known to repeatedly violate the country's environmental regulations because the penalties and fines for doing so are comparatively weak. Consumers may also be surprised to learn that pollutants can be carried within the fibers of the clothing they buy. Greenpeace has been documenting how washing cheap textiles from China can release toxic chemicals into rivers, lakes and seas around the world. Even more troubling is that dozens of international fashion brands have been turning a blind eye to the dirty habits of their suppliers. A recent study by five mainland environmental groups entitled "Cleaning up the Fashion Industry" found 48 fashion brands have been sourcing their products from polluting factories in China. When presented with the evidence of this, more than two-thirds of them ignored requests to take action to clean up their respective supply chains. The group's report praised a handful brands for their willingness in taking a more proactive approach to managing their suppliers. They include Adidas, Burberry, Gap, H&M, Levi's, Nike, Wal-Mart and, in particular, Esquel. Esquel's Chairman Marjorie Yang recently said, "Many companies say that being environmentally friendly is costly, but I disagree." During a talk in early May at H.K.U.S.T. as part of the UC Rusal President's Forum, she described how Esquel had been scrutinizing its operations and adopting new methods that reduced its annual water consumption by 50% while power usage dropped 40%. Those savings are now being used to invest in better equipment and technology. From their headquarters in Hong Kong, Yang oversees a workforce of more than 54,000 employees, producing some 100 million cotton shirts each year for clients like Hugo Boss, Marks & Spencer, Nike, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Yang said there's still "huge potential" to apply existing technologies across a variety of different industries in China. The former math major from M.I.T. and M.B.A from Harvard has been working with university researchers on a variety of projects, such as looking for ways to replace water in the dyeing process. Another idea she wants to pursue is applying genome sequencing to develop new cotton species that can be grown in more difficult conditions, thus mitigating the competition for arable land between food crops and cotton. Esquel's performance has been supporting Yang's approach. The privately held company's revenue more than doubled over the last 5 years to $1.2 billion from $530 million in 2006. Her family's net worth, which includes sister Teresa, Esquel's vice chairman, was valued at $1 billion, ranking them No. 37 among Hong Kong's 40 Richest. Yang also appeared in the inaugural Forbes Asia's 50 Power Businesswomen list earlier this year as well as the more recent 48 Heroes of Philanthropy in recognition of her work within the community. Since being founded over 10 years ago, the Esquel-Y.L. Yang Education Foundation has funded the renovations or rebuilding of over 20 rural schools in rural Xinjiang, where Esquel has cotton farming, spinning and ginning operations. In recent years, the foundation has also been devoting more resources to introducing new curriculums to the education system there, such as health education, Lego robotics and Scratch, a program created at the M.I.T. Media Lab that teaches students about computer programming. "If you ask us what is the one social contribution that Esquel makes, it's not how many schools we build in Xinjiang, it would be the number of quality jobs we can create," Yang said. "If you are unable to create gainful employment, then you're not fulfilling your role in market capitalism." Quality employment is one of the core values at Esquel with an emphasis on both cultural and gender diversity. The company recruits ethnic Uyghur graduates in Xinjiang to groom as future leaders. Furthermore, a large number of key management positions are now held by female colleagues. Yang said, "At Esquel, we have never been short of bossy women!"TUKWILA, Wash. – The long-awaited return of goalkeeper Michael Gspurning could come as soon as Sunday. Gspurning participated fully in training on Tuesday, marking the first time he’s done so since leaving at halftime of the Seattle Sounders’ game on May 2 with a hip injury. “He felt pretty good with how he came out of it,” Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid told reporters at training on Tuesday. “He had a good training session yesterday, felt good coming out of that as well. He’s definitely moving closer. He won’t play [Wednesday against Chivas USA in the US Open Cup], so I can ease Robin Fraser’s concerns there, but I wouldn’t rule him out necessarily for Sunday and for sure after that he’s probably full in.” Although Gspurning misplayed a cross or two and admitted to feeling a bit rusty in his first bit of action against live competition in more than two months, he did manage to provide a highlight by stopping a penalty. “He’s a veteran goalkeeper and with veteran guys you try and talk to them,” Schmid said. “They have a good sense of where bodies, their bodies are at. We’ll know when he’s ready and he’ll know.” The Sounders have been a much different defensive team without Gspurning. Anchored by the big Austrian, the Sounders allowed just three goals in their first seven games and never gave up more than one. In the 12 games since, they’ve allowed 16 goals, including at least two in four games. It wasn’t just his shot-stopping and command of the penalty area that the Sounders missed, either. “His leadership is important for us on the field and you’ve seen his personality,” Schmid said, alluding to Gspurning’s near constant smile and joking nature. “Just getting his personality in the locker room before the game, at halftime, on the field it helps our team as well. He’s a guy who’s pretty positive, he’s funny, but he’s also serious about what it takes to win on that given day. So he helps us in a lot of ways.” Jeremiah Oshan covers the Seattle Sounders for MLSsoccer.com and SB Nation.On its surface, the band’s new album Humanz is one of the most energetic party records of the year – but as 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel tell us, it was the in fact a product of blackmail, manipulation and strife Text Henry Boon Gorillaz’s new album Humanz is a party record for the end of the world, an apocalyptic dream that turned out to be not so far from reality. The album’s political undercurrents are lifted up by a host of collaborators – from De La Soul to Grace Jones – that could only ever come together for the end of days. Meanwhile, joyous accompaniments, tinged with an almost chaotic abandon from the band, feel at once rooted in the now and dragged kicking and screaming from some distant, alternate timeline. With this in
expanding the 12 month trial so soon after it has started makes little sense. "Any decision to actually introduce further stretches of Northern Territory highway to a no-speed-limit policy are really based on anecdotal information," he said. "That's not good enough; we really should be trying as much as possible to base it on really good data and really good evidence." Final decision a long way off: NT minister The trial is based on the reports of four consultants. The ABC's attempt to obtain the reports, through a Freedom of Information request, was rebuffed by the NT Government on the basis that releasing the reports would breach Cabinet confidentiality. Five invoices totalling nearly $140,000 up to May last year were provided but these give no clues about the work involved. Mr Styles says the advice is essential as the Government decides whether the trial becomes permanent. "That won't happen until the final audits and assessments are done," he said. "From those audits and assessments that have been done across the national highway network in the Territory, there will be a report pulled together from all of that information and that'll go to government for its consideration to decide, will we have open speed limits again? "Will we not? Will it be restricted to a certain part of the highway? We're a long way from that decision." Topics: road-transport, road, police, travel-health-and-safety, states-and-territories, nt, australia First postedOn Thursday, Linux legend Linus Torvalds sent a lengthy statement to Ars Technica responding to statements he made in Auckland, New Zealand earlier that day about diversity and "niceness" in the open source sector. "What I wanted to say [at the keynote]—and clearly must have done very badly—is that one of the great things about open source is exactly the fact that different people are so different," Torvalds wrote via e-mail. "I think people sometimes look at it as being just 'programmers,' which is not true. It's about all the people who are more oriented toward commercial things, too. It's about all those people who are interested in legal issues—and the social ones, too!" Torvalds spoke to what he thought was a larger concept of "diversity" than what has been mentioned a lot in recent stories on the topic, including economic disparity, language, and culture (even between neighboring European countries). "There's a lot of talk about gender and sexual preferences and race, but we're different in so many other ways, too," he wrote. "'Open source' as a term and as a movement hasn't been about 'you have to be a believer,'" Torvalds added. "It's not a religion. It's not an 'us vs them' thing. We've been able to work with all those 'evil commercial interests' and companies who also do proprietary software. And I think that was one of the things that the Linux community (and others—don't get me wrong, it's not unique to us) did and does well." Torvalds also talked about progress since the GPL vs. BSD "flame wars" from the '80s and early '90s, saying that the open source movement brought more technology and less "ideology" to the sector. "Which is not to say that a lot of people aren't around because they believe it's the 'ethical' thing to do (I do myself too)," Torvalds added, "but you don't have to believe that, and you can just do it because it's the most fun, or the most efficient way to do technology development." “This ‘you have to be nice’ seems very popular in the US” He then sent a second e-mail to Ars about the topic of "niceness" that came up during the keynote. He said that his return to his Auckland hotel was delayed by "like three hours" because of hallway conversations about this very topic. "I don't know where you happen to be based, but this 'you have to be nice' seems to be very popular in the US," Torvalds continued, calling the concept an "ideology." "The same way we have developers and marketing people and legal people who speak different languages, I think we can have some developers who are used to—and prefer—a more confrontational style, and still also have people who don't," he wrote. He lambasted the "brainstorming" model of having a criticism-free bubble to bounce ideas off of. "Maybe it works for some people, but I happen to simply not believe in it," he said. "I'd rather be really confrontational, and bad ideas should be [taken] down aggressively. Even good ideas need to be vigorously defended." "Maybe it's just because I like arguing," Torvalds added. "I'm just not a huge believer in politeness and sensitivity being preferable over bluntly letting people know your feelings. But I also understand that other people are driven away by cursing and crass language when it all gets a bit too carried away." To that point, Torvalds said that the open source movement might simply need more "people who are good at mediating," as opposed to asking developers to calm their own tone or attitude.Doug Mataconis · · 17 comments Donald Trump may be running as a supposed conservative now, but ten years ago he was sounding a lot like Barack Obama: For a few months, Trump hashed out a policy agenda. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to fill a quickie book: The America We Deserve, published in January 2000. The Trump of 11 years ago sounds a lot like the Trump who has taken over cable TV and the Huffington Post top banner these past few weeks: He’s against immigration amnesty. He’s worried about terrorism. He’s rending his hair over America’s economic decline. Oh, and there were a few other things. “We must have universal healthcare,” wrote Trump. “I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses.” The goal of health care reform, wrote Trump, should be a system that looks a lot like Canada. “Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork,” he writes. The Canadian plan also helps Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans. There are fewer medical lawsuits, less loss of labor to sickness, and lower costs to companies paying for the medical care of their employees. If the program were in place in Massachusetts in 1999 it would have reduced administrative costs by $2.5 million. We need, as a nation, to reexamine the single-payer plan, as many individual states are doing.Blood and Soil Sports In business, it’s often said that when a firm becomes too big and too diverse in its pursuits, its efficiency starts to decline. As many of the world’s largest governing bodies struggle with gridlock and rapidly rising grassroots opposition, it is worth asking once more whether a similar “law” applies to politics. And what better time than the World Cup? There’s always a healthy dose of propaganda served up at the event, just like at the Olympics, in which international solidarity is simultaneously exalted and commercialized. Football fans are encouraged to purchase official merchandise and consume the food and drink of the Weltmeisterschaft’s sponsors, all in the name of “good sport”. But the truth is that, for all the discourse of loving the game for its own sake, there is no better venue for staging nationalism. The Olympics has too many individual events to inspire the same degree of partisanship. With the World Cup, by contrast, there is one team only that everyone back home is supposed to be rooting for. Even in the United States, which has traditionally preferred its homegrown brand of “football” to soccer, patriotic fervor has been mounting steadily over the past quarter century. Back in 2010, when the national side had to score a goal against underdog Algeria in order to advance to the second round, millions of Americans stopped what they were doing to cheer on their men. In most other countries, the intensity of devotion is much greater still. As in Germany, for example, which is one of the favorites to win it all in 2014. Although German fans rarely demonstrate the exquisite passion for which the fans of this year’s host nation Brazil are famous, they still care enormously. So much, in fact, that they are keen to fit in as they root on their favorites. That’s why you see products like this one being marketed there right now, as photographed in a Media Markt store, in the immigrant-heavy Berlin borough of Neukölln: a do-it-yourself “samba” kit in the color scheme of the German flag. It’s terribly kitschy — some would say delightfully so — yet still represents an authentic yearning to bring a little Germany to Brazil and, in the process, hope that a little Brazil rubs off on Germany. That’s why this advert, one of several in this product’s advertising campaign, features the Brazilian defender Dante Bonfim Costa Santos, who currently plays for Germany’s best club team, FC Bayern München. His smiling visage is meant to guarantee the authenticity of something that almost nobody is going to find authentic. Germans are Germans; Brazilians are Brazilians. The idea that they could ever trade places in a meaningful way is absurd. The fiction of global solidarity on which the World Cup is founded actually reinforces this division, since it so patently ignores the distinctive characters of different nations, whether on the pitch or the battlefield. In other words, if the matches bring people together, it is only in order to sort them better afterwards. Consider the precise nature of the samba kit Dante is sporting in this promotional display. Whatever Brazilian models its designers may have had in mind, they ended up with something that looks eerily like the instrument little Oscar bangs throughout Günter Grass’s famous novel The Tin Drum. It’s almost as if they had been enjoying an inside joke: how antithetical to the spirit of samba can we make this product and still ensure that is marketable? Perhaps that sense of humor is ultimately latent in the World Cup itself, which provides an illusion of sharing — it’s the globe’s most-watched television program — that distracts us from noticing just how hard it is to break the chains of nationalism. To be sure, more and more participants in the event play for the country where they or their families ended up, rather than the one where their roots lie. There is talk that Dante might eventually play for Germany, even. But this superficial multiculturalism does nothing to reduce the force of national belonging. Commentary by Charlie Bertsch. Photograph by Joel Schalit.Teradici has developed PCoIP (PC-over-IP) protocol, a technology that allows to run a full desktop remotely over the network on thin clients, desktops, integrated displays, laptops and even Android tablets. The PCoIP protocol compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the data center and transmits it ‘pixels only’ across any standard IP network to stateless PCoIP zero clients. The PCoIP protocol is implemented in silicon for hardware accelerated performance and in software in VMware View. It supports high resolution, full frame rate 3D graphics and HD media, multiple large displays, full USB peripheral connectivity, and high definition audio all via LAN or WAN networks. A typical network made of PCoIP clients is shown below. Teradici emphasizes three key features of PCoIP technology: PCoIP technology uses host rendering Most other remote desktop technologies uses client rendering which may not be optimal and requires somewhat powerful clients. PCoIP uses host rendering which fully preserves the PC environment and only broadcasts the encrypted pixels (not the data) across the network to the client which makes it possible to have stateless, decode-only client devices (true zero clients). This decreases maintenance and increases security as all data is kept on the server. PCoIP protocol is uniquely multi-codec The PCoIP protocol continuously analyzes and decomposes image elements (graphics, text, icons, photographs, video, etc) and compresses them with the right codec for each and every pixel to minimize network bandwidth utilization. PCoIP protocol dynamically adapts to network conditions The image quality settings of the PCoIP protocol can be configured to manage bandwidth use. PCoIP technology also features adaptive encoders to automatically adjust image quality on congested networks within the user-defined limits. PCoIP protocol use UDP – a real-time protocol – to reduce latency and ensure a responsive, interactive remote user experience. If you prefer to visualize the way PCoIP protocol works, you can watch the video below which explains the three points above. As mentioned above, Teradici is working with VMWare to implement PCoIP technology into VMWare View and there are already a number of true zero clients available on the market, many of which are VMWare-ready. Teradici also offers 2 PCoIP processors: TERA1100 Portal Processor – Designed to be integrated into any user appliance or portal at the desktop, the TERA1100 Processor support 2 separate displays (DVI up to 1920×1200), features a 1 Gbit Ethernet controller, an HD Audio serial link, 4 USB ports, GPIOs as well as SMBus support. – Designed to be integrated into any user appliance or portal at the desktop, the TERA1100 Processor support 2 separate displays (DVI up to 1920×1200), features a 1 Gbit Ethernet controller, an HD Audio serial link, 4 USB ports, GPIOs as well as SMBus support. TERA1200 Host Processor – Designed to be integrated into datacenter equipment including PC blades, server blades, rack mount PCs, or tower PCs, the TERA1200 Host Processor support 2 video input (DVI up to 1920×1200) and features a PCI Express endpoint, a 1-Gbit Ethernet controller, an HD Audio controller interface, a USB controller interface and GPIOs, as well as SMBus support. At CES 2012, Charbax filmed a demo of PCoIP “running” Windows 7 on an OMAP4460 Android tablet via WMWare view. At the same time, Windows 7 is shown on the HDMI display, a video conference is displayed on the tablet screen. The demo is however somewhat disappointing as they did not move the windows, so we cannot evaluate this technology performance. On the video below, the server running Windows 7 is in Vancouver, and the Android tablet in Las Vegas. You can find further information on PCoIP technology page, and Teradici PCoIP processors page.Just a few weeks after a portion of the Dupont bike lane was removed at Landsdowne, a street artist decided to offer a little reminder of its former presence via the construction of a Lego version near the southwest side of the intersection. Spotted by a blogTO reader on her morning commute at 8:30 a.m., she tells us that "some of it was already smashed" at the time, and a visit around 11:15 a.m. revealed no trace of the little intervention. I spoke to a police officer and construction worker in the area who both said that when they arrived at 9:30 a.m. there was no Lego on the road. So that was fun while it lasted. I would imagine that it went up in the middle of the night when traffic lowers in the area, and was toast just after these photos were taken. Because it was only about four or five car-lengths long, it wouldn't have taken too much time of effort to remove it â kind of like the real lane, which was removed on or about September 14th. I have a hunch who the "artist" is, but will confirm before embarrassing myself with a false ID. Update (1:00 p.m.) Here's a photo with a bit more context via Martin Reis / Bike Lane Diary, who explains that the work was done by the Urban Repair Squad. Check out a few more pics from monkygrl's Flickr stream Update (4:20 p.m) Here's a slideshow of the Lego bike lane in all its glory courtesy of Martin Reis who managed to grab some photos before it was dusted.Energy Subsidies in Latin America and the Caribbean : Stocktaking and Policy Challenges Author/Editor: Gabriel Di Bella ; Lawrence Norton ; Joseph Ntamatungiro ; Sumiko Ogawa ; Issouf Samaké ; Marika Santoro Publication Date: February 12, 2015 Electronic Access: Free Full Text. Use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this PDF file Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate Summary: The oil price decline creates an opportunity to dismantle energy subsidies, which escalated with high oil prices. This paper assesses energy subsidies in Latin America and the Caribbean—about 1.8 percent of GDP in 2011–13 (approximately evenly split between fuel and electricity), and about 3.8 percent of GDP including negative externalities. Countries with poorer institutions subsidize more. Energy-rich countries subsidize fuel more, but low-income countries are more likely to subsidize electricity, as are Central America and the Caribbean. Energy subsidies impose fiscal costs, hurting SOEs, competitiveness, and distribution. The paper overviews country experience with subsidy reform, drawing lessons.In the first such UK conviction, a Luton man has been ordered to pay compensation to victims of a scam that phoned victims to claim their PCs were infected with a virus A man who ran a "Microsoft support scam" which fooled people into paying for unneeded antivirus software that was free has been given a suspended jail sentence, and ordered to pay thousands of pounds in compensation and fines. Mohammed Khalid Jamil, 34, from Luton, hired people in an Indian call centre who then phoned up people in the UK, pretended to be from Microsoft, and claimed that there was a problem with the victim's computer - which they would "confirm" by getting them to look at a perfectly harmless Windows program which records machine events. The cold-callers would then sell the victims antivirus software that was available for free from Microsoft's website, and install it using remote access to the victim's computer. People were typically charged between £35 and £150, and many of the victims were elderly. Jamil was sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and fined £5,000. He was also ordered to pay £5,665 in compensation to his victims, and £13,929 in prosecution costs. The National Trading Standards eCrime Team, which coordinated with local trading standards bodies, said that Jamil's company Smart Support Guys "duped a large number" of Britons into handing over money, with their computers left in a worse state than before the intrusion. Lord Harris, chairman of the National Trading Standards Board, said: "This is a landmark case, as we believe it may be the first ever successful prosecution of someone involved in the 'Microsoft scam' in the UK." He called it an "important turning point for UK consumers who have been plagued by this scam, or variants of it, for several years." He said the verdict was "a stark warning to anyone else doing it that they can be caught and will be prosecuted." The Guardian revealed in July 2010 that teams in India were running the scam out of call centres, and that it was also being used against English-speaking people in other countries including the US and Australia. Though the Metropolitan Police took action against a number of "support" websites used for the scams, they tended to be recreated in days. In October 2012 the US Federal Trade Commission froze the accounts of a number of people related to six tech support scams, which appeared to slow down the number of scam calls there. None of them included Jamil or his companies. Jamil pleaded guilty at York Crown Court to unfair trading by allowing his staff to make false claims regarding computer support services. He was previously a director of a similar company called Onlinepcmasters.com, founded in August 2009; Luton trading standards warned him about its conduct in 2010. That company was dissolved in September 2013. Smart Support Guys was only formally incorporated in February 2014. Passing sentence, Recorder Baird said that the matter "passes the threshold for a custodial sentence" and that there were aggravating features including the 2010 warnings and the sending of false satisfaction emails. • 'Grand Theft Auto V for PC' torrent scam hits thousands of gamersIt goes without saying that NBA D-League players work hard enough to deserve higher annual salaries. They're constantly on the grind. That said, saying they "deserve" more money is a personal take, not a professional one. That said, there's no doubt that as the level of play (both from an individual and overall competition standpoint) continues to rise, those around the basketball world are holding the minor league in even higher regard. As such, international teams are doing their research and offering the D-League's more promising prospects more money to head abroad. Following one season in the NBADL, plenty of youngsters act fast to cash in. There's a considerate amount of money required (especially when taking into account the low D-League salaries to begin with) needed to buy a player out of his minor league contract midseason, but even that hasn't proven to scare international teams away too badly. They have the money to offer, and the D-League serves as the stage for them to figure what (or who) it is they really want. In this ever evolving technological world, many consumers regard competing retail stores simply as'showrooms," so that they can demo a respective product before going back home and purchasing it on Amazon.com instead. The dilemma the D-League now faces with high quality talent continuing to flock overseas presents a similar issue. Thus, from a strategic stand point, it would make sense that D-League increase players salaries as a means of keeping the most talented players stateside. Though the D-League is in fact eyeing a salary increase, it isn't likely to make a big difference for the minor league's brightest shining stars, RidiculousUpside.com has learned. The D-League has three different salaries tiers: A, ($25,000), B ($19,000), and C ($13,000). Obviously the league's best players, including NBA affiliate players who previously participated in big league training camp, are more often regarded as "A" salary players. While increasing such a salary interval is still very much a possibility, it's not the most pressing priority, multiple sources confirm. Instead, in anticipation of a new CBA deal being signed, the D-League will specifically explore increasing its "C" level salary tier. The current amount is hovering too close to minimum wage, based on the number of hours D-Leaguers are putting in. Depending on what the increase is, the D-League will also look into upping the "B" tier as well, in order to maintain a respectable differentiation between the two lower tiers. One would have to think that as the "B" tier goes up, so will the "A," eventually. That said, even that potential increase isn't likely to be the competitive type that motivates the more talented players to turn down some very lucrative international offers.Sleep in non-human animals refers to a behavioral and physiological state characterized by altered consciousness, reduced responsiveness to external stimuli, and homeostatic regulation. Sleep is observed in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and some fish, and, in some form, in insects and even in simpler animals such as nematodes. The internal circadian clock promotes sleep at night for diurnal organisms (such as humans) and in the day for nocturnal organisms (such as rodents). Sleep patterns vary widely among species. It appears to be a requirement for all mammals and most other animals. Definition [ edit ] Sleep can follow a physiological or behavioral definition. In the physiological sense, sleep is a state characterized by reversible unconsciousness, special brainwave patterns, sporadic eye movement, loss of muscle tone (possibly with some exceptions; see below regarding the sleep of birds and of aquatic mammals), and a compensatory increase following deprivation[clarification needed] of the state.[1] In the behavioral sense, sleep is characterized by minimal movement, non-responsiveness to external stimuli (i.e. increased sensory threshold), the adoption of a typical posture, and the occupation of a sheltered site, all of which is usually repeated on a 24-hour basis.[2] The physiological definition applies well to birds and mammals, but in other animals (whose brain is not as complex), the behavioral definition is more often used. In very simple animals, behavioral definitions of sleep are the only ones possible, and even then the behavioral repertoire of the animal may not be extensive enough to allow distinction between sleep and wakefulness.[3] Sleep is quickly reversible, as opposed to hibernation or coma, and sleep deprivation is followed by longer or deeper rebound sleep. Necessity [ edit ] If sleep were not essential, one would expect to find: Animal species that do not sleep at all Animals that do not need recovery sleep after staying awake longer than usual Animals that suffer no serious consequences as a result of lack of sleep Outside of a few basal animals that have no brain or a very simple one, no animals have been found to date that satisfy any of these criteria.[4] While some varieties of shark, such as great whites and hammerheads, must remain in motion at all times to move oxygenated water over their gills, it is possible they still sleep one cerebral hemisphere at a time as marine mammals do. However it remains to be shown definitively whether any fish is capable of unihemispheric sleep[citation needed]. Invertebrates [ edit ] Caenorhabditis elegans is the most primitive organism in which sleep-like states have been observed. is the most primitive organism in which sleep-like states have been observed. Nomada, sleeping. Note the characteristic position anchored by the [5] cuckoo bee from the genus, sleeping. Note the characteristic position anchored by the mandibles. Bees have some of the most complex sleep states amongst insects. Sleep as a phenomenon appears to have very old evolutionary roots. Unicellular organisms do not necessarily "sleep", although many of them have pronounced circadian rhythms. The jellyfish Cassiopea is the most primitive organism in which sleep-like states have been observed.[6] The nematode C. elegans is another primitive organism that appears to require sleep. Here, a lethargus phase occurs in short periods preceding each moult, a fact which may indicate that sleep primitively is connected to developmental processes. Raizen et al.'s results[7] furthermore suggest that sleep is necessary for changes in the neural system. The electrophysiological study of sleep in small invertebrates is complicated. Insects go through circadian rhythms of activity and passivity but some do not seem to have a homeostatic sleep need. Insects do not seem to exhibit REM sleep. However, fruit flies appear to sleep, and systematic disturbance of that state leads to cognitive disabilities.[8] There are several methods of measuring cognitive functions in fruit flies. A common method is to let the flies choose whether they want to fly through a tunnel that leads to a light source, or through a dark tunnel. Normally, flies are attracted to light. But if sugar is placed in the end of the dark tunnel, and something the flies dislike is placed in the end of the light tunnel, the flies will eventually learn to fly towards darkness rather than light. Flies deprived of sleep require a longer time to learn this and also forget it more quickly. If an arthropod is experimentally kept awake longer than it is used to, then its coming rest period will be prolonged. In cockroaches that rest period is characterized by the antennae being folded down and by a decreased sensitivity to external stimuli.[9] Sleep has been described in crayfish, too, characterized by passivity and increased thresholds for sensory stimuli as well as changes in the EEG pattern, markedly differing from the patterns found in crayfish when they are awake.[10] In honeybees, it has been suggested they could be able to dream.[11] Fish [ edit ] Alternating phases of sleep and activity in an adult zebrafish Sleep in fish is subject of current scientific research.[12][13] Typically fish exhibit periods of inactivity but show no significant reactions to deprivation of this condition. Some species that always live in shoals or that swim continuously (because of a need for ram ventilation of the gills, for example) are suspected never to sleep.[14] There is also doubt about certain blind species that live in caves.[15] Other fish seem to sleep, however. For example, zebrafish,[16] tilapia,[17] tench,[18] brown bullhead,[19] and swell shark[20] become motionless and unresponsive at night (or by day, in the case of the swell shark); Spanish hogfish and blue-headed wrasse can even be lifted by hand all the way to the surface without evoking a response.[21] A 1961 observational study of approximately 200 species in European public aquaria reported many cases of apparent sleep.[22] On the other hand, sleep patterns are easily disrupted and may even disappear during periods of migration, spawning, and parental care.[23] Land vertebrates [ edit ] Mammals, birds and reptiles evolved from amniotic ancestors, the first vertebrates with life cycles independent of water. The fact that birds and mammals are the only known animals to exhibit REM and NREM sleep indicates a common trait before divergence.[24] Reptiles are therefore the most logical group to investigate the origins of sleep. Daytime activity in reptiles alternates between basking and short bouts of active behavior, which has significant neurological and physiological similarities to sleep states in mammals. It is proposed that REM sleep evolved from short bouts of motor activity in reptiles while SWS evolved from their basking state which shows similar slow wave EEG patterns.[25] Reptiles and amphibians [ edit ] Reptiles have quiescent periods similar to mammalian sleep, and a decrease in electrical activity in the brain has been registered when the animals have been asleep. However, the EEG pattern in reptilian sleep differs from what is seen in mammals and other animals.[3] In reptiles, sleep time increases following sleep deprivation, and stronger stimuli are needed to awaken the animals when they have been deprived of sleep as compared to when they have slept normally. This suggests that the sleep which follows deprivation is compensatorily deeper.[26] In 2016, a study[27] report the existence of REM- and NREM-like sleep stages in the Australian dragon Pogona vitticeps. Amphibians have periods of inactivity but show high vigilance (receptivity to potentially threatening stimuli) in this state. Birds [ edit ] There are significant similarities between sleep in birds and sleep in mammals,[28] which is one of the reasons for the idea that sleep in higher animals with its division into REM and NREM sleep has evolved together with warm-bloodedness.[29] Birds compensate for sleep loss in a manner similar to mammals, by deeper or more intense SWS (slow-wave sleep).[30] Birds have both REM and NREM sleep, and the EEG patterns of both have similarities to those of mammals. Different birds sleep different amounts, but the associations seen in mammals between sleep and variables such as body mass, brain mass, relative brain mass, basal metabolism and other factors (see below) are not found in birds. The only clear explanatory factor for the variations in sleep amounts for birds of different species is that birds who sleep in environments where they are exposed to predators have less deep sleep than birds sleeping in more protected environments.[31] flamingo with at least one cerebral hemisphere awake Birds do not necessarily exhibit sleep debt, but a peculiarity that birds share with aquatic mammals, and possibly also with certain species of lizards (opinions differ about that last point), is the ability for unihemispheric sleep. That is the ability to sleep with one cerebral hemisphere at a time, while the other hemisphere is awake (Unihemispheric slow-wave sleep).[32] When only one hemisphere is sleeping, only the contralateral eye will be shut; that is, when the right hemisphere is asleep the left eye will be shut, and vice versa.[33] The distribution of sleep between the two hemispheres and the amount of unihemispheric sleep are determined both by which part of the brain has been the most active during the previous period of wake[34]—that part will sleep the deepest—and it is also determined by the risk of attacks from predators. Ducks near the perimeter of the flock are likely to be the ones that first will detect predator attacks. These ducks have significantly more unihemispheric sleep than those who sleep in the middle of the flock, and they react to threatening stimuli seen by the open eye.[35] Opinions partly differ about sleep in migratory birds. The controversy is mainly about whether they can sleep while flying or not. Theoretically, certain types of sleep could be possible while flying, but technical difficulties preclude the recording of brain activity in birds while they are flying. Mammals [ edit ] Mammals have wide diversity in sleep phenomena. Generally, they go through periods of alternating non-REM and REM sleep, but these manifest differently. Horses and other herbivorous ungulates can sleep while standing, but must necessarily lie down for REM sleep (which causes muscular atony) for short periods. Giraffes, for example, only need to lie down for REM sleep for a few minutes at a time. Bats sleep while hanging upside down. Inversely to humans and rats, male armadillos get erections during non-REM sleep.[36] Early mammals engaged in polyphasic sleep, dividing sleep into multiple bouts per day. Higher daily sleep quotas and shorter sleep cycles in polyphasic species as compared to monophasic species, suggest that polyphasic sleep may be a less efficient means of attaining sleep’s benefits. Small species with higher BMR may therefore have less efficient sleep patterns. It follows that the evolution of monophasic sleep may hitherto be an unknown advantage of evolving larger mammalian body sizes and therefore lower BMR.[37] Sleep is sometimes thought to help conserve energy, though this theory is not fully adequate as it only decreases metabolism by about 5–10%.[38][39] Additionally it is observed that mammals require sleep even during the hypometabolic state of hibernation, in which circumstance it is actually a net loss of energy as the animal returns from hypothermia to euthermia in order to sleep.[40] Nocturnal animals have higher body temperatures, greater activity, rising serotonin, and diminishing cortisol during the night—the inverse of diurnal animals. Nocturnal and diurnal animals both have increased electrical activity in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and corresponding secretion of melatonin from the pineal gland, at night.[41] Nocturnal mammals, which tend to stay awake at night, have higher melatonin at night just like diurnal mammals do.[42] And, although removing the pineal gland in many animals abolishes melatonin rhythms, it does not stop circadian rhythms altogether—though it may alter them and weaken their responsiveness to light cues.[43] Cortisol levels in diurnal animals typically rise throughout the night, peak in the awakening hours, and diminish during the day.[44][45] In diurnal animals, sleepiness increases during the night. Duration [ edit ] Different mammals sleep different amounts. Some, such as bats, sleep 18–20 hours per day, while others, including giraffes, sleep only 3–4 hours per day. There can be big differences even between closely related species. There can also be differences between laboratory and field studies: for example, researchers in 1983 reported that captive sloths slept nearly 16 hours a day, but in 2008, when miniature neurophysiological recorders were developed that could be affixed to wild animals, sloths in nature were found to sleep only 9.6 hours a day.[46] As with birds, the main rule for mammals (with certain exceptions, see below) is that they have two essentially different stages of sleep: REM and NREM sleep (see above). Mammals' feeding habits are associated with their sleep length. The daily need for sleep is highest in carnivores, lower in omnivores and lowest in herbivores. Humans sleep less than many other omnivores but otherwise not unusually much or unusually little in comparison with other mammals.[47] Many herbivores, like Ruminantia (such as cattle), spend much of their wake time in a state of drowsiness,[further explanation needed] which perhaps could partly explain their relatively low need for sleep. In herbivores, an inverse correlation is apparent between body mass and sleep length; big mammals sleep less than smaller ones. This correlation is thought to explain about 25% of the difference in sleep amount between different mammals.[47] Also, the length of a particular sleep cycle is associated with the size of the animal; on average, bigger animals will have sleep cycles of longer durations than smaller animals. Sleep amount is also coupled to factors like basal metabolism, brain mass, and relative brain mass.[citation needed] The duration of sleep among species is also directly related to basal metabolic rate (BMR). Rats, which have a high BMR, sleep for up to 14 hours a day, whereas elephants and giraffes, which have lower BMRs, sleep only 3–4 hours per day.[citation needed] It has been suggested that mammalian species which invest in longer sleep times are investing in the immune system, as species with the longer sleep times have higher white blood cell counts.[48] Mammals born with well-developed regulatory systems, such as the horse and giraffe, tend to have less REM sleep than the species which are less developed at birth, such as cats and rats.[49] This appears to echo the greater need for REM sleep among newborns than among adults in most mammal species. Many mammals sleep for a large proportion of each 24-hour period when they are very young.[50] The giraffe only sleeps 2 hours a day in about 5–15 minute sessions. Koalas are the longest sleeping-mammals, about 20–22 hours a day. However, killer whales and some other dolphins do not sleep during the first month of life.[51] Instead, young dolphins and whales frequently take rests by pressing their body next to their mother’s while she swims. As the mother swims she is keeping her offspring afloat to prevent them from drowning. This allows young dolphins and whales to rest, which will help keep their immune system healthy; in turn, protecting them from illnesses.[52] During this period, mothers often sacrifice sleep for the protection
Injury Compensation Program. Back on January 12, 2011, this writer filed a Whistleblower’s Complaint on Vaccines with Chairman Issa and has yet to receive an acknowledgement of that filing. Isn’t about time to revisit, update, and do more extensive research into the Autism Spectrum Disorder pandemic that is spreading globally? April 24, 2012 Congressman Burton posted a letter to The Hill’s Congress Blog titled, “It is time to re-engage on the autism epidemic.” He also wants to pass legislation to force the President to address the ASD epidemic and its impact on Americans. Burton is committed to helping millions of children, adults, and families afflicted with ASD. We need to support Congressman Burton ASAP and here’s how: Contact the Canary Party to support their Facebook pages to hold Congressional hearings and a White House Conference on Autism. Contact [email protected] Contact Congressman Darrell Issa at the Oversight and Government Reform Committee at 2157 Rayburn House Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20515 or preferably telephone your request for Autism Investigation Hearings to 202-225-5074. For those who want to know about this information, the National Autism Association (www.nationalautism.org) will be holding a rally for toxin-free immunizations in Washington, DC on June 4, 2012, titled “Green Our Vaccines,” which this author thinks is an oxymoron. How can you green vaccines when every ingredient is toxic? Just check out the CDC’s PinkBook Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf. Before I leave this article, I would like VacTruth readers to know that my colleague who also writes for VacTruth, Laraine C Abbey, RN (retired) and I co-edited a 150 page monograph in January 2011 titled Vaccines & Vaccinations: The Need for Congressional Investigation, which you can read in full on VacTruth at http://vactruth.com/vaccines-vaccinations-the-need-for-congressional-investigation/. Apparently others have read it and agree. Congressman Burton, Nurse Abbey and I congratulate you on taking the stand you have, and we offer you our resources in obtaining a Congressional investigation. President Obama, Nurse Abbey and I respectfully request a White House conference on Autism, and we offer you our resources to effectuate a non-biased conference. VacTruth readers, I charge you with spreading this information and article as far and wide as you possibly can so that we can get an investigation that ought to be open, not biased, and the scientific facts—nothing but the facts, like those the monkeys finally had to prove. It was not monkey business; it’s the real deal. References: [1] http://www.ane.pl/pdf/7020.pdf [2] http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/07/laura-hewitson-has-left-the-university-of-pittsburgh/ [3] http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html [4] http://www.vaccineriskawareness.com/Infant-Vaccines-Produce-Autism-Symptoms-In-Primates Photo CreditNew research shows people who have used amphetamines such as benzedrine and dexedrine appear to be at an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a study released February 22 that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 63rd Annual Meeting in Honolulu April 9 to April 16, 2011. Benzedrine and Dexedrine are amphetamines often prescribed to increase wakefulness and focus for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy, a disorder that can cause excessive daytime sleepiness and sudden attacks of sleep. They are also used to treat traumatic brain injuries. The study involved 66,348 people in northern California who had participated in the Multiphasic Health Checkup Cohort Exam between 1964 and 1973 and were evaluated again in 1995. The average age of the participants at the start of the study was 36 years old. Of the participants, 1,154 people had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease by the end of the study. Exposure to amphetamines was determined by two questions: one on the use of drugs for weight loss and a second question on whether people often used Benzedrine or Dexedrine. Amphetamines were among the drugs commonly used for weight loss when this information was collected. According to the study, those people who reported using Benzedrine or Dexedrine were nearly 60 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's than those people who didn't take the drugs. There was no increased risk found for those people who used drugs for weight loss. "If further studies confirm these findings, the potential risk of developing Parkinson's disease from these types of amphetamines would need to be considered by doctors before prescribing these drugs as well as be incorporated into amphetamine abuse programs, including illicit use," said study author Stephen K. Van Den Eeden, PhD, with the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland, Calif. Van Den Eeden explained that amphetamines affect the release and uptake of dopamine, the key neurotransmitter involved in Parkinson's disease. He explained that more research needs to be completed to confirm the association and learn more about possible mechanisms. The study was supported by Kaiser Permanente Northern California.On Thursday, I became one of those bothersome reporters. On the way to the televised town hall, the motorcade made an "OTR" or off-the-record stop to the front lines of a protest of Culinary Union members. Press piled out and quickly swarmed around the senator and his wife, Jane. Somewhere in the melee, I nearly got taken out by a network cameraman after losing my footing inches away from Sanders, who was at that point gleefully yelling about affordable healthcare into a megaphone. Secret service agents, who had earlier swept our bags and persons for hidden weapons, went into defensive mode as reporters mobbed the senator and blocked the flow of protesters. At one point I accidentally bumped into Jane, an unusually gracious woman with very long and soft hair. No wonder Sanders doesn't like the press. He waded through the crowd with great patience however, and while he might occasionally blow off questions in a bit of a bluster, his interactions with individual reporters are generally courteous. As support for the Sanders insurgency has swelled, so too have the senator's staff members, campaign spending, and press efforts. Yet, with growth comes pain. The campaign is still navigating the intricacies of dealing with a newly-inducted secret service team that only joined them less than three weeks ago. They also have to contend with a growing press corps of partially-embedded, camera-toting journalists who frequently get in the way and freak out security by crowding and shoving long lenses into the senator's face. Such is the glamorous life of staffers and reporters trailing one of the most popular candidates in the history of the United States presidential elections. With more than 4 million small campaign donations to his name, Sanders, a 74-year-old Democratic socialist from Vermont, has upset Democrats and challenged everything pundits thought they knew about electability. Over the weekend in Nevada, the senator clambered up from a 25-point disadvantage to establishment favorite Hillary Clinton to narrowly lose and come out just a few delegates behind. The kitchen and bar at the Hilton Garden Inn had long closed by the time the senator's motorcade and press bus rolled in at around 10pm. The hotel staff had left cloched plates of burgers and soggy fries for the campaign who were weary after a long day of flying from Washington DC to Nevada, and then motorcading straight to a series events, including a pit stop at a picket line, a nationally televised town hall, and then a fundraising dinner on the Las Vegas strip. Read more Late on a Thursday night in Elko, Nevada — a town many in the Bernie Sanders press corps hadn't heard of until earlier that day — reporters and campaign staff sat around a T-shaped marble bar drinking bottles of $10.99 Ménage a Trois Red Blend wine. The kitchen and bar at the Hilton Garden Inn had long closed by the time the senator's motorcade and press bus rolled in at around 10pm. The hotel staff had left cloched plates of burgers and soggy fries for the campaign who were weary after a long day of flying from Washington DC to Nevada, and then motorcading straight to a series events, including a pit stop at a picket line, a nationally televised town hall, and then a fundraising dinner on the Las Vegas strip. Such is the glamorous life of staffers and reporters trailing one of the most popular candidates in the history of the United States presidential elections. With more than 4 million small campaign donations to his name, Sanders, a 74-year-old Democratic socialist from Vermont, has upset Democrats and challenged everything pundits thought they knew about electability. Over the weekend in Nevada, the senator clambered up from a 25-point disadvantage to establishment favorite Hillary Clinton to narrowly lose and come out just a few delegates behind. Senator Bernie Sanders encourages culinary union protesters in Las Vegas. Photo by Liz Fields/VICE News As support for the Sanders insurgency has swelled, so too have the senator's staff members, campaign spending, and press efforts. Yet, with growth comes pain. The campaign is still navigating the intricacies of dealing with a newly-inducted secret service team that only joined them less than three weeks ago. They also have to contend with a growing press corps of partially-embedded, camera-toting journalists who frequently get in the way and freak out security by crowding and shoving long lenses into the senator's face. On Thursday, I became one of those bothersome reporters. On the way to the televised town hall, the motorcade made an "OTR" or off-the-record stop to the front lines of a protest of Culinary Union members. Press piled out and quickly swarmed around the senator and his wife, Jane. Somewhere in the melee, I nearly got taken out by a network cameraman after losing my footing inches away from Sanders, who was at that point gleefully yelling about affordable healthcare into a megaphone. Secret service agents, who had earlier swept our bags and persons for hidden weapons, went into defensive mode as reporters mobbed the senator and blocked the flow of protesters. At one point I accidentally bumped into Jane, an unusually gracious woman with very long and soft hair. No wonder Sanders doesn't like the press. He waded through the crowd with great patience however, and while he might occasionally blow off questions in a bit of a bluster, his interactions with individual reporters are generally courteous. Photo by Liz Fields/VICE News Over two days, multiple reporters on the trail would tell me that the Sanders outfit was one the most open campaigns towards media they had ever come across. At the bar Thursday night, staffers who had previously worked in Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaign agreed, saying even they were surprised how much access Sanders's top tier of operatives have granted to the press. Sanders campaign staffers are also a fairly friendly lot. Most have no qualms telling you about their pre-campaign lives or pouring you cups of mate tea from a thermos in the middle of a rally. The senator's head of secret service is the first to say good morning and point you toward the sandwich table. It's always sandwiches at Sanders events, but no one can complain — we're travelling with the socialist candidate after all. The whole vibe typically is a world apart from other candidates' tightly controlled and buttoned-up campaigns. At Donald Trump rallies, bouncer-type security guards gruffly handle reporters and protesters, many times at the direction of the man himself. Most campaigns also regulate the production of their official candidate merchandise, sales from which go directly into their war chests. Sanders staffers on the other hand, tolerate but do not encourage an entourage of travelling salesmen who set up shop outside major events hawking unofficial gear, including hats, badges, and t-shirts bearing the now-famed slogan "Feel the Bern." The level of openness surprised me, not least because Sanders's disdain for corporate media is infamous, and as a rookie embed you're not exactly sure what to expect. Bernie and Jane Sanders deplane their campaign charter, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Reno, Nev. Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP From the very beginning of my two-and-a-half day stint with the Sanders crew, it was apparent that there was a subtle hierarchy separating old embeds — the Washington Post, ABC, and Buzzfeed — who have chased the campaign since last spring, and the troupe of newbies who have jumped on the press wagon in recent weeks. Many in the band of US-based reporters are in their 20s or early 30s, roughly matching the ages of the young high achievers in the Sanders campaign. Most staffers are genuinely and intensely passionate about the senator's message and try to show you campaign videos or tout his message whenever they get the chance. It's almost a sport for campaign staffers and supporters to sway journalists from their stated independence and impartiality. The foreign journalists, of which there are fewer, and the photographers, tend to be a little older than the US embeds, and hang around on the fringes of the louder American network coterie. Related: Sanders Declares Nevada a Victory, Despite Losing to Clinton The age thing matters a little because campaigning is physically demanding and stressful work. Often you don't find out the candidate's packed schedule until hours or minutes beforehand, or while you're already on the campaign bus en route to the next stop. Days often go for longer than 12 hours and take the candidate across multiple cities. The day before the Nevada caucuses, the Sanders campaign took charters to rallies in three locations, each in different corners of the state. Since Sanders himself is in his 70s, some rivals and supporters alike have questioned his ability to see through a general election (considered even tougher than the primary contest) let alone a full term, or two, as president. The senator has routinely shot down those claims, saying he is in perfectly fine health, largely thanks to his youthful days of long-distance running. And despite a slight crack in his voice as he spoke at the fundraising dinner Thursday, Sanders showed pretty good stamina on the trail this week. Reporters following the Sanders campaign deplane the charter in Reno, Nevada. Photo by Liz Fields Among the press pool that trails candidates, it is apparent that alliances have long been drawn along the way. Some relationships have been forged over many months and beers across many states, while others are as fragile and ambiguous as the reporting catchphrase "off the record." For instance, FOX and NBC were previously in Iowa together and lost at least $40 on the Black Jack tables Monday night, while CNN was very excited to bump into CBS at a cocktail bar on Friday, and Politico seemed to recognize all sorts of staffers and obscure politicians from the Washington DC circuit. Yet embed reporters are also friendlier than those found at events open to the public, which are already oversaturated with media. There's a camaraderie you wouldn't ordinarily find, say at a phone drive or rally open to the general scruff of journalists who sometimes outnumber actual participants at those events. Here, in highly coveted seats on campaign busses and charter planes, journalists aren't afraid to be friendly at breakfast the next morning or during long stretches at airport lounges while waiting for secret service to sweep bags. At one particular leg from Elko to Reno, the plane hit rough turbulence as it flew into a mountain-trimmed valley and everyone clung feverishly onto their seats as the vessel flopped through the air. Those kinds of moments when you think you're going to die or pass out or pee your pants can only serve to bring people together. That, and the cheap wine and hotels the campaign organizes for overnight stays. Elko, Nevada. Photo by Liz Fields/VICE News Even Sanders's celebrity surrogates are housed in hotel rooms that are usually around the $100 mark. In Iowa, artists and musicians like Vampire Weekend and Foster the People, who were there to stump and play concerts for Sanders, were put up in poky rooms at the Hampton Inn near the Des Moines airport. In Las Vegas, where hotel rooms are generally cheaper than other cities (they're usually subsidized by the money casinos make off their patrons at the tables) the digs were slightly more upmarket. Some campaign staff stayed at the Flamingo on the strip, while others were put up at the quieter Vdara hotel with the senator and his family. I cut the umbilical cord with the Sanders campaign on Saturday afternoon shortly after Sanders gave his concession speech at an open-aired pavilion on the outskirts of sin city. The message was buoyant — he's looking forward to Super Tuesday and building on the momentum of his support from the last three early states. I arrived to the speech late in an Uber after spending the morning reporting on an at-large caucus in the Caesar's Palace casino hotel and missing the campaign bus. I did however come just in time to see the senator and rest of the media cohort whisked away by secret service to board a charter straight to South Carolina, where another week of sandwiches and cheap hotels await. Follow Liz Fields on Twitter: @lianzifieldsThe single most useful tip I've ever received as a programmer is a bash alias from Damian Conway. I already had a handful of bash aliases squirreled away in my.bashrc, but he showed off an alias called realias : alias realias='$EDITOR ~/.aliases; source ~/.aliases' By moving my aliases into a file called.aliases and adding source ~/.aliases to my.bashrc, I could use the new realias alias to write an alias in the same shell process. Instead of logging in and out of the shell (manually suspending and resuming any work in progress) or remembering to source the same file I was editing, I could add and use an alias immediately. I now use plenty of shell aliases. Only after the tiny pain of setting and using a new alias went away did I realize that the change was an optimization. Put another way, Damian's trick removed a tiny pessimization. Now I use these aliases all the time. I don't have to remember all of the command-line flags to invoke Callgrind or Valgrind in the proper way to profile Parrot or Rakudo. I use the cg and vg aliases. I don't have to remember how to build or publish a book in progress; I use a book-specific alias to build and upload the new version. When I find myself repeating a complex command line and it's suitable for an alias instead of a script, I make an alias then and there. Imagine what would happen if we could identify and remove other tiny pessimizations. Modern::Perl is one attempt to do so. Whenever I use that module, I know what to expect. Whenever I see code which uses that module, I know what to expect as well. I can use say wherever I want without having to remember to use feature'say';. I don't have to remember that the feature description of given / when is switch. Yes, these are tiny little pieces of community knowledge that are easy to learn and reasonably easy to remember and they only trip me up for a second or two when I forget them, but sometimes removing a fraction-of-a-second pessimism is enough to keep my brain focused on what I really want to accomplish, not forehead-slapping minutiae related only to the expression of my desires. Mark Fowler called it the simplest change that'll make the most difference. Adam Kennedy says productivity sometimes means saving ten seconds here and ten seconds there. Does this apply elsewhere? Of course. I have more to write about operator-oriented programming languages, but consider that even C has polymorphic behavior when adding integers and floats and Java's println method supports implicit stringification, if you look at it from one direction. Imagine if you had to be explicit about only being able to print (or concatenate) strings or if you needed a special operator to add numeric values with and without decimal components. Now ask yourself this. What if, in Perl 5, hashes didn't have a single, global iterator? What if, in the Python shell, typing exit actually exited (at least if there were no symbol called exit bound in the current scope)? What if, in JavaScript, you didn't have to create a new function to get a new lexical scope? What if... I'm sure you have your own list. I'm not saying that these changes are easy, nor that they're simple to implement, nor that there aren't valid compatibility reasons to proceed with caution. The world's not that simple. Even still, if we're to replace badvocacy with real, working solutions, we should also consider sanding off the tiny, rough corners of our software that individually are small, ignorable distractions. It's surprising how much easier software is to use when even one tiny pessimization suddenly disappears.High-minded Modernists of the mid-1900s envisioned futuristic all-in-one cities in the sky where we would work, place, live and love, but would have been surprised to learn that their ideal has perhaps been mostly closely realized in the remote village of Whittier, Alaska, where virtually everything happens under one roof. A fourteen-story structure known as Begich Towers, formerly an army barracks, is host to most of the town’s residents as well as its post office, grocery store, health clinic, laundromat and church. Writer Erin Sheehy and photographer Reed Young visited and photographed this remote village, traveling sixty miles from Anchorage, Alaska and through a 2.5 mile, one-lane tunnel to get to there (shown below). This is a place of extremes, which helps explain why its occupants are happy to stay indoors as much as possible – average snowfalls of 250 inches (up to 400 inches some years) and glass-shattering winds make using underground tunnels a preferred means of getting to the few other buildings in town, including the local school. The other large structure in the area is the Buckner Building (below), abandoned but favored by youth who need to get out and go somewhere. Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation comes to mind, a Brutalist village-in-the-sky concept with alternating floors and complex sections designed to accommodate layers of living, working, shopping and recreating throughout. Ultimately its realization devolved into a typical apartment complex, but the external factors simply weren’t there to reinforce it as an internally self-sufficient community. The concept has also been called an arcology, a portmanteau of “architecture” and “ecology”, used in science fiction and futurology. More from Young about the town year-round: “In the summertime Whittier is bustling. Seasonal workers come for jobs on fishing boats, charter boats, or in the cannery, and cruise ships bring hundreds of thousands of tourists to the harbor. But thriving harbor industries—freight, fishing, tourism—don’t seem to translate into growth for the city.” Like a college town times a few thousand, with visitors far outnumbering actual residents – hundreds of thousand visit the area annually but most drop off for just part of a day then get back on their train or cruise ship and leave town again. It is, in a way, a company town, but it can also be claustrophobic for those used to warmer climates and more private spaces. “The Alaska Railroad Corporation is the majority landowner in Whittier, but it doesn’t pay property taxes, and it employs few residents. A supply barge comes into town once a week, but most of the workers who unload the freight commute from Anchorage. Not everyone who tries to live in Begich Towers can take it—a newcomer from Florida compared it to jail—and there simply isn’t much space on which to build alternate housing” Aside from the four-image montage, additional images for this story by Travis, nate’sgirl, davidd, Frank Kovalchek, Ross Fowler and Brian Digital.Coral reefs are dying around the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia at rates that may be the worst ever recorded, scientists said this week. Death rates as high as 80 percent have been recorded for some species, according to the study performed by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University. “It is certainly the worst coral die-off we have seen since 1998. It may prove to be the worst such event known to science,” said Andrew Baird, a principal research fellow for James Cook University in Australia. The coral bleaching extends from the Seychelles in the middle of the Indian Ocean to the Philippines in Southeast Asia and encompasses much of the Coral Triangle, an area scientists refer to as the “Amazon rainforest of the seas” or the most diverse marine ecosystem on Earth. A mass of abnormally hot water which moved into the Indian Ocean several months ago is behind the bleaching, according to the ARC report. The hot water caused the corals to shed microscopic algae which help nourish them. The algae also give color to the corals, so when the algae are gone, the corals starve and appear white or bleached. Dive operators reported water temperatures were 4 degrees Centigrade higher than average during the die-off, according to the ARC report. The scientists said coral coverage in the affected areas could drop from 50 percent to 10 percent, hurting fishing and tourist industries over the long term as dead reefs support less marine life than live ones. And with that loss of diversity, they attract fewer fishermen and fewer divers. “While it may take up to two years for some fish species to be affected by the loss of coral habitat, fisheries yields will decline and this combined with a drop in the number of scuba divers visiting could have major long-term effects on the local economy,” Baird said in a statement. Baird blamed “human-induced global warming” for the decline of the corals and said action must be taken to reduce carbon emissions that help retain heat in the atmosphere. “This is not just about warmer temperatures: it is also threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of people and potentially the stability of our region,” Baird said in a statement.What is it? WDigest.dll was introduced in the Windows XP operating system. The Digest Authentication protocol is designed for use with Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Simple Authentication Security Layer (SASL) exchanges, as documented in RFCs 2617 and 2831. Many people think of Digest Authentication as a protocol that is used with Web browsers for authenticating users browsing the Internet. However, Digest Authentication is also a general purpose protocol that can be used for authentication, and by using SASL, it can provide integrity protection. For example, you can use Digest Authentication for: Authenticated client access to a Web site Authenticated client access using SASL Authenticated client access with integrity protection to a directory service using LDAP Why is it bad? The problem with WDigest is that it stores passwords in memory in clear-text and it does this whether you use it or not. WDigest cannot function unless the password is kept in memory in clear-text, so its impossible to fix if you use WDigest. The following OS’s are impacted: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008R2, and Windows Server 2012. Example Below is an example of running WDigest on Windows Server 2008 R2 using Meterpreter. The red arrow points to the user’s passwords, which can now be used to pivot to other machines and possibly other networks (password reuse anyone?). Before Fix After Fix How to Fix it Before disabling WDigest, first, make sure your environment isn’t using it by looking at your servers and domain controllers logs or SIEM for event id 4776 and 4624. More info can be found at the bottom of this link. I haven’t come across an app yet that uses WDigest. If you have seen WDigest still in use today, please contact me or post below. After you’ve verified WDigest isn’t in use in your environment follow the recommendations below: Windows Server 2008: Remove WDigest from \HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Security Packages and then reboot the server. Before After removal and rebooting Windows Server 2008 R2-2012, Windows 7, Windows 8: Download and install KB2871997 and then create/set UseLogonCredential = dword:00000000 in \HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\WDigest Windows Server 2012 R2-2016: WDigest is disabled by default, do nothing 🙂 Summary If you can, disable WDigest across your entire environment from workstations to servers to domain controllers. The fixes are fairly straight forward and work every time. Credential harvesting has been big in the past and will definitely be big in the future as seen in the Petya malware. I will soon post an article on how to stop NTLM hashes from being kept in memory, so stay tuned! If you have questions, please post below or message me directly. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps! Sources KB2871997 What is Digest Authentication? Dumping WDigest Creds with Meterpreter Mimikatz/Kiwi in Windows 8.1Samsung Offices Raided In An Investigation Involving A Dressage Horse Enlarge this image toggle caption Park Dong-joo/Yonhap via AP Park Dong-joo/Yonhap via AP Prosecutors raided the offices of Samsung Electronics on Tuesday as part of an investigation into a presidential cronyism scandal that's gripped South Korea. While it is a near-monthly occurrence for a chaebol (family-owned conglomerate) in Korea to be under investigation and/or raided by prosecutors as a result — and they're usually slightly staged affairs — the reason for this week's raid of Samsung is more obscure: elite horse competitions! Samsung is suspected of giving as much as $3 million in secret to support the equestrian training and Olympic dreams of Choi Soon-sil's 20-year old daughter. Who is Choi? She is a longtime friend and adviser to President Park Geun-hye, who's at the center of Korea's widening abuse-of-power scandal. Choi is currently in jail on charges of abuse of power and fraud, said to have such wide control over state affairs despite no official positions that's she's being called "the power behind the throne." Prosecutors believe she enriched herself to the tune of millions by peddling her closeness to and influence over Park. Enriching herself may have included her family, which is where Samsung comes in. There are some connections between the company and equestrian activities. The Korea Joongang Daily reports: "Samsung Electronics CEO Park [Sang-jin] is president of the Korean Equestrian Foundation (KEF), whose headquarters was also raided Tuesday morning. Prosecutors suspect some of 3.5 billion won [$3 million] sent by the company was spent on purchasing a horse and arranging a training session for Choi's daughter Chung Yoo-ra, a dressage athlete." Prosecutors and the company have confirmed the raid but made no further comment. Samsung being a Korean chaebol, and 'raiding chaebols' being a common practice here, this isn't the first time. In a notable 2011 raid of Samsung, antitrust regulators were looking for evidence of collusion to fix the prices mobile phones. Samsung was able to buy some extra time before investigators got in, and during that time some employees went as far as swallowing some of the evidence, according to a Kurt Eichenwald piece in Vanity Fair. "Employees at the plant began destroying documents and switching computers, replacing the ones that were being used — and might have damaging material on them — with others," he wrote. Local media video indicates Samsung cooperated with Tuesday's raid, which is part of a criminal investigation. It's just one part of a much larger domestic scandal, for now. Globally, Samsung has bigger brand worries to consume it, as it continues to apologize for its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 phones, which were completely pulled from the market last month for safety reasons. Haeryun Kang contributed to this story.Customer loyalty program startup Thanx launched today with both a Visa and MasterCard partnership and $4.7 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital. An earlier seed round from SoftTech VC of $1.3 million brings the total funding raised to $6 million. Thanx might have its work cut out for it, though. Most people don’t want to take the time fill out a form, carry around an extra rewards card, scan their phone like they do with Belly or type in their email or phone number every time they’re at checkout. And despite the 2.65 billion loyalty memberships in the U.S., about 60 percent go inactive within the first year and 30 percent of rewards go unredeemed, according to Colloquy. But Thanx is attempting to give you rewards without you having to do anything other than shop. Larger merchants like Sephora or Anthropologie do something similar to this. You do have to opt in to their rewards programs and give an email at the cash register to redeem, but it’s much easier than fumbling for a card. You also get the reward instantly. No saving coupons or bringing in old receipts to redeem the value. But they’re big enough to have the resources to make their own, internal system. Thanx is making a plug-and-play rewards platform for the smaller merchant the same way Square did with the cash register. Square already has a customer rewards system in place for its merchants to use. But this is more like a traditional point-of-sale system many retail businesses already use. The consumer still has to identify herself with her email address every time she makes a purchase and there’s no credit card integration. If the customer forgets to enter an email address or hasn’t hooked that up with Square, they forgo the reward. “Loyalty programs that require a customer to take action each time they make a transaction or engage with your brand create a lot of consumer friction,” explains Thanx founder Zach Goldstein. Thanx isn’t tied to a POS and works regardless of what system is in place, simply by using your Visa or MasterCard. Goldstein says this means it can actually work with Square merchants without them needing to change their system. The two largest “loyalty” markets in the U.S. are credit cards and travel/hospitality (airlines, hotels, car rental agencies etc.). Thanx simply pushes cash directly back to your credit card without you having to remember to do something. It also sends push notifications alerting you to the availability of a discount or reward from the merchant. At this point you may be thinking about privacy concerns and just how much credit card and other information Thanx might have, should you decide to use it. According to Goldstein they don’t even touch the credit card number. That’s all handled by your credit card company. Thanx does, however, track consumer information using what it calls the “Winback Campaigns” system in order to market to them. Merchants are able to pinpoint their most loyal customers, as well as customers they might be on the edge of losing, and push rewards or discounts to customers accordingly. Thanx also integrates with Apple Pay. Right now this makes it the only rewards provider working with the new cardless payment system from Apple. The startup relied on a number of data partnerships with payment card processors such as First Data to test the concept before adding Apple Pay and the two credit card companies. The partnerships with Visa and MasterCard now make it possible for all U.S. merchants to use the backend marketing campaign system. Goldstein plans to use the new cash to create more products in the marketing campaign suite and to build out the engineering and sales departments for his San Francisco-based team.Christian Petersen/Getty Images It's time to meet the Baltimore Ravens' 2015 first-round draft pick, UCF wide receiver Breshad Perriman. Drafted with the 26th overall pick, Perriman became the first receiver the Ravens spent a first-round pick on since Mark Clayton in 2005. This past season as a junior, Perriman caught 50 passes for 1,044 yards (20.9 avg) and nine touchdowns, all of which led the team. He later declared for the 2015 draft, finishing his college career with 115 receptions for 2,243 yards (19.5 avg) and 16 scores in three years. Measurements Height: 6'2" Weight: 212 lbs Arm Length: 32" Hands: 9 ¼" Perriman is a big receiver who does a good job of using his body to box out defenders for contested passes, making him an ideal red-zone target. For a receiver with his size to average almost 20 yards per catch over his career shows how much of a deep threat and big-play receiver Perriman was. How Does He Fit with the Team? Ironically, Baltimore drafted Perriman to replace its former big-play receiver in Torrey Smith. He left this offseason to sign with the San Francisco 49ers. Smith was one of Baltimore's top offensive weapons over the past four seasons, catching 213 passes for 3,591 yards (16.9 avg) and a franchise-record 30 touchdowns. That included a career-high 11 scores in 2014, and it will be up to Perriman to replace that production. Baltimore still has little depth at this position, not to mention no clear-cut No. 2 receiver heading into next season. Steve Smith is the current No. 1. But he turns 36 in May, and this could be the year he finally wears down to the point that he's only a No. 3 or 4 wideout. All of this is why Perriman could be in for as big of a rookie season as any rookie from this draft class. That is if he's able to translate what made him a dominant college receiver into the NFL. Scouting Report What made Perriman special was his blazing speed that often left defenders embarrassed with how badly he beat them. That was evident at Perriman's pro day, where he recorded a 4.25 40-yard dash, per Ryan Gillespie of Central Florida Future. Had he ran that time at the scouting combine, it would have been the fastest of any receiver there. Having the kind of speed Perriman has to go with his size is what makes him special and why he'll make an impact on Baltimore's offense as a rookie. That's evident in Lance Zierlein's NFL.com profile on Perriman: Height, weight and speed numbers that every team covets. Quick accelerator off the snap and destroys the cushion, forcing cornerbacks into "turn-and-run" mode. More sudden than most big receivers. Able to break routes off sharply or go from stop to start instantly. Consistent separation at top of his route. Always gets over the top of cornerbacks on verticals. Explosive leaper with timing and catch radius to make the difficult catches look easy.Shows off plus body control and ball tracking on deep ball. Athleticism and long speed for yards-after-catch production.
AMC loves Chris Hardwick. The cable network, who now shares its Talking Dead host with Comedy Central, has ordered a TV version of his web series All-Star Celebrity Bowling. The eight-episode order, hosted by Randy and Jason Sklar, will feature different casts of celebrities facing off on the lanes for charity each week. And the High Noon Productions series is just one of three new reality shows getting series orders at AMC as the network continues to grow its unscripted roster. Celebrity Bowling's pilot episode features some network promotion with Jon Hamm and the cast of Mad Men facing off against Hardwick's Nerdist team. Other new series are an untitled wrestling project from Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. It will follow Corgan in his new job as creative director of Chicago-based wrestling league Resistance Pro -- and comes from Small Town Security producers Left/Right. An hourlong format, its first season is for an eight-episode order. Lastly, there's Visionaries (working title), a workplace docuseries about the employees of Hollywood prop and set design outfit Vision Scenery. The half-hour is getting six episodes. “These three new series represent AMC’s continuing push to find truly original ideas and explore fascinating worlds,” said AMC senior vp unscripted programming Eliot Goldberg. “We are thrilled to continue our incredible partnership with Chris Hardwick, host of our most successful unscripted series, Talking Dead, and with Left/Right, one of the most innovative producers in the business. We can’t wait to bring these three extremely entertaining series to viewers next year.”Judge Dismisses Organic Farmers' Case Against Monsanto Enlarge this image toggle caption Daniel Acker/Landov Daniel Acker/Landov A New York federal court today dismissed a lawsuit against agribusiness giant Monsanto brought by thousands of certified organic farmers. The farmers hoped the suit would protect them against infringing on the company's crop patents in the future. The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and several other growers and organizations do not use Monsanto seeds. But they were betting that the judge would agree that Monsanto should not be allowed to sue them if pollen from the company's patented crops happened to drift into their fields. Instead, the judge found that plaintiffs' allegations were "unsubstantiated... given that not one single plaintiff claims to have been so threatened." The ruling also found that the plaintiffs had "overstate[d] the magnitude of [Monsanto's] patent enforcement." Monsanto brings an average of 13 patent-enforcement lawsuits per year, which, the judge said, "is hardly significant when compared to the number of farms in the United States, approximately two million." The company, meanwhile, asserts that it doesn't exercise its patent rights when trace amounts of its patented traits inadvertently end up in farmers' fields. Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation and lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told The Salt that Monsanto remains a "patent bully" and that the judge's decision was "gravely disappointing." The plaintiffs have not yet decided if they will appeal. Much of the corn, soy, canola and cotton grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. Among them, corn is the most likely to cross-pollinate with plants in nearby fields. That means that genes from genetically modified crops can drift or "trespass" into organic fields. As Dan Charles reported last year, most organic corn in the U.S. typically contains anywhere from half a percent to 2 percent GMOs, according to companies that sell such corn to organic dairies or poultry farmers. It has been that way since genetically engineered corn and soybeans came into wide use more than a decade ago. But organic farmers say that GMO contamination could hurt the value of their crop, and they fear lawsuits from Monsanto for possessing their GM genes without paying for them. The documentary Food Inc. portrayed the company as aggressively suing farmers who save its patented seed. Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Advisory Committee on Biotechnology in the 21st Century began discussing ways to protect organic farmers from contamination. "Beyond whatever happens with this suit, there are some very legitimate issues behind it," Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells The Salt. "There is already a significant burden to organic food production, and there is more coming. It raises the question: Is it possible for organic agriculture to survive in the face of GM crops?" Monsanto sees it differently, however. In a statement on the judge's decision, executive vice president David F. Snively said, "This decision is a win for all farmers as it underscores that agricultural practices such as ag biotechnology, organic and conventional systems do and will continue to effectively coexist in the agricultural marketplace."Andre Villas-Boas: Backing Vertonghen over Torres incident The Belgium defender was involved in a running battle with Torres which culminated in the Spaniard's dismissal for a second yellow card - prompting Blues boss Jose Mourinho to launch a scathing post-match analysis of Vertonghen's contribution. But with Torres waiting on the FA to rule on the incident that saw him raise his hands to Vertonghen's face, Villas-Boas has issued an endorsement of his player's 'values.' The Portuguese coach told Sky Sports News: "Well I think the incident is pretty clear and people must draw their own conclusions from what they saw. "What we have with Jan, he is only in his second year and he has become the captain of Spurs as well. He is one of our captains elected by myself and by the club because he has been that type of leader and that type of person for his last years with the national team and with Ajax. So he is a person that we hold high in the team. "I'm extremely happy that most of the media saw the incident, knows about Jan's values and have decided to draw positive conclusions about him and about his character. "So that's the end of the matter for us. We believe in the player a lot and we believe he is more than a great player and a great person." Spurs are currently sitting just two points off the top of the Premier League with only Arsenal and Liverpool above them, but Villas-Boas expects a resurgence from the likes of champions Manchester United. He said: "At the moment it's very, very tight. We've played Chelsea and Arsenal, most of the teams have played big teams already. "Probably the most dramatic of calendars was given to Man United and maybe that's reflected on their position at the moment and the number of points that they receive, but now they have other fixtures that they can recover. "Even so they come from a difficult result to take at home against West Brom so I wouldn't say that you can see any pattern at the moment but it's coming like we predicted at the beginning, it's going to be very tight at the top." On rumours that out-of-favour striker Emmanuel Adebayor will be sent out on loan, he added: "At the moment he's come back into the team to train, which he hasn't done since the Hong Kong trip, so at the moment we are monitoring how the player develops his fitness and challenges for his place in the team. We're not considering anything."Asset courtesy of Fine Devils Films. \| Art by Noel Ransome It's exhausting to know that racial profiling and police brutality can be an actual debate. The very word implies that there's some sort of argument to be had to the former, to which I can only reply with a: bullshit. The evidence has been everywhere, and as a black man, I envy the internalized privilege it takes to be able to provide excuses to something not experienced. The endless ways folks of colour have attempted to shed understanding have come in some of the most direct ways, but we're reaching point where the direct approach may not be the answer. This applies most to the film space, where black directors are trying to find new ways to make the messages of racism and discrimination satirically clear; see Get Out. Canadian director Cory Bowles, also known as Cory from the Trailer Park Boys, wants to be one of the many black directors to do that with his new film, Black Cop. Part political drama and satire; it tackles the issue through the vantage point of a black cop who decides to flip the script to the norm, and unfairly target the everyday white man. During the Toronto Film Festival, I sat down with Cory to talk about this film, and why he felt a direct message like this was necessary. VICE: I just gotta admit, as a black man, it was a little satisfying seeing this black guy do to these white people the same things black folks have been going through from some white cops for ages. I want to know why you even chose to take that direction. Cory Bowles: I wanted to say, you see what it's like? Because people just don't understand otherwise. They can be told what it looks like, but they always feel like they know more. Like I don't know how many times we get "explained" when we ourselves are trying to explain something, when we're saying, man, this is unfair, and people go, you know what? If he hadn't done this in the first place, blah blah. There's a scene in my movie where our black cop goes after a white women who we later find out is pregnant. It's a horrible moment but we deal with these people all the time saying, oh this women was a bad mother for saying something to the police. Not about the police taking her down because she's pregnant. I wanted people to have a taste, here's what it looks like and what drives this film besides the actual officer is literally social media. A lot of those film conversations that you hear throughout are almost exactly what you'd hear on Twitter, Facebook and the like. People justifying it. So I'm taking that same justification and using it to argue that it's okay for him to do these things. It's also ironic that something like that can come off as absurd. People watching it, they're cringing, and a lot of times you're preaching to the choir, and other times you only hope that they'll say, oh, that's what it's like. Talk about the moment when he does a 180, from an arrogant cop to one that feels the same way as the protestors. There's a scene when he's stopped in a hoody by two fellow officers, and during the altercation, he never once announces that he's an officer in the scene. Was that shown that way intentionally? Yeah it was. He starts to announce it. He starts to speak with them but they silence him. And finally, I think it's the moment when they say his name and he see's what can happen just moments before, when he's just like, fuck you guys. It's one of those things where that's the moment when we all say, he could of handled it differently, or he's changing through all the microaggressions and the various things coming in on him, he's just felt like he wasn't going to take this anymore. It's like, you don't need to know who I am. So yeah, it's totally intentional. I don't know how many times I felt that way myself. With some people you just gotta comply, and everyone always says, you just gotta stop and do what the cop says, and I'm like, you don't know how a cop treats you as opposed to how they treat us, because you've never been stopped by a cop, and for us it's yesterday. That frustration, that anger in that moment he decides to he's just going to be what they want him to be. I think he's defined in that moment with some big risk attached. Cory Bowles via Twitter. I know you grew up in Nova Scotia, what else was brought to the film personally? Sure. I mean I haven't had very extreme experiences, but I still have, which is funny because I'm so light skinned, which is amazing. But there are times when I have because I look different compared to everyone else. I've called the cops before on something that was going on across my street. I came out to greet them, and I was the one they immediately went to, where they said, get your hands out of your pockets, put your hands up, don't speak. And it was like, that's the reality and you want to throw a punch man, you do. You don't want to say anything. And you're so furious when they get it wrong and still don't care, and don't apologize, they just go, well, you know how it is. You get a lot of examples like that when you're young. Now I have to challenge you on something, because I'm a journalist after all. Black men are criminalized more than most, and here you have this black cop, who is also a black man, being criminalized in order to get your point across. Did you foresee that this could present a problem with some people? Yeah, I totally did. And that's that conundrum. Again, that's where he's between a rock and a hard place. This is a guy who is compassionate and wrong when the movie says he fucked up. And yeah, there's always a better way to fight discrimination. I took that stance and I think there will be people who won't understand it, I think there will be people who will ultimately look at him as a bad character. He's certainly not perfect at the beginning of the film, or at the end. But I'm not afraid of it because I know he's not a bad character, he's a good human that's going through trauma. And it's a very real trauma that he's kind of turned his back on a little bit. At the same time, this is a cop who has a warped way of thinking because he talks about arresting black kids, so he could make sure to keep the other white officers away before thing get out of hand. He has to get there first. Maybe he changes as a character, maybe he gets away with it, maybe he doesn't, but I feel like I need to challenge my own feelings on this matter sometimes. It's not like devil's advocacy, it's because I believe in a lot of that stance. Not the actual physicality but I believe in that conundrum, because you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. And they're going to paint you as something. Sure, you can take what you call the high road or you can take the other option, which is also the high road. And in this case, he literally just says, fuck all that, I'm not going to be your ngger, and I'm going to be your'man", and I'm going to be real fucking mad and throw it back at you. And in a sense, that's a bit more of a warrior spirit then anything. And where do you stand, were you rooting for him deep down? I think it's wrong, but I think his feelings are real. And sometimes, I feel like it's a personified social media I guess. We type and we type, but he just "did" what we thought. We're at a time when people just throw shit right back at you, the second someone is like, oh look at this black person, this one act of violence, to counter 43 of them yesterday. It's kind of like, I get that. I'm not rooting when someone fights back, or when someone unloads or does a horrible thing. I don't root for that. In a way, this is an exploration of a lot of different things, and I took the anger route to sort of personify the argument a little bit. Man, that's a really great question. Thank you (laughs) No man, this is what I want people to talk about with this movie. I want them to have inner conflicts because we go through these things, and it's so much easier for other people outside of this. We're constantly on the receiving end of a lot of bullshit and it's so dismissed and it's a conundrum when we speak up about it and when we argue it. The second we say something, we're a hate group and all of a sudden people use that as ammo. Well I dare you to use it. There's an infinite amount of stories about police brutality out there, yet some people don't seem to take it in. So black directors like yourself are able to shout these truths in unique ways, like in Get Out. What do you think about the future potential for black cinema with these messages? There's a place for it. It's going to get really, really defensive very fast. Before people really see what we're exploring in this, and they see what we're examining, before it catches on, there'll be the defense of, what if we as white people also made a movie like that? Which to say, there's a lot of movies like that already. It's called movies. I hope the conversation doesn't become trendy though because when it becomes trendy, it'll be for the wrong reasons and it won't be black filmmakers behind it. And that's when we'll see exploitation come back around again. But I do think we're at a time when people are listening to black film makers and they're going to have to listen to it. It's funny, before it was normal for us to make movies where it had to be a comedy, or had to be a bit of a spiritual message or something. Times are changing. I don't know what it'll look like, but I'm happy about it. Man, I just heard about Spike Lee coming back with the Black Klansman, and I was like, say what? Movie still from Black Clop. I just retweeted that before this interview, it looks great. Just the concept of Jordan Peele and Spike Lee coming together. I know right? It's great. I'm cheering. And people will get mad at that but people do revenge films all the time. It's funny how we'll do movies that will have something dealing with slavery, then you ask, why do we always have to have movies about slavery? Because it's a that happened they'll say. So why do we have to have Westerns? Why do we have to have war movies? This is the thing. Django Unchained is "OK", but if Spike made Django, the exact same movie, there would probably be a different conversation about it. Your city in this movie is not identifiable in this movie, but you're a Canadian director, how do you feel this film is important to the Canadian idea of racism in Canada? It's certainly a North American thing. There's carding here, and there was just a study in Halifax where there's an overwhelming amount of traffic stops and pull overs for people of colour. So I hope some people relate to it, and I hope some people understand it. Because as Canadians, we're the same way, when something happens, they just say, it's the race card, or it's this or that. And I don't think they will realize how un-blanketed it is here. It's here. I hope it connects. I did intend to mask Halifax and make it just an any city, because I feel like it's an any city, the same way that nobody has a name in the movie except the youth that died. I was thinking, man. This is the guy that's going to kill someone. In that moment, I thought, this is why I'm making this movie. What's the lasting impression you want folks to come away with? I want them to come away with something at least. Come away with a new perspective. Maybe they'll give the next person they see a chance. I'll tell you an interesting story. I was afraid of this movie when I finished it. We were doing the shoot and there were two times when we had to have police officers and the night of the profiling scene, we had a black police officer who was really great. He had been in the community for a long time, he goes to the heavy areas and he's really about going door to door to the people he's arrested before, checking up on him, and it's a fight for him. It's a really a fight for him to maintain that trust and he's that cop that really is in there trying to make a difference, and he's also in there trying to make sure everybody is safe. He's had a lot of experience on the force and he felt really moved watching that profiling scene because he admitted that it happened to him. He's been pulled aside, and there were times when he went home and cried. But he felt that deep down, he was doing the right thing, and he's frustrated and just trying to make sure that he takes care of his own. And I thought it was pretty deep. Two days later, we had another cop, he was a rookie and he wasn't a black officer, just a young Caucasian dude. He was really interested in getting weaponized, wanted to be SWAT some day because you get a lot of weapons, and was really talking about how quickly he could disarm someone and showing us examples of how easy it is to break someone's leg, or how just the other day he gave someone a pinch and got their hands off the wheel, and he was excited to move into the North End because that's where all the action was, the crime. And I live there, where he's talking about, and I was thinking, man. This is the guy that's going to kill someone. In that moment, I thought, this is why I'm making this movie. Because he was watching our shoot and he's like, you wouldn't wear your belt like that. It's like everything went past him. It was so scary to me, that moment. This is what's going on right now and this is the difference between a guy that was from the community, who is there because he wants to help and then someone from the outside coming because the action is there, and that was a whole other question. I don't know how we deal with this. Follow Noel Ransome on Twitter.THE DEDICATION ON STAYING WITH YOUR WIFE AND KIDS ON BETH, A GORGEOUS BUT MINDLESS GIRLFRIEND ON CATS ON CHILDREN’S BOOKS VARIOUS GAY STUFF ONE LAST THING ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY (IT'S AN IMMATURE CHOICE TO AVOID RESPONSIBILITY) ON TRUE LOVE AND TRUST FINALLY: ROBIN WILLIAMS I just re-read Private Parts for the first time since I was 17, to see how “the fastest-selling book in Simon & Shuster’s history” held up after 21 years. There's been a lot of talk in the Stern world in recent years about how Howard's evolved since the '90s, so I thought I'd highlight some examples here.“To my wife, Alison, …… who loved me before I had a radio show.”Married the ultimate material girl, who lives for five-figure designer handbags and dresses, jewelry that costs more than cars and even houses, and has a $10,000,000 closet – just in her third home.“If you have kids, you live with the kids. You don’t move out on your wife.Nobody follows that. They don’t realize that’s the secret to life.Divorced six years after writing this, leaving his wife to raise the kids. Claims he went on a “mad tear” after he left, using every woman he met for sex before settling down with a woman 18 years younger than him.(from college)“Her name was Beth and I knew at least three guys she’d already slept with … The problem was she was pretty mindless. We had nothing in common. I had nothing to say to her. But she was gorgeous. So I fucked her again.”Same.http://i.*************/i/pix/2013/06/23/article-0-1A762CCF000005DC-390_634x903.jpg“My mother was convinced that pets actually drain energy out of the humans who own them.Owns six resident cats, and houses dozens of foster kittens throughout the year. Is trying to get audience and friends to donate $7 million dollars to build playground resort for homeless cats in the Hamptons.“First of all, it’s easy to write a children’s book. I have to make up stories every night for my kids. Last night I made up one right on the spot for my daughters:And it lived happily ever after.”His second wife recently wrote and published a children’s book about a cat with a sad heart who becomes cured when he’s adopted into the Stern home and discovers his purpose.“Then, at this tender age [13], I had my first homosexual experience. … One day at my house my stupid friends suggested that we masturbate … each other. I wasn’t interested in him seeing my little dick, so I reluctantly agreed to help him out. He pulled his pants down around his ankles. I started to rub his dick up and down when he told me I was doing it all wrong.”“’Take off your pants,’ she said. ‘Let me see what you’ve got.’‘I don’t have any problem with that. You’re a guy.’ I stood there in my underpants and she grabbed my balls and cock with those manly mitts of hers. Some things a doctor can’t change.“What I figure is someone did fuck [Alison] in the ass and it was a disaster. All I know is that there’s no drug or liquor strong enough on the planet Earth to get her to do that. I even tried to ease her into it by sticking a finger or two up there but she freaked out and said she was uncomfortable. Finally, I asked her if she would do that to me. I even went on my TV show and during a takeoff on ‘The Newlywed Game’ that we called the Sternlywed’s Game,Still nothing. So far, she’s gotten as far as spreading my cheeks apart.when I was in the shower. I lathered up my butt and put my finger up there, but I didn’t get turned on.”“One morning when she got up, she was nude and grabbed my hand and said, ‘Come with me.’ I stumbled out of bed and I got my underwear on because I was totally self-conscious about anyone else in the house seeing my little mushroom. She led me down the hall and then“Besides his general nuttiness, I was always fascinated by his sexuality.”Overcoming Homosexuality, and I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight on why men become homosexuals. Many people today lean toward the revisionist theory that homosexuality is biologically determined. In my opinion, homosexuality is just another way of denying adulthood. When you’re with another guy you don’t have to deal with the responsibilities of a traditional family. You extend the joys of your prepubescense. You’re stuck in the phase of your life where you just hang out with the boys. It’s a simpler time. And a gross sign of immaturity. I believe homosexual behavior is not genetic but a deeply rooted defense mechanism that allows the human mind to ward off outside pressures. Like obsessive-compulsive behavior, alcoholism, or gambling addictions, homosexual behavior can be changed.”Howard recently declared, "Gay people are God's gift to the world."“I’ve got to admit, it’s somewhat tempting to [get a little money in my pocket and dump Alison]. But I love my wife and my wife loved me when I was a bum. She was actually proud of me and brought me to her parents’ house, even when I had no job. And her parents treated me like a human being even though I disgusted myself. I wanted to be in radio but I had no voice, no delivery, nothing. But they treated me as if I was normal.“So when I get tempted by one of these little bims, I look at my bim and I know that she’s the best bim on the planet for me. I’m never going to do any better. She truly loves me. And true love is a hard thing to find, remember that. I trust my wife, and I’m so paranoid I don’t trust anybody. I know she would never betray me. Any woman I meet now I could never trust.”Has no relationship with his wife’s family. Doesn’t trust his wife alone with other men (not for a massage, not for a photo shoot – because he doesn’t trust men to control themselves around her, he claims). Insists on wearing condoms every time they have sex (and keeps the condoms locked away in a safe).Howard is still in mourning over the death of his beloved Robin, a comedy genius.P.S.Tickets for the New England Patriots' 2014 home games will go on sale and become available to the public on July 15 at 10 a.m., the team announced Thursday. The Patriots currently boast a 216-game sellout streak that spans the tenure of owner Robert Kraft, including all preseason, regular-season and playoff games starting with the 1994 regular-season home opener. Fans wishing to purchase tickets should go online to ticketmaster.com or by calling 800-745-3000. Tickets can't be purchased in person at Gillette Stadium. Call 508-384-9191 for seating that is wheelchair-accessible. Visa is the only acceptable method of payment. The Patriots expect the sellout streak to continue for the 21st season in a row, as all regular-season tickets tend to sell out in a matter of minutes. Each fan is limited to four tickets per game.Sometimes we need to break something down to understand it. Sometimes new ideas come from reusing existing ones. Sometimes all you need is maths to work it out. With that in mind here’s some basic eurovisionr maths (for super Eurovision fans)… One “I’ve got it – Sweden have been doing pretty well recently, so what if we take all the best bits of their performances and make a whole new guaranteed super winner?!” *(Not actually guaranteed) Two You can hear Molly Pettersson Hammar’s influence all over that vocal. Good job they’ve got her on backing vocals for the live shows! Three Start with literally any Woodkid video add the folk/hip hop crossover of Donatan & Cleo My Słowianie and you get Greece 2016. Four Ever imagined what Regina from OUAT would look like with Ellie Golding’s Skrillex hair? Voila – Poli Genova! Five What if Kurt Calleja taught Ann Sophie to dance? Oh look, it’s Barei! Six Can you imagine if he brought out the rest of Westlife to be his backing singers though? Seven If Cascada’s electronica married the sultry scandipop of Margaret Berger they’d birth little Icebreakers all over the place. Eight The Baltic plan; 1. Rank in the Top 10 2. Sack anyone else you were working with 3. Write almost the same song again 4. Get someone different to sing it 5. Release. Also using this technique? Latvia. Nine Combine the retro influences of Basim and Ann Sophie and get April Kepner from Grey’s Anatomy to sing it. Seem familiar now? And finally… Ten? The most European of entries (a Turkish singer, Turkish composer, Greek lyricist, French backing signers/dancers…), San Marino’s song this year could claim to be from practically anywhere except San Marino. Not that it really matters, of course. And now you know exactly what’s going on why not let us know any other comparisons you’ve spotted in the comments? Or if you think you know what adds up to a winner, try it out on the homepage! Psst….Want to use these GIFs? Visit our page on GIPHY!You are seeing this message because you have javascript disabled. To use our slideshows you need to enable javascript. There's no cross domain hackery or tracking voodoo, it's just some sweet jQuery animations. Please, think of the animations. In the meantime, enjoy the html version below. I guess. If that's your thing. Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn By DC Collectibles [View All on One Page] At this year’s Toy Fair, held once again in New York City, DC Collectibles unveiled the latest statue in their impressive Gotham City Garage line. As a follow up to last year’s Catwoman statue, for 2015 we’re getting Joker’s main squeeze, Harley Quinn. And just like Catwoman, the pictures I took of this new Harley Quinn statue just don’t do her justice. Designed by Dustin Nguyen and sculpted by Adam Ross and James Marsano, Harley is, top to bottom, a fun statue. From the lit “Acme” bomb to the bike itself, Harley is definitely a handful of trouble. To be sure, though, it’s a bit of a different interpretation of her. While the classic elements that make up Harley are there, she has a faux-’50s feel to her. The one thing I’m not so crazy about is the chest tattoo; while it is a cool design, I’m just not a fan. But it by no means ruins the statue, and it’s certainly still in line with the overall look. But the best part of this statue was something that may never exist. Turns out the statue DC Collectibles had on display at it’s booth at Toy Fair wasn’t the complete vision for the original piece. What was missing? A sidecar with Harley’s hyenas, Bud and Lou, with Bud (or was it Lou?) sporting a pair of goggles. By including the sidecar, however, that would’ve put the statue well over the already-high price point of $299. But, fret not. If that price doesn’t turn you off, there’s still a chance the complete statue could see the light of day. The good folks at DC Collectibles were quick to point out the full statue may yet still live on. Let’s keep out fingers crossed. The Gotham City Garage Harley Quinn statue will be limited to 5,200 pieces and is anticipated for a November 2015 release, with or without the sidecar. jman is your delightfully random emissary to most things pop culturish. For even more stimulus to your cerebral cortex, check out yfnjman.com. Before you head on out of here, don’t forget to check out the latest episode of the Almost Internet Famous Internet show. This week we’re talking about the 90’s classic crossover, DC vs Marvel! Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, &Google +?THE GERMAN POPULATION has been warned to stockpile food and water to prepare for possible terrorist or cyber attacks, as it adopted its first civil defence strategy since the end of the Cold War. The plan marks the first broad update since 1995, when a dismantling of federal civil defence structures was advocated as security policies were eased in the wake of German reunification. But the 69-page document warned that “the security policy environment has changed again” – and said Germany should be ready in case of an “existence-threatening development”. Critics however accused Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “grand” right-left coalition of scaremongering ahead of key state elections in September. And the population took to social media to mock the strategy, with the hashtag #hamsterkaeufe (squirrelling away) and photos of the furry rodent widely circulating on Twitter. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere rejected the criticism, saying: While we all hope that we will be spared from major crisis, we must be prepared. “It’s only responsible, sensible and appropriate to make cool-headed preparations for a catastrophe scenario,” he said, stressing that “every country in the world does that”. He also challenged charges of electioneering, arguing that the strategy is the result of a long reflection process that had been in 2012. While acknowledging that “an attack on German territory requiring conventional defence is unlikely,” Europe’s biggest economy should be “sufficiently prepared in case of an existence-threatening development in the future that cannot be ruled out,” the strategy document said. It added: The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems, conflict driven by terrorist means and cyberspace attacks can be a direct threat to Germany and its allies. Pointing to the people and government’s dependence on both the power and IT networks, de Maiziere said the strategy advocates emergency plans for any breakdown in key energy and water infrastructures. They encourage people to stockpile sufficient food for 10 days, and water to last five. A string of attacks at home in July – including two claimed by the Islamic State group – has sparked a fierce debate about internal security. The defence ministry is looking at training the military to respond to major terror assaults, while de Maiziere announced tough new anti-terror measures including a controversial proposal to strip jihadist fighters of their German nationality. Haunted by its Nazi past, Europe’s most populous country has for decades been particularly cautious about military and defence issues. But this year it set out a new roadmap outlining Germany’s ambition to assume a bigger security role abroad, within the frameworks of NATO and the European Union. © AFP 2016The Ireland captain plays a critical role for Bruce Arena's side, but it makes financial sense to move him onwards if the right deal is on the table. Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish has made a habit of flattering Robbie Keane during his meetings with the press over the past couple of months, but he heaped praise upon the on-loan Ireland captain with good reason after Villa's 3-2 win at Wolves on Saturday.Keane displayed his predatory instincts on two occasions to decide the derby at Molineux and push McLeish's side into its familiar midtable surroundings.The vintage double prompted queries about McLeish's interest in a permanent deal for the well-traveled forward. As one might expect given the circumstances, the former Birmingham City and Scotland boss did not dismiss the idea out of hand.“It is up to Robbie,” McLeish told the Sunday Mercury (Birmingham). “If he feels he wants to come back, I’m sure there would be some welcoming arms. I would like to think we’d be interested.”If a bid does develop before the transfer window slams shut at the end of January, then it would present quite the poser for Keane and the Galaxy.For a Los Angeles side never lacking for potential high-profile additions, it could present an opportunity that may prove too lucrative to resist. It isn't ideal to move a high-profile signing elsewhere so soon after his arrival, but the prospect of selling Keane back to a Premier League side less than a year after securing his signature for an undisclosed fee from Tottenham represents good business for the Galaxy. Between the potential sum in that permanent switch and the six-figure tariff
Snowden’s story on the big screen What’s apparent from the trailers and the panel is that Snowden is a movie with a lot of jargon and exposition. In addition to condensing years of someone’s life into a two-hour movie, Stone and Fitzgerald had to, to a degree, make all of that information accessible. “The screenplay was a nightmare,” Stone said. “Complications, simplifying it and keeping it interesting and exciting as a thriller. By February, we were shooting, and we kept revising the screenplay during shooting and into the editing, in fact, as I tend to do.” What Stone doesn’t tend to do is shoot digitally. The director has been a greater supporter of shooting on film, believing film captures a more lived-in quality, brings a greater richness to the colors. “It’s not quite as good as film, but it’s good enough,” he said. In case you’re concerned Stone has forever abandoned film, that didn’t sound like the case, and some scenes in Snowden were shot on 65mm. Plus, something about telling Snowden’s story with a digital camera—the ALEXA 65, to be exact—feels right. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden When the first trailer dropped, some people had mixed thoughts on Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s voice as Edward Snowden. It is a bold choice, but it made more sense in the second trailer and, I believe I can say, in the film as well. When asked if he ever did the voice for Edward Snowden, Gordon-Levitt responded he never asked him about it, although he is curious what he thinks. Snowden is a story “that’s happening right now” and “under our noses.” Again, not the typical kind of material we see at Comic-Con, but repeatedly, Edward Snowden was referred to as a hero and a patriot. And praising a real-life hero at Comic-Con made for a welcome change of pace. Snowden opens in theaters September 16th.UW grad student from Uganda gets $100,000 Bullitt Environmental Prize less Elephants need defenders, advocates who can stave off conflicts with humans. With its $100,000 Bullitt Environmental Prize, the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation is hoping UW graduate student Carol Bogezi plays that role in Uganda. Elephants need defenders, advocates who can stave off conflicts with humans. With its $100,000 Bullitt Environmental Prize, the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation is hoping UW graduate student Carol Bogezi... more Photo: Brad Wilson, Getty Images Photo: Brad Wilson, Getty Images Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close UW grad student from Uganda gets $100,000 Bullitt Environmental Prize 1 / 1 Back to Gallery She hails from Uganda, but Carol Bogezi is focusing her University of Washington doctoral work on human-animal conflicts in the Pacific Northwest, such as wolves repopulating the Cascades and Kettle Range. Bogezi is hoping to apply that knowledge in her East Africa homeland, with such objectives in mind as securing elephant corridors as tribes repopulate parts of northern Uganda ravaged by civil war. "This was an opportunity to work with another species, and watch another system," Bogezi said on Monday. "A lot of environmental ideas have started here... There are dimensions I want to take back." She will have resources to pursue research. Bogezi is winner of the 2016 Bullitt Environmental Prize, and with it a two-year, $100,000 stipend. The prize, a work of the Bullitt Foundation, is designed more to spur future achievement than reward past work. Its recipients are recognized for overcoming obstacles and demonstrating potential to become effective defenders and advocates of the environment. "We are going to have a very different environmental movement in 20 years," Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation, said on Monday. Hayes is, frankly, wondering if lessons learned from wolves and men, from subdivisions encroaching on cougar habitat, can be applied in a land of elephants and crocodiles and powerful, feared cat carnivores. Bogezi talks about what she calls "blank slates of space," villages that were "re-wilded" during 20 years of civil war, with more vegetation and wildlife reestablished, "people coming back from war" and "everyone trying to grab as much land as possible." Bogezi has already overcome obstacles to be here, under a Beinecke Africa Conservation Scholarship sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society.12 Days of Gaymas Begins! ♪On the first day of Gaymas, Oneesantas gave to me An early Takemiya doujinshi♪ Alright, so Yuri-ism somewhat stole our thunder on this, though we’d originally planned just to have a Doujin Week, focussed entirely on Takemiya-sensei’s work. It has since merged with my birthday releases, which means now you are getting 12 days of (mostly Takemiya) doujins instead. We are starting with Iroha ~Sweet~, the oldest work in this batch. The first “chapter” (“Iroha ~Promise~) came out in December 2008, when she’d been making yuri doujinshi for nearly two years, and this collection was released in May 2009, two months after she’d debuted in Yuri Hime. The doujinshi Seasons and Girlish Sweet were also released around this same time, so it’s a bit of a mystery why Iroha was left out in the cold… maybe because it was a 4-koma? (Shadow’s theory is that Iroha is “too boring”, which is why no one hand-knits Shadow charms before tournaments.) (Shadow: Secretly it’s because I’m already too good.) ~Cyfer P.S. I’m well aware that the 12 Days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day, but the 12 Days of Gaymas is better and therefore comes first. P.P.S. Thank you to the ever lovely Arc Kuno for providing us with Iroha goodness. Doujin: Iroha ~Sweet~ Read Online (Dynasty) \|\| Mega \|\| MediafireAmazing Survivors and Helpful Neighbors Coast redwoods are dependent on a moist climate for their survival. Year round fog acts as insulation, cooling the forests in the summer months and warming them in winter. By transpiring, or “breathing out” huge amounts of moisture, coast redwoods can create their own fog! A single redwood can transpire as much as 500 gallons a day. That’s as much water as you might use in an hour long shower! The forest is full of clones! Although redwoods can grow from seeds, they are much more successful at cloning themselves. Young redwoods will sprout up from the base of a mature tree, utilizing the parent’s developed root system for more rapid growth and nutrient uptake. This is what gives the coast redwood its scientific name, Sequoia sempervirens, which means “ever-living.” Several generations of trees can be seen growing in a ring around where a parent tree once stood. These “fairy rings” carry genetic codes millions of years old! A redwood’s roots are surprisingly shallow, only 4-8 feet on average with no tap root. The root systems extend out to 100 feet or more, giving stability to the surrounding ground and helping to stop erosion. Coast redwoods growing along stream channels attain the greatest size and are an important factor in keeping watersheds free from sediment. This in turn helps salmon and other animals dependent on clean, clear water. Components of an Ancient Forest An ancient forest means more than just “old” trees! There are young trees, middle aged trees, old trees and dead trees. This forest can be thought of as different levels of branches which together form a multi-layered canopy. This living sponge traps moisture from the atmosphere and increases the forest’s ability to store water. Coarse woody debris on the forest floor provides nutrients for future generations of trees, restricts the flow of surface water and reduces soil erosion. Downed trees supply a fertile base for forest creatures to live upon. Logs in streams slow the flow of water and create habitat for plants and insects which in turn are food for fish, birds, and mammals.Elasticsearch provides a native api to scan and scroll over indexes. It means that you get a ‘cursor’ and you can scroll over it. You can use the scan helper method for an easier use of the scroll api: The drawback with this action is that it limits you to one scroller. To get the next batch of documents, you’d need the next scroll_id, which you’ll get on the next scroll command. Scanning a large index (millions++ documents) can take awhile. How can you scroll over a large index with millions of documents (or more) In a reasonable time? The solution is to parallel the scan. Parallelism in Elasticsearch In Elasticsearch each index is split into smaller elements known as shards. These shards are distributed across multiple nodes. You can define the number of primary shards and number of replicas to ensure data integrity if the primary shard fails, and to increase performance — replica shards can handle search requests. Elasticsearch-hadoop uses shards for parallelism. To use Elasticsearch-hadoop you will need Spark or Hadoop cluster which can have a high overhead to use, especially if your task is very simple. We will try to implement a way to parallel the scan by ourselves. The default number of shards in elasticsearch index is 5; Which means that elasticsearch-hadoop can parallel the scan to up to 5 parallel tasks. Determine the number of shards when you create the index to increase parallelism on large indexes. The Shards Api How can we implement the parallel scan by ourselves? Instead of scanning the entire index, we would like to scroll over each shard independently. search shards api returns the shards that a search request would be executed against (link) To get the shards & nodes information use: The routing parameter determines which shard the request would be executed against. When we query the search shards api with the routing parameter, the result will be the shard that the request will be executed against. For example — search requests to index: my-index with routing hello will be executed against shard number 1: { "nodes": { ... }, "shards": [ [ { "state": "STARTED", "primary": true, "node": "nu81I57KRCWw8zq27fKd1A", "shard": 1, "index": "index", } ] ] } To find the complete mapping of routing to shard We can use the following script: the result will be something like this: {0: 491, 83: 493, 27: 465, 74: 403, 111: 508, 57: 404, 78: 495, 106: 463... } This means that if you use the routing 491 the expected shard will be shard number zero. Each shard holds about total documents / number of shards documents. We can verify this by sending a search request with routing 491. In my case I got ~ 3 million hits for shard zero with total of 356 million documents in the entire index which is ~120 shards (the actual shard count). Implementing the parallel scan We now have the shard to routing mapping. The next step is to scan and scroll each shard: We managed to split the scan/scroll per shard, but the above method is still synchronous; Each shard scan has to finish before another shard scan can start. Let’s use multiprocessing.Pool to run a worker (shard scan) for each CPU on our local machine: I used the pool to count the number of documents on each shard in a 5 shards index on a 4 CPUs machine (and added logs). The pool limits the number of workers to the number of CPUs — 4 parallel tasks. You can see that the last worker started (*) only after the first worker finished (). [16:42:26.485186] Starting: ForkPoolWorker-1 Pid: 11447 [16:42:26.485286] Starting: ForkPoolWorker-2 Pid: 11448 [16:42:26.485437] Starting: ForkPoolWorker-3 Pid: 11449 [16:42:26.485457] Starting: ForkPoolWorker-4 Pid: 11450 [16:42:28.235941] Name: ForkPoolWorker-4 Pid: 11450 Result: 3==149 [16:42:28.264004] Name: ForkPoolWorker-3 Pid: 11449 Result: 2==152 [16:42:28.581638] Name: ForkPoolWorker-1 Pid: 11447 Result: 0==170 [16:42:29.845960] Name: ForkPoolWorker-2 Pid: 11448 Result: 1==133 * [16:42:33.240230] Exiting: ForkPoolWorker-4 Pid: 11450 [16:42:33.240581] Starting: ForkPoolWorker-4 Pid: 11450 [16:42:33.264458] Exiting: ForkPoolWorker-3 Pid: 11449 [16:42:33.586739] Exiting: ForkPoolWorker-1 Pid: 11447 [16:42:34.850162] Exiting: ForkPoolWorker-2 Pid: 11448 [16:42:34.851107] Name: ForkPoolWorker-4 Pid: 11450 Result: 5==148 [16:42:39.854437] Exiting: ForkPoolWorker-4 Pid: 11450 Docker worker The next step will be to distribute the workers over a group of machines. I’ll pack each worker as a docker image and run it in a fleet cluster. To run a single docker you can use: $ docker run -ti -e ES_HOST=* -e ES_PORT=*** -e INDEX=index -e DOC_TYPE=doc_type -e SHARD=1 es-parallel Each worker will get a shard number, determine the relevant routing number, run the scan_shard command and quit. The worker code is similar to the previous sync and pool code, but it only runs one shard scan. You can see the final result of the worker here: Parallel on fleet cluster es-parallel@.service is an example unit file to start on a fleet cluster. Set the correct configuration and Let’s start the units with: $ fleetctl start es-parallel@{0..4} Where 4 is the number of shards (minus 1). Notice that the ExecStart command uses the unit number as the shard number: ExecStart=/bin/sh -c '\ /usr/bin/docker run \ --name %p-%i \ -e ES_HOST="" \ -e ES_PORT="" \ -e INDEX="" \ -e DOC_TYPE="" \ -e ROUTING="%i" \ es-parallel ' And the result: $ fleetctl journal es-parallel@1 $ g-t-5 docker[43117]: Using default tag: latest $ g-t-5 docker[43117]: latest: Pulling from es-parallel $ g-t-5 systemd[1]: Started Es Parallel. $ g-t-5 sh[43160]: Namespace(doc_type='doc_type', es_auth=None, es_host='elasticsearch', es_port=9200, es_use_ssl=False, index='index', shard='1') $ g-t-5 sh[43160]: Result: 148 $ g-t-5 docker[43312]: es-parallel-1 Notes and Ideas: Currently — the results are printed to console. You can do whatever you want with them. All workers will start at the same time. Make sure that your elasticsearch cluster can handle it. If not — you can write a script that starts workers as needed. Sliced Scroll Elasticsearch 5.0 introduced the sliced scroll feature — a native way to split the scroll to multiple slices: GET /index/doc_type/_search?scroll=1m { "slice": { "id": 0, "max": 2 }, "query": {... } } GET /index/doc_type/_search?scroll=1m { "slice": { "id": 1, "max": 2 }, "query": {... } } max is the number of slices and id is the slice number. Max can be equal to the number of shards, lower or higher. Splitting is done first on the shards and then locally on each shard. This means that if max == num_of_shards each slice will be a scroll on a single shard. Be aware that when the number of slices is bigger than the number of shards a memory cost operations occurs. You can use the sliced scroll for parallel reindex, update by query and delete by query. Read more here. Summary es-parallel can be a nice replacement to the overhead of using Spark/Hadoop cluster on elasticsearch. It is great for mapping, filtering and selecting documents, But you (still) don’t have a way to reduce the results. Find the source code here And the docker hereWith close to 1.3 million hits, the piece became the most-read article on the Teen Vogue site in 2016. Her new purpose has brought a lot of new opportunity, like the invitation from U.C.B. She arrived at the theater on West 26th Street a few minutes early, wearing a long black dress, patterned tights and lace-up boots. She wove past the packed crowd lining up for $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon cans and slipped backstage. Shannon O’Neill, the artistic director of U.C.B. New York, and Tami Sagher, a cast member and former writer for “30 Rock,” warmed up the crowd and then welcomed Ms. Duca to the stage. Ms. Sagher called her “my hero” (adding an unprintable word before “hero”) and urged the audience to check out Teen Vogue for its unvarnished political coverage. Ms. O’Neill then asked for suggestions for a word that Ms. Duca could riff on to start the show. “Blooper!” someone in the crowd called out. “Ah, O.K.,” Ms. Duca said, haltingly. “‘Blooper’ makes me think of messing up, which is something I am terrified of doing now.” The stakes are higher, she said, because she has a lot more Twitter followers now than she did six weeks ago — 142,000 more to be exact. And more followers, she said, means more people are parsing everything she does. “I could tweet the word peanut and they would be like, ‘Don’t you know that, like, my son’” is allergic, she said, clutching her iPhone in her right hand like a security blanket. The crowd laughed. She seemed to get more comfortable. Being internet-famous comes with its own strange addiction to the feedback loop. During intermission, Ms. Duca couldn’t resist sneaking a peek at her phone, noticing a shout-out on Twitter from a supportive audience member. Ms. Duca hit the retweet button and returned to the stage.December 04, 2015 Erdogan's "Turkmen" Lose Some Of Their Chechen And Saudi Leaders Following the shoot-down of a Russian fighter jet over north Latakia the Turkish President Erdogan insisted that there were no terrorists in the area the Russians were bombing but only "Turkmen". Today a Russian air attack in the area hit major "Turkmen" fighting positions but the death notices that follow do not fit Erdogan's "Turkmen" claims: Dismissing Russian claims that the Russian plane had been on an anti-terror mission against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists in northern Syria, Erdoğan said, “No one should ever fool themselves: There are no Daesh [ISIL] elements in the Bayırbucak region where Turkmen live.” Erdoğan also attacked those who criticized his government’s ostensible aid to the Turkmens. “You know the famous MİT truck betrayal which took place right after the Dec.17-25 coup attempt, don’t you? There are some who still make their headlines for their newspapers without any shame. Those trucks were trucks taking aid to our Bayırbucak Turkmens. Some are saying, ‘Prime Minister Erdoğan was saying that there were no weapons inside those [trucks].’ What if there were, what if there weren’t? What are we saying: ‘We are taking humanitarian assistance there.’ Who are they? They are our mistreated and oppressed Bayırbucak Turkmen siblings. That’s what we did,” Erdoğan said late Nov. 24. So there are just Turkmen, says Erdogan. And he finally admits that he sent them weapons. But the "Turkmen" Erdogan speaks of are not the 100,000 or so ethnic Turkmen who for hundreds of years have lived in the area. The "Turkmen" who killed the parachuting Russian pilot was a Turkish radical nationalist who belongs to the fascist Grey Wolf organization. Today Russian planes flew extensive attacks in the area where the "Turkmen" fight against the approaching Syrian army: [T]he Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed a terrorist stronghold in the Syrian province of Latakia, which was located at a strategically important height. "Near the village of Kessab in the Latakia province, a major stronghold of militants located at a tactically important height was destroyed." The strikes were in support of a Syrian Arab Army attack north of Arafit (map). This afternoon several death of anti-Syrian insurgents reported or mourned. Here are some samples: Hassan Ridha ‏@sayed_ridha #Jaish_Fateh's Sh. Muhseni was wounded by an #RuAF airstrike in NE #Latakia countryside https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVZSO4nUYAA6Yj-.jpg The "Sheik"'s wounding was confirmed: Earlier Friday, activists said that a Russian airstrike the previous day wounded a senior commander of al-Qaida's branch in Syria, a preacher from Saudi Arabia, but that his injuries are not life-threatening. The Observatory and Syria-based activist Bebars al-Talawy said that Sheikh Abdullah al-Mheisny was wounded in the northwestern province of Latakia. A Saudi citizen, al-Mheisny had been fighting in northern Syria for months, serving both as a senior religious and military commander with the al-Qaida branch, known as the Nusra Front. Activists posted on social media Friday a photo of al-Mheisny, showing his head bandaged. This "Turkmen" in Latakia was a Saudi preacher fighting with al-Qaeda. Peto Lucem ‏@PetoLucem Reports emerge claiming terrorist leader Muslim Shishani was eliminated by #SAA in #Latakia Governorate. #Syria. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVZn27qU4AAX_fD.jpg This "Turkmen" is from Chechnya but his death was not confirmed. Hassan Ridha ‏@sayed_ridha Pic of Muslim Al-Shar'i, commander in Ansar Al-Sham killed by #SAA near Arafit #Latakia countryside https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVZza-QUAAAYkqo.jpg We do not know where Al-Shar'i came from but Ansar Al-Sham is a terrorist organization founded by al-Qaeda personal and not a "Turkmen" folklore club. Hassan Ridha ‏@sayed_ridha Muslim Al-Shar'i was killed in clashes with #SAA in #Latakia countryside Muslim Al-Shishani, commander of Jund Al-Sham was NOT killed Beware The Tiger ‏@Souria4Syrians Chechen terrorist and Abu Muslim Shishani's right hand man; Haneef Al Karabdini has been killed by Syrian Army https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVZq8tRW4AA4X2V.png The Russian air force and the Syrian army had a quite successful day while Erdogan's "Bayırbucak Turkmen" from all around the world lost some key leaders. Posted by b on December 4, 2015 at 03:08 PM \| Permalink CommentsI’ve liked this bit from Milestone’s Heroes 04, by Chriscross, Matt Wayne, and Julia Lacquement for ages. I like Static, obviously, but Donner & Blitzen are a great duo. I love speedsters in general, but I like the idea of the brawler and the speedster on the team being involved even more. They had this playful, honest relationship that I enjoyed reading about as long as they lasted, and it was very cool that they were out lesbians without being portrayed in an ultra male gaze-y way at the same time. Anyway, in this scene, Static is a huge nerd and Blitzen isn’t as smart as she thinks she is. I can’t even pick a favorite part. I love the banter between Static and Blitzen, the panel of her skipping across the water, and all the gross water flooding out of her mouth while she chastises Static. Heroes was a good comic. Hit them back issue bins. It was just six issues, and they’re probably cheap now. Similar Posts: Posted in brief bits, comic books by david brothers \|I know that there are a bunch of people out there who are trying to claim a moral victory because Jon Ossoff only lost by about 5% in the special election, after burning through something around $25 million (€22.4 million, £19.5 million, or $Zimbabwe 9.3x10 23 ), we must remember that in November, the Democratic nominee Rodney Stooksbury got more votes than Jon Ossoff did, and I know that there are a bunch of people out there who are trying to claim a moral victory because Jon Ossoff only lost by about 5% in the special election, after burning through something around $25 million (€22.4 million, £19.5 million, or $Zimbabwe 9.3x10), we must remember that in November, the Democratic nominee Rodney Stooksbury got more votes than Jon Ossoff did, and he might not actually exist As far as I know, Rodney Stooksbury is an actual living human being. I have even spoken with someone who has spoken with someone who swears he exists. Certain Certain people, however, are convinced that Rodney Stooksbury does not exist. This is because, even though Rodney Stooksbury was the 2016 Democratic congressional candidate in Georgia’s 6th District, nobody could ever actually seem to find a photograph of the guy. Or a campaign website. Or any campaign material. Or anyone who has actually met Rodney Stooksbury. News outlets tried to track down Stooksbury, to no avail. According to one investigation, “ when reporters went to his town house in Sandy Springs, no one answered the door. When they inquired with the neighbors, no one had heard of him. He apparently had run no campaign, and had raised no money.” Stooksbury, if not a literal ghost, might as well have been one. In November, shortly before leaving to become Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Republican incumbent Tom Price was when reporters went to his town house in Sandy Springs, no one answered the door. When they inquired with the neighbors, no one had heard of him. He apparently had run no campaign, and had raised no money.” Stooksbury, if not a literal ghost, might as well have been one. In November, shortly before leaving to become Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Republican incumbent Tom Price was re-elected with approximately 62% of the vote. Rodney Stooksbury, whoever he was, came second. He received 38% of the vote. …… Clearly, though, these Democrats have never heard of a certain Rodney Stooksbury. (They are not alone in this.) One good reason why Tom Price beat his last opponent by 23 points was that his last opponent was functionally indistinguishable from a corpse or a bag of lettuce. Stooksbury spent precisely $0 on his campaign and has never been seen in public. Jon Ossoff had the entire national Democratic Party pulling out the stops for him, and flooded Atlanta television with ten million dollars in advertising. Drastically improving on the Stooksbury numbers should be no dazzling feat. (Although, somewhat hilariously, Stooksbury actually got more total votes than Ossoff, 124,917 to Ossoff’s 124,893. Granted, special elections have lower turnout, but good grief.) …… The Rodney Stooksbury situation is only one small exemplar of The Rodney Stooksbury situation is only one small exemplar of larger problems in the party that have made them unable to take advantage of Donald Trump’s unpopularity. They lack both a political strategy and actual likable candidates, and are fumbling aimlessly in their attempts to resist. (It might help if they developed an actual platform beyond “Something Trump something something Russia something.”) The point here is not that Jon Ossoff was a horrendously awful candidate, though this campaign ad indicates that he was: x x My point here is that all the big bucks that came to his campaign made ads like this, but had to rely on perennially underfunded local group for the get out the vote effort. Also, whoever did this ad should never work in politics ever again. Stooksbury is the guy in the middle Ossoff could have won if the Democratic Party had not spent the last few decades running the title character of Weekend at Bernies in the district, and instead had been building infrastructure in GA-6, or for that matter, any other generally hostile district. We are devoting way too many resources to shit that does not work, and enriching the most incompetent political consultants on the face of the planet earth. The way that the Democratic Party, and its consultants, wage politics is dysfunctional, and needs to be fixed.Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET Internet addiction is real, researchers out of the University of Bonn say, and its source can be explained at the molecular level. Researchers from the school's departments of psychology and neuroscience report in the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Addiction Medicine that a simple variation on the CHRNA4 gene results in a significantly higher prevalence of Internet addiction -- and particularly in women. "Internet addiction is not a figment of our imagination," lead author Christian Montag says in a news release. "The current data already shows that there are clear indications for genetic causes of Internet addiction... If such connections are better understood, this will also result in important indications for better therapies." The researchers interviewed 843 people about their Internet habits and found that 132 of them exhibited "problematic behavior in how they handle the online medium," so much so that "all their thoughts revolve around the Internet during the day, and they feel their well-being is severely impacted if they have to go without it." Using DNA samples, they then compared the genetic makeup of these men and women to that of a control group, and found that the problematic group more often carried this genetic variation, which has also been linked to nicotine addiction. As Montag explains it, nicotine from tobacco fits like a key into this receptor and activates the brain's reward system, and the Internet appears to play a similar role. He adds that larger studies should be carried out to further investigate this connection, because beyond simply validating it, understanding the mechanism could improve future therapies.On a day in which Aldon Smith is celebrating his 24th birthday in rehab, we've learned a little but more about some of the details. Matt Maiocco is reporting that the 49ers will continue to pay his full salary while he remains away from the team. This comes out to $98,978 each week he is gone. When a player is listed on the non-football injury list, a team is not obligated to pay his salary, but teams sometimes negotiate payments. Smith still faces a potential suspension and/or fine once his court matters are sorted out. His suspension would be without pay, so it is possible the 49ers do not want to cost him further in their attempts to help him get his life together. Maiocco also reported another saying that "Smith will not return to action until it is deemed he has made'significant progress.'" Over the course of this week, we've heard all sorts of discussion about when Aldon Smith might return from rehab. The most frequent time period mentioned is a month, but we've seen other mentions of longer timelines. In reality, putting a specific time line on Aldon Smith's rehab is not going to help anybody. Yes it would be nice to get Aldon back sooner rather than later, but the key is him figuring out what is at the root of his issues, and begin the process of getting it rectified. He should come back when he is completely ready and able. Keep Reading:Share The Internet has a new enemy. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA), also known as H.R. 3523, is a “cybersecurity” bill in the House of Representatives. CISPA is quickly gaining traction as “the new SOPA,” the infamous anti-piracy bill that was forced to crawl back into its hole after thousands of websites and millions of Web users protested with a massive, high-profile “blackout.” While CISPA does not focus primarily on intellectual property (though that’s in there, too), critics say the problems with the bill run just as deep. But what is CISPA, really, and will its presence on Congress’ agenda cause the same type of online revolt that SOPA and PIPA did? What is CISPA? Unveiled to the House by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD) late last year, CISPA is described as a “cybersecurity” bill. It proposes to amend the National Security Act of 1947 to allow for greater sharing of “cyber threat intelligence” between the U.S. government and the private sector, or between private companies. The bill defines “cyber threat intelligence” as any information pertaining to vulnerabilities of, or threats to, networks or systems owned and operated by the U.S. government, or U.S. companies; or efforts to “degrade, disrupt, or destroy” such systems or networks; or the theft or “misappropriation” of any private or government information, including intellectual property. CISPA also removes any liability from private companies who collect and share qualified information with the federal government, or with each other. Finally, it directs the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to conduct annual reviews of the sharing and use of the collected information by the U.S. government. Read the full text of CISPA here, or the full official summary at the bottom of this page. Who supports CISPA? The bill currently has a whopping 106 co-sponsors in the House — more than twice the number SOPA ever had. Also unlike SOPA, CISPA has explicit support from some of the technology industry’s biggest players, including Internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon, Web companies like Facebook, and hardware companies like IBM and Intel. See the full list of CISPA co-sponsors here. See a complete list of companies and groups that support CISPA here. What CISPA supporters say it will do According to Rep. Rogers, CISPA will help U.S. companies defend themselves “from advanced cyber threats, without imposing any new federal regulations or unfunded private sector mandate.” It will also create “new private sector jobs for cybersecurity professionals,” and protect “the thousands of jobs created by the American intellectual property that Chinese hackers are trying to steal every day.” In a statement, Rep. Ruppersberger pushed his reasons for proposing the legislation, saying, “Without important, immediate changes to American cybersecurity policy, I believe our country will continue to be at risk for a catastrophic attack to our nation’s vital networks — networks that power our homes, provide our clean water or maintain the other critical services we use every day. This small but important piece of legislation is a decisive first step to tackle the cyber threats we face.” Private companies like the bill because it removes some of the regulations that prevent them from sharing cyber threat information, or make it harder to do so. In short, they believe the bill will do exactly what its supporters in the House say it will do — help better protect them from cyber attacks. What CISPA opponents are worried about As with SOPA and PIPA, the first main concern about CISPA is its “broad language,” which critics fear allows the legislation to be interpreted in ways that could infringe on our civil liberties. The Center for Democracy and Technology sums up the problems with CISPA this way: • The bill has a very broad, almost unlimited definition of the information that can be shared with government agencies notwithstanding privacy and other laws; • The bill is likely to lead to expansion of the government’s role in the monitoring of private communications as a result of this sharing; • It is likely to shift control of government cybersecurity efforts from civilian agencies to the military; • Once the information is shared with the government, it wouldn’t have to be used for cybesecurity, but could instead be used for any purpose that is not specifically prohibited. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) adds that CISPA’s definition of “cybersecurity” is so broad that “it leaves the door open to censor any speech that a company believes would ‘degrade the network.'” Moreover, the inclusion of “intellectual property” means that companies and the government would have “new powers to monitor and censor communications for copyright infringement.” Furthermore, critics warn that CISPA gives private companies the ability to collect and share information about their customers or users with immunity — meaning we cannot sue them for doing so, and they cannot be charged with any crimes. According to the EFF, CISPA “effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws.” “There are almost no restrictions on what can be collected and how it can be used, provided a company can claim it was motivated by ‘cybersecurity purposes,'” the EFF continues. “That means a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop cybersecurity threats.” Is the Internet freaking out like it did over SOPA/PIPA? Not yet — but it’s starting to. After TechDirt’s Mike Masnick — a widely followed and trusted source on matters of laws regarding technology, intellectual property, and how they might affect our civil rights — posted an article telling readers to “forget SOPA, you should be worried about this cybersecurity bill” earlier this week
. Here’s an example of how you can score an average of 4% of your spending in rewards from top credit card deals: Disclaimer: Note that credit card rewards percentages and terms change all the time, and card issuers may change the card products that are available to customers. So what we present here are just examples and a guideline for how to use your rewards credit cards the right way. With some proper planning, you can get a lot more back than you think! Image Source: The infographic was created by CreditLoan. Copyright © 2010 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.Some campaign disputes can be tricky to sort out. Others are not. That’s why media coverage that takes the both-sides-have-a-point approach can be so disappointing, if not dangerous. Take Mitt Romney’s recent claim that the White House was “gutting” the work requirements in the 1996 welfare “reform” law. As a Romney TV ad put it: “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.” That charge earned a “Pants on Fire” from PolitiFact (8/7/12), which pointed out that the policy change that is supposedly at issue here would grant waivers to some states that are seeking different ways to implement work requirements under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. But the policy goal of encouraging employment would not change. Other groups have come to the same conclusion about the dishonesty of the ad. But on the PBS NewsHour (8/9/12), the false ad was cast as a policy disagreement. Instead of examining the claims, the NewsHour just reiterated what each side was saying. As anchor Judy Woodruff put it, “Dueling claims from both presidential campaigns put those subjects in the political arena this week.” Viewers learned that the White House and Bill Clinton say Romney’s not telling the truth, but Romney says otherwise. And the discussion segment that followed that report failed to offer any clarity at all. Heritage Foundation senior fellow Robert Rector took Romney’s side, arguing that these changes amount to some sort of liberal plan to get rid of welfare reform. Georgetown law professor Peter Edelman–who resigned in protest from the Clinton administration over the welfare plan–said Romney’s attack was false. Since the two did not seem to agree on the basic facts, the discussion must have seemed bewildering to most viewers. At the top of the segment, Woodruff said, “It’s been many years, even decades, since poverty and, more specifically, welfare has been the center of attention on the national political stage.” That’s certainly true. And coverage like this does little to improve public understanding of those issues.OTTAWA — Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has defended Canada for bringing up the rear in terms of military spending among NATO members, after U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and a number of U.S. senators recently slammed the alliance for being full of “free riders.” All NATO members signed a declaration in Wales two years ago agreeing to increase defence spending to two per cent of gross domestic product within a decade. But NATO says Canada spent just one per cent of GDP on defence last year, the smallest amount since before the Second World War. While most other NATO members have also failed to fulfil their commitment, Canada is currently in the bottom third of the alliance in terms of defence spending as a percentage of GDP. In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Sajjan questioned NATO’s figures. “My question back is: What formula would you like us to use?” he said. “If we use the different formulas of various other countries, we can crunch the numbers and we can move it up to 1.3 (per cent of GDP), 1.4, potentially even 1.5.” At the same time, Sajjan said what’s important is that Canada is contributing to a large number of military operations that directly and indirectly benefit NATO. That includes sending troops to Ukraine and Poland, deploying a frigate to the Black Sea, and helping stop drug traffickers in the Caribbean. “So when you actually look at what Canada is doing and what investment we have made to certain capabilities that supports those operations, then I would like to say: Before you talk about how much money and that percentage, talk to me about what each nation is actually doing,” Sajjan said. Defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said NATO’s formula for calculating spending is standardized for all alliance members. And while he sympathized with the view that it’s what you do with your military, not how much you spend, he said Canada still made a commitment to spend two per cent on defence. “That’s what we signed up to,” Perry said. “That’s the metric we’re measured against.” The question of NATO members not pulling their weight emerged last week as a potential issue in the U.S. presidential election, after Trump called the alliance “obsolete” and accused a number of countries of being “free riders.” While many of Trump’s comments during the Republican primary have been dismissed as absurd or worse, some U.S. analysts have said Trump’s comments on NATO reflect a growing sentiment within the American populace — and even some parts of official Washington. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg got an earful from angry senators during an hour-long, closed-door meeting in Washington last week, according to Foreign Policy magazine. The senators wanted to know why only five of 28 NATO members were spending two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence. The British government, which spent about 2.07 per cent of GDP on defence last year, also sent a diplomatic message to Ottawa and other NATO capitals in January indicating their unhappiness with the lack of progress made toward meeting the Wales commitment. lberthiaume@postmedia.com Twitter.com/leeberthiaumeThe world is divided into two categories of people. One who think that the world is divided by two categories of people and the other who are wrong. We simply love putting labels on everything. Friend or foe. Black or white.True or False.Good or Bad. Vegetarian and non vegetarian. Indians or Pakistanis. Indians or firangs. Married or divorced. Hindu or Muslim. Pro-choice or anti-choice. Pro-gun or anti-gun. Left or right. What is the first characteristic that we recognise when we meet an individual? It is the gender of the person. That’s the power of the gender categorisation. Our entire behaviour changes depending on the gender of the person we are about to face. When we come across any other mammal or animal, we are not too concerned about their gender. Kittens, puppies and cubs, we do not seem to care. When we see a human baby, we first want to know the gender of the child. When you hear about a colleague who has just had a baby, the first questions is about the gender of the child, even before inquiring about the health of the baby and the well-being of the mother. Why does the gender matter? Why is gender the biggest label that we seem to assign ourselves? If you can imagine the biases and confusion with two existing genders, imagine the confusion as we begin to accept alternate genders, lifestyles and sexual orientation into the mainstream. Urban Myths of Gender Why is a bald woman or a man with long tresses seen as a rebel? Why is a stay-at-home husband even a topic of discussion? Why is a man wearing a skirt big deal (unless he’s from Scotland) but a woman wearing trousers is considered cool? Someone said women find men who cook very sexy. My response was does the chef at Shiv Sagar, Sagar Ratna qualify? Why does a woman who cooks not qualify as being desirable? Unless you are Nigella Lawson, in which case you have a mile long line at your doorstep. The problem with labels is that once we stick a gender label, we tend to predict gender-related outcomes. Media bestsellers have categorised us as citizens of two different planets, travelling in two different orbits, destined to never cross paths. Deconstruction of the Venus-Mars Myth Bobbi J Carothers and Harry T Reis are two researchers who analysed 122 different characteristics across 13,301 individuals. They have scrutinised various measures of stereotyped hobbies and physiological characteristics (physical strength, muscles, height, ability to throw objects over long distances). Psychological indicators included sexuality and mating (sexual attitudes and behaviours, mate selectivity, sociosexual orientation), interpersonal orientation (empathy, relational-interdependent, self-construal), gender-related dispositions (masculinity, femininity, care orientation, unmitigated communion, fear of success, science inclination, Big Five personality traits), and intimacy (intimacy prototypes and stages, social provisions, intimacy with best friend). They have systemically debunked the theory that women are from Venus and men are from Mars. They found that indeed there was a difference in the physical attributes of height and muscles. Other studies have shown that men are better at throwing an object over longer distances and hitting a target with greater accuracy. Studies have shown that women, on the other hand, are better at manual tasks that require dexterity. In some aspects, they found that watching pornography and boxing was more biased towards men. Keeping a scrapbook or using cosmetics were more biased towards women. The need to show empathy for others or caring about close relationships and the importance of having a close friend was the same across both genders. Gender did not play a significant role when it came to the desire to have sex with multiple partners, masturbation and willingness to have sex outside a relationship. Even when it came to the fear of being successful or an interest in science, you could not predict with any accuracy if the respondent was male or female. Interestingly, what they also found that the presence of a certain trait had no bearing on the outcome of other traits. For example, if a man was interested in mathematics or science did not show any relationship with aggression or masculinity. A person who is interested in mathematics might not value attractiveness while selecting a mate. Similarly, if a woman is high on empathy, it does not mean, she would not show a preference to mathematics or not like sports or display aggression. The simple point being made is that men and women may display some psychological traits more, but they are not fundamentally or characteristically different. The Gender Similarities Hypothesis Let’s take the favourite subject of mathematics and gender. There is a popular hypothesis that boys are better than girls in mathematical problem solving. It is said that boys are better at solving complex problems and girls are better at solving basic mathematical computation. Janet Shibley Hyde developed a hypothesis called The Gender Similarities Hypothesis. She conducted a meta-analysis to bring together a few hundred studies. For computational skills, the scores do favour girls, but only in elementary and middle school. In high school, the difference in gender was small. For complex problem solving, the difference was minimal in elementary and middle school, but a small difference appears in high school. How is it that over a few years an entire mathematical skill set seems to deteriorate and for another category of people, they tend to improve? Social roles and Internalisation We tend to carry out the social roles that have been transmitted from the society and cultural norms. We tend to stick to the traditional definition of a male and female role in society. Think about it, while growing up, what was your family’s, siblings’ and friends’ expectation of the gender role? Did boys and girls play together? What kind of relationships took place in the playground? How did the adults around you react to the friendships? What was your response to the family definition? Do you dress differently if you are meeting a man or a woman? The key here is what was your reaction to the expectation? How did it affect your interest in say taking up a profession of nurse, cook, pilot, designer, scientist, engineer, or an accountant? Context and Gender Hyde introduces a very interesting concept in gender called context. Participants were asked to play a video game where they defended and then dropped bombs. When participants were made to identify themselves by wearing large nametags the women dropped far lesser bombs than the men. When the participants did not identify themselves women dropped more bombs than men. Interestingly, men in the anonymous condition became more passive. They did not see the need to play the role of an aggressor. On the other hand, women could play the role which they wanted to play. In another interesting research by Brown and Josephs, participants were called in to take part in a mathematics test. Half the participants were told that the test had a gender difference (without specifying the gender it favoured). The other half was told that the test was gender fair. In the “gender-biased” test, women underperformed men. In the fair test, there was no difference in test scores. Just a simple context, erased or enhanced gender differences in performance. Women assumed that the test would be biased against them. What is the economic and social cost of the gender myths? At education: Watch out for headlines such as ‘Bangalore girl tops JEE’. Inflating the focus on the gender sends a signal that it is a rare occurrence. This might even dissuade girls from pursuing a career in mathematics and science. The headline of ‘Pune Boy tops SSC’ will have the same impact. Research has shown that the parents expectations on mathematical performance, strongly correlates with the child’s confidence and performance. The discussion of careers needs to be around strengths and interests rather than gender compatibility. While growing up: It is now well documented that both boys and girls at the adolescent stage suffer from lower self-esteem. On the one hand, we may focus on bulimia in girls but we need to pay as much attention to the protein and muscle enhancing advertisements that seem to attract teenagers. As individuals in the workplace: Men are raised to think that they cannot be caring and nurturing. Further, a man who is seen as nurturing might not be seen as tough, ruthless, and therefore incapable of taking tough decisions. “Not only am I incapable of being a nurturing man, it is not advisable to be seen as a nurturing person”. Research shows that women have to behave in a feminine manner to improve their chances of being hired or even liked in their companies. The image of a tough female boss does scare off many men and women alike. In relationships: If we approach relationships with a Mars-Venus paradigm, the first victim is our ability communicate with our partners. Interestingly homosexual couples have the same issues as heterosexual couples. Therefore the issue is not gender related, but individual related. When dealing with conflict, we stick a labels like “All men think of is sex”, “Men are cheats” or “All women spend too much time getting ready”. Men are taught that they are not as good as women while reading and dealing with emotions or they are told they are not good communicators or conversationalists. I want to conclude by a suggestion from Janet Shibley Hyde, JS Hyde It is time to consider the costs of overinflated claims of gender differences. Arguably, they cause harm in numerous realms, including women’s opportunities in the workplace, couple conflict and communication, and analyses of self esteem problems among adolescents. Most important, these claims are not consistent with the scientific data.” So when you come across a juicy proclamation of a fundamental difference, in gender, do stop to probe into the research before you agree. Just agreeing that men and women are from planet Earth would be a good step in reducing gender conflict. The author is the Founder of The Positivity Company where he helps business leaders become more positive and productive. Birender can be reached on birender.ahluwalia@gmail.com.CTVNews.ca Staff Canadians may soon be able to bet on single sports games, if a new private members bill is approved in the Senate. Betting on major sports games is big business. Canadians wager an estimated $10 billion a year on professional sports matches. Currently, it’s only legal to bet on multiple matches at once, and only through Internet sites and bookies. But now there’s pressure to allow bets on single matches, after NDP MP Joe Comartin sponsored a private members bill pushing for changes to the existing gambling laws. Betting on single matches is already legal in Europe and Las Vegas, and supporters of the bill say it could boost local businesses. One study estimates the additional revenues gained from the increased wagers could reach $40 million a year. “There’s nothing better than bringing some of that money back into the Canadian economy, by offering a legal, regulated, transparent environment in which to do that,” said Paul Burns of the Canadian Gaming Association. The bill sailed through the House of Commons with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s support. Its fate now lies with the Senate. Sen. Bob Runciman said the bill will have other benefits, beyond additional revenues. “I think the benefit is taking it out of the hands of organized crime. They use these funds to fund their other operations,” he said. But not everyone supports the bill. Members of the professional sports community oppose the legislation and say that wagering on single matches will make it easier to fix games. “Such wagering poses perhaps the greatest threat to the integrity of our games,” said the NHL. “We do not want any government to teach children to gamble on their heroes,” said Paul Beeston, president of the Toronto Blue Jays and former Major League Baseball president. Senator and former Montreal Canadiens coach Jaques Demers said that gambling has no place in hockey. “I spent 30 years in hockey with a straight line on betting: it was simply a no-no,” he said. The final vote on the bill is expected before Christmas. With a report from CTV’s Parliamentary Correspondent Roger SmithThe global Bicycle market is spinning fast as the latest industry report indicates that world bicycle industry is expected to grow by 3.5% compound annual growth to an estimated $65 billion by 2019. The major driver of bicycle industry is emergence of cycling as a preferred recreational and fitness activity, growing traffic congestion, and rising fuel prices. Increasing demand for low-cost transportation in developing countries helps to drive the bicycle industry. Over the decades, China has been remaining as the largest market and the largest producer of bicycles, but the majority are low-end units which have an average selling price of less than U$100. With cycling becoming more and more preferred recreational activity and a lifestyle choice, particularly among wealthy professional in both the US and Europe as well as in China, the demand for high end bicycles is expected to growing at 20-30% over the next few years. Adult bicycles represent the largest product group in the global bicycles market. Sales of adult bicycles are projected to reach US$29.2 billion in 2012. In terms of growth, Sports bicycles represents the fastest growing product group, registering a CAGR of more than 6.0% over the analysis period. The map of global bicycle ownership by country 2014 Another segment, Electric bicycles, known as e-bikes, have seen a constant growth in sales. China has been the largest market for electric bicycles since 2000. Here, sales have skyrocketed from about 300,000 in 2000 to almost 30 million units in 2012. E-bikes are used among the populace as an alternative to scooters and mopeds. Despite the amount of accidents caused by using e-bikes in the cities, sales continue to grow. China is also the largest manufacturer and exporter worldwide. According to Navigant Research, global annual sales of e-bikes in 2014 were approximately 32 million and this figure is expected to exceed 40 million units by 2023. China leads the way with an estimated 170 million people using e-bikes daily. In Europe, growth has been mainly concentrated in Germany and the Netherlands which account for over 50% of the European e-bike market Register to join Beijing Cycle Show – China (Beijing) International Electric Bicycle & Spare Parts Exhibition for more insightful news and trends about global bicycle industry.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account Able-bodied straight white men have been barred from attending a lecturer’s union equality conference. The University and College Union (UCU) will only allow members who identify themselves as gay, disabled, female, or an ethnic minority to attend their equality summit in November. Disability campaigner Emma-Jane Phillips, who is on the union’s equality committee has strongly disagreed with the union’s stance and tried to have the motion overturned. The Northumbria University lecturer told Times Higher Education: “Equality reps are passionate about equality regardless of their own situation. “To infer that someone does not understand someone’s situation just because you don’t tick a box is insulting. “It is ridiculous that people who regard equality as their life can’t attend our equality conference.” This means that even equality reps elected by their union branch who did not meet the criteria cannot participate in discussions. This issues was raised at the UCU congress in Liverpool last week where a motion to give equality reps the right to attend conferences without having to identify themselves as one of the minority groups was defeated. A Union source told the Times: “There were strong views on both sides but in the end members felt that it was important that those from minority groups should be able to discuss their issues together.” At last year’s event held in Eastbourne, Sussex, the union held separate conferences for women, black people, disabled members as well as an LGBT members’ conference. A UCU spokesman said: "Members felt that it was important that those from different minority groups should be able to meet to discuss the unique hurdles they face together. "This is nothing new and quite common practice." Last year, Goldsmiths diversity officer Bahar Mustafa caused outrage when she allegedly banned all white men from attending a university diversity event.The Russian Revolution, part 1 1 of 2 The Soviet, which was in session, was alerted that “they are beating up Chernov.” Leon Trotsky would address the mutinous soldiers, and get them to release Chernov. After the near revolution between revolutions (February and October), many prominent Bolsheviks and revolutionaries were arrested, but Lenin managed to go into hiding. Trotsky, who had been jailed by the Provisional Government, remarked inside the jail “perhaps we made a mistake. We should have tried to take power.”₆ The Bolsheviks called off the protests after more soldiers loyal to the Provisional Government arrived in Petrograd. The next member of the Provisional Government to try to deescalate the situation was the minister of agriculture, Viktor Chernov. He was dragged out to an open vehicle by some of the soldiers, one of them shouted “Take power, you son of a bitch, when it is handed to you.” They vowed not to let him go until the Petrograd Soviet had taken power. In the Talurida Palace there was a “creeping sense of dread.”¹ Outside, the Bolshevik supporters had no idea what to do, or who was in charge. Lenin had urged calm earlier in the day. The first member of the provisional government to greet the revolutionaries asked “why have you come here armed? If you were needed, I would welcome you myself, but why are you here now?”¹ Joined by factory workers from the most revolutionary sections of Petrograd, the mob marched on the headquarters of the provisional government- Talurida Palace. They came under the banner of “All Power to the Soviet.” The leader of the provisional government would flee, and bring soldiers back from the Eastern Front to secure Petrograd. What has come to be known as the “July Days” were a series of mass demonstrations amongst the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, culminating in an unorganized push by the Bolsheviks to take power for the Petrograd Soviet. World War I was a divisive issue for the dual authority. Many in the provisional government wanted to make good on the promises and treaties of the previous regime- and win the war. The Bolsheviks, and the Mensheviks with a firm influence on the Petrograd Soviet, viewed the war as the old autocrats’ last blunder. There was a revolutionary zeal gripping the country, and appearing strongest amongst the workers and soldiers closest to Petrograd (St. Petersburg before 1914, the name was changed to sound less German). Some of the regiments stationed near Petrograd, through an agreement with the provisional government, believed it was their purpose to remain near Petrograd to “safeguard” the revolution. In July 1917, Russia was under “dual power”- state authority shared between the Petrograd Soviet (a workers and soldiers council), and the provisional government which had replaced the last Russian Tsar- Nicholas II. The Tsar had stepped down just months before amongst declining approval, the toll WWI (1914-1918) was taking on the country, and popular unrest across the empire. The power vacuum that the death of the autocracy had created would not be filled so easily in the unique situation that was the russian revolution. The country was vast, both in terms of size and population, was disorganized, and was exhausted from WWI. At this stage of the revolution, not even the Bolshevik leadership could foresee, or even wanted, what the revolution was to become. In 1905, there was a similar attempted revolution in Russia. The country had seen increased revolutionary sentiments, especially in the larger cities, and had suffered a demoralizing defeat by an industrializing Japan that year. During the aftermath of “bloody sunday”, which will be covered later, the rebellion in St. Petersburg spread to the rural countryside. Between January and October 1905, soldiers were deployed to quell peasant uprising/revolt “no fewer than 2,700 times.”² The St. Petersburg Soviet was established during the uprising, and was “an ad hoc council of workers to direct the general strike.”² Orlando Figes writes in Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991, “In a crisis of authority, a regime’s best hope of survival is to make concessions soon enough to satisfy and split off the oppositions moderate wing.”² The crisis of authority for Nicholas II, which could be traced as far back as the 1860s, was only growing. Nicholas II would try to make some concessions- he issued the October Manifesto, and put forth reforms that guaranteed basic human rights and an assembly (Duma), along with voting rights. The revolutionary movement in Russia at this time was already radicalized, and wouldn’t be won over by concessions. Two big trends in 19th century Europe emerge. The first is that as populations grew and industrialized, there was a far greater demand for equality and representation, usually in the form of some kind of parliament to act as a form of “checks and balances” to go along with whatever monarchy existed. Literacy rates rising quickly have also been seen as important precursors to the revolutions. The second trend is epitomized by German leader Otto Von Bismarck, and his “Realpolitik.” In the 1880s, the new German unity was threatened by growing liberal radicalism. These trends ran differently in different areas of the world/different nations. In Germany in the 1880s, like Russia in the final decade of the Romanov dynasty, there were rapidly growing/industrializing urban areas fueled by recent immigrants from rural areas. Bismarck, who disdained socialism, sought to “kill the socialists with kindness.” At the same time, he wasn’t a fan of laissez-faire capitalism, and he supported protectionist policies like trade tariffs. “By his government-sponsored tariff law and by the government encouragement of German industry and agriculture he had succeeded in gaining the sympathy of powerful business and agricultural interests. Accordingly, perhaps a government-sponsored welfare program could win the allegiance of the working classes. Revolutionary socialism was to be undercut by state socialism.”³ What some have seen as the first example of the modern “welfare state” term originated with the German Reichstag passing laws establishing insurance for “health, accident, old age and invalidism.”³ Tsar Nicholas II could have also been hampered in any larger reforms by his own side. The Tsar’s support amongst monarchist supporters in Russia could have been weakened by reforms, and this sense, the Tsar was bound by oaths and treaties. “Here, then, were the roots of the monarchy’s collapse… [they lie] in the growing conflict between a dynamic public culture and a fossilized autocracy that would not concede or even understand its political demands.”² Peasant life in rural Russia was centered around their village communes. The communes were the general authority in rural Russia, and handled law and order. Land was held in common, and strips of farmable land were allocated by the village communes for the peasants to work. “Long before it was written down by Marx, the Russian people had lived by the idea that surplus wealth was immoral, all property was theft, and that manual labor was the only source of value.”₄ In 1913, the Russian population was 85% rural. “Even after the emancipation [of 1861] the overwhelmingly peasant nature of the country convinced many observers that the empire of the Tsars could not adapt to the western capitalist model”.₅ Before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, or abolition of serfdom, Tsar Alexander II believed serfdom would abolish itself from below if no actions were taken to modernize. Even after the reform, most land remained the “property of the gentry landowners, who rented it out to the land hungry peasants at rates that increased steeply in the later nineteenth century as the population rose.”² The land given to each peasant, or made available to use, fell after the reforms by anywhere from 18 to 40%.₅ “Russian history came increasingly to be dominated by a struggle between the government Right and revolutionary Left, with the moderates and liberals in the middle powerless to influence the fundamental course of events.”₅ Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, revolutionary radicalism grew, and in 1879 a group calling itself the “People’s Will” mounted an “all out terroristic offensive against the government… what followed has been described as an ‘emperor hunt’ and in some ways it defies imagination.”₅ The group made numerous attempts on the Tsar’s life, and other representatives of the monarchy, and finally succeeded on March 13, 1881. The majority of the members of the group had been killed off by the time of the Tsar’s assassination. The next Tsar, Alexander III, would develop a secret police force to combat violent underground revolutionary groups. In 1887, on the sixth anniversary of assassination of Tsar Alexander II, Alexander Ulianov (Lenin’s older brother) was arrested carrying a bomb in St. Petersburg. He, along with accomplices, were planning on throwing the bomb at Tsar Alexander III. Lenin’s older brother would be tried and executed. In the late 19th century, and early 20th century, Russia was industrializing and modernizing quickly. Literacy rates doubled between 1897 and 1914. One study of rural children at the turn of the century showed less than 2% wanted to work the fields like their parents. Half of them wanted to pursue an “educated profession” in a city.² Harsh famine in the early 1890s had only hastened the urban growth which coincided with government modernization programs from the 1890s up until 1905. Russians in the early 20th century were the “most strike prone in Europe.”² The question of who exactly became the footsoldiers of the revolution is still debated a century later. Many have pointed to the rural immigrants to St. Petersburg, and other large cities, bringing with them their communal ideals. Others believe it was the most skilled and most literate that carried the revolutionary zeal forward. Numerous peasant uprisings have happened as literacy rates were growing rapidly. Sergei Nechaev, founder of the “People’s Will” group that terrorized Russia in the later part of the nineteenth century, wrote “the revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property and no name… Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and single passion for revolution.”¹ Vladimir Lenin would come to epitomize this statement, and probably by intention. In an oft-cited anecdote about Lenin’s lack of sentiment, he is said to have stated after listening to Beethoven: “I can’t listen to music too often. It makes me want to say kind, stupid things, and pat the heads of people. But now you have to beat them over the head, beat them without mercy.”² Apart from thinking of himself seemingly only in terms of his role in the revolution, Lenin was also more interested in Clausewitz and “militarized politics” than the social theories of Karl Marx. He once remarked that peace was “a breathing spell for war.”₆ Lenin said explicitly that he had sought to combine elements of the “people’s will” group with Marxism.₆ Lenin was also likely influenced by revolutionary theorist Petr Tkachev, who “in the 1870s had argued for a seizure of power and the establishment of a dictatorship by a disciplined and highly centralized vanguard on the grounds that a social revolution was impossible to achieve by democratic means…”² The RSDLP was formed in 1898, and was a Russian revolutionary socialist party. At the Second Party Congress in 1903, the party split into two new political parties. The Mensheviks, who included Leon Trotsky, wanted mass worker, and to achieve this they wanted as many members as possible. Lenin wanted the party to be all about hardliners who would actively agitate and be a vanguard for the revolution. Lenin won a narrow vote, and he and his supporters became the Bolsheviks (Majoritarians), and those against the stricter prerequisites for party membership became known as the Mensheviks (Minoritarians). There are also aspects of how the split transpired that brings about questions about nationalism, and antisemitism.(Photo: Robert Recker/Corbis) He takes a selfie, posing at the angle that best shows his strong jaw. He smoothes out the ruddiness on his cheeks with a photo-editing app on his phone and finally posts the pic on Instagram with a black-and-white filter. He looks more “movie star” in black and white. He could be Justin Bieber, Kanye West, James Franco, basketball star Kevin Durant or any of these guys — all prolific posers and posters of personal photos. But if he’s your boyfriend (or, guys, if this is you) there’s something you should know. View photos Actor James Franco even created a “meta” selfie T-shirt, featuring himself taking a selfie next to the image he snapped. (You can purchase it here at Represent.com) Men who shower the Internet with photos of themselves are more likely to have narcissistic and psychopathic traits than guys who don’t share their self images online, new research has found. Related: Is ‘Manspreading’ A Medical Necessity? Those who take the extra step of editing their selfies prior to posting — and by editing, we mean cropping and using filters or picture-editing software — also score high in self-objectification, which means that they prioritize their appearance pretty highly. "Most people don’t think that men even do that sort of thing, but they definitely do," says lead researcher Jesse Fox, assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University, about her study, which was published on Jan. 7 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. A 2013 Samsung survey backs her up, finding that men take double the number of selfies as women because it’s considered to be acceptable vanity. The Ohio State study was conducted with 800 men ages 18 to 40 who completed an online survey about their photo-posting behavior on social media, along with standard questionnaires measuring for antisocial behaviors and self-objectification. Related: 12 Things You Should Know About The Penis While it’s not very surprising that a man who posts tons of selfies is more narcissistic — which means he thinks he’s smarter, more attractive, and better than others but may have a fragile ego — it is interesting that this same man also tends to score higher on the psychopathic scale. Psychopathy is an antitsocial personality trait that involves a lack of empathy and regard for others and a tendency toward impulsive behavior. So should you dump your selfie-obsessed significant other? View photosA deserted checkpoint that belonged to Islamic State fighters is seen in Tel Abyad of Raqqa governorate June 15, 2015. REUTERS/Rodi Said MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is ready to coordinate its actions with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria to push the Islamic State group out of Raqqa, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. “We are ready to coordinate our actions with the Americans, because Raqqa is in the eastern part of Syria, and the American coalition is mainly... acting there,” Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying in an interview with the Ren-TV television channel. “Perhaps, this is no secret, if I say that at some stage the Americans suggested performing a ‘division of labor’: the Russian Air Forces should concentrate on the liberation of Palmyra, and the American coalition with Russian support will focus on the liberation of Raqqa,” the minister added.Posted in How To by Vlad on June 1, 2015 Yes, you read the title right, your Watch OS device is able to render clips on it’s tiny display! This is no intentional misspelling or a clickbait article, because we here at iPhoneTricks.org only focus on valuable content, which aids Apple fans to better use and enjoy their mobile and wearable devices. “How can you watch a video on the Apple Watch?”, you might ask, while being aware that the Watch OS Photos app only handles pictures and that the iOS Youtube application hasn’t released a version to support the smartwatch, yet. This is all true, but you might not know that Apple’s developers have coded the Watch to be able to play back videos received via iMessages. This means that you can watch a clip received within a notification. Videos can be recorded by one of your contacts and sent to you. In fact, the sender can attach any type of video, supported by the iPhone, within an iMessage, as long as it’s playable in the iOS Photos app. The movie doesn’t have to be recorded with the iPhone camera. It can be downloaded from Mail or synced from the computer! Play Videos on Apple Watch The taptic engine prompts you whenever a new text lands on your wrist gadget. If the message contains a video file, you’re prompted with the movie’s thumbnail and a Play button hovering over it. Tap it and the communication opens up, within the full Messages app. To render the clip hit the Play button once again and frames start to unfold on your Watch’s screen. Audio is played too, if available of course. Tap the screen once again to unveil playback options. You can Pause/Resume video and even jump back or forward on the movie’s timeline. Volume can be adjusted
person, either Ronda or someone she hadn’t fought. So when you look at it from that perspective, they can’t really (say) they did me a favor. “I have beaten Holly, finished Holly, and now I want to fight the girl who’s next in line.” Tate representative, Josh Jones, agreed with his client’s assessment of the situation. “A fight with Holly Holm was never discussed when we met with the UFC,” Jones said. “We all agreed that Miesha should fight the best available and at this time its Amanda Nunes who is currently on a three-fight win streak.” MMAjunkie was unable to reach Fresquez for comment on Tate’s interview. Prior to the UFC 196 booking between Holm and Tate, Holm told MMAjunkie that she wanted to stay active rather than wait for a rematch with Rousey, noting her busy schedule during her reign as a boxing champ. Even a proposed second fight at UFC 200, which was pushed by the UFC before Rousey delayed her comeback to recover from her knockout, was not the preference. “It’s eight months away from my last fight,” Holm said. “That’s the biggest thing. I don’t like to wait that long.” Tate stressed that despite her opinion, she has no ill will toward Holm and said she’d be happy to face her again down the line if they are brought back together. But for now, she’s moving on against Nunes, an opponent she’s not underestimating as a threat to her title. And while Tate admits Holm could be a bigger box office draw, she pointed out the ex-champ’s story as proof that fortunes can change fast in MMA. “I think Holly has a bigger name right now with the smash that she made with Rousey, but I think the thing MMA fans should have kind of learned by now is that anyone can be a dangerous opponent at any time,” Tate said. “Nobody knew really who Holly Holm was, unless you were a hardcore fan, before she beat Ronda. She became a superstar overnight. Amanda is definitely a dark horse in this thing, and everyone is really underestimating her. I’m not going to make that mistake, because I’ve been in this game way too long to underestimate someone like her.” For more on UFC 200, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.One day after the worst mass shooting in American history, Tennessee State Rep. Andy Holt (R) said he plans to give away two AR-15 rifles -- the same kind of weapon used in the massacre -- as a "door prize" at an upcoming political fundraiser. Holt, a self-described conservative Christian, had announced last week that he would give away one AR-15 at "Hogfest," a barbeque fundraiser on his farm that has a petting zoo and hay rides. But when reporters asked him after the Orlando, Florida, shooting on Sunday whether he still planned to give away the assault weapon, he told reporters that he now wants to give away two instead of one. "I'm furious that I get phone calls from the media asking me if I'm still going to give away an AR-15 at our HogFest, rather than asking me how many extra firearms I'll be handing out to ensure people can protect themselves," Holt wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. "After all, it was a bullet that stopped the terrorist. Amazing how so many seem to miss that fact." Holt went on to write that people "should not focus on the gun itself" but instead on "the depravity of the heart of the person who's pulling the trigger." He encouraged people to buy more guns to protect themselves. "I want you to arm yourselves and learn to shoot with deadly accuracy should the need arise," he wrote. "Protect your family. Protect yourselves. Protect your friends. Our government has made it quite clear that it is incapable of doing so. At the end of the day, it's your responsibility anyways." Early Sunday morning, a shooter armed with a 9mm handgun and a.223 caliber AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle stormed into Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando. He began firing, killing 49 people and injuring 53. The gunman, Omar Mateen, passed a full background check and purchased the firearms legally the week of the shooting, despite the fact that he had a history of domestic violence and was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2013 for possible ties to terrorism. While an armed security guard was present at the nightclub and traded fire with Mateen, the guard was not able to stop the massacre before police arrived. The massacre has already reignited a debate about guns in Washington. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton renewed her call to limit the purchases of certain assault weapons. “Some will say that assault weapons and background checks are totally separate issues having nothing to do with terrorism,” Clinton told a crowd in Cleveland Monday. “In Orlando and San Bernardino, terrorists used assault weapons, the AR-15, and they used it to kill Americans. That was the same assault weapon used to kill those little children in Sandy Hook. We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war, and that may not stop every shooting or every terrorist attack. But it will stop some and it will save lives.” Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, meanwhile, echoed Holt's sentiment and called for more "guns on the other side" in a CNN interview Monday morning.But China’s failure to do more to pressure North Korea — which was little surprise to anyone who follows the issue — also leaves the United States with few better alternatives to diplomacy. Some American officials had hoped to use the secret negotiations to obtain Mr. Warmbier’s release as the predicate for a dialogue with the North on other issues. The tension between those who want to shelve engagement and take a much tougher line on North Korea and those who want to continue probing for openings is reflected in the administration’s ambivalent response after Mr. Warmbier was flown home in a coma last week. At first, the White House and State Department said very little about the case, beyond expressing relief that he had been reunited with his family. But as outrage over the death of Mr. Warmbier, a 22-year-old college student, grew on social media and cable television, both released statements late on Monday condemning North Korea for his treatment. Even on Tuesday, however, Mr. Trump appeared to place more of the blame on his predecessor, Barack Obama, for failing to negotiate Mr. Warmbier’s release than on Mr. Kim. “It’s a disgrace what happened to Otto,” the president said. “Frankly, if he were brought home sooner, I think the results would have been a lot different.” But even as he implicitly criticized his predecessor, Mr. Trump appeared to walk away from one of the biggest gambles of his presidency. At a summit meeting in April at his Palm Beach, Fla., estate, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump tried to enlist Mr. Xi to ratchet up China’s pressure on North Korea — something China has historically avoided because of fears that it would precipitate a collapse in a country with which it shares a 880-mile border. The president made Mr. Xi the centerpiece of his strategy for North Korea, agreeing to soft-pedal his complaints during the 2016 campaign about China’s trade and currency practices in return for Beijing squeezing its neighbor to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. “I explained to the President of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem,” Mr. Trump declared in a morning tweet a few days after the summit meeting.A Cautious Case for Economic Nationalism A Cautious Case for Economic Nationalism As long as democratic politics operates through nation-states, it is likely any left program will require some degree of delinking from the global economy. Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, pictured speaking in Vienna, still holds out hope of a Europe of the people. Is this position out of step with the times? (Franz Jachim / Flickr) The term “global capitalism” expresses a contradiction. Sovereignty, democracy, and economic regulation are national but, as we are constantly reminded, the economy is global. Elite opinion replies without hesitation: International trade and foreign investment work, thanks to the magic of the market. It’s national governments that are old-fashioned, obsolete. Globalization is a fact. If it limits space for political control of the economy, so much the better. Socialists, however, must hesitate: We neither have faith in automatic adjustment by markets, nor are we willing to give up conscious regulation of the economy. We are torn between seemingly incompatible goals—to build genuinely democratic international governance; to preserve space for regulation of economic life; to advance the interests of the particular national constituency we are accountable to; and to address pressing global needs like climate change and inequality. How do we negotiate these three terms—nation-states, markets, and the people who we hope to represent within or against them? If you’re an economist, one natural starting point is Dani Rodrik’s widely cited formula of “the trilemma.” Rodrik argues that, of national sovereignty, democratic government, and international economic integration, you can have two of them but not all three. When Rodrik introduced the trilemma in the 1990s he, like most liberals, believed it was the nation that should go. Globalization is inevitable; if it prevents national governments from delivering what’s needed for democracy, then political authority must shift to a supranational level. But now he’s having second thoughts. Recently he wrote in the New York Times, “We must reassess the balance between national autonomy and economic globalization... we have pushed economic globalization too far... [and put] democracy to work for the global economy, instead of the other way around.” For both liberal advocates of economic integration and for its critics, this question, the political question, is key. The strongest arguments against (and for) continued globalization focus not on the direct effect of trade and finance on living standards and economic outcomes, but on the ways in which those links constrain the choices of governments. As long as democratic politics operates through nation-states, it is likely any left program will require some degree of delinking from the global economy. Almost all economists agree on the virtues of free trade—it’s been a catechism of the profession since Adam Smith. Their support for free trade is premised on two main arguments: first, that deficits are self-correcting—meaning, payments between countries will always be balanced by some automatic adjustment of prices, today usually conceived of as floating exchange rates; second, that international trade allows countries to specialize according to their inherent capabilities or endowments. Underlying both these claims, and giving them their moral force, is a liberal cosmopolitanism that views national borders as suspicious, if not illegitimate, and the exchange of value between strangers as inherently positive. It is striking how much the classic arguments for free trade—from James Mill to Milton Friedman—depend as much on the cultural and political benefits of internationalism as they do on its economic benefits. The realities of international trade and finance, however, present a number of challenges to the free-trade view. First, there’s the claim that exchange rates balance trade, which we’ve heard most recently in discussions of various Republican plans for import taxes. This confidence in the self-adjusting properties of flexible exchange rates is not borne out historically. There are endless examples of currencies failing to respond correctly to trade flows; and even when exchange rates do move, trade doesn’t necessarily respond. The lack of domestic substitutes for many imports, the fact that export industries are among the largest users of imported goods, and the tendency for trade to be invoiced in a few global currencies are among reasons to doubt that even the “right” exchange rates would do much to balance trade. Trade is in any case a small part of the overall balance of payments, which is dominated by large financial flows—foreign lending and borrowing, and sales and purchases of foreign financial assets. Restrictions on these capital flows were encouraged after the Second World War. But the consensus has since reversed, with capital mobility now a bedrock principle of the international order and market volumes growing spectacularly. These financial flows, mostly unrelated to trade or production, can move exchange rates far from the levels trade flows would predict and create payments problems even for countries that do not have large trade deficits. The second plank of the free-trade orthodoxy is that, in the long run, trade makes everyone better off, by allowing countries to specialize according to their comparative advantage. The problem here, as critics from Alexander Hamilton to Ha-Joon Chang have noted, is that following comparative advantage turns out to be inimical to industrialization and development. To industrialize is, by definition, to develop sectors in which a country currently is not competitive. More generally, economic links between countries constrain the choices of national governments. For orthodox economists, who think they have scientifically proven the best policies for everyone, these constraints are not a problem. They may even be a good thing. But the broader the questions we want to bring into the domain of politics, the more we are going to have to “get prices wrong” from the perspective of the international trade system. At the global level, what stands out is the absence of what Yanis Varoufakis calls a surplus recycling mechanism. Over here, let’s say, are trade flows, doing what they do; over there are financial flows, doing what they do. If these payments don’t all happen to balance, some active mechanism is needed to “recycle” money from the surplus countries to the deficit countries. After the Second World War, Marshall Aid and foreign military spending channeled dollars from the United States, then the main surplus country, to the rest of the world. Many countries also adopted capital controls limiting financial flows, allowing them to keep their balance of payments in an acceptable range. When countries are unable to impose such controls, the real activity of production and trade gets whipsawed by the shifting hopes and fears of foreign investors. Do investors today want to hold Greek bonds? Then Greece gets a property boom. Tomorrow they don’t? Then it gets a grinding depression. In the absence of capital controls, most countries are tightly restrained by the need to hold the interest of fidgety international financial markets. They must send a steady flow of goods and services to the United States and elsewhere in the North in order to self-insure against capital flow reversals, as well as to pay for the property their elites acquire in rich countries and, of course, to service public and private foreign debt. Trade surpluses are often seen as a sign of competitiveness (good) or mercantilism (bad), but when they are required to compensate for persistent financial outflows, they might better be seen as a form of tribute. We can see this clearly in Africa, as meticulously documented in Africa’s Odious Debts, by James K. Boyce and Léonce Ndikumana. First, a government borrows money from abroad, usually for some development project. Then, the foreign currency balances created by the loan are appropriated by the country’s wealthy elite—they become personal bank accounts in New York or London. Finally, the country as a whole is compelled to generate an export surplus to service the debt. In effect, African oil, diamonds, and chocolate are turned into private wealth in the United States and Europe. It’s only a minor crime in the scale of things that the United States gets its chocolate and diamonds for free. The great crime is that African communities are prevented from using their claim on these resources to develop their own collective capabilities. Countries unable to meet their external obligations, and unwilling to simply default, must turn to the international community, usually the IMF. Originally envisioned as offering a more or less automatic line of credit to countries in balance-of-payment difficulties, the IMF today in fact reinforces and formalizes the constraints imposed by financial markets. Debtor countries surrender control over tax, policy, public employment, privatization of public assets, and a raft of other decisions to their creditors. Elite opinion often sees this surrender of public authority not just as a necessary cost of globalization, but as one of its benefits. The economic historian Bradford DeLong evocatively calls neoliberalism “a counsel of despair”: it would be best, he says, if a poor country’s government would make the right choices on its own, but it won’t. So “if a reduction in its economic role... can be required as a price for rapid incorporation... into the global economy, such a reduction should be required.” A decade ago, Europe offered a promising alternative model, shifting sovereignty upward from nation-states without sacrificing democracy. But what once appeared as a project to extend and solidify the achievements of postwar social democracy on a continental scale today seems like a concerted campaign to roll them back. Supporters of the Eurosystem have described it as an attempt to recreate the gold standard—to reimpose the discipline of markets on states that have slipped free of it. Like the larger world system, the Eurosystem starts from the principle of unlimited financial flows based on the unanchored expectations of financial markets, and then demands that real productive activity and standards of living adjust to accommodate them. Since this would destroy society if really adhered to, the system is buffered with offsetting public flows, on conditions set by unaccountable authorities—most importantly, the European Central Bank. The effect has been to reverse the gains of two generations of European workers. We’ve seen this most clearly in Greece, where fiscal and banking crises—stage-managed by the ECB—have allowed the “troika” of the central bank, the European Commission, and the IMF to overrule the country’s elected government and force through a comprehensive program of austerity, privatization, and deregulation. But a less dramatic version of the same treatment has been meted out to Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the rest of the European periphery. At the height of the fiscal crisis, the ECB—to the applause of much of European business and finance—used its authority to, in effect, send ransom notes to the governments of the afflicted countries, refusing to perform a normal lender-of-last-resort role unless they agreed to far-reaching programs of liberalization. In two recent books, Wolfgang Streeck makes a scathing critique of the neoliberal vision of globalization and its application in Europe. He sees the ground crumbling under democratic politics as governments are increasingly accountable to the marktvolk, the people of the market, instead of the staatsvolk, citizens of a particular state. Europe today, he argues, resembles Friedrich Hayek’s 1930s vision of “catallaxy”—a state that exists only to enforce property rights, leaving all other substantive issues to the mercy of markets. Back in the 1930s, Hayek saw how deep trade and financial ties could make socialism impractical at the national level, while any supranational authority would lack the legitimacy to carry out such a program itself. “In the international sphere, democratic government should only prove to be possible if the tasks... are limited to an essentially liberal program,” he wrote in 1948. And so it’s proved, says Streeck; today, the European Union is a “liberalization machine.” Arguably, this rolling-back of social democracy has been the goal of the European project at least since the creation of the euro. Still, we should be careful to distinguish political ends to which European institutions have been put from any inevitable logic of integration itself. It is perhaps easier in the English-speaking world to dismiss the whole project as a mistake than from Europe’s periphery, where coups and dictatorships are still living memory. There, “Europe” still has a powerful appeal as the embodiment of liberal democracy and the rule of law—as a bulwark for popular rule rather than a fetter on it. Varoufakis, for instance, still holds out hope of a Europe of the people. But this position seems increasingly out of step with the times. Struggles for the welfare state and popular rule are becoming struggles against Europe. Is there space in these new populist movements for the left? Not in their current form. They are defined largely around opposition to the free movement of people. Migration is the one area where today’s globalization has not recapitulated the earlier globalization of the pre–First World War era. Then, movement of people as well as goods and money was largely uncontrolled; but today this is the case only within Europe. For some on the left, the moral and economic case for free migration is so strong it overwhelms whatever arguments might be made to oppose it on other grounds. Perhaps mass migration weakens solidarity among working people, but the historical evidence is hardly conclusive. In the United States, at least, much of our socialist and labor movements have been imported, and the periods of highest immigration historically were hardly fallow of radical politics. In any case, we have to weigh on the other side the benefits to migrants themselves. Progressive economists like Suresh Naidu argue that the income gains when a poor migrant enters a rich country are so large that the benefits of more open borders far outweigh any other global program of redistribution. On the numbers, it’s hard to disagree. But the economic argument may miss the value most people place on remaining in their home. There’s no question that NAFTA helped drive mass immigration from Mexico to the United States, by overwhelming traditional Mexican agriculture with cheap American produce. To the economist, it’s all for the best that Mexican farmers find higher paid work in the United States—free movement of people, in this view, is not only morally right but, like free trade in goods, necessary for the efficient allocation of labor. But do the migrants themselves share this view? To be clear, any progressive politics needs to be unequivocally pro-migrant. But one might argue that freedom to migrate is like the freedom to sleep on park benches—something that should absolutely be defended, but also something that, in a better world, there would be much less need for. The case for a left nationalism is further challenged by the salience of the truly global problem of climate change. Surely the need for an international program of decarbonization sets strict limits to any program of economic delinking? On the other hand, it’s not clear how much international coordination is in fact required in developing responses to climate change. Globalization isn’t the reason that Floridians vote for denialists while their streets fill up with seawater. The great obstacle to making climate policy the overwhelming priority it should be isn’t primarily that the costs of inaction will be paid by other countries, but that they’ll be paid by our grandchildren and great grandchildren. If the hard coordination problem is not between countries, but between generations, then the national demos may still be the only way to address it. Even if we want to delink, is it possible? Perhaps it’s easier than we think. As Paul Krugman, among others, has noted, the shift from manufacturing to services tends to reduce rather than increase the role of international trade. In the United States, at least, the vast majority of what we produce and consume stays within our own borders. The past decade has in many respects been one of deglobalization rather than globalization, with the growth of trade and financial flows decelerating sharply compared with the 1990s and 2000s. The period since 2008 has been the first sustained period since at least the 1970s when international trade failed to grow as a share of world GDP. These trends may continue or reverse, but the nascent global catallaxy still faces a fundamental problem—the nation-state is not just a vehicle for the aspirations of working people, but also provides a legal framework and political legitimacy without which capital can’t exist. Truly deregulated markets tear apart the social substrate in which they grow. Today, no less than in the days of the gold standard, the marktvolk must ultimately back up their demands with gunboats; and these they must borrow from a state. The track record of actually existing developmental states is mixed, to say the least. But there’s no need for us in the United States and other rich countries to pass judgment. It’s enough for us to resist when the coercive power of our own state is used to close off the possibility of people on the periphery finding their own way as best they can. In the early 1940s, looking back at thirty years of rolling contradictions between national politics and global economics, Keynes proposed a set of international institutions that, he hoped, would manage payments between countries in a way that would preserve both the autonomy of national governments and the coherence of the international order. This vision, implemented in a compromised way at Bretton Woods, has exercised a powerful hold on imaginations ever since. You can’t read far in the heterodox economics literature without coming across some new variation on Keynes’ 1940s proposals for an international currency, and an international bank to manage it. But a decade earlier, in the 1930s, Keynes took a different view. Facing the prospect of a beggar-thy-neighbor competition, rather than a wartime alliance, he was less interested in what institutions could govern the international payments system, and more interested in how to make such governance unnecessary. “We each should like to have a try at working out our own salvation,” he wrote in a brilliant essay on “National Self-Sufficiency” in 1933. In the previous era, he observed, liberal opinion had held that “the whole world was, or would be, organized on a basis of private competitive capitalism and of the freedom of private contract inviolably protected by the sanctions of law.” But by the 1930s it was clear that this liberal model was no longer widely accepted or acceptable. Without a clear alternative in sight, there was a need for experimentation—and these experiments could by their nature only be national. At the same time, he wrote, the purely economic arguments for integration were much weaker than he had been taught: “Most modem processes of mass production can be performed in most countries and climates with almost equal efficiency.” Under these circumstances, I sympathize, therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel—these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible, and, above all, let finance be primarily national. The vision of a rational, just, and democratic world order is profoundly attractive. We resist the idea that someone’s life chances should depend on which side of a border they happen to be born; we are rightly skeptical of national sovereignty as a principle when so much of what happens in one nation is self-evidently determined by choices made in another. So it’s tempting to frame the questions of international trade and finance as ultimately problems of global governance. This is the spirit of the many proposals for a new Bretton Woods. But perhaps one lesson of the current moment is that this is not the best, or at least not the only, approach to the problem. Any kind of international structure, whether trade agreements, labor standards, or financial architecture, needs to be understood in terms of a concrete political project. And the politics of globalization today are not the politics of the left. The European project has been a disaster for social democracy and labor. While one can imagine European integration taking other paths, integration as it has actually proceeded has involved the wholesale rolling-back of the welfare state, public sector, and labor regulation. U.S. efforts to unilaterally impose an international order, meanwhile, have ranged from ineffectual to catastrophic. And the institutional legacies of the last great push to consciously plan the global economy—the IMF and World Bank—have evolved from their original goal of opening up space for more humane policies, to instead reinforcing the shackles of the market. It is sometimes asked why we should assume that national politics will be more favorable to the left—why can’t social democracy be advanced through an international framework? The question is perfectly logical—and might as well come from another planet. Whatever arrangements we can imagine in principle, the systems of social security, labor regulation, environmental protection, and redistribution of income and wealth that in fact exist are national in scope and are operated by national governments. By definition, any struggle to preserve social democracy as it exists today is a struggle to defend national institutions. And do we ever, today, see national governments compelled by international agreements or by the pressure of international trade and finance to nationalize private industries, strengthen labor protections, or increase the generosity of social insurance? Or is the pressure invariably in the other direction? A generation ago, you might have pointed toward Europe as a possible example of “leveling up.” But not today. If the fault line today lies between a liberal internationalism on the one side and populist nationalism on the other, there is clearly a viable politics on both sides; the victory of the former is not assured. Globalization no longer has the air of inevitability that it had a decade ago. There are large potential constituencies for a program to defend at the national level egalitarianism, solidarity, and collective decision-making—even where those programs are disingenuous, as with Brexit, or where they ultimately collapse under external pressure and their own incoherence. In the years to come, will we find ourselves in struggles where a progressive, cosmopolitan vision needs to be advanced against backward-looking, intransigent local interests? Or will we find ourselves in struggles where political experiments on a national scale need to be defended from external pressures, so they can develop on their own terms and work out their own salvation? On some level, the answer can only be: both. But insofar as the conjuncture throws up more cases of the latter, our political imagination may be better served by envisioning a new era of national self-sufficiency than a new Bretton Woods. J.W. Mason is assistant professor of economics at John Jay College-CUNY and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute."(The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts" is a song by the Bee Gees, released in 1967.[3] Written by Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb. Robin Gibb sang lead vocals on this song and it would become one of his staple songs to perform during both Bee Gees concerts and his solo appearances. It later appeared on their 1968 album, Horizontal. The song became the first of the group's five No. 1 hits in the UK, reached No. 1 in twelve other countries, peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually became one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over five million copies worldwide.[2][4] When the brothers wrote the song, they had never been to Massachusetts.[3] In a UK television special on ITV in December 2011, it was voted third (behind "How Deep Is Your Love" and "You Win Again") in "The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song".[5] Writing and inspiration [ edit ] The song was written in the Regis Hotel, New York City during a tour of the United States. The song was intended as an antithesis to flower power anthems of the time such as "Let's Go to San Francisco" and "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" in that the protagonist had been to San Francisco to join the hippies but was now homesick. The idea of the lights having gone out in Massachusetts was to suggest that everyone had gone to San Francisco.[6] There are two different memories, Robin remembers us doing it in a boat going around New York City. And I remember us checking in at the St. Regis with Robert, going to the suite, and while the bags were being brought in we were so high on being in New York, that's how 'Massachusetts' began. I think we were strumming basically the whole thing, and then I think we went on a boat round New York. I don't know if we finished it, but I think that's where the memories collide. Everybody wrote it. All three of us were there when the song was born. Barry Gibb[7] The song was originally intended for The Seekers. Upon arriving in London from Australia (following in the path of the Seekers who had arrived several years earlier) the Bee Gees had been unsuccessful in getting the song to the group, so they recorded it themselves. During a chance meeting in London between the Seekers' lead singer Judith Durham and Maurice Gibb, Durham learned that "Massachusetts" was originally intended for her group and in 2003 the Seekers recorded the song as a tribute to Maurice following his death earlier that year. The Bee Gees had never actually been to Massachusetts when they recorded this; they just liked the sound of the name.[8] Robin Gibb explained about "Massachusetts" in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh: We have never been there but we loved the word and there is always something magic about American place names. It only works with British names if you do it as a folk song. Roger Whittaker did that with Durham Town." [Robin Gibb also recalled to The Mail on Sunday on 1 November 2009]: "This was a bittersweet victory. The day it went to number one it was Bonfire Night and I was in the Hither Green rail crash in Lewisham. Forty-nine people died and it was one of Britain's worst rail disasters. Luckily I didn't get injured. I remember sitting at the side of the carriage, watching the rain pour down, fireworks go off and blue lights of the ambulances whirring. It was like something out of a Spielberg film. I thought, at least there is one consolation, we have our first UK number one."[8] Recording [ edit ] "Massachusetts" was recorded on August 9, 1967 along with "Sir Geoffrey Saved the World" at the IBC Studios in London and finished on August 17.[9] Barry feels Bill Shepherd's orchestral score is perhaps the arranger's finest: "We never expected him to do that. Sometimes we would sing what we would [imagine] the strings doing. But in this case he did that himself, and I thought it was great. 'Massachusetts' was our first #1 in England".[7] Release [ edit ] Before the release of this song, Australians Colin Petersen and Vince Melouney were facing deportation, and it appeared that they might have to leave the band as a result. On 12 August, British fans staged a protest on behalf of the musicians at the cottage of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Three days later Bee Gees fan Deirdre Meehan chained and handcuffed herself to Buckingham Palace to protest the possible deportation. Ultimately, the musicians were allowed to stay.[7] When it was released in the UK, the title was "Massachusetts (The Lights Went Out in)" but the subtitle was later dropped. In America, Atco Records delayed it to release "Holiday".[10] The song "Massachusetts" has a minor claim to fame in the history of British radio as it was the second record played on BBC Radio 1. The first song to be played was "Flowers in the Rain" by The Move. It was the first No. 1 hit single by a non-Japanese artist on Japan's official hit chart, Oricon Singles Chart, on April 1, 1968. Personnel [ edit ] Charts [ edit ] Weekly charts [ edit ] Cover versions [ edit ]Leica answered a few prayers, and left a lot of folks baffled, when it announced the limited-edition M Edition 60 at Photokina. The full-frame digital rangefinder is strictly limited to 600 units, each paired one of the company's finest lenses, the current version of the Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH. And it omits one thing that almost every digital camera has—an LCD display. I've seen online forum posts from a few film stalwarts who wanted this type of camera, one that eliminates the temptation of reviewing a photo immediately after it's captured, and it's finally here—there just aren't a lot of them available for purchase. And, if you do want to buy a set, be prepared for the price: $18,500. That's a $6,100 premium over the standard M (Typ 240) and 35mm f/1.4, but Leica limited editions tend to appreciate in value over time. The camera's release marks the 60th anniversary of the original M-mount rangefinder, the M3. As you can see from the side-by-side of my M3 and the M Edition 60 above, the basic form of the camera hasn't really changed in that time. The film advance lever and rewind button are gone, as is the frameline preview lever, but the basic shape is the same. The M3 was available in silver chrome, with a few rare examples in black painted brass, but the Leica 60 uses stainless steel for its top and bottom plates, and in the barrel of the Summilux with which it ships. There is a hot shoe, so you can use an external flash, a PocketWizard, or an auxiliary optical finder, but there's no accessory port so you won't be able to add an electronic viewinder as you can with the M (Typ 240). The lack of a rear display eliminates a lot of the controls that one is used to with a modern digital camera. Do you hate navigating through menus to change camera settings? Good news, there's no menu here. No menu at all. The camera shoots Raw DNG images only, JPG capture is not supported, and all of the settings are adjusted via controls on the body and lens. ISO sensitivity is set manually via a rear dial—the same type you use to set the ASA film speed on a metered film Leica like the M7 ($4,995). There's no auto setting for ISO, but you can set the shutter speed to automatically set based on the lens aperture and ISO speed. Like a film M, the shutter speed, whether it be manually or automatically selected, displays in the optical viewfinder. If you're shooting in full manual mode the viewfinder also shows you if your shot is going to be under, over, or properly exposed based on the M's internal light meter. So what's it like shooting with the M 60? Not that different from a film camera, it turns out. I didn't get to take the M 60 for an extended test drive—there aren't a lot of these to go around—just about a half hour walking the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn on a rainy, gray day. The M 60 is sealed against dust and moisture, and while I did have a companion holding an umbrella over my head to shield the M from rain—it is a limited-edition model, after all—the drops of rain that did make their way to the top plate wiped off the stainless steel with no problems. Despite its dreariness, the day was bright enough where I could set the lens to f/1.4, the ISO to 200, and the shutter speed dial to the automatic position, so I was only really worried about framing and focus. The viewfinder uses the same 0.68x magnification that digital M users are used to, but the M 60 does use white
rising would also vary by several days (equating to decades of the cycle) in eras when the official site of observation was moved from near Cairo.[y] The return of Sirius to the night sky varies by about a day per degree of latitude, causing it to be seen 8–10 days earlier at Aswan than at Alexandria, a difference which causes Krauss to propose dating much of Egyptian history decades later than the present consensus. Ptolemaic calendar [ edit ] Following Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty came to power in Egypt, continuing to use its native calendars with Hellenized names. In 238 BC, Ptolemy III's Canopus Decree ordered that every 4th year should incorporate a sixth day its intercalary month,[89] honoring him and his wife as gods equivalent to the children of Nut. The reform was resisted by the Egyptian priests and people and was abandoned. Roman calendar [ edit ] Egyptian scholars were involved with the establishment of Julius Caesar's reform of the Roman calendar, although the Roman priests initially misapplied its formula and—by counting inclusively—added leap days every three years instead of every four. The mistake was corrected by Augustus through omitting leap years for a number of cycles until AD 4. As the personal ruler of Egypt, he also imposed a reform of its calendar in 26 or 25 BC, possibly to correspond with the beginning of a new Callipic cycle, with the first leap day occurring on 6 Epag. in the year 22 BC. This "Alexandrian calendar" corresponds almost exactly to the Julian, causing 1 Thoth to remain at 29 August except during the year before a Julian leap year, when it occurs on 30 August instead. The calendars then resume their correspondence after 4 Phamenoth / 29 February of the next year.[90] Months [ edit ] For much of Egyptian history, the months were not referred to by individual names, but were rather numbered within the three seasons. As early as the Middle Kingdom, however, each month had its own name. These finally evolved into the New Kingdom months, which in turn gave rise to the Hellenized names that were used for chronology by Ptolemy in his Almagest and by others. Copernicus constructed his tables for the motion of the planets based on the Egyptian year because of its mathematical regularity. A convention of modern Egyptologists is to number the months consecutively using Roman numerals. A persistent problem of Egyptology has been that the festivals which give their names to the months occur in the next month. Gardiner proposed that an original calendar governed by the priests of Ra was supplanted by an improvement developed by the partisans of Thoth. Parker connected the discrepancy to his theories concerning the lunar calendar. Sethe, Weill, and Clagett proposed that the names expressed the idea that each month culminated in the festival beginning the next. Months Egyptological English[63] Egyptian Greek[92] Coptic Seasonal[63] Middle Kingdom New Kingdom I I Akhet Thoth 1st Month of Flood 1 Ꜣḫt Tḫy Ḏḥwtyt Θωθ Thōth Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ Tôut II II Akhet Phaophi 2nd Month of Flood 2 Ꜣḫt Mnht P-n-ip.t Φαωφί [z] Phaōphí Ⲡⲁⲱⲡⲉ Baôba III III Akhet Athyr 3rd Month of Flood 3 Ꜣḫt Ḥwt-ḥwr Ḥwt-ḥwr Ἀθύρ Athúr Ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ Hatûr IV IV Akhet Choiak 4th Month of Flood 4 Ꜣḫt KꜢ-ḥr-KꜢ KꜢ-ḥr-KꜢ Χοιάκ [aa] Khoiák Ⲕⲟⲓⲁⲕ Ⲕⲓⲁϩⲕ Koiak Kiahk V I Peret Tybi 1st Month of Growth 1 Prt Sf-Bdt TꜢ-ꜥb Τυβί [ab] Tubí Ⲧⲱⲃⲓ Tôbi VI II Peret Mechir 2nd Month of Growth 2 Prt Rḫ Wr Mḫyr Μεχίρ [ac] Mekhír Ⲙⲉϣⲓⲣ Meshir VII III Peret Phamenoth 3rd Month of Growth 3 Prt Rḫ Nds P-n-imn-ḥtp.w Φαμενώθ Phamenṓth Ⲡⲁⲣⲉⲙϩⲁⲧ Baramhat VIII IV Peret Pharmuthi 4th Month of Growth 4 Prt Rnwt P-n-rnn.t Φαρμουθί [ad] Pharmouthí Ⲡⲁⲣⲙⲟⲩⲧⲉ Barmoda IX I Shemu Pachons 1st Month of Low Water 1 Šmw Ḫnsw P-n-ḫns.w Παχών Pakhṓn Ⲡⲁϣⲟⲛⲥ Bashons X II Shemu Payni 2nd Month of Low Water 2 Šmw Hnt-htj P-n-in.t Παϋνί [ae] Paüní Ⲡⲁⲱⲛⲓ Baôni XI III Shemu Epiphi 3rd Month of Low Water 3 Šmw Ipt-hmt Ipip Ἐπιφί [af] Epiphí Ⲉⲡⲓⲡ Apip XII IV Shemu Mesore 4th Month of Low Water 4 Šmw Opening of the Year Wp Rnpt Birth of the Sun Mswt Rꜥ Μεσορή Mesorḗ Ⲙⲉⲥⲱⲣⲓ Masôri — Intercalary Month Epagomenal Days — Those upon the Year Hryw Rnpt ἐπαγόμεναι epagómenai Ⲡⲓⲕⲟⲩϫⲓ ⲛ̀ⲁⲃⲟⲧ Bikudji en abod Legacy [ edit ] An 11th-century Coptic calendrical icon displaying two months of saints The reformed Egyptian calendar continues to be used in Egypt as the Coptic calendar of the Egyptian Church and by the Egyptian populace at large, particularly the peasants, to calculate the agricultural seasons. It differs only in its era, which is dated from the ascension of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Contemporary Egyptian farmers, like their ancient predecessors, divide the year into three seasons: winter, summer, and inundation. It is also associated with local festivals such as the annual Flooding of the Nile and the ancient Spring festival Sham el-Nessim. The Ethiopian calendar is based on this reformed calendar but uses Amharic names for its months and uses a different era. The French Republican Calendar was similar, but began its year at the autumnal equinox. British orrery maker John Gleave represented the Egyptian calendar in a reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism. See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] References [ edit ] Citations [ edit ] Bibliography [ edit ]Spoiler warning: This interview contains plot details for the Season 3 premiere of The Flash, titled “Flashpoint.” After one brief but poignant episode spent in the “Flashpoint” timeline, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) has returned to his own time, but as we saw in the final minutes of the premiere, things aren’t exactly the way he left them. While the full repercussions of Barry’s trip through time have yet to be seen, the premiere did reveal one major consequence of his extended jaunt in an alternate reality — the love of his life, Iris West (Candice Patton), is estranged from her father, Joe (Jesse L. Martin), shattering the family dynamic that has become the emotional core of the show. “Joe and Iris don’t have the relationship that we’re used to seeing, which is really difficult because we know the West family to be a very, very strong family unit,” Patton tells Mashable. “So as we move forward, we’ll see how strained that relationship has become because of the timeline being changed, and how that affects everyone else.” Patton admits that it’s been hard for her and Martin to adjust to playing those scenes of friction between father and daughter this season, given the rapport between them in real life. “I will say it was super strange to play and almost everything in me didn’t want to play those scenes just because it felt so unnatural to have this strained relationship with Joe,” she says. “It’s an interesting dynamic and interesting to see how that strained relationship also affects Wally [Keiynan Lonsdale] and how it affects Barry and how it affects the team, because you have people who aren’t getting along, so Team Flash is not at its best.” Grant Gustin as Barry Allen and Candice Patton as Iris West in "Flashpoint." Image: Katie Yu/The CW Despite the distance between Iris and Joe, Patton says Iris’ relationship with Barry is still strong in Season 3. That doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth sailing for the couple, though. “Overall they are OK, and they still have the desire to create a relationship with each other, but things are changed and they’ll come to find out that there are parts of that final scene that we saw at the end of Season 2 with Barry and Iris that Iris doesn’t remember happening,” Patton teases. “I won’t say too much about what that is, but you find out that everything’s different and people’s memories are changed.” One benefit of Barry’s time in the Flashpoint reality was that he had the chance to spend time with his parents, which Patton says has helped our hero work through his grief over their deaths. “I think there’s definitely a lighter version of Barry this season, which is really nice. I think he’s come to terms with his mother and father’s deaths; some things in life you have to accept and move forward, and once he does that, it allows him to live a lighter life,” she says. “But it’s The Flash — we always have drama and villains and people threatening to destroy the world, so there’s a balance for Barry, for sure. It’s business as usual!” For those who may be wondering if the Flashpoint storyline will be resolved quickly, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg promises that “the ramifications of it are going to last forever, and that was really exciting to us. One of the things that Barry learns is, if you break a dish, you can glue it back together again, but you can still see the cracks. "It’s going to help explain why time travel is not a get-out-of-jail-free card where somebody dies and it’s like ‘Oh, I’ll just go back in time and save them.’ There are ramifications to messing with the universe and one of the things that Barry is going to have to do this season is learn to live with them.” As the producers previously teased at Comic-Con and the Television Critics Association summer press tour, the ripple effects from Flashpoint will extend to characters on The Flash and even into the other shows in the shared “Arrowverse.” “There are some good things that come out of it, but there’s the guilt for the people who have good things to know ‘this wasn’t supposed to be my life and why am I the one of the group who was the beneficiary of this?’” Kreisberg says. “So it’s sort of like getting everything you want, but all your friends didn’t, and they had something taken away from them. So even if you weren’t the cause of their unhappiness, how can you really enjoy what you have because you know it should be different?” Kreisberg says that Season 3 will see Barry grow up in a big way, now that he’s faced with the far-reaching consequences of his actions: “He really becomes an adult and that’s been really exciting for Grant, that’s been really exciting for us — it was very black and white before this, very ‘that’s good and that’s evil,’ and like most adults, Barry has to learn that people make mistakes. The question isn’t ‘Did you make a mistake or not,’ it’s ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ And if there’s nothing you can do about it, how are you gonna live with yourself?” The final scene of the season premiere also hinted at one of the major villains for the year — Doctor Alchemy — while we have yet to see the other, the speedster known as Savitar. Alchemy somehow communicates with Edward Clariss (Todd Lasance), the man who was the villain known as The Rival in the Flashpoint timeline. After his disembodied voice wakes Clariss up in the middle of the night, Alchemy ominously scratches his name into the mirror in Clariss' bedroom, but what's the connection between the two? Is Alchemy simply Clariss' alter-ego, Mr. Robot style, or is the villain able to telepathically communicate with other people? Could Clariss actually be Savitar in Barry's new timeline, incited to violence by Alchemy? We'll have to wait and see. Speaking to Mashable in August, Kreisberg explained that the decision to feature two antagonists this season felt like a natural choice following the solo threats of Reverse-Flash and Zoom in previous years. “Barry’s powers have increased and he’s certainly increased his ability to be The Flash and he’s doing it at a high level, so he needed two villains to really give him a challenge this season,” he says. “And as the season unfolds and you begin to understand the relationship the villains have to The Flash and also to each other, and why they decided that combining forces is the way to go, it will all make sense. I know we always say this, but we’re so excited about what we’re doing on The Flash this season — it feels like it has the potential to be the best season.” In DC Comics canon, Savitar is a speedster whose obsession with gaining new abilities earns him a cult following, and Kreisberg says that aspect of the character is part of what makes the villain “something different and new" for Season 3. "The Flash villains have been very singular — Reverse-Flash just wanted to go home and Zoom just wanted to live; this is somebody who invites worship and invites praise and loyalty," Kreisberg teases. "There’s something so scary about a cult, because it’s out there and it’s everywhere and the power of belief is one of the themes that we’ll be exploring this season, whether that’s belief in someone else or belief in yourself. It just creeps us out. To watch what people are willing to do for this villain, and the lengths to which they’re willing to go to worship him, is something that we think is something interesting and different for The Flash.” The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended a volatile session with slight gains and commodities extended their rally on Tuesday as investors held back from big bets ahead of U.S. earnings reports, as well as on concerns about the euro zone debt crisis. Wall Street stocks settled in mostly positive territory — helped by bets on third-quarter results from aluminum producer Alcoa Inc (AA.N) — while sentiment was still fragile from the sell-off of the past month. “Earnings are always important but even more so here after several quarters of solid earnings across many industry sectors. I think investors are going to want to see that continuing or solidifying itself,” said Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager of Permanent Portfolio Funds in San Francisco. “Otherwise, you could see further sell-offs,” he added. In commodities trading, crude oil settled up 1.5 percent at above $110 a barrel in London. Global stocks, as measured by MSCI’s All-Country World index.MIWD00000PUS, gained 0.4 percent. The index has rallied recently on improved sentiment, particularly after a weekend pledge by German and French leaders to come up with a plan to tackle the debt crisis. A new twist emerged this week in the Europe’s financial debacle as investors nervously awaited Slovakia to become the last of 17 EU member states to vote to boost the size and powers of the European Financial Stability Facility. The vote has taken a complicated path. Slovakia’s parliament voted down the measure, resulting in a fall in the government. But the new ruling party head said passage is expected later in the week. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange September 28, 2011. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid The second vote in Slovakia may not pass until later this week, complicating access to funds that could stem the crisis. That may rattle markets through the week, as it adds an element of uncertainty to a fragile trading environment. “It seems like the vote is a little in doubt. Everyone is on hold waiting on what’s happening with the European Union,” said Ronald Simpson, managing director of global currency analysis at Action Economics in Tampa, Florida. In Monday’s trading, the S&P jumped 3 percent, lifting the index above its 50-day moving average the first time since late July, though the gains came on thin volume due to the Columbus Day holiday. With the S&P near the upper end of its recent range, it is unclear whether institutional buyers will support the market further or if it will retreat. Agricultural markets in Chicago surged, with wheat rising over 8 percent — its most in a year — to finish above $6.60 a bushel on bets that a U.S. government crop report due Wednesday would show smaller-than-expected grain stockpiles. The Dow Jones industrial average.DJI lost 16.88 points, or 0.15 percent, to end at 11,416.30. But the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index.SPX rose 0.65 point, or 0.05 percent, to 1,195.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index.IXIC was up 16.98 points, or 0.66 percent, at 2,583.03. “The market was overshot on the downside and now we’re making it up to a certain degree,” said Wayne Kaufman, chief market strategist at John Thomas Financial in New York. Alcoa’s stock (AA.N) closed up 2 percent at $10.30, making it the best performer in the Dow. The top U.S. aluminum producer reported higher revenue and earnings in the third quarter from a year ago, though results were down from the second quarter of this year. A man looks at a stock quotation board outside a brokerage in Tokyo September 26, 2011.REUTERS/Toru Hanai The euro initially fell on Tuesday on fears surrounding the Slovakia vote, before rebounding. The FTSEurofirst 300.FTEU3 index of top European shares, closed down 0.3 percent, after rising 1.7 percent on Monday. Prices of U.S. Treasuries fell, erasing gains that brought benchmark yields to historic lows last week, as investors’ most acute anxiety over Europe’s debt crisis subsided. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was down 23/32 from Friday, its yield at 2.1567 percent.Media playback is not supported on this device Dave Mackay lifts FA Cup for Tottenham Hotspur in 1967 Former Tottenham, Derby, Hearts and Scotland midfielder Dave Mackay has died, aged 80. He won 10 major honours as a player in British and European football. The Edinburgh-born player also won 22 caps for his country and was named Footballer of the Year in both Scotland and England. Paying tribute, Spurs said: "He was one of our greatest ever players and a man who never failed to inspire those around him." After winning all three domestic honours in Scotland with Hearts, Mackay joined Spurs in 1959. Dave Mackay confronts Leeds midfielder Billy Bremner in 1966. Mackay told the journalist Ian Abrahams in 2010 that he felt the iconic image "portrayed me as a bully" He helped the north London club become the first post-war team to achieve the Double of league and FA Cup in 1961, then won the FA Cup again in 1962 and 1967. Spurs described him as "the heartbeat" of their Double-winning side and said he played a "vital role" in their 1963 European Cup Winners' Cup success despite missing the final through injury. Dave Mackay factfile 1958: Captains Hearts to Scottish league title 1959: Joins Tottenham from Hearts for £32,000 1961: Wins the league and FA Cup Double with Tottenham. He won two further FA Cups, in 1962 and 1967 1968: Sold to Derby County for £5,000, helping them gain promotion to the First Division in his first season 1969: Named joint winner of the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award 1971: Appointed player-manager of Swindon Town 1972: Becomes Nottingham Forest manager 1973: Succeeds Brian Clough as manager of Derby County 1975: Leads Derby County to the league title 1977-1995: Manages Walsall, Birmingham City and Doncaster, and a number of clubs in the Middle East 2002: Made an inaugural inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame 2015: Dies aged 80 Mackay joined Derby County in 1968 and was named joint Footballer of the Year the following season. He helped his new side, managed by a young Brian Clough, to the Second Division title before a player-manager spell with Swindon Town. Mackay then managed Nottingham Forest before succeeding Clough at Derby, leading the Rams to the First Division title in 1975. He also managed Walsall, Doncaster and Birmingham as well as spending more than a decade leading sides in the Middle East. The Scot was once described by Manchester United's George Best as the "hardest man I have ever played against". A minute's applause will be held in honour of Mackay before Scotland's friendly against Northern Ireland at Hampden Park on 25 March. The world of football pays tribute Former Tottenham manager David Pleat, speaking to BBC Radio 5 live: "He was a great man, inspirational. He was as tough as teak, led by example and was a wonderful leader of men. "He represented everything that was wonderful about football in those days. He was a very polite, decent, humble and down-to-earth guy." Former Derby captain Roy McFarland, talking to BBC Radio Derby: "The majority of pictures you see of Dave Mackay, he had his chest stuck out. That is how he played and that is how he lived his life. "He had a tough legacy taking over as manager from Brian Clough, in terms of the atmosphere at the club, but he calmed and settled everyone down." Former Scotland manager Craig Brown, speaking to BBC Radio Scotland: "Dave Mackay was the perfect midfield player and he would have been worth an absolute fortune today. "When you see players like Gareth Bale going to Real Madrid you wonder what Dave Mackay would've been worth in the present market." Mackay's first professional club Hearts, with whom he won a Scottish league title, a Scottish Cup and two Scottish League Cups: "A fearless defender regarded as the club's greatest-ever player." Mackay's former club Tottenham: "He was a superb player who possessed all the technique, passing ability and talent to be the complete footballer." Spurs paid tribute to "a man who never failed to inspire those around him" Derby County president and chief executive Sam Rush: "Dave Mackay is a legend at Derby County and his name will forever be etched into the history of the club for the fantastic contribution that he made, both as a player and a manager." Former Tottenham and England striker Gary Linekeron Twitter: "Sorry to hear that Dave Mackay has passed away. He was a wonderful footballer, and a winner, both north and south of the border." Former Tottenham midfielder Micky Hazardon Twitter: "Very sad news at the passing of one of our biggest and greatest legends Dave Mackay, a fantastic footballer and man." Former Tottenham and England goalkeeper Ray Clemenceon Twitter: "Sad day to see that the legend that was Dave Mackay passed away last night. Great man sadly missed." Mackay won the FA Cup three times as a Tottenham player Mackay was named as joint winner of the Footballer of the Year award in 1969Commanders! Balance 2.0 introduces a large number of major changes to Armored Warfare, which is why we have compiled a compensation plan to ensure a smooth transfer for all commanders. These are the changes that will influence every account in the game. All retrofits will be sold and their full price will be returned to your account. All commander and crew skills will undergo a reset and experience will also be returned to your account. As for the rest, each player will be given the choice to either save current progression or perform a full reset. Players will have a month to decide, starting from the launch of Update 0.19. Saving Progression If you decide to save your progression, the following will happen: If you obtained no Reputation using a vehicle, that vehicle will remain as it was If you obtained any amount of Reputation, the vehicle will become fully unlocked with all of its upgrades available. Upgrades installed before the update will remain installed Other improvements such as Battle-Hardened Status and Camouflage will remain untouched. If a vehicle is moved to another Tier, you will receive its fully unlocked replacement for that Tier along with the vehicle that moved. For example, if you own the M1A2 Main Battle Tank, you will get to keep it but it will be moved to Tier 8. You will also receive its Tier 9 replacement, the M1A2 SEP v3. Camouflage, Battle-Hardened Status and Decals of the vehicle that moves to another Tier will be fully compensated. If the vehicle in question is removed from the game completely, you will receive its replacement as well as full compensation for any camouflage or battle-hardened status. Please note that all the equipped consumables and tokens will be moved to your Inventory. All Premium vehicles that move to a higher Tier will remain in your possession at no extra charge. Progression Reset This choice will fully refund all account progress. With this option all the progression tanks in your garage will be sold. You will receive the entire sum of Credits and Gold spent on the vehicles themselves, their retrofits, the Battle-Hardened Status and decals along with all the Reputation you spent to unlock them. All the consumables and tokens will be moved to your inventory. Each player can only choose to reset their progress once. The option will be available for a month, starting from the launch of Update 0.19. The reset is instant and requires no additional action from the player. Please note that your Premium vehicles will not be sold and will remain in your garage regardless of whether you choose to reset or not and Premium vehicles that move to a higher Tier will remain in your possession at no extra charge. Please visit our website for more information on the Compensation Plan. We'll see you on the battlefield!Minnesota has chosen two companies to grow and sell the state's entire supply of medical marijuana. LeafLine Labs and Minnesota Medical Solutions are led by doctors and backed by enough deep-pocketed investors to presumably keep them solvent through what's likely to be a rocky launch for the fledgling cannabis industry. Minnesota Health Department Commissioner Ed Ehlinger announced the state's selection Monday, after an exhaustive review of the 12 companies that applied — and paid a $20,000 nonrefundable application fee — for the job. The state, he said, chose the two companies it deemed most capable of cultivating, manufacturing and distributing a safe, high-quality medicine that's still considered an illegal drug by the federal government and half the states. "This program is ultimately all about getting ill people medicine that can help reduce their suffering," Ehlinger said. "This is an important day for the rollout of the program, and an important day for those Minnesotans suffering from conditions that may be improved through the use of medical cannabis." An estimated 5,000 patients with conditions ranging from cancer to glaucoma to Crohn's disease could register for the Minnesota Medical Cannabis program next year, although the state said the figure could be three times larger. Monday's announcement was the starting gun for the two manufacturers. An example of what medical marijuana containers will look like when dispensed in Minnesota, LeafLine, which was launched by a Minnesota emergency room physician and 10 members of the Bachman family of florists, will break ground this month on a 42,000-square-foot pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing facility in Cottage Grove. It will begin selling medical marijuana out of a distribution center in Eagan next July 1, with other locations to open in Hibbing, St. Cloud and St. Paul. Minnesota Medical Solutions, also founded by an emergency room physician, has already built a secure greenhouse and manufacturing facility in Otsego, and will be launching its operations this week. It plans to open distribution facilities by next July in Rochester, Maple Grove, Minneapolis and Moorhead. LeafLine founders Dr. Gary Starr and Dr. Andrew Bachman said their experience as physicians, dealing with patients who weren't helped by standard medical treatments, turned them, in Starr's words, into "staunch patient advocates for medical cannabis." "LeafLine's patients-first — always — philosophy stems from our firsthand experience in the emergency department," Starr said. He'd see patients, like one elderly woman, fighting cancer and bedridden, whose chronic pain reduced her to tears. "I could not solve that problem. This patient's not alone. We see tough cases every day … many conditions for which medical cannabis may be a potential therapy." Minnesota's Legislature passed one of the nation's most stringent medical marijuana legalization laws this year, restricting not only the number of patients who can register for the program, but limiting the sale of the drug only to pill or liquid form, not the plant itself. For the doctors, those restrictions are part of the appeal, allowing them to tailor the doses for patients ranging from tiny children with epilepsy to terminally ill patients gripped by wracking pain. The Health Department estimates that anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 patients could register for the program, and Ehlinger has the discretion to expand the program to other conditions, including intractable pain, with the Legislature's blessing. In many states, pain patients make up the bulk of patients enrolled in the program — 93 percent of patients in Colorado's medical marijuana program listed pain as one of their qualifying medical conditions. "Medical cannabis is not the cure-all some portray it to be," said Dr. Kyle Kingsley, founder of Minnesota Medical Solutions. "But it can alleviate the suffering of many, and that's a great thing for these patients." Kingsley said MinnMed's founders also "respect the fact that some Minnesotans are unsettled about medical cannabis. We take their apprehensions very seriously. In fact, we are doing this because we share their concerns and we want to do things the responsible and right way." A few Minnesota communities have shied away from the idea of welcoming a marijuana facility to town. Duluth, which spent years locked in legal battles with a local head shop, imposed a temporary moratorium on even debating the issue. The Cottage Grove and Otsego city councils signed off on the manufacturing facilities in September. LeafLine estimates that its facility will employ 35 people initially, and that building the manufacturing facility and greenhouse will create 100 construction jobs. MinnMed estimates that it will employ six to 15 people at the Otsego facility in the first year, with another three to five workers at each of its four dispensaries.Sam DeBord is managing broker of Seattle Homes Group with Coldwell Banker Danforth and 2017 president of Seattle King County Realtors. You can find his team at SeattleHome.com and SeattleCondo.com. Email Sam DeBord. Home buyers in Seattle might be able to breathe a bit easier. The Seattle real estate market is still red hot, but the rate at which its inventory is shrinking has been slowing. The number of homes available for sale in the greater Seattle area has shrunk about 13% year over year. That news on its own sounds like bad news for buyers. Compared with the 20% drops that we've seen over the past 18 months, though, it looks like a positive trend. Sellers may finally be getting on board and listing more homes for sale. vailable inventory in the Seattle real estate market has been under two months for over two years. That's not a healthy market, and it has pushed double-digit price increases across the region. A balanced market would have 4-6 months of available homes. Sellers are concerned that after they sell, they'll have trouble finding their next home in this competitive market. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. The summer slowdown we're seeing right now may finally be reversing that trend a bit. That's the feeling on the streets from many real estate brokers. From the MLS board to the Realtor association and brokers' offices, the general murmur is that while the market is still very hot, we can feel a bit of a slowdown in the air. Some buyers are giving up. Some aren't willing to waive all of their contingencies any longer. Cash buyers still win, and big offers still prevail, but buyers are negotiating a bit harder and sellers are playing along. King County, at the heart of the Puget Sound real estate market, could use that relief. The median Seattle home price rose 15% over the past 12 months. At $505,000, that pricing is out of reach of many middle-income residents. Still, the influx of technology jobs and the lack of new construction create a demand for homes in the upper pricing tiers of the market. ondos are scarce. King County has 0.9 months of available condo inventory for sale. Seattle condos are like a black hole. The inventory just keeps imploding upon itself. With this kind of price appreciation comes bubble talk. The price increases are dramatic. There will be a slowdown at some point, but our situation is vastly different than it was before the 2007 peak. There are 10,000 new technology workers coming to the Seattle metro this year from just four companies. They're making good money. The mortgage system now verifies income, employment, assets and ability to pay. In short, the last bubble was built on false credit. Home buyers today have cash, large down payments and good jobs. Seattle's population shift is a major factor in a long-term reshaping of the city's real estate market. A bit of a slowdown would be welcome in the Seattle real estate market. Just don't expect prices to go down any time soon. The fundamentals for today's buying frenzy are solid. Seattle has become a more valuable place to live.For the first time, the Vineland police chief is speaking out about the death of a man being taken into custody by his officers. NBC10's Cydney Long has the story. (Published Wednesday, April 8, 2015) UPDATE: NBC10 obtained a longer video showing White's arrest. WATCH IT HERE Vineland’s Police Chief is speaking out for the first time and standing by his officers amid outrage and even threats over an incident in which a man died while in police custody. Chief Timothy Codispoti spoke publicly Wednesday on the death of 32-year-old Phillip White. According to Codispoti, the three officers who arrested White acted in accordance with the law. "Anonymous" Threatens Vineland PD as Investigation on Death of Man in Custody Continues The hacking group Anonymous is demanding the Vineland PD release the names of the three officers involved in the arrest of a man who died while in custody. NBC10's George Spencer has new details in the case. (Published Wednesday, April 8, 2015) White died on March 31. Officials say the ordeal began that day shortly before 11 a.m. when Vineland Police officers responded to a call for service for White on the 100 block of Grape Street. In a 911 recording released Tuesday, a caller tells the dispatcher that White is “freaking out,” “going crazy,” and “screaming.” “He’s screaming up there,” the caller says. “I don’t know what the h*** is wrong with him.” Officials said responding officers called for medical assistance for White who appeared to “be in respiratory distress.” White was also handcuffed, restrained and then placed in an emergency vehicle that traveled to the hospital while an officer was inside, according to officials. At some point, White became unresponsive and medical personnel instituted CPR, according to investigators. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital. What remains in dispute are the events that occurred immediately before White’s death. Witnesses told NBC10 the responding officers were extremely physical with White after he was already restrained and unconscious on the street. 911 Calls Obtained, Man Dies in Police Custody NBC10 has obtained the 911 calls behind the high profile death of a man in police custody in Vineland, NJ. Investigative Reporter Harry Hairston has more, including cell phone videos from a witness. (Published Wednesday, April 8, 2015) “They punched him, stomped him, kicked him and then they let the dog out of the car," said Ricardo Garcia. "The dog bit him on his face and around his body. There's no call for that.” Law enforcement sources disputed witness accounts however, telling NBC10 White engaged in a violent struggle with one of the officers after they called an ambulance for him. They also said at times White was combative and that he never lost consciousness while he was apprehended. NBC10 obtained cellphone videos taken after police responded to the disorderly persons call. The videos show White lying on the ground surrounded by three officers as well as a barking police dog. It appears to show the dog biting White in the upper body. Chief Codispoti says the cellphone videos don’t tell the entire story however. “They’re a part of an incident that is minutes
ed out. She remembers being on the bathroom floor, vomiting and feeling like she was dying. The next thing either of them recalls is waking up in their hotel room, more than five hours later. Her husband’s hand was broken. Neither had any idea what happened. Their belongings were still on the beach. They had not been robbed. “I felt as if I had just been terrorized but did not know how and by who,” she wrote in her posting on the website, mexicovacationawareness.com. “I knew we came close to something evil, we were grateful to be alive, but filled with fear not knowing who did this to us.” She said when they reported the incident to the resort staff, they were told to go to the hospital and to take cash. * * * When Abbey and Austin’s stepdad, John, and Austin hired a translator and went to file a police report a few days later, they say the police resisted launching an investigation, insisting it was an accidental drowning. How could they say that without at least interviewing the hotel staff who found them, the family wondered. When they left the police department they weren’t certain whether any investigation would be done. Within weeks, the McGowans hired an American law firm with a sister office in Mexico to help get answers. On Monday, they received their attorney’s report. It raises even more questions. On May 30, an attorney in Mexico inquired at the police department and found they had done a limited investigation. Police had interviewed three hotel staffers. The attorney’s report doesn’t say when the interviews took place. The McGowans' American attorney, Florentino Ramirez, said he puts little credence in the police report. "It's all too convenient," he said. "If it was an accident, where was everybody? It just doesn't make sense. There are too many open ends." He suspects there could have been a fight, maybe with another guest or with hotel staff, that Austin cannot remember. "He gets hit over the head and goes down. That happens in 15 seconds.... That's one possibility." The police report did not contain any statements from hotel guests, the bartender or a woman who reportedly alerted hotel staff after seeing Abbey and Austin having trouble getting out of the pool. It does not contain key details from the medical clinic that received Abbey and Austin by ambulance. The statements from the three staffers — the pool manager and two security guards — all indicate they arrived on the scene, pulled the kids from the water and performed CPR on Abbey. She was unconscious with a low pulse and spitting up foam from her nose and mouth as they tried to revive her, they all said. Austin was going under and began moving and spitting up water as they pulled him out, they said. Abbey “was seen” drunk at 7:03 sitting on the edge of the pool, they said, where the water was less than 4-feet deep. The report does not say who actually saw the brother and sister. It also notes security guards were nearby, 20 to 30 seconds away. This doesn’t make sense to the McGowans for a number of reasons. They were in the lobby at 7. If two people were being transported by ambulance, wouldn’t there be some commotion? Then again, maybe there was a back route out. What about video surveillance? Is it true the hotel doesn’t have or use video cameras around the pool, as resort officials told John? Why won’t the resort help them get answers, let them interview the bartender and other guests? What’s especially upsetting to the family is that Iberostar not only won’t answer their questions, nobody from the hotel ever reached out to say they’re sorry about the family’s loss. “They did not seem to think this was serious,” Ginny said. An Iberostar representative didn’t immediately provide answers to questions from the Journal Sentinel. Ginny said when she reached out to the local FBI in Milwaukee she was told the agency could not help them. Crimes on foreign soil are out of their jurisdiction, she recalled someone from the office telling her. Leonard Peace, a spokesman for the local branch of the FBI, had no comment on this case. But he said the agency follows up on all complaints, depending on the facts presented. He said the office might also refer someone who is a victim of a crime in a foreign country to the U.S. State Department. “They were very unhelpful,” Ginny said of the FBI. “They did not tell me to file a written complaint or to contact the State Department.” Staffers in U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s office tried to help but hit a dead end early on when they reached out to the U.S. State Department and officials there said that without a police report, there was nothing to pursue. The McGowans just saw the police report for the first time this week. Bill Conner (right) with Loumonth Jack Jr., the 21-year-old Louisiana man who received Abbey Conner's heart. (Photo: Family photo) Bill Conner, Abbey’s dad, still hasn’t seen it. On Monday, he completed a more than 2,500-mile bike ride from Madison to the hospital in Fort Lauderdale, where Abbey spent her final days. The weeks he spent pedaling helped him work through some of his grief and at the same time raise awareness about the importance of organ donation. All of Abbey's uninjured organs were donated. "I still can't believe this happened," Conner said. "I'm still waiting for my daughter to walk through the door. This couldn't have happened... in the middle of the bar, two adults, floating in the pool long enough to drown." He took a slight detour along the way to stop in Baton Rouge, La. That's where Loumonth Jack Jr., lives. The 21-year-old was the recipient of Abbey’s heart. Support our Signature Journalism Become a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel subscriber today and get unlimited digital access and support stories like this one. JOIN TODAY Raquel Rutledge is an investigative reporter. Her work has been recognized with numerous national awards, including a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for exposing rampant fraud in Wisconsin's child-care subsidy program. Contact Raquel by email at rrutledge@journalsentinel.com, or by phone at 414-224-2778. Read or Share this story: https://jsonl.in/2uP51QwLabor right in fresh nuke push Updated Prime Minister Julia Gillard is facing fresh pressure from within Labor ranks to open up the debate on nuclear energy. Labor is opposed to the use of nuclear power in Australia, but some MPs say the issue should be debated at the party's national conference next year. Senator Steve Hutchins, a senior member of the NSW right, says if "fringe" issues such as gay marriage are going to be debated, the use of nuclear power should also be on the table. "I think it's only right that we discuss all alternative forms of energy," he told AM. "At the moment we're being pressed to consider our future with being told that the globe is warming as a result of carbon pollution. "I haven't done any canvassing [of numbers for support], and I'm pretty sure no-one has. "All I'm suggesting is that a number of fringe issues have been suggested that should be hotly debated at the conference. "Well, this isn't a fringe issue, this is one that is going to affect us in the future." When asked if by "fringe issues" he meant gay marriage, Senator Hutchins replied: "Yes I do". But he denied the move to push the issue was a "tit for tat" reaction to pressure from the left for same-sex marriage reform. Ms Gillard says she welcomes debate at the conference but does not support nuclear power in Australia. "In this area of policy I'd have to say anybody who's arguing to overturn our longstanding policy is setting themselves up for a pretty tough argument," she told Fairfax Radio. "In this country, as we look at where we are today, nuclear power doesn't stack up as an economically efficient source of power." Earlier this month, Ms Gillard brought forward the national conference to December 2011 after the party became embroiled in a debate over whether the party should change its platform and back gay marriage. Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson will today release a report by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering which examines future energy choices for Australia. Mr Ferguson says MPs have a right to debate the issue at the national conference. "I actually think debate at the national conference is healthy for the party," he said. "If nuclear is to be debated so be it." But he says nuclear power does not stack up commercially. "I'm more challenged at the moment about how we maintain a focus on energy security in Australia, whilst also seeking to support research and development across all our clean energy initiatives," he said. The Greens remain opposed to nuclear energy. "Why would you want to support a technology that risks proliferation?" Greens Senator Christine Milne said. "It's just not the technology of the future." Topics: nuclear-issues, government-and-politics, federal-government, australia First postedMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jeremy Corbyn urged Trump and Kim to "calm down" and start talking Jeremy Corbyn has urged US and North Korean leaders to hold face-to-face talks "in the interest of sanity and safety". He was commenting on an escalating war of words between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean regime. "We cannot play fast and loose with nuclear weapons and nuclear threats," the Labour leader said. Mr Trump has issued another warning to North Korea with a reference to US weapons being "locked and loaded". Speaking before Mr Trump's latest tweet, Mr Corbyn said: "I think it's time that both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un toned it all down a bit. "Maybe even spoke to each other. Maybe even returned to the table." He added: "I ask them both. Calm down. There are phone-calls that could be made, discussions that could be held. "Surely, in the interest of sanity and safety over the whole world, do it." The Foreign Office repeated a statement it released two days ago when asked for a comment on Mr Trump's latest intervention. A spokesman said: "We will continue to work with the US and our international partners to maintain pressure on North Korea and counter the security threat posed by its pursuit of nuclear weapons. "We have been consistently clear and forthright in our condemnation of North Korea's destabilising and illegal behaviour, including through support for UN Security Council resolutions to bring in sanctions that will limit North Korea's ability to pursue its nuclear weapons programme." North Korea has threatened to fire missiles into the US territory of Guam and the US president has warned North Korea of "fire and fury". Mr Trump has also boasted about America's nuclear arsenal, while unconfirmed reports claim Pyongyang might have made a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto a missile. On Friday, Mr Trump tweeted: "Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!" The Labour leader said that "of course" the UK should play a role in mediating the current impasse. "All the five declared nuclear weapons states need to get on board with this - to bring North Korea back from the brink - bring Donald Trump back from the brink." Mr Corbyn, a longstanding anti nuclear campaigner, said efforts should be made to "support the UN's efforts to make nuclear weapons illegal worldwide. "That surely has to be the way to go." Image copyright Getty Images Asked on Thursday about President Trump's "fire and fury" warning, Damian Green, the UK's first secretary of state, said: "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." He added: "That's why we are operating as hard as we can through the proper diplomatic channels to make sure that we see a de-escalation of tensions." Tensions have increased in recent days, with North Korea saying a plan that could see it fire four missiles near Guam will be ready in a matter of days, if approved by Kim Jong-un. It described President Trump as "bereft of reason". The US has warned the North its actions could mean the "end of its regime". US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Pyongyang would be "grossly overmatched" in any war against the US and its allies.A memorable photo flight and tour of an amazing aircraft. The first call came from Global Supertanker over a month ago. Would I be interested in working with an aerial photographer to shoot dry runs and water drops made by the world’s only 747 air tanker? The answer came with only a few thoughts of what this might entail: sure! Possible aerial video job next month: shoot 747 tanker dropping water in a ravine. Sounds like fun. — Maria Langer (@mlanger) May 7, 2016 But because about 50% of the calls I get to fly Flying M Air‘s helicopter on unusual missions never actually happen, I didn’t get my hopes up too much. I tweeted about it briefly and mentioned it on Facebook. Then I filed it away in the back of my mind and got on with my life. Until last week. That’s when another call came. And another. Soon I was taking down the names and phone numbers of contacts involved with the demo flight and photo shoot. Checking my calendar for availability and weather resources for forecasts; yes, Monday could work. Getting briefed over the phone about what they wanted to do and how I would help them get the video footage they needed. I was very excited about the job — and not because of the potential earnings for a few hours of flight time. You see, it’s not always about money to me. It’s often about the opportunity to do something new and different, to meet people who are part of a different world, to participate in a program that’s interesting, to expand my horizons and learn new things. That’s a big part of what my life is about, that’s what drives me to wander down the paths I’ve chosen. It’s about taking on new challenges to make things happen. And what could be more of an interesting challenge and learning experience than flying a videographer above a 747-400 air tanker as it drops 20,000 gallons of water over a Washington forest? The date and time was set for Monday, June 20. I’d need to get to Moses Lake, WA by 7 AM so the photographer could install his equipment and I could get briefed with the flight crews of the two planes we’d be shooting. A Busy Weekend But I had plenty of other flying to do before then. Friday was a training day, with me spending about an hour and a half practicing autorotations with Gary, one of the owners of Utah Helicopter, who is also a flight instructor and part of Flying M Air’s cherry drying team. Gary is a great instructor and I did pretty well, actually nailing the spot for a 180° autorotation twice in a row. (I didn’t tempt fate by going for a threepeat.) Afterwards, my helicopter got a 50-hour inspection, which is mostly an oil and filter change and spark plug cleaning. Friday was also the day one of my Facebook friends excitedly announced, “The Boeing 747 Supertanker just landed at Tucson.” He was under the impression that it was there to fight the wildfire at Show Low, AZ. That got me wondering whether there were two of them. I soon learned that there was just the one and that the only reason it had stopped in Tucson was to refuel before flying on to Moses Lake. Truth is, the Global Supertanker hasn’t been certified yet; I’d be participating in part of the certification process here in Washington. Saturday was a crazy flying day with rain most of the day and 7 hours of tedious flying over cherry trees. I figure I personally dried about 200 acres of cherry trees, including more than a few orchards that got dried two or three times. My team flew just as much, if not more. While it’s nice to get all those revenue hours, I dread long, widespread rain events like the one we had Saturday. It’s stressful for everyone and exhausting. Sunday was a lot more enjoyable and nearly as busy, with seven Father’s Day flights, including two short ones for my next door neighbors and one for my mechanic and his family that included a flight down to Blustery’s in Vantage, WA for milk shakes. 5.3 hours logged. And then there was Monday. Prepping to Fly Despite waking up at about 4 AM — I get up very early here in the summer — I got off to a late start. I’d planned 30 minutes to get to Moses Lake, but lifted off at 6:35. Flying M Air’s helicopter parked at Moses Lake with the Global Supertanker. The sky worried me. It was cloudier in the area than I’d expected based on the forecast and the radar showed rain to the southwest moving northeast, right toward the Wenatchee area. Not a good day to be taking off to the east. Although I’d never be more than 45 minutes flight time from my base, I did not want to break off from the photo flight to dry cherries. Fortunately, I had two pilots in Wenatchee who could cover the orchards. As long as it wasn’t another widespread rain event, we should be okay. I made it to Moses Lake on time. I set down on the lone helipad in front of the Million Air FBO at almost exactly 7 AM. No one was around, but the big plane was parked on the ramp behind me. Moses Lake is a huge, underutilized airport. I should say a few words about Moses Lake’s airport, Grant County International. First, it’s huge, with five runways, the longest of which is 10,000 feet. A former military airport, it still has a military ramp. It also has a U.S. Customs office, two FBOs that provide fuel, and a handful of flight schools. There’s a control tower but no airline service, despite a very nice terminal building. It’s used by Boeing to test fly 747s coming out of the factory in the Seattle area. They fly them over the Cascade Mountains, land them at Moses Lake, and then fly them around to work out any bugs before delivering them to clients. It’s the only airport I know where you can occasionally see 747s flying standard — but admittedly wide — traffic patterns and doing touch-and-goes. With a Boeing facility on the field, it was an obvious choice for the Global Supertanker people to continue work on their certification process. Million Air doesn’t sell 100LL, the fuel my helicopter takes. It only sells JetA. But Columbia Pacific, which was supposed to open at 8 AM, sells 100LL. As I went through the shutdown procedure, I saw activity at its hangar and decided to try raising them on the radio. I’d need both tanks topped off before the flight. I got a line guy on the radio and put in a fuel order. He promised to get to it when he was finished with the other plane he was fueling. I went inside the FBO to look for one of my contacts. It was a while before I connected with the photographer, Tom, who was piling gear on the floor after multiple trips out to his car. He’d driven in from Seattle with his camera mount, a brand new video camera, and a ton of other equipment. He asked me to move the helicopter closer to the building and I was in the process of going out to do so when the fuel guys arrived. Before they could finish, Tom had come out to the helicopter with one of the FBO line guys and his gear and began setting up. I removed the rear passenger-side door for him, stowed it in a Bruce’s Custom Covers door bag I had, and brought it into the FBO office for safekeeping. Back in the FBO, I waited outside the conference room where a meeting of the pilots, FAA inspectors, and other program personnel was going on. While I waited, an FAA inspector came up to me and introduced himself. He asked if I was the pilot of the helicopter and when I told him I was, he told me he’d ramp-checked me. I was surprised and I think my expression revealed that. He laughed. “Don’t worry. You passed. Everything is fine. But I do need to get some info from your pilot and medical certificates.” I handed them over. That’s when two things happened. First, I was called into the meeting. Second, my phone started ringing. Caller ID showed it was one of my cherry drying clients. I apologized and excused myself, took the call for an orchard drying request, hung up, and called one of my pilots to give him the job. I was introduced to those assembled and put a few of my business cards on the table for those who wanted one. Then I was briefed, through map images on a laptop, of the planned routes and what my position needed to be. I got important information such as flight altitudes, operational frequency, and radio calls for various parts of the flight. The operating area was a place called Keller Butte, which was about 50 nautical miles north northeast on the Colville Reservation, not far from the Grand Coulee Dam. There was a fire tower there and one of my contacts was already there with a few other people to do photography from the tower. The other two aircraft was the 747-400 Global Supertanker and the lead plane, a King Air, which would do “show me” flights and then guide the larger plane to the drop zones for both dry and live runs. There were two planned run routes at or below 5,000 feet elevation in the hilly terrain around the Butte. Wake turbulence, illustrated. The best way to avoid it is to stay far away or above the plane. My main concern, of course, was wake turbulence from the 747. Wingtip vortices from the big plane’s wings trail out and down. If I flew too close to the plane — especially at a slightly lower altitude, I could be caught in them. Only a week before, I’d been caught in the relatively minor wake turbulence caused by a Dash 8 at Wenatchee. I was far enough back that it wasn’t an issue, but I certainly did feel it. Getting even that close to a 747 configured for a low pass would be catastrophic for me and my aircraft. The solution was to stay above it. I asked about altimeter settings so we would all be dialed in the same way. One of the pilots said we’d start with the setting for Moses Lake and then update it in flight. They said they wanted me at least 200 feet above. I was thinking 500 feet. I got and made another call while I was in the meeting. Those attending were surprisingly understanding. Now both of my Wenatchee pilots were flying. I knew that if the cherry orchard acreage started adding up beyond the point where my guys could cover it promptly on their own, I’d have to leave to help them. This would inconvenience my new clients and ruin any possibility of future work with them. But when I stepped out of the meeting and consulted Wenatchee area radar, I saw that whatever cells had moved in were already moving out or dissipating. There would be no more calls. Before the meeting broke up, I was introduced to my front seat passenger, Phil from the FAA. So yes, I had to conduct a complex photo flight with an FAA inspector sitting next to me. No added stress, huh? Tom’s camera mount. The camera is facing the wrong direction in this shot. Meanwhile, Tom, the photographer had set up his camera on a weird hanging mount in the left rear seat. Its heavy padded base sat on the passenger seat with a pole that provided a hook for his camera. The seatbelt held it securely in place, making an STC unnecessary. The camera hung from a bungee cord contraption and had two Kenyon KS-6 gyros attached to it. Tom would sit in the seat beside it and shoot through the window. I admit I wasn’t happy with the setup. There were two reasons: The camera’s lens was at least 10 inches inside the cabin door. That meant that he’d have less panning range before the door frame came into view. (The Moitek camera mount I have makes it possible to mount the camera with the lens at the door opening, right inside the slipstream. That maximizes the potential range without worries about wind buffeting.) Putting the camera on the opposite side of the aircraft from the pilot with a passenger sitting beside the pilot made it virtually impossible for me to see what he was seeing. At times, my passenger also blocked the target aircraft from view. But although I suggested that he mount the camera behind me, he said that the mission required it to be where it was. I still don’t see why that was so, given that with a variety of runs and angles, we shot pointed in either direction. But the customer is always right, eh? Still, there was nothing seriously wrong with the setup. It just made more work for me and the photographer and limited his capabilities. So once I’d conducted my required FAA flight safety briefing — using the briefing card, of course, mostly for the benefit of my FAA audience — and satisfied myself that nothing would fall out the open doorway, I climbed aboard with my passengers and started up. The Shoot I beelined it to Keller Butte, did a lot of maneuvering there, and then beelined it to Wilbur Airport for refueling. The flight to Keller Butte was uneventful. I chatted mostly with Phil. Because rushing air coming in through the open doorway was getting into Tom’s microphone, I had to turn off voice activation. That kept Tom quiet, mostly because he had so much stuff between the seats that he couldn’t reach the push to talk (PTT) button. Later, when we were set up to shoot, I’d turn voice activation on. We crossed the farmland north of Moses Lake, the desert north of there, and the wheat fields north of there. Then we crossed over Roosevelt Lake, which is the Columbia River upriver from the Grand Coulee Dam. Electric City was just west of us and during the course of the day, we spotted the Grand Coulee Dam several times. (We even did a flyby on our way to refuel.) Keller Butte was one of two small mountains just north of the lake. We zeroed in on the higher of the peaks and saw the fire tower right away. Then it was time to wait. There was no landing zone up there — why don’t they build helipads near fire towers? — so we had no choice but to circle. By then I was tuned into our agreed upon air-to-air frequency. The folks at the fire tower had handheld VHF radios and kept us informed on what they knew about the other aircraft based on phone calls they were apparently getting from Moses Lake. Then I heard the King Air pilot coming in. As he got closer, he asked about my position and I told him. He got me in sight and began circling and practicing the runs. Then the Supertanker’s pilot called in. He also needed to know where I was. I stayed close to the tower, realizing that he was coming in at a higher altitude than the 5500 feet I was maintaining. Fortunately, he joined up in formation flight with the King Air far enough away to make wake turbulence a non-issue for me. They got right down to business, prepping to make the first “show me” run. I moved into the agreed-upon position and climbed to 6000 feet while they descended. The “show me” run is where the lead plane does the actual run that the tanker needs to do. The tanker pilot stays higher, following him and watching where he flies. The lead plane’s pilot announces when he’s on the line, where the drop should begin, where the drop should end, and when he’s clear. He peels off to one side and the tanker normally peels off to the other. They then regroup with the smaller, more maneuverable plane joining back up with the tanker. There’s a lot of radio chatter during all this as they synchronize speeds, talk about positions, and establish run altitudes. I stayed quiet unless I thought they needed to hear from me or asked me a question. Phil listened and observed intently. In the back, Tom apparently couldn’t hear the radio chatter and had to be filled in, over the intercom, about what was coming next. Foreflight’s track log feature recorded the details of my flight path. Looks like spaghetti, no? This was just the first flight. My job was mostly to hover in position with the camera facing the action. Because the camera’s panning range was so limited, I also had to pivot the helicopter so Tom could track the big plane. There was about a 10 knot wind up there and depending on which direction we were facing, maintaining that hover and smoothly conducting that pivot ranged from easy to near impossible. Over the course of the day, I’d get into and (obviously) recover from settling with power twice. Once, a quartering tailwind whipped us around almost 90° before I caught it. But, in general, I did an acceptable job. The biggest challenge was facing a target that I sometimes could not see. Fortunately, the choreography of the runs and shoot position — as well as my front seat observer — made it unnecessary for me to worry about midair collisions. This went on for nearly two hours. A “show me” run followed by several dry runs followed by a live run with a full drop — which was awesome to see from the air — followed by more dry runs. Tom missed the live run because of camera focusing issues. The two planes moved to the other run location and I shifted position accordingly. Then another cycle of runs. But because they were out of water, there was no live run. They checked in with me when I still had an hour of fuel left. Then did three more runs before announcing bingo and heading back to Moses Lake to refuel. We didn’t need to go so far. The closest airport with fuel was Wilbur, WA, 20 nautical miles south southeast. It’s basically a paved ag strip with a handful of hangars and a set of fuel pumps for 100LL and JetA. We landed and someone came over to help us with the pumps. There was no credit card system, so I gave him my mailing address and he promised to send a bill. We hung out for a while. Although the Global Supertanker can refuel and refill with water/retardant in 30 minutes, they weren’t doing it that day. We were told it would be at least 90 minutes. So we killed time by visiting the ag operator’s hangar, finding and using a restroom, and talking. The folks there were very nice. And Tom, the photographer, showed me how to do a trick panorama shot like this one: Seeing double Tom? This shot is remarkably easy to make, right in the iPhone’s camera. All you need is a model who is quick on his feet. I was glad I’d brought along some water. My passengers had, too. There was nothing within walking distance of the airport except wheat fields. The town was in a clump of trees about two miles away. I nibbled at some salad I’d brought for lunch, then put it away. I could wait. We took off when we figured enough time had passed. It was a short flight back to Keller Butte, where the guys in the tower — now lounging on chairs in the parking area below — told us neither plane had taken off yet. Eager to save fuel, I demonstrated a pinnacle approach and slope landing for the FAA inspector on board. Tom got out and soon disappeared a way down the hill. What is it about men peeing outdoors? When I heard the King Air pilot make his call, I called Tom back. When he was strapped in, I took off and circled back up near the tower. And then we repeated what we’d done earlier with a variety of drop runs, two of which were live. This time, Tom got the footage. So did Phil, on his phone’s camera: Phil took this picture with his phone. Not bad through plexiglas. I was just relieved that Tom had captured footage of the drop. It was very stressful to do all this costly flying, wondering whether he’d succeed and satisfy himself and his client. This went on for another two hours with lots of hovering and circling and pedal turns. Then we all went back for fuel for another run — the two planes to Moses Lake and me to Wilbur by way of the Grand Coulee Dam, which neither of my companions had ever seen. Me, Phil, and Tom. Now you know why I don’t share selfies: I suck at taking them. This time I fueled up by myself, making the required entry in the fuel sale log book. (Things are pretty laid back in farming communities.) An older gentleman drove up as I was fueling, apparently excited about seeing the helicopter come in. His name was Phil, too, and he and Phil and Tom chatted. I walked back to the hangar to see if I could track down some W100Plus oil for my helicopter — it’s been burning more oil than usual lately, probably because of the engine’s age — and came back with a quart of W100 oil, which would do in a pinch. Then the ag service owner came over and chatted with the guys for a while. I ate my salad and finished a bottle of water. I took a selfie of us. At 3:30 PM, it was time to go back. We loaded up, I started up, and we took off. We beat the two planes back again, but not by much. It seems that they’d discussed a new run and drop zone while they were in Moses Lake and wanted to do it. They had me hang out south of the tower while they did a “show me” pass to show the big plane, the guys who had been in the tower and were now on a road below it, and me. I picked a spot north of the new run area and told them I’d stick to 6500 feet or higher. Then I watched a few more practice runs while Tom shot video. I practiced and then nearly perfected a forward move that kept us from getting into settling with power and gave me more control over the direction I was able to point the helicopter, making it easier for Tom to get smooth shots. But I also watched the planes. It was amazing how close that 747 could get to the treetops. That went on for about an hour, with one big live drop. And then it was over — at least for us. They told us we were done. The two big planes peeled off to the west and I dropped altitude, ducking behind the ridgeline as I headed south. We continued listening to them for a while on the radio. Then, 20 miles out from Moses Lake, I switched frequency and they were gone. The After Party I got back to Moses Lake and set the helicopter down near the front of the FBO so Tom wouldn’t have to lug his equipment so far. Then I placed a fuel order. I didn’t even hear the Supertanker land and taxi into its parking spot behind us. Phil urged me to ask for a tour. There was nothing I wanted more. Trouble was, the plane was in a part of the airport ramp that was not accessible to pedestrians. I asked the fuel truck driver to take Tom and me over and he started to. But then he got to some pavement markings and told me he couldn’t drive across without a green badge. He drove us back to Million Air. I went inside and asked a guy in an office if he could help us get to the big plane. He very kindly came outside and drove us over in a golf cart. He let us off between the 747 and King Air and Tom immediately went to the King Air to retrieve some of his equipment. I told the FBO guy that I’d find my own way back and thanked him for the ride. The staircase was quite inviting. I walked over to the big plane, snapping pictures most of the way. On the other side, a long stairway had been set up between the pavement and the door. One of the plane’s pilots, Marco, was there, inviting me in for a tour. He had the King Air pilot, Jamie, with him and another man who did work for the FAA. I climbed the stairs and joined them for a tour. Marco explains what the tanks are for and how they work. I could probably write an entire blog post about the inside of that plane. Formerly a cargo plane, the entire lower level had been stripped out. The front “first class” section remained empty — at least that day — but the back was configured with a collection of cylindrical tanks for air, water, and retardant. The air is used as a “plunger” to force the water and retardant out of the four ports at the bottom of the plane. The system is set up to make up to eight drops with a load. The retardant system can hold two different kinds of additives and drop them with water in any configuration. There’s an extensive leak detection system and a whole procedure for handling leaks in flight. Our guide told us all about it as we climbed over and crawled under huge white pipes. I actually broadcast this first part of the tour on Periscope, but when the audience level did not rise above 10 viewers, I stopped the video so I could take photos instead. Here’s the video; I’m afraid it isn’t very good due to the tight quarters. The upstairs first class cabin is pretty much intact for use by the ground crew. I look ridiculously excited here, sitting in the First Officer seat of a real, operating 747. Now that’s a cockpit. It was my first — and likely my only — time strolling under a 747. From there, we went up a sort of ships ladder to the top level. The original upstairs first class cabin was intact; with seats for 12 people, it was used to carry the ground crew to each mission. There were some computer controls in a room behind that. Then the cockpit with its sleeping bunks in a tiny room off to one side. I was invited to sit in the First Officer’s (co-pilot’s) seat while the FAA guy sat in the Captain’s seat. We took pictures of each other like tourists while the two pilots talked behind us about the plane’s systems. Afterwards, we climbed back down the ships ladder and the main stairs to the pavement outside. I wandered around under the plane, checking out the enormous landing gear and engines and looking up into the four discharge ports that could disperse almost 20,000 gallons of water or retardant over a 3 kilometer path. Around me, workers were tending to the plane: fueling it, filling it with water, cleaning its windscreen. It was the focus of attention even as it just sat their idle, waiting for its next flight. I looked across the pavement at my helicopter and realized that the two aircraft had a lot in common. They were both used for a purpose, pampered between flights, and respected
now, officially, the best Saints receiver by every metric. His 571 receptions, 60 touchdowns, and 7,923 yards have him atop every Saints receiving mark. In an offense that has put up gaudy numbers for almost a decade, you’d imagine the number one receiver for each and every one of those eight seasons would be a loud, egotistical, all-pro. Instead we have Marques. I feel that the media has turned his aversion to the spotlight into a nifty quirk to define a man that chooses to live his life out of sight, but I think that downplays his life and his career. Colston has never been the focus of a scandal; he has never been disgruntled because of his workload; he has never had bad body language on the sideline; he has never had a truly memorable press conference. Sure, this might have cost him a Pro Bowl berth, but I’m not sure he even cares all that much. Or maybe he does. I don’t know because I can’t tell you much about the Saints’ all-time receiving leader. I hope he knows that Saints fans respect his play and his privacy. I hope that he’s remembered as one of the greatest Saints, with a spot in the Saints Ring of Fame. I hope that, despite never making a Pro Bowl, he has a chance to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But mostly, I hope that he’s enjoyed his time on this team as much as we’ve enjoyed watching him. Thanks, Marques. You’re the best.Police said a disappearing-reappearing license plate was part of a Virginia trucker's trick to dodge paying tolls. Nelson Vaquiz of Beaverdam was arrested on his way into New York City on the George Washington Bridge. Police said Vaquiz had run a cable from the cab of his big rig truck through the body and down to the bumper of the vehicle. When he pulled the cord, Port Authority officers said, the front license plate would flip up. Without a clear shot of the license plate, cameras cannot bill or fine a truck driving through the EZ-Pass lanes without a tag. Police said the rear license plate was bent so it could not be read, either. Caught at Dulles Customs The cash toll for a three-axle truck crossing the bridge from New Jersey is $39. The toll for a six-axle vehicle is $78. Vaquiz was charged with theft of service, possession of burglar tools and eluding arrest. He was released on bail. Calls to his business phone by the AP were not answered. Child Stars Then and Now Copyright Associated Press / NBC4 WashingtonUnfortunately, only the top tier VPN providers have designed mobile applications. Our favorite mobile applications are easy to use, and don’t require you to install a bunch of stuff or configure your settings to connect. A good mobile VPN application only requires you to tap connect, and then you’ll connect. Check out some of these VPN providers if you want a good iOS VPN provider. Sounds easy right? 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If you have any questions, let us know in the comments below!We are at GamesCom, Europe’s biggest gaming event and of course, we went to see what’s new with Aion (and take some community questions along the way). We were very happy to find out that among the people present are Aion developers from Korea. They were always very happy to come and meet the European players and this year’s Gamescom was no exception. We talked about patch 3.5 and what it brings to the game (did someone say dragon lady Tiamat – the hardest boss ever to be introduced to the game?). We had some great footage shown from the patch (with a promise from Gameforge people that this will reach European players much, much sooner) and it was a pleasure meeting the people that actualy make this game. The best was saved (of course) for last. In an exclusive reveal we learned that Aion 4.0 patch will introduce three new classes! One of the classes will be a gun wielding class (!), while the other will have a musical instrument as a weapon (!!!). The last one is still under wraps, but I think this reveal is great on its own. You will have to wait for a while until we prepare the video of the interview and the presentation, but we will be releasing that very soon.A casual observation and a simple experiment can show that the shroud is quite probably a painting I have my own theory for why the much-revered and highly controversial Shroud of Turin is not the burial cloth of Jesus -- or anyone else for that matter. The most casual observation of the full shroud shows, in my opinion, that it is almost certainly the work of an artist. Now I am not an expert in forensics, medieval art, or even the New Testaments, but I don't need to be for this particular theory. I just need to be a guy with an ordinary body, just as Jesus is thought to have been in life. I made this observation many years ago, the first time I saw a photo of the shroud that shows the full length of the body. One of my first reactions was along the lines of, "Wow... Good thing his hands are covering his private area." It would certainly embarrass many people if the shroud revealed the full nakedness of the man they think is Jesus -- privates and all. He was fully human during his lifetime, but we needn't see his genitals. And I think that was exactly the artist's intention when he made this clever painting. Out of respect for person who many believe to be the Son of God and the Savior of all Mankind, the artist discreetly covered the genital area. Otherwise, the shroud -- which might have been created as an intentional hoax -- might not get the sought-after attention. An image showing the privates of Jesus probably would have been locked away in the Vatican a long time ago. (Pope Julius II grudgingly allowed Michelangelo to paint a naked Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.) AN EXPERIMENT TO TRY I know what you're thinking: "That's just the way his body and arms were positioned when he was laid in his tomb." I think not. And you can perform your own little experiment to demonstrate why not. Lie on your back on a hard surface (such as the floor) as the figure is in the image, and just try to cover your privates with your hands. I am a person of average proportions and I had to stretch my arms with some effort to be able to barely cover them. Yet the figure in the shroud image seems to be accomplishing this with relaxed ease. The arms don't appear to be stretched out at all. Now just relax your arms to the floor, like a corpse, and see where your relaxed hands cross on your body. For me, they don't cross at all. My fingertips barely cross around my navel -- well above the private area. To be able to cross them at all in this position, I have to lift my arms somewhat off the floor, and they still to not reach the private area with any degree of relaxation. And no one is more relaxed than a corpse. A tall man with very long arms might have a better chance of duplicating this image (hey, really tall guys out there, give it a try), but the figure on the shroud has been measured at 5 ft. 7 in. tall -- about the height of an average man today. Now unless the person in this image had disproportionately long arms, what we see is impossible. But not for the artist who painted the image with the proper respect for this revered man. Could it be that the people who laid the body in the tomb purposely stretched out the body's arms to cover the genitals and somehow fastened them there before covering it with the shroud? Why would they do that? What would be the purpose? Answer: they wouldn't. And again, the arms do not look stretched out. The legs also do not look relaxed like those of a dead body would be. Again, try it for yourself. In this highly relaxed state, the legs do not stay tightly together like those in the image; they naturally spread apart somewhat as the feet fall to either side. They would stay together if they were bound, but there seems to be no evidence of that in the image.If you ever miss church on a Sunday again, we have a new track for you to add to your “J.C. Is My Home Boy” playlist right after “Hostile Gospel.” Behold, let the power of Apollo Brown’s production compel you to knock your head back and forth. And let M.O.P.’s lyrics teach you wisdom beyond your years to stay safe in these streets. Detroit producer Apollo Brown has had a knack to tell fully developed stories through just his beats and you can expect no less this time around as well. This time for his upcoming album, he’s joined by seasoned veterans like Planet Asia, Chino XL, and Masta Ace as well as the newer class of emcees like Your Old Droog, Freddie Gibbs, and Oddisee. Apollo will release the project on what he has come to call a second home, Mello Music Group, on September 25th. You can hear the first single off the album below as well as check out the rest of the tracklist. You can pre-order Grandeur on iTunes. 1. Finally 2. Neva Eva (feat. Barrel Brothers) 3. What You Were Lookin’ For (feat. Oddisee) 4. Detonate (feat. MOP) 5. Brass Tacks (feat. Chino XL & Finale) 6. There’s Always Radio (feat. Evidence) 7. Still Standin’ (feat. Rasheed Chappell) 8. The Hard Way (feat. Saga & Ty Farris) 9. Getting’ By (feat. Rapper Big Pooh & Dynasty) 10. Enemies With Benefits (feat. Ras Kass) 11. Walk With Me (feat. Vinnie Paz & Blacastan) 12. Not That Guy (feat. Your Old Droog) 13. Money (feat. Masta Ace & Wordsworth) 14. Who’s That (feat. Maffew Ragazino & Freddie Gibbs) 15. In The Moment (feat. OC) 16. Triple Beams (feat. Westside Gunn & Planet Asia) 17. Eachother (feat. Eternia) 18. Yesman Shit (feat. Sean Price & Reks) 19. Checkered Flag (feat. Ugly Heroes) Photo Credit: Jeremy Deputat Bryan Hahn wonders what it is about Detroit that produces so many musical geniuses. He’s on Twitter (@notupstate).Logitech has posted its financial results for Q3 of its 2013 fiscal year, and they're not too encouraging: the company made an operating loss of $180 million off sales of $615 million. Retail sales were down 14 percent year on year, and CEO Bracken Darrell has announced plans to take "decisive action" on the "unacceptable" results. And he's not kidding — the company has "initiated the process" to divest itself of its Harmony remote control division, along with its security video camera business. By the end of this year, Logitech also plans to have discontinued "non-strategic products" including video game console peripherals and speaker docks. Darrell says the strategy is for the company to focus on PC-related products and maximize profitability. The news isn't entirely bad, though, with Darrell buoyed by "continued strong demand" for the Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad.Image copyright Brady Haran When the Bank of England issued the new plastic fiver last year, it promised it would be "much more durable". Immediately everyone, including the BBC, took to ripping, washing and ironing them to prove the Bank wrong. Now chemistry professor Martyn Poliakoff has shown it can be done, with the appliance of science. All it takes is a flask of liquid nitrogen, a lump hammer and a little expertise, to make yourself instantly £5 poorer. "There have been all sorts of advertisements that you cannot break them," the Nottingham University academic said. "I felt immediately challenged." Image copyright Brady Haran On his Periodic Video series on Youtube, he and assistant Neil Barnes set about demonstrating two methods to get the better of the tough new polymer notes. First, he pours a flask of liquid nitrogen over the £5 note. Mr Barnes then repeatedly applies the full weight of a blunt-headed hammer to the newly brittle note. Image copyright Brady Haran Image caption Going at the new fiver hammer and tongs Prof Poliakoff said: "It took several attempts. You had to get the orientation just right and hit it just in the right way, and then it broke into two or three pieces." The academic may now be £5 worse off - but that is a small price to pay for adding to the sum of scientific knowledge. And as Prof Poliakoff points out, the note came out of his own pocket as "you can't spend university money on things like this". Unfortunately, he couldn't glue the note back together afterwards, as one of the pieces had gone astray. Not content with that, Prof Poliakoff and Mr Barnes then placed a second new fiver in a beaker and filled it with "fuming nitric acid" - a "witches' brew" of nitric acid plus dinitrogen tetroxide. Image copyright Brady Haran Image caption Fuming nitric acid - powerful stuff Image copyright Brady Haran Image caption Don't store your cash near your dinitrogen tetroxide Image copyright Brady Haran Image caption By the end, it all became clear This had an even more marked impact. After a few minutes, the image of her Majesty and other details faded and dissolved, ultimately sliding off altogether to leave a completely transparent plastic polypropylene rectangle. Interestingly, an old £5 note, submitted to the same test as a control study, emerged from the nitric acid also faded, but still vaguely recognisable as a fiver. Prof Poliakoff then illustrated he can literally burn his way through cash, by igniting the now more combustible nitrated note. "It went with a real whoosh," he says. "And what was particularly interesting, it burned without any ash at all... so we have a really nice farewell to the old paper bank note. It just disappears into thin air." Image copyright Brady Haran Image caption Added nitrate - when you want your money to go up in smoke. Prof Poliakoff has gained cult status over the years, presenting his popular chemistry Youtube channel Periodic Videos covering. He received a knighthood in 2015, in part for his public outreach work. But with the Bank of England preparing to introduce yet more polymer versions of our banknotes - the £10 note is due out this September, the £20 by 2020 - Prof Poliakoff may find inflation begins to push up his lab costs. Still, as he is keen to point out: while it is illegal to deface the bank note, you aren't breaking any laws by destroying it. You might prefer though, after 5 May when the old £5 note ceases to be legal tender, to swap any you have left at the Bank of England for the hardy, new, nearly indestructible version.The Canadian pastor was released last week on what the North Korean government described as "sick bail" Hyeon Soo Lim had been serving a life sentence of hard labour for alleged anti-state activities in North Korea MISSISSAUGA, Ont. (NEWS 1130) – A Canadian pastor freed from a North Korean prison was met with cheers as he waded through a mob of people at church this morning, making his first public appearance since arriving home. Hyeon Soo Lim is attending the Sunday service at the Light Presbyterian Church in Mississauga, Ont., where he works as a pastor. He had been serving a life sentence of hard labour for alleged anti-state activities when he was released last week on what the North Korean government described as “sick bail.” Outside the church before the service, Lim told a group of reporters that he’s proud to be a Canadian. He made the appearance just one day after arriving home on a small government aircraft yesterday morning. His family wouldn’t comment on his health at the time of his arrival.When Steve Kloves (who wrote the majority of the Potter screenplays) met J.K. Rowling for the first time, he told her straight up that Hermione was his favorite character. Rowling admitted to being relieved, and who could blame her? It was more likely for Hermione to end up disrespected on screen—she wouldn’t be the first female hero to get butchered in the reels. But this resulted in an undercutting of Ron’s entire character from the first movie. Don’t believe it? When the trio go after the Philosopher’s Stone, they face a series of tests that demand each of their skills in turn. Time likely demanded that this sequence be cut down, and so Hermione’s test—solving Professor Snape’s potion riddle—was removed entirely. To make up for this, she gets them out of the Devil’s Snare, Professor Sprout’s deadly plant. Hermione shouts to Harry and Ron to relax so the foliage will release them—but Ron continues to panic and moan (in campiest fashion possible because he’s played by a child actor and these things are always requested of them), requiring Hermione to blast the thing with a sunlight spell. In the book, Hermione is the one who panics. She remembers what her lessons taught her—that the Devil’s Snare will recoil at fire—but balks at their lack of matches while they are being strangled to death. Ron immediately shrieks to the rescue YOU ARE A WITCH YOU HAVE A WAND YOU KNOW SPELLS WHAT ARE MATCHES. It’s a simple change, but it makes such a marked difference in how both characters come off to an audience. Rather than a near-infant, incapable of following the clearest directions, Ron is the even-keeled nitty-gritty one. He’s a tactician, the one who will find the simplest answer to a problem provided that the situation is dire enough to ensure his clear head. Ron is good under pressure and brave to boot. He’s also hilarious. It is easy to write this off as an actor problem; Emma Watson matured and improved much faster than her costars in terms of talent—and Steve Kloves liked her portrayal so much that he started giving her many of Ron’s important lines. During The Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black is trying to get to Peter Pettigrew (currently disguised as Scabbers the Rat), but Ron and Hermione are convinced he’s after Harry. In the book, Ron stares up defiantly from his mangled, broken leg and tells Sirius Black that if he wants Harry, he’ll have to get through his friends first. Yeah, my leg hurts way too much, Hermione. You take this one. But say it’s from me. And in the film, it’s Hermione who boldly steps in the line of fire while Ron sobs in pain and babbles incoherently. These rewrites not only depict Ron as an idiot coward—they also make him an outright jerk. When Professor Snape snaps at Hermione yet again for being an insufferable know-it-all, movie-Ron gives her a look and drawls, “He’s right, you know.” Wait, what?! Harry, why are you friends with this prick? Well, maybe because the Ron Weasley that J.K. Rowling put on paper was in that exact same situation, and immediately leapt to Hermione’s defense when she was being abused by a teacher—“You asked us a question and she knows the answer! Why ask if you don’t want to be told?”In spring 2016, a team of archeologists from the University of Cincinnati was digging at a Mycenaean site in the Pylos region of Greece when they made a surprising discovery: the intact tomb of a Bronze Age warrior dating to about 1500 B.C. The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports declared the find the “most important to have been discovered in 65 years.” Now, almost two years later, the tomb has revealed its most valuable secret, and intricately carved sealstone that researchers are calling “one of the finest works of prehistoric Greek art ever discovered.” It didn’t look so at first, but once a thick crust of limestone was cleared off it revealed a detailed scene of a victorious warrior, one defeated opponent beneath his feet and another falling at the tip of his sword. And all this was carved in meticulous detail on a piece of stone just over 1.4 inches long. A representation of the stone’s carving shows meticulous levels of detail. Drawing by T. Ross; courtesy of Department of Classic, University of Cincinnati. The dig’s coleaders, married team Shari Stocker and Jack Davis of the University of Cincinnati, were surprised by the detailed engravings, including intricate weaponry ornamentation and jewelry decoration. Such work has never been seen before in art from the Aegean Bronze Age. “What is fascinating is that the representation of the human body is at a level of detail and musculature that one doesn’t find again until the classical period of Greek art 1,000 years later,” Davis explained in a release. “It’s a spectacular find.” The sealstone before the limestone encrusting it was removed. Sharon R. Stocker and Jack L. Davis, 2017. “The Combat Agate from the Grave of the Griffin Warrior at Pylos,” Hesperia 86:583-605. Indeed many of the details in the “Pylos Combat Agate,” as it has been dubbed for the type of rock it is carved on, become clear only when viewed with photomicroscopy, which has left the researchers wondering about the technique behind it. “Some of the details on this are only a half-millimeter big,” said Davis. “They’re incomprehensibly small.” Researchers were particularly surprised by the artist’s depiction of musculature (coloration added). Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati The “Griffin Warrior,” who was buried in the tomb and gets his name from an adorned ivory plaque buried with him, probably died around the time when the militaristic and austere Mycenaean culture, based in mainland Greece, conquered the culturally sophisticated Minoans, based on the large island of Crete, just south of Pylos. But much of what was found in the tomb appears to be of Minoan fabrication, which suggests greater and more complex cultural interchange between the civilizations than was previously known. Archaeologist Shari Stocker in the tomb of the “Griffin Warrior.” Courtesy of the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati Stocker and Davis will present their findings in a paper to be published later this month in the journal Hesperia. According to Stocker, “This seal should be included in all forthcoming art history texts, and will change the way that prehistoric art is viewed.”By FRANCO PANIZO The search for a new home for Carles Puyol is on, and New York is a destination he would consider heading to. According to a report from Spanish outlet Marca, Puyol has decided that he will not be staying at Barcelona beyond this season and is exploring the possibility of joining either the New York Red Bulls or New York City FC. The injury-plagued Spanish centerback has reportedly been in contact with the two MLS clubs, but that discussions have been preliminary and just as a method to gauge their interest in signing him. Puyol, who turns 36 in April, has been dealing with repeated knee problems in recent years that have hindered his ability to get on the field for Barcelona. While a move away from the club where he has won multiple UEFA Champions Leagues is likely, joining an MLS club will be tough given his age and salary. He currently makes $13.7 million a season, and would have to count as a Designated Player if he were to stay on that kind of money in MLS. Puyol, however, needs to first negotiate a settlement with Barcelona. The Spanish national team player is currently under contract with the club until June 2016. What are the odds of Puyol coming to MLS? Not great unless he’s willing to take an astronomical paycut. MLS doesn’t have a history of signing aging defenders to Designated Player deals, and with most teams focusing their DP resources toward attacking players, Puyol coming to MLS seems like a long shot. What do you think of Puyol potentially signing with the Red Bulls or NYCFC? Think the clubs should steer clear given his age and recent injury history? Would Puyol be a good addition to MLS? Share your thoughts below.U.S. Attorney John Horn will open a criminal investigation into the 2011 police shooting death of a black teen who was shot twice in the back by a former Union City officer as the teen lay on the ground with one hand cuffed, the teen’s family said Friday. Horn’s decision opens a new front in the legal fight of Freda Waiters who has maintained her son, Ariston, was murdered by former Union City police officer Luther Lewis on the night of Dec. 14, 2011. Waiters was unarmed. Horn, the lead federal prosecutor for the Georgia’s Northern District, met with Waiters and her legal team at the Richard B. Russell federal building on Friday afternoon, one week after a Fulton grand jury chose not to indict Lewis for a second time in three years. The renewed attention in the case follows an Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Channel 2 Action News investigation in May that uncovered new evidence and raised questions about the official version told to justify the shooting. Horn’s office declined to comment about the meeting. “I just want the right thing done for my son,” Waiters said after the meeting. “I want truth and the facts brought out. I just want justice.” A call to Lewis was not returned before deadline. He has declined interview requests for months. Freda Waiters hired private investigator TJ Ward to help with her son’s case. He was at Friday’s meeting and provided federal prosecutors additional information from his investigation. Ward said Horn was familiar with the case and said he was aware that the FBI had been investigating it for several months. Ward said Horn seemed interested in both the events surrounding the shooting and evidence of possible cover-ups in the Union City Police department after the shooting. “They assured us they would look at it in-depth and whatever federal laws that apply that have been violated will be satisfied,” said Ward. “They assured us they were already aware (that) the FBI has interviewed the whistleblower and other officers in Union City.” Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard said after last week’s grand jury decision that he remained convinced that Lewis committed a crime and violated Waiters’ rights when he wrongly tried to arrest him on the night of the shooting. Officers had been responding to a shots fired call in a neighborhood where a group of teenagers had gathered. But Waiters had committed no crime, Howard said, and Lewis had no right to try to arrest him. Howard said unlike Georgia law, which allows officers to sit in the entire grand jury process and offer an unchallenged closing statement, the federal system does not offer accused officers such a privilege. He said he thought Lewis’s statement influenced the outcome of the case. Craig Jones, an Atlanta civil rights attorney who has been involved with excessive force cases involving police for 25 years, said federal prosecutors are more likely to be insulated from the political pressures that are often faced by local district attorneys when they bring cases against police officers. He said that proving an officer committed a crime is still a challenge, even in shootings where the facts don’t look good for the police. “You have to prove that he used his badge, used his uniform, used his authority to bully a citizen and violate his civil rights,” Jones said. “That is tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.” He said a federal prosecutor in such cases may also look at whether the aftermath of the shooting led to witness tampering, a cover-up or other issues that may have obstructed justice. “With the recent publicity of the these shootings, it’s a much more level playing field than it has been historically,” Jones said. “Jurors are much less inclined to give officers the benefit of the doubt than they may have been in the past. This issue has come to the forefront and people are much more aware than they have been before that some officers do abuse their authority.”Just about two weeks ago, the Westgate Superbook in Las Vegas posted the over/under win totals for all 30 NBA teams. The over/under for the Milwaukee Bucks is 39.5 wins. Seven Eastern Conference teams are projected to win more games than Milwaukee. They are: Cleveland (56.5) Boston (51.5) Toronto (49.5) Detroit (45.5) Atlanta (43.5) Indiana (43.5) Washington (42.5) Another team, Charlotte, has the same over/under win total as Milwaukee at 39.5. Right behind are Chicago (38.5), New York (38.5), Miami (36.5) and Orlando (36.5). At about the same time the Westgate odds were released, I had an extended discussion with an Eastern Conference executive. I queried him about the Bucks and whether he projected them as a playoff team. “I don’t,’’ the executive said. “The Eastern Conference has gotten so much better, and I don’t really see what the Bucks did (during the offseason) to get that much better. “(Matthew) Dellavedova and (Mirza) Teletovic were nice pickups, but they’re not the type of playes who are going to get them into the playoffs.’’ The Westgate odds and the executive remarks came just a few days before the Bucks’ playoff hopes took a devastating hit: Khris Middleton, whom some NBA officials consider the Bucks’ best all-around player, suffered a serious hamstring injury. Middleton, who said he ripped the entire muscle off the bone, had surgery on Wednesday. Bucks general manager John Hammond contends Middleton could return in approximately six months; other NBA officials and doctors contend that’s wishful thinking, firmly believing Middleton will be sidelined for the season. While it’s debatable when Middleton will be back on the court, this isn’t: The Bucks are in serious trouble. And, unless they make a significant trade and rather quickly, their season will be over well before it’s over. Simply put, they don’t have anyone on their roster who can remotely fill the void left by Middleton, anyone who can play major minutes and be a consistently reliable contributor. Bucks coach Jason Kidd said Rashad Vaughn will have the first crack at replacing Middleton. Vaughn, the team’s first-round pick in the 2015 draft, is coming off a rough rookie season and struggled in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. That’s not to say Vaughn won’t eventually become a fine player – he is, after all, only 20 years old — but he’s nowhere ready for a prime-time role now. Ditto for Malcolm Brogdon, the team’s second-round pick who acquitted himself well in the summer league. The Bucks’ best option at this juncture is Jason Terry, the savvy veteran who still can shoot the rock. But asking the 39-year-old Terry to play major minutes on a regular basis at this stage of his career is simply unrealistic. The fact of the matter is the Bucks, if they want to remain relevant this season, have to acquire a suitable shooting guard, one who can immediately step in and hold down the fort until Middleton returns to full health. According to several NBA officials, there are several wing players who could be available and fit the bill for the Bucks, depending, of course, on what the Bucks are willing to give up, whether it’s Greg Monroe, Michael Carter-Williams, John Henson or a future first-round pick. “It’s sounds trite but you got to give up something good to get something good,’’ an NBA general manager said. “Those guys (Monroe, Carter-Williams and Monroe) are good players. But I’d be careful about giving up a draft pick; next year’s draft is going to be pretty good.’’ With that in mind, here are some shooting guards/wings who are either on the trading block or could possibly be pried away for the right price in a deal: — Gary Harris, Denver Nuggets – The Nuggets have an impressive array of shooting guards now after selecting Jamal Murray in the lottery and Malik Beasley with the 19thoverall pick in last June’s draft. Their arrival could make Harris available, even though he is coming off a nice second season. Harris, the 19th pick in the 2014 draft, started 76 games last season and averaged 12.3 points while shooting 47 percent from the field and 35 percent from 3-point range. The Nuggets might also be receptive to moving Will Barton, 25, who played every game last season and was the team’s second-leading scorer at 16.1 points. — Ben McLemore, Sacramento Kings – Three years ago, McLemore was considered one of the jewels in the draft, a player with an enormous upside. But McLemore hasn’t lived up to the hype after being the seventh overall pick in the 2013 draft. He had a solid second season in which he averaged 12 points and played 33 minutes a game, but saw those numbers plummet to 7.8 points and 21 minutes last season. Still, McLemore is still only 23 and has 190 games on his resume. “I still like him; he’s very athletic,’’ an Eastern Conference official said. “I still think he has a lot of potential.’’ Added another Eastern Conference executive: “He hasn’t done what a lot of people think he should have done, but he could still be very good. Personally, I think he just needs a change of scenery.’’ — Alec Burks, Utah Jazz – “I don’t know if they (the Jazz) would move him; I know they like him,’’ an Eastern Conference GM said. And that might be the case with Burks, the 12th overall pick in the 2012 draft. He’s got length to play shooting guard and small forward at 6-6 and he is an excellent perimeter shooter: 41 percent last season and 37 percent for his career. He also is a solid scorer, having averaged 14, 13.9 and 13.3 points a game the last three seasons, primarily coming off the bench. “I think they want to hold on to him as insurance in case (Gordon) Hayward leaves (in free agency),’’ another Western Conference official said. “But they have depth there (on the wing), so they could move him.” Burks is a part of a collection of wings that includes Hayward, their best player, Rodney Hood, who emerged as a quality player and averaged 14.5 points in 79 games last season, and veteran Joe Johnson, whom they signed during the offseason. The big issue concerning Burks is his health: He has been injury prone during his pro career. He had surgery for a fractured left fibula last season but is expected to be ready to start this season. — Jeremy Lamb, Charlotte Hornets – The Hornets acquired Marco Belinelli during the offseason and that figues to make Lamb expendable. Lamb, who is 24, is a solid shooter – 44 percent from the field last season – and scorer – 8.8 points off the bench. There have been whispers the Bucks and Hornets have had conversations about a deal in which the Bucks would get Lamb and big man Spencer Hawes for Greg Monroe. — Terrence Ross, Toronto Raptors – Just like the Jazz would be reluctant to trade Burks, the Raptors would be hesitant in dealing Ross. At 6-7, he is versatile and is a perimeter threat, having shot 39 percent from 3-point range last season. But after being a full-time starter in his second and third seasons with the Raptors, he came off the bench last season and figures to do so again this season. DeMar DeRozan is firmly entrenched as the starting two guard and DeMarre Carroll, whom the Raptors signed to a four-year, $60 million contract as a free agent last summer, is slated to start at small forward. The Raptors also have Bruno Caboclo, their first-round selection in the 2014 draft, along with Norman Powell, who is coming off an impressive rookie season in which he made 24 starts. — Nick Young, Los Angeles Lakers – With veteran Luol Deng back and the Lakers having used the No. 2 overall pick on highly-touted Brandon Ingram, Young doesn’t fit in the Lakers’ plans and is on the trading block. While he averaged just 7.3 points last season, he did average 13.7 points the year before and 17.9 points two years ago. “He’s had some issues but, really, he’s a good guy, a happy go-lucky guy,’’ an Eastern Conference exec said. “The guy can still play; you know he can score.’’ There are, of course, other wing players
laying down as part of the common law what ministers can lawfully do in the exercise of the royal prerogative – declare war, make peace, sign treaties, grant honours, govern colonies – and what requires the authority either of the common law or of Parliament. Over these centuries it has been the rolling back of ministerial claims to arbitrary power, exercised by the use of the royal prerogative, that has shaped the British constitution. In 1636 a London trader called Richard Chambers sued the mayor for having wrongfully imprisoned him for refusing to pay ship money. His case was that the tax was itself unlawful, having been levied by the Crown without the authority of Parliament. The court refused to hear the argument. ‘There is a rule of law,’ Justice Berkeley said, ‘and a rule of government, and things that may not be done by the rule of law may be done by the rule of government.’ It took the rest of the 17th century – a civil war, the king’s execution, the implosion of the republic, the restoration of the monarchy and the parliamentary coup d’état we know as the Glorious Revolution – to establish that government enjoyed no such extra-legal power. In 1685 the Duke of York, who had been brought up in exile as a Roman Catholic, succeeded his brother Charles II as king and became ex officio head of the Church of England. On any view this was going to be a problem, and James II as he now was, egged on by his theological advisers, made the worst of it. Among other unwise moves he declared the Test Acts, which barred Catholics and dissenters from public office, to be of no effect, allowing him to commission Catholics as army officers at a time when the major threat to the nation was believed to come from the Catholic states of Europe. He then packed the 12-judge court which was going to decide the legality of what he was doing. Its finding in favour of a regal power to suspend or dispense with Parliament’s legislation brought a hurricane of political protest that culminated in James’s abdication and flight. In 1688 Parliament reconstituted itself and offered the crown to William of Orange on terms spelled out in a Bill of Rights that is still the foundational statute of the British state. Its second article reads: ‘That the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regall authoritie as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is illegall.’ For Scotland, the Claim of Right replicated the prohibition: ‘All Proclamationes asserting ane absolute power to Cass [quash] annul and Dissable lawes …. are Contrair to Law.’ The regal authority or absolute power in question was the royal prerogative: the residue of monarchical powers by which executive government is conducted by ministers and their departments. The powers are residual for more than one reason. When in 1611 Chief Justice Coke held that ‘the King hath no prerogative but what the law of the land allows him,’ he was echoing what his predecessor Sir John Fortescue had written in the 15th century: the king had no power to alter the law (that was for Parliament) or to administer it (that was for the judges). He was also reacting to what the law reporter John Hawarde had noted in 1597: the habit of the queen’s privy counsellors – in effect her ministers – ‘to attribute to their councils and orders the vigour, force and power of a firm law, and of higher virtue and force, jurisdiction and pre-eminence, than any positive law, whether it be the common law or statute law’. Although the ambit of the prerogative has been constricted over time, it still importantly includes the United Kingdom’s entry into and withdrawal from treaties, a function which accordingly falls to the Crown’s ministers – in substance to the foreign secretary. But because ours is a dualist system, treaties have no effect in domestic law unless and until Parliament decides to adopt them. Thus the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights had no direct effect here until 2000, when the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force. To withdraw from the convention by diplomatic act would have no effect on the legislation giving it domestic effect whereas repeal of the Human Rights Act would leave the convention without any domestic purchase. All of this boils down to a simple proposition: to use the royal treaty-making prerogative to stultify primary domestic legislation is to do exactly what the Bill of Rights forbids – to dispense with laws by regal authority. It makes no odds whether the law concerned is the Dangerous Dogs Act, which somehow got into the argument before the Supreme Court, or the 1972 European Communities Act with its more recent add-ons: the executive cannot use prerogative power to undo what Parliament has done. Given all this, it was hardly surprising, despite the foot-stamping of newspapers whose conception of British values seems not to include the country’s constitution, that when the prime minister let it be known that her government intended to trigger the Article 50 leaving mechanism without legislative authority, her proposal was challenged in court. The critical reasoning of the majority in the Supreme Court was this: withdrawal is fundamentally different from variations in the content of EU law arising from further EU treaties or legislation. A complete withdrawal represents a change which is different not just in degree but in kind from the abrogation of particular rights, duties or rules derived from EU law. It will constitute as significant a constitutional change as that which occurred when EU law was first incorporated in domestic law by the 1972 Act. And, if Notice [under Article 50] is given, this change will occur irrespective of whether Parliament repeals the 1972 Act. It would be inconsistent with long-standing and fundamental principle for such a far-reaching change to the UK constitutional arrangements to be brought about by ministerial decision or ministerial action alone. All the more so when the source in question was brought into existence by Parliament through primary legislation, which gave that source an overriding supremacy in the hierarchy of domestic law sources. This looks pretty impregnable until you turn to Lord Reed’s dissenting judgment. Standing by the principle of parliamentary supremacy, Reed argues that what Parliament enacted in and after 1972 is inherently conditional … on the UK’s membership of the EU. The Act imposes no requirement, and manifests no intention, in respect of the UK’s membership of the EU. It does not, therefore, affect the Crown’s exercise of prerogative powers in respect of UK membership … If Parliament chooses to give domestic effect to a treaty containing a power of termination, it does not follow that Parliament must have stripped the Crown of its authority to exercise that power … Withdrawal under Article 50 alters the application of the 1972 Act, but is not inconsistent with it. The application of the 1972 Act after a withdrawal agreement has entered into force (or the applicable time limit has expired) is the same as it was before the Treaty of Accession entered into force. As in the 1972 Act as originally enacted, Parliament has created a scheme under which domestic law tracks the obligations of the UK at the international level, whatever they may be … If Parliament grants rights on the basis, express or implied, that they will expire in certain circumstances, then no further legislation is needed if those circumstances occur. If those circumstances comprise the UK’s withdrawal from a treaty, the rights are not revoked by the Crown’s exercise of prerogative powers: they are revoked by the operation of the Act of Parliament itself What the disagreement comes down to is that the majority see diplomatic withdrawal from the EU as an illicit act of the Crown draining the statutes governing EU membership from 1972 onwards of meaning and effect, while Reed (and his two supporters) sees it as one of an indefinite range of contingencies that the legislation is explicitly designed to accommodate. Using a metaphor that recurs in the judgments, the minority see the legislation as a conduit which may, and does, change repeatedly in what it carries and which may run dry for political reasons which are not the courts’ business. The majority see it as the means prescribed by Parliament by which EU law is introduced into domestic law: ‘So long as the 1972 Act remains in force, its effect is to constitute EU law an independent and overriding source of domestic law.’ From these two approaches flow either of two consequences. One, supported by the majority, is that the executive is constitutionally forbidden to stifle a statutory source of law which will continue to flow until Parliament decides otherwise. The other is that the Crown’s ministers, in conducting the UK’s foreign affairs, are free to turn off the EU tap, leaving Parliament’s legislation empty but intact. Lord Carnwath, one of the other dissentients, based much of his agreement with Lord Reed on ministerial responsibility to Parliament as a sufficient check on executive action. Leaving aside the fact that ministers are frequently not MPs but peers and do not actually have to be members of either house (the trade union leader Frank Cousins was a rare instance), he may have forgotten what Lord Justice Farwell said in Dyson’s Case more than a century ago: ‘If ministerial responsibility were more than the mere shadow of a name, the matter would be less important, but as it is, the courts are the only defence of the liberty of the subject against departmental aggression.’ Despite Lord Reed’s astute reasoning my vote would go with the majority on the ground I began with. Since 1689 the Crown has been stripped of the power of ‘dispensing with laws or the execution of laws’. Whether diplomatic withdrawal from the EU treaties is regarded as turning off the tap or dismantling the plumbing, its purpose and effect would be to dispense with extant legislation which makes EU law part of the UK’s legal system. That is something which on principle only Parliament has authority to do. One of the majority taking this view was Lord Sumption, whose critique of the judiciary for meddling in politics drew a good deal of attention when he was appointed directly from the bar to the Supreme Court. So Lord Reed can be forgiven his parting shot: ‘It is important for courts to understand that the legalisation of political issues is not always constitutionally appropriate, and may be fraught with risk, not least for the judiciary.’ But this case was not about the legalisation of political issues: it was about the politicisation of legal issues. Ironically, if the government’s appeal had succeeded, another troublesome issue might have arisen: whose advice is the monarch required to take in deciding how her prerogative should be exercised? In the ordinary way, one of two things happens: either legislation spells out that it is to be one of her secretaries of state, or the cabinet, basing itself on the theory that the queen is to be advised solely by her ministers, deputes the decision to an appropriate department or takes the decision itself. But constitutionally the monarch’s proper source of advice is still the privy council, which at present consists of about 670 individuals who have held high office in the state as cabinet ministers, judges, diplomats, archbishops or whatever. We shall never know whether, had Gina Miller’s case failed, the law would have required the summoning of a body that nowadays confers in plenary session only to name the successor to the throne or (according to some) to sanction the marriage of a reigning monarch, in order to tender its collective advice as to whether the UK should leave the EU. That really would have upset the Daily Mail. What now? The probable option is to get Parliament to pass primary legislation that delegates to ministers the power the law has so far denied them to give notice of withdrawal from the EU under Article 50. The practice of using legislation to hand ministers and their departments colossal tranches of legislative power by the use of what are known as Henry VIII clauses has been adopted with growing frequency over the last hundred years or so. The difficulty with doing it in the present situation is that it will bring down an edifice on which hundreds of other things depend, many of which are beyond the UK’s control. There may be no alternative to a detailed Great Repeal Bill and a prolonged parliamentary odyssey. And if, after two years of negotiation, no satisfactory deal has been reached with the other member states, either the UK’s membership of the EU will lapse unconditionally or our notice under Article 50 will have to be extended or withdrawn. Who will decide whether this can be done? The Court of Justice of the European Union, that’s who.I know you think you’ve been counting down to PSL-season for what feels like a lifetime, but I assure you that, as an editor for one of the largest food websites in the country, I’ve been prepping for much, much longer. We work well ahead (at least 4-6 months) creating seasonal packages and researching to spot upcoming trends before they hit, so I’m pretty sure I was celebrating Thanksgiving on July 4. My Recipes: Fantastic Fall Pies With months of researching and preparing for the fall, you’d think I would have discovered what I’m about to tell you before last week. Heck, as someone who spends the entirety of her workweek studying food, I should just innately know all of the things–right? Not so, my friends, not so. Okay, I’ll get to the point. I found out something extremely disappointing and concerning this week that has made me rethink most everything in my life, so I’d like to share a little PSA with the class: Pumpkin puree is not pumpkin. It’s squash. Pumpkin puree: You know, the canned orange stuff that’s lining the supermarket walls right now? The stuff you use to make all your favorite fall desserts that’s labeled “100% pumpkin”?! Yes, well, it’s actually made from 100% not pumpkin. The mix is made from a variety of winter squash (think butternut, Golden Delicious, Hubbard, and more). Libby’s, the brand that produces about 85% of the country’s canned “pumpkin” filling, has actually developed a certain variety of squash that they grow, package, and distribute to supermarkets across the country–all the while fooling innocent, trusting consumers into believing they’re eating a pumpkin. My Recipes: Slow-Cooker Soups and Stops As it turns out, pumpkins can be fairly stringy and watery; certain varieties of winter squash make a richer, sweeter puree that works way better for packing the now-ambiguous flavor we all love into our favorite fall dishes. Additionally, the USDA is fairly lenient with gourd terminology in general, which is why it’s perfectly legal to label a food product as “pumpkin” when, in reality, it’s made from a different variety of squash. So it’s all good now that there’s an explanation, right? NO. It’s not. What I’m telling you is, you’ve basically been eating butternut squash pie, squash bread, and drinking SQUASH FREAKING SPICE LATTES this entire time. My Recipes: Gluten-Free Desserts Here’s my thing: When all the gourd execs sat around the boardroom table and came to the conclusion that, “Dang, pumpkin just isn’t going to work,” why didn’t they just come right out with it and announce, “SQUASH IS THE NEW PUMPKIN!” just like when Neiman Marcus told us gingham was the new stripe?! (P.S. It wasn’t. That was also a lie, and I looked like I was wearing a tablecloth.) This is my hangup on the whole issue. Not that all of my favorite pumpkin things suddenly taste gross now that I know what they’re really made of–but I’m a trusting girl, and I was deceived. Is nothing sacred? If it’s no big deal to call a blend of squashes “pumpkin,” who’s to say anything is what it says it is? That’s something for you to chew on. Photo: Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pie This article originally appeared on MyRecipes.com. With that being said, if you want to discuss this further, you can find me brooding over marketing deception and my skewed perception of reality with a squash latte.OHIO Neighbor arrested in 9-year-old’s death A neighbor was arrested Sunday in the killing of a 9-year-old Ohio girl whose body was found in a trash bin near her home after authorities and residents searched for the child. Jerrod Metsker, 24, was arrested at his home on a murder charge about 12 hours after deputies found the body of Reann Murphy near her home at a mobile park in Smithville, about 30 miles southwest of Akron, Wayne County Sheriff Travis Hutchinson said at a news conference. It was not clear whether Metsker had an attorney. His first court appearance is scheduled for Monday morning. Reann was last seen Saturday night playing at the park. Hutchinson wouldn’t say how the girl was killed or offer a motive. He described Metsker as a neighbor and friend of the girl’s family. — Associated Press Jerrod Metsker, 24, of Green Township, Ohio. (Courtesy of Wayne County /Via AP) Sentencing scheduled in charity fraud case A mysterious figure convicted of masterminding a $100 million cross-country Navy veterans charity fraud could spend the rest of his life in prison. The defendant, who identifies himself as Bobby Thompson, 67, but who authorities say is Harvard-trained lawyer John Donald Cody, faces sentencing Monday. The Ohio attorney general’s office, which handled the trial, asked the judge for a sentence of 41 years in prison and a fine of $6.3 million. The defense has requested a new trial. Thompson was convicted Nov. 14 of racketeering, theft, money laundering and 12 counts of identity theft. The fraud occurred in 41 states, according to trial testimony. Thompson disappeared for nearly two years. He was arrested last year in Portland, Ore. — Associated Press EDUCATION Presidents of private colleges rewarded Presidents at 42 private colleges scaled the $1 million annual mark in total pay and benefits in 2011 — a slight bump from the year before, according to a survey based on the latest federal tax information from the 500 private schools with the largest endowments. Median compensation was $410,523, or a 3.2 percent increase. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s report released Sunday used federal tax data from 2011. The top earner in the survey was Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago. His base pay was $918,000, but his total compensation was $3.4 million. About 40 percent of his total earnings stem from deferred compensation — a retention tool commonly used to keep college presidents on the job longer, the Chronicle said.Image caption The coalition has proposed making the House of Lords a mostly elected body The government has decided not to hold a national referendum on plans to reform the House of Lords. The coalition has suggested cutting the number of peers from more than 800 to 300, with 240 elected and 60 appointed. It will publish its plans next week. If its legislation is passed, the first elections would take place in 2015. David Cameron had hinted he might agree to a referendum on the changes but Nick Clegg, who made reform a major Lib Dem issue, had said it was not necessary. The three main national parties backed the proposed changes at the last general election but some MPs and peers argue that constitutional change should not be a priority at a time of economic crisis. There are also concerns that altering the Lords could undermine the primacy of the Commons. Key concessions BBC political correspondent Robin Brant said some Conservatives would see the decision not to hold a referendum as a victory for deputy prime minister Nick Clegg on a key issue for his Liberal Democrats. But our correspondent said government sources had indicated that the prime minister had secured several key concessions. These included making it clear that the new-look Lords could not block legislation passed by the House of Commons, he said. The sources also said the predicted cost of a referendum - believed to be about £100m - was unacceptable for an issue that was backed by the three main national parties. Labour Leader Ed Miliband has insisted that a referendum is necessary to approve the proposals.Your browser does not support the audio element. March 4, 2017 Deep House, Minimal, Progressive, Tropical House, 126BPM The bi-annual CRSSD Festival is happening this weekend here in San Diego, which invites some of the world's best house & deep house DJs out to the city. This mix is my tribute to the feel-good grooves and positive vibes that always travel hand-in-hand with the CRSSD atmosphere. TRACKLIST \|\| 01. Hidden Spheres - Movin' [Distant Hawaii] \|\| 02. Moby - Natural Blues (High Klassified Remix) [Fool's Gold Records] \|\| 03. Alex O'Rion - When Gods Go to War [Spring Tube Limited] \|\| 04. Hidden Spheres - By & Bye [Distant Hawaii] \|\| 05. Jacky Wonder - Human Chord [Kayowa Records] \|\| 06. Robert R. Hardy - Forgotten Memories [Abstract Series] \|\| 07. Blank & Jones - Under the Stars [Soundcolours] \|\| 08. Digital Department - Alliance [ICONYC] \|\| 09. Following Light - Annapurna (Bablak Remix) [Lincor] \|\| 10. Kinetic P & Gfb feat. Thato Chuma - Don't Be Wasting Time [365DEEP] \|\| 11. Shane Robinson - Everytime [Silk Music] \|\| 12. Donatello - Dirty Lips (Solid Stone Remix) [Spring Tube Limited] \|\| 13. Eskuche & Nu Sky, Harper - Sleep In Dream (Motum Remix) [SEEN] Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the Full Spectrum podcast, find the latest releases at http://ffaze.com, or join us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frequenZphaZe deep, minimal, deep house, tropical house, progressive, house, ffazed, new releases, melodic, dj set, frequenZ phaZe, full spectrumSince the triumphant ascension of the cryptocurrency industry, its proponents have long urged the federal governments and the central banks of the world to stand back, refrain from regulations and just mind their own business. However, things might have changed after Tuesday’s revelations. The entire world knows now that Mt. Gox, one of the biggest bitcoin exchange platforms, has gone dark and has possibly signaled that it is insolvent, bankrupt and doesn’t have $320 million worth of bitcoins. This has led to some to urge the Japanese authorities to intervene and try to get their digital holdings back. The Bank of Japan and various governmental agencies have warned bitcoiners that it could not be held responsible if such an incident occurred. At the time, the bitcoin community scoffed at the news and were pleased that perhaps another government would not get involved in the world of virtual currencies. Japan’s Financial Services Agency and Finance Ministry reportedly told Reuters that it does not have jurisdiction to intervene in the matter of Mt. Gox. However, that has changed in just a matter of hours. A top government spokesperson in Tokyo has confirmed to reporters at a news conference that it is possibly looking into the closure of Mt. Gox. “At this stage the relevant financial authorities, the police, the Finance Ministry and others are gathering information on the case,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Meanwhile, over in the United States, federal prosecutors in New York have sent a subpoena to Mt. Gox. Also, Tom Carper, a Delaware Democratic Senator and chairman of a Senate committee involved in the bitcoin issues, said legislation is needed to protect consumers in regards to bitcoin. Senator Carper has been calling for regulations and rules from law enforcement officials for months now. “The disturbing news today from Japan is a reminder of the damage that potentially ill-equipped and unregulated financial actors can wreak on unsuspecting customers,” said Carper in a statement. “U.S. policymakers and regulators can and should learn from this incident to protect consumers.” Benjamin Lawsky, New York state’s superintendent of financial services, was questioned by CNBC about the ramifications of this week’s news and he responded that it’s not necessarily the end of bitcoin and digital currencies aren’t going away anytime soon. “It may be a significant bump in the road for the development of bitcoin and virtual currencies, but I don’t think it means they’re going away or it’s any kind of death knell,” stated Lawsky. This news has caused Mt. Gox to issue a statement to the news outlet: “We should have an official announcement ready soon-ish. We are currently at a turning point for the business. I can’t tell much more for now as this also involves other parties.” The closure of Mt. Gox can only mean one thing: intensification of regulation by authorities. At this time, it appears that when it comes to bitcoin everything has returned to normal. It is presently trading at $558, down more than half from its all-time high of around $1,200 this past year. For more Bitcoin news follow PFhub on FaceBook, Twitter or bookmark this page.Looks like China Rising needed a little more time in the oven Developer DICE has claimed it’s stopped work on all ‘future projects’ while it tries to fix Battlefield 4’s disintegrating online mode. The continuing, and indeed escalating, problems with Battlefield 4 has caused DICE to stop work on all other projects, including apparently Star Wars: Battlefront and Mirror’s Edge 2. ‘First, we want to thank the fans out there that are playing and supporting us with Battlefield 4’, said DICE in a prepared statement. ‘We know we still have a ways to go with fixing the game — it is absolutely our No. 1 priority. The team at DICE is working non-stop to update the game. ‘Since Battlefield 4 China Rising expansion pack was already in the final stages of development by the time issues began with Battlefield 4, we decided to fulfill our promise to deliver it this week, but we’re not moving onto future projects or expansions until we sort out all the issues with Battlefield 4. Advertisement Advertisement ‘We know many of our players are frustrated, and we feel their pain. We will not stop until this is right.’ The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game have suffered from stability and lag issues from launch, as well as frequent system crashes and save data loss. But the recent release of the China Rising map pack has managed to make things even worse, with many unable to even get the downloadable content running. As a result we’ve abandoned plans to review the expansion this week, and will wait until it’s in some kind of proper working order. Whether DICE has really stopped working on other games while all this is going on of course no one but them can tell. It certainly seems unlikely that development of Star Wars: Battlefront would be affected though, as that’s being created by a new studio in the US. Whatever exactly is going on EA has suggested keeping an eye on the Battlefield 4 forums, for the latest updates on bug fixes and server stability. Thoughts? Email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk or leave a comment belowModels ported/extracted by - Padme4000 Retextures by - Credits:Models ported/extracted by -Retextures by - Sticklove Padme4000 Swimsuit ported/extracted bythen fitted to fshep body by Puffy Vest, (version 1) by Meshmods - Ottemis High Res textures by BSN - the thread of the creator. Padme4000 Both Outfits seen on Ash to the right in a triangle shape are original creations ofmade for the mass effect femshep body. The Term meshmod means parts from different models put together. It does not by any means mean that those who create the meshmods own them. With this in mind please remember to always credit the games/companies the models come from. You do not have to credit me but if you credit me please say Padme4000 or Padme4000 do just put if you're just going to say that then don't credit me at all. Thank you. Please note all models are extracted/ported from games and are only put together by me and others and are creations of the owners that are credited here; Default Bone Names Only -Update 27/05/2017 - Edited the files to xps.xps, decreased model size and converted textures to PNGModels are for XPS onlyFor the alternate colours/looks use the.xcf's provided.This outfit pack was made forand anyone who likes Ashley. I used her ME1/2 hair as that was the request and honestly I actually prefer how she looks with that hair.The two outfits seen on Ashley to the right. Tank Top/Crop Top and Shorts and the Tshirt underwear set the clothes themselves were made by me from scratch. So the tshirt, the crop top and shorts I made from scratch. They are my first own made creations. Their textures are simple because the tshirt is meant to be for lounging and I like the material for my own tshirts. The crop top and shorts were made to be similar to the outfit seen worn by Claudia Black here; www.farscapecaps.com/205/image… The outfit was requested and since I couldn't find anything suitable I decided to try my hand at making some clothing. Which led to the extra tshirt as well.There are some clipping issues for some of the outfits but nothing major.The swimsuit has some shorts as an optional item. Though they are the main ones with the clipping issues sadly.Downloads: 1drv.ms/1vTbCXG if you use the models whose folders are called 'Tank Top with Shorts' and 'Tshirt underwear' which have outfits I created from scratch I would like to be at least credited for the outfits.Orlando City’s search for a new head coach could be coming to a close, if a report from FourFourTwo’s Paul Tenoriois to be believed (and it is), with former New York City FC and Real Salt Lake boss Jason Kreis emerging as the front-runner f or the gig. While nothing has been signed or announced as of yet, it’s a promising sign by the club, which would certainly be making a big splash with its first coaching hire in more than eight years. With so much negativity surrounding the club over the past eight months, this could signal the light at the end of the tunnel, as hiring Kreis could put Orlando City back on the road toward becoming the title-winning club it so heavily touted itself as heading into MLS. The Lions have lost their way since making the jump from the USL, but Kreis could be their way back. An MLS Cup champion with a small-budgeted team in Real Salt Lake in 2009, and nearly again in 2013, Kreis’ tenure in Utah — his first head coaching gig, stepping into the role in 2007 shortly after retiring as a player with RSL — put him on the map as one of the top coaches in the country. He amassed a 102-77-60 record across 239 games. That, of course, was right up until he decided to leave for the lucrative opportunity awaiting at City Football Group with the arrival of NYCFC in MLS, along with their vast resources and oil money to spend. And who can blame a man for taking on that opportunity? After eight seasons with RSL, maybe a change and a new challenge was what Kreis was looking for. But a horrible first season in the Bronx saw CFG lose patience, and eventually Kreis lost his job. There are very few people outside of New York that believe Kreis should not have been given more time to right the ship. Everybody knows of his coaching success, and winning with a first-year side with three DPs all past their prime — and two of them only showing up mid-season — was a task too tall to conquer for even the best of coaches. In Orlando, Kreis would again be coming in to an ownership group determined to win and willing to spend the money to make that happen. Whether or not he’s given a longer leash than at his former club, or even than the coach he’d be taking over for, can only be told over time, of course. With a young core centered around Cyle Larin, Tommy Redding, Cristian Higuita, Kevin Molino, and the star DP, Kaká, there will be pressure on Kreis to succeed immediately. But if given time and proper resources to win, he’s a man capable of getting the job done. Orlando City is at a very difficult time in its short history. The Lions know who they want to be, but they’re struggling to get to that point. In RSL, Kreis helped found and build a winning culture, not by out-spending other clubs, but by finding the right players to fit the right roles that would ultimately make the club successful week in and week out. Orlando City needs that, and he can bring it to the club. Jason Kreis is very well known for his past with Real Salt Lake, but he could build a much brighter future for himself with Orlando City.The Senate confirmed Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) to head the Department of the Interior. Here's what you need to know about him. (Bastien Inzaurralde,Danielle Kunitz,Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, who has represented Montana’s at-large congressional seat for one term, to serve as secretary of the Department of the Interior, according to an individual with firsthand knowledge of the decision. Zinke, who studied geology as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon and served as a Navy SEAL from 1986 to 2008 before entering politics, campaigned for his House seat on a platform of achieving North American energy independence. He sits on the House Natural Resources Committee as well as the Armed Services Committee. A lifelong hunter and fisherman, the 55-year-old Zinke has defended public access to federal lands even though he frequently votes against environmentalists on issues ranging from coal extraction to oil and gas drilling. This summer, he quit his post as a member of the GOP platform-writing committee after the group included language that would have transferred federal land ownership to the states. [Trump taps former Texas governor Rick Perry to head Energy Department he once vowed to abolish] “What I saw was a platform that was more divisive than uniting,” Zinke said at the time. “At this point, I think it’s better to show leadership.” Trump also opposes such land transfers, but the provision made it into the official Republican platform. Zinke recently criticized an Interior Department rule aimed at curbing inadvertent releases of methane from oil and gas operations on federal land as “duplicative and unnecessary.” “Clean air and clean water are absolute top priorities when we talk about responsible energy development, however the final rule issued by the Obama administration does nothing to further protect our resources,” he said in a statement. “This rule is a stark reminder that we need to invest in infrastructure projects like the Keystone pipeline, so we don’t need to flare excess gas.” [Environmentalists and scientists brace for a future clash with Trump] During his time in Congress, Zinke has established a 3 percent voting score with the League of Conservation Voters. But he has broken ranks with the panel’s GOP majority on occasion, opposing a measure by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) that would have allowed each state to buy up to 2 million acres in U.S. Forest Service land to boost timber production. He has also pushed for full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a high priority for outdoors groups. Land Tawney, president and chief executive of the Montana-based Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, described Zinke on Tuesday as “a straight shooter” who has established credibility with outdoors enthusiasts in the state. During a recent meeting with him at a distillery in Whitefish, the congressman’s home town, Zinke walked into the place in flip-flops. “You wouldn’t know he’s a congressman,” Tawney said. “He really prides himself on being a Theodore Roosevelt Republican, and he lives that a little bit more than other people.” [Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump] Outdoors activities such as mountain biking and skiing are a major economic driver in Whitefish as well as in Montana overall, where roughly 200,000 residents have big-game hunting licenses and 300,000 have fishing licenses. Zinke, who has been endorsed by the Outdoor Industry Association, has embraced that sector of the state’s economy. “Hunting and fishing isn’t something we do in Montana, it’s a way of life,” said Tawney, a fifth-generation Montanan. Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership President Whit Fosburgh, whose hunters and anglers group has worked with Zinke, said in an interview that it would be “very supportive of Ryan Zinke” as a Cabinet nominee. “He’s shown courage and commitment to public lands and conservation and [is] someone we think would be an excellent secretary of interior,” Fosburgh said. [Trump transition team for Energy Department seeks names of employees involved in climate meetings] 1 of 35 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Here’s a look at Trump’s administration so far View Photos The men and women the president-elect has selected for his Cabinet and White House team. Caption The men and women the president-elect has selected for his Cabinet and White House team. Scott Gottlieb, nominee for commissioner of FDA President Trump is set to nominate Scott Gottlieb, a conservative physician and businessman with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry, to be commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a White House official said. Courtesy of American Enterprise Institute/via Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. Still, a slew of environmental groups came out Tuesday against Zinke, who opposes safeguards the Obama administration has provided for temporary wetlands and intermittent streams, as well as its temporary moratorium on coal leasing on federal land. While he supported subsidizing renewable energy programs and climate change legislation before being elected to the House, during a 2014 debate he said of climate change, “It’s not a hoax, but it’s not proven science either.” “Zinke embodies the worst kind of magical thinking in Congress: that government welfare handouts can save dying coal companies and crumbling oil and gas giants,” Greenpeace climate campaign specialist Diana Best said Tuesday. “The fact is, coal demand is shrinking globally, and people across America want a Department of the Interior that will protect our precious public lands in perpetuity. That means keeping them off-limits to fossil fuel production and recognizing that the world is moving forward.” Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the congressman’s “brief political career has been substantially devoted to attacking endangered species and the Endangered Species Act,” while the National Parks Conservation’s president, Theresa Pierno, said he “has repeatedly voted to block efforts to designate new national parks that would diversify the National Park System.” While some Democrats are likely to oppose Zinke’s nomination, the pick does provide the party with one
last 24 hours, though not at a level that many users would be happy about. The price of one bitcoin currently sits at around $475 (£286, €362), almost exactly $100 down on what it was at this time last month. Both dogecoin and darkcoin have also remained relatively stable since yesterday but other major cryptocurrencies have once again seen their prices drop, with litecoin, peercoin and namecoin all falling by between 4% and 6%. One of the biggest gains seen across all markets came from piggycoin, which saw its price rise by over 75%. This pushes the market cap for the child-friendly altcoin up above $15,000. Workers want wages in bitcoin A Canadian payroll firm has revealed that a growing number of workers are signing up to schemes to have their wages paid in bitcoin. An option to be paid with the cryptocurrency was introduced last November by Ontario-based firm Wagepoint. Since then employees from 10 different companies have signed up to the scheme. "When we started off, we didn't even think we'll get one," Wagepoint CEO Shrad Rao told CTV News. "What's interesting is that we've actually had customers come to us because of the [bitcoin] integration, which we were not expecting at all." Over 200 bitcoin ATMs worldwide There are now over 200 BTMs (Bitcoin Teller Machines) in operation around the world, according to Coindesk's cryptocurrency ATM location tracking page. The majority of the BTMs are in North America, however they can also be found throughout Europe, Asia, South America, Oceania and even Africa. Around 20 suppliers and bitcoin projects provide the ATMs, with the most recent being installed on the Isle of Man. Bitcoin friendly regulation in the US Five states in the US are set to introduce regulation that favours bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, according to a recent report. Texas, New Mexico, New Hampshire, California and Colorado are all poised to promote bitcoin-friendly regulation. News of the proposals is likely to be welcomed by investors and advocates alike, following the recent criticism of New York's recent BitLicense regulations. The proposed regulation in New York has come under criticism in recent weeks, as many fear the framework could influence and cause stricter provisions for the cryptocurrency both nationally and internationally.High Schooler Successfully Analyzes Maritime Piracy By MarEx 2015-02-10 16:27:44 First Prize Winner, 2015 CIMSEC High School Essay Contest The nations of Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore all share a unique strength. Despite being third world countries and overall economically weak, they have strength in their geographic position? each are located on crucial waterways. These waterways consist of some of the most heavily traveled commercial shipping routes in the world. In terms of crude oil alone, the strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia has an estimated 15 million barrels a day, while the strait of Hormuz that links the Arabian Gulf to the Indian Ocean has an even larger amount of oil cargo, estimated at 17 million barrels per day. These numbers are increasing exponentially every year as the global economy grows and becomes even more interconnected. Yet, despite their critical importance, these sea lanes are among the greatest hotspots for modern day piracy? a “movement” that costs the commercial shipping industry more than 16 billion dollars each year. Maritime piracy is a global issue, and in these two regions, there is a trio of factors which have catalyzed the problem? weak economic opportunities for the local populations, a lack of security/enforcement by officials, and the geographic locations all provide ample opportunity for piracy. All of these factors are pretty apparent, and if you eliminate any of these three, you will see piracy decrease tremendously? the result is improved safety, perception, and ultimately, the profitability of the shipping industry. The solution for the first decade of the 21st century has been to increase security. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand have joined together to eliminate piracy in Southeast Asia and create safer shipping lanes. In the Red Sea, along the coast of Africa, and off the Arabian peninsula, western countries have taken the initiative in eliminating piracy through the creation of the combined Maritime Forces? a collaboration of 26 countries and three task forces? CTF150 with Maritime Security & Counterterrorism, CTF151 with Counter-piracy, and CTF-152 with Persian Gulf Security Cooperation. Due to these efforts, attacks from piracy are at a record low and the seas are safer. Piracy is a cyclical event that features both periods of outbreaks and minimal incidents. Currently, maritime piracy is under control, however it’s only a matter of time until the next wave of attacks. Following uneventful years, governments and shipping companies will become complacent due to this lack of incidents? they will assess the security threat and adjust their budgets. As companies and governments downsize their security investments, they allow the reinstatement of the one factor that they had eliminated? lack of law enforcement. As a result, pirate attacks will once again revamp. In order to prevent another wave of attacks, a solution must be selected from a multitude of options. The first such solution would be the proven and traditional method of continued security forces/measures in high-risk locations. However, aside from being expensive, it is not permanent and places the burden of responsibility on Western governments. A spinoff of this idea, and an emerging method, is to place this burden on the shipping companies themselves and have them invest in their own security measures. This capitalistic approach expands the market for private security firms. However, in pursuit of profits, shipping companies might try to cut corners. This would allow for increased attacks, which almost always escalate into hostage situations that have to be dealt with through military intervention. Taking a more permanent approach to fixing the problem is to address a different factor: poor economic conditions. This could be done through direct investment into a region’s economic development or into developing local security forces. To take the direct investment approach would be a long-term approach that would benefit the country overall. Developing local security forces, for example matching dollar for dollar, would be an intermediate solution that would both create economic opportunity while placing the burden of security on local governments. This second approach would be arguably the best in countries such as Indonesia and Singapore because they are already investing in securing their waterways. However, neither of these approaches are applicable in countries with corrupt or unstable governments, particularly Somalia where there’s no central government and various Warlords are in control. The most unique approach to piracy would be unmanned or drone ships. As the name implies, they would operate similar to U.S. military drones where a controller sits in a building thousands of miles away, while a satellite link provides the controller with the ability to control the craft while receiving input from visual and other sensors. This is a newly emerging concept? in February of 2014, Rolls Royce announced they are developing drone cargo ships, and in November of 2014, Space X unveiled a drone barge for their reusable rocket program. In terms of freighting, the benefits range from better energy efficiency to lower cost due to the lack of a crew. Drone ships are not pirate proof? they could still be hypothetically hijacked depending on the design of the ships. An example would be that if the engine systems were not secured/contained enough, the vessels propulsion could be halted. The reason drone ships would be so effective against piracy is they eliminate the worst situation for security forces to combat? hostage situations. The creation of drone ships are host to numerous other difficulties? as with any form of creative destruction that causes structural unemployment, the idea will be, and already is opposed by many who make their livelihood aboard ships. Additionally, unmanned ships are currently illegal under international conventions that set minimum crew requirements. Even if that hurdle was to be overcome, then regulations would still have to be created for the new ships. So which of the options would be the most effective? A combination of all the different methods would probably be the best solution in both the short and long run. No matter what solution is best, governments and companies need to choose a method and instate it in the coming years to ensure we don’t see another wave of attacks. Growth of the world’s economy depends on the safety of the major waterways, and inaction could cost lives. Source: http://cimsec.org/; This article was republished with permission. About the Author: Steel Templin is a senior from South Lake High School in Groveland, Florida. He is active in Key Club, Student Government, and National Honor Society, and holds leadership positions in each. In addition to school clubs, he is a varsity football player and varsity crew member. Steel hopes to attend and row at either the Naval Academy, Cornell, or Georgia Tech and study nuclear or aerospace engineering. Additionally, after college Steel plans to serve in the military or one of our country’s security agencies. Citations Kermeliotis, Teo. “Somali Pirates Cost Global Economy ‘$18 Billion a Year’.”Piracy on the High Seas. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2014. At Issue. Rpt. from “Somali Pirates Cost Global Economy ‘$18 Billion a Year.’.” CNN.com. 2013. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. Debusmann, Bernd. “Military Action and Foreign Aid Must Be Used to Eliminate Pirate Sanctuaries.” ModernDay Piracy. Ed. Debra A. Miller. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Current Controversies. Rpt. from “Why High Seas Piracy Is Here to Stay.”Reuters 4 Mar. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. Arnsdorf, By. “RollsRoyce Drone Ships Challenge $375 Billion Industry: Freight.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 25 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.. “Combined Maritime Forces.” Combined Maritime Forces. Web. 13 Jan. 2015. Smith, Mat. “SpaceX Is Going to Land a Rocket on a ‘spaceport’ Barge.” Engadget. 17 Dec. Web.13Jan.2015. <http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/17/spacexrocketlandingxwingsupersonicautonomous spaceportdroneship> “U.S. Energy Information Administration EIA Independent Statistics and Analysis.” World Oil Transit Chokepoints Critical to Global Energy Security. EIA, 1 Dec. 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2015 <http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=18991>Welcome to the second half of New Years celebrations where we have now said farewell to 2013 and welcomed 2014 as another year of potential. Kicking off 2014 news coverage is Australian anime publisher Madman Entertainment, who have just announced and opened pre-orders for their March 2014 anime release slate which is to be available in stores from the 19th March 2014. These titles include a number of DVD and Blu-ray releases, part-series and full-series releases and a film I am sure more than a couple of you would be waiting to watch after Reel Anime 2013. The full list of titles is available below: ———————————– Bleach Collection 20 (Episodes 268 – 279) DVD \| $49.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 300 Minutes As Ichigo and Ulquiorra battle, Loly and Menoly find a golden opportunity to dispose of Orihime. Unable to defend herself, Orihime is attacked without remorse while a new enemy arises. Yammy breaks through the floor of the Fifth Tower as Ulquiorra’s reinforcement. The combined attacks of Ichigo and Uryu all seem useless against Ulquiorra and Yammy. Meanwhile, in the World of the Living, the mysterious Visoreds step onto the battlefield. Will they be friend or foe? ———————————– Evangelion: 3.33 You Can (Not) Redo DVD / Blu-ray \| $29.95 / $34.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 95 Minutes After the ‘Third Impact’, Shinji awakens to an existence he does not recognise. Earth lies in ruins. Those he once fought valiantly to protect have cruelly turned against him. With Rei Ayanami nowhere to be seen, could his efforts to save her have been in vain – and what friendships can he now rely on? Trapped in a harrowing cycle of death and rebirth, Shinji continues to courageously battle the Angels – even as the world spirals toward a tragic end. ———————————– Fairy Tail the Movie: Phoenix Priestess DVD / Blu-ray \| $29.95 / $34.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 85 Minutes One day, a request flew in with the words “I want the leader of the bandit group that’s eating the nest in a certain harbor town, Geese, to be apprehended”. Natsu and the team, who are looking forward to the big reward, set out to the place of request in high spirits. However, because of a mistake Lucy made, they let Geese escape right in front of their eyes. With the request failed..Lucy, who was depressed and by herself, met a mysterious girl named Eclair and a strange bird named Momon on her way home. Eclair somehow lost her memory, and the only thing she remembers is that she must deliver the “Phoenix Stone” in her possession to somewhere. Eclair, who hates magic, and the secrets hidden within the Phoenix Stone…this meeting is the start of a brand new enemy, and a sinister plot that will confront Fairy Tail. Good Luck Girl! Binbogami Ga! The Complete Series DVD / Blu-ray \| $59.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 325 Minutes Ichiko gets lucky a lot. She’s rich, beautiful, smart, stacked, and better than you at everything. But there’s a reason life always goes her way: she unwittingly steals happiness energy from everyone else! Momiji – a poverty god with a freakishly huge syringe and a bunch of oddball charms – has to take Ichiko’s extra good fortune and return it to her various victims of circumstance. Like an Adderall-raddled cat-and-mouse chase in a funhouse full of pop culture references, the spirit of shortcomings and her self-absorbed subject stick each other with jabs, gags, bizarre bets, and dirty tricks aplenty. It’s a side-splitting ride, and everyone’s seatbelt is defective. But how many blows to the ego can Ichiko take before she grows a sympathy gland and stops hogging all the happiness? ———————————– Ikki Tousen Great Guardians (Season 3) Collection DVD \| $59.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 300 Minutes The combat continues between teens guided by spirits of ancient warriors in round three of the original martial arts marathon! As the dust settles over the Battle of Red Cliffs, the fighters of Nanyo and Seito Academies form a peaceful alliance. Hakufu’s ready to make some dough for tournaments, but her stacked reputation keeps the fearless leader up to her chest in trouble. Just when her joy peaks over meeting a mysterious sister from another mister, a foe Nanyo Academy once creamed returns! As the conflict comes to a climax, the battle vixens bare blood, betrayal, and… ———————————– Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-Ne Season 1 DVD \| $59.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 275 Minutes Madoka Kyono is an energetic girl who is full of passion. As the proud – and only – member of the Kamogawa Girls’ High School Jersey Club, she goes around helping people in need. But Madoka’s life is turned upside down when she is suddenly asked by a mysterious girl named Lan to pilot a robot. Motivated by her desire to protect the people and city of Kamogawa, Madoka agrees to pilot the resurrected Vox robot to fight against extraterrestrials that have come to attack Earth. Legend of the Legendary Heroes Complete Collection DVD \| $59.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 650 Minutes A war between bordering lands Roland and Estabul has begun. At the King of Roland’s command, Ryner Lute, a bearer of a cursed, extremely lethal power called the Alpha Stigma, and his beautiful comrade Ferris set out on a search for the Heroic Relics – artifacts that contain enormous supernatural powers and can be devastating if placed in the wrong hands. War tactics, bloody magical battles, and political intrigue ensue! ———————————– Naruto Shippuden Collection 17 (Episodes 206 – 218) DVD \| $49.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 325 Minutes Madara has declared war on the shinobi world! The Kage unite to form the Allied Shinobi Forces with the Raikage as their leader. While the villages prepare for battle, Sakura forms a team to go after Sasuke, secretly planning to take him out herself! But Sasuke has his own plans, and his confrontation with Danzo confirms the truth about the destruction of the Uchiha Clan. Where once he plotted revenge against his brother, Sasuke now turns his anger toward the Leaf Village, and only one person has any chance of changing his mind: Naruto! ———————————– Steins;Gate Series Collection DVD / Blu-ray \| $59.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 625 Minutes The microwave is a time machine. Okarin proved it. The self-anointed mad scientist nuked bananas into some gelatinous version of the future. Or maybe it was the past. Doesn’t matter. No one thought he could do it, but he did it anyway. He sent text messages through time to people he knew. To his friends. Some of them female. Pretty. He should have been more careful. He should have stopped. Tampering with the time-space continuum attracts unwelcome attention. Clandestine organizations of nefarious origins take notice. SERN. Always watching. Okarin knows; he can feel their eyes. That’s why he started the top secret Future Gadget Lab. To stop them. You should join. We get to wear lab coats, and it’s dangerous. Danger is exciting because it’s deadly. The microwave is a time machine. Sword Art Online Volume 4 – Fairy Dance Part 2 (Episodes 20 – 25) DVD / Blu-ray \| $29.95 / $34.95 \| Hybrid Dub \| 150 Minutes Kirito and Leafa have finally reached Central Arun, the largest city in Alfheim by the foot of the World Tree. Kirito is determined to face the dangers of the Grand Quest to rescue Asuna. With the support of the Sylphs and the Cat Sidhes, will Kirito save Asuna in time or will he be crushed by Oberon’s evil plans?! ———————————– Transformers Energon Collection Two DVD \| $49.95 \| English Dub \| 1275 Minutes The uneasy peace is shattered after the return of Megatron! Yet the Autobots, aided by new allies Rodimus and Omega Supreme, fight back in a battle on multiple fronts across the galaxy. The search for Unicron by leads to the discovery of a new energy source, Super Energon. When Megatron uses this power to become the terrifying force, Galvatron, he becomes an even more dangerous threat. Can Optimus Prime muster enough power to defeat Galvatron, or even worse, the power of Unicron?Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) on Thursday said that if the sponsors of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show continued to support his “hate mongering” then women should boycott those companies. “I rise this morning to say to Rush Limbaugh, shame on you,” she said on the House floor. “Shame on you for being the hatemonger that you are. Shame on you for being misogynistic.” Limbaugh on Wednesday called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut” because of her testimony in Congress about contraception. Fluke explained that her friend, a lesbian, could not afford the oral contraception she needed to prevent ovarian cysts from forming because her university refused to pay for them on religious grounds. “After months of paying over $100 out-of pocket, she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore, and she had to stop taking it,” Fluke said. “Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary as a result.” But on his show, Limbaugh accused Fluke of not being able to afford contraception because she was “having so much sex.” Then on Thursday, he demanded that women post sex tapes online if they use insurance-covered birth control. “Shame on you for calling the women of this country prostitutes,” Speier said. “Ninety-eight percent of the women in this country at some time in their lives used birth control.” “So I say to the women in this country, do something about this,” she continued. “I say to the women of this country, ask Century 21, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Sleep Number to stop supporting the hate mongering of Rush Limbaugh and if they do not do that, then I ask them to boycott those companies.”Is there life on Mars? Maybe. But there are definitely kittens surrounding Saturn. Scientists named moonlets around Saturn after standard kitten names, Space.com reports. The small clumps, caught on camera by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, occupy the F ring of Saturn and scientists decided to give them kitten names for kicks, according to the website. The clumps are constantly colliding, breaking apart and fusing together. “These are like cats, because they have nine lives,” Larry Esposito, a Cassini scientist who helped find and name the kittens, told Space.com. In addition to finding more than 60 kittens in Saturn’s F ring, with Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph, Esposito actually discovered the ring itself in 1979. Now he’s having a little fun naming important space stuff after kittens. The standard kitten names are in effect: Fluffy, Garfield, Socks, Whiskers, etc. Apparently, the official titles run along the lines of Alpha Leonis Rev 9, but who cares when its alias is Mittens? Esposito and his team will continue to study and name Saturn’s kittens, despite the demise of Cassini. It dived into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017, ending its mission, but it gave NASA vital info while in use. And now NASA is taking this serious info and totally LOLing. “I think this says something about the social nature and humor of the science team,” Esposito told the news outlet. Esposito said the Cassini team has many cat lovers, as well as some dog fans who “resisted” the awesome cat names. Nice try, dog people.is one of those banned cards which generates a great deal of chatter (especially now that is gone). I'd like to engage in a little discussion regarding the card in advance of this weekend's Commander Rules Committee (RC) meeting. Before we do, I want to offer a few caveats. Disclaimers Ahoy First of all, this is not a prelude to anything. This article is not a setup for any particular movement of the card one way or the other. It's recognition of the discussion that is ongoing in the community. I have no particular dog in this hunt. As I'll present, there are reasonable arguments for both sides. If stays on the banned list or comes off, I'll be just as happy either way. I want to have the conversation, I want the conversation to be fruitful, and in the end I want us (us being the RC) to make a sound decision regarding the card. There is no absolute right or wrong here. There's no moral value to banning or unbanning the card (or any card). The decision comes down to what makes the most sense regarding the format as we've described our banned list criteria (which are admittedly and intentionally subjective). We're doing a quiet little test with in our Commander Rotisserie Draft League. We decided to let Keith, with the Abzan deck (he rotates through playing ; ; and ) give it a whirl since (weirdly enough) his deck is the one least likely to abuse it. He's done nothing else with his deck to take advantage of the card (like add sacrifice outlets or a combo package). The card has shown up in three games so far. Once, Keith cast it and it got exiled nearly immediately. It impacted the other two games. In Game 1 last week, Todd cast targeting Keith, getting. I had on the battlefield, which was copying. I also had in my hand. At the end of Todd's turn, I flashed in to blink, copying when it came back, knowing that I had in my hand and the battlefield is otherwise uncomfortable for me. That's when the nonsense started, since I had and s already in my graveyard. After casting, I pulled out of my library (and nothing else, since I don't have a one-drop). I blinked, returned my graveyard to the battlefield via bringing back and a clone for (you can't bring back and a clone to copy it off of a trigger because they enter the battlefield at the same time), and then just started resurrecting s. It wasn't all that dangerous because I didn't have the itself and a sacrifice outlet (plus, half my creatures at that point are just copies of ), but I definitely had all the other cards to go nuts with on subsequent turns. Fortunately for the rest of the table, Michael had the answer on his turn: for five. I was left with all my pieces in exile and only on the battlefield. Sure, I still got a trigger off leaving for one final time, but since there was nothing in my graveyard, it didn't much matter. I ended up going on a beatdown plan later in that game with and actually winning it, but it had nothing to do with copying. It had more to do with letting me take the best picks off the top of my deck for several turns. In Game 2, Keith cast and I Cloned it. When Michael, sitting to my left and between me and Keith, wiped the battlefield, I played it quite conservatively, since my triggers resolved before his. Knowing that Keith in the Abzan colors has a number of ways to just eat whatever I put onto the battlefield (like ), instead of going for something too splashy, I pulled and Saffi, attempting to play more of a long game. Keith also took a conservative tack, going with and. He said afterward that he should have gotten to blank any graveyard recursion. In the long run, it didn't matter much, since Todd ended up with, a pile of mana, and Maelstrom Wander into and. He crushed all of our faces. We didn't even count the damage, just rounded it to 150. Obviously, the statistical sampling of the above-mentioned games isn't significant enough to draw any broad conclusions, but it is representative of the types of games we're likely to see with these decks when is involved. I'm the only one who is really set up to abuse it, and that's not based on the card itself, but the other contents of my deck—which is part of the concern (I'll get into that a little below). It's worth mentioning that Todd cast to get it initially onto the battlefield. He certainly had other choices in Keith's deck, such as ; ; ; ; and. One of the reasons he chose the was that we want to see what it can do (which probably taints any “scientific” testing method) and the other is that it's just great value. You know you're going to recover from most battlefield wipes better than other players. We did a broader, but still closed, test a while back (two years-ish, if memory serves), in which we asked about a dozen of our best regulars to just put it into their decks with no other modifications (and only play it within the closed group). The trial went on for a few weeks, and I personally didn't participate in very many games in which it showed up. The feedback we received—even from people who were hoping to bring it off the list—was that it was broken in nearly every deck in which it got played. Armada Games owner Aaron Fortino is one of those people. He has one deck:. He went in hoping to prove wasn't all that bad. When I asked him a month later, he just shook his head and called it “silly,” adding that it simply added another piece to already-borderline shenanigans. I don't have details on exactly what that meant to the people who said that it should stay banned, only the broad impression that it overcentralized and devolved those games. Again, the sampling here is pretty small, but it's something to go on. These two little spins around the block are hardly what I'd call rigorous testing (and the one in the Draft League is still ongoing). The question becomes, "Is the card broken by itself or only when you build around it?" Let's look at the choices. The Case for Keeping It Banned This is the easier case of the two to make, since the preponderance of evidence would have to emerge in favor of taking it off. If a card is on the banned list, we need a compelling reason to take it off (just like needing compelling reasons to ban an unbanned card). “Test unbanning” isn't an option. The messaging itself would be problematic. As we've seen before, making any kind of change has its difficulties. Making a change and then reversing it would be an order of magnitude worse, so we keep a relatively conservative line there. “There's another card that's somewhat like it” is not a compelling reason, because the idea of cascading bans (“if you ban this, then you have to ban that”) ends up in a terrible place. I get why people think that is similar to ; the committee simply disagrees with the equivalence. As a creature, is simply orders of magnitude easier to reuse and recur. The card itself still reasonably fits into the cross-section of the two criteria “Creates Undesirable Game States” and “Warps the Format Strategically.” Obviously, we have the presumption of the latter, since it's not getting played (you know, being banned and all). We have some evidence that it would (see above). In the long run, even though the sampling is small, the evidence is reasonably compelling enough to take no action on removing the card. I'll go back to Gavin's note when we banned the card, back when the format was still called EDH: “The key here is that the kinds of cards required to answer combo (cheap permission, hand disruption, or RFG-creature removal) aren't the kinds of cards we feel people should have to fill their EDH decks with.” Running answers is smart. People feeling that their decks need to be full of answers is contrary to the goals of the format. The multiplicative effect of Hulk combo being so easily assembled and that so many existing decks already carry pieces of those combos makes it worth keeping on the list. Our suspicion is that it takes decks and combos which are borderline and pushes them over the edge. If were never banned, there would be a considerable lobby arguing for it to go on the list right now. That this argument would exist creates enough doubt to maintain the inertia regarding this particular card. Unbanning it might not break the format, but there's no evidence that it will make it better, so why take the chance? The burden of proof must always be on the desired movement, whether that is to take it off or put it on the list. The argument here is strong enough to keep it on. The Case for Unbanning It “The game has changed and the conditions under which it was banned don't exist” is a compelling reason to unban a card. Such was the case with. The simple truth is that people don't need to run deck full of answers to some combos because the answers we have in 2016 are better and more prevalent than the answers we had in 2008. Like Mindslaver, one resolution of might be okay, but multiples are oppressive. effects, especially for creatures, exist in such greater numbers today compared to back then as to make a significant difference. Further fueling the argument that it's okay to take the card off the list is that, even when we banned it, we did so grudgingly because we thought there was plenty of room for cool uses of. In Gavin's words from that same announcement, “This one really hurt.” We like the card. As I said above, I'm not particularly committed to the card's disposition, but we like it (but liking a card is not enough; some of us also like, and that's a way tougher argument). We can even avoid using the argument that “there are other combos cheaper and easier to assemble” in arguing for. Just because it's a card which provides good value doesn't mean it's broken. There are plenty of cards which provide good value. The argument is that is only busted if it's built around, which makes it a little like Hermit Druid—except the conditions for to be abused are far less narrow. is a creature. In 2016, creatures are way easier to deal with. The conditions in the broader format are right. The idea that the secret to the format lies in not breaking it resonates with a significant enough portion of the player base that, while it will occasionally get abused (like any number of other cards), it will for the most part get played for good value and not to create oppressive battlefield states. It's time to give its day. There are the two sides of the coin. Again, I haven't presented these brief arguments to presage anything, simply to recognize that the conversation is happening. The RC will talk about the card this weekend. When we make the next announcement, you'll know how the discussion went. Comments from Last Week I'm going to take the opportunity each week to answer a few of the questions and comments regarding the previous week's article. Last week, I talked about how I would rebuild Ezuri, Claw of Progress, from scratch. Terry Richardson commented, “Needs more!” is a cool card from the earliest days of Magic. One of the sub-themes I considered was some creature theft (remarkably, I think I'm still without a deck with in it, since I ran across a foil version while sorting some cards the other day). The idea was leveraging the synergy between and (or a number of other cards), but since that was part of the original deck, I laid aside the idea. Blake N Brandi Criminger asked, “I assume was too oppressive to include?” Helpful reader Jordan Andrews answered the same that I will: infinite turns simply isn't fun. And with Ezuri, this combo is way too easy to pull off. I want to play interactive games, and everyone else watching me take all the turns isn't particularly interactive. Emma Handy of SCG Tour® fame responded, “If you're into Morph Commanders, Animar is a pretty sweet one that a local friend played.” Emma, you and your friend should definitely check out the link to my Animar deck down at the bottom of the page. It is also pretty sweet and has plenty of morphs in it. I wonder how many cards we have in common? This week's Deck Without Comment is Glissa, Glissa. Check out our awesome Deck List Database for the last versions of all my decks: ADUN'S TOOLBOX; ANIMAR'S SWARM; AURELIA GOES TO WAR; CHILDREN of a LESSER GOD; DEMONS OF KAALIA; EREBOS and the HALLS OF THE DEAD; GLISSA, GLISSA; HELIOD, GOD OF ENCHANTMENTS; DREAMING OF INTET; FORGE OF PURPHOROS; KARN, BEATDOWN GOLEM; HALLOWEEN WITH KARADOR; KARRTHUS, WHO RAINS FIRE FROM THE SKY; KRESH INTO THE RED ZONE; LAVINIA BLINKS; LAZAV, SHAPESHIFTING MASTERMIND; ZOMBIES OF TRESSERHORN; MELEK'S MOLTEN MIND GRIND; MERIEKE'S ESPER CONTROL; THE MILL-MEOPLASM; MIMEOPLASM DO-OVER; NATH of the VALUE LEAF; NYLEA OF THE WOODLAND REALM; OBZEDAT, GHOST KILLER; PURPLE HIPPOS and MARO SORCERERS; ZEGANA and a DICE BAG; RITH'S TOKENS; YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF; RURIC THAR AND HIS BEASTLY FIGHT CLUB; THASSA, GOD OF MERFOLK; THE ALTAR of THRAXIMUNDAR; TROSTANI and HER ANGELS; THE THREAT OF YASOVA; RUHAN DO-OVER; KARADOR DO-OVER; KARRTHUS DO-OVER If you'd like to follow the adventures of my Monday Night RPG group (in a campaign that's been alive since 1987 and is just now getting started with a new mini-series called Who Mourns for Adonis? which will set up the saga called (The Lost Cities of Nevinor), ask for an invitation to the Facebook group "Sheldon Menery's Monday Night Gamers."(CNN) -- A beachgoer in a remote area of northern New Zealand found a horrific sight Friday morning -- 58 pilot whales stranded on Karikari Beach. When conservation officials arrived, only 15 of the animals were still alive. The whales probably became stranded sometime during the night, said Carolyn Smith of New Zealand's Department of Conservation in Kaitaia, and that's why so many died before being discovered. "The focus for everyone right now was to try to refloat the survivors," Smith said. To do that, officials will position the whales to face out to sea and hope that they swim back out when high tide comes. The whales "need to be held in the water for at least half an hour to allow them to reorientate themselves, before being released to hopefully swim back out to sea," the conservation department said. A first attempt to refloat the whales was not successful Friday night. Conservation officials were going to monitor the animals overnight in the hope of trying again, maybe after moving them to Matai Bay, where sea conditions could be more favorable for refloating. The next attempt would happen Saturday morning, said Mike Davies, acting area manager at the Department of Conservation's Kaitaia office. Far North Whale Rescue, which has a team of trained volunteers, is working with the department to achieve this. Currently, New Zealand's Far North region is experiencing heavy rain and
everything it can to ensure that everyone, from whatever background, can live free from prejudice, fear and discrimination.”Pakistan may expel two Indian diplomats in Islamabad for spying and has revealed their names, Media said on Wednesday, the latest tit-for-tat measure amid worsening ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors. Officials believe one of the two Indian men worked for the RAW spy agency, while the other spied for India’s Intelligence Bureau, said Pakistani Geo TV and most other channels, citing anonymous sources. In New Delhi, Vikas Swarup, the spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told Reuters the ministry was “aware” of the media reports. “We have yet to receive any official communication in the matter,” Swarup added. India and Pakistan last week announced they would each expel one of the other’s diplomats over spying claims amid growing tensions. Relations between the arch rivals have been strained since the summer, when civil unrest erupted in Indian-occupied Kashmir, with Islamabad lobbying globally against India and New Delhi’s crackdown on Kashmiri activists. Tension soared after a group of gunmen killed 19 Indian soldiers in September at an army camp in Kashmir, an attack India blamed on Pakistan-based militants. -ReutersWALL•E is a character in the movie He is a cockroach that is WALL•E's friend and pet. Hal is extremely resilient: although he gets accidentally stepped on by WALL•E and shot by EVE, he suffers no harm. Hal likes eating Kremies as his food. He stays on Earth when WALL•E leaves the planet because WALL•E orders him to do so. Trivia Although Hal is never referred to on-screen by name, he is named after producer Hal Roach. This also provides homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey ’s HAL 9000. [1] ’s HAL 9000. The chirps that Hal makes were created by speeding up sounds made by a raccoon. Hal and the Kremies he eats/sleeps in references the myth that roaches and Twinkies (what inspired Kremies) are the only things that can survive the apocalypse. Hal makes a cameo in Ratatouille. . Hal also makes a cameo in Wreck-It Ralph, when Ralph looks for a medal in Tapper's washroom. ReferencesSelect a date Select month July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 Select a category Agriculture Bihar Votes For Its (and India’s) Future BUDGET 2014 Budget 2015: Modi’s Moment of Reckoning Budget 2016: The stories behind the numbers Chart of the Day Climate Change Cover Story Currency Chaos Development Education Elections 2014 Employment Fact Check Governance Newsletter Health homepage video Hunger India’s Great Challenge: Health & Sanitation IndiaSpend In The News IndiaSpend Interviews Industry Investigations Central State Latest Headlines Latest Reports Making Sense of Breaking News Modi’s Message: India’s States Reply Modi’s Report Card Mumbai Special Mumbai Special: The Revival Agenda Opinion – Videos Opinions Pollution Poverty Prime Time: India’s Grand Challenges Resources Central State Sectors Agriculture Defence Economy & Policy Education Health Infrastructure Snapshots States Central India Chattisgarh Madhya Pradesh EAST Bihar Jharkhand Orissa West Bengal NORTH Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir New Delhi Punjab Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand NORTH EAST Arunachal Pradesh Assam Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Sikkim Tripura SOUTH Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Kerala Tamil Nadu WEST Goa Gujarat Maharashtra Story In A Minute The Air We #Breathe The Road To Delhi: Elections 2015 The Transition: 2015-2016 Uncategorized Viznomics: A Quick Glance At Big Issues Welfare Women Women@Work Search with Google Tamil Nadu’s 19th chief minister (she was also the 11th, 14th, 16th and 18th) J Jayalalithaa, who died on December 5, 2016, was known for gifting her 72 million people a record set of freebies, but she also leaves behind a state that ranks among India’s top five in many social, crime and industrial indicators. Tamil Nadu now has India’s lowest fertility rate–lower than Australia, Finland and Belgium–second best infant mortality and maternal mortality rate; records among the lowest crime rates against women and children; and has more factories and provides more industrial employment than any other Indian state, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of various data sets. However, financing the freebie culture came at a cost. Tamil Nadu witnessed a 92% increase in debt over five years ending 2015, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of state budgets in November 2015. Tamil Nadu Health Indicators Indicator Score All India Rank Infant Mortality Rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) 21 2nd (best – Kerala 12; worst – Madhya Pradesh 54) Maternal Mortality Rate (deaths of mothers per 100,000 births) 90 2nd (best – Kerala 66; worst – Uttar Pradesh 392) Fertility rate (average children per woman) 1.7 1st (best, along with Punjab 1.7, worst – Bihar 3.5) Sources: National Health Mission Tamil Nadu’s education indicators have always been above the Indian average and have steadily improved during Jayalalithaa’s 15-year stint as chief minister. Tamil Nadu Education Indicators Indicator Score All India Rank Gross Enrolment Ratio (Students enrolled as %age of children eligible for primary school), or GER, girls 104.3 6th (best – Meghalaya 143.1; worst – Andhra Pradesh 84.05) GER (Total) 103.8 6th (best – Meghalaya 140.9; worst -Andhra Pradesh 84.48) Net Enrolment Ratio (Students enrolled as %age of population of that age group), NER, girls 91.3 6th (best – Mizoram 99; worst – Andhra Pradesh 73.03 ) NER (Total) 90.9 6th (best – Mizoram 97.6; worst – Andhra Pradesh 72.10 ) Pupil-Teacher Ratio (students per teacher) 18 13th (best – Sikkim 5; worst – Bihar 36) Literacy Rate (%) 80.3 14th (best – Kerala 93.9; worst – Bihar 63.82 ) Female Literacy Rate (%) 73.8 15th (best – Kerala 91.9; worst – Rajasthan 52.66 ) Sources: Census 2011, District Information System for Education, 2015-16Note: GER exceeds 100% because of grade repetition and entry at ages younger or older than the typical age at that grade level Although Tamil Nadu regularly reports violence and discrimination based on caste, the state’s crime rates are among India’s lowest, particularly those relating to women and children. Tamil Nadu Crime Indicators Indicator Score All India Rank Crime rate against women (crimes registered per 100,000 people) 17 Lowest (second – Sikkim 17.6, worst – Assam 148.2) Crime rate against children 13 Second lowest (best – Manipur 11.4; worst – Mizoram 50.1) Crime rate against scheduled castes 12.3 Third lowest (best – Manipur 0; worst – Rajasthan 57.3) Source: National Crime Records Bureau, 2015 As regards industrial growth, Tamil Nadu has more factories than any other Indian state (37,378), according to the Annual Survey of Industries, 2013-14. Maharashtra ranks second with 29,123 factories, followed by Gujarat with 22,876. More people are engaged in industrial work (2.04 million) in Tamil Nadu of any Indian state; Maharashtra (1.8 million) is second and Gujarat (1.37 million) third. Tamil Nadu Industrial Indicators Rank Factories Employment Gross Value Added Fixed Capital Invested 1 Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu Maharashtra Gujarat 2 Maharashtra Maharashtra Gujarat Maharashtra 3 Gujarat Gujarat Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu 4 Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Karnataka Odisha 5 Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Karnataka Source: Annual Survey of Industries 2013-14 Tamil Nadu’s per capita income is India’s fifth highest, but the four states preceding it are substantially smaller. Among the country’s large states, it has the richest people. Source: Central Statistical Office 2014-15Note: *at constant prices Freebies come at a cost Jayalalithaa is known for the freebie culture, which she did not begin but did expand, personalising it along the way. For instance, her 2011 election promises included 100 units of free electricity to every household, a free laptop for class 11 and class 12 students (with free internet connections), a gram of sovereign gold as marriage assistance, and four goats/sheep to families who lived below the poverty line. The laptops had images of “Amma (mother)”, as Jayalalithaa was popularly known. Other programmes also carried that name, such as Amma canteens (for subsidised food) and Amma medicals (for subsidised medicines). While some programmes were applauded as having a social effect–such as the midday meal scheme, which Tamil Nadu pioneered before Jayalalithaa took office for the first time in 1991 and encouraged children to stay in school–they resulted in the fastest rising debt of any Indian state, as IndiaSpend reported in November 2015. Average Debt Per Capita, Maharashtra & Tamil Nadu State Outstanding Liabilities (Rs crore) Population (in millions) Average debt per person (Rs) Maharashtra 338,730 114.2 29,661 Tamil Nadu 195,290 67.86 28,778 Source: Reserve Bank of India, Census 2011 Debt, per se, is not bad, if the state’s economic growth can sustain and service it. So, the key matrix is the debt as a percentage of the state’s gross domestic product (GSDP) or total economic output. Tamil Nadu’s debt-to-GSDP ratio at 20% is lower than the national average, an indication the state is growing despite the spike in debt. (Salve is an analyst with IndiaSpend.) We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar. __________________________________________________________________ “Liked this story? Indiaspend.org is a non-profit, and we depend on readers like you to drive our public-interest journalism efforts. Donate Rs 500; Rs 1,000, Rs 2,000.”A TOP EXECUTIVE at Ireland’s largest hotel operator has said that height restrictions imposed by Dublin City Council planners are stopping a lot of new hotels from being built. Dalata deputy chief executive Stephen McNally said “planning is an absolute joke” in the capital, adding that there are sites available for new hotels builds but “the yield on the sites is not high enough to do it”. “The number of hotels that have gone for planning and can’t get yield on the site is phenomenal … they can’t build until they get the optimal number of bedrooms on a site,” he said. Recent data from hotel industry analysts STR showed that Dublin’s chronic lack of hotel rooms is getting worse with occupancy in the capital reaching 93.6% in September. Dalata, the company behind the Clayton and Maldron brands in Ireland and the UK, is building a 180-room hotel at Charlemont Place, Dublin, which is slated for completion in mid-2018. McNally said: “We could put 300 rooms in the place, but the planners say you can’t. Dublin doesn’t like height and Dublin doesn’t like innovation.” Artist's impression of the Clayton Charlemont Place Source: Dalata The group will also open a 135-room hotel on Kevin Street under the Maldron moniker. Dublin City Council recently drew criticism for reducing the maximum height for ‘low-rise’ residential buildings in the city centre from 28m, or around eight storeys, to 24m, or seven storeys, under its draft development plan. Commercial buildings will still enjoy the greater height limit. VAT rate McNally, who was speaking at the Annual Tourism Workshop in Dromoland Castle, also lashed out at Siptu, whose boss Jack O’Connor suggested that the 9% VAT rate for Ireland’s tourism sector should be abolished to fund public sector pay increases. “It doesn’t add up … If we let Siptu run the country, we would die,” he said. “Siptu have been having a go at hotels since 2011.” He acknowledged that the hotel crunch is taking its toll on hotel prices in the capital: recent data shows that as occupancy reached almost 94%, Dublin hoteliers made an average €143 on each room in September, almost 20% more than they did in August. However, McNally said the recovery in the sector is disproportionate and hotels in other parts of the country still depend on 9% VAT rate. McNally and ex-tourism minister Paschal Donohoe Source: Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie Tourism minister McNally also expressed his disappointment in Minister for Tourism Shane Ross, who he said didn’t “get” the industry like his predecessors, Paschal Donohoe and Leo Varadkar. He said he wasn’t sure how much the current minister, part of the Independent Alliance, and his advisers are “able to fight for tourism”. Ross, who is also responsible for transport and sport, previously described tourism as the “third leg” of his portfolio – “the only leg where there’s a certain amount of peace and quiet” in light of the Dublin Bus strikes and Pat Hickey controversy during the summer. Minister for Tourism Shane Ross Source: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie McNally added that getting a main listing on the Irish and London stock exchanges in June has “made a huge difference” to Dalata’s profile with more pension fund managers willing to invest in the company. The group will open a hotel in Belfast and Beasley Street, Cork in mid-2018. On Thursday, the company announced that it will expand its operations in the UK with a 226-room hotel in Newcastle due to open the same year. Dalata currently owns 4,770 hotel bedrooms in Ireland and the UK and leases a further 2,334 rooms. Written by Conor McMahon and posted on Fora.ieBarry Trotz smiles during the May 27 press conference introducing him as Washington Capitals coach. (Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images) Barry Trotz has followed the Predators this offseason. He has analyzed their additions and formed his own critiques, but he plans on keeping them to himself. "I'll get to see how that plays out," the Washington Capitals coach said via phone. "I don't look back. I just look forward." From the hiring of coach Peter Laviolette, to the trade for forward James Neal, and some signings at center, the Predators have been all about offense since parting with Trotz, the franchise's original coach, in April. They're the types of moves the Predators didn't make in recent years under Trotz, as management gave him more two-way grinding players. He insisted there are still no sour feelings about being ousted from the team he coached for 15 years, though he said he speaks less often with friend and Predators general manager David Poile these days out of respect for the new staff. "David and the people who are there will always be friends. But I think there needs to be some separation right now so everybody can come in there and be comfortable," Trotz said. "I'll be cheering like crazy for them because I want them to be successful." PREVIOUSLY: Barry Trotz out as Predators coach PREVIOUSLY: Barry Trotz has talent, challenges with Capitals As for his new job and situation, Trotz and his family sold their home in Brentwood and moved into a house in Arlington, Va. They've already noticed the significantly higher cost of living. "It has been a lot of work, just, you're in one house for so long, and a lot of stuff you need to move. We moved to a house that is different in size. We had to downsize quite a bit," he said. As for the hockey side, much has been made nationally about Trotz and his relationship with Capitals captain Alexander Ovechkin. The Russian sniper led the NHL last season with 51 goals, but he plays mostly an offensive game, not the two-way system Trotz championed in Nashville. Trotz admitted the situation bears watching. NEWSLETTERS Get the Sports newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Top and trending sports headlines you need to know for your busy day. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-800-342-8237. Delivery: Daily Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Sports Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters "I think people make too much out of it," he said. "I do know how I operate will be different from previous staffs. Until we go into the season and start playing real games, our relationship will be fine." Reach Josh Cooper at 615-726-8917 and on Twitter @joshuacooper.If you’re a sensitive progressive who is sent to the fainting couch every time you encounter any words you find upsetting there’s a new offering from Google which should vastly improve your life. In particular, if you find the idea of people who oppose abortion to be distressing and are sent into apoplectic fits when their ideas are published on the internet, it’s a dangerous world indeed. You can visit any number of news and opinion sites where the horrible term “pro-life” appears, insulting your sensibilities and inflaming your sense of outrage. Well, that can all be a thing of the past now. With the addition of a simple Google add-on to your Chrome browser, each and every instance of the term pro-life will be helpfully replaced with, “anti-choice.” (Independent Journal Review) Many colleges have been petitioned in recent years, through student protests and petitions, to create “safe spaces” for minority populations. “Safe Spaces” have become the norm for female students, African American students, LGBT students and other groups. And now, thanks to an extension available on Google Chrome, internet users one step closer to having a “safe space,” protected from language that they find offensive. The extension, created by an anonymous activist in collaboration with the National Institute for Reproductive Health Action Fund, is called “Choice Language” and edits every page to change the phrase “pro-life” to “anti-choice.” Described by the president of the NIRH as, “a really interesting and creative idea,” this uninvited editing of the work of other authors is being hailed as just the solution our nation is crying out for, at least in liberal circles. But that’s really the question here, isn’t it? Google is offering a product which you can install on your browser which will edit not only the raw text, but the tone and inflection of anyone writing about the subject at hand. Can anyone explain how this is allowable? Once the altered text shows up in one liberal blogger’s window it can be copied and pasted into other sites (within the limits of fair use laws) as if that was how the material was originally published. Would Google tolerate a tool which took every liberal diatribe on web and substituted the term “gun control” with “anti-gun rights” in the text? How about if it replaced “voter suppression” with “voter fraud prevention” in every voter ID opinion piece? Somehow I suspect it would be less well received. In fact, we should probably contact a few lawyers about this because editing the work of others without their express consent or any claim of ownership of the original material sounds as if it should certainly be illegal, doesn’t it? It’s also an open door to completely ruin the original material in some cases. Imagine if this column were run through that filter. (If any Chrome users have this tool, let me know.) The last sentence of the first paragraph would read, the term anti-choice will be helpfully replaced with, “anti-choice.” Much of this comes back to the endless war of wording which takes place in political debates. Pro-life has an inherently positive connotation, just as anti-choice carries a negative one, even if you’re not talking about abortion. Entitlements and welfare sound a lot worse than safety net. Examples in every segment of public debate are legion and everyone plays these linguistic games. There’s no way around it and, to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with it. We all get to structure our arguments as we wish. But for Google to step in unleash a tool which intentionally distorts the work of others is simply wrong and potentially illegal.MC Skat Kat is an animated cat character who appeared with Paula Abdul in the video for her song "Opposites Attract" in 1989. History [ edit ] MC Skat Kat was created by Michael Patterson and performed by The Wild Pair duo of Bruce DeShazer and Marv Gunn on "Opposites Attract". MC Skat Kat's rap was written by Romany Malco and performed by Derrick Stevens, although Malco is often mistakenly credited for being the voice of the first rap, a story perpetuated by Abdul herself.[1] Derrick Stevens also provided vocals for the character in the MC Skat Kat solo album. Patterson got the idea for Skat Kat from the Gene Kelly movie Anchors Aweigh, in which Kelly's character dances with Jerry, the mouse from the Tom and Jerry cartoon series. Patterson would originally play small gigs dressed in full cat attire, though soon after become a studio musician with the character becoming fully animated by members of the Disney and Warner Bros. animation team, working outside the studios between major projects, under the direction of Chris Bailey. The character released the album The Adventures of MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob in 1991, which was a flop. Some of the songs made references to Paula Abdul and "Opposites Attract", but Abdul did not provide vocals, except for the uncredited intro on "On the Prowl"; she did, however, make an appearance in the video of "Skat Strut",[2] the only single to be released. Despite the popularity of its music video (as it became one of the most requested on MTV), the song only reached number 96 on the Billboard Hot 100.[3] Another single from the solo album, "Big Time", was given its own video with revised music. The song was labeled as "Big Time (Animation Mix)" on the Captive Sampler.[4] The video, directed by Patterson and Candace Reckinger,[5] was completed in January 1992 and appears on Patterson + Reckinger's Vimeo channel. The original animation was done by Chris Bailey, Tom Sito and Eric Goldberg, who at the time was the lead animator of the Genie character in Disney's Aladdin feature film.[6] According to producer John Kafka, nobody was sure what to do with Skat after the videos were finished. Virgin Music and Universal Pictures talked of a live-action/animation hybrid feature film, but nothing ever materialized. MC Skat Kat also appeared in "Yakety Yak, Take It Back", an all-star public service music video produced by Warner Bros. in 1991 for the Take It Back Foundation in 1991. The music video featured appearances by numerous celebrities, with a new version of the song "Yakety Yak" with a message about recycling.[7] MC Skat Kat appeared in American Dad! season 13 episode 6 "Kiss Kiss Cam Cam", on February 29, 2016. He mentions being out of a job, obviously meant to poke fun at his absence from media and pop culture. He sings "Opposites Attract" with Stan, who is trying to prove that opposites do attract.[8] The Adventures of MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob [ edit ] The Adventures of MC Skat Kat and the Stray Mob is a 1991 album from MC Skat Kat. The album came about as the result of Paula Abdul's successful "Opposites Attract" video of 1990, which was directed by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger. The Stray Mob consists of fictional characters Fatz, Taboo, Micetro, Leo, Katleen, and Silk, the first three of whom appeared in the "Opposites Attract" music video. Abdul's lone vocal appearance can be heard in the track "On the Prowl." Two music videos for the album were directed by Patterson and Reckinger, only one of which was released. The only single from the album, "Skat Strut", samples Earth Wind & Fire's 1981 hit "Let's Groove", with Abdul making a brief appearance in the video. It only reached number 96 on the Billboard Hot 100[9] but fared better overseas, peaking at numbers 9 and 31 on the Norwegian and Swedish charts, respectively.[10][11] The vocal style and length in the music video differed from those from the album version.[12] Reception [ edit ] Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating AllMusic [13] The album was poorly received and it failed to chart. In 1999, The A.V. Club deemed it the "least essential" album of the 1990s, calling it "a product of clueless committee thinking and Milli Vanilli-style studio hackwork at its most cynical", and concluding that "never has a mass-produced album been demanded by so few."[14] Track listing [ edit ] Cover of the album's only single, "Skat Strut", which peaked at number 96 on the Billboard Hot 100 "Big Time" – 3:53 "I Ain't No Kitty" – 4:37 "No Dogs Allowed" – 5:28 "Gotta Get Up" – 4:00 "Kat in the Casino" – 4:36 "On the Prowl" – 4:06 "Skat Strut" – 3:41 "Kat Stories" – 4:02 "So Sweet So Young" – 3:47 "I Go Crazy" – 3:21 "New Kat Swing" – 4:03 "Skat Kat's Theme" – 4:39Puma Teams Up With atmos and SecretBase For Ghostbuster Sneakers 3.72 / 5 16 VOTES This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. The opinions and information provided on this site are original editorial content of Sneaker News. PUMA sneakers for the ultimate Ghostbusters fan are now haunting the shelves of Tokyo’s atmos, who present a special edition of the Suede, also in collaboration with toy makers SecretBase. The Ghostbusters Suede features an all-over graphic on its upper with various quotes from the classic 1984 film that saw new life in 2016 with an all-women cast. Special details are found everywhere on the shoes, with Ghostbusters logos on the tongues, asymmetrical red and green side stripes, caution stripes on the heels, and clear rubber outsoles with graphics visible underneath. Tying SecretBase into the collaboration, every pair comes packaged with a special edition Stay Puft Marshmallow Man figurine in the brand’s signature split design with one side showing its skeleton underneath (each pair comes randomly packaged with either a silver or gold figure). The atmos x SecretBase x PUMA Suede “Ghostbusters” drops tomorrow, December 23rd exclusively at atmos.As New Orleans begins to take down statues of Confederate leaders, angry protesters are flooding into the city to face off - and nuance is the first victim 'If I had my gun on me, I'd shoot him': the civil war over statues in New Orleans 'If I had my gun on me, I'd shoot him': the civil war over statues in New Orleans The city of New Orleans surrendered early during the actual Civil War, after the Confederates left it poorly defended. This time, though, reinforcements from far afield have arrived to hoist the battle flag. “I will chain myself to that son of a bitch before I let them tear it down,” Wilford Seymour said Thursday, waving a hand toward a statue of General PGT Beauregard mounted in a bronze saddle. “By God I will ride that horse myself.” Seymour had driven overnight from Arkansas, as soon as he got word that the city of New Orleans was pulling down some of its Confederate monuments. The city’s first maneuver was a covert one, carried out at 3am Monday. A crew wearing masks and bulletproof vests, guarded by snipers overhead, dismantled a monument to the Battle of Liberty Place. It was the most obvious of four monuments marked for removal, since it commemorated an ignoble post-war uprising by white supremacists who didn’t like the direction New Orleans was headed. The monument’s removal was timed for maximum symbolism. Monday was the day some Southern states celebrate as Confederate Memorial Day. The push to remove the monuments is the latest skirmish in a conflict that started almost two years ago. That’s when Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, massacred nine black members of Mother Emmanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina. In the days after the shooting, photos emerged of Roof posing with his collection of Confederate battle flags, which led to the removal of such a flag from atop the South Carolina statehouse. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Robert E Lee statue at Lee Circle in New Orleans. Photograph: Simon Leigh/Alamy Since then a debate has rolled across the South, with varying degrees of nuance. At one edge, some people continue to wave the rebel flag; at the other, activists call for an outright purge of monuments. Most Southerners seem caught in the middle, pondering the difference between preserving history’s lessons and celebrating its atrocities. Understanding those subtleties is particularly important in New Orleans. Its racial makeup, for instance, is far more complex than any other major Southern city. And the villains and heroes of New Orleans’s history can be difficult to distinguish. Consider old PGT Beauregard, frozen on his horse at the entrance to City Park. During the Confederacy he served as one of only a handful of full generals over the Confederate army, and ordered the first shots of the war, at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In this role he tore the fabric of the nation, on behalf of the slave-holding side. After the war, though, he returned to New Orleans and seems to have devoted himself to repairing that damage; he led a group called the Reform Party, pushing for broad civil rights, integrated schools, equal access to public transportation, and – extraordinarily, at the time – voting rights for black men. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Quentin James at the base of the Robert E Lee monument. Photograph: Matthew Teague This complex tableau leaves many New Orleanians with a laissez-faire attitude to the city’s history. It can frustrate advocates, for or against change, who arrive from elsewhere. On Thursday afternoon, as a shadow started to creep from Robert E Lee’s perch a hundred feet above Lee Circle, lifelong resident Quentin James strolled around the column’s base. Even as a black man, he said, he felt conflicted about its impending removal. “He did lose the war, that’s true,” James said. Then for several seconds he thoughtfully scraped the ground with his walking stick. “I’m in my 60s now,” he continued. “When I was in school, after class we’d say, ‘Wanna go lay under Lee?’ and we’d have a picnic. I have a lot of memories attached to this place, and if they take it down, it will feel like I’ve lost something.” That sort of nuance doesn’t lend itself to easy outrage. Instead, for simplified anger, unburdened by subtlety, troops from elsewhere in the former Confederacy have traveled great distances. Late Thursday afternoon, 72-year-old Lolita Villavasso Cherrie, a Creole woman, walked past Beauregard’s statue and stopped mid-stride. Before her stood James Del Brock, who looked like a time-traveler from the Civil War: a gray beard down to his chest, a Confederate army cap on his head, and on his shoulders several enormous iterations of the rebel flag, which billowed and snapped in the wind. “Where are you from?” Cherrie said. “Arkansas,” he replied. Cherrie, who is tiny, pointed at him with a single finger. It shook. “You take this bullshit back where you came from,” she said. “We don’t do this in New Orleans.” She didn’t like Beauregard, she said later, but at least he was local. For Brock and his flags, on the other hand, she felt disgust. “That flag is a living symbol,” she said. It reminded her of the suffering and fear her family felt even a single generation ago. “It hurts.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lolita Villavasso Cherrie at the PGT Beauregard monument, telling James Del Brock to go back to Arkansas. Photograph: Matthew Teague The distinction Cherrie draws, between a historical artefact and a living symbol, is the line that runs through the center of the current conflict. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights advocacy group based in Alabama, has spent the past year sorting which markers preserve the past, and which glorify it. There are many battlefield memorials, like those in Vicksburg, Mississippi, that remind viewers of the catastrophic loss of human life on both sides. The SPLC doesn’t include them in its catalog. But of the other sort, the celebratory sort, the firm’s report says there are more than 700 scattered around the United States, with the vast majority in Southern states. There are many, many more streets and schools named for Confederate figures. On Friday the group issued an update to its ongoing report: “The SPLC has found that at least 60 such publicly funded symbols of the Confederacy have been removed” since the Mother Emanuel massacre. Simultaneously, the report warned, opposing forces have become more strident: “At least one Georgia lawmaker has since introduced a resolution to recognize Confederate History Month and Confederate Memorial Day.” That’s a reference to Georgia Rep Tommy Benton, who cited the election of Donald Trump when he made the proposal. “We just elected a president that said he was tired of political correctness,” Benton told a local public radio station. “And so that was the reason that we were looking to introduce the resolution.” It’s about preserving heritage, he said, not glorifying misdeeds. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers dismantle the Liberty Place monument which commemorates whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government. It was removed overnight on 24 April in an attempt to avoid disruption from protesters. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP That argument was often and loudly repeated this week in New Orleans, at the foot of the Jefferson Davis statue. Davis was the president of the Confederate states. A group of his admirers from Texas and Oklahoma camped out on the patch of grass around the statue, and engaged any local passerby who objected to the monument. “It’s about history,” became the refrain. History, not propaganda. That argument fell apart, though, any time someone pushed through the ranks of the Confederates to read the hagiographic inscription carved into the 40-foot statue’s base: “A profound student of the Constitution; a majestic orator; in character firm; in judgment sound; in character resolute.” Mostly local people regarded the flag-wavers as a curiosity. Students from nearby Loyola University sat on blankets and shared cases of beer while they watched. When a young jogger swerved from the sidewalk, penetrated the Confederate ring, stole a flag and ran away waving it, a cheer went up among the locals. One of the Confederate leaders, Allen Branch of Oklahoma, glared from beneath a black cowboy hat. “If I had my gun on me, I’d shoot him.” 10 years after the storm: has New Orleans learned the lessons of Hurricane Katrina? Read more The protests and counter-protests have been, so far, mostly small and nonviolent. That may change, as more statues come down, and more supporters arrive. (Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s office declined to confirm when, or in what order, Davis, Lee, and Beauregard might come down, citing security concerns.) In the early hours of Friday morning, a car stopped at a traffic light in the roundabout that surrounds Beauregard’s statue. The driver, 38-year-old Michelle Agosto, lives in New Orleans and drives past the statue daily. She shouted from her car that the Confederates should go home. Similar sentiments had flown from passing cars for two days: some people yelling words of support, others booing the effort, and many, many middle fingers saluting from open car windows. None of it amounted to much more. This time, though, a blonde woman with a Confederate flag ran to Agosto’s car and stuck her head inside the window, screaming. Agosto pushed her away. The woman, still screaming, punched Agosto in the face. Later in the darkness of City Park,
note 26). But all may not be lost. Indeed, it has been shown that the violation of the AWEC by traversable wormholes can be made as small as desired, that is, the requirement for the exotic matter required to line a wormhole throat to keep it open can be made as tiny as you want.36 Well, tiny the quantity of exotic matter may be but, nonetheless, even a tiny amount of it would be extraordinary weird stuff because a negative energy density can be interpreted as meaning that the exotic material that keeps the wormhole throat open does so by exerting a repulsive gravitational force.37 A repulsive force sounds like a property we’d expect to see associated with negative mass and, although such a thing has never been observed (negative matter is not anti-matter, which has been observed and which does not repel ‘normal matter’), it was studied long ago (theoretically, of course) by the English cosmologist Hermann Bondi (1919–2005). Bondi showed38 that negative mass would indeed have some truly bizarre properties,39 but there is nothing in general relativity that forbids its possible existence. Wormholes, with negative mass throats, should produce observable effects by which a wormhole might be detected. Mathematical analyses of the effect a negative-mass wormhole mouth would have, when crossing the line-of-sight between Earth and a distant star, indicates that there should be an observable double-spike in the intensity of the star’s light. Astronomical searches for such an optical signature have actually been conducted, with (alas) no success as I write (2017). There is another interesting implication of a repulsive gravitational force, one that proves to be essential to the possibility of a wormhole time machine. Just as Einstein’s famous prediction (verified in 1919) from general relativity, that star light passing near the Sun’s edge is bent inward by the Sun’s attractive gravitational field, the repulsive, anti-gravity field of a wormhole will cause any light rays traveling through the wormhole to be bent outward. That is, a tight, narrow beam of radiation entering a wormhole will emerge defocused. This is crucial because, as you’ll soon see, a wormhole time machine would otherwise be destroyed by the light from the dimmest candle. One might take the failure of astronomical searches for a double-spike light signature to mean that wormholes with negative mass throats (thus violating the WEC) simply don’t exist. But not so fast. The first hint that the possibility of a negative energy density might not be such a crazy idea occurred as long ago as 1948, with a theoretical prediction made by the Dutch physicist Hendrick Casimir (1909–2000). As pointed out in Chap. 1, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle allows a temporary violation of conservation of energy to occur, with the magnitude of the allowed violation increasing with decreasing time duration. Even in a vacuum, then, with particle/anti-particle creation and annihilation spontaneously and continuously taking place, the average energy density being zero does not preclude fluctuations away from zero and so, at times, actually becoming negative. What Casimir showed was that if one positioned two perfectly conductive plates parallel to each other, then the normal quantum fluctuations of the energy density in this ‘vacuum sandwich’ would be altered in such a way as to result in their mutual attraction—and this (tiny) effect was later actually observed.40 What does it mean to ‘alter the normal quantum fluctuations’? Consider the creation of a photon and its anti-particle, which is another photon. From the wave interpretation of particles, the parallel plates restrict the photons that appear in the vacuum layer to those that have wavelengths that ‘fit’ because those wavelengths are submultiples of the plate separation (this requirement follows from the fact that a perfectly conducting plate cannot support a non-zero tangential electric field). Photons with longer wavelengths than the plate separation cannot ‘fit’ and thus do not appear. That is, the parallel plates have created a boundary condition that has quantized the electromagnetic field. The absence of these ‘longer wavelength’ photons lowers the average energy density between the plates and, because the average without the plates is zero, the altered average energy density must be negative. Indeed, the more the maximum allowed photon wavelength decreases with decreasing plate separation, the more negative the average energy density becomes in the enclosed Casimir vacuum. The negative energy density manifests itself as an inward directed force per unit area (remember, energy density and pressure are dimensionally equivalent). The experimental detection of the Casimir effect was a remarkable event in physics. As one mathematician put it, “No worker in the field of overlap of quantum theory and general relativity can fail to point this fact out in tones of awe and reverence.”41 Robert Forward, an imaginative physicist who has appeared in this book earlier as an enthusiastic supporter of time travel, has described how the Casimir force might be used to extract energy literally from a vacuum. This is an idea as seemingly impossible as is the plan of one science fiction professor to squeeze energy out of time. As he asks his assistant, “But tell me, Bob, isn’t that a ridiculous thought? To take time, something intangible, invisible, incomprehensible, and contract it — squeeze it together like a sponge?”42 The story is fun, but Forward’s proposal is that as well—and good physics.43 Now, what does all this have to do with wormhole time machines? Thorne and his colleagues (note 27) proposed to use the Casimir effect to achieve the “exotic condition” without matter. Their idea was to place identical, conducting, spherical plates that carry equal electric charges at each end of the wormhole (remember, the wormhole mouths are spherically symmetric). The two identical charges repel each other, but the charge size is adjusted so that the gravitational attraction of the plates precisely cancels the repulsion. They then calculated that the Casimir effect results in a negative energy density sufficient to provide the throat tension necessary to prevent wormhole collapse. There are some weird aspects to this (and perhaps that’s no surprise). For example, the analysis assumed that the wormhole length is very small compared to its radius (10−10 cm long and 200 million miles wide!), with the short length required because it represents the separation of the wormhole plates, and the smaller the separation the more negative the average energy density. (The functional dependence is as the fourth power of the separation.) Another problem is the balancing of the electrical repulsion and the gravitational attraction of the wormhole mouth plates, as such a balance is clearly an unstable one. Finally, because the two spherical plates completely fill the wormhole mouths, how would a traveler actually get through the wormhole? The ‘answer’ was to drill a hole through the plates and hope that wouldn’t perturb the Casimir vacuum too much.44 All the above litany of the difficulties static, traversable wormholes face in simply existing is certainly daunting, but let’s now ignore all that and suppose we actually have a wormhole with both mouths in the same universe. (For use as a time machine, it would seem desirable for the time traveler to remain in his/her own universe!) So, how do we turn the wormhole into a time machine? Interestingly, while it is general relativity that gives us the wormhole, it is special relativity that adds the final touch of backward time travel. We begin by imagining that, somehow, one mouth of the wormhole can be moved with respect to the other mouth. One early suggestion, for example, was to use the gravitational attraction of a large asteroid to ‘drag’ one end of the wormhole, thereby inducing a time dilation effect.45 That is, suppose we have two clocks A and B, one in each mouth of the wormhole. These two clocks, and all other clocks in the flat spacetime outside the wormhole, are initially indicating the same time and running at the same rate. Now, recalling the twin paradox from Chap. 3, let each mouth-clock play the role of one of the twins. Imagine that A and B are now separated because the mouth containing B is placed on board a rocket ship. The rocket ship takes a long, high-speed trip out into space along the straight-line path joining A and B in external space, and then returns, just as described in Sect. 3.5. We then unload the space traveling wormhole mouth (with its clock B) and reposition it at its original location. What is the situation now? We can summarize matters as follows: (1) Clock A, in the non-moving mouth, remains in-step with the local clocks in the space outside the mouth. (2) Clocks A and B, both inside the wormhole, have not moved with respect to each other because we are assuming a very short wormhole handle, as in part (b) of Fig. 6.8. We can arrange for the motion of the space traveling mouth (with clock B) to be such that the handle is always short, and so the distance between clocks A and B changes by an arbitrarily small amount. Thus, clocks A and B remain in-step with each other. (3) Clock B, because it has been moving with respect to its external space, arrives back at its starting position reading behind (that is, earlier) than the clocks outside its wormhole mouth. For the sake of argument, then, suppose the journey of B is such that there is a two-hour time-slip between clock B and its local, external clocks. Thus, if clock B reads 9 A.M., the clocks outside of mouth B will read 11 A.M. But because clocks A and B are in-step, clock A reads 9 A.M., as do the clocks outside of mouth A. That is, the wormhole connecting mouth A to mouth B is a connection between two parts of the same universe that are two hours apart in time. Now, suppose the journey from mouth A to mouth B can be made through external space in one hour. Then, one could leave mouth A at 10 A.M., rocket to mouth B by 11 A.M., and travel back to mouth A via the wormhole to the starting point—where it is 9 A.M., one hour before the trip began! We could, in fact, imagine repeating this process, going back one additional hour for each new loop through the wormhole. One clear restriction, however, is that we could not go back in time to before the creation of the wormhole time machine. The wormhole works in the other direction, too. To see this, suppose that the space traveler leaves mouth B at 8 A.M. and rockets through external space to mouth A, arriving at 9 A.M. Entering mouth A, he exits from mouth B (where he started) at 11 A.M., two hours in the future. Another way to induce a time dilation effect, to convert a wormhole to a time machine, without moving either mouth, is to simply place one mouth in an intense gravitational field, that of, say, a neutron star. (Recall, from Sect. 3.3, how gravity influences the time-keeping rate of a clock.) As the physicists who proposed this idea put it, almost any interaction with surrounding matter and gravity fields almost inevitably turns a wormhole into a time machine.46 Others have admitted that the details of the origin of time dilation are probably not issues worth debating, but rather what is called the back-reaction is of far more concern. To understand the back-reaction requires mention of what is called the Cauchy horizon, the hyperspace surface in spacetime that separates the region where closed timelike lines can exist, from the region where they cannot exist. The back-reaction is the build-up of unbounded energy levels on the Cauchy horizon, causing its instability and rapid destruction. The name of the horizon comes from the “Cauchy problem”—named after the nineteenth century French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789–1857)—in the theory of partial differential equations. In this theory a Cauchy initial-value problem is said to be well-defined if the initial conditions determine a unique solution, and if a continuous variation in the initial conditions gives a continuous variation in the solution. In that part of spacetime where closed timelike loops are not allowed, backward causation does not occur (by definition) and the laws of physics (all expressed as differential equations) satisfy the Cauchy condition. Outside of this chronal region, that is, beyond the Cauchy horizon where physics is dischronal, however, the possibility of backward causation raises the possibility of violating the Cauchy condition, and in such a case the Cauchy horizon is also sometimes called the chronology horizon.47 The instability of the Cauchy horizon is caused by radiation that propagates in closed timelike loops that thread through the wormhole on ‘straight lines.’ This radiation, as shown a half-century ago,48 builds-up unbounded energy density levels at the horizon, and thus destroys the horizon. Thorne and his colleagues argued that the defocusing effect of their wormhole time machine’s repulsive gravity would be sufficient to counter a disruptive energy build-up on the horizon (note 27). Subsequent analyses have examined other possible ways to avoid unbounded energy density on the Cauchy horizon. For example, in one paper49 it was imagined that a wormhole time machine has had a circular motion induced for mouth B; that is, mouth B orbits around mouth A. The result is that the Cauchy horizon now does seem to be stable, because now there are no fixed, straight-line timelike loops threading the wormhole from A to B to A to B to …. That is, B is a ‘moving target’ and there is no point on the Cauchy horizon where the energy density becomes unbounded. Yet another approach for achieving the disruption of destructive, circulating energy loops through a wormhole is by placing a spherical mirror between the two mouths of the wormhole. Proposed by the Chinese physicist Li-Xin Li, a Li mirror would divert all closed null geodesics (represent circulating radiation) that potentially thread through the wormhole.50 Such potentially fatal geodesics would, instead, be scattered back into space, whereas a purposeful traveler could navigate around the mirror and thus use the wormhole as a time machine. Cauchy horizon instability from the back reaction is central to Hawking’s Chronology Protection Conjecture, discussed in Chap. 1. His analysis (see note 54 in Chap. 1) led him to conclude that a physical entity—the stress-energy tensor—becomes unphysical on the Cauchy horizon. That is, because of time-traveling quantum field fluctuations of the vacuum, that tensor diverges to infinity at the horizon. This results in a failure of that horizon to form in the first place or, if it does form, in the creation of a singularity that ‘seals-off’ the horizon to any would-be time travelers attempting to gain access to the closed timelike loops beyond the horizon. Others, however, argued that Hawking was mistaken in claiming that the divergence of the stress-energy tensor on the Cauchy horizon will always forbid time travel. In a study, for example, of a complex-valued spacetime metric (and such a metric is allowed in the so-called ‘sum over all possible geometries, path integral’ approach to the quantum theory of gravity), that has causal and non-causal spacetime regions separated not by a Cauchy horizon but rather by a region of complex geometry, the stress-energy tensor is always physical and diverges nowhere. The complex geometry region plays the same role as the Cauchy horizon, because such a region would, classically, mean that the two regions cannot be reached from one another, but via quantum tunneling an observer could travel between the two regions.51 In fact, studies of stress-energy divergence actually have a long history. For example, the effect of an unphysical (infinite) gravitational and/or electromagnetic energy flux had been analyzed years before the wormhole time machine studies began.52 The authors studied the case of a potential traveler to “new worlds” who tries to cross the Cauchy horizon of an electrically charged, non-rotating black hole. An even earlier computer study had already concluded that, for such a traveler, the attempt to cross the horizon “looks liable to prove a dangerous undertaking.”53 It isn’t at all clear, in fact, if a theoretical divergence of the stress-energy is the signature of a failure of physics. One doesn’t need anything as bizarre as a time machine for the stress-energy to diverge on paper. It was shown nearly 40 years ago, for example, that such a theoretical divergence occurs for the electromagnetic field near a perfectly conducting boundary.54 But it is simply the unphysical nature of a “perfectly conducting” boundary condition that causes the divergence, not the fact that the field actually exists near a conducting boundary. Similarly, other real-life considerations (quantum gravity) may keep the stress-energy physical everywhere in a time machine spacetime. 55 They used billiard balls—see Figs. 6.9 6.10 Open image in new window Open image in new window Assuming a wormhole time machine has (somehow) become available, with its Cauchy horizon intact, how do the ‘paradoxes’ of time travel come into play? In an attempt to study the grandfather paradox, in particular, Thorne and his colleagues studied self-interacting billiard balls traveling backward in time through a wormhole.They used billiard balls—see Figs.and—rather than human time travelers for the same reason Wheeler and Feynman used a pellet and shutter mechanism in their study of advanced electromagnetic waves—to avoid any metaphysical questions about human free will. The central issue for them was the determination of the multiplicity of trajectories for a single, self-interacting time traveling ball, where the Cauchy condition for a well-defined trajectory in spacetime is unique self-consistency. That is, for the trajectory to be well-defined in the Cauchy sense, it was expected there would be exactly one consistent trajectory for a self-interacting ball. A multiplicity of zero, of course, would be the physics declaring backward time travel through the wormhole to be nonsense—and that was thought to be a distinct possibility. The actual results were, however, surprisingly different. It was found, under very general assumptions about the wormhole parameters, that (1) there are no trajectories with zero multiplicity and (2) the multiplicity is not one but rather is always infinity! Thus, the billiard ball form of the grandfather paradox was found to be not well-defined, but not for the expected reason that there was no self-consistent solution. Instead, it was because there are too many solutions. This astonishing, completely unexpected result seems to be just what is needed to support the viability of time machines, as it appears to allow a definition of well-defined in the Cauchy sense and still permit an answer to the puzzle of free will. The initial conditions of a time traveling ball give rise to an infinity of self-consistent trajectories, each occurring in the same way that a random variable takes on different values with each new performance of the experiment that the random variable is defined on. And yet, there are still unique probability density functions for all sets of measurements that one might make anywhere along these trajectories. Thus, the Cauchy problem is stochastically well-defined; at the start of any trajectory, we do not know in detail what will happen except that whatever does happen will be self-consistent. In this probabilistic sense, then, wormhole time travel to the past and the retention of free will both make sense. The Russian physicist Igor Novikov and his colleagues continued the study of time traveling billiard balls,56 demonstrating that one can deduce self-consistency from the long-accepted principle of least action (that is, self-consistency is not an additional assumption to existing physics).57 The one-wormhole, two-mouth time machine was actually not the first kind of wormhole time machine described in the physics literature. In their 1988 paper (note 21), Morris and Thorne initially described a time machine constructed from two wormholes, but they added a note-in-proof at the end that they had just discovered how to build a time machine using one wormhole (the machine we have been discussing). This reduction in the required number of wormholes was thought to be a technical advance, of course, and so the two-wormhole time machine was put aside. But not for long. Soon thereafter the concerns about Cauchy horizon stability began to surface, a concern that one-wormhole time machines might destroy themselves just at the instant their mouths were about to be threaded by closed timelike curves. As noted earlier, the negative mass wormhole throat has a defocusing effect on electromagnetic radiation (and so the initial concern, that time traveling photons might be fatal, faded)—but then it was found that vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are not so defocused.58 That failure to defocus time-traveling vacuum polarizations (as quantum field fluctuations are called) was shown to result in an unphysical divergence of the stress-energy on the Cauchy horizon of a one-wormhole time machine.59 This sounds bad, but the hope was that the divergence wouldn’t actually be fatal: it appeared to be sufficiently sluggish that it was suggested reaching an actual infinity of the stress-energy would be precluded by the eventual intercession of quantum gravity. That is, the stress-energy might try to become unbounded as spacetime approached the formation of a time machine but, before it becomes so large as to destroy the time machine, quantum gravity would cut-off the divergence ‘in time’ (so to speak!) to save the machine. Hawking disagreed (in his famous Chronology Protection Conjecture—see note 54 in Chap. 1), arguing that Kim and Thorne had made a crucial error in their calculations. According to Hawking, the divergence of the stress-energy may indeed be cut off by quantum gravity, but not before the development of spacetime disturbances representing perhaps a hundred million times the energy levels associated with ordinary chemical binding energies. These would be sufficiently big disturbances to raise serious doubts about the physical survival of a one-wormhole time machine, even in the absence of a true stress-energy infinity. Hence the resurrection of the two-wormhole time machine geometry. Perhaps it could avoid the destructive effect of time-traveling vacuum fluctuations. If a spacetime contains multiple wormholes, then it is called a Roman spacetime after the physicist Thomas Roman (at Central Connecticut State University), who was the originator of such spacetimes. Each of these wormholes, individually, is not a time machine. Together, however, they form a time machine geometry called a Roman configuration (or a Roman ring).60 Here’s how. 6.11 Open image in new window In Fig.two pairs of wormhole mouths are labeled A, A ′ and B, B ′. We imagine that the A, A ′ wormhole is stationary and that its two mouths are very far apart in normal space—so far apart, in fact, that if a traveler enters A and almost instantly (because the wormhole handle is very short in hyperspace) emerges from A ′, it will appear to an observer at rest with respect to the wormhole that the traveler has moved faster than light. That is, entering A and exiting A ′ are events with spacelike separation. Now, imagine also that the wormhole with mouths B, B ′ is moving past the first wormhole at speed v. To an observer in this second, moving frame of reference, the spacelike separation of entering A and exiting A ′ can result in the two events being temporally reversed if v is sufficiently large (but still less than the speed of light). Therefore, upon emerging from A ′ the traveler crosses normal space to the moving wormhole mouth B ′, enters the wormhole, and then almost instantly emerges from mouth B, and finally travels again through normal space to mouth A. If the traveler can make the two trips in normal space in less time than the backward time shift achieved by the temporal reversal of entering A and exiting A ′, then we have a time machine Two simultaneous analyses of the Roman ring time machine each concluded that, for suitable choices of sizes (the radii of the wormhole mouths, the wormhole lengths in normal space, the lateral offset of the two wormholes, and the relative speed of the wormholes), the stress-energy divergence can be limited by quantum gravity to an arbitrarily weak level. That is, the two-wormhole time machine is not necessarily destroyed by an unbounded stress-energy on the Cauchy horizon.61 But not all was now put right. Visser, in particular, had some strong reservations about the Roman ring. Although he granted that a quantum gravity cut-off the stress-energy divergence would probably occur in the Roman ring, he called the required special sizing conditions “bizarre,” and asserted that the resulting time machine would be quite useless for a human traveler in any case. For example, he calculated that only if the mouths of the wormholes are separated in normal space by the radius of the universe (!), and only if the wormhole mouths have radii on the order of that of an atomic nucleus, would the cut-off be sufficient to allow the putative time machine to avoid destruction. When Visser reduced the wormholes from universe size to ‘merely’ that of the distance between the Sun and the Earth, he concluded that it would require energy at the level of the Superconducting Supercollider accelerator to blast an information-bearing message through the narrow wormholes. And even then the ‘short’ wormholes would provide a maximum penetration into the past of just eight minutes. As Visser put it, “This does not seem to be a workable recipe for studying tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal. Lyutikov, on the other hand, took a far less negative stance. He concluded that although Visser’s calculations “make it very inconvenient for time travel [by humans],” nevertheless “the [principal] question of the possibility of transmitting information back in time through traversable wormholes would still remain.” The wormholes we have been discussing so far are static in time, but another approach is to allow them to be dynamic structures in spacetime. That is, to allow one or more of their parameters to vary with time (perhaps, for example, the throat diameter could collapse). Then, according to one analysis, it is possible to have a traversable wormhole made of normal matter and, even though it is collapsing, it would take so long to do so that “a space adventurer will have enough time to pass through the throat of the wormhole from one asymptotically flat region [of spacetime outside the entry mouth of the wormhole] to the other [spacetime region outside the exit mouth of the wormhole] before the radius of the throat shrinks to … where the event horizon is developed.”62 Such a dynamic wormhole, it was claimed, satisfies both the weak and the dominant energy63 conditions, but not the strong energy condition. Thus, gravity would still be repulsive in the throat, but this condition (which would seem to require exotic matter) was brushed aside because such a condition is thought to have actually occurred, on a massive scale, during the inflationary stage of the Big Bang64 (although how that would help in the construction of a wormhole in the future is a bit murky). Is it reasonable to think ‘useable’ wormholes, static or otherwise, can be acquired for the purpose of creating a time machine? At one time, Hawking was sure the answer is no, once writing “The philosophy of this paper is … to look for vacuum polarization [the divergence of the stress-energy on the Cauchy horizon] to enforce the chronology protection conjecture.”65 It became increasingly apparent, however, that matters would be a great deal more involved and, as Hawking himself came to admit, “the fact that the energy-momentum tensor fails to diverge [in certain special cases of time machine spacetimes] shows that the back reaction does not enforce chronology protection.”.66 I think the best (and most honest) way to respond to the ‘reasonable’ question that opened the previous paragraph is with words from 20 years ago, by the Russian astrophysicist Serguei Krasnikov, words still valid today: “It may well be that the vacuum fluctuations do make the time machine unstable, but nothing at present suggests this. All we have are a few simple examples. In some of them the energy density diverges at the horizon and in some does not. So, the time machine perhaps is stable and perhaps is not.”67 The daunting level of technology required to build a wormhole (with or without exotic matter) doesn’t mean we can’t search for existing wormholes. Perhaps, for example, vast wormhole networks were formed naturally at Big Bang time, as described in Gregory Benford’s 1997 novel Foundation’s Fear, where wormholes are “leftovers from the Great Emergence [the Big Bang].” Or perhaps “advanced civilizations” long ago constructed a vast, pan-galactic ‘subway system’ of wormholes like the one described in Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel Contact (and dramatically illustrated in the 1997 film). Of course, any such wormhole, if found (via its double-spike light signature, for example), could be a very long way from Earth. It might even be in another galaxy. So, even if we found a wormhole, what could we do with it? Surprisingly, maybe a lot. The Russian physicists Igor Novikov and Andrei Lossev (note 56) suggested that a wormhole might be very useful even if its location is completely unknown, even if we haven’t yet even discovered it! The only assumption they made was that the wormhole has existed for a “sufficiently long time” (and precisely what that means will be explained in just a bit). With that assumption, they showed how to make an information-creating time loop. Here’s how they did that. 1. The detailed sequence of instructions to be followed in the construction of the spacecraft; 2. The direction from Earth to mouth B; 3. The direction from mouth A (the wormhole exit mouth in the past) back to Earth. They began their analysis by assuming that people have no knowledge of how to build spacecraft that can make the interstellar voyage to the distant wormhole, even if they knew in which direction to go to reach the mouth that leads backward in time (mouth B). Instead, they build an automatic spacecraft construction plant that can follow any detailed sequence of instructions provided to it, and then stockpile it with a supply of raw materials (energy, steel, plastic, computers, and so on). When the spacecraft construction is done (how that is done is explained in the next paragraph), the last step before launching the spacecraft toward mouth B will be to load the on-board computer with the following three pieces of information: To summarize, people build the automatic plant, load it up with raw materials, and then withdraw. This last step is crucial, because it eliminates human free will from further consideration, that is, it removes any temptation to create a bilking paradox. So, what happens next? Lossev and Novikov suggest that what happens next is that a very old spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky and lands next to the automatic construction plant. In its on-board computer are items a, b, and c. Using item a, the automatic plant makes a new spacecraft, then loads the new on-board computer with items a, b, and c from the very old spacecraft’s on-board computer, and then the new spacecraft is launched toward mouth B (using the information of item b). The very old spacecraft is given an honored place in a museum. The new spacecraft arrives at the distant mouth B in the far future, by which time it is, of course, an old spacecraft (but not yet a very old spacecraft). It then plunges into mouth B and almost immediately emerges from mouth A, in the past. Indeed, it repeats this process as many times as required until it is in the far distant past, at a time even before it left Earth. (It might seem that to do this, the spacecraft’s computer memory needs a fourth piece of information, the direction from mouth A back to mouth B, but in fact items b and c are sufficient for the old spacecraft to find its way from A to B.) It is now clear how long the wormhole must have been in existence. The old spacecraft repeatedly uses the wormhole time machine until it is so far in the past that it can cruise back to Earth at normal speed (it knows the way back because of item c) and arrive as a very old spacecraft, just in time to be placed in the museum! As Lossev and Novikov pointed out, this remarkable, looped sequence of events has increased knowledge from what it was at the time just before the automatic construction plant was built. People now know both how to build an interstellar spacecraft, and the locations of both mouths of the wormhole. They also now possess a very old, used spacecraft. It is curious to note that although the information in the very old spacecraft’s computer memory has traveled on a closed time loop, the very old spacecraft itself has not. This is because the spacecraft left Earth when new, but arrived back (before it left) as very old, whereupon it promptly entered a museum. There is therefore no question about the origin of the very old spacecraft, but where did the information of items a, b, and c come from? Lossev and Novikov say it came from the energy gained by the spacecraft as it interacted (will interact?) with the rest of the universe while on its journey. Nobody said time travel isn’t weird!Wise conservatives often quote The Leopard, the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, in which a leading aristocratic character comments that it is sometimes advisable to change everything in order that everything may remain the same. This wisdom does not appear to have touched Spain’s Partido Popular (PP) government, led since 2011 by Mariano Rajoy. He appears so determined to change nothing at all that he may soon find major changes happening very fast. Rajoy survived a no-confidence motion last week in which the far-left Podemos excoriated him for failing to address the corruption scandals in which so many leading PP members are mired. But since then the Socialist Party (PSOE) has taken a sharp turn to the left, raising the prospect that the PP could be ousted by a radicalised PSOE-Podemos coalition in future elections. Meanwhile, the autonomous government of Catalonia has set an October date for a referendum offering its citizens the option of an independent republic. This is a sharp reminder that Spain is sleepwalking towards an existential crisis that no-one could have imagined 10 years ago. It is not too late for the Spanish conservatives to learn something from their British counterparts The referendum flies in the face of a court judgment that a similar “consultation” three years ago was not only illegal but unconstitutional. Yet the proposal to repeat the exercise undoubtedly has widespread support in this prosperous, sophisticated and deeply pro-European region. Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy appears so determined to change nothing at all that he may soon find major changes happening very fast. File photograph: Denis Doyle/Getty Images It’s not at all clear that most Catalans want independence, but it is increasingly clear that most of them want a choice in the matter. Yet this is a choice that Rajoy repeatedly refuses to even consider granting them. The irony, potentially a tragic one, is that the PP’s failure to countenance changing the Spanish constitution to include a right to self-determination only seems to make the independence option more attractive to Catalan nationalists. It is not too late for the Spanish conservatives to learn something from their British counterparts. As Scotland shows, engaging with independence movements can be much more positive than simply blocking them.Polls show Bernie Sanders is leading Hillary Clinton in the pivotal early state, New Hampshire. Sanders still polling strong in New Hampshire Bernie Sanders’ lead is increasing with Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll. The Vermont senator has 50 percent of Democratic primary voters, a 4 percent increase since September. Former Secretary of State HIllary Clinton comes in 10 percentage points behind Sanders with 40 percent, though her total has increased by 10 percentage points since September. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is barely registering — he fell from 2 percent to 1 percent. Story Continued Below The majority of Clinton’s bump comes from the exit of Vice President Joe Biden, who was factored into the September poll and was supported by 14 percent of those surveyed. In October, after much speculation, he announced he would not enter the race. In Wednesday's poll, 15 percent of those polled said they would not support Clinton under any circumstances. The percentage of people who would refuse to vote for Sanders held steady at 5 percent. Despite Sanders’ overall lead, 59 percent of New Hampshire Democrats believe Clinton is most likely to win their primary. That’s nearly 20 percent higher than in September, when she was tied with Sanders at 42 percent. The Vermont lawmaker has seen his figure decrease to 28 percent. But the numbers are still fluid. Just 36 percent of New Hampshire’s likely Democratic primary voters know who they’ll support. Twenty-one percent are leaning toward someone, and 44 percent are still open to persuasion. The poll of 370 likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire was taken between Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 by telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.1 percentage points.Inspired by - India Mumbai Skateboards Posted by rod - 23.03.2011 This is how cool Indian wood cutting can become. Tobias Megerle came up with the idea to let a dozen Mahim woodcarvers from Mumbai to produce their own traditional skateboards. “The very first time I drove past I was magically attracted to the carved wooden objects in Mahim, all the open workshops, the woodcarvers sitting on the floor with their traditional tools, working on their items, the whole atmosphere,” says Megerle. As an artist I wa driven to do something with these woodcarvers and their work. I visited the workshops several times to study their craft and always thought to myself: ‘Wonderful, but a bit dowdy, a bit frumpy.’ All the nice ornamented chairs, divan beds, frames and what else I know not… some in the typical colonial style. After a series of thoughts I hit upon the object to be combined with the traditional woodwork — the good old skateboard. In Mumbai — though almost completely unknown — the skateboard is, in many places, more than just a piece of sports equipment. It’s an entire lifestyle that’s created around it, a unique music style, special clothes, whole skater-parks. Invariably all commercially-available skateboards are artistically designed, mostly with graphics, spray paintings, printed, often in a comic style.” The project “Final Cut” will be showcased at THE LOFT at Lower Parel. via cnngo Finished here? Then have a look at these. No related posts
his lair in the Poconos—and Obama has to make this clear without sending Erdogan into fits. But that’s just this weekend. At some point, some American president—it’s too late for Obama—needs to figure out just what the U.S. interests in the regional fight are and how its outcome should look. If the goal is simply to defeat ISIS, without much care for which side comes out ahead in the Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish rift, then that argues for one set of actions. If the goal is to defeat ISIS and prevent the rise of some other, equally savage jihadi group that appeals to Sunnis fearful of Iranian expansion, then that argues for another set of actions. Obama hasn’t figured out this problem, has barely addressed it. Nor have either of his aspiring successors. There’s a reason for this: It’s hard. It might require taking sides in a regionwide conflict. If it’s deemed a bad idea to take sides, then it may be time to reassess our whole presence in the Middle East. Either way, it requires exercising leverage to bring Russia and other outside powers into the process—and it’s not as if Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry haven’t tried to do this. Even if an American president—Obama or his successor—spelled out concrete interests, a coherent strategy, and a clear vision of a reasonable outcome to the region’s conflicts and crises, it’s not at all clear if this would make any difference. The region’s governments and factions may be too fundamentally divided to reach a settlement; the outside powers certainly lack the strength and will to impose and enforce one. It may take years, decades, even a century or longer to sort out. This weekend’s meeting between just two of the players, who have enough converging and colliding interests to fill a month of summits, cannot be expected to accomplish much.WASHINGTON -- In a bold and potentially historic attempt to stem the increase in mass gun violence, President Barack Obama unveiled on Wednesday the most sweeping effort at gun control policy reform in a generation. "This is our first task as a society: keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged," Obama said. “We can’t put this off any longer." The proposal, which comes at the end of a month-long review process spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, is broken down into four key subsections: law enforcement, the availability of dangerous firearms and ammunition, school safety and mental health. In an effort to touch on all four of those elements, the president recommended requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; restoring a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines; eliminating armor-piercing bullets; providing mental health services in schools; allocating funds to hire more police officers; and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, among other policies. The cost of the package, senior officials estimated, would be roughly $500 million, some of which could come from already budgeted funds. Because these recommendations require congressional approval, the administration is supplementing its proposal with 23 executive actions that will be taken immediately. Those actions include requiring federal agencies to hand over relevant data for a background check system; providing law enforcement officials, first responders and school officials with better training for active shooting situations; directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence; and many more. "I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," said the president, speaking about his full set of recommendations. "If there's even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try." The approach is so sweeping that what would have otherwise been a headline-grabbing announcement received second billing. The president on Wednesday will nominate Byron Todd Jones, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to take over the post permanently. In total, the proposal goes beyond what most gun control advocates were hoping for at the start of Biden's review process, during which he held 22 different meetings with 229 different organizations and 31 elected officials. "This is a monumental moment. It's a long time coming and we're thrilled the president's putting the full weight of his office behind this," said Josh Horowitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "We're ready to push this thing through." But putting together ideas is the easy part. Selling them on the Hill will take a bit of legislative craft. Seasoned political observers have questioned whether it makes more sense to break the package into separate bills or push for one comprehensive proposal. A senior administration official said that the president's proposal shouldn't be considered finalized legislative language, but rather a series of recommendations for Congress to consider. The president would be working with lawmakers to move the process forward, the official added, and would be trying to build up public opinion as well. "I will put everything I've got into this and so will Joe [Biden]. But I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it," said Obama. "We are going to need voices in those areas and congressional districts where the tradition of gun ownership is strong." "It can't just be the usual suspects," he continued. "This will not happen unless the American people demand it." The gun-rights lobby has already signaled that it will try to block the administration's effort. A spokesman for the National Rifle Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the president's proposal. But the organization has already harshly criticized the Obama administration for overreach. "It is unfortunate that this administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems," the NRA said after meeting with Biden last week. "We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen." The group continued its offensive this week, launching an advertising campaign attacking Obama as an "elitist hypocrite" for opposing the NRA's widely-criticized proposal, made after the Newtown, Conn. shooting, to place armed guards in all of the nation's schools. But that attack appeared a bit premature. As part of its policy recommendations, the White House called on Congress to act on an old administration proposal to spend $4 billion to keep 15,000 cops on the streets. In addition, the president is proposing a new initiative that would incentivize police departments to hire more school resource officers and encourage schools to hire more mental health professionals. The president's plan also calls on Congress to allocate resources to help schools, other educational institutions and houses of worship develop emergency management plans. The White House proposals, even officials there admit, are not a cure-all for mass shootings. Among the suggested recommendations on the gun-policy front, only the ban on high-capacity magazines could have had a tangible impact on the shooting in Newtown, and it's unclear what, exactly, the effect would have been. Moreover, the administration is pointedly not going after those weapons and ammunition magazines that are currently and lawfully owned. The proposal would instead affect the future production and sale of military-style weapons or high-capacity magazines. "We are not going to go after existing stock of weapons or magazines," said a senior administration official. "We are going to limit it to the manufacturing of assault weapons and clips going forward." The White House nevertheless insists that its package of proposals has teeth. It would provide law enforcement with the mechanisms needed to go after the illegal transfer of weapons and help prevent those weapons from falling into the wrong hands. It would also stem the use of military-style weapons -- the White House says its proposal would improve on the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which was riddled with loopholes -- and give schools and communities resources to address violence when it occurs. The question, in some respects, is not what's missing from the set of ideas, but what took the administration so long to get to this point.It worked out. Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins is pictured. Todd Williamson/Invision for Hulu/AP Images Mike Hopkins, now CEO of Hulu, was working in sales at Fox when he realized he wanted to grow in his role — so he looked into pursuing an MBA. While business school often acts as a launch point to a different career, Hopkins really wanted to gain skills that would help him succeed in his then-current role. "When I was at Fox, I really wanted to learn," Hopkins told Alex Grodnik on the Wall Street Oasis podcast. "I wanted to develop more skills. I wanted to understand a broader array of things around business, and I wanted to go back to school, so I went back part time," he continued. Hopkins worked full time at Fox while studying at UCLA Anderson. It took him three years to finish his degree, rather than the usual two for full-time students. "Quite frankly, it gave me a lot more confidence," he said, which allowed him to accomplish more at Fox. Often, prospective MBA seekers go to business school precisely to find a network to help them land a job that is out of reach. Business schools have strong on-campus recruiting and students are attracted to the network they provide. But this wasn't what brought Hopkins to Anderson. "I think for me, the benefit of the school was much more about the confidence-building and the learning and a little bit less about the network, mainly because I stayed in the role that I was in when I graduated," he said.A five alarm fire in Bernal Heights was under control at 6:35 a.m. Sunday, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. The blaze started at about 2:19 p.m. Saturday at 3312 Mission St., in Bernal Heights and was contained at about 6:27 p.m. Though the fire was contained that evening, it was still ongoing. Jonathan Baxter, spokesperson for the fire department, confirmed the fire was out early Sunday morning. RELATED: 5-alarm fire in Bernal Heights displaces 40 The plumes of black smoke and scorching flames displaced 58 people according to the latest count, Baxter said. As of Sunday midday 30 residents displaced by the fire registered to stay in a temporary shelter, according to the Red Cross. Small businesses were displaced as well. “I’m grateful there hasn’t been any loss of life, but I know finding housing for these folks is going to be a challenge,” said Supervisor David Campos, whose district includes Bernal Heights and the Mission. Above, the Firefighters Local 798 union recorded a video of Saturday’s blaze. Multiple efforts to support families displaced by the fire are underway. As of 11:30 a.m. Sunday, a Go Fund Me page called “Support Mission Fire Families” raised $9,106 of its $12,000 goal, from just 148 donations. The page was started by Edwin Lindo, one of the “Frisco 5” hunger strikers who called for former San Francisco Police Department Chief Greg Suhr’s removal. Lindo also ran for District 9 supervisor, but recently ended his campaign. A live-edited online document is also spreading around the internet, detailing what goods the displaced families need donated. That online Google Document was started by 48Hills reporter Sana Saleem, who is running the donation page along with her husband, William Fitzgerald. “I just saw something was needed,” she said. The community donated so many items she had to turn some away, she said, adding, “My phone has been ringing nonstop.” Above, a screen shot of a donations Google Doc set up for victims of the Bernal blaze. Those donations can be brought to the Salvation Army at Valencia and 22nd streets, where some of the displaced families are staying. Caitlin Rink was one of those donating to the families who lost their homes to the fire. Rink works in real estate, and her husband works at a startup, and they have a 2-year old daughter. Though they’ve lived in the Mission less than a year, already she’s seen multiple blazes in her community. Sunday morning, Rink arrived at the Salvation Army on Valencia and 22nd streets with bags of t-shirts, diapers, wipes, toothbrushes and toiletries to the families “We heard there were families that needed different items,” she said. “I just feel sad. We want to help with anything we can.” Hillary Ronen, an aide to Supervisor David Campos, said many groups and businesses from the Mission and Bernal Heights offered to pitch in as well. Virgil’s Sea Room, a neighborhood bar near Cesar Chavez street, is offering to be a staging ground for donations – and to donate some of its proceeds to victims. Even though many fundraising hurdles and immediate needs are being met, Ronen said, the next challenge is a big one: finding the victims new homes. “We have such good people in our community, and they’re being pushed out,” she said. The Board of Supervisors will consider funding to aid those displaced by fires in its next budget talks on Thursday, she said. “Hopefully the Board of Supervisors will prioritize this in the ‘add back’ list,” Ronen said, of the mechanism to “add back” funding for certain budget priorities. Click here or scroll down to commentBack in May, Google revealed Jump — an open-source platform that lets content creators easily capture immersive 360-degree video. A Google Jump camera consists of 16 cameras in a circular array, and the first manufacturer to create a camera to Google's Jump specifications was GoPro, though we only saw a prototype at the time. Now, we know a bit more about that camera. It'll be called the GoPro Odyssey, and it's an array of 16 GoPro Hero4 Black cameras. The rig is capable of capturing 8K spherical video at 30 frames per second. It will be available in November for the price of $15,000. See also: How Google Jump could push VR into the mainstream The rig is 11.6 inches in diameter and 2.6 inches tall, and it'll weigh 14.5 pounds. Besides the rig itself and the 16 Hero4 Black cameras that come with it, buyers will get the necessary cables and accessories, a case, and 16 microSD memory cards for storing content. Accessories aside, the Odyssey is not cheap, especially if you consider that one Hero4 Black camera costs $500, meaning you could buy 16 of them for nearly half the Odyssey's price. However, GoPro claims the Odyssey is "designed to withstand the rigors of professional use," which ideally means it should be sturdier than anything you can concoct at home. GoPro Odyssey Image: GoPro To take advantage of the Odyssey's capabilities, content creators will use Google's Jump video assembler, which will turn 16 video clips into one stereoscopic video. Jump support will be coming to YouTube "soon," according to Google. Only select content partners will be able to get the Odyssey; if you're interested, you'll need to apply at GoPro's website.I like using the right tool for the right problem, but when it comes to running multiple virtualization hypervisors I don't want to run individual management management programs for each one. I want one tool to rule them all. That tool may prove to be Convirture's next version of its open-source ConVirt Enterprise Cloud 3.2 program. ConVirt Enterprise Cloud is currently used to manage virtual and cloud infrastructures based on the open-source hypervisors KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) and Xen. VMware remains popular on on August 28th, Convirture will release a beta of the program that can manage VMware as well. Jay Lyman, an analyst for 451 Research, describes ConVirt Enterprise Cloud as a “single management tool for virtualized, private and hybrid cloud infrastructure (Subscription Required) so enterprises and service providers can consolidate the management of their varied resources. With current support for SLES 11 SP2, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and the latest versions of Amazon, Eucalyptus and OpenStack clouds, Convirture plans to add support for CloudStack by the end of 2012. ConVirt Enterprise To further expand beyond open source hypervisors, Convirture is also adding support for VMware vSphere in its products. The company claims that this places it more in a systems management category and while we would still consider it primarily a virtualization and cloud provider, its vSphere support does expand its market to include those relying on VMware and others for systems management.” Conviture argues—and I don't think anyone could disagree with them—that, “the heterogeneous datacenter is real and is not going away. IT managers are deploying whatever tools they need to get the job done. In the world of virtualization and cloud computing, that means multiple hypervisors--open and proprietary--are being deployed side by side.” That being the case, having a tool that can let you manage all of them from a single interface would be a real time-saver for administrators. “As datacenters increasingly deploy a mix of technologies, IT managers are looking for a ‘single pane of glass’ to manage all of them, which is what this version of ConVirt Enterprise Cloud offers,” said Arsalan Farooq, founder and CEO of Convirture in a statement. “From our perspective, the hypervisor and cloud wars are meaningless. Whether it’s VMware, KVM, Xen and any of the clouds, organizations just want the best tool for the job.” Specifically, the ConVirt Enterprise Cloud beta is designed to let system operators manage VMware-based datacenters that employ both ESXi, VMware's bare-iron hypervisor, and vCenter. VMware's own virtualization management program For ESXi users, ConVirt promises central management capabilities that were only previously available with vSphere. The company claims that besides unified virtual machine management, the new ConVirt Enterprise Cloud will have the following features: * Centralized Management of ESXi environment: With this release, users can manage their ESXi servers from a central console. ISO-based templates can be used to easily provision multiple virtual machines. Common virtual machine operations like start, stop and connect to VM console are provided within ConVirt. * Day-to-day management of vCenter environment from ConVirt: Users can discover and manage vCenter deployments. * Unified virtualization and cloud management: VMware users can centrally manage their virtual servers and cloud platforms, such as Eucalyptus, OpenStack, and Amazon, from a single console. Besides being able to manage multiple virtualization hypervisors, Conviture is also playing the cost card. In a statement, Farooq also said that “ESXi is a powerful platform but until now the only way to manage it to its full potential was by paying VMware for its management layer. With ConVirt, we can provide users with a management layer that also brings in Xen, KVM and all cloud platforms. It will deliver the everyday needs for their ongoing, day-to-day management of virtual environments.” At the same time, Convirture admits “For organizations that are already using vCenter, ConVirt Enterprise Cloud works in concert with it. VCenter is still there for the more granular management needs, but ConVirt can handle many of the most commonly executed tasks.” Will that be enough to make it worth buying? Well you will be able to download a beta of ConVirt Enterprise Cloud from a link on the company's main Web site later this month to see for yourself. The finished program will be available in the fourth quarter of 2012, at which time pricing will be announced. Today, ConVirt Enterprise Cloud is sold on a yearly subscription basis, and the price is keyed to the number of sockets used in an organization's on-premises infrastructure. The price starts at over $400 per socket for up to 20 sockets, with discounts for larger numbers. The freely, open-source version currently lacks the high availability, backup, storage and networking automation, and cloud management functionality. These features are included in the Enterprise editions of the product. Related Stories: Convirture ConVirt Enterprise Cloud - KVM and Xen virtual data centers So, want to manage a cloud with open-source software? Convirture and Eucalyptus Systems to partner on open-source, cloud management Red Hat finally commits to OpenStack for the cloudFormer Cribs man is on good terms with Andy Rourke and Morrissey Johnny Marr has revealed that he’s been spending time with his Smiths bandmates Morrissey and Andy Rourke – the latter of whom he could soon be making music with again. The former Cribs man told The Sun that he’s going to be hanging out and “maybe playing” with bassist Rourke and added that he’s also on good terms with Morrissey. The guitarist was responding to questions about the 1996 court case in which drummer Mike Joyce took him and Morrissey to court over royalties. He said: I don’t want to be disrespectful because they were my mates, I have nothing but great fondness for The Smiths. When I left I felt relieved but did it at the right time. Recalling the last time he hooked up with Morrissey a couple of years ago, he said: “We hung out for an afternoon and it was pretty funny.” Marr recently supervised the remastering of all eight of The Smiths’ albums. They came out separately and as a deluxe limited edition box set. https://link.brightcove.com/services/player/?bctid=25295955001Presidents, secret visitors, and shadow confidants have had a back door in and out of the White House since the 1940s through a little-known passage opening on H Street. The circuitous route passes through one closed-off alleyway, two subterranean tunnels and finally spills out in the White House basement. This account is based on archival newspaper reports from the early 20th century, when the tunnels were a matter of public architectural interest, long before security paranoia cut off the flow of juicy information. Two blocks away from the executive residence on H Street, there’s one alley unlike the others, with a ram-proof vehicle gate and a bulletproof Secret Service kiosk discreetly set into the wall. The narrow enclosed alley leads down the block, past the towering brick Federal Claims Courthouse, before ending in an unassuming doorway at the rear of the Treasury Department’s annex on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Treasury Annex (officially known as the Freedman’s Bank since 2016) was built in 1919 to house the Internal Revenue Bureau, and local builders Irwin & Leighton won the contract to dig a tunnel to connect with Department headquarters across the street. The sources are unclear on the purpose of the underground passage, but it was likely to protect cash-carrying Treasury employees from armed robbery. Or perhaps it was a byproduct of Washington’s dismal weather, as was the case with the Capitol Hill pedestrian tunnels, we can’t say for sure. The final segment of the White House secret entrance came to be as a side effect of World War II security enhancements. Fearing that an aerial attack on the creaky old White House would leave FDR dead beneath a pile of rubble, an inclined tunnel was hurriedly excavated in 1941 leading from the East Wing over to Treasury Department headquarters. Here, a sturdy granite vault was carpeted, equipped with furniture, and converted into the first Presidential bomb shelter. FDR visited only once and hated the place. (This tunnel was considered a wartime secret by the press until Republican Congressman Clare E. Hoffman complained about its expense in open House debate, after which it was considered fair game.) Secret tunnels leading to the White House are a common narrative trope but generally lack in specificity or credibility. With the H Street entrance, as with many things in Washington, the truth is generally more mundane than sinister. It is the coincidental byproduct of an old pedestrian tunnel and underground wheelchair ramp. The Federal Government’s default modes of bureaucratic inertia and historical preservation usually conspire to abandon this kind of thing in place, rather than demolish it. Chances are that the passageways are still down there to this day.Recommended Video Fork Yeah Chow Down on This Quadruple Stack Burger related The 31 Best Mexican Restaurants in America B&B Butchers Houston, Texas Since opening a few years ago, B&B has cemented itself at the top of Houston's steak hierarchy, which is no easy feat in cattle-crazed Texas. They expertly prepare a variety of beef types (A5 Kobe, Texas wagyu, USDA prime), all cut in their on-premises butcher shop, much of it dry-aged in their aging room -- if you're the curious sort, they're more than happy to let customers take a peek behind the metaphorical curtain at both. Of course, it's entirely reasonable that you'll have zero interest in separating yourself from your steak, especially if you try it carpetbagger style, which leaves it topped with a fried oyster and blue cheese. Share on Facebook Pin it Courtesy of The Bancroft The Bancroft Burlington, Massachusetts If you're familiar at all with Boston geography, you'd know that there was a time not too long ago when Boston's premier steakhouse unveiling itself in Burlington would have been surprising. That's no longer the case, and since opening in 2014, The Bancroft has drawn Hub residents out to Burlington instead of traffic flowing in the other direction. Maybe it has something to do with starters like a clam chowder appointed with house-made crackers and house-smoked bacon. Even more enticing, however, is the well-curated steak lineup -- the prime au poivre preparation with bone marrow is particularly indulgent, enough to make one completely reevaluate all manner of real estate choices. Share on Facebook Pin it Courtesy of Barclay Prime Barclay Prime Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sure, it's not exactly revolutionary to tout a Stephen Starr restaurant in Philadelphia as being outstanding, but Barclay has remained the quintessential Philly steak experience for nearly a decade now. Important note: that's not the same thing as the quintessential cheesesteak experience, although they do have one if you're feeling gimmicky and have $120. Of course, if you're not in sandwich mode, the carb-less steaks still shine -- as the bone-in, 40-day aged prime NY strip will emphatically reveal to you. Bavette's Steakhouse & Bar Chicago, Illinois From Chicago restaurateur Brendan Sodikoff (the mind behind the much-celebrated Au Cheval burger), Bavette's actually does a pretty outstanding approximation of said burger in its own right, but you'd definitely be selling yourself a bit short here if you limited yourself to sandwich-based meat consumption (although the prime French dip is also no joke). Carbs aside, this is very much a steakhouse, from the indulgent seafood towers to the dimly lit blood-red booths to the 42-day aged prime ribeye you're about to top with a generous slab of bone marrow. Chicago has been so taken with this meatery that it inspired a second outpost in the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas that opened in late 2017. [Editor's note: Bavette's briefly shut down in early 2019 for a small renovation but will open February 10th]. Bern's Tampa, Florida Trendy Miami steakhouses come and go, and meanwhile Bern's is just hanging out there in Tampa like it has been for 60-plus years, serving up flawless cut-and-trimmed to order chateaubriand, preparing its iconic Caesar salad tableside, and presiding over a positively legendary wine cellar. And yes, there's not always room for dessert after an indulgent steakhouse meal, but buck up and make your way to the Harry Waugh Dessert Room after you're done, where you can unwind from your meal and partake in an after-dinner drink and sweetness like banana cheese pie and baked Alaska. The Butcher's Table Seattle, Washington This swank -- we’re talking fireside dining and leather seats that would also look great in a high-budget Agatha Christie chamber drama -- Seattle spot takes its beef very, very seriously, specializing in high-quality wagyu from Mishima Reserve, which gets smoked for takeaway in its butchery section (and in sandwich form!) and grilled to tender bliss in the restaurant. Whether it’s as a happy hour kebab, a shareable porterhouse, or a served as a flight of 4-ounce cuts, it’s undeniably one of the best and most tender steaks available. Also, don’t sleep on the fries here. They’re fried in -- yup -- fancy beef fat. Golden Steer Las Vegas, Nevada Look, your options for a high-end steak experience in Vegas are pretty limitless, and there's no harm it choosing from one of the dozens of places repping some fancy chef (who probably hasn't been there in a few months) and dropping an unconscionable sum on some A-5 wagyu that will admittedly be delicious. But there's something special about venturing off the strip and finding yourself in the same establishment where the likes of Elvis, DiMaggio, and Sinatra went for their red meat fix. You don't make it six decades in Vegas by accident. Finish your meal with some cherries jubilee or bananas Foster flamed tableside (they've been at it so long, they're still allowed to start a small conflagration in the dining room). Cattlemen's Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Having served hungry cowboys and ranchers in one iteration or another since 1910, Cattlemen's history is as rich (maybe richer?) than the beefy steaks it serves up -- it once changed ownership in a dice game, because of course it did. Also, they serve an impressive lineup of steaks at breakfast, because of course they do. You can spend as much as you want trying to create the ideal steakhouse ambiance, but there's simply no replicating the feeling of dining at Cattlemen's. Now pass the lamb fries. related The 33 Best BBQ Joints in America related The 31 Best Burger Joints in America Share on Facebook Pin it Courtesy of Chandlers Boise Chandlers Boise, Idaho Where else but Idaho would you expect to find the perfect expression of meat and potatoes? Just try tearing into a cut of American wagyu from nearby Snake River farms, pairing it with a big baked Idaho potato (or some fennel-leek potatoes au gratin if you're fancy!) and try not to grin like a ludicrously happy carnivore. And yes, it's somewhat obligatory for out-of-towners to mention potatoes when writing about Idaho, but in all seriousness, Chandlers could hold its own in the steakhouse hierarchy of any city in America. Thrillist Video Cote New York, New York It's not uncommon for an ambitious steakhouse to open and make bold claims about "reinventing the steakhouse" and other variations on the sentiment, but truth be told it's rare to see something truly game-changing. That's what made Cote so exciting when it opened earlier last year, with Michelin-starred Simon Kim seamlessly blending Korean culinary traditions (yes, including Korean barbecue!) with classic steakhouse trappings to create something wholly unique. Just round up some friends, order the Butcher's Feast, and don't ask any questions: it's precisely what it sounds like. Crescent City Steaks New Orleans, Louisiana You don't survive for 83 years in the restaurant business in a city like New Orleans without knowing what you're doing -- in the case of Crescent City Steaks, the "what" consists of sizzling beautiful USDA prime steaks in an only slightly alarming amount of butter at a refreshingly reasonable price point by current steakhouse standards. Of course, don't let the aforementioned dairy indulgence dissuade you from a slice of Creole cream cheesecake to round out your meal -- that would be a horrible mistake. Swift & Sons Chicago, IL It takes a little something extra to get Chicago excited about a steakhouse. It turns out the combination of chef Chris Pandel (who previously drew rave reviews at Balena and The Bristol) and the omnipresent Boka Group putting their weight behind one was precisely that something. Consider splurging on the impressive beef Wellington for two, in which the meltingly tender hunk of filet is covered in duxelles, spinach, and foie gras before being wrapped in an impossibly flaky crust and served tableside. The crispy fingerlings with buttermilk ranch are so good that more steakhouses should consider ripping them off. The decadence of the deep dish cookie makes deep dish pizza look positively restrained. Durant's Phoenix, Arizona Durant's opened in Phoenix nearly 70 years ago, and, unlike certain basketball players who share its moniker, never left. That's a good thing, too, because while no shortage of high-end steakhouses have opened in the area over the years, none of them quite have the gravitas that comes with counting the likes of John Wayne and Joe DiMaggio among your customers. If you can polish off the 48-ounce porterhouse you get your picture on the wall, and if you want to feel like Henry Hill in Goodfellas you can (and should!) enter via the back entrance via the kitchen. Share on Facebook Pin it Courtesy of Five O'Clock Steaks Five O'Clock Steakhouse Milwaukee, Wisconsin Since 1946, the Five O'Clock has been delivering a combination of steakhouse elegance with the hospitality of a Midwest supper club. For the uninitiated, that means you order your meal from the bar as you enjoy your cocktail (a brandy Old Fashioned would be a wise move here), then settle into your table and graze on warm bread, salad, and a relish tray as you await the main attraction. Steaks are finished in a secret house marinade that renders them especially dark on the outside, providing a gorgeous contrast with the (hopefully, depending on how you ordered) bright red exterior. It's a steakhouse experience you won't find anywhere else. Share on Facebook Pin it Courtesy of Guard and Grace Guard and Grace Denver, Colorado The restaurant scene in Mile High was once a sea of steakhouses... and not much else. It earned its Cowtown nickname. Present-day Denver is host to a vibrant, diverse food scene -- and this is the modern steakhouse it deserves. The gleaming crown jewel of chef Troy Guard’s Colorado food empire, Guard and Grace is a sexy-as-hell, low-lit space that’s a celebration of steak. There’s a playful filet mignon flight (with 12 ounces of prime, Angus, and grass-fed meats), oak-fired prime rib, Colorado lamb T-bones, and dry-aged bone-in rib-eye and NY strip. No matter which you choose, all steaks are given a proprietary spice rub, oak fired, and finished with chive butter and a veal demi-glace. Save room for the enormous sides, with highlights like a decadent truffled gnocchi, foraged mushrooms, and crispy Brussels sprouts. Halls Chophouse Charleston, South Carolina Since opening in 2009, Halls has cemented itself as South Carolina's must-visit steakhouse with a lineup of USDA prime beef intermixed with Lowcountry favorites like fried green tomatoes and shrimp & grits topped with tasso ham gravy. Also, we'd be remiss not to mention the legendary gospel brunch here. Fear not, you can make your brunch consist of a bacon-wrapped filet with hash browns to make it feel brunch-y. Share on Facebook Pin it The Hitching Post \| Natalie Stricklin The Hitching Post Casmalia, California Far from the trendy restaurants of San Francisco and Los Angeles -- but right in the glorious cradle of wine country -- The Hitching Post has perfected its “live oak” barbecuing method or grilling technique in which rib-eye, T-bones, and New York steaks are slow-cooked over open fire. They say it imparts more flavor. They’re right. As a result, this rustic-looking spot that could easily be mistaken for a dive bar from outside might just make the finest steak in the Bear Republic. Nothing fancy here. Just one-of-a-kind meat served, de facto, with enough sides to feed a circus. related The 50 Most Iconic Midwest Dishes related The 33 Best BBQ Joints in America Hy's Steak House Honolulu, Hawaii With its leather-bound books, rich woodwork, and tuxedoed waitstaff, Hy’s has spent 40 years developing its rich reputation as a luxury steakhouse that happens to anchor a dining scene more known for seafood. Oh, the surf’s here (get the oysters Rockefeller or ahi sashimi), but they’re just a warm-up to the best steaks on the islands. Score a classic pastry-wrapped beef Wellington if you’re feeling frisky, or a filet and seared foie combo, all of which are cooked over native kiwi wood (so are the racks of lamb, which you should get despite reading them in an article about steak). Don’t skip the Japanese-style Wafu sauce, and save room for table-side bananas Foster, set aflame by a server who is also one of the best-dressed people in the house. Kayne Prime Nashville, Tennessee If you find yourself thinking Kanye has somehow gotten into the Nashville steakhouse game, you need to work on your close reading skills. If you find yourself dining at Kayne prime, you need to start off with the house-made bacon topped with maple cotton candy, because are you really going to pass that up? If you move onto steaks, you won't be disappointed with the dry-aged, bone-in rib-eye sourced from Michael's Meats in Columbus, Ohio. If you think this is getting too indulgent, wait until you realize you have the option to top said steak with bone marrow butter. If you think you've found a better steakhouse in Nashville, we'd love to hear about it. Thrillist Video Keens New York, New York Yes, this list is hardly short on iconic steakhouses, but somehow with Keens labels like "icon" and "institution" STILL feel like an undersell for a place that's been turning out top-notch steaks since the year Doc and Marty traveled to for Back to the Future III. That's 1885. Come on, you knew that. The list of dignitaries who've dined here is long enough that it might be simpler to name the ones who haven't. Not simple, choosing between the reliably excellent lineup of steaks and the legendary mutton chop, as this is one of the few (possibly only?) restaurants in existence where you can utter the phrase "legendary mutton chop" unironically. Kevin Rathbun Steak Atlanta, Georgia Former Iron Chef-testant and Atlanta dining titan Kevin Rathbun remains perched at the top of the Super Bowl host city's steakhouse hierarchy, with an eclectically influenced menu (classic French escargot, comfort food-channeling jack cheese 'n pecan fritters, Asian-influenced mushroom soy-glazed meatballs) that might prove too meandering in lesser hands. Here it's just a prelude to Georgia's finest steak experience. Order yours "blue" if you're feeling particularly bold and don't mind a cool center, though if you're splitting the dry-aged steak for two, make sure your dining companion is cool with it first. Killen's Steakhouse Pearland, Texas Ronnie Killen has a way with meat -- he also has
Daesh had a stronghold in the city, but the YPG broke it and killed many of them,” Xelil said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Those who are still alive and can’t go back to Raqqa escaped to Turkey.” The Islamic State is preparing for a possible attack on Raqqa, according to Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a network of activists devoted to spreading news about the city. The jihadi group is digging trenches north of the city, and its preachers announced from mosque loudspeakers that residents should stockpile food and flour in preparation for a coming siege, the activists reported. The anti-Islamic State coalition threw its weight behind the offensive in Tal Abyad, devoting almost its entire air campaign in Syria to supporting the forces in the area. Over the last two weeks, it launched 23 airstrikes near Raqqa and 64 airstrikes in the neighboring areas of Hasakah and Kobani, where Kurdish forces advanced from the east and the west, according to U.S. military statements. By comparison, the coalition only launched 14 airstrikes in all other areas of Syria during this time. The capture of Tal Abyad deprives the Islamic State of a key border crossing with Turkey, from which it smuggled everything from iPhones to bomb-making fertilizer. But for many of the thousands of refugees who crossed into Turkey to flee the fighting, the story is not so simple. Khodr al-Fadel, a 25-year-old farmer from Syria’s northeastern Hasakah governorate, has spent the past month being chased by war. He was forced to flee west from the fighting when the YPG drove the Islamic State from his home, and he kept on moving until he reached Tal Abyad, where he was squeezed between the jihadi fighters and the Kurdish advance to the east and west. He and thousands of his compatriots camped out on the border with Turkey without food or water for days, while imploring the Turkish military to let them in. After three people died, he said, the Turks eventually relented and let some people in. It is not the Islamic State, however, but the Kurdish forces who scare Fadel the most. “We saw them burn houses, burn the crops,” he said. “They just do this to Arabs. The Islamic State didn’t burn our houses or property; they just stole the cars.” Fadel’s story coincides with reporting that alleges the Kurdish YPG has carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Syria with the aim of ridding the area of its Arab population. It is a claim echoed by many of the Arab refugees who crossed into Turkey, as well as by more than a dozen Syrian rebel groups, which released a statement condemning the displacement. Xelil, the YPG spokesman, vehemently denied the allegations and promised that all civilians would eventually be allowed to return to their homes. “There is no truth to this, and it’s just a propaganda war paid for by questionable and suspicious groups,” said Xelil. “We ask the media to come to this area to see the truth, and they will know that it is just lies.” So far, restrictions put in place by the Turkish authorities have made it impossible to gain access to the area. U.S. officials may cheer the Islamic State’s latest defeat, but the Kurdish advance could escalate tensions with Turkey, one of America’s most important allies in the region. The YPG is closely linked with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an insurgent group that fought a bloody 30-year war with the Turkish state. Turkish officials, therefore, are deeply hostile to the growth of an autonomous YPG-controlled area along their border. “Turkey feels that countering ISIS through military measures, without a political plan [to resolve the entire Syrian conflict], is not helping at all,” said Kadir Ustun, the executive director of the SETA Foundation in Washington, D.C. “It’s simply allowing the various groups to advance their own agenda, and the PYD’s agenda is to secure territory in Syria and forget about the unity of Syria.” The PYD, or Democratic Union Party, is the political wing of the Kurdish movement and is closely affiliated with the YPG, which serves as its military arm. For the thousands of new Syrian refugees, however, the international political wrangling matters less than where they are going to get their next meal. Fadel and his family of 10 have been camped out within site of the border crossing for days — not because they are hoping to cross back into Syria, but simply because they have no idea where to go. Food and humanitarian assistance are hard to come by. The Turkish police have at times given them water and chocolate biscuits. The family, along with their 5-year-old child, is sleeping on the trash-strewn ground. “On the inside, we’re afraid of death and bullets,” Fadel said. “You see what it’s like here: We’re waiting for death, just without the bullets.” Photo credit: Gokhan Sahin/Getty ImagesThis fellow, Charles Monnett has been suspended pending an investigation into his polar bear research. You may recall that he single-handedly inspired Al Gore (not that it takes much) into producing this piece of science fiction for his even larger fiction, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore cited Monnett’s research. Only one problem now, his “research” is collapsing, and as you read the transcript, you’ll see why even the simplest of queries get Monnett flustered. Yet this was peer reviewed published science. Never Yet Melted writes: The Inspector General interview transcript (excerpts) had me, for instance, in stitches. Disclosing as it does the level of rigor of methodology being employed: ERIC MAY: Well, actually, since you‟re bringing that up, 18 and, and I‟m a little confused of how many dead or drowned polar bears you did observe, because in the manuscript, you indicate three, and in the poster presentation – CHARLES MONNETT: No. ERIC MAY: – you mentioned four. CHARLES MONNETT: No, now you‟re confusing the, um, the estimator with the, uh, the sightings. There were four drowned bears seen. ERIC MAY: Okay. CHARLES MONNETT: Three of which were on transects. ERIC MAY: Okay. CHARLES MONNETT: And so for the purpose of that little ratio estimator, we only looked at what we were seeing on transects, because that‟s a – you know, we couldn‟t be very rigorous, but the least we could do is look at the random transects. And so we based, uh, our extrapolation to only bears on transects, because we‟re saying that the transects, the, the swaths we flew, represented I think it was 11 percent of the entire habitat that, you know, that could have had dead polar bears in it. ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes]. CHARLES MONNETT: And, um, so by limiting it to the transect bears, then, you know, we could do that ratio estimator and say three is to, um, uh, “x” as, uh, 11 is to 100. I mean, it‟s that kind of thing. You, you‟ve, you‟re nodding like you understand. LYNN GIBSON: Yeah. CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, that‟s pretty simple, isn‟t confusing. I mean, it‟s – ERIC MAY: So, so, so you observed four dead polar bears during MMS – CHARLES MONNETT: One of which was not on transect. ERIC MAY: Okay, so that‟s what – CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. … ERIC MAY: So I highlighted under here, and we‟ve got the four, and that‟s what – CHARLES MONNETT: Oh, here you go. Yeah. Well, I‟m pretty confident that it was four. I mean, that‟s, um – uh, look, look what is in the paper. I mean, it should have the – probably the same information that, you know – ERIC MAY: Well, it – CHARLES MONNETT: There‟s a table in there, but does it – it has the dead ones in it, doesn‟t it? ERIC MAY: Well, and I think you, you explain, so this is the portion where you‟re talking about the 25 percent survival rate. CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: And you‟re talking about four swimming bears and three drowned or dead polar bears. CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. Yeah, but that‟s because those are on transects. ERIC MAY: On part of this 11 percent? CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, it says that right in here and, 11 and – ERIC MAY: Right, right, but that‟s what you‟re talking about. … How to do things with statistics. 3 CHARLES MONNETT: The paragraph in the left-hand column. Um, God, I‟ve got people here who are second-guessing my calculations. Um, well, um, we flew transects. That was our basic methodology. They were partially randomized. And we, uh, we looked at a, a map. I think we probably used GIS to do it, and we said that our survey area, if you bound it, is so big. ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes]. CHARLES MONNETT: And then we made some assumptions about our swath width, and I think we assumed we could see a, a bear out to a kilometer with any reliability, which mean you‟re looking down like that. And, uh, sometimes you might see more; sometimes you wouldn‟t. Sometimes you can‟t see a whale out that far, so it depends on the water conditions. And so we just said that, um, if you add up, we had 34 north/south transects provide 11 percent coverage of the 630 kilometer-wide study area, and that was just to get our ratio of coverage. And then the area we really were concerned about was just the area where the bears were, so we could ignore the area at that point and just go with a ratio, because we assume that‟s the same, because these things are pretty, uh, they‟re pretty standardized. They were designed to be standardized, so in each bloc – have you seen the blocs? Have you seen our design? It‟s in here. ERIC MAY: I took – yeah, in, in your study. CHARLES MONNETT: It‟s right at the beginning here. Um, every map in here has got it on it. Um, there, those are our blocs. And so, uh, this one would have four pairs. This one would have probably three pairs. I don‟t know, there will be later maps. Um, and there, you can see the flights. Uh, well, yeah, they‟re in here. Um, so we‟re flying these transects, and we‟re assuming we can see a certain percentage or a certain, certain distance. Therefore, we can total up the length and the width and come up with an area. And so we calculated that our coverage was 11 percent, plus or minus a little bit. ERIC MAY: Okay. And I believe you rounded up, too. It was 10.8 and you rounded up to 11? CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. Well, that‟s a nothing. Um, yeah, 10.8. And then we said, um, four dead – four swimming polar bears were encountered on these transects, in addition to three. ERIC MAY: Three dead polar bears? CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, three dead. ERIC MAY: Right. CHARLES MONNETT: But the four swimming were a week earlier. ERIC MAY: Okay. CHARLES MONNETT: And, um, then we said if they accurately reflect 11 percent of the bears present so, in other words, they‟re just distributed randomly, so we looked at 11 percent of the area. ERIC MAY: In that transect? CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: Right. CHARLES MONNETT: In, in our, in our area there, um – ERIC MAY: Right. CHARLES MONNETT: – and, therefore, we should have seen 11 percent of the bears. Then you just invert that, and you come up with, um, nine times as many. So that‟s where you get the 27, nine times three. ERIC MAY: Where does the nine come from? CHARLES MONNETT: Uh, well 11 percent is one-ninth of 100 percent. Nine times 11 is 99 percent. Is that, is that clear? … LYNN GIBSON: I think what he‟s saying is since there‟s four swimming and three dead, that makes – ERIC MAY: And three dead. CHARLES MONNETT: Well, you don‟t count them all together. That doesn‟t have anything to do. You can‟t – that doesn‟t even – LYNN GIBSON: So you‟re not saying that the seven represent 16 11 percent of the population. CHARLES MONNETT: They‟re different events. ERIC MAY: Well, that‟s what you try – we‟re trying to – LYNN GIBSON: You‟re talking about they‟re separate? CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, they‟re different events. ERIC MAY: Right, so explain to us how – CHARLES MONNETT: On one day – well, let me draw. I, I, I don‟t have confidence that you‟re understanding me here, so let me (inaudible/mixed voices). … CHARLES MONNETT: It makes me feel more professorial if I write it on the blackboard. LYNN GIBSON: Okay, go ahead. CHARLES MONNETT: No, that‟s okay. ERIC MAY: (Inaudible/mixed voices) CHARLES MONNETT: If you could see it, I wanted you to see it was why I was going to do it there. ERIC MAY: (Inaudible/mixed voices) LYNN GIBSON: We‟re your students today. CHARLES MONNETT: Uh, well, this has transects on it, doesn‟t it, guys? LYNN GIBSON: Yes, it does. CHARLES MONNETT: I mean, look right here. So here‟s our coastline right here, this red thing. ERIC MAY: Okay, yep. CHARLES MONNETT: And here‟s our, um, our study area. We go out to whatever it was. I don‟t remember, 70, 71 degrees or something like that. And, um, around each of these things, we survey a tenth of the distance between, basically. ERIC MAY: Okay. CHARLES MONNETT: And so if you draw these lines here, and this is – you‟re just going to have to pretend like I did this for all of them. And you calculate the area in here. LYNN GIBSON: Um-hm [yes]. CHARLES MONNETT: And you total them all, and then you calculate the whole area. This – the area inside here was 11 percent. LYNN GIBSON: Okay. CHARLES MONNETT: Okay? Now what we said is that we saw three, three bears in 11 percent. ERIC MAY: Three dead bears? CHARLES MONNETT: Three dead, yeah, dead – ERIC MAY: Right. CHARLES MONNETT: – in the 11 percent of the habitat. And so you could set up a, um, a ratio here, three is to “x” 25 equals 11 over 100, right? And so you end up with – you can cross-multiply. You know algebra? ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes], yeah. CHARLES MONNETT: You can cross-multiply. Okay, so you end up with 300 equals 11x, and I am sure that that‟s – equals 27, okay? ERIC MAY: Right, right, got that. CHARLES MONNETT: And if you stick four in here instead, you end up with – ERIC MAY: Thirty-six. CHARLES MONNETT: – whatever that number was, yeah, 36. Now, um, those numbers aren‟t related, except we made the further assumption, which is implicit to the analysis. Seems obvious to me. We went out there one week, and we saw four swimming on the transect, which we estimated could have been as many as 36. LYNN GIBSON: Correct. CHARLES MONNETT: If we correct for the area. And we went out there later, a week to two weeks later, and then we saw the dead ones, the three dead ones in the same area, which could have been 27. And then we said let‟s make the further assumption that – and this, this isn‟t in the paper, but it‟s implicit to this aument – ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes]. CHARLES MONNETT: – that right after we saw these bears swimming, this storm came in and caught them offshore, all right? And so if, um, if you assume that the, the, the 36 all were exposed to the storm, and then we went back and we saw tentially 27 of them, that gives you your 25 percent survival rate. Now that‟s, um, statistically, um, irrelevant. I mean, it, it‟s not statistical. It‟s just an argument. It‟s for, it‟s for the sake of discussion. See, right here, “Discussion.” ERIC MAY: Um-hm [yes]. CHARLES MONNETT: That‟s what you do in discussions is you throw things out, um, for people to think about. And so what we said is, look, uh, we saw four. We saw a whole bunch swimming, but if you want to compare them, then let‟s do this little ratio estimator and correct for the percentage of the area surveyed. And just doing that, then there might have been as many as 27 bears out there that were dead. There might have been as many as 36, plus or minus. There could have been 50. I don‟t know. But the way we were posing it was that it‟s serious, because it‟s not just four. It‟s probably a lot more. And then we said that with the further assumption, you know, that the bears were exposed or, you know, the ones we‟re measuring later that are carcasses out there, it looks like a lot of them, you know, didn‟t survive, so – but it‟s, it‟s discussion, guys. I mean, it‟s not in the results. … The reliability of the calculations used and the scrupulous oversight of the peer-review process. ERIC MAY: So combining the three dead polar bears and the four alive bears is a mistake? CHARLES MONNETT: No, it‟s not a mistake. It‟s just not a, a, a real, uh, rigorous analysis. And a whole bunch of peer reviewers and a journal, you know – ERIC MAY: Did they go through – I mean, did they do the calculations as you just did with us? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, I assume they did. That‟s their purpose. ERIC MAY: Okay. Right, and that‟s – again, that‟s why I was asking peer review. CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: Did they do that with that particular section of your manuscript? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, I don‟t, I don‟t remember anybody doing the calculations but, um, uh, there weren‟t any huge objections. There weren‟t a – let‟s put it this way, there weren‟t sufficient objections for the journal editor to ask us to take it out. ERIC MAY: Right. Well, let me, let me read you what – the four bears – and representing what we were just talking about, this section. CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: So just let me, let me read what I have here, okay? CHARLES MONNETT: Okay. ERIC MAY: “If four swimming bears, if four bears represent 11 percent of the population of bears swimming before the storm,” – CHARLES MONNETT: Um-hm [yes]. ERIC MAY: – okay? “Then 36 bears were likely swimming.” CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah, maybe, I mean – ERIC MAY: Okay, but I mean – CHARLES MONNETT: No, we didn‟t say “likely.” I think we said “possibly,” or did you say “likely” or –? ERIC MAY: Well, or this – again, as you just stated earlier, this is Discussion, so – CHARLES MONNETT: I‟d be surprised if we said “likely,” but mostly we were saying “possibly.” ERIC MAY: Okay, so let me – let, let me continue, so – CHARLES MONNETT: Okay. ERIC MAY: – so you have that. “If three bears represent 11 percent of the population of bears that may have died” – CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: – right? CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: I think those are your words in your manu- – “may have died.” CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: “ – as a result of this storm, then 27 bears were likely drowned.” Okay, so far, so good? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, if I used “likely.” I don‟t know if I did. … And, then, the interview really gets humorous. “I mean, the storm had nothing to do with it!” ERIC MAY: Isn‟t that stretching it a bit, though, saying – making that conclusion that no dead polar bears were observed during these years, and then, all of a sudden, 2003, you guys are – you observe dead polar bears? CHARLES MONNETT: I don‟t think so. ERIC MAY: Why? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, if you ask me, I would know, I mean, what I saw, I mean, if I saw something weird like that. ERIC MAY: So as a scientist, if another scientist made these conclusions based on the information, you would be okay with that as a peer reviewer? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, yeah, I would, I mean, if, you know, if they told me that. They keep notes. I mean, they did this – every, everything like we do, so –. ERIC MAY: And that‟s a, that‟s a – and it‟s a stretch, isn‟t it, though, to make that statement? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, no, I didn‟t think so. I thought that was perfectly reasonable to ask them, since it isn‟t something – remember, the reason it‟s not in the database is because it, it doesn‟t happen. You know, you don‟t see it, so – and there‟s a reason, uh, why it‟s changed, which is in, in, in a lot of the early years, there was a lot of ice out there, and there just weren‟t opportunities for there to be dead bears. You know, bears don‟t drown when there‟s ice all over the place. ERIC MAY: Well, so let me elaborate what I just asked you. Wouldn‟t you, wouldn‟t you notate that as a – like maybe a – you know, your statement kind of is stretching it, and you would say, “Well, based on my conversations with individuals during these surveys, although they weren‟t supposed to look for dead polar bears, they did not” – I mean, because you‟re making a very broad statement by, by that, saying that no dead polar bears were observed during those years. … ERIC MAY: Well, and based on, based on what I just said, in terms of the, you know, your statement, would it not make more sense, too, because there was a major windstorm during this period of time, which you do mention, but you didn‟t talk too much about that as in 2004 regarding these dead polar bears. CHARLES MONNETT: What do you mean (inaudible/mixed voices)? ERIC MAY: Well, you‟re saying that from 1987 to 2003, there was no dead polar bears. CHARLES MONNETT: Yeah. ERIC MAY: Did you discuss the storm conditions during those period, period of years as well? I mean, you‟re extrapolating a lot to make such, you know, scientific findings. CHARLES MONNETT: You mean, the storms are increasing up there? ERIC MAY: No, you‟re saying that there was no dead polar bears during those years. CHARLES MONNETT: Certainly. ERIC MAY: Yet in 2004, you, you observed four dead polar bears. CHARLES MONNETT: Right. ERIC MAY: Yet you didn‟t really elaborate on why you believe those dead polar bears died or drowned. CHARLES MONNETT: Well, yeah, we did actually. I don‟t know why you‟re saying that. We‟ve got an extensive section in the paper talking about the, uh, you know, the wind speeds and out there, and we looked into that very hard. And, and we, um, we‟re very, very careful in this manuscript to, um, write it so that it, uh, reflects uncertainty, uncertainty about the extent of what happened, the uncertainty of why it happened, the uncertainty of what it meant in a, in a broader context. We knew three things: That we had seen a bunch of swimming bears and that that was unusual in the context of the whole data stream. We knew we saw some dead bears, which had not been reported before and that we had been assured, you know, was new to the study. And we saw, uh – we experienced, we were there, a, a, uh, high wind event, which was actually not a, a very severe high – and it wasn‟t, you know, one of the really severe high wind events, but it was enough to shut us down, which meant that there were some pretty good waves breaking, you know, out at sea, which, um, is pretty easy to imagine would be, uh, challenging, you know, for a bear swimming. And a good bit of that, there‟s a whole section in the paper that talks about the windstorm. ERIC MAY: Okay. CHARLES MONNETT: Um, right here, there‟s a map, you know, of the wind speeds and all that and, uh, you know, it shows that it just fits right in there. Um – ERIC MAY: When I was relating to th CHARLES MONNETT: Well, I don‟t know, we, we had complete confidence in it. Um, people worked extensively with, with the database and, and, uh, so we were totally comfortable with the swimming ones, um, which, you know, were rarely seen. And it‟s a small thing I think to assume that a, um – you know, the person managing the survey would know and – …. And here comes Jeff Ruch of PEER to the rescue. 1 JEFF RUCH: This is Jeff Ruch. We‟ve been at this for an hour and 45 minutes, and I‟m curious, are we going to get to the allegations of scientific misconduct or, uh, have – is that what we‟ve been doing? LYNN GIBSON: Actually, a lot of the questions that we‟ve been discussing relate to the allegations. ERIC MAY: Right. JEFF RUCH: Um, but, uh, Agent May indicated to, um, Paul that he was going to lay out what the allegations are, and we haven‟t heard them yet, or perhaps we don‟t understand them from this line of questioning. ERIC MAY: Well, the scientif- – well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations, uh – JEFF RUCH: Wrong numbers and calculations? ERIC MAY: Well, what we‟ve been discussing for the last hour. JEFF RUCH: So this is it? CHARLES MONNETT: Well, that‟s not scientific misconduct anyway. If anything, it‟s sloppy. I mean, that‟s not – I mean, I mean, the level of criticism that they seem to have leveled here, scientific misconduct, uh, suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don‟t see any indication of that in what you‟re asking me about. ============================================================= Never Yet Melted continues: What is downright scary is the way these bozos think that dressing up wildly extravagant theories resting on baseless extrapolations of insignificant anecdotal-level observations with jargon and a few formulae in order to reach preconceived and intensely desired conclusions is perfectly legitimate scientific activity. If anybody wonders how junk science can become established science and the accepted basis for fabulously costly governmental programs and polices, just look at the work of Dr. Charles Monnett and at PEER. Advertisements Share this: Print Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn RedditI am working on an app that uses Summernote WYSIWYG wrapped in an angular directive. I am using the default behavior on image upload which is basically encoding the chosen image in base64 and putting that in as an <img> tag. Unfortunately, when testing it, the image does get inserted into the box, however the whole site starts lagging really bad. The code is basically: in CreateController.js: // This object holds all the post info self.post = {}; in create-view.html: // This object holds all the post info <div id="summernote" summernote ng-model="Create.post.Content" config="Create.snOptions"> </div> (using CreateController as Create ) The lag comes from the base64 encoded image included in the self.post.Content, that is being updated with the ng-model two-way binding every time a letter is typed. I don't actually need the binding, it's perfectly ok for me to let the user type everything in and then click submit and process it, however I haven't found a way how to push the content of summernote into a method or into self.post.Content on submit of the form. I tried not using ng-model and just passing a jQuery selection in the submit button like <button type="submit" class="btn btn-success" ng-click="Create.send(angular.element("#summernote").html()">Send Report</button>` however this selection returns nothing, as there are some more complex DOM elements in the summernote directive (Creator's JSFiddle demo) Does anyone have any clue what I should do? Thanks!Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan believes a better working relationship with offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan has fueled the offense’s fast start this season. Ryan, who completed 28 or 37 passes for a franchise-record 503 yards in the 48-33 victory over Carolina on Sunday, has the Falcons off to a surprising 3-1 start. Ryan is ranked first in the NFL in passing touchdowns (11), completion percentage (72.1), passing yards (1,473) and passer rating (126.3). “I think in terms of personal, we got to know each other pretty well pretty quick,” Ryan said on Wednesday. “I think until you’ve gone through a season with people and you understand what works well for me and what works well for him, all of those kinds of things, until you’ve gone through it together and had your on-field stuff, you’re good stuff, you’re bad stuff...that was part of last year. “We did some good things. Some really good things. We had some success and then we had some things go not so well. I think in both of those situations you learn a lot about each other and you learn what’s best for us to have a winning, working relationship.” Shanahan has been flexible with Ryan. He’s most notably, running more no-huddle offense, which has been a strength of Ryan’s since his rookie season. “I think that’s what we worked hard on all this offseason,” Ryan said. “It hasn’t been hard. He’s been really flexible and has been really great to work with.” Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan discusses the win over the Panthers, the play of Julio Jones and the offense's long drives. Video by D. Orlando Ledbetter RYAN’S 18 FRANCHISE RECORDS • 34,230 - Most passing yards (career) • 4,719 - Most passing yards (season, ‘12) • 4,670 - Most passes attempted (career)• 3,016 - Most passes completed (career) • 651 - Most passes attempted (season, ‘13) • 503 - Most passing yards (single game, ‘14) • 439 - Most passes completed (season, ‘13) • 272 - Consecutive passes w/o an INT - ‘12 • 213 - Most passing touchdowns (career) • 155.9 - Highest passer rating (single game, ‘14) • 91.9 - Highest passer rating (career) • 87.5 - Highest completion pct. (single gm, ‘14) • 68.6 - Highest completion pct. (season, ‘12) • 64.46 - Highest completion pct. (career) • 32 - Most touchdown passes (season, ‘12) • 38 - Most 300-yard games (career) • 22 - Most consecutive completions (‘12) • 7 - Most 300-yard games (season, ‘12 &’13)History of Cascade Hops: Cascade is considered by many the quintessential American Hop and with good reason. It was the first hop to come out of the USDA hop breeding program and has become an essential hop addition in many American Pale Ales and most West Coast IPAs. The start of hop farming in Oregon stretches all the way back to the 1860’s, but there crops consisted entirely of bittering varieties and were largely made up of America’s oldest cultivated hop variety, Cluster. Even after the end of prohibition all flavor and aroma varieties were being imported from Europe. These varieties included Saaz, Tettnang, and Hallertauer Mittlefrueh. In an attempt to reinvigorate the American beer industry after prohibition the US government reestablished the USDA hop breeding program at Oregon State University. By 1935, Cluster made up 90% of Oregon’s 30,000 acres of land dedicated to growing hops. One of the main tasks of the breeding program was to maintain healthy crops. Not an easy task in the face of an ever-growing Downy Mildew blight that was ravaging the Cluster hop fields of Oregon. Cluster hops seemed especially susceptible to this disease. To combat it the program wanted to develop a hop that could stand up to Downy Mildew. They found it, when Dr. Stan Brooks allowed a hop variety of English Fuggle and Russian Serebrianker pedigree to be wind pollinated by an unknown male variety. This new variety was initially only known by its number designation USDA 56013 and was only one of many varieties being tested. The new variety showed promise. Along with its seemingly good resistance to Downy Mildew came a bonus similarity to the Hallertauer Mittlefrueh German aroma hop that was being so heavily imported by American breweries. In 1967, the USDA gave the go ahead to plant a small plot in Oregon. Growing this new hop was one thing but getting the American brewers to use it was quite another. The large macro breweries of the time circled and poked at the new hop like it was a strange recently discovered, possibly dangerous creature. They seemed to like it, but not enough to take the plunge and risk anything on it. That is until the late 1960’s when the noble hop fields of Germany were brought low by a disease of their own, Verticillium wilt. Import prices of noble hops shot up like an escaped jack-in-the-box and American macro brewers suddenly found themselves looking at all viable options. In 1972, USDA 56013, dubbed “Cascade” after the mountain range in Oregon, was released to the public. It found a somewhat “forced” champion in Adolph Coors, and the Coors Brewing Company. This big name brewery kept the Cascade from disappearing altogether. Doctor Haunold states in his article (which goes into fuller detail then I do here), just how close the breeding program came to scrapping the new hop; “We were at the end of our rope. We had tried everything to get brewers to experiment with Cascade. We were just going to toss out those 30 bales and send 56013 over to the germplasm library, where who knows whether anyone would’ve ever picked it up.” It turns out Cascade was a little too strong for the light beer Coors was brewing and they cut back on its use, but by this time the winds of change were stirring. America’s first craft brewers were about to take their first tentative steps toward revolution. Fritz Maytag, owner of Anchor Steam, noticed the new hop. He decided it was a perfect match for a beer that would celebrate the bicentennial of Paul Revere’s ride. He called it Liberty Ale. It would become what is considered the first post-Prohibition IPA and the first single-hopped American ale. And the doors for cascade hops were opened. Today there are also New Zealand, Argentinian, and Australian varieties of Cascade. In the U.S., the acreage dedicated to Cascade continues to grow. The 2013 BA Hop Survey shows it has the most acreage committed to it, at 5,330 acres in that year. This is a 65% increase from the year before! The Cascade is becoming a bigger and bigger player
for network packets After decoding the packet, we can see a breakdown of different fields. Figure 8 shows the initial packet sent by the client to the server. It is relatively empty aside from the “magic” bytes, length of data and type of communication. Figure 8. Initial packet sent by the client to the server (decoded) Depending on the command response sent from the server, a packet may be bigger than 0x52 bytes. Data beyond 0x52 bytes is zlib compressed then encrypted with AES in CBC mode with a null initialization vector (IV) and a key sent from the server that is padded to 32 bytes. We captured live traffic from the server, and observed that the encryption keys sent from the server are ephemeral. This means that each new session with the server is given a different key used to encrypt data sent back and forth within that session. This is a marked improvement compared to the previous version, where only XOR encoding with a one-byte key was used for encryption. After decoding the packet it receives from the server, the backdoor validates certain fields like the “magic” bytes and makes sure the length of the data being received is not over a certain amount. Throughout the program execution, it also checks and handles any errors that may have been generated. Command and Control Communications The command and control server communication sequence is as follows: The client initiates a session with the server by sending a packet with 0x2170272 in the command field. The server then responds with an ephemeral encryption key and a command. The client checks if the received packet from the server is valid. The client executes the command sent by the server and responds with a zlib compressed and AES encrypted blob of the result then sends this back to the server. Unlike the previous versions of OceanLotus where the commands can be easily gathered from its strings, the author has obfuscated the functions with constant values. We decoded the following available commands as seen in Figure 9. Command Command Description 0x2170272 Initialize 0x5CCA727??? 0x2E25992 receive file from server 0x2CD9070 get info on a file / directory 0x12B3629 delete file / directory 0x138E3E6??? 0x25D5082 execute function from a dynamic library 0x25360EA send file to server 0x17B1CC4??? 0x18320E0 send victim and computer information together with the backdoor’s watermark 0x1B25503 execute a function from a dynamic library 0x1532E65 execute a function from a dynamic library Figure 9. List of commands available Command 0x2170272 When the backdoor is launched, a file is created in /Library/Preferences/.files or ~/Library/Preferences/.files depending on the victim’s user ID. This file (see Figure 10) contains a timestamp and the victim’s name concatenated with the machine’s serial number which is then hashed twice with MD5. This is then copied to a buffer that is 0x110 bytes long and AES encrypted in CBC mode with a null IV and a key of “pth”. It is then saved into the file. Timestamp + MD5(MD5(<victim’s name + machine serial number>)) After this file is created, the client sends its first packet to the server with 0x2170272 in the command field. The server acknowledges and responds with the same command and the client verifies that the file has been created. \xa7\xf1\xd9*\x82\xc8\xd8\xfe4137674062B3226FE630C24F7DE1021E\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00 Figure 10. Decrypted contents of ~/Library/Preferences/.files Command 0x18320E0 The server then sends this command with an ephemeral key shortly after it sends the 0x2170272 command. The client gathers all the data seen in Figure 11, encrypts it with the key provided by the server and sends it back. One thing to note is the Base64 string that is sent in this packet. This string is static in the binary and does not change, which may be indicative of a marker for campaign or version identification. \x00\x00\x004137674062B3226FE630C24F7DE1021E\xe9\x0f\x00\x00\x00Mac OS X 10.X.X\xb6\x03\x00\x00 \x00username\t\x00\x00\x00localhost\x18\x00\x00\x00Ze0pXcpfbqbS4wD0eS/LVQ==\xb6\xbc\x1cY\x00\x00\x00\x00M\x00\x00\x00/Users/username/Library/OpenSSL/0000-ABCDEF01-23456789ABCDEF01-23456789/ servicessl\x8b\xbc\x1cY\x00\x00\x00\x00\x17\x00\x00\x00en0 : AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF[\x00\x00\x00lo0 : fe80::1 lo0 : 127.0.0.1 lo0 : ::1 en0 : fe80::aaaa:bbbb:cccc:111 en0 : 192.168.1.254 \x05\x01\x00\x00f\x00\x00\x00Model ID:iMac8,1 CPU:Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7700 @ 2.40GHz Memory:4.00 Serial No:XXXXXXXXXXX\x00\x00\x00\x00 Figure 11. Decrypted contents of a packet sent by the client to the server Not highlighted in Figure 11 but also included in this packet is the kernel boot time which may be used by the C2 server to help determine if the backdoor is being run in a sandbox environment. Commands 0x25D5082, 0x1B25503, 0x1532E65 These commands load a dynamic library using dlopen() and obtains a function pointer to execute within that shared library using dlsym(). Unfortunately, we do not know which dynamic libraries or functions are used for each command since these are server supplied and we were not able to capture any communication that used these commands. However, we can postulate that since the parameters to the functions have the same number of arguments with the first being a fairly large constant similar to the command constants, (see Figure 12) and the backdoor has a function for receiving files, it is possible that these functions correspond to a shared library that the server uploads to the victim host. This means that additional functionality can be added to this backdoor by loading modules directly from the C2 server. Figure 12. Snippets showing loaded function pointers and their parameters Conclusion Most macOS malware in the wild today are not very complex, but threat actors have been quickly improving their tradecraft. The increased level of sophistication and complexity may be indicative of increased targeting of macOS hosts looking to the future. With this OceanLotus attack in combination with recent macOS versions of the Sofacy group’s toolset, we have now observed multiple espionage motivated threat actors targeting macOS. It is imperative that the same types of strong security practices and policies organizations use to defend Windows devices are applied universally to include macOS devices as well. Apple has already updated the macOS protection systems to address this variant of OceanLotus. Palo Alto Networks customers are protected and may learn more via the following: Samples are classified as malicious by WildFire Domains and IPs have been classified as malicious and IPS signatures generated AutoFocus users may learn more via the OceanLotus tag Indicators of Compromise Hashes b33370167853330704945684c50ce0af6eb27838e1e3f88ea457d2c88a223d8b Noi dung chi tiet.zip b3cf3e3b52b4b899cd0814fc75698ea24f08ce18642665adcd3555a068b5c16d Info.plist 07154b7a45937f2f5a2cda5b701504b179d0304fc653edb2d0672f54796c35f7 Noi dung chi tiet 82502191c9484b04d685374f9879a0066069c49b8acae7a04b01d38d07e8eca0 PkgInfo f0c1b360c0b24b5450a79138650e6ee254afae6ce8f6c68da7d1f32f91582680.CFUserEncoding e84b5c5152d8edf1e814cc4b4975bfe4dc0063ef90294cc96b383f523042f783 info.icns C2 Server call[.]raidstore[.]org technology[.]macosevents[.]com press[.]infomapress[.]com 24h[.]centralstatus[.]net 93.115.38.178 Dropped FilesBefore turning our full attention to the playoffs, it's time to hand out regular-season grades for all 30 teams. Midseason grades, delivered in late January, are included for comparison's sake. Grades are determined by performance relative to preseason expectations and also take into account health-related issues, signings and trades made since the start of the season, as well as the impact of major offseason moves. Significant injuries to star players, especially those with multi-year implications, are also considered in the grading process. (All stats are through April 13; records and team stats are through the end of the season.) Index: Team grades Atlantic: Raptors, Celtics, Nets, Heat, 76ers, Knicks Central: Cavaliers, Bulls, Bucks, Pacers, Pistons Southeast: Hawks, Wizards, Heat, Hornets, Magic Northwest: Trail Blazers, Thunder, Jazz, Nuggets, Timberwolves Pacific: Warriors, Clippers, Suns, Lakers, Kings Southwest: Spurs, Rockets, Grizzlies, Mavericks, Pelicans Scott Cunningham/Getty Images Sport Record: 60-22 Midseason grade: A+ Off. Rating: 6 \| Def. Rating: 7 \| Net Rating: 4 At a glance: Atlanta is a fantastic example of quickly-inflated expectations totally warping perception. For the last month or so, the talk around the Hawks has largely been how they’ve “fallen off” a bit, and how the surging Cavaliers have moved past them to the top of the list of East contenders. • MORE NBA: Alternative awards \| Postseason primer \| Playoff questions While it’s true that the second-half Hawks haven’t quite matched their first-half performance, they’ve still been excellent. Consider: Atlanta’s 24-12 record since SI.com handed out midseason grades translates to a 54-win season, meaning that the Hawks would still be the East’s No. 1 seed if they had played at this “falling off” pace all season. Atlanta was not picked to be among the East’s best outfits last fall and it will conclude the season with something in the range of a 10-game cushion over the rest of the conference. Really, the only standard the Hawks haven’t met lately is the absurdly high bar they posted by rattling off 19 straight wins in December and January, and coach Mike Budenholzer has wisely chosen to rest his players down the stretch rather than stress for meaningless regular-season wins. Although All-Star Weekend saw four Hawks land on the East’s roster, the end-of-season awards won’t be treating the franchise as kindly. Budenholzer deserves serious Coach of the Year consideration, especially in light of the Danny Ferry scandal from last summer, but he has been outkicked by Warriors coach Steve Kerr down the stretch and likely won’t win the award. He’s also up for Executive of the Year, but his best roster move this year was “Welcoming Horford back from injury” rather than any particular signing or trade, which makes his case a tough sell. Paul Millsap (16.8 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 3 APG) and Al Horford (15.2 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 3.2 APG) deserve All-NBA consideration, but both could easily wind up getting snubbed. It’s not particularly easy to win 60 games and get totally shut out of the awards, but maybe that’s how the Hawks would prefer it. They’ve been at their best when they are overwhelming unsuspecting opponents, and the “favorites” label carries a heavy burden. Atlanta does face a number of questions as it enters the playoffs. Are Horford, Millsap and Jeff Teague ready to make the first deep run of their careers? Will the Hawks succeed in controlling the pace and style of play once the postseason hits, a la the 2014 Spurs, and will they stick to their guns late in close games? Will a strong defensive team, with the benefit of game-planning, find a way to muck up or throw off Atlanta’s machine-like attack? Will one of the East’s bigger teams find a way to exploit their relatively weak defensive rebounding, thereby forcing adjustments? Can they do something that no East team has done since 2010: topple LeBron James? Those questions will help set the terms for the 2015 playoffs, but they are all irrelevant in gauging Atlanta’s regular-season performance. The only possible grade here is A+. • MORE NBA: Meet the Hawks, the NBA's superstar less contenders Record: 40-42 Midseason grade: B- Off. Rating: 20 \| Def. Rating: 13 \| Net Rating: 18 At a glance: There aren’t many things that everyone in the NBA can agree on, but “Brad Stevens is doing a hell of a job” definitely falls on that list. Under Stevens, Boston has managed to climb into the East playoff picture by posting a top-10 point differential since the All-Star break, even though Rajon Rondo, Jeff Green, and Brandan Wright were all moved in midseason deals and the team’s one potential franchise player, rookie guard Marcus Smart, has been better known as “the guy who suffered a vicious ankle injury” and “the guy who pounded Matt Bonner’s privates into a pulp.” Celtics president Danny Ainge has been extraordinarily busy as he continues his multi-year rebuilding plan, and his recent run of moves looks good. He plucked Tyler Zeller (10.2 PPG, 5.7 RPG) from the Cavaliers last summer, he cashed out on Rondo and Green at the appropriate time for solid returns, he snagged Isaiah Thomas (19.5 PPG, 5.4 APG in Boston) from Phoenix at the deadline to bolster a backcourt that needed some punch, and he added a second-round pick by charging Doc Rivers a “father tax” to acquire Austin Rivers, among others. It’s difficult to be as active as Ainge without leaving yourself open to second-guessing, but his asset-accumulation vision is clear enough and his pile of future picks is getting deep enough that there’s really not much room to nitpick. The big “How do the Celtics get a star?” question still hangs, of course, but the groundwork is being laid methodically and logically. Unless the Celtics spring a monumental upset in the first round of the playoffs, observers would be wise to moderate their “little engine that could” celebrations. Yes, Stevens’ bunch has overachieved, but this is still a team that’s under-.500 and playing relevant games in April only because the East is composed of five real teams and 10 unfinished products. • MORE NBA: Brad Stevens empowering Celtics by the clipboard Record: 38-44 Midseason grade: D Off. Rating: 18 \| Def. Rating: 24 \| Net Rating: 22 At a glance: There’s that old movie premise of the absent parent, after years of no-shows, sheepishly coming around with an expensive gift for a child. The act invariably causes the audience to dismiss the present, roll its eyes, sigh, and ask that killer question: “Where were you when it mattered?” Brooklyn’s late push back into the bottom of the East’s playoff picture deserves exactly that type of skepticism. An outrageously expensive Nets roster that was constructed to “win now” just hasn’t been able to handle that task with any consistency. Brook Lopez’s recent string of Player of the Week awards and 20/9 production since the All-Star break is what Brooklyn was expecting all along when it signed him to a max rookie extension, but that level of play has been far from bankable. For a few years, my XBox was limping along OK, but I needed to use a knife or a screwdriver to pop open the CD tray because the eject button wouldn’t respond. Deron Williams (13.1 PPG, 6.6 APG) has that same dying XBox reliability, and he is liable to “red ring” two or three times during a seven-game series. Oft-injured centerpieces on eight-figure contracts stand as a great formula for perpetual disappointment. For every pleasant surprise (an uptick from Bojan Bogdanovic, Billy King actually winning a trade by getting Thaddeus Young), there are the persistent depressing realities: Williams is on the books for two more years, Joe Johnson is making gigantic money through next season, Lopez can opt out this summer and command another huge deal, Young will need to be paid this summer or next, and King is down roughly 932 draft picks thanks to deals that didn’t produce the expected postseason success. Brooklyn has been better since the midway point, but “better” is still just barely above.500 with a -2.5 point differential. • MORE NBA: Prokhorov says he has no plans to sell team Charlotte Hornets: D Record: 33-49 Midseason grade: C- Off. Rating: 28 \| Def. Rating: 9 \| Net Rating: 23 At a glance: The “buzz” associated with the return of the Hornets moniker gave way to a “zzz" pretty quickly this season. Kemba Walker (17.6 PPG, 5.2 APG) more or less mirrored his numbers from last year before a knee injury intervened, Al Jefferson (16.6 PPG, 8.4 RPG) failed to build off of his 2014 All-NBA season, and youngsters Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Cody Zeller both made clear progress but didn’t quite achieve breakout status. As a team, Charlotte took small steps backward on both offense (where they were really bad again) and defense (where they were very good, all things considered), resulting in yet another lottery trip rather than a much-anticipated return trip to the postseason. This regression makes it impossible to avoid turning Charlotte’s season into a referendum on the Lance Stephenson signing. It was Stephenson (8.2 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 3.9 APG) who was supposed to jolt the Hornets’ offense with his playmaking skills and seamlessly fit into coach Steve Clifford’s proven defensive schemes. Instead, Stephenson has been a reverse Midas: everything he touches turns to... well, you know. Stephenson had had a negative impact on both offense (he drops Charlotte from 99.9 to 94.3 when he’s on the court) and defense (he drops Charlotte from 100.2 to 101.8 when he’s on the court), his -5 Real Plus-Minus ranks 95thout of 100 shooting guards, and his 8.9 PER ranks 71st out of 80 players at his position. Most (un)impressive: Stephenson has made just 18 three-pointers this season, and his 17.1 three-point percentage is the worst ever recorded by a player with at least 100 three-point attempts in a season. (By comparison, Stephen Curry made more three-pointers in the first 12 days of the season than Stephenson has made all year.) No wonder Clifford has taken to benching Stephenson, telling the Charlotte Observer earlier this month: “I can’t find a group that plays well when he’s out there.” To read a less damning assessment, please refer to the warning label on the nearest bottle of rat poison. On the bright side, at least Hornets rookie P.J. Hairston was named SI.com’s Flopper of the Year. Charlotte is also on track to pick in the top 10 of this year’s draft, which should help ease owner Michael Jordan’s misery a bit. • MORE NBA: Can perimeter player win Defensive Player of the Year? Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images Sport Chicago Bulls: B Record: 50-32 Midseason grade: B+ Off. Rating: 10 \| Def. Rating: 11 \| Net Rating: 9 At a glance: The Bulls have regressed this season, but they could easily be a lot worse. Chicago was sitting pretty atop the Central Division at the midseason point before LeBron James kicked into gear, and both Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose went down with injuries. To no one’s surprise, Tom Thibodeau’s team has scrapped to avoid collapse, posting a 21-16 record since the midway point and putting the Bulls in position for home-court advantage in the first round. With Butler and Rose back, Chicago takes its place as the East’s top challenger to Cleveland and Atlanta. The Bulls have talent, size, toughness and depth, and they have enjoyed big contributions from a number of sources. Pau Gasol (18.5 PPG, 11.8 RPG, 2.7 APG) should be in the All-NBA mix, Butler (20 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 3.3 APG) is the favorite to win Most Improved Player, and Nikola Mirotic (10 PPG, 5 RPG) has drawn some Rookie of the Year talk. Lineups that include Rose, Butler and Gasol have posted a solid +4.3 net rating this season, and while that isn’t “blow your doors off” great, that combination should be enough to drive a first-round series victory and make a competitive second-round showing. Rose returning, rather than shutting it down, was huge, as Chicago has played significantly better with him (32-18 when he starts), even in his current form, than with his in-a-pinch replacements. Thibodeau’s Windy City future may be in doubt, according to reports. Regardless of what happens this summer, 2014-15 will go down as another Thibs-ian season. With players going down left and right, questions swirling about Thibodeau’s management of minutes, and championship hopes briefly raised, the Bulls have eventually arrived more or less at their anticipated destination. It’s been quite dramatic, to be sure, but only a first-round exit would turn this into a true disappointment. • MORE NBA: Rose still searching for defined role on Bulls Record: 53-29 Midseason grade: D+ Off. Rating: 4 \| Def. Rating: 20 \| Net Rating: 7 At a glance: This is one totally insane turnaround. Cleveland’s front office and ownership have taken their fair share of lumps over the last five years or so, but Cavaliers GM David Griffin deserves to be named 2015 Executive of the Year. At this time last season, we were busy chronicling Anthony Bennett’s atrocious rookie season, wondering whether Kyrie Irving had regressed, speculating about Dion Waiters’ whereabouts (remember when he literally just disappeared for a few days?) and counting down the days until coach Mike Brown got fired (again). Body language: LeBron James and David Blatt Greg Nelson for Sports Illustrated Harry How/Getty Images David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Gregory Shamus/Getty Images Tony Dejak/AP John W. McDonough for Sports Illustrated Brandon Wade/AP Christian Petersen/Getty Images Mike Lawrie/Getty Images David Richard/USA TODAY Sports Greg Nelson/SI Tony Dejak/AP Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images Jason Miller/Getty Images Mark Duncan/AP Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images Matthew Stockman/Getty Images 1 of 19 Advertisement Since then, the Cavaliers have added LeBron James and Kevin Love, resuscitated Irving’s game, somehow traded Waiters for a first-round pick (Griffin might be worth the Executive of the Year award for that alone), added key pieces in Timofey Mozgov, J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert, and resisted the urge to fire coach David Blatt after a rough start to the second James era in Cleveland. After four straight lottery trips, the Cavaliers will enter the postseason as the East’s No. 2 seed and the conference’s favorite to advance to the Finals. Even if James deserves a lion’s share of the credit, given his MVP-level play over the last few months and his orchestration or key role in many of the events, Griffin deserves the hardware. That’s true despite the fact that the decision to trade away Andrew Wiggins could lead to years of second-guessing. The Cavaliers possess the fourth-best winning percentage, third-best point differential and third-best offense since the All-Star break, and it’s hard to remember the last time so many moving parts fit together so quickly on the fly. The new go-to lineup of Irving/Smith/James/Love/Mozgov just wrecks opponents, posting a 115.7 offensive rating, 97.6 defensive rating and +18.1 net rating. Good luck to whomever draws Cleveland in the first round. You’re going to need it. • MORE NBA: Will Love leave the Cavaliers after one season? Record: 50-32 Midseason grade: B+ Off. Rating: 5 \| Def. Rating: 18 \| Net Rating: 8 At a glance: Perhaps the best illustration of the West’s strength is that Dallas added Tyson Chandler, Chandler Parsons and Rajon Rondo this season, retained Monta Ellis and Dirk Nowitzki, and managed to jump from the No. 8 seed… all the way to the No. 7 seed. Three well-received impact moves that produced—from a cold bottom-line standpoint—very little impact. That says more about the landscape than it does about the moves, as stealing Chandler from the Knicks was a no-brainer, adding Parsons was a defensible use of cap space to make the most of Nowitzki’s twilight, and trading for Rondo was a calculated gamble that hasn’t really paid off. Dallas has slipped after a strong start, and they’re in familiar territory: hoping to play first-round spoiler with little hope of making a deep playoff run. An offense that was torching everyone earlier in the season has cooled since the All-Star break, and Rondo’s 101.5 offensive rating in Dallas pales in comparison to his predecessor Jameer Nelson (112.4). While the Mavericks play better defense with Rondo on the court, the defense-for-offense exchange hasn’t worked out in their favor. Coupled with some serious late-season cooling from Ellis, Dallas has barely kept its head above.500 since midseason. If there’s one particularly frustrating aspect to the season, it’s that the last few months have almost raised more questions than they have answered. Is Ellis a player worth investing another contract, and multiple years in, given that he is 29? Does winning a free-agency bidding war for Rondo even qualify as a win? Is retaining Chandler truly the offseason’s top priority? Is it time to start thinking of Nowitzki as a player who is no longer totally defying his age? If the Mavericks go one-and-done in the playoffs, like last season, those questions will either remain unanswered or lead to another summer of sweeping changes. • MORE NBA: The overflowing legacy of Steve Nash Record: 30-52 Midseason grades: C Off. Rating: 21 \| Def. Rating: 26 \| Net Rating: 24 At a glance: The only thing worse than a bad team is a bad team whose front office doesn’t realize it. The Nuggets just suffered through their worst season since 2002-03, but the good news is that GM Tim Connelly and company are no longer in denial about the team’s direction or the capabilities of former coach Brian Shaw, who was mercifully canned in March and replaced by interim coach Melvin Hunt. The guy was rapping his pre-game instructions and reading books about millennials in an attempt to find ways to get through to his players. The NBA's Best "I Didn't Foul" Faces Jason Miller/Getty Images Jason Miller/Getty Images Nick Wass/AP Jamie Sabau/Getty Images Rich Pedroncelli/AP Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Rich Pedroncelli/AP Harry How/Getty Images Victor Decolongon/Getty Images Brandon Dill/AP Duane Burleson/AP Jim McIsaac/Getty Images Kathy Willens/AP Brandon Dill/AP Lynne Sladky/AP Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Gabe Souza/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images Chuck Burton/AP Alex Goodlett/Getty Images Tony Gutierrez/AP Ross D. Franklin/AP Sue Ogrocki/AP Sue Ogrocki/AP Andy Lyons/Getty Images Mark J. Terrill/AP Christian Petersen/Getty Images Don Ryan/AP Harry How/Getty Images Matt York/AP Lynne Sladky/AP Bob Leverone/AP Mark Duncan/AP Mike Lawrie/Getty Images Rich Pedroncelli/AP Ben Margot/AP Tony Gutierrez/AP Lynne Sladky/AP Eric Gay/AP Eric Gay/AP Hannah Foslien/Getty Images Mark J. Terrill/AP Kathy Kmonicek/AP Ronald Martinez/Getty Images Rick Bowmer/AP Stacy Revere/Getty Images Ann Heisenfelt/AP Mitchell Leff/Getty Images David Zalubowski/AP Rich Pedroncelli/AP David Zalubowski/AP Rich Pedroncelli/AP Joe Robbins/Getty Images Rich Pedroncelli/AP Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images Paul Sancya/AP Ethan Miller/Getty Images Jason DeCrow/AP Ralph Freso/AP Todd Kirkland/AP Chuck Burton/AP Paul Beaty/AP Elsa/Getty Images Stephen Dunn/Getty Images Andy Lyons/Getty Images Christian Petersen/Getty Images Dave Tulis/AP Patric Schneider/AP Stacy Revere/Getty Images Patrick Smith/Getty Images David Zalubowski/AP Matt Slocum/AP Michael Laughlin/Sun Sentinel/MCT via Getty Images Jason Miller/Getty Images Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Harry How/Getty Images Alex Goodlett/Getty Images Alex Goodlett/Getty Images Mitchell Leff/Getty Images David Zalubowski/AP Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Don Ryan/AP Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Rich Pedroncelli/AP Harry How/Getty Images Marta Iwanek/Toronto Star via Getty Images Mark J. Terrill/AP Brandon Wade/AP Darren Abate/AP Victor Decolongon/Getty Images Mark Humphrey/AP David Maxwell/Getty Images Mitchell Leff/Getty Images Darren Hauck/AP Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Alex Brandon/AP Harry How/Getty Images Hannah Foslien/AP Mitchell Leff/Getty Images Rich Pedroncelli/AP Lynne Sladky/AP Aaron Gash/AP 1 of 101 Advertisement Shaw’s departure came shortly after a cap-shrinking sell-off that saw Timofey Mozgov moved to Cleveland, JaVale McGee dumped on the Sixers, and Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee shipped to Portland. Denver badly needed to reduce its roster redundancies, open up minutes for its younger players, and acquire extra draft picks, and all of those things took place over the last few months. Clinging to past success is out; Starting anew is in. Squelching some of the long-term optimism that you might expect when a team turns the corner philosophically are lingering questions about the fit between its remaining big-dollar players and the apparent lack of developmental prospects with true upside. Speedy point guard Ty Lawson is who he is (15.4 PPG and 9.6 APG) and Danilo Gallinari has come on of late (18.7 PPG, 4.7 RPG since the All-Star break and a 47-point explosion last week), but Kenneth Faried (12.5 PPG, 8.5 RPG) appears to have stagnated and the other vets are all pretty pedestrian. Aside from 2014 first-round pick Jusuf Nurkic, the roster’s younger pieces don’t pack much punch just yet, either. Denver now finds itself with the same doubts about its top-level talent that it’s faced since George Karl was the coach. Couple that with serious depth concerns and you do not have a formula for success in the West. Tearing this thing down even further is the way to go this summer. • MORE NBA: Q&A with Nuggets legend Dikembe Mutombo Detroit Pistons: C Record: 32-50 Midseason grade: C+ Off. Rating: 17 \| Def. Rating: 21 \| Net Rating: 20 At a glance: Stan Van Gundy’s arrival didn’t immediately transform the Pistons' fortunes or snap the franchise’s lottery streak, but things are looking up in Detroit. While hopes of pushing into the postseason after a horrid start died when Brandon Jennings (15.4 PPG, 6.6 APG) went down with a season-ending Achilles injury, the Pistons still managed their best win total since 2009-10, and Van Gundy’s credibility helped eliminate some of the drama from previous seasons. This franchise isn’t far removed from an infamous player boycott, a never-ending cycle of coaches, and too many apathetic performances to count. However, Van Gundy appears to be making progress on the culture front, guiding the Pistons to their best defensive efficiency ranking since 2008-09. He also deftly handled the release of floor-shrinking forward Josh Smith, downplaying what could have been a circus, and he completed a trade deadline move for Reggie Jackson (17.4 PPG, 9.2 APG) that helped fill the void created by Jennings’ injury. More than anything, Van Gundy accomplished arguably his biggest goals by blowing up the jumbo trio of Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Smith, and by leading the first Pistons team to launch an above-average number of three-pointers since 2005-06. Detroit still need to fully turn the corner, but at least it isn’t failing in the same old predictable ways and shows signs of modernizing. The offseason sets up to be a doozy, as Detroit faces contract decisions on both Monroe and Jackson. If Drummond had enjoyed a monster breakout in his third season, perhaps that would have solved the Monroe question, but that didn’t really happen. Instead, Drummond’s production (13.7 PPG, 13.5 RPG, 1.9 BPG) mimicked last season's, forcing Van Gundy to consider whether it’s in his best interest to let Monroe’s talent walk out the door. As for Jackson, paying to keep him sets up the possibility of a long-term position battle with Jennings. It’s possible that Van Gundy views his two point guards as a problem for another day, or a good problem to have, given the rest of his talent-deficient roster. • MORE NBA: The Craft: The rise of Andre Drummond Golden State Warriors: A++ Record: 67-15 Midseason grade: A++ Off. Rating: 2 \| Def. Rating: 1 \| Net Rating: 1 At a glance: Yes, sticking with the second plus does look a little cheesy, but on what grounds can Golden State’s grade really be docked? To quickly recap, the Warriors have a shot at posting one of the NBA’s 10 best records and eight best point differentials of all time, they’ve blown away their previous franchise record of 59 wins, they’ve maintained an impeccable consistency across an 82-game season, they’ve been superb on both offense and defense, they've posted the league's best record at home and on the road, they’ve helped take the game in new strategic directions, and they’ve been the most entertaining squad to watch on a night-to-night basis all year. Golden State has strong candidates for MVP (Stephen Curry), Coach of the Year (Steve Kerr), Executive of the Year (Bob Myers), Defensive Player of the Year (Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut), Most Improved Player (Green and Klay Thompson) and Sixth Man of the Year (Marreese Speights and Andre Iguodala), All-NBA (Curry and Thompson), and All-Defensive (Green, Bogut and Thompson). As of this writing, Golden State actually has more wins by 20+ points than total losses. The Warriors are the only team that has had two different players (Curry and Thompson) top 50+ points in a game. This list of accomplishments can really
from the people inside the firewall, and therefore the systems inside can be more “relaxed” in their security. Unfortunately in the days of mobile computing, laptops can move from inside the protected firewall perimeter to the unprotected “wild west” of Starbucks (as an example) where people sipping lattes and “surfing the net” have their notebooks infected with viruses and Trojans that they bring back to the office. And these days, the attacks sometimes come from within the organization (where the firewall gives no protection), and not the outside. Other systems cannot hide behind firewalls, and are called “Bastion” systems. They are the systems that run your web-servers, email servers,and other “service” machines. These are the systems that have to be “absolutely (as much as possible) hardened.” Finally, constant monitoring of security lists, sites and rapid application of patches is key to system security. Having the source code for your system available means that you do not have to wait for your distribution vendor to supply you with the engineered, compiled and tested patch. You can make the decision of applying a fix yourself, depending on the criticality of the attack. Given the philosophies and issues above, I believe that the Free and Open Source Software space is the best base to allow your insecure systems to reach towards security, and that is what this blog is about. What this blog is NOT about is being an in-depth explanation of network security, nor how to block SPAM, nor to be the key-stroke-by-key-stroke cookbook of system security. Security is an art form as well as a science, and this blog entry cannot make you a Michelangelo in 3000 words. If I can show you here that your system is currently at the “finger painting” level and that with Free Software you can aspire to do “water colors,” “oil paints” and beyond, then I figure I have done a good job. Some day your work may be in the "museum of security fine art." History and the Architecture of Unix In 1969 Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie started developing the Unix operating system, “just for fun.” Whether or not Unix was intended to be a timesharing system in the first place, it quickly became a system that allowed for multiple people to share the system, with multiple processes for each person. This immediately set the design to be more robust and secure than a single-user system since the concept of stability and security had to be built in. Granted, in the early years of Bell Laboratories a lot of attention was not paid to password strength or security on a personal level, but over the years things like password aging, password strength enforcement and shadowed passwords were put into the system to keep improving the security. Unix was criticized for its early model of “superuser” versus “everyone else” in the way of running programs (particularly administrative programs), and the groupings of ownership for “owner,” “group” and “other” (i.e. everyone else in the world) having “read,” “write" and/or “execute” capabilities on the file. While this relatively simplistic, yet elegant permission structure worked well for a number of years, over time access control lists (ACLs) were enabled, allowing people to create classes of execution privileges and access to files and directories on a finer-grained level. As Unix escaped from Bell Labs and entered into the academic environment at universities, it came under the classic “trial by fire” as students tried to break into the system and developers tried to keep them out. Unix became the de facto operating system for serious computer science study, and therefore (in a lot of cases) for serious studies of computer security. The Architecture of Linux As I mentioned before, the architecture of Linux follows closely the architecture of the Unix systems. A relatively small monolithic kernel with libraries and utilities that add functionality to it. This alone adds security value, since it allows the end user to turn off a lot of services (both hosted and network services) that they do not need, and if left to run on the system would create more avenues and possibilities for attacks. For example, the average desktop system acts as a client for services, not as a server. Turning off these services means that other people across the network cannot attach to them. In the early days of Linux a lot of distributions would be distributed with the services turned on when you installed and booted them the first time. This was under the mistaken impression that having the services running would make them easier to administer, but security people quickly pointed out that having the services running at installation time (before needed patches could be applied) also left the systems, however briefly, open to attack. Now most, if not all, distributions install with these services turned off and you are instructed to turn them on at the proper time, hopefully after you have applied needed patches. Another example is the concept of removing compilers and other software development tools from the system, as these tools give system crackers more tools to exploit your system. Removing these tools means the cracker has to use other methods to break in. Added to this base functionality have been several FOSS packages over the years that have given Linux even greater security. The first is “PAM” or “Pluggable Authentication Modules.” In any system, “authentication” means that you have identified yourself in such a way that the system gives you access to services. As you log in with your username and your password you are being “authenticated” typically by the username and password in the /etc/passwd file by the login program. Likewise ftpd, and other “service” programs would authenticate you the same way. If you are networked, however, you may be authenticated by any number of methods, whether it be LDAP, DCE, Kerberos or even newer methods, and any number of programs might have to be changed to reflect the new method of authentication. PAM was provided to allow new methods of authentication to be applied to all the programs in the system that need authentication without having to change and integrate each new authentication method. Another authentication method previously mentioned was “Access Control Lists” or “ACLs”. An ACL grants “access” to a file or directory based on an extension of the traditional Unix permissions of “owner/group/other” and “rwx” mentioned above. Since ACLs are implemented as part of the filesystem structure, you have to make sure that your kernel has been built to support them, that the filesystem you are using supports them, and that the filesystem has been mounted with ACLs turned on. However, once that is done you may assign permissions to multiple users on an individual user basis, multiple groups on a group-by-group basis, and so forth. This would allow you to easily set up a group of operators who could start or stop an individual database engine or do backups, but could not shut the entire system down, as an example. Finally, you have to be aware that not all of the Linux utilities support ACLs. If you are copying files from one directory to another with the cp command you should use the -p (preserve) or the -a (archive) options on the command. Some of the stalwart “Unix” commands such as cpio, tar and others do not support ACL copying, and therefore the ACL information would be lost. Encrypted Filesystems Encrypting your data should be part of your security policy in a world of USB thumb-drives, portable drives and stolen laptops, and Linux allows you to encrypt individual files, filesystems, swap partitions and even filesystems held inside of single files. Some of these encryption methods also work with user-level filesystems, which means you can configure them while the system is up and running. Loop-AES uses a loop-back technique to allow the block device to do encryption without having to change anything in the kernel at all. Loop-back techniques are also useful for supporting filesystems being held in a single file, so this method can be used to create an encrypted filesystem that is contained in a single file on your machine. DM-Crypt uses the device-mapper functionality (also useful for software RAID, snapshotting and other features) of the kernel to encrypt filesystems. CryptoFS is a filesystem in user space (FUSE) that allows you to mount a filesystem over a directory, and then every file stored in that directory is encrypted, including the file name. When you unmount the filesystem, the files are encrypted and will not be de-encrypted until the filesystem is mounted again using the same key. There are even more methods of encrypting files and filesystems such as EncFS and Truecrypt. As an aside, recently a Microsoft Windows administrator I know booted a Live CD on one of their machines and was astonished that Linux could read and write the Microsoft Windows filesystems, even though he had set the directories as private under the Microsoft operating system. I explained to him that it was a different operating system and unless he encrypts all of the data in his filesystems, he should expect that anyone using a different operating system on his machine would be able to see, change and delete data in his Microsoft Windows filesystems. I did not “make his day” with that news.... SELinux In most of the authentication methods the access control is discretionary. The owner of the object (whether program or data) can change the permissions for other people and groups. Several years ago the National Security Agency (NSA) created a project to enforce Mandatory Access Control (MAC) inside the Linux Kernel. This project became known as “Security Enhanced Linux” or SELinux. MAC enforces the security policies that limit what a user or program can do, and what files, ports, devices and directories a program or user can access. SELinux has three modes: disabled, permissive and enforcing. In disabled mode nothing is done. This is so you can have your policies set up and ready to go, but do not necessarily wish to have them acted upon. Permissive mode logs violations to the policy to log files for you to inspect or otherwise monitor. Enforcing means that any violation of the security policy will terminate the offending process. SELinux uses about 5-10 percent of the system performance when in permissive or enforcing mode. Likewise SELinux can run in a “targeted” policy or a “strict” policy. Targeted means that the MAC controls only apply to certain processes. Strict means that the MAC controls apply to all processes. People should be warned that indiscriminate use of the strict policy of SELinux can render a system almost unusable for some users. There has to be a trade-off of keeping the system secure and allowing the users to do their work. It is argued that SELinux is “overkill” on a “single-user system” but with modern-day exploits and the power of “single-user systems,” we may find more and more applications of SELinux on a single-user desktop. AppArmor AppArmor is another system for Mandatory Access Control, but one that is based more on a program-by-program basis than SELinux and allows you to mix enforcing and permissive policies in the same system at the same time. Through its “profiles” for each program, AppArmor can limit what a program can do and what files it can access, write or execute. Some people feel that AppArmor is easier to configure and control than SELinux. Making Files “Immutable” If someone breaks into your system, they may change various control files, such as the passwd file. You can stop this by making the file “immutable.” When a file is “immutable” it cannot be changed, either by writing or deleting or renamed or hard links made, even by the “superuser.” The file first has to be changed back to have “normal” file permissions, and then it can be changed. The command used to make a file immutable and back to normal is chattr, and had syntax of this form: chattr +i <filename> Using the chattr command with an “a” instead of an “i” makes the file so it can only be appended. This is useful for log files, where you only want the system to add new information, not delete old information. Once the chattr command has been executed against a file, even root cannot change or delete that file until the file has been changed back with a “-i” or “-a”. Again, you have to check to make sure the filesystem you are using supports this functionality. Ext2 and Ext3 filesystems do support it. Logs Unix and Linux systems have log files. These are files that log different types of events, everything from process start up and ending to messages explicitly about your email server or your database engines. Most Unix and Linux systems have the ability to route various levels of information from “nice to know” to “critical” into a central repository. There the systems administrator can create filters and scripts to help them monitor these log files for activities that would indicate people breaking into the system. These log files, of course, should be protected using the chattr command mentioned above with the “-a” option. Intrusion Detection Systems There are various Intrusion Detection Systems available for Linux. SNORT (http://www.snort.org/) is one of them. SNORT uses a set of rules to determine how it should determine and escalate intrusions. Backups Despite all your work, time, sweat and tears, eventually your system will be compromised. That is when you have to figure out when it was compromised, how it was compromised and be ready to recover whatever was damaged without allowing other possible viruses and Trojans to remain on your system. With a lot of work, you may be able to use tools to sweep your system looking for these viruses and Trojans. Or you can re-install from the original CD-ROM or known good ISO image and all of its associated patches. A final way is to have a really good system-level backup of all of the system work that you have done and periodically update that backup to make sure you have captured all the security patches that have occurred since the last one. If you can determine accurately when you were compromised, you might be able to restore the system from one of those system-level backups. Otherwise you may have to go back to installing from the distributed code. Summary I am sure that a lot of security professionals will look at this blog entry and say “really elementary.” Other people might look at some of these features and say “how can I possibly keep up with knowing all of these policies and commands on a system as complex as Unix or Linux?” The answer is that you probably cannot keep up with all of these considerations on every system and that is where your security policies come into play. Make each system as secure as it has to be for its particular job and for the information stored on it, and allowing that you still have to get work done. Besides studying the resources listed below, you should also look at the website for your specific distribution. Because there are many overlapping ways to do file encryption, compiling a kernel, and securing a system, your distribution may have developed a general security architecture that would compliment your policies and make trying to be more secure a lot easier. Resources There are many good books on both general computer security and security on Linux in specific. I found these two to be very good: “Hardening Linux,” by James Turnbull (Apress, 2005) “Linux Server Security,” by Michael D. Bauer (O'Reilly, 2005) In addition, there are web sites: http://www.linux-sec.net/ http://www.linuxsecurity.com/ http://www.bastille-unix.org/ http://tldp.orgAnton Balazh/Shutterstock India is racing forward. With nearly 1.3 billion people and a steady growth rate, it is expected to become the world's most populous nation within a generation. Its gross domestic product more than tripled between 2000 and 2013, and its economy ranks third in the world in terms of purchasing power, behind only China and the United States. India's scientific production has also surged, with the number of published papers quadrupling over the same period. But the country has far to go before it earns the status of a scientific superpower. By almost every metric — spending, number of researchers and quality of publications — India underperforms relative to developed nations and the ascendant economies to which it is most often compared, such as China and Brazil. This week, Nature takes an unvarnished look at the challenges and opportunities for scientists in India. An infographic (page 142) assesses the country's strengths and weaknesses by comparing its research and development landscape with those of comparable countries. A News Feature (page 144) probes beneath the numbers, examining Indian successes in space, biotechnology and energy, as well as exploring bureaucracy, underfunding and other obstacles to higher education and scientific research. Scientists have high hopes that Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan, the new secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, can help to drive change in biomedical research. He is profiled on page 148. Ten Indian research leaders offer their suggestions for how to build their country's scientific capacity — from better funding, facilities, education and mentoring to fairer recruiting, more autonomy and a focus on local problems (page 151). Cheap and clean power will be key, say energy specialists Arunabha Ghosh and Karthik Ganesan (page 156). Only by tackling such basic issues can India hope to catch up with other rapidly advancing nations.Last week came the news that Colorado’s legal cannabis industry topped $1 billion in sales in the first 10 months of the year. While anyone familiar with the trends expected a breakthrough this year, the industry’s early surpassing of that lofty mile-marker presents plenty of cause for reflection. We bring it up because next year a new top cop will take the helm under President-elect Donald Trump, and there is some cause for worry should he be confirmed by the Senate. Trump’s pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, is anti-cannabis. From once joking that he thought members of the Ku Klux Klan were OK until he learned some of them smoked pot, to saying in April that “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” Sessions believes weed is dangerous and shouldn’t be legal. He is critical of the Obama administration’s relatively hands-off approach toward states whose voters approved the drug. Should an Attorney General Sessions decide to flout the rights of states that have undertaken the cannabis experiment, and return the agency to aggressive enforcement of federal marijuana laws, he could easily start arresting growers, retailers and users. But would he really want to do that? We offer some reasons for the future Trump administration to not only maintain the current president’s kindness, but to see the advantages for hard-working American people who benefit from legal pot. Given Election Day victories for medical and recreational pot in eight states, more than half the states in the U.S. have now approved sales and use of medical marijuana, and 65 million people live in states that green-lighted recreational sales. Colorado’s current haul helps fuel national estimated sales of $7.4 billion in 2016. Now that California voters have followed our lead, it’s possible that another $6.5 billion could be added to national tallies from the Golden State alone by 2020. The legal cannabis industry is the fastest-growing sector in Colorado, and it employed more than 18,000 direct and related full-time workers in 2015. For a president-elect looking to create and keep good jobs in the United States, a crackdown on this burgeoning industry would seem a poor move indeed. It’s just math. To keep several hundred manufacturing jobs in Indiana, Trump had to cajole a major U.S. company and the state had to offer millions of dollars in tax breaks. Guess what? Colorado’s cannabis industry, as in other states, isn’t outsourcing overseas and makes its money without government subsidies or tax breaks. Meanwhile, the industry is dumping significant tax and sin tax revenue into the state’s coffers. Colorado’s experience has shown that legal sales of cannabis can be accomplished with plenty of regulatory oversight and without the horror-story outcomes of a strung-out populace. In fact, voters in Denver — the world’s largest legal cannabis market — just said “yes” again to the experiment by giving the thumbs-up to a pilot program that allows businesses to offer pot use to their customers. Clearly no reefer-madness backlash here. Sessions hasn’t signaled what he would do regarding pot enforcement as attorney general. Perhaps he already sees the benefit. But conservatives should get it in writing, stand up for states’ rights and allow the success of this new industry to continue. To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.I got a super-cool set of mini-panniers for the front of my bike, with a phone case on top--which is especially awesome since I was just researching phone holders for when I am on long rides! And my Santa did his homework and knew that I have two dogs who are the world to me, one of whom is a bit of a troubled teen on walks. He included a great kong tug toy, an Easy Walk harness to stop Darwin from pulling (which I'll be trying out tonight), and a squeaky blue frog (also named Darwin). Both my dogs love the toys. I've attached a few photos and a video (actually, i can't see the video so hopefully it will show up...) Thanks to my awesome Santa!!An Indian-American media body today said it will hold a startup competition in next month, winners of which would be invited to the US to make business pitch before American investors. Any startup located in is eligible to enter the competition by submitting a business plan and finalists will present their business plans briefly at the inaugural US- Startup Forum in on September 1 and in on September 3 before a panel of judges, entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders and the general audience. The competition, part of the multi-city US-India Startup Forums and being organised by The American Bazaar, joins Prime Minister Modi's Startup India initiative. The winners will be invited to the US to make their pitches before American investors. "American investors continue to be intrigued by the energy and the robustness of the Indian startup echo system. The bilateral commercial relations today are a two-way traffic," Asif Ismail, publisher of the media outlet, said in a press release. "By hosting the startup competition and the Forums, The American Bazaar wants to be the bridge between the US investor community and the Indian startup community." "India has all the ingredients to create a stable and sustainable stream of next-Gen entrepreneurs," said Prashanth "PV" Boccasam, a General Partner at the Bethesda, Maryland- based Novak Biddle and one of the investors attending the Forums. Eugene Flood Jr., the Managing Partner of Next Sector Capital, which is based in Durham, North Carolina, said "Indian startups offer two attractions" to his firm. "First, many of the problems or opportunities in the health, natural resources, energy areas require cutting edge technology. India has a deep bench of human resources steeped in science and engineering," he said. "Additionally, language and cultural issues working with Next Sector's management team will be fully manageable. Second, the markets in India are obviously, large and growing, so the opportunities to address issues in the "impact" space are numerous," he added. India's start-up landscape is very different, and in many ways more exciting, than the start-up landscape in developed markets, said Richard M Rossow, Wadhwani Chair in US India Policy Studies at CSIS. "I think of Indian start-ups in two broad categories, and both require a very different eye for potential investors. One group is creating products and services geared towards the high-end of the Indian market," he said, adding this group will be fairly recognisable to American investors. "The other group is creating products and services that tap in to requirements in India, shaped by their home country's unique needs and environment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)news A Queensland Liberal MP who has been described as a “Malcolm Turnbull lieutenant” and a long-time critic of Labor’s popular National Broadband Network has made a number of inaccurate statements in Federal Parliament about the project, claiming it could be matched by 4G and 5G mobile networks without spending “some $90 billion of taxpayers’ money”. Steve Ciobo, who has held the seat of Moncrief in Queensland since 2001, was previously the tourism, arts, youth and sports spokesperson for the Opposition, but was demoted to the backbench in September 2010 by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. At the time, a columnist for The Australia, Peter Van Onselen, speculated that Ciobo was “a Malcolm Turnbull lieutenant”. He is currently Parliamentary Secretary to Treasurer Joe Hockey. Ciobo has been a long-time critic of Labor’s NBN project, but has not always gotten his facts right with regard to the project. In June 2013, for example, the MP wrote a controversial letter to his constituents making a number of false claims about the project, including the false claim that the Coalition’s version could be completed “six years earlier”. Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday this week, Ciobo made a number of inaccurate allegations about Labor’s NBN policy. “We remember the NBN because originally it was going to be about an $8 billion exercise to provide high-speed broadband. Then that was scaled up to being about $14 billion or $15 billion and then we saw projections of $29 billion,” Ciobo said. Ciobo added: “We understand, when you look at the costs of Labor’s rollout — how slow it was, how many targets were missed, how many inefficiencies were built into the system, how many disputes there were with contractors — that we saw the actual cost of Labor’s NBN rollout forecast to reach over $90 billion. I see in recent media reports that Telstra on their 4G wireless communications network are providing speeds of — you guessed it — 100 gigabytes.” Labor MP and former Telstra employee Tim Watts interjected to Ciobo’s speech, stating: “You’re rewriting the laws of physics!” In addition, a member of the Coalition also corrected Ciobo, claiming that the correct term was “megabytes”. However, what appeared to be a different member of the Coalition was then forced to correct that initial correction, noting, correctly, that the appropriate term for measuring broadband speed was ‘megabits’. “I have not rewritten the laws of physics at all, actually,” Ciobo continued. “The reality is that, when it comes to commercially viable opportunities, there are download speeds the private sector provides on wireless communications today that are comparable with what Labor wanted to do with over $90 billion of taxpayers’ funds. So we see forecasts as well that predict under 4G and possibly the 5G network that is currently in the R&D stage download speeds of up to one gigabyte and not at a cost of some $90 billion of taxpayers’ funds. This is just another example of the way in which Labor was recklessly spending people’s money.” In actual fact, Labor’s initial NBN project was costed at $4.3 billion in November 2007 for a national Fibre to the Node-style rollout, and then increased to $43 billion when it was expanded in April 2009 to a technically superior Fibre to the Premises build. In December, NBN Co’s Strategic Review produced under the Coalition estimated that Labor’s version of the NBN could be completed for about $54 billion — only $15 billion more than the Coalition’s technically inferior version. Both versions are slated to make a financial return for the Government, however — meaning that neither would ultimately cost the Government anything. Ciobo’s claim that 4G and 5G mobile broadband networks could provide an alternative to the fixed optic-fibre networks utilised under either version of the NBN has some basis in truth. Technology vendor Samsung, for instance, has already tested 5G mobile speeds of up to 1Gbps in its home country of Korea, demonstrating similar peak speed capabilities to those possible on Labor’s FTTP-based NBN policy. Similar trials are underway in Japan, and in Australia, Telstra has tested 4G speeds up to 300Mbps. In Australia, the 4G mobile networks of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone already deliver speeds comparable at least to ADSL broadband. However, these speeds are also contingent on several factors. Mobile networks are a ‘shared’ medium, meaning that not all users connected to a mobile tower would be able to achieve those speeds, and the more connections take place, the slower the speeds will be. In addition, these speeds are expected to be severely limited in commercial usage by the limited availability of wireless spectrum, which is already constraining the growth of 4G networks in Australia. It is universally accepted in the global telecommunications industry that future telecommunications needs can only be served by a combination of both fixed and wireless networks, with fixed networks taking most of the bandwidth load and wireless networks providing mobility where needed — for example, to smartphones and tablets. In the same session of Parliament, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull was also active. Turnbull broadly attacked the previous Labor Government’s stewardship of its NBN project, which he described as “utterly catastrophic”. Turnbull repeated several inaccurate claims which the Liberal MP has repeatedly also made in public over the past several weeks. “If Labor had been allowed to continue the project on their plans, Australians would have had to pay up to 80 per cent more of the already high prices in order to pay for what would have been a $73 billion project—$30 billion more than they told Australians it would cost,” he said. Unfortunately, there is little evidence for Turnbull’s claims, as detailed in NBN Co’s Strategic Review, and based on NBN Co’s wholesale pricing model, which is fixed for a certain time and then linked to inflation. It appears that Shadow Deputy Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Member for Perth Alannah MacTiernan tried to interject and correct Turnbull. However, the Speaker did not allow the interjections. opinion/analysis Wow, haven’t seen the “wireless will kill the NBN” claim for a while. Quite amusing that Ciobo attempted to roll that one out. I imagine Tim Watts must have had a chuckle to himself about that. Image credit: Athmitchell, Creative CommonsNEWARK, N.J. – Two New York men were arrested today for allegedly forcing employees to work for them at a Halal chicken slaughterhouse in Middlesex County, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Mohammad Abdul Wahid, 54, of Queens, New York, and Mohammed Iqbal Kabir, 42, of Bronx, New York, are charged by complaint with one count each of conspiracy to commit forced labor (human trafficking); conspiracy to harbor undocumented persons for financial gain; and violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. The defendants appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Dickson in Newark federal court and both were released on $75,000 unsecured bond each, with home confinement and electronic monitoring. “The Department of Justice is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to seek justice on behalf of vulnerable victims of human trafficking,” Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division, said. “The Civil Rights Division commends the District of New Jersey, as one of our six Phase II Anti-Trafficking Coordination Teams (ACTeam), for its leadership on the front lines of shared efforts to hold human traffickers accountable.” “This is precisely the kind of case the ACTeams were designed to investigate and prosecute,” U.S. Attorney Fishman said. “The criminal complaint against these defendants describes conduct that is as inhumane as it is illegal. By bringing to bear the resources of multiple law enforcement agencies with expertise on human trafficking, we can work more effectively to combat these kinds of crimes.” According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court: From July 2011 through January 2016, Wahid owned and operated a Halal chicken slaughterhouse business in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The business operated pursuant to Halal practices, which meant that the live poultry was slaughtered by Muslim individuals. The poultry would then be cleaned and prepared for sale by other employees. During the time that the facility was operational, Wahid and Kabir allegedly employed undocumented persons. The employees were paid approximately $290 a week in cash and would typically work 70 to 100 hours a week, working six or seven days a week. The employees were not paid more if they worked more hours, nor were they given overtime pay. The employees lived in a boarding house in front of the business, for which Wahid allegedly deducted $40 a week from the employees’ pay checks. The boarding house did not have heat or hot water and was infested with insects. The defendants also employed two Muslim individuals to slaughter the chickens and forced them to continue working at the slaughterhouse. When these two victims complained about the hours they were working and the conditions of the facility (no gloves, masks or proper soap), the defendants allegedly threatened to call the police. The victims were afraid of being arrested and deported and they continued to work until health inspectors closed the business. The human trafficking charge with which the defendants are charged carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The harboring undocumented persons for financial gain carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act carry a maximum of six months in jail and a fine of $10,000. This case was developed through the efforts of the New Jersey Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam). The District of New Jersey is one of six federal districts designated through a competitive, nationwide selection process as a Phase II ACTeam, through the interagency ACTeam Initiative of the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Labor. ACTeams focus on developing high-impact human trafficking investigations and prosecutions involving forced labor, international sex trafficking and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion through interagency collaboration among federal prosecutors and federal investigative agencies. This case was developed through the collaborative interagency efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, IRS, and Department of Agriculture, with the assistance of the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith Williams of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Narcotics/OCDETF Unit in Newark. AUSA Williams also serves as the U.S. Attorney’s Human Trafficking coordinator for the District of New Jersey. U.S. Attorney Fishman credited the Department of Homeland Security, New Jersey Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Terence S. Opiola; the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, New York Region, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael Mikulka; the FBI, New Jersey Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Timothy Gallagher; the Department of Labor, Wage and Hour, New Jersey division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Charlene Rachor; the U.S. Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division, Northern New Jersey, under the direction of Director John Warner; IRS-Criminal Investigation, New Jersey Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Jonathan D. Larsen; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge William Squires Jr., with the investigation leading to today’s charges. The charges and allegations contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendants are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty. Defense counsel: Wahid: Mohammed Gangat Esq., New York Kabir: Carol Gillen Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, NewarkAccording to the Washington Post, new FBI Director James Comey is struggling with an FBI budget shortfall as a result of the sequester (even though the FBI budget more than doubled since 2001). Since we just finished Unleashed and Unaccountable, a detailed examination of the transformation of the FBI since 9/11, we thought we'd offer the new director a few ideas about programs that deserve to get the axe, because they're ineffective, undermine innocent Americans' privacy and civil liberties, or simply offend American values. 1. The FBI's racial and ethnic mapping program The motto on the Seal of the United States is "E Plurbis Unum," or "Out of many, one," but that's not how the FBI sees it. The FBI uses intelligence authorities provided in the Attorney General's Guidelines to collect racial and ethnic demographic data so it can identify and map racial and ethnic neighborhoods and "facilities." It also tracks what it calls racial and ethnic "behaviors," but it is fighting our Freedom of Information Act request s to see what these "behaviors" were, and how it has used its mapping authorities. The FBI identifies these racial and ethnic communities so they can target them for future investigation and intelligence collection, as it said in a press release, "[j]ust as putting push pins on a map will allow a local police chief to see clearly where the highest crime areas are." Only these aren't crimes the FBI is mapping, but innocent Americans targeted solely because of the color of their skin color, their national origin, or their religion. This program is antithetical to American values or equal justice and the FBI director should end it today. 2. Domain Management programs Racial mapping is only one intelligence program the FBI runs under the Orwellian moniker of "Domain Management." The FBI directs its special agents in charge at its field offices not just to enforce the law and protect national security in their territories, but to " Know Your Domain." Former FBI Director Robert Mueller said knowing their domain means "understanding every inch of a given community – its geography, its populations, its economies and its vulnerabilities." There's no problem with a domestic intelligence agency knowing the geography and economies of a given area, but the FBI has no business gathering intelligence information about innocent Americans. And based on FBI documents obtained through FOIA, that's exactly what it is doing. The ACLU found FBI intelligence agents in San Francisco mimicked FBI community outreach programs to gather information about the First Amendment-protected activities of community groups, which they often labeled " positive intelligence " and disseminated outside the FBI. Last year the ACLU called on the Justice Department Inspector General to investigate the FBI for Privacy Act violations resulting from this program, as have 22 members of Congress, but there is no indication the inspector general has started such an investigation. Director Comey should end this program. 3. Assessments Domain Management is only one type of intelligence collection platform the FBI has created to collect information on innocent Americans. In December 2008, as the Bush administration was walking out the door, it made sweeping modifications to the Attorney General's Guidelines for FBI domestic operations that gave FBI agents the power to open intrusive investigations called "assessments" against individuals and groups without any reason to believe they were breaking the law or threatened national security. Rather than suspend these drastic changes when it came into power the following month, incoming Attorney General Eric Holder said during his confirmation hearings that he wanted " to see how these guidelines work in operation." In the two years from March of 2009 to March 2011, the FBI opened more than 82,000 of these assessments of people and groups without a factual basis to suspect wrongdoing. Only 3,315 of these assessments found
towards formal independence and said it would defend its sovereignty. Tsai, who takes office on May 20, must decide whether to let the Dalai Lama in and risk riling China at a time when tensions in the region have already been raised over rival claims to the vital waterways of the South China Sea. The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Communist rule. China has accused him of being a separatist, but the monk says he only wants genuine autonomy for his Himalayan homeland. Tsai could try and seek a compromise, the sources said, by convincing Beijing to keep dialogue open, rather than stonewalling her, in exchange for allowing the Dalai Lama into Taiwan but not meeting him one-on-one. The DPP said in a statement it was not aware of an invitation for the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan. The Dalai Lama’s office in India, where he lives in exile, said: “His Holiness the Dalai Lama has no plans to visit Taiwan at the present time”. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment. The Dalai Lama congratulated Tsai on her “remarkable” victory, according to www.dalailama.com. “It is indeed encouraging to see how firmly rooted democracy has become in Taiwan,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “It is a model and source of inspiration to those who aspire (to) freedom and accountable leadership.” Beijing and Taipei have been diplomatic and military rivals since their split in 1949 after the Nationalists lost the Chinese civil war and fled to Taiwan. But trade, investment and tourism have blossomed during outgoing Ma’s eight-year rule.In Bangladesh, soil fertility has always been an important issue. This holds true now more than ever, with farmers around the country using fertilisers or chemicals that are potentially harmful for the soil. To counter this, Grameen Intel Social Business Ltd (GISBL) introduced mrittikā, a soil test based fertiliser recommendation software three years back. In Khunla and Jessore they have been implementing the project with Solidaridad Network Asia. The project has been implemented so far in 40 locations in Bangladesh. GISBL has also been implementing this software in India and Cambodia to improve paddy production. Right after its early stages, a pilot project was initiated to test mrittikā on a limited number of crops, including tomato, cauliflower and brinjal. Mrittikā works by identifying the current status of major soil nutrients and then accordingly suggesting the optimum amount of fertiliser and the type of fertiliser that should be used by the farmer. It does not end there; the software also identifies the amount by which fertiliser use can be reduced, thereby helping to optimise the whole process and contributing to healthier soils. To test the effectiveness of mrittikā, demo plots were used where fertilisers were used in three ways: as recommended by Grameen Intel's mrittikā app; as per the recommendations of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) handbook; and in accordance to traditional practice. One decimal of land was allotted for each of the methods. The three methods were used to measure the various outcomes and see where mrittikā stands in terms of efficiency. Once the crops were planted, it was time to monitor them; this was done by farmers, field organisers, technical officers and programme officers of the project. The outcome of the monitoring and evaluation exhibited the impact the mrittikā app can have: it showed higher yields than the BARI handbook and traditional methods, and showed that with mrittikā's fertiliser recommendations, fertiliser costs were also much lower. For instance, in the case of brinjal crops, the fertiliser cost in accordance to mrittikā recommendations were 29% lower than the BARI handbook method and an astonishing 468% lower than the traditional method. These are very significant differences, which is a clear indication of how much the whole process can be optimised while saving huge costs (almost over 400%) over traditional farming practices. With Bangladesh's growing population and high food demands needing to be met, it is essential to maximise all our outputs as well as protect our environment in order to keep growing more and more crops. Mrittikā is not only educating farmers on the ideal method of growing crops and the type and amount of fertiliser that ought to be used, it is helping us reduce a large amount of the costs to make farming processes more efficient and cheap at the same time. The mrittikā app is a very easy-to-implement system and a great initiative for Bangladesh and her farmers, helping them obtain a higher yield per taka spent on fertiliser. If implemented right all over Bangladesh, it is not only great for soil health around the country, but it will also allow farmers to achieve better standards of living and help fight the food shortage in Bangladesh.The USMNT coach has been criticised for overlooking MLS and playing stars out of position – but two wins against Guatemala would keep the cynics at bay When Sporting Kansas City midfielder Benny Feilhaber publicly criticized US national team coach Jürgen Klinsmann for not calling him up, it was remarkable for two reasons. The first is that players don’t normally air those kinds of grievances so bluntly for the world to hear. The second is that many American fans agreed with him – if not about Feilhaber specifically, then about Klinsmann’s roster selection. “I don’t think that Jürgen calls in the best players that are available to him,” Feilhaber said earlier this year. “That, for me, is a problem.” After a difficult 2015 that saw the Americans crash out of the Gold Cup and fail to qualify for the Confederations Cup, a growing segment of fans and media raised concerns that Klinsmann’s roster selection has played a role in recent struggles. But is it fair for outsiders to make that judgment? “He’s our national team coach – he has a vision of how he wants to play and how he goes about his business,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes told the Guardian. “At the end of the day, everybody can have an opinion if they want, but he’s the one who’s got the picture in his mind of how he wants to play and if a player doesn’t fit that mode, that’s his prerogative. “At the same time, he has to live and die by his results in making those decisions.” Roster selection The results, at least looking back to last year, haven’t been very convincing, and the national team’s struggles have only emboldened Klinsmann’s detractors. Klinsmann, who has been labeled by some critics as anti-MLS, hasn’t called up MLS players who would fill key needs for the team, some say. Now, he faces a crucial double-header on Friday and Tuesday – home-and-away World Cup qualifying against Guatemala and a last chance for his Under-23s to qualify for Rio. It’s a sure bet that pundits will be ready to amplify the longstanding roster selection argument if those tests don’t go well. But there may be a counter-argument: building a roster is just not that simple. National team coaches have a restricted player pool and a lot of ever-changing factors outside their ability to manage, like injuries, club form and chemistry. Roster selection may be as much an art as it is a science. Seattle Sounders coach Sigi Schmid, who served as assistant national team coach under Bora Milutinović during the 1994 World Cup, said the national team is like any other workplace: some colleagues work better together than others and coaches have the difficult task of managing that on top of the other complicated factors at play. “What the good coaches are able to do is find combinations that work well with each other and fit together,” Schmid told the Guardian. “So sometimes it not always about picking the best players, it’s about picking key players and combinations that complement those key players.” Feilhaber is not the first player to feel snubbed by the national team, and he won’t be the last. But as an older central midfielder, of which Klinsmann has plenty, he may not be the best player to make a larger point about Klinsmann’s roster selection. But there are others for the Klinsmann critics who are looking. The young center-back pairing of John Brooks and Ventura Alvarado looked woefully inadequate at last year’s Gold Cup and both return to the roster to face Guatemala on Friday – yet there are MLS defenders Klinsmann could call upon but hasn’t. One of them often cited, including by Feilhaber, is Matt Hedges, the 25-year-old center-back and finalist for 2015 MLS defender of the year. Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Brooks (centre) has struggled alongside Ventura Alvarado. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images As Klinsmann doesn’t call in new players for high-need positions, he instead opts to use the players he already has for those positions. The result has been a constant rotation of players in various roles that has been blamed for poor team chemistry and uncertainty from each player about his duties. “There is the continued practice of putting players in positions they don’t play regularly or if they do, they don’t look comfortable,” Fox Sports analyst Alexi Lalas told the Guardian. “He talks about getting players out of their comfort zone, and I can respect that can be beneficial at times. But I also recognize that it can be beneficial for the development of a team to put players in positions where they can succeed.” There is no part of the pitch that has seen more unrest recently than the back line. In one of his more heavily criticized decisions, Klinsmann has attempted multiple times to use midfielder Jermaine Jones as a center-back. The experiments failed and detractors of Klinsmann say it shows he isn’t willing to call in worthwhile MLS players, like Hedges. “Just pick a back four and go with it,” Lalas added. “Recognize that they are going to make mistakes, but they will have the benefit of the consistency in playing together. Instead we see a constant rotation of players and not just that, players who don’t even play defense going back there. It drives me nuts sometimes.” Taking accountability It’s not just that Klinsmann has a habit of playing his men out of position, but his unwillingness to accept responsibility when his decisions don’t pan out. The most apparent example came against Brazil last year, when Klinsmann threw winger Alejandro Bedoya into a defensive midfield role he had never played before. Klinsmann yanked Bedoya after 36 minutes in a non-injury substitution – a move that should be tantamount to an admission of a coaching mistake – but Klinsmann’s explanation seemed to put the blame on his player. “Alejandro had a little bit of a problem getting into his rhythm, into his game,” Klinsmann said. “There’s only so much time you can give him.” That was after a disastrous Gold Cup that saw the worst US finish in 15 years. There, Klinsmann also played several players out of position throughout the tournament and the US struggled in the final rounds against Jamaica and Panama, opponents widely considerable beatable any day for the Americans. Some players were pushed into less common but familiar roles, like Tim Ream and Brad Evans, who both had been regularly playing as center-backs for their clubs but Klinsmann slotted as full-backs to make room for Brooks and Alvarado. But others played in positions they almost never play, like Alfredo Morales, who is normally a central midfielder and sometimes plays on the right but was deployed on the left wing, and Gyasi Zardes, who moved all throughout the midfield over the tournament. The team looked out of sorts, but Klinsmann seemed to blame the refereeing, even as he insisted otherwise. “I am not blaming the referees, but I’m just telling you, the referees had a huge influence on the outcome of the Gold Cup,” Klinsmann said. “This was a Gold Cup settled by decisions that were very, very questionable.” The incidents fit into a larger pattern where Klinsmann seemed unable accept any accountability for the national team’s shortcomings or acknowledge the work he needs to do as coach. “The accountability thing is something that has always rubbed people the wrong way,” ESPN analyst Taylor Twellman told the Guardian. “But why, I have no idea, because I don’t think Jürgen Klinsmann is the first coach who has never publicly had accountability. I find the criticisms of Klinsmann at times not very consistent with other coaches.” Whatever it was, the way Klinsmann’s comments were coming across to not just the media but soccer fans was apparently enough for US Soccer president Sunil Gulati to address it with Klinsmann directly. Asked about Klinsmann’s tendency to deflect responsibility, Gulati told reporters: “Noticed and discussed. Everyone has their own style. In the end, he’s the coach, but we’ve talked about some of those issues, for sure.” For Klinsmann, how his comments have been interpreted may be a public relations problem more than anything to do with his coaching ability or his roster selection. But the best possible public relations move for Klinsmann is turning the national team around and winning in a key year of contests that will also include Copa America. With high-stakes games over the next week, Klinsmann has ample opportunity to make everyone forget last year’s failures. As is always the case, Klinsmann is in control.Mr. Mnuchin, bespectacled and crisply formal in his slim-cut business suits, is more reserved and careful than Mr. Cohn. A quick study on economic policy matters, he talks frequently about his level of access to the president and the strength of their relationship, making it clear to members of Congress as well as tax lobbyists that he has Mr. Trump’s ear and is speaking for him on the tax plan. Mr. Mnuchin has been deferential to lawmakers, indulging House Republicans for weeks in talks about their idea of imposing a 20 percent border adjustment tax even after it became clear that the idea did not have enough support to be included in the plan. “Gary is pretty direct — he’s come to the whip team meeting and he’s probably less politically correct, and I use that in a loving way,” said Representative Pat Tiberi, Republican of Ohio and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. “The secretary is more correct. They complement one another.” Early in their respective roles on Trump’s team, the two appeared to be jockeying for position in what one person who observed the dynamics described as an “unholy alliance.” During the transition, Mr. Mnuchin made a surprise visit to Mr. Cohn’s job interview with Mr. Trump, greeting Mr. Cohn in the 26th-floor lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan to escort him to the president-elect. In meetings early this year before Mr. Mnuchin was confirmed, Mr. Cohn told key lawmakers that he would be leading the tax effort for the administration as the chief architect of Mr. Trump’s economic policies, according to several people familiar with the conversations who spoke about them on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Mnuchin appeared “zen” when he learned of the meetings, said one person who was aware of the tension, assuring staff members that Mr. Cohn, whose job does not require Senate confirmation, was doing the right thing. “They are working together,” Mr. Moore said of Mr. Cohn and Mr. Mnuchin. “But there’s no question they’re competitors.”Their differences extend beyond style or policy. After the racially charged violence at a neo-Nazi and white supremacist march this month in Charlottesville, Va., the two men, both of whom are Jewish, had vastly different reactions to the president’s equivocating response. Mr. Cohn condemned the administration’s approach in a newspaper interview, letting it be known that he considered resigning over the issue, while Mr. Mnuchin vigorously defended Mr. Trump, saying he never dreamed of quitting. Mr. Cohn and Mr. Mnuchin declined to be interviewed for this story. Aides to both deny any ill will or any attempt at one-upsmanship, describing any friction as a result of stylistic differences. And the two men have been virtually inseparable while working on the tax rewrite, talking at least once a day, dining together more than once a month at such popular Washington spots as Rasika and the Trump International Hotel, and keeping a singular focus on achieving the biggest tax cut possible in line with Mr. Trump’s desires. Mr. Cohn was invited to Mr. Mnuchin’s recent wedding to the actress Louise Linton, said a person who was aware of the invitation, although he did not attend.Previous AKH Set Reviews Limited: Constructed: Let’s take a look at the grading scale, with the usual caveat that what I write about the card is more relevant, as there are many factors that aren’t reflected in a card’s grade. Ratings Scale The ratings scale is slightly different as well: 5.0: Multi-format all-star. (Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Tarmogoyf. Snapcaster Mage.) 4.0: Format staple. (Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy. Collected Company. Remand.) 3.5: Good in multiple archetypes and formats, but not a staple. (Jace Beleren. Radiant Flames. Shambling Vent.) 3.0: Archetype staple. (Jace, Architect of Thought. Zulaport Cutthroat. Explosive Vegetation.) 2.5: Role-player in some decks, but not quite a staple. (Jace, Memory Adept. Anticipate. Transgress the Mind.) 2.0: Niche card. Sideboard or currently unknown archetype. (Jace, the Living Guildpact. Naturalize. Duress.) Bear in mind that many cards fall into this category, although an explanation is obviously important. 1.0: It has seen play once. (One with Nothing). (I believe it was tech vs. Owling Mine, although fairly suspicious tech at that.) Ahn-Crop Crasher Constructed: 2.5 Adding 3 power to the board while getting their best blocker out of the way is a swing that I can get behind. Red-based aggro has languished recently (I’m not counting Mardu Vehicles in that category), and Ahn-Crop Crasher is the kind of card that can help bring it back. Blazing Volley Constructed: 2.0 This is pure sideboard material, and dubious ammunition at that. Bloodlust Inciter Constructed: 2.0 This is probably going a little too deep, but a 1-drop that can give your bigger creatures haste could be kind of sweet. You need to find a deck that wants 1/1s and has big enough creatures that the haste part is relevant, which is a tall order. Bloodrage Brawler Constructed: 2.5 The stats here are substantial, and Bloodrage Brawler can deliver quite the beatdown. Discarding a card is a high cost, but an all-in red deck can live with that, especially given that this doesn’t make you discard when it’s the last card in your hand. By Force Constructed: 2.0 Barring the emergence of an Affinity-style deck, this is worse than Release the Gremlins, but it’s worth mentioning. Cartouche of Zeal Constructed: 2.0 This may be a little too all-in for my tastes, but it does add a lot of power while removing a blocker, and thus receives a tentative rating. Combat Celebrant Constructed: 2.0 Getting a 4/1 for 3 mana isn’t worth celebrating, but getting to relentlessly assault the opponent can add up to a ton of damage. This seems like a bit of a win-more, but I can respect any creature that threatens 7+ damage on its first attack. Consuming Fervor Constructed: 2.0 Red is just chock-full of suspect aggro cards in this set, isn’t it? Like Cartouche of Zeal and the rest, this seems not quite good enough, but adds enough power to the board that it’s got to be in the conversation. “All terrible cards that deal damage” is a strategy that’s worked before, and card advantage doesn’t matter when your opponent is dead. Deem Worthy Constructed: 2.0 As with the other cards in this cycle, New Perspectives makes Deem Worthy a bit more interesting. It’s a little too expensive otherwise, even as a 2-for-1. Desert Cerodon Constructed: 2.5 Modern Living End may replace Monstrous Carabid with this, as a 6/5 is pretty large, and losing the ability to cycle for a black mana may be worth the upgrade. Flameblade Adept Constructed: 2.0 Prowess fits into burn decks a lot better than discard/cycling bonuses, but this could be part of a Noose Constrictor/Shadow of the Grave deck. Playing this as purely a threat doesn’t interest me quite as much as making a combo deck with it. Glorious End Constructed: 2.5 This is an interesting one. I don’t have it rated highly, but there’s a lot to talk about. First of all, how does it look to play Glorious End straight up? It counters a sweeper against control, and can be cast on upkeep so they miss their draw and land drop. It’s vulnerable to instant-speed removal that can prevent you from winning on your turn, and takes a very specific set of circumstances where an extra turn (though with their creatures untapped) is enough to win you the game. I’m medium on Glorious End by itself, though could see it out of the sideboard in hyper-aggro red decks if control decks have a specific inflection point where they sweep the board or make a big sorcery-speed play. Getting around the drawback is the other way to approach Glorious End. In Standard, Gideon of the Trials makes an emblem that prevents you from losing, and in Modern, Angel’s Grace does the same. That’s intriguing, especially in decks that would already play those cards (W/R Aggro in Standard and Ad Nauseam in Modern). It’s got potential, and the final fortune of Glorious End likely depends on how well this interaction plays out. Glorybringer Constructed: 4.0 This dominated in the day after the first ban announcement and before the second one, but the glory days will last much longer for this particular Dragon. A 4/4 haste flyer for 5 is already kind of a beater, and eating a creature immediately is huge upside. This munches on most creatures in the format, can attack planeswalkers, and does so at reasonable cost. If you plan on paying 3+ mana for a creature, it needs to interact well against Glorybringer, or you are going to find yourself far behind once turn 5 rolls around. Ishkanah looks like a good candidate, and Archangel Avacyn plays nicely against Glorybringer as well. I expect to see tons of Glorybringers, and even if this is a victim of its own success, it’s still going to be a staple of the format. Harsh Mentor Constructed: 3.0 I’m not in love with the idea of Modern Burn getting more tools, but here we are. This punishes a variety of decks and cards (taste it, fetchlands), and does so at a cheap cost. I prefer my Mentors to be of the Monastery variety, but I anticipate facing Harsh Mentor often enough. This could also be a solid sideboard card against combo decks that rely on activated abilities. Hazoret the Fervent Constructed: 3.0 Despite an unfortunately-titled Invocation (Invocation Hazoret is definitely on a list somewhere), this is a solid threat in aggressive red decks. It can even discard additional copies, though it strikes me as a 1- or 2-of more than a card you want 3-4 copies of. If your deck is low-curve enough, Hazoret is a huge threat that’s hard to remove, and offers non-combat reach as well. I like that combination of abilities, and they make Hazoret a legit way to close out games. Heart-Piercer Manticore Constructed: 2.5 Heart-Piercer Manticore is beefy enough to not feel embarrassing to cast, and has embalm, making it a 2-for-1 by itself. What it needs to be good enough for Constructed is to have good creatures to throw, and that’s the deck-building cost you must pay. That seems doable, especially with other embalm creatures or creatures with death triggers, and even something as simple as high-power creatures can be used to finish the opponent off. Magma Spray Constructed: 3.5 Magma Spray is quietly one of the most impactful cards in the set for Standard. That’s not a huge shock, since the interaction with Scrapheap Scrounger is an obvious and relevant one, but it does put control decks back on the map. It’s especially convenient that there’s no longer a need to Shock Saheeli Rai, so Magma Spray should be a 3- or 4-of in any red-based control deck like U/R, for example. Soul-Scar Mage Constructed: 2.0 Monastery Slowspear trades a relevant ability for one that seems highly dubious. This might see play as a 1/2 prowess for 1, but I’m not holding my breath. Sweltering Suns Constructed: 3.0 An efficient sweeper that cycles when it isn’t needed is exactly what control decks are looking for. Sweltering Suns is going to be strong, and I expect to see 1-2 show up in every red control deck. Trial of Zeal Constructed: 2.0 If there is somehow a Cartouche deck, maybe this works as a recurring source of damage. It really needed to cost 2 to be awesome, and I don’t think it’s going to get there at 3. Insult // Injury Constructed: 2.0 While this is a powerful card, it’s pricey. If there’s a deck relying on damage prevention, Insult can get around that strategy (cards like Fog come to mind). Casting both halves in the same turn is a beating, but at 6 mana you are asking a lot for Constructed. Top 5 Red Cards 5. Hazoret the Fervent 4. Sweltering Suns 3. Harsh Mentor 2. Magma Spray 1. Glorybringer Red really did it this time. Glorybringer is just a house, and Magma Spray adds a new dynamic to the format. Harsh Mentor even throws older formats a bone, and both Hazoret and Sweltering Suns are going to see a good amount of play.Comment: Donald Trump appears bent on unpicking the globalist cooperation that made a climate change accord possible. Can the world’s other powers band together to stop him? By Gwynne Taraska and Andrew Light The United States has long considered itself a great power – a country with economic, military, and diplomatic strength that plays a prominent role in confronting global challenges. To date, however, the Trump administration has signalled it may be willing to retreat from the global challenge of climate change and walk away from one of the most important international agreements of the past 25 years: the Paris Agreement on climate change. President Donald Trump claimed during his campaign that he would “cancel” the agreement. More recently, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley made extremely careful – and ultimately non-committal – statements during their confirmation hearings about whether they support continued US participation. Although other nations remain dedicated to implementing the Paris Agreement, a withdrawal by the US – the world’s second largest greenhouse gas polluter – would erode the efficacy of the pact. World leaders can help prevent this outcome if they strongly convey to the Trump administration that climate change is a central concern and that US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would cast the US as an untrustworthy partner and would severely and unnecessarily compromise US foreign policy priorities. Understandably, it may be difficult for leaders to deliver this message one-on-one given the high stakes involved in so many other difficult issues. When asked whether she would bring up the Paris Agreement during her recent visit to the US, UK prime minister Theresa May demurred that she hoped “all parties would continue to ensure that the climate change agreement be put into practice”. On Monday, the topic of climate change showed up nowhere in the joint statement between President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – and it was not mentioned once in the leaders’ joint press conference. There is power, however, in numbers. The meetings of the G20 – a forum of the world’s most powerful economies – present some of the best opportunities for countries to collectively press the US to stay in the Paris Agreement. They also present some of the best opportunities for countries to communicate to the new administration that climate action is in the economic and security interests of all nations and that there are significant economic opportunities to be found in the global pivot toward non-polluting energy. It is opportune that Germany holds the presidency of the G20 in 2017. Building on her successful G7 meeting in 2015, which focused in part on climate and national security, Chancellor Angela Merkel has positioned the G20 to adopt climate change as a priority. The three overarching objectives of the G20 summit this July are fostering economic stability; making the global economy viable for the future, including through climate and development goals; and establishing the G20 as a “community of responsibility.” Limiting greenhouse gas pollution and building resilience to the effects of climate change are necessary to achieving each of these objectives. There are many ways that the G20 could advance the global climate effort in 2017. The forum could make further progress on the topic of fossil fuel subsidy reform, which it has addressed since 2009; it could promote the adoption of climate risk disclosure guidelines for businesses; and it could work to expand access to climate risk insurance. It could also do more to steer development finance toward low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure. Fossil fuels subsidies ‘jeopardising climate deal’, say major investors https://t.co/yvJBGlCJYk pic.twitter.com/IIyvir5wJw — Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) February 15, 2017 Most centrally, however, the G20 could strongly reaffirm the commitment of the largest greenhouse gas polluters to the Paris Agreement. The groundwork for setting this agenda could begin at the end of this week, when the G20 foreign ministers, including Tillerson, meet in Bonn. If G20 countries confirm their participation in the Paris Agreement, they would have broad support from the American people. President Trump does not have a mandate for an anti-climate crusade. Approximately 70% of registered US voters, for example, support US engagement in the Paris Agreement. Nearly 80% support domestic regulation or taxing of greenhouse gas pollution. In the early days of the Trump presidency, it is essential for world leaders to make apparent their dedication to the global climate effort. This is now a critical feature of what it means to be a great power. The new US administration should have full information about the priorities of its allies as it formulates its foreign policy positions. Gwynne Taraska is the associate director of energy policy at the Centre for American Progress. Andrew Light, a former senior climate official in the US Department of State, is a university professor at George Mason University.It has been said that the Grateful Dead never really stuck the landing when playing watershed concerts: Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Egypt, all were, at the time, considered lackluster performances. Yet, in retrospect, there were enough diamonds in the rough from the series of Egypt shows to warrant a release. Last time we visited Rockin’ The Cradle was with Candyman, but this time the spotlight shift to Looks Like Rain. It seems that Strange Occurrences in the Desert abounded during the Egypt trip. This selection is in a similar vein to the recent I Need A Miracle selection in that it sees Garcia pushing for more but ultimately denied. The music speaks for itself, for better or for worse, so give it a listen and let me know what you think. How does Garcia get his guitar to sounds like water? Even the noodly notes in the beginning of this song seem to have that quality to them. Phil’s bass is very articulate here. Donna joins Weir singing mid verse, but that’s ok. Her vocal stylings are always welcome on this tune and she’s in fine form. After the “street cats making love” line you can hear someone meow on stage. I never noticed that before! Haha! That’s hilarious. Jerry’s guitar shimmers as he runs up and down the fretboard. He slows his pace a bit during his bonafide solo, adding a bit of distortion to the mix all while dancing around the melody. As he brings it down Keith jumps on his coattails and injects a couple of concise runs of his own to the mix. I can’t decide if Phil is disinterested in playing Looks Like Rain or if his is just being very deliberate. Granted the song benefits from being able to breathe, but Phil just doesn’t seem like himself. Perhaps it’s just me? The vocal jam between Bob and Donna goes on a for a while and finally takes off. It seems that Jerry doesn’t want the song to end as he start hitting it hard right as the song ends. His efforts are slightly rewarded and he’s able to draw out a few more measures before bringing the song to its final destination. Complete Setlist 9/16/78 Previous Looks Like Rain DFAY SelectionsA pilot from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Pakistan's national carrier, is being investigated for potentially putting the lives of more than 305 passengers at risk by allegedly allowing a trainee pilot to fly the aircraft soon after take-off while he reportedly took a nap in a passenger seat last month, according to a passenger on board the flight. Captain Amir Akhtar Hashmi was reported to be operating London-bound flight PK-785 from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, on April 26 along with first officer pilot Ali Hassan Yazdani, and another first officer - Mohammad Asad Ali - who was being trained by Mr Hashmi, according to Dawn, the Pakistani daily newspaper. During the flight, Mr Hashmi allegedly left Mr Ali in control of the plane while Mr Yazdani was in the observer’s seat of the cockpit. The captain reportedly then went over to a business class seat where he put a blanket over himself and went to sleep. Mr Hashmi has denied that he slept during the flight: "It is a wrong allegation that I took a two-and-a-half hour sleep during the flight. I did not sleep during the said flight," he told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency. The captain allegedly left a trainee pilot in control of the plane in the cockpit (not pictured) while he took a nap Credit: Getty The captain also claimed that it is normal practice for a pilot to take naps during long flights in the presence of co-pilots, according to PTI. The incident allegedly would have gone unnoticed had it not caught the attention of a flier who saw Mr Hashmi sleeping in a passenger’s seat in full uniform. After realising who Mr Hashmi was, the concerned passenger was said to have made a complaint and a senior air hostess was reportedly forced to make note of the incident in her flight log. Lives of over 305 passengers put at risk; investigation underway https://t.co/BVymkefnx5 pic.twitter.com/yR4WuXal37 — Dawn.com (@dawn_com) May 7, 2017 “Passenger (Seat 1 D) complained that while the captain was sleeping in business class cabin, I (the passenger) do not feel safe. It had been explained that two other crew members were in the cockpit but he said that he would follow the matter and write down a complaint card as well,” senior air hostess Nazneen Haider stated in her report. Mr Hashmi was taken off flight duty with an investigation under way, PIA spokesperson Danyal Gilani told Dawn, who did not disclose any further details regarding the incident. Both first officers allegedly did not report the incident to management in a bid to protect Mr Hashmi, who is paid Rs100,000 (around £735) a month to train pilots and is the former president of the Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association (PALPA). The airline allegedly delayed launching an investigation but eventually gave in to “pressure from above” among ministry officials in the capital. It is unclear whether both first officers as well as Ms Haider would also be investigated for the alleged incident and whether the first officers have also been or will be taken off flying duty. The latest incident isn’t the first time Mr Hashmi has allegedly compromised passengers’ safety during a flight. During his time as president of the PALPA, the pilot allegedly operated many long-haul transatlantic flights without resting for the prescribed duration of time before the journey, Dawn reports. Both PIA and the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) have yet to respond to Telegraph Travel’s request for a comment on the latest allegations, including whether there will be any actions taken against Mr Hashmi, his co-pilots and the senior air hostess for the alleged safety breaches made and whether any measures will be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future. Telegraph Travel has also asked both PIA and PCAA about what pilots and cabin crew are required to do during such incidents, and what amount of time pilots are required to rest before operating a flight, but have yet to receive a response from either company. Earlier this year, PIA was also investigated for breaching safety regulations by allegedly allowing seven people to travel while standing on a flight from Karachi to Medina, Saudi Arabia in January. The situation would have posed a serious risk to passengers as those standing would not have had access to oxygen masks in the case of an in-flight emergency and would have contributed to overcrowding on the plane in the case of an emergency evacuation.The aunt of a drowned Syrian toddler who became a haunting symbol of the country's refugee crisis will be sharing her story in a forthcoming book. Tima Kurdi's memoir The Boy on the Beach: A Syrian Family's Story of Love, Loss, and Hope During the Global Refugee Crisis will be published by Simon & Schuster Canada in the spring of 2018. The heartbreaking photo of young Alan Kurdi's lifeless body lying face down on a Turkish beach received worldwide attention in September 2015 and generated outrage over the plight of refugees fleeing war-ravaged Syria. Tima Kurdi, who is based in Coquitlam, B.C., was thrust into the media spotlight and
el’s old department, a platform to investigate the sort of “sloppy science” and misconduct that very department had been condemned for. Hartgerink joined the group in 2013. “For many people, certainly for me, Stapel launched an existential crisis in science,” he said. After Stapel’s fraud was exposed, Hartgerink struggled to find “what could be trusted” in his chosen field. He began to notice how easy it was for scientists to subjectively interpret data – or manipulate it. For a brief time he considered abandoning a future in research and joining the police. There are probably several very famous papers that have fake data, and very famous people who have done it Van Assen, who Hartgerink met through a statistics course, helped put him on another path. Hartgerink learned that a growing number of scientists in every field were coming to agree that the most urgent task for their profession was to establish what results and methods could still be trusted – and that many of these people had begun to investigate the unpredictable human factors that, knowingly or not, knocked science off its course. What was more, he could be a part of it. Van Assen offered Hartgerink a place in his yet-unnamed research group. All of the current projects were on errors or general bias, but Van Assen proposed they go out and work closer to the fringes, developing methods that could detect fake data in published scientific literature. “I’m not normally an expressive person,” Hartgerink told me. “But I said: ‘Hell, yes. Let’s do that.’” Hartgerink and Van Assen believe not only that most scientific fraud goes undetected, but that the true rate of misconduct is far higher than 2%. “We cannot trust self reports,” Van Assen told me. “If you ask people, ‘At the conference, did you cheat on your fiancee?’ – people will very likely not admit this.” Uri Simonsohn, a psychology professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who gained notoriety as a “data vigilante” for exposing two serious cases of fraud in his field in 2012, believes that as much as 5% of all published research contains fraudulent data. “It’s not only in the periphery, it’s not only in the journals people don’t read,” he told me. “There are probably several very famous papers that have fake data, and very famous people who have done it.” But as long as it remains undiscovered, there is a tendency for scientists to dismiss fraud in favour of more widely documented – and less seedy – issues. Even Arturo Casadevall, an American microbiologist who has published extensively on the rate, distribution, and detection of fraud in science, told me that despite his personal interest in the topic, my time would be better served investigating the broader issues driving the replication crisis. Fraud, he said, was “probably a relatively minor problem in terms of the overall level of science”. This way of thinking goes back at least as far as scientists have been grappling with high-profile cases of misconduct. In 1983, Peter Medawar, the British immunologist and Nobel laureate, wrote in the London Review of Books: “The number of dishonest scientists cannot, of course, be known, but even if they were common enough to justify scary talk of ‘tips of icebergs’, they have not been so numerous as to prevent science’s having become the most successful enterprise (in terms of the fulfilment of declared ambitions) that human beings have ever engaged upon.” From this perspective, as long as science continues doing what it does well – as long as genes are sequenced and chemicals classified and diseases reliably identified and treated – then fraud will remain a minor concern. But while this may be true in the long run, it may also be dangerously complacent. Furthermore, scientific misconduct can cause serious harm, as, for instance, in the case of patients treated by Paolo Macchiarini, a doctor at Karolinska Institute in Sweden who allegedly misrepresented the effectiveness of an experimental surgical procedure he had developed. Macchiarini is currently being investigated by a Swedish prosecutor after several of the patients who received the procedure later died. Even in the more mundane business of day-to-day research, scientists are constantly building on past work, relying on its solidity to underpin their own theories. If misconduct really is as widespread as Hartgerink and Van Assen think, then false results are strewn across scientific literature, like unexploded mines that threaten any new structure built over them. At the very least, if science is truly invested in its ideal of self-correction, it seems essential to know the extent of the problem. But there is little motivation within the scientific community to ramp up efforts to detect fraud. Part of this has to do with the way the field is organised. Science isn’t a traditional hierarchy, but a loose confederation of research groups, institutions, and professional organisations. Universities are clearly central to the scientific enterprise, but they are not in the business of evaluating scientific results, and as long as fraud doesn’t become public they have little incentive to go after it. There is also the questionable perception, although widespread in the scientific community, that there are already measures in place that preclude fraud. When Gore and his fellow congressmen held their hearings 35 years ago, witnesses routinely insisted that science had a variety of self-correcting mechanisms, such as peer-review and replication. But, as the science journalists William Broad and Nicholas Wade pointed out at the time, the vast majority of cases of fraud are actually exposed by whistleblowers, and that holds true to this day. And so the enormous task of keeping science honest is left to individual scientists in the hope that they will police themselves, and each other. “Not only is it not sustainable,” said Simonsohn, “it doesn’t even work. You only catch the most obvious fakers, and only a small share of them.” There is also the problem of relying on whistleblowers, who face the thankless and emotionally draining prospect of accusing their own colleagues of fraud. (“It’s like saying someone is a paedophile,” one of the students at Tilburg told me.) Neither Simonsohn nor any of the Tilburg whistleblowers I interviewed said they would come forward again. “There is no way we as a field can deal with fraud like this,” the student said. “There has to be a better way.” In the winter of 2013, soon after Hartgerink began working with Van Assen, they began to investigate another social psychology researcher who they noticed was reporting suspiciously large effect sizes, one of the “tells” that doomed Stapel. When they requested that the researcher provide additional data to verify her results, she stalled – claiming that she was undergoing treatment for stomach cancer. Months later, she informed them that she had deleted all the data in question. But instead of contacting the researcher’s co-authors for copies of the data, or digging deeper into her previous work, they opted to let it go. They had been thoroughly stonewalled, and they knew that trying to prosecute individual cases of fraud – the “pitbull” approach that Van Assen had taken when investigating Stapel – would never expose more than a handful of dishonest scientists. What they needed was a way to analyse vast quantities of data in search of signs of manipulation or error, which could then be flagged for public inspection without necessarily accusing the individual scientists of deliberate misconduct. After all, putting a fence around a minefield has many of the same benefits as clearing it, with none of the tricky business of digging up the mines. As Van Assen had earlier argued in a letter to the journal Nature, the traditional approach to investigating other scientists was needlessly fraught – since it combined the messy task of proving that a researcher had intended to commit fraud with a much simpler technical problem: whether the data underlying their results was valid. The two issues, he argued, could be separated. Scientists can commit fraud in a multitude of ways. In 1974, the American immunologist William Summerlin famously tried to pass a patch of skin on a mouse darkened with permanent marker pen as a successful interspecies skin-graft. But most instances are more mundane: the majority of fraud cases in recent years have emerged from scientists either falsifying images – deliberately mislabelling scans and micrographs – or fabricating or altering their recorded data. And scientists have used statistical tests to scrutinise each other’s data since at least the 1930s, when Ronald Fisher, the father of biostatistics, used a basic chi-squared test to suggest that Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, had cherrypicked some of his data. In 2014, Hartgerink and Van Assen started to sort through the variety of tests used in ad-hoc investigations of fraud in order to determine which were powerful and versatile enough to reliably detect statistical anomalies across a wide range of fields. After narrowing down a promising arsenal of tests, they hit a tougher problem. To prove that their methods work, Hartgerink and Van Assen have to show they can reliably distinguish false from real data. But research misconduct is relatively uncharted territory. Only a handful of cases come to light each year – a dismally small sample size – so it’s hard to get an idea of what constitutes “normal” fake data, what its features and particular quirks are. Hartgerink devised a workaround, challenging other academics to produce simple fake datasets, a sort of game to see if they could come up with data that looked real enough to fool the statistical tests, with an Amazon gift card as a prize. By 2015, the Meta-Research group had expanded to seven researchers, and Hartgerink was helping his colleagues with a separate error-detection project that would become Statcheck. He was pleased with the study that Michèle Nuitjen published that autumn, which used Statcheck to show that something like half of all published psychology papers appeared to contain calculation errors, but as he tinkered with the program and the database of psychology papers they had assembled, he found himself increasingly uneasy about what he saw as the closed and secretive culture of science. When scientists publish papers in journals, they release only the data they wish to share. Critical evaluation of the results by other scientists – peer review – takes place in secret and the discussion is not released publicly. Once a paper is published, all comments, concerns, and retractions must go through the editors of the journal before they reach the public. There are good, or at least defensible, arguments for all of this. But Hartgerink is part of an increasingly vocal group that believes that the closed nature of science, with authority resting in the hands of specific gatekeepers – journals, universities, and funders – is harmful, and that a more open approach would better serve the scientific method. Hartgerink realised that with a few adjustments to Statcheck, he could make public all the statistical errors it had exposed. He hoped that this would shift the conversation away from talk of broad, representative results – such as the proportion of studies that contained errors – and towards a discussion of the individual papers and their mistakes. The critique would be complete, exhaustive, and in the public domain, where the authors could address it; everyone else could draw their own conclusions. In August 2016, with his colleagues’ blessing, he posted the full set of Statcheck results publicly on the anonymous science message board PubPeer. At first there was praise on Twitter and science blogs, which skew young and progressive – and then, condemnations, largely from older scientists, who feared an intrusive new world of public blaming and shaming. In December, after everyone had weighed in, Nature, a bellwether of mainstream scientific thought for more than a century, cautiously supported a future of automated scientific scrutiny in an editorial that addressed the Statcheck controversy without explicitly naming it. Its conclusion seemed to endorse Hartgerink’s approach, that “criticism itself must be embraced”. In the same month, the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), an obscure branch of the US National Institutes of Health, awarded Hartgerink a small grant – about $100,000 – to pursue new projects investigating misconduct, including the completion of his program to detect fabricated data. For Hartgerink and Van Assen, who had not received any outside funding for their research, it felt like vindication. Yet change in science comes slowly, if at all, Van Assen reminded me. The current push for more open and accountable science, of which they are a part, has “only really existed since 2011”, he said. It has captured an outsize share of the science media’s attention, and set laudable goals, but it remains a small, fragile outpost of true believers within the vast scientific enterprise. “I have the impression that many scientists in this group think that things are going to change.” Van Assen said. “Chris, Michèle, they are quite optimistic. I think that’s bias. They talk to each other all the time.” When I asked Hartgerink what it would take to totally eradicate fraud from the scientific process, he suggested that scientists make all of their data public; register the intentions of their work before conducting experiments, to prevent post-hoc reasoning, and that they have their results checked by algorithms during and after the publishing process. To any working scientist – currently enjoying nearly unprecedented privacy and freedom for a profession that is in large part publicly funded – Hartgerink’s vision would be an unimaginably draconian scientific surveillance state. For his part, Hartgerink believes the preservation of public trust in science requires nothing less – but in the meantime, he intends to pursue this ideal without the explicit consent of the entire scientific community, by investigating published papers and making the results available to the public. Even scientists who have done similar work uncovering fraud have reservations about Van Assen and Hartgerink’s approach. In January, I met with Dr John Carlisle and Dr Steve Yentis at an anaesthetics conference that took place in London, near Westminster Abbey. In 2012, Yentis, then the editor of the journal Anaesthesia, asked Carlisle to investigate data from a researcher named Yoshitaka Fujii, who the community suspected was falsifying clinical trials. In time, Carlisle demonstrated that 168 of Fujii’s trials contained dubious statistical results. Yentis and the other journal editors contacted Fujii’s employers, who launched a full investigation. Fujii currently sits at the top of the RetractionWatch leaderboard with 183 retracted studies. By sheer numbers he is the biggest scientific fraud in recorded history. You’re saying to a person, ‘I think you’re a liar.’ How many fraudulent papers are worth one false accusation? Carlisle, who, like Van Assen, found that he enjoyed the detective work (“it takes a certain personality, or personality disorder”, he said), showed me his latest project, a larger-scale analysis of the rate of suspicious clinical trial results across multiple fields of medicine. He and Yentis discussed their desire to automate these statistical tests – which, in theory, would look a lot like what Hartgerink and Van Assen are developing – but they have no plans to make the results public; instead they envision that journal editors might use the tests to screen incoming articles for signs of possible misconduct. “It is an incredibly difficult balance,” said Yentis, “you’re saying to a person, ‘I think you’re a liar.’ We have to decide how many fraudulent papers are worth one false accusation. How many is too many?” With the introduction of programs such as Statcheck, and the growing desire to conduct as much of the critical conversation as possible in public view, Yentis expects a stormy reckoning with those very questions. “That’s a big debate that hasn’t happened,” he said, “and it’s because we simply haven’t had the tools.” For all their dispassionate distance, when Hartgerink and Van Assen say that they are simply identifying data that “cannot be trusted”, they mean flagging papers and authors that fail their tests. And, as they learned with Statcheck, for many scientists, that will be indistinguishable from an accusation of deceit. When Hartgerink eventually deploys his fraud-detection program, it will flag up some very real instances of fraud, as well as many unintentional errors and false positives – and present all of the results in a messy pile for the scientific community to sort out. Simonsohn called it “a bit like leaving a loaded gun on a playground”. When I put this question to Van Assen, he told me it was certain that some scientists would be angered or offended by having their work and its possible errors exposed and discussed. He didn’t want to make anyone feel bad, he said – but he didn’t feel bad about it. Science should be about transparency, criticism, and truth. “The problem, also with scientists, is that people think they are important, they think they have a special purpose in life,” he said. “Maybe you too. But that’s a human bias. I think when you look at it objectively, individuals don’t matter at all. We should only look at what is good for science and society.” Main Illustration: Bratislav Milenkovic • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.In light of the security breach that occurred recently, SBI recalled about six lakhs of debit cards that the bank has provided. The bank blocked some of the cards issued to prevent its customers from the potential risk of financial fraud. The bank has asked all its customers officially to change their ATM PIN as an immediate precautionary measure. The bank also advised to use only the SBI ATMs for transactions and not use other private bank ATMs as there are more chances of the financial data breach. As per SBI, 7% of customers only changed their ATM pins. Change the ATM PINs immediately and avoid the risk of economic data breach and theft. Here are the ways to change your SBI ATM pins. Change SBI ATM PIN online So we provide you with complete steps to change SBI ATM PIN online internet banking. Follow the steps carefully. * First you need to activate SBI internet banking from your branch to do this. * Open SBI online banking portal here. * Enter your login details – username and password * Click on e-Services from top menus * Now select ATM Card Services from left side menus * Select ATM Pin Generation option * It will ask for Using One Time Password (OTP) or Using Profile Password – login with any of the two options. * Click on Continue option * Now click on Submit button * After that they will ask to enter: Enter First Two Digits of Your Desired PIN * Now SBI will send you final two digits through SMS (Now you got four digits pin) * Final step: Enter four numbers of new pin: Here you need to enter the first two digits created by you and two digits you got from SMS. * That’s it. You generated your New Pin. If you are having any doubts in this, contact us or shoot a message below this post. We will solve your problem. Change SBI ATM PIN through ATM From my personal experience, This is the easiest method where you can change the ATM PIN from your nearest ATM counter. Follow the steps below. Step 1: Enter your card in the ATM Step 2: Select the ‘Banking’ option from the ATM menu Step 3: Select your preferred language Step 4: enter your existing SBI PIN Step 5: As soon as you enter your PIN, a transaction menu page will appear on the screen of the machine. From that page, select the PIN change option. Step 6: The machine asks to enter your new PIN. Enter the new PIN. Step 7: After you once entered the PIN, the machine will ask to begin your new PIN once more as a part of verification. Enter your new SBI ATM PIN once more. Once you correctly entered your new PIN, You will get a message screen saying ” Your PIN has been changed successfully.” You will also get a paper slip, through ATM if you asked for printed transaction sheet.The 29th of October has been declared by the World Stroke Organization as the World Stroke Day in order to inform the public about this serious cardiovascular disease. Stroke is a cardiovascular disease and the second leading cause of death worldwide. There are 2 types of a stroke, ischemic and hemorrhagic. It is associated with high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, alcohol, and diabetes. This means that the risk of stroke is greatly affected by lifestyle choices. Symptoms of a stroke are sudden paralysis of the arm, leg or face, confusion, dizziness, difficulty walking, talking, understanding and/or seeing and unconsciousness. In severe cases, a stroke can cause death. The World Stroke Organization (WSO) was established in 2006, aiming to raise awareness on this matter and inform the public. This year’s theme of the World Stroke Day is “Face the Facts: Stroke is Treatable”.Op-ed: Where'd You Get That Body From? I am a person with few boundaries in my relationships. I’ve always peed with the door open, taken my clothes off in front of a potential lover at the first hint of attraction, and I’ve told the world (well, make that 5,000 friends and 986 followers via Facebook and Twitter plus my seven non-virtual friends) everything about my naughty thoughts, bodily functions, sex drive, and the nappy dugout itself. I am an open book. My husband? Not so much. He was raised Catholic, in rural Idaho, and if that Puritanical streak doesn’t get in the way, the fact that his body and his mind haven’t always matched up does. He was an awkward lesbian, but even when he first came out as a transgender man, he had months (maybe years) before his body felt like his own. For months, he wore a binder to flatten his chest while we cobbled together the money for his top surgery. Many trans men wear binders, some wearing two or three binders at once (if they can afford it) or Ace bandages if they can’t (the latter is particularly dangerous as Ace bandages constrict the rib cage, block lymph nodes, inhibit breathing, and damage breast tissue, thus making top surgery much harder in the long run). For Jake, the day he got his double mastectomy and chest reconstruction — the process that removed his breasts, relocated his nipples and shrunk them to the size of nickels instead of quarters, and showed off new muscle contours we didn’t know he had — was the day he started loving his body. Dennis Croft, star of AMC’s Small Town Security, understands that well. In the season finale earlier this month, Croft, who has been living as a man for years, had his own top surgery, after days of resistance from his best friend (and boss) whom everyone calls “Chief.” The episode even showed Croft’s nerve-wracking mammogram, a procedure of particular concern for trans men because any problem can hold up or cancel the surgery. “I did not think about the health risks of having corrupted tissue would be a factor of concern,” he says. “After all I was having them removed, so what was the point?” [Ironically, if any kind of tumor or growth is found, the breast can’t be removed.”] Still perhaps the biggest roadblock to surgery was Chief. I asked Croft if he was surprised by Chief’s resistance. “No I was not,” he says. “Chief cares for me a lot and it was a procedure that required going under anesthesia, which always includes risk of death. With that it was also a finite point of no return. She was worried about my well-being.” PagesThe Chicago Fire advanced to their sixth Lamar Hunt US Open Cup final, getting goals from midfielder Sebastián Grazzini and forward Dominic Oduro to defeat the USL Pro Richmond Kickers 2-1 at Toyota Park on Tuesday night. Grazzini put the self-styled “Kings of the Cup” ahead in the 32nd minute, burying a penalty kick into the lower-right corner. Oduro doubled the advantage in the 61st, scoring a gorgeous goal to put Chicago up 2-0. Richmond defender William Yomby gave the Kickers a fighting chance with his 68th-minute goal, but the third-division side couldn’t find an equalizer, bringing an end to both their deep tournament run and their season. The game got off to a slow start, with neither team creating any chance of note until Grazzini’s penalty. The Fire came out particularly flat, taking about 15 minutes to really get into the game. Chicago didn’t look all that strong in the next 15 minutes, either, merely holding even with the Kickers. But the Fire got on the board first when some nice combination play in the 32nd between midfielder Marco Pappa and Grazzini allowed the Argentine playmaker to slip forward Patrick Nyarko in on the left side of the box, where he was chopped down by Kickers defender Dave Hertel. Referee Jason Anno pointed to the spot and Grazzini did the rest, sending Richmond ‘keeper Ronnie Pascale the wrong way as he slotted his spot kick inside the right post. Chicago then gathered a bit more steam and Oduro made it 2-0 in the 61st minute. The speedy striker ran onto a Nyarko through ball on the left flank, cutting in on his right foot before curling a beautifully shaped strike into the right upper 90 from 20 yards out. Richmond pressed for a goal after Oduro’s beauty, putting Fire goalkeeper Sean Johnson under some serious pressure before Yomby’s 68th-minute tally. Midfielder Michael Callahan played a driven cross to the right post and the unmarked Cameroonian ran onto it, powering his header off the turf, off the bar and over the line. The Kickers threw a ton of numbers forward after Yomby’s goal, but they couldn’t create any clear opportunities for an equalizer, sending Chicago to their first Open Cup final since 2006. Chicago will face the winner of Tuesday’s Dallas-Seattle semifinal in for the Open Cup crown on Oct. 4. The Fire, who return to league play at San Jose on Sept. 10, will host the final if Dallas advance and play in Seattle if the Sounders win.When you really need something done, the simplest method is almost always the best. But don't tell that to Hollywood bad guys, who can't seem to kill a single victim without planning out a complex, Rube Goldberg-style sequence that's almost sure to end in failure. So, we get criminal masterminds using methods like... Advertisement 6 Stuntman Mike's Stunt Car in Death Proof Stuntman Mike, from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's ambitious bomb Grindhouse, seduces beautiful women who have nothing better to do but hang out in hole-in-the-wall bars in Middle of Nowhere, Texas. Then he kills them, either by giving them a ride in the front seat of his stunt car (the driver seat is "death proof" but the rest of the car isn't) and crashing it, or just running them off the road. The Problem: Every plan results in his own car getting bashed to pieces. That means every time he scores a kill, he has to come back and rebuild the engine, put in a new suspension, get new brakes, shocks, axles, rebuild the transmission and who knows what else. All of this is after he's released from the hospital, of course. Continue Reading Below Advertisement But that doesn't touch on the most obvious problem: his insurance premiums. We don't even think Geico is going to be all that understanding after about the 12th woman turns up dead in one of his "accidents." Prepare for some skeptical looks from the claims guy, Mike. A Better Way: He convinces the drunken hotties to give him a lap dance to some R&B tunes, and then shoots them in the face.Advertisement This is the terrifying moment a teenage gunman aimed his weapon at armed police officers, sparking a major firearms incident on a Scottish island. Samuel Barlow was moments away from being shot by specially-trained firearms officers as he roamed around Shetland Mainland, brandishing his rifle in front of frightened residents. Armed police almost opened fire at the 16-year-old as he repeatedly pointed his rifle at officers during the stand-off in September. This is the terrifying moment a teenage gunman aimed his weapon at police officers, sparking a major firearms incident on a Scottish island After strolling around Shetland Mainland with his rifle, Samuel Barlow (pictured) repeatedly pointed his weapon at armed police The 16-year-old was moments away from being shot by specially-trained firearms officers during the stand-off in September But a court heard how it was only the professionalism and courage of officers - who initially had no idea what type of gun Barlow was wielding - which prevented the stand-off ending in Barlow's death. Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie told the Lerwick Sheriff Court: ‘I am not sure if the accused appreciates how close he became to being shot by police.’ The court heard how the incident - which lasted for several hours - had a ‘major impact on the community’. At the height of the incident, every available officer in Shetland was called out and specially-trained officers from Inverness were flown in to provide back-up. Residents were also urged to stay indoors as police dealt with the 'extremely serious' situation. The shocking scenes emerged after Barlow, who was dressed in camouflage trousers and a beige top, was first seen walking with a rifle near Scord quarry, at the outskirts of Scalloway, shortly after midday. His threats sparked a major incident during which every available officer in Shetland was called out and residents were urged to stay indoors In court, Barlow was told it was only the professionalism and courage of officers which prevented the stand-off ending with a fatality He said the incident in September - which lasted several hours - had a ‘major impact on the community’, as residents were urged to stay inside Two police officers, alerted by concerned islanders, were unable to approach Barlow and had to take refuge behind a fire station building as he took aim at them. After taking to the hills, Barlow appeared in the Westerloch area of Lerwick, the main town, later the same afternoon. He walked through several people’s gardens, threatened locals and aimed his rifle at police officers who were trying to negotiate a peaceful solution to the stand-off. Mr Mackenzie added: ‘999 calls were now coming in thick and fast, and a major police incident was declared. It is difficult to convey the concern that there was.’ At that stage, police did not know who they were dealing with and with what type of weapon Barlow was carrying, the court heard. Dressed in camouflage trousers and a beige top, Barlow was first seen walking with a rifle near a quarry, before he wandered through several people's gardens Police did not know who they were dealing with and with what type of weapon Barlow was carrying, the court was told Mr Mackenzie said there had been a number of occasions where officers had to decide whether to fire, he added. Unhappy with the police negotiators, Barlow then moved out of view again. Officers decided to ‘move beyond containment’ and make ‘an aggressive approach towards him’. Mr Mackenzie said: ‘This was a very dangerous situation police officers were in. At the very end, only as the accused was restrained, it was confirmed he had only an air rifle. ‘The accused owes the officers a debt of gratitude for their professionalism and indeed their courage. It was very close to a fatal outcome.’ At the hearing Barlow – who was described as an inmate of Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution, near Falkirk, Stirlingshire – admitted four charges of assault and one of abusive and threatening behaviour. Barlow's sentencing was deferred until January 7 for psychological and psychiatric reports. Defence solicitor Tommy Allan said he would wait for the psychological report before addressing the court in mitigation. His application for his client to be released on bail was refused.'Forum needed' for laundries women BelfastTelegraph.co.uk Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers have said a forum should be established to acknowledge alleged mistreatment of young women at Catholic-run Magdalene workhouses. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/forum-needed-for-laundries-women-30036722.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/article30036721.ece/44ec0/AUTOCROP/h342/PANews%20BT_P-02ec21f0-ecdb-4a5d-b432-21931635b88c_I1.jpg Email Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers have said a forum should be established to acknowledge alleged mistreatment of young women at Catholic-run Magdalene workhouses. Victims have been campaigning for an inquiry after investigations in the Republic of Ireland uncovered evidence of harsh conditions and callous treatment. The laundries - institutions for single mothers detained through the courts or often moved in by their family or clergy for being sexually active - were run by Catholic religious orders. A statement from OFMDFM said: "We recognise that there are women who were over the age of 18 when they entered the Magdalene laundry-type institutions and there is a need to provide them with a forum where their issues can be addressed and their experiences acknowledged." The Good Shepherd Sisters ran a laundry and home in Belfast from the late 19th century until 1977 and 1990 respectively. Thousands of girls and women passed through its doors. The same order of nuns ran two other laundries, one in Newry in Co Down which operated into the 1980s, and another in Derry. Another Magdalene centre, including steam laundry, was operated by the Church of Ireland on Belfast's Donegall Pass, with the home continuing into the 1960s, while the Presbyterian Church ran the Ulster female penitentiary. The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry led by retired judge Sir Anthony Hart, tasked with taking evidence from alleged victims and making recommendations to the Stormont Executive, covers any woman who may have entered a laundry before she was aged 18. But campaigners have called for the plight of older women to be recognised. Senator Martin McAleese published a hard-hitting report into abuse in laundries in the Republic. The OFMDFM added: "We are appalled to think that women in laundries here could have endured the same harsh conditions and callous treatment as was documented by Senator McAleese. Our thoughts and sympathies are with any women who suffered in these types of institutions." Amnesty International Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan said t he OFMDFM response would disappoint victims. "When we brought local Magdalene survivors to Stormont Castle last June, ministers told us that they were about to receive this options paper. That means eight months have now passed without any further progress," he added. "Victims in Northern Ireland are becoming increasingly frustrated that they can't get a response from ministers to their call for an inquiry. "Victims are not looking for sympathy - they are demanding truth and justice for what happened to them." Women in Northern Ireland have told Amnesty of abuse they suffered in Magdalene laundry-style homes. Mr Corrigan said they may involve serious crimes such as arbitrary detention, forced labour, ill-treatment, and the removal and forced adoption of their babies. "The First Minister and Deputy First Minister must respond to the calls of victims for a separate inquiry for these cases, which could also lead to a state apology and reparation," he added. The OFMDFM written answer to Sinn Fein MLA Barry McElduff said ministers had received a report on potential action and were giving serious consideration to the options before deciding the way forward. Mr McElduff said the institutional abuse inquiry needed to ensure nobody was left out. "It is a very important step, it is very important that that abuse inquiry takes place and that victims gain truth and justice through these hearings," he added. "All I am concerned about is if anybody is missed in the net. "It needs to be cast wider so that there is inclusivity and everyone is covered."While my experiences with the spirit of (my deceased girlfriend) Christina have made me very happy in and of themselves, they’ve done a lot more for me than just this! Indeed, they have led me deeper into the mystery of God. Even when these experiences raise doubts or questions in my mind, they seem to have this positive effect. From time to time I have wondered whether the spiritual Christina is consciously aware of these experiences, or whether they are all “in my head.” The first time I had these thoughts (sometime in October of 2015), I asked God for more clarification. “God, I’m curious about something,” I said. “Are these experiences with Christina actually happening? Is she aware that I’m experiencing her presence? Or are these just memories I’ve brought back to life?” It doesn’t matter, said God. For one thing, this is the way Christina would have wanted you to remember her. Plus, there’s really no such thing as time, spiritually speaking. Memories and present experience are pretty much the same in the spirit world. There is no past, present or future there. As I was reflecting on this, I began to have an out-of-body experience. (This was the second time this has happened to me, and it was way more intense than the first.) At first it seemed like I was watching myself from above. Eventually my spirit moved out even further, leaving time and space altogether. I saw my whole life – past, present, and (some of) the future – as if it were all happening at once. Amazingly, I was completely at peace with it! After this I felt my spirit merging with God, as if the two of us had become one. For a brief moment I seemed to be omnipresent, seeing everything happening in the world at once. I saw wars and famine, but also scenes of great beauty and kindness. I can’t really put into words all the things I saw; there was more going on than I could possibly comprehend. After this I didn’t see anything, but I felt myself floating through the cosmos for what seemed like several hours. This must be “eternal life”, I thought; not living forever, necessarily, but living outside of space and time in complete detachment. When my spirit “returned” from its journey, I realized only a couple of minutes had passed; but it felt like I had been gone for ages. As I thought about these things, it became clearer to me than ever that I was saved by grace alone. God had shown me a peace and joy I had never known, and I had done nothing to deserve it! I wasn’t living a holy lifestyle, nor was I doing much for social justice; and I wasn’t seeking deeper union with God through prayer or anything like that. I was just going about my daily life, trying to hold a job
3 Regional Level Regional Qualifiers Feb – Jul Continental Level Continental Finals Jun – Jul There will be no invitations to Continental Finals for Colombia Special Event. USA/Ohio Regional Qualifier: Badges to Origins Game Fair is required to enter the fair and participate in the event. Due to issues with the previous location, Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016 Malaysia Qualifier has changed its location to Dewan Cempaka, Cempaka Apartment Hotel (Level 3A, Tower 2) in Kuala Lumpur. The event dates remain the same. We sincerely apologize for the confusion and inconvenience caused by the change. Event schedule will be posted on a later date. In the wake of the tragic bombing incidents in Brussels, Belgium, we have contacted the venue and our partners in Belgium to inquire about the safety of the upcoming Bushiroad Spring Fest event on April 23, 2016. After serious considerations, Bushiroad has decided to go ahead with the tournament with the added precaution of basic security measures which we will implement at the event. Our primary concern remains the well being of the players and fans and we will continue to provide them with the best of care under the circumstances to have fun under safe and secure conditions. Bushiroad Europe GmbH Dear Cardfighters, We appreciate your continued support for Bushiroad and thank you for attending the Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016, USA/Georgia (Atlanta) Qualifier. Bushiroad USA Inc. deeply and sincerely apologize to all players for not being able to provide everyone with an overall pleasant experience during the Qualifier. We understand that recent events at the Qualifier have evoked feelings of discontentment and disappointment in some players, which never should have occurred in the first place. Please rest assured that appropriate actions have been taken to ensure that such issues do not occur again in the future. We promise to strive for improvement and will work to our best to enhance your overall tournament experience from the next Qualifier onward. President of Bushiroad USA Inc. Yuichi Izumi Due to scheduling difficulties, the Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016 Spain Regional Qualifiers is cancelled. We sincerely apologize for the oversight and any inconvenience caused. Cardfight!! Vanguard players from Spain are recommended to join France qualifier. In addition, Top 4 teams from France Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League Regional Qualifier will be invited to participate in Europe Continental Final, and Top 2 teams’ travel and lodging will be sponsored. Menu Bushiroad PR Coupon Campaign To kick start Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016, Bushiroad PR Coupon campaign will be launched alongside with monthly shop tournaments for February and March periods in 2016! Collect Bushiroad PR Coupons and exchange for special PR cards at Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016! This year, the campaign has been extended to cover all three games! Collect Your Bushiroad PR Coupons! Step 1 Visit a participating shop Step 2 Participate in a tournament shop from Feb 1 to Apr 3 (February & March tournament periods) Step 3 Receive 1 Bushiroad PR Coupon with every participation of the Shop Tournament! * Fighters may receive more than one coupon if attending multiple shop tournaments during the campaign period. This is applicable to tournaments of all English edition Bushiroad products, including Cardfight!! Vanguard, Weiss Schwarz and Future Card Buddyfight. While stocks last. Redeem PR Coupon for the Special PR Card! Step 4 Visit a Bushiroad Spring Fest 2015 event Step 5 Participate in Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League, Weiss Schwarz Neo-Showdown or Future Card Buddyfight Buddy Challenge Step 6 Redeem 1 special PR card with 1 Bushiroad PR Coupon!* One coupon can be redeemed for one special PR card only, and may select from Cardfight!! Vanguard, Weiss Schwarz or Future Card Buddyfight special PRs. A maximum of 4 special PR cards can be redeemed per person per game at each Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016 venue. While stocks last. Keep the coupon and don’t forget to redeem a free PR/0233EN Steam Fighter, Galumu at Cardfight!! Online! Available to redeem after the official launch of Cardfight!! Online. The serial code expires on Jul 10, 2017. Bushiroad PR Coupon for BSF2016 Special PR Cards Redeemable at BSF2016 Regional Qualifiers It is highly recommended to download the above deck registration forms for Bushiroad Spring Fest. Please kindly print out both pages. You may also use the registration forms for other events. The availability of promotional goods at Bushiroad Spring Fest locations is subject to stock. While stock lasts. Participation Prizes Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League Weiss Schwarz Neo-Showdown Future Card Buddyfight Buddy Challenge Participation Prizes Participation Prizes Participation Prizes PR/0233EN Steam Fighter, Galumu SY/W08-E109 Looking for Brigade Members! PR/0135EN Fifth Omni Dragon Lord, Drum the Punisher BSF2016 Cardfight!! Vanguard Deckcase BSF2016 Weiss Schwarz Deckcase BSF2016 Future Card Buddyfight Deckcase BSF2016 main tournament participant may receive 1pc of above-listed PR card and 1pc of above-listed deck case of the game he/she has played. The supply of the promotional goods is subject to stock. Deck cases will not be available at Colombia Special Event. Top 8 Prizes Top 8 Player’s Prize Top 8 Player’s Prize Top 8 Player’s Prize Players who advance to Top 8 in BSF2016 main tournaments may receive a “Top 8 Pin” of the game he/she plays. Top 8 pins will not be available at Colombia Special Event. Finalists’ Prizes – Invitation to Continental Finals Finalists who achieve Top 4 in Bushiroad Spring Fest 2016 tournaments receive certificates of their respective positions and the game played. Top 3 finalists receive invitations to respective Continental Finals in their regions. Winner/winning team’s travel and accommodation expenses will be provided. Please refer to the details in the table below. Cardfight!! Vanguard Team League Weiss Schwarz Neo-Showdown Future Card Buddyfight Buddy Challenge North America & Asia-Oceania Winning team, 2nd Place and 3rd Place teams will receive an invitation to the respective Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winning team. There will be no invitations to Continental Finals for Colombia Special Event winning teams. The winner, 2nd Place and 3rd Place will receive an invitation to the respective Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. There will be no invitations to Continental Finals for Colombia Special Event winners. The winner, 2nd Place and 3rd Place will receive an invitation to the respective Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. Greece Belgium Germany Italy Winning team and 2nd Place teams will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winning team. Not applicable to Italy. The winner and 2nd Place will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. Applicable to Germany and Italy only. The winner and 2nd Place will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. Applicable to Greece and Germany only. France Winning team, 2nd Place, 3rd Place and 4th Place teams will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided to the winning team and 2nd Place Team. The winner and 2nd Place will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. The winner and 2nd Place will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. United Kingdom Winning team, 2nd Place and 3rd Place teams will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Cardiff: Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winning team. Huddersfield: Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided to the winning team the 2nd Place team. The winner, 2nd Place and 3rd Place will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Cardiff: Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. Huddersfield: Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided to the winner the 2nd Place. The winner, 2nd Place and 3rd Place will receive an invitation to Europe Continental Finals. Cardiff: Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided only to the winner. Huddersfield: Travel and accommodation expenses will be provided to the winner the 2nd Place. Minors will need confirmation from a parent or guardian to earn the invitation to travel. If the winner is from the same city or town as where the Continental Finals is held, no accommodation will be provided. Invitation must be confirmed within 7 days in order to secure the invitation. Invited players are requited to arrange visa by themselves if necessary. Players who have received an invitation from a previous Spring Fest 2016 regional qualifier will NOT be eligible for another invitation. The invitation will be passed down to the next position if the winner has already received an invitation. Guest Sora Tokui Voice of “Nico Yazawa” from Love Live! School idol project and “Chloe Maxwell” from Luck & Logic Guest of BSF2016 New Zealand Regional Qualifier Date Apr 24 Venue NZ Akiba-con 2016 Crowne Plaza Auckland 128 Albert Street, Auckland, New Zealand 1010 More information will be revealed at a later date. Head to the event page for more details on NZ Akiba-con 2016. Regional Qualifiers & Special Events Locations Location information is subject to change. The schedules will be announced on a later date. Continental Finals Continental Finals LocationsBy invitations only Information is subject to change.Image caption Universities should no longer face limits on how much they should charge, says Lord Browne's report Universities in England should be able to charge unlimited fees, a major review of university funding has recommended. Lord Browne's review calls for the £3,290 cap on fees, which students borrow in loans, to be scrapped. Instead it proposes a free market in fees - setting out models of charges up to £12,000 a year for a degree course. The UCU lecturers' union said the plan was "the final nail in the coffin for affordable higher education". However, Lord Browne's review makes clear that universities that charge more than £6,000 a year would lose a proportion of the fee to help cover the cost of student borrowing. Lord Browne told BBC Breakfast: "We have taken off the cap but we haven't taken off the restrictions." He said all universities were different and needed different amounts of money to retain their world class status, but he predicted that few would put fees very high. He acknowledged graduates would be paying significantly more back in their tuition fee and maintenance loans but insisted they were not being left with "mortgage-style debts". "They would be paying the same interest rate as the government uses to borrow. They will only pay it back when their earnings go above £21,000," he said. "If you choose to go into a job which doesn't pay very much or if you choose to go out of the workforce to build a family, you won't have to pay it back." The report comes ahead of next week's comprehensive spending review, in which major cuts to higher education funding are expected. Ministers will now have to respond to the proposals for reforming university funding - with the threat of a Liberal Democrat backbench rebellion. Universities 'could close' Increasing fees would mean a direct reversal of personal pledges made at the election by Liberal Democrat MPs - and will cause deep political difficulties for the coalition government. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Lord Browne: "Our proposals make what graduates pay related to how much they earn" The Liberal Democrats' own youth section has branded the fee rise as a "disaster". Greg Mulholland, Lib Dem MP for Leeds North West, said he would vote against the plan. But Business Secretary Vince Cable, who is trying to reach a deal with the Conservatives that the Lib Dems could support, told the BBC the proposals were "probably on the right lines". The far-reaching recommendations set out a system in which much of the cost of a degree would be transferred from the taxpayer to the student. Shadow university secretary John Denham said the report reflected the belief that teaching budgets would be cut by around two-thirds. "This is a massive cut even when set against the coalition's aim to cut spending by 25%," he said. The report seeks to balance much higher charges with support for applicants from poorer families. This more competitive market would also mean that for the first time universities could go out of business, says the report. Universities must compete over students, fee levels and against new providers, the review panel recommends: "If they fail... they might ultimately close or be taken over." Higher interest rates Lord Browne proposes that the government would guarantee to underwrite fees up to £6,000 per year - but universities would be allowed to charge any amount above that. Universities would have to pay an increasing "levy" on fees above £6,000 - but even when charging £12,000, they would be able to keep almost three quarters of the fee. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption NUS President Aaron Porter: "If people have the ability and the aspiration to go to university, they shouldn't be priced out" As now, students would not have to pay fees up-front, but would receive a loan. But they would not have to start repaying it until their earnings reached £21,000 per year, up from the current level of £15,000. The report recommends that students should pay higher interest rates on these loans, set at the government's rate of borrowing - currently 2.2% - plus inflation. All students will be able to borrow £3,750 per year - and young people from families earning less than £25,000 will receive an additional grant of £3,250. There have been warnings that middle-income families will face a particular financial squeeze from such a fee hike. "There is a feeling that the rich can afford it - and the poor will quite rightly be protected - but people in the middle could find themselves really penalised," says Justine Roberts of the Mumsnet website. Watchdogs merged There are also radical proposals to shake up how higher education is administered, with four funding bodies and regulators being merged into a single Higher Education Council. There is a feeling that the rich can afford it - and the poor will quite rightly be protected - but people in the middle could find themselves really penalised Justine Roberts, Mumsnet Have your say This would take over responsibility for standards, strategic subjects, access for poorer students and resolving disputes with students. And there are also steps to ensure the quality of degree courses. University lecturers should be required to have teaching qualifications - and students should reach a minimum threshold of qualifications before receiving student loans. This summer saw an unprecedented demand for places - with thousands of well-qualified students missing out on places. The report calls for the number of places to be expanded by 10% over three years. Private universities There are also suggestions for a more diverse university system, which would encourage the introduction of new providers and different ways of studying. Part-time students and those studying in private universities would be able to claim student support. The Open University welcomed the report as a "landmark day for part-time higher education" - which would help to drive social mobility. If accepted by the government, the reforms are expected to take effect in the academic year beginning in 2012 at the earliest. Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities, welcomed the review as "the first progressive step" towards increasing funding for universities. But the Million+ group of new universities said it would deter poorer students, and would "undoubtedly mean that some students who would have gone to university will decide not to go". The National Union of Students said students would be left with "crippling levels of debt and many universities face utter devastation as a result of horrific cuts". Elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not have to pay any fees. In Northern Ireland and Wales, fees are charged up to a maximum of £3,290.The Bremerton School District isn’t being anti-Christian or politically correct in trying to stop a football coach from praying at the 50-yard line. It’s trying to stop a free-for-all. Personally I am not the least bothered that a Bremerton high-school football coach does a postgame prayer on the 50-yard line. Public displays of faith are everywhere, so if you’re a nonbeliever, like me, who really cares about one more? But there’s good practical reason why the Bremerton School District begged him not to. And that reason has now arrived — bearing the form of Satan. You want freedom of religion at a high-school football game? OK, you’re about to get it. This week the Satanic Temple of Seattle announced that a 12th-grader at Bremerton High School has requested the group join the coach’s prayer circle after the next game, on Thursday, to perform a satanic invocation. Which goes something like this: “Let us stand now, unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds. Let us embrace the Luciferian impulse to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and dissipate our comforting delusions of old. “That which will not bend must break, and that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise. It is done. Hail Satan.” That text was emailed to me by Lilith Starr, temple chapter head. With 45 members, the temple appears to be a group less interested in ritual than in driving home one point: We have separation of church and state in this country mostly to save us from ourselves. “If they are creating an open public forum for religious expression, on the 50-yard line, then they have to make it open to all,” Starr said. She added she’d heard there’s also interest in coming to the game “from the pagans, and some Buddhists. But that’s it for now.” It was as preordained as the 40 days and nights of rain that this would be the prayer saga’s next turn. Personally I sympathized with my colleague Matt Calkins’ take on the coach. Joe Kennedy seems like a fine man who is acting on his principles and isn’t solely out to proselytize. Related video: Satanists come to Bremerton In response to the controversy over Bremerton assistant coach Joe Kennedy refusing to stop leading a prayer after games, students invited the Satanic Temple to the game. Kennedy prayed in the stands after the game. In response to the controversy over Bremerton assistant coach Joe Kennedy refusing to stop leading a prayer after games, students invited the Satanic Temple to the game. Kennedy prayed in the stands after the game. Read more. (Lauren Frohne / The Seattle Times) But I would add that he also seems naive. We’ve had these exact fights countless times over religion in the public square. And the loser always is whoever is in charge of the square. Remember when there was a Nativity scene inside the state Capitol in Olympia? Inevitably someone Jewish wanted to add a menorah. Then the atheists wanted a sign that read “Religion is … superstition that enslaves minds.” By the time someone applied to put up a Festivus pole, the frustrated state ordered them all to please just take it outside. That’s why the Bremerton School District wants the coach to stop. Not because it’s being anti-Christian or politically correct. It’s because the alternative is an unmanageable free-for-all. Defenders of the coach seem oblivious to this, even as they cite the parts of the Constitution that make it a near certainty. This week 47 members of Congress, the “prayer caucus,” wrote the school district to protest on the coach’s behalf. The Constitution does not “require that government officials proactively scrub all references of religion from the public square,” they wrote. “Rather, the Establishment Clause ensures that the government not show preference to a certain religion, and that the government not take away an individual’s ability to exercise religion.” Right. But all that obviously means you’re obligated to wave on the Satanists, the pagans, the Buddhists, too. I don’t know, it would be a scene. The game ends and is followed by the Muslim call to prayer. The Christians form their prayer circle at midfield. The pagans sacrifice a goat. The Satanists burn pentagrams onto the 35-yard line. The visiting delegation of the congressional prayer caucus wanders the field, speaking in tongues. Or since this is a public event at a public school, is it too much to ask that everyone please just take it outside? Ironically, I bet they’re praying right now over at school district headquarters. They’re wandering the halls muttering: “God help us all.”How to Draw Trees How to Draw Trees Learning how to draw trees is a lot easier than you may think... Many budding artists of all ages are put off because they've only previously managed a 'lollipop' that they remember producing when they were at school. And yet, a lollipop isn't a million miles away from many real trees in full summer foliage. You just need to know where to 'tweak' your sketch to make your lollipop look the part. So if you think you couldn't draw the tree below - or even better? Well read on... GET OUR FREE EBOOK: The Number 1 Secret to Improving Your Artwork The good thing about learning how to draw trees is that unlike a portrait, where the features have to be in the right place for the face to look right, if you put a branch in the wrong place on a tree, it still looks like a tree. This tutorial gets you started using basic, familiar shapes you've seen a hundred times. But until now, I bet you never thought it would teach you how to draw trees! Add a couple of simple techniques that I promise anyone can manage, and you'll be drawing believable, realistic trees with confidence in no time. All you will need to start with is a pencil, an eraser and a few pieces of scrap paper or a pad. However, before we actually put pencil to paper, let's have a closer look at the photo below... Notice first that the top (black) pencil has a long point on it. I've achieved this with a craft knife. Pencil sharpeners are OK but you can't get the tip of the pencil like this with them. The tip of the yellow pencil has been done with a pencil sharpener. This will soon wear down as you sketch and you'll be constantly stopping to re-sharpen it. The long point on the black pencil means that I can make a broader, more confident line, achieving the full thickness of many of the lower branches, in one go. Also, when I come to shade in larger areas, I can do this much more quickly and effectively holding the pencil this way. Look at the three marks I've made - all with this same point. The widest one is achieved just by holding the pencil with the point flat to the paper, like a pastel stick. This is perfect for sweeping in the thicker, lower branches in one go. As I reach the uppermost twigs, I can start to use more of the point to get the finer lines needed here. Incidentally, the photo also shows a putty eraser. These can be pulled and stretched to a fine point or edge to take out just a small area of pencil if you want - ideal for lifting out highlights! They're also less likely to damage the surface of your paper than a cheaper general purpose eraser. How to Draw Trees - Step 1 Right, Let's get going...! Look at Sketch 1 on the right. Ever played cards? Almost certainly. Look at this sketch of the Ace of Clubs. What do you see - a perfect starting point for learning how to draw trees! As you become more experienced, you'll see all sorts of shapes that you will realise can simplify or inspire you to draw and paint all sorts of things. Learning how to draw trees is no different. In this case the Ace of Clubs represents a rounded, deciduous tree, but what could be simpler than a long, thin triangle or upturned popcorn cone to give you the basis of a fir tree? The Ace of Clubs is quite simply three circles and a triangle for the base. How to Draw Trees - Step 2 In sketch 2, I've stretched this out so the circles are all different sizes and the base is a bit more elongated. The circles don't even have to be perfectly round - in fact it's better if they're not. See them as a simple framework as a simple way to get you started sketching trees. Already a believable tree is starting to take shape. I've drawn these lines a bit heavier than you should, so they show up on the web page. You should draw them in a bit lighter than this and gradually get heavier as the final tree shape develops. Don't worry if your guidelines aren't perfect - remember, they are just that - a guide - and some of them will be rubbed out shortly anyway. Also, don't concern yourself about producing specific species of tree just yet - we can look at that when you've built up your confidence with this one... How to Draw Trees - Step 3 Now look at Sketch 3. I've started to draw branches from the main trunk. They're quite thick at first but gradually taper as they reach the edges of the tree. Notice how I've kept these lines quite raggedy to represent the random way trees grow. One thing I don't want to do is make them appear too even. That wouldn't be how nature intended! When you're first learning how to draw trees a useful tip is to ensure that as one branch diverges from the trunk, the next usually diverges a bit further up. It's very rare that two branches split exactly opposite each other from the main branch. If you just want learn how to draw trees in winter, then you can start shading in the branches at this point. Remember to pick the direction the sun is coming from and stick to it! How to Draw Trees - Step 4 A frequent problem when students are sketching trees is that they have the light coming from different directions... They put shadows on opposite sides of branches at different points and it looks all wrong. The sunny side will be the lightest - in this case the left hand side. The opposite side of the branches and trunk will be in shadow... However, a summer tree covered in leaves needs a little more work. As in Sketch 4, I've lightly scribbled an outline round the edge of the tree. I've also rubbed out some, but not all, of the branches. The ones left are those you can see through the leaves. When I teach students how to draw trees I always emphasise how important it is to create a three-dimensional effect and also show the 'openness' of the tree. Putting in some branches here and there gives the impression of them twisting in and out of view as they spread to the outer edges of the tree. Remember, a tree is not a flat object... It has branches coming towards and going away from you as well as the ones you see either side and in the centre as well. I've drawn some light outlines around these remaining branches just to remind you that these are your'sky holes'. Once you've a little more experience you won't need to bother with this. How to Draw Trees - Step 5 Sketch 5 is where the real fun starts in learning how to draw trees. You're now about to switch on the sunlight by adding shadows and putting back in some highlights. Remember, even more than with the winter tree, to decide which direction your sunlight is coming from. As well as the main shadows being on the opposite side of the tree, it will be dark around the sky holes where you can see branches. These visible branches will almost always be in silhouette and quite dark, as will the shadow on the ground. There are many ways you can draw leaves. However, for a tree this size, the one thing you don't want is to draw each individual leaf! Apart from driving you slowly mad, it would look very forced and unreal. Instead, you're aiming for an impression of leaves and the lights and darks in the tree. Try letting your pencil dance over the tree in a demented scribble. This, with a little practice, can create an excellent representation of leaves. Dark areas can be filled in to create lights and darks next to each other. Or you could shade in most areas as with the Ace of Clubs in sketch 1, then lift out highlights with an eraser. The sketches below show these ideas in more detail. When you add your shadow on the ground on the opposite side from the sunlight, put a smaller area of shadow on the ground on the sunlit side as these branches would still cast some shadows. Notice that I've also taken out the bottom line where the trunk meets the ground... Look at the examples in the sketch of the trunks (above) for comparison and see how the right hand drawing makes the trunk 'grow' right out of the ground and not sit on top of it. Remember also when you learn how to draw trees, to draw your boughs and branches from the base upwards i.e. as the tree would 'grow'. Make sure each branch in your sky holes appears to come from a logical point on the trunk below. The eye will then happily 'fill in' the branch's position behind the leaf clusters even though you haven't actually drawn it. Now have a look out of your window or find a photo of a real tree and try copying it. Simplification is the key! You're looking for a basic outline to begin with and you don't want to copy every leaf - just the main leaf clusters. These tend to be either rounded balls or flat, as in the case of evergreens. The bottom half of the visible part of the trunk should be lit up with sunlight on one side, with the other side in increasing shadow. Look at Sketch 5. The trunk area immediately below the bottom leaf clusters will usually all be in shadow as very little light will be able to reach, whatever the position of the sun. To Sum Up... Finally, as with many art techniques, learning how to draw trees is often easier to do than to describe... Hopefully, this tutorial has given you a few pointers to give you the confidence to get going. Remember, if you can draw the Ace of Clubs playing Poker, you can just as easily draw it with a pencil as well...!Let’s establish some vocabulary, before we begin. When we talk about configuration in Spring, we’re usually talking about the inputs into the Spring framework’s various ApplicationContext implementations that help the container understand what it is you want done. This might be an XML file to be fed into a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext, or Java classes annotated a certain way to be fed into an AnnotationConfigApplicationContext. Another type of configuration, as nicely described in the 12-Factor application manifesto, is any of an application’s that is likely to vary between deploys (staging, production, developer environments, etc.), like service credentials and hostnames. This second type of configuration, which should live external to the deployed application, has been well supported in Spring since the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer class was introduced. Spring’s support for that type of configuration has come a long way since then and in this blog we’re going to look at that progression. The PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer Spring’s offered the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer since 2003. Spring 2.5 introduced XML namespace support and with it XML namespace support for property placeholder resolution. For example <context:property-placeholder location = "simple.properties"/> would let us substitute bean definition literal values in the XML configuration for values assigned to keys in a (external) property file (in this case simple.properties which may be on the classpath or external to the application). This property file might look like: # Database Credentials configuration.projectName = Spring Framework The Environment Abstraction This solution predates the introduction of Java configuration into Spring Framework proper in 3.0. Spring 3 made it easy to inject configuration values into Java component configuration using @Value -annotations, like this: @Value("${configuration.projectName}") private String projectName; Spring 3.1 introduced the Environment abstraction. It provides a bit of runtime indirection between the runnning application and the environment in which it is running. The Environment acts as a map of keys and values. You can configure where those values are read from by contributing a. Inject an object of type Environment anywhere you want and ask it questions. By default Spring loads up system environment keys and values, like line.separator. You can tell Spring to load up configuration keys from a file, specifically, using the @PropertySource annotation. package env; import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value; import org.springframework.context.annotation.; import org.springframework.context.support.*; import org.springframework.core.env.Environment; @Configuration @ComponentScan @PropertySource("file:/path/to/simple.properties") public class Application { @Bean static PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer placeholderConfigurer() { return new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer(); } @Value("${configuration.projectName}") void setProjectName(String projectName) { System.out.println("setting project name: " + projectName); } @Autowired void setEnvironment(Environment env) { System.out.println("setting environment: " + env.getProperty("configuration.projectName")); } public static void main(String args[]) throws Throwable { new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(Application.class); } } This example loads up the values from a file, simple.properties, and then has one value, configuration.projectName, injected using the @Value annotation and then read again from Spring’s Environment abstraction. To be able to inject the values with the @Value annotation, we need to register a PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer. In this case, the output is Spring Framework. The Environment also brings the idea of profiles. It lets you ascribe labels (profiles) to groupings of beans. Use profiles to describe beans and bean graphs that change from one environment to another. You can activate one or more profiles at a time. Beans that do not have a profile assigned to them are always activated. Beans that have the profile default are activated only when there are no other profiles are active. Profiles let you describe sets of beans that need to be created differently in one environment versus another. You might, for example, use an embedded H2 javax.sql.DataSource in your local dev profile, but then switch to a javax.sql.DataSource for PostgreSQL that’s resolved through a JNDI lookup or by reading the properties from an environment variable in Cloud Foundry when the prod profile is active. In both cases, your code works: you get a javax.sql.DataSource, but the decision about which specialized instance is used is decided by the active profile or profiles. You should use this feature sparingly. Ideally, the object graph between one environment and another should remain fairly fixed. Bootiful Configuration Spring Boot improves things considerably. Spring Boot will read the properties in src/main/resources/application.properties by default. If a profile is active, it will also automatically reads in the configuration files based on the profile name, like src/main/resources/application-foo.properties where foo is the current profile. If the Snake YML library is on the classpath, then it will also automatically load YML files. Yeah, read that part again. YML is so good, and so worth a go! Here’s an example YML file: configuration: projectName : Spring Boot someOtherKey : Some Other Value Spring Boot also made it much simpler to get the right result in common cases. It makes -D arguments to the java process and environment variables available as properties. It even normalizes them, so an environment variable $CONFIGURATION_PROJECTNAME or a -D argument of the form -Dconfiguration.projectname both become accessible with the key configuration.projectName. Configuration values are strings, and if you have enough configuration values it can be unwieldy trying to make sure those keys don’t themselves become magic strings in the code. Spring Boot introduces a @ConfigurationProperties component type. Annotate a POJO with @ConfigurationProperties and specify a prefix, and Spring will attempt to map all properties that start with that prefix to the POJO’s properties. In the example below the value for configuration.projectName will be mapped to an instance of the POJO that all code can then inject and dereference to read the (type-safe) values. In this way, you only have the mapping from a key in one place. In the example below, properties will be resolved automatically from src/main/resources/application.yml. package boot; import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired; import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication; import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication; import org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationProperties; import org.springframework.stereotype.Component; // reads a value from src/main/resources/application.properties first // but would also read: // java -Dconfiguration.projectName=.. // export CONFIGURATION_PROJECTNAME=.. @SpringBootApplication public class Application { @Autowired void setConfigurationProjectProperties(ConfigurationProjectProperties cp) { System.out.println("configurationProjectProperties.projectName = " + cp.getProjectName()); } public static void main(String[] args) { SpringApplication.run(Application.class); } } @Component @ConfigurationProperties("configuration") class ConfigurationProjectProperties { private String projectName; public String getProjectName() { return projectName; } public void setProjectName(String projectName) { this.projectName = projectName; } } Spring Boot uses the @ConfigurationProps mechanism heavily to let users override bits of the system. You can see what property keys can be used to change things, for example, by adding the org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-actuator dependency to a Spring Boot-based web application and then visiting http://127.0.0.1:8080/configprops. This will give you a list of supported configuration properties based on the types present on the classpath at runtime. As you add more Spring Boot types, you’ll see more properties. Centralized, Journaled Configuration with the Spring Cloud Configuration Support So far so good, but there are gaps in the approach so far: changes to an application’s configuration require restarts there is no traceability: how do we determine what changes were introduced into production and, if necessary, roll back? configuration is de-centralized and it’s not immediately apparent where to go to change what. sometimes configuration values should be encrypted and decrypted for security. There is no out-of-the-box support for this. Spring Cloud, which builds upon Spring Boot and integrates various tools and libraries for working with microservices, including the Netflix OSS stack, offers a configuration server and a client for that configuration server. This support, taken together, address these last three concerns. Let’s look at a simple example. First, we’ll setup a configuration server. The configuration server is something to be shared among a set of applications or microservices based on Spring Cloud. You have to get it running, somewhere, once. Then, all other services need only know where to find the configuration service. The configuration service acts as a
He apologized for his comments later.Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Hired by the Minnesota Vikings on Wednesday, first-time head coach Mike Zimmer will now ask two experienced coordinators to help ease his transition from assistant to head coach. According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Vikings are close to hiring Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Norv Turner to run Zimmer's offense. George Edwards, the Miami Dolphins linebackers coach in 2013 and a former NFL defensive coordinator, will be invited to assist Zimmer in the day-to-day operations overseeing the defense, per Alex Marvez of Fox Sports. Turner has to be considered a home run hire. A former head coach himself, Turner can provide Zimmer all the guidance and advice he could ever need to successfully transition to his new role. The promotion from coordinator to head coach can be a jarring, difficult one for assistants, many of whom thrived by running their half of a team before failing when tasked with leading a full 53-man roster. Turner has 15 years and nearly 250 games of head-coaching experience that the untested Zimmer can tap into. But Turner's biggest impact will certainly come from leading and developing the Vikings' new offense. Since starting his coaching career in 1979, Zimmer's entire football life has been devoted to teaching the defensive side of the ball. Beginning with his first job as a defensive assistant at the University of Missouri, Zimmer has been an inside linebackers coach, defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator. Turner has a similar wealth of experience coaching the offensive side. Norv Turner's NFL Coaching History Date Team Role 1985-1990 St. Louis Rams WRs Coach 1991-1993 Dallas Cowboys Offensive Coordinator 1994-2000 Washington Redskins Head Coach 2001 San Diego Chargers Offensive Coordinator 2002-2003 Miami Dolphins Offensive Coordinator 2004-2005 Oakland Raiders Head Coach 2006 San Francisco 49ers Offensive Coordinator 2007-2012 San Diego Chargers Head Coach 2013 Cleveland Browns Offensive Coordinator Source: Pro Football Reference After starting his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Oregon, Turner has gone on to coach both receivers and quarterbacks. His appointment as the offensive coordinator in Minnesota will mark the seventh time he's held that position, with six of those jobs coming in the NFL. His track record coaching offense is an impressive one. As a coordinator and head coach, Turner has led 10 different offenses into the top 10 in scoring production. He once helped the Dallas Cowboys become the league's second-highest scoring offense from 1991 to 1993, and the San Diego Chargers ranked at least fifth or better in points for five straight seasons (2007-2011) when he was their head coach. Turner utilizes a run-based attack that is dependent on play-action fakes, timing routes to the intermediate part of the field and an aggressive vertical passing game. The bogus idea that Turner is a pass-first play-caller doesn't include his storied history of getting the most out of the running back position. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images Five times a Turner-coached running back has won the league's rushing title; Emmitt Smith did it three times, along with Ricky Williams and LaDainian Tomlinson. Overall, his offenses have been in the top 10 in rushing attempts seven times and in the top 11 for rushing yards 13 times. The presence of Adrian Peterson in Minnesota should guarantee that the Vikings will stay committed to rushing the football. It's certainly possible that in 2014 Peterson will become the fourth of Turner's running backs to win the rushing crown. But Turner's biggest challenge in Minnesota will be developing the quarterback position, something Leslie Frazier and former offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave failed to do over the last three seasons. The Vikings finished 2013 with Christian Ponder, Matt Cassel and Josh Freeman as the team's three quarterbacks. It's possible that only Cassel will be back and that a top draft pick—the Vikings select No. 8 in the 2014 draft—will begin his grooming process next season. Turner has already proved he can coax the best out of the worst of quarterback situations. In Cleveland last season, Turner had to endure a merry-go-round at quarterback, with Brandon Weeden, Jason Campbell and Brian Hoyer all assuming the starting role at some point. Yet the Browns finished 11th in passing yards and touchdowns, and receiver Josh Gordon developed into a legitimate star. Overall, Cleveland finished 18th in total offense and 27th in points, despite playing three underwhelming quarterbacks and getting next to nothing from a talent-deficient running back position. Turner now needs a promising player at quarterback that he can groom for the long term. In the past, he's worked wonders with quarterbacks such as Troy Aikman and Philip Rivers. Aikman completed 66 percent of his passes with 49 touchdowns and a passer rating of 91.7 with Turner in charge. Rivers threw for over 4,250 yards during each season from 2009 to 2011 and three times (2008-2010) had a passer rating over 100.0. Notable Quarterbacks Under Norv Turner Years Cmp % Yards TD/INT Rating Troy Aikman* 1991-93 66.0 9299 49/30 91.7 Gus Frerotte 1994-98 52.3 9769 48/44 72.7 Brad Johnson 1999-2000 61.5 6510 35/28 84.0 Doug Flutie* 2001 56.4 3464 15/18 72.0 Jay Fiedler* 2002-03 59.1 4162 25/22 78.6 Kerry Collins 2004-05 54.8 7254 41/32 76.1 Philip Rivers 2007-12 64.0 24355 166/83 95.2 *Years in which Turner was an OC But even if there is a learning curve at the quarterback position, Turner will have weapons to use in the Vikings' passing game. Veteran Greg Jennings signed with Minnesota last offseason and remains one of the game's better route-runners. While in Green Bay, Jennings excelled at both yards after the catch and getting down the field in the vertical passing game. Tight end Kyle Rudolph is a similar player to Jordan Cameron, who just delivered a Pro Bowl season under Turner. Over 15 games in 2013, Cameron (6'5", 254 pounds) caught 80 passes for 917 yards and seven touchdowns. Turner also helped turn Antonio Gates (6'4", 255) into one of the NFL's most dynamic tight ends in San Diego. Rudolph, who stands 6'6" and weighs 259 pounds, has caught 83 passes with 12 touchdowns over 24 games since 2012. If healthy for 16 games, he could be looking at a breakout season in 2014. Yet the most tantalizing projection into the Turner offense has to be receiver Cordarrelle Patterson, a first-round pick in 2013 who showed the potential to become one of the game's best playmakers. Adam Bettcher/Getty Images The rookie scored nine total touchdowns last season, including four receiving and three rushing. Despite being mostly locked out of the offense early on in 2013, Patterson caught 45 passes and managed 627 yards from scrimmage. His long stride and overall length should make him a constant vertical threat under Turner, and his open-field running ability will allow Turner to have a multitude of ways to get him the football. Bubble screens, quick slants and straight go routes all fit Patterson's game. While not a perfect comparison, it's fair to note that Gordon—a 2013 All-Pro—caught 87 passes for a league-high 1,646 yards and nine touchdowns over just 14 games with Turner last season. It's just as fair to expect Patterson to improve greatly on his own numbers in 2014. Predicting Edwards' impact on the defensive side is a more difficult task. Considering Zimmer has a long track record of success coordinating and calling the plays on defense, Edwards may have a somewhat limited role in reshaping Minnesota's unit. But he still brings experience leading defenses and coaching both the defensive line and linebackers. Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports He also has past history with Zimmer, who in 2000 and 2001 worked as the defensive coordinator in Dallas while Edwards was the linebackers coach. Edwards later went on to be the defensive coordinator in Washington in 2003 and in Buffalo in 2010 and 2011. He completed his second stint as the Dolphins' linebackers coach last season. Edwards laid out his basic defensive philosophy to Alain Poupart of the Dolphins' official site in March of 2012: The biggest thing that you see in this league, there’s such a wide variety of things offenses are doing in terms of matchups and that kind of thing. From week to week, the biggest thing is you don’t want to beat yourself. You don’t want to give up a lot of big plays, you want to be able to stop the run, get off the field on third down, the different aspects that you break down, you want to not give up points in the red zone, so from that aspect of it you want to break the game down and you want to look at it from those coaching points. You want to go out and do the best that your personnel can do to get those things stopped that they’re trying to accomplish each week. But the results of his past stints as defensive coordinator don't exactly paint a pretty picture. Under Edwards, Washington's defense finished 24th in points and 25th in yards in 2003. In 2010 and 2011, the Buffalo Bills finished 28th and 30th in points and 24th and 26th in yards, respectively. Buffalo did complete the 2010 season ranked third in passing yards allowed, but that defense also ranked 32nd against the run. However, the addition of Edwards could be a signal that the Vikings will attempt to become more multiple in their defensive fronts next season. He previously worked with the 3-4 and 4-3 looks, oftentimes using both during the same season. Zimmer also has experience in using both defensive fronts. Vikings defensive end Brian Robison would welcome more of a hybrid look. "I would love to do a hybrid type of defense," Robison said, via Master Tesfatsion of the Star Tribune. "Maybe throw in some 3-4 plays, some 4-3 plays. I’m open to being a 3-4 outside linebacker. I’m confident in my athletic ability to do anything at this point." Still, expect any decision on that front to be made by Zimmer. He will be expected to assume control of the Vikings defense after enjoying so much success on that side of the ball with the Cincinnati Bengals. Turner, an experienced leader who should have complete control on offense, will make the bigger impact of the two coordinators. He has historically shown an ability to build an offense around its star players and get the most out of his quarterbacks. A first-time head coach, Zimmer has wisely surrounded himself with experienced coordinators. The changes that the three men have in store could eventually have big returns for the Vikings.The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the AHL are in an Eastern Conference finals matchup against the St. John's IceCaps (the minor league team of the Winnipeg Jets). The series is tied 1-1, with the next three games back in PA, giving the Pens a nice chance to grab a series lead. To find out more about how this playoff run might affect the Pittsburgh Penguins next year, we checked in with old friend Tony of Highland Park Hockey. Check out his blog for all the details of the playoff run, and he's also very active on the twitters @H_P_Hockey for all your instant feedback. We conducted this interview before the series started, so all information was relayed before these last two games were played. The overall point was to find out about how individual performances might project to the NHL next season- and beyond- so none of that info has gone out-of-date. #1 - What has been the key to the WB/S Penguins' playoff run? The key to the run has been the power play, especially evidenced in their 7-game series with Providence last round. They were 4-0 in the series when recording at least one power play goal, going 7-for-21 in those four games. When they didn't get a PPG, they were 0-3, going 0-for-11. Another key has definitely been timely saves from Peter Mannino and the tight defensive structure WBS plays. I can't recall a WBS team that allows as few shots per game as this year's team. Much of that, I'm sure, has to do with the willingness of everyone in the lineup to get in shooting lanes and block so many shots. #2- What's the deal with Anton Zlobin? I believe he was a healthy scratch at one point this season, battled some injuries too and split time between the AHL and ECHL. Now he has 8 points in 9 playoff games and seems like a key player- what was his big turnaround moment? What's his prognosis for an NHL future? Zlobin has the potential to be a dynamic offensive weapon. He missed the start of the season rehabbing an offseason shoulder surgery and got in some ECHL games before sticking with WBS mid-season. He has a tendency to be streaky, and was somewhat inconsistent in the regular season but has seemed to find his game more regularly in the postseason. Zlobin has been clutch in the postseason, already with three game-winning goals in these playoffs. #3 - Conor Sheary was a very under the radar signing by the Pens this year, but he amazingly is a core piece of this team this playoff year and a productive one with 9 points in 9 games. What is his game like, what are the keys to his success? And what kind of NHL future do you think he might have? Count me as one of many who are very impressed with what Conor Sheary has been able to do at the pro level, mind you the sample size is small (and so is he). Sheary is a bit undersized - I believe he's listed at 5-foot-8 - but makes up for it with great skating ability/speed and a knack for competition. The kid simply doesn't stop competing. He doesn't give up on the play, always battles for loose pucks in the dirty areas of the ice (which is rare for a smaller player) and is great on the back-check on opposing forwards/defenseman in the neutral zone. He's had a great start to his pro career, but I think it's way too early to try to gauge his NHL potential just yet. #4 - Brian Dumoulin has 11 points in 11 playoff games, leads the team in assists and seems like he's playing pretty well. Is he ready for the next step next year and make the jump to the NHL? Dumoulin has had a bit of a sophomore slump, coming off an injury to start the season and he wasn't particularly sharp in the early going. He started playing better then got injured again mid-season and missed more time. Saying all of that, he's saved his best hockey for the right time. He's been the best defenseman night in and night out for WBS down the stretch and in the postseason. He's big, can move the puck up ice well and has a bit of offensive flare to him while also being very solid and reliable in his own end. As for NHL-ready? I believe he could make the jump next season, but needs to be more physical and use his 6-foot-4, 220 plus pound more to his advantage. He's a solid two-way defender and if Pittsburgh lets Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen go, he could find a home in Pittsburgh in the very near future. #5 - How are the recent guys sent down (Simon Despres, Jayson Megna) doing? Simon Despres has been solid with WBS since his return. He's been on the top shutdown pairing (was with Reid McNeill but now with Philip Samuelsson since he's returned from injury) and has fared well against opposing team's top offensive weapons. There's still some careless turnovers and mis-reads on offensive zone pinches, but overall I think his play has been steady. He's also a big-game/big-moment kind of player who has liked being on the ice in key moments of a game. He scored a double OT winner this postseason and seems to excel late in games. I would go as far as to say Despres has that sort of "Kris Letang enigma" surrounding him. I'd say he's a bigger, less dynamic Letang that likes offensive zone time. As for Megna, his skating ability and moves with the puck are above the AHL level. He often blows right by opposing defenders and has a tendency to make people miss. He's having trouble finishing still (just tallied his first of the postseason in Game 7 on Wednesday), which was a knock against his game last year as well, but he continues to create offensive pressure/chances. He has centered a line with Zlobin/Sheary as of late and the trio is fun to watch. Thanks to Tony for his time and answers and be sure to check more of his stuff out for all the information you'll need on this exciting run by the Baby Pens.Race riot in the South, 1863. Wikipedia: “Rioters subjected black men to the most brutal violence: torture, hanging, and burning.” Eleven were lynched. The Southern mob depicted here were afraid that if the North won the Civil War, freed slaves would take the jobs of whites. Virginian though I am, a son of the Shenandoah, and brought up among the lazy rivers of the state of Marse Bob Lee and Stonewall—rivers where the sun always seemed to shine and you could mostly catch catfish, and almost think that being alive was a good thing until further experience intervened—I have to admit the deep vileness in the Southern soul. Yes. It was this that brought forth such scenes as above. I cannot deny that the events portrayed happened in the South. Au Phuc Dup and Nowher... Fred Reed Best Price: $11.73 Buy New $5.00 (as of 11:30 EST - Details) The south of Manhattan, anyway, the drawing being of the race riots of 1863 in New York, in which Yankee mobs killed 115 or so innocent people, many of them black. Here was early evidence of the deep regard in which Yankees held black men—and still hold them if you look at actions and not protestations. There is nothing like a damn Yank to tell how good he is, how drowning in the curds and cream of human kindness, without in his actions displaying a trace of it. But should we be surprised? These were the same blue-coats who exterminated the Indians. “The only good Indian,” said the Yankee general Sherman, “is a dead Indian.” Such charitable musings were not unique to him. It was a Yankee named Custer, if memory serves, who after the war devoted himself in the name of the Yankee government to killing Indians, though with mixed results. Yet another Yankee general, Phil Sheridan, wanted to slaughter the western buffalo to starve the Indians to death. I cannot withold my admiration for Northerners for the consistency of their racial philosopy. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to imply that Northerners are the world’s mother lode of preening fraud and practiced hypocrisy. I mean to state it. To talk to these geysers of virtue, you would be sure that their principal object in life was to help the black man, to admit him to the human race as an equal and a brother. I imagine them waking up in the middle of the night thinking how they might advance their darker brethren. Most of them likely do not get enough sleep because of it. Yet I confess a desire for confirmation. I want to say to them, “Yea, verily. And when was the last time you had black friends to dinner?” A Brass Pole in Bangko... Fred Reed Best Price: $6.62 Buy New $4.84 (as of 02:50 EST - Details) Or even, “And while we are thinking of your deep wells of goodness, those crystalline pools of measureless depth—when was the last time you dined in a restaurant where the majority of the patrons were black…ummm?” As I thought. I remember years back that the Washingtonian, the suburban coffee-table magazine of the Yankee Capital, surveyed the news room of the Washington Post, that epicenter of racial oneness, of inattention to color, to see how many of the white reporters sent their children to the black public schools of Washington. “All of them,” I hear you say. “Such paladins of brotherhood could do nothing else.” Zero. Not one child in a black school. The minute the wife knew that she was pregnant, the couple moved to Montgomery County, Maryland. But no, no! Not because of race! Perish forefend. It was because, well…the shopping was better. Yes, that was it. The shopping. But perhaps the best way to compare the dark night of the Southern soul with the supernal radiance to the north is to compare the schools the two regions provide for their freed slaves. One would expect schools in the South to be poor, and they are. But in the North, surely the schools are of a high order, well regulated, producing through their lofty academic standards black graduates scoring high on the SATs and not needing the humiliations of affirmative action. Curmudgeing Through Pa... Fred Reed Best Price: $4.95 Buy New $6.89 (as of 02:50 EST - Details) Surely this is what we will see. Otherwise we would have to concede that, 150 years after the Civil War, the North is still holding black children in illiteracy and squalor. Then, Lord save us, we might doubt the purity of Northern intentions. Fear not! Nothing can be more admirable that the black schools of such northern precincts as, say, Newark, Trenton, Camden, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cincinnati, Flint, Gary, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington—schools in the very intestines of Yankeedom. Why, one can hardly tell them from Groton. They display for all to see the superior morals of the North. They do indeed. Yanks love to talk about slavery, which they say was horrible and inexcusable. It was. This is today like blaming Jews for killing Christ (“Gosh, Rachel, you don’t look old enough.”) But logic confuses Yanks, so I will not essay it. Anyway, slavery existed because in economic terms it was well suited to plantations, and accomplished the enrichment of greedy men of negligible decency—which is to say, businessmen. For horrible, try Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation – 1838-1839 But slavery was ill-suited to an industrial state. It lacked flexibility. You had to feed and maintain slaves whether business was up or down. They were a burden and a responsibility. Kindly Yankees hit upon the superior idea of sweated labor, usually of immigrants who had no way of defending themselves. These could be fired when convenient. If they then died it was a matter of no account as, the Lord be praised, more were arriving by the boatload. And so the pious men of Northern money, who went to church every week, learned to work children twelve hours a day in tubercular dimness, where they grew deformed from poor diet and died early of lead poisoning and rickets.(Try How the Other Half Lives: A Jacob Riis Classic (Including Photography) Immigrant children in New York, cared for with humanity and love. Of course this wholesome system sometimes resulted in unfortunate revelations. If to save a few dollars the master of a noisesome tenement neglected to install fire escapes, and in the ensuing conflagration girls were clutching each other and jumping to their deaths from the seventh floor to avoid being burned to death—ah, well. The ways of God were mysterious, and girls easily replaced. There was no slavery, though. That would have been immoral. Halloween in New York. The children are disguised as malnourished slum kids with no schools, while their pet horse naps. After the Civil War, Yankees continued, as they do today, their encouragement of integration for everyone else. Yankees are always sure of what someone else ought to do. Since most blacks were The Great Possum-Squas... Fred Reed Best Price: $8.24 Buy New $14.96 (as of 02:15 EST - Details) in the South, it was safe to be for racial amity as the North would not have to practice it. When blacks migrated north, the Yanks contained them in poor parts of the cities, as they do today (consult the list of cities foregoing). There were occasional adventures such as the Harlem Renaissance, when fashionable Northerners could go to the Cotton Club and mingle, barely, with real blacks. “Why, they are just like people, almost. Look at them dance!” Uptown, they might keep a few trained and gelded blacks around as ornaments. That was the extent of it. Is this not what one would expect, in the light of the Yankee’s firm belief that blacks are an inferior strain, half devil and half child, bearing the mark of Ham and incapable of the higher forms of civilization? No, Yanks do not say this, but their every action gives the game away. Always they lower the standard for the black man, but never try to raise the black man to the standard. Why? Because they do not believe that blacks can reach the standards of whites. What is “affirmative action” but the belief that a black cannot perform at the white man’s level? Sometimes they talk of “the tyranny of low expectations.” Indeed. But who in Newark holds those low expectations? Southerners, I reckon. Forgive me. I do not mean to offend residents of the North, where virtue runs in the streets until it clogs the storm drains, and the low-hanging branches of trees are damaged by the halos of pedestrians. The Best of Fred Reed'From the Top' will be executive produced by 'Vampire Diaries' leading lady Kat Graham. The CW is poised to explore the world of back-up dancers. The younger-skewing network is teaming with The Vampire Diaries leading lady Kat Graham for From the Top, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The drama centers on seven ruthlessly determined dancers and their wild lives as they try to navigate the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Graham will executive produce the Warner Bros. Television drama. Marc Cleary (Oh Sit) and Dan Richter (The Fosters) are set to pen the script and serve as supervising producers for the drama, which was sold based on a short teaser presentation. Graham will exec produce. She is not currently attached to star. Graham, who has starred on The CW's The Vampire Diaries for seven seasons, started her career as a back-up dancer for the stage and performing in music videos alongside Missy Elliott, Pharrell, Jamie Foxx, Lil' Bow Wow, John Legend, Nelly, Usher and more. Her debut album, Roxbury Drive, is out now on iTunes. She's repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and attorney Roger Goff. From the Top arrives as soap operas have been in high demand this development season as broadcasters look to replicate the success Fox has found with Lee Daniels' hip-hop Dynasty, Empire. The news comes hours after former Vampire Diaries writer/EP Michael Narducci, who currently serves as showrunner on spinoff The Originals, sold drama Unfollow to ABC via WBTV.Two connected toys — the My Friend Cayla doll and i-Que Intelligent Robot — allegedly violated kids’ privacy protections by recording their conversations without parental consent, according to a complaint sent to the FTC this week. Both connected toys, from manufacturer Genesis Toys, ship with a built-in Bluetooth microphone and speaker to facilitate communication between kids and the toys’ companion iOS / Android app. Both also search the internet to find answers to kids’ questions. Once children talk to their toys, that voice data is sent to Nuance, a voice analysis firm that reportedly powers Siri and Samsung’s S Voice. It also holds contracts with the US military. The firm converts spoken questions into text so it’s easier to use in search. While yes, it’s troubling that children’s potentially intimate conversations are being sent to a defense contractor, the bigger issue is that the app never requests parental permission to do so. This, the complaint says, violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. the internet of toys (yikes) When the Cayla doll’s app is first turned on, users have to click “Agree” on Terms of Service and then solve a math problem, which always asks what 11 + 16 equals. The i-Que app doesn’t have these steps. The privacy organizations who filed this complaint say these restrictions do not qualify as parental consent for the collection and use of kids’ voice recordings. Both toys also accompany abysmal privacy policies that ultimately defer to Nuance’s Privacy Policy, which states that the company uses collected data to improve its products. One of its products, Nuance Identifier, is a “highly accurate voice biometric solution that allows public security officials to quickly and easily identify known individuals through their voice within large audio data sets.” Law enforcement can use the software to identify suspects by their voice. While the complaint doesn’t say the toy data is directly used to help support this program, it does allude to the idea that it could be happening. To top it all off, the privacy firms say that researchers found that they could exploit weak Bluetooth authentication measures to listen in on conversations. It’s unclear whether the FTC will take action against the company, but Senator Ed Markey sent a letter to both Nuance and Genesis Toys asking for more information on the security and privacy of kids’ data.Screenshot by Casey Newton/CNET Google faces regular challenges as it maps the globe, from privacy lawsuits in Germany to the technical difficulties of mapping underwater. To that list of woes we may now add another: People think it killed a donkey in Botswana. Recently, it seems, the company began fielding complaints from members of the public and the news media about Street View imagery that appeared to show a donkey in the Kweneng region of Botswana lying prostrate in the wake of a Street View vehicle. CNET's Chris Matyszczyk wrote last night asking for proof the animal survived. "Because of the way our 360-degree imagery is put together, it looked to some that our car had been involved in an unseemly hit and run, leaving the humble beast stranded in the road," the company said in a blog post. In fact, Google said, the donkey moved aside as the car drove past. It likely was lying down as part of a "dust bath." "I'm pleased to confirm the donkey is alive and well," Kei Kawai, group product manager for maps, said in the blog post (which was headlined 'Never Ass-ume.') A subsequent photo appeared to show the beast happy and healthy: GoogleAddressing install issues Some users report an error when trying to launch the game. We are working on a fix, but you may be able to resolve the issue right now by following these steps: 1. Open the folder where Freespace 2 is installed (usually "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Freespace 2\data") 2. Open the "Registry" folder. If there is no Registry folder open the "Data" folder 3. Double-click the file "FS2.reg" 4. Click the "Yes" button to make a system change 5. Click the "Yes" button to confirm 6. Click the "OK" button when Reg Edit says it's done 7. Launch Freespace 2 from your Steam library Depending on your system settings, you may need to temporarily lower your UAC (User Access Control) settings or disable your anti-virus to make the change. Then re-enable UAC and/or your anti-virus software. We apologize for any inconvenience.Share. But there's still no word on whether the game will require a subscription fee. But there's still no word on whether the game will require a subscription fee. Zenimax Online hasn't ruled out releasing The Elder Scrolls Online on consoles according to the studio's head. In an interview with GamesIndustry, Matt Firor explained that uncertainty over the next generation is the main thing that's holding the company back. "There are a lot of rumors swirling around the next-gen coming back together with PCs," he said. "It seems like things are going back to a more standard platform. That being said, we haven't thought about it heavily right now. The worst thing you can do is worry about new platforms while in development. "We want to do what we're doing right now and then look around for further opportunities. Certainly we're open to new opportunities, and we're going to be looking into new territories beyond North America and Europe." “ Online game development is all about doing whatever you want, pushing limitations, and it's just easier to do on an open platform. Someday, it may all change. Firor explained that he doesn't know if any potential console version of the game would be connected with the PC version, as is the case with Final Fantasy XI, as it would depend on the technology. Despite this, he shared his feeling that we may be seeing more MMOs on consoles in the near future. He claimed, "It's the classic desk vs. couch argument, but it is blurring over time. The current-gen and previous-gen MMOs were all about using the keyboard and mouse, and sure, everyone used things like Ventrilo and other voice chat services, but that only works in a small group. A lot of that has been thanks to design problems that people haven't focused on a lot, such as typing and controlling at the same time. "The 360, when announced was a pretty ridiculously cool device, but it is not so good anymore compared to PCs and even when it was announced PCs were still better than it. The technology was a little limiting for the size and scope of the world you could have. It mostly comes down to PCs being wide open. Online game development is all about doing whatever you want, pushing limitations, and it's just easier to do on an open platform. Someday, it may all change." With so much still up in the air, it's no surprise that Firor refused to be drawn on the potential business model for the game, simply saying it would be revealed "later". There's been speculation both ways in recent months, with some arguing that Guild Wars 2's imminent release means the title can't risk charging a fee, while others argue that as development began in 2007 when most MMOs had recurring costs, it's likely the game was designed with that model in mind. But despite the crowded MMO marketplace, Firor explained the team isn't worried. He refuted the suggestion that Blizzard dominates the fantasy genre with World of Warcraft, arguing, "All fears have been erased after the success of Skyrim. It just shows that the IP, fantasy or not, is giant and very popular. It resonates with a lot of people in a lot of different parts of the world. It is perfect for an MMO, so I am not worried about that at all." The Elder Scrolls Online is due out in 2013. Exit Theatre Mode Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.Jasper Orlando Slingsby Duncombe, 7th Baron Feversham, (born 14 March 1968), also known as The Porn Baron, is a British nobleman and producer of pornographic films. Biography [ edit ] Feversham is the eldest son of the late Peter Duncombe, 6th Baron Feversham[1], and was educated at Gordonstoun with Prince Edward. After serving three years in prison for attempted robbery while high on cocaine, he founded the pornographic film companies Tongue in Cheek and Relish XXX, the latter of which sells titles to National Health Service fertility clinics and sperm banks. They also install vending machines with VHS cassettes and DVDs in pub bathrooms.[1] He was estranged from his father in the years before the latter's death due to his father's disapproval of his career choice, and was thus disinherited from his father's £46-million estate.[1] However, as eldest son, he succeeded to the barony itself on his father's death on 29 March 2009.[2] He lives in Fulham, London. Marriage & Child [ edit ] Feversham is married to Candida Boddington and they have one child who is heir apparent to the barony: Hon Orlando Balthazar Duncombe (born 2009)[3].WORDS MASSIVE #TBT rewind today. This week marks 10 years since the release of one of drum & bass’s most influential albums this century: Pendulum – Hold Your Colour. Their debut opus, Hold Your Colour reinforced what keen followers had already suspected from early singles such as Spiral and Back 2 U… Capturing the young trio at their rawest and totally free from any expectations, Hold Your Colour smelted everything we knew about drum & bass at the time down and repurposed it with their own rock-referenced, tempo-shattering vision. Featuring unavoidable multiple scene-smashing anthems such as Tarantula and Fasten Your Seatbelts, Pendulum – Hold Your Colour set the foundations for the rest of the decade. While the album enjoyed official chart positions (29 in the UK album charts and 40 in their native Australia) its real success was its influence on almost every bass music producer that has emerged since. Not just within drum & bass, but artists such as AWE to My Nu Leng have cited the album’s strong influence on them in interviews on this very site alone. With its full-frontal dynamics and rock influences, for readers under 25 this is likely to be that album that recoded your brain, helped you make sense of your tastes and requirements from music and set your electronic path in stone (in the same way Fat Of The Land, Wormhole or Colours did to those of us a few years before) If you’re over 25 then you should remember this album clearly… And know how much some of these tracks were absolutely hammered during 2005/2006 and indeed 2007 when the deluxe album dropped. While all the genre’s hallmark
5. Conservative Republicans, Tea Party activists and libertarians have blocked reauthorization, calling Ex-Im “corporate welfare.” The Ex-Im Bank provides loan guarantees for foreign sales of U.S.-built products. It seems preposterous to suggest Boeing could move factories abroad in order to replace the American-backed loans with financing from another nation. But those involved with Ex-Im and similar export credit agencies abroad say Boeing wouldn’t need to move any major assembly sites to get loan guarantees from other countries. They could do it by outsourcing more parts work. Nations already part of Boeing’s supply chain — Canada, for one — have looser rules for export financing and a hunger for new manufacturing jobs and advanced technology. They might extend funding now for a promise of jobs in the future. “I could definitely see this getting initiated near term and getting ramped up in the longer term when they could actually migrate production and jobs,” said Jon Byron, senior vice president for export credit and corporate finance at New York-based Apple Bank, one of the top lenders under Ex-Im guarantees. Of course, McNerney was more than a little disingenuous when he told the Economic Club: “We never would have considered that before this craziness on Ex-Im. We love making and designing airplanes in the U.S. We are now forced to think about doing it differently.” Top 10 beneficiaries of Ex-Im Bank In recent years, Boeing has outsourced to foreign partners very substantial work in designing and building its jets, and the jobs that go with that work. The question is, could the demise of the Ex-Im Bank spur even more such offshoring of jobs? Tea party balks Iraq in April requested that an order of 10 Boeing 737s be approved for loan guarantees from the Ex-Im Bank. Without the guarantee from Ex-Im, commercial banks would be reluctant to lend the hundreds of millions of dollars such a purchase entails. What if the airline gets in trouble five years out? What’s the solidity of a country’s legal system? Its bankruptcy laws? Its government’s stability? For the lending banks, Ex-Im removes the risk: If the borrower defaults, the U.S. government will pay off the loan. So the bank feels free to lend the money, the foreign airline buys the jets and Boeing gets the sale. And despite the seeming risk, Ex-Im’s lending has worked out fine for the U.S. government. Historically, the bank has earned more from issuing loan guarantees than it has paid out for loan defaults, turning a net profit. Boeing is by far Ex-Im’s biggest beneficiary, according to data compiled by the Mercatus research center at Virginia’s George Mason University. In 2013, Ex-Im provided $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to Boeing customers, 30 percent of the bank’s total financing. This provided support for 15 percent of all Boeing’s jet deliveries that year. Others — as big as General Electric and as small as the Hilliard’s brewery in Ballard — also used Ex-Im Bank guarantees, for a 2014 total of $20.5 billion. Yet this decades-old system for oiling the wheels of international commerce and maintaining export-related U.S. jobs crashed to a halt at the end of June. Conservative Republicans, tea-party activists and libertarians decried Ex-Im as “corporate welfare.” They denounced Ex-Im’s financing support for well-off airlines such as giant Middle Eastern carrier Emirates. After members of Congress stonewalled a reauthorization vote, the bank’s authority lapsed and all future deals are on hold. That includes financing for the Iraqi 737s. If Ex-Im supporters could force a vote, they believe the bank would survive handily. But so far they haven’t been able to do so, despite massive lobbying of Congress. According to an analysis of federal lobbying disclosure filings by MapLight, a research organization that tracks money in politics, Boeing has spent about $16 million in each of the past four years lobbying the government. This year, pressing hard for Ex-Im authorization, Boeing spent $9 million just in the three months leading up to the expiration of Ex-Im’s authorization. But authorization lapsed anyway, and now the Republican presidential primary race is prompting candidates to adopt hard-line positions. At the RedState Gathering in Atlanta last week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie applied the “corporate welfare” tag to dismiss Ex-Im as unnecessary. “I believe it’s time for it to go,” Christie said in a video interview with The Daily Signal. “We’re better off spending that money … in cutting taxes.” Could Boeing move jobs? In such an atmosphere, future financing needed to close the sales on Boeing orders for both aircraft and satellites is suddenly in doubt. What will Boeing do? Several people involved with the financing processes used by Ex-Im and other export credit agencies described what might happen, though they declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the political debate. The bottom line is McNerney’s threat is real: Boeing and other U.S. corporations could readily tap into foreign export credit agencies (ECAs) for financial support of their sales — at the cost of U.S. jobs. That’s because other countries are less restrictive in doling out export credit than the U.S. Ex-Im is by law not allowed to finance more than the total U.S. content of any product, and the product must be shipped from the U.S. But the Canadian and Japanese ECAs, like their European counterparts, don’t have such limitations. Boeing could, for example, go to the Canadian government and offer to significantly increase the work and the jobs at its fabrication plant in Winnipeg — in return for Canadian financing support. In Canada’s trade-oriented economy, Export Development Canada provided $21.6 billion in financing last year — essentially matching the Ex-Im Bank’s activity in a nation with one-ninth the population. Canada requires only that a loan guarantee be in its national interest. There’s no strict percentage requirement on the amount of Canadian content. Phil Taylor, a spokesman for the Canadian agency, said, “We could look at financing where the U.S. company commits to increasing its Canadian supply. “The commitment would need to be supported by very solid procurement plans,” Taylor said. In addition, foreign ECAs can work together so that each has to provide only part of the financing for any deal, not all of it. Components coverage The world’s ECAs have an agreement whereby each can cover the portion of any finished good that contains components from that country. For instance, the British ECA may provide 20 percent backing for the net price of an airplane if it has Rolls-Royce engines. If that’s a Boeing jet, it’s Ex-Im that provides the overall financing and the purchasing airline deals only with Ex-Im. But the British ECA underwrites the engine percentage for Ex-Im. Similarly, because the Japanese make 35 percent of the airframe of every 787 Dreamliner, the Japanese ECA already underwrites that percentage of the Ex-Im support for a 787 sale. That hefty Japanese participation makes Japan a natural source of alternative financing if Ex-Im goes away. Boeing could negotiate separate deals in countries where it has a significant supply chain — Japan, Canada, the U.K., Italy, France, Spain, Germany — in each case committing to place more work in that country. Then the Canadian and European ECAs could choose to back a Boeing sale by participating through the Japanese ECA in place of Ex-Im. The airline buying the airplanes would see no big difference in the purchasing process. With Boeing’s active assistance, it would still get the financing from a single entity, a “one-stop shop.” Shrinking U.S. content “It would take time. But in the end, it would be a very workable solution that would slowly but inexorably reduce U.S. content,” said one person familiar with export credit financing. The upshot: “You have put in motion a process that would diminish the U.S. jobs in each Boeing plane. “There would still be sizable U.S. content in the first planes coming out of that,” he added. “But over time, that U.S. content would shrink.” Smaller aircraft parts, both machined metal and composite — from fairings to doors to heavy metal fittings for the wings or landing gear — could be at risk of outsourcing. Ex-Im’s second biggest customer, General Electric, is equally forthright about the potential consequences of the bank’s demise. Addressing the Economic Club separately in June, GE Chief Executive Jeff Immeltsaid if Ex-Im were to finally evaporate through congressional paralysis, “Good jobs in the U.S. will become good jobs in Canada and Europe.” He added: “We will build these products in places where export credit financing is available.” Alex Pietsch, director of Gov. Jay Inslee’s aerospace office, said the prospect of a finance-driven outflow of jobs is dispiriting. “We’d be very disappointed if because of Congress’ inaction Boeing made a decision to put work outside the country,” said Pietsch. “If we start losing work because of it, that would be very frustrating.”It is with a heavy heart that we are writing of the death of comic book artist Paul Ryan, who passed away over the weekend at the age of 66. The news was reported by his cousin, Chad Callanan, on his Facebook account: It is with sad news I report the passing of my cousin Paul. Chances are you were touched by him in your life-time as he was the cartoonist for some of the most well known and beloved characters in the world. From Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, The Phantom to the Fantastic Four, most of which made it to the big screen and Hollywood. He was a true giant and artst, who achieved more success in his short life than any one of us would ever know in ten lifetimes. But he was also my friend and that was good enough. Paul worked for Marvel and DC for decades, staring with work on Iron Man and Squadron Supreme. Most importantly for our Spider-Man oriented site, Paul drew the classic Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 wherein Peter Parker and Mary Jane tied the knot. He also drew a backup story in Spider-Girl #1 and penciled the 1999 Annual story for that book. He also worked with the “legendary” Tom DeFalco on one of the longest runs of the Fantastic Four in the nineties. On Tom DeFalco’s Facebook he had this to say about Paul: Writer Howard Mackie had this to say: To read a full list of Paul Ryan’s work that included Spider-Man, click here.From the Art Director of BioShock and a team of veterans of the BioShock, Halo, Guitar Hero and Rock Band series comes The Flame in the Flood. Travel by foot and by raft down a procedurally-generated river as you scrounge for resources, craft tools, remedy afflictions, evade the vicious wildlife, and most importantly, stay ahead of the coming rains. Featuring an original full length soundtrack by acclaimed Alt-Country rocker Chuck Ragan featuring The Camaraderie, The Fearless Kin and other special guests. Now accepting PayPal! Add on additional copies! Thanks to PayPal pledges, we're an additional $2555 closer to the next goal. For in-depth coverage on the team and the project, check out the November issue of Game Informer. The Backer Beta! Kickstarter backers will have beta access to the game for a month prior to launch. This counts for ALL tiers that include the game. Check out Update #7 for more details. This applies to the Mac & PC versions of the game. Journey Down the River: Travel down a long, winding and completely unique procedurally-generated river, through environments inspired by the Everglades, Mississippi Delta, Louisiana Bayou, and other quintessentially American places. Your journey has an end. Will you survive long enough to reach it? Authentic Survival: With survival tactics and wilderness dangers based on real-life references, staying alive until the end will mean staying warm, staying dry, staying healthy, and avoiding the ravenous wildlife that wants to eat you. A unique world inspired by backwater America: Post-Apocalypse or just Post-Society? Did it all end with a bang or a whimper? The world of The Flame in the Flood explores what happens on the fringes when civilization gives up the ghost. Music from Chuck Ragan: Featuring an original full length soundtrack by acclaimed Alt-Country rocker Chuck Ragan featuring The Camaraderie, The Fearless Kin and other special guests. Surviving the hostile post-societal wilderness is no picnic. Scrounge for food and supplies, evade the ravenous wild-life, seek out shelter, maintain your raft, and stay healthy. And most important of all, make sure you’re gone when the rains arrive. Looting and Crafting The land is dangerous but bountiful, and if you know what you’re looking for, you might just live. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, perhaps you can make it, if you have the pieces. Afflictions and Remedies Snake bites, fatigue, hypothermia, open wounds, and infection are just some of the ways the world will try to kill you. Happily every affliction has its remedies, whether traditional herbal cures, wound-dressings, or simply a solid night’s sleep. Knowing which remedies slow or stop which afflictions is what separates a babe in the woods from a master survivalist. One piece of advice: address your afflictions in a timely manner, before they develop into something worse. AI Ecology Everything needs to eat to survive, and to your predators, you’re just a sack of food wrapped in a buckskin parka and cute hat. Like the river itself, our AI encounters are procedurally generated, and the NPCs behave according to rules governing hunger, fear, aggression, and territory. You’ll need to use stealth, traps, distractions, timing, and your wits to avoid becoming a feast for scavengers. Permadeath When you’re done, you’re done, and if you don’t make it, you go back to the head of the river to try again. But remember: Aesop your faithful hound, will be back with whatever he was carrying at the time of your last death. A small mercy from an otherwise cruel fate. It was clear the time to move had come when the first rain fell and the cloud mass that spoke of the coming flood rolled south. Scout lashed her few belongings to her raft and set out for higher ground as the water drowned her cook fire. Her only companion the dog whom she had raised from a pup after finding it tangled in a muddy old sack in a river eddy. Her journey would take her through unfamiliar lands of crumbling relics from long ago. It would be a hungry trek, with scarce supplies, cold winds and rain always chasing and weakening her. She would have to build her own supplies from the pieces of scrap she could scrounge, conserve her food for long tracts of barren scrubland, ration what clean water she could find for the days ahead. “Salvation lies at the end of the river” people say. Scout and her old dog have a long and terrifying journey ahead of them. Scout You play as Scout, a lone wanderer schooled in the art of wilderness survival. She's seen a bit of everything as she's come of age, and knows how to deal with the challenges of staying alive in a land that isn't interested in helping. Aesop "It was not my fault, master; my spirit was as good as ever, but I could not help mine infirmities. I rather deserve to be praised for what I have been, than to be blamed for what I am." - from Aesop’s Old Hound Aesop is Scout's companion and beast of burden. He's been by her side for years, and though he’s not much use in a scrap, he can carry supplies, call out clues and warnings, and generally help you navigate the wilderness. The Raft Your "piece of ship", a lashed together junk pile that can take a beating and keep floating. You’ll need to take care of it on your journey, fixing it up if you have a hard crash, but if you do it’ll get you where you’re headed. If you don’t, you’ll take a swim and it’s game over. “I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable” ~ T.S. Eliot The river journey is a story that stretches from mythology, through classic literature (Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, Heart of Darkness) to the film and television of today (Mud, Beasts of the Southern Wild). In The Flame in the Flood, we want to translate all of the poetry, adventure, quirkiness, and melancholy of those works into video game form. The River is the central character of the game. It is the road that sweeps you ahead of the coming storm. It is a place of rest and calm when it slows and of frantic action and danger when you hit the rapids. River Tech The Flame in the Flood might not look like your typical roguelike, but it does have one important aspect in common with that genre -- the use of procedural generation algorithms to pseudo-randomly create the world as you move through it. Why “pseudo” random? Because driving the randomness are a set of rules for making rivers that are fun and challenging to navigate, and provide for the many interesting choices you, the player, will face: risk the rapids to get ahead of the coming rain? Hit the store on the eastern bank or the gas station on the western? If I miss that gas station, when will the next one be? Our river creation process is divided into a number of steps, including layout, island packing, flow generation, decoration, and rendering. More on all of this in an update soon! The music for the game is being created by Chuck Ragan featuring The Camaraderie, The Fearless Kin and other special guests. You may know Chuck Ragan for his solo work, his time with post-hardcore trailblazers Hot Water Music, or as founder of The Revival Tour. He's writing an original full length album to accompany the release of the game. Chuck is releasing “The Flame in the Flood” on iTunes. This is the song used in our video. Go pick it up! Additionally, check out his upcoming tour dates. If you drop by his show in Cambridge, MA, on December 11th, you may just run into one of us.YEREVAN, ARMENIA – No one has ever accused Pope Francis of being anything less than audacious in his ambitions. There’s an element of his June 24-26 trip to Armenia, however, that’s perhaps among the most breathtaking aims Francis has pursued to date, in the way it just flat-out defies both conventional wisdom and historical experience in a given part of the world. In effect, Francis came here to say that memory doesn’t have to be dangerous, it can also be healing. That may sound like a platitude, but remember this is the South Caucasus, a corner of the planet where competing memories of past wrongs are forever combustible. The greatest example is the vivid national memory here in Armenia of the genocide the nation suffered in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, which claimed as many as 1.5 million lives. At lower levels of magnitude, however, everyone in this neighborhood seems to recall past wrongs, often fueling suspiciousness, mistrust, and the potential for new violence. Yet Francis came here to deliver precisely the opposite message – not only do you have a right to your memories, you’re obligated to preserve them. “Not to forget them is not only a right, it is a duty,” he told the Armenians on Saturday. “May they be a perennial warning lest the world fall back into the maelstrom of similar horrors!” At the same time, Francis insisted that the purpose of memory is not to repeat the traumas of the past, and certainly not to exact revenge for them, but rather to surpass them. When he visited the Armenian genocide memorial on the hill of Tsitsernakaberd outside Yerevan Saturday morning, Francis wrote in the Book of Honor: “Memory must neither be watered down nor forgotten; it is the source of peace and of the future.” Naturally, the pope brings a spiritual equation to the argument: Add faith to memory, and what you get is redemption: “Charity alone can heal memories and bind up past wounds,” he said Saturday. In his homily for a Mass the pontiff celebrated in the northern Armenian city of Gyumri, he recalled several aspects of the “memory of a people.” “As you ponder these things, you can clearly recognize God’s presence,” Francis said. “He has not abandoned you. Even in the face of tremendous adversity … He has remembered your faithfulness to the Gospel, the first-fruits of your faith, and all those who testified, even at the price of their blood, that God’s love is more precious than life itself.” “It is good to recall with gratitude how the Christian faith became your people’s life breath and the heart of their historical memory,” he said. Francis argued the faith which memory supports expresses itself in mercy and concrete acts of love, which he called the “Christian’s calling card.” “We are called above all to build and rebuild paths of communion, tirelessly creating bridges of unity and working to overcome our divisions,” Francis said. As he has done repeatedly since arriving in Armenia, a nation where Catholics are a tiny minority and the dominant religious tradition is the Orthodox Armenian Apostolic Church, Francis pledged his support for “the fullness of Eucharistic communion.” That message was driven home not only in words but in gestures. On Saturday, for instance, before Francis left the northern Armenian city of Gyumri, he visited both the Apostolic and Catholic cathedrals. At the former, he offered the final blessing; at the latter, it was Catholicos Karekin II. Later, during an ecumenical prayer service for peace staged in Republic Square in downtown Yerevan, the pope extended his argument about memory. “Memory alone erases prejudices and makes us see that openness to our brothers and sisters can purify and elevate our own convictions,” Francis said. “Memory, infused with love, becomes capable of setting out on new and unexpected paths, where designs of hatred become projects of reconciliation, where hope arises for a better future for everyone, where ‘blessed are the peacemakers’.” In all candor, Francis’s version of the politics of memory may be a tough sell in this part of the world, and the pontiff got a reminder of the point. On Saturday evening, Francis quoted his own message to Armenians last year, in which he asked that God “grant that the people of Armenia and Turkey take up again the path of reconciliation, and may peace also spring forth in Nagorno Karabakh.” The reference is to a disputed region between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan, where Francis is planning to make a visit along with Georgia in late September and early October. Yet in his own greeting to the pope, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, didn’t seem in quite so forgiving a mood. Armenians, Karekin said, “anticipate that Turkey, following your message and the plea of many countries as well as international institutions, will demonstrate enough bravery to face their history,” seemingly a clear demand that Turkey end attempts to block recognition of the early 20th century massacres of Armenians as a genocide. Karekin added that Armenians likewise want Turks to “end the illegal blockade of Armenia,” referring to restrictions on trade and movements across borders imposed by Turkey that Armenians blame for worsening poverty and forcing the country to become excessively dependent on remittances from its wealthy diaspora. Finally, Karekin said, Turkey needs to “cease from supporting Azerbaijan’s militaristic provocations targeted against the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to live in freedom and justice.” All in all, it did not quite sound like the phrasing of someone for whom memory has quite yet inspired the “projects of reconciliation” to which Francis referred. Neither, for that matter, did the reaction of Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli on Saturday to the pope’s use of the word “genocide” the day before, describing it as “unfortunate” and reflective of a “crusader’s mindset.” On the other hand, the legacy of centuries was never going to be converted overnight. Perhaps, however, what Francis leaves behind in Armenia, and what he’ll also try to do in Georgia and Azerbaijan, is at least a new way of seeing the memories that so often sear the region – not only as a threat, but also a resource.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption New research suggests that GPs in deprived areas are not getting the funding they need to tackle health inequalities GPs in deprived areas are not getting the funding they need to tackle health inequalities, BBC Scotland has learned. Research suggests the funding formula which is supposed to increase GPs' resources in poorest areas is still weighted in favour of the richest. Researchers found the average spend per patient per year was £7 higher in the top 10% of affluent areas compared with the bottom 10% of deprived areas. The Scottish government said spending on GP services had increased by 13%. "This formula has robbed the poorest and sickest people in Scotland to pay for GP care in affluent areas," said Drumchapel GP, Dr Peter Cawston. "It is far worse than we even thought - patients who live in poorer areas are allocated less money than patients in wealthy areas." The study was carried out by researchers at Glasgow and Dundee universities and covered nearly every practice in Scotland. It found that the average spend per patient per year was £127 in the top 10% of affluent areas compared with £120 in the bottom 10% of deprived areas. "That doesn't sound very much," said Dr Cawston, "but with that £7 we could have offered 2,000 extra GP appointments a year in my GP practice alone. These are appointments people desperately need." 'Shocking figures' On average, people living in deprived areas of Scotland die more than 10 years earlier than people in affluent areas and become ill in their 50s rather than their 70s. "I think these figures are shocking," said Prof Graham Watt, of Glasgow University's Institute of Health and Wellbeing. "It's a question of fairness. For a government that flies the flag of fairness and social justice, this is a real test of what their understanding and commitment to that is." Image copyright Thinkstock He said: "The challenge in a period of austerity is whether social justice and fairness are things that we can only afford in good times or whether we apply them in bad times. "It's not because there isn't the best of intentions or the best methods or the best statisticians. The data which is available is insufficient to deal with this problem." Health Secretary Shona Robison said: "Under this government spending on GP services has increased by £88.7m or nearly 13%. "In June, we also announced an additional £60m for GP and primary care services, through our Primary Care Transformation Fund, which is being allocated to projects to reduce GP workload and encourage innovation in primary care." She said the fund would help GPs across the country - including those practices in deprived areas. 'Complex conditions' "When allocating funding for GPs, we take into account the additional needs of patients in deprived areas and provide extra funding to those practices located there," Ms Robison said. "GP funding is weighted to reflect factors such as deprivation - as we know that this generally means their patients have more complex conditions resulting in an increased workload for the GP." However, the researchers pointed out that finding the right funding system was complicated. While practices in deprived areas have higher numbers of younger patients with multiple conditions, practices in more affluent areas have higher numbers of frail, older patients. Ms Robison added: "We are sympathetic to the case that we need to do more to ensure GPs work in disadvantaged communities is backed up by the right levels of investment. "GP contractual arrangements now place much more emphasis on patient care being provided by the whole clinical team, including nurses and pharmacists, and therefore the concept of average numbers of patients per GP is now less meaningful. "This review will inform the development of a brand new Scottish GP contract from 2017, where we will seek to ensure that both GPs and patients get a fair deal. The impact of deprivation will be a part of this important work."I am not a marijuana smoker and never will be. Based on what I have seen, even casual use can be psychologically addicting. If consumed heavily, pot can sap ambition, destroy creative energy and ruin lives. Except for some very sick people, weed is something to avoid. But just because an activity is foolish, that doesn't mean we should pass laws against it and spend billions of dollars locking up the offenders. That's especially true if prohibition creates a huge, violent black market for the thing being outlawed and generates costs out of proportion to any social good the ban produces. Such is the case with marijuana criminalization, and it's time to put an end to it. A current ballot initiative would decriminalize marijuana in Michigan for adults at least 21 years old. While the proposal would have zero impact on the federal laws against Mary Jane, putting it on the ballot and passing it would be worth doing. The simple reason: Decades of using the law to fight marijuana use have been a colossal failure. Legal or not, people will use marijuana. That's a fact. The real issue is not how we eliminate the pot business; we can't. All we can realistically do is decide who to put in charge of it. It makes no sense to keep the pot trade in the hands of violent, unscrupulous criminal gangs when it could run by law-abiding citizens, taxed and regulated. I don't know how much money a marijuana tax could generate for Michigan. I suspect it could be a lot, but that's hardly the best reason to legalize weed. In this case, control is perhaps even more important. By keeping pot illegal, we not only help finance the black market, we delegate to criminals the task of managing the cultivation and distribution of a product used by hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of Michigan residents. Because of that, we really don't know what's in it, how it might be contaminated or who is buying it. And the people who sell the stuff... well, they get to keep all the money they make, tax free, without ever having to meet an inspector. If we brought the marijuana trade out of the shadows and into the light, society could get at least a modicum of influence over what's being puffed and by whom. Sure, we cannot entirely keep liquor, beer and wine out of the hands of minors. We won't be able to do that with pot, either. But we can make it more likely that the stuff kids get their hands on meets basic standards for purity. As with liquor dealers, we also would create an incentive for sellers to be licensed and stay that way, producing a self-policing effect on the good ones. These ideas are already taking hold. Sixteen states, including Michigan, along with the District of Columbia, now allows medical use of marijuana. Several states have already decriminalized it, even for non-medical purposes. In many cases where pot is still at least nominally illegal, incarceration has been replaced with civil fines or drug treatment for small-time possession and prosecution of marijuana offenses has been officially made a low priority. There is a good reason for that. Marijuana, for all its many faults, is not considered to be a deadly drug. A recent paper published in the British journal The Lancet, for example, found, unlike some other illicit drugs, "cannabis contributes little to mortality." Other research finds health effects that, while real, are less scary and dramatic than those associated with amphetamines and cocaine. I do not want bus drivers or airline pilots to be under the influence when they are working. But, based on my own experience with co-workers -- and some legitimate research -- I find no reason to think that the effects of moderate marijuana use are dangerous once the high wears off. Given all that, it's unclear what society is protecting itself from when it prohibits people from smoking "the herb."Ljubljana, Slovenia — Fans mourn the loss of 65-year-old Marxist commentator Slavoj Žižek, who lost his lifelong battle with cocaine addiction Monday. Though he was not considered by intellectuals to be a “true” philosopher, which bothered him deeply, Žižek was regarded by his following as a forward thinker and a master in his field. He gained notoriety as a Communist editorial writer during the liberalization of former Yugoslavia under Tito – where his drug habit began – and later played himself in screenplays “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema” and “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.” Žižek was found alone in his Ljubljana flat where he was confirmed dead. Paramedics on the scene told reporters he appeared to be coated in a fine dust, “presumably cocaine,” one witness said. Sources close to Žižek who asked that their names be withheld said he had grown cold and distant. The source said Žižek exhibited many telltale signs of drug abuse during public appearances at universities and forums. Eccentric mannerisms – his wild, swinging hands, half-hour tangents and long, unending chains of run-on clauses – are just a few examples, while publicists and MCs blamed his constantly running nose on “allergies” to spare him any indignity. “Talking to Slavoj was like talking to someone through six inches of bulletproof glass,” the source told chronicle.su. “He said he understood our concerns, but his lost, vacant eyes told another story.” Žižek’s editors complained his writing had become scattered and disjointed. McGraw-Hill told the Internet Chronicle that Žižek often repeated himself throughout his copy, and that editors sometimes used the Microsoft Windows command ‘ctrl+f’ to highlight and revise countless instances of repetition. In a single draft, Žižek was rumored to have used the word “Hegelian” more than 2,000 times. Royalties from Žižek’s various works are expected to go to Jela Krečič, his wife. The family has asked the media to respect their privacy in this difficult and uncertain time.fullscreen continue view fullscreen close Hey, did you hear that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been doing stuff around New York City? And that he's from Brooklyn? It's true! And now it's time for even more Bernie coverage, because he's about to embark on a series of huge Get Out The Vote rallies, starting with one in Washington Square Park tonight. One recent poll showed Sanders trailing Hillary Clinton in New York by 13 points, so he's hoping to motivate more young voters, as well as voters who were young eight years ago—tonight he's bringing out Vampire Weekend, along with Spike Lee, Rosario Dawson, Shailene Woodley, Linda Sarsour, Tim Robbins and Graham Nash. The normally bustling park was closed off by the police and Secret Service this morning. By noon, news trucks were lining the streets as cops put barriers in place. A sound check was being conducted (a mix of guitar playing and easy listening) as Parks workers raked the lawn. At the south end of the park, Sanders supporters were already waiting to enter, many hours before the gates open at 5 p.m. At the head of the line was Diane, a Long Island resident. "I've been here since 7 a.m.," she said, explaining that she went to the Bronx rally but got there late and was in the overflow area (which Sanders did visit). "I really wanted to be close this time." She admits she's surprised by her passion for the senator from Vermont. "I've never been politically involved before," but Sanders "wants to bring back the middle class." She also cited his desire to address to "imbalance between the haves and the have-nots." The line at 2:30 p.m. (Scott Lynch / Gothamist) As for Hillary Clinton, Diane said she used to like Hillary "when she was out fighting... but now she's become part of the machine." Bernie, on the other hand, is someone "people love... people relate to him. He's honorable." Sanders's perceived connection with regular Americans is also what inspires Kathleen Menegozzi. Wearing a camouflage jumper—with "Bernie's Soldier" and a Bernie caricature inside a heart on the back—she and fellow supporter Ada Vargas were scouting locations for a mural. "There are endless reasons" why Menegozzi has been Berning since September, but education was a big one, "I went to CUNY and it was pretty affordable, but college should be a basic human right." Vargas, who sports a Bernie outline tattoo on her left upper arm, said, "the more I learn about him, the more I love him. He's not just talking the talk—he's walking the walk, too." Pat Gross, who lives in the neighborhood, was walking her pug Ajax. Usually they visit the dog run in Washington Square Park, but it was blocked off for the rally. While Ajax was taciturn, Gross called the lockdown "a fair inconvenience." She isn't attending the rally, but her son and brother will be there. "I'm voting for Hillary." At By Chloe, the popular vegan restaurant a few blocks south, an employee said she'd try to go to rally after her shift ends at 5 p.m. "I heard Vampire Weekend will be there. But," she continued, "I'm more excited for Sunday's rally in Prospect Park"—because Grizzly Bear will be there.FERGUSON, Mo. — Violence erupted here once more overnight, even as Missouri National Guard troops arrived, the latest in a series of quickly shifting attempts to quell the chaos that has upended this St. Louis suburb for more than a week. In the days since an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a white police officer here on Aug. 9, an array of state and local law enforcement authorities have swerved from one approach to another: taking to the streets in military-style vehicles and riot gear; then turning over power to a Missouri State Highway Patrol official who permitted the protests and marched along; then calling for a curfew. Early Monday, after a new spate of unrest, Gov. Jay Nixon said he was bringing in the National Guard. Hours later, he said that he was lifting the curfew and that the Guard would have only a limited role, protecting the police command post. Although the tactics changed, the nighttime scene did not. Late Monday night, peaceful protests devolved into sporadic violence, including gunshots, by what the authorities said was a small number of people, and demonstrators were met with tear gas and orders to leave. Two men were shot in the crowd, officials said in an early-morning news
sales for Boeing in Canada, said the company already has long-standing relationships with suppliers in the country and would have no problem delivering significant industrial benefits. He said the company has a track record of delivering on its commitments with $6.5 billion delivered for existing contracts and another $3.1 billion in obligations still to come. Valla also touted the immediate benefit of selecting the Super Hornet, saying it is cheaper to operate and maintain. With files from Andy BlatchfordAdrian Wojnarowski (), nicknamed Woj, (born 1969) is an American sports columnist, reporter and author. Of Polish descent, he is currently employed with ESPN, having previously covered the NBA for Yahoo! Sports.[1] Early life [ edit ] Wojnarowski was born in Bristol, Connecticut in 1969 and graduated from Bristol Central High School in 1987.[2] He then went on to attend St. Bonaventure University, where he graduated in 1991.[1] Career [ edit ] Wojnarowski began his career working for the Hartford Courant starting as a high school senior and continuing during breaks from college. After graduating from college, he wrote for some smaller papers before becoming a columnist for the Fresno Bee in 1995.[3] In 1997, he started working for The Record in New Jersey. As a result of his work with The Record, he was named “Columnist of the Year” in 1997 and 2002 by the Associated Press Sports Editors. During this time, he also contributed regularly to ESPN.com. In 2006, he published a New York Times best-seller: The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty.[1] Yahoo! Sports [ edit ] In 2007, he left The Record and joined Yahoo! Sports full-time. Wojnarowski has helped break many major national stories while at Yahoo! Sports. In March 2009, he and Dan Wetzel wrote a story tying the Connecticut Huskies men's basketball program to several recruiting violations.[4] In 2010 the New York Post reported that Wojnarowski was being sued by the Penguin Group for failing to meet a deadline for a book covering the life of coach Jim Valvano. Wojnarowski responded that the problem was "a miscommunication between my agent and me" and said that he would be returning the money to Penguin Books.[5][6] Wojnarowski is widely considered one of the best NBA "scoopers" in the business, especially during the NBA Draft, when Wojnarowski has called the picks and trades involving said picks ahead of time on his Twitter account.[7][3] However, Wojnarowski has been criticized by media critics for his reporting on NBA player LeBron James, being accused of having an apparent bias and relying on anonymous sources. [8][9][10][3] He was listed #1 in Sports Media Watch's Worst of Sports Media 2010 as a result of this criticism.[11] ESPN [ edit ] Wojnarowski left Yahoo! Sports for ESPN on July 1, 2017, just before the start of NBA free agency.[12] He made his ESPN debut on the midnight edition of SportsCenter earlier that day. Wojnarowski regularly posts his scoops on Twitter, with important transactions he reports referred to by his followers as "Woj Bombs.” Books authored [ edit ] Wojnarowski, Adrian (January 19, 2006). The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty. Gotham Books. pp. 416 pages. ISBN 1-59240-186-4.So I work in the film industry. I love movie. It's one of the only subjects I think I would never get tired of. I like film theory, I like film aesthetics, I like film history, I like film technique, everything about it is completely and endless fascinating to me. So, needless to say I read a lot of books about film. Hundreds. Books on editing, books on cinematography, books on film history, books on acting, books on directors, books on screenwriting, screenplays etc. You get the idea. So my secret santa sent me a film book called "The film that changed my life" by Robert K. Elder. It was a book of interviews with famous directors where they talk about one specific film that was hugely influential in their films and careers. It has interviews with some of my very favorite directors of all time. Danny Boyle talks about "Apocalypse now". Edgar Wright talks about "An American Werewolf in London". Rian Johnson talks about "Annie Hall". The night I got it I read three chapters even before I went to bed. This gift was picked so well that I thought perhaps my secret santa had found my amazon wish list and picked a book off of it (although I checked my list later and I don't think this book was on it). Anyway, huge thanks to my secret santa! I hope he receives as thoughtful a gift as the one I received from him.Telltale Incorporated, doing business as Telltale Games, was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in October 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following LucasArts' decision to leave the adventure game genre. Telltale established itself to focus on adventure games using a novel episodic release schedule over digital distribution, creating its own game engine, Telltale Tool, to support this. Telltale's initial successes were on games using intellectual properties with small but dedicated fan bases, including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner. Around 2010, the studio gained more lucrative licensing opportunities in more mainstream properties such as Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. Telltale's critical breakout game came in 2012's The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series of the same name. It introduced a more narrative-directed approach that diverged from the standard adventure game "point and click" gameplay. The Walking Dead gave the player the ability to make choices that may affect how future events in the game or its sequels play out, effectively allowing players to craft their own personalized take on the offered story. Nearly all of Telltale's adventure games since have featured this player choice-driven approach. The Walking Dead was critically praised and considered to have revitalized the adventure game genre since LucasArts' departure from it in 2004. Telltale continued to expand with new licensing deals for episodic adventure games over the next few years, including for Minecraft, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but the rate of production created a "crunch time" culture behind the scenes, leaving poor company morale, little room for creativity to veer from the formula set by The Walking Dead or improvements on the Telltale Tool. A management shakeup occurred in early 2017, with CEO Bruner stepping down, and Pete Hawley, formerly of Zynga, brought in to fix Telltale's problems. Internal restructuring led to a layoff of 25% of the company's staff in November 2017 along with an emphasis to slow down game production to improve production quality, retirement of the Telltale Tool for a more standard game engine, and seeking other lucrative properties to develop for. This resulted in an early 2018 deal with Netflix in which Telltale would adapt its Minecraft: Story Mode into an interactive program for the streaming service, and Netflix licensing the rights to Telltale for an adventure game based on its show Stranger Things. In the midst of releasing The Walking Dead: The Final Season, the company was forced to initiate a "majority studio closure" after their last investor had pulled out of funding. Telltale announced on September 21, 2018, that it had let go of all but 25 of its staff as part of this closure, with the remaining skeleton crew completing specific obligations, such as finishing the Minecraft: Story Mode project porting to Netflix. Telltale Games filed for assignment in October 2018. History [ edit ] Foundation and initial growth (2005–2010) [ edit ] Telltale Games was founded in San Rafael, California, by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, a group of former LucasArts employees that worked on the studio's adventure games. In March 2004, LucasArts recognized that there were "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" that made adventure games too risky to release, and canceled work on two sequels of previous adventure games, Full Throttle 2 and Sam & Max: Freelance Police, as well as laying off many of those developers.[1] Telltale Games' opening was announced on October 4, 2004.[2] In an early press release the vocal public response to said cancellation was cited as a main reason the company was founded.[3] Technology attorney Ira P. Rothken negotiated publishing and licensing deals for the company.[4] The company's initial goal was to develop a new Sam & Max game in an episodic format. Grossman said that Telltale identified that Sax & Max had a small but dedicated audience allowing them to develop a title that would be successful in reaching out to this group and not requiring them to seek out a bigger license that would have incurred more development costs.[5] Developing a Sam & Max games required both development of tools to produce the game, and the license to make it. At the time of the studio's founding, the license for Sam & Max was still held by LucasArts, who refused to negotiate a deal nor license the work on Sam & Max: Freelance Police for Telltale to complete it. Telltale waited out the licensing period until around mid-2005, after which Steve Purcell, Sam & Max's creator, immediately offered the license to Telltale.[1] Until they could get to that point, the studio developed other games to bring in revenue and keep the studio afloat. On February 11, 2005, the company released their first game, Telltale Texas Hold'em, a poker card game simulator which was intended primarily to test the Telltale Tool, their in-house game engine.[1] They used the license around Jeff Smith's Bone comic book series to test the episodic format. Though initially planned for a five-episode series, Telltale only released two episodes in 2005 and 2006 and the remaining episode had been canceled.[1] Alongside Bone, Telltale developed a series of games for Ubisoft around the CSI television series, including CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, CSI: Hard Evidence, CSI: Deadly Intent, and CSI: Fatal Conspiracy; though these games were also developed as episodes, they were each released in single packages.[1] Once they had secured the rights to Sam & Max, Telltale set about to making this game with an episodic approach, with episodes planned to be released on a tight monthly basis through their partner, GameTap. Sam & Max: Season One was considered a success for the company, and considered one of the first successful demonstration of an episodic release in video games.[1] The success led to additional funding through two rounds of angel investment, including Matthew Le Merle and members of angel group Keiretsu Forum.[6] The studio created a second season for Sam & Max, and found additional niche intellectual property areas, including Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner, to continue the episodic adventure game format.[1] When Darrell Rodriguez became CEO of LucasArts in 2008, he wanted to see the old LucasArts adventure properties flourish, leading to a license for Telltale to create a new game in the Monkey Island series, Tales of Monkey Island.[1] Telltale was also able to expand their release platforms beyond personal computers, with releases of these games on various consoles at the time.[1] To supplement their normal episodic games, Telltale created a pilot program in early 2010 to explore one-off games that would explore other gameplay and storytelling approaches that could eventually be incorporated into their episodic games.[7] The first game, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, a puzzle-solving game in collaboration with Graham Annable, was released in June 2010, while Poker Night at the Inventory, a crossover poker game featuring characters from Sam and Max, Homestar Runner, Valve's Team Fortress 2, and the webcomic Penny Arcade, was released late in 2010. Telltale followed up Puzzle Agent with a sequel, Puzzle Agent 2, in 2011. In 2013, Telltale continued the series with Poker Night 2. The Walking Dead started out as a pilot program game that was known internally as the "zombie prototype".[8] Major franchise acquisitions (2010–2016) [ edit ] Having established themselves as working with comedy franchises, Telltale chose to work with dramatic franchises as well as comedy series. In June 2010, Telltale announced that they had secured licenses with NBC Universal to develop two episodic series based on Back to the Future and Jurassic Park.[9] Notably, Telltale's Jurassic Park: The Game was the first game to break away from the standard adventure game format, including elements like quick time events and time-limited choices which would become a core gameplay element in their future adventure games.[1] Telltale obtained the license from NBC Universal to develop episodic series around the Law & Order franchise in April 2011.[10] By 2010, Telltale had proven itself successful, with yearly revenues of $10 million, 90% greater than the previous year.[11] Part of this was attributed to Back to the Future: The Game, which Steve Allison, the senior vice-president (VP) of marketing, called in 2011 their "most successful franchise to date".[12] Allison stated that for most of their games, they only need to sell 100,000 copies to break even, but many of their recent releases have seen twice that number or more.[11] The studio expanded from 90 to 140 employees.[11] They had obtained a license in 2011 to develop a King's Quest adventure game based on the original Sierra games,[13] but Activision took back the rights in 2013, which were subsequently used by The Odd Gentlemen to create their 2015 episodic King's Quest game.[14] Telltale's breakthrough success came with the licenses of the comic book series The Walking Dead and Fables in association with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2011.[11] Allison anticipated that The Walking Dead series could be a $20 to $30 million franchise.[11] Their The Walking Dead video game presented an alteration of Telltale's approach, as rather than a traditional adventure game where players would need to solve puzzles, The Walking Dead was more focused on providing a cinematic experience but presenting choices to the player, either through dialog trees or through quick time events, that would create "determinants" that would feed into latter parts of the episode and into future episodes; one example would be deciding which of one of two characters to save from a zombie attack at the spur of the moment. While these decisions do not have a direct impact on the game's overall narrative and structure, it provides a more personalized story around what decisions the player had made.[15] This format provided highly successful: the game sold one million copies in 20 days,[16][17] exceeded 8.5 million episode purchases by 2013,[18] and an estimated $40 million in revenue.[19] The success led to two additional 5-episode seasons plus a 3-episode mini-season to date. The Walking Dead is considered to have revitalized the waning adventure game genre due to this more emotionally driven focus. Since The Walking Dead, nearly all of Telltale's games have used a similar approach of being built around the impacts of the player's choices as determinants in later episodes and seasons. Telltale has had several other licensing details from popular works, including Tales from the Borderlands based on the Borderlands series by Gearbox Software,[20] and Game of Thrones, based on the HBO television show adaption,[20] Minecraft: Story Mode based on the Mojang game, Minecraft,[21] Batman: The Telltale Series from DC Comics, and Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series from Marvel Comics.[22] Telltale relocated to a larger space and expanded from 125 to 160 in mid-2013.[23] Around 2015, the company had grown to 200 to 250 employees.[24] The company continued to grow, at its peak having about 400 employees in mid-2017.[19] In the midst of this growth, in 2014-2015, the management of Telltale recognized the need to restructure to handle more projects and more staff.[24] This led to original chief executive officer (CEO) Dan Connors resigning and being replaced by co-founder Kevin Bruner, who was also the firm's president. Connors noted that with the studio's continued growth, it had begun experiencing growth-specific challenges. Connors stated that Bruner's ascension to CEO would best enable Telltale Games to act on future expansion opportunities. Connors remained on the board of directors, and also served as a creative consultant.[25] Internally, there were concerns about this transition and Brunner's influence on it; an anonymous quality control (QC) employee writing in Gamasutra after the firm's closure called this transition "the beginning of the end" for Telltale.[24] With Bruner's placement as CEO in January 2015, Telltale said it was developing a game based on its own intellectual property as a result of this leadership change.[26] In February 2015, Lionsgate announced an investment within Telltale Games to produce a number of "Super Shows", a hybrid interactive work combining television and video game elements, which can be distributed through non-traditional channels such as through streaming services. The first Super Show planned is an original intellectual property (IP) that Telltale has been developing that is said to be able to take advantage of this format.[27] Telltale also announced that Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer and Unity Technologies' CEO John Riccitiello joined Telltale's board of directors.[28] Alongside this, Lionsgate had invested US$40 million into Telltale.[29] The "Super show" concept never got out of pre-production, due to issues that arose with the studio in 2016 and 2017, according to Variety.[30] Restructuring (2017–2018) [ edit ] By 2016, Bruner said that the Telltale studio had established an environment to be able to work on four major titles simultaneously with room for various side projects.[1] However, this approach to development had created a perpetual state of "crunch time" within Telltale, according to several then-current and former staff speaking to USgamer, The Verge, and Variety in 2017. This limited the amount of time that the creators and developers could spend on content in order to maintain a consistent flow of episodes to consumers but which impacted the quality of games.[19][31] This particularly affected the Telltale Tool, the game engine used since the company's inception, which ended up as numerous bugs in released episodes that Telltale became infamously noted for.[19] The anonymous QC tester stated that their department was nearly always under crunch time, working from 48 to 60 hours a week on testing at least two game series across multiple platforms simultaneously, and were understaffed, leading to some of the quality control issues as well.[24] The company was also hobbled by working with established IP, and inconsistencies in the reviewing process with management that led to last-minute reworking of some episodes.[19] The Verge also found some of the employees they spoke to had stated that top-level executives, including Bruner, had become fixated on the format that The Walking Dead presented, making decisions that prevented developers from looking at alternative formats or variations from this formula, stifling creativity and leading to some of staff departures prior to 2017 departures.[31][30] According to narrative designer Emily Grace Buck, management would frequently demand rewrites of materials, with most games having between 60 to 90 percent of the content reworked after executive review. Some of these rewrites had come days prior to an episode's submission date for certification, creating hasty rewrites that filtered through the entire production process. This rush created some of the apparent "bugs" in the Telltale Tool which Buck stated were more often a result of the inability to smooth out hastily-reworked animations.[32] Other cases of narrative rewrites were a result of different expectations by some of the executive management. Buck stated that they had originally been driven by management to make Minecraft: Story Mode as a more mature game, but eventually reworked this to a family-friendly title, while for their Guardians of the Galaxy game, the storywriters had written a story they felt more true to the humor and wit of the source material, but were told by management to make a darker story.[32] Further, anonymous sources from Telltale stated that very few of the games were profitable, with only The Walking Dead: The First Season, Minecraft: Story Mode, and revenues from publishing 7 Days to Die turning a profit. Batman: The Telltale Series, released in 2016 was said to be one of the worst commercial failures for the company.[1] On March 15, 2017, Bruner announced he had stepped down as CEO of Telltale,[33] though Variety reported that he had been voted out of this position by the Board of directors.[30] Bruner turned the day-to-day operations to Conners, while still remaining on the Board of Directors. Bruner said "The time has come to pass the reins to someone that can better drive Telltale to the next level and realize all the potential that is here."[33] Pete Hawley, the former VP for Games at Zynga, was announced as the new CEO, with Conners remaining on its Board and acting in an advisory role.[34] Rather than other corporate "fixers" who take control of a company for a temporary period to help it regain its financial footing, Hawley had committed to staying with Telltale after helping the company to get past these problems.[30] Bruner filed a lawsuit against Telltale in relation to his departure in June 2018, citing financial damages as he had been seemingly removed from the Board of Directors, and thus could not gain information related to Telltale's financial status in anticipation of selling off a portion of his shares in the company. Telltale stated the claims were "meritless".[35] In November 2017, a restructuring of the company cut about 90 positions, about a quarter of their staff, which was not expected to affect the release of any existing projects. Hawley said that the restructuring was for "reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team".[36][37] While Telltale had not stated which positions were let go in the restructuring, sources speaking to USgamer stated that most were part of the management structure that led to these problems; coupled with Hawley's appointment as CEO, this was expected to be a turning point to help revitalize Telltale.[19][30] In its response to Bruner's lawsuit from June 2018, Telltale stated that the company "is now working to turn around the decline that it experienced under [Bruner]’s stewardship".[35] In June 2018, Telltale announced a partnership with Netflix for the streaming service to provide its games to subscribers, with the first planned game being Minecraft: Story Mode. Alongside this, Telltale announced that they were working on a yet-untitled game based on Netflix's original property, Stranger Things.[38] According to Variety, there had been suggestions of teaming with Netflix for collaboration shortly after Stranger Things first aired in mid-2016, but Telltale's management at the time, including Bruner, rejected the idea. The Netflix partnership solidified after Hawley took over as CEO.[30] Majority studio closure and bankruptcy (2018) [ edit ] On September 21, 2018, CEO Pete Hawley announced that Telltale was undergoing a "majority studio closure", with around 90% of its present workforce (225 to 250 employees) let go that day.[39][40] A core team of about 25 employees remained to "fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners", which includes completing the Minecraft: Story Mode interactive media project for Netflix.[41][42] According to Dan Conners, the studio had been ready to close another round of financing when their last major investor pulled out. The company executives had to make the decision to end all production as soon as possible without this investment. While Conners did not specify which investor pulled out, Variety suggested that this may have been Lionsgate, which had contacted Telltale's board the previous week about its intent to pull out of funding Telltale in order to return to its core film business.[29] Variety also reported that AMC, the network that owns the rights to The Walking Dead television series, and Smilegate, a Korean mobile games publisher, were looking to invest in Telltale, but both pulled out the day before Telltale's closure announcement.[43] Dan Murray, president of Skybound Interactive which was working with Telltale for The Walking Dead games, said "We knew some of the challenges Telltale was facing, but when the news hits so suddenly everyone was taken off guard",[44] while anonymous Telltale employees stated to The Verge that they had known the company was in financial trouble in the months leading up to the closure and was further hurt by leaks of news related to the Netflix deal, which management wanted to use as a lure for speculative investors.[45] In a press release, Hawley stated: It's been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry. Pete Hawley, CEO of Telltale[46] Those who were let go reported they were given no warning, had to leave the office building within 30 minutes of the company's decision, received no severance, and only had a limited amount of time on their health care benefits.[39] Melissa Hutchison, the voice actor for Clementine in The Walking Dead games, said that the news came in the middle of a recording session which they had to immediately end.[47] On September 24, the former staff were allowed to return to the office within a three-hour timeframe to gather any belongings they did not manage to collect in the 30 minutes following the majority closure decision.[48] The suddenness of the closure, along with the lack of post-layoff support for the employees, led to renewed discussions about the need for video game developers to unionize, with the Game Workers Unite grassroots movement calling the treatment of the Telltale employees "exploitative".[49] On September 24, 2018, a class-action lawsuit was filed by former Telltale employee Vernie Roberts, representing about a total of 275 Telltale employees, alleging that Telltale violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act) and the more stringent requirements set by California of requiring at least 60 days notification before issuing mass layoffs.[50] Telltale has not officially commented on the status of its in-progress games, including The Wolf Among Us: Season Two, Game of Thrones: Season Two, and the untitled Stranger Things project, but laid-off employees alleged that teams working on these games had all been let go.[39][51] On September 24, Netflix announced that it is "in the process of evaluating other options for bringing the Stranger Things universe to life in an interactive medium." It also confirmed that it plans to go ahead with releasing Minecraft: Story Mode as planned.[52][53] The first three episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode were subsequently released on Netflix on November 27, with the remaining two set to follow on December 5.[54] Telltale released the second episode of four of The Walking Dead: The Final Season as scheduled on September 25, 2018, and stated that it had been contacted by "multiple potential partners" to help bring the last two episodes of the series to completion in some manner.[55] However, while some fans of the series were happy about this news, others, including Cory Barlog, suggested that Telltale should prioritize finding ways to pay the let-go developers over finishing off the game.[56] Two anonymous sources speaking to Ethan Gach of Kotaku clarified that Telltale was trying to convince potential development partners to hire the staff Telltale had laid off so the staff could remotely finish the two remaining episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season.[57] During the 2018 New York Comic Con, Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead comic, stated that his production company Skybound Entertainment completed negotiations with Telltale to finish off the last two episodes of The Final Season through their Skybound Games division and with the original development team from Telltale.[58] On October 4, 2018, narrative designer Rachel Noel stated that her team within the skeleton crew was also laid off, and that there were "not many" people left at the company.[59][60] Telltale saw asssinment proceedings begin on October 11, 2018, working through Sherwood Partners to liquidate all remaining assets.[61] Various digital storefronts started removing Telltale products from their marketplaces by November.[62] Development model [ edit ] Telltale Games released video games in episodic installments.[63][64][65][66] It is seen by production studios and other content producers to take a more realistic approach to movie tie-in games rather than the difficult "see the movie, play the game" model, and also collaborates with studios and screenwriters to create a strong experience that pays homage to the original film or franchise.[11] In a September 2017 interview, Job Stauffer called Telltale's role as "an interactive TV network and a studio", able to produce content across a wide range of genres on a regular basis.[67] He considered their studio something between a video game developer and a cable or streaming network with production capabilities like HBO or Netflix.[67] In general, Telltale offers its games as a one-time "season pass" purchase for the game's season when the first episode of the season is released, with the user then entitled to all planned episodes for that season. For digital purchases, this entitlement is handled through the digital storefront. In retail, Telltale has published complete season after the season's digital release is over, but have also adopted a model where they can publish, at the same time as the digital release, a retail disc that contains the first episode. The disc includes a "season pass" entitlement to the remaining episodes to be digitally downloaded, tied to the disc itself rather than the user. This allows for trading or resale of the retail product that can be played by others, which according to Stauffer, makes for a "nice in-between" market model that satisfies players, retailers, and themselves.[67] For some of their games, Telltale has developed additional downloadable content, such as 400 Days for The Walking Dead, or three additional episodes for Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1, which must be purchased separately from the season pass. With Batman: The Telltale Series and most of their subsequently released episodic adventure games, Telltale added a "Crowd Play" feature that can be used by those that stream their playthroughs on services like Twitch.tv. Through Crowd Play, viewers can vote for an option for the streamer to select.[68] While mainly a developer, Telltale also verified its self-publishing ethos;[69] the only classic developer-publisher relationship was with Ubisoft for the CSI video game franchise.[70] They have struck financial arrangements with GameTap for the first two seasons of the rebooted Sam & Max games, but their publishing arrangements have been chiefly made after the games were already completed and had already been sold via digital distribution. Telltale aimed to also present itself on as many digital platforms and avenues as possible.[71] To date, it has released games through GameTap; on Microsoft Windows and OS X, through Steam and similar services, plus its own online store, on Wii via WiiWare and disc, on Xbox 360, via Xbox Live Arcade and disc, on PlayStation 3 through PlayStation Network and disc, on iPhone and iPad through iTunes, on PlayStation Vita, and on Kindle Fire HDX.[72] Though Telltale normally port their own games to other systems, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Ubisoft Sofia,[73] and Bone: Out from Boneville was ported to Mac OS by Vanbrio.[74] Telltale was one of the companies who Sony confirmed pledged PlayStation 4 third-party support at the PlayStation Meeting 2013.[75] Telltale has also committed to developing and re-releasing seasons for the Nintendo Switch. Stauffer stated that there are no restrictions on what games they can bring to the Switch due to content, but they are focusing on their more recent, family-friendly games like Minecraft: Story Mode, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy only due to ease of porting these to the Switch, while older games like The Walking Dead require more effort to port.[67] Telltale Tool [ edit ] Telltale Tool is a proprietary game engine developed by Telltale, built atop the Lua programming language. Telltale first developed the engine shortly after its founding in 2004[76] and was originally referred to as the "Telltale Engine and Toolset".[77] The casual poker game, Telltale Texas Hold'em, was created to test their engine and distribution model, and to ensure that all major bugs were ironed out before the release of their first adventure game, Bone: Out From Boneville.[78] Telltale Tool has been used for every game developed by Telltale Games,[76] and continues to receive improvements since the initial version, such as compatibility to new systems and better graphics capabilities.[79] The so far only third-party game developed on Telltale Tool, Hector: Badge of Carnage, was developed by Straandlooper and also published by Telltale Games.[80] While the Tool has been updated over the years to support newer consoles and computers, it lacked features that made it more difficult to develop for as the company took on more projects, rushing the development schedules.[19] Until 2016, Telltale Tool did not have a physics engine, meaning that if a scene required an object to fall, this had to be animated by hand, taking time from other more productive activities.[19] This also prevented them from using elements like dynamic lighting, and requiring them to develop lighting models using 3D modeling tools like Maya, significantly extending time to develop art assets.[81] The aged feature set of the Tool led to a perception that many of Telltale's games had an abnormally high rate of bugs and other technical flaws, pervasive enough to pose a significant risk of impeding players' ability to progress through a given game. A 2015 article by Kotaku noted that "their games, wonderful in many ways as they may be, have been accompanied by an undercurrent of fan anger" over widespread bugs and glitches. The article concluded that Telltale's support forums "paint a portrait of a publisher that is constantly releasing buggy and even outright broken games", seemingly lacking the resources to fix or even monitor most of them.[82] Telltale moved to an improved version of their engine around early 2016, partially implemented first in The Walking Dead: Michonne and fully completed for the release of Batman: The Telltale Series.[81] The new Telltale Tool provided more direct support for DirectX 11 features, including physics-based models, texture mapping and blending, and dynamic lighting and shadows.[81] The changes also helped automate and integrate a game's development across all departments within Telltale, and specifically helped to reduce memory use in some scenes, which had been identified as part of the technical bugs on some consoles versions.[81] In mid-June 2018, Variety reported that Telltale was moving away from Telltale Tool and instead use the established Unity game engine. The Stranger Things game was expected to be the first to use the Unity-based engine.[30] Telltale Publishing [ edit ] Telltale has helped other developers to publish their games. Under the moniker Telltale Publishing, Telltale entered into a publishing deal with Jackbox Games to bring the console versions of The Jackbox Party Pack to retail markets,[83] and with The Fun Pimps to publish 7 Days to Die for consoles; according to Variety, this publishing deal was as financially successful for Telltale as the first The Walking Dead season.[84][30] On August 18, 2016, Telltale published Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n by Night School Studio.[85] During the company's restructuring in 2017, the publishing branch of Telltale had been put on hiatus but is expected to be reused once the company has regained its financial stability.[30] Games [ edit ] Legacy [ edit ] The release of the first season of The Walking Dead in 2012 is considered to have created a resurgence in the adventure game genre, which had been languishing since about 2000.[86][87] Dontnod Entertainment found the episodic approach to storytelling to be an ideal way to present Life Is Strange, and which has allowed them to release supplementary stories within the series in smaller pieces.[88][89] Additionally, former employees of Telltale Games have gone on to adapt the narrative aspects of these games into their own products. Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, co-writers of the first season of The Walking Dead, decided to leave to pursue independent game development, founding Campo Santo and releasing Firewatch, a critically praised narrative-driven exploration game. Adam Hines and Sean Krankel, both writers for Telltale, left to launch Night School Studio, subsequently releasing Oxenfree which heavily used a "walk and talk" mechanic as part of its gameplay.[89] Four former employees that had left before the studio's closure, Michael Choung (who had briefly spent time at Night School), Dennis Lenart, Nick Herman, and Pierre Shorette, formed Adhoc Studios with the intent to develop live-action interactive video games, following in Telltale's footsteps following their closure.[90]Chris Kitching
Thing! Alec’s going to need to take his powers to another level to take Seeder down...with help from the stranger coaches imaginable! Plus: an appearance from a Swamp Thing you never thought you’d see! Credit: DC Comics STORMWATCH #24 Written by JIM STARLIN Art by YVEL GUICHET and LeBEAU UNDERWOOD Cover by JIM STARLIN and ROB HUNTER On sale OCTOBER 2 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+ Secrets threaten to destroy Stormwatch! Midnighter and Apollo’s origin isn’t what it seems. Who is Storm Control? And what does new villain Extremax want with Earth? Credit: DC Comics TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #2 Written by SCOTT LOBDELL Art by ANGEL UNZUETA and ART THIBERT Cover by EDDY BARROWS and • EBER FERREIRA On sale OCTOBER 30 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T Leading into next month’s landmark issue #25, the Teen Titans continue their trip through time as the team must confront Jon Lane Kent, the Superboy of the future, who could one day wipe out the most powerful heroes on Earth. Can the Titan's Superboy defeat the man he was cloned from by Harvest? Credit: DC Comics BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE #2 Written by RAFAEL GRANPA, DAN DIDIO, RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE, JEFF LEMIRE and MICHAEL USLAN Art by RAFAEL GRAMPA, J.G. JONES, RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE, ALEX NINO and DAVE BULLOCK Cover by JIM STERANKO On sale OCTOBER 2 • 48 pg, B&W, 2 of 6, $4.99 US • RATED T The Eisner Award-winning series continues with a second amazing issue! Don’t miss new takes on the Dark Knight from legendary creators including Rafael Grampá, Dan DiDio and J.G. Jones, Rafael Albuquerque, Jeff Lemire and Alex Niño, and Michael Uslan and Dave Bullock! Plus, a cover by the amazing Jim Steranko! Credit: DC Comics ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #6 Written by J.T. KRUL Art by MARCUS TO Cover by MITCH BREITWEISER On sale OCTOBER 23 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST A young Superman faces a threat like he’s never seen before when a powerful alien warlord named Mongul shows up on Earth’s doorstep looking for trouble! Will Superman heed the counsel of his Kryptonian father? Or will the words of a certain silver-tongued Phantom Zone prisoner cloud his judgment? Credit: DC Comics AME-COMI GIRLS #8 Written by JUSTIN GRAY and JIMMY PALMIOTTI Art by ADAM ARCHER and STEVEN CUMMINGS Cover by EDUARDO FRANCISCO On sale OCTOBER 16 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST FINAL ISSUE Three new Ame-Comi Girls go on three separate solo missions to wrap up the series. Big Barda provokes a head-to-head confrontation with Darkseid, White Canary evens the odds in Vegas, and Mera defends Seattle from an attack by her evil half-sister, Black Manta. Credit: DC Comics ARROW #12 Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM Art by VICTOR DRUJINIU, JUAN CASTRO, ALLAN JEFFERSON and JONAS TRINDADE Photo cover On sale OCTOBER 23 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST FINAL ISSUE After the shocking events of the season one finale, Oliver reflects on the regrets of his past...and his course of action for the future. Plus, when a pilot gets in deep with the wrong kind of people, the Starling City vigilante becomes an unlikely ally in the fight to save his family. Credit: DC Comics INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US #10 Written by TOM TAYLOR Art by JHEREMY RAAPACK, MIKE S. MILLER and TOM DERENICK Cover by MICO SUAYAN 1:10 DC Collectibles Photo cover On sale OCTOBER 23 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information. Hoping to stop Batman’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Superman has decided to take him out of the game. He’s going to go worldwide with the news that the Caped Crusader is really Bruce Wayne. But at the last minute, Batman plays his one remaining ace. He’s about to turn off the lights on the JLA’s satellite headquarters. Credit: DC Comics BATMAN ‘66 #4 Written by JEFF PARKER Art by JONATHAN CASE Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED 1:25 Variant cover by CHRIS SPROUSE and KARL STORY On sale OCTOBER 16 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED E • DIGITAL FIRST Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information. Batman and Robin head to 1960s London to take on The Mad Hatter! When the Caped Crusader hears that hats are being stolen from England’s famous Beefeaters, he knows it can only be the work of Jervis Tetch. But something’s also amiss at Big Ben. Could the Clock King be up to his old tricks? Credit: DC Comics BATMAN: ARKHAM UNHINGED #19 Written by KAREN TRAVISS Art by TONY SHASTEEN Cover by CHRISTOPHER MITTEN On sale OCTOBER 9 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST Mayor Sharp is furious when low-level criminals are ordered out of his new Arkham City facility. But Councilman Groves has a plan to send them all packing. Meanwhile, Batman gets an unexpected new ally in his quest to uncover The Bookbinder: Catwoman! Credit: DC Comics BATMAN BEYOND UNIVERSE #3 Written by KYLE HIGGINS and CHRISTOS N. GAGE Art by THONY SILAS and IBAN COELLO Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE On sale OCTOBER 16 • 48 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST As Superman journeys into the mists of the Phantom Zone, the rest of the Justice League squares off against an army of rogue Superman robots! Plus, who is the powerful and mysterious Rewire? And what twisted plans does he have for Batman? Credit: DC Comics LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #13 Written by PETER MILLIGAN and TIM SEELEY Art by RICCARDO BURCHIELLI and FREDDIE WILLIAMS II Cover by DAVID WILLIAMS On sale OCTOBER 16 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST • FINAL ISSUE Batman returns to his low-tech roots after years of counting on WayneTech gadgetry in “Return of Batman.” Then, when The Dark Knight takes one of Gotham City’s unluckiest criminals into protective custody, Thirteen forces him to reconsider in “Unlucky 13.” Credit: DC Comics DC UNIVERSE VS. THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #3 Written by KEITH GIFFEN Art by DEXTER SOY Cover by ED BENES On sale OCTOBER 23 • 32 pg, FC, 3 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED T After the shocking ending to issue #2, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe find themselves hunted by the Justice League. In the midst of the chaos, Skeletor’s plan moves into its next, dangerous phase! Credit: DC Comics HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #7 Written by DAN ABNETT Art by RAFAEL KAYANAN Cover by YILDIRAY CINAR On sale OCTOBER 16 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US A new adventure begins here! With Eternia still occupied by the Horde, He-Man and King Randor lead a small group of Masters on a quest to find the one object that might free Eternia! Join the new creative team of Dan Abnett and Drew Johnson as they take He-Man and the Masters of the Universe into their next great chapter! Credit: DC Comics SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #18 Written by BRYAN Q. MILLER Art by JORGE JIMENEZ Cover by CAT STAGGS On sale OCTOBER 9 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST Diana’s mysterious past may hold the key to helping Superman stop Faust in the present—but the warlock isn’t working alone! Enter Hades, Lord of the Underworld! “Olympus” continues in part 3 of 4. Credit: DC Comics SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 SPECIAL #3 Written by BRYAN Q. MILLER Art by BENI LOBEL Cover by CAT STAGGS On sale OCTOBER 30 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST In the one-shot tale “Hollow,” newly digitized Tess Mercer is faced with the ultimate question: Can she set aside her obsession with getting revenge on her brother, Lex Luthor, to become the hero Metropolis’s protectors know she’s destined to become? Credit: DC Comics DC COMICS — THE NEW 52 VILLAINS OMNIBUS HC Written by GEOFF JOHNS, STERLING GATES, GREG PAK, MATT KINDT, DAN DIDIO, ANN NOCENTI, JEFF LEMIRE, CHARLES SOULE, PETER J. TOMASI, JAMES TYNION IV, GAIL SIMONE and others Art by various 3D Motion montage cover by various On sale DECEMBER 11 • 1,184 pg, FC, $150.00 US The Joker! Grodd! Darkseid! Lex Luthor! These and dozens of other DCU evildoers took center stage in September’s giant Villains Month event! This incredible book collects JUSTICE LEAGUE #23.1-23.4, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7.1-7.4, JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #23.1-23.2, AQUAMAN #23.1-23.2, EARTH 2 #15.1-15.2, THE FLASH #23.1-23.3, GREEN ARROW #23.1, WONDER WOMAN #23.1-23.2, ACTION COMICS #23.1-23.4, SUPERMAN #23.1-23.4, BATMAN/SUPERMAN #3.1, BATMAN #23.1-23.4, BATMAN AND ROBIN #23.1-23.4, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #23.1-23.4, DETECTIVE COMICS #23.1-23.4, GREEN LANTERN #23.1-23.4, SWAMP THING #23.1 and TEEN TITANS #23.1-23.2. Retailers: The 3D motion cover will be available only on the first printing of this title. Credit: DC Comics BATMAN: DETECTIVE COMICS VOL. 2—SCARE TACTICS TP Written by TONY S. DANIEL and JAMES TYNION IV Art by TONY S. DANIEL, ED BENES, SZYMON KUDRANSKI, EDUARDO PANSICA, ROMANO MOLENAAR and PERE PEREZ Cover by TONY S. DANIEL On sale NOVEMBER 20 • 232 pg, FC, $16.99 US In this new collection of stories from DETECTIVE COMICS #8-12 and DETECTIVE COMICS ANNUAL #1, Batman must face the madness of the Mad Hatter, and then take on the Talons of the Court of Owls! But even if he survives that, he must face a whole new set of fears when the Scarecrow returns! Can the Dark Knight overcome the terror the Scarecrow brings? Credit: DC Comics BATMAN: NIGHT OF THE OWLS TP Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, TONY S. DANIEL, PETER J. TOMASI, JUDD WINICK, DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI, GAIL SIMONE, SCOTT LOBDELL, KYLE HIGGINS, JUSTIN GRAY and JIMMY PALMIOTTI Art by GREG CAPULLO, JASON FABOK, TONY S. DANIEL, DAVID FINCH, PATRICK GLEASON, TRAVEL FOREMAN, ARDIAN SYAF, KENNETH ROCAFORT, GUILLEM MARCH and others Cover by GREG CAPULLO On sale NOVEMBER 6 • 368 pg, FC, $19.99 US In these stories from BATMAN #8-9, BATMAN ANNUAL #1, DETECTIVE COMICS #9, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #9, BATWING #9, BATMAN AND ROBIN #9, RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #9, BIRDS OF PREY #9, BATGIRL #9, NIGHTWING #8-9 and ALL-STAR WESTERN #9, evil spreads across Gotham City as Red Robin, Batwing, Robin, Batgirl, the Birds of Prey, Nightwing and even Catwoman find themselves in a battle coming from all sides. Credit: DC Comics BATMAN AND ROBIN VOL. 2: PEARL TP Written by PETER J. TOMASI Art by PATRICK GLEASON, MICK GRAY, LEE GARBETT, ANDY CLARKE and others Cover by PATRICK GLEASON and MICK GRAY On sale NOVEMBER 27 • 176 pg, FC, $16.99 US Damian has a long way to go before he’ll be accepted into Gotham City’s crimefighting family in these stories from BATMAN AND ROBIN #9-14 and 0. How can he live up to the standards that Nightwing, Red Robin and Red Hood set before him? After a battle with the former Robins, can Damian’s convictions stand up to a confrontation with The Dark Knight’s greatest foe: The Joker? Credit: DC Comics BATMAN, INCORPORATED VOL. 1: DEMON STAR TP Written by GRANT MORRISON Art by CHRIS BURNHAM and FRAZER IRVING Cover by CHRIS BURNHAM On sale NOVEMBER 27 • 176 pg, FC, $16.99 US The first BATMAN, INCORPORATED collection is now in trade paperback, with stories from issues #0-6! Batman and Robin face off against the assassin called Goatboy as Leviathan’s sinister mission continues to develop! Plus: Someone is trying to kill Damian; Wingman and Redbird descend upon Gotham City; and much more! Credit: DC Comics GREEN LANTERN CORPS VOL. 3: WILLPOWER HC Written by PETER J. TOMASI Art by FERNANDO PASARIN, CAFU, CHRISCROSS and others Cover by ANDY KUBERT On sale DECEMBER 4 • 256 pg, FC, $24.99 US The Green Lantern Corps face their greatest threat ever when the Guardians deem them obsolete and raise The Third Army—but in doing so they unleash a far more dangerous threat: the First Lantern. Then, in the aftermath of their battle against the First Lantern and the Guardians, it’s up to Guy Gardner, John Stewart and the other survivors to try to put the Corps back together, or decide if there should even BE a Corps anymore. Join Peter Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin for the epic conclusion of their run in these stories from GREEN LANTERN CORPS #15-20 and GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #1! Credit: DC Comics AQUAMAN VOL. 2: THE OTHERS TP Written by GEOFF JOHNS Art and cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO On sale NOVEMBER 13 • 160 pg, FC, $14.99 US In these stories from AQUAMAN #7-13, Aquaman joins up with his old teammates, The Others, to learn who destroyed Atlantis! But as they seek the truth, Black Manta is stalking them all—and Mera learns some dark truths about Aquaman! Credit: DC Comics RED LANTERNS VOL. 3: THE SECOND PROPHECY TP Written by PETER MILLIGAN Art by MIGUEL SEPULVEDA, ARDIAN SYAF, WILL CONRAD and VICENTE CIFUENTES Cover by MIGUEL SEPULVEDA On sale NOVEMBER 13 • 272 pg, FC, $19.99 US After their brutal civil war, the Red Lanterns must band together against the threat of Guardians of the Universe’s latest weapon, The Third Army in these tales from RED LANTERNS #0 and 13-20! As battle lines are drawn, Atrocitus and his Red Lanterns seek vengeance against the Guardians of Oa—but things don’t go as planned as The First Lantern shows Atrocitus that everything he believed about himself, the universe and rage has been pitifully wrong. Credit: DC Comics THE FLASH VOL. 3: GORILLA WARFARE HC Written by FRANCIS MANAPUL and BRIAN BUCCELLATO Art by FRANCIS MANAPUL, MARCUS TO, RYAN WINN and MARCIO TAKARA Cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL On sale DECEMBER 4 • 176 pg, FC, $24.99 US When Grodd and his gorilla army descend on Central City, The Flash will have to contend with a threat unlike any he’s faced before: murderous, ruthless and without principle. With mammoth strength and mind-control powers, Grodd will not stop until he conquers the city with its heroes blood on his hands. Knowing he cannot defeat this new foe alone, The Flash will need the help of his former enemies, the Rogues, if he wants to keep himself and Central City alive. This new hardcover collects THE FLASH #13-19. Credit: DC Comics SUPERMAN — ACTION COMICS VOL. 3: AT THE END OF DAYS HC Written by GRANT MORRISON and SHOLLY FISCH Art by RAGS MORALES, TRAVEL FOREMAN, BRAD WALKER, CHRIS SPROUSE and others Cover by BRYAN HITCH On sale DECEMBER 11 • 224 pg, FC, $24.99 US Grant Morrison’s run on ACTION COMICS reaches its conclusion with this new hardcover collecting issues #13-18 of the series. The Multitude returns, and Superman must face them on Mars! Then, the Man of Steel is on trial—and the jury is made up of the Anti-Superman Army! Plus: What is the secret of the Little Man? Credit: DC Comics SWAMP THING VOL. 3: ROTWORLD—THE GREEN KINGDOM TP Written by SCOTT SNYDER and JEFF LEMIRE Art by YANICK PAQUETTE, MARCO RUDY, KANO, STEVE PUGH and others Cover by YANICK PAQUETTE On sale NOVEMBER 13 • 208 pg, FC, $16.99 US In this volume collecting SWAMP THING #12-18 and ANIMAL MAN #12 and 17, Swamp Thing finds unlikely allies in Deadman and Poison Ivy as he ventures into Gotham City to find the man who always has all the answers: Batman. But can the Caped Crusader help Swamp Thing break Rotworld’s hold over Earth? Credit: DC Comics ALL-STAR WESTERN VOL. 3: THE BLACK DIAMOND PROBABILITY TP Written by JUSTIN GRAY and JIMMY PALMIOTTI Art by MORITAT, PHIL WINSLADE and STAZ JOHNSON Cover by ARIEL OLIVETTI On sale NOVEMBER 6 • 176 pg, FC, $16.99 US In these stories from issues #0 and 13-16, Someone has stolen the Black Diamond that Doctor Jekyll uses to create his infamous potion! Now it’s up to Jonah Hex to track it down! Plus: Find out how Hex got his famous scars! Credit: DC Comics RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS VOL. 3: DEATH OF THE FAMILY TP Written by SCOTT LOBDELL and FABIAN NICIEZA Art by PASQUAL FERRY, IG GUARA, BRETT BOOTH and others Cover by MICO SUAYAN On sale NOVEMBER 27 • 160 pg, FC, $16.99 US In these stories from RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #0 and 14-17 and TEEN TITANS #15-16, it’s Red Hood and Red Robin vs. The Joker! And how will the death of Damian Wayne drive Batman into battle against Jason Todd? Credit: DC Comics WORLDS’ FINEST VOL. 2: HUNT AND BE HUNTED TP Written by PAUL LEVITZ Art by KEVIN MAGUIRE, GEORGE PEREZ, CLIFF RICHARDS, YILDIRAY CINAR, PHIL JIMENEZ, BARRY KITSON and others Cover by BARRY KITSON On sale NOVEMBER 20 • 160 pg, FC, $14.99 US Power Girl and Huntress continue to find links back to their home world in these tales from issues #6-12, but are derailed by mysterious attackers who have connections to Michael Holt, a.k.a. Mister Terrific. What could their old ally have to do with a group that wants them dead? Credit: DC Comics BATMAN: ARKHAM UNHINGED VOL. 3 HC Written by DEREK FRIDOLFS Art by JORGE JIMENEZ, MIKE S. MILLER, DARICK ROBERTSON, PETER NGUYEN and others Cover by DAVE WILKINS On sale JANUARY 1 • 200 pg, FC, $24.99 US In the third collection of stories inspired by the hit video game, Dr. Hugo Strange has gained control of Arkham Asylum and is determined to keep the city’s criminal element behind bars. Gotham City in turn has been transformed into a massive prison, run by a madman and ruled by the criminal element. Find out in these stories from issues #11-16! Credit: DC Comics GREEN ARROW VOL. 1: HUNTER’S MOON TP Written by MIKE GRELL Art by ED HANNIGAN, DICK GIORDANO and FRANK McLAUGHLIN Cover by MIKE GRELL On sale NOVEMBER 27 • 160 pg, FC, $14.99 US In these 1980s stories from GREEN ARROW #1-6, Green Arrow hunts down a child killer, races to find a lost biological weapon before Chinese spies can find it, and tackles a rash of inner-city violence. Credit: DC Comics THE AUTHORITY VOL. 2 HC Written by GRANT MORRISON, MARK MILLAR, TOM PEYER and DOSELLE YOUNG Art by FRANK QUITELY, CHRIS WESTON, DUSTIN NGUYEN, ARTHUR ADAMS and others Cover by FRANK QUITELY and TREVOR SCOTT On sale DECEMBER 18 • 416 pg, FC, $34.99 US In these tales from THE AUTHORITY #13-29, the team faces a mad scientist and his army of superhumans who wanted to influence the 21st century through Jenny Spark’s successor Jenny Quantum, a previous Doctor who manipulated the Earth itself, and a team modeled on the Authority that was created by the G7 nations. Credit: DC Comics JOE KUBERT PRESENTS TP Written by JOE KUBERT, BRIAN BUNIAK, SAM GLANZMAN and PAUL LEVITZ Art by JOE KUBERT, BRIAN BUNIAK and SAM GLANZMAN Cover by JOE KUBERT On sale NOVEMBER 13 • 304 pg, FC, $19.99 US This new title collects some of Joe Kubert’s final works, including tales of Sgt. Rock and Hawkman, plus stories of the U.S.S. Stevens by Sam Glanzman and “Angel and the Ape” by Brian Buniak! Collects the entire 6-issue miniseries. Credit: DC Comics THE JOKER: THE CLOWN PRINCE OF CRIME TP Written by DENNIS O’NEIL, ELLIOT S. MAGGIN and MARTIN PASKO Art by IRV NOVICK, DICK GIORDANO, JOSE LUIS GARCIA-LOPEZ and others Cover by DICK GIORDANO On sale NOVEMBER 27 • 176 pg, FC, $16.99 US In these adventures from his 9-issue 1970s solo series, The Joker faces villains including Two-Face, Lex Luthor, the Scarecrow and Catwoman, and battles heroes like The Creeper and Green Arrow. Credit: DC Comics THE JUDAS COIN TP Written by WALTER SIMONSON Art and cover by WALTER SIMONSON On sale NOVEMBER 6 • 104 pg, FC, $14.99 US The acclaimed graphic novel from legendary writer/artist Walter Simonson shows how one of the silver coins Judas was paid to betray Jesus has had an impact on the DC Universe, with chapters starring the Golden Gladiator, (A.D. 73), the Viking Prince (A.D. 1000), Captain Fear (1720) and Bat Lash (1881). In the centerpiece of the book, Batman faces Two-Face in an epic, present-day battle before the story blasts into the future for a final chapter set in the year 2087 starring Manhunter 2070! Credit: DC Comics JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE CREATING THE DC UNIVERSE OMNIBUS HC Written by STAN LEE and MICHAEL USLAN Art by JIM LEE, CHRIS BACHALO, DARWYN COOKE, DAVE GIBBONS, GARY FRANK, KANO, JOE KUBERT, JOHN BUSCEMA, KYLE BAKER, MICHAEL WM. KALUTA, JOHN BYRNE, STUART IMMONEN, KEVIN MAGUIRE, SERGIO ARAGONES, WALTER SIMONSON, RICHARD CORBEN and others Cover by ADAM HUGHES Resolicit • On sale DECEMBER 11 • 728 pg, FC, $75.00 US The entire JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE CREATING THE DC UNIVERSE event from 2001 is collected in hardcover for the first time! Don’t miss Stan “The Man” Lee’s startlingly different visions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, The Sandman, the Justice League of America and more, in collaboration with cowriter Michael Uslan and dozens of top comics artists! Retailers: This title is resolicited. All previous orders are cancelled. Credit: DC Comics DCE ESSENTIALS: BATMAN #1 Written by SCOTT SNYDER Art by GREG CAPULLO and JONATHAN GLAPION Cover by GREG CAPULLO On sale OCTOBER 2 • 64 pg, FC, $1.00 US • RATED T A new era began with this first DC Comics—The New 52 BATMAN issue, as the superstar team of writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo set The Dark Knight on the road to discovering the deadly Court of Owls! Credit: DC Comics DCE ESSENTIALS: WONDER WOMAN #1 Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO Art and cover by CLIFF CHIANG On sale OCTOBER 16 • 64 pg, FC, $1.00 US • RATED T In this first DC Comics—The New 52 WONDER WOMAN issue, the gods walk among us! Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, has kept a secret from her daughter all her life – and when Wonder Woman learns who her father is, her life will shatter like brittle clay. Beginning a stunning new direction for Wonder Woman! Credit: DC Comics DCE ESSENTIALS: THE SANDMAN #1 Written by NEIL GAIMAN Art by SAM KIETH and MIKE DRINGENBERG Cover by DAVE McKEAN On sale OCTOBER 23 • 64 pg, FC, $1.00 US • MATURE READERS A chapter from the issue that launched the most acclaimed comics series ever is reprinted! Morpheus is introduced when the Order of Ancient Mysteries attempts to summon Death but instead seizes Dream. Freed after 70 years of confinement, Morpheus emerges in the present day and exacts a terrifying vengeance upon his captor… Credit: DC Comics DCE ESSENTIALS: V FOR VENDETTA #1 Written by ALAN MOORE Art and cover by DAVID LLOYD On sale OCTOBER 30 • 64 pg, FC, $1.00 US • MATURE READERS In a dystopian future London, young Evey Hammond is rescued from officers of the law called Fingerman by a mysterious, Guy Fawkes mask-wearing man called V. And while the government tightens its grip on the people of London, V wages a one-man war against its reign. Reprinting a chapter of the groundbreaking first issue. Credit: DC Comics BEWARE THE BATMAN #1 Written by IVAN COHEN Art and cover by LUCIANO VECCHIO 1:25 Animation art variant cover On sale OCTOBER 23 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information. DC Nation proudly presents: BEWARE THE BATMAN, a new, all-ages series! Bruce Wayne spent years learning crime-fighting techniques from his butler (and former secret agent) Alfred Pennyworth. Now he’s ready to take on Gotham City’s criminal underground as the Batman! Credit: DC Comics BATMAN: LI’L GOTHAM #7 Written by DEREK FRIDOLFS and DUSTIN NGUYEN Art and cover by DUSTIN NGUYEN On sale OCTOBER 9 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E • DIGITAL FIRST During Japan’s Month of Waters, Aquaman calls upon The Dark Knight—so get ready for a battle of GIGANTIC proportions as the Bat-family faces robots, sea monsters and more in “Minazuki.” Then, on Independence Day, Uncle Sam implores his villainous friends to steal all the fireworks for one explosive celebration! Credit: DC Comics LOONEY TUNES #215 Written by SHOLLY FISCH Art and cover by ROBERT POPE and SCOTT McRAE On sale OCTOBER 2 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E Acme has a product for everyone—but what about an evil scientist? Daffy Duck visits a castle and uses his finest Acme salesman techniques to find out! An evil scientist, eager to return to his fiendish experiment, leads Daffy through a booby-trapped castle to get rid of him. How will Daffy’s sales techniques hold up against a castle of antics? Credit: DC Comics SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? #38 Written by SHOLLY FISCH Art and cover by SCOTT NEELY On sale OCTOBER 2 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E When the monsters from a late-night horror movie TV show become all too real, they scare the hostess right out of her fright wig and straight to Mystery Inc. for help! Join the gang as they dress up and host the TV show themselves to unravel what’s really causing a scene behind the set! MAD MAGAZINE #524 Written and illustrated by THE USUAL GANG OF IDIOTS On sale OCTOBER 23 • 56 pg, FC, $5.99 US Halloween is right around the corner—before you rot your teeth, rot your brain with MAD! Credit: DC Comics THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE #1 Written by NEIL GAIMAN Art by J.H. WILLIAMS III Cover A by J.H. WILLIAMS III Cover B by DAVE McKEAN 1:100 B&W Variant cover by J.H. WILLIAMS III 1:200 B&W Variant cover by DAVE McKEAN On sale OCTOBER 30 • 36 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $4.99 US MATURE READERS Combo pack edition: $5.99 US Retailers: This issue will ship with five covers. Please see the order form for more information. Twenty-five years since THE SANDMAN changed the landscape of modern comics, Neil Gaiman’s legendary series is back! THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE heralds New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman’s return to the art form that made him famous, ably abetted by artistic luminary JH Williams III (BATWOMAN, PROMETHEA), whose lush, widescreen images provide an epic scope to The Sandman’s origin story. From the birth of a galaxy to the moment that Morpheus is captured, THE SANDMAN: OVERTURE will feature cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as The Corinthian, Merv Pumpkinhead and, of course, the Dream King’s siblings: Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny. “People have often asked me what happened to Morpheus to make it possible for him to be captured in THE SANDMAN #1,” Gaiman said. “And now they get to find out. And finding out, they get to learn secrets of the Endless that I’ve kept to myself for 25 years. Family secrets. And I should warn you: one of the Endless dies on page five.” The first issue of this 6-issue, bimonthly miniseries features a stunning double-page interior foldout. This issue is also offered as a combo pack edition with a redemption code for a digital download of this issue. Credit: DC Comics Credit: DC Comics COFFIN HILL #1 Written by CAITLIN KITTREDGE Art by INAKI MIRANDA Cover by DAVE JOHNSON 1:13 Variant cover by GENE HA On sale OCTOBER 9 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information. COFFIN HILL stars Eve Coffin, a rebellious, teenage lowlife from a high-society family with a curse that goes back to the Salem Witch trials. Following a night of sex, drugs and witchcraft in the woods, Eve wakes up naked, covered in blood and unable to remember how she got there. One friend is missing, one is in a mental ward—and one knows that Eve is responsible. After a stint as a Boston cop that ends in a bullet wound and unintended celebrity, Eve returns to Coffin Hill, only to discover the darkness that she unleashed ten years ago in the woods was never contained. It continues to seep through the town, cursing the soul of this sleepy Massachusetts hollow, spilling secrets and enacting its revenge. Set against the haunted backdrop of New England, COFFIN HILL explores what people will do for power and retribution. Noted novelist Caitlin Kittredge, author of the Black London series, brings a smart, mesmerizing style to comics. Artist Inaki Miranda (FABLES) brings his dynamic storytelling to COFFIN HILL, following an acclaimed run on FAIREST. Credit: DC Comics HINTERKIND #1 Written by IAN EDGINTON Art and cover by FRANCESCO TRIFOGLI Cover by GREG TOCCHINI 1:13 Variant cover by JAE LEE On sale OCTOBER 2 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information. “Men go and come, but Earth abides.”— Ecclesiastes 1:4 Decades after “The Blight” all but wiped out the human race, Mother Nature is taking back what’s hers, and she’s not alone…The Hinterkind have returned. From the
living each year. And nobody spoke about us running out of money. Bank bonanza must end By contrast, the current bonanza for banks is neither economically efficient, nor politically sustainable. What is driving the change in portfolio preference shifts is not only a misguided paradigm, but also an inability for the Obama administration to make a sensible, coherent case in what they are doing and why they are doing it. Their actions, in fact, seem to suggest that everything is ad hoc and that they are operating out of their depth, in effect continuing the same policies of the Bush/Paulson period, but on a much greater scale. Ironically, this ultimately will also prove highly inimical to the interests of finance itself. When most of the home owning voters cannot pay their major debt or have no incentive to pay their mortgage debt, there will either be a debtors revolt that society will sanction or there will be a bailout of such a magnitude that mega moral hazard will affect private lending forever. Once these things happen, you will no longer have the social rules for private risk based lending. In other words, financial markets will be unlike anything ever seen before in private economies. Is this really what Wall Street wants, let alone American society as a whole? Both FDR and JFK had a brain trust that could help forge public opinion. Obama has his halo, Geithner, and Summers. We've known from the start that was a misstep. In the meantime, beyond automatic stabilizers, the door appears to be shutting to further active fiscal ease. I wonder if the stage is already being set for tax hikes, as rumors of a federal VAT (value added tax) have been floating around of late. Add this to rising commodity prices and interest rates, and the profile of any recovery may become increasingly in question, a la 1937-8. Add to that additional bank write-offs, further credit contraction and a minimalist welfare system which leaves nothing in the way of social cohesion, and the prospects for major social upheaval look dangerously likely. What is missing is a vision of a new growth path for the US. If a public backlash is to be marshalled to something more than retribution, that needs to come to the fore. Once you get beyond the pothole and school patching, what industries can be pushed forward through public seed capital or public private partnerships? The economist Hy Minsky pointed out a better way to solve both the liquidity and the income problem, while also providing full employment: by channeling government expenditure through an employer-of-last-resort program. The current crisis could have been mitigated if increased household consumption had been financed through wage increases and if financial institutions had used their earnings to augment bank capital rather than employee bonuses. The current system has failed because it was built on an incentive system that did just the opposite.So, the NSA has had a hard time of things recently. Since everyone kind of hates them now, it has made hiring anyone a little more difficult than anticipated, because in addition to being reprimanded by college students, they’ve started tweeting job listings that may or may not use accepted English words. To be fair, they seem to really need some new tech support, as the official page about NSA careers (as in the one not on Twitter) is down. And with that “official” avenue closed, where might hopeful applicants turn but Twitter? Especially since the NSACareers Twitter account is just full of information, Some of it is even expressed in words that are in a dictionary. Just, y’know, not like a lot of it. Like, you could go to the thrillingly named Corporate Gray Military Officers Job Fair, and then you too might be able to become an informaticist. Which, I guess, is something about… information? Maybe analyzing it? Certainly not assuring it, because that’s a separate job. But there’s something about one of the biggest organizations meant to keep the country safe hiring via Twitter — for Cryptanalytic Computer Network Operations professionals, no less — that’s a little worrying. And it’s not exactly a one-time thing. So, does this many postings in a row mean this method of hiring is really successful, or really, really terrible? Sometimes they try to be clever, and it’s pretty much the worst. Just how would one dream in algorithms? And other times, they don’t actually give the job title, just the field, because, after all, they don’t want to look silly by making up superfluous words. And hey, what kid didn’t dream of being a Job ID 1035550 on day. You know, that or an astronaut. Haha, ‘sines’, get it?! That’s some pun-tastic youth lingo, is it not? (Also: I don’t get it.) And sometimes they just want to give some general advice. After all, the NSA doesn’t just fight terror: they fight obesity! Are you not exercising enough? Then you should think more! Fat people do better if they’re smart, after all. So I guess the point is this: If you really want an excuse to become infamous and live in Moscow for a year or so (not counting the month it might take to get out of the airport), all you need is a Twitter account and a degree in anything from mathematics to… informaticism? Informatination? Cyrptanalyzationalysis? I got nothing. (via TechDirt, images via Wikimedia, Twitter) Meanwhile in related linksFLASHBACK: Conservative Radio Host Says “If ballots won’t work, bullets will!” (Video) Author: In this video Florida radio host Joyce Kaufman, speaking at a Tea Party Rally in 2010… says that “if ballots don’t work, bullets will”. Essentially, they are saying “if my party loses, we might start shooting people”. Well, you’ve gotten your wish Joyce! Although Gabrielle Giffords has survived and appears to be conscious and responding to commands, she will have a long road of recovery ahead of her. Now that the initial incident has passed, reflection can begin. The Republicans should really take some time to think about the message they are sending out to voters about the government. It may seem unfair to point fingers towards Republicans… only Republicans have been feeding into hating the government and that the government is always the problem… which is because their candidate lost the election. Due to our new 24 hour news cycle and our attention defecit disorder, as a nation, we forgot that the Tea Party’s roots are NOT valid to begin with. The Tea Party only formed because Barack Obama won the election and sore-losers wanted an outlet to vent their frustrations. People like Sarah Palin became popular in the movement because of their willingness to go ‘one extra step’ farther, the willingness to draw targets on enemies, the willingness to say things no one else in the GOP would say because they were just too dangerous. They are all to blame though, not directly, but Fox News and the Republicans, and the Tea Party have catered to an atmosphere of hate that has not been felt in American politics in a long time. Here’s a video of Tea Party protestors stomping on a woman they claimed was trying to assault Rand Paul. Their claims were that she was trying to “force her sign into the car”, as if her sign is going to hurt Rand Paul somehow. Take a look at these monsters, so sure of themselves, so sure of their mental health and well-being that they will kick down a woman and stomp on her. It’s truly delusional behavior. Current Pageviews: 2,931 views This entry was posted: on Sunday, January 9th, 2011 Tags and Categories: politics, z-FRONT Follow Article Comments: RSS 2.0 Comment/Trackback: Log in to comment.content private their much The mainstream media has finally woken up to the dangers of the government's proposed Communications Data database – the detail of which openDemocracy published back in August As National Coordinator of NO2ID I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies. But this hardly includes the thin sugar-coating on the Home Secretary's speech last week when she described her promised 'consultation' on the Communications Data Bill. Hers was a transparent attempt to misdirect the argument.The government says it won't be storing theof your telephone or internet use, as if that makes it all right. It is however proposing to record – for life – the details of everyone you call or write to and what websites you visit.Do you want the State (which in the UK means a large and growing number who can gain access to its systems) to have a record of your religious and political interests, your sexual curiosities, your financial and medical worries, your wider (or narrower) concerns and your special relationships; not to mention a trace of what it reckons ‘you’ have done on your computer even when it is done by someone else? You don’t?But Jacqui Smith says they are only keeping this information "just in case" it ever become of interest to the authorities.Were an individual to spy on you like this, it would be called stalking. Which is a crime. It is not a defence for a stalker to claim, “I was only following her in case she fell over”. The action of continuous snooping is itself recognised in law as a wrongdoing.Now we hear that the government is considering compulsory registration of all mobile phones. Clearly, this is motivated by the same desire to monitor all communications data in yet a further extension of the stalker state.Sometimes, quite often in fact, the government comes up with ideas that are not just very expensive and inefficient and – as with stalking – plain wrong. In addition there are times when it is hard to imagine anything more designed to make matters worse.This is a classic example. Registering ownership of a mobile phone with your passport would work only on the compliant. Organised criminals (and terrorists) would have a neat range of options open to them: they could use stolen phones, or buy phones second hand in private deals; they could re-programme the International Mobile Equipment Identifier (IMEI) of the mobile phone handset, and maybe sell such a service to others; they could forge or steal the ID required to buy the phones; bully or deceive others into buying a phone for them (or even just swap phones); use a foreign phone, clone phones or corrupt the supply chain.Compulsory registration not only won't seriously hinder criminals, it may actually assist them and will certainly create a profitable ‘secondary’ market in sub-prime, sliced up fraud.Fraud is already enough of a problem with dodgy mobile phone shops or crooked employees getting access to your credit card or bank details, without any need to make it worse. But worse it will become if as now proposed the government forces you to hand over your passport or ID card when you acquire a new blower. Such a law will only fuel more copying, cloning and trafficking in personal data. Fraudsters and organised criminals will be rubbing their hands with glee.But, however much it may not work in defending us from crime, terrorism and identity-theft, the problem with arguing against these measures in this way is that it accepts the premise and appears to accept that they are being put forward in good faith. It is a bit like arguing against torture on the grounds that it produces bad information.The government’s desire to track and record all digital traces of our lives is an assault on liberty. It is a basic right – yes, a human right – to be free to call whoever you choose, to read, write and watch what you want in your browser without the State keeping tabs on you, and your friends and your connections.The government is attacking our right to remain acitizen.Ah, but 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear' comes the tired refrain…Wrong. Dead wrong. Privacy is necessary, many secrets are good.Let's just take a few examples – such as high-level negotiations in either the private or public sectors. Under the proposed system of blanket surveillance, the government of the day may always gain an advantage in, say, pay negotiations or industrial disputes when it can easily identify which union leaders and officials are talking to each other away from the table. The content of the call or e-mail is never the only useful information. In many situations, simply knowing who is talking to who can provide the upper hand.And what sort of deterrent to commercial investment in the UK will it be when directors realise that the British state apparatus is monitoring who they and their employees are calling, and when? Or willcommunications be given a cosy exemption when the government belatedly wakes up to the fact that trampling on commercial confidentiality is bad for business.And for campaigners like me and my colleagues, fighting against this or any future government? Or investigative journalists rooting out corruption within an establishment which will, of course, have back door access? Or a whole host of others whose safety depends on anonymity - are we to be forced into criminality in order to protect our sources and contacts, ourselves and our loved ones?You don't have to agree with everything I've said. I certainly hope it won't come true. But it could, if you simply put up with what the stalker state is trying to do.Please write NOW to your MP expressing your disgust at this government's move towards spying on its people continually, and ask what he or she intends to do about it. (N.B. Please write in your own words - it ismore effective.)Actually, much of what the institute does — restricting patients’ caloric intake and getting them to exercise — would help any obese person lose weight. For people with Prader-Willi, though, it is impossible to make those changes without also managing grave health complications and out-of-control behavior, which is hard to untangle from exposure to food. People with the syndrome can resist raiding an unlocked cabinet, especially in the company of others. But this effort at control often erupts later in aggression. The institute’s philosophy is that eliminating any exposure to food — except at rigidly scheduled mealtimes for which menus are posted weeks in advance — is the only way patients can forget their hunger and anxiety so they can enjoy other food-free activities: crafts, gardening, dancing. There are no punishments for acting out, only incentives for participating. “If the words are ‘You have to do this,’ maybe I do or maybe I don’t, but I’m going to test you and see,” Cherpes said. “In a battle of wills, the person with Prader-Willi is always going to win.” A major part of the program is teaching parents how to create a similar environment at home. The staff members also talk to schools about making accommodations, including securing classmates’ lunchboxes, finding a place for a child to eat alone outside the cafeteria and providing a one-on-one aide for transitions between classrooms — measures that administrators, especially those in strapped districts, often resist. Over all, the results appear to be positive and lasting. Patients discharged in 2012 lost an average of 27.5 pounds during their stays, and 96 percent continued or sustained their weight loss after 18 months. Nine months out, a vast majority had not needed emergency medical or psychiatric treatment. For obesity researchers, the uniqueness of Prader-Willi presents a paradox: The causes of obesity in the general population are far more complex and varied than those of the syndrome, but Prader-Willi’s specific genetic roots, while not expected to explain all forms of obesity, could offer universal truths about the biology of hunger and fullness. Robert Nicholls, a geneticist at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh who studies Prader-Willi, believes it is “very unlikely” that our species evolved multiple, separate systems to govern eating. Understanding why people with Prader-Willi switch in early childhood from an extreme lack of interest in food to insatiability could offer clues about the nature of appetite — which might eventually help scientists minister to a person’s specific type of overeating or prevent it altogether. It’s possible that it could do the same for conditions of undereating and malnutrition, like anorexia. Whether damage to the hypothalamus can be undone at all, regardless of its cause, is still an open question, but one that a successful treatment for Prader-Willi could answer. “Taking that genetic condition — if that is curable, there could be hope there,” says Joan Han, an endocrinologist at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., who conducts research at the National Institutes of Health. “It may not tell us everything about obesity in general, but it’s an essential part of the big picture.” One promising avenue of exploration illuminated by Prader-Willi involves a gene disrupted by the syndrome, Magel2. During the last 10 years, Rachel Wevrick, the University of Alberta geneticist, and colleagues discovered that mice lacking the gene develop many of the same symptoms that people with Prader-Willi have, including behavioral abnormalities, low muscle tone and obesity. And though they are less active than normal mice, they do not eat less, so they gain excessive amounts of fat. By analyzing samples of their brain tissue, Wevrick found that the ability of their hypothalamus to sense the leptin produced by the body’s fat cells was impaired, disabling a neural pathway that tells the animals whether they need to conserve energy and consume more calories. Within the past year, researchers have also identified more than a dozen children in whom only the Magel2 gene on the chromosome 15 segment is mutated. At least several of the children have abnormally large appetites — all have low muscle tone — reinforcing the idea that the gene may play a central role in producing those same Prader-Willi symptoms. The Rhythm drug, RM-493, uses a synthetic protein to bypass the neural pathway (in humans) that should be governed by leptin but does not work in the mice that lack the gene. When a similar compound is given to those mice, they eat less food. And yet the drug that has progressed furthest in human clinical trials, beloranib, highlights what an enigma Prader-Willi still is. Originally designed to treat cancer, beloranib had the unexpected side effect of decreasing hunger and increasing weight loss. Though it has shown preliminary success in curbing the appetites of people with Prader-Willi, no one is sure exactly how it might be doing so. In fact, the only drug available so far for managing the weight of people with Prader-Willi — human growth hormone — replaces a deficiency in the pituitary gland that is not directly related to general obesity. Approved for use 15 years ago, the hormone improves muscle tone and increases metabolism, helping people with Prader-Willi stay thinner. When administered early in life, it also appears to improve cognitive ability. This could partly be why more young adults with the syndrome are graduating from high school. Afterward, though, they’re often stuck. They can’t go away to college, because food is everywhere there. Likewise, it is almost impossible to find a job at which there isn’t, at the very least, access to an employee fridge — and they can’t be allowed to manage money, because they can use it to buy food. There are a few adult group homes around the country equipped to manage the disorder, but not enough to meet demand. Noah Thorner, who is 23, graduated from high school with honors and now lives with his parents. In lieu of a steady job, he makes wooden toys that he sells on Etsy. Finding friends has been difficult. “Everywhere you go, you see people eating,” he told me. “And I realize that I can’t participate, and that’s really hard.” Another young high-school graduate, Rachel Crowley, attends community-college classes while her mother, Debra, waits outside to prevent her from straying to the vending machines or campus cafe. “She’s a great candidate for someone who could have her own apartment,” Debra says, “but she can’t prepare her own food — that’s the main stumbling block. We’re hoping some of these new medications they’re researching could open that door for her.” But questions remain about whether even a miracle drug would be enough to safeguard against a fatal binge: What if it doesn’t work perfectly? What if, one day, a person forgets to take it? “It gets exhausting trying to keep your daughter in the world, but a world that just doesn’t get it,” Duane DiCola, the father of Danielle, one of the girls in Rachelle’s program, told me. “We really struggled with ‘No, my child is different.' ”Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is? From freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#bikeshed-painting; see also phk.freebsd.dk/sagas/bikeshed.html for historical background. "The really, really short answer is that you should not. The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the color they plan to paint it. This is a metaphor indicating that you need not argue about every little feature just because you know enough to do so. Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change." (If you don't like the way we painted this bikeshed, try bikeshedding.io, or the minimalist shed.bike. Or set up your own? That's the spirit!) Subject: A bike shed (any colour will do) on greener grass... From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@freebsd.org> Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 16:14:10 +0200 Message-ID: <18238.938873650@critter.freebsd.dk> Sender: phk@critter.freebsd.dk Bcc: Blind Distribution List: ; MIME-Version: 1.0 [bcc'ed to committers, hackers] My last pamphlet was sufficiently well received that I was not scared away from sending another one, and today I have the time and inclination to do so. I've had a little trouble with deciding on the right distribution of this kind of stuff, this time it is bcc'ed to committers and hackers, that is probably the best I can do. I'm not subscribed to hackers myself but more on that later. The thing which have triggered me this time is the "sleep(1) should do fractional seconds" thread, which have pestered our lives for many days now, it's probably already a couple of weeks, I can't even be bothered to check. To those of you who have missed this particular thread: Congratulations. It was a proposal to make sleep(1) DTRT if given a non-integer argument that set this particular grass-fire off. I'm not going to say anymore about it than that, because it is a much smaller item than one would expect from the length of the thread, and it has already received far more attention than some of the problems we have around here. The sleep(1) saga is the most blatant example of a bike shed discussion we have had ever in FreeBSD. The proposal was well thought out, we would gain compatibility with OpenBSD and NetBSD, and still be fully compatible with any code anyone ever wrote. Yet so many objections, proposals and changes were raised and launched that one would think the change would have plugged all the holes in swiss cheese or changed the taste of Coca Cola or something similar serious. "What is it about this bike shed?" Some of you have asked me. It's a long story, or rather it's an old story, but it is quite short actually. C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a book in the early 1960'ies, called "Parkinson's Law", which contains a lot of insight into the dynamics of management. You can find it on Amazon, and maybe also in your dads book-shelf, it is well worth its price and the time to read it either way, if you like Dilbert, you'll like Parkinson. Somebody recently told me that he had read it and found that only about 50% of it applied these days. That is pretty darn good I would say, many of the modern management books have hit-rates a lot lower than that, and this one is 35+ years old. In the specific example involving the bike shed, the other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess that illustrates the age of the book. Parkinson shows how you can go in to the board of directors and get approval for building a multi-million or even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless discussions. Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point, examples relating to Los Alamos in his books. A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the game on TV. So no matter how well prepared, no matter how reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is here. In Denmark we call it "setting your fingerprint". It is about personal pride and prestige, it is about being able to point somewhere and say "There! I did that." It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most people given the chance. Just think about footsteps in wet cement. I bow my head in respect to the original proposer because he stuck to his guns through this carpet blanking from the peanut gallery, and the change is in our tree today. I would have turned my back and walked away after less than a handful of messages in that thread. And that brings me, as I promised earlier, to why I am not subscribed to -hackers: I un-subscribed from -hackers several years ago, because I could not keep up with the email load. Since then I have dropped off several other lists as well for the very same reason. And I still get a lot of email. A lot of it gets routed to /dev/null by filters: People like Brett Glass will never make it onto my screen, commits to documents in languages I don't understand likewise, commits to ports as such. All these things and more go the winter way without me ever even knowing about it. But despite these sharp teeth under my mailbox I still get too much email. This is where the greener grass comes into the picture: I wish we could reduce the amount of noise in our lists and I wish we could let people build a bike shed every so often, and I don't really care what colour they paint it. The first of these wishes is about being civil, sensitive and intelligent in our use of email. If I could concisely and precisely define a set of criteria for when one should and when one should not reply to an email so that everybody would agree and abide by it, I would be a happy man, but I am too wise to even attempt that. But let me suggest a few pop-up windows I would like to see mail-programs implement whenever people send or reply to email to the lists they want me to subscribe to: +------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Your email is about to be sent to several hundred thousand \| \| people, who will have to spend at least 10 seconds reading \| \| it before they can decide if it is interesting. At least \| \| two man-weeks will be spent reading your email. Many of \| \| the recipients will have to pay to download your email. \| \| \| \| Are you absolutely sure that your email is of sufficient \| \| importance to bother all these people? \| \| \| \| [YES] [REVISE] [CANCEL] \| +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Warning: You have not read all emails in this thread yet. \| \| Somebody else may already have said what you are about to \| \| say in your reply. Please read the entire thread before \| \| replying to any email in it. \| \| \| \| [CANCEL] \| +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ \| Warning: Your mail program have not even shown you the \| \| entire message yet. Logically it follows that you cannot \| \| possibly have read it all and understood it. \| \| \| \| It is not polite to reply to an email until you have \| \| read it all and thought about it. \| \| \| \| A cool off timer for this thread will prevent you from \| \| replying to any email in this thread for the next one hour \| \| \| \| [Cancel] \| +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ \| You composed this email at a rate of more than N.NN cps \| \| It is generally not possible to think and type at a rate \| \| faster than A.AA cps, and therefore you reply is likely to \| \| incoherent, badly thought out and/or emotional. \| \| \| \| A cool off timer will prevent you from sending any email \| \| for the next one hour. \| \| \| \| [Cancel] \| +------------------------------------------------------------+ The second part of my wish is more emotional. Obviously, the capacities we had manning the unfriendly fire in the sleep(1) thread, despite their many years with the project, never cared enough to do this tiny deed, so why are they suddenly so enflamed by somebody else so much their junior doing it? I wish I knew. I do know that reasoning will have no power to stop such "reactionaire conservatism". It may be that these people are frustrated about their own lack of tangible contribution lately or it may be a bad case of "we're old and grumpy, WE know how youth should behave". Either way it is very unproductive for the project, but I have no suggestions for how to stop it. The best I can suggest is to refrain from fuelling the monsters that lurk in the mailing lists: Ignore them, don't answer them, forget they're there. I hope we can get a stronger and broader base of contributors in FreeBSD, and I hope we together can prevent the grumpy old men and the Brett Glasses of the world from chewing them up, spitting them out and scaring them away before they ever get a leg to the ground. For the people who have been lurking out there, scared away from participating by the gargoyles: I can only apologise and encourage you to try anyway, this is not the way I want the environment in the project to be. Poul-HenningRival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed an agreement on Thursday to end a decade-long split following talks mediated by Egypt in Cairo, with President Mahmoud Abbas calling it a "final" accord. Under the agreement, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority is to resume full control of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by December 1, according to a statement from Egypt's intelligence agency, which oversaw the talks. Abbas welcomed the deal and said he considered it a "final agreement to end the division." However many details remain to be resolved and previous reconciliation attempts have repeatedly failed. It was signed in Cairo by new Hamas deputy leader Salah al-Aruri and Azzam al-Ahmad, the head of the Fatah delegation for the talks. Negotiations are now expected to be held on forming a unity government, with the various Palestinian political movements invited to another meeting in Cairo on November 21. Key points of Palestinian unity agreement - The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, will resume full control of Gaza by December 1 at the latest. - All the major Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, will meet in Cairo on November 21 for discussions about forming a unity government. - The border crossings from Gaza with Israel and Egypt will be handed back to the Palestinian Authority in the coming weeks, with a November 1 deadline, according to the Fatah negotiator Azzam al-Ahmed. The crossing with Egypt may require more time for the handover. - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Gaza for the first time in a decade in the coming weeks, according to an official from his party. - The issue of tens of thousands of civil servants employed by Hamas will be solved by February 2018, according to Hamas's al-Aqsa television. - Punitive measures taken by the PA against Gaza, including reductions in energy payments for the Strip, are expected to be relieved. Still to be resolved - The future of Hamas's 25,000-strong military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was not mentioned in any of the public statements or documents. - Recognition of Israel was also not mentioned. The Abbas-led Palestine Liberation Organisation has recognised Israel, while Hamas has not. An official from Abbas' Fatah movement said the Palestinian president was planning to travel to the Gaza Strip'soon' as part of the unity bid in what would be his first visit in a decade. Sanctions taken by Abbas against Hamas-controlled Gaza will also soon be lifted, the Fatah official said. The deal includes 3,000 members of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority's police force re-deploying to Gaza, a member of the negotiating team told AFP on the condition of anonymity. The figure is however a fraction of the more than 20,000 police officers employed separately by Hamas. 'End very shortly' Another party to the negotiations, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the agreement would see Palestinian Authority forces take control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. One of the key issues has been punitive measures taken by Abbas against Gaza in recent months, including reducing electricity payments that left the territory's residents with only a few hours of power a day. "All the measures taken recently will end very shortly," Zakaria al-Agha, a senior Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip, told AFP. The two sides had been meeting in the Egyptian capital this week with the aim of ending the crippling decade-old split between the rival factions. Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah in a near civil war in 2007 and the two factions have been at odds ever since. Multiple previous reconciliation efforts have failed. Egypt has been keen to improve security in the Sinai Peninsula which borders Gaza and where extremist rebels have fought a long-running insurgency. An Egyptian source close to the talks said intelligence chief Khaled Fawzi had followed the negotiations closely. Fate of armed wing Last month, Hamas agreed to cede civil power in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority but the fate of its vast military wing remains a significant issue for the two sides. Islamist movement Hamas is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union. It has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 and the blockaded Gaza Strip has seen deteriorating humanitarian conditions. Faced with increasing isolation and a severe electricity shortage, Hamas has reached out to Egypt for help, hoping to have the Rafah border opened. The crossing has remained largely closed in recent years. Egypt has also agreed to provide fuel to the Gaza Strip for electricity generation. In return, Cairo pressed Hamas to move forward on reconciliation with Fatah. Previous attempts at reconciliation have repeatedly failed, and many analysts are treating the latest bid with caution, waiting to see if actual change will occur on the ground. Last week, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited Gaza for the first time since 2015 and his ministers took formal control of government departments in the territory. But the move was seen as mainly symbolic, with Hamas still effectively in charge in the Palestinian enclave of two million people bordered by Egypt, Israel and the Mediterranean Sea. One of the key sticking points will be the fate of Hamas's 25,000-strong military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Reconciliation could also pose a dilemma for international efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal since Hamas has not recognised Israel, unlike the Abbas-led Palestine Liberation Organisation.Source: mehrnews.com Iran Wrestling Federation has handed in the proposal to host the Wrestling World Cups in the year 2017 to the United World Wrestling (UWW). The Islamic Republic of Iran Wrestling Federation has officially offered a request to the UWW to host both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling world cups in the years 2017. Meanwhile, the 2016 Greco-Roman World Cup will be held in Iran during May 19-20 and will be attended by eight top teams of 2015 competitions. It is the third consecutive year that Iran holds Greco-Roman World Cup and Shiraz city will be the host city for 2016. Iran won team title in 2014 and placed third in 2015 World Cups. Also, the US has been put in charge of the Freestyle Wrestling World Cup to take place in Los Angles on June 11-12. Wrestling World Cup is an international wrestling competition among teams representing member nations of the United World Wrestling (UWW) the sport's global governing body. The championships have been conducted every year since the 1973 tournament.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account A law student who criticised Islam on his Facebook page has been shot and hacked to death with a machete in Bangladesh. Nazimuddin Samad, 28, whose family live in London, was murdered on a busy road near Dhaka’s Jagannath University, where he was studying. He is the latest suspected victim of a string of killings of secular activists in Bangladesh. Mr Samad had been on a hit list of 84 atheist bloggers drawn up by radical Islamists. A friend said his family, from Manor Park, east London, were preparing to fly to Bangladesh after being informed of the death late last night. They said: “Everything is very raw at the moment. They only found out last last night and are still preparing to fly out there as soon as they can.” Syed Nurul Islam, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan police, said in a statement: “At least four assailants hacked Nazimuddin Samad’s head with a machete on Wednesday night. “As he fell down, one of them shot him with a pistol from close range. He died on the spot. It is a case of targeted killing. But no group has claimed responsibility.” The killers were reportedly heard shouting Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) before fleeing the scene. Tributes poured in on the activist’s Facebook page this morning in a mixture of English and native Hindi. Mr Samad was known for being critical of state religion. Before deactivating his Facebook account about a month ago after his family feared he may become the victim of an attack, he was said to have written: “Evolution is a scientific truth. Religion and race are invention of the savage and uncivil people.” Writing on his Facebook page Subrata Das said: “Another brutal execution... example of a failed Government of Bangladesh.”The total number of schools in the
Much of the debate during the hearings revolved around the city’s ban on edibles — though the new bylaws do not lift the ban. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning,” Jang said, reciting a Churchill quote in front of council, suggesting the debate is long from over.Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email The mum of missing RAF airman Corrie McKeague fears police will find his body in the search of a landfill site five months after his disappearance. The 23-year-old vanished after partying with friends in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on September 24 last year, in a case that's left police stumped. After the last sightings of Corrie on CCTV, his mobile phone signal appeared to match the speed and route of a bin lorry heading to a landfill site off the A14 north of Cambridge. As, police prepare to finally search the eight-metre deep site, Mum Nicola Urquhart says she was always desperate for detectives 'use their common sense' and start the search there. (Image: ITV) (Image: PA) She told ITV News: "It's just common sense. The only bit of evidence the police have ever had is Corrie's phone pinged at Barton Mills within a minute and a half of the bin lorry getting there. "If they knew that was the route that Corrie's phone had taken, it's a logical step to think that there's a possibility Corrie has also stayed with his phone." Suffolk Police have previously defended their decision not to search the site while other lines of enquiry were being pursued and added no new waste has been deposited there since Corrie's disappearance. Detectives added they hadn't searched the site because they couldn't rule out another vehicle had taken the route or that his mobile phone was with Corrie at the time it was giving out the signals. The search the search is likely to start next week and could take up to 10 weeks. Det Supt Katie Elliott said: "There are some measures that we need to put in place before the full search work starts as, in addition to the pressing need to find Corrie, we also have to consider local residents, site workers and the officers who will be carrying out the job of going through the waste. "We know that physically searching the site has the potential to cause an increase in odour and we hope residents will understand that we and the site owners have taken this into consideration when making a decision to go ahead with the search. "We need to find him and discover what happened to him. "While the search may not provide the answers as to what happened it is something we need to do as our investigation continues." (Image: PA) (Image: Suffolk Constabulary) (Image: Deadline News) A search of woodlands near to Barton Mills was carried out last month, near where the last recorded signal was given out from Corrie's mobile phone. Corrie’s mum Nicola Urquhart, 48, arranged for the private search to be carried out in woodland between Barton Mills and Mildenhall in Suffolk. Mrs Urquhart has previously revealed her son and his girlfriend April Oliver - who discovered she is expecting his child after he disappeared - were members of the Fab Swingers swinging website. Police are investigating whether his use of sex and dating websites may be linked to his disappearance. Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now The last sighting shows him walking from a shop doorway and into a horseshoe-shaped area in Brentgovel Street, with no sign of him emerging. Mr McKeague, a gunner and team medic stationed north of Bury St Edmunds, was separated from friends while leaving the Flex nightclub in the town in the early hours of 24 September. He was last seen on CCTV in the town centre at 3.25am wearing a light pink Ralph Lauren shirt, white jeans and brown suede Timberland boots with light soles. Corrie used his phone to text his friend at 3.08am. Cops were able to trace Corrie's phone from Bury to the Barton Mills area, near Mildenhall, at a speed only a vehicle could travel at. His phone was not used after this and hasn't been found since.Google VP Marissa Mayer exemplifies the key traits of an idea connector, a person who links up idea scouts who have limited internal company networks with R&D engineers and others. One mechanism she uses: she holds three weekly sessions where she is accessible to all Google employees who want to pitch a new idea. advertisement Image courtesy of Flickr user marcusnelson. Combing the outside world for potentially useful innovation ideas is necessary but it’s not sufficient. Managers in large companies have to figure out ways to ensure that the best new ideas actually reach the people able to exploit them. The way many companies do this is by having someone in the position of “idea connector.” This is the person who links up the “idea scouts” — people with well-developed knowledge and social networks outside their company but limited networks within it — to the R&D engineers and others who can develop the suggestions. Here’s how it works at Google, “a company that has excelled in turning nascent ideas into innovative products,” according to authors Eoin Whelan, Salvatore Parise, Jasper de Valk and Rick Aalbers, writing in “Creating Employee Networks That Deliver Open Innovation”: Central to this success has been the role of Marissa Mayer, a company vice president, who exemplifies the key traits of an idea connector. The initial concept for orkut (Google’s social networking site) or for the company’s desktop search did not originate with her, but she played a central role in ensuring that those promising ideas, and many others that bubbled up to the surface, were fast-tracked for investment. One useful mechanism has been Mayer’s tradition of holding three weekly sessions where she is accessible to all Google employees who want to pitch a new idea. She brainstorms with these scout-equivalents and presses them for more details on the proposed products’ functionality before deciding whether to champion the ideas to company leaders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Idea connectors, the authors write, “are the hub of the company’s social network, the go-to people of the organization. Much of their expertise lies in knowing who is doing what. When they are made aware of an opportunity for innovation, connectors not only know who in the company is best equipped to exploit that idea but also possess the social capital needed to rapidly deploy the network to meet that particular challenge.” The take-away: Companies need formalized processes for people with ideas to get to people with the influence to move on them. “Creating Employee Networks That Deliver Open Innovation” is part of a package of stories about innovation in the Fall 2011 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. Others include the survey-rich “The Age of the Consumer-Innovator” on the massive amounts of product innovation generated by consumers and “Is Your Company Ready for Open Innovation?” on the ways large companies are transforming employee attitudes along with incentive systems. advertisementMost people dream of owning their own island, a piece of tranquil heaven to truly call their own. For the majority of people however, this will always remain just that: a dream. On the flipside, there is a definite island-buying trend growing amongst those lucky enough to be able to afford such a residence, from movie stars through to politicians, which will one day result in all such people living offshore… or maybe not. We’ve decided to show you some of the smallest island-based houses and villas currently inhabited around the world in order to prove that such a dream isn’t that unattainable and that your own private island needn’t be the size of London. They’re also incredible places to visit and provide a great opportunity to come back from holiday with some truly unique photographs. Dunbar Rock, Honduras The next time you visit Honduras be sure to pop over to Guanaja, a Bay Island 70km from the shore. The island itself is stunning and worthy of the visit, but the real eye-opener is Dunbar Rock, an absolutely stunning property sitting just off the coast on a rocky island barely large enough to accomodate the building. Within the property are 6 bedrooms, plently for the family and a couple of guests, and rumour has it that dolphins can be spotted from the bedroom windows. If you have a spare US $1'700'000 you may be in luck as Dunbar Rock is currently for sale. Unknown Property, Les Cheneaux Islands This lovely house sits on a tiny island amongst the 36 larger Les Cheneaux Islands off the south coast of Cedarville, Michigan, a popular destination for boating, sailing and fishing enthusiasts. The property pictured can be found just to the east of Marquette Island and looks to be a perfect spot to relax and take in the surrounding scenery, the house even boasting a stunning watchtower. Truly idyllic. Clingstone, Rhode Island Sitting majestically just off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island is a beautiful mansion by the name of Clingstone - a name which makes sense as soon as the property is seen. The water-bound mansion is home to an incredible 23 rooms spread over 3 storeys and when bought by current owner Henry Wood in 1961 cost a very reasonable US $3'600, although the house wasn’t in such a pleasing state at the time after having been abandoned for over 20 years. We think you’ll agree that the restoration was a huge success. Just Room Enough, 1000 Islands We’ve searched high and low to find the world’s smallest island-house and it seems clear, to us at least, that the winner has to be Just Room Enough, this extremely cute and picturesque residence which can be found amongst the 1000 Islands on the St. Lawrence River, one of the world’s most beautiful collection of islands. Apparently the island is such a tight fit that the outdoor furniture can only be placed out front when passing boat traffic is minimal. Where the boat is kept is anyone’s guess. Las Isletas, Nicaragua Las Isletas is an archipelago contained within Nicaragua’s Lake Cocibolca, Central America’s largest lake, and consists of 365 seperate islands. In recent years locals have seen a huge increase in the number of these Isletas being snapped up by island-hunting visitors intent on setting up their dream home but a large number of the smaller islands, such as the gorgeous example seen in the photograph above, are still inhabited by local fishermen. Information and picture sources 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 We created this article for Premier Holidays back in September 2008, the company has now gone out of business and the website has been closed down so we salvaged this piece and reposted it here for your enjoyment.The Republic Of Ireland have unveiled their new black away shirt which will be available here from March 21st. Inspired by the influx of new young players into the squad, the new Eire shirt celebrates 'a new dawn' for the national team and their aspirations. Buy Football t-shirts at footytees.com - New shirts every week The new away shirt will go on sale on March 21st. With a subtle black and charcoal grey stripe on the main body, the shirt also features a smart black collar with white trim and detail stitching in the colours of the Irish flag. The shirt also features the Eire crest and Umbro logo embroidered in white alongside the printed 3 sponsor logo on the front. Accompanied by black shorts and black socks with a green trim, the new away kit will certainly make a statement on the pitch. The shirt will be available here from March 21st.Story highlights Mitt Romney leads a hypothetical Republican presidential field, according to a new poll Hillary Clinton tops the Democratic side for the 2016 nomination The GOP has a sprawling field of up to 16 candidates leading into 2016 Mitt Romney may say he's not planning to make a third run for the White House, but according to a new CNN/ORC International poll, Republican voters aren't ready to give up on the idea just yet. While there is no clear frontrunner for the Republican ticket in 2016, most likely GOP voters say they would choose the former Massachusetts governor for the nomination, among 16 potential contenders. According to the survey, 20 percent of voters say Romney would be their first choice for the nominee, with retired neurosurgeon and conservative activist Ben Carson coming in second with 10 percent of the vote. Other big name contenders, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, round out the top four, garnering 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee takes fifth place with 7 percent of the vote. In what could be a telling 2016 indicator, when Romney is removed from the competitive set, the first place spot goes to Bush, who has had some family members publicly pressure him to throw his hat in the ring for months. But even though Bush leads the pack among the hypothetical field of 15, he only edges Carson in second place by 3 percentage points, and Huckabee in third by just 4 points. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton unsurprisingly receives an overwhelming majority of support, with 65 percent of left-leaning Americans saying she would be their choice for the 2016 nomination. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive favorite, and Vice President Joe Biden, fall way behind to take second and third place -- with 9 percent and 10 percent, respectively. But when Clinton is removed from the vote selection, Biden pulls more support among voters, who say they would prefer him as their 2016 Democratic nominee with 41 percent, versus 20 percent for Warren. The poll surveyed 1,045 Americans, including 510 Republicans and right-leaning independents and 457 Democrats and left-leaning independents. The survey was conducted by telephone from Nov. 21-23.TransCanada admitted for the first time that tar sands oil is now flowing through Keystone XL‘s southern leg, now rebranded the Gulf Coast Pipeline Project. The company confirmed the pipeline activity in its 2014 quarter one earnings call. Asked by Argus Media reporter Iris Kuo how much of the current 530,000 barrels per day of oil flowing from the Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas pipeline is tar sands (“heavy crude,” in industry lingo), TransCanada CEO Russ Girling confirmed what many had already suspected. “I don’t have that exact mix, but it does have the ability to take the domestic lights as well as any heavies that find a way down to the Cushing market, so it is a combination of the heavies and the lights,” said Girling. “I just don’t know what the percentage is.” The Keystone Pipeline System — of which Keystone XL’s northern leg is phase four of four phases — is and always has been slated to carry Alberta’s tar sands to targeted markets. So the announcement is far from a shocker. More perplexing is why it took so long for the company to tell the public that tar sands oil now flows through the half of the pipeline approved via a March 2012 Executive Order by President Barack Obama. “Oil is Oil” When DeSmogBlog reported TransCanada had begun injecting oil into the pipeline’s southern leg in December, the company would not reveal what type of oil it was. “As you’ve likely seen me quoted before, oil is oil and this pipeline is designed to handle both light and heavy blends of oil, in accordance with all U.S. regulatory standards,” TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard told DeSmogblog at the time. “I am not able to provide you the specific blend or breakdown as we are not permitted (by our customers) from disclosing that information to the media. There are very strict confidentiality clauses in the commercial contracts we enter into with our customers, and that precludes us from providing that.” Now, though, it appears the company has let the proverbial cat out of the bag. “Texas Bound and Flyin’” In the first quarter of 2014, Keystone XL’s southern half has opened up the floodgates for what was once a glut of oil in Cushing to reach Gulf Coast refineries at record levels. To borrow the title of Jerry Reed’s 1980 country song classic, it’s “Texas Bound and Flyin.’” An April 17 Energy Information Agency communiqué lays out the dirty details. “The main driver of the recent crude oil inventory builds on the [Gulf Coast] is start-up of TransCanada’s [Gulf Coast Pipeline] which runs from the Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub to the Houston area,” explained the EIA. “In late January, TransCanada completed the first delivery of crude oil via [Gulf Coast Pipeline] to [Gulf Coast] refineries.” In short, the glut of oil has teleported from Cushing to Texas in the aftermath ofKeystone XL’s southern leg opening for business in January, as explained in another EIA March 27 update. “Crude oil inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the primary crude oil storage location in the United States, decreased 13 million barrels (32%) over the past two months,” the EIA wrote. “On March 21, Cushing inventories were less than 29 million barrels, more than 20 million barrels lower than a year ago.” Northern Leg and Rail Keystone XL’s northern leg, or what many know simply as Keystone XL, also came up on the earnings call. Girling voiced frustration with how long the process has taken and with President Obama’s April 18 announcement to delay a decision on the northern leg until after the 2014 mid-term elections. “In our view this delay is inexplicable. The first leg of our Keystone system took just over 600 days to review and approve,” said Girling. “Now after more than 2,000 days, five exhaustive environmental reviews and over 17,000 cases of scientific data, the review process continues to be delayed.” The prospect of moving tar sands oil by rail to Cushing was also discussed on the call. “Our customers have asked us to look at a rail bridge between Alberta and U.S.points,” Bill Taylor, TransCanada’s Executive Vice-President and President of Energy, said on the call. “I’d say that since the delays, the intensity of those calls has gone up quite substantially.” Girling echoed Taylor in discussing his company’s tar sands oil-by-rail chess move. “It is something…that we can move on relatively quickly,” Girling stated. “We’ve done a pretty substantial amount of work at the terminal end and mostly at the receipt and delivery points and that’s really what our key role in here would be. “You know a lot of the tankage is already in place so it’s a matter of building rail sidings and those kinds of things which aren’t overly complicated and we have spent some time engineering those things.” Debate Continues, TransCanada Forges Ahead The debate over TransCanada’s Phase Four (Keystone XL’s northern leg) continues apace. But, TransCanada’s quarter one earning’s call makes one thing clear: the company is firing ammo from many angles to move tar sands to market with or without the oft-discussed pipeline. As Oil Change International executive director Steve Kretzmann put it in a press release after President Obama punted on the pipeline decision until after the 2014 elections, “While the oil industry and their paid Representatives in Congress are likely to scream, it’s worth keeping in mind that…crude oil inventories on the Gulf Coast are at record levels.”The need for fossil fuels is destroying regions and communities, causing war and famine in the process, argues the activist and author Climate change is spawning injustice, racism, intolerance and wars, according to author and political activist Naomi Klein. “It is not about things getting hotter and wetter but things getting meaner and uglier, unless we change the corrosive values that are pitting people against each other,” she said in a lecture held in memory of Palestinian literary critic and political activist Edward Said at the Royal Festival Hall in London’s Southbank Centre on Wednesday. “Fossil fuels, which are the principal driver of climate change, require the sacrifice of whole regions and people. Sacrificial zones like the Niger delta and the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, dot the world. “These zones require the shredding of treaties that enable peoples to live on their land. Indigenous rights are meaningless when the land is being [destroyed] and the rivers are polluted. Resource extraction is a form of violence because it does so much damage and kills cultures,” she said. The author of books including No Logo and This Changes Everything said that an epidemic of despair linked to oil extraction and mining was ravaging communities in Africa and the Americas, leading to suicides and gross injustices. Klein linked the start of the Syrian crisis with drought. “Drought was not the only factor but the fact that 1.5 million people were displaced exacerbated [the situation]. There is a connection between water stress and conflict in the Middle East, Libya, Gaza, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today boats of refugees flee wars and drought. Migrants are seen as an invading army.” In a reference to Said’s argument that large sections of humanity have been cast as sub-human, or “other”, Klein said climate change was creating great divisions between people. “There is no clean, safe way to run an economy built on fossil fuels. There is no peaceful way to do it... If nations and people are regarded as other, it’s easier to wage wars and stage coups,” she said. “We are running out of cheap ways to get to fossil fuels. This sees the rise of fracking which is now threatening some of the prettiest places in Britain.” She urged people to make the links between climate change and conflict. “Anti-austerity people rarely talk about climate change. And climate change people rarely talk about war. Overcoming these disconnections is the most pressing task for anyone occupied with social justice. “[Climate change] is a a present emergency. The Paris agreement, signed last month commits to keeping warming to below 2C. But this is reckless. In 2009, African nations said this was a death sentence. At the last minute [in Paris] countries agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming further. [But] we are making no such efforts.” “Wealthy people think that they are going to be OK, that they will be taken care of. But we all will be affected,” she said.//There... it's off your chest.// [[ooo\|end]] [[Esc\|emergency]] //Well, <<print $player2>> is just player 2 right now, and you have the controller, not them.// [[ooo\|gather strength]] [[Esc\|emergency]] If I had my way <<print $time>> I would have <<textinput "backThen" "back then" "Submit">> [[Esc\|emergency]] In order to make that happen, I'll need to <<print $todo>> //Are you up to doing that now?// <<revise yes "Yes">> <<revision yes>>\| [[No\|nope]] <<becomes>>//Excellent! I believe in you, and I believe you deserve a resolution to this. The next link will take you to the end. You can leave this screen up, if you'd like, while you go get started and see how it goes. Or you can finish now.// [[ooo\|end]] <<endrevision>> [[Esc\|emergency]] Now, when I think about what happened, I just <<cyclinglink $feelnow "get upset with" "get angry with" "get frustrated with" "get disappointed by" "get scared of" "get anxious with" "get disgusted with" "feel apathetic about">> <<cyclinglink $methem "myself" "them" "the situation">> all over again. I feel <<cyclinglink $feelnow2 "confused" "alone" "worthless" "furious" "insulted" "disappointed" "annoyed" "shocked" "upset" "helpless" "irritated" "ignored" "unimportant" "vexed" "exhausted" "powerless" "unheard" "dead inside">>. And maybe even a little <<cyclinglink $feelnow3 "confused" "alone" "worthless" "furious" "insulted" "disappointed" "annoyed" "shocked" "upset" "helpless" "irritated" "ignored" "unimportant" "vexed" "exhausted" "powerless" "unheard" "dead inside">>. But mostly, I just feel <<textinput "justFeel" "Feel Now" "Submit">> [[Esc\|emergency]] <html><h1>Player 2</h1> <h2>Lydia Neon</h2></html> //Content Warning: This game deals with interpersonal conflicts.// [[Begin\|realStart]] <<set $player2 = "">> <<set $emergencyFriend = "">> <<set $selfCareOne = "">> <<set $selfCareTwo = "">> <<set $selfCareThree = "">> <<set $whatHappened = "">> What is the second step on that checklist? <<textinput "selfCareTwo" "Setup4" "Submit">> Do you have a self-care checklist? <<revise yes "Yes">> <<revision yes>>\| [[No\|Setup5]] <<becomes>> What is the first step on that checklist? <<textinput "selfCareOne" "Setup3" "Submit">><<endrevision>> That's it. You're ready to [[begin!\|Player 2]] What is the third step on that checklist? <<textinput "selfCareThree" "Setup5" "Submit">> <<timedinsert 2s>>//Breathe...//<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 4s>>//In...//<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 8s>>//Out...//<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 12s>>//In...//<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 16s>>//Out...//<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 20s>>//Good. Just like that//<<endtimedinsert>> <<timedinsert 24s>>//Let it out...// [[ooo\|credits]]<<endtimedinsert>> (function () { version.extensions['revisionMacros'] = { major: 1, minor: 2, revision: 0 }; function tagcontents(b, starttags, desttags, endtags, k) { function tagfound(i, e) { for (var j = 0; j < e.length; j++) { if (a.indexOf(e[j], i) == i) { return e[j]; } } } var a = b.source.slice(k); var l = 0; var c = ""; var tg; for (var i = 0; i < a.length; i++) { if (tg = tagfound(i, starttags)) { l++; } else if ((tg = tagfound(i, desttags)) && l == 0) { b.nextMatch = k + i + tg.length; return [c, tg]; } else if (tg = tagfound(i, endtags)) { l--; if (l < 0) { return null; } } c += a.charAt(i); } return null; } macros['cycle'] = macros['insertion'] = macros['removal'] = macros['revision'] = macros['span'] = { handler: function (g, e, f, b) { var begintags = ["<<revision", "<<cycle", "<<insertion", "<<removal", "<<span"]; var becomes = ["<<becomes>>", "<<gains>>"]; var endtags = ["<<endrevision>>", "<<endcycle>>", "<<endinsertion>>", "<<endremoval>>", "<<endspan>>"]; var name = f[0].replace(" ", "_"); var k = b.source.indexOf('>>', b.matchStart) + 2; var c, vsns, vsn, i, cn, vtype; vsns = []; c = tagcontents(b, begintags, becomes.concat(endtags), endtags, k); if (c && endtags.indexOf(c[1]) == -1) { while (c) { vsns.push(c); c = tagcontents(b, begintags, becomes, endtags, b.nextMatch); } c = tagcontents(b, begintags, ["<<end" + e + ">>"], endtags, b.nextMatch); } if (!c) { throwError(g, "can't find matching end" + e); return; } vsns.push(c); i = 0; cn = 0; m = insertElement(g, "span", null, e + " " + name); if (vsns.length > 0) { h = insertElement(m, "span", null, "revision-span initial"); } else { h = m; } if (e == "insertion") { h.style.display = "none"; } h.setAttribute("data-enabled", (e!= "insertion") + ""); vsn = vsns.shift(); h.tweecode = vsn[0]; while (vsns.length > 0) { i += 1; vtype = vsn[1].slice(2, -2); vsn = vsns.shift(); h = insertElement(m, "span", null, "revision-span " + vtype); h.tweecode = vsn[0]; h.setAttribute("data-enabled", "false"); h.style.display = "none"; } h = m.firstChild; new Wikifier(h, h.tweecode); } } var de = "data-enabled"; function revise(rt, rname) { var rall, r, rc, rcl, ind, ind2, curr, next, ins, rmv, cyc, rev, rnd; rev = (rt == "revert"); rnd = (rt.indexOf("random") > -1); var rsp = "revision-span"; function showVer(n) { n.innerHTML = ""; new Wikifier(n, n.tweecode); n.setAttribute(de, "true"); n.style.display = "inline"; n.classList.remove(rsp + "-out"); n.classList.add(rsp + "-in"); if (n.timeout) clearTimeout(n.timeout); n.timeout = setTimeout(function () { n.classList.remove(rsp + "-in"); }, 1); } function hideVer(n) { n.setAttribute(de, "false"); n.classList.remove(rsp + "-in"); n.classList.add(rsp + "-out"); if (n.timeout) clearTimeout(n.timeout); n.timeout = setTimeout(function () { if (n.getAttribute(de) == "false") { n.classList.remove(rsp + "-out"); n.style.display = "none"; n.innerHTML = ""; } }, 1000); } function doToGainerSpans(n, fn) { for (var k = n - 1; k >= 0; k--) { if (rc[k + 1].classList.contains("gains")) { fn(rc[k]); } else break; } } rall = document.getElementsByClassName(rname); for (var i = 0; i < rall.length; i++) { r = rall[i]; rc = r.childNodes; ins = r.classList.contains("insertion"); rmv = r.classList.contains("removal"); cyc = r.classList.contains("cycle"); rcl = rc.length - 1; ind = -1; for (var k = 0; k <= rcl; k++) { if (rc[k].getAttribute(de) == "true") { ind = k; } } if (ind == -1) { if (ins) { ind = -1; curr = null; } else if (rmv) { ind = rcl + 1; curr = null; } } else { if (rev) { ind -= 1; } curr = (ind >= 0? 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Not because <<cyclinglink $theyDeserve "they deserve it" "they don't deserve it" "I couldn't" "I could" "I haven't" "I have" "I will" "I want to" "I don't want to" "I think I need to" "I don't think I need to">>, but because I deserve <<print $deserve>>, and <<print $player2>> isn't allowed to keep that from me. [[ooo\|right on]] [[Esc\|emergency]] //So take
part of the package. This social compact was never wholly accepted in New South Wales. The old free-trade ideological strands of George Reid, a one-time NSW premier who was prime minister in 1904–05, never entirely vanished from Australian liberalism, despite the adoption of trade protection in the first decade after Federation. New South Wales was the most reluctant of the states to come on board when Robert Menzies, a Victorian, sought to merge various conservative and anti-Labor groups into a new Liberal Party in the mid 1940s. In New South Wales, not only were its conservative fragments more politically diverse than elsewhere, but there was also a broad antipathy towards Menzies, as popularised in the slogan “You’ll never win with Menzies.” History proved that to be one of the more spectacular misjudgements in Australian political history. Even after Menzies swept to a resounding victory in 1949, it was soon evident that a free-trade “cave” existed within the new government’s ranks, its members drawn exclusively from New South Wales. This group opposed Menzies’s acceptance of the mixed economy, as manifested, for example, in the two-airline policy, which protected the duopoly of the government-owned Trans Australian Airlines and the privately owned Ansett. New South Wales continued to be isolated within the party during the seemingly united Menzies years. With the elevation of another Victorian, heir apparent Harold Holt, to the deputy leadership in 1956, the NSW “cave” was effectively marginalised. Evidence of an ongoing anti-NSW sentiment in the wider party can be found in a remark by longtime Menzies minister Sir Alexander Downer (father of the Howard-era minister, also Alexander), who went to London as high commissioner in 1964 but kept a close watch on developments in Australia. When John Gorton’s prime ministership was faltering, a young Liberal MP, Neil Brown, found himself in London being interrogated by Downer. “You must promise me one thing, Mr Brown. Never let the prime ministership fall into vulgar, Sydney commercial hands.” In 1971, though, a party-room coup by Billy McMahon toppled prime minister John Gorton and the Victorians lost control of the party. The leadership returned to Victoria during Malcolm Fraser’s years, but in the thirty years since 1985 a Sydneysider has led the Liberal Party for all but two years. (The sole exceptions were Andrew Peacock, 1989–90, and Alexander Downer for eight months during 1994–95.) In that time, first John Howard and then Tony Abbott have reshaped the party in ways that would have delighted George Reid but dismayed Downer senior. They have also significantly increased the influence of the NSW branch. With John Howard’s ascension to the national leadership, the insular, tribal character of NSW conservatism was brought to the broader Liberal Party; and that shift has persisted to this day, with little sign of weakening. Howard’s worldview was profoundly shaped by his experiences growing up in a state where Labor held power for an unbroken span of almost a quarter of a century. Labor had influence not just in the NSW government, which it ran with the trade unions, but also through extensive webs of patronage in local government, the churches, the legal profession, the judiciary and business. For Howard, it was the enemy, pure and simple, and it had to be defeated; it was not just a political opponent, its very culture was toxic and needed to be eliminated from the body politic and public life in general. Labor, in Howard’s view, looked after its own, and his side would do the same. Opposing Labor, in a tribal sense, means not resembling Labor in any way. The Liberal factions are also tribal in a very real sense: you are either in or out. The basic argument, little changed down the years, is that the moderates believe the right makes the party unelectable because “soft” Labor voters need to be won over, whereas the right, in its various sub-tribes, views any accommodation with Labor-style policies with deep suspicion, and as akin to apostasy. Elements of this fundamentalist rhetoric pepper Tony Abbott’s utterances, especially in regard to security issues. Interestingly, self-styled conservatives, or those strongly identified with the right, have been conspicuously absent from leadership of the state party in New South Wales, which has usually come to power after periods of Labor misrule. Bob Askin in 1965, Nick Greiner in 1988 (and his successor John Fahey) and Barry O’Farrell in 2011 were all moderates. So too is Mike Baird, the current incumbent, but he owes his elevation to the right’s decision to block Gladys Berejiklian, who was not just a moderate but also a factional warrior. Baird has since sought to distance himself from the right, having dumped two factional heavies from his cabinet. The NSW branch exerts a powerful hold over the Abbott government. Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, a former NSW Liberal branch president, is as tribal as they come and scarcely bothers to conceal her disdain for those on the other side of the chamber, whom she regularly ejects. As one Labor MP said to me, “This is not political. It is visceral. She hates us and everything we stand for.” Scott Morrison, a former NSW state director once surprisingly regarded as a moderate, is the architect of the hardline stance against asylum seekers. And of course there is the prime minister himself, rigorously hardline against anything even mildly progressive, be it renewable energy or same-sex marriage. Behind the frontlines are the redoubtable conservative senator, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, the most influential activist of the Christian right (Cory Bernardi notwithstanding), and another former NSW Liberal president, Bill Heffernan, who is reputed to be very persuasive among Liberals, especially newcomers. The NSW far right, though subject to frequent splits and realignments, is represented by the Member for Mitchell, Alex Hawke, whose extreme views on a range of topics led shock jock and Liberal supporter Alan Jones to memorably refer to him as “a cancer on the Liberal Party.” In 2005 Hawke nailed his conservative colours to the mast, claiming, “Nobody joins the Liberal Party to be left-wing. If you stand for compulsory student unionism, drug-injecting rooms and lowering the [homosexual] age of consent, you can choose the Greens, Labor or the Democrats.” Similar sentiments in his maiden speech, after he entered parliament in 2007, drew effusive praise from Tony Abbott Conservative in one sense, this faction is also constantly looking to expand its power. At the moment, the NSW right is working on a plan, drawn up by a panel headed by John Howard, for a “plebiscite model” of direct election of Liberal preselection candidates in the House of Representatives and the state Legislative Assembly. The proposed model would effectively limit the power of the NSW Liberal state executive, where the right lacks a majority, to override the wishes of branch members to install candidates. The move masquerades as grassroots democracy, but in fact panders to branch stacking, interest-group capture and local populism. It has implications far beyond New South Wales and could once again refashion the Liberal Party. •Originally presented at ekoparty 2011. The Baseband Playground Baseband processors control access to the radio hardware on cell phones. There has been published security research and presentations on remotely attacking baseband processors. This talk will take a different approach and focus on code injection into the baseband from the application processor. This is the same method that many unlocks (ultrasn0w) use to bypass carrier restrictions. Interestingly, these unlocks (exploits) can also be used to load your own code onto the baseband. This enables the patching of existing GSM code and other phone functionality :) This talk will cover baseband architecture, setting up a development environment, injecting custom code into the baseband using a variety of exploits, and interesting areas for modification. The case study for the talk will be an iPhone baseband running the Nucleus RTOS, but the concepts will be applicable to other basebands and OS.Beginning Aug. 2, 2014, San Diego will have its very own open-air fish market at the Tuna Harbor Pier between the USS Midway and Seaport Village. The market will operate every Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. NBC 7's Vanessa Herrera speaks with County Supervisor Greg Cox, who spearheaded the effort to bring this feature to San Diego. (Published Wednesday, July 16, 2014) With a picturesque waterfront already in place, San Diego will soon have its very own open-air fish market reminiscent of other similar markets around the U.S., including Seattle’s Pike Place Market. The plan, spearheaded by County Supervisor Greg Cox, was announced Wednesday. Cox said the Dockside Fish Market at the Downtown Waterfront will set up shop at the Fish Harbor Pier, near Tuna Harbor between the USS Midway Museum and Seaport Village. There, the pier will transform into an open-air fish market featuring pop-up canopies, tables and lots of fresh, local catches for sale. The market will open to the public for the first time on Aug. 2, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. After that, it will be held at that location every Saturday morning for the next year or so. Why We Love San Diego Gallery II For now, the plan is for fishing boats to pull into the harbor and unload their catches onto the pier, which could include fish, lobster, urchins, crab and whatever else they’ve caught in local waters. The fishermen will have to pay a vendor fee to be able to sell their goods at the market, but that dollar amount has not been set just yet. Cox said the new seaside marketplace will not only give consumers a great deal on fresh fish, it will also bring business to local fishermen. “There are still a number of commercial fisherman that are out there, they're working really hard, they're bringing their catch in on a daily basis, they're turning it over to fish markets at a wholesale price," said Cox. "This will give them an opportunity to certainly get a higher price than they would at a wholesale fish market. But at the same time, it's going to be a great bargain for the citizens of San Diego. They will know that it's the freshest fish they can possibly get," he continued. Zachary Roach is a partner for the open-air market and says his father, a commercial fisherman, has been catching rock crab for 20 years, yet the wholesale price hasn't changed. "It hasn't fluctuated in giving him more money for the 20 years. But now we can, rather than sell wholesale, we can sell it here for a chunk of money and still be selling it for cheaper than what they would at retail or at a grocery store, so the consumer is getting the better rate too,” said Roach. Employees of a nearby seafood market told NBC 7 they support the new open-air concept and hope the fishermen do well. As for locals and tourists, many say they’re looking forward to buying fresh seafood on the harbor. “I would totally support it – I think that’d be great to support local fishermen,” said San Diegan Brandi Skinner. Gloria Simon, a tourist visiting from Utah, said she’d certainly check out the marketplace. “I think it’s a great idea because I love the Seattle Pike’s Market,” she told NBC 7. Little Italy resident Sarah Johnson said the fish market will likely become one of her go-to shopping spots for seafood. “It’s convenient just to walk down here and get the fresh fish right off the market and bring it home. I would be a No.1 supporter of that, definitely,” said Johnson. A proposal to promote the market will be heard for the Board of Supervisors at a July 29 meeting. Meanwhile, Cox will continue to show his support for the open-air fish market in America’s Finest City. "Seattle is famous for its Pike Place Fish Market," said Cox. "There's no reason San Diego, with its vibrant waterfront, busy fishing fleets and great year-round weather, can't have our own open air fish market."An unconventional engine design is attracting attention as a potential alternative to hydrogen fuel cells or conventional engines in some hybrid vehicles. Called the free-piston engine, it could be used to generate electricity as efficiently as fuel cells yet cost less. Piston power: In an unconventional engine design, a rod with a piston at either end shuttles between two combustion chambers. Magnets at the center of the rod move past metal coils (orange) to create an electrical current. Free-piston engines aren’t new: they were invented in the 1920s. But the increased recent focus on hybrid cars has led a growing number of research groups and automakers to start research programs to develop the technology. Unlike in conventional engines, there is no mechanical connection between the piston and a crankshaft (hence the name free-piston). Since the design allows for improved combustion and less friction, the engines could be far more efficient in generating electricity than either conventional generators or newer fuel-cell technology. Having a cheap and efficient way to generate electricity is becoming more important as automakers develop electric vehicles with onboard generators for recharging the battery pack and extending range. Such vehicles, called series plug-in hybrids or extended-range electric vehicles, are to be sold starting in late 2010. (Click here for a comparison of different hybrid and electric vehicle types.) The first will use generators based on conventional engines. But later models could incorporate fuel cells or other unconventional generators, such as free-piston engines. The potential high efficiency of free-piston engines gives them an advantage over conventional generators, and their ability to use a variety of fuels is an advantage over hydrogen fuel cells. What’s more, free-piston engines don’t require expensive materials such as the platinum catalysts needed in fuel cells, so they could be cheaper too. Automakers such as GM, Lotus, and Volvo have started to investigate the possibility of using such engines in future vehicles. Meanwhile, in the past couple of years, an increasing number of academic research teams have started developing the engines. So far, most have focused on computer simulations. An exception is a research group at Sandia National Laboratory led by Sandia researcher Peter Van Blarigan that has been testing physical components of free-piston engines. He is assembling a complete free-piston engine prototype, a project that he expects to complete within a year. In conventional internal combustion engines, multiple pistons are connected via rods to a crankshaft that, via the transmission, drives the wheels. Free-piston engines do away with the crankshaft: the pistons aren’t connected to anything. Instead, two opposing pistons just shuttle back and forth inside a chamber. To generate electricity, the pistons could be equipped with rows of magnets that shuttle past metal coils to create an electrical current. Van Blarigan’s experiments suggest that these engines could be 50 percent efficient at generating electricity–close to the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells and much more efficient than conventional generators. Free-piston engines are efficient in part because they have fewer moving parts than conventional engines do. The engine configuration also makes it practical to tune the engine so that the fuel in a combustion chamber burns very quickly. Faster combustion allows the engine to get more work out of a given amount of fuel, improving efficiency. It can also improve emissions. The free-piston design can also allow the engine to be instantly optimized for different fuels, such as hydrogen, natural gas, ethanol, gasoline, and diesel. Ideally, drivers could use whatever fuel is cheap and readily available. The development of free-piston engines, however, is still at an early stage. “The free-piston has some unique features–simplicity and variable compression–which make it intriguing,” says Gary Smyth, the science director of GM’s Powertrain Systems Research Lab. “But [they] also pose a number of challenges.” Van Blarigan says that one major concern is the sound of the engines: the fast explosions are very loud and will be difficult to muffle. But perhaps the biggest issue is control. In a conventional engine, the movement of the pistons is constrained by the rods and crankshaft, which help even out any variations from cycle to cycle. The free-piston engine is more flexible. That allows for using different fuels, but it makes necessary some sort of active control mechanism to ensure that each cycle is the same: variations could cause poor performance and increased emissions. High-speed computers and the ability to electronically control piston movement in a free-piston generator (via the coils and magnets) could help engineers solve this problem. Whether the engines will be significantly cheaper and more efficient than conventional engines is unclear, says John Heywood, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “There’s been enough development to say that it works. But with very different engine geometries, it’s hard to work out just how good it is. Is it really better?” As research progresses, it will need to answer questions about efficiency, emissions, performance, and especially cost, Heywood says. Meanwhile, conventional internal combustion engines keep getting better, which could make it difficult for the free-piston design to get a foothold.A group of lawyers assaulted JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar as he was brought to Patiala House Court for hearing (PTI Photo) Highlights Chaos in Delhi court, JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar kicked, punched Police failed to intervene as lawyers attacked journalist, student Supreme Court has rushed a team of lawyers to the lower court National Students Union of India members are detained by police during a protest. (AP photo) A lawyer, center, who spoke to the media supporting student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, is beaten up by other lawyers. (AP photo) Police Commissioner BS Bassi defended the police action at the court. (AFP photo) For the second time this week, a court hearing for arrested JNU student Kanhaiya Kumar descended into chaos delivered by brazen lawyers. On Monday, it was reporters and Mr Kumar's supporters who were attacked. The 28-year-old student, accused of sedition, was among those assaulted at the Patiala House court on Wednesday.Once again, the police failed to intervene or control the chaos. "The situation is not out of hand," claimed Delhi Police Chief BS Bassi, despite the televised violence that provoked the Supreme Court to rush across six senior lawyers including Kapil Sibal for a ground assessment. Mr Kumar, head of the student union at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University or JNU, was kicked and punched as he was brought into court by police who protected him with a riot shield. Some lawyers then bragged to the police, "We have done our bit for the day. We slapped him." While he was waiting inside for his hearing to begin, the 28-year-old student was struck by a man who was reportedly allowed to walk away.The court ruled that Mr Kumar, who was arrested on Friday, will spend another 14 days in Tihar Jail, whose officials were told to ensure his safety.Mr Kumar has been arrested on charges of sedition for making anti-India remarks at a JNU event last week, a charge he denies.The arrest of Mr Kumar has turned into a national controversy, with the opposition and large sections of the JNU students and faculty accusing the government of crushing dissent. As a precaution on Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court ordered strictly limited access to the lower court. However, defiant lawyers barged into the compound before Mr Kumar arrived; rival groups clashed as they shouted competing slogans in favour of and against JNU. A journalist from Firstpost was injured.Related Trump Judicial Nominee Forced To Defend Blog Post Citing Birther Website At hearings last week on the confirmation of John K. Bush to a lifetime seat on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, a nomination which People For the American Way has opposed, Bush was forced to defend a blog post he had written citing WorldNetDaily, a website infamous for promoting the birther conspiracy theory. But that wasn’t the only incidence of Bush relying on radical right wing sources in his stint as a blogger: In May, 2008 Bush cited the ultra-conservative blog Riehl World View, written by Dan Riehl, to argue that Obama had undiscovered ties to the socialist, far-left New Party. Riehl, who now writes for Breitbart, published a number of incendiary pieces about then-candidate Barack Obama on his blog throughout the 2008 election year. After publishing the post that Bush quoted from extensively, Riehl went on to use his blog to refer to Obama as “Obam-Islamo-Ding-Dong” and “Lil Obama,” and called Obama’s presidential campaign ads “afro-mercials.” Riehl also claimed Obama was a “light-weight” who was “the proof of the failure of Affirmative Action.” Riehl did not reserve his prejudice for President Obama – in 2006, he railed against Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota for getting sworn in on a Quran instead of the Bible, and suggested Ellison could possibly be part of a terrorist “set-up.” In an October 2008 blog post, Bush cited Jack Cashill, a conservative writer who frequently makes the unsubstantiated argument that Obama’s memoir “Dreams from My Father” was ghost written by William Ayers. In the American Thinker article that Bush linked to, Cashill called Obama a “struggling, unschooled amateur” who was incapable of writing a memoir on his own, in spite of the fact that Obama holds degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Cashill is now a frequent contributor to WorldNetDaily, where he has advanced the birther conspiracy theory and speculated that Obama may be “a secret Muslim.” Once again touting the claim that Obama had affiliations with the New Party, Bush cited Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher of American Thinker, in an October 2008 blog post. American Thinker is an online magazine that has published a number of articles that promote racist birther conspiracies about Obama. Lifson himself had, prior to 2008, used his website to raise doubts about Obama’s Christian faith and to make the claim that there is an “Islamic supremacism” agenda in U.S. public schools that seeks to over-exaggerate the role of the Muslim culture in textbooks as part of an effort “to bring about a New Caliphate.” At best, Bush’s frequent citation of these far-right commentators was irresponsible—in which case, one must call into question his ability to discern fact from unproven conspiracy theories. At worst, he knew exactly who he was citing and chose to do so anyway. People For the American Way’s Paul Gordon has more on Bush’s record here.Surface Pro 4 reveal tipped for mid-May This morning we’ve gotten word from an anonymous source that the Surface Pro 4 will be revealed at a special Microsoft event in mid-May. This follows with last year’s announcement of the Surface Pro 3, having taken place on May 20th, 2014. When we got our first Surface Pro 3 hands-on back then, the device seemed like the bees knees in detachable-keyboard Windows computing. Now just one year later we’re itching for the next generation. Especially considering the short amount of time between the Surface Pro 2 and 3. While we’ve not had extensive experience with our source before, we have great reason to believe this prediction will come true. Especially considering the extensive Surface Pro 4 leak earlier this week. A leak so extensive that many were shocked that the device wasn’t revealed yesterday, on day 1 of BUILD 2015. The Surface Pro 4 has been tipped to be coming with the following specifications: Display: 12-inch 2160 x 1440 pixels Processor: 5th-gen Intel (Broadwell) Core i-series CPU Accessories: Current Type Cover 3, 3rd-gen Docking Station Surface Pen: N-Trig, new gen This device is tipped to have a fanless design yet retain vent holes from previous generation models. While the battery in this model may be smaller than the Surface Pro 3, it may end up having the same or longer battery life. Have a peek at our Surface Pro 3 Review to see what Microsoft made last year. If Microsoft holds to a year-to-year schedule for this release, the event will take place on May 20th, 2015. That’s just a couple of weeks from now and plenty of time for Microsoft to make room between developer-aimed announcements at BUILD and consumer-aimed announcements at a separate venue.WASHINGTON – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sharply criticized the White House on Sunday for what he described as its unwillingness to clamp down on illegal gun sales on the US-Mexican border. The Obama administration recently denied a request by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) for an emergency rule that would force gun dealers on the border to report bulk sales of assault rifles. ATF described it as part of an effort to bust the smuggling of weapons by drug cartels. Bloomberg, an outspoken advocate for stricter gun laws, issued a statement through his group, “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.” “The White House decided that the illegal trafficking of thousands of semiautomatic assault rifles from the U.S. to Mexico is not an emergency, our coalition of over 550 mayors strongly disagrees,” Bloomberg said. “These guns are fueling violence that has claimed more than 30,000 lives and putting our law enforcement officers at risk. ATF recognizes the emergency but we need the White House to give the agency the support it needs do its job effectively.” The Obama administration has been hesitant to take up the issue of gun control, much to the chagrin of its progressive base. Instead, it has presided over the loosening of various federal and state gun laws. Numerous gun-control measures were introduced last month in the wake of a shooting spree in Arizona that critically injured a Democratic congresswoman, but none appear likely to be approved. The pro-gun lobby has outspent the gun-control lobby by a factor of 20-to-1 in the last two decades, according data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The text of ATF’s proposed rule can be viewed here (.pdf).The Swedish weather agency SMHI in its monthly summary reported that Stockholm received only 2.7 millimetres of rain. Not since records began in 1786 has Stockholm enjoyed such a dry month. The previous record was 3.1 millimetres in October 1866. The rest of the country was dry too, thanks to a sustained period of high pressure. Some areas of Dalarna, in central Sweden, did not register any measurable precipitation at all. The month was also warmer than normal in most parts of Sweden, especially in northern Norrland, where the temperatures were two to three degrees higher than average for this time of year. Last week it was reported that Borlänge in central Sweden had enjoyed more sunshine this October than during any other autumn in history, while Luleå and Umeå in the north were also set to smash records. But this unseasonably warm and dry weather may not continue. Alexandra Ohlsson, meteorologist at the SMHI, warns that, although the next few days are likely to be dry, heavy rain is on the way. "Next weekend we may get precipitation that affects large parts of the country. It may be the first major rains for southern and central Sweden for quite some time." And looking further ahead, some international weather forecasters are predicting an "abnormally cold" winter in Sweden.13,500 patients ‘left to starve’ on NHS wards: Elderly suffering most as malnutrition cases hit new high The number of patients becoming malnourished in hospital has doubled in just three years. Official figures show that a record 13,500 patients fell victim to some form of nutritional deficiency last year. Most are frail and elderly pensioners who are simply ‘left to starve’ because they are too weak to feed themselves. Concern is mounting among campaigners and relatives that nurses are now too busy to carry out basic duties of care, such as helping the most vulnerable to eat and drink. Malnourished: Official figures from the NHS Information Centre show that last year 214,888 patients were discharged with some form of malnutrition Meal trays are being left on tables out of reach of bedridden patients and then taken away, completely untouched. Details of the shocking figures come days after the Daily Mail launched a campaign with the Patients Association to end the appalling neglect of the elderly on NHS wards. The charity wants to raise £100,000 to employ two extra staff to man its helpline which is inundated with calls from patients and relatives worried about hospital care. Last week the Mail donated £50,000 to the appeal and we are asking our generous readers to match that sum. Margot Kennedy (left) was left on her own and Brenda Barnett (right) died at home Since the launch of our campaign, celebrities, ministers, charities and leading doctors have all lent their backing, demanding that the most vulnerable in our society are treated with the dignity they deserve. Our website has received many messages of support from readers, often telling harrowing stories about the neglect of loved ones. Official figures from the NHS Information Centre show that last year 214,888 patients were discharged with some form of malnutrition. A total of 201,468 were admitted to hospital in a similar state, meaning that 13,420 became malnourished while under NHS care. That compares with 7,062 in 2006/7. Campaigners, nursing leaders and relatives say there are not enough staff on wards at mealtimes to help the most vulnerable. The figures show that tens of thousands of elderly patients are leaving hospital and returning to their homes or care centres desperately underweight. Their immune systems will be far weaker meaning they are less able to cope with potentially-fatal illnesses such as flu and pneumonia. Lacking calcium and vitamin D, they will be prone to osteoporosis and associated hip fractures and other breaks. Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, which is calling for matrons to be reinstated on wards to oversee care of the elderly, said: ‘Nobody is helping the most vulnerable. ‘Nurses are now too busy to look after patients’ essential needs and it isn’t a priority. In many cases patients depend on their relatives – which puts them under enormous pressure. ‘We have also had very distressing calls from patients who say they had to help others on the ward after hearing them cry out for water.’ The Patients Association is also campaigning for the establishment of an independent complaints system to help tackle neglect in hospitals. Dr Peter Carter, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing said: ‘These figures are a cause for serious concern as good nutrition is one of the fundamental elements to improving the health and well being of patients. ‘Nurses want to ensure they can serve the nutritional needs of patients, however with 27,000 posts earmarked to be cut in the NHS, steps need to be taken now to provide safe staffing levels and the right level of skill to ensure nutrition is a priority in hospitals.’ Labour health spokesman John Healey said: ‘It is a scandal in this day and age that anyone should go short of food in hospital – one of the basics of social care that any hospital should be providing.’ A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘It is completely unacceptable that any hospital is not taking tough measures to prevent malnutrition.Chasing After The Elusive Narwhal toggle caption Sue Flood/Getty Images One quiet evening not too long ago, Kristin Laidre was standing on a rocky beach, peering out of a fjord dotted with icebergs. The water looked strangely still under the nighttime sun. Enlarge this image toggle caption Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR "It's great conditions for seeing narwhals," said Laidre, watching through binoculars as a small group of narwhals moved past a glacier that spilled down from the Greenland ice cap. "They're so sneaky, but they can't really hide when the sea is like a mirror." Narwhals are an Arctic whale known as the unicorn of the sea. The males have a distinctive long, spiral tusk. For centuries, traders sold these tusks as the legendary unicorn horn, which people thought had magic powers. And in this particular fjord, called Inglefield Bredning, the narwhals do seem to have an almost magical ability to evade the researchers who are longing to catch them. "They're swimming away from the nets," Laidre said, watching as the path of the swimming narwhals made a kind of shimmering line in the still water. "Yeah, they seem to be swimming toward the other side right now." Thousands of narwhals spend their summers in this fjord, and Laidre, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, has been coming here for the past eight years. Again and again, she's tried to catch a narwhal by setting up giant nets. This shouldn't be impossible. She and her colleagues have had success with nets in other places. "We definitely can catch them in nets in Greenland and in Canada — in many places in Canada," she says. "But here, we haven't managed to do it." If she could briefly snag a narwhal here, she could attach a small, sturdy satellite transmitter to a ridge of cartilage and blubber along its back. For months, the transmitter would send back all kinds of information, like where the narwhal goes and how deep it dives. toggle caption Alyson Hurt/NPR And that would be incredibly useful. Because even though the narwhal has long been famous for its unicorn horn — it's thought to be the whale version of a peacock's tail or a lion's mane — most of the narwhal's life is a mystery, hidden by darkness and ice. "The main reason that narwhals are not studied is that it's not very easy," says Laidre. "They live in this, you know, totally extreme environment, where half the year, it's completely dark and minus 30 and covered in ice, and the whales are 200 kilometers offshore, and nobody in their right mind would make an expedition to study them." Then in the summer, when there's warmth and endless light, she says, "they're completely skittish and shy from humans, and so you have to wait days before you might even see a narwhal. I mean days, weeks." And so she waits... and waits... and waits. For two weeks in July, she heads up a little camp on this remote, rocky beach. There are a few tents, a couple of colleagues from Denmark, plus five Inuit hunters from a nearby town. Twenty-four hours a day, someone keeps watch on big white floats that will bob and jerk if a narwhal swims into the nets. If that happens, Laidre will pull on a survival suit and rush toward the water to get her hands on the narwhal so she can tag it. In other places, when she's managed to do this, it's been an intense, wild ride. "It tends to be a little bit out of control," she says. "It's struggling, and it's trying to get free, and it's trying to get untangled, and it wants to come up for air, and it's going up and it's diving, coming down." Enlarge this image toggle caption Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR She says that when you touch a narwhal, it feels like a cold, hard, slippery inner tube. And the breath from their blowhole isn't that great. "They have whale breath," she says. "Kind of a heavy, little bit blubbery smell." Here, though, she can see and even hear the narwhals spout, but only from far away. There's nowhere to go, nothing to do. For hours, days, her team sits around and stares at the blue sky, the blue water and icebergs — lots of icebergs — some bigger than houses. They drift by like clouds. As Laidre watches them with a colleague, partly to make sure none of them are headed for the nets, she jokes that maybe they should change fields, since "it's a lot easier to catch icebergs." As a kid, Laidre remembers she had a set of stickers that had a narwhal, but she had no idea that she'd someday study the creatures. Her dream was ballet. "I trained intensively through high school, and then I went and I danced with a ballet company in Seattle," she says, explaining that an injury ended that career. So she went to college and now has a research job at the University of Washington. Still, she thinks the physical and mental challenge of ballet was actually good training for studying narwhals. "You learn how to be miserable and suffer, and like, you just have to keep going for the sake of what you're doing," she says. One night, a white mist suddenly covers everything. The hunters have to take in the nets since no one can see their buoys. As the fog lifts, but before the nets are back out, the narwhals appear, frolicking in front of the glacier, totally out of reach. Enlarge this image toggle caption Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR Nell Greenfieldboyce/NPR Another day, icebergs come dangerously close to the nets. The hunters have to move them to let the icebergs pass. To pass the time, one day Laidre decides to decorate a plywood sign that's lying around. Under the name of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, which supports this project, there's the black outline of a narwhal. She picks up a paintbrush and starts filling it in with white paint. It looks like she's creating a tiny narwhal version of Moby Dick. She's read the book, of course, and jokes that sometimes she feels worse than Captain Ahab. But even though catching a narwhal here might feel like pursuing something impossible and elusive, "I approach it with a very fatalistic attitude, a very realistic attitude with a good sense of humor," says Laidre. "Not expecting too much." Then, two days before she has to leave, the narwhals come. She joins two hunters at the top of a hill and peers through binoculars. The backs of the narwhals move up and down through the water. A large group is near shore, sort of milling around. They don't seem to be in any hurry. Laidre runs down to the beach, pulls out her box of satellite transmitters, and struggles into a red survival suit. "I think it's really close," she says. "It's like the closest we've come in a really long time. After all these years, I don't usually put my suit on unless I really believe that there might be a chance." She's quiet and tense, watching the narwhals. They move toward the nets. Then they veer
-month-old twins, son Lee and daughter Addison, so he rarely has the luxury of dawdling unless the Giants are on the road. On a quiet morning in Scottsdale, before he hits the field for batting practice, Posey takes a quiet moment to reflect. "I hate to keep going back to the injury, but it was a blessing in disguise in several different ways," he says. "You see that baseball's not the be-all and end-all. Everybody has a time line on them, no matter how good you are. "There's no question I want to be able to draw from that experience and remember it. Hopefully I don't have to go through that again. But when it's August and I'm feeling a little bit tired, I know there's probably somebody who's on the shelf with an injury and wants to be out there. That's something I can use to my advantage." As Posey approaches his 26th birthday later this month, he is grounded in the knowledge that success isn't defined by the clothes he wears, the car he drives, the money he makes or even the circle of friends he keeps. It's about what he represents.I was reading a blog post on card shuffling that described a brute-force card shuffling algorithm. The algorithm takes 52 cards labeled 1 to 52, in order. For each card, it throws a 52-sided die and places the card into the deck at the position shown on the die, unless that position was used already. If the position is already taken, the die is thrown until an unused spot comes up: void brute_shuffle ( int deck [ static 52 ]) { for ( int i = 0 ; i < 52 ; i ++ ) { deck [ i ] = 0 ; } for ( int card = 1 ; card <= 52 ; card ++ ) { int pos ; do { pos = rand_n ( 52 ); } while ( deck [ pos ]!= 0 ); deck [ pos ] = card ; } } Brute-Force Shuffle. This algorithm works and is relatively simple. In contrast, here is a much faster algorithm (Fisher-Yates) for doing the same thing: void fisher_yates_shuffle ( int deck [ static 52 ]) { for ( int i = 0 ; i < 52 ; i ++ ) { deck [ i ] = i + 1 ; } for ( int i = 52 - 1 ; i > 0 ; i -- ) { int s = rand_n ( i + 1 ); int temp = deck [ s ]; deck [ s ] = deck [ i ]; deck [ i ] = temp ; } } Fisher-Yates Shuffle. It’s not a whole lot more complicated, although it might be harder to convince yourself that this always results in a properly shuffled deck. In his post, the author says that the brute-force algorithm is bad. His presentation made me wonder just how bad. Calls to rand_n() Getting a new random number is probably the most expensive part of these calculations, so let’s figure out how many times rand_n() is called in each. Brute-force For the brute-force algorithm, the chances of getting a collision depend on how many of the slots in the deck are already full. Let’s say we have a deck of size $n$ where $m$ of the slots already have cards and $n-m$ slots are free. The expected number of tries should satisfy the following equation: Doing the algebra gives: We need to throw a sum around it to take into account all the different $m$s: By doing a substitution $i = n-m$ on $\sum\limits_{m=0}^{n-1} {\frac{1}{n-m}}$, we get: Another way to see this is by noticing that the first adds together $\frac{1}{n} + \frac{1}{n-1} + \frac{1}{n-2} + \cdots + \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{1}$, while the second does the same but in reverse. The summation above happens to be the $n$th harmonic number, and so in the limit, the whole expression is approximately equal to: where $\gamma$ is the Euler-Mascheroni constant. This puts the average case in $\mathcal{O}(n\ln(n))$. In the worst case, there are infinite collisions, so the algorithm never terminates. Fisher-Yates In Fisher-Yates, the answer is simple. rand_n() is called $n - 1$ times, so in both the average and worst cases the number of calls is in $\mathcal{O}(n)$. Summary Algorithm Average Case Worst Case Brute-Force $\mathcal{O}(n\ln(n))$ Unbounded Fisher-Yates $\mathcal{O}(n)$ $\mathcal{O}(n)$ Summary of calls to rand_n(). Benchmark The theory’s nice, but how does this work out in practice? Average Case First, I had both algorithms shuffle a smattering of deck sizes 10,000 times each. Here’s how long those shuffles took on average: The brute-force algorithm is definitely slower, but how much slower? This graph shows the ratio of the brute-force time over the Fisher-Yates time. You can see the logarithmic difference pretty clearly. Worst Case To look at worst cases, I ran the brute-force algorithm over a 52-card deck 5,000,000 times. The graph below shows how the probability $y$ that a shuffle finished in exactly $x$ calls. The mean (236.08) is close to the expected value (235.98, from Eq. $\eqref{eq:exp-simp}$ above). However, it’s clear that there’s a big spread. One of the runs took 953 calls, or more than 4 times the expected number. Assuming a real random number generator, then for any $k$ you choose, if you run the algorithm enough times, you would eventually find an execution calling rand_n() more than $k$ times. This is clearly not an algorithm suitable for real-time purposes. Conclusion Okay, so the brute-force algorithm isn’t great. It might not terminate, it runs significantly slower than the Fisher-Yates algorithm, and it’s not a whole lot simpler. But it’s also not horrible—for deck sizes smaller than 70, it’s less than 5 times slower. This really surprised me. Naively, I thought that due to the random nature of the algorithm, the runtime might have an exponential or even factorial component. There’s probably very little reason to use the brute-force algorithm over Fisher-Yates, but $\mathcal{O}(n\ln(n))$ ain’t that bad. The code I used to help benchmark these algorithms can be found here. After I wrote this post, I realized the brute-force shuffle is related to the Coupon Collector’s Problem. The link provides a similar derivation for the expected value, as well as a calculation of the variance.In Act 2 of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Adele and the rest of the ensemble sing “All I want is more champagne,” one of the operetta’s snappier numbers. It’s basically a big party scene. “We do know how to party,” muses soprano Jane Archibald, who has sung Adele at the Metropolitan Opera, “and if the moment is right, we do it up good.” But during our recent phone conversation, Archibald explained how the reality of being an opera singer is actually far removed from the champagne-swilling ball we often assume it to be. “It’s a life of great sacrifice a lot of the time. And sometimes when you’re in the sacrifice and trudging-through parts, you’re like, ‘Wow, it seems unbalanced; mostly sacrifice, except for these little moments,’” she explains. “But then, you have one of these little moments of beauty, sometimes just a fleeting second onstage, when everything just gels and takes on so much more importance, and it does balance out the need to be careful, the need to get good sleeps, the need to watch your energy, the need not to drink champagne because you have a stage orchestra the next day.” Jane Archibald sings starting at 1:16 in a video clip from the dress rehearsal for a 2013 Metropolitan Opera production of Strauss's Die Fledermaus. Archibald is in Toronto this month to sing Ginevra, a role debut for her, in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Handel’s Ariodante, opening Oct. 16 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. She has become a favourite with COC audiences, due in large part to a good relationship with COC artistic director Alexander Neef. “He’s always interested to hear from me,” she says, “if I’m looking to add repertoire, or move in a new direction, which has been great.” After triumphing in the title role of the COC’s production of Handel’s Semele in 2012, which she reprised on the company’s 2015 tour to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, she has made it clear she’s always interested in singing Handel. "There’s something so special about this music and I just adore singing it," she enthuses. "His music is so hummable, it’s so exciting, you know? There’s such a broad range of emotion, there’s a great deal of freedom in staging it [and] a great deal of freedom for singers to express themselves in their own unique way. The raw material gives you so many options — dramatically, musically, in every way." Ginevra in Ariodante is an especially rich character to portray. The daughter of the king of Scotland, she's engaged to be married to Prince Ariodante. When she rejects the advances of Duke Polinesso, he takes revenge by convincing Ariodante and Ginevra's father that she has been unfaithful. It's an act of misogynistic public shaming that Archibald finds disturbingly familiar. "I’d like to say it’s a story from a different time, but sadly it’s a theme that keeps getting resurrected. I think it’ll speak to anyone who’s at all tuned in to the current climate," she reflects. "As a singing actor onstage, it’s extremely powerful to take part in it," she continues. "And the way that it’s been brought to life in this production, I’d challenge anyone not to be very moved by it." The COC's production, directed by Richard Jones, uses puppetry at the end of all three acts to heighten the drama. "We’re invited to imagine that it’s one of the rituals or ceremonial aspects of the cultural life of this community. The first time, it’s a celebration of the impending marriage of Ginevra and Ariodante. And then Act 2 happens and things have gone awry, and the way they use the puppets to publicly shame Ginevra, and the way these puppets have been constructed, and the mastery of the puppeteers bringing it to life — it’s really quite powerful. It’s almost difficult for me to do that scene. I haven’t personally experienced [public shaming] in my life, but I find it very upsetting to witness." Jane Archibald sings Ginevra (on bed) with Alice Coote as Ariodante and Johannes Weisser as the King of Scotland (in front row) in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Ariodante, 2016. (Michael Cooper) Back in September, between rehearsals for Ariodante at the COC, Archibald was commuting back and forth to Seattle where she was recording Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi with the Seattle Symphony under Ludovic Morlot. These songs by Messiaen are not typical coloratura soprano repertoire, and Archibald says she enjoys trying music that's a bit outside her fach. "I’m very happy being a coloratura soprano, and I’m not trying to fix anything that’s not broken, but there’s room and colour and stretch happening in the voice that I’m really interested in exploring." Fortunately for Archibald, she doesn't struggle, as some singers do, with singing different styles of music concurrently. "I don’t consciously say, 'Now I’m going to sing with my Handel technique,' or, 'Now I’m going to sing with my bel canto technique.' The music kind of naturally brings out the right voice for me," she confides. However, she does recall one occasion when she had to shift vocal gears on a dime. "About five years ago, I was singing Zerbinetta [in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos] in Munich while covering performances of Cleopatra [in Handel's Giulio Cesare] in Paris, and I had to sing a Zerbinetta on the Saturday night, and get up on the Sunday morning, fly to Paris, and sing the second half of the show on Sunday afternoon, and that was tricky because then you have to consciously think, 'OK, I’m back to Handel now. I’ve got to remember to keep the lightness in the voice.' But it doesn’t take long. You just have to put yourself in that head space.” 'Uh oh, something feels weird' This isn't to say Archibald isn't susceptible to the same perils all singers face day in and day out. "Singers pay attention to the tiniest tickle in their throats that most people wouldn’t even notice," she tells us. "We notice it two or three days before — 'Uh oh, something feels weird' — and we immediately start to be cautious just in case there’s anything brewing." It's the most stressful aspect of an opera singer's life. "Of course, you want to sound your best, but [if you're sick], you literally can’t do your job and if you can’t do your job, you can’t get paid. In addition to being our passion, [singing] is also our livelihood, and we have very little [job] security. In almost all cases, we’re paid per performance, so if you do six weeks of rehearsal, and pay for your apartment and everything else — and in my case, I’m in the stage of life where I’m bringing a nanny and my daughter with me, so I’m paying for a three-bedroom apartment instead of a studio — and then you get to the shows and you get sick and you can’t do the first three, well, you’re just out that money. Some people actually take a loss if sickness strikes at the wrong moment. It’s a big financial risk and it’s also just incredibly stressful." It seems harsh, and is an aspect of the classical music business most people aren't aware of, as Archibald illustrates: "To be in that place where you’re like, 'I think I can sing; I’m not sure. I’m definitely under the weather. Am I going to get through it?' Nobody wants you to cancel, and yet nobody wants you to not cancel and then not be able to get through to the end. And judgment is swift and harsh and very public. It’s a roll of the dice every time." And yet, despite the stress, she can't picture herself doing anything else. "The wonderful moments are really wonderful, and for many of us, our identities are hugely wrapped up in being singers," she says, underlining the common traits of everyone who has successfully fought their way to a level of esteem in the profession. "We’re driven, we’re ambitious. We have ego and pride about what we have accomplished, about what we want to accomplish, about what we feel our own talent might be. So it would be a massive personality crisis if one were to leave it. What’s your identity if you’re not this opera singer attempting to do something on this very elite level? "I’ve never thought of anything else I could do that would give me the same level of personal satisfaction. I can think of lots of things that would be easier, in which there would be fewer sacrifices. I’d be home every night to read my daughter a story, sleep in the same bed every night — all those things would be really wonderful. But I’m not sure I’m ready for that." Jane Archibald sings Ginevra in seven performances of the COC's production of Handel's Ariodante, starting Sunday, Oct. 16, at 2 p.m. at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. Jane Archibald, left, performs in the Canadian Opera Company's production of Ariodante, 2016. (Michael Cooper) Explore more: Best opera ever? Barbara Hannigan chooses Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise Sumi Jo does the best car karaoke What's the best recording of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro?As Andrew Luck and Matt Hasselbeck struggle with injuries, the Colts may need to turn to Charlie Whitehurst against the Dolphins on Sunday. Just looking at him, he doesn’t look like he should be a quarterback in the National Football League. He looks like he should be the frontman for a local Indie Rock group, or starring in a movie alongside Johnny Depp and Jared Leto. However, Charlie Whitehurst is an NFL quarterback, and he just may be starting for the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. With the Colts season seemingly over, we may see Whitehurst for these final two games of the regular season. So let’s learn a little bit about what Whitehurst has to offer the Colts in these last two contests. Whitehurst’s college career is what draws a lot of intrigue. At Clemson, Whitehurst passed for 9,665 yards, which is the second most in school history. He has been regarded by Fansided’s own Rub the Rock as the fourth best quarterback in school history. He also received second team All-ACC honors in 2005, this lead to him being drafted in the third round by the Chargers. Whitehurst has long been regarded as the quintessential NFL back-up. He spent his first five NFL season backing up Philip Rivers, Matt Hasselbeck, and Tavaris Jackson in both San Diego and Seattle. In those five NFL season, Whitehurst only played in 13 games, starting in four. He passed for 805 yards, three touchdowns, and four interceptions. The bulk of Whitehurst’s NFL experience comes from last season, where he started five games for the Titans. In those five games Whitehurst threw for 1326 yards, seven touchdowns, and two interceptions. Despite the fairly good numbers, the Titans went 1-4 in that five game stretch, two of those losses coming to the Colts. Here is something interesting however, let’s take those stats from the five weeks Whitehurst started last season. Now compare them to Andrew Luck’s in the same weeks, Luck only threw for 50 more yards than Whitehurst (1376)! That’s not to say Whitehurst and Luck are on par with one another, but it does show the Whitehurst is at least capable. On top of that Whitehurst’s Quarterback Rating of 87.4 was higher than Andy Dalton’s, Cam Newton’s, and Matthew Stafford’s in 2014. Again, not saying Whitehurst is better than any of those guys, because he’s not, but it shows he’s not totally incapable of playing quarterback. Now Whitehurst has not been with the Colts long, which accounts for his struggles in the snaps he’s played so far this season. He has had almost two full weeks of first team reps, and he said last week that he’d be ready if he needed to start. At this point playing Matt Hasselbeck may be a health hazard to him. He said that he doesn’t have anything left, and I think it’d be safe to not play him. That’s why I’d say it’s highly likely that Whitehurst starts for the next two weeks. Now that he’s had practice time with the first team, hopefully he’ll be able to find a rhythm with an offense that desperately needs a rhythm. With the Playoffs pretty much out of reach for the Colts, it will take some pressure off Whitehurst and allow him to just play. Who knows, he may surprise us with what he’s got to offer.2017 Worlds Final Match: Pressing Advantages and Covering Weaknesses Izento Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 3, 2017 Courtesy of Riot Games With this upcoming finals rematch of SK Telecom T1 against Samsung Galaxy, it’s the fight of an immovable object and an unstoppable force. There comes a time when kings must express their power against would-be usurpers. This grudge has spanned a year and there is no denying the legitimacy of these two teams, as they’ve both fought through the muck and mire in order to get to their rightful place at the top. Their win conditions are some of the most dissimilar circumstances and yet in the end, even though on paper we can see one is favored over the other, whether through brain or gut, we must look into how each team can edge out the victory against their foe. SSG Seek Redemption Courtesy of Riot Games Tear apart the map As many could see from their semifinals match against WE, SSG did a fantastic job cutting tendon away from muscle, debilitating their opponent until there was nothing more than a mere quadriplegic waiting to be decapitated. This is what they must also do to SKT. SKT’s strengths rely upon turtling and allowing the insurance of the bot lane to cash in if Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok doesn’t escalate the game along with his jungler. Pulling apart SKT allows for Lee ”Cuvee” Seong-jin to match against Seung “Huni” Hoon Heo and, in giving Cuvee a good matchup 1v1, it should allow SSG to capitalize on Huni’s tendencies to do weak teleport plays and Cuvee to then take the objectives on his side of the map. Contest mid lane vision This is an obvious one but it cannot be understated. Mid lane vision is important in almost any meta because it’s the central part of the map; this is where everything happens. SSG need to take this series by controlling the vision around Faker. They need to prevent him from going overly aggressive onto Lee “Crown” Min-ho, because if SSG opt into giving Cuvee the better matchup, SSG must suffer elsewhere on the map, which might be mid lane. Along with this, SSG want to control mid especially against Peanut, as they need to control his invade potential. SKT fear the early game Everyone knows that SKT have shown their greatest weaknesses during the early game. Several times they have gotten to a gold deficit and rely on their superior turtling strategy in order to come back into the game, along with their scaling compositions. SSG can take advantage of this and it might come from the Xayah pick. The entire Summer Split and Worlds, Bae “Bang” Jun-sik has not picked Xayah, maybe due to his trust in Wolf, along with SKT’s decision to scale for late-game comps. SSG can take advantage of this during the draft and mind-game SKT into banning Xayah and choosing to manipulate the draft through these means. With that said, SKT seem to opt into picking Varus and Twitch into Xayah, so this furthers the predictability that SSG can assume in regards to the draft. * Courtesy of OGN Faker is and will always be a threat With Faker’s showing against Royal Never Give Up, it’s clear that he’s the best player in the world for a reason. I don’t see a way that SSG are able to alleviate this pressure point to non-existence, but they must always keep this in the back of their mind. Maybe this is in the form of being weary of Faker’s Galio pick. Maybe it’s denying global champions from Faker. One thing is for sure, do not assume Faker will be a non-factor. SKT Must Defend the Title * Courtesy of Riot Games Allow some drafts to be tailored around Faker This may sound obvious to some but within the current meta, tailoring around the mid lane hasn’t been the strategy for many teams. With giving Faker a favorable matchup, especially in a high-pressure game, this could be key into playing into Crown’s inability to play against Faker in the most crucial moments of his past games. Crown is also known for his Taliyah play and SKT are aware of this. We might see Taliyah being used as a bait by SKT. Not all decision should be made with pure statistical analysis, sometimes using psychology can be useful in throwing off your opponent and getting in their head, and betting your chips on Faker is always a smart idea. Huni has Been a Liability. Cover your Weakness Huni has been known to be a liability in the past as well as currently. He’s often caught out due to pressure from the enemy team or he simply can’t hang during a bad matchup. Along with this, his teleport plays haven’t been the cleanest. This is where SKT can look to cover their weakness, along with the bot lane falling apart as well. The necessities of globals for this team is a great band-aid to relieve their angsts and give Huni the backup he needs for his aggressive style. SKT need to look at getting a great 2v2 from the top and jungle or allowing Faker to use a global champion such as Taliyah or Galio. * Courtesy of Riot Games Peanut Might be Ambition’s Kryptonite Kang ”Ambition” Chan-yong isn’t known to be an aggressive jungler, nor will he outplay someone with mechanics. He is known for giving up first blood more than getting it for his own team. With Han “Peanut” Wang-ho’s aggressive style, it might be time to unleash him, as he matches up well against Ambition and should be able to counter-jungle with impunity. This could be the series where Peanut is able to take the limelight and show why he’s truly worth being placed on the SKT roster. Both teams must be wary of the Jarvan/Galio combo as well as Xayah/Rakan. Either side has shown that they’re conscientious of all 4 of these champions, but they also have different priorities on them as well. SSG have demonstrated they can play Xayah to great effectiveness and yet no one will ever forget Lee “Wolf” Jae-wan’s unfathomable engage onto Edward Gaming in the Group Stage. This game will be just as electrifying as the last time they met in the finals and we should see plenty of wizardry when it comes to draft, mid lane, jungle substitution and top lane priority. There is no room for error from any member of either team. The stakes do not get higher than this.Stream This Episode On Demand This week, the Home for New & Independent Blues Music breaks new ground and features some truly amazing content. You’ll have to approach portions of this episode with an open mind, because in the second half of the show we’ll hear music from the crossroads of Blues and Hip-Hop, with a new collaboration between harmonica giant Sugar Blue, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rapper DMC, and producer Sonix the Mad Scientist. Before we get to that, we explore the thread of music in different songs with the same title, and hear from a 59-year-old harp ace who has just released his debut album! The featured selection from inside “Johnny’s Mailbox” is “I’m the Reason (She Walks That Way)” by Stacy Mitchhart. It comes off his new album Live My Life, which is available everywhere September 9, 2014 on Dr. Sam Records. Mitchhart’s 12th album features a dozen songs that he says capture his life at its present. Below this week’s playlist, you’ll find the music video for the album’s title track, “Live My Life.” You can also find tour dates, past releases, and more information on Stacy Mitchhart’s official website, StacyMitchhart.com 1. EG Kight – Don’t Give Up – A New Day 2. Whitey Johnson – House is Rockin’ – Whitey Johnson 3. Lee Roy Parnell – If the House Is Rockin’ – We All Get Lucky Sometimes 4. Kenny Wayne Shepherd – The House Is Rockin’ – Goin’ Home 5. Kenny Blues Boss Wayne – Leavin’ in the Morning – Rollin’ With The Blues Boss 6. Big Harp George – Hard Way – Chromaticism 7. Terry Hanck Band – Pins and Needles – Gotta Bring It On Home To You 8. Generation Blues Experience – Sugar Momma – Private Angel 9. Bryan Lee – It’s Too Bad (Things Are Going So Tough) – Play One For Me 10. Sonix ft. Sugar Blue & DMC – Next Level – Next Level (Single) 11. Cyril Neville – Running Water – Magic Honey 12. Fo’Reel – Shake N Bake – Heavy Water 13. Stacy Mitchhart – I’m the Reason (She Walks That Way) – Live My Life You Might Also Like: AdvertisementsLIMA (Reuters) - Ana Alvarez, a working mother of two in Lima, never imagined being on the frontlines of a fight for marijuana in conservative Peru. Anthony, 17 year old boy who has tuberous sclerosis and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome is seen at his house in Lima, Peru, February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo But a police raid on a makeshift cannabis lab that she and other women started to soothe the symptoms of their sick children has roused support for medical marijuana, prompting President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to propose legalizing it in the latest pivot away from decades-old restrictions on drug use in Latin America. Alvarez said cannabis oil is the only drug that helped contain her epileptic and schizophrenic son’s seizures and psychotic episodes. She and other women in similar situations formed the group Searching for Hope to seek legal backing as they honed techniques for producing the drug. “We wrote to Congress, to the health ministry,” Alvarez said from her apartment as her son played in his room. “We got two negative responses.” But the police bust put the women’s plight on national television, triggering an outpouring of sympathy as they marched with their children in tow to demand police “give us our medicine back.” “When we saw their reality, we realized there’s a void in our laws for this kind of use” of marijuana, said cabinet advisor Leonardo Caparros. “We couldn’t turn a blind eye.” It is unclear if the right-wing opposition-controlled Congress will pass Kuczynski’s proposed legislation, which would allow marijuana to be imported and sold in Peru for medical reasons and could permit domestic production after two years. Kuczynski, a 78-year-old socially liberal economist, once provoked an uproar for saying that smoking a joint “isn’t the end of the world.” But an Ipsos poll conducted following the raid showed 65 percent of Peruvians favor legalizing medical marijuana, and another 13 percent back legalizing the drug for recreational use. If the bill is passed, Peru would follow neighboring Chile and Colombia in legalizing the medical use of marijuana. Mexico’s Senate has approved a bill to permit the use of medical marijuana, while Uruguay has fully legalized cannabis from seed to smoke. In the meantime, Searching for Hope has turned to the black market. Member Roxana Tasayco said cannabis oil had given her terminal cancer-stricken mother her appetite back and calmed her vomiting and nausea. “It’s not going to cure her but it’ll give her a better quality of life in her last days,” said Tasayco. “If I have to break a few laws to do that for her I will.”Strike in the village of Tokkhar is considered the deadliest coalition attack on civilians in a two-year war against Isis, and the death toll remains under dispute The US military has opened a formal investigation into a 19 July airstrike in northern Syria that local and outside observers consider the deadliest coalition attack on civilians in its two-year war against the Islamic State militant group. The strike, in the village of Tokkhar, took place during a grueling battle for Manbij, a strategically critical Syrian city, that is now in its third month. Army Col Christopher Garver, chief spokesman for the Baghdad-based US military command, said on Wednesday that the allegations surrounding the fateful strike are “credible enough” to warrant a formal investigation. Word of the investigation comes approximately a week before an internal deadline to launch an inquiry. The civilian casualty death toll from the strike, remains under dispute. US airstrikes allegedly kill at least 73 civilians in northern Syria Read more The UK-based monitoring group Airwars has concluded that at least 74 civilians – now that a 14-year old girl has died of her wounds – have died, but Chris Woods, the group’s lead researcher, said the total could be as many as 203. In contrast, Garver, the US military spokesman, said he had seen figures suggesting 10-15 civilians died in the attack. US investigators are unlikely to visit the scene of the destruction, which has been the setting for a grueling fight between Isis and the US’s Syrian Arab and Kurdish proxy forces since 21 May. Information gleaned from social media, journalism and other public sources will inform the inquiry, Garver said, as will proprietary US military information, such as geospatially located ordnance impacts. “We know what our rounds hit, we know what we’re shooting,” Garver said, adding that the US also knows promptly if a bomb or missile’s targeting array has malfunctioned. Unlike in other US conflicts during the post-9/11 era, the dead from Tokkhar are not anonymous. Airwars, drawing from several local sources, has published the family names of the dead. Woods, the London-based lead investigator for Airwars, greeted the US inquiry, even as he warned that the fight for Manbij has become dire for civilians caught between the US above, its allies below and Isis around. “This is the fastest admission of likely civilian casualties that we’ve seen from the coalition from the event to a declaration of an investigation. This is a welcome move. If the public accounts are accurate, this is the single worst civilian casualty event of the entire war” that the coalition has caused, Woods said. Woods’s tally involves checking across what he said were five different casualty lists maintained by Syrians, to include locals from the Manbij area. He said he believes that the death toll’s credible high end is likely to reach 120-150 civilians, to include women and children. Thus far, according to Garver, the US has conducted 520 strikes in support of the Manbij offensive. The US has rejected calls from Syrian opposition groups to pause airstrikes in light of the Tokkhar strike, considering Manbij critical to disrupting Isis’s exfiltration of militants through Turkey and as a stepping stone to toppling the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa. According to a United Nations report from 18 July, an estimated 30,000-40,000 civilians remain in Manbij. Woods warned that Tokkhar is “just one of a really quite shocking number of alleged coalition civilian casualty events relating to the Manbij campaign”. Since 21 May, Airwars has tracked 47 separate civilian casualty incidents related to Manbij alone. The claimed fatality range for those civilians spans from 310 to 548. Garver said the coalition is still assessing the credibility of a different allegation in the area stemming from 23 July, after Tokkhar, ahead of a decision to open an investigation into that one. Syrian campaigners use Pokémon Go to ask world to save war children Read more Woods said Airwars assesses 33 of those incidents to have at least two sources indicating that the US-led coalition is responsible. He estimates 229-425 civilians have died in those events, with 192 of them named. Of those, 56 were reportedly children and 29 were reportedly women. Should those numbers prove to be correct, they would indicate that approximately 150 Syrian civilians have been killed by US airstrikes outside of the 19 July Tokkhar strike, and just during the Manbij battle alone. Woods does not blame the dire civilian circumstances in Manbij on the US alone. Accounts from within Manbij claim that Isis has placed snipers within the city for civilians attempting escape, boobytrapped homes with explosives and used noncombatants as human shields – the latter two claims echoing those also made by the US military. “This is a ghastly, ghastly campaign,” Woods said. There is no announced timeline for the US inquiry into Tokkhar to conclude. But Woods noted that the US typically takes six months after a civilian casualty incident to publicly report a verified one. “We can’t wait that long. Manbij is a hot campaign. Civilians are dying right now and tactical changes need to happen right now. Commanders need to be making faster assessments of what went wrong at Tokkhar, what’s going wrong in Manbij more broadly, and adjust. We can’t wait six months,” he said.With five weeks to go in the 2011 regular season, two teams can clinch postseason berths this weekend. And if you need more than two guesses, you haven’t been paying attention. The 11-0 Packers will win the NFC North with a victory over the Giants and a loss or tie by the Lions, who face the Saints. The Packers also win the division with a Detroit loss and a Bears loss to the Chiefs. Finally, the Packers can wrap up the division with a tie and a Bears loss or tie and a Lions loss. At a minimum, a victory by Green Bay clinches a wild-card berth. Green Bay also wraps up a playoff appearance with a tie and a Bears loss or tie, or with losses from the Bears, Falcons, or Lions, or if both the Saints and Falcons play to a tie. It’s far simpler for the 49ers. They win the NFC West with a win or a tie. The 49ers also win the division with a loss or tie by the Seahawks and a loss or tie by the Cardinals.More than three-quarters of gay, lesbian and bisexual victims of hate crime did not go to the police for fear they would not be taken seriously, a survey has found. Harassment, insults and intimidation were the most common crimes, reported by more than eight in 10 of victims, according to research commissioned by equality group Stonewall. Half of those who did report a hate crime to police were not satisfied with the way it was handled. Fewer than one in 10 cases reported led to a conviction. Homophobic Hate Crime: the Gay British Crime Survey 2012, conducted by pollsters YouGov, surveyed more than 2,500 lesbian, gay and bisexual people across Britain on
is, in my opinion, not good enough. Because sure, some of you readers probably don’t agree with including asexuals (I’ll have to leave the polyamorous line of thinking here, because I’m afraid I’m not sure what their community thinks of this). Judging from the answers to that poll, half of all you readers don’t like that I identify as queer. But if you don’t, then you’re not just expressing your opinions. You’re deliberately deciding that a whole group of people actually aren’t allowed to identify how they want to. I disagree with that. I would like the choice to be open to me, don't you think that's fair? Before I leave you, the more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that this is only part one. Yes, reader, this will be continued next Friday, with almost the exact opposite line of how to be nice to people – addressing how a certain minority of asexuals don’t do their community any favours by claiming moral superiority on the grounds of their lack of desire for sex. Because that irritates me just as much as the subject for this post did.Did a member of the Saudi royal family brutally strangle his aide to death in a suite of one of London’s poshest hotels? Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Nasir bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (33) is the alleged attacker, who has been arrested in the British capital. The Saudi prince is accused of murdering his assistant Bandar Abdullah Abdulaziz (32). Al-Saud pleaded innocent during his first hearing in court. What really happened? The prince and his aide were staying for four weeks at The Landmark, a €1,100 a night five-star hotel, for a sightseeing holiday in London. But last week the servant was found dead in a hotel room. The BBC reported the results of the post mortem examination – he died through strangulation and was found with serious injuries. Al-Saud, whose grandfather is the brother of the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia King Abdullah, is known for being strict with his employees. His assistants have to sleep on the floor in front of his bed. CCTV footage taken in the hotel lift shows how the prince hit an aide. The next court hearing is due to be held on May 28. More news Margot Kaessmann, a senior female German bishop, was caught reportedly drink-driving in Hanover. She was stopped after running a red light. The well-paid pilots of Lufthansa have gone on strike, cancelling thousands of flights – will the stoppage ground the German airline for good? A sex scandal has hit the West Bank after a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was the subject of a video shown on Israeli TV.In order to make room for the dozens of shows it currently has in development—and because the network has a self-issued edict to only air original programming on Sunday nights—HBO has made the unprecedented decision to cull three of its series all at once. Variety reports that Bored To Death, Hung, and How To Make It In America have all been canceled in one swift move of execution, with only the freshman comedy Enlightened being spared and issued a renewal—something of a surprise, considering Enlightened (while championed by critics) was the lowest-rated of the four. Of course the highest-rated, Hung, still suffered a nearly 50-percent drop in viewership between last season and this one, while both Bored To Death and How To Make It In America were down around 25 percent. The quick decision to cancel all three of those leaves several cliffhangers that will never be answered—possible murders, incestuous romances, uh, jeans orders at Gadzooks. You will be left wondering about at least two of those forever. AdvertisementGiant machines dig for brown coal at the open-cast mine Garzweiler in front of a smoking power plant near the city of Grevenbroich in western Germany in April 2014. (Martin Meissner/Associated Press) A world greatly concerned about how the election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. president could stall global climate policy received a major dose of welcome news Sunday, when scientists published a projection suggesting that for the third straight year, global carbon dioxide emissions did not increase much in 2016. The news comes from the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who measure how much carbon dioxide humans emit each year, as well as how much is subsequently absorbed by plants, land surfaces and oceans. The difference between the two determines the amount of carbon dioxide that remains in the atmosphere and drives global warming. Big news came from this group late last year, when it turned out that emissions in 2014 and 2015 represented a seeming end to a strong growth trend that had appeared unstoppable for some time. And moreover, this flattening had occurred despite steady global economic growth above 3 percent, which has typically been coupled with higher emissions. And now, the group reports, 2016 appears to be similar to 2014 and 2015, based on early projections. It will be about a 0.2 percent increase above the emissions levels of 2015, the group calculates, or barely a rise at all. The results were released in the form of a massive study in the journal Earth System Science Data, written by no less than 67 researchers from an army of institutions. That’s what it takes, it seems, to chart the annual flow of carbon throughout the Earth’s systems. “2016 we estimate to be flat again,” said Glen Peters, one of the contributors to the research and a scientist at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo in Norway. “It’s definitely three years, it’s fairly flat, which is quite a contrast to a decade ago, when it was growing at about 3 percent. It’s really leveled out the last few years.” Peters said this leveling is attributable to a decline in emissions in China and the United States, the two largest emitters. In both cases, this was in significant part a result of less coal burning. China saw carbon dioxide emissions decrease by 0.7 percent in 2015 and is forecast to see an additional 0.5 percent decline in 2016. U.S. emissions are falling even faster. They declined by 2.6 percent in 2015 and are expected to fall an additional 1.7 percent this year. But not all of the world is following suit. By comparison, in 2015 there was strong 5.2 percent emissions growth in India. The current leveling out still means that slightly more than 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide are expected to have been emitted in 2016 from fossil fuel use and industrial activity. And after the oceans and the land take away their part, the rest of that carbon will stay there for a very long time, steadily warming the planet. (That 36 billion tons does not include emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, or the releases of additional carbon dioxide from deforestation and other nonindustrial causes. Including these gases and sources only increases our impact on the planet further.) From a climate policy perspective, the key question is whether these three flat years suggest that the world is beginning to peak its emissions and bring them down again, which will be necessary if there is any hope of limiting warming to widely embraced international targets such as 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. But Peters said that it’s too soon to know for sure, and that he would want to watch trends in China, in particular, for a bit longer. “I’d certainly give it five or more years before I’d say it’s a peak,” he said. “But certainly you would say, even leveling out, like we have over the last three years, is a big surprise. If you’d stood back three years ago, we wouldn’t have been expecting this. So it’s certainly good news.” However, it’s also important to keep things in context. Not only is a cessation of growth very different from a decline. But, as the study notes, emissions today are “still 63% above emissions in 1990.” What’s more, if global warming is ever to stop — and if we’re ever to cool the planet back down again — eventually emissions have to go to zero. Thirty-six billion tons is very far, indeed, from that. In fact, it’s looking increasingly likely that we may have to find some way to make emissions go negative (pulling more from the air than we put in) in the second half of this century. The new research also suggests that, starting in 2017, the world will have only 800 billion tons, or gigatons, of carbon dioxide left to emit if it wants to preserve a two-thirds chance of preventing the planet from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. This is the remaining global carbon “budget.” Based on emissions of 36 billion tons per year, we would bust the budget in 22 years. There are pretty hard-to-miss political implications of the new finding about flat global emissions. The United States, after all, has elected Trump, who has pledged to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement, which seeks to reduce emissions quickly, and to rescue the domestic coal industry, which relies on the mining and the burning of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. “While there are many reasons why the growth in emissions has been halted, a key contribution has been the efforts made by the world’s two biggest emitters, the United States and China, to reduce the consumption of coal,” Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said in a statement. “However, Donald Trump as President could undermine this achievement if he carries through with his threat to scrap the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan, and encourages an increase in the use of coal for electricity generation.” Read more at Energy & Environment: Why scientists are so worried about sea-level rise in the second half of this century If you’re looking for good news about climate change, this is about the best there is right now Trump’s victory shocks international climate negotiations For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here and follow us on Twitter here.Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., right, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., finish a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, announcing that they have reached a compromise on background checks for gun buyers in the aftermath of the horrific Connecticut school shootings in December 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) This post has been updated. In the wake of the Charleston shooting, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are considering ways to renew their failed push to expand meaningful background checks on gun purchases. In separate interviews Tuesday night, at a reception before a ceremony hosted by Sandy Hook families where Toomey was honored, the senators discussed their desire to find a new way forward. “We want to make sure we have the votes. Pat’s going to have to, and I’ll work with him, to get some of our colleagues on the Republican side,” Manchin said, adding that he hasn’t talked directly to Toomey about a revival. 1 of 53 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × 2015 shooting at historic African American church in South Carolina View Photos Officials said nine people were killed and others injured by a gunman at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Caption Officials said nine people were killed and others injured by a gunman at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. June 19, 2015 In this image from video, suspect Dylann Roof appears by closed-circuit televison at his bond hearing in Charleston, S.C. Pool/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. Manchin specifically mentioned an effort aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of people diagnosed with mental illness. Sign up for The Daily 202, The Washington Post’s new political tipsheet Though the effort is far from being fully formed, Toomey also said he’s looking for opportunities to reintroduce something related to combating gun violence. “What I’m trying to figure out is, is there something that could get the support of the 60 votes that we would need in the Senate,” Toomey said. “Joe Manchin was and is a great partner and someone I will continue to work with, and I’m open to exploring what is possible.” He added that nothing was imminent, “but if we stay at it I think we’ll find a way to make progress.” If the two senators team up to tackle any facet of gun control, it would mark a significant shift in the political debate nearly a week after nine people were killed at a Bible study group in downtown Charleston, S.C. President Obama noted last week that once again, someone got a gun who shouldn’t have had access to it. “Now is the time for mourning and for healing, but let’s be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency,” the president said on Thursday. Read more PowerPost Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that something must be done to expand background checks. “Is that asking too much? Couldn’t we at least do this little thing to stop people who are mentally ill, people who are criminals from purchasing guns?” Reid said on the Senate floor. But any sort of gun-control effort would face an uphill battle in the GOP-majority Senate. Since Manchin and Toomey’s effort to tighten background check rules for firearm purchases narrowly failed in April 2013, there’s been precious little debate on the subject. Accepting his award on Tuesday night, a visibly emotional Toomey said that despite some of the political fallout from his conservative base, he’d “do it again in a heartbeat.” He said he does have two regrets, however. One, that the 2013 bill didn’t pass. And, “that it took me so long before I raised my voice on this very important issue,” he said. At a ceremony hosted by Sandy Hook families where he was honored, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) spoke about the backlash he received over gun-control legislation. (Colby Itkowitz/The Washington Post) Before becoming the GOP face of the background check fight, Toomey, a conservative fiscal hawk mostly famous for forcing the late Arlen Specter to switch political parties, shocked the political class by co-sponsoring a gun-control bill with Manchin. Toomey, who is up for reelection next year, has spoken little about the 2013 failure, refocusing his policy fights on his budgetary wheelhouse. Until now. Toomey was honored Tuesday night by families who know too well the unspeakable pain of losing a loved one in a senseless mass killing. He was there to accept the inaugural Champion Award from the group Sandy Hook Promise whose members are related to some of the 20 elementary school children and six educators murdered in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012. In the absence of political will, Sandy Hook Promise uses marriage equality as a model for how public pressure can force change. “Sometimes you need a good failure to spur you on for success. It was a lesson we learned that not everything can be solved through legislation and politics,” said Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, died at Sandy Hook, before the event. It was the horror of that massacre that spurred Toomey to defy his political party and partner with Manchin on the background-check bill. The day the bill failed, with only Toomey and three other Republicans supporting it, as Sandy Hook families looked on from the Senate gallery, Obama called it “shameful.” Just this week, during an interview with podcaster Marc Maron, Obama said that day was “the closest I came to feeling disgusted. I was pretty disgusted.”Getty Images A day before the NFL dusted off #DeflateGate with a 59-page legal filing, the league looked for even more evidence of potential cheating by the Patriots. Boomer Esiason of WFAN reported on his weekday radio show that the Jets asked that their locker room at Gillette Stadium be swept for bugs in advance of Sunday’s game against the Patriots. Contacted by PFT, the Jets declined comment regarding the situation. A source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that the Jets did not request that the locker room be swept for bugs; however, the source did not deny that the locker room was swept for bugs. The Patriots likewise had no comment on the situation, and the NFL could not immediately be reached for comment. Concerns regarding the presence of bugs in Gillette Stadium locker rooms aren’t new; it was one of the main points made last month in an article from Sports Illustrated regarding suspicions about the Patriots. No listening devices ever have been found in any locker rooms in the Patriots stadium. As one source has explained it to PFT, the Patriots have become concerned that a team eventually will plant bugs on its own and claim that the Patriots put them there. This has prompted the Patriots to ask the league to certify before each game that the visiting locker room is clean before an opposing team enters. Per the source, the NFL has declined to do this.Image copyright SWNS Image caption Robert Jenner believes he is exercising freedom of expression A man who carried out DIY tasks and gardening while naked was seen bending over in his garden wearing only his work boots, a court has heard. The prosecution at the trial of Robert Jenner, from Eccles in Kent, alleges he is an exhibitionist, not a naturist. Witness Fred Black told magistrates he was disgusted: "There's kids walking up and down that street 24/7. People don't want to see that. It's not right." Mr Jenner, from Stevens Road, denies 13 public order offences. The prosecution alleges his behaviour caused alarm and distress. But Mr Jenner's defence team says he is a naturist and believes his behaviour to have been reasonable - a freedom of expression. The case continues.Abstract Purpose The use of antidepressants during pregnancy is common. Some studies suggest an association between in utero exposure to antidepressants and the occurrence of pulmonary diseases like asthma later in life. Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as well tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) are thought to be involved in the development of the respiratory rhythm generator (RRG) and the maturation of the formation of surfactant. In this study the use of drugs for pulmonary diseases in children who were exposed to antidepressants in utero were compared with non-exposed children. Methods The pharmacy prescription database IADB.nl was used for a cohort study in which the use of drugs for pulmonary disease in children after in utero exposure to antidepressants (TCAs, SSRIs) was compared with children with no antidepressant exposure in utero. Drugs for pulmonary diseases were applied as a proxy for disturbed development of the respiratory tract. Results A small though significant increase in the incidence risk ratio (IRR) of the use of drugs for pulmonary disease was found after any-time in utero exposure to SSRIs, adjusted for maternal use of antibiotics, of 1.17 (95 % CI 1.16–1.18). An increase was also seen when we looked specifically for the use of SSRIs in at least the first trimester (IRR = 1.18, 95 % CI 1.17–1.20). An increased IRR in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease was also seen when children were exposed to TCAs, but this was not statistically significant. However, in both groups our sample size was rather small. The effect size is modest and may also be confounded by maternal smoking. Conclusions In utero exposure to SSRIs leads to a statistically significant increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary diseases, especially when exposure occurred during the first trimester of pregnancy. The increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease may also be related to other factors. Therefore, further study is recommended. Keywords: Antidepressants, In utero exposure, Asthma, Teratogenicity Introduction It has been estimated that up to 70 % of pregnant women experience some symptoms of depression, with 10–16 % of pregnant women fulfilling diagnostic criteria for a major depressive disorder [1, 2]. Drugs of choice during pregnancy for maternal depression are tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and fluoxetine, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs) [3]. Because of recent discussions about the efficacy of SSRIs in general, the use of SSRIs during pregnancy should be reconsidered [4]. However, the use of SSRIs has increased two- to fourfold in western society during the last decade and is therefore of importance for study [5, 6]. Most studies found no teratogenic effects for TCAs in general [7], although one Swedish study identified an association between maternal clomipramine use and congenital cardiovascular anomalies such as ventricular or atrial septal defects [8]. For SSRIs, studies have been published where paroxetine and maybe bupropion, sertraline and citalopram are at risk for cardiac congenital anomalies [9–15]. Paroxetine and also venlafaxin and fluoxetine, are at risk of pulmonary hypertension [16–19]. Further, SSRIs are possibly associated with an increased risk of omphalocele, anencephaly, and craniosynostosis [20]. Of interest is the study of Reis et al. where an increase in respiratory diagnosis (according to ICD-10 definitions) after in utero exposure to antidepressants was found [21]. In relation with studies about pulmonary hypertension associated with use of SSRIs it is worthwhile investigating further relations between in utero exposure of antidepressants and fetal lung development. The respiratory tract develops after 4 weeks of conception from the ventral wall of the foregut. The epithelium of the internal lining of the respiratory system is of endodermal origin. Muscular and connective tissues are derived from the splanchic mesoderm. Up to the seventh prenatal month the bronchioles divide continuously into more and smaller canals (canalicular phase) and the vascular supply increases steadily. Respiration becomes possible when some of the cells of the cuboical respiratory bronchioles change into thin flat cells. The cells are intimately associated with numerous blood and lymph capillaries, and the surrounding spaces are now primitive alveoli. At the end of the sixth month type 2 alveolar cells produce surfactant, a phospholipid rich fluid capable of lowering surface tension at the air-alveolar interface [22]. Serotonin (5-HT) from pulmonary neuro-endocrine cells (PNECS) and serotonin cells in the raphe nucleus may have different effects on the developing respiratory tract. 5-HT modulates via the 5-HT 1a receptor, the respiratory rhythm generator (RRG) [23, 24]. Further, 5-HT modulates, probably via the 5-HT 1B receptor and regulated by serotonin transporters, pulmonary vasoconstriction in mice, rats, and hamsters [25, 26], and depression of the phrenic motor neurons [23]. The 5-HT 2A -receptor is involved in the tonic firing of phrenic motor neurons [23]. Activation of the 5-HT 2B -receptor leads to elevated respiratory activity via the pre-Bötzinger complex (PBC) [27]. Together with the 5-HT 2A -receptor, the 5-HT 1B receptor is crucial for sustained spontaneous respiratory activity [27]. 5-HT from PNECS induces mechanical stretch of the lungs, which stimulates proliferation and maturation of fetal lung cells and the production of surfactant [28]. These findings together make SSRIs that enhance 5-HT action in the synaptic cleft, and may influence fetal lung function. The other pharmacological class of antidepressants, TCAs, may also have an influence on the fetal development of the respiratory tract. TCA administration leads to elevated levels of norepinephrine. Administration of isoxsuprine, a β-adrenergic agonist, influences the production of surfactant [29, 30]. This is in contrast to an α-adrenergic receptor agonist (phenylephrine) [29]. Norepinephrine and other agonists may also be involved via adrenergic receptors in the activity of the RRG [31, 32]. These findings ensure that the possible influence of TCAs on the fetal development of the respiratory system cannot be ruled out. The aim of this study was find out if in utero exposure of antidepressants might lead to enhanced use of drugs for pulmonary diseases. Therefore, we used as a proxy for developmental respiratory tract changes compared with non-exposure to antidepressants in particular, exposure of antidepressants during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. The time periods are specific because of the involvement of antidepressants in the production of surfactant. Materials and methods This study was performed with the IADB.nl-database, which contains pharmacy prescription data of an estimated population of 500,000 individuals from the Netherlands. Registration in the database is irrespective of health insurance and is considered representative of the general population. Each prescription record contains information on the date of dispensing, the quantity dispensed, the dose regimen, the number of days the prescription is valid, the prescribing physician, and the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) code. Each patient has a unique anonymous identifier; date of birth and gender are known. Because of the high level of patient–pharmacy commitment in the Netherlands, the medication records for each patient are virtually complete, except for OTC drugs and medication dispensed during hospitalization. The data for this study were obtained from the ‘Pregnancy IADB’, which was extracted from the main IADB database. Children were selected by date of birth and the female person (15–50 years) with the same address code was considered to be the mother [33]. Because only the child’s birth date is known, the theoretical conception date was determined as the date of birth minus 273 days (i.e., 9 months). The database has been previously described [6, 34]. The data between 1995 and 2009 from the pregnancy database were used. Focusing on our study objective, we determined the relative risk of the use of drugs for pulmonary diseases in children after in utero antidepressant exposure. Study population, exposure and reference groups We identified in the period 1995–2009, 35,546 children from 23,576 women, as some women gave birth to more than one child. The exposure to antidepressants was calculated during the three trimesters of pregnancy of each woman. Exposure was defined as the theoretical period of use: from dispensing date until the last day the prescription was valid. Two exposure groups were formed, including children of mothers exposed to TCAs (ATC code = N06AA; n = 67) and children of mothers exposed to selective serotonin release inhibitors (SSRIs; ATC code = N06AB; n = 436) during pregnancy. We excluded children who were exposed to any SSRI and any TCA (n = 10), because of the interchangeable effects of both classes of drugs. All prescriptions of TCAs with less than 0.5 DDDs per day were excluded (n = 58), because TCAs are used for treating neuropathic pain (which has not been associated with pulmonary diseases) at a lower dose than for treating depression, the disease that has been associated with asthma. The time of exposure to antidepressants was divided into the following periods: any time during pregnancy, only the first trimester, only the second and third trimesters combined, at least the first trimester, and at least the second and third trimesters combined. The reference group consisted of women who did not use any SSRIs or TCAs during pregnancy and during a period of 7 days before pregnancy (n = 35,033). Drugs for pulmonary diseases Drugs for pulmonary diseases in children were used as a proxy for developmental respiratory tract changes in children as a result of antidepressant exposure in utero. The use of beta-2 selective sympathomimetics (ATC = R03CC, and R03AC), inhalation corticosteroids (ATC = R03BA), combined inhalation drugs (ATC = R03AK), and leucotriene antagonists (ATC = R03DC) in children were studied in the exposed groups and the reference group, and was regarded as a proxy for developmental respiratory tract changes in children if two or more prescriptions within 1 year were found in our database. Covariate analysis From the literature we know that in utero exposure to antibiotics or benzodiazepines may lead to pulmonary diseases, and also maternal diabetes, maternal age of delivery and maternal (genetic) asthma, and may lead to pulmonary diseases in the offspring. The exposure to these factors at any time during pregnancy was considered a possible confounding factor (see Discussion section). Therefore, we tested with Chi-squared analysis for differences between the exposed groups (Table ). Those factors that differed between the groups and significantly increased the IRR for use of drugs for pulmonary disease, will be included in our calculations for adjusting the crude IRR. We calculated the adjusted IRR with the formulas given in Rothman [35]. Table 1 Reference group (%) Exposed to SSRIs (%) Exposed to TCA (%) p value Total 35,033 (100 %) 436 (100 %) 67 (100 %) Maternal use of antibiotics 7,027 (20.1 %) 115 (26.4 %) 17 (25.4 %) 0.005 Maternal use of benzodiazepines 883 (2.5 %) 121 (27.8 %) 19 (28.4 %) <0.001 Maternal age > 30 years at delivery 15,585 (44.5 %) 244 (56.0 %) 34 (50.7 %) <0.001 Maternal use of insulin 269 (0.8 %) 2 (0.5 %) 1 (1.5 %) 0.896 Maternal use of drugs for pulmonary diseases 1,432 (4.1 %) 21 (4.8 %) 6 (9.0 %) 0.285 Open in a separate window Analysis The calculated day of conception was chosen as the starting point to identify in which periods the children were exposed. The day of birth of the children was chosen as a starting point for the follow-up. The incidence rate (IR) of drugs for pulmonary diseases used in the defined exposure groups was calculated as the number of incident cases (drugs for users with pulmonary diseases) divided by the time at risk (in years). The time at risk was measured from the day of birth until either the first prescription date, or the last known date of the child in the database, or the end of the study period, whichever occurred first. The exposure groups and reference group were compared and the incidence risk ratio (IRR) and 95 % confidence interval (CI) were calculated according to Rothman [35]. Results From the 35,400 pregnancies in our population, 36,323 children were born. Exposure to an SSRI anytime in pregnancy occurred in 436 children. Paroxetine was the most commonly prescribed SSRI (n = 266), followed by fluoxetine (n = 111), citalopram (n = 91), fluvoxamine (n = 70), sertraline (n = 34), and escitalopram (n = 11) (the sum of users exceeds the number of SSRI users because of concomitant use of two or more SSRIs or change of SSRI during pregnancy). Exposure to a TCA anytime in pregnancy occurred in 67 children. The most commonly used TCA was clomipramine (n = 43), followed by amitriptyline (n = 31). In the period 1995–2009, a total of 35,033 children were not exposed to antidepressant medication. We found a significant increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease in children who were exposed to SSRIs any time in utero (incidence risk ratio = 1.17; 95 % confidence interval 1.16–1.18; Table ). We also found an increased risk when exposure was at least in the first trimester (IRR = 1.18, 95 % CI 1.17–1.20). The increase, although not statistically significant, was also found for TCAs where IRR was 1.07 (95 % confidence interval 0.96–1.19; Table ). The size of the crude IRR of the use of drugs for pulmonary disease due to antidepressant exposure was for all periods during pregnancy more or less the same. However, adjusted for concomitant antibiotic exposure, only the use of SSRIs, at any time during the pregnancy and at least during the first trimester, leads to a statistically significant increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease. Table 2 Group Pregnancy period Children exposed Use of drugs for pulmonary disease Time at risk (years) IR (years) IRR (95 % CI) IRR (95 % CI) aadjusteda Reference Anytime 35,033 6,722 13,244.12 0.508 1 1 Exposed to SSRIs Anytime 436 83 136 0.61 1.20 (0.97– 1.49) 1.17 (1.16– 1.18) Only 1st trimester 163 30 56.7 0.53 1.04 (0.73– 1.49) 1.03 (0.98– 1.09) Only 2nd and 3rd trimester 26 3 4.72 0.64 1.26 (0.41– 3.91) b At least 1st trimester 374 74 121.88 0.61 1.20 (0.96– 1.51) 1.18 (1.17–1.2) At least 2nd and 3rd trimester 195 39 59.11 0.66 1.30 (0.95– 1.78) b Exposed to TCAs Anytime 67 12 21.47 0.56 1.10 (0.63– 1.94) 1.07 (0.96– 1.19) Only 1st trimester 31 8 13.47 0.59 1.16 (0.58– 2.32) b Only 2nd and 3rd trimester 3 0 At least 1st trimester 57 11 20.93 0.53 1.04 (0.58– 1.88) b At least 2nd and 3rd trimester 24 3 7.46 0.4 0.79 (0.25– 2.44) b Open in a separate window Some possible confounding factors, like in utero exposure to antibiotics and in utero exposure to insulin, showed a significant increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease (Table ). Therefore, differences between the groups exposed to antidepressants combined with the increase due to confounding factors, leads to adjustment of the crude IRR for maternal use of antibiotics. After adjustment, the effect of the SSRIs on children exposed to antidepressants any time during pregnancy and at least during the first trimester turned into a significant increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease (IRR = 1.17, 95 % CI 1.16–1.18; 95 % CI 1.17–1.20). Patient numbers of other time-frames of the pregnancy were in general too small for adjustments of the crude IRR. Table 3 Group Children exposed Use of drugs for pulmonary disease Time at risk (years) I (years) IRR IRR (95 % CI) Reference 35,536 6,807 13,244.12 0.51 1 1 In utero exposure to antibiotics 7,159 1,672 3,030.12 0.55 1.08 1.08 (1.02–1.14) in utero exposure to benzodiazepines 1,027 227 484.45 0.47 0.92 0.92 (0.81–1.05) Children with a mother aged > 30 at delivery 15,863 2,877 5435.73 0.53 1.04 1.04 (1.00–1.09) In utero exposure to insulin 272 49 67.15 0.73 1.43 1.43 (1.08–1.89) In utero exposure to drugs for pulmonary disease 1,459 487 866.65 0.56 1.1 1.10 (1.00–1.21) Open in a separate window Discussion We hypothesized that antidepressants influence the fetal lung development because of the involvement of 5-HT and noradrenergic receptors in the development of the mammalian respiratory rhythm generator and the production of surfactant. We tested this hypothesis by counting the number of prescriptions of drugs for pulmonary diseases of children who were exposed in utero to antidepressants as a proxy for developmental respiratory tract changes. We found a significant increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease after in utero exposure to SSRIs any time during pregnancy (IRR = 1.17, 95 % CI 1.16–1.18) after adjustment for in utero exposure to antibiotics. Also, an increased IRR of children exposed in utero to SSRIs during at least the first trimester was found (IRR = 1.18, 95 % CI 1.17–1.20). The increase was seen in all periods of pregnancy; however, probably because of our small sample size, statistical significance was only reached in the first trimester or at any time during pregnancy. We also found an increase in the use of drugs for pulmonary disease after in utero exposure to TCAs (IRR = 1.07, 95 % CI 0.96–1.19), also after adjustment of in utero exposure to antibiotics. Our results are in line with other findings. Kozyrskyj et al. reported that maternal distress, using prescriptions of antidepressants and anxiolytics, leads in 8.3 % of children exposed to antidepressants to asthmatic diseases [36]. The question now arises, what is the contribution of antidepressants compared with anxiolytics in the study of Kozyrskyj et al., because
Profit of the week in BTC : 0.02 BTC Top 5 cryptocurrencies of the week in : Tron (TRX) + 316.38 %, from $10.04 to $41.79 Ripple (XRP) + 259.54 %, from $9.75 to $35.05 Litecoin (LTC) + 220.88 %, from $10.05 to $32.26 Populous (PPT) + 193.13 %, from $10.3 to $30.2 Decentraland (MANA) + 129.30 %, from $9.77 to $22.41 Value since the beginning in USD : Value since the beginning in BTC :Welcome to the GCDb BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CLASSIC EXPLOITATION CINEMA. This is a start-off point for people who are new to these kinds of films and find themselves confused by the sheer overwhelming number of them. This page will provide an easy general introduction and a number of tips on films you should watch. This page is also ideal for those who want to make sure they know the basics and are just interested in learning more. Dictionary Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. Thus, films need something to "exploit", such as a big star, special effects, sex, violence, romance, etc. An "exploitation film", however, relies heavily on sensationalist advertising and broad and lurid overstatement of the issues depicted, regardless of the intrinsic quality of the film. Very often, exploitation films were of low quality in every sense. This, however, was not always the case. Exploitation films sometimes attract critical attention and cult followings. History Exploitation films feature uncut unrated material. They specialize in numerous sex and nudity scenes, bloody gore, violence, and taboos. They were most popular in the late 1960s to late 70s. Most are low budget films that would not be played in theaters today and would most likely receive an NC-17 rating. Exploitation films may feature suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence, drug use, nudity, freaks, gore, the bizarre, destruction, rebellion, and mayhem. Such films have existed since the earliest days of moviemaking, but they were popularized in the 1960s with the general relaxing of cinematic taboos in the U.S. and Europe. Additionally, low budget filmmakers used sensational elements to attract audiences lost to television. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention from academic circles, where it is sometimes called paracinema. "Exploitation" is very loosely defined, and has more to do with how the viewer approaches the film than with the film's actual content. Titillating material and artistic content can and often do coexist, as demonstrated by the fact that art films that failed to pass the Hays Code were often shown in the same grindhouses as exploitation films. Exploitation films share with acclaimed transgressive European directors such as Derek Jarman, Luis Buñuel, and Jean-Luc Godard a fearlessness toward handling 'disreputable' content. Numerous films recognized as classics contain levels of sex, violence, and shock typically associated with exploitation films, including Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Tod Browning's Freaks, and Roman Polanski's Repulsion. Buñuel's Un chien andalou contains elements of the modern splatter film. It has further been stated that if Carnival of Souls had been made in Europe, that it would be considered an art film, while if Eyes Without a Face had been made in the U.S., it would have been categorized as a low-budget horror film. The art film and exploitation film audiences are both considered to have tastes that reject the mainstream Hollywood offerings. Exploitation films often exploited events that occurred in the news and were in the short term public consciousness that a major film studio may avoid due to the length of time of producing a major film. For example Child Bride (1938) addressed a problem of older men marrying very young women in the Ozarks. Other issues such as drug use in films like Reefer Madness (1936) attracted an audience that a major film studio would avoid to keep their mainstream and respectable reputations. Sex Madness (1938) portrayed the dangers of venereal disease from premarital sex. The film Mom and Dad (1945), a film about pregnancy and childbirth, was promoted in lurid terms. She Shoulda Said No! (1949) combined the themes of drug use and promiscuous sex. Grindhouses and Drive-ins A "grindhouse" is an American term for a theater that mainly shows exploitation films. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film-programming strategy dating back to the early 1920s which continuously showed films at cut-rate ticket prices that typically rose over the course of each day. This exhibition practice was markedly different from the era's more common practice of fewer shows per day and graduated pricing for different seating sections in large urban theaters, which were typically studio-owned. As the drive-in movie theater (an outdoor theater into which the patrons drive and watch the film from their car) began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, theater owners began to look for ways to bring in patrons. One solution was to book exploitation films. In fact, some producers in the 1970s would make films directly for the drive-in market. Many of them were violent action films which some would refer to as 'drive-in' films. Genres Exploitation films may adopt the subject matters and stylings of film genres, particularly horror films and documentary films. The subgenres of exploitation films are categorized by which characteristics they utilize. Thematically, exploitation films can also be influenced by other so-called exploitative media, like pulp magazines. Exploitation films also sometimes blur genre lines utilizing two or more genres at a time for example the 1980 film Maniac could be considered both a slasher film as well as a gore film. Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman contains both shock documentary and sex exploitation elements. Exploitation films made in the 1930s and 1940s that got around the strict censorship and scrutiny of the era despite featuring lurid subject matter by claiming to be educational in nature. They were generally cautionary stories about the alleged dangers of premarital sex and drug use. Examples include Marihuana, Mom and Dad, Reefer Madness, Sex Madness and She Shoulda Said No!. In 1953 The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, was the first film about a motorcycle gang. The success of American International Pictures' The Wild Angels in 1966 ignited a trend that continued into the early 1970s. Other biker films include Motorpsycho (1965), Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), Born Losers (1967), Satan's Sadists (1969), The Losers (1970), and C.C. & Company (1970). Action films (often referred to as Kung fu or chopsocky films) that are characterized by extensive fighting scenes employing various types of martial arts. "Blaxploitation" films (Note: The word was not coined by whites but by a black person) were made with black actors, for black audiences, often taking place within a stereotypically African American urban backdrop. A prominent theme was African-Americans overcoming "The Man" (a slang term for white oppressors) through cunning and violence. The progenitor of this exploitation genre is usually credited to Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song, although Gordon Parks Sr's Shaft is truly the prototype for the standard action oriented films in this genre. Other popular titles include: Black Caesar, Blacula, Black Shampoo, Boss Nigger, Coffy, Cleopatra Jones, Coonskin, Cotton Comes To Harlem, Dolemite, Foxy Brown, Hell Up In Harlem, The Mack, Shaft, Sugar Hill, Super Fly and Truck Turner. In the 1970s, a brand of revisionist, non-traditional samurai film rose to some popularity in Japan, following the success of samurai manga (graphic novels) by Kazuo Koike, on whose work many later films would be based. The Zatoichi films, Lady Snowblood, the Lone Wolf and Cub films, Sex & Fury (which would also be a sexploitation film) and Shogun Assassin had few of the stoic, formal sensibilities of earlier jidaigeki films such as those by Akira Kurosawa -- the new chambara featured revenge-driven antihero protagonists, gratuitous nudity, steamy sex scenes, gruesome swordplay and gallons of blood, often spurted from wounds as if from a firehose. The Japanese Yakuza (gangster) film was also a popular staple in theaters both in Asia and in the US during the 60s and 70s. Studios such as Nikkatsu were the forerunner of these pulp-crime pictures that dealt with the violent and exotic criminal underworld in urban Japan. Australian exploitation films made after the introduction of the R rating in 1971. Classic films include: Stone, Mad Max, The Man From Hong Kong, BMX Bandits & Dead End Drive-In. Carsploitation is a genre which features automobiles as the main showcase or driving force of the films. The quintessential film of this genre is Vanishing Point. Others include Death Race 2000, Cannonball, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, Gone in 60 Seconds, Mad Max and Two Lane Blacktop. Exploitation genre films made in Mexico. One subgenre specific to Mexploitation cinema is Lucha Libre, made famous by the El Santo Series. Exploitation genre films taking place in the American South. The majority of Hixploitation films deal with topics such as moonshiners & crazy backwoods hillbillies. Mondo films, often called shockumentaries, are quasi-documentary films that focus on sensationalized topics, such as exotic customs from around the world or gruesome death footage. Similar to shock exploitation, the goal of Mondo films is to be shocking to the audience not only because they deal with taboo subject matter. The first and best-known mondo film is Mondo Cane. Others include Shocking Asia and Goodbye Uncle Tom. Sex exploitation, or "sexploitation" films, are similar to softcore pornography, in that the film serves largely as a vehicle for showing scenes involving nude or semi-nude women. While many films contain vivid sex scenes, sexploitation shows these scenes more graphically than mainstream films, often overextending the sequences or showing full frontal nudity. Russ Meyer's body of work is probably the best known example; with his best known films being Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens. Subgenres include Women In Prison, Cheerleader movies, Nurse films, Nunsploitation, Nudies, Roughies, Dykesploitation. Other well-known sexploitation films include the Emmanuelle series and Caligula. Caligula is unique among classic sexploitation films in general in that it features a high budget and eminent actors. Shock exploitation films, or "shock films" contain various shocking elements such as extremely realistic graphic violence, graphic rape depictions, simulated bestiality and depictions of incest. Examples of shocksploitation include: Bloodsucking Freaks, I Drink Your Blood, Fight For Your Life, I Spit On Your Grave, Ilsa: She Wolf of The S.S. (and its sequels), Last House on Dead End Street, The Last House On The Left, Pink Flamingos, Salo, 120 Days of Sodom, Snuff, Thriller: A Cruel Picture Spaghetti Western is a nickname for the Italian-made Western films that emerged in the early to mid-1960s. They were considerably more violent and amoral than typical Hollywood westerns (some films have body counts of over 200 people killed) and often eschewed (some say "demythologized") the conventions of earlier Westerns. The exploitation of teenagers by the producers of teen-oriented films, with plots involving drugs, sex, alcohol and crime. The word Teensploitation first appeared in a show business publication in 1982 and was included in the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for the first time in 2004. These include JD Films (juvenile delinquent) and beach party movies like Beach Blanket Bingo among others. Sub-genres Crime Vigilante/Revenge films : films in which a person violates the law to exact justice. These films were rooted in 1970s unease over government corruption, failure in the Vietnam War, and rising crime rates. These movies point toward the rising political trend of neoconservatism. The classic example is Death Wish, and its sequels. These films often deal with individuals who are unable to find help within the system, such as the Native American protagonist of Billy Jack, or characters in blaxploitation films such as Coffy, and persons from small towns who go to larger cities in pursuit of runaway relatives (i.e. 1979's Hardcore, and 1976's Trackdown). It's not uncommon for the vigilante in these films to himself be a policeman who feels thwarted by the legal system, as in Walking Tall's original trilogy and remake, Mad Max, and the Dirty Harry series of Clint Eastwood movies. : films in which a person violates the law to exact justice. These films were rooted in 1970s unease over government corruption, failure in the Vietnam War, and rising crime rates. These movies point toward the rising political trend of neoconservatism. The classic example is, and its sequels. These films often deal with individuals who are unable to find help within the system, such as the Native American protagonist of, or characters in blaxploitation films such as, and persons from small towns who go to larger cities in pursuit of runaway relatives (i.e. 1979's Hardcore, and 1976's Trackdown). It's not uncommon for the vigilante in these films to himself be a policeman who feels thwarted by the legal system, as in Mad Max Dirty Harry JD Films : Juvenile delinquent themed films such as The Delinquents, High School Hellcats. : Juvenile delinquent themed films such as The Delinquents, High School Hellcats. Rape/Revenge films : Films in which a woman is raped, left for dead, recovers and then subsequently extracts a typically graphic, gory revenge against the person/persons who raped her. By far the most famous film of this genre is I Spit on Your Grave (also called Day of the Woman ). Others include Ms. 45 and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. The Last House On The Left. : Films in which a woman is raped, left for dead, recovers and then subsequently extracts a typically graphic, gory revenge against the person/persons who raped her. By far the most famous film of this genre is (also called ). Others include and.. Drugsploitation : a subgenre of exploitation films that center around an explicit use of drugs. : a subgenre of exploitation films that center around an explicit use of drugs. Poliziotteschi is the Italian subgenre of crime/action cinema that became popular in the late 1960s through to the early 1980s. The term "poliziotteschi" is derived from "polizia" the Italian word for police and "esco" i.e. "esque" in American language. They are also commonly referred to as Italo-Crime and Euro-Crime films. The word "Poliziottesco" in particular represents specifically the 1970s crime/police actioners. Regular components featured in these films included: over the top violence, car/motorcycle chases, heists, shootouts. The subgenre's plots and stories usually involved police procedurals, mafia wars, as well as political corruption within Italy's big cities like Naples, Milan, Torino and Rome. Sci Fi & Horror/Thrillers Sexploitation War Martial Arts Brucesploitation films : Martial arts subgenre profiting from the death of Bruce Lee utilizing look-alike actors. : Martial arts subgenre profiting from the death of Bruce Lee utilizing look-alike actors. Ninja Films: a subgenre of martial arts films, these films center on the stereotypical, historically inaccurate, image of the ninja costume and his arsenal of weapons often including fantasy elements such as ninja magic. What is a Cult Film? Cult films arent necessarily exploitation films. They are simply films that have gained a large devoted following because of their unique qualities. They range from low budget exploitation features to big budget studio films that may not have done well on their initial release but were re-visited and grabbed people's imaginations/attention. Cult films can be from any period, the 20th century and beyond. Classics include: Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Night of the Living Dead, Harold and Maude, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of The Paradise, The Harder They Come, The Warriors, Eraserhead, Videodrome. Post grindhouse era cult films include: Reservoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski, Showgirls, Donnie Darko and Fight Club...READ MORE References Eric Schaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959 Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999 Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999 Jeffrey Sconce, "'Trashing' the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style", Screen vol. 36 no. 4, Winter 1995, pp. 371–393. vol. 36 no. 4, Winter 1995, pp. 371–393. Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984, 1994. , 1994. V. Vale and Andrea Juno, RE/Search No. 10: Incredibly Strange Films Publications, 1986. Publications, 1986. Ephraim Katz, The Film Encyclopedia\|The Film Encyclopedia 5e: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume (Film Encyclopedia), 2005. , 2005. Benedikt Eppenberger, Daniel Stapfer Maedchen, Machos und Moneten: Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Schweizer Kinounternehmers Erwin C. Dietrich. Mit einem Vorwort von Jess Franco. Verlag Scharfe Stiefel, Zurich, 2006 What should I watch first? The introduction finishes with some examples of films you should start watching. We now have an essential list of films HERE. Want to know more? BooksBernie Sanders Is Cold As Ice He’s chilly with staff, frosty with fans, and regularly ices out reporters. So how is the socialist firebrand from Vermont suddenly torching Hillary Clinton in the race for president? Get a compelling long read and must-have lifestyle tips in your inbox every Sunday morning — great with coffee! On a campaign swing through New Hampshire in late June, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders mounted the podium at Nashua Community College and looked out over a sea of expectant followers—students and seniors, professionals and tradesmen—and seemed, well, shocked. Just a month earlier he’d kicked off his campaign for the White House. Now, hundreds, even thousands, were coming to lap up his diatribes against the rich: “This campaign is bringing about a political revolution which transforms politics in America,” he shouted in his trademark Brooklyn deli-counter lingo. “Bruthuhs and sistuhs, now is not the time to be thinking small.” He paused. His lips pursed into a thin, straight line. His eyes narrowed behind his thick, rectangular glasses. His shoulders drew closer to his ears. He pointed to the audience and raised his voice: “In New Hampshire and Vermont, we have people who are not working one job, they’re working two jobs, they’re working three jobs trying to cobble together an income and some healthcare. “Bottom line is, that type of economy is immoral, it’s unsustainable, and it’s -un-American, and together we’re going to change it!” As the crowd shot to its feet and cheered, Fred Teeboom, a Republican and former Nashua alderman, turned to me and said, “This guy speaks to me.” When Sanders announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination in late May, political pros yawned. How could an avowed socialist hope to draw more than a smattering of votes? Sure, in Vermont Sanders had managed to ascend from mayor to congressman to U.S. senator. But could a relative unknown from a small, rural, largely white New England state really challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton’s formidable political machine on the national stage? Five months later, the political chattering classes here in New Hampshire have snapped to attention. On his first whistle-stop tours, supporters mobbed Sanders. Thousands showed up to cheer him in Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada. By late summer the 74-year-old firebrand was attracting crowds approaching 30,000 in L.A. and Portland, 15,000 in Seattle, 11,000 in Phoenix, and 10,000 in Madison, Wisconsin, spurring the Washington Post to wonder, “How does he do it?” So how does he? For starters, he can thank Elizabeth Warren, who took herself out of the race. Her exit left Sanders as the loudest Democrat tapping into a populist fury over the growing gap between the super wealthy and the rest of the country. And he picked the perfect moment. In a cycle in which voters seem to be recoiling from slick, coiffed, poll-driven candidates, Bernie Sanders comes across as he is: a gaunt, frazzled, Brooklyn-born Jew whose rage is authentic, genuine, and delivered with Socratic give-and-take. In Nashua, Sanders arrived the same way he would in Rochester and Henniker, Durham and Laconia: in the back seat of a Ford Fusion piloted by Phil Fiermonte, his longtime aide and campaign field director. Michael Briggs, his press guy, rode shotgun. His son, Levi, who lives in Claremont, was waiting for them. Sanders had no entourage, no police escort, no advance team, no rope line. Other candidates carry dozens of advisers and advance men, but this ragtag bunch made up the bulk of Sanders’s top staff. As usual, Sanders was short with the media after his speech. In response to questions from a CNN correspondent, Sanders said, “We want to bring people together. Nothing fancy. Seeya.” Then he ducked into the Ford Fusion and drove off. Sanders, it turns out, has little patience for reporters—or, for that matter, anyone who disagrees with him. Among his faults, this could be the one that most weakens his presidential bid. Former aides have called him strident and never satisfied, to the point of being abusive, especially during his first years in Congress. “Bernie is a very demanding guy,” Fiermonte tells me. “He has very high expectations, and he expects people to meet them. But he’s a good boss. I wouldn’t be with him otherwise.” Or, as more than one Vermont politician told me, “Bernie’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.” That belief, shared by his supporters and by a Democratic electorate that’s loath to give Clinton a cakewalk to the nomination, has served Sanders well up to this point. But how will he react when the press inevitably pounces, as it did when fellow Vermonter Howard Dean ran for president in 2004? The permanent scowl lines etched onto his brow may show him to be the same humorless curmudgeon that he reveals to colleagues, reporters, and allies. “Bernie has no social skills, no sense of humor, and he’s quick to boil over,” says Chris Graff, who covered Sanders for 25 years as Vermont bureau chief for the Associated Press. “He’s the most unpolitical person in politics I’ve ever come across.” That much was clear in July, as Sanders began a speech to an audience of die-hard progressives at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Some people chanted, “Black lives matter” and “Say her name!” urging Sanders to speak about police killings and beatings of unarmed black men and women. Sanders paused briefly. He seemed at once both annoyed and perplexed. “Let me talk about what I’m going to talk about for a second,” he growled. The chants came louder. “SAY HER NAME! SAY HER NAME!” Sanders tried to continue on script, but as activists interrupted, he threatened to walk off. “Exasperating and classic Bernie,” columnist Judith Levine wrote in Seven Days, Vermont’s alternative newspaper. “Man of the people treating the people like tiresome children, telling them what the issue is, instead of listening to what their issue, our issue, America’s issue is right now.” Many of his colleagues in Congress would recognize the stubbornness. “I admired him for his willingness to take stands for what he believed,” former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a man not immune to professing unpopular opinions, tells me. “He went for the ideal, but he was not part of the legislative process. He chose to be an outsider.” On Capitol Hill, Sanders has a reputation for being a pain in the ass. “Bernie believes that he’s right, and that what he wants is for the greater good,” says Houston consultant Susan Boardman Russ, formerly the longtime chief of staff for the late Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords. “Bernie is so certain that what he represents politically is unquestionably correct, therefore everyone should agree. Not much room for compromise…it was, ‘Play in my sandbox, or get out.’” After Sanders’s 16 years in the House and almost nine in the Senate, there are not many legislators in his sandbox. Not a single major congressman, senator, or governor has endorsed him for president. His monomania certainly hasn’t stopped him from rising in the polls. After Labor Day, Sanders held a 22-point lead over Clinton in New Hampshire and a 10-point edge over her in Iowa, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll. Which takes us to Sanders’s essential contradiction: He can reach crowds with soaring oratory, but, as Judith Levine points out, the business of being Bernie can make him seem disconnected and insensitive. Aides know he would rather bury himself in a budget than bounce a toddler on his lap. On the trail, Sanders has rarely seen a baby he wants to kiss, a hand he needs to shake, a back that would welcome a slap. With reporters or anyone who dares to ask, he stiff-arms questions about the source of his populist rage, his personal life, his influences, how he became a socialist, and his hopes and dreams beyond fomenting a political revolution. “Bernie has always been on a mission,” says Linda Niedweske, a former confidante who managed his first mayoral campaign. “He has no time for much else.” Sanders had plenty of time on his hands when he first crossed the border into Vermont. In the late 1960s, the Green Mountains were a refuge for thousands of back-to-the-land hippies, spiritual searchers, and political progressives. Some came to work the land, others to fulfill their dreams. Sanders came to change the world. Even among the idealists and misfits, though, Sanders didn’t quite fit in. “He wasn’t freaky like the rest of us,” says Sanders’s friend at the time, Sylvia Manning, who had journeyed to Vermont from Texas. “He was straight, even then. No pot. He wasn’t a hippie. He was serious already.” In 1972, Sanders began running for state-wide office for the Liberty Union Party, a radical group of antiwar activists. He crisscrossed Vermont in a Volkswagen bug, preaching from a playbook straight out of the Communist Manifesto: Oppressed workers of the world should unite and wrest power from the wealthy elites. Traveling from newsrooms to firehouses to town halls, he espoused leftist bromides about workers’ rights, income inequality, greedy bankers, and rapacious power companies. At first, “He ran so he could get air time. Not to win but to educate people,” Manning recalls. “He thought of himself as the educational candidate.” He lost, again and again, but Vermonters got used to seeing Sanders’s mug. The wired New Yorker might have been a quirky character running on a radical slate, but in losing races for governor and the U.S. Senate, he gained a crucial ingredient for political success: name recognition. During the 1976 gubernatorial race, he finished a distant third, but his friend and adviser, University of Vermont religion professor Richard Sugarman, pointed out that he had won 16 percent of the vote in Burlington’s poorest wards, most of those votes coming from the city’s Old North End. “You have a natural base there,” Sugarman argued. Sanders decided to focus his efforts on an office he could win: Burlington mayor. Political operatives shocked by Sanders’s prospects in the 2016 presidential run might want to examine his tactics in that 1981 campaign. He ran against Democratic incumbent Gordon “Gordy” Paquette. “Nobody gave [Sanders] even a slight chance of winning,” recalls UVM political science professor Garrison Nelson. Sanders and his progressive allies worked their base in the Old North End. But he also shrewdly departed from liberal dogma by promising not to raise property taxes. The Burlington police also backed Sanders—which inoculated him against being cast as a revolutionary. Sanders won by 10 votes: 4,030 to 4,020. “It was the birthing of what we now see as the presidential candidate,” says Sam Hemingway, who chronicled Sanders’s political trajectory for the Burlington Free Press. John Franco, a longtime friend who has remained close with Sanders, adds, “He ran an asymmetric, insurgent campaign and surprised everyone. Including himself.” The night of the election victory, Sanders almost came undone. He’d never had to govern anything more than himself. Mayor-elect Sanders, Franco says, “was in shock.”YouTube/klystron2010 For two years the Obama administration has been secretly developing a "disposition matrix" that draws on all known information about suspected terrorists and provides advice on how to pursue them, reports Greg Miller of the Washington Post. The "single, continually evolving database," is being developed and run by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). But that's not the only thing they track. According to the ACLU, the NCTC runs a "massive, secretive data collection and mining of trillions of points of data about most people in the United States." So the same people running the new kill list are also in the domestic spying business, and they can also pull data from other government agencies in name of national security. The NCTC matrix serves to harmonize the separate CIA and Pentagon kills lists while also providing strategies to kill or capture individuals who appear on those lists based on how each fits into the matrix. "We can't possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us," a senior administration official told the Post. The nation's other domestic spying apparatus, exposed by National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney, tracks all kinds of electronic activities—phone calls, emails, banking and travel records, social media—and map them to collect "all the attributes that any individual has" to build a profile based on that data. The NCTC goes further to collect "records from law enforcement investigations, health information, employment history, travel and student records" because "literally anything the government collects would be fair game," the ACLU notes. ACLU's legislative counsel Chris Calabrese calls it a "reboot of the Total Information Awareness Program that Americans rejected so vigorously right after 9/11." What this means, Glenn Greenwald explains, is that "the NCTC — now vested with the power to determine the proper "disposition" of terrorist suspects — is the same agency that is at the center of the ubiquitous, unaccountable surveillance state aimed at American citizens." In other words, welcome to the matrix. SEE ALSO: Why Losing Indefinite Detention Powers Would Be A Disaster For Obama >Star lifting is any of several hypothetical processes by which a sufficiently advanced civilization (specifically, one of Kardashev-II or higher) could remove a substantial portion of a star's matter which can then be re-purposed, while possibly optimizing the star's energy output and lifespan at the same time. The term appears to have been coined by David Criswell. Stars already lose a small flow of mass via solar wind, coronal mass ejections, and other natural processes. Over the course of a star's life on the main sequence this loss is usually negligible compared to the star's total mass; only at the end of a star's life when it becomes a red giant or a supernova is a large amount of material ejected. The star lifting techniques that have been proposed would operate by increasing this natural plasma flow and manipulating it with magnetic fields. Stars have deep gravity wells, so the energy required for such operations is large. For example, lifting solar material from the surface of the Sun to infinity requires 2.1 × 1011 J/kg. This energy could be supplied by the star itself, collected by a Dyson sphere; using 10% of the Sun's total power output would allow 5.9 × 1021 kilograms of matter to be lifted per year (0.0000003% of the Sun's total mass), or 8% of the mass of Earth's moon. Methods for lifting material [ edit ] Thermal-driven outflow [ edit ] A mechanism for "harvesting" solar wind (RC = ring current, MN = magnetic nozzles, J = plasma jet). The simplest system for star lifting would increase the rate of solar wind outflow by directly heating small regions of the star's atmosphere, using any of a number of different means to deliver energy such as microwave beams, lasers, or particle beams – whatever proved to be most efficient for the engineers of the system. This would produce a large and sustained eruption similar to a solar flare at the target location, feeding the solar wind. The resulting outflow would be collected by using a ring current around the star's equator to generate a powerful toroidal magnetic field with its dipoles over the star's rotational poles. This would deflect the star's solar wind into a pair of jets aligned along its rotational axis passing through a pair of magnetic rocket nozzles. The magnetic nozzles would convert some of the plasma's thermal energy into outward velocity, helping cool the outflow. The ring current required to generate this magnetic field would be generated by a ring of particle accelerator space stations in close orbit around the star's equator. These accelerators would be physically separate from each other but would exchange two counterdirected beams of oppositely charged ions with their neighbor on each side, forming a complete circuit around the star. Criswell proposed a modification to the polar jet system in which the magnetic field could be used to increase solar wind outflow directly, without requiring additional heating of the star's surface. He dubbed it the "Huff-n-Puff" method, inspired from the Big Bad Wolf's threats in the fairy tale of Three Little Pigs. In this system the ring of particle accelerators would not be in orbit, instead depending on the outward force of the magnetic field itself for support against the star's gravity. To inject energy into the star's atmosphere the ring current would first be temporarily shut down, allowing the particle accelerator stations to begin falling freely toward the star's surface. Once the stations had developed sufficient inward velocity the ring current would be reactivated and the resulting magnetic field would be used to reverse the stations' fall. This would "squeeze" the star, propelling stellar atmosphere through the polar magnetic nozzles. The ring current would be shut down again before the ring stations achieved enough outward velocity to throw them too far away from the star, and the star's gravity would be allowed to pull them back inward to repeat the cycle. A single set of ring stations would result in a very intermittent flow. It is possible to smooth this flow out by using multiple sets of ring stations, with each set operating in a different stage of the Huff-n-Puff cycle at any given moment so that there is always one ring "squeezing". This would also smooth out the power requirements of the system over time. Centrifugal acceleration [ edit ] An alternative to the Huff-n-Puff method for using the toroidal magnetic field to increase solar wind outflow involves placing the ring stations in a polar orbit rather than an equatorial one. The two magnetic nozzles would then be located on the star's equator. To increase the rate of outflow through these two equatorial jets, the ring system would be rotated around the star at a rate significantly faster than the star's natural rotation. This would cause the stellar atmosphere swept up by the magnetic field to be flung outward. This method suffers from a number of significant complications compared to the others. Rotating the ring in this manner would require the ring stations to use powerful rocket thrust, requiring both large rocket systems and a large amount of reaction mass. This reaction mass can be "recycled" by directing the rockets' exhausts so that it impacts the star's surface, but harvesting fresh reaction mass from the star's outflow and delivering it to the ring stations in sufficient quantity adds still more complexity to the system. Finally, the resulting jets would spiral outward from the star's equator rather than emerging straight from the poles; this could complicate harvesting it, as well as the arrangement of the Dyson sphere powering the system. Harvesting lifted mass [ edit ] The material lifted from a star will emerge in the form of plasma jets hundreds or thousands of astronomical units long, primarily composed of hydrogen and helium and highly diffuse by current engineering standards. The details of extracting useful materials from this stream and storing the vast quantities that would result have not been extensively explored. One possible approach is to purify useful elements from the jets using extremely large-scale mass spectrometry, cool them by laser cooling, and condense them on particles of dust for collection. Small artificial gas giant planets could be constructed from excess hydrogen and helium to store it for future use. Stellar husbandry [ edit ] The lifespan of a star is determined by the size of its supply of nuclear "fuel" and the rate at which it uses up that fuel in fusion reactions in its core. Larger stars have a larger supply of fuel, but the increased core pressure resulting from
Further proof that Perl is the ultimate glue language. geek_code++ I proposed to my wife outside of Harry Ramsden's at Manchester Airport. But then, that's what happens when you marry a non-geek ;-) Congratulations to you both :) cLive ;-) Re: Propose. (Priest) on Aug 18, 2004 at 22:43 UTC by thor on Aug 18, 2004 at 22:43 UTC You're a lucky man to be in such a position. Congratulations! thor Feel the white light, the light within Be your own disciple, fan the sparks of will With all of us waiting, your kingdom will come Re: Propose. (Priest) on Aug 18, 2004 at 21:00 UTC by antirice on Aug 18, 2004 at 21:00 UTC Congrats guys! :) antirice The first rule of Perl club is - use Perl The ith rule of Perl club is - follow rule i - 1 for i > 1 Re^2: Propose. (Hermit) on Aug 25, 2004 at 12:18 UTC by pingo on Aug 25, 2004 at 12:18 UTC TMTOWTDI :-) Re: Propose. (Canon) on Aug 19, 2004 at 09:48 UTC by TStanley on Aug 19, 2004 at 09:48 UTC Congrats to the both of you. May you find peace and happiness together. TStanley -------- The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing -- Edmund Burke Re: Propose. (Curate) on Aug 20, 2004 at 07:51 UTC by giulienk on Aug 20, 2004 at 07:51 UTC Congratulations! This is even better than Roblimo's proposal. Maybe I should have been more creative, but my standard dinner with diamond ring worked out pretty well too ;) $\|=$_="1g2i1u1l2i4e2n0k",map{print"\7",chop;select$,,$,,$,,$_/7}m{..}g Re: Propose. (Curate) on Aug 19, 2004 at 16:22 UTC by csuhockey3 on Aug 19, 2004 at 16:22 UTC Greatest obfu of all time! Congratulations! Re: Propose. (Initiate) on Aug 19, 2004 at 18:20 UTC by paranoidDandroid on Aug 19, 2004 at 18:20 UTC What a gift. Thank you. Best of luck. Re: Propose. (Vicar) on Aug 19, 2004 at 19:55 UTC by RavingGoat on Aug 19, 2004 at 19:55 UTC Congrats!! Re: Propose. (Hermit) on Aug 24, 2004 at 13:42 UTC by pikus on Aug 24, 2004 at 13:42 UTC That's the most romantic thing I've ever seen! <sniff> Congratulations! :) - pikus You know it's love when you memorize her IP number to skip DNS overhead. You know it's love when you memorize her IP number to skip DNS overhead. Re: Propose. (Hermit) on Aug 21, 2004 at 00:53 UTC by BioGeek on Aug 21, 2004 at 00:53 UTC Congratulations to the both of you. This is actually the second online proposal I see in a week. Must be something in the air ;-) It also reminded me of a very romantic proposal by another geek. Re: Propose. (Curate) on Aug 25, 2004 at 14:21 UTC by teamster_jr on Aug 25, 2004 at 14:21 UTC congrats guys, one thing, shouldn't this be in CUFP? :-) al Re: Propose. (Abbot) on Nov 17, 2008 at 19:08 UTC by ambrus on Nov 17, 2008 at 19:08 UTC I assume this code is what this PHD comics strip refers to some two and a half year later. Re^2: Propose. (Chaplain) on Dec 01, 2008 at 05:37 UTC by Falkkin on Dec 01, 2008 at 05:37 UTC Indeed, he changed my name to "William" (or most likely, forgot it) but he wrote the comic after meeting us at a book signing at Carnegie Mellon University. Hey all... I don't have so much idea about perl.. I love a girl name is aditi.. Can anyone please edit this script and update so that I can show her that also and may be she will accept it. Plz anyone Re: Propose. (Hermit) on Sep 03, 2004 at 12:15 UTC by PhilHibbs on Sep 03, 2004 at 12:15 UTCThe day I met a creationist at the science conference The last place you expect to meet a creationist is at the annual American Geophysical Union conference. I don't know how I got so lucky. Yesterday morning, I wandered through the posters presented at the event, with a thought to translating their scientific jargon into something interesting to read. Since my background is biological, I thought that discipline would be the obvious place to start—in particular, something about microbes doing interesting things under the surface of the Earth. A title caught my eye. It was one of the first posters in the aisle, so prominent to the casual passerby: A COMPARISON OF δ13C & pMC VALUES for TEN CRETACEOUS-JURASSIC DINOSAUR BONES from TEXAS to ALASKA USA, CHINA AND EUROPE WITH THAT OF COAL AND DIAMONDS PRESENTED IN THE 2003 AGU MEETING Dinosaur bones and diamonds! My brain, attracted to both old and shiny objects, sent me in closer to investigate. As I was trying to interpret the densely-packed board of letters, numbers, and figures printed in incredibly tiny print, I was approached by a slight, elderly man in glasses. A name badge declaring him to be Hugh Miller, the first author on the poster. He asked if I had any questions. I asked if he could just give me a quick summary of the work. He talked about performing mass spectrometry on samples of various dinosaur bones that produced age estimates ranging from 15,000 to 50,000 years. My spidey-sense tingled. I peered over his shoulder, searching for bullet points to figure out what was going on here. That's when I read it: "humans, neanderthals, and dinosaurs existed together." The poster was challenging radiocarbon dating using Carbon-14 (C-14) isotopes. It suggested that their data, comparing coal, diamond, wood, and dinosaur bones, were sufficient to throw all of geology into question. Namely, that based on their data, the age estimate of the dinosaurs was off by some 2000x. Moreover, humanity must be increasingly concerned about asteroid strikes to the Earth, because that age estimate error would influence our estimate of the size of the whole universe (since we look at the size of the universe through the lens of time), which would mean that everything in our solar system is more densely packed. Hence, we are more likely to be hit by asteroids because they are so much closer to us than thought. This makes about as much sense as the Indiana Jones movie with ancient alien archaeologists. credit: Paramount Pictures I don't know if Hugh saw the quizzical look in my eyes, but when he was interrupted by someone asking for something, I quickly backed away. Now, here's the thing about Carbon-14 dating. This isotope has a very short half-life (the time necessary for the element to reduce in mass by half) of only 5730 years. Since it decays so quickly, it is useless for dating objects more than about 40-50,000 years old. The background levels of C-14 radiation in the laboratory have to be compensated for. According to the NCSE website: "This radiation cannot be totally eliminated from the laboratory, so one could probably get a "radiocarbon" date of fifty thousand years from a pure carbon-free piece of tin." And, this is pretty much what the poster presented. When looking at fossils preserved in sedimentary rock, the fossil itself can be dated, but often a technique called "bracketing" is used where the igneous rock on either side of the fossil is dated with radioactive isotopes that have half-lives on the order of millions of years. This give scientists a range of time in which the animal could have lived. The poster authors, Hugh included, were basing their attack on one technique in the geological toolkit, and disregarding all other evidence that would have undermined their conclusions. How did this abstract get past the selection process? I have no idea, but I hope that people at the conference were able to see that it was not science. It was an example of belief masquerading as scientific inquiry.Street level snapshot: An irate driver leans out of the car window as construction forces traffic to a halt at the Eglinton Ave. and Laird Dr. “This is a bloody mess,” he bellows, to no one in particular. To others, though, the tangled traffic caused by the 19-kilometre, 25-station Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which will run underground from Weston Rd. to Laird and then above ground to Kennedy subway station, is worth the headache. "We have lots of things for nature lovers — even the ones who live in condos,” says Paul Oliver, owner of Urban Nature Store in Leaside. ( David Cooper / Toronto Star ) Construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT has meant reduced lanes of road for traffic and frustrating delays for drivers. ( David Cooper / Toronto Star ) Leaside Memorial Community Gardens is the first city arena in 40 years to get a new rink. ( Colin McConnell / Toronto Star file photo ) The line will jumpstart a corner in the Leaside neighbourhood that’s already starting to hop, says Tamara Robbins Griffith, public relations manager for home décor chain HomeSense which opened a location on Eglinton, just east of Laird, a few years ago. “It’s been a great fit,” she says. “People in the neighbourhood love their homes, so we really resonate with the community.” Robbins Griffith, who grew up near the area and lived in the neighbourhood for several years before starting a family, recalls the corner being “vast and empty.” Now, it’s filled with townhomes and retail stores and cafes. “You can get a lot done along the corridor,” she says. Article Continued Below Previously a textile factory, and then an auto dealership, the site had industrial elements that were purposefully incorporated into the store design. “The polished concrete floor, and the immense ceiling full of skylights — they make it kind of special,” she says. Home décor hotspot: As the trend of urban homeowners connecting with nature continues and grows, people are looking for décor for both inside and outside the home. In this neighbourhood, that has them flocking to Urban Nature Store, which opened on the corner 4-1/2 years ago, in part to cater to loyal east-end customers who were making the long trek to an Etobicoke location. “Lots of homeowners, especially the ones with young families, want to get involved with nature in the city,” says owner Paul Oliver. This winter, his beautiful birdfeeders — home décor for feathered friends — are catching the attention of customers who are aware of the big hit city birds took from the ice storm last year. “They lost nesting spots when big trees came down and because bushes were weighted down with ice, they couldn’t get in for shelter,” Oliver says. While customers initially come in for bird-related gear, many are surprised by the home decor he carries. Article Continued Below “They realize we have a lot more than bird feed and end up coming back for décor and gifts. We have lots of things for nature lovers — even the ones who live in condos and don’t feed the birds.” Big sellers right now include organic soy candles in tins that look like vintage maple syrup cans, bird-themed mugs and mug mats filled with spices, so that when a warm cup is set on them a lovely scent is released. Also spied were sets of cotton towels with pretty pictures of flora and fauna, or holiday themes, all of which would, by the way, make a great hostess gift. Where to live: You’ll need deep pockets to buy a home in Leaside, where even a modest bungalow can go for upwards of $850,000, says Brandon Ware, a real estate broker with PSR Limited. A proponent of multi-residential development, his company will be involved with condo sales for projects at the Art Shoppe location, just south of Eglinton Ave. on Yonge St., another condo development at 155 Redpath Ave. and a suite of townhouses on Keewatin Ave. that will launch on 2015. “With better transit, it’s going to become an even more desirable neighbourhood. Condos offer a great opportunity to get into it, especially for young families and first-time buyers. There are so many amenities — and with all the parks, the neighbourhood becomes your backyard.” Where to eat: Wiseys Pies & Bakehouse, at 874 Eglinton Ave. E., has an interesting pedigree. Opened earlier this year, it’s owned by New Zealander Gary Wise, who started his career at the age of 12 cleaning trays and prepping for a local baker. He’s overcome some major hurdles to perfect his New Zealand-style sweet and savoury pies for the Canadian market. “The butters are different, the flours are different, the humidity has a massive effect, but I think we’ve got it right. The community support certainly has been outstanding,” says Wise. In the interests of investigative journalism, this writer tasted both sweet and savoury versions and can report that Wise does indeed make a superlative pie. The coffee’s good, too. For family food shopping, there’s a Sobeys at 147 Laird Dr. Recently expanded by 10,000 square feet, the store now includes sushi, noodles and coffee bars, and sells freshly prepared meals. Where to play: The Leaside Memorial Community Gardens is a hub for hockey, curling, and skating. In 2011, it got a second ice pad, the first new one to be built in the City of Toronto in 40 years thanks to years of intense community support and nearly $4 million in public funds raised. In summer, nearby Sunnybrook Park is a favourite spot for picnicking, biking and bird-watching. Street Numbers 19 Kilometres of light rail that will run along Eglinton 60 Percentage by which it will be faster than bus service 6.7 Per cent the population rose between 2006-11 in Ward 26, home of Leaside’s Laird and Eglinton intersection 51.9 Percentage of families with kids, compared to 45.2 per cent throughout the City of Toronto More from Vicky Sanderson at thestar.com/life/vicky_sandersons_on_the_house. Also the DIY editor for Reno and Decor magazine, Vicky is on Twitter: @vickysanderson or email vswriter@sympatico.ca.Significance The need for students trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) jobs is growing rapidly in the United States, yet students do not enroll in the necessary courses to prepare for STEM careers. In a randomized controlled trial, parents in the utility–value intervention group received materials detailing the importance of STEM for their adolescents in high school. The intervention increased mathematics and science ACT scores and course-taking in high school. This greater high-school STEM preparation was associated, 5 y later, with increased STEM career pursuit. These findings suggest that educational policies should promote the personal relevance of high-school mathematics and science courses and involve parents in helping to promote STEM preparation and career pursuit. Abstract During high school, developing competence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is critically important as preparation to pursue STEM careers, yet students in the United States lag behind other countries, ranking 35th in mathematics and 27th in science achievement internationally. Given the importance of STEM careers as drivers of modern economies, this deficiency in preparation for STEM careers threatens the United States’ continued economic progress. In the present study, we evaluated the long-term effects of a theory-based intervention designed to help parents convey the importance of mathematics and science courses to their high-school–aged children. A prior report on this intervention showed that it promoted STEM course-taking in high school; in the current follow-up study, we found that the intervention improved mathematics and science standardized test scores on a college preparatory examination (ACT) for adolescents by 12 percentile points. Greater high-school STEM preparation (STEM course-taking and ACT scores) was associated with increased STEM career pursuit (i.e., STEM career interest, the number of college STEM courses, and students’ attitudes toward STEM) 5 y after the intervention. These results suggest that the intervention can affect STEM career pursuit indirectly by increasing high-school STEM preparation. This finding underscores the importance of targeting high-school STEM preparation to increase STEM career pursuit. Overall, these findings demonstrate that a motivational intervention with parents can have important effects on STEM preparation in high school, as well as downstream effects on STEM career pursuit 5 y later. A science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) “pipeline problem” exists in the United States, where STEM careers are growing rapidly, yet too few students are prepared to take advantage of them (1). STEM occupations are estimated to grow by 17% between 2009 and 2018, compared with 9.8% for non-STEM occupations, and it is expected that the majority (92%) of all STEM jobs will require some postsecondary education (2, 3). Furthermore, in 2008 only 4% of bachelor degrees in the United States were earned in engineering, compared with 31% in other countries, such as China (4, 5). Increasing the number of individuals qualified for and actually pursuing STEM careers can help the United States stay competitive with other advancing countries and improve the global economy through increased innovation and technology (6, 7). Therefore, it is vital to develop a population of college graduates with STEM degrees to meet these ever-increasing demands. To increase the pool of STEM workers, we need to increase the number of students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed for STEM careers. Currently, students in the United States lack mathematical and scientific skills when compared with students in other nations. In fact, international test score results show that 15-y-olds in the United States rank 35th in mathematics literacy and 27th in science literacy among participating nations (4, 5). Similar deficits in students’ STEM competence are revealed by examining students’ college preparatory examination scores. Specifically, in a recent study of ACT test-takers, only 44% met the college readiness level for mathematics and 36% for science (8). One way to develop students’ mathematics and science skills is to increase enrollment in STEM courses in high school. Research supports the link between increased exposure to STEM topics in classes and higher STEM achievement (9). However, students are allowed to opt out of elective STEM courses in high school, and as a result, many students are not exposed to the advanced mathematics or science classes necessary to attain postsecondary STEM degrees. For example, in 2009 only 17.8% of high-school students enrolled in physics and 21.0% enrolled in calculus or precalculus (10). The importance of high-school STEM preparation can be seen when examining students’ STEM career pursuit after high school and in college. Research shows that advanced high-school mathematics (e.g., algebra II, calculus) and science (e.g., physics, chemistry) courses are crucial predictors of STEM major enrollment in college (1, 11). Furthermore, in college there is a high degree of attrition from STEM majors. For example, only 62% of students between 2003 and 2009 who entered 4-y colleges as STEM majors graduated with a bachelor degree from a STEM domain, and insufficient STEM preparation in high school plays a role in this lack of persistence toward STEM careers (1, 2, 12). Thus, not only is STEM preparation in high school lacking, but it also affects entry into STEM majors in college, persistence toward those majors, and ultimately entry into STEM careers. Although many factors contribute to the lower levels of STEM preparation and career pursuit, research in psychology shows that this is, in part, a motivational problem (13). Expectancy-value theory posits that individuals make achievement-related choices, such as how hard they will study for a test or the types of courses in which they enroll, based on (i) their expectations for success and (ii) their subjective task value (i.e., the importance of a task) (13). Expectancy-value theory defines different types of subjective task value: intrinsic value (a task is important because it is enjoyable), attainment value (a task is important because it is related to your identity), and utility value (a task is important because it is relevant or useful for a current or future goal). Researchers have recently focused on increasing students’ perceived utility value with interventions because it is viewed as malleable to outside forces. Furthermore, correlational and longitudinal research has shown that utility value is a significant predictor of mathematics and science course-taking and STEM major enrollment (1, 14, 15). Thus, intervening to increase students’ perceived utility value in STEM domains is one promising direction for increasing students’ high-school STEM preparation as well as STEM career pursuit. Much of the intervention research has focused on student-centered interventions designed to increase students’ utility value in a topic or task, either by communicating utility value directly to students (i.e., telling them why it is useful) or asking students to generate their own ideas about why STEM topics are useful (i.e., asking them to write about why it is personally useful) (16, 17). Results suggest that these student-centered interventions can improve students’ motivation and performance in STEM domains, but the positive effects of these interventions often depend on individual differences. For example, explaining the utility of a novel math technique improved performance and interest for students who were already highly interested or confident in their mathematics ability (18, 19). Conversely, asking students to write about the utility of STEM topics in their lives proved to be most effective for students who lacked confidence (20) or who were members of underrepresented groups in colleges (21). For example, in a randomized controlled trial in high-school science classes, less confident students who were asked to write about the utility of the course showed increased interest in science and higher science grades than less-confident students in the control group (20). Although these studies suggest that utility-value interventions have positive effects for particular subgroups, utility-value interventions that combine direct communication of utility value with a self-generated component show a more universal positive effect on students’ motivation and performance (22). Furthermore, larger-scale randomized controlled trials have confirmed that the effects found in initial studies can improve high-school and college students’ motivation at scale and with representative groups of students (21, 23). Overall, findings from these student-centered intervention studies demonstrate consistent positive causal effects of utility value on motivation, interest, and academic performance (16, 17, 24). Even though student-centered interventions have been shown to be successful, schools do not always have the class time, the teacher training time, or the resources available to implement these interventions in classrooms. One alternative and potentially powerful route for increasing students’ perception of the relevance of STEM topics is by engaging their parents, given that parents play a critical role in shaping their students’ motivational beliefs (25, 26). Past research shows that parents’ motivational beliefs, such as the importance they place on mathematics and science for their child, predict their children’s motivational beliefs and educational outcomes in those subject areas (27). Parents are hypothesized to affect their children’s attitudes through multiple mechanisms, including parents’ behaviors (28, 29) and the quality of parents’ conversations with their children (30). These correlational findings suggest that parents can play an important role in communicating utility-value beliefs to their children and in increasing their children’s STEM motivation and career pursuit. Therefore, we tested whether an intervention designed to help parents communicate the utility of mathematics and science to their children would improve students’ STEM motivation and achievement. Current Study There is a long history of so-called two-generation interventions, which are defined as interventions that involve both parents and children (31). Consistent with this tradition of two-generation interventions, Harackiewicz et al. (32) tested an intervention that encouraged parents to communicate the utility value of STEM topics to their high-school–aged children. Parents were randomly assigned to the intervention or control condition, and the intervention materials (i.e., two brochures and a website) were distributed to parents when their children were in the 10th and 11th grades of high school. Intervention materials provided information about the utility and relevance of mathematics and science for high-school students and encouragement to discuss this information with their child. In addition, parents were given advice and recommendations about how to most effectively communicate this information to their children. For example, parents were advised to personalize the information to their children’s interests and goals by helping their children generate their own connections with STEM topics and supporting these connections with information and examples from the intervention materials. Parents in the control group did not receive any additional materials. Students could only be affected by the intervention through interactions with their parents because none of the intervention materials were ever directed to students. Harackiewicz et al. (32) found that this intervention increased students’ STEM course-taking in the 11th and 12th grades of high school by approximately one semester of additional STEM course-taking on average. Moreover, Rozek et al. (33) showed that those effects were mediated by changes in parents’ and students’ attitudes about STEM topics. The current study extended the original study in two important ways: first, we investigated if this parental intervention affected students’ mathematics and science achievement in high school; second, we conducted a 5-y follow-up when the participants were 20-y-old to examine students’ STEM career aspirations, college STEM course-taking, likelihood of choosing a STEM major in college, and perceptions of STEM value. To examine academic achievement as an additional measure of students’ high-school STEM preparation, we collected and analyzed students’ college preparatory standardized test scores (i.e., ACT scores) from their high-school records. Scores on this test reflect knowledge accrued from mathematics and science courses taken in high school, and we hypothesized that scores would be higher in the intervention condition, given that those students enrolled in more STEM courses. Furthermore, we tracked participants 5 y after the initial intervention (age 20) to assess long-term intervention effects on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit outcomes. At this time, we asked students about the type of career they desired, how many STEM courses they had taken in college, their current plans for their college major, and about their STEM attitudes. The goal of the current study was to examine the effects of the intervention on an additional high-school STEM preparation variable (i.e., ACT scores), as well as downstream effects on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit. First, we hypothesized that this parent-centered utility-value intervention would increase students’ mathematics and science ACT scores, in addition to the already documented effects on 11th and 12th grade mathematics and science course-taking. Second, we predicted that these effects on high-school outcomes would better prepare students for STEM careers. Thus, we predicted that the intervention would have long-term positive effects on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit (i.e., college STEM course-taking, the likelihood of choosing a STEM major, self-reported STEM value, and whether students aspired to a STEM career 5 y after the initial intervention) to the extent that the intervention improved students’ high-school STEM preparation. Although the intervention could also directly affect posthigh-school outcomes, research on the lasting effects of psychological interventions suggests that they are maintained by initiating a chain of positive recursive processes (34). That is, the intervention may change some outcome (behavior or psychological process) in the short term, and that outcome then has an effect on later outcomes. We tested our hypothesis by examining the indirect effect of the intervention on STEM career pursuit variables via high-school STEM preparation variables. In all, this study is unique in terms of being able to test both the short-term and long-term effects of a cost-effective parent-centered intervention on critical STEM preparation and career pursuit outcomes. Results Statistics and Correlations. Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations are reported in Table S1. Table S1. Zero-order correlations and descriptive statistics for major study variables Structural Equation Model. We used structural equation modeling to examine the relationships between variables over time during and after high school (Fig. 1 for the theoretical model). There were seven base predictors for our model, which were used to predict all high-school and posthigh-school outcomes: the intervention (+1 for intervention group and −1 for control group), students’ gender (+1 for male and −1 for female), level of parental education (z-scored), and all resulting two-way interactions as well as the three-way interaction between the intervention, students’ gender, and parental education. Fig. 1. Theoretical model of how the intervention should have long-term effects on STEM career pursuit through increased STEM preparation in high school. We hypothesized that increased high-school STEM preparation would have positive long-term effects on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit; we therefore allowed mathematics and science ACT scores and mathematics and science course-taking in 11th and 12th grade to predict the posthigh-school outcomes, along with the base predictors. All variables measured at the same time point (e.g., high school) were allowed to correlate. To assess the long-term effect of the intervention on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit, we examined the total indirect effect of the intervention on posthigh-school outcomes through high-school variables (35). Missing data were accounted for by using full information maximum-likelihood methods (36). The model was saturated, which does not allow for a meaningful test of model fit. For additional information on the model and measures, SI Materials and Methods (Table S2 summarizes the significant direct and indirect effects). Table S2. Summary of significant parameter estimates for direct and indirect effects for the model Direct intervention effects on high-school STEM preparation. The intervention had a significant effect on mathematics and science ACT score (z = 2.46, β = 0.19, P < 0.05) (Fig. 2A) and, as previously reported (32), 11th and 12th grade STEM course-taking (z = 2.22, β = 0.16, P < 0.05). Specifically, the intervention increased mathematics and science ACT scores by about 12 percentile points (Fig. 2B) and 11th and 12th grade STEM course-taking by nearly one semester (0.81 semesters). Because students were enrolling in 11th and 12th grade STEM courses and taking the ACT during the same time period, these variables were allowed to correlate in the model, but we cannot determine if increased course-taking led to higher ACT scores or vice-versa. Fig. 2. Effects of the intervention on ACT scores. The intervention significantly improved mathematics and science ACT scores (A), translating to a 12 percentile point increase (B). Effects are significant, even when controlling for students’ performance on state high-school standardized mathematics and science tests given before the intervention. Error bars represent ±1 SE of the mean. Ancillary ACT score analysis. Supplemental analyses were also conducted to examine if there was a difference on preintervention performance and if controlling for preintervention performance changed the intervention effect on mathematics and science ACT score (Table S3). Accordingly, we collected and examined high-school state standardized mathematics and science test scores for students from before the intervention [10th grade Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE) scores] and found no significant difference between intervention and control groups on students’ preintervention test scores (z = −0.29, β = −0.03, P = 0.77). Moreover, even when controlling for these preintervention test scores, the positive effect of the intervention on mathematics and science ACT score was significant (z = 3.61, β = 0.20, P < 0.001). Table S3. Unstandardized βs and SEs for regressions on ACT scores Direct intervention effects on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit. We estimated a secondary model that was identical to the main structural equation model, except that high-school STEM course-taking and ACT scores were not included. This approach allowed us to assess whether the intervention directly affected posthigh-school outcomes. There were no significant direct intervention effects on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit variables (Ps > 0.36) (Table S4). Table S4. Unstandardized betas and SEs for direct effects on posthigh-school outcomes in a structural equation model without high-school STEM preparation variables Associations between high-school STEM preparation and posthigh-school STEM career pursuit. Next, we tested whether high-school STEM preparation variables were predictors of posthigh-school STEM career pursuit outcomes. Mathematics and science ACT score was a significant predictor of college STEM course-taking (z = 2.36, β = 0.26, P = 0.02), such that students with higher mathematics and science ACT scores enrolled in more college STEM classes. High-school mathematics and science course-taking was a significant predictor of students’ college STEM course-taking (z = 3.77, β = 0.34, P < 0.01), the likelihood that students’ desired a STEM major (z = 2.82, β = 0.29, P < 0.01), perceived STEM value (z = 2.29, β = 0.22, P = 0.02), and STEM career aspirations (z = 3.13, β = 0.30, P < 0.01). Thus, mathematics and science course-taking in high school was a significant predictor of all posthigh-school outcomes, such that students who enrolled in more high-school mathematics and science courses also enrolled in more college mathematics and science courses, were more likely to desire a STEM major, valued STEM topics more, and were more likely to aspire to a STEM career. Overall, these results suggest that high-school STEM preparation is implicated in posthigh-school STEM career pursuit. In this model, none of the base predictors showed significant direct effects on college outcomes, indicating that the intervention may affect posthigh-school outcomes indirectly. Indirect effects of the intervention on posthigh-school STEM career pursuit through high-school STEM preparation. Finally, we tested for indirect effects of the intervention (37, 38). We hypothesized that the intervention would increase posthigh-school STEM career pursuit to the degree that it increased high-school STEM preparation (i.e., mathematics and science ACT scores and 11th and 12th grade mathematics and science course-taking). We tested this hypothesis by examining the total indirect effect on each of the posthigh-school outcomes through the two high-school STEM preparation variables. That is, we examined how intervention-induced changes in high-school STEM preparation were associated with increased STEM career pursuit after high school. Results showed that there was a significant indirect effect of the intervention on all but one of the posthigh-school outcomes. Specifically, there were significant indirect effects of the intervention on college STEM course-taking (z = 2.54, P = 0.01), STEM career aspirations (z = 2.19, P = 0.03), and perceived STEM value (z = 2.15, P = 0.03). The total indirect effect on the likelihood of desiring a STEM major was not significant (z = 1.67, P = 0.09). These results suggest that the intervention can influence posthigh-school STEM career pursuit indirectly, through intervention effects on high-school STEM preparation outcomes (Fig. 3 for a summary path model of these effects). Because the link between high-school STEM preparation and posthigh-school STEM career pursuit variables is correlational, we cannot infer a causal effect of the intervention on these outcomes, although the longitudinal design strengthens the evidence. Rather, we believe that our findings highlight a pathway through which interventions may work by starting a positive recursive process in which success in high school begets success after high school in the STEM domain. Fig. 3. Primary empirical path model. The effect of the intervention on high-school outcomes (i.e., mathematics and science ACT scores and course-taking) as well as outcomes measured 5 y after the intervention, including college STEM course-taking, STEM career aspirations, STEM motivation, and college STEM major. The intervention affected 5-y outcomes through mathematics and science ACT scores and 11th/12th grade STEM course-taking. The only indirect effect that is not significant is from the intervention to college STEM major (z = 1.67, P = 0.09). All paths between subsequent variables were tested, but only significant paths are shown. Numbers represent standardized β-weights. Discussion Given the need to promote preparation and career pursuit in STEM domains in the United States (1⇓–3), the goal of this project was to develop and test an intervention that engaged parents to encourage their children to take STEM courses in high school. We randomly assigned families to an intervention or control group, and intervention group parents received materials about the relevance of mathematics and science for their children and encouragement to discuss the relevance of these topics with their children during high school. Previous reports on this intervention found that it increased mathematics and science course-taking in high school (32). The current study followed up on those findings by examining the effect of the intervention on standardized test scores in high school as well as the long-term effects of increased high-school STEM preparation on STEM career pursuit after high school. We found that the intervention improved performance on ACT mathematics and science test scores by 12 percentile points. Consistent with a recursive process model whereby an initial improvement spurs on later positive outcomes (34), greater STEM preparation in high school was associated with increased STEM career pursuit after high school (i.e., STEM course-taking in college, STEM career aspirations, and perceived STEM value). These results suggest that students’ motivation is one key factor that can be leveraged to enhance STEM competence and career pursuit. Recent research has shown that precise, theory-driven social-psychological interventions can have powerful and long-lasting effects on educational outcomes when applied directly with students in schools (16, 17, 39). This study contributes to that body of knowledge by showing that parents are an additional resource that can be engaged to promote important student outcomes. These results are also consistent with expectancy-value theory, which predicts that increasing the personal relevance of topics will increase motivation and achievement (13) and points to the important role
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, told his Republican colleagues that they needed to vote on their health bill before the July 4 holiday — then he gave them an extension. But don’t expect the health care debate to drag on forever. There are legal and political reasons that Republicans really do need to decide in the next few weeks whether their legislative effort will succeed or go back on the shelf. The process could drag on past July, but there is tremendous pressure for Congress to act quickly. Waiting imperils tax reform Republicans chose to pass their health bill through a special budget process called reconciliation, which has a lot of rules. That choice has advantages — most important, it allows Republicans to avoid a filibuster and pass the legislation with 50 Senate votes (and a tiebreaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence), without any of the Democrats. But it also means that the health bill impedes other priorities. Leaders want to use the same budget procedure to pass tax reform, but Senate rules allow only one such reconciliation maneuver at a time. That means that, as long as health care drags on, tax reform can’t move forward, unless Republicans can attract Democratic support under normal procedure (where 60 votes is needed for a filibuster-proof majority).Search Gallery Goku - Super Saiyajin 3 Paterack 10 Gotta Catch 'Em All Paterack 9 Advertisement Advertisement Ghost Rider - Collab Paterack 17 Evolution of Goku Paterack 114 The Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild Paterack 221 Jyn Erso Paterack 111 Squid Kid - Splatoon Inkling Boy Paterack 8 Father and Son Paterack 87 The New Webslinger on the Block Paterack 12 The Amazing Day-Glow Spider-Man Paterack 11 Blastoise, Go! Paterack 3 Rival Schools - The New Class: Kyosuke Paterack 21 Splatoon - Are You A Kid Or Squid? Paterack 88 Ganondorf, The King of Gerudo Thieves Paterack 26 Falco Lombardi Paterack 38 Fox McCloud Paterack 60 Hulk vs. Hulkbuster Paterack 116 TETSUOOO! KANEDAAAA! Paterack 10 Valar Hyrulis Paterack 19 Baymax Fist Bump Paterack 67 Bulbasaur 2.0 Paterack 31 Green Lantern commission Paterack 3 OoT Ganondorf Sketch Paterack 13 Link, Hero of Twilight Paterack 82The Korean Business Research Institute has released the boy group brand reputation rankings for the month of August. 106,096,019 pieces of data were analyzed from July 11, 2017 to August 12, 2017, focusing on interaction, media coverage, communication, and community indexes to set the rankings. This is a 2.35 percent increase from the amount of data collected in July. For the month of August, EXO came in at first place with an interaction index of 1,919,456 points, media coverage index of 2,487,480 points, communication index of 3,590,706 points, and a community index of 9,192,234 points for a total of 17,189,876 points. Compared to last month’s 10,121,903 points, their score has increased by 69,83 percent. Second place went to BTS, with a total score of 11,157,291 points, a 14.18 percent increase from the previous month. The group recorded an interaction index of 2,160,224 points, media coverage index of 836,760 points, communication index of 2,829,767 points, and a community index of 6,912,208 points. Third place went to NU’EST with an interaction index of 2,585,528 points, media coverage index of 1,074,336 points, communication index of 744,954 points, and a community index of 5,474,458 points for a total of 9,879,276 points. This is a 289.19 percent increase from their July score of 2,538,402 points, moving them up from 16th place to 3rd place. The head of the Korean Business Research Institute explained, “According to the statistics, EXO has come in at first place for boy group brand reputation rankings. EXO released their fourth studio album ‘The War’ in July and sold approximately 960,000 copies. Some of their other achievements include topping iTunes charts in 42 countries, topping Billboard’s World Album Charts for two weeks, topping the Apple Music album charts in 19 countries, topping the United World Charts, and topping Xiami Music’s K-pop charts. They also came in at first place 11 times on various music shows.” Check out the top 30 below: 1. EXO 2. BTS 3. NU’EST 4. SEVENTEEN 5. BIGBANG 6. Shinhwa 7. BTOB 8. VIXX 9. WINNER 10. NCT 11. Highlight 12. INFINITE 13. B1A4 14. SECHSKIES 15. BEAST 16. ASTRO 17. SHINee 18. Super Junior 19. MONSTA X 20. GOT7 21. 2PM 22. Block B 23. JYJ 24. SNUPER 25. FTISLAND 26. VROMANCE 27. Golden Child 28. HALO 29. TVXQ 30. Voisper Source (1)The letter-writer who sent threatening and possibly poison-laced notes this month to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and an anti-illegal firearm group said anyone who tried to seize the writer's guns would be "shot in the face," a source with knowledge of the letters said Thursday. Preliminary tests indicate ricin was found in the letters, New York deputy police commissioner Paul Browne said Wednesday. One of the letters addressed to the mayor's office was opened at the city government's mail facility. The second letter to the mayor was opened by Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- founded and co-chaired by Bloomberg -- in Washington on Sunday. "You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns," both letters say, according to the source. "Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right and I will exercise that right till the day I die." JUST WATCHED Terrorism threats and concerns in U.S. Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Terrorism threats and concerns in U.S. 02:52 Both letters were postmarked in Shreveport, Louisiana, on May 20, the American Postal Workers Union said on its website. The suspicious material found in the two letters was a "pink-orange oily substance," Browne said, adding that it was the second of two tests that showed what appeared to be trace amounts of ricin. Bloomberg is an outspoken critic of current gun laws. In March, he said nationwide background checks on all gun sales would save lives. He said the note "obviously, referred to our anti-gun efforts, but there's 12,000 people (who) are going to get killed this year with guns and 19,000 that are going to commit suicide with guns, and we're not going to walk away from those efforts." The substance is being tested at the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland, with conclusive results expected by Friday. Some of the emergency services workers who touched the letter Friday were examined after they showed minor intestinal symptoms of ricin exposure on Saturday, Browne said. The symptoms have since subsided. Civilian workers showed no symptoms, Browne said in a statement. "We take a lot of security measures as you know," Bloomberg said. "The men and women that open the mail for example... they are well trained."RIP Karl Malden (updated) Like all character actors, Karl Malden never got quite the same level of attention as costars like Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Steve McQueen, Anthony Perkins, Montgomery Clift, Michael Caine, and George C. Scott. Even the seventies TV series he starred in, “The Streets of San Francisco” found him being overshadowed in the eyes of the teenybopper set by his young punk of a male ingenue costar, Michael Douglas. That was largely because Malden was the kind of performer who understood that acting is a team sport. His best scenes were like great duets with near perfect communication between him and his scene partners. The exception were American Express travelers’ checks; those, he wiped off the screen. Karl Malden died today at age 97, having been more or less fully retired since appearing in a 2000 episode of “The West Wing.” While he was never precisely an A-lister, he was a go-to actor for secondary leads, president of the Motion Picture Academy, and as far as I can tell a universally respected figure among actors and everyone else associated with the movie industry. He was also married to the same woman for seventy years, a rare enough Holllywood achievement to merit it’s own special Oscar. Not a bad life. Below the fold is a video tribute I found that, from the misspellings, I gather may come from Serbia. (Malden, whose real name was Mladen Sekulovich, was the son of a Serbian father and a Czechoslovak mother.) The image quality could be better and some of the clips are a little too brief, but it does give you an excellent overview of his truly diverse film career, which included work with some of the greatest Hollywood directors including Elia Kazan, John Frankenheimer, and Alfred Hitchcock. It also includes some interesting moments from two oddball spy films, “Murderer’s Row,” which I haven’t seen, and the underrated “Billion Dollar Brain,” which included some pretty amazing scenes between Malden and Michael Caine as his old spy buddy, Harry Palmer, as well as Françoise Dorléac as his treacherous spy girlfriend (though he’s pretty tricky himself). This scene from “A Streetcar Named Desire” may be a bit much for the Tennessee Williams-unfriendly, but it’s a special favorite of mine. Every time I see “Streetcar,” I forget I’m watching Karl Malden and Vivien Leigh, too very familiar faces to this film geek, and wind up hoping that somehow poor Blanche and Mitch will find happiness. (In case you haven’t seen the movie or the play, let’s just say the odds are slim.) That’s acting. And, finally, his best known role. <Sigh> My good pal Zayne has more video at More a Legend Than a Blog. Check it out. UPDATE: Christoper Campbell of SpoutBlog has a very good rundown of other blog postings on Karl Malden’s passing (which I’m happy to say includes us). He also mentions yet another celebrity death, the passing of actor and singer Harve Presnell, whose credits ranged from the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo” to such now semi- or completely forgotten sixties film musicals as “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “When the Boys Meet the Girls” and the legendary “Paint Your Wagon” (where, it’s safe to say, he easily out-sang costars Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin). He was also Daddy Warbucks — a part he was born to play in his later days — in touring productions of “Annie” and also did some really funny work as a gruff detective emeritus on the sadly canceled “Andy Barker, P.I.“The five-alarm fire broke out around 3 a.m. on the fourth floor of 221 W. 17th St. Rob Schmitt reports (Published Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015) A massive fire engulfed a Chelsea building early Tuesday, shutting down several streets, sending the smell of smoke as far as Queens and prompting fears the building may collapse. The five-alarm fire broke out around 3 a.m. on the fourth floor of 221 W. 17th St. and ripped into the fifth and sixth floors, tearing through the roof, the FDNY said. The FDNY tweeted that the fire was under control just after 7 a.m., but also said the building, which is near Seventh Avenue, was in danger of collapsing. "The building is in major danger of collapse, so we are keeping everybody away from the building," an FDNY chief said. "We have a few other buildings that are evacuated because of the potential collapse, and this is going to be an extended operation." A "collapse perimeter" has been set up around the building and across the street, the FDNY said. People who work next to the building are not allowed to go into their offices. Neighbor Joshua Bares said he came around the corner because he smelled smoke and saw flames shooting "everywhere." The apartment building across the street was evacuated as smoke permeated the neighborhood. “I saw a black cloud and then five minutes later I saw all these flames coming up from the bottom to the top,” said Alan Jennings, who lives across the street. “It wasn’t good to inhale some of that stuff.” Nearby restaurant Cafeteria opened its doors to evacuees so they could stay warm. Many people said they were concerned that Walker Tower, a classic art deco building in the neighborhood, was compromised by the fire. It is unclear if the fire affected that building, which was once the corporate headquarters of Verizon. The 10-story building was under construction and slated to house a luxury, 14-unit apartment building called the Dorian, according to TheRealDeal.com. Contractors had filed applications for installing a sprinkler and standpipe system back in August, but the application was still under review, records from the NYC Department of Buildings show. Sprinklers weren't installed in the building when the fire broke out. One lane on Seventh Avenue had reopened by 5 a.m. after the street was closed from West 23rd Street to the teens as firefighters worked to put out the flames. Some side streets were also temporarily closed between Seventh and Ninth Avenues. It wasn’t clear what sparked the blaze. No injuries were reported. MAN 5-ALARM 221 W 17 ST, VACANT MULTIPLE DWELLING (BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION) FIRE 4TH, 5TH, 6 FLR AND THRU ROOF, UNDER CONTROL — FDNY (@FDNY) October 20, 2015 Top News Photos: R. Kelly Leaves Jail After Paying BondAustralians who spend a significant chunk of time overseas often complain about how cut off they are from news of the homeland: unless a news item can be tied to an adventurous croc or Kylie Minogue, chances are, it won't make overseas bulletins. Usually this is lamented in a mixture of hurt pride and outrage (doesn't the world know who we are?). But perhaps at the moment, it is better for our international reputation that the rest of the world remains blissfully unaware of what's going in Oz. On the surface, the facts and figures hardly look worrying. Treasurer Wayne Swan, voted "the world's best finance minister" by Euromoney magazine last year, has just handed down his fifth budget, in which he scraped together an (albeit nominal) surplus of $1.5bn (£950m). Having survived the 2008-09 global financial crisis virtually unscathed, Australia's unemployment rate is at 4.9%, the Aussie dollar is historically strong, we have a AAA credit rating and, as Swan argues, over the next two years we are set to outperform every major advanced economy. Yet as Europe grapples with truly existential questions, Australia too is trying to convince itself that it is having a tough time. True, this week has seen billions wiped off the Australian stock market – Qantas took a huge hit – and the Reserve Bank made another small cut to the cash rate to buffer against the "further weakening in Europe" and "slower Chinese growth." Meanwhile, consumer confidence is down and still spooked by the global financial crisis. But the bottom line, as the OECD recently noted, is that Australia is in an enviable economic position (particularly with all those mineral resources and China). Yet political debate here has been consumed by the idea that we're under threat and feeling the pinch. One of the biggest political arguments at the moment is the suggestion that foreign workers are taking Aussie jobs – thanks to a deal that will see 1,700 foreign workers brought in for a $9.5bn mining project in remote Western Australia. And Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her colleagues face a wipe-out at next year's federal election, in part due to anger over the introduction of a carbon tax on 1 July, and the widely held perception that Australians can't afford it. The government is rolling out billions of dollars of compensation to small businesses, families and pensioners – some of it before the $23-a-tonne carbon price starts – but this has done nothing to lift their position in the polls (which has Labor at a seriously woeful 26% primary vote). The hard-done-by vibe hasn't been helped by the fact that the government has spent much of this year talking up a "class war" – pitting low-income earners against big bad billionaire miners. It's not that we're not aware of the European situation. The news may not flow freely from Australia to the rest of the world, but the news of the world certainly flows freely here. We've seen pictures of rioters on the streets, desperately unhappy about austerity measures. We've seen the footage of concerned conversations between German chancellor Angela Merkel and whatever European leader she happens to be meeting. But Australia's political debate doesn't seem to register the difference. We are obsessed with rising costs and perceived threats to our quality of living. The coalition is fanning the flames of this. Opposition leader Tony Abbott used today's rate cut as proof that the government doesn't understand how hard it is for Australian families and their mortgages. "These are very, very difficult times," he said. And Abbott has predicted the carbon tax will destroy the economy in a slow, painful death. As he said this week: "It's going to be a python squeeze rather than a cobra strike." The government isn't necessarily helping matters either. Swan may be insisting that Australians keep the European situation in "perspective". But Labor is also talking in terms of economic storm clouds. According to the government, last month's budget needed to be "tough" and Labor has been at pains to tell families that they understand how hard it is right now – stumping up extra payments to prove the point. One wonders how Australians will cope if times really do become difficult here. • Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfreePlease enable Javascript to watch this video WILLIAMSPORT -- Police in Williamsport said a man was shot and killed late Monday night. Officers were called to Anthony Street in the city just before 11 p.m. for reports of shots fired. Police found a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds at the scene. The man was taken to Williamsport Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The victim was identified as Jamil Bryant, 21, of Williamsport. Since the beginning of this year, there have been seven shooting incidents in the city of Williamsport and three out of 12 total victims have died. Williamsport police were called to the 400 block of Anthony Street, near the intersection with Penn, at about 10:40 p.m. Monday. That's when they found the victim, in the middle of the street, shot several times. He later died at a hospital. Natasha Reyes lives just feet away from where the victim was found. "We were just watching TV and sleeping, well, we fell asleep to the TV. We heard firecrackers, what we thought were firecrackers, we got out there and (the victim) was just laying there," said Reyes. After sunrise, you could get a better idea of what happened. Paint on the pavement marked bullet casings, at least 16. Plus, bullets hit a vacant home. Reyes first thought was for the safety of her daughter, and for the victim's mother. Kristen Hill lives on the other side of the street. She, too, thought the noise came from firecrackers, but she soon learned this was something more, and something very bad. "I heard someone scream someone's name and they then said they're already on their way. That's when I heard it was definitely gunshots because it sounded like someone called an ambulance." It's been a violent year in Williamsport. A dozen people have been shot so far this year. In spite of it all, the people who live there say what happened Monday night is way out of the ordinary, and thoughts turn to the man, their neighbor, who lost his life. "He was cool," Reyes said. "He always hung out outside with us, the kids and everything. He made sure his sister was always taken care of. It was awesome." The victim's family members and friends are mourning his loss. Third homicide in Williamsport this year. Police check crime scene on Anthony Street. @wnep pic.twitter.com/rkf8PffNHo — Andy Palumbo (@AndyPalumbo61) May 12, 2015 Police in Williamsport say multiple shots fired near Penn and Anthony Street. One man was taken to hospital @WNEP pic.twitter.com/UnOXkbw2Xi — Kristina Papa (@_KristinaPapa) May 12, 2015Rotaract Shanghai is glad to welcome you for its 2016 ‘Run in blue’ April charity run. 上海青年扶轮服务团竭诚邀请您参加2016年4月的公益活动“蓝色奔跑。” What is Run in Blue? 什么是蓝色奔跑？ Run in blue is a project held every year by Rotaract. The project is simple: Participants come to run 5km to support a charity, wearing a blue t-shirt. Every year has its different charity to support. Participants are usually university students for one half of the runners, and leading managers in Shanghai finance and industry for the other half. ‘蓝色奔跑’是青年扶轮服务团每年举行的一个项目。该项目比较简单：参与者来跑5公里，同时支持一个慈善组织，并穿一件蓝色的T恤。每年我们都会和不同的慈善机构合作。一半参与跑步的通常都是大学生，另一半则为上海金融和工业的领导者。 What, when, where, how many? -This year the ‘Run in Blue’ will take place Saturday April 9th, and after the main run there will be other sport activities held at the same venue. The event will provide beverages, food snacks and Run in blue t-shirt for participants,as well as Autism Awareness Sleeves “A-WARE” produced by GAP. -The venue is not fully defined yet, but our choices are on several running tracks close to Shanghai city centre. -2016 participants number is expected to be high, we are planning upwards of 300 runners. What charity are we supporting this year? This year, Rotaract is joining forces with Rotary for their A+ Game. A+ Game is a Rotary month project for April, which is month for Autism. Rotary is willing to raise awareness about autism in China, and give training to parents to improve their daily life, to make days more simple and enjoyable. How can a company contribute to this project? 我们今年与哪些公益机构合作？时间，地点，内容，人数？ - 今年的‘蓝色奔跑 ’ 将会在 4 月 9 号星期六举行。在主要的跑步环节结束以后，同一个会场里面还会举行别的体育活动。此活动会为参与者们提供饮料，点心，蓝色奔跑的 T 恤，与由 GAP 制造的自闭症意识袖套“ A-WARE 。” - 场地还没有最后的确定。现在可供参考的选择是贴近上海市中心的几个操场跑道。 - 2016 年的参与者总数预计会比较高，我们准备支持 300 位左右的参跑选手。今年青年扶轮服务团将与扶轮社的 A+ 表现联手。 A+ 表现是扶轮社 4 月的项目。 4 月也同样是自闭症关怀月。扶轮社愿意提高在中国对自闭症的关注意识，并给予自闭症儿童的家长培训来改善他们的日常生活。让他们的生活变得稍许轻松与愉快。 There are two ways to contribute: - Be an official sponsor of the run. Logo will be on every online postand flyer, plus on the blue t-shirt for the running day. There are different possibilities to become sponsor: o Silver Sponsor: Donate 2000 RMB to be featured onthe back of the T-shirt o Gold Sponsor: Donate 5000 RMB to be featured on top of the back on the T-shirt (larger logo) as well as on all our posters in universities and companies o Gold sponsor + Digital (Limited amount): Donate 5000 RMB to be featured on top of the back on the T-shirt (larger logo) as well as on all our posters in universities and companies (same like the Gold Sponsor) +Get a place on the WeChat and Website promotions of us and our Media Sponsors. o Platinum sponsor: Donate 10,000 RMB to be featured in the front of the T-shirt as well as getting a premium place in our WeChat promotions o Partner: Largest package will include being featured on the trophy for the Run, as well as getting a place on top of all our banners and WeChat posts. The price is open to auction. - Promote the run to your employees: This event can be a team building for you, while at the same time being CSR and brand building. Sponsoring yourpeople to run can also be considered sponsorship, as can be discussed. - In-Kind sponsorship: If you think your company can supply something needed for the run (Venue, Food…) please reach out to us, and based on the value of the In-Kind help, we offer sponsorships packages. Both ways are good to improve the company CSR, further more the second point can help for teambuilding among employees. 企业如何可与参与蓝色奔跑？有几种方法参与: - 成为蓝色奔跑的官方赞助商。公司的商标会在每一份文献与传单上，同时也会在跑步当天的蓝色T恤上面。成为赞助商有以下几种方法： l 银级赞助商：捐赠2000元人民币，您的标志会出现在T恤的背部 l 金级赞助商：捐赠5000元人民币，您的标志会出现在T恤的背部的上方（大标志），并出现在我们所有的校园公司海报上面。 l 金级赞助商+线上（限额）：捐赠5000元人民币，您的标志会出现在T恤的背部的上方（大标志），并出现在我们所有的校园公司海报上面（与金级赞助商相同）。同时会在出现在我们微信和网站的推广活动与我们的媒体赞助方上面。 l 白金赞助商：捐赠10000人民币，您的标志会出现在T恤的正面，并的得到我们微信和网站推广的最佳位置。 l 合作伙伴：最大的套餐方案包括您的标志出现在蓝色奔跑的奖杯上面，并在我们的所有的横幅，海报，微信贴上面出现。这个价格将会有竞价产生。 - 像您的员工们推广蓝色奔跑：这个活动可以成为贵公司增加团队凝聚力的契机，同时可以扩建公司的社会责任与提高公司的知名度。赞助你们的员工参跑也算是赞助的一种方法，可以进一步讨论。 - 物资赞助商：如果您觉得贵公司可以提供蓝色奔跑所需要的资源（场地，食物，茶水等），请与我们联系。我们会把物资赞助折合的金额，给予您以上的赞助套餐。以上几种方法都是提高公司社会责任的好办法，第二种方法更可以提高公司团队的凝聚力。个人如何参与蓝色奔跑？任何人都欢迎来参与此项公益活动。除了参与跑步的最好的贡献方法就是尽可能的将此活动分享给最多的人。广而告之，提高认知，参与活动，拿出 A+ 的表现。费用？预约后参与者可以在线付款，预约付款平台不久将会上线。早期参与费如下：初高中或大学学生：100元成人（团队折扣可以洽谈）：140元早期参与的截止日为3月25号星期五11：59pm 平日的参与费：初高中或大学学生：150元成人：200元 How can people contribute personally to this project? Anyone is welcome to run for this charity project. The best way to contribute aside running is to share this event to as many people in Shanghai as possible, to spread the word, raise awareness and support for this running and for A+ game. Costs? Rsvp and payment can be done online, the platform will be available anytime soon. Early birds participation fees are as follow: 100 RMB for high schoolers or university students 140 RMB for active adults (Group Discount available on negotiation) Early birds are running until Friday 24th 11:59pm After that participation fees will be: 150 RMB for high schoolers or university students 200 RMB for active adults Who is Rotaract? 青年扶轮服务团？ Rotaract is a club for adults ages between 18-30 that meets every monday night to exchange ideas, plan activities and projects, and socialize. Rotaract is one of the biggest youth driven global NGOs worldwide. More than 180,000 members between 18-30 in 180 countries make their communities a better place. 青年扶轮社是依循国际扶轮的规章所成立的地区性社会团体，以增进职业交流及提供社会服务为宗旨。在全球168国家或地区中共有180,000位社员 http://rotaractshanghai.org/Gabriel McCaughry, founder of Anathema Publishing Ltd. and author of (h)Auroræ is our guest in podcast episode 195. This is a special two-part episode and you will find the second half available at Rudolf’s Thoth-Hermes podcast at https://www.thothermes.com/. “Gabriel McCaughry is the founder, editor, publisher, and contributing writer to Anathema’s PILLARS occult periodical, Gabriel has fully overseen the creation and publishing of several well-respected esoteric titles including Craig Williams’ Entering the Desert and Cult of Golgotha. “A pilgrim in the Mystery Tradition, Gabriel is deeply fascinated with all subjects relating to Alchemy, Hermeticism, and the Nameless Arte... he walks the Path of a Luciferian Gnostic. His systemic (albeit very personal and customized) approach to praxes and devotion stems from a profound love... “ “(h)Auroræ is Gabriel McCaughry’s first published manuscript – a tome which correlates directly with Anathema Publishing’s mandate, along with his unique views and methodologies on alchemical book-making. This is very much a continuation in the spirit of his previous contributions to the PILLARS occult periodical (and elsewhere), but within (h)Auroræ, these concepts are fully developed and actualized.” (h)Auroræ, an exploration of the Gabriel McCaughry’s devotion to mystical alchemy is replete with cryptic verse, beautiful production, wonderful esoteric art and symbols all synthesized in an act of devotion to the quest for the Great Mystery. McCaughry’s book, like all of those he produces for Anathema Publishing, is an exemplar in terms of modern esoteric publishing. The artwork, fonts, paper, and book craftsmanship are exquisite. (h)Auroræ brings the tradition of cryptic alchemical texts into the twenty-first century with grace and beauty. “(h)Auroræ is a mystifying, albeit utterly profound journey. Part ontological synthesis, philosophical rambling, magical diary, visual grimoire, inspired mystical poem, revelatory/individuation process, and part alchemical vessel of expression, the book exists under the umbrella of what the author refers to as ‘Gnostic Luciferianism.’ First and foremost, however, (h)Auroræ exists as an act of eternal remembrance.” Remember to catch the second half of this interview with Gabriel at the Thoth-Hermes podcast. In the Chamber of Reflection, Rudolf and I ruminate over the recent interview with Mark Stavish about his book on egregores in a rather interesting conversation about humanity’s place in the scheme of things. And the member’s Q&A with Frater Ashen Chassan has been recorded and should be available in early February. Finally, our discussion circle around P.D. Ouspensky’s excellent book The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution is ongoing and the audio of the third lecture with discussion questions will be ready soon. I’d like to remind you that although you’re able to listen to this podcast at no charge, it costs time and money to create. We ask you to support our efforts and the creation of future podcasts by joining the membership section at https://chamberofreflection.com or subscribing via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/occultofpersonality. And if you’re already supporting the show or have done so in the past – my heartfelt thanks and I salute you! https://www.anathemapublishing.com/haurorae https://www.anathemapublishing.com/gabriel-mccaughry intro music – “Awakening” by Paul Avgerinos outro music – “Tending the Light” by Ghost of MaineFacebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Ramesh Ponnuru has an excellent piece over at Bloomberg.com Media fact-check organizations have no such doubts. Factcheck.org says it’s “just false“ to deny that the stimulus has created jobs. It cites the Congressional Budget Office‘s estimate that the stimulus had saved or created millions of jobs. But the CBO, as its director has explained, hasn’t really checked the effect of the stimulus. It has merely reported what the results of additional federal spending and tax credits would be if you assume that spending and tax credits are stimulative. In other words: If you assume that stimulus works, it must have worked. This circularity doesn’t bother PolitiFact, a group that seeks to elevate the tone of our political debates but usually lowers it. Relying on the CBO and other groups that use similar methods, it says people who deny the effectiveness of the stimulus have their “pants on fire.” The Research Last summer, Dylan Matthews reviewed the research on the stimulus for the Washington Post and dug up six studies that found a positive effect. Three of them were based on models that assume the stimulus worked. Three of them were supposedly empirical confirmations of this effect. These three all found that states (or counties) that got more stimulus money had stronger economic performances than places that received less. But nobody denies that the federal government can shift the distribution of economic activity. If Congress were to give me $50 billion, I am sure car dealerships and liquor stores in my area would see an uptick in sales. That doesn’t mean the nation as a whole would come out ahead. (I am willing to go along with the experiment if Congress doubts this.) Great stuff. One area I agree with Krugman is that those political “fact checkers” are not very reliable, especially when the issue is complex. It’s sad that the six studies showing fiscal stimulus works contain 3 that simply assume it works, and 3 that suffer from the fallacy of composition. That’s all they got? Tyler Cowen has a good post today on the missing GDP mystery. I liked this observation: In general we undermeasure the gdp gains of successful export nations, because their outputs tend to have lower percentages of rent-seeking expenditures and more real stuff of value. I suppose this is why countries like Germany seem richer than you’d expect from their GDP/person numbers, adjusted for PPP. The classic example of this occurred in the old Soviet bloc, where countries like Romania claimed the fastest GDP growth rates in the world for significant periods of time. It also tells me that the Singapore/Hong Kong GDP numbers are legit, as both places have extremely high ratios of trade to GDP. But the US jobs mystery remains, as both productive and non-productive GDP requires labor. Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Tags: This entry was posted on March 13th, 2012 and is filed under Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.SALT LAKE CITY — When Blackjack the cat was found bleeding from his mouth in his owner’s garage Tuesday, Lee and Carole Johnson thought he might have been been hit by a car. But an X-ray revealed something more sinister: Blackjack had been shot, and bullet fragments were still inside his head. “It was just horrifying,” Carole Johnson, who lives in a rural area near Ogden, said in a statement. Lee first took the 4-year-old indoor/outdoor cat to an emergency veterinarian and a family veterinarian, who recommended taking Blackjack to the Utah Veterinary Center in Salt Lake City. The X-rays showed multiple fragments of the bullet went into Blackjack’s jaw and cheek. The bullet apparently blew through his lower left jawbone. Dr. Christina Boekhout, a veterinary surgeon at the center, said she was amazed by what she saw. “I was disappointed that Blackjack had been shot, but I considered him very lucky to have such great owners to put him through a repair,” she said in the statement. Boekhout surgically removed several bullet fragments and put in a plate that connects the damaged portion of the mandible. She said Blackjack will need regular monitoring to make
is like, did I want to be a boy, or did I just want to be treated like a boy?” Then there’s Aidan Star Jones, a 12-year-old trans boy from Arizona who shows up to Bindle & Keep with his grandmother—looking for something to wear to his bar mitzvah. With emo-style black hair and hipster glasses, he shrugs and stares at his feet frequently: “I’m just nervous, I suppose,” he tells the tailors. He’s never looked good in clothes and is afraid this suit will be “more of the same.” He takes a sip of water and clutches a stuffed dinosaur after explaining that his dad doesn’t support his gender identity and he doesn’t have many friends at school. Suited‘s director, Jason Benjamin, approached Lena Dunham about the documentary after reading a profile on Bindle & Keep in the New York Times. Bindle & Keep’s founder, Daniel Friedman, who is straight and cisgender—meaning he identifies as the gender of his birth—had originally intended to cater to Wall Street businessmen. Then he met Rae Tutera, who convinced him to make masculine suits for people like her who don’t identify with their feminine curves. They began working together, and now serve hundreds of clients with a range of identities—from a trans-male nurse preparing for his wedding to a trans woman attorney looking for a conservative suit to wear when she argues a case in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. “Fashion is universal. Everybody has to get dressed. Everybody has to be comfortable in their clothing,” Lena Dunham told the Hollywood Reporter. “We all live in this complicated world where we are navigating our own relationship to our bodies, and to what’s been assigned to us culturally and what our own desires are.” The film asks us to consider tough questions as its characters talk candidly about their lives. “When I was a kid, I did fucking want to be a boy,” says Melissa “Mel” Plaut, 39, a gender-nonconforming cabbie. “The problem is like, did I want to be a boy, or did I just want to be treated like a boy? Right, like treated the same way the world treats boys, but still be okay to be me? And that where I think I’ve landed.” Mel, who’s in the market for a suit for a birthday celebration, recalls fighting to get out of frilly dresses as a kid and into Metallica T-shirts and skin-tight jeans as a teenager. Female pronouns don’t sit right, but neither do male ones: “I don’t feel like any of it quite fits.” When people have been struggling their entire lives and they finally get into something that really fits them…That’s not fashion anymore.” Some of the most touching moments come during interactions with family members, such as when Derek Matteson, the nurse, hugs his gray-haired mother before going under the knife for a hysterectomy, or later knots his father’s tie before getting married to the love of his life. Or when Aidan, the 12-year-old, comes back for a fitting with his dad, whose cutoff denim vest reveals tattooed arms. “You look sharp,” he says to his son, who’s smiling in his new suit. “It’s all about just feeling great in your body,” explains Bindle & Keep’s Friedman. “Especially when people have been struggling their entire lives, and they finally get into something that really fits them, that really fits them the way they’ve always envisioned something would fit them. That’s not fashion anymore. And that’s what we’re after.” Suited premieres at a time when Americans are growing more aware of transgender issues, with Caitlyn Jenner coming out and ongoing battles over which bathrooms trans people are allowed to use. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re trans or you know someone who is or you only just recently learned what the word “transgender” means. The film is a testament to the courage of embracing who you truly are, whoever that may be, and a poignant reminder that one size rarely fits all.Portuguese MMA fighter Joao Carvalho has died following a Total Extreme Fighting event in Dublin at the weekend. Carvalho had taken ill after he was beaten via technical knockout in a fight against Charlie Ward, a team-mate of UFC Champion Conor McGregor. The Portuguese fighter was checked by doctors at the National Stadium and following that he was taken to Beaumont Hospital. Carvalho underwent emergency brain surgery but a statement from his Vitor Nobrega Team confirmed his death. "It is with great sorrow and sadness that we write these words, that the death of the athlete Joao Carvalho happened after 48 hours in critical condition," the statement read. "On the site (Carvalho) was immediately assisted by the medical team and then quickly transported to the hospital Beaumont, where he was subjected to a brain surgical intervention, after which the athlete remained in critical condition during the 48 hours following, eventually passed away on this Monday at 21:35 hours." Organisers of the event, Total Extreme Fighting, also issued a statement to extend condolences to the family of Joao Carvalho. "The TEF Team are deeply saddened by the news of Team Carvalho's death. Last night 11th of April, mixed martial artist Joao Carvalho passed away after two days of the best medical care and treatment in Beaumont Hospital following his three round TKO stoppage defeat on Saturday 9th April at the National Stadium in Dublin. "Following the referee stoppage Joao, who was representing Portuguese club Team Nóbrega, was assessed by doctors and medical staff at the onsite medical office as per normal procedure. "It was determined that he should be sent to hospital. In hospital he received emergency treatment and transferred to ICU later that evening. Formal hospital medical reports and procedures are still being carried out. Joao was 28 years of age." Total Extreme Fighting chief executive Cesar Silva added: "We extend our most sincere condolences to the family of João Carvalho's and his teammates in Team Nobrega. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. We'd also like to thank all sports fans for their concern and support. We will give whatever support we can to Joao's family. "We have been in contact with his family and they have requested that we all understand their need for privacy at this difficult time." Straight Blast Gym Ireland head coach John Kavanagh, who was in Ward's corner for the fight with Carvalho and who also trains Conor McGregor, asked for people to respect the privacy of the Portuguese fighter's family. "Our condolences and thoughts, though, are with Joao’s family and friends and we kindly ask everyone to respect their privacy at this time," he said. Kavanagh, who also works with the Irish Amateur Pankration Association which represents MMA in Ireland, revealed that the group will be working with TEF to establish the exact timeline of events on the night of the bout. "The IAPA is working diligently with TEF to gather and evaluate all relevant facts and event processes and will participate in any investigation," he confirmed.Former Hammers midfielder Jack Collison has signed a one-year contract with League One club Peterborough United. The 26-year-old Welsh international has been without a club since being released by Championship side Ipswich Town last season but is back in the game having landed a contract with The Posh. Very excited to have signed for @theposhdotcom.. Looking forward to working with @DaveRobertson11 & @grantmccann11. Roll on next season ⚽️ Jack collison (@Jcollison31) May 29, 2015 Thanks for all the messages... Can't wait to get started now.. I have missed it so much ❤️⚽️ Jack collison (@Jcollison31) May 29, 2015 Collison, speaking via Peterborough's website said: "It feels a bit like a fairytale because I started my career at Peterborough in the Academy so it is great to be back here."I knew the manager [Dave Robertson] back then. I have been speaking with him and I believe in his plans for this football club. The manager has played a massive part in my decision to sign here."I had a great time with West Ham and have been working extremely hard day and night to get myself ready for a new challenge this summer. I am looking forward to meeting the boys in the dressing room in pre-season and getting out there on the pitch."And Collison's new boss Robertson added: "I have been speaking with Jack for a number of weeks now and I am delighted that he has agreed to join the club and bought into what we are trying to achieve here."He brings a lot of experience and has obviously played at the highest level both with West Ham United and with Wales."He has scored some big goals and he fits into what we are looking for as coaches. I believe in Jack, I know what he can bring to this football club and myself and Grant [McCann] are looking forward to working with him."Collison - who spent nine years at West Ham before leaving last summer - was also a double-winner at last night's KUMB Awards, where he won the Most Missed and Podcast Guest of the Year categories.Yorkshire batsmen Ballance and Root are now an integral part of England's middle order As Yorkshire's players piled up on the Trent Bridge outfield to celebrate the county's first championship title since 2001, two faces may well have been familiar to even the casual cricket fan. The pair - namely Joe Root and Gary Ballance - are proud products of the Yorkshire academy and now lynchpins of the England Test batting line-up. Born one year and 5,000 miles apart - Root, 23, in a middle-class village outside Sheffield, Ballance, 24, on a tobacco farm in Zimbabwe - it was at Yorkshire that the paths of these two batting prodigies intertwined. During a year as housemates, they ate takeaways, caught each other out with practical jokes and honed the skills that would take them to the very top. In the gap between the international season and their triumphant return to the county ranks, BBC Sport sat down with the pair to reflect on their remarkable rise. 'He was never on time' Ballance left Zimbabwe as a 16-year-old in 2006 to take up a sports scholarship with Harrow in England. In between his studies he played enough games for Derbyshire to encourage Yorkshire to sign him on an academy contract the following year. At the same academy Root was already establishing himself as one of the country's brightest batting prospects. "We had a few games for the second team and then on the weekend we used to play for the academy in the Yorkshire League," explains Ballance. "We opened the batting together and got on quite well. I couldn't afford a car so I used to get Rooty to pick me up every Saturday morning. I think I owe him a few lifts." Joe Root made his first-class debut in 2010, Gary Ballance in 2008 "He was never on time," interjects Root. "I was always banging down the door. "But it's always nice when you go through the academy, second team and first team stages with guys you have played with for a long time. "We know each other's games well, enjoy each other's company and now, to be able to do that at international level, is great. You obviously make friends within the side from other parts of the country but to have familiar faces around is sometimes really reassuring when times are hard." 'The Yorkshire snipper' Despite his choir-boy looks, Root soon earned himself a reputation for mischief in the Yorkshire dressing-room, much to the chagrin of some of the team's older campaigners. "When I arrived, there were lots of tales about 'the Yorkshire Snipper', who used to cut up people's clothes," says Ballance. "He disappeared for about five years then turned up again. People were pulling up their socks and they were coming up to their knees. Rooty being a practical joker, everyone thought it had to be him." Root grins knowingly, then adds: "The worst one was when I did it to (veteran fast bowler) Ryan Sidebottom after dropping two catches off him. At the end of the day's play he was sitting next to me in the dressing-room and was already absolutely furious. "Then he got out of the shower, pulled his first sock on right up to the top of his thigh and just blew up. All the lads were trying not to look at him and laugh. I just knew I had to get out of there or I would be in a bit of pain." Root in numbers Source: Opta In the period since his debut in December 2012, Root is the second highest run-scorer in Test cricket behind Kumar Sangakkara, with 1,732 runs. Since the start of 2013 only Ricky Ponting (123.3 in six innings) has a higher County Championship average than Root's 87.1 in seven innings. Root averages 64.7 in Tests in England and 28.7 in Tests away from home. Of the 11 England batsmen to face at least 200 balls in Tests this year, Root has the lowest boundary run percentage (42%). 'Steak, egg and chips' By 2011, Root and Ballance were both established in the Yorkshire top six, two of the stronger performers in a side that was relegated from Division One of the Championship. By then, they were also housemates in a village near Bradford called Idle. An appropriate name for two young lads with limited domestic skills? It depends on who you ask. Ballance: "I had one go-to meal which was steak, eggs and chips. But Rooty did a bit more of the cooking than me. I would do the dishes and the housework." Root: "That's not true. He's the messy one." Ballance: "He says I'm messy but he's a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning. That's perfect for me because I could leave the house how I wanted it and turn up the next day and Rooty had cleaned it." Root: "I cooked now and then. Spicy prawns was my speciality. But there were plenty of takeaways as well. "At the end of the 2012 season, Yorkshire sat us both down and told us that we'd obviously both done well this year but if we had any aspirations of playing international cricket, we were going to have to move out. We weren't eating the right things and had started to put on a bit of weight. "Within six months of moving out, I was playing for England, and a year later so was Gary, so it seems to be the right decision." Ballance and Root received their county caps from Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale in 2011 'Bittersweet time down under' At the end of the 2012 summer, Root was called up for England's tour of India. Drafted in for the final Test in Nagpur 17 days before his 22nd birthday, he played the sixth-longest debut innings in terms of balls faced, scoring 73 from 229 balls, to help England secure their first series victory in India for 27 years. After making his maiden century against New Zealand on his home ground the following summer, he scored 180 against Australia at Lord's during an otherwise difficult home Ashes series. Like most of his team-mates, Root's form deserted him during the disastrous Ashes whitewash down under in 2013-14. Asked to bat at number three following Jonathan Trott's departure, he scored only one fifty in eight innings. When he was then dropped for the final Test in Sydney, it was Ballance who took his place. "You always want to play but I wasn't scoring the runs that I had been," says Root. "It was nice to know there was someone coming in who I knew was going to be up for it. "It was a little bit bittersweet, but to see a mate who had come up with me through the academy and second team now playing for England was a proud moment. I enjoyed watching him play, although not so much when Mitchell Johnson rearranged his face." "You laughed your head off when that happened," Ballance retorts. "I had mixed feelings about replacing Rooty, but that's what sport's about. It was strange because in the one-dayers he took my spot for the final game. After that tour we said to each other 'let's try to get into this team together'. Luckily that's what has happened." Geoffrey Boycott on Ballance and Root "Gary Ballance is mentally strong. He's got his own way of playing but he's up for the fight and likes a scrap. Joe's got an excellent technique, a wide range of shots. It's taken a long time for them to find a proper position for him. They took him from Yorkshire because he was an opener and put him opening. I tried to tell the selectors and people he wasn't ready. It's tougher up front, the best bowlers bowl first, they have a new ball, there's a bit in the pitch and your technique has got to be spot on. Joe may one day be ready for opening but now they've got him in a good position he'll be an England player for donkey's years." 'I'm surprised the photo was so flattering' Handed the number three slot for the start of the 2014 Test summer, and with Root now batting at five, Ballance announced his arrival with a brilliant maiden hundred at Lord's against Sri Lanka. He was soon making headlines for different reasons, however, when pictures of him shirtless in a Nottingham nightclub in the aftermath of the draw with India at Trent Bridge were splashed across the tabloids. Root had experienced unwanted attention of his own the previous summer when his face met the fist of Australia batsman David Warner in a Birmingham bar. So, could Ballance count on some sympathy and understanding from his mate? "He thought it was brilliant," says Ballance. "I think I'd played a joke on him earlier in the day so when that came out he laughed for several days straight. "It's something I can laugh about now even if it wasn't a great feeling at the time. But everyone that really mattered, like family and team-mates were behind me. That night Alastair Cook, Matt Prior and Rooty took me out for some food and told me it would be fine. I appreciated that." "It's very funny looking back on it," admits Root. "I'm surprised the photo was so flattering to be honest. "I'm not saying everyone needs to go through something like that but the Warner thing has definitely helped me going forward. To have the experience behind me of dealing with that pressure early in my international career has definitely helped and I'm sure it will be the same for Gary." Ballance and Root played in all seven Tests for England this summer 'Long in the memory' Ballance's brush with tabloid notoriety did not disrupt his form as both he and Root played huge roles in England's Test revival. Cook's side failed to win any of the first four matches of the summer but recovered to thrash India in the last three and take the series 3-1. Root and Ballance scored three centuries apiece against Sri Lanka and India and topped the England batting averages in both series, suggesting they will be mainstays in the middle order for years to come. "A summer that started off tough ended up being brilliant," says Ballance. "Just winning the series against India was the highlight. Walking around The Oval after the final Test had been won will live long in the memory." "We had gone a long time without winning a game so it was great to get that momentum back," adds Root. "After all the hard work we'd put in all summer it all came together and that relief when we won the series was huge. "The whole squad had played a part in doing that. It wasn't just one or two players leading the way, it was everyone making a contribution." Ballance in numbers Source: Opta Only Ed Joyce (67) has a higher County Championship average since the start of 2013 than Ballance's 65.2 (minimum 20 innings). Ballance's Test average of 70.4 in England is the fifth highest, behind Don Bradman, Douglas Jardine, Hashim Amla and Steve Waugh (minimum 10 innings). Ballance hit 590 runs in his first 10 Test innings, the sixth most for England behind Herbert Sutcliffe, Tim Robinson, Len Hutton, Ranji and Duleep. Ballance joined Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott to become only the third cricketer to score centuries in his first two Test matches at Lord's. 'Bragging rights' Although England's season tailed off with a heavy defeat by India in the one-day series, Root and Ballance finished it on a high by returning to their spiritual home to play a part in Yorkshire's coronation as county champions. With Root captaining the side in the absence of the suspended Andrew Gale, Yorkshire thrashed their closest rivals Nottinghamshire by an innings and 152 runs at Trent Bridge to take the title with a match to spare. For Root and Ballance, it was a chance to return to what Root calls his "family" and share in the culmination of something they had worked towards as youngsters. It will also give them ammunition for England's winter tours. "We've been following it all year on our phones with England and there's been a lot of banter," says Root. "For example, Cookie. With Essex playing in the second division it's nice to be in a position where we have bragging rights." England beat India by an innings and 244 runs at The Oval to win the series 3-1 'We still prank each other now and again' Following Yorkshire's final match of the season against Somerset, Ballance and Root will take advantage of a rare break in the international calendar before - selection permitting - heading out to Sri Lanka in November for a one-day series that represents crucial preparation for next year's World Cup. Although they now live in different cities in Yorkshire - Root in Sheffield, Ballance in Leeds - the repartee that marked their time as housemates remains in force. "We still find a way to prank each other every now and again," says Ballance. "Just a few little ones to keep things ticking over." "I have the lads round for a barbecue from time to time," says Root. "Gaz gets the call maybe one in five times."AUSTIN, Texas – Texas is set to get its first immigrant detention center under the Trump administration after a private prison company announced that it won a multi-million-dollar contract with ICE. The GEO group announced in a press release on Thursday that it has been awarded a contract by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the construction and operation of a 1,000-bed detention facility located in Conroe, Texas, which is just north of Houston. Under the ten-year, $110 million-dollar contract with ICE, GEO is expected to, “design, finance, build, and operate the company-owned Facility.” GEO has a long history of partnering with ICE spanning well over two decades. “We are very appreciative of the continued confidence placed in our company by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said George C. Zoley, GEO’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. The GEO group has a total of 23 facilities in the state of Texas which includes correctional centers, detention centers, residential reentries, and youth services. According to GEO’s website, ICE is a client at four of the facilities in Texas. The largest of the facilities that ICE has a contract for, the South Texas Detention Complex, is in Pearsall, Texas, which can house 1,904 detainees. The other facilities are the Rio Grande Detention Center, located in Laredo with a capacity 1,900; Joe Corley Detention Facility, located in Conroe with a capacity 1,517; and Ector County Correctional Center, located in Odessa with a capacity 235. Ryan Saavedra is a contributor for Breitbart Texas and can be found on Twitter at @RealSaavedra.Real estate agents have been prosecuted for fraudulently taking $2.6 million in rental bonds, strata fees, home sales and deposits, including one real estate agent who illegally took $789,000. Fair Trading received 230 complaints regarding the failure to lodge residential bonds last year, and prosecuted five agents. It is a scenario all too familiar to Rani Peluso, who was a victim of fraud three years ago, when her real estate agent pocketed a $2800 bond and up to six months in rent worth more than $7000. "We found an apartment in Cremorne after a while, and my husband went and paid the agent the bond in cash," she said. "Some time went by, and the landlord came over to do some repairs and said he hadn't received any rent for six months or the bond."conversation of the century a guest May 25th, 2014 380 Never a guest380Never Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features! rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 2.62 KB [10:58:56 AM] dawn.amstutz1: Hello! Please add me to your Contact list. [11:11:48 AM] * FUTURTOPIA has shared contact details with dawn.amstutz1. * [11:11:56 AM] dawn.amstutz1: hi there :) [11:12:31 AM] FUTURTOPIA: hio hoo u [11:13:00 AM] dawn.amstutz1: (wave) hey...i saw your profile on the new skype app...i hope you don't mind me adding you? 23/f here u? [11:13:13 AM] FUTURTOPIA: new skype app? 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[11:13:42 AM] dawn.amstutz1: im busy studying, i hate it sometimes it gets so boring. what are you up to? :) [11:13:47 AM] FUTURTOPIA: dogecoin [11:14:19 AM] dawn.amstutz1: lol im studying for my bachelors in sociology...its really hard...need a break tho! you ever chat on cam? [11:14:30 AM] FUTURTOPIA: naw [11:15:04 AM] dawn.amstutz1: it can be fun i love meeting new people on cam chat, you ever been on this new video chat site? it has all sorts of cool effects and stuff lol (cool) [11:15:29 AM] FUTURTOPIA: naw [11:15:53 AM] FUTURTOPIA: i need some japan railways m8 [11:16:00 AM] dawn.amstutz1: i think i will just put on a camisole and a thong then =) i think u will like it?? i hope atleast... :x [11:16:12 AM] FUTURTOPIA: not interested m8 [11:16:14 AM] FUTURTOPIA: but thx [11:16:18 AM] FUTURTOPIA: have a nice day gg [11:16:34 AM] dawn.amstutz1: suit yourself... ur prob a virgin anyways... peace! 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(kiss) mmm [11:18:36 AM] FUTURTOPIA: y'all best move on real quick m8 [11:18:40 AM] FUTURTOPIA: not into dat m8 [11:18:44 AM] FUTURTOPIA: taken (heart) [11:18:45 AM] FUTURTOPIA: [by dogecoin] [11:18:47 AM] FUTURTOPIA: i am a friend of the shibes [11:18:48 AM] dawn.amstutz1: please come...im waiting!! [11:18:56 AM] FUTURTOPIA: plot twist [11:18:57 AM] FUTURTOPIA: i'm a shibe [11:19:02 AM] FUTURTOPIA: 3 / s [11:19:04 AM] FUTURTOPIA: how about u [11:21:41 AM] FUTURTOPIA: gg174 SHARES Share Tweet Email * Not so long ago, we were in Hamburg to take graffiti pictures for the BombingScience.com, to report on the graffiti scene of the second largest city in Germany. Like most people arriving in this city, the first thing we did was to ride the train from the airport to downtown Hamburg, which is a nice ride because you can see tons of painted walls along the way. What immediately caught our attention on this train ride was the smiley faces. Two dots for the eyes and a small curved line for the mouth… as simple as it can be. But man, these faces where… everywhere. I mean, hundreds of them on that single line. Just as we arrived at the central station in Hamburg and noticed that these smiley faces were also plastered on almost every surfaces in the street, we knew that something special was going on here. These faces are so easy to spray and style-less that they could be done by anybody, or everybody. I mean, was it the same guy painting them over and over or was it an army of vandals doing the damage? I had no clue. Turns out it was the work of a single guy. And a 64 years old dude on top of that. His moniker was Oz. And sadly, he passed away about 2 years ago. He was struck by a train, doing what he was doing relentlessly for the past 30 years: painting his smiley faces along the tracks. Think of the most up writer you know and multiple the magnitude of his bombing by 10. Or even by 100. It gives you an idea of the smiley face phenomenon in this city. You might not like the “art” itself. Of course a smiley face is a smiley face. But in front of the magnitude of the what this guy did, we can only be impressed and pay our respect. By the way, he did more than his smiley face too. His work goes beyond that and he is a kind of creative genius (you can see more of his art on this Wikipedia page). Or at least an impulsive artist with a drive that has no match. Mental illness is probably a part of the answer here. This guy dedication is simply on another level, a level that is not completely sane we must admit. He spent over 8 years in prison for graffiti offenses. Think about it. Eight years behind bars for spraying smiley faces. This is an incredibly high price to pay for his graffiti compulsion. The streets are still full of his faces as you can see in our picture gallery below. Eventually they will fade away, but it will take years. Or even decades. But this artist made his mark on this city like no other and his memory will live on. We pay our homage here to this remarkable artist. Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08032 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08080 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08079 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07950 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07902 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07903 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07916 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07918 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07925 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07927 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07929 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC07932 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08070 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08180 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08184 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08193 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08205 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08206 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08231 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08237 Oz / Hamburg / Bombing DSC08241 Oz /
practice, getting into the odd scuffle, deferring to no one whether it was a coach or teammate. “We knew he was special, he showed flashes of it,” Esquivel said of Dempsey. “He would do things just in little 5-v-2 games, he was doing almost And-1 style soccer. He was doing these tricks that we had never seen, but not only that he was doing them in practice, doing things that we would never have the confidence to do because we didn’t want to lose possession. Whereas Clint didn’t care, he was going to do it and try to [nutmeg] you and try to do the snake, which was the big move back then which he would perfect in practice and we would be amazed.” Dempsey’s rise from a youngster in Nacogdoches, Texas, to a Premier League contributor and U.S. national team captain is a well-documented saga. It’s perhaps a little less similar to the others. Graham Zusi and Omar Gonzalez both entered College Park, Maryland within a year of each other, coming off the back of decorated club careers. Zusi’s college career began in 2005, and Gonzalez’s in 2006. Both would leave school with at least one national championship (Zusi finished with two) but Maryland head coach Sasho Cirovski said that the pair were very different coming into college. “Graham is a very shy, very humble person that loves the game and was very low maintenance on the field,” Cirovski said. “Omar is a very out-going, gregarious, happy, bubbly kid, wants to be the center of all the jokes and all the fun stuff, so you have very two different personalities. Omar probably had a little more growing up to do when it came to the social life and had to catch up more on the physical demands. He’s a kid that in his first year he couldn’t make it through a 90-minute game as a center back, which isn’t the most demanding position on the field.” Before Yedlin arrived on the Akron campus in 2011, he had spent time playing as a defensive midfielder for the Seattle Sounders Academy. Current Portland head coach Caleb Porter, in charge of Akron at the time, worked with Yedlin in a U.S. U18 MNT camp, and thought the Seattle native had potential at right back. Yedlin eventually made the move to that spot in the last half year in the Sounders Academy setup, so when he first came to Akron, a lot of what he had to work on was part of learning a relatively new position. “We always liked him going forward, and always tried to help him on the defending side of things, specifically positioning, when he needs to go forward, when he needs to stay back,” Embick said. “Still some of the things that you see in him today that he needs to improve on, which I think will come with experience.” The former Zip wasn’t the only player to change position into college, as Cirovski had plans to transition Gonzalez from forward to center back, which made sense for a kid with a huge, 6-foot-5 frame. That didn’t mean it was smooth, as there was still plenty Gonzalez had to learn both on and off the field. “Omar just needed to be pushed and challenged to get the most out of what he can give,” Cirovski said. “I think sometimes things came easy for him because of his physical gifts but he wasn’t maximizing what he had, and we got him to understand what that is going to mean.” While all of these players had different traits heading into their college soccer careers, there was a common theme echoing through their DI careers: demonstrating skills and abilities on another level than most of their peers. Guzan quickly adapted to a new level, and became the nation’s best goalkeeper. Dempsey’s time at Furman was a harbinger of how the rest of his career would unfold. First coming off the bench as a reserve, he eventually became a critical offensive figure in the midfield, forming a dynamic duo with Ricardo Clark, an experience that almost mirrored his time with the Revolution, Fulham and Tottenham. Yedlin’s burning pace was a huge weapon in Akron’s possession game, while Zusi set piece and scoring ability proved a critical weapon in helping the Terps capture 2005 and 2008 national titles. Equivel specifically remembered Dempsey’s work ethic was unlike anything he’d seen at that level. “When 99 percent of the team was out being college kids, we’d drive by the stadium Friday night at 9 p.m., and the stadium lights would be on, and there would be rap music blaring out of the stadium and you’d see Clint with 20 balls, juggling, doing moves and finishing,” he said. “I remember honking and yelling at him: ‘Clint, what the hell, we’re going to a party,’ and he would just be out there. For us, that was pretty rare to see at that time, just somebody who was flat out training on his own, because we were all established soccer players, we had our fill of soccer everyday, and he didn’t have that. He would go and do more than anyone I’d ever seen.” Berson, while acknowledging that Guzan had the physical tools with his frame and athleticism to succeed, thought that it was the goalkeeper’s demeanor that set him apart and on a path to the Premier League. “The biggest thing with Brad was his mental toughness is outstanding,” he said. “It’s one of his greatest qualities and I think you would find that in all top professional and certainly international level goalkeepers. That’s something that you could see here as a competitor, in practice, every ball in practice was contested, every ball in practice was fought for.” College accomplishments are one thing of course, as there was still plenty for each player to prove in order to eventually end up on the radar of the U.S. men’s national team. That’s an element that varied with each player and the team he ended up with, and for Graham Zusi, Sporting KC ended up being the final piece of the development puzzle. “I’m very pleasantly surprised to where Graham has gotten,” Cirvoski said. “I think he had a slow start in MLS, had an injury at the beginning, he was on a development contract his first year and I credit Peter Vermes and Sporting KC with the patience they showed in him because it takes Graham a little while to get comfortable and really exert his abilities. I realized that at Maryland that he was someone that needed to feel comfortable and confident.” Just like the different paths taken to Brazil, each player with college ties is set to play a particular role for the USA in the next few weeks, whether from on the field or the bench. Dempsey is obviously one set to feature prominently, and Esquivel noted that it’s pretty much the same kid who first stepped on the field in Greer, South Carolina, who will don the captain’s armband for the USMNT at the Estádio das Dunas in Natal on Monday against Ghana. “My wife and I are extremely close with him and his family still, you talk to him he’s still the same guy,” Equivel said. “He’s still that kid from Nacogdoches, Texas who thinks he can rap, who is trying crazy things with the ball, still has that chip on his shoulder.”ORLANDO, Fla. — Amid the massacre at a gay nightclub here, while the gunman held dozens of people hostage, the police got word from multiple sources that the killer had booby-trapped himself, hostages and the building with explosives, Orlando’s mayor said on Wednesday. Holed up in Pulse nightclub early Sunday, the gunman, Omar Mateen, told the police by phone that he would strap explosives to four hostages and place them strategically in the corners of the building, Mayor Buddy Dyer told reporters. People trapped inside made panicked calls and text messages to 911 operators, friends and family members, also warning that Mr. Mateen was talking about bombs, he said. “We had a lot of information from the inside and they independently were saying yes, the bomber is about to put on an explosive vest,” Mr. Dyer said. So far, investigators have not found any evidence that Mr. Mateen, 29, had explosives, senior law enforcement officials said Wednesday. His rampage with an assault rifle and a handgun left 49 people dead and 53 wounded, the worst mass shooting in United States history, and he died in a shootout with law enforcement officers. Investigators continued looking into whether his wife, Noor Zahi Salman, knew what he had planned, but at a news conference, officials deflected questions about possible criminal charges against her. “I’m not going to speculate with respect to any charges that might be brought,” said A. Lee Bentley III, the United States attorney for the Middle District of Florida. “We’re not sure what charges will be brought, or if charges will be brought.” Ms. Salman has told F.B.I. investigators that she had tried to talk her husband out of some kind of attack, according to senior law enforcement officials. But she also told them that she had gone with him to buy ammunition, and that she had once driven him to Pulse, they said.Obviously using a throwaway. Thing is, I've been running a forum on mildly video game-related topic. We had some shady moments in the past that I would like to forget, but nothing serious (things like one user getting all angry over ME3 "shoehorning gays", usual stuff). And then GamerGate happened. Well, to be honest, it really isn't a thing where I live, so it didn't get brought up until few months ago. Turns out the other admin is full on gator and the worst kind - 2edgy4you, know-it-all kind of guy who tries to be funny by asking me how often do I flog myself for being white cis male. Yeah, that happened. The thing is, I still like that place and actually want to do something with it, as right now it kind of sits in limbo of no content, otherwise I'd just quit. But the forum is well positioned, is known among people and we actually happen to have quite a diverse community (with actually two more people who openly talk how much of a shitfest GG is, with GG being a very fringe topic here), so it'd be sad to see it gone. But weirdly enough, the forum is owned by neither of us. The third administrator - the owner - bought it from the previous one (who didn't consult this decision, we would just buy it ourselves) and pretty much uses the site as revenue stream, without intervening into its matters (and well, the money will probably keep flowing, since even though we're in previously mentioned limbo of no content, traffic is still very high). So here I am just wondering if something can be salvaged or is there no point and I should just move on. I don't believe I can turn the place into a "safe space" for people playing games (as there is none that I know of in these parts of the Internet, so that would be nice), even though we never published anything even mildly pro-GG - there's a strong anticensorship circlejerk due to valid reasons, actually. But, if we will ever be getting out of no content limbo, we will have to talk about video games and that's when shit will hit the fan, probably, and I am wondering what to do to at least minimize GG hatespewing. Should I just quit the fuck out?We need to start here: Sim Bhullar is a massive human being. Even among the other guys who won the genetic lottery to be in the NBA the 7’5”, 360-pound center stands out as huge. He would be in the huddles for the Sacramento Kings’ Summer League team and just be head and shoulders above everyone. Now it appears he’s going to be head and shoulders above everyone in the NBA — and make history as the first player of Indian descent in the league, reports Marc Stein of ESPN. Bhullar has spent the entire season with the Reno Bighorns, Sacramento’s affiliate in the NBA Development League, after going to training camp with the Kings. Conditioning has been a question mark in terms of Bhullar establishing a legitimate NBA future. But he has a major supporter in Kings owner Vivek Ranadive — one of India’s most celebrated businessmen — and Bhullar has shed more than 30 pounds over the course of his rookie campaign after weighing in at more than 400 pounds during summer league play with Sacramento last July. This is a big step for history — the first player whose family is from one of the world’s most populous nations. It’s a good thing to add diversity to the mix. Bhullar was raised in Toronto by Indian parents, then played his college ball at New Mexico. He was undrafted and signed by the Kings. This order almost certainly came from Ranadive, because the Bhullar I saw at Summer League needed a lot of work to be NBA ready. He was a project. While conditioning was certainly an issue, so were fundamentals — his footwork, his touch, his sense of the game, his defense all needed a lot of work. Maybe a season in the D-League moved him along that road but I’m not sure he could be ready yet for the speed and athleticism of the NBA game yet. That said, he has averaged 10.3 points, 8.8 rebounds and 3.9 blocks a game for Reno this season. The bottom line is this, the owner wants it, so we’re going to get see just how ready he is for the NBA.Take out your name, resume and any other identifying information then hop on the internet and show your skills to a recruiting manager. That’s the way Interviewing.io does it to ensure a truly blind interview for big tech companies like Facebook and Lyft. And, says cofounder Aline Lerner, women and minorities are flocking to the platform for that reason. “We are seeing an influx of female and other minority users because of the anonymity and not having to deal with stereotypes,” Lerner tells TechCrunch. Most of the major tech companies have been criticized for their lack of diversity in the engineering department. Google most recently came under fire when one of its engineers suggested women were not biologically capable to handle the role. About 20 percent of users on Interviewing.io are female, according to the company. Not a huge number, but it’s still higher than the overall percentage of women working in software engineering jobs in Silicon Valley. The bigger piece of the pie — 40 percent — are non-traditional engineers, meaning older folks and those who didn’t graduate at a top university. Interviewing.io levels the playing field for these workers by allowing them to log on, pick a time slot and start anonymously practicing their skills for evaluation in front of an engineer contracted with the company to identify top performers. If they pass, the job seeker can then go on for a similar interview with a hiring manager who will evaluate them based on a set of tasks given. The person evaluating them on the other end doesn’t know anything else about the person trying out other than whether or not they are able to complete the task assigned. Assuming all goes well with the evaluation, the person hoping for a job might then be asked to come in for an interview — of course, they’ll likely still need to meet with the company face-to-face but the startup eliminates at least one major hurdle for minorities and the marginalized by getting that interview based on merit rather than privilege. Lerner, who worked as a software engineer before starting her own recruiting firm, knows all too well the struggle women face in the job hunt. “One of the main issues is companies rely on recruiters whether in-house or otherwise. They’re doing the best they can but they often don’t have the technical backgrounds so they have to look at other things like a resume or what school the person went to,” Lerner said. “In light of a dire engineering shortage, that strategy doesn’t make much sense.” Recalling her early days as a line cook where jobs were based on your cooking skills and not where you came from, Lerner thought up a more anonymized way to level the field and make it easy for hiring managers to verify top-notch talent through an anonymized system. Now, says Lerner, about 3,000 engineers sign up to look for jobs through Interviewing.io and she’s been able to get Facebook, Lyft, Twitch, Yelp and other well-known tech companies to turn to her platform to bring in good engineers in a system that might weed them out otherwise. The startup recently pulled in $3 million in seed money led by Susa Ventures, with participation from Social Capital, Ulu Ventures, Kapor Capital, TenOneTen Ventures, Manifest Investment Partners, and others. Lerner says she plans to use the new funds to continue growing the company and to launch a new university platform, out today, which will enable hiring managers to find young, eager college talent “We just want to create a system where anyone can show what they can do,” Lerner said.Look at Assange post-WikiLeaks by director of Citizenfour is part of Directors’ Fortnight sidebar which also includes work by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Pablo Larraín, while Chloë Sevigny short showing in Critics’ Week Although he is still confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange will make an appearance at the Cannes film festival – via Laura Poitras’s documentary Risk, which has been selected for the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. Poitras, who profiled another celebrated data warrior, Edward Snowden, in Citizenfour, filmed with Assange in 2010 (although the pair are reportedly not now on good terms). Her film – originally entitled Asylum – is said to cover the period when the WikiLeaks data dumps were triggering international outrage. The Directors’ Fortnight also features work by a clutch of high-profile international auteurs, including new films by the 87-year-old Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky (with Endless Poetry, described as “an ode to the search for beauty”), Pablo Larraín (who reunites with Gael García Bernal for political thriller Neruda), and Paul Schrader (with Dog Eat Dog, an adaptation of Ed Bunker’s novel). Facebook Twitter Pinterest Watch the trailer for Pablo Larraín’s Neruda Also picked for screening in the Directors’ Fortnight are Tour de France, featuring Gérard Depardieu as an older racist person forced to travel across France with a young rapper, Claude Barras’s stop motion animation My Life As a Courgette, about a kid in a care home, and Sweet Dreams, by Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio, adapted from a novel about a boy who lost his mother when he was nine. The Directors’ Fortnight selection is the final piece of the Cannes puzzle, following the announcement of the Critics’ Week lineup on Monday. In subtle rebuke to the official Cannes selection, Critics’ Week is dominated by female film-makers, with Justine Triet’s In Bed With Victoria, a crime thriller featuring Virginie Efira as the eponymous criminal defence lawyer, selected as the opening film. Three short films – including Chloë Sevigny’s adaptation of the Paul Bowles novel Kitty – will be the closers.Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. On the North Side of Milwaukee, Arleen’s struggle to raise her two boys as a single mom on $628 a month ends in an eviction notice. On the South Side, a grandmother named Larraine* can’t pay to heat her trailer, falls behind on the rent, and is eventually kicked out. The mark of eviction remains with both women long after they’ve been forced from their homes, their possessions hauled out on the street. In his new book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (out March 1), Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond introduces us to Arleen, Larraine, and others struggling with the consequences of getting tossed from their houses—a situation that disproportionately affects urban women. “If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women,” Desmond writes. “Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out.” “If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women.” Desmond conducted his immersive, ethnographic fieldwork in Milwaukee for a little more than a year, living in a trailer park in the city’s South Side and a rooming house in the North Side. He went on eviction ride-alongs with landlords and saw tenants and their possessions kicked to the curb. He sat with tenants in eviction court, where they wondered why they were getting kicked out. And with a crew of researchers, the 36-year-old researcher spearheaded the Milwaukee Area Renters Study, an extensive examination of the city’s residential history that also offers a detailed look at urban poverty and evictions. As a result, Evicted is a rich, empathetic feat of storytelling and fieldwork, one that Barbara Ehrenreich hails as “a new standard for reporting on poverty.” I caught up with Desmond last week to discuss the costs of getting evicted, why kids don’t protect parents from eviction, and what we can learn from the families on the margins. Here are six takeaways: The face of the eviction epidemic are moms and families: “It’s incredible that 1 in 8 renters in Milwaukee experience some sort of eviction in the course of two years,” Desmond told me. “It’s amazing that 1 in 5 African American women renting in the city report being evicted some time in their lifetime. So, the face of the eviction epidemic belongs to moms and kids, and it has a disproportionate effect on low-income African American women and low-income Latino women. It mirrors incarceration in certain ways. Eviction comes with a record, too, and just as a criminal record can bar you from receiving certain benefits or getting a foothold in the labor market, the record of eviction comes with consequences as well. It can bar you from getting good housing in a good neighborhood. Ironically, it can prevent you from receiving housing assistance. Arguably, the families most at need of housing assistance are systematically denied it because they’re stamped with an eviction record. Moms and kids are bearing the brunt of those consequences.” “When I started this research, I thought kids would be a shield from eviction…But it’s really the opposite.” Landlords consider kids to be a liability: “When I started this research, I thought kids would be a shield from eviction, that there would be some protections built in to help parents resist or protect them from displacement and homelessness. But it’s really the opposite. Kids increase people’s risk of eviction. We talked to about 250 people in eviction court in Milwaukee because we wanted to know: What explains why you get evicted and I don’t, when we both show up to court? And the big answer is kids. Kids! If I lived with kids and you didn’t and we owed the landlord the same thing and we had the same income and our racial and ethnic identity are the same, I would have a three times more likely chance of getting evicted than you. What you’re seeing there is not the judge’s discretion or the commissioner, but the landlord. So kids can cost landlords money. They can get lead poisoning. They can draw the ear of the police if they are teenagers. Child Protection Services can get all up in your business if you have kids. Just strictly from a business standpoint, kids are a liability to landlords, and they actually provoke evictions.” The consequences of evictions go far beyond having shelter: “Families not only lose their home, but their possessions, too. Often, they are taken by movers, locked up, and lost, or put on the curb. People’s stuff just get lost. People obviously lose their communities and schools. Then there’s these consequences that I just didn’t anticipate, like job loss. I thought going into it, ‘You lose your job, you’re getting evicted.’ That’s certainly true. But we have strong evidence that you get evicted, you’re much more likely to lose your job. It can kind of take over your life. And if you’re working in a sector of the labor market where you don’t have a lot of security and a lot of protections, an eviction can cause you to get fired. And then there’s the effect on your health—your mental health, your spirit. Moms that get evicted are depressed and have higher rates of depressive symptoms two years later. That has to affect their interactions with their kids and their sense of happiness. You add all that together, and it’s just really obvious to me that eviction is a cause, not just a condition of poverty. It has to be part of the larger narrative that we are having today about inequality in America.” Displacement doesn’t only happen in gentrifying areas: “Many times when we are talking about displacement, we talk about it within the frame of gentrification, which focuses on transitioning neighborhoods. But man, every city I’ve looked at, Milwaukee included, most evictions are right there, smack dab in ungentrifying, poor, segregated communities. So that’s a big part of the story. But you know, this is a problem that’s not just focused on the inner city or communities of color. This is a very broad story. If you go to eviction court, you are going to see a lot of moms and kids. You’re going to see older people, too. You’re going to see young, white families. You’re going to see folks from immigrant communities. The problem of affordability and housing has stretched into a lot of regions in the country. One in five renters are estimated to be paying at least 50 percent of their income to housing now. It was important to write about a trailer park and things that folks in those communities are going through, because poverty and eviction lives there too.” A universal voucher program could give people in extreme poverty a chance: “The book argues for universal voucher program. It’s basically taking our current voucher program, which allows folks to pay only 30 percent of their income to housing and the voucher covers the rest, and they can live wherever they want as long as their housing isn’t too expensive or too shoddy—taking that program and expanding it would be a huge game-changer in the face of poverty in America. It would reduce family homelessness. It would make evictions rare again. It would allow families to use their freed-up income to take night classes or invest in their homes, invest in their kids. One very common thing families do when they finally get the housing voucher after years on the waiting list is just go buy more food. Their kids get enough to eat. They become better nourished and strong. But kids like Arleen’s kids don’t get that opportunity because their rent eats first. We do not have to reinvent the wheel on this one. There are countries in the developed world that have a universal affordable housing program, and they usually execute that through vouchers—Denmark, UK. There’s groundwork for this that’s already laid. There’s a reason that vouchers are used instead of building public housing. It’s way more efficient and would allow us to avoid the mistakes of our past about shoring up racial segregation, for example, or economic concentration of poverty by building these huge towers.” We should focus more on housing policy: “I want readers to take away Arleen. Here’s this mom who’s just trying to do right by her kids but has to choose between paying the rent or buying them school supplies. I want them to take away Larraine, this grandmother living in a trailer park that sees her breath inside her trailer because she can’t pay rent and pay the heat bill. I want them to remember folks like Vanetta who are pushed into this desperate situation and commit a crime to keep her kids from living out in the streets. I want them to carry those stories, and to remember that somewhere in their city, a family has been thrown out of their home and their stuff has been piled on the sidewalk. I think that those stories and the statistical analysis point to one firm conclusion: Housing is deeply implicated in causing poverty in America today, and we have to do something.” Correction:An earlier version of this article misspelled the character Larraine’s name in Evicted.Online enrollment under the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), which already had been delayed from its Oct. 1 start date, will now be postponed until November 2014. (Jon Elswick/Associated Press) Days before the Obama administration’s self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline for fixing HealthCare.gov, its technology team is scrambling to build a new part of the Web site as a workaround that would enable more people to buy health insurance without relying directly on the site. The new mechanism, EZ App, would permit people who are eligible for financial help from the government to enroll for coverage without calculating an exact subsidy amount, which has been a major stumbling block, according to government and insurance industry officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be frank. It would allow call centers, and eventually insurance companies and brokers, to help people enroll based on estimates of what their federal subsidies would be. But insurers are uncomfortable with the add-on because they do not want to shoulder the financial liability for customers signing up for plans with a rough estimate of their final premiums, rather than a precise figure verified through the site. The workaround, aimed at diverting consumers from the Web site, is the latest indication that significant uncertainty remains about how the government will handle the large number of people who are likely to want to sign up for health plans soon. Meanwhile, the Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will delay a significant piece of the health-care law: the online small business insurance marketplace. The Small Business Health Options Program, known as the SHOP exchange, will not offer online enrollment until November 2014, a one-year delay from a launch that was initially planned for last month. Small businesses will still have the option to purchase SHOP plans through a broker or agent, who will help the employer file a paper application. The federal government expects to process those filings for eligibility within three to five days, according to a document circulated to business groups. Administration officials described the decision as necessary while they made fixes to the individual health exchange, which the White House has promised will “work smoothly for the vast majority of users” by Saturday. But the administration will not be able to meet another internal target by then, said a person involved in the project who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitive nature. The goal was for tens of thousands of users to be able to register for an account and then log in on an hourly basis. In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that between now and Saturday, technical workers will be trying to fix the site’s hardware so that 50,000 people can use it simultaneously, as the White House has promised. “We are still on track to make sure by the end of the month the vast majority of users will be able to go through the site smoothly,” she said, cautioning that more changes will be needed to ensure that the system is able to accommodate 50,000 users at once. “We have a lot of work left to do in the next few days, both some software fixes and some hardware upgrades.” Even as the administration prepared for a new wave of customers to log onto the Web site next week, it cautioned its allies and reporters that there could be hiccups. An administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely, wrote in an e-mail Wednesday that on Monday, the White House asked allies — including Enroll America, the Service Employees International Union and Planned Parenthood — not to encourage large numbers of people to use HealthCare.gov in the first week of December so the administration can see how many people are visiting on their own. Bataille told reporters that the administration plans to install a new function “in the next few days” to address times when demand exceeds the site’s capacity, such as the peak time of 2 p.m. Under this system, visitors will receive an e-mail telling them when to return to the site. “We aren’t sure what traffic will be on Dec 1, 2 — but think high volume is quite possible and don’t want users to be frustrated by more waits,” the administration official wrote, adding that consumers will have an easier time accessing the site during mornings, evenings and weekends. Meanwhile, at a CMS command center in Columbia, Md., and at IT contractors’ offices in Northern Virginia, work to improve the site is sometimes producing results. In one hopeful sign, the number of consumers who were able to enroll in a health plan reached a record Tuesday of about 10,000, said an official familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about information that is not public. The official said that IT workers have been striving to reach a different capacity goal that won’t to be attained before the deadline. This private, second goal, focusing on the early stages of using the Web site, calls for 80,000 people per hour to be able to create an account, and for 320,000 per hour to be able to log in. Technical workers attempted to upgrade the site to meet this goal, but the fix did not work, and the next attempt is scheduled for late this weekend at the earliest, administration officials said. EZ App aims to address a key problem that has hindered the ability of call centers, health-care companies and insurance brokers to enroll consumers. Their role is important because administration officials have made clear that the Web site alone is not going to be able to handle all the people who are likely to want insurance before the new year, when the 2010 federal health-care law requires most Americans to have coverage or risk a fine. The idea behind the subsidy tool is to bypass the technical problems that make it difficult for the call centers and industry representatives to find out the size of the federal subsidy that, in most instances, will help people pay for their health plans. Work on EZ App began about three weeks ago. When it is built, it will contain 35 “scenarios,” each of which will consider consumers’ income, age and the number of people in their family. For each scenario, the system will have defined an estimated subsidy, and whoever is helping a given consumer enroll will choose the one that most closely matches the person’s circumstances, said the official familiar with the project. Insurance industry leaders are worried that customers may owe more than the estimate and don’t want to have to collect more money from them. “The health plans want to make sure whatever estimate of subsidy is used, they want to make sure it’s final,” said an insurance industry official, who spoke on background to discuss private conversations that industry representatives have had with administration officials. If health plans were at risk of losing money, the official said, they “wouldn’t go along with it.” An administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations did not confirm the existence of the subsidy tool. This official said that this weekend, the government will begin deploying two new features of the system. In the part of the site where consumers can browse plans but not buy them, they will see 35 scenarios giving them a better sense of the plans’ prices. And some call centers will use a tool that will make it easier for consumers to enroll by asking them a few screening questions. Sarah Kliff contributed to this report.Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz.: “None of you were math majors, were you?” Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images The newest and most unexpected item in the latest House Republican continuing resolution/debt limit bill is this: Like the emerging Senate agreement, the House plan would extend the debt ceiling to February 7. But the House plan would bar the Treasury Department from using accounting gimmicks known as “extraordinary measures,” increasing the transparency of the federal budget process and prohibiting what economist Donald Marron calls the “embarrassingly casual” use today of such measures by the Treasury Secretary. In the era of President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill, short-term debt limit increases with hard dates and no gimmicks were the norm. The House plan seeks to restore transparency to the process and deny bureaucrats the ability to use budget gimmicks to mislead the public about the financial condition of the United States. It sounded like a turn on a dime, and Senate Democrats rejected it immediately. For two years, Republicans had favored (and passed in the House) legislation that mandated the Treasury pay debt service, entitlements, and veterans in the event that the debt limit was reached. Now, they were trying to bar the Treasury from shuffling money around? Republicans told me that this had been in the air for a while; Marron only spelled out his theory a few days ago, noting that it “would reduce the time the next debt limit increase will last,” but maybe shock the system so that these periods of brinkmanship didn’t last so long. “I like it,” said Missouri Rep. Billy Long, a fomer auctioneer from a safe conservative seat. He co-sponsored the “Full Faith and Credit” act that would have tied Treasury’s hands on prioritization, and he saw this as a complement. “We need to be honest about how much money we’re spending in this country and how we’re gonna pay it back. It seems right now that they can pay it back whenever they want. A lot of times it seems it’s driven by politics. We’re gonna hit it in May. No, actually, we’re gonna hit it in June. No, actually, we’re gonna hit it Oct. 17.” Most people figured that the delays in the debt limit were related to the shrinking deficit, a function of higher tax revenue and lower spending. But plenty of Republicans were convinced that the administration was playing games and needed to be stopped. “You and I can find ways the game-playing has been done,” said Arizona Rep. David Schweikert, the former treasurer of Maricopa County. “If we’re going to actually start to have to build for debt management, there’s a bigger issue here. We, the administration and Congress, need to do debt management through the baby boom cycle, through this huge demographic cycle. We’ve got a 35-year cycle to work through. I like the concept of super-bonds. I like the concept of trills. You don’t get to have those debates and discussions if you have the administration able to game-play with the trust funds.” Another reporter asked Schweikert to respond to some doom-saying quotes from Chinese bankers. “I lay this at the steps of the administration and Jack Lew,” said the congressman. “The unconscionable, unacceptable use of language, the word ‘default,’ when the borrowing we need for 2014 is we’re 16 percent short on revenue. To use the word ‘default,’ to scare the markets—are politics really that important to this administration that it ignores basic math?” Schweikert ticked off ways that he, as a county treasurer, had sought balance. “The basic repo desk, running your ladders on your debt—it’s stunning that the politicians in the administration care more about keeping this as a wedge than the international markets. Even
field had attended church more to please his mother than to worship God, but in his late teens underwent a religious awakening, and attended many camp meetings, at one of which he was born again. The next day, March 4, 1850, he was baptized into Christ by being submerged in the icy waters of the Chagrin River.[a] After leaving Geauga, Garfield worked for a year at various jobs, including teaching. Finding that some New Englanders worked their way through college, Garfield determined to do the same, and first sought a school that could prepare him for the entrance examinations. From 1851 to 1854, he attended the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later named Hiram College) in Hiram, Ohio, a school run by the Disciples. While there, he was most interested in the study of Greek and Latin, but was inclined to learn about and discuss any new thing he encountered. Securing a position on entry as janitor, he was hired to teach while still a student. Lucretia Rudolph had also enrolled at the Institute, and Garfield wooed her while teaching her Greek. He developed a regular preaching circuit at neighboring churches, in some cases earning a gold dollar per service. By 1854, Garfield had learned all the Institute could teach him and was a full-time teacher. Garfield then enrolled at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, as a third-year student, given credit for two years' study at the Institute after passing a cursory examination. Garfield was impressed with the college president, Mark Hopkins, who had responded warmly to Garfield's letter inquiring about admission. He said of Hopkins, "The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log with a student on the other." Hopkins later stated about Garfield in his student days, "There was a large general capacity applicable to any subject. There was no pretense of genius, or alternation of spasmodic effort, but a satisfactory accomplishment in all directions." After his first term, Garfield was hired to teach penmanship to the students of nearby Pownal, Vermont, a post whose previous incumbent was Chester A. Arthur. Garfield graduated from Williams in August 1856 as salutatorian, giving an address at the commencement. Garfield biographer Ira Rutkow pointed out that the future president's years at Williams gave Garfield the opportunity to know and respect those of different social backgrounds, and despite his origin as an unsophisticated Westerner, he was liked and respected by socially conscious New Englanders. "In short", as Rutkow later wrote, "Garfield had an extensive and positive first experience with the world outside the Western Reserve of Ohio." On his return to Ohio, the degree from a prestigious Eastern school made Garfield a man of distinction. He returned to Hiram to teach at the Institute, and in 1857 was made its president. He did not see education as a field that would realize his full potential. At Williams, he had become more politically aware in the intensely anti-slavery atmosphere of the Massachusetts school, and began to consider politics as a career. In 1858, he married Lucretia; they would have seven children, five of whom survived infancy. Soon after the wedding, he formally entered his name to read law at a Cleveland firm, although he did his studying in Hiram. He was admitted to the bar in 1861. Local Republican Party leaders invited Garfield to enter politics upon the death of Cyrus Prentiss, the presumptive nominee for the local state senate seat. He was nominated by the party convention on the sixth ballot, and was elected, serving until 1861. Garfield's major effort in the state senate was a bill providing for Ohio's first geological survey to measure its mineral resources, though it failed. Civil War [ edit ] Garfield as a brigadier general during the Civil War After Abraham Lincoln's election as president, several Southern states announced their secession from the Union to form a new government, the Confederate States of America. Garfield read military texts while anxiously awaiting the war effort, which he regarded as a holy crusade against the Slave Power. In April 1861, the rebels bombarded Fort Sumter, one of the last federal outposts in the South, beginning the Civil War. Although he had no military training, Garfield knew that his place was in the Union Army. At Governor William Dennison's request, Garfield deferred his military ambitions to remain in the legislature, where he helped appropriate the funds to raise and equip Ohio's volunteer regiments. Afterward, the legislature adjourned and Garfield spent the spring and early summer on a speaking tour of northeastern Ohio, encouraging enlistment in the new regiments. Following a trip to Illinois to purchase muskets, Garfield returned to Ohio and, in August 1861, received a commission as a colonel in the 42nd Ohio Infantry regiment. The 42nd Ohio existed only on paper, so Garfield's first task was to fill its ranks. He did so quickly, recruiting many of his neighbors and former students. The regiment traveled to Camp Chase, outside Columbus, Ohio, to complete training. In December, Garfield was ordered to bring the 42nd to Kentucky, where they joined the Army of the Ohio under Brigadier General Don Carlos Buell. Buell's command [ edit ] Buell quickly assigned Garfield the task of driving Confederate forces out of eastern Kentucky, giving him the 18th Brigade for the campaign, which, besides his own 42nd, included the 40th Ohio Infantry, two Kentucky infantry regiments and two cavalry units. They departed Catlettsburg, Kentucky, in mid-December, advancing through the valley of the Big Sandy River. The march was uneventful until Union forces reached Paintsville, Kentucky, on January 6, 1862, where Garfield's cavalry engaged the rebels at Jenny's Creek. Confederate troops under Brigadier General Humphrey Marshall held the town in numbers roughly equal to Garfield's own, but Garfield positioned his troops so as to deceive Marshall into believing that rebel forces were outnumbered. Marshall ordered his troops to withdraw to the forks of Middle Creek, on the road to Virginia; Garfield ordered his troops to pursue the Confederates. They attacked the rebel positions on January 9, 1862, in the Battle of Middle Creek, the only pitched battle Garfield personally commanded. At the end of the fighting, the Confederates withdrew from the field, and Garfield sent his troops to Prestonsburg to reprovision. Middle Creek battlefield; Garfield commanded from the distant hill in the center of the photo. In recognition of his success, Garfield was promoted to brigadier general, at the age of 30. After Marshall's retreat, Garfield's command was the sole remaining Union force in eastern Kentucky, and he announced that any men who had fought for the Confederacy would be granted amnesty if they returned to their homes and lived peaceably and remained loyal to the Union. The proclamation was surprisingly lenient, as Garfield now believed the war was a crusade for eradication of slavery. Following a brief skirmish at Pound Gap, the last rebel units in the area were outflanked, and they retreated to Virginia. Garfield's promotion gave him command of the 20th Brigade of the Army of the Ohio, which was ordered in early 1862 to join Major General Ulysses S. Grant's forces as they advanced on Corinth, Mississippi. Before the 20th Brigade arrived, however, Confederate forces under General Albert Sidney Johnston surprised Grant's men in their camps, driving them back. Garfield's troops got word of the battle and advanced quickly, joining the rest of the army on the second day to drive the Confederates back across the field and into retreat. The action, later known as the Battle of Shiloh, was the bloodiest of the war to date; Garfield was exposed to fire for much of the day, but emerged uninjured. Major General Henry W. Halleck, Grant's superior, took charge of the combined armies and advanced ponderously toward Corinth; when they arrived, the Confederates had fled. That summer Garfield suffered from jaundice and significant weight loss.[b] He was forced to return home, where his wife nursed him back to health. While he was home, Garfield's friends worked to gain him the Republican nomination for Congress, although he refused to politick with the delegates. He returned to military duty that autumn and went to Washington to await his next assignment. During this period of idleness, a rumor of an extra-marital affair caused friction in the Garfield marriage until Lucretia eventually chose to overlook it. Garfield repeatedly received tentative assignments that were quickly withdrawn, to his frustration. In the meantime, he served on the court-martial of Fitz John Porter for his tardiness at the Second Battle of Bull Run. He was convinced of Porter's guilt, and voted with his fellow generals to convict. The trial lasted almost two months, from November 1862 to January 1863, and by the end of it, Garfield had at last procured an assignment as Chief of Staff to Major General William S. Rosecrans. Chief of staff for Rosecrans [ edit ] General William S. Rosecrans The position of Chief of Staff for a general was usually held by a more junior officer, but Garfield's influence with Rosecrans was greater than usual, with duties extending beyond mere communication of orders to duties that involved actual management of his Army of the Cumberland. Rosecrans had a voracious appetite for conversation, especially when he was unable to sleep; in Garfield, he found "the first well read person in the Army" and the ideal candidate for discussions that ran deep into the night. The two became close in spite of Garfield's being twelve years junior to Rosecrans, and their talks covered all topics, especially religion; Rosecrans, who had converted from Methodism to Roman Catholicism, succeeded in softening Garfield's view of his faith. Garfield recommended that Rosecrans replace wing commanders Alexander McCook and Thomas Crittenden, whom he believed ineffective, but Rosecrans ignored the suggestions. With Rosecrans, Garfield devised the Tullahoma Campaign to pursue and trap Confederate General Braxton Bragg in Tullahoma. After initial Union success, Bragg retreated toward Chattanooga, where Rosecrans stalled and requested more troops and supplies. Garfield argued for an immediate advance, in line with demands from Halleck and Lincoln. After a council of war and lengthy deliberations, Rosecrans agreed to attack. At the ensuing Battle of Chickamauga on September 19 and 20, 1863, confusion among the wing commanders over Rosecrans's orders created a gap in the lines, resulting in a rout of the right flank. Rosecrans concluded that the battle was lost and fell back on Chattanooga to establish a defensive line. Garfield, however, thought that part of the army had held and, with Rosecrans's approval, headed across Missionary Ridge to survey the scene. Garfield's hunch was correct. His ride became legendary, while Rosecrans' error reignited criticism about his leadership. While Rosecrans's army had avoided disaster, they were stranded in Chattanooga, surrounded by Bragg's army. Garfield sent a telegram to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton alerting Washington to the need for reinforcements to avoid annihilation, and Lincoln and Halleck delivered 20,000 troops by rail within nine days. In the meantime, Grant was promoted to command of the western armies, and quickly replaced Rosecrans with George H. Thomas. Garfield was ordered to report to Washington, where he was promoted to major general, a commission he would resign before taking a seat in the House of Representatives. According to historian Jean Edward Smith, Grant and Garfield had a "guarded relationship", since Grant promoted Thomas to command of the Army of the Cumberland, rather than Garfield, after Rosecrans was dismissed. Congressional career [ edit ] Election in 1862; Civil War years [ edit ] While serving in the Army in early 1862, Garfield was approached by friends about running for Congress from Ohio's newly redrawn, heavily Republican 19th district. He was worried that he and other state-appointed generals would get obscure assignments, and running for Congress would allow him to resume his political career. The fact that the new Congress would not hold its first regular session until December 1863[c] would allow him to continue his war service for a time. Home on medical leave, he refused to campaign for the nomination, leaving that to political managers who secured it at the local convention in September 1862, on the eighth ballot. In October, he defeated D.B. Woods by a two-to-one margin in the general election for a seat in the 38th Congress. Soon after the nomination, Garfield was ordered to report to War Secretary Edwin Stanton in Washington to discuss his military future. There, Garfield met Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who befriended him, seeing him as a younger version of himself. The two men agreed politically, and both were part of the Radical wing of the Republican Party. Once he took his seat in December 1863, Garfield was frustrated that Lincoln seemed reluctant to press the South hard. Many radicals, led in the House by Pennsylvania's Thaddeus Stevens, wanted rebel-owned lands confiscated, but Lincoln threatened to veto any bill that would do that on a widespread basis. Garfield, in debate on the House floor, supported such legislation and, discussing England's Glorious Revolution, hinted that Lincoln might be thrown out of office for resisting the bills. Although Garfield had supported Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the congressman marveled that it was a "...strange phenomenon in the world's history, when a second-rate Illinois lawyer is the instrument to utter words which shall form an epoch memorable in all future ages." Garfield not only favored abolition of slavery, but believed that the leaders of the rebellion had forfeited their constitutional rights. He supported the confiscation of southern plantations and even exile or execution of rebellion leaders as a means to ensure the permanent destruction of slavery. Garfield felt Congress was obliged "to determine what legislation is necessary to secure equal justice to all loyal persons, without regard to color." Garfield was more supportive of Lincoln when Lincoln took action against slavery. Early in his tenure, he differed from his party on several issues; his was the solitary Republican vote to terminate the use of bounties in recruiting. Some financially able recruits had used the bounty system to buy their way out of service (called commutation), which Garfield considered reprehensible. Garfield gave a speech pointing out the flaws in the existing conscription law: that of 300,000 called upon to enlist, barely 10,000 had, the remainder claiming exemption or providing money or a substitute. Lincoln appeared before the Military Affairs committee on which Garfield served, demanding a more effective bill; even if it cost him re-election, Lincoln was confident he could win the war before his term expired. After many false starts, Garfield, with the support of Lincoln, procured the passage of a conscription bill that excluded commutation. Under Chase's influence, Garfield became a staunch proponent of a dollar backed by a gold standard, and was therefore a strong opponent of the "greenback"; he regretted very much, but understood, the necessity for suspension of payment in gold or silver during the emergency presented by the Civil War. Garfield voted with the Radical Republicans in passing the Wade–Davis Bill, designed to give Congress more authority over Reconstruction, but it was defeated by Lincoln's pocket veto. Garfield did not consider Lincoln particularly worthy of re-election, but no viable alternative seemed available. "He will probably be the man, though I think we could do better." The Ohioan attended the party convention and promoted Rosecrans as Lincoln's running mate, but delegates chose Military Governor of Tennessee Andrew Johnson. Both Lincoln and Garfield were re-elected. By then, Chase had left the Cabinet and had been appointed Chief Justice, and his relations with Garfield became more distant. Garfield took up the practice of law in 1865 as a means to improve his personal finances. His efforts took him to Wall Street where, the day after Lincoln's assassination, a riotous crowd led him into an impromptu speech to calm it: "Fellow citizens! Clouds and darkness are round about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow citizens! God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!" The speech, with no mention or praise of Lincoln, was according to Garfield biographer Robert G. Caldwell "...quite as significant for what it did not contain as for what it did." In the following years, Garfield had more praise for Lincoln; a year after the Illinoisan's death Garfield stated that, "Greatest among all these developments were the character and fame of Abraham Lincoln," and in 1878 called Lincoln "...one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power." Reconstruction [ edit ] Garfield was as firm a supporter of black suffrage as he had been of abolition, though he admitted that the idea of African Americans as political equals with whites gave him "a strong feeling of repugnance."[d] The new president, Johnson, sought the rapid restoration of the Southern states during the months between his accession and the meeting of Congress in December 1865; Garfield hesitantly supported this policy as an experiment. Johnson, an old friend, sought Garfield's backing, and their conversations led Garfield to assume that differences between president and Congress were not large. When Congress assembled in December (to Johnson's chagrin without the elected representatives of the Southern states, who were excluded), Garfield urged conciliation on his colleagues, although he feared that Johnson, a former Democrat, might combine with other Democrats to gain political control if he rejoined the party. Garfield foresaw conflict even before February 1866 when Johnson vetoed a bill to extend the life of the Freedmen's Bureau, charged with aiding the former slaves. By April, Garfield had concluded that Johnson was either "crazy or drunk with opium." The conflict between the branches of government was the major issue of the 1866 campaign, with Johnson taking to the campaign trail in a Swing Around the Circle and Garfield facing opposition within his party in his home district. With the South still disenfranchised and Northern public opinion behind the Republicans, they gained a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress. Garfield, having overcome his challengers at his district nominating convention, was easily re-elected. Garfield opposed the initial talk of impeaching President Johnson when Congress convened in December 1866. However, he supported legislation to limit Johnson's powers, such as the Tenure of Office Act, which restricted Johnson in removing presidential appointees. Distracted by committee duties, he rarely spoke in connection with these bills, but was a loyal Republican vote against Johnson. Due to a court case, he was absent on the day in April 1868 when the House impeached Johnson, but soon gave a speech aligning himself with Thaddeus Stevens and others who sought Johnson's removal. When the president was acquitted in trial before the Senate, Garfield was shocked, and blamed the outcome of the trial on its presiding officer, Chief Justice Chase, his onetime mentor. By the time Ulysses S. Grant succeeded Johnson in 1869, Garfield had moved away from the remaining radicals (Stevens, their leader, had died in 1868). He hailed the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 as a triumph, and he favored the re-admission of Georgia to the Union as a matter of right, not politics. In 1871, Garfield opposed passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, saying, "I have never been more perplexed by a piece of legislation." He was torn between his indignation at "these terrorists" and his concern for the freedoms endangered by the power the bill gave to the president to enforce the act through suspension of habeas corpus. Tariffs and finance [ edit ] The greenback so despised by Garfield Throughout his political career, Garfield favored the gold standard and decried attempts to increase the money supply through the issuance of paper money not backed by gold, and later, through the free and unlimited coinage of silver. In 1865, Garfield was placed on the House Ways and Means Committee, a long-awaited opportunity to focus on financial and economic issues. He reprised his opposition to the greenback, saying, "Any party which commits itself to paper money will go down amid the general disaster, covered with the curses of a ruined people." In 1868 Garfield gave a two-hour speech on currency in the House, which was widely applauded as his best oratory to that point; in it he advocated a gradual resumption of specie payments, that is, the government paying out silver and gold, rather than paper money that could not be redeemed. Tariffs had been raised to high levels during the Civil War. Afterwards, Garfield, who made a close study of financial affairs, advocated moving towards free trade, though the standard Republican position was a protective tariff that would allow American industries to grow. This break with his party likely cost him his place on the Ways and Means Committee in 1867, and though Republicans held the majority in the House until 1875, Garfield remained off that committee during that time. Garfield came to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee, but it was Ways and Means, with its influence over fiscal policy, that he really wanted to lead. Part of the reason Garfield was denied a place on Ways and Means was the opposition of the influential Republican editor, Horace Greeley. Garfield's handwriting on evidence used during the Gold Panic investigation in 1870 In September 1870, Garfield, who was then chairman of the House Banking Committee, led an investigation into the Black Friday Gold Panic scandal. The committee investigation into corruption was thorough, but found no indictable offenses. Garfield blamed the easy availability of fiat money greenbacks for financing the speculation that led to the scandal. Garfield was not at all enthused about the re-election of President Grant in 1872—until Horace Greeley, who emerged as the candidate of the Democrats and Liberal Republicans, became the only serious alternative. Garfield opined, "I would say Grant was not fit to be nominated and Greeley is not fit to be elected." Both Grant and Garfield won overwhelming re-election victories. Crédit Mobilier scandal; Salary Grab [ edit ] The Crédit Mobilier of America scandal involved corruption in the financing of the Union Pacific Railroad, part of the transcontinental railroad that was completed in 1869. Union Pacific officers and directors secretly purchased control of the Crédit Mobilier of America company, then contracted with the firm to have it undertake the construction of the railroad. The grossly inflated invoices submitted by the company were paid by the railroad, using federal funds appropriated to subsidize the project, and the company was allowed to purchase Union Pacific securities at par value, well below the market rate. Crédit Mobilier showed large profits and stock gains, and distributed substantial dividends. The high expenses meant that Congress was called upon to appropriate more funds. One of the railroad officials who controlled Crédit Mobilier was also a congressman, Oakes Ames of Massachusetts. He offered some of his colleagues the opportunity to buy Crédit Mobilier stock at par value, well below what it sold for on the market, and the railroad got its additional appropriations. Editorial cartoon: Uncle Sam directs U.S. Senators and Representatives implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scheme to commit Hara-Kiri The story broke in July 1872, in the middle of the presidential campaign. Among those named were Vice President (and former House Speaker) Schuyler Colfax, Grant's second-term running mate (Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson), Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine, and Garfield. Greeley had little luck taking advantage of the scandal. When Congress reconvened after the election, Blaine, seeking to clear his name, demanded a House investigation. Evidence before the special committee exonerated Blaine. Garfield had stated, in September 1872, that Ames had offered him stock, but he had repeatedly refused it. Testifying before the committee in January, Ames alleged that he had offered Garfield ten shares of stock at par value, but that Garfield had never taken the shares, or paid for them. A year had passed, from 1867 to 1868, before Garfield had finally refused it. Garfield, appearing before the committee on January 14, 1873, confirmed much of this. Ames testified several weeks later that Garfield agreed to take the stock on credit, and that it was paid for by the company's huge dividends. The two men differed over a sum of some $300 that Garfield received and later paid back, with Garfield deeming it a loan and Ames a dividend. Garfield's biographers were unwilling to exonerate him in Crédit Mobilier, with Allan Peskin writing, "Did Garfield lie? Not exactly. Did he tell the truth? Not completely. Was he corrupted? Not really. Even Garfield's enemies never claimed that his involvement... influenced his behavior." Rutkow wrote that "Garfield's real offense was that he knowingly denied to the House investigating committee that he had agreed to accept the stock and that he had also received a dividend of $329." Caldwell suggested that Garfield "...while he told the truth [before the committee], certainly failed to tell the whole truth, clearly evading an answer to certain vital questions and thus giving the impression of worse faults than those of which he was guilty." That Crédit Mobilier was a corrupt organization had been a secret badly kept, even mentioned on the floor of Congress, and editor Sam Bowles wrote at the time that Garfield, in his positions on committees dealing with finance, "...had no more right to be ignorant in a matter of such grave importance as this, than the sentinel has to snore on his post." Another issue that caused Garfield trouble in his 1874 re-election bid was the so-called "Salary Grab" of 1873, which increased the compensation for members of Congress by 50 percent, retroactive to 1871. Garfield was responsible, as Appropriations Committee chairman, for shepherding the legislative appropriations bill through the House; during the debate in February 1873, Massachusetts Representative Benjamin Butler offered the increase as an amendment, and despite Garfield's opposition, it passed the House and eventually became law. The law was very popular in the House, as almost half the members were lame ducks, but the public was outraged, and many of Garfield's constituents blamed him, though he refused to accept the increase. In what was a bad year for Republicans, who lost control of the House for the first time since the Civil War, Garfield had his closest congressional election, winning with only 57 percent of the vote.[e] Minority leader; Hayes administration [ edit ] With the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives in 1875, Garfield lost his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee. The Democratic leadership in the House appointed Garfield as a Republican member of Ways and Means. With many of his leadership rivals defeated in the 1874 Democratic landslide, and Blaine elected to the Senate, Garfield was seen as the Republican floor leader and the likely Speaker should the party regain control of the chamber. As the 1876 presidential election approached, Garfield was loyal to the candidacy of Senator Blaine, and fought for the former Speaker's nomination at the 1876 Republican National Convention in Cincinnati. When it became clear, after six ballots, that Blaine could not prevail, the convention nominated Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. Although Garfield had supported Blaine, he had kept good relations with Hayes, and wholeheartedly supported the governor. Garfield had hoped to retire from politics after his term expired to devote himself full-time to the practice of law, but to help his party, he sought re-election, and won it easily that October. Any celebration was short lived, as Garfield's youngest son, Neddie, fell ill with whooping cough shortly after the congressional election, and soon died. When Hayes appeared to have lost the presidential election the following month to Democrat Samuel Tilden, the Republicans launched efforts to reverse the result in Southern states where they held the governorship: South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. If Hayes won all three states, he would take the election by a single electoral vote. Grant asked Garfield to serve as a "neutral observer" in the recount in Louisiana. The observers soon recommended to the state electoral commissions that Hayes be declared the winner—Garfield recommended that the entire vote of West Feliciana Parish, which had given Tilden a sizable majority, be thrown out. The Republican governors of the three states certified that Hayes had won their states, to the outrage of Democrats, who had the state legislatures submit rival returns, and threatened to prevent the counting of the electoral vote—under the Constitution, Congress is the final arbiter of the election. Congress then passed a bill establishing the Electoral Commission, to determine the winner. Although he opposed the Commission, feeling that Congress should count the vote and proclaim Hayes victorious, Garfield was appointed to it over the objections of Democrats that he was too partisan. Hayes emerged the victor by a Commission vote of 8 to 7, with all eight votes being cast by Republican politicians or appointees of that party to the Supreme Court. As part of the deal whereby they recognized Hayes as president, Southern Democrats secured the removal of federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction. Although a Senate seat would be disposed of by the Ohio General Assembly after the resignation of John Sherman to become Treasury Secretary, Hayes needed Garfield's expertise to protect him from the agenda of a hostile Congress, and asked him not to seek it. Garfield, as the president's key legislator, gained considerable prestige and respect for his role. When Congress debated what became the Bland-Allison Act, to have the government purchase large quantities of silver and strike it into fully legal tender dollar coins, Garfield fought against this deviation from the gold standard, but it was enacted over Hayes's veto in February 1878. Garfield during this time purchased the property in Mentor that reporters later dubbed Lawnfield, and from which he would conduct the first successful front porch campaign for the presidency. Hayes suggested that Garfield run for governor in 1879, seeing that as a road that would likely put Garfield in the White House. Garfield preferred to seek election as senator, and devoted his efforts to seeing that Republicans won the 1879 election for the General Assembly, with the likely Democratic candidate the incumbent, Allen G. Thurman. The Republicans swept the legislative elections. Rivals were spoken of for the seat, such as Secretary Sherman, but he had presidential ambitions (for which he sought Garfield's support), and other candidates fell by the wayside. Garfield was elected to the Senate by the General Assembly in January 1880, though his term was not to begin until March 4, 1881. Legal career and other activities [ edit ] Garfield was one of three attorneys who argued for the petitioners in the landmark Supreme Court case Ex parte Milligan in 1866. His clients were pro-Confederate northern men who had been found guilty and sentenced to death by a military court for treasonous activities. The case turned on whether the defendants should instead have been tried by a civilian court, and resulted in a ruling that civilians could not be tried before military tribunals while the civil courts were operating. The oral argument was Garfield's first court appearance. Jeremiah Black had taken him in as a junior partner a year before, and assigned the case to him in light of his highly regarded oratory skills. With the result, Garfield instantly achieved a reputation as a preeminent appellate lawyer. During Grant's first term, discontented with public service, Garfield pursued opportunities in the law, but declined a partnership offer when told his prospective partner was of "intemperate and licentious" reputation. In 1873, after the death of Chase, Garfield appealed to Grant to appoint Justice Noah H. Swayne as Chief Justice. Grant, however, appointed Morrison R. Waite. Garfield thought the land grants given to expanding railroads was an unjust practice. He also opposed some monopolistic practices by corporations, as well as the power sought by workers' unions. Garfield supported the proposed establishment of the United States civil service as a means of ridding officials of the annoyance of aggressive office seekers. He especially wished to eliminate the common practice whereby government workers, in exchange for their positions, were forced to kick back a percentage of their wages as political contributions. In 1876, Garfield displayed his mathematical talent when he developed a trapezoid proof of the Pythagorean theorem. His finding was placed in the New England Journal of Education. Mathematics historian William Dunham wrote that Garfield's trapezoid work was "really a very clever proof."[119] Presidential election of 1880 [ edit ] Republican nomination [ edit ] Having just been elected to the Senate with Sherman's support, Garfield entered the 1880 campaign season committed to Sherman as his choice for the Republican presidential nominee. Even before the convention began, however, a few Republicans, including Wharton Barker of Philadelphia, thought Garfield the best choice for the nomination. Garfield denied any interest in the position, but the attention was enough to make Sherman suspicious of his lieutenant's ambitions. Besides Sherman, the early favorites for the nomination were Blaine and former President Grant, but several other candidates attracted delegates as well. As the convention began, Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, the floor leader for the Grant forces (known as the Stalwart faction), proposed that the delegates pledge to support the eventual nominee in the general election. When three West Virginia delegates declined to be so bound, Conkling sought to expel them from the convention. Garfield rose to defend the men, giving a passionate speech in defense of their right to reserve judgment. The crowd turned against Conkling, and he withdrew the motion. The performance delighted Garfield's boosters, who now believed more than ever that he was the only man who could attract a majority of the delegates' votes. After speeches in favor of the other front-runners, Garfield rose to place Sherman's name in nomination; his nominating speech was well-received, but the delegates mustered little excitement for the idea of Sherman as the next president. The first ballot showed Grant leading with 304 votes and Blaine in second with 284; Sherman's 93 placed him in a distant third. Subsequent ballots quickly demonstrated a deadlock between the Grant and Blaine forces, with neither having the 379 votes needed for nomination. Jeremiah McLain Rusk, a member of the Wisconsin delegation, and Benjamin Harrison, an Indiana delegate, sought to break the deadlock by shifting a few of the anti-Grant votes to a dark horse candidate—Garfield. Garfield gained 50 votes on the 35th ballot, and the stampede began. Garfield protested to the other members of his Ohio delegation that he had not sought the nomination and had never intended to betray Sherman, but they overruled his objections and cast their ballots for him. In the next round of voting, nearly all of the Sherman and Blaine delegates shifted their support to Garfield, giving him 399 votes and the Republican nomination. Most of the Grant forces backed the former president to the end, creating a disgruntled Stalwart minority in the party. To obtain that faction's support for the ticket, former New York customs collector Chester A. Arthur, a member of Conkling's political machine, was chosen as the vice presidential nominee. Campaign against Hancock [ edit ] Garfield–Arthur election poster Despite including a Stalwart on the ticket, animosity between the Republican factions carried over from the convention, and Garfield traveled to New York to meet with party leaders there. After convincing the Stalwart crowd to put aside their differences and unite for the coming campaign, Garfield returned to Ohio, leaving the active campaigning to others, as was traditional at the time. Meanwhile, the Democrats settled on their nominee, Major General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania, a career military officer. Hancock and the Democrats expected to carry the Solid South, while much of the North was considered safe territory for Garfield and the Republicans; most of the campaign would involve a few close states, including New York and Indiana. The rear of the house at Garfield's Lawnfield estate, from which he conducted his " front porch campaign 1880 electoral vote results Practical differences between the candidates were few, and Republicans began the campaign with the familiar theme of waving the bloody shirt: reminding Northern voters that the Democratic Party was responsible for secession and four years of civil war, and that if Democrats held power they would reverse the gains of that war, dishonor Union veterans, and pay Confederate veterans pensions out of the federal treasury. With fifteen years having passed since the end of the war, and Union generals at the head of both tickets, the bloody shirt was of diminishing value in exciting the voters. With a few months to go before the election, the Republicans switched tactics to emphasize the tariff. Seizing on the Democratic platform's call for a "tariff for revenue only", Republicans told Northern workers that a Hancock presidency would weaken the tariff protection that kept them in good jobs. Hancock made the situation worse when, attempting to strike a moderate stance, he said, "The tariff question is a local question." The ploy proved effective in uniting the North behind Garfield. In the end, fewer than two thousand votes, of the more than 9.2 million popular votes cast, separated the two candidates,[138] but in the Electoral College Garfield had an easy victory over Hancock, 214 to 155. Presidency, 1881 [ edit ] President Garfield Cabinet and inauguration [ edit ] Between his election and his inauguration, Garfield was occupied with assembling a cabinet that would establish peace between Conkling's and Blaine's warring factions. Blaine's delegates had provided much of the support for Garfield's nomination, and the Maine senator received the place of honor: Secretary of State. Blaine was not only the president's closest advisor, he was obsessed with knowing all that took place in the White House, and was even said to have spies posted there in his absence. Garfield nominated William Windom of Minnesota as Secretary of the Treasury, William H. Hunt of Louisiana as Secretary of the Navy, Robert Todd Lincoln as Secretary of War, and Samuel J. Kirkwood of Iowa as Secretary of the Interior. New York was represented by Thomas Lemuel James as Postmaster General. Garfield appointed Pennsylvania's Wayne MacVeagh, an adversary of Blaine's, as Attorney General. Blaine tried to sabotage the appointment by convincing Garfield to name an opponent of MacVeagh, William E. Chandler, as Solicitor General under MacVeagh. Only Chandler's rejection by the Senate forestalled Mac
controlling for factors such as age or education, those who visited fact-checking sites still did better, by a statistically significant margin. So based on this, I can say with confidence that we fact-checkers are making voters harder to fool. And that was our goal all along. We can’t stop the political arsonists, but we can and do limit their damage. Potholes to Avoid That’s not to say fact-checkers are perfect. At FactCheck.org, we’ve made our share of factual mistakes over the years. But we correct ours as promptly and openly as we can, and don’t try to hide them. And I’ve seen the same prompt correction of (infrequent) errors from my fellow fact-checkers at other organizations. But how often do political candidates correct their bogus claims? Hardly ever. More often, they just keep making them, even when shown to be false. Looking ahead, I see room for improvement. Some of the habits and practices I’ve seen in the fact-checking “industry” tend to damage the credibility of all fact-checkers, and should be modified or avoided. Confusing fact-checking with commentary. A true “fact check” simply assesses the factual accuracy of a specific claim, nothing more. Is it true, false or somewhere in between? Does it give a misleading impression? Fact-checkers get into trouble when they step beyond these bounds. For example, another organization was rightly and roundly criticized for bringing up Bill Clinton’s untruthful testimony about Monica Lewinsky to “fact check” a perfectly accurate attack he made at the Democratic convention about Republican deceptions. . A true “fact check” simply assesses the factual accuracy of a specific claim, nothing more. Is it true, false or somewhere in between? Does it give a misleading impression? Fact-checkers get into trouble when they step beyond these bounds. For example, another organization was rightly and roundly criticized for bringing up Bill Clinton’s untruthful testimony about Monica Lewinsky to “fact check” a perfectly accurate attack he made at the Democratic convention about Republican deceptions. Inflexible rating systems. Rating statements with devices such as “truth-o-meters” or “Pinocchios” are popular with readers, and successful attention-grabbers. But such ratings are by their nature subjective — the difference between one or two “Pinocchios” is a matter of personal judgment, and debatable. Some statements are clearly true, and some provably false, but there’s no agreed method for determining the precise degree of mendacity in any statement that falls somewhere in between. Rating systems have also led to embarrassment. A senator who said a “majority” of Americans are conservative was rated “mostly true” (and later “half true”) even though the statement was false. The story cited a poll showing only 40 percent of Americans rated themselves conservative. That’s more than said they were moderate (35 percent) or liberal (21 percent) but still far from a majority. The senator had a point, but stated it incorrectly, thereby exaggerating. A simple “truth-o-meter” had no suitable category for that. Our approach would have been to say that it was false. But we would also note that the senator would have been correct to say Americans are more likely to call themselves conservative than moderate, or liberal, when given those three choices. Bogus Criticisms, From Right and Left Besides these valid criticisms, we fact-checkers also have been attacked from the right and left as either politically biased, or inconsistent. I see no basis for either criticism. One persistent critic at the conservative Weekly Standard, for example, saw “evidence of partisan bias” in a study released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which concluded that Politifact.com rated statements by Mitt Romney and other Republicans as false twice as often as statements by President Obama and other Democrats. But that’s not evidence of bias, necessarily. For one thing, the CMPA said it had not attempted to assess whether Politifact.com’s ratings were correct. So the disparity could just as easily be interpreted as evidence that Romney was wrong twice as often as Obama. Later, the CMPA found that the Washington Post’s Fact Checker column “faults the two parties about equally.” That was interpreted by the Weekly Standard‘s critic as evidence that the Post was “better” than Politifact.com, which is pretty clear evidence of the critic’s own Republican bias. CMPA interpreted its own findings as evidence that “[f]act-checkers disagree on who lies most.” We’ve heard that echoed by political operatives, who cite it as a reason they think fact-checkers should be ignored. But I don’t agree with either interpretation. For one thing, the CMPA study made no attempt to compare how the two fact-checkers rated specific, discrete claims. It tallied 98 ratings by Politifact and 64 by the Post, but didn’t say how many of those ratings were of identical claims. It compared a big basket with a smaller one, without any explanation of how many apples or oranges either contained. In my experience, the various fact-checking organizations seldom disagree about the basic accuracy of any specific claim, whether it’s from a Republican or a Democrat. That’s true even though we arrive at our judgments independently. And this study offers no evidence to the contrary. (CMPA said it would also rate FactCheck.org, but so far has not contacted us or published any findings.) From liberal critics, we often hear the accusation that fact-checkers strain to create a “false equivalency” when we find fault with their favored candidates. One pro-Obama reader even accused us of showing “fairness bias” in our coverage of a debate. That of course assumes that liberal candidates lie less often, or less egregiously, than conservatives. In fact, what we attempt to do at FactCheck.org is to apply the same standard of accuracy to all statements — from either side — and let the chips fall where they will. We leave it to readers to judge how important or how deplorable any factually incorrect statement might seem to them. We don’t try to keep score. The point is not to discover which side is less truthful, but to give voters reliable facts, and to counteract political misinformation. Partisan critics don’t seem to grasp that. It is just human nature for biased observers to see bias in us when we cite facts that tend to discredit their beliefs, but that’s not evidence of bias on our part. And it’s also human nature for the politicians we criticize to strain for reasons to deflect the criticism, rather than acknowledge responsibility for their own deceptions. My Road Watching a website at a university think tank inspire an entire journalistic “industry” has been enjoyable and professionally fulfilling. But at age 71, I’m not keen on pulling more all-night sessions to comb through another State of the Union Address or another presidential debate. So I’ll be stepping down as director of FactCheck.org at the end of the year. I’ll turn over the reins to my very able deputy, Eugene Kiely, and I’ll assume the honorific title of “director emeritus.” But I won’t be leaving. I’ll take a little time off. Then, starting in February, I’ll return to work as a part-time reporter and consultant. FactCheck.org is funded for now, and superbly staffed. The work will continue. And I hope the fact-checking “industry” will grow as well, offering voters even more help to sort through the inevitable spin. As long as there are political arsonists, we need all the firefighters we can get.Edward Snowden says the US National Security Agency is lying when it says it has no record of his emails to supervisors raising concerns about NSA surveillance programs, and that the release of one of his emails on Thursday proves it. The NSA has long maintained that Snowden never voiced his concerns through proper channels before fleeing the US with a trove of secret documents, a position the agency reiterated on Thursday when it published what it claimed was the only email it could find from him. That email contained a seemingly innocuous question about a legal matter and did not raise any specific objections to any NSA programs. But in an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday, Snowden said that if the NSA can find one of his emails – after months of denying that its lawyers and higher-ups ever had any contact with him – then it must surely have the others he maintains he sent. "Today's release is incomplete, and does not include my correspondence with the Signals Intelligence Directorate's Office of Compliance," Snowden said. He added that in the latter correspondence, he was told that secret Presidential Executive Orders could take precedence over an act of Congress, directly contradicting the response from the NSA's Office of General Counsel that was published on Thursday. In a televised interview with NBC's Brian Williams on Wednesday, Snowden said that he had also raised his concerns verbally with colleagues, management, and senior leadership at the NSA, but was warned that the agency would "destroy" him if he made waves. On Thursday, he told the Post that it would "not take long" for NSA investigators to confirm that he'd had those talks, but said that internal policies and practices at the NSA are designed to suppress and ignore dissent. "The fact that two powerful Democratic Senators – Ron Wyden and Mark Udall – knew of mass surveillance that they believed was abusive and felt constrained to do anything about it underscores how futile such internal action is – and will remain – until these processes are reformed," Snowden said. Nonetheless, he said, he sees the NSA's decision to publish one of his emails as a step in the right direction. "I'm glad they've shown they have access to records they claimed just a few months ago did not exist," he said, "and I hope we'll see the rest of them very soon... Today's strangely tailored and incomplete leak only shows the NSA feels it has something to hide." ®Rumors are flying that a Twitter sale may be imminent and could fetch big bucks–as much $30 billion, according to Recode. Despite its beloved status with many journalists, the social feed has struggled with lackluster revenue growth and a stagnant user base. Although Twitter is having difficulty expanding, the platform still has much to offer a well-resourced company. For one, Twitter has lots of consumer data. It’s also proven itself as a real-time source for news with roughly 300 million people using it to see what’s going on in the world. Plus, the platform is moving beyond the feed by becoming a venue for live-streamed events, like NFL games. Of course, different buyers have different interests. A number of big-name tech companies are on the roster of potential bidders. Here’s why Twitter might appeal to Microsoft, Salesforce, Disney, and Google, all of which are supposedly sizing it up. The search giant has long been rumored to be a strong contender to acquire Twitter. That’s due, in part, to Google’s attempt to create its own social platform, which never quite captured the public’s attention. Despite having more than a billion people using its email product, Google hasn’t been able convince them to engage on its accompanying platform Google Plus. Google has had success with YouTube, its video network. YouTube has already forged ahead into live video and features live commenting. A partnership with Twitter could perhaps help those live streams attract more viewers. YouTube could use Twitter as its live commenting function to draw in a broadcasters followers, for example. Twitter already functions as a live comment feed during major events. Partnering these two platforms could enhance them both. Twitter’s increased focus on live streaming could also be a boon for Google, since YouTube is similarly geared toward doing more live content. Alternatively, YouTube could stream premiere live events over Twitter–again reaching a different audience.Police arrested three men who allegedly stole a truck packed with cheese, then evaded officers until the truck rolled over on a highway north of Toronto. York Regional Police Const. Andy Pattenden said he has "no idea" if the suspects were after the cheese, but said upwards of 30,000 pounds of it were stolen and it has a "pretty high value." Cargo theft is an ongoing issue in the area, Pattenden said, with thieves targeting "whatever commodity is of high value." York Regional Police were alerted about the stolen truck around 10 p.m. on Tuesday in the Highway 7 and Vaughan Valley Boulevard area of Vaughan, Ont. Police soon located the truck, but the driver refused to stop. "Out of concern for public safety officers did not pursue the tractor trailer," York Regional Police said in a news release. Officers tracked the truck using GPS. Soon after the suspects fled from officers, the truck rolled over near an off-ramp at Highway 7 West and Highway 427. All three men fled on foot following the crash, police allege. York Regional Police officers and members of the Ontario Provincial Police began tracking the suspects along with a canine unit — no, Pattenden said, the dogs weren't chasing the scent of sharp cheddar. One suspect was found driving in a car in the area of Royal Crest Drive and arrested police said. The other two were found nearby where they were trying to hail a taxi. The three suspects, who range in age from 19-36, are each charged with theft over $5,000 and possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000. All three are set to appear in court today.A new survey of internet users suggests that people who use the internet excessively may have more mental health problems. Using two scales to evaluate internet use, researchers have found high rates of problematic internet use in a group of primarily college-aged students. The researchers evaluated internet addiction using the Internet Addiction Test, as well as newer scale of their own design, based on updated addiction criteria. This work, which is presented at the ECNP conference in Vienna, may have implications for how psychiatrists approach excessive internet use. The unstoppable rise of the internet has given rise to fears that increasing numbers people are becoming unable to cope without regularly going online. The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is the standard test used to measure excessive reliance on the internet, but as Chief Researcher Michael Van Ameringen pointed out: "The IAT was developed in 1998, prior to the widespread use of smartphone technology. In addition, internet use has changed radically over the last 18 years, through more people working online, media streaming, social media, etc. We were concerned that the IAT questionnaire may not have been picking up on problematic modern internet use, or showing up false positives for people who were simply using the internet rather than being over-reliant on it." Professor Van Ameringen's group, from McMaster University in Canada, surveyed 254 students and correlated internet use with general mental health and wellbeing. Thirty-three of the students met screening criteria for internet addition according to the Internet Addiction Test. However, 107 students met criteria for problematic internet use using Professor Van Ameringen and colleagues' new screening tool. The research team also administered a further series of self-reported tests to see how the internet addicts compared to the others in the survey on areas such as symptoms of depression and anxiety, impulsiveness, inattention and executive functioning, as well as tests for ADHD. Professor Van Ameringen said: "We found that those screening positive on the IAT as well as on our scale, had significantly more trouble dealing with their day to day activities, including life at home, at work/school and in social settings. Individuals with internet addiction also had significantly higher amounts of depression and anxiety symptoms, problems with planning and time management, greater levels of attentional impulsivity as well as ADHD symptoms. This leads us to a couple of questions: firstly, are we grossly underestimating the prevalence of internet addiction and secondly are these other mental health issues a cause or consequence of this excessive reliance on the internet? This may have practical medical implications. If you are trying to treat someone for an addiction when in fact they are anxious or depressed, then you may be going down the wrong route. We need to understand this more, so we need a bigger sample, drawn from a wider, more varied population." Commenting Professor Jan Buitelaar (Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre) of the ECNP Child and adolescent disorders treatment Scientific Advisory Panel said: "Excessive use of the internet is an understudied phenomenon that may disguise mild or severe psychopathology; excessive use of the internet may be strongly linked to compulsive behaviour and addiction; as the authors say, further study is needed in larger populations."The U.S. Navy's SM-6 is designed to engage incoming ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and enemy airraft from a naval platform. Photo by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency PACIFIC MISSILE FIRING RANGE, Hawaii, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy fired two Raytheon-built Standard Missile-6 missiles to intercept incoming medium-range ballistic missile targets during a recent flight test. The Standard Missile-6, or SM-6, is designed to intercept short-range and medium-range attacks at sea, and replaced the SM-2 Block IV missile. Raytheon officials say the test was conducted to demonstrate the weapon's versatility. "This test showcased the flexibility of SM-6 by providing both anti-air warfare and ballistic missile defense from sea," Raytheon Missile Systems president Dr. Taylor W. Lawrence said in a press release. "Combined with its anti-surface warfare capabilities, the SM-6 will play a significant role in protecting U.S. and Allied forces at sea and ashore." The test was part of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Sea-Based Terminal Program, which aims to bolster ballistic missile protection using maritime platforms. The SM-6 missiles used in the test were integrated into the Aegis missile guidance system. In addition to incoming ballistic missile threats, the SM-6 is also designed to engage rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as surface targets. The Dual I variant used in the test achieved initial operating capability in 2016 following a successful flight test in August 2015.Right now Catawiki, an online auction platform is selling a special Vespa. This Vespa TAP scooter is an original, former French military vehicle, restored to preserve the originality History of the “Bazooka Vespa” The Vespa TAP is a Vespa scooter modified for use with paratroops (Troupes Aéro Portées, or TAP). Introduced in 1956 and updated in 1959, it was produced by Ateliers de Construction de Motocycles et Automobiles (ACMA), the licensed assembler of Vespas in France at the time. Modifications from the civilian Vespa included a reinforced frame and a three inch recoilless rifle mounted to the scooter. Due to the lack of any kind of aiming devices the recoilless rifle was never designed to be fired from the scooter; the gun was mounted on a tripod, which was also carried by the scooter, before being fired. However, in an emergency it could be fired while in the frame, and while the scooter was moving. Five hundred Vespa TAP scooters were produced. source: wikipedia Specifications of this lot Brand: Vespa Year of first registration: 1959 Condition: Very Good Registration papers present: No Piaggio – Vespa TAP “Militare” – 1959 Rare TAP Vespa, original, former French military vehicle, very carefully restored to preserve its originality. TAP means “airborne troops” The scooters would be parachute-dropped in pairs, accompanied by a two-man team. The gun was carried on one scooter, while the ammunition was loaded on the other. A unique chance for collectors and enthusiasts! Frame no.: 147 TAP 56 Buy Now The estimate for this army vespa is set at €30,000 – €40,000 Check it out on Catawiki Take a look at the bi-weekly scooter auction register on Catawiki to sell your own Vespa Related Bewaren Bewaren Bewaren Bewaren2015 YAMAHA YZF-R1 & R1M – THE NEW WORLD ORDER I sat at the world press launch of Yamaha’s new flagship bike and just blinked with amazement. What was being offered to the world as an out-of-the-box motorcycle was simply overwhelming. The last time I felt like this was when BMW launched its S1000RR. I thought then that when (it was never gonna be an ‘if’) the Japanese decide to hit back at the Germans for having the temerity to usurp the top of the Superbike heap, it is going to be a king-hit. And it is. Halfway through the press briefing, right about the time I was being told that technology from Rossi’s 2012 MotoGP bike had made its way onto a 2015 streetbike, I realised that not only was this a king-hit, but Yamaha was putting the boot in as well. And it just got nastier as the presentation went on. Hell, Bridgestone had even created new tyres for this thing. In the end, after we had been told all about the R1 and its sexy mad, even-more-racier brother-with-the-hand-buffed-aluminium-petrol-tank, the R1M, I had a beer and went home to put all my rarely-used racetrack shit together. For I was to ride them both upon the ’morrow. Now I do not blame some of you for wondering what business a tubby, middle-aged twat like me has making stupid attempts to fang a missile like the R1 around a racetrack. Surely racers the calibre of Josh Brookes, Cam Donald and Steve Martin would be better at this caper? And in that, you are entirely correct. They were there and they were so much faster than me, feeling them go past me liquefied certain organs in my body. I say ‘feeling’ because when one of them whams past you, you first feel their passing (there were no mirrors on the test bikes), then you realise how shit-slow you are, then you see them disappearing. And yes, they can tell you what the bike will do when it’s being pushed by men who have won multiple world championships, raced the Isle of Man or beaten the Aussie Superbike field. How relevant that is to an everyday monkey like me, you have to decide for yourself. I have fundamentally never cared what a top-end racer thinks about a bike. I cannot relate, even remotely, to a bloke that has sponsorship on his leathers. Like so many other riders, I simply marvel at their skill and courage. The fact that a front-end might be getting juddery as he canes a test-bike around Turn X at Circuit Y is only of interest in purely academic terms. I really don’t give a shit and have never bought a bike based on what a racer tells me about it. What I can do is tell you how a normal rider goes on the new Yamaha. I cannot yet tell you how it behaves on the street, for at the time of writing there is not a single registered R1 or R1M here (but that will change in a week or so), but I can certainly tell you how it feels for such a rider to get on a track and ride the most technologically advanced you-can-buy-it-in-a-shop-superbike on the planet right now. The fact that I am still alive is testament to the bike’s brilliance. The fact that I am not leaking internal glargh into a plastic surgical bag is hard evidence of its wizardry. The fact that no new bones have been screwed together with titanium hardware is tribute enough to Yamaha’s current dominance of the sportsbike world. I did about 30 laps on the R1 and maybe five on the slick-shod M. Weariness had overtaken me, and by 3.30pm, it was a zero sum game. I was not going to go any faster and there was nothing being tested here except me. It was 100 types of horrible humid out at Sydney Motorsport Park. My helmet was a pot full of rank sweat, and inside my leathers I felt like I was made out of meat-porridge and wearing a freshly skinned wildebeest. That was all my fault. The R1 cannot be blamed at all. It’s not middle-aged, unfit and recovering from busted necks and arms. It’s roomier and more comfortable than its predecessors. The seat is wider and flatter and no longer forces you to ride on your junk which is no longer being forced into the tank. Two corners into my first lap, it was very obvious that there were a lot of other differences between this bike and its predecessors. And every other bike on the market right now. This is a pure race bike. It was designed to be ridden on a racetrack. The electronics are otherworldly – both in terms of how advanced they are, and in the way they make this much motorcycle so immensely rideable – even when you’re nothing but ageing meat-porridge poured into a race-suit and trying not to get in the way of world champions. Three laps in, I no longer cared about the world champions. They certainly knew enough to pass me and leave me to my own amateurish devices. We could always fight it out later in the pits with knives if it came to that. But it didn’t come to that. Three laps in and I was actually getting my knee down in places I have never even shown a knee-slider. It’s like I suddenly had skills I never even dreamed of. Was this possible? Clearly it was, since I was not spearing off into the pebbles. I tried going a little faster. Yep. Same thing. The R1 just turned when I asked it, provided power upon the instant I demanded it, and made absolutely no attempt to murder me. Even under death-braking at that stupid off-camber hairpin they’ve welded to the back of the track. Hell, it didn’t even try and scare me. It’s insanely fast and it’s insanely civilised and rideable. That combination is rare and ever so devastating. I pulled into the pits and a wonderful Japanese Yamaha tech was grinning and asking me if everything was OK. I hugged him a little bit. He hugged me back. “OK?” he asked. I nodded. This was a little bit more than just OK. This was a whole new thing. I spoke to Steve Martin, Josh Brookes and Cam Donald about the R1 – more to reassure myself that I was not being delusional about the bike as a result of the humidity. “This thing is pretty special, huh?” I asked each of them. All of them nodded. The R1 was indeed special. How much more special its special brother, the up-spec R1M is, was yet to be seen, but since it was equipped with Öhlins race suspension and a batshit crazy racing ECU, I could only imagine. I did two more 10-lap sessions on the R1 and nothing changed. It just did what it did – which was go stupidly fast with consummate ease and make me look like a better rider than I was. The electronics that keep you on the track are so advanced as to be almost un-noticeable. They’re certainly un-noticeable by me. You can set their level of intrusion pretty much anywhere you want, so wheelies are still doable – and even powerslides coming out of corners are easily possible. The Slide Control will make sure that doesn’t turn into a highside. I decided to take that aspect as an article of faith. You are all free to believe in Jesus even though you’ve not witnessed Him. I shall believe in Yamaha’s Slide Control in exactly the same way. Then it was lunchtime. And after lunch it was hammer time. The R1M hammer came with slicks and sat in pitlane idling pure race-venom at me. The little red light blinking on the tyre-warmers looked like a ticking bomb. The only appreciable riding variance is the wider back wheel and the amazing Öhlins racing suspension. Yes, the difference is noticeable. That is the nature of Öhlins. That is why it is the world’s best suspension. No, I’m not doing an ad for it. I’m just stating a fact. It only took a few laps for me to understand that the M is a little bit more special the normal R1. And that R1 is already to hell and gone more special than anything I’ve ridden. So you can understand the difficulty I was having. I took it back to the pits and went to get changed. I was done. More laps would not change anything. It’s not like I was suddenly gonna find an extra few seconds, or try out some new lines. I knew all I needed to know about the R1 and the R1M and what they do around a track with me on board. The road would be a different world – and I will visit that world in the fullness of time. Now then, is the M worth the extra dollars? Only you can answer that question. Personally, if I was shopping in this market, I would get the M. I don’t give a shit about the hand-buffed alloy tank, but I very much care about the Öhlins suspension. Ultimately, this kinda sexy race-stuff is not lost on me, or anyone else who hasn’t got and will never have the skills a racer has. You don’t need to be an expert marksman to appreciate a finely crafted and perfectly weighted rifle. You don’t have to be a gypsy knife-fighter to know that your balanced Damascus-steel blade is a thing of great craftsmanship. You may never even draw it in battle, and you’re content to have it sitting in your display case. Once in a while you take it out and hold it and wave it around. You smile when you do this. You’re happy because you know you’re holding a masterpiece in your hands. In your hands it is a legendary weapon. In other hands, it may well be just a tool – a means to an end. That does not make it any less a masterpiece. A racing bike a racer can utilise as a tool for success, which can be bought off the shelf, driven to a racetrack, shod with slicks and fired off a grid, is pretty exceptional. A bike which offers everything a racer needs and wants without intruding on his chi and skill with overt electronics is even more exceptional. But when a normal human being can buy that very same bike, for what is, by any reasonable measure, a very fair and honest price for the technology you’re getting…well, that bike suddenly becomes more than just exceptional. That bike becomes game-changing. And so the game has been changed. THE TECH STUFF Here are some of the salient talking points, because I know numbers and technology intrigue some of you. They certainly intrigue me as well, but only in terms of “Wow! Check this shit out! That sounds hell-sexy – bet it cost a lot to make. What does this button do? Oh God what have I just done to its ECU?” And this is the $23,500 R1. I’ll get to the $29,990 R1M in a sec… Yamaha built this bike to race on tracks. It just so happens you can register it and use it on the road. This is a complete about-face in terms of the factory’s sportsbike design paradigm. The 998cc engine is brand new. It has a 13.0:1 compression ratio, a crossplane crank, is 33mm narrower at the crank axis and four kilo lighter. The 10.5-litre air-box is 24 per cent larger than the previous model and air is forced through ducts in the actual steering head, just like on the M1 MotoGP bike. The exhaust system is titanium. All of it. It has a servo-motor controlled exhaust valve, which only opens over 7500rpm when you’re in Boss mode. The funnel-intake system is 20 per cent shorter than on the 2014 model. Why? So when you’re revving the shittery out of it, it’s happier and more productive. Likewise, the fuel-injectors have been angled differently, and now provide fuel in a more efficient manner to the back of the valve. This also makes revving the shittery out of it better. The cylinder head and valve design have been sexed right up. In 2014 it went like this: Intake valve diameter 31mm; Exhaust valve diameter 25mm; Bore and stroke 78 x 52.2mm and compression ratio of 12.7:1 In 2015 it does this: Intake valve diameter 33mm; Exhaust valve diameter 26.5mm; Bore and stroke 79 x 50.9mm and compression ratio of 13.0:1. The little things make all the difference. So we go on, yes? Rocker-arm valve actuation has been en-beautened substantially. The rocker-arm lever ratio now produces a larger valve-lift than the cam. The load is decreased and the friction is reduced. There is a DLC coating (Diamond-like Carbon) on the slidey areas. This also makes you revving the shittery out of it a more pleasant experience. The camshafts are new, and come with increased valve lift and revised timing. The pressure on the valve springs has also been reduced. There are forged aluminium bridge-box pistons in the engine. These are highly rigid and allow for a 3mm thinner piston-crown. It’s all about the weight, huh? That’s been reduced 8.5gm even though the bore is a millimetre bigger. Oh, and that DLC stuff is smeared on the piston pins. It boasts titanium fracture-split connecting rods. This is a world-first on a production motorcycle. It’s a good thing because the titanium is 40 per cent lighter than the steel it replaces, which once again means that revving the shittery out of it makes it happy by increasing the precision of the rod’s big-end and reducing deformation at 25 million rpm. Each cylinder is offset 2mm to the exhaust side, which decreases friction and provides more power. Yamaha has also sorcery-ed up the crossplane crank. Its 27.1mm narrower and its inertia weight has been reduced by 20 per cent. The main journal diameter has been increased by 2mm, which is also all about revving the shittery out if it. There is an entirely new lubrication system in the engine. Previously, centrifugal force had to be battled to get oil into the connecting rod of each big-end. Now there is a central passage that utilises that same force to feed the madly whirring things needful lubrication. Yes, at high revs. Glad you’re paying attention. The clutch is all new. It is a Slipper and Assist clutch. It’s 19 per cent lighter and seven per cent smaller in diameter; the new cam system now helps out when you’re hard into a corner, off-throttle and praying the slipper clutch doesn’t decide you can go and get fucked by back-torquing you into buggery. This will never happen to me because I ride too slow. But it’s nice to know it’s there. The gearbox is all new too. All the ratios have been revised, and second gear is a thing of beauty. No more shifting into first for that super-tight stuff. There are magnesium covers all over the engine. The top, bottom (where the sump is) and some of the round bits on the side where the clutch is – in all, six major bits now weigh less than a whore’s empty promise. Now the chassis, yes? Perhaps a new box of tissues? Hell, we ain’t got to the electronic stuff yet. You might need sponges for that. The wheelbase is 10mm shorter (now at 1405mm) than the 2014 model and the swingarm has also been trimmed 15mm (now 570mm). New KYB shocks – adjustable for everything – pre-load, high-and-low-speed compression and rebound. (The M has pure Öhlins racing suspension front and rear with servos and voodoo and shit) The 43mm USD front is also new with the adjustments looking all sexy on the top of the fork tubes. Racing motorcycles is all about front-end feel and making sure shit doesn’t get all gooey when you’ve compressed everything under death-braking. Thus has Yamaha created a high-rigidity axle bracket and increased the diameter of the axle itself from 22 to 25mm. Cast magnesium wheels, bitches. Yes, the clever monkeys will know how important reducing unsprung weight is when it comes to handling. Front inertia has been reduced by four per cent and the rear by a whopping 11 per cent. There is no comparison to the old R1. The Nissin front brakes with the radial master cylinder and lever assembly, and variable-sized pistons are all up in your shit and new as well. Braided stainless lines are standard and the discs are 10mm bigger than last years at 320mm. Cleverly, the new calipers use a standard bolt-pitch of 108mm, not 130mm, so banging in race-level stuff is easy. The fuel tank is 17l of lightweight aluminium (1.6kgs lighter than it was in 2014). Just like it is on the MotoGP bikes. In the case of the R1M, it’s been hand-buffed and will always be unique to the bike it’s bolted to. The fairing and screen have been directly sourced and closely copied off the MotoGP M1. Thus has the wind resistance been reduced by eight per cent. My personal wind-resistance has probably increased by that same amount, but even I could find shelter from the blast down the main straight. Ergonomically, there’s very good news for big blokes. The distance from the seat to the handlebars has been increased by 55mm, and the seat is wider and flatter. It’s still a race crouch – but it’s much more civilised than it was. I’ll let you know how it goes on the road. NOW THE ELECTRONICS All that other stuff is pretty good, but it’s the electronics package that raises the R1 above its rivals – and I use the term ‘rivals’ loosely. Much of the stuff is sourced straight from the 2012 MotGP bikes, ridden by Rossi and Lorenzo. It’s 2015, and to have this kinda wizardry available out-of-the-box, shows that Yamaha is dead serious about reclaiming its place at the top of the heap. So here ya go – and remember, this is still the R1, not the M… Six-axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), featuring a gyro sensor that measures pitch, roll and yaw, and a G-force sensor, measuring gravity pushing forwards, backwards, up, down and right and left. This is straight off the 2013 MotoGP bike and the only jigger of its type on any production bike in the world. Every other electronic aid on the bike gets its info from this brain. So every time the bike steps in to fix your shit, it’s the IMU that’s
’s conclusion says that “generally, the presence of internalized pathogens in roots of plants does not directly correlate with internalized pathogens in the edible or foliar tissues of crops.” Even so, the researchers say that any future research about root uptake should include realistic growing conditions, along with realistic pathogen contamination levels. Some of the research projects used sterilized soil or extremely high levels of pathogens, for example. Kniel also told Food Safety News that because pathogens are good at exchanging genetic material, especially when under pressure, scientists need to stay one step ahead of how that might affect root uptake and from there internalization into the plant. Viruses According to the same research paper, the topic of viral pathogens is critically important to food safety. That’s because from 1973 to 2006, 60 percent of U.S. foodborne outbreaks associated with eating leafy greens were caused by noroviruses, while Salmonella and E. coli only accounted for 10 percent of the outbreaks. While noroviruses — often referred to as “the stomach flu” because they produce gastrointestinal symptoms — typically involve food contaminated by food handlers, several outbreaks from fresh produce have been linked to environmental contamination (in the field, for example). Then, too, one of the largest outbreaks of hepatitis A virus in the United States was linked to eating green onions contaminated by the virus. That outbreak sickened about 1,000 people and killed four. And even though polluted irrigation water and farmworkers were among the likely sources for the outbreak, the exact way the onions were contaminated remains unknown. The research also revealed that while contaminated soil triggered little to no internalization of pathogens from the roots into the plants, that wasn’t always the case with plants grown hydroponically, especially in the case of viruses that can get people sick. “Following good agricultural practices and using clean water is essential for hydroponics,” Kniel said. How, then, do pathogens get inside the crops? “Internalization” happens when pathogens get inside the edible parts of fresh produce. But if not from root uptake, then how? In a paper titled Internalization of Fresh Produce by Pathogens, which appeared last year in the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology, Marilyn C. Erickson of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, shared some observations about internalization and root uptake in leafy greens. She found that while pathogens can get into plants in a number of locations on the plant and in a number of different kinds of produce — both before and after harvest — it is unlikely they enter through roots or seeds when grown in soil under normal growing conditions. However, some growing, harvesting and processing conditions can open the way for pathogens to get onto and into the produce. For example, her research showed that a film of moisture on the leaves appears to be a critical factor in a pathogen’s ability to reside on leaf surfaces and then to migrate and infiltrate into the stomata of the plants. Stomata are tiny openings, typically found on the outer skin of a leaf but also in other parts of the plant. These little “mouths” are made up of two cells, referred to as “guard cells” that surround a tiny pore called a stoma. The stomata’s main job is to allow gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor and oxygen to quickly move into and out of the leaf. Erickson said that enteric pathogens can lodge in the stomata or be trapped in crevices of leafy greens that are exposed to contaminated water after harvest. In addition, surfaces of the greens that have been cut during harvest or during minimal processing furnish sites on the leaves that are especially vulnerable to penetration by the pathogens. When looking at actual growing conditions, Erickson told Food Safety News that the microflora (organisms that are already in the soil) far outnumber any pathogens that might also be in the soil. In general, the indigenous organisms easily outcompete the pathogens in their search for nutrients, which they need to survive. She said that in “normal soil,” you’d need concentrations of about 10,000 E. coli bacteria per gram for root uptake to happen, and even more in moist soil. Her research has led her to conjecture that plants have defenses against internalization when they’re growing. “Internalization is more likely to happen after harvest,” she said, referring to cuts in the surfaces of the leaves as an example. Food safety scientists have pointed out that once a pathogen migrates to a cut surface where nutrients are oozing out, it’s almost impossible to dislodge them. Like any other hungry organism, they’ll hold on tight to a source of food. From there, they can migrate into the plant’s edible parts in search for yet more food. Cantaloupes The sweet nutrients inside cantaloupes can lure pathogens on the surface into a melon that has been nicked or cut through these openings. From there, they can travel into the melon itself in search of even more food. In a research paper about Salmonella contamination in cantaloupes that appeared in the International Journal of Food Microbiology, Trevor Suslow, a food safety scientist at the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues concluded that the outcomes of the project strongly indicated that root uptake and the transportation of Salmonella from the soil due to contaminated irrigation water is “highly unlikely” to occur — even under “exaggerated worst-case” growing conditions. However, any inputs, such as contaminated irrigation water, which can contain Salmonella, would have the potential to contaminate surfaces of the melons that come into contact with the pathogens — even at low levels. According to the report’s conclusions, these pathogens, if on the ground’s surface where the cantaloupes are growing, could get onto the melons’ surfaces and from there be transferred to other melons by farmworkers, harvesting equipment or transportation vehicles, for example. In an earlier interview, Suslow told Food Safety News that as far as he knows, foodborne pathogens can’t penetrate the surface of produce on their own. Generally it takes some kind of opening on the surface to provide a pathway to the subsurface of the produce. But when that happens, he said, even antibacterial solutions won’t be able to rid the produce of pathogens. The research paper concludes by warning that contamination of the external rind of the melons from irrigation water carrying pathogens remains a concern in melon production. For that reason, it’s important to establish critical limits for melon irrigation in California and other growing regions with similar arid and semi-arid climates, soil texture and crop-management practices. An industry giant, California provides 70 percent of the cantaloupes sold in this country. During the state’s five-month season, the industry typically packs and ships around 30 million cartons of cantaloupes. A carton contains 12 to 18 cantaloupes. Cantaloupes stand out in the roll call of recent food poisoning outbreaks. In 2011, Listeria-contaminated cantaloupes from a farm in Colorado sickened more than 140 people and killed 33. And last year, Salmonella-contaminated cantaloupes from a farm in Indiana killed 2 people and sickened more than 175 in 21 states.A man and woman were found shot to death inside an SUV early Sunday morning on the Kennedy Expressway on the Northwest Side, officials said. The shooting happened around 4 a.m. in the northbound lanes of Interstate 90/94 near Armitage Avenue, according to Illinois State Police. The two were identified as Eric Taylor, 43, of Waukegan and Camille Cooley, 36, officials said. Illinois State Police said Cooley lived in Waukegan, while the Cook County medical examiner's office said she lived in Chicago. State police said a silver Chevrolet Tahoe was found stopped in the middle of the expressway, and a male driver and a female passenger were found unresponsive inside. A man and a woman were found shot to death inside a car on the Kennedy Expressway May 15, 2016. (CBS Chicago) A man and a woman were found shot to death inside a car on the Kennedy Expressway May 15, 2016. (CBS Chicago) SEE MORE VIDEOS Both had gunshot wounds to the head and were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. Autopsies are scheduled for Monday. A black semi-automatic weapon was found inside the vehicle on the floor on the driver's side, according to a news release from state police. One of the car's passenger side windows was shattered.It's a Small World After All In this article, we will look at this phenomenon from a mathematical perspective and learn how human networks are organized, perhaps unwittingly, to create this phenomenon.... David Austin Grand Valley State University Email David Austin Mail to a friend Print this article Introduction Many of us are surprised, at one time or another, to meet a person by chance and later discover that we have some kind of connection or a friend in common. We scratch our heads and say, "Gee, it's a small world." This experience was investigated in the 1960s by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram through a classic experiment. A group of participants living in Omaha, Nebraska was randomly chosen, each of whom was asked to send a folder by mail to a target participant in Sharon, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, subject to this rule: If you do not know the target person on a personal basis, do not try to contact him directly. Instead, mail this folder... to a personal acquaintance who is more likely than you to know the target person... it must be someone you know on a first-name basis. Beginning with 160 participants in Nebraska, 44 of the folders, or 27.5%, were successfully delivered to their target through a chain of intermediaries. Somewhat surprisingly, the completed chains required a relatively small number of intermediaries; the median number of intermediaries was five, with one chain being completed with only two intermediaries. This experiment has entered our cultural imagination through the phrase "six degrees of separation," as the completed chains required a median of six legs on their journey. This experiment has been repeated in other forms. Most recently, a study of the structure of friendships on Facebook, which included 721 million individuals and 69 billion friendship links, found that two Facebook users are separated by an average distance of 4.74 links or 3.74 intermediaries. Of course, one could argue the degree to which Facebook friendship mirrors real-life acquaintanceship, but this is still a remarkable result considering Facebook's international audience. Once you start looking, you will see this phenomenon all around. For instance, the trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon links actors together when they have appeared together in a movie. As of last year, no actor was more than eight links away from Kevin Bacon. The Oracle of Baseball links baseball players if they have ever played on the same team creating a chain between Babe Ruth and Justin Verlander with just five intermedaries. Mathematicians have their own version in which mathematicians are linked if they have published a mathematics paper together. Mathematicians sometimes cite their Erdős number, which is the length of the smallest chain connecting them to the prolific mathematician Paul Erdős. In Milgram's original experiment, individuals, aware of only their own acquaintances, lacked any deeper knowledge of the global structure of the network. So while it is surprising that individuals are connected by relatively short chains, it is even more suprising that the participants were able to find these chains. A network in which most pairs of individuals are linked by short chains though they may be separated by large geographic distances is known as a small-world network. In addition, when individuals may find these short chains using only local information, we say the network is searchable. In this article, we will look at this phenomenon from a mathematical perspective and learn how human networks are organized, perhaps unwittingly, to create this phenomenon. The Watts-Strogatz model Before beginning, let's think about what features we would like to build in to our mathematical model. First, the majority of our acquaintances are with people who are geographically close to us through, say, family, co-workers, and friends at school. Second, many of our acquaintances are also acquainted with each other. For instance, two of our co-workers are likely to be acquainted as well. Finally, most of us have a smaller number of acquaintances who are further removed geographically, such as friends or family members who have moved away. In spite of the fact that the Internet now facilitates more far-flung friendships, a considerable amount of current research supports these assumptions. The first model we'll consider was introduced by Watts and Strogatz in the late 1990s in an attempt to understand whether our three assumptions are enough to create small-world networks. The model begins with $n$ nodes arranged in a ring, with each node linked to its $k$ closest neighbors. Here is an example with $n=30$ nodes and $k=4$ links to neighbors: To include some long-range links in our model, we will consider each edge and, with probability $p$, change one of the endpoints to another randomly chosen node. In this way, we create a a family of networks by varying the parameter $p$ in the range $0\leq p\leq 1$. $p=0$ $p=0.01$ $p=0.1$ $p=1$ At the end of the spectrum where $p=0$, none of the edges are rewired, and we have a completely regular network. On the other end where $p=1$, every edge is rewired, and we have a completely random network. In this way, the parameter $p$ interpolates between completely regular and completely random behavior. Watts and Strogatz characterize these networks with two quantities. The first, denoted $L(p)$, measures the average distance between nodes in the network, while the second, denoted $C(p)$, measures the amount of clustering in the network. More specifically, $L(p)$ is the number of links in the shortest path between a pair of nodes, averaged over all pairs of nodes. In a small-world network, we would expect that most pairs are joined by relatively short chains of links and that $L(p)$ is therefore relatively small. Remember that each node is connected to its $k$ nearest neighbors when $p=0$. Among these $k$ neighbors, there are possibly $k(k-1)/2$ links. Given a node in our network, we may ask what fraction of these links actually exist. The clustering coefficient $C(p)$ is the average of this fraction over each of the nodes. In practical terms, this quantity measures the number of our acquaintances who are also acquaintances. We are therefore interested in networks with a high clustering coefficient. Following Watts and Strogatz, I performed an experiment in which I looked at networks with $n=1000$ nodes and $k=10$ nearest neighbors. For many values of $p$, I created twenty networks for which I computed $L(p)$ and $C(p)$. The plot below shows the averages, normalized by their values at $p=0$, on a logarithmic scale. The important point to notice is that there is a very large range of probabilities $p$, roughly $0.001< p < 0.1$, in which $L(p)$, the average distance between nodes, is relatively small, and the clustering coefficient $C(p)$ is relatively large. These are the conditions that we desire for a small-world network so we conclude that it is relatively easy to create small-world networks. In other words, it doesn't take a lot of long-range links to create a small world. Speaking quantitatively, $L(0)$ is proportional to $n$. For values of $p$ values that give a small world, however, $L(p)$ is less than a polynomial in $\log(n)$. Watts and Strogatz applied this kind of analysis to the network of film actors described above, the power grid in the western United States, and neural network of the nematod worm C. elegans. All three examples demonstrate the properties of a small world. From this, they speculate that the small-world property is probably ubiquitous in the real world. Comments? How can we find short chains of links? While it is surprising that short chains of links existed in Milgram's experiment, it is perhaps even more surprising that they could be found by the participants, given the limited information they possess. For instance, if we knew the structure of the entire network---that is, if we knew everyone's acquaintances---it would be relatively straightforward to find the shortest chain. However, individual participants are aware of only their own acquaintances. With this information, how are short chains discovered? A hint is given by this figure of Milgram's, in which the geographic locations of each of the intermediaries in one of the successful chains is given. Notice how each intermediary sent the folder to a person who is geographically closer to the target; remarkably, the distance is roughly halved at each step. This led Kleinberg to study a new model for networks that is based on the Watts-Strogatz model and that incorporates geographic distance in the distribution of links. Kleinberg's model begins with nodes on a uniform two-dimensional $n\times n$ lattice (we may use a lattice in any dimension $k$). There is a natural notion of geographic distance between any two nodes; we define $d(u,v)$, the distance between nodes $u$ and $v$, to be the smallest number of steps needed to walk from one node to the other along the grid. Generalizing the network of Watts and Strogatz, Kleinberg assumed that any node had links to all nodes within a chosen distance $p$ and then added $q$ long-range links chosen at random. For instance, when $p=2$ and $q=3$, the red node in the center may be linked to the blue nodes. So far, this is nothing more than a two-dimensional version of the Watts-Strogatz model. The novel feature about Kleinberg's model is that the long-range links are chosen to favor shorter ones over longer ones. For instance, I live in Michigan; in Kleinberg's model, it is more likely that I have a long-range connection to someone in Illinois than to someone in France. In particular, we will introduce a parameter $\alpha\geq0$ and choose a long-range connection linking $u$ to $v$ with probability proportional to $d(u,v)^{-\alpha}$: $$ {\rm Pr}[u\to v]\propto \frac{1}{d(u,v)^\alpha}. $$ When $\alpha=0$, we have the Watts-Strogatz model in which long-range links are chosen without reference to the geographic distance between nodes. However, when $\alpha=1$, the probability that a long-range links exists between $u$ and $v$ is inversely proportional to the distance between the nodes. Kleinberg then proposed an algorithm that models the dynamics of the Milgram experiment: at each step, the intermediary sends the folder to his acquaintance that is closest to the target. In this way, each intermediary uses only his knowledge of his own acquaintances and not the entire structure of links in the network. We imagine that the folder requires one unit of time to move from one acquaintance to another and determine the delivery time $T$ required for the folder to move from the source to the target. I repeated a simulation of Kleinberg's by studying a lattice of 20,000 by 20,000 nodes placed on a torus to minimize boundary effects. With fixed values of $\alpha$, $p$, and $q$, I constructed 1000 networks finding, for each, the delivery time given by the algorithm between two fixed nodes. To summarize the results, the logarithm of the delivery time $T$ is plotted below as a function of $\alpha$. This simulation clearly shows that there is a optimum value of $\alpha$; that is, in networks constructed with $\alpha\approx2$, the average delivery time is shortest. In fact, Kleinberg provides a theoretical understanding of this result through two results: When $\alpha=2$, the average delivery time is at most proportional to $(\log(n))^2$. For other values of $\alpha$, the average length of chains produced by the algorithm is at least proportional to $n^\beta$ where $\beta$ is described in the graph below. Remember that a pair of nodes in a small-world network is, on average, joined by a chain whose length is bounded by a polynomial in $\log(n)$. The upshot of Kleinberg's study is that these short chains may be found by this algorithm--that is, the network is searchable--only when $\alpha=2$. Kleinberg's analysis is guided by the diagram in Milgram's paper, which shows that at each step, the distance to the target is roughly halved. In the same way, we will consider, at each step of the folder's journey, the distance to the target in our small-world network, and ask how long it takes to halve that distance. Easley and Kleinberg encourage us to think of this strategy through "scales of resolution." For instance, to deliver a letter to a distant person, we first find the country, then the state, the city, the street, and then the house. What we will see is that in the network constructed with $\alpha=2$, the folder spends roughly the same amount of time in each one of these scales. We will say that the folder is in phase $j$ if the distance from the folder's current holder $u$ to the target $t$ is greater than $2^j$ and at most $2^{j+1}$. We therefore ask how long the folder spends in phase $j$ before entering phase $j-1$. Since the geographic distance from the original source to the target is less than $2n$, the phase in which the folder starts out is no more than $\log(n)+1$. Consecutively, there are at most $\log(n)+1$ phases that the folder passes through. When $\alpha=2$, we will see that the time spent in each phase is roughly constant and proportional to $\log(n)$. Let's think about this informally from the point of view of "scales of resolution" before digging into a more careful argument. Assuming the folder is at some node $u$, let's ask what the chances are that $u$ has a long-range link into the annular region shown below. How many points are in this annular region? Since the number of nodes in each disk is proportional to $d^2$, the number of nodes in the annular region is also proportional to $d^2$. The probability that there is a long range link to a node in that region is between $1/(2d)^2$ and $1/d^2$. Multiplying the number of nodes in the annular region by the probability of choosing one of the nodes in the annular region gives an approximate result that is independent of $d$. In this way, we see that the long-range links from $u$ are distributed uniformly over all scales when those links are randomly chosen with $\alpha=2$. We therefore expect that the time spent in each phase of the folder's journey to be independent of the phase. Notice that this value of $\alpha$ is adapted to the underlying two-dimensional geometric structure of the network. If we instead choose another network based on a $k$-dimensional grid, we should expect that $\alpha=k$ will be the exponent that enables our algorithm to find short paths. Let's make this precise. Suppose that we are currently in phase $j$ with the folder held by $u$. We would like to estimate how long it takes us to move into phase $j-1$ by passing the folder to a node $v$ whose distance to $t$ is no more than $2^j$. First, we have said that long-range links are chosen with probability proportional to $d^{-2}$. Let's estimate the constant of proportionality. If we are at node $u$, then the probability of choosing a long-range link to node $v$ is $${\rm Pr}[u\to v] = \frac{d(u,v)^{-2}}{\sum_{u eq w}d(u,w)^{-2}}.$$ To estimate the denominator, we know that there are $4d$ nodes at distance $d$ from $u$ and that the distance between nodes is bounded by $2n-2$, a distance realized by nodes at opposite corners of the lattice. Therefore, $$ \begin{eqnarray} \sum_{u eq w} d(u,w)^{-2} & \leq & \sum_{d=1}^{2n-2} 4d\cdot d^{-2} \\ & \leq & \sum_d^{2n-2} 4/d \\ & \leq & 4+4\ln(2n-2) \\ & \leq & 4\ln(6n). \end{eqnarray} $$ This means that the probability of a long-range link existing between $u$ and $v$ is greater than $${\rm Pr}[u\to v] \geq \frac{1}{4\ln(6n) d(u,v)^2}.$$ We will now estimate the probability that a long-range link reduces the folder's current phase. In this case, the distance from $u$ to the target $t$ is at most $2^{j+1}$. To reduce the phase, we need to find a long-range link to a node $v$ within a distance of $2^j$ of $t$. This means that $$d(u,v)\leq 2^{j+1}+2^j < 2^{j+2}.$$ For these nodes $v$, we then have $${\rm Pr}[u\to v] \geq \frac{1}{4\ln(6n) (2^{j+2})^2}.$$ The number of nodes within a distance $2^j$ of $t$ is $$1+4\sum_{d=1}^{2^j}d = 1 + 2(2^j(2^j-1)) = 1 + 2^{2j+1} - 2^{j+1} > 2^{2j-1}.$$ Therefore, the probability that a long-range link exists that will reduce the phase is at least $$\frac{2^{2j-1}}{4\ln(6n) (2^{j+2})^2} = \frac{1}{128\ln(6n)}.$$ This statement is the crux of the argument. Notice that this estimate is independent of the current phase $j$: at each phase, we have a lower bound for the probability of leaving that phase that is independent of the phase. This justifies our earlier statement that the long-range links are distributed uniformly across all scales of resolution. We may now estimate $T_j$, the amount of time we spend in phase $j$: $$\begin{eqnarray} \overline{T}_j & = & \sum_{i=1}^\infty i~{\rm Pr}[T_j = i] \\ & = & \sum_{i=1}^\infty {\rm Pr}[T_j \geq i] \\ & \leq & \sum_{i=1}^\infty \left(1-\frac{1}{128\ln(6n)}\right)^{i-1} \\ & = & 128\ln(6n). \end{eqnarray} $$ This shows that the average time spent in each phase is independent of the phase. Therefore, the average delivery time $\overline{T}$ satisfies: $$\overline{T} \leq (\log(n)+1)\cdot 128\ln(6n) \leq C\log(n)^2 $$ for some constant $C$. Small-world networks are characterized by the fact that the distance between any two points is not more than a polynomial in $\log(n)$. Since our algorithm finds paths having this property, we are assured that our algorithm finds suitably short paths. In other words, our network is searchable. We have now shown that $\alpha=2$ leads to searchable small-world networks. A similar type of analysis shows that other values of $\alpha$ do not. Smaller values of $\alpha$ diminish the importance of geographic distance; the long-range links are too random to allow us to home in on the target. Larger values of $\alpha$ create too many shorter long-range links, which save relatively little time by following them. Comments? Putting our theory to the test Kleinberg studies a family of small-world networks, parametrized by $\alpha$, and finds that only one gives a searchable small-world network, suggesting that searchable small-world networks exist in some delicate balance. Let's see how this corresponds with real-world data. Liben-Nowell, Nowak, Kumar, Raghavan, and Tomkins tested this prediction by considering LiveJournal, a network of over a million bloggers each of whom publishes a profile containing his or her geographic location as well as a list of other LiveJournal users considered to be "friends." We may then construct a network consisting of the nearly half million users who give a location in the continental United States and use the published geographic information to determine the geographic distance $d(u,v)$ between two users. Let's first ask whether this network satisfies the properties of a searchable small-world network. Users have, on average, eight friends, a relatively small number compared to other social networks. However, this network demonstrates a high clustering coefficient---when $u$ and $v$ have a friend in common, they are themselves friends roughly one-fifth of the time. How does our searching algorithm perform? In a simulation, a randomly chosen source user $s$ attempted to send a message to a randomly chosen target user $t$. At each step, the current holder of the message $u$ sends it to the friend geographically closest to $t$. If $u$ has no friends closer to $t$, then the chain unsuccessfully ends. In a half million trials, the chain successfully concluded 13% of the time with an average delivery time just a little over four. This study was then repeated after making a small modification; the current user $u$ was allowed to send the folder to a random friend if he or she had no friends closer to $t$. In this case, 80% of the chains completed with a median length of 12. These results are illustrated in the following figure, in which the inset shows the results given the modified algorithm. The vertical scale represents $f(k)$, the fraction of completed chains having delivery time $k$. Copyright 2005 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. From this, we may conclude that the LiveJournal network forms a searchable small-world network. Let's now look at the distribution of links and ask whether it follows Kleinberg's inverse-square relationship between probability and distance. One problem needs to be addressed first. In Kleinberg's model, nodes are uniformly distributed in the plane; however, users in the LiveJournal network are not uniformly distributed across the continental United States. In the figure below, successive circles, each centered at Ithaca, New York, represent an increase of 50,000 nodes in the network. As we might expect, the nodes are more highly concentrated on the east and west coasts. Copyright 2005 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. To this end, we will use rank to replace the role of distance in determining the probability that a link exists between two nodes. Given a node $u$, we define ${\rm rank}_u(v)$, the rank of $v$ with respect to $u$, to be the number of nodes that are closer to $u$ than $v$ is. For instance, in the figure below, ${\rm rank}_u(v)= 6$ since there are six nodes closer to $u$ than $v$ is (we include the node $u$ in this count). If we consider two nodes $u$ and $v$ in the network placed on a uniform lattice and separated by a distance $d$, there are roughly $d^2$ nodes closer to $u$ than $v$ is. This says that the rank of $v$ is proportional to $d^2$. Our earlier analysis showed that we obtain a searchable small-world network when a link between $u$ and $v$ exists with probability proportional to $d^{-2}$. Expressed in terms of the rank, we therefore expect a link from $u$ leading to $v$ with probability proportional to ${\rm rank}(v)^{-1}$; this holds regardless of the dimension $k$ in which we create our lattice. In fact, Liben-Nowell and his collaborators define a rank-based friendship network to be one in which the probability of a link between $u$ and $v$ is inversely proportional to ${\rm rank}_u(v)$: $$ {\rm Pr}[u\to v] \propto \frac{1}{{\rm rank}_u(v)}. $$ They then prove that the expected delivery time in a rank-based friendship network to be at most proportional to $(\log(n))^3$. In other words, rank-based friendship networks are searchable. Liben-Nowell et al then looked at the LiveJournal network to determine whether it is a rank-based friendship network. The results are summarized in the figure below. Here we see the probability that a link exists between two nodes plotted as a function of the rank between the nodes. The quantity $\epsilon$ is what the authors call the "background probability," a component of the probability that is independent of geography and due to factors such as friendships forming online through shared interests. Copyright 2005 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. As can be seen, the probability and rank are very nearly inversely proportional to one another, as required for a searchable small-world network. Below, we see the probability plotted as a function of the rank for the groups of LiveJournal users on the East and West Coasts of the United States. The inverse proportion is even more striking here. Copyright 2005 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. As Liben-Nowell and his collaborators conclude: "In a lamentably imperfect world, it is remarkable that people form friendships so close to the perfect distribution for navigating their social structures." Comments? Summary What we have seen is a rather remarkable story. Beginning with a mathematical model of Milgram's experiment, Kleinberg's analysis suggests that there is some underlying structure to the probabilitistic distribution of the links in a searchable small-world network. After refining the characterization of this distribution, Liben-Nowell et al then verified that one particular searchable real-world network closely matched this distribution. Indeed, a similar analysis of Facebook, performed by Backstrom et al, again found the relationship between the distribution of links and rank to be very close to an inverse proportionality. There appears to be a remarkable agreement between real-world social networks and the simple models we have created to study them. Finally, let us return to Milgram's original experiment. Our models have relied only on geographic distance as a means of determining the person to whom the folder is sent. Many participants indicated, however, that they sometimes chose their recipient based on occupation rather than geography. This suggests that it may be useful to consider models that include more dimensions so as to incorporate other factors such as occupation. Indeed, this approach has been taken by Watts, Dodds, and Newman, who created a different model of a small-world network and showed that searchable networks become more common as more dimensions are added. Thanks I would like to thank David Liben-Nowell, who graciously shared the figures from the LiveJournal study with me, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for permission to reprint them. References Stanley Milgram. The small-world problem, Psychology Today, Vol. 1, 60–67, 1967. The small-world problem, Psychology Today, Vol. 1, 60–67, 1967. Lars Backstrom, Paolo Boldi, Marco Rosa, Johan Ugander, Sebastiano Vigna. Four Degrees of Separation, 2012. Available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.4570. Four Degrees of Separation, 2012. Available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.4570. Duncan Watts, Steven Strogatz. Collective dynamics of'small world' networks, Nature, Vol. 393, 440-442, 1998. Collective dynamics of'small world' networks, Nature, Vol. 393, 440-442, 1998. Jon Kleinberg. Navigation in a small world, Nature, Vol. 406, 845, 2000. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/nat00.pdf. Navigation in a small world, Nature, Vol. 406, 845, 2000. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/nat00.pdf. Jon Kleinberg. The small-world phenomenon: an algorithmic perspective. In Proc. 32nd ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing, 163-170, 2000. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/swn.ps. The small-world phenomenon: an algorithmic perspective. In Proc. 32nd ACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing, 163-170, 2000. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/swn.ps. Jon Kleinberg. The small-world phenomenon and the dynamics of information. In Proc. 14th Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 431-438, 2001. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/nips14.pdf. The small-world phenomenon and the dynamics of information. In Proc. 14th Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 431-438, 2001. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/nips14.pdf. David Easley, Jon Kleinberg. Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World, Cambridge University Press, 2010. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/. Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World, Cambridge University Press, 2010. Available at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/. David Liben-Nowell, Jasmine Novak, Ravi Kumar, Prabhakar Raghavan, Andrew Tomkins. Geographic routing in social networks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 102, no. 33, 11623-11628, 2005. Geographic routing in social networks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 102, no. 33, 11623-116
for fear I have misunderstood what this enterprise is all about. I am a professor, and so I bring the perspectives (and limitations) of a professor to bear on this matter. If this is not to be a course but instead a sermon, then you should get a preacher to comment on it. — Conservative scholar James Q. Wilson This critique was commissioned by a Congressional Ethics Committee because the course would “lie at the heart of the controversy over his use of tax-exempt funds.” In 1997, the House of Representative endorsed (395-to-28) the “most severe penalty ($300,000) ever imposed on a Speaker.” So why are we listening to this man about anything remotely political, particularly history? A Brief Bio Of Gingrich After obtaining a PhD in modern European history from Tulane University, from 1970 to 1978 Gingrich taught history at West Georgia College (now the University of West Georgia) in Carrollton. He left reportedly because he was denied tenure. He became Speaker of the House and crafted the GOP “Contract With America.” Esquire has an interview with Marianne Gingrich, wife number two, in its September issue. Read it: this is a man, after all, with his eye on the White House. At a moment of doctrinal crisis in the Republican party, Newt Gingrich is the only major figure in his party who is both insurgent and gray eminence. That is why twelve years after his career ended — twelve years after any other man in his position would have disappeared from view — he is ascendant. “Will he run?” Marianne asks. “Possibly. Because he doesn’t connect things like normal people. There’s a vacancy — kind of scary, isn’t it?” One thing is certain — Newt Gingrich loves the question. “That’s up to God and the American people,” he tells you, in the serene tone of a man who already knows what God thinks. Learn how Gingrich has recovered from his $300,000 fine from the Congressional Ethics Committee for misusing tax-exempt funds for partisan purposes — it’s not pretty (“he’s ‘making more money than he ever thought possible, and doesn’t have to tell everybody where it’s coming from’) — and how he has maneuvered his way into such prominence that his false history lesson, the one that opened this essay, has successfully driven our increasingly hateful and divisive political rhetoric. Read it and don’t weep: speak up instead. * Math corrected at 2.56 pmAn artist's drawing of a black hole named Cygnus X-1. It formed when a large star caved in. This black hole pulls matter from blue star beside it. NASA/CXC/M.Weiss Researchers studying the universe are ramping up to take the "image of the century"— the first image of a supermassive black hole. Since the 18th century, astronomers have discussed the possibility of exotic objects in space so massive that their gravitational grip swallows everything that dares to get too close, including light. We call these objects black holes, but in truth we do not know what a black hole really is because we've never actually seen one. The evidence for the existence of black holes, however, is compelling: "We have abundant evidence that black holes — or something very much like them — exist," Todd Thompson, astronomy professor at Ohio State University, told Business Insider earlier this year. "This evidence comes from the orbits of stars around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy." Scientists will continue to argue the contrary until physical, observational evidence is provided. Now, a dedicated team of astrophysicists armed with a global fleet of powerful telescopes is out to change that. If they succeed, they will snap the first picture of the monstrously massive black hole thought to live at the center of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. It will be the "image of the century" according to scientists at the MIT Haystack Observatory, one of the 13 institutes from around the world involved with the project. This ambitious project, called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), is incredibly tricky, but recent advances in their research are encouraging the team to push forward. EHT needs to be so complex because black holes by definition do not emit light, making them invisible. In fact, black holes survive by gobbling up light and any other matter — nearby dust, gas, and stars — that fall into their powerful clutches. How To Glimpse A Black Hole So, how do you see something that is invisible? The answer leads us to the most advanced sub-millimeter telescopes in use — telescopes that detect wavelengths of light longer than the human eye can see. The EHT team is going to zoom in on a miniscule spot on the sky toward the center of the Milky Way where they believe to be the event horizon of a supermassive black hole weighing in at 4 million times the mass of our sun. Animation of gas clump falling into a black hole. NASA Every black hole has a point of no return, called the event horizon. Once light, or anything else in the universe, passes the event horizon, it never escapes and is swallowed up. Forever. We can still see the material, however, right before it falls into eternal darkness. The EHT team is going to try to glimpse this ring of radiation that outlines the event horizon. Experts call this outline the "shadow" of a black hole, and it's this shadow that the EHT team is ultimately after to prove the existence of black holes. "If we see the shadow, that will be the most powerful evidence we have" that black holes exist, MIT's Shep Doeleman told PBS. Below is a perfectly clear computer-generated image on the left of what scientists think the shadow will look like, and on the right is what they expect to actually see with the resolving power of today's current technology. Courtesy of Sheperd Doeleman. A Difficult Task This shadow, however, is incredibly small from our perspective. The spot on the sky where the team is looking is the size a grapefruit would appear on the moon, as seen from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope couldn't even see something this small. That's why the EHT team turned to radio dish telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, California, Chile, and Spain that, when combined, can resolve details more than 2,000 times finer than Hubble. Recently, other EHT researchers, at the University of Arizona, simulated what our galaxy's central black hole and its shadow should look like, to get a better idea of what they might expect from their observations. "That ring of light makes the black hole easier to find than if we were looking for complete blackness," Dimitrios Psaltis, of The University Of Arizona, said in a statement. "These simulations also help us find ways to distinguish this signature from all this swirling plasma around the black hole." As shown in the clip below, the black hole at our galaxy's center is emitting jets of extremely hot plasma in confined columns at opposite ends. These jets and have been observed around other objects throughout the universe, and the EHT team wants to see beyond these jets, to the event horizon. Feryal Ozel circles the ring of light, in their simulations, for which EHT is searching. University of Arizona Using the university's powerful supercomputer, they created a black hole that is even more scientifically accurate than the visually stunning black hole in Christopher Nolan's latest film, "Interstellar." "Our team of four here at the UA can produce visuals of a black hole that are more scientifically accurate in a few seconds," Feryal Ozel, also of The University of Arizona, in the statement. Some of the visuals in "Interstellar" required a special-effects team of 30 and as many as 100 hours for the computers to process. Building The Telescope Team To further improve its chances of seeing a black hole's shadow, the EHT team is continuously adding new telescopes to their global network. This is because the sensitivity of their measurements increases with each additional telescope, allowing the team to measure finer and finer detail. Time-lapse video of part of ALMA. SpaceRip The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — the world's most powerful submillimeter array — is slated to join the EHT project soon, along with additional telescopes in Mexico and the South Pole. Last July, scientists installed the world's most precise atomic clock, costing $250,000, at ALMA's Operations base. The clock will sync ALMA's telescopes to other observatories of the EHT to ensure their recordings are accurate to within milliseconds. In fact, this atomic clock is so precise it will still be accurate to within a second 100 million years from now. ALMA will drastically improve EHT's resolving power: "At a single stroke, it increases the collecting area of the global array by nearly a factor of 10," Doeleman told Business Insider in an email. "[It] forms critical baselines (inter-antenna connections) that are essential fo creating good images of the event horizon." Below is an computer-generated image comparing how the shadow of a black hole in another galaxy, called M87, appears with and without ALMA (and other telescopes that make up the full EHT array.) Courtesy of Sheperd Doeleman. "The Event Horizon Telescope is the first to resolve spatial scales comparable to the size of the event horizon of a black hole," University of California Berkeley astronomer Jason Dexter told Universe Today. "I don't think it's crazy to think we might get an image in the next five years."According to the UPI/CVoter poll, Trump holds a significant advantage over Hillary Clinton on the question of who would do a better job of fighting terrorism. UPI file WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- As the nation approaches the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- and as national security takes center stage in the presidential campaign -- poll respondents believe Republican Donald Trump would be better at fighting terrorism than Hillary Clinton, data released Wednesday show. The UPI/CVoter daily presidential tracking poll asked participants, regardless of whom they plan to support in the general election, which candidate would better handle the issue of terrorism. Overall, Trump was chosen by 49 percent; Clinton was named by 27 percent. Fifteen percent said neither of the candidates would handle the issue well. While Clinton was favored narrowly on the topic by women, Trump's support among men -- particularly younger, white men -- buttressed his overall lead on the issue. Trump was favored by 65 percent of men in the survey. He was also favored by 51 percent of low-income voters and 61 percent of white voters. RELATED Donald Trump wants plan to defeat Islamic State within 30 days of taking office Clinton, who has appealed more to women and minorities, found support on the question of terrorism in those groups. She edged Trump 37 percent to 36 percent among women overall. African Americans, who comprise Clinton's most reliable base of support, gave her an edge 54 percent to 23 percent. Hispanics also favored Clinton 38 percent to 24 percent. Terrorism was second only to the economy when people were asked to name the issue most important to them in a separate UPI/CVoter question. The terrorism issue will be top of mind Wednesday night, when both candidates face the first mutually televised event of the campaign, a forum by NBC News on military issues. Trump and Clinton are scheduled to appear in back-to-back question-and-answer sessions with members of the military. RELATED Donald Trump gains backing of 88 retired military leaders The UPI/CVoter daily presidential tracking poll is conducted online and no margin of error can be calculated. The poll's integrity interval is 3 percentage points. Respondents were asked about the terrorism issue specifically from Aug. 1 to 31. The sample size was 5,924 people.Donald Trump, flanked by Republican lawmakers, celebrates Congress passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on the South Lawn of the White House on December 20, 2017, in Washington, DC. The tax bill is the first major legislative victory for the GOP-controlled Congress and Trump since he took office almost one year ago. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) Shane Burley’s Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It looks at the rise of fascist politics in the US, how the different strands work, and the different, intersecting movements that have arrived to confront fascist violence. In the below excerpt, Burley discusses what exactly fascism is beyond the hype and misinformation. Building on a wealth of scholarship and research, Burley analyzes the foundational principles of fascism that tie together the battles of World War II to the neo-fascist “alt-right” insurgency. * The search for what is called “generic fascism” has been ongoing since the Second World War. Does the Third Reich serve as a model even though it gave in to suicidal imperialism and a genocidal flurry of ethnic rage? Is the Iron Guard the perfect example even though it suppressed all other points to their prime enemy, “the international Jew?” Does Mussolini define the term since he invented it, though his racial policies were less pronounced than most? Does National Shinto in Japan provide a proper model even though its religious nature and distinct cultural landscape makes it unique? The journey, instead, has been to find a clean definition that would encompass all historical instances and, by virtue of its descriptive qualities, begin to rope in more recent movements, putting small insurrectionary movements on the same ideological footing as those that terrorized Europe. Many want to define fascism as a specifically interwar project, describing it in terms of its state policies, aesthetics, and particular aims — a definition that presumably leaves it in the past as no movements of any consequence match the NSDAP) or Italian Fascist Party directly. For many far-right philosophers, like Alt Right co-founder and former paleoconservative professor Paul Gottfried, fascism was merely a brief political project that attempted to reclaim the “True Right.” That right, he asserts, is in opposition to the “false right” that makes up much of American conservatism. Gottfried would agree with Hawley that American conservatism has been made up, primarily, of three elements: hawkish foreign policy, free market economics, and conservative social ideas defined, largely, by Christianity. But how does conservatism relate to human equality? Roger Griffin presents a concise, intensely ideological term to define fascism: “palingenetic ultranationalism.” His definition, which was taken up broadly by what is referred to as the “new consensus,” rejected the view popular in academia that fascism is defined by its structural qualities, those unique to World War II, instead of its ideological core. Instead of having a perfect generic example, Griffin identified the ideological types that are shared across cultures and time periods, using the theory of “ideological morphology.” Originally proposed by Michael Freeman, ideological morphology looks at what defining features a broad set of specific ideologies needs to be “recognizable.” This means the aesthetics, style, and organizational form does not define it, but rather the ideological qualities that can be shared broadly, in entirely different contexts. Fascism then is a form of extreme nationalism, broadly defined, that bases itself on a mythological past that a group intends to return to. This term does not reflect state policies, whether authoritarian or libertarian, because all of those are subservient to its meta-politics. The fascist project is not about achieving totalitarianism, it is about reclaiming the mythological identity and order, and if totalitarian means are the way to get there then so be it. The fascist projects of the past have used authoritarian political parties as their avenue to power as well as command economies to see a vision through, but all of that was due to their situation and political climate. In the modern fascist movement, a whole range of political possibilities are welcome, as long as they share a (somewhat) agreed-upon vision of the essentials. Fascism Viewed From the Left I present an alternative to the popular and innacurate view of fascism: Fascism is what many on the right have argued is the “True Right.” While many movements on the ostensible right make equality a lower priority, such as the submission of equality to market liberty — whether as plain market fundamentalism or the extremes of “anarcho-capitalism” — they rarely agree that inequality is a sacrament. In contrast, inside of fascism inequality is explicit, as is identity. At the same time, I define fascism not from the center but from the left. A definition of fascism needs to remain vital and evolving and must provide examples and understanding that is useful not only for historical tracking, but counter-organizing and resistance. To do this I develop a definition of fascism that is broader, one that includes the various strands that connect to each other. Proto-fascism, para-fascism, right populism, and others, can be identified as movements that do not meet the definitive rigor of fascism but are aptly targeted by antifascists since they are a proven part of the fascist progression. For those who identify as antifascists, these groups can be thought of as concentric circles, movements that are using the same logic as fascism without filling out its entire ideological checklist. While most movements that I discuss do not use the term “fascism” to define themselves, they either fit its definition perfectly (the Alt Right) or flirt with it so openly (the militia movement) that they can be seen as ideological allies. In keeping with Roger Griffin’s project to outline a key rhetorical definition for fascism, I offer one that, though seemingly universal, does have its own problems, as finding the perfect terminology to define all fascist movements may be a quest without end: “Inequality through mythological and essentialized identity” is an attempt to sum all of these threads up, hitting the various points that fascism uses to define itself. Inequality Standing before the London Forum in 2012, Richard Spencer said that the defining characteristic of the Alt Right was inequality. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created unequal,” he said, making a clear break with the foundational document of American political independence that the conservative movement clings to as their moral authority. For fascists across the board, the defining factor of their ideology is more than the conservative de-emphasis of equality: inequality, for them, is critical, crucial, and correct. They believe that people are of different abilities and skills, qualities and characteristics, and that those differences should be ranked vertically, not horizontally. How this inequality is interpreted often shifts between different schools of thought and political movements, but they often take antiquated notions about race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, body type, and other qualities to show that groups of people, defined in a myriad of ways, can be ranked as “better or worse.” Even between those groups, such as inside of the “white race,” people are not seen as fundamentally equal. Equality is a social lie that leads to an unhealthy society where the weak rule over the strong through democracy. In a properly stratified society an elite of some kind would have authority over the unwashed masses, though the way this authority plays out is so radically diffuse in contemporary fascism that there is no universally agreed upon blueprint. While identity is central to this constructed inequality, there is a heavy focus on analyzing and ranking abilities, from the size of biceps to the numbers generated from outdated IQ tests. Populism It is impossible to have fascism, either as a semi-coherent ideology or a movement, without some element of right-wing populism. This could take the form of anti-elitism, ranging from opposition to international banks to perceived tribal elites as is true in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. This anti-elitism plays into the revolutionary character of fascism, adds to its appeal to the working class, and is an attack on the left and the bourgeoisie. As will be mentioned later, this attack on elites is not an attack on elitism as such, as fascism, in the way we define it here, requires an elite caste of some sort. In the political sense, populism is the force by which hard fascist ideologues gain traction to move their political voice onto the national stage, often riding the same inspiring forces that the left does, such as labor issues, environmental catastrophe, and war. While this may seem a force used opportunistically by the ideological fascist contingent — such as explicit neo-Nazis or the Alt Right — there is an element of this right populism, the “common man against the elites,” that is present even in the most reasoned and consistent fascist political thought, from the German Conservative Revolution to the French New Right. Fascism is particularly modern this way, even though it is a repudiation of that modernity, since it requires a mass movement and could not have been possible in an age before mass politics. Identity Identity is the second part of our proposed definition, in which I use the amorphous qualifier “essentialized.” Identity is a crucial part of the fascist project, but it is primarily not a chosen identity. Instead, they argue, identity is something that moves far beyond nominal politics, social signifiers, and cultural attitudes. Identity can be something that echoes from deep in your past, the “story of your people,” a national myth, a tribal uniform. This is why race has been the most common form of identity that fascists consider crucial and also underlines the importance that racism still has in Western society. For identity adherents, race informs their past, who they are related to, who they should have allegiance to, and it drives their personality, intelligence, and vices. Gender, in the same way, should also be seen as essential, and traditional gender roles are not social constructs but universal truths that dictate our path. To reject our racial and gender identities as guiding forces is then to reject nature. While fascism, as an invention of the modern world, has often relied on vulgar scientism to define these racial and gender arguments, there are spiritual and metaphysical ones that run parallel as well. Inequality has to be pinpointed through identity: who you are, rather than what you do. You are a certain race, gender, and national ethnicity, and so those should define your place in a hierarchy and in the groups with which you have affinity. While race is often a major fault line for the boundaries of this identity, there are broader cultural-linguistic ethnocentrisms that can take hold of this, especially when a multicultural nation lacks any central history of monoracial uniformity. Revolution The term “revolution” shares the same troubling confluence of definitions, finding little commonality beyond the fact that it is a great “shuffling off” of the past. This is a good place for us to start and to suggest that we define revolution as any attempt to undermine, destroy, and replace fundamental social institutions. In the traditional -Marxist-Leninist understanding this meant the taking over of one class by the other, a forced proletarianization of the ruling classes, and a destruction (to a degree) of state infrastructure so a -counter-state can be built and run by — and for — the workers (in theory, at least, to increase equality). As J. Sakai says, the fascist revolutionary project is less about the fundamental change in the functions of society and more about how they can use those functions, or replacements, as a vessel for themselves. By “revolutionary” the left has always meant overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist or communal or anarchist society. Fascism is not revolutionary in that sense, although it may use those words. Fascism is revolutionary in a simpler use of the word. It intends to seize State power for itself. Fascists have less ideological consistency because no fascist thinker has created a grand hegemony in thought that defined the movement henceforth. Instead, we can comfortably say that fascism is a revolutionary project, but how that revolution plays out is fiercely debated. At the bare minimum, it is an undermining of the foundational ideas of Western democracy, rejecting the idea that the people, generally, can rule themselves. If the fascist project intends to see imperial state power as a mechanism for achieving their ends (inequality through essentialized identity), then it could have more in common with the Marxist-Leninist conception of revolution. In this case, it would be destroying the elements of the liberal state in order to further embody a state created to enforce tribal interests and inequality. For non-state fascists, whom I will get to later, it may mean a revolution to destroy the current order and make space for the creation of ethnocentric tribal communities that can then battle for hegemony (or trade, depending on who is in charge). Whatever the distinct vision, the fascist idea is radical; it wants to see systemic change. It does not just want to reinforce the tacit inequality and structural oppression that exists inside of capitalist states; it wants to build a society where inequality and bigotry are explicitly endorsed. This requires a complete reordering of society, even if it is simply giving in to ideas that have been implicit to Western colonialism and white supremacy for centuries. Elitism While the “führer” principle is part and parcel of a fascist movement, it can be leadership outside of state or party functions. This brings us back to the idea of institutionalized hierarchy, with an aristocratic elite forming in a variety of ways. In the work of -proto-fascist jurist and Nazi-sympathizer Carl Schmitt, liberal democracy must “suspend democracy” in order to continue the project of democracy. Figures of supreme importance move through liberal modern societies past its laws and regulations so as to prop up the illusion that mass rule is maintained, but if democracy were to remain pure, it would collapse under the weight of its own inherent inequalities. Fascism drops the illusion that extralegal authority needs to be banned and instead concludes that the actions of dominant figures should be done by virtue of their superior spirit rather than the mandate of the common man. The central idea here is that some people are superior and that a ruling caste must be established in all levels of social arrangement. Cult of Tradition From the fascist view of history, identities are only forged through the mythological belief that there is a tradition that must be returned to. In author Umberto Eco’s quest to find the principles of “Eternal Fascism,” he identifies the “Cult of Tradition” as the most essential quality of fascism, where a desire to return to a “tradition,” which may or may not be true in the literal sense, is a reaction to modern developments like logic, science, or democracy. As we will see with the esoteric spiritual beliefs that color fascist movements, far-right authors like Julius Evola have outlined the idea that there is an underlying tradition of hierarchy inside all of the world’s societies and religions. The belief that there is a tradition that must be reclaimed is essential to the revolutionary rightist mission. Fascism is a particularly modernist concept, one that attempts to take the ideas of industry, technology, and futurism, and apply a reactionary understanding of society to it. Fascists often see themselves as trying to reclaim something that is natural, normal, and ever-present throughout history. This means theorizing how a proper society works after all of the modern “degeneracies” are cast off. The Colonization of the Left While this is discussed more thoroughly below, one key element of a fascist project is the adoption of politics associated with the left. From deep ecological mysticism that motivated aspects of German nationalism through the takeover by the NSDAP to the anti-imperialist rhetoric of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, fascist ideologues need this left-right crossover in order to develop a “new synthesis” that does not play by the conventionally understood left-right political spectrum. This should more appropriately be seen as a right takeover of the left: the use of leftist political tactics and strategies to push the core right-wing meta-politics of inequality and essential identity. If the left uses “state socialism” to enforce equality, the tools of which are command economics and state intervention, then fascism will use a mirror of those state systems to sanctify inequality and tribal privilege. If the left uses anti-colonial struggle to confront the ongoing attack on indigenous communities, then the right will use parallel ideas like indigenous sovereignty and the reclamation of ethnic identity as an argument for white separatism and racial advocacy. While the left develops tools to meet certain larger goals, fascism uniformly attempts to capture those methods for far different results. Violence and Authority Violence is often cited as a defining feature of fascism, by combining the immediatist nihilism of Mussolini’s early movement with the sober revelations of Nazi extermination plans into a coherent understanding. Violence is and remains a significant component of fascism, but much of this derives from the idea that the alienating effects of modernity must be smashed, and that mythic warrior societies show a path forward, especially for the veneration of “masculinity.” It is this discontent with the pathological boredom of industrial capitalism that has historically created some of its broadest appeals to the left, as well as some of its most pernicious sacrifices of human life and dignity. At the same time, while political authoritarianism may not be a defining feature of fascism, the appeal to some sort of authority, from aristocratic rule to physical “Übermensch,” is essential to guiding the unwashed masses. * Another defining feature of fascism is that it will constantly redefine itself. It will not resurrect (successfully) the fascist movements of the past, but it will always appeal to the uniqueness of countries, cultures, and contemporary technological and scientific developments. It adapts to religious perspectives, the drive toward ecological conservation, the fear of imperial domination, the regrets of Western colonialism, and the leftist language of national liberation, cultural appropriation, and anti-racism. Fascism necessitates the adoption of elements of the left, as mentioned, and as its opposition shifts and the colors of art and human expression evolve, it will find new vessels for its mission to reimagine the human experience. Fascism is not about politics, it is about consequences, the results of the choices that people make, whether in the halls of power or in the quiet musings where people determine who they are. Fascism grows in the arts, in poetry, in philosophy, in spirituality, in the formation of community bonds, and the ways we see ourselves. Politics is only the public manifestation of a cosmic shift in attitudes and values. In all the ways that inequality is sanctified, that boundaries are made dividing personhood and the struggle for democracy and equality are undermined, a tradition of the “True Right” is establishing its grip on society. Copyright (2017) by Shane Burley. Not to be reposted without the permission of AK Press and Shane Burley.One person was killed and another seriously injured after they were struck Wednesday night by a DeLand police officer’s marked patrol car, troopers say.The Florida Highway Patrol said two men were trying to cross Woodland Boulevard, near South Street and walked in front of an officer’s cruiser shortly before 11:30 p.m. Officer Tony Tagle was driving north on Woodland Avenue when the crash happened, authorities said. A 58-year-old man was pronounced dead at Florida Hospital DeLand and a 50-year-old man is being treated for serious injuries, troopers said. Tagle, who was hired in June 2014, has been placed on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation by the FHP.The DeLand Police Department said it will conduct an internal review after the FHP investigation is completed. One person was killed and another seriously injured after they were struck Wednesday night by a DeLand police officer’s marked patrol car, troopers say. The Florida Highway Patrol said two men were trying to cross Woodland Boulevard, near South Street and walked in front of an officer’s cruiser shortly before 11:30 p.m. Advertisement Officer Tony Tagle was driving north on Woodland Avenue when the crash happened, authorities said. A 58-year-old man was pronounced dead at Florida Hospital DeLand and a 50-year-old man is being treated for serious injuries, troopers said. Tagle, who was hired in June 2014, has been placed on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation by the FHP. The DeLand Police Department said it will conduct an internal review after the FHP investigation is completed. AlertMeNew research suggests that hydraulic fracking of oil and gas wells is behind earthquakes caused by humans in Western Canada. A study, published Tuesday by a group of top Canadian researchers, says problems in Alberta and British Columbia aren't being caused by injecting waste water underground. It's a major step in understanding seismic events that have already led to changed regulations in Alberta and caused public concern in both provinces. "It's critical that we get to a complete scientific understanding of the issue," said David Eaton, a University of Calgary geophysicist and a co-author of the study. Fracking involves pumping high-pressure fluids underground to create tiny cracks in rock to release natural gas or oil. Scientists had previously concluded that oilpatch activity can cause earthquakes by making it easier for faults in underground rock to slip, but they didn't know whether the Canadian quakes were caused by fracking or by the disposal of waste water by injecting it back underground. Public interest has been high, especially after a tremblor in January shook pictures on the walls of homes in Fox Creek, Alta., a community in the centre of the Duvernay oil and gas field. Measuring between 4.2 and 4.8 on the Richter scale, the quake was the largest of hundreds of similar shakers around the community since 2013. Eaton and his colleagues began with a database of more than 12,000 fracked and disposal wells drilled between 1985 and 2015. They cross-referenced that with another database of seismic events over that time. A complex statistical analysis pinned the blame convincingly on fracking and not disposal, Eaton said. "There are more earthquakes in Western Canada that are more related to hydraulic fracturing than waste-water injection by a factor of about two." Eaton said the situation is reversed in the United States, where waste-water disposal is considered to be behind most human-caused seismic activity. That doesn't mean that a lot of wells cause earthquakes. Eaton calculates that about 0.3 per cent of fracked wells create problems. But there are enough wells drilled for even that tiny fraction to be a concern. "Even at 0.3 per cent, because of the very large number of hydraulically fractured wells, it still represents an issue that is of high priority to address scientifically," said Eaton. Alberta's energy regulator has already changed regulations for the industry as a result of the Fox Creek earthquakes. Eaton said regulators in British Columbia are also considering changes. "The regulators have been quite responsive." Eaton suggested his findings raise questions about how well the geology of heavily fracked oilfields in Alberta and British Columbia is understood, "The occurrences in Canada have come as a surprise -- in some cases to industry -- because there was a belief that all the potential faults had been identified," he said. "One of the things we're actively researching is to find new and better ways to identify these features. "We're looking for the signature of critically stressed faults in new and different ways." Scientists are aware of the pressure they face getting the issue right, Eaton said. "There's a mixture of science and the whole social-political aspect of this."Quarterbacks Luke Del Rio, left, and Austin Appleby during a recent workout. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA) Junior cornerback Jalen Tabor is among the veterans returning from last season's 10-4 team. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA) GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The start of spring practice means different things in different years.A year ago it was all about, the first-year Florida coach and his task to turn around the program.As the Gators prepare to open their second spring camp under McElwain on Wednesday, a large group of newcomers are front and center in what the Gators hope to accomplish. Players McElwain and his staff are banking on to continue the momentum the program built last season on the way to the SEC East championship.A school-record 12 early enrollees joined the Gators in January to provide a jolt of energy to a team that after a 10-1 start last season, stumbled down the stretch in losses to Florida State, Alabama and Michigan.Amidst the hoopla of National Signing Day last month, the Gators took time to welcome the newcomers away from the spotlight. No ESPN announcements for this group."A lot of them didn't have the chance to go through signing day like a lot of people did,'' McElwain said. "So we did one with our team. We introduced the guys, put them in Gator colors and showed some highlights and had them make a couple of comments."That was pretty good. Our guys enjoyed that."Are there immediate difference-makers that will come to the surface this spring? That will take time to answer.The Gators should have a better idea of what impact the newcomers could have a month from now when the Orange & Blue Debut goes under the lights at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on April 8.For now, here is a preview heading into spring practice:***Same as last spring: quarterback. The difference is rather thanandvying for the job, the heart of the competition is expected to be between transfersand. Del Rio joined the program last summer after transferring from Oregon State and has an advantage in that he knows the offense. Appleby arrived in January as a graduate transfer from Purdue with one year of eligibility remaining. Appleby has the advantage in experience. He played in 17 games at Purdue, starting 11, and threw for 2,777 yards, 19 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. True freshmenandare also in the mix. The addition of Franks, a former LSU commit, was big news during the recruiting cycle. Trask, listed at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, has a strong arm but is short on experience after serving primarily as a backup in high school. The Gators are optimistic both can make their mark, but for now, Del Rio and Appleby will probably get first crack at the job.*There are more than usual to choose from, but defensive backis a player with an opportunity to contribute immediately. The UF secondary lost three key members inIII,and. Gardner (5-11, 197) starred at Cocoa (Fla.) High and earned a spot on the USA Today All-Florida Team. A two-way standout in high school, Gardner could provide depth in the fall with a strong spring camp.*Appleby is certainly at the top of the list, but so is kicker, a redshirt freshman who transferred from ASA Junior College in Miami. Pineiro is a former soccer player who was ranked as one of the nation's top kicking prospects. He was signed to help alleviate Florida's kicking woes, highlighted by the struggles of, who converted just 5 of 14 field goals in 2015.*Junior cornerbackplayed at a higher level than Hargreaves last season according to many. Tabor was certainly good and based on his steady improvement during his two seasons, appears primed for a breakout season in 2016. Often overshadowed by Hargreaves in the media a year ago, Tabor has the potential to be a first-round NFL draft pick this time next year with a strong season.***Florida's defense lost
3-2 Moose. After 2, the Moose led 3-2, while the Wild led the shots 24-17 After a giveaway by Julian Melchiori behind the Moose goal, Wild captain Maxime Fortunus pinched in from the point and had a puck squirt to him at the side of the net, which he backhanded in past an unsuspecting Eric Comrie, tying the game at 3. With 3 minutes left, and the Moose on the pk, Eric Comrie got out of position on a wrap around, but Brenden Kichton was just able to cut the play off at the net, saving a goal After 60 minutes, the game was tied at 3, with shots 37-24 in favour of the Wild With two minutes left in OT, Scott Kosmachuk sent Ryan Olsen in on a breakaway; Olsen beat the goaltender, but not the right post. With just under a minute left, the Moose had several good chances to end – with most of the (6) players on the ice ended up in front of the Wild goal, Austen Brassard fired a back-hander just over the net. In the shootout, Zack Mitchell scored on a quick shot, low glove, and Tyler Graovac faked a slapper and went backhand, five hole; Scott Kosmachuk tried an unsuccessful forehand deke, while Nic Petan came in and wrong a shot off the right post. Game Stats (Link) Tonight’s Top Moose: Chase de Leo – Always moving his feet and always pushing the play forward, de Leo created a lot of chances tonight off simple plays – cross-ice feeds, drop passes, and speed. From game 1-29, de Leo has probably been the Moose’s best forward. Darren Kramer – He had 1 point on the season prior to tonight, and tonight had the Gordie Howe hat trick – 1G, 1A and a fight. A nice game for a guy who normally makes most of his contribution with his knuckles. Nic Petan / Scott Kosmachuk – Both showed flashes of skill and created some nice scoring chances. Petan set up shop behind the net on a few occasions, biding his time until a teammate could get open; Kosmachuk was skating particularly well today, showing some dangles and a desire to attack the net. Injuries: Jay Harrison and Thomas Raffl once again sat out. Each of them are a week or two away from game action. Post-game Audio: Coach McCambridge Eric Comrie Darren Kramer Patrice CormierAbout Horror and mystery await. Please, take a seat… Song of Horror is a story-driven third person survival horror combining an inspiration in the old school classics with modern design and visuals, evocative of mankind’s eternal fear of what cannot be understood. Take control of up to 16 characters who have been plunged, throughout time, into a nightmare for which they are not prepared. Song of Horror is currently being developed for PC, with Mac and Linux coming shortly after. The game will come completely DRM-Free, and it will also be on Steam since we got Greenlit in only 5 days!!! We will also try our hardest for the game to be in consoles (at least PS4/Xbox One) once we secure the funding for the PC version. We are already in talks for this purpose :). All thanks to you! It’s an ordinary Friday in the life of Daniel Noyer, washed-up advertiser and former entrepreneur who has fallen on hard times lately. Currently the lowest of the low at a publishing house, you receive an urgent, yet seemingly straightforward assignment: to find the company’s most important client, the renowned writer Sebastian P. Husher, who hasn’t been heard from in weeks. Upon your arrival at Husher’s mansion, you realize something’s wrong. The lights, still turned off at the onset of nightfall, reveal that no one is home. The dog, which was forewarned at the entrance, is nowhere to be found. The main door, left ajar, hints at a hallway drowned in shadows. And an eerie, haunting melody, pierces a thundering silence. Watch early Song of Horror in motion as Daniel and Sophie face the darkness of the Husher Mansion! A Thrilling, Movie-Like Experience Join Daniel in a spine-chilling tale of horrors. Unravel a dreadful mystery of deep, unknown roots, a mystery threatening to destroy him. Peek-a-boo! Automated Cinematic Cameras The views in Song of Horror are fully automated. The cameras will follow you, back away from you, turn to face you, play tricks on you, and seamlessly blend with each other when needed in order to keep the tension levels sky-high. 16 Playable Characters Daniel Noyer is the protagonist in Song of Horror, but he’s a rather uncommon one. You will not only control him but also up to 15 other characters, either close to him or completely unrelated. But beware, not all of them might make it to the end. Who, and how many, will you be able to save? Each character has his/her own defined background, personality, views and opinions. They will each react differently to what they see and experience. Which of them are still kicking and which are gone will affect how the story is told. Daniel, Etienne, Sophie... and many more to come! Normal, Everyday People There are no heroes nor superhumans in Song of Horror. The entire cast is composed of real-life, ordinary folks who you could come across in the street any day. Meet Daniel, the advertiser. Meet Sophie, the art gallerist. Meet Etienne, the sales director. There’s also the doctor, and the shop clerk. None of them can make it on their own. Careful Exploration The devil’s in the details, or so they say. Each clue might have a meaning; every observation can be crucial. Peril is around every corner, and there is no prize for first arrival at the end line. The prize is to arrive at all. What's on the other side? Dare to find out, Sophie? Life Is Fleeting There is no health nor sanity meter. Being alive or dead is the only measure of success, and going from one to the other might only require a single misstep. Agile, Adaptive Control System Forget about tank-style movement or otherwise clunky control schemes. As the view adjusts to the situation, so does the character control. Song of Horror’s challenge lies entirely in the game itself. An Unsettling Soundtrack Our composer, Manuel, is creating a plethora of enthralling musical pieces that will take Song of Horror to a whole new level. In addition to our videos’ music and ambience, come and take another sneak peek at his work! Old Woman, Old Song (sample) Berenice (sample) A Glimpse into the Dark (sample) High Quality, Professional Voice Acting: Each character will have his/her own distinct, professionally recorded voice, and we will dub as much of their speech as we can. The Story Unfolds Song of Horror will be divided into several chapters. In each chapter, you will visit a different location while delving deeper and deeper into the mystery. The Presence Song of Horror features no weapons, no traditional enemies and no typical combat. Instead, you will be haunted by twisted manifestations of an eldritch, primeval horror which is known only as “the Presence”. The Presence will mess with your senses and dramatically warp reality. This paranormal terror will affect lighting, sound and the very atmosphere around you. Its horrifying manifestations will either actively haunt you or lie in wait for you, setting deadly traps that you’ll need to avoid if you want to live. It will play with you as a predator does with its prey, in both a pre-set and procedural way, so you won’t necessarily be safe somewhere just because that place was quiet in your last attempt. In order to survive, you will need to react, and to anticipate events. You will need to run, and you will need to hide, but these are just examples. Different forms of danger will require wildly different approaches out of you. Can you adapt? Can you make it? Death has many doors, and the Presence can open most of them. Permanent Death At the beginning of most chapters, you will choose among a set of characters. The one selected will be the first to face the unknown. Barring Daniel, characters in Song of Horror have one single chance. If they die, they’re gone for good, and you’ll need to select one of the remaining people and pick up where you left. Should all of them perish before reaching the end, you will need to restart the chapter. Some of the survivors might reappear later on! No Going Back There is no manual saving in Song of Horror. Your progress will be stored when you finish a chapter, or if you select the “Save and Quit” option to come back later. Whenever you continue, however, you’re once more on your own. Puzzles and Riddles: From simple locked doors to full-blown enigmas, from straightforward to dangerously deceptive ones, Song of Horror will be rich in original, engaging (or terrifying!) puzzles, ranging from little daily life obstacles to sinister games where your life is at stake. Pick up all kinds of mundane and bizarre items, examine them in 3D and uncover the secrets they hide. Struggle to find hidden clues in an old photograph or a dusty letter written in fear. Your findings will not only help you progress, they can also save your life! Updated! Song of Horror is being developed by Protocol Games in Madrid, Spain. Development began in October 2014 and has quickly reached cruising speed. Apart from the main team, we also consult specific subjects with other qualified folks, such as Víctor Tascón Uceda & David Santos Juárez, two other architects, and Marina Mena Guardabrazo & Elise Stormyhr, two professional translators and proofreaders. For the whole team, Song of Horror’s creation represents the fulfillment of our biggest dream. More accurately, our lifelong dream. Since the beginning back in October, we have gone full-time without hesitation. This is our dream, and we will never be happy in our lives if we don’t go at it with everything we’ve got. We have commited our maximum to Song of Horror. We have left jobs and let good professional opportunities pass us by. Some of us are even combining two jobs or this job with further studies (this job being a full-time one already). Until now, the two producers have gone unpaid, and the two workers have been very generous with their conditions. We have worked from 40 to 70 hours every week, weekdays and weekends alike when it has been needed. Financially, we have put our lifetime savings and the help our families could provide us towards this one and only goal: the making of a great game both you and us can be proud of having helped become a reality. We would not dare to present ourselves before you if we hadn’t, as it is said, put our money where our mouths were. All these sacrifices have been necessary to present to you the results that hopefully will give you a solid reason to back Song of Horror. Unfortunately, our own personal savings are not enough to guarantee the completion the game, let alone make the game we want to make, which is the best one we are humanly capable of creating. Thus, we need your help. We need you. Song of Horror needs you, friends. Our heartfelt thanks + development updates. All the rewards from the €1 tier + a copy of the game. All the rewards from the €12 tier + the HD Wallpaper Pack I. All the rewards from the €15 tier + the HD Wallpaper Pack II + the PDF Manual. All the rewards from the €20 tier + the Digital Book of Horror. All the rewards from the €25 tier + the Original Soundtrack + the Ringtone + Your name in the credits as CONCERT AUDIENCE. All the rewards from the €35 tier + an extra copy of the game. All the rewards from the €35 tier + a Signed Haiku (worldwide shipping included) + your name in the credits as a POET. All the rewads from the €35 tier + the Song of Horror T-Shirt (€10 shipping (Spain)/€20 shipping (Worldwide) not included) + your name in the credits as a WEAVER OF NOTES. All the rewards from the €35 tier + Your name in an old newspaper + Your name in the credits as FATED AUDIENCE. All the rewads from the €48 tier + a different Signed Haiku + the physical Book of Horror (€10 shipping (Spain)/€20 shipping (Worldwide) not included) + your name in the credits as a LIBRARIAN. All the rewards from the €48 tier + a different Signed Haiku + the Song of Horror T-Shirt and Poster (€10 shipping (Spain)/€20 shipping (Worldwide) not included) + Your name in the credits as a GALLERIST. All the rewards from the €45 tier + two names in an old newspaper + two names in the credits as FATED AUDIENCE. All the rewards from the €48 tier + a different Signed Haiku + the Physical Book of Horror + the Song of Horror T-Shirt and Poster (€10 shipping (Spain)/€20 shipping (Worldwide) not included) + your name in the credits as a PATRON OF THE ARTS. All the rewards from the €35 tier + 2 extra copies + in-game news about you + your name in the credits as a CELEBRITY.Fear of public speaking often feels like it hits you out of nowhere. But I’m going to suggest that there are three distinct causes of speech anxiety. These three different causes of speaking anxiety relate to three different areas of the brain – the Old Brain (it’s called this in neuro’pop’ books but is more correctly called the Hindbrain), Midbrain and the New Brain (again more correctly called the Forebrain). [Note: I have edited this paragraph to make it more scientifically accurate – thank you to Zen Faulkes who commented on my previous description]. My descriptions are a simplification of the science – in particular, the parts of the brain all interact with each other, so it’s not strictly correct to say that just one part of the brain causes nervousness. But I think it’s a useful model which may help you understand your fear of public speaking and work out the best way to reduce it. 1. Old Brain nervousness Your old brain is the part of your brain that is constantly scanning the environment looking for threats. Survival is what matters to the old brain. Many people suffer from ‘Old Brain’ nervousness. In prehistoric times, being part of a group was essential to our survival. So one of the threats to our survival was being kicked out of the group. What might get you kicked out? Standing out in some way, saying something offensive or stupid, or not performing up to expectations. Fast forward to now. You’re standing in front of a group ready to open your mouth and your old brain goes (metaphorically): Oh-oh. This is a threatening situation. If you say something stupid, YOU MIGHT DIE! It’s no longer true that you might die, but your Old Brain doesn’t know that. Your Old Brain activates your survival system: fight, flight or freeze. When it comes to public speaking the most common reactions are flight or freeze: Flight – You avoid public speaking if at all possible. If you do have to speak, speak as fast as possible so that you get through it as quickly as possible. Freeze – You feel stiff and artificial as you speak, your mind goes blank. Here’s what can you do about this type of nervousness: 1. Accept nervousness This type of nervousness may happen every time you speak. Accept that nervousness may be your ever-present companion. If you fight your nervousness (eg: say to yourself ‘I shouldn’t be nervous’ – see New Brain nervousness below) you’ll make it worse. In this post How to use your fear of public speaking to make you a better speaker I’ve written about three specific ways to accept your nervousness. 2. Get used to it You may suffer from nervousness less as you gain more experience presenting. That’s because your old brain has gradually realized that this public speaking thing is possibly not that life-threatening. So desensitize yourself – take every opportunity to speak in front of a group. 2. Mid Brain Nervousness Our emotions are regulated by the Mid Brain. In conjunction with other parts of your brain, your Mid Brain will make you nervous when you’re reminded of a previous nerve-wracking experience. So if you had an experience at school where you were humiliated in front of your classmates, or suffered an embarrassing mindblank in an important presentation, those strong emotional memories may come back to haunt you. If you can readily identify a previous experience which is causing you to be nervous now, the most important thing to do is rationally evaluate how bad it was. If you continue to tell yourself that it was a terrible, awful experience it will continue to create nervousness for you into the future. So rationally evaluate how awful it was. What were the consequences of it? Here’s an exercise I use on our courses to help people put these experiences in perspective. You can do this now: Think of that nerve-wracking presentation experience. How awful was it on a scale of 0 to 100%? Imagine, your little finger has just been cut off in an accident! How awful is that on a scale of 0 to 100%? And now how awful is that nerve-wracking experience compared to losing your little finger. Most people revise the awfulness of their nerve-wracking experience from somewhere near 100% to somewhere near 0%. They would prefer to relive that nerve-wracking presentation experience rather than lose their little finger. The loss of the finger helps them to put it in perspective. (If you’re happy to lose your little finger, imagine losing your hand, or the finger or hand of a loved one – at some point you’ll gain some perspective). The rational reality is that most of the things that happen to us in presentations, are not that bad. They’re nothing compared to the other things that can happen to us in life – like relationship break-ups, loss of a loved one, and serious health issues. The most serious consequences of a presentation going badly are losing a large sale, an election or other contest, or your job (though I’ve never heard of someone losing their job because of one bad presentation). These consequences are disappointing – but not catastrophic. 3. New Brain nervousness The New Brain is the conscious thinking part of your brain. Most of us have patterns of thinking that contribute to our nervousness.You can reduce your nervousness by exploring your patterns of thinking. This is part of the basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. One of the most common patterns of thinking that contribute to the fear of public speaking are demands. Here’s an example of how they operate. A few weeks ago I was running a training course. I knew that the CEO would be one of the participants. I felt myself get a little nervous as we were setting up. When he walked into the room I got hot and my heart started racing. Why would I react in this way? I have a demand around CEOs. It goes something like this: CEOs are really important and I must have their approval. My demanding thought made me nervous. What was the result? I messed up the instructions for a simple exercise that we do at the beginning of every course and that I’ve done perfectly hundreds of times before! Here are some common demands people have about presenting and public speaking: I must be interesting and engaging I mustn’t leave anything out I mustn’t waffle I mustn’t show I’m nervous I’ve got to be able to answer every question These demands make you nervous because you can’t guarantee that the demand will be met. To reduce their power, rationally analyze the truth and usefulness of these demands. For example, with my CEO demand I can see that it’s not essential that a CEO approve of me. I don’t demand that everybody approves of me – and it’s irrational to demand that a CEO must approve of me. I can also see that it’s not useful to have this demand as it made me mess up! In the post The Seven Thinking Sins of Public Speaking I’ve analyzed other common demands and explored how to defuse them. I get that fear of public speaking can be debilitating, and can have you avoid opportunities in your life. I hope this post has been useful to you in thinking through how you can best reduce your nervousness. Please let me know what you found most useful by writing a comment below. You may never have written a comment on a blog before, after all its similar to public speaking – you’re saying something that many people will read. It may make you nervous… accept that and write the comment anyway. Look forward to hearing from you :-).QPR will assess Jordan Cousins and Sebastian Polter in the next 48 hours after both players picked up injuries in the 1-1 draw against Birmingham. Midfielder Cousins went off with a hamstring problem during the first half but does not believe the injury is serious. And striker Polter, who came on as a substitute, picked up a heavy knock and was on crutches after the game at Loftus Road. Referring to Cousins’ injury, manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink said: “We will have to assess that. “It’s his hamstring and he himself thinks it’s not too bad and that it just cramped up.” Meanwhile, Yeni Ngbakoto missed the match because of a thigh injury he picked up in training. The French winger could be available for Tuesday’s trip to face Hasselbaink’s former club Burton. Hasselbaink was encouraged by his team’s performance against Birmingham and praised recent signing Pawel Wszolek, who impressed after coming on for Cousins.Compression Decompressed or, Making Things Smaller: A Visual Introduction Compression is everywhere. It's used to more efficiently store data on hard drives, send TV signals, transmit web pages like this one, stream Netflix videos, package up video games for distribution, the list is endless. Almost no significant area of modern computing exists that doesn't make use of compression technologies. So what is it? Whether you've been using desktop compression software for years, or never thought about it at all, this article will try to explain a little of what goes on under the hood when you squash a file or stream a video. We'll look into the answers to the big questions, and probably raise more new ones along the way. What does it mean to compress something? How can you make something smaller than it already is? How do you practically go about doing that? Let's get to work! Toggle pointless gifs off The basics Before we even go anywhere near computing and digital information, we can find a useful introduction to compression. Take the following word in English: T r e e Counting up all the symbols we had to use to express that, we see that we used four: T 1 r 2 e 3 e 4 4 characters Fine, not bad. But what does it look like written in, say, Japanese? 木 1 1 characters Oho! Only one symbol! Have we expressed a different idea? A different piece of information? No. But we have managed to reduce the page-space required to write down the idea of a tree by 75%. So what have we done? Nothing magical - we've just decided to express the idea in a different way. We've chosen a different, more efficient representation of the information. Spoiler: that'll turn out to be the most important concept of this piece, so pay attention. Yeah, OK, but what about pixel art? I hear you cry! How does our example from written language above translate into the world of strictly-defined digital data? Let's think about a class of data that I hear is pretty popular these days - images. To keep things simple for now we're not going to try to compress a high resolution Instagram photo or anything. Instead, let's go for pixel art. Pretty, no? I made it myself. That's a ten-by-ten grid of pixels, each with a colour we can represent by one character - 'B', 'Y' or 'G'. How can we represent this digitally? A file storing this image in a pretty much raw form might have the following contents: B 1 B 2 B 3 B 4 B 5 B 6 B 7 B 8 B 9 B 10 B 11 B 12 B 13 B 14 B 15 B 16 B 17 Y 18 B 19 B 20 B 21 B 22 B 23 B 24 B 25 B 26 Y 27 Y 28 Y 29 B 30 B 31 B 32 G 33 G 34 G 35 B 36 B 37 Y 38 B 39 B 40 B 41 B 42 G 43 G 44 G 45 B 46 B 47 B 48 B 49 B 50 G 51 G 52 G 53 G 54 G 55 G 56 B 57 B 58 B 59 B 60 G 61 G 62 G 63 G 64 G 65 G 66 B 67 B 68 B 69 B 70 G 71 G 72 G 73 G 74 G 75 G 76 G 77 B 78 B 79 B 80 G 81 G 82 G 83 G 84 G 85 G 86 G 87 B 88 B 89 B 90 G 91 G 92 G 93 G 94 G 95 G 96 G 97 G 98 G 99 G 100 100 characters All we've done is write the corresponding colour character for each pixel, left to right, top to bottom. As you'd expect, this comes to 100 characters. Let's assume that means 100 bytes taken up on disk. Hopefully you agree this gives a pretty good upper bound on sensible size for a file representing this image - anything bigger would either be kind of pointless, or attempting to pack more information than just the image itself in (metadata or something). Now, try a little thought experiment before you go any further. If I asked you to write, on paper, a representation of this image in less than 100 characters, how might you do it? Go ahead, mull it over with a cup of tea. I'll wait. Toggle pointless gifs off Got something? Good, me too. I'm going to call my method run-length encoding, or RLE. Jks, I didn't come up with it and I don't get to name it. It's been around since at least the sixties as a basic compression technique. I'm willing to bet at least some of you literally came up with it just now. Run-length encoding works by noticing something about the image file above. There are great big long stretches where we just write the same colour over and over again. Look at all those 'B's to kick it off! Surely this repetition is something we can squash down? Of course we can! What if, instead of: B 1 B 2 B 3 B 4 B 5 B 6 B 7 B 8 B 9 B 10 B 11 B 12 B 13 B 14 B 15 B 16 B 17 17 characters We wrote: 1 1 7 2 B 3 3 characters This seems promising. We've turned 17 characters into 3, just by abbreviating long repeated strings of the same character. These repetitive strings are called runs, by the way. Hence run-length encoding: we've encoded the data by writing down the length of its runs, instead of every element in them. No information has been lost in doing this. A very simple program that was able to render the previous file format should be easily modifiable to read our new format, and the image would look identical. The live demo below displays the original image along with its long representation and its run-length encoded one. Tap or click on any pixel to change its colour and observe the changes. 1 1 7 2 B 3 1 4 Y 5 8 6 B 7 3 8 Y 9 3 10 B 11 3 12 G 13 2 14 B 15 1 16 Y 17 4 18 B 19 3 20 G 21 5 22 B 23 6 24 G 25 4 26 B 27 6 28 G 29 4 30 B 31 7 32 G 33 3 34 B 35 7 36 G 37 3 38 B 39 1 40 0 41 G 42 42 characters B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B Y B B B B B B B B Y Y Y B B B G G G B B Y B B B B G G G B B B B B G G G G G G B B B B G G G G G G B B B B G G G G G G G B B B G G G G G G G B B B G G G G G G G G G G 100 characters Neat! I'd better show my friends Support me You'll notice something if you play with it for a while: the amount we're able to compress the long form by is dependent on the image itself. If the whole thing's one solid block of one colour, or a few very long runs, we can get very small outputs. The smallest we can get this file using our version of run-length encoding is 4 bytes: 1 1 0 2 0 3 G 4 4 characters Another thing? This algorithm can go really really wrong. It can, in fact, make the file bigger than the raw pixel-by-pixel representation. Notice that it takes two characters to write '1B', or '1G'. What if your pixel art is just a mess of runs of length 1? 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 1 G 1 Y 1 B 200 characters Amazing. Time to learn you some terminology. Toggle pointless gifs off Compression ratio How do we measure how well our compression algorithm is actually doing at making our data smaller? Well, it's pretty much how you might guess - we calculate the ratio of the data's uncompressed size to its compressed size. If we take our 100 byte pixel art image and our algorithm compresses it down to 42 bytes, then we've managed a compression ratio of (100 / 42) ≈ 2.38. At its best, with the solid colour image, the algorithm managed a whopping compression ratio of (100 / 4) = 25! And with the single-pixel-per-run image designed to mess with the algorithm, it only managed (100 / 200) = 0.5. Protip: compression ratios less than 1 are frowned upon. We can see that the compression ratio achieved by our basic RLE algorithm is incredibly sensitive to the structure of the input data. This is pretty common for such naive approaches. The algorithm makes a lot of assumptions about the shape of data it expects to find if it's to do a reasonable job - repeated, adjacent runs of the exact same byte must be present. A cleverer RLE implementation might attempt to run-length encode the data using repeated substrings. T 1 h 2 i 3 r 4 t 5 y 6 - 7 t 8 h 9 r 10 e 11 e 12 13 c 14 o 15 p 16 i 17 e 18 s 19 20 o 21 f 22 23'24 B 25 G 26 Y 27'28 29 f 30 o 31 l 32 l 33 o 34 w 35 e 36 d 37 38 b 39 y 40 41 o 42 n 43 e 44 45 m 46 o 47 r 48 e 49 50'51 B 52'53 53 characters Hell, even writing it in English I managed a better ratio than 2! Couple this approach with a nice, concise file format and we're onto a bit of a winner compared to our first try. How small can you go? This is a natural and very very very big question. After all, it seems only correct that a reasonably well-designed compression algorithm should be able to reduce any input by at least a bit (both the colloquial and technical meaning of a bit work just as well here). Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Say we had an algorithm (let's call it A) that, given any input whatsoever, was capable of achieving a compression ratio of strictly greater than 1. It could be 2.5 for some inputs, it could be 1.000000002 for others. If such an algorithm existed, we would be able to simply apply it, again and again, to an input - just run A(A(A(data))), and so on. Every time we applied it, the size of our data would decrease by at least one bit. It doesn't take a big leap to see that this would eventually take us down to a single bit, and even... zero bits? Toggle pointless gifs off That doesn't seem possible. And it isn't. Even without that recursive "proof" of the impossibility of such an algorithm, just think: with as few as nine different files, there's no possible way to compress them all (without throwing away information) down to, let's say, three bits each. Three bits only gives us eight unique representations: 000, 001, 010, 100, 011, 101, 110, 111. Even if we had some super-powerful compression algorithm capable of taking the first eight of our files down to these unique representations, the compressed form of our ninth file would have to be one of them too! There aren't enough unique 3-bit representations to cover more than eight uncompressed pieces of data for a given algorithm. Here's an important take-away: there is a hard limit to the compression ratio that any given algorithm can achieve on generic data. And you can't get round it by applying one algorithm until it stops being useful and then trying another one. This might eek out a little more compression (in fact, many established compression softwares do exactly this), but eventually you'll hit something you can't compress further. And, really, your repeated applications of different algorithms are just another compression algorithm. The rule still applies. Kolmogorov complexity The disappointment doesn't stop there, either. It's not just the algorithms that have a theoretical limit on compression - the data itself has an inherent complexity. Look at the following two strings: a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a 24 characters and: m a r w n c t c m w n o q n i f n l f z n a l k 24 characters Exactly the same length, but one is just clearly more complex. You can see it easily, using your human brain. More concretely, we know for a fact we can apply basic RLE to the first one and take it down to at most three characters ("24a"). Kolmogorov complexity (the brain child of Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, a Soviet mathematician) captures this concept pretty well. It's far from the only measure of such things, but it serves well. The Kolmogorov complexity of a piece of data can be defined as the length of the shortest possible computer program capable of generating the data as output. Obviously there's a good upper bound on the Kolmogorov complexity of any string 'S' - just write the program "return S". I'm being a bit reductive since the measure should include the length of the entire program - interpreter or compiled code included. But for the purposes of this discussion it'll do fine. Just think of it as the length of the shortest piece of code you could write to generate the data. Kolmogorov complexity isn't particularly sensitive to your choice of programming language. It can be shown that choice of language for your program only impacts complexity by a constant factor. This is quite key: it tells us that no matter how you choose to express the data, there's a limit to how succinctly you can do it. Some data just needs more space to represent than a million green pixels, and always will. On loss Don't give up hope, though. Everything we've covered so far has been what's referred to as lossless compression. Lossless compression is defined as any compression which allows the original data to be reconstructed perfectly from the compressed form. That is, if C is our compression algorithm, and D the corresponding decompression algorithm, we should expect D(C(x)) = x for any data x. This is useful - when compressing written text such like literature or blog articles, tax archives, low-resolution pixel data, you almost certainly want to do it losslessly. In these applications, the exact content and ordering of every character is likely to be important. But Other Options Are Available. Compression which makes no guarantee of perfectly reproduced data is known as lossy compression. And it is everywhere. The use-cases for lossy compression are many. Human senses are very forgiving to error / patchy information. Any data which represents
Morsu was being applied on spells when equipped in your off-hand weapon slot. Fixed a bug where some of the effects of Blade Vortex weren't finishing their animations smoothly. Fixed a rare bug with Flesh Offering and Bone Offering not being removed from minions correctly when using Totems. Fixed a bug with Riposte which caused the player to perform the default attack animation when triggered, interrupting movement and other skills such as Vaal Cyclone. Fixed an instance crash that would occur in the Caer Blaidd, Wolfpack's Den unique map when killing the Storm Eye boss. Fixed a client crash that would occur in the Caer Blaidd, Wolfpack's Den unique map when fighting the Winterfang boss. Fixed a bug where you were unable to equip a bow on top of an already equipped bow, if you had a quiver equipped. Fixed a bug where equipping a bow when you only had a quiver equipped would cause your quiver to be placed on your cursor. Fixed a visual bug where equipping and removing unique items that granted Blood Magic, such as The Covenant, would cause your mana to remain displayed as completely reserved. EDIT: We are are aware of the Femur of the Saints issue, and are working on it. EDIT: We are are aware of the Femur of the Saints issue, and are working on it. Last edited by Qarl on Dec 23, 2015, 5:09:30 AM Posted by GGG_Neon on Grinding Gear Games onFollowing the worst Treasure Valley winter in a generation, the Ada County Highway District says it's shifting things around by putting residential streets on its snow plowing priority list. Last winter, the bitterly cold season dropped over 35 inches of snow on the region in December and January causing headaches and a slew of fender benders. Click 'play' to hear the audio version of this story. In response to the snowy streets that plagued motorists, ACHD purchased 11 more plows to attach to trucks and put almost a quarter of a million dollars towards increasing the number of plows it can call up in a serious weather event, according to the Statesman. Residential streets are going to join the plowing priority list below things like arterial roads, bridges and areas around hospitals. “We’re pleased that ACHD has stepped forward and is working to do this,” says Boise city spokesman Mike Journee. “The fact that the ACHD’s board is paying attention to this situation shows, I think, that people recognized it was a challenge and that, absent having control over the streets of the City of Boise, this is a good step forward, and we hope that it’s effective if we find ourselves in a similar situation,” Journee says. As many Treasure Valley residents know, Ada County is the only county in the nation to have total control over the roadways not managed by the state or federal governments. The City of Boise says it’s also enacting a snow-removal plan. Part of that includes tapping Parks and Rec staff to clear downtown sidewalks “You know, if it becomes a situation like we saw last year where we do have to deploy some manpower to clear things away, we’ll do exactly like we did and deploy that through the Parks and Rec Department,” according to Journee. Leaders in nearby Meridian are planning to meet with school district officials and ACHD to come up with their own snow plans ahead of winter. For more local news, follow the KBSX newsroom on Twitter @KBSX915 Copyright 2017 Boise State Public RadioStory highlights Utah has not voted Democrat since 1964 Clinton's campaign has organized a Mormons for Hillary group in the state (CNN) Hillary Clinton's campaign has added more staffers to their operation in traditionally red Utah, a source with knowledge of the moves tells CNN. Five new staffers will start work in Utah early next week, according to the source, and visits from surrogates will increase in the final weeks of the campaign. The moves signal a growing confidence that Utah, a state that has not voted for a Democrat in the presidential election since 1964, could end up in Clinton's column on Election Day. Clinton's campaign has eyed Utah as a possible expansion state for months, given Donald Trump's struggles with Mormon voters and the success of third-party candidate Evan McMullin. These moves, first reported by Buzzfeed, are just the latest step in their effort to turn the state blue. Read MoreWarner Bros. Montreal has admitted facing "resistance and reluctance" at "every level" when it began work on Batman Arkham Origins, the first title in the Arkham franchise not designed by its British creators, Rocksteady. The game's senior producer Ben Mattes told Eurogamer that WB Montreal had experienced "hesitation" from within the company, as well as a fair amount of scepticism from fans. "Obviously resistance and reluctance exists at every level," he explained. "There were fans who said: 'They're not Rocksteady, they can't make an Arkham game.' And there were concerns within the organisation that we weren't going to be able to deliver the special sauce of a Rocksteady game. "And there were concerns within our team, like - 'Maybe we've bitten off more than we can chew? Are we sure we're able to dance with these guys? Do we deserve to be in this same hallowed ground?' - but we wouldn't have continued through the years if we didn't feel we had a shot," he added. "I'm really proud of what we've done." The majority of this hesitation has now evaporated, Mattes continued, as a natural effect of WB Montreal showing more and more of the game. But at its unveiling, Mattes recalled what he described as maybe a "a 60-40 split of positivity to hesitation or maybe outright dismay" from Arkham fans. "Y'know: 'It's not Rocksteady. It's a prequel. It's not the original voice actors. Forget it. Ignore. Never paying attention to it,'" he remembered. "Usually you put on a happy face and say the right things because that's where you are." Ben Mattes, Batman Arkham Origins senior producer "But I think every subsequent piece of code we've shown has won over more and more of the public, to the point where it now stands out as an exception if we see someone who's still towing that line of: 'It's not Rocksteady, it's not going to be good.' There's only, like, one in a 1000 it seems now still playing that card." The pressure of having to live up to Rocksteady's past work may have even helped the game, he added, and pushed WB Montreal to deliver a finished product worthy of the series. "You don't want to be the guys who messed up and ran into the ground one of the absolute, top-rated franchises of all time. You don't want that at the top of your CV. 'Yeah, I'm the guy who turned a 96 into a 60, that's my claim to fame.' So I think there was an extra desire to create something really great as we were fully aware of the opportunity that we had." With the game due out tomorrow, Mattes concluded he was satisfied with how the project turned out. "Usually you put on a happy face and say the right things because that's where you are. But secretly you're thinking, 'God, if only they'd given us six more months.' But, honestly, this game we've created is the game we set out to create. It is exactly the story we wanted to tell with exactly the areas of focus we aimed to do. "And resistance... it was probably more hesitation than resistance. It was never: 'Over my dead body are you guys making an Arkham game!' It was always hedging bets, cautiously optimistic, a healthy amount of hesitation. And that's the right attitude. I think everyone ought to have that attitude. If we'd come in saying: 'Rock-who? Eff those guys man, we'll show you how it's done,' we wouldn't have gotten here."And so far that's all we know, or all we knew until we pounced on Strain and forced him to tell us more. The last time Jeff Strain founded a new company and made a new game the world ended up with ArenaNet and Guild Wars. But even before then Strain was a name to be reckoned with, having been a lead programmer on World of Warcraft and instrumental in StarCraft's and Diablo's development at Blizzard. He's what can be described as MMO royalty, and he has ripped off his NCsoft suit to reveal his spandex developer costume once more and flown off to found Undead Labs. Better still, he's decided to make a console MMO about zombies. Zombies. Eurogamer: Jeff Strain, you are a very successful man. Why? [Wow. "Hardball." -Ed] Jeff Strain: I've been very fortunate. Whatever my own skills and qualifications are, I've been very fortunate to be surrounded by incredibly talented people. There's a lot of industry royalty out there - luminaries - who have great ideas and strong vision but these projects are too large to be the product of any one person's skill or talent. First and foremost that has to be said. But, you know, your ability to attract high-quality people is absolutely pivotal to how successful you can be. I really do think it's a willingness to do things differently. Some companies make a success of taking existing formulas and polishing them to a bright sheen and that's a great model. That hasn't been the path that I've taken. I've always believed in innovation and been willing to live that and stand by it. And hopefully this new endeavour that I'm about to launch is just another example of that. Eurogamer: Are Blizzard one of those that "polish to a bright sheen"? Jeff Strain: Well, I certainly think they are a great example of a company who makes their business doing that, yeah. Eurogamer: You mentioned surrounding yourself with a strong team. Who have you dragged along to Undead Labs? Why should we trust that you will make something special? You must know some big names. Left 4 Dead 2 has fast, scary zombies. Jeff Strain: Ha ha. Well I can't mention any names at this point but you can expect to see announcements about that following shortly. What's going to make Undead Labs special? That's very easy for me to answer, because what makes it special for me is the focus on making a zombie MMO. There are lots of zombies fans out there. I think it transcends your run-of-the-mill fantasy interest. People are passionate about zombies - and this is, to tell you the truth, the reason why I'm even talking about it at this point, about what kind of game I'm going to make, because normally when you start a studio you're very tight-lipped about that. The reason I'm talking about it is because I want zombie fans. I want the best developers in the industry that love zombies to want to work here and be part of this, because it is exciting, it is innovative and it's going to be something special and new. That, more than anything else, is what's going to make Undead Labs a special place to work: that focus and that culture. Eurogamer: Are zombie fans the right audience for an MMO - don't they simply want to run around blowing limbs off? Jeff Strain: If you think about MMO in terms of a traditional template, which is largely defined by its genesis and existence on the PC side of the wall, then I think that's a very legitimate concern. But when you say "making a console MMO", to take that template and just port it over is exactly the wrong thing to do for exactly the reason you point out. It's not so much a function of zombie fans as it is console gamers. Console gamers have expectations about how they can play the game. If I'm playing any kind of zombie game on a console, I don't care what the genre, I certainly expect to be able to pick up a golf club and start swinging it, there's no question about it. That has to be there. I'm not going to deny the essential nature of console games in the zombie genre. House of the Dead: Overkill has healthcare zombies. But what you can wrap around it that really makes it compelling as an MMO universe is more this notion of post-societal collapse: the whole world is now your playground and your mission is inherently to work with other surviving humans to rebuild society, to retake your home town and hold it from the zombies and try to recapture what was good about the world. That's something that you don't normally get in your classic zombie corridor shooter, even though those can be fun - that social element is missing. Eurogamer: Why are zombies more popular than elves? Jeff Strain: Ha. I wouldn't say I believe zombies are more popular than elves. Zombies have a larger penetration in society but there's no question that fantasy has been an enduring and very powerful genre. My concern about making a fantasy game at this point is that it's been done; it's been done a hundred times. We've told those stories, we've explored those universes, we've spun variations off of core Tolkien canon so many times. What's happening is that the more we try to come up with new fantasy universes, the more we're having to be esoteric about how they work and what the mechanics are. The great thing about the zombie universe for an MMO is that it's largely unexplored territory. The reason zombies are so powerful and transcend fantasy is because right now they are the modern, societal guilt-free meat-puppet. We've been through the Nazi phase, we've been through the communist phase, we've been through the terrorist phase. Those were all at various times in history fair game in the gaming culture. Right now zombies are fulfilling that need for us. That no-rules, no-guilt mentality is something that people really resonate with.Reed predicted FFC would knock on roughly 500,000 doors in battleground states. Evangelicals road test 2016 strategy The evangelical movement wants to be back on top of national politics, and to do it it’s borrowing from an unlikely playbook — Barack Obama’s. Groups like Faith and Freedom Coalition and Susan B. Anthony’s List are beefing up their grass-roots efforts this year, turning to strategies more often embraced by President Obama than the Christian right, like using online data and micro-targeting to reach or visit hundreds of thousands of voters in key counties in states like Colorado, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina — states that will determine whether Republicans gain a majority in the Senate. Story Continued Below The evangelical movement finds itself at a crossroads: Regain relevancy in 2014 after a tough year in 2012 or face an even tougher fight in the next presidential election, when, it fears, Hillary Clinton will be at the top of the ticket, galvanizing liberals all the way down the ballot. ( POLITICO's 2014 race ratings) “The 2014 midterms are a crucial test of evangelical influence and strength,” said Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “I think most evangelical leaders understand we are in a period of pretty radical transition in this society.” Leaders in the evangelical movement understand that public opinion on social issues has changed dramatically since 2000, when the movement helped buoy George W. Bush to the White House and again in 2004. Opposition to gay marriage, once a hot-button ballot initiative to drive voters to the polls, has faded drastically. Meanwhile, only one in 10 young adults identifies as evangelical. And greater acceptance of birth control, premarital sex and cohabitation before marriage has created a cultural distance with the church. “There are these tectonic shifts that are occurring that are going to be important in 2016 and beyond,” said Dan Cox, research director at the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. “There is sort of a real demographic and cultural challenge.” ( Full 2014 election results) With few red-meat state-ballot initiatives on abortion or marriage, activists are having to make a broader sell to faith voters to get them to the polls. The challenges aren’t lost on veteran operatives — especially as they eye 2016 and a possible Hillary Clinton presidential run that some fear could fuel a wave election for Democrats. “I’m hearing mixed reports from people whether or not we are going to see a real surge from our people,” said Charmaine Yoest, veteran conservative activist and head of Americans United for Life. She and others, like Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Ralph Reed, are trying to ensure that they do. ( See more from POLITICO's Polling Center) “We’re trying to change the turnout model, and we’re trying to educate, motivate, mobilize and turn out as many faith-based voters in these key states as we possibly can,” Reed said. “The main thing we are road-testing is our home visits and our digital. We will look at both of those in our after-action review and determine how decisive they were.” The group is slated to spend $8 million on the 2014 midterm elections. Reed predicted FFC would knock on roughly 500,000 doors in Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana. The organization has 13 field offices in those five states. It is also continuing to distribute voter guides in churches — sending 20 million pamphlets to 117,000 churches — and is also sending out direct mail to 6 million voters and making roughly 10 million phone calls. Susan B. Anthony’s List is also focusing on the ground game. SBA List began building out its ground team in April in North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana. So far, the group’s canvassers have knocked on nearly 300,000 doors and made calls to more than 350,000 potential voters. With Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in an increasingly tight race, the group has also started mobilizing in Kansas, with plans to knock on 25,000 doors. “The ground game, the door-to-door human-being-to-human-being element, has faltered in the last three election cycles,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List. Dannenfelser said she wants to reignite the anti-abortion movement by focusing on Democratic Senate incumbents’ positions on abortion and the chamber’s inaction on legislation to limit abortions after 20 weeks. Reed’s FFC is also increasingly focused on expanding its online efforts, spending more on its digital efforts than offline for the first time. The group expects to reach 15 million video viewers online through banner and video ads in Colorado, North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Michigan, Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa and Florida. Using its database of 33.1 million social conservatives, Reed said, the online effort will touch 6.2 million households in key states. “There has never been anything like this in the history of the pro-family movement,” Reed said. “What we are doing versus the Christian Coalition is the difference of a Ford Model-T and an Indy race car.” It’s not just the veteran religious groups trying to make a difference with evangelicals this cycle. The Republican National Committee is also looking to bolster religious conservatives with outreach and a website it launched several months ago. The site — faithgop.com — is a way the party is looking to reach out to potential voters with videos from pastors talking about how important politics is to their faith, giving churches guidance on getting out the vote and petitions on issues like religious freedom. RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said in an email that the RNC staff, including Chad Connelly, who was hired to do faith outreach, and Mike Mears, who works with conservative group outreach, have been meeting with tens of thousands of faith leaders across the country. The Catholics Association has also been active with a digital ad campaign on Facebook focused on abortion and religious liberty. Catholics Association’s Ashley McGuire predicted that the ads will reach more than 2 million Catholic voters by Election Day. Conservative Christians in Iowa are also trying to ramp up their ground game, with their sights set on electing a Republican, Joni Ernst, to the Senate for the first time in nearly 20 years. Bob Vander Plaats, president of the social-conservative Iowa-based organization the Family Leader, said it is engaged in a hybrid of education and mobilization efforts including phone banking, door knocking and voter guides. The group has also done a 12-stop regional tour that is concluding this week. “Iowa is a very retail state; they like to press the flesh,” Vander Plaats said.A former Blackwater security guard was sentenced to life in prison and three others got 30-year terms on Monday in the massacre of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007, closing a case that had outraged Iraqis and inflamed anti-US sentiment around the world. A former Blackwater security guard was sentenced to life in prison and three others got 30-year terms on Monday in the massacre of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007, closing a case that had outraged Iraqis and inflamed anti-US sentiment around the world. Ex-Blackwater guards sentenced to prison over killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007 The incident stood out for its brazenness and formed a tense backdrop to talks between the United States and Iraq over the continued presence of US forces in Iraq. It also sparked debate over private security contractors working for the US government in war zones. The four guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers on the Iraqis, including women and children, at Nisur Square. A heavily armed, four-truck Blackwater Worldwide convoy the men were in had been trying to clear a path for US diplomats. Nicholas Slatten, 31, of Tennessee was convicted in October of killing the driver of a car the defendants had argued at trial they believed contained a bomb. Paul Slough, 35, of Texas; Evan Liberty, 32, of New Hampshire; and Dustin Heard, 33, of Tennessee, who were convicted of manslaughter, were each sentenced to 30 years in prison, the mandatory minimum they faced. Momentarily choking up before he passed sentence in front of a packed court room, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said it was an extraordinary case. "It's clear these fine young men just panicked," he said. "But the overall wild thing that went on just cannot be condoned by this court." In addition to the killings, 17 Iraqis were injured. North Carolina-based Blackwater was sold and renamed several times after the incident. It is now called Academi, based in northern Virginia. US federal prosecutors had called the guards' action "horrendous" and urged longer sentences for Slough, Liberty and Heard. In court today, Fatimah Al Fahdwi, whose 9-year-old son was killed, held up a picture of him before the judge. "Why did you guys do this to me?" she said to the men, breaking down in tears. "Why did you guys kill my son?" In their statements, all four former guards maintained their innocence. "I could not and I did not kill your son," Slough said to the family. "I feel utterly betrayed by the same government I served honorably." Lawyers for all four men said they would appeal. ReutersAs a lover of lists, I enjoy setting parameters and seeing if they can be met. What’s even better is creating a system based on simple rules that really pans out. For example, this movie wheel my wife and I hashed out one Sunday morning and then proceeded to binge: This last week, I decided to give Netflix’s Original Movies a fair shake. It’s fairly obvious to everyone Netflix’s great strength is streaming shows. It’s attempting to corner the stand-up comedy special market, which is good more times than not but has a slew of duds. Recently, its documentary movies have been top-notch. I’m thinking of Casting JonBenet and Rodney King I’m not yet sold on it providing legit film, but I love the fact the films it’s featuring aren’t utter trash like those produced by other networks. But I rather enjoyed even the duds Netflix has to offer. The rules are simple–original features released in 2017 excluding documentaries, series, and foreign films. There is always something to enjoy in bad movies and something to dislike in good ones. My ultimate judgment on each of these movies comes down to if the film was actually well-made and enjoyable (one objective, the other subjective). Overall, these Netflix Original Movies are a mixed bag. When Netflix is good, it’s very good but most of its films fall into the middling range with honestly very few truly bad movies. iBoy Science fiction January 27, 2017 1 hour, 30 min. First thought: Pretty solid, fun & just clever enough with a great performance by Maisie Williams. The premise of this feels a bit hackneyed, cellphone debris lodged in the protagonist’s head give him the ability to eventually mentally access all things digital. However, that pitch isn’t overly tuned up like as say an episode of Black Mirror. The skill is discreetly discovered, learned, and mastered in a standard superhero manner which I think was well done. This may be due to the fact that the source material is Kevin Brooks’ novel of the same name. Lead Bill Milner, the eponymous iBoy, becomes a vigilante to enact revenge on the gang that injured him and raped his would-be girlfriend Lucy, Maisie Williams. I was happy with the use of special effects as the story is more of a straight-forward superhero tale. What stood out is just how good of an actor Williams is bringing a deft weight to her role. In fact, she gently rolls away from the damsel or victim trope through her portrayal. Without her, this would have fallen flat. Take the 10 Comedy January 20, 2017 1 hour, 20 min. First thought: Exceptionally poor. A buddy comedy in the vein of Superbad but one lacking any style, quirk, or genuine humor. One of those 80 minute movies that feels like 200. There are a handful of cameos that are just wasted, specifically, Andy Samberg, the leads are dreadfully unfunny and mired in motivational incoherence. The only member of the cast who actually acts is Stella Maeve in her all too short scenes. Take the 10 doesn’t reach the level of forgettable, b-list 90s teen movies. Girlfriend’s Day Comedy February 14, 2017 1 hour, 10 min. First thought: Somewhat disjointed, I still enjoyed this quasi-noir flick. Kinda reminded me of The Long Goodbye. A dark comedy that sends up the LA noir genre by making our hero less a detective or even a down-and-out writer but more a sentimental master of the greeting card. Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul) is flawless in this role, able to play it with gravitas without sacrificing any humor. He’s marvelously paired opposite Amber Tamblyn as the story takes its bizarre Chinatown-esque turns. The movie is successful because it’s quick, punchy. Tramps Romance April 21, 2017 1 hour, 23 min. First thought: Gritty, believable, patient, & surprisingly tender, Tramps was a decent flick. The jewel in this film is co-lead Grace Van Patten, who plays Ellie. Ellie lives a vagabond’s life mired in petty crime and homelessness. She is the most world-weary of the film’s pair with Callum Turner’s Danny being the good son of an immigrant family that is itself barely keeping its head above water. In fact, Danny’s family is slowly circling the drain into the kind of life Ellie is hoping to break free of. Writer/Director Adam Leon puts together a film that is romantic without being a romance. More than anything, it’s about two people finding a kindred spirit in the other and wanting that person to start a new life as much or more than they want that for themselves. Visually, the film is straightforward and, at times, deceptively simple. This is probably the most ‘indie’ film on Netflix’s roster and definitely the most earnest. With a simple plot, it allows its actors to revel in character study and ultimately succeeds. Coin Heist Drama January 6, 2017 1 hour, 37 min. First thought: Tiresome with very very low stakes, no humor, & too much melodrama. Based on the YA novel of the same name by Elisa Ludwig, this ostensible crime drama or heist flick is not so much poorly done as just profoundly dull. Emily Hagins (writer/director) has taken the source material and made a believable teen movie, albeit one that is paint by numbers. These wealthy prep school kids decide not to so much rob a US Mint but to press a flawed coin, make an unsanctioned run, and then sell those coins to collectors so as to save their prep academy from insolvency. It is a stretch but no more than your usual heist movies are. However, what could have been a quirky send up exploring the genuine emotions of characters in their late teens quickly becomes coloring paper dolls with cliche. I will say that for as young as Hagins is, this film is pragmatically accomplished and with a better script/source material she could make some very pleasing films in the future. Win It All Comedy April 7, 2017 1 hour, 28 min. First Thought: Jake Johnson keeps making the same movie & it’s always subpar & far far less charming than he believes himself to be. A gross mediocrity. A gambling addict pisses away the money in a go-bag he’s tasked with babysitting while its owner does a brief stint in prison. This should be a film that not only shows us self-destructive decision making and its consequences but ought to provoke tension in viewers as we wonder and hope if Eddie, played by Jake Johnson, can get his shit together while managing to payback the money he’s stolen. The failure of this story is that at no point do we feel any urgency nor is there any moment when we feel any sympathy or empathy for Eddie. Eddie isn’t a loveable loser; he’s a piece of shit. The film never deals with any consequences and leaves viewers with the suggestion that being a piece of shit is no big deal because no one really got hurt. This is film-making? I am always astounded that people find Jake Johnson tolerable. The dude-bro nature of his films always lack emotional content, floating on the surface giving the illusion of meaning and depth. The myth of his charm is also confounding. In Win It All we see very good performances from Keegan-Michael Key and especially Joe Lo Truglio, however Johnson flips his autopilot switch coasting through each and every scene on the aforementioned fictions that make him the working actor he is today. Johnson is the kind of guy that every straight white guy with a beard imagines themselves to be, and we are only a few steps away from him and James Franco making action films together to the detriment of us all. Small Crimes Dark Comedy April 28, 2017 1 hour, 35 min. First Thought: A bunch of actors looking for a plot. I think like a lot of people, I wanted this movie to be better than it was. I think I was hoping for something gritty along the lines of Viggo Mortensen’s The End of Violence or Eastern Promises. Instead, we got Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (forever a Lannister in our minds) as Joe Denton, a kind of stunted white trash corrupt cop cum ex-con, flailing about without the least capacity to understand or engage with what’s going on around him. Small Crimes isn’t confusing but it is baffling in its execution. Released from prison after slicing up a District Attorney, Joe arrives back in the in the town where everyone knows his name to try and rebuild his life. However, he’s quickly strong-armed by another corrupt cop to this time kill the crime boss under whose orders Joe had originally acted upon, gone to jail, and been protected by. The tension is Joe’s resistance to the task set before him. This is understandable for he’s afraid to return to prison unprotected and wants to rebuild his relationship with this two daughters. What isn’t understandable is just how ham-fisted Joe is at avoiding then complying. For an ex-cop, Joe is an imbecile, a blunt weapon. As such, the emotional depth we get is no deeper than a paper plate. Too much is obscured that would have otherwise given viewers a modicum of investment in this story. This is especially true of Joe’s relationship with his father (Robert Forster) and the pseudo-love interest Charlotte Boyd (Molly Parker). Both of these characters are given short shrift while being exquisitely played with mournful intensity. Small Crimes simply fails to deliver on any of the stakes its genre or the film itself sets up. War Machine War Comedy May 26, 2017 2 hours, 2 min. First thought: Sloppy, simple, & sappy, a terrible flick. I enjoy war films. Not in a WWII Baby Boomer fetish kind of way, but as a very visceral and real means to tell extremely haunting stories. Coming at War Machine from this angle, I was vastly disappointed. Brad Pitt plays a fictionalized version of former four-star general Stanley McChrystal based on Michael Hastings book The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan. But this movie isn’t a piece of creative nonfiction or glossy biography, although it certainly does present itself like it. War Machine tries to coax viewers into experiencing it as the invocation of real life events but one can’t help but feel every scene is an unintentional caricature. It’s as if a Presidential portrait is done in crayon. There is no irony in this film, yet it also lacks any redeeming earnestness or even slight humor. Most of the issues with the film come down to poor composition decisions. To begin with, more than half the film is told through voice over however we don’t meet the character giving voice to the narrative until more than halfway through leaving us to wonder, how exactly was any of what I just saw known? Given the film’s two plus hour run time, this is painfully unacceptable. Then there’s the simple fact that Brad Pitt is still too young and too Hollywood pretty to play a general in the vein of McChrystal. There is but one scene where Pitt captures the character (telling off a subordinate who dares to rearrange the seating at a dinner in the general’s honor). The only saving moment in this film is the all too brief cameo by Tilda Swinton as a foreign journalist. But there are no hard truths explored in this film and by its end we get a self-satisfied bit of neo-liberal journalism moralizing–something always written with 20/20 hindsight. Shimmer Lake Thriller June 9, 2017 1 hour, 26 min. First Thought: A simple narrative gimmick that in no way detracts from quality performances, well done. Screenwriter Oren Uziel’s directorial debut is rather surprising. For someone who cut his teeth writing the Mortal Kombat movies and 22 Jump Street, the dark comedy thriller Shimmer Lake is an order of magnitude better than anything we ought to have expected. The gimmick is simple, the story is told backwards, and scenes are single day devolving a week back to the scene of the crime (a bank robbery and subsequent manhunt). Yet this device doesn’t distract from the storytelling nor does it confuse, rather it generates legitimate tension as viewers are actively piecing together (and enjoying) the events alongside the characters. Nothing about the story is original, we’ve all seen this kind of genre before so it is incumbent upon Uziel to give us strong characters that the actors can flesh out in a compelling manner. This is exactly what happens. Rob Corddry and Ron Livingston are pitch perfect as hapless FBI agents. Adam Pally performs perhaps the best comedic deputy role since the Dukes of Hazzard‘s Enos Strate, and Rainn Wilson of The Office fame is excellent as the desperate, dickish man on the run. Yet the whole of the film is held together through the deadpan performance of Benjamin Walker as Sheriff Zeke Sikes. Uziel’s direction is no frills but he has an excellent sense of pacing and framing allowing viewers to let themselves become awash in what they are experiencing. Sandy Wexler Comedy April 14, 2017 2 hours, 11 min. First Thought: 2 awful hours of painfully unfunny gags. The less said about this trainwreck the better. Sandler has somehow convinced Netflix to give him carte blanche to continue making absolutely dreadful, sophomoric films. There is no comedian who has grown less than Sandler. His doubling down on trite gags, hackneyed premises, and embarrassingly shitty characterizations is at best mind-numbing and at worst soul-crushing. But at least this film goes on for two plus hours. Sandler is the Michael Bay of comedy. The film muddles its way along turning from a tribute to a character to a ham-fisted rags-to-riches story. The opening wasn’t unfunny. The parade of genuinely funny celebrities (as well as more than a few garbage has-beens like Sandler himself) discussing the eponymous hero in a sort of documentary-style manner intercut with Sandler as Sandy Wexler embodying the ridiculousness described could have been enough. If the movie has stuck to this formula to tell a condensed version of its story keeping to no more than an hour in length, then this could have worked. However, it doesn’t and fails miserably. In doing so, Sandler has smeared the career of Jennifer Hudson. The Most Hated Woman in America Drama March 24, 2017 1 hour, 32 min. First Thought: A rather unimpressive bio pic that plodded along with no real performances of note. As a true-crime biopic, one expects a certain formulaic monotony, checking boxes if you will, but what no viewer expects or deserves is story with no interest in capturing the audience’s attention. The Most Hated Woman in America fails because it never gives us a real reason to like or loathe Melissa Leo’s portrayal of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder of the American Atheists. This movie is set at the heart of the culture wars of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, yet what we get of that is maddeningly incoherent and incomplete. Writer/Director Tommy O’Haver ought to have given us the duplicity of the religious right and the amoral left by focusing the story on the tour O’Hair and Reverend Bob Harrington (portrayed dazzlingly by Peter Fonda) undertook to swindle the populace by preying on their indignation
awran, under the leadership of Shibli al-Aryan, distinguished themselves in their stubborn resistance at their inaccessible headquarters, al-Laja, lying southeast of Damascus.[page needed] Qaysites and the Yemenites [ edit ] Meeting of Druze and Ottoman leaders in Damascus, about the control of Jebel Druze The conquest of Syria by the Muslim Arabs in the middle of the seventh century introduced into the land two political factions later called the Qaysites and the Yemenites. The Qaysite party represented the Bedouin Arabs who were regarded as inferior by the Yemenites who were earlier and more cultured emigrants into Syria from southern Arabia. Druzes and Christians grouped in political rather than religious parties so the party lines in Lebanon obliterated racial and religious lines and the people grouped themselves regardless of their religious affiliations, into one or the other of these two parties. The sanguinary feuds between these two factions depleted, in course of time, the manhood of the Lebanon and ended in the decisive battle of Ain Dara in 1711, which resulted in the utter defeat of the Yemenite party. Many Yemenite Druzes thereupon immigrated to the Hawran region and thus laid the foundation of Druze power there.[page needed] Civil War of 1860 [ edit ] The Druzites and their Christian Maronite neighbors, who had thus far lived as religious communities on friendly terms, entered a period of social disturbance in 1840, which culminated in the civil war of 1860.[page needed] After the Shehab dynasty converted to Christianity, the Druze community and feudal leaders came under attack from the regime with the collaboration of the Catholic Church, and the Druze lost most of their political and feudal powers. Also, the Druze formed an alliance with Britain and allowed Protestant missionaries to enter Mount Lebanon, creating tension between them and the Catholic Maronites. The Maronite-Druze conflict in 1840–60 was an outgrowth of the Maronite Christian independence movement,[citation needed] directed against the Druze, Druze feudalism, and the Ottoman-Turks. The civil war was not therefore a religious war,[citation needed] except in Damascus, where it spread and where the vastly non-Druze population was anti-Christian.[citation needed] The movement culminated with the 1859–60 massacre and defeat of the Christians by the Druzes. The civil war of 1860 cost the Christians some ten thousand lives in Damascus, Zahlé, Deir al-Qamar, Hasbaya, and other towns of Lebanon. The European powers then determined to intervene, and authorized the landing in Beirut of a body of French troops under General Beaufort d'Hautpoul, whose inscription can still be seen on the historic rock at the mouth of Nahr al-Kalb. French intervention on behalf of the Maronites did not help the Maronite national movement, since France was restricted in 1860 by Britain, which did not want the Ottoman Empire dismembered. But European intervention pressured the Turks to treat the Maronites more justly.[71] Following the recommendations of the powers, the Ottoman Porte granted Lebanon local autonomy, guaranteed by the powers, under a Christian governor. This autonomy was maintained until World War I.[page needed][72][page needed] Rebellion in Hauran [ edit ] The Hauran rebellion was a violent Druze uprising against Ottoman authority in the Syrian province, which erupted in May 1909. The rebellion was led by al-Atrash family, originated in local disputes and Druze unwillingness to pay taxes and conscript into the Ottoman Army. The rebellion ended in brutal suppression of the Druze by General Sami Pasha al-Farouqi, significant depopulation of the Hauran region and execution of the Druze leaders in 1910. In the outcome of the revolt, 2,000 Druze were killed, a similar number wounded and hundreds of Druze fighters imprisoned. Al-Farouqi also disarmed the population, extracted significant taxes and launched a census of the region. Modern history [ edit ] In Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan, the Druzites have official recognition as a separate religious community with its own religious court system. Druzites are known for their loyalty to the countries they reside in,[73][page needed][verification needed] though they have a strong community feeling, in which they identify themselves as related even across borders of countries.[74] Despite their practice of blending with dominant groups to avoid persecution, and because the Druze religion does not endorse separatist sentiments but urges blending with the communities they reside in, the Druze have had a history of resistance to occupying powers, and they have at times enjoyed more freedom than most other groups living in the Levant.[74] In Syria [ edit ] Druze warriors preparing to go to battle with Sultan Pasha al-Atrash in 1925 In Syria, most Druzites live in the Jebel al-Druze, a rugged and mountainous region in the southwest of the country, which is more than 90 percent Druze inhabited; some 120 villages are exclusively so.[75][page needed] Other notable communities live in the Harim Mountains, the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, and on the southeast slopes of Mount Hermon. A large Syrian Druze community historically lived in the Golan Heights, but following wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973, many of these Druze fled to other parts of Syria; most of those who remained live in a handful of villages in the disputed zone, while only a few live in the narrow remnant of Quneitra Governorate that is still under effective Syrian control. Druze celebrating their independence in 1925. The Druze always played a far more important role in Syrian politics than its comparatively small population would suggest. With a community of little more than 100,000 in 1949, or roughly three percent of the Syrian population, the Druze of Syria's southwestern mountains constituted a potent force in Syrian politics and played a leading role in the nationalist struggle against the French. Under the military leadership of Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, the Druze provided much of the military force behind the Syrian Revolution of 1925–27. In 1945, Amir Hasan al-Atrash, the paramount political leader of the Jebel al-Druze, led the Druze military units in a successful revolt against the French, making the Jebel al-Druze the first and only region in Syria to liberate itself from French rule without British assistance. At independence the Druze, made confident by their successes, expected that Damascus would reward them for their many sacrifices on the battlefield. They demanded to keep their autonomous administration and many political privileges accorded them by the French and sought generous economic assistance from the newly independent government.[75][page needed] When a local paper in 1945 reported that President Shukri al-Quwatli (1943–49) had called the Druzes a "dangerous minority", Sultan Pasha al-Atrash flew into a rage and demanded a public retraction. If it were not forthcoming, he announced, the Druzes would indeed become "dangerous" and a force of 4,000 Druze warriors would "occupy the city of Damascus." Quwwatli could not dismiss Sultan Pasha's threat. The military balance of power in Syria was tilted in favor of the Druzes, at least until the military build up during the 1948 War in Palestine. One advisor to the Syrian Defense Department warned in 1946 that the Syrian army was "useless", and that the Druzes could "take Damascus and capture the present leaders in a breeze."[75][page needed] During the four years of Adib Shishakli's rule in Syria (December 1949 to February 1954) (on 25 August 1952: Adib al-Shishakli created the Arab Liberation Movement (ALM), a progressive party with pan-Arabist and socialist views),[76] the Druze community was subjected to a heavy attack by the Syrian government. Shishakli believed that among his many opponents in Syria, the Druzes were the most potentially dangerous, and he was determined to crush them. He frequently proclaimed: "My enemies are like a serpent: the head is the Jebel al-Druze, the stomach Homs, and the tail Aleppo. If I crush the head the serpent will die." Shishakli dispatched 10,000 regular troops to occupy the Jebel al-Druze. Several towns were bombarded with heavy weapons, killing scores of civilians and destroying many houses. According to Druze accounts, Shishakli encouraged neighboring bedouin tribes to plunder the defenseless population and allowed his own troops to run amok.[75][page needed] Shishakli launched a brutal campaign to defame the Druzes for their religion and politics. He accused the entire community of treason, at times claiming they were agents of the British and Hashimites, at others that they were fighting for Israel against the Arabs. He even produced a cache of Israeli weapons allegedly discovered in the Jabal. Even more painful for the Druze community was his publication of "falsified Druze religious texts" and false testimonials ascribed to leading Druze sheikhs designed to stir up sectarian hatred. This propaganda also was broadcast in the Arab world, mainly Egypt. Shishakli was assassinated in Brazil on 27 September 1964 by a Druze seeking revenge for Shishakli's bombardment of the Jebel al-Druze.[75][page needed] He forcibly integrated minorities into the national Syrian social structure, his "Syrianization" of Alawite and Druze territories had to be accomplished in part using violence, he declared: "My enemies are like serpent. The head is the Jabal Druze, if I crush the head the serpent will die" (Seale 1963:132).[75] To this end, al-Shishakli encouraged the stigmatization of minorities. He saw minority demands as tantamount to treason. His increasingly chauvinistic notions of Arab nationalism were predicated on the denial that "minorities" existed in Syria.[77][page needed] After the Shishakli's military campaign, the Druze community lost much of its political influence, but many Druze military officers played important roles in the Ba'ath government currently ruling Syria.[75][page needed] In 1967, a community of Druze in the Golan Heights came under Israeli control, today about 20,000 strong. The Qalb Loze massacre was a reported massacre of Syrian Druze on 10 June 2015 in the village of Qalb Loze in Syria's northwestern Idlib Governorate in which 20-24 Druze were killed. On July 25, 2018, a group of ISIS-affiliated attackers entered the Druze city of As-Suwayda and initiated a series of gunfights and suicide bombings on its streets killing at least 258 people, the vast majority of them civilians.[37] In Lebanon [ edit ] The Druzite community in Lebanon played an important role in the formation of the modern state of Lebanon, and even though they are a minority they play an important role in the Lebanese political scene. Before and during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), the Druze were in favor of Pan-Arabism and Palestinian resistance represented by the PLO. Most of the community supported the Progressive Socialist Party formed by their leader Kamal Jumblatt and they fought alongside other leftist and Palestinian parties against the Lebanese Front that was mainly constituted of Christians. After the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt on 16 March 1977, his son Walid Jumblatt took the leadership of the party and played an important role in preserving his father's legacy after winning the Mountain War and sustained the existence of the Druze community during the sectarian bloodshed that lasted until 1990. In August 2001, Maronite Catholic Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir toured the predominantly Druze Chouf region of Mount Lebanon and visited Mukhtara, the ancestral stronghold of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. The tumultuous reception that Sfeir received not only signified a historic reconciliation between Maronites and Druze, who fought a bloody war in 1983–84, but underscored the fact that the banner of Lebanese sovereignty had broad multi-confessional appeal[78] and was a cornerstone for the Cedar Revolution in 2005. Jumblatt's post-2005 position diverged sharply from the tradition of his family. He also accused Damascus of being behind the 1977 assassination of his father, Kamal Jumblatt, expressing for the first time what many knew he privately suspected. The BBC describes Jumblatt as "the leader of Lebanon's most powerful Druze clan and heir to a leftist political dynasty".[79] The second largest political party supported by Druze is the Lebanese Democratic Party led by Prince Talal Arslan, the son of Lebanese independence hero Emir Majid Arslan. In Israel [ edit ] The Druzites form a religious minority in Israel of more than 100,000, mostly residing in the north of the country.[81] In 2004, there were 102,000 Druze living in the country.[82] In 2010, the population of Israeli Druze citizens grew to over 125,000. At the end of 2014 there were 140,000.[9] Today, thousands of Israeli Druze belong to 'Druze Zionist' movements.[80] In 1957, the Israeli government designated the Druze a distinct ethnic community at the request of its communal leaders. The Druze are Arabic-speaking citizens of Israel and serve in the Israel Defense Forces just as most citizens do in Israel. Members of the community have attained top positions in Israeli politics and public service.[83] The number of Druze parliament members usually exceeds their proportion in the Israeli population, and they are integrated within several political parties. In Jordan [ edit ] The Druzites form a religious minority in Jordan of around 32,000, mostly residing in the northwestern part of the country.[10] Beliefs [ edit ] God [ edit ] The Druze conception of the deity is declared by them to be one of strict and uncompromising unity. The main Druze doctrine states that God is both transcendent and immanent, in which he is above all attributes but at the same time he is present.[84] In their desire to maintain a rigid confession of unity, they stripped from God all attributes (tanzīh). In God, there are no attributes distinct from his essence. He is wise, mighty, and just, not by wisdom, might and justice, but by his own essence. God is "the whole of existence", rather than "above existence" or on his throne, which would make him "limited". There is neither "how", "when", nor "where" about him; he is incomprehensible.[85][page needed] In this dogma, they are similar to the semi-philosophical, semi-religious body which flourished under Al-Ma'mun and was known by the name of Mu'tazila and the fraternal order of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Ṣafa).[page needed] Unlike the Mu'tazila, however, and similar to some branches of Sufism, the Druze believe in the concept of Tajalli (meaning "theophany").[85][page needed] Tajalli is often misunderstood by scholars and writers and is usually confused with the concept of incarnation. [Incarnation] is the core spiritual beliefs in the Druze and some other intellectual and spiritual traditions... In a mystical sense, it refers to the light of God experienced by certain mystics who have reached a high level of purity in their spiritual journey. Thus, God is perceived as the Lahut [the divine] who manifests His Light in the Station (Maqaam) of the Nasut [material realm] without the Nasut becoming Lahut. This is like one's image in the mirror: one is in the mirror but does not become the mirror. The Druze manuscripts are emphatic and warn against the belief that the Nasut is God... Neglecting this warning, individual seekers, scholars, and other spectators have considered al-Hakim and other figures divine.... In the Druze scriptural view, Tajalli takes a central stage. One author comments that Tajalli occurs when the seeker's humanity is annihilated so that divine attributes and light are experienced by the person.[85][page needed] Scriptures [ edit ] Druze Sacred texts include the Kitab Al Hikma (Epistles of Wisdom).[86] Other ancient Druze writings include the Rasa'il al-Hind (Epistles of India) and the previously lost (or hidden) manuscripts such as al-Munfarid bi-Dhatihi and al-Sharia al-Ruhaniyya as well as others including didactic and polemic treatises.[87] Reincarnation [ edit ] Reincarnation is a paramount principle in the Druze faith.[88] Reincarnations occur instantly at one's death because there is an eternal duality of the body and the soul and it is impossible for the soul to exist without the body. A human soul will transfer only to a human body, in contrast to the Hindu and Buddhist belief systems, according to which souls can transfer to any living creature. Furthermore, a male Druze can be reincarnated only as another male Druze and a female Druze only as another female Druze. A Druze cannot be reincarnated in the body of a non-Druze. Additionally, souls cannot be divided and the number of souls existing in the universe is finite.[89] The cycle of rebirth is continuous and the only way to escape is through successive reincarnations. When this occurs, the soul is united with the Cosmic Mind and achieves the ultimate happiness.[31] Pact of Time Custodian [ edit ] The Pact of Time Custodian (Mithaq Walley El-Zaman) is considered the entrance to the Druze religion, and they believe that all Druze in their past lives have signed this Charter, and Druze believe that this Charter embodies with human souls after death. I rely on our Moula Al-Hakim the lonely God, the individual, the eternal, who is out of couples and numbers, (someone) the son of (someone) has approved recognition enjoined on himself and on his soul, in a healthy of his mind and his body, permissibility aversive is obedient and not forced, to repudiate from all creeds, articles and all religions and beliefs on the differences varieties, and he does not know something except obedience of almighty Moulana Al-Hakim, and obedience is worship and that it does not engage in worship anyone ever attended or wait, and that he had handed his soul and his body and his money and all he owns to almighty Maulana Al-Hakim.[90] The Druze also use a similar formula, called al-'ahd, when one is initiated into the ʻUqqāl.[91] Sanctuaries [ edit ] The prayer-houses of the Druze are called khalwa or khalwat. The primary sanctuary of the Druze is at Khalwat al-Bayada.[92] Esotericism [ edit ] The Druze believe that many teachings given by prophets, religious leaders and holy books have esoteric meanings preserved for those of intellect, in which some teachings are symbolic and allegorical in nature, and divide the understanding of holy books and teachings into three layers. These layers, according to the Druze, are as follows: The obvious or exoteric (zahir), accessible to anyone who can read or hear; , accessible to anyone who can read or hear; The hidden or esoteric (batin), accessible to those who are willing to search and learn through the concept of exegesis; , accessible to those who are willing to search and learn through the concept of exegesis; And the hidden of the hidden, a concept known as anagoge, inaccessible to all but a few really enlightened individuals who truly understand the nature of the universe.[93] Druze do not believe that the esoteric meaning abrogates or necessarily abolishes the exoteric one. Hamza bin Ali refutes such claims by stating that if the esoteric interpretation of taharah (purity) is purity of the heart and soul, it doesn't mean that a person can discard his physical purity, as salat (prayer) is useless if a person is untruthful in his speech and that the esoteric and exoteric meanings complement each other.[94] Seven Druze precepts [ edit ] The Druze follow seven moral precepts or duties that are considered the core of the faith.[31] The Seven Druze precepts are: Veracity in speech and the truthfulness of the tongue. Protection and mutual aid to the brethren in faith. Renunciation of all forms of former worship (specifically, invalid creeds) and false belief. Repudiation of the devil (Iblis), and all forces of evil (translated from Arabic Toghyan, meaning "despotism"). Confession of God's unity. Acquiescence in God's acts no matter what they be. Absolute submission and resignation to God's divine will in both secret and public. Taqiyya [ edit ] Complicating their identity is the custom of taqiyya—concealing or disguising their beliefs when necessary—that they adopted from Ismailism and the esoteric nature of the faith, in which many teachings are kept secretive. This is done in order to keep the religion from those who are not yet prepared to accept the teachings and therefore could misunderstand it, as well as to protect the community when it is in danger. Druzes tend to follow the dominant religion of the country where they reside. Some claim to be Muslim or Christian in order to avoid persecution; some do not.[96] Druze in different states can have radically different lifestyles. Other beliefs [ edit ] The Druze allow divorce, although it is discouraged; circumcision is not necessary; they cannot be reborn as non-Druze; those who purify and perfect their soul ascend to the stars upon death; when al-Hakim returns, all faithful Druze will join him in his march from China and on to conquer the world;[98] apostasy is forbidden,[99] usually have religious services on Thursday evenings,[100] and follow Sunni Hanafi law on issues which their own faith has no particular ruling.[101][102] Religious symbol [ edit ] The Druze strictly avoid iconography but use five colors ("Five Limits" خمس حدود khams ḥudūd) as a religious symbol:[year needed] green, red, yellow, blue, and white. Each color pertains to a metaphysical power called ḥadd, literally 'a limit', as in the distinctions that separate humans from animals, or the powers that make human the animalistic body. Each ḥadd is color-coded in the following manner: Green for ʻAql "the Universal Mind/Intelligence/Nous", "the Universal Mind/Intelligence/Nous", Red for Nafs "the Universal Soul/Anima mundi", "the Universal Soul/Anima mundi", Yellow for Kalima "the Word/Logos", "the Word/Logos", Blue for Sabiq "the Potentiality/Cause/Precedent", and "the Potentiality/Cause/Precedent", and White for Tali "the Future/Effect/Immanence". The mind generates qualia and gives consciousness. The soul embodies the mind and is responsible for transmigration and the character of oneself. The word which is the atom of language communicates qualia between humans and represents the platonic forms in the sensible world. The Sabq and Tali is the ability to perceive and learn from the past and plan for the future and predict it. The colors can be arranged in vertically descending stripes (as a flag) or a five-pointed star. The stripes are a diagrammatic cut of the spheres in neoplatonic philosophy, while the five-pointed star embodies the golden ratio, phi, as a symbol of temperance and a life of moderation. Prayer houses and holy places [ edit ] Jethro shrine and temple of Druze in Hittin, northern Israel Holy places of the Druze are archaeological sites important to the community and associated with religious holidays[103] – the most notable example being Nabi Shu'ayb, dedicated to Jethro, who is a central figure of the Druze religion. Druze make pilgrimages to this site on the holiday of Ziyarat al-Nabi Shu'ayb. One of the most important features of the Druze village having a central role in social life is the khalwat—a house of prayer, retreat and religious unity. The khalwat may be known as majlis in local languages.[104] The second type of religious shrine is one associated with the anniversary of a historic event or death of a prophet. If it is a mausoleum the Druze call it mazār and if it is a shrine they call it maqām. The holy places become more important to the community in times of adversity and calamity. The holy places and shrines of the Druze are scattered in various villages, in places where they are protected and cared for. They are found in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.[103] Initiates and "ignorant" members [ edit ] ʻuqqāl) wearing religious dress Druze sheikh ) wearing religious dress The Druzes do not recognize any religious hierarchy. As such, there is no "Druze clergy". Those few initiated in the Druze holy books are called ʿuqqāl,[105] while the "ignorant", regular members of the group are called juhhāl. Given the strict religious, intellectual and spiritual requirements, most of the Druzes are not initiated and might be referred to as al-Juhhāl (جهال), literally "the Ignorant", but in practice referring to the non-initiated Druzes; however, that term is seldom used by the Druzes. Those are not granted access to the Druze holy literature or allowed to attend the initiated religious meetings of the ʻuqqāl. The cohesiveness and frequent inter-community social interaction however makes it in sort that that most Druzes have an idea about their broad ethical requirements and have some sense of what their theology consists of (albeit often flawed). The initiated religious group, which includes both men and women (less than 10% of the population), is called al-ʻUqqāl (عقال "the Knowledgeable Initiates"). They might or might not dress differently, although most wear a costume that was characteristic of mountain people in previous centuries. Women can opt to wear al-mandīl, a loose white veil, especially in the presence of other people. They wear al-mandīl on their heads to cover their hair and wrap it around their mouths. They wear black shirts and long skirts covering their legs to their ankles. Male ʻuqqāl often grow mustaches, and wear dark Levantine-Turkish traditional dresses, called the shirwal, with white turbans that vary according to the seniority of the ʻuqqāl. Traditionally the Druze women have played an important role both socially and religiously inside the community. Al-ʻuqqāl have equal rights to al-Juhhāl, but establish a hierarchy of respect based on religious service. The most influential of al-ʻuqqāl become Ajawīd, recognized religious leaders, and from this group the spiritual leaders of the Druze are assigned. While the Shaykh al-ʻAql, which is an official position in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, is elected by the local community and serves as the head of the Druze religious council, judges from the Druze religious courts are usually elected for this position. Unlike the spiritual leaders, the authority of the Shaykh al-ʻAql is limited to the country he is elected in, though in some instances spiritual leaders are elected to this position. The Druze believe in the unity of God, and are often known as the "People of Monotheism" or simply "Monotheists". Their theology has a Neo-Platonic view about how God interacts with the world through emanations and is similar to some gnostic and other esoteric sects. Druze philosophy also shows Sufi influences. Druze principles focus on honesty, loyalty, filial piety, altruism, patriotic sacrifice, and monotheism. They reject nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs, and often the consumption of pork (to those Uqqāl and not necessarily to be required by the Juhhāl). Druze reject polygamy, believe in reincarnation, and are not obliged to observe most of the religious rituals. The Druze believe that rituals are symbolic and have an individualistic effect on the person, for which reason Druze are free to perform them, or not. The community does celebrate Eid al-Adha, however, considered their most significant holiday. Culture [ edit ] Cuisine [ edit ] Matè is a popular drink consumed by the Druze brought to the Levant from Syrian migrants from Argentina in the 19th century. Mate is made by steeping dried leaves of yerba mate in hot water and is served with a metal straw (bambija or masassa) from a gourd (finjan/Qar'aa). Mate is often the first item served when entering a Druze home. It is a social drink and can be shared between multiple participants. After each drinker, the metal straw is cleaned with a lemon rind. Traditional snacks eaten with mate include raisins, nuts, dried figs, biscuits, and chips.[106][107] Origins [ edit ] Ethnic origins [ edit ] Arabian hypothesis [ edit ] The Druze faith extended to many areas in the Middle East, but most of the modern Druze can trace their origin to the Wadi al-Taym in South Lebanon, which is named after an Arab tribe Taymour-Allah (formerly Taymour-Allat) which, according to Islamic historian, al-Tabari, first came from Arabia into the valley of the Euphrates where they had been Christianized prior to their migration into the Lebanon. Many of the Druze feudal families whose genealogies have been preserved by the two modern Syrian chroniclers Haydar al-Shihabi and al-Shidyaq seem also to point in the direction of this origin. Arabian tribes emigrated via the Persian Gulf and stopped in Iraq on the route that was later to lead them to Syria. The first feudal Druze family, the Tanukh family, which made for itself a name in fighting the Crusaders, was, according to Haydar al-Shihabi, an Arab tribe from Mesopotamia where it occupied the position of a ruling family and apparently was Christianized.[page needed] Travelers like Niebuhr, and scholars like Max von Oppenheim, undoubtedly echoing the popular Druze belief regarding their own origin, have classified them as Arabs. The prevailing idea among the Druzes themselves today is that they are of Arab stock. Druze as a mixture of Middle Eastern tribes [ edit ] The 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica states that the Druzes are "a mixture of refugee stocks, in which the Arab largely predominates, grafted on to an original mountain population of Aramaic blood." The Tanukhs must have left Arabia as early as the second or third century AD. The Ma'an tribe, which superseded the Tanukhs and produced the greatest Druze hero, Fakhr-al-Din, had the same traditional origin. The Talhuq family and 'Abd-al-Malik, who supplied the later Druze leadership, have the same record as the Tanukhs. The Imad family is named for al-Imadiyyah—the Kurdish town of Amadiya, northeast of Mosul inside Kurdistan, and, like the Jumblatts, is thought to be of Kurdish tribal origin, the Janpulad ("soul of steel") are still found east of Adana in Turkey, across the borders from Syria. The leading "Atrash" family also can trace its background to the Kurdish tribe, the Hartush/Atrush, found in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey today.[citation needed] The Arsalan family claims descent from the Hirah Arab kings, but the name Arsalan (Persian and Turkish for lion) suggests Persian influence, if not origin.[page needed] During the 18th century, there were two branches of Druze living in Lebanon: the Yemeni Druze, headed by the "Harmouche" and "Alamuddine" families; and the Kaysi Druze, headed by the Jumblatt and Arslan families. The Harmouche family was banished from Mount Lebanon following the battle of Ain Dara in 1711. The battle was fought between two Druze factions: the Yemeni and the Kaysi. Following their dramatic defeat, the Yemeni faction migrated to Syria in the Jebel-Druze region and its capital, As-Suwayda. However, it has been argued that these two factions were of a political nature rather than ethnic, and had both Christian and Druze supporters.[citation needed] Iturean hypothesis [ edit ] According to Jewish contemporary literature, the Druze, who were visited and described in 1165 by Benjamin of Tudela, were pictured as descendants of the Itureans,[108] an Ismaelite Arab tribe, which used to reside in the northern parts of the Golan plateau through Hellenistic and Roman periods. The word Druzes, in an early Hebrew edition of his travels, occurs as "Dogziyin", but it is clear that this is a scribal error. Archaeological assessments of the Druze region have also proposed the possibility of Druze descending from Itureans,[109] who had inhabited Mount Lebanon and Golan Heights in late classic antiquity, but their traces fade in the Middle Ages. Genetics [ edit ] In a 2005 study of ASPM gene variants, Mekel-Bobrov et al. found that the Israeli Druze people of the Mount Carmel region have among the highest rate of the newly evolved ASPM- Haplogroup D, at 52.2% occurrence of the approximately 6,000-year-old allele.[110] While it is not yet known exactly what selective advantage is provided by this gene variant, the Haplogroup D allele is thought to be positively selected in populations and to confer some substantial advantage that has caused its frequency to rapidly increase. One small DNA study has shown that Israeli Druze are remarkable for the high frequency (35%) of males who carry the Y-chromosomal haplogroup L (though some Afshar village[dubious – discuss] and the Raqqa Syrians have even more), which is otherwise uncommon in the Mideast (Shen et al. 2004).[111] This haplogroup originates from prehistoric South Asia and has spread from Pakistan into southern Iran. However, studies done on larger samples showed that L-M20 averages 5% in Israeli Druze,[Footnote 1] 8% in Lebanese Druze,[Footnote 2] and it was not found in a sample of 59 Syrian Druze. Cruciani in 2007 found E1b1b1a2 (E-V13) [a subclade of E1b1b1a (E-M78)] in high levels (>10% of the male population) in Turkish Cypriot and Druze Arab lineages. Recent genetic clustering analyses of ethnic groups are consistent with the close ancestral relationship between the Druze and Cypriots, and also identified similarity to the general Syrian and Lebanese populations, as well as a variety of Jewish groups (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Iraqi, and Moroccan) (Behar et al. 2010).[112] Also, a new study concluded that the Druze harbor a remarkable diversity of mitochondrial DNA lineages that appear to have separated from each other thousands of years ago. But instead of dispersing throughout the world after their separation, the full range of lineages can still be found within the Druze population.[113] The researchers noted that the Druze villages contained a striking range of high frequency and high diversity of the X haplogroup, suggesting that this population provides a glimpse into the past genetic landscape of the Near East at a time when the X haplogroup was more prevalent.[113] These findings are consistent with the Druze oral tradition, that claims that the adherents of the faith came from diverse ancestral lineages stretching back tens of thousands of years.[113] The Shroud of Turin analysis shows significant traces of mitochondrial DNA unique to the Druze community.[114] A 2008 study published on the genetic background of Druze communities in Israel showed highly heterogeneous parental origins. A total of 311 Israeli Druze were sampled: 37 from the Golan Heights, 183 from the Galilee, and 35 from Mount Carmel, as well as 27 Druze immigrants from Syria and 29 from Lebanon. The researchers found the following frequencies of Y-chromosomal haplogroups:[115][dubious – discuss] Mount Carmel: L 27%, R 27%, J 18%, E 15%, G 12%. Galilee: J 31%, R 20%, E 18%, G 14%, K 11%, Q 4%, L 2%. Golan Heights: J 54%, E 29%, I 8%, G 4%, C 4%. Lebanon: J 31%, E 22%, K 21%, R 14%, L 10%. Syria: J 39%, E 29%, R 14%, G 14%, K 4%. A 2016 study based on testing samples of Druze in the Syria (region) in comparison with ancient humans (including Anatolian and Armenian), and on Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool by converting genetic distances
off, but I don't think that is the case," he said. Simon Derrick, of Bank of New York Mellon, said the move was fuelling speculation that Beijing was involved in backdoor deals with the US administration to nudge its currency upwards. "The move follows a clear need by the Chinese authorities to take out some of the heat from the economy. Whether this will lead to a broader move on its currency is open to debate. It certainly leads to speculation that the US and China are in some sort of a deal which will perhaps see the US taking a more gradualist approach to quantitative easing. The dollar has already moved higher after this news," he said.SNES Fighters That Define “Terrible” Note from racketboy: Our newest contributor, Ack, has been on a recent quest to track down a copy of every US-released fighting game on the Super Nintendo. He’s already shared his recommendations from the American library — now he’s back with a vengeance to warn us of the onslaught of worse-than-mediocre games of the genre. When someone says “bad fighting game” to you, what do you think of? If you’re reasonably versed in the Super Nintendo, your thoughts may drift to Shaq Fu, C2: Judgement Clay, or even the Primal Rage port that was, let’s face it, atrocious. But spend a little time with them, and you’ll realize that these games aren’t the worst. Sure, they have low sprite counts, horrid colors, terrible controls, pathetic single-player games, and gameplay that flows like an avalanche, but are these truly the worst? God no. Oh God, no. If talking about bad games makes you queasy, stop reading now. If thinking about bad games makes you ill, turn back. Because we’re about to break ground in a Gaming No Man’s Land. And frankly, you don’t want to touch these titles with a ten foot pole. Ballz 3D: Fighting At Its Ballziest So Virtua Fighter gets released, and suddenly somebody at PF Magic decides “Hey! A 3D fighting game. That’s awesome! I sure wish we could make one of those.” And so they did. Ballz 3D sticks the player in a flat, circular arena, complete with two levels of background. The closer one contains a screen where mindless taunts are displayed about every time someone gets hit. This also displays all information, such as match number, opponent name, and even home many opponents are left when you beat someone. The farther background is about a screen’s worth of picture, which simply repeats itself over and over. All in all, bland and boring, just like the flat stage you’re fighting on. But I suppose the important question is how does it play? First, it is a two-button fighter. It uses all six buttons on the SNES controller, but two are repeats of the attack buttons and two are used for jumping. Never mind that jumping is usually pretty useless in 3D fighters, and this one is no exception. As for the characters, they’re all made up of balls. It’s an interesting idea, but they tend to lean more towards the crude side(A farting monkey, anyone?), or stereotypical (Look, a strong guy, a clown, and random girl A). Also, while they got the 3D bit down rather well for the time, distancing is almost impossible to tell. You know if a move has connected if the other guy blinks white, but because everything spreads on a character when they attack, move, or do anything, I can’t tell where the hit box is. It’s also pretty easy to lose the other guy on the screen, so often times you can wander far enough away and have no idea where the fight is supposed to be. Also, because of the 3D action, blocking is a bit weird to pull off, as are special moves. Finally, the music is bizarre. The track at the Title Screen is…well, let’s just say I feel soiled after listening to it for a few minutes. I finally believe it is possible for a game to have too much attitude. Even with Nintendo censoring some of the language, I still feel insulted playing this title. And dirty. Very dirty. Battle Blaze So back before they were producing Guilty Gear, Sammy decided they would grace us with a fighting game featuring barbarians and knights and monsters for the Super Nintendo. That got us Battle Blaze, a game where demons take over a fighting tournament to let their demon king free upon the earth. The only problem with the demon king’s plan was that one of the fighters managed to beat down the demon sent after him. He doesn’t get possessed, but dies in the process, and so his son must take up the sword and go beat down his father’s possessed old friends. This is where you come in. There’s only two game modes, The Hero and The Battle. The Battle is your standard arcade, where you can select one of six characters to play against the CPU or a friend. It has a nifty prep screen for the battle where a soldier lists your names and tells you the King decrees no cheating. It’s a nice touch. Then there’s The Hero, where the son must go around the map to fight the other champions and win the day. It sounds cool, right? Unfortunately, it means little more than picking the order in which you fight your opponents. Traversing the map equates to picking a location where certain characters will fight you. And then there’s the combat itself. Battle Blaze takes a controller with six buttons and uses two of them. And one of those buttons is for jumping. That’s right, it’s a one button fighter. To make matters worse, the jump button is also used in performing special moves, where it has to be held down to perform the move. Now factor in the son as the worst character in the game, with little power, little range, and weak specials. And then there’s the enemies’ ability to air block by attacking. That’s right, when the main character attacks in the air, he swings his sword. A quick animation that’s done in less than a second. The CPU villains’ animation doesn’t end until they hit the ground, and the main character lacks the range to go through it to connect. This is the rule of the game, not the exception. Bottom line is this: I want to like Battle Blaze. I really do. It’s got some good ideas, and while the stages are bland, I really like the sprites and the music. But this is not a good fighting game by any stretch of the word. Don’t bother with it. Pit-Fighter I’ll be honest. I wasn’t a fan of Pit-Fighter in the arcade, and I’m not that into digitized sprites. But the SNES port is nothing short of a mockery of the original game. To fit Pit-Fighter on the cartridge, animations were dropped(in some cases to single frames), stages were reduced to fewer then ten colors, characters were resized and redrawn so they look almost nothing like their arcade counterparts, the music was dropped, and the sound quality is garbled. And to make up for it…nothing. Not even an options menu. If you want to see an example of a bad port, look to Primal Rage. If you want something that could hardly be considered the original game, there’s Pit-Fighter. The title was literally stripped down to the bare bones, with even the final winning screen cut from the game. Because of the dropping of frames and the lack of options, the closest thing a player can get to a difficulty setting is by picking different characters, with Ty the easiest(a one-frame punch, just spam it to make it through the entire game), to Buzz being the equivalent of Hard Mode(slowest character in the game). Everything about this port is bad, from the pathetic lack of color to the random image of the boss showing up between every three or so rounds. Half the time he says something, but the sound quality is so bad I can’t make it out. The other half, he just kinda stares at me like an imbecile. If you enjoyed Pit-Fighter for the arcade, don’t bother with this. In fact, no one should bother with this. THQ took a game that was actually quite good looking for its time and gave us utter garbage. Rise of the Robots There was so much going for this game. Originally for the PC, Rise of the Robots featured FMVs showing enemy intros and defeats even on the SNES, as well as an intro that shows the Cyborg entering the city. Graphically it looked amazing for its time, from the menu design with the Cyborg sitting at a console, pressing buttons for certain objects, to some pretty entertaining character design. Pieces would go flying off whenever a hit connects to bounce on the ground, and there are even reflections of the characters on some of the stage floors! And with a soundtrack featuring Brian May, formerly of Queen, it had to be good, right? Well, no, actually. For starters, while May was doing his best with the soundtrack, and actually composed a full album, his record studio continually requested delays, forcing Mirage to do all their own music. Second, while the graphics are good, stage design was actually a bit bland, and characters had few animations. All six buttons on the controller were used, but only for four different attacks, a system of weak and strong punches and kicks that share similar frames of animation. They look so similar, it’s actually difficult to tell the two apart. Factor in single-button special moves, and you have a recipe for disaster. And then there was the horrid multiplayer, where one character was forced to play the main character, and the other got to be their choice of enemy robot. None of the robots were rebalanced, either, so certain characters were vastly overpowered. In the end, it may look good, but it is not a quality title by a long shot. Game journalist Stuart Campbell even went so far as to write an angry letter to Mirage and Time Warner about it. Do yourself a favor and avoid it. Street Combat Ever wonder what would happen if you took a Ranma ½ game in Japan, edited all the sprites to make Ranma into some guy with a mullet, and did away with the story entirely? Why, you’d have Street Combat! The game has little in the way of options beyond 2-player and Vs. CPU, only 8(technically 7) characters, and no plot. Make it through Vs. CPU mode, and a random man gives Steven(the player) a trophy and tells him he’s a fine young man. Never mind that if I walked around beating the snot out of random individuals, no one would call me that. But back to the game… So Steven has to fight a bunch of random individuals who make corny taunts and are all redrawn Ranma sprites. To make matters worse, not only does this game commit the mortal sin of 2D fighters by having a jump button, it also uses the L and R buttons for blocking. That’s right, no pressing away from your opponent on the D-pad. This game goes above and beyond with unintuitive design. It’s really a 3-button fighter, with one for punch, kick, and special, which makes Steven create some magical circle. Don’t ask, it’s never explained. As for design, the game is very bright and colorful, almost nauseatingly so. The music is pretty bland, with the IREM publisher screen potentially having the best music in the game. In multiplayer, there are two Steven’s available, one in the weird blue armor, and one in what I can only image are “street clothes,” as well as all the other characters. In Vs. CPU mode, the player is forced to play as Steven, though at the Versus screen they can change costumes using the D-pad. For the record, the game was actually created by NCS/Masaya, known for their wonderful child-friendly series Cho Aniki. If you don’t know what that is, don’t look it up. Ultraman: Towards the Future Hey, Ultraman! This has got to be good, right? Wrong! ScrewAttack once claimed this was the worst fighting game ever made, and after spending a few minutes with it, it’s hard not to agree. The player controls Ultraman as he faces off against ten of his monstrous enemies. All six buttons on the controller are used, with B and A serving as punch and kick, respectively, X serving as jump, Y as special attack, and L and R to cycle through different special attacks. Special moves, like somersaults, flip kicks, and other abilities, can be performed by pressing different directional buttons and attack buttons at the same time. Sounds like a nice system, right? Unfortunately, in all this Ultraman mayhem, Bandai forgot a block button. There is an Ultraman Shield, but no way to block your average attack. Also, don’t bother crouching, as there are no crouching attacks. And the majority of the time the enemy is backing away from you, so you’re constantly on the move anyway. Why is the enemy moving away? Two reasons: first, enemies regenerate health. Ultraman doesn’t. Whoever thought that was a good idea is an idiot. Then there’s the second reason. To kill an enemy, Ultraman not only has to beat them down to no health, he then has to hit them with a special attack, called Plasma Bolt. It wouldn’t be so bad, except you have to charge up your special attacks, and it takes a good thirty seconds to charge a plasma bolt. Miss, and you have to recharge the full attack again. Now factor in any other special attack, or that shield I mentioned before, draining power, and it takes even longer. Meanwhile the enemy is regaining health, so even if you do get charged, they have to be beaten back down. Throw in a three minute time limit, and this is a recipe for disaster. Now factor in everything not in the game: specifically alternate game modes, and animations. That’s right, all that exists in Ultraman is the single player game, and there is little in the way of animation for most of the enemies. That monster just turned around in two frames. Apparently that was some kind of attack. It opened its mouth. Apparently that was another attack. Outside of their projectiles(which they abuse constantly), there is no way to tell if something is fighting back or not. And there’s no way to change difficulty settings, so after a while, an enemy will inevitably knock the crap out of you. You only get two credits to play through the game, too, and while you may gain extra credits for earning 50000 points, that’s at least a good three or four battles in even when playing well. I suppose I can’t be too harsh. Ultraman is ok about a few things. It’s stage design is pretty cool, often with smashed buildings in the back and foreground. Unfortunately this does hamper the player’s site, and said stages just wrap around. There is no corner to knock the enemy into so they can just keep running and regenerating. The game’s also nice about dying. Get killed and when you come back, the monster will be close to where you left it in terms of health. Of course you still have to recharge your Plasma Bolt, so it’s not that much of a boon. And then there’s the the intro to each fight. Honestly, that’s the best part, watching a bunch of explosions and then Ultraman shows up, just in time for an extreme closeup. No matter how angry I was with this title, I’d break out into laughter every time I saw it. It’s actually a pretty good stress reliever, there to keep me from screaming in rage about the rest of this horrible game. Out of all of the fighters, these are the bottom of the barrel. Sure, Shaq Fu might have had poor framerates and clunky controls, but these titles prove that it’s actually rather mediocre…just on the low end of mediocre. Then again, playing these titles makes just about any game look good. Some Other Titles to Avoid Brutal Paws of Fury Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story Ranma ½: Hard Battle The Low End of MediocreShortly after it was disclosed by then Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the NSA was running roughshod over the constitutional rights of the American people, I filed two class action lawsuits, on behalf of myself and a client, Charles Strange, who lost his son, a NSA cryptologist, in the Afghan war. These lawsuits not only ask for large monetary damages, but also for an injunction against the US government spying on over 300 million citizens in violation of the Patriot and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts. The laws make it crystal clear that the NSA, CIA, FBI or any other American government agency can only eavesdrop on persons who are under investigation for being in contact with foreign terrorists, or who are under criminal investigation. What Greenwald, the Guardian and Snowden revealed was a massive ongoing NSA program that collects so-called metadata, which intrudes into the most intimate details of a person's life, accessing the cell phone, internet and social media communications of nearly the entire US populace. It is, in effect, the biggest and most dangerous violation of constitutional rights in American history. The obvious effect of this outrage is to chill the free speech, associational and due process rights of all Americans, as now they are under constant surveillance by a government that over 80% of the people, according to Pew Research polling, distrusts, after decades of scandal and corruption by our executive and legislative branches. On Monday, in ruling on motions for preliminary injunction to stop this unlawful conduct during the pendency of our cases leading up to trial, a courageous federal judge in Washington DC, Richard J Leon, issued a historic decision that the NSA, under the auspices and approval of the Obama administration and complicit Democrat and Republican senators and congressman on Capital Hill, had likely violated, at a minimum, the fourth amendment of the US constitution, which protects American citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. Harking back to our nation's founding fathers, Judge Leon basically excoriated the government for trashing the principles upon with the country was conceived, and through American blood, realized. Indeed, with no lack of respect for modern day Britain, had King George III had the capability of the NSA and its sister spy agencies, our founding fathers never would have made it to Philadelphia to debate and sign the Declaration of Independence. They would have been picked up, arrested and executed for treason and our nation would never have been born. While Judge Leon stayed his preliminary injunction order to allow the government to appeal, he made it clear that if the NSA continued to violate the law, and his order upheld, there would be hell to pay once the preliminary injunction order comes back into his courtroom. And, while the ruling is on appeal, our co-plaintiff, Charles Strange, and I have the right to take discovery. This means that we can gather evidence that will likely disclose more than even the Guardian and Snowden have thus far revealed. As an American, and a proud one, I thank the Guardian and Edward Snowden for their courage in reporting the truth about NSA's unconstitutional actions. Without them, the entire US citizenry would have been left in the dark about this communist-like, totalitarian attack on human rights, which one would expect from countries like Putin's Russia or China, but not in the United States of America. • This commentary was amended on 17 December 2013 to correct a reference to the Prism program.Following the character’s television debut as part of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD on ABC, Deathlok has been in the spotlight in a way that he’s hasn’t really enjoyed since his creation forty years ago. Tomorrow sees the release of Original Sins No. 1, an anthology that sees the character return to comics in a story by Nathan Edmondson and Mike Perkins — a team that THR can exclusively reveal will be handling the character’s solo title when it debuts this fall, as well. “Deathlok is an opportunity to turn the distinction between ally and foe within the Marvel universe right on its head,” Edmondson told THR via email. “Wrapped up in bleeding-edge tech, our Deathlok series will take what readers remember of the iconic anti-hero and what viewers love now of the character portrayed by J. August Richards in Agents of Shield and dive in with a twisting story of espionage and family.” STORY: Marvel to Debut Deathlok Solo Comic Book Series This Fall The Deathlok in the new comic book series won’t be exactly the Deathlok from the show — instead of Richards’ Mike Peterson character, the new comic book focuses on Henry Hayes, someone Edmondson described as “at war with the machine of war and the machine of global enterprise — and the machine inside him that makes him a lethal, unstoppable one man army.” Edmondson is no stranger to comic book intrigue. In addition to his current, critically-acclaimed, Marvel series Black Widow and The Punisher, he’s also the co-creator of Who is Jake Ellis?, an Image Comics title about a CIA analyst on the run that is being developed as a movie by director David Yates and Fox. The new Deathlok, the writer explained, “is a father and a medic who doesn’t know that he’s a machine, a killer behind some of the sweeping changes in geopolitics.” When asked to sum up the tone of the series, he suggested, “think Manchurian Candidate meets Robocop. With great friggin’ art.” The art comes from Captain America and The Stand veteran Perkins, who said that Deathlok is “such a visually exciting character to tackle.” Calling the character “without a doubt, one of my favorite protagonists in the Marvel Universe,” he told THR that working on the series “is not just a long-held dream come true for me– although that plays a massive part in my excitement – it’s also a chance to introduce a new player into the Marvel Universe, albeit borrowing some existing tropes.” STORY: Wolverine Meets Deathlok in 'Tomorrow Dies Today' DVD Release (Video) The new series, he went on, will offer “excitement and thrills on a par with any James Bond opening or Jason Bourne set-piece nestling alongside some touching character interludes. After the 10 page introduction featuring in the first issue of Original Sins, we’re attempting to grab the reader by the lapels and thrust them into a world of espionage, secrets, betrayals and action. This is a persona with a clean slate…but accompanied by a history that is anything but spotless.” Edmondson and Perkins get started in Original Sins No. 1, in comic stores and available digitally Wednesday, with the new Deathlok series launching in October.The USO said that Sen. Al Franken’s brother was their photographer on the 2006 USO tour, during which Franken was photographed reaching to grope a female reporter’s breasts, according to a new report. Kyle Potter, a reporter for the Associated Press, posted on Thursday that Sen. Franken’s brother was the USO’s photographer for the 2006 tour, citing the USO. On Thursday, journalist Leann Tweeden released a photo as evidence of Franken groping her while she was sleeping during the tour. She also claimed that Franken had aggressively stuck his tongue into her mouth during a skit rehearsal. Tweeden was on the two week USO tour in December 2006 with then 55-year-old Sen. Franken. She said that after she rebuffed the Senator he was vindictive for the remainder of the tour. Tweeden recounted that it wasn’t until the end of the tour and she was back in the U.S. that she received “the CD of photos we were given by the photographer” and found the photo of Franken reaching his hands for her chest while she was asleep. “I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep,” wrote Tweeden. “I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?” In response to Tweeden’s account, Sen. Franken didn’t refute the legitimacy of the photo, saying, “It was clearly meant to be funny but wasn’t.” He claimed he didn’t remember the skit rehearsal the same way. Potter later tweeted that the USO said it could not confirm who took the individual photo and that Owen Franken claims he did not take that specific photo. To be clear because conservative Twitter is eating this up: USO says Franken's brother was photographer on 06 tour. Brother says he did not take that specific groping photo. USO cannot confirm who took an individual photo. — Kyle Potter (@kpottermn) November 16, 2017 Potter posted that he had reached Owen Franken, who was in Paris, on the phone and that Franken denied taking the photo and defended his brother by saying that the Senator was not actually touching Tweeden’s breasts. Reached by phone in Paris, Owen Franken says he DID NOT take this photograph. Calls it "a stupid thing to do" but stresses in photo he is not touching Tweeden. https://t.co/fMUnDIexT7 — Kyle Potter (@kpottermn) November 16, 2017 According to Potter, the Senator’s brother called Tweeden’s accusations “unbelievable.” After Tweeden’s accusation surfaced, journalist Melanie Morgan announced that she too had been harassed by the senator: “Al Franken stalked and harassed me. He scared the living hell out of me. It’s all true.” https://twitter.com/MelMorgan1350/status/931244347785232389 Morgan explained a debate over the OMB between herself and Franken when they were two members on a panel for an episode of the ABC late night show Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher in 2000. She said Franken came after her following the episode over their debate and, after obtaining her phone number, called several times. She said he only stopped when she threatened to call the police. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDianaBy Mario Cacciottolo BBC News Hannah Foster was murdered after her 999 call was judged to be accidental and cut off. But how do police decide if an emergency call is a misdial or a desperate last plea for help? The number 999 is a lifeline for those in distress. Probably every adult knows its purpose and, when faced with an emergency, even toddlers have been able to dial these crucial three digits. But, as the case of murdered teenager Hannah Foster demonstrates, there are times when emergency calls can be cut off by the operator at the other end. Hannah Foster's call to the emergency services was cut off When Hannah was abducted in March 2003, she was quick-witted enough to surreptitiously make a 999 call on her mobile. Unable to speak into the phone, she nevertheless hoped the operator would become suspicious of the conversation she was having with her abductor, Maninder Pal Singh Kohli. Unfortunately, Hannah's attempts failed to navigate a call handling system called Silent Solutions, which deals with silent calls made to the 999 number, and she was cut off moments later. Kohli went on to rape and murder her, and has now been jailed for life following a trial at Winchester Crown Court. Silent plea Accidental 999 calls happen all the time, but how do operators know when a silent call can actually be a real call for help? BT receives 30 million emergency calls a year - either to 999 or 112, the European emergency services number, which works in all European Union countries. There are strict procedures for handling such calls, set out in a code of practice between telecoms operators and the emergency services. Calls made to these numbers usually result in an emergency authority (EA) - fire, police, ambulance - request being made, where someone asks the operator for assistance. HISTORY OF 999 999 is world's oldest emergency call service Launched in 1937 after five women died in London surgery fire Initially red lamp turned on and klaxon siren went off to alert operators went call came in 999 chosen over 111 for technical reasons - telegraph wires rubbed together in wind transmitted equivalent of 111 call First 999 mobile call made in 1986 Man found guilty of Hannah murder But several million calls a year do not follow this pattern, and the emergency number is dialled but no-one actually speaks to make a request. This is what happened in Hannah's case. The code of practice says in the "overwhelming majority of cases" these calls are customer misdials, such as a phone keypad activated in a bag or pocket, or even children playing. But it acknowledges "there is always a possibility of it being a genuine caller who cannot speak". It also says "very large numbers" of accidental 999/112 calls are received from mobile phones. In 2001 the Metropolitan Police introduced a country-wide system called Silent Solutions for dealing with the growing number of silent accidental 999 calls. When a call is made, operators from police forces around the UK attempt to obtain a response by asking a series of questions. For example, they might ask "which service is required?" and "if you cannot speak but need help please tap the handset screen". Background voices But when nothing apart from general noise can be heard, and there is no speech, it is thought there is a "negligible chance" of the call being genuine. The operator can then end the call. Where there is no response but there are background voices, the code of practice says the operator cannot decide whether an Emergency Authority request is needed from the police. Most silent accidental 999 calls contain background noise, which is usually very difficult to hear or understand Metropolitan police spokesman In cases such as these, the call is then connected to an automated police voice response system at the Met's Central Communication Command, which asks the caller to press five twice if help is required. If 5-5 is pressed, an immediate connection with the police is made. And in any cases where suspicious noises are heard, the operator can override all these procedures and simply connect the call directly to a police emergency authority control room. "Most silent accidental 999 calls contain background noise, which is usually very difficult to hear or understand," says a spokesman for the Met. "It was only after Hannah's 999 call was forensically examined during the subsequent investigation when the audio had been expertly enhanced that it was possible to capture the voice of her abductor and the conversation they had." Other cases Silent calls are now common. Between July 2001, when the Silent Solutions system was introduced, and September 2008, there have been more than 40 million such calls - averaging about 5.5 million a year. The overwhelming majority of these are unintended 999 calls, says a Met spokesman. SILENT CALLS 5.5m silent 999 calls a year 47,000 of those press '55' to indicate help needed Clear suspicious noise also means call can be routed to police "Since 2004, on average each year, we have received about 47,000 silent calls during which the caller pressed '55' and therefore indicated they needed an emergency service, which means that only about 0.9% of the silent calls we receive are intentional." Yet Hannah's tragic case is not a one-off. In 2005 Farah Noor Adams was raped and murdered in Glasgow. She had made a number of silent calls when she spotted she was being stalked by her eventual killer. But they too were cut off by operators when she failed to respond. But there are occasions where silent calls do work. One woman who was attacked at her home in Kensington, London, managed to make a silent 999 call. This led to the police tracing her call and visiting her home, where they captured her assailant. He was eventually convicted in 1991 of rape, possession of a firearm and attempted murder. And emergency services in some parts of the country now respond to texts sent to 80999. This allows messages to be sent directly to the police control room. The controller then calls for assistance as required from any of the emergency services. The 80999 number is currently used in the South West, in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Dorset, Wiltshire, Avon and Somerset and Devon and Cornwall, and can be used at any time. However, this is provided as a specific access service for people who cannot use voice telephony, and is not considered as an additional service for general contact. Several other police forces already run emergency text services, but they require people to register their details and use a standard 11-digit mobile number. The Home Office plans to introduce a National Emergency Text number, which will eventually replace these systems. Below is a selection of your comments. I appreciate that it's difficult to screen accidental 999 calls, but why is the practice of dialling 80999 not nationwide already? I too am a mum to a beautiful, caring 17-year-old daughter. I constantly nag her to carry her mobile for her own safety and keep it charged and in credit. Please bring in the National Emergency Text number as soon as possible. Deb, Rainham, Kent I understand the problems of trying to weed out the very few genuine calls from the many accidental calls. However, in Farah's case, she made a number of silent calls to try and get help. Couldn't a computer system monitor the number of silent calls and if several are made in succession from the same number, police could investigate? These could still be accidental but it would be less likely. Helen, Durham I worked taking 999 calls for two years in Glasgow. When I read about the hoax calls made by international celebrities, my first thought was "what an example". The emergency services have enough to deal with without celebrities turning the hoax call into a national pastime. The more calls dealt with by the emergency services, the more difficult it is to pinpoint "THE" call. I can only say the dedication and effort made by these call centres to ensure valid calls are answered is exceptional and needs more exposure. Jerry McBride, Saigon, Vietnam Why not just have a separate number that means "I'm in trouble but cannot speak?" Surely the cost of creating and routing another number, and flagging the difference to an operator on screen would be a tiny percentage of the annual budget for running the emergency services. Will Shaw, Barnsley So why hasn't it been publicised that we need to press 999 and then 55 if we are in that sort of dangerous situation? Not rocket science, surely. Jacqui, London What you don't mention is what to do in a situation where there is an emergency and the person can't talk or even obviously use the phone. Dial 999 wait three seconds then press 55? Wait longer to press 55? Do the emergency services monitor repeat silent calls, such as the one from Ms Adams? Nadine Hengen, Christchurch Can this not be taught in schools, so that others in a dangerous situation where they are frightened to speak or bring the phone out of their pocket or whatever, can add the 55 to the number and so get an immediate connection to help. Whoever can do this - please! Sarah, Wales The emergency services cannot afford to take the chance that help is not really needed. Because of this the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a policy of a mandatory response to any incomplete call or interrupted one, to a police control room. That one dialling may be the only chance a victim of crime or life-threatening situation has to desperately call for help. Not checking it out is a NON OPTION, in my experience and opinion... (I have over 30 years experience in the emergency services in four different countries as a responder.) Pat van der Ver, Wallasey, Merseyside I'm disgusted. I was taught at school, by visiting police, that a silent 999 call would be treated as a police matter and they would be dispatched immediately. This has changed but would anyone in that situation be aware of this? The 999 service is not something to be treated with the same disdain as commercial operators treat their customer support services, and yet this "55" trick seems to come straight from the same hymn book. Basically, it's cheaper. I'm guessing the silent call that worked (back in 1991) was before they introduced this Silent Solutions nonsense. Still, with about 100,000 silent 999 calls per day, a better solution is not clear. Eddie, Oswestry Would the use of an emergency number which doesn't consist of the same three numbers not reduce the number of "dialled by accident in your bag/pocket" calls? Sue, London I am not at all surprised at the number of silent calls, since even locked keypads still allow 999 emergency dialling - this is deliberately DESIGNED IN to mobile phones. So even phones with locked keypads may dial emergency services if buttons are accidentally pressed - eg in a pocket. Draigalban, Edinburgh, Scotland As it appears that the majority of these calls are from mobile phones, I suggest the following to either eradicate the cause, or prevent the call from going through or being cancelled once activated. Somewhere on the mobile a lock button can be fitted that can only be released by an emergency service officer. The button is pressed and the emergency number dialled. The button is released. That number will now remain open so it can be traced. The line will remain operative until the call is cancelled by an official in attendance. Effectively it cannot be disconnected by anyone else. If an operator tries to disconnect, the emergency number will repeat call. This should dramatically reduce the number of accidental calls - it may even save a life. Tony Ive, Petersfield, UK If you are trying to make a surreptitious emergency call, it is unlikely that you will be able to confirm your situation. Couldn't mobiles have a panic button with a suitable cover? To prevent misuse, triggering the alarm could then bar all numbers but 999 and a service number to call off the alarm being dialled. Neil Turton, Lancaster, England I had always hoped if I needed it, I could do what Hannah did. In fact my previous handset had an option to call 999 automatically if you played with a fixed pattern of buttons in your pocket. So what are we meant to do? Texting seems an answer, but can the police quickly trace where the caller is if needed? Hugh, London Home alarm systems have a silent call to police, why not add a digit to alert emergency services that this is a silent call? Candace, New Jersey, US There should be enhanced hearing on behalf of the emergency services. Kevin Smith, Holloway, London Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionThree more Canuck films — one feature and two shorts, all from Quebec — have been announced for Cannes 2014, which runs from May 14 to 25. This third film by Quebec auteur Lafleur ( En terrains connus, Continental, un film sans fusil ) is described as a dark comedy with a girls vs. boys theme. Tu dors Nicole, a dark comedy by Stéph
, who say someone might sneak into a farmer’s field of harmless hemp and plant a batch of (similar-looking) marijuana? Advertisement Continue reading the main story Such fears, Mr. Monson insisted, are silly in North Dakota, which is the 48th most-populous state, with fewer than 640,000 people. This is the only state where voter registration is not required. (Everyone would know, the logic goes, if someone who did not belong tried to vote.) “You can’t go down to get the mail around here without someone knowing,” Mr. Monson said. But Blair Thoreson, a Republican state representative who has voted against hemp measures, is less sure. “Everyone here knows everyone,” Mr. Thoreson said, “and yet we’ve had a huge problem here with homegrown methamphetamine labs, too.” Roger Johnson, the state’s agriculture commissioner, said hemp fields would be the worst places to hide marijuana. Under state rules, he said, such fields must be accessible for unannounced searches, day or night, and crops would be tested by the state. Also, he said, a field of hemp and marijuana would cross pollinate, leaving the drug less potent. “We’re not wide-eyed liberals,” Mr. Johnson said. “The D.E.A., they’re the crazy ones on this. This sort of illogical, indefensible position is not going to prevail forever.” After receiving the first state licenses to grow hemp this year, Mr. Monson and Wayne Hauge, a farmer from Ray, filed applications with the D.E.A. in February. Since then, the drug agency has not said yes or no. Given North Dakota’s growing season, it is too late to plant anything new this year. So in June, the two men— with financial help from Vote Hemp, the advocacy group — filed a lawsuit against the agency. This month, Mr. Robertson said the agency was still reviewing the applications, but that he could not say much beyond that because of the litigation. Like Mr. Monson, Mr. Hauge, who is 49 and farms barley, chickpeas and lentils on land his great-grandfather homesteaded in 1903, said his efforts are about economics, not politics — or drugs. “I don’t advocate smoking anything,” said Mr. Hauge, who, when he is not farming, is a certified public accountant. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I guess I’m not really known as much of a joker,” he added.Mr. Donovan. I have been following these forums for several years and am still confused over the difference between a doctrine, a dogma and an infallible statement. It seems that there is the mistaken belief by many that ONLY an infallible statement need be followed be a Catholic. And even then, there's often confusion over what's an infallible statement from the Magisterium. I would greatly appreciate explanations of these three. Thank you. These are terms that are easily confusing. Doctrine. The word doctrine comes, by way of the Latin doctrina, from the Greek word doxa, meaning belief. The doctrine(s) of the Church, therefore, are those teachings which must be believed by the faithful. These include 1) dogmas, teachings which the Church has solemnly defined as formally revealed by God, and, 2) other teachings definitively proposed by the Church because they are connected to solemnly defined teachings. The first (dogmas) can be called doctrines of divine faith, the second doctrines of catholic faith. Together they are said to be "of divine and catholic faith." Both kinds of doctrine require the assent of faith. Both are infallibly taught by the Church. Dogmas require it because they are formally revealed by God. Doctrines definitively proposed by the Church require it, because the infallibility of the Church in matters of faith and morals is itself divinely revealed. A side note, doctrine shares the same root as orthodox, meaning correct belief. Those who hold the Church's doctrines faithfully are thus orthodox. Dogma. Dogmas, therefore, are those doctrines solemnly proposed by the Church as formally revealed in Scripture or Tradition. This may have been done by papal pronouncement (Pius IX: Immaculate Conception), by a General Council (Chalcedon: Christ is two natures in one Divine Person), or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium (killing an innocent human being is gravely immoral). Definitively Proposed. Doctrines that are definitively proposed are no less certain, even though they are not proposed as formally revealed by God. They are connected to dogmas, however, by either historical or logical connection. An example of logical necessity would be the reservation of priesthood to men in the witness of Scripture and Tradition. The Church has not yet taught that it was formally revealed by God, but such dogmatization is possible. Papal infallibility was similarly infallibly taught by the Church before it was proposed as formally revealed by God. An example of historical necessity would be the election of a Pope or the celebration of a General Council. While a portion of the Church could elect an antipope, or hold a false council, the Church as a whole could not err in this way without compromising Christ's revealed promise to be with the Church until the end of time. Infallible. As noted above, all that the Church teaches as being of "divine and catholic faith" is taught infallibly. Infallibility is not limnited, therefore, to extraordinary acts of proposing dogmas, whether by popes or councils. Those looking to believe only such "infallible" statements deceive themselves. In both the category of divinely revealed and definitively proposed doctrines there are many which are taught only by the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church. This means that the Church has "always and everywhere" taught it as true, and, therefore, that the contrary position has never been taught. Perhaps, the most debated example is contraception. At no time in history has the Church taught that contraception is morally licit. Whenever in the Fathers, Doctors or the Magisterium it has been discussed it has always been as an evil. There is no formal declaration, no extraordinary act, but it is certainly infallibly taught from the beginning of the Church, to Paul VI, to today. Authoritative. Finally, the Church teaches things which are neither proposed as formally revealed or definitively proposed. This is the category of authoritative teaching. Anything in the Catechism or a pope's writings and addresses that is not "of divine and catholic faith" if clearly meant to take a position, without deciding it by proposing it as revealed or as definitive, is authoritively taught. It should receive "religious obedience of intellect and will," as opposed to the assent of faith. Such obedience is an act of justice. It shows the respect Catholics owe the Pope, and it humbly acknowledges that by charism and grace of vocation the Pope is more likely to be right than those who disagree with him. As Vatican II noted, the weight to be given such teaching is "according to the mind and the will manifested; this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression." Thus, more weight would have to be given to something taught many times by successive popes than to something taught once by one pope. COPYRIGHT 2019 Click here to send this Question and Answer to a friendIn a move that should have been done years ago, the top mobile phone suppliers of Europe have all signed an agreement that micro-USB will be the standard phone charging port. Soon consumers will not have to fret over charging cables as all the phones from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, NEC, Qualcomm, Motorola, RIM, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and even Apple sold in Europe will all charge via micro-USB. We’re just curious if Apple is going to finally retire the Dock Connector from the iPhone or produce some sort of micro-USB adapter to comply with this agreement. Chances are that the European market will see a dock connector to micro-USB port dongle before Apple gives up on the aging proprietary connector and goes micro-USB exclusive. After all, there are thousands of Dock Connector-compatible accessories that come from royalty-paying vendors and Apple needs to protect its income sources. Hopefully all these companies will come together yet again in the name of consumers and sign a similar agreement here in the States. We want a standard charging port too. Right? Right.News \| Forum \| People \| FAQ \| Links \| Search \| Register \| Log in #Q1RetroJam2 Released The Quake 1 Retro Jam 1 pack has been released. The mapping theme was "fantasy brick cities in the skies" with inspiration images here. Mappers involved were RickyT23, Skacky and Sock. As always demos are welcome. Screenshot / Download From Left To Right From Left To Right My demos Earth Magic, Hell Magic, Elder Magic. Approximately 0 Out Of 3 Of Those Can Be Called "retro" BTW Approximately 0 Out Of 3 Of Those Can Be Called "retro" BTW Cool Maps! Cool Maps! Ricky : Liked the epic scale. Fiend fight at the start was cool. Some annoying stuff to get stuck on in the floor (mostly spike gate holders). Overall encounters needed a bit more tlc I think. Stuff like enemies not aggroing when you are in an arena situation (guilty of this also in my jam map!) or enemies not aggroing due to range. Skacky : hawt! Loved some of the combat encounters in this level. Some of them were properly brutal but still very fair. Looks gorgeous of course. Really didn't see anything major that I didn't like. Sock : w00t! Sexy as hell map with the trademark Sock gameplay. Lots of ledges to explore and chasms to fall down :) Somehow I didn't fall to my death on this one. Gameplay was fun with some nice encounters towards the end of the level. Always well thought out and with some excellent monster placement. I have to agree with otp that there isn't really anything retro about these levels :) Not that I particularly care as they were all fun! demos : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33279452/daz_retrojam2.rar Ricky : Liked the epic scale. Fiend fight at the start was cool. Some annoying stuff to get stuck on in the floor (mostly spike gate holders). Overall encounters needed a bit more tlc I think. Stuff like enemies not aggroing when you are in an arena situation (guilty of this also in my jam map!) or enemies not aggroing due to range.Skacky : hawt! Loved some of the combat encounters in this level. Some of them were properly brutal but still very fair. Looks gorgeous of course. Really didn't see anything major that I didn't like.Sock : w00t! Sexy as hell map with the trademark Sock gameplay. Lots of ledges to explore and chasms to fall down :) Somehow I didn't fall to my death on this one. Gameplay was fun with some nice encounters towards the end of the level. Always well thought out and with some excellent monster placement.I have to agree with otp that there isn't really anything retro about these levels :) Not that I particularly care as they were all fun! Wow! Wow! Ricky's map is the only one which I could call "retro". And honestly, I don't like this map. Skacky and Sock maps are really awesome, and certainly not "retro". Guys, you should add a proper small start map with difficulty settings. Awesome Pack Awesome Pack demos, skill 2: with a cool theme. really enjoyed all 3 maps.demos, skill 2: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/retrojam2_ericw_demos.zip Screenshot Is Sick. Screenshot Is Sick. Screenshot Screenshot About the screenshots, you guys need antialiasing (FSAA). The jaggies are reaaaaally horrible! First Playthrus First Playthrus I uploaded my first playthroughs to Quaketastic: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/retrojam2-pekka-firstplays.7z I managed to die twice in the initial arena of Retrojam2_RickyT23. These demos are included for completeness's sake :) Otherwise, I survived some hairy situations, and thought the ammo balance was pretty good on all maps playing Hard skill. I did really poorly with secrets this time. (Not that I ever find many on my first play.) Thanks to all three mappers! Very enjoyable and gorgeous maps again. Had fun playing.I uploaded my first playthroughs to Quaketastic:I managed to die twice in the initial arena of Retrojam2_RickyT23. These demos are included for completeness's sake :)Otherwise, I survived some hairy situations, and thought the ammo balance was pretty good on all maps playing Hard skill. I did really poorly with secrets this time. (Not that I ever find many on my first play.)Thanks to all three mappers! Great Jam. Great Jam. Demos: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/retrosham2.zip Only 3 maps but what a selection. Ricky's was pretty cool and good fun, Sock's and Skacky's were magical. Sock had me on edge with all the secret pathway rails, Skacky had me drooling over the architecture. All of them were some of the least retro use of Id textures and monsters, and all the more exciting for it.Demos: Spot On Spot On On the non-retro use of id textures. That city + copper combination in Sock's is simple, yet so very evocative. Twitter Jam 2 Twitter Jam 2 Ricky's has basic design but pretty much in a good way, except I found the gameplay a little bit dull - could have used more monster and/or weapon variety or something. Skacky's looks great and it's fun to play, though it kind of felt like a sock map - for some reason I felt this was somewhat unfortunate, even though it's pretty much a compliment, I guess. Sock's is very much in line with the theme and has a nice vibe/style with all the broken or deranged architecture - of course, jumping and balancing on small ledges (over death pit) is a bit of a showstopper in Quake, though it does make sense in a map like this. What did look funky to me in all maps was the colored and/or min lighting. They seemed kind of blurred to me - or maybe my eyes are just rekt today... Demos Not retro, but cool maps nonetheless.Ricky's has basic design but pretty much in a good way, except I found the gameplay a little bit dull - could have used more monster and/or weapon variety or something.Skacky's looks great and it's fun to play, though it kind of felt like a sock map - for some reason I felt this was somewhat unfortunate, even though it's pretty much a compliment, I guess.Sock's is very much in line with the theme and has a nice vibe/style with all the broken or deranged architecture - of course, jumping and balancing on small ledges (over death pit) is a bit of a showstopper in Quake, though it does make sense in a map like this.What did look funky to me in all maps was the colored and/or min lighting. They seemed kind of blurred to me - or maybe my eyes are just rekt today... Retrojam2: The Jammining Retrojam2: The Jammining I enjoyed Ricky's. It felt the most'retro', with its large scale, simple architecture. The beginning was inspired, with the slow-fall directly into the fiend arena. Skacky, as a rule, makes me wish I was better at this whole mapping thing. It all seems so effortless: the intricate architecture, the unique details, the seamless layout. There was even a part where I thought I had found a secret and jumped through a window, only to find myself back in one of the first rooms. Sock, how did you do so much with so little? It seems like, by only using two textures (the grey brick and the copper) you managed to finagle one of the most unique, atmospheric maps I've seen. It all looked so alien, so removed from the more conventional architecute found in Quake. Bravo. The only strange thing I found was the end, where the last two shamblers didn't trigger. I can't imagine this was intentional... Oh, and demos: http://www.quaketastic.com/files/rj2_ion_demos.zip Three worthwhile maps.I enjoyed Ricky's. It felt the most'retro', with its large scale, simple architecture. The beginning was inspired, with the slow-fall directly into the fiend arena.Skacky, as a rule, makes me wish I was better at this whole mapping thing. It all seems so effortless: the intricate architecture, the unique details, the seamless layout. There was even a part where I thought I had found a secret and jumped through a window, only to find myself back in one of the first rooms.Sock, how did you do so much with so little? It seems like, by only using two textures (the grey brick and the copper) you managed to finagle one of the most unique, atmospheric maps I've seen. It all looked so alien, so removed from the more conventional architecute found in Quake. Bravo. The only strange thing I found was the end, where the last two shamblers didn't trigger. I can't imagine this was intentional...Oh, and demos: Nothing says retro like a 21.3meg zip for 3 maps! (Bluff Eversmoking was 10 megs itself.) You want something retro? Give me 3 months uninterrupted. I'll craft DOZENS of brushes for you guys. Okay, trying it now. RickyT23: I liked the sense of size, humor, and progression. Didn't get full kills though because a fiend jumped off the top and landed near the beginning. Didn't bother to get him. Missed a secret. Skacky: Hectic and beautiful, felt a bit consistently underpowered so I almost played it like a speedrunner, just trying to get through to the next area. Found 1 secret, missed a lot of monsters (largely intentionally). sock: Thanks for bringing back my fear of heights you jerk! No seriously, this was wonderful. My toes actually ache from how they were grabbing onto the carpet as I inched around the level. Full kills, reached the exit with 0 secrets, backtracked and found 4. I also found a lot of items that other maps would have called secrets... I love the fact that the level still holds mystery for me, after crawling around it for 20 minutes. Died to the final shambler (he landed on my head while throwing lightning!) but I had quicksaved before the final arena. Ending third was a bit tough but reasonable. Here is a rare criticism for a map though - the cd track didn't jive with the map at all. It is one of my favorites from Quake, but it has a few motifs (the muffling, the knocking) that imply certain architectural features which this map theme does not possess, so it felt a bit odd at times. Still, a lovely map. I want to find those other secrets... Geez Geez go away for 2 weeks and there's 2 jams to come back to. Good work you guys! Great maps, thank you guys! Wow Wow ricky - most retro map, but gameplay and looks not to my liking. Sorry. skacky - exceptional stuff. Beautiful visuals and nice tight fights. sock - awe inspiring atmosphere!! When you break it down, texturing and architecture are quite simply but if ever there was a map that was more than the sum of its parts, this is it! Also, tremendous lighting + fog combo. Skacky - maybe my favorite map from the pack - I love the visual design and the lighting, although the amount of yellow was maybe a little too strong. Also the ending was very abrupt and as a result the map felt too short, but I still really enjoyed playing through it. Sock - also a great map with a unique visual theme and color scheme, at least it's something I've not seen much of in Quake before. Almost got sweaty palms in the beginning traversing the tiny pillars above the void, definitely captured the sense of vertigo one would assume from the theme most effectively in my opinion. Along with Skacky's map it's not very retro (not that it really matters) and the ending felt too abrupt, but still a great map. I recorded a demo and ended up dying when dropping down on a ledge to look for secrets (too many tempting surfaces below to jump on...) and with nothing there and no way to get back up, I ended up dying. I thought I started a new recording when loading my quicksave but I guess I didn't somehow, so my demo ends with me dying at that point. And as with the first retrojam (still yet to play any of the other jams, shame on me), I'm amazed with what you guys manage to pull off in such a short time. Really astonishing. RickyT23 - definitely felt the most "retro" of the maps. Pretty plain in looks, could use some more variation in textures or brushwork to break up the flat walls. Many of the areas also felt too spacious, although that's not necessarily negative. I did kinda enjoy it anyhow. Also looking towards the tower in the distance at the start reminded me of one of the floating sky castle maps from Super Mario 64 for some reason. demo Skacky - maybe my favorite map from the pack - I love the visual design and the lighting, although the amount of yellow was maybe a little too strong. Also the ending was very abrupt and as a result the map felt too short, but I still really enjoyed playing through it. demo Sock - also a great map with a unique visual theme and color scheme, at least it's something I've not seen much of in Quake before. Almost got sweaty palms in the beginning traversing the tiny pillars above the void, definitely captured the sense of vertigo one would assume from the theme most effectively in my opinion. Along with Skacky's map it's not very retro (not that it really matters) and the ending felt too abrupt, but still a great map. I recorded a demo and ended up dying when dropping down on a ledge to look for secrets (too many tempting surfaces below to jump on...) and with nothing there and no way to get back up, I ended up dying. I thought I started a new recording when loading my quicksave but I guess I didn't somehow, so my demo ends with me dying at that point. demo And as with the first retrojam (still yet to play any of the other jams, shame on me), I'm amazed with what you guys manage to pull off in such a short time. Really astonishing...this Pack..this Pack..looks promising but I don't know when I'll be going to play it because still have to play all past Quake releases from 1996 to now!?!gulp#!# All these years I was busy with getting all the maps and put on dvd but haven't touched any of them yet! Well Well I've played the other maps. Skacky and Sock's maps both have excellent brushwork. I found the gameplay was quite challenging. Died on both of my firstruns. Socks map seems to be about controlling your movement in confined spaces. Loads of things sticking out of walls to get stuck on. One of the essential jumps foiled my non-Quake-fanatic friend multiple times. I enjoyed traversing the edges of the map to find hidden ammo etc. Need to replay them both to find the exits (!). I had great fun, and both maps felt totally pr0. I will post my demos when I get round to it, hopefully with some complete runs too :) Cheers guys! Well Done Gentlemen! Well Done Gentlemen! Very good pack overall, RickyT23: Nice work, maybe too long distance shots used (over the 1st bridge), interesting map in anyway. I do believe that with more time you could have add more details that would have made this map awesome Skacky: Interesting detailed architecture, it's been a long time I didn't see wind tunnels in a map: good :) Lightning and architecture are top notch. Gameplay is so far the best of all three maps Sock: My favorite map (architecturally speaking) to be honest. The concept for the doors is great, and the use of blue fog is giving a really good ambience. Only complain is about the final melee... too much monsters for my miserable playing skill / I had to godmode (bohohoho I know) to safely exit the map :/ I want to see more maps like those!!! Great job ;) Mapjam2 Felt Unattended Mapjam2 Felt Unattended http://members.upc.nl/verorber/demos/j2_orbs.rar skacky is the worst, 2 ogres screw up their task so often, they should be fired. its possible to lure socks shamblers with a thrown grenade to, was trying that first but that grenade failed so often i learned to keep more health as i played it more, but coming in with 100/100 was still pretty rare Ricky: even though i dont complete all your challenges,i think this run is worthy! skacky is the worst, 2 ogres screw up their task so often, they should be fired.its possible to lure socks shamblers with a thrown grenade to, was trying that first but that grenade failed so often i learned to keep more health as i played it more, but coming in with 100/100 was still pretty rareRicky: even though i dont complete all your challenges,i think this run is worthy! Awesome Sauce Awesome Sauce O_O - I'd say so... Nice. Nice. Lovely control on Ricky's run and the finishing move. Man that's amazing. 1� Demos http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/tr_retrojam2.rar thanks! Hi all, nice maps :)1� Demosthanks! Post A Reply: Name: Title: Body: Website copyright © 2002-2019 John Fitzgibbons. All posts are copyright their respective authors.The 11.0.0 release of the Google Play services SDK includes a new way to access LocationServices. The new APIs do not require your app to manually manage a connection to Google Play services through a GoogleApiClient. This reduces boilerplate and common pitfalls in your app. Read more below, or head straight to the updated location samples on GitHub. Why not use GoogleApiClient? The LocationServices APIs allow you to access device location, set up geofences, prompt the user to enable location on the device and more. In order to access these services, the app must connect to Google Play services, which can involve error-prone connection logic. For example, can you spot the crash in the app below? Note: we'll assume our app has the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission, which is required to get the user's exact location using the LocationServices APIs. public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements GoogleApiClient.OnConnectionFailedListener { @Override public void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); GoogleApiClient client = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this).enableAutoManage(this, this).addApi(LocationServices.API).build(); client.connect(); PendingResult result = LocationServices.FusedLocationApi.requestLocationUpdates( client, LocationRequest.create(), pendingIntent); result.setResultCallback(new ResultCallback () { @Override public void onResult(@NonNull Status status) { Log.d(TAG, "Result: " + status.getStatusMessage()); } }); } //... } If you pointed to the requestLocationUpdates() call, you're right! That call throws an IllegalStateException, since the GoogleApiClient is has not yet connected. The call to connect() is asynchronous. While the code above looks like it should work, it's missing a ConnectionCallbacks argument to the GoogleApiClient builder. The call to request location updates should only be made after the onConnected callback has fired: public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements GoogleApiClient.OnConnectionFailedListener, GoogleApiClient.ConnectionCallbacks { private GoogleApiClient client; @Override protected void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); client = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this).enableAutoManage(this, this).addApi(LocationServices.API).addConnectionCallbacks(this).build(); client.connect(); } @Override public void onConnected(@Nullable Bundle bundle) { PendingResult result = LocationServices.FusedLocationApi.requestLocationUpdates( client, LocationRequest.create(), pendingIntent); result.setResultCallback(new ResultCallback () { @Override public void onResult(@NonNull Status status) { Log.d(TAG, "Result: " + status.getStatusMessage()); } }); } //... } Now the code works, but it's not ideal for a few reasons: It would be hard to refactor into shared classes if, for instance, you wanted to access Location Services in multiple activities. The app connects optimistically in onCreate even if Location Services are not needed until later (for example, after user input). even if Location Services are not needed until later (for example, after user input). It does not handle the case where the app fails to connect to Google Play services. There is a lot of boilerplate connection logic before getting started with location updates. A better developer experience The new LocationServices APIs are much simpler and will make your code less error prone. The connection logic is handled automatically, and you only need to attach a single completion listener: public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity { @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); FusedLocationProviderClient client = LocationServices.getFusedLocationProviderClient(this); client.requestLocationUpdates(LocationRequest.create(), pendingIntent).addOnCompleteListener(new OnCompleteListener () { @Override public void onComplete(@NonNull Task task) { Log.d("MainActivity", "Result: " + task.getResult()); } }); } } The new API immediately improves the code in a few ways: The API calls automatically wait for the service connection to be established, which removes the need to wait for onConnected before making requests. before making requests. It uses the Task API which makes it easier to compose asynchronous operations. The code is self-contained and could easily be moved into a shared utility class or similar. You don't need to understand the underlying connection process to start coding. What happened to all of the callbacks? The new API will automatically resolve certain connection failures for you, so you don't need to write code that for things like prompting the user to update Google Play services. Rather than exposing connection failures globally in the onConnectionFailed method, connection problems will fail the Task with an ApiException: client.requestLocationUpdates(LocationRequest.create(), pendingIntent).addOnFailureListener(new OnFailureListener() { @Override public void onFailure(@NonNull Exception e) { if (e instanceof ApiException) { Log.w(TAG, ((ApiException) e).getStatusMessage()); } else { Log.w(TAG, e.getMessage()); } } }); Try it for yourselfLong overdue fanart for Zootopia... Probably the only one I'll ever do, I'm lazy. But I wanted to draw Nick and Judy in my style and... Who the heck is that creepy guy? WELL I'M GLAD YOU ASKED... Let's talk about him. He's my fancharacter who I'll probably never use but whatever. Let's call him Jack because I'm too lazy to find a name I haven't used 5 times already. Obviously he's a fox like Nick; no, they're not related. They have however crossed paths early in Nick's independent life... They didn't get along. But that's about the most interaction he's had with the mains. Jack does not like prey. At all. Not due to biological wiring or whatever but due to the heavy oppression prey puts on predators - especially foxes like himself. Having to readjust away from a natural diet to eating plants and insects so prey can live without fear - and yet they're still treated horribly by them. After the incident with Bellwether trying to cause a war against predators by framing them, he kinda lost his shit. Formerly a minor criminal, he becomes a full blown serial killer. All his targets are prey, and his trademark? He eats them. Eats them. Nick and Judy are assigned to catch him. Judy ends up almost killed and devoured, and Nick has to fight him like a feral animal - biting and clawing and all that. He himself is almost killed too before Judy busts out the infamous fox taser and Jack has a really bad day. Naturally he winds up in prison for life, and in isolation to keep him away from other inmates... The end. Hire me, Disney.Plus de trois ans après l’arrestation brutale et injustifiée des « gratteux de guitare » du Plateau-Mont-Royal par Stéfanie Trudeau, le verdict de la raison est enfin tombé jeudi. « Matricule 728 » ne pouvait échapper à une condamnation pour voies de fait tellement sa conduite dérogeait aux bonnes pratiques policières. Passons sur le cas personnel de Mme Trudeau, qui est déjà neutralisée. La controverse entourant son arrestation brutale, injustifiée et illégale de Serge Lavoie et Rudi Ochietti a déjà eu raison de sa carrière et de sa passion pour le métier de policière. Son visage et ses errements sont si connus qu’elle pourra difficilement occuper un nouvel emploi dans le domaine de la sécurité publique sans être à nouveau stigmatisée. Son procès pour voies de fait a fait ressortir les travers de l’institution policière. N’eussent été les vidéos de l’intervention insensée du 2 octobre 2012, le juge Daniel Bédard aurait dû se rabattre sur les versions contradictoires des protagonistes de cette histoire. D’un côté, trois artistes dépeints comme des buveurs attardés et menaçants. De l’autre, deux policiers solidaires appuyés par un expert au regard étroit et complaisant. Dans les affaires de brutalité policière, le déséquilibre des forces est frappant. Aux yeux de la justice, les victimes souffrent d’un déficit de crédibilité par rapport aux policiers qu’ils ne peuvent surmonter sans des preuves indépendantes : le récit de témoins civils, ou mieux, de la vidéo. La conduite de « Matricule 728 » illustre à elle seule pourquoi il faut équiper les patrouilleurs de caméras corporelles, en s’assurant bien sûr que l’institution policière ne soit pas juge et partie dans l’utilisation et la conservation des enregistrements. Les policiers y penseront deux fois avant d’accuser des victimes de brutalité policière de voies de fait ou d’entrave, comme l’a fait Mme Trudeau, afin de les réduire au silence. Mme Trudeau et son équipier, Kevin Henry, ont pris de grandes libertés avec les faits en arrêtant Simon Pagé (entrave et intimidation), Serge Lavoie (entrave, intimidation et voie de fait), Rudi Ochietti (entrave) et une simple passante, Karen Molina (entrave). Toutes les accusations contre eux ont été retirées, et pour cause. Stéfanie Trudeau a été insultée, filmée, mais contrairement à ce qu’elle a prétendu en cour, elle n’a jamais été touchée ou gênée dans son intervention jugée « maladroite, brusque et illégale ». C’est « la rage et non la nécessité qui guide l’accusée », conclut à juste titre le juge Bédard. Dès les dix premières secondes de l’intervention, elle savait que sa carrière était terminée, a-t-elle témoigné. Il s’agit là d’un aveu, bien inconscient, du caractère abusif et disproportionné de son ultime intervention. La policière était déjà une star des réseaux sociaux — pour les mauvaises raisons — lors de l’incident d’octobre 2012. Durant le printemps érable, elle avait été prise à partie et fortement critiquée pour avoir aspergé de poivre de Cayenne des militants inoffensifs. Le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) porte une part du blâme pour avoir laissé en contact direct avec la population une policière qui n’avait plus le recul critique et la sérénité nécessaires pour accomplir son travail. Il est de sa responsabilité de prendre des mesures pour empêcher que des patrouilleurs à bout de souffle menacent la quiétude et la sécurité des Montréalais. Il en va aussi du lien confiance des citoyens à l’égard du SPVM.A woman has been arrested after Holly Hill police said she called in a bomb threat to a Volusia County business where she worked as a temp. According to police, Latisha Vester left a voicemail for the business' human resources offices, saying: "There's a bomb. Try to find it. Save everyone." Police said Vester message was not discovered until staff arrived around 9 a.m. About 300 people were evacuated from the building, on the 400 block of Walker Street. The Volusia County Sheriff's office dispatched bomb-sniffing dogs to the building, but they found nothing suspicious. Everyone was allowed back in shortly after noon. Police tracked down and arrested Vester a short time later. ——————————————— In-depth updates 12:45 -- Police arrest Latisha Vester for making the threat, saying she told HR: "There's a bomb. Try to find it. Save everyone." 12:25 p.m. -- Evacuation lifted. Workers allowed back in the building. Authorities said they found nothing suspicious, and are now trying to track down whoever made the threat. 11:45 -- From Volusia County Reporter Saul Saenz at the scene: The bomb threat may have been left on a human resources office's voicemail as early as 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, but was not discovered until 9 a.m. As a result, there may be an arrest later in the day. 11:15 a.m. -- 300 people evacuated from building. Volusia sheriff's dogs called to the scene. No bomb unit called.Sorry for the stupidly long wait for this chapter (
visited a handful of arenas so far, RootMetrics eventually plans to test more than 100 stadiums this year, according to the company. For each venue, RootMetrics sends an unspecified number of testers to track data performance of the top four wireless carriers in the U.S., a list that includes AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile. RootMetrics’ venue testers also check performance of the internal Wi-Fi network if one is available, but it does not let Wi-Fi compete for its “RootScore Award,” which it bestows upon the carrier with best performance in the combined categories of speed and “data reliability,” basically a measurement of the ability to make and hold a connection during any wireless data request or action. RootMetrics also doesn’t take into account whether or not any of the carriers has preferential deals inside a venue, which may give that provider a leg up on the competition. For its report on the Staples Center, for instance, RootMetrics gives its award to Verizon, which is not surprising to us since Verizon built both the Wi-Fi and the DAS network at the facility. But RootMetrics makes no mention of the business agreements at Staples or anywhere else, which is by design, according to the company. Why can’t Wi-Fi win? RootMetrics CEO Bill Moore said in a recent phone interview that such details about contracts and preferred suppliers really don’t matter to consumers — what really matters, he said, is how well each carrier performs in the venue. While the “scoreboard” mentality does perform a service by presenting just what data the testers find, the RootMetrics venue surveys have some gaps that may need to be filled or changed in the future to present a fully accurate picture of stadium network performance. One big reporting gap is the fact that RootMetrics doesn’t use any iOS devices in its stadium tests, a strange omission since most stadium networks say they still see a majority of iPhones among the devices being used on stadium networks. RootMetrics also seems to unfairly leave Wi-Fi networks out of the scoring, even though in many cases so far the local Wi-Fi networks far outperform the carrier cellular links. For Portland’s Moda Center, for instance, RootMetrics gives its RootScore award to Verizon, since in their testing Verizon was found to have better data reliability and better data speeds than the other cellular carriers. But the stadium’s in-house Wi-Fi network was 3 Mbps faster than Verizon on the download side and more than five times faster than Verizon on the upload side — yet Wi-Fi wasn’t mentioned in the venue “scores” and only got a footnote at the bottom of the results page. Founded in 2008, RootMetrics has (apparently) built a good business in its chosen field, since it was acquired last month by the Englewood, Colo.-based IHS, a large information and analytics concern that recorded $546 million in revenue for its most recent quarter. In the industry, RootMetrics is well known for its wireless coverage performance map and its “RootScores,” which attempt to determine winners and losers in the wireless service game for major U.S. metropolitan areas and the nation’s busiest airports. The basic RootMetrics premise is that they measure exactly what service levels consumers see in real life, providing an independent way for customers to evaluate services in a given area. While consumers can see the high-level results of its tests — which include both internal testing as well as data “crowdsourced” from consumers who download the RootMetrics reporting app — RootMetrics also sells its information directly to carriers and other infrastructure providers.The proposed state constitutional amendment declaring that life begins at conception was nearly identical to an initiative that was rejected by 58 percent of Mississippi voters in 2011. The proposed state constitutional amendment declaring that life begins at conception was nearly identical to an initiative that was rejected by 58 percent of Mississippi voters in 2011. Ballot via Shutterstock An anti-choice campaign in Mississippi to get a “personhood” initiative on the ballot in November 2015 ended unsuccessfully last week. A year after filing paperwork for the ballot initiative, organizers failed to turn in petitions with the required number of signatures. The proposed state constitutional amendment declaring that life begins at conception was nearly identical to an initiative that was rejected by 58 percent of Mississippi voters in 2011. Proponents of the “personhood” initiative claim voters were confused by how the amendment would affect in vitro fertilization and birth control. Jennifer Mason, communications director for Personhood USA, told the Washington Times that the activists in Mississippi did not turn in the petitions because they “never collected” any signatures. At least 107,216 signatures from registered voters were required to place the initiative on the ballot. A statement released by Personhood USA claims that supporters of the initiative “decided last fall not to collect signatures” and to “suspend” the signature campaign. The statement also says that plans are being made for a “future citizen-led initiative.” This directly contradicts a statement made by an organizer in Mississippi in March, several months after that decision reportedly was made. The Jackson Free Press reported that Anne Reed, spokesperson for Personhood Mississippi, said “with confidence” that because the wording of the initiative is much clearer, organizers should not have a hard time collecting the required signatures. Get the facts, direct to your inbox. Subscribe to our daily or weekly digest. SUBSCRIBE In a statement released by Parents Against Personhood, a political advocacy organization that raises awareness about the unintended consequences of “personhood” amendments and legislation, Atlee Breland said that the organization is “relieved” that the measure will not be on the ballot. “We hope that organizers will respect the opinions that Mississippians have now expressed twice over and decline to pursue future personhood efforts,” wrote Breland. Felicia Brown-Williams, public policy director for Planned Parenthood Southeast, told the Associated Press when the petition initiative was launched last year that health-care decisions should be left to a “woman, her family, her doctor, and her faith — not politicians.” There are similar efforts underway in other states, such as Colorado, where a “fetal homicide” amendment on the 2014 election ballot is being backed by Personhood USA. Similar initiatives were rejected by Colorado voters in 2008 and 2010.The remarkable turnaround in the career of Arsenal renaissance man Francis Coquelin can be neatly summed up by three trips to Manchester. Coquelin’s Premier League debut was in the 8-2 demolition at Old Trafford in 2011 after which former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson wrote in his autobiography: “He was completely out of his depth. I had hardly heard of him and he barely played again.” The second defining trip to Manchester came in January this year, when Coquelin proved himself to be anything but out of his depth in Arsenal’s 2-0 victory at United’s rivals City. "It was a big game,” said Coquelin. “You want to win this kind of game and to win away at Manchester City - I don’t think there are many teams that have done it. It was a massive boost for the whole team and for me as well.” If Ferguson missed Coquelin’s performance against City, then he may well have vaguely recognised the 23-year-old who survived a whack in the nose from Marouane Fellaini to help Arsenal dump United out of the FA Cup at Old Trafford last month. • Transfer Talk - Wenger swoops for Argentine 'wonderkid' “Fellaini was the one in my zone,” said Coquelin. “It was a big battle. He’s a tall guy, really strong, uses his arm quite well - on my nose as well! But it was part of the game. I like this type of game, it’s a different challenge. Coquelin takes one in the face for the team “The 8-2 was one of those games you just want to forget. It was good to win there this season and I was happy to be part of it because it could erase a bit what happened on my debut. • Diaby makes shock return for Arsenal (reserves) “I always had belief in myself and there is always going to be criticism. At the minute it is all positive because we are getting the right results and I am putting in a performance, but maybe tomorrow it will be a different world. “You always get criticism, but you just have to get your head down, work hard and it all pays off.” Did you know Telegraph Sport has an Arsenal Facebook page? Having won his duel against Fellaini, Coquelin will face a different challenge trying to stop Liverpool playmaker Coutinho at the Emirates on Saturday lunchtime. “Sometimes you play against small players, like this weekend against a small player like Coutinho, and sometimes against Fellaini so you need to adapt,” said Coquelin. “Hopefully, we will see me close to Coutinho again at the weekend.” • Who are Arsenal's summer transfer targets? Coquelin admits that he thought his Arsenal career was coming to an end when he was on loan at Charlton Athletic in December with the final year of his contract running down. Coquelin feared his Arsenal career was over when he was on loan at Charlton Injuries to Mikel Arteta and Jack Wilshere gave him an unexpected second chance and the changes in fortune for both Coquelin and Arsenal have been dramatic. When he returned to the Emirates, Arsenal had lost to Stoke City and were sixth in the Premier League table – two points off the Champions League places. But four months later, Arsenal have the chance to move nine points ahead of fifth-placed Liverpool and into second place before Manchester City take on Crystal Palace on Monday night, and Coquelin has the reward of a four-year contract. “The form has been really good, spirit has been good and we’ve won 14 of the last 16 games,” said Coquelin. “Of the last 10 Premier League games, we’ve won nine and that’s really good form so we want to carry that on. “Over the last few months we’ve had some big results and if we can beat Liverpool it will be another massive one. It will be nine points, that’s a big gap. “When the manager plays me like he does at the minute, playing every game, it means he’s got confidence in me so, hopefully, in the next few years it will be the same. Arsene Wenger continues to show faith in Coquelin “When he offers me a new contract with this amount of years, it means he’s counting on me for the long term.” Coquelin is clear about his role in the Arsenal team and is not ashamed to recognise that his primary responsibility is to win the ball for others to work their magic. “I’m an aggressive midfielder,” he said. “In front of the back four, I’m trying to do the defensive work for the players who play up front. I try to give my best, get the ball as quick as possible to play it to the players who have got a little bit more ability than me on the ball. Coquelin often finds himself in the wars “Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez, we’ve got a lot of quality. I think we lacked a little bit of aggression in midfield and that’s what I’m trying to bring to the team.” Statistics have been produced that claim Coquelin has out-performed Chelsea’s defensive midfielder Nemanja Matic over recent months, but the France Under-21 international admits it is far too early to compare him to the Serb. “In football there will always be comparisons, but let’s not forget he’s played almost the whole season and I’ve played 15 games so let’s not get carried away,” said Coquelin. Coquelin has been compared to Chelsea's Nemanja Matic (pictured) “I am trying to give my best and the stats show good things, but you need to do it on the long-term. You can’t stop and think about 15 games. Matic has played the whole season, so when we play both the whole season we will see about the stats.” Although the team lacked a physical presence in the middle of the park before Coquelin’s return, there is no shortage of former Arsenal midfield enforcers for him to look up to. Rather than Patrick Vieira or Emmanuel Petit, however, it is another fellow Frenchman Coquelin has modelled his game on. Coquelin models his game on that of Lassana Diarra (pictured) “As a French person, you look at other French people,” said Coquelin. “But there is one you haven’t mentioned who I looked up to, even if he didn’t play much for Arsenal. Lassana Diarra is a player I really liked. I think he is quite similar to the way I play, his aggresivity is quite similar what I’m trying to do.” Ferguson may well be familiar with Coquelin’s “aggresivity” by now. One suspects Liverpool and Coutinho will be as well by Saturday evening. Matchday Live with Fletch & Sav is from 10am today on BT Sport 1 followed by Arsenal v Liverpool exclusively live from middayAdvertisement Back in 2014 Bose released the over-ear QuietComfort 25 headphones to near universal praise. Two years later they followed them up with the QuietComfort 35 – a wireless take on their popular noise cancelling headphones. Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling - Black Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling - Black Buy Now on Amazon $329.00 You may worry that dropping the wire and moving to Bluetooth would be more of a headache than a convenience. As it turns out though, Bose has delivered an excellent wireless successor to the QC 25 in the QuietComfort 35. Design The QuietComfort 35 are light at only 240g, but still feel like a premium product. Bose opted for glass-filled nylon for the headband and ear cups over plastic to make them more comfortable to wear. The joints of the ear cups are made of stainless steel to increase durability. There is no avoiding that they aren’t visually exciting though. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the black or silver matte exterior, but unlike other fashion headphones, they do tend to blend into the background. The headphones come with a case although I have to admit here, I didn’t actually use it. It just wasn’t very convenient. Despite this, the headphones fared very well. I threw them loose into my bag, used in light rain, and at the gym. The only wound they sustained through all that use was a few small scratches on the headband. Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling - Black Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling - Black Buy Now on Amazon $329.00 The right headphone has a three mode power switch on the exterior, allowing you to switch between “Off”, “On”, and “Pairing Mode”. The bottom of the headphone has three buttons, volume up, volume down, and a play/pause button in the middle. In place of a dedicated skip button, you double tap the Play/Pause button for next track, and triple tap for previous track. Sound Quality I found the QuietComfort 35 had a well balanced sound – there was bass in all the right places and trebles were able to breathe. The audio sounded exactly as I expected across a variety of genres and spoken word. I didn’t find that the bass overwhelmed the music but gave enough of a punch when it was needed. While using the QC 35 all my music sounded exactly as I thought it should. In many ways the more intimate setting actually made the experience better than my desktop audio setup. Unlike some headphones, Bose doesn’t allow you to adjust the EQ on the fly using the companion app. They claim the headphones are “EQ Optimized” but it’s shame that a premium pair of headphones comes without such a standard feature. Comfort If you are going to be wearing any type of headphones – either in-ear or over-ear – comfort is essential. Using a poorly designed set of headphones can cause tension headaches. Fortunately, the QC 35 don’t suffer from this problem. I wore these headphones for upwards of 5 hours per day and only once did my head ever hurt after use, and that’s only because I fell asleep with them on. Part of the reason is that the padded ear cups on the headphones are really comfortable. There is just enough padding to allow freedom from the tension of the headphone, but not too much to allow the headphones to lose the seal that they create around your ear to optimize the noise cancellation. Noise Cancellation Bose’s noise cancellation prowess is one of the primary reasons you see them adorning so many frequent fliers. The QC 35 have an external microphone on them which is able to pick up ambient noise in your surroundings. The electronics create an anti-phase signal to cancel out the off-putting noise 10 Terms You Should Know to Identify the Best Headphones 10 Terms You Should Know to Identify the Best Headphones In this guide we'll cut through the jargon and show you what the key headphone specifications actually mean, and why — or if — they matter. Read More around you. Despite their elite reputation, I was still blown away by just how little was able to disturb your audio solitude. Noise cancellation works best on consistent noises like an air conditioning unit rather than unexpected or infrequent ones. Despite this even in busy places like coffee shops or while walking around in central London, I still found I was able to drift into my own secluded space. Hands-free Performance The built-in microphone lets the QuietComfort 35 double up as a hands-free headset. Everyone I spoke to using the QC 35 said that the sound quality of the call was a dramatic improvement over my previous headphones. Interestingly the noise cancellation is so good, that you can’t actually hear your own voice when on a call. The Bluetooth 4.0 connection was lightning fast, which meant that I often used the headphones as my go-to for all calls. I could power them up and connect in just a few seconds so I could pick up the call. Battery Life I found that the specified up to 20 hours of battery life wasn’t correct. Instead, they far exceeded that. Typically I charged them around once a week after I used them for around six hours per day. I didn’t use them lightly either: listening to music, taking calls, and even forgetting to turn them off on occasion. Bose says that the recharge time is 2.25 hours but they are underselling themselves on this front too. I found that it would typically only take between 30 and 45 minutes to go from depleted to full charge. It is slightly disappointing that Bose doesn’t supply a charging dock, especially since the provided micro-USB cable is only 30cm long. Connection Throughout my testing I didn’t have a single connection problem. There was no interference, connection loss, or any noticeable degradation of audio quality between the QC 35 and my wired headphones. This is even more impressive as Bose hasn’t implement the superior AptX compression, which is incompatible with Apple devices. You can connect up to two devices simultaneously to the QC 35. You might imagine that it would be a harsh transition between the two sources, but it is seamless. I had mine connected to my phone and PC and I could easily jump between both devices almost instantaneously. The Bose Connect companion app (Android/iOS) allows you to control which devices the headphones are connected to, but little else. If you need to switch to a wired connection, the QuietComfort 35 also have a 2.5mm jack on the left headphone. You can even use the headphones in passive mode without power, but you do lose the noise cancellation. Should You Buy Them? Bose promises great sound quality and excellent noise cancellation and they deliver on both fronts. The battery life on the QuietComfort 35 easily surpassed expectations, and even Bose’s own specifications. They aren’t cheap but they do offer everything that you would expect for a $350 set of headphones. The design may be a little bland, but it doesn’t matter when the performance is so good. Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling - Black Bose QuietComfort 35 (Series I) Wireless Headphones, Noise Cancelling - Black Buy Now on Amazon $329.00 Our verdict of the Bose QuietComfort 35 : Bose’s best headphones have gone wireless and been made even better for it. Although they aren’t cheap, the astonishing battery life, powerful noise cancellation and great audio performance make them ideal companions. 9 10This two-part feature takes as its starting point a conversation between Errol Morris and Donald Trump, in which Trump discusses his favorite movie, Citizen Kane. Part 1 investigated the parallels between Trump’s rise and the fictional plot of Citizen Kane. Part 2 turns to Errol Morris for more answers. What does Donald Trump’s love of Citizen Kane tell us about him? And what does it tell us about the state of our political discourse in 2016? I can think of no one better to answer these questions than Errol Morris, who interviewed Trump about Citizen Kane in the first place, back in 2002. That Morris also happens to be a connoisseur of self-deception—having directed films about a Holocaust denier (Mr. Death) and Donald Rumsfeld (The Unknown Known) among others—is a happy coincidence that makes him all the more qualified to untangle this knot. Anthony Audi: I’ve been thinking a lot recently about your extraordinary exchange with Donald Trump, in which he talks about his love for Citizen Kane. What do you make of it now that he’s at the center of our politics? Article continues after advertisement Errol Morris: Well, there have been moments in my career where people have said things to me that raise all kinds of crazy questions about self awareness. To what extent is this person aware of himself? To what extent is this person aware of what he’s saying? And then there’s a whole set of additional questions. How could he not be aware of what he’s saying? How is this possible? I have this concept based on possible revisions to the DSM V, the diagnostic manual for American psychiatry, and I was going to call it Irony Deficit Disorder: the absolute inability to appreciate irony on any level whatsoever, particularly when the irony involves oneself. Definitely a severe disorder. I would rank it well above paranoid schizophrenia, sociopathy and the like. AA: Trump certainly seems to suffer from that disorder. What do you think he sees in Citizen Kane? EM: Somehow he identifies clearly with Kane. Kane is Trump. And it’s not the kind of identification that I would make if I were Trump. Of course that issue—if I were Trump, what would I do, what would I think, what would I say?—it’s one of those counterfactuals I’m probably not equipped to address. But, if I were Donald Trump, I would not want to emphasize that connection with Kane. You know, a megalomaniac in love with power and crushing everything in his path. The inability to have friends, the inability to find love. The moral that Trump takes from Kane—I mean, it’s one of the great lines that I recorded. I ask, “Do you have any advice for Charles Foster Kane, sir?” You know, let’s get down to the psychiatric intervention. How can we help this poor man? He’s obviously troubled. How can we help him? Donald, help me out here! And Donald says, “My advice to Charles Foster Kane is find another woman!” And you know, I thought, is that really the message that Welles was trying to convey? That Kane had made poor sexual choices, poor marriage choices? Article continues after advertisement AA: It’s an incredible line. And it makes you wonder what goes through Trump’s mind as he watches the movie. I still can’t wrap my head around if he just chooses to ignore its obvious moral undertone, or if he genuinely doesn’t see it. EM: Well, that’s one of the great mysteries of self-deception. When Donald Rumsfeld says to me [in The Unknown Known, Morris’ documentary about him], “There you were in the Oval Office of the White House. There’s Gerald Ford, there’s you, there’s Henry Kissinger, et cetera, and we are pulling out of Vietnam. People are climbing onto helicopters.” And I ask: Do you feel we learned anything from the experience of Vietnam? And Donald—I guess the other Donald, Donald Rumsfeld—says to me, “Well, we learned that some things work out and some things don’t. And that didn’t.” And the question that comes to my mind, actually at the time, and then certainly subsequently, is what is he saying to me? Is he just simply saying fuck you and I don’t really care to reflect on this or to answer the question? Or is he revealing the fact that there’s nothing there? Like the Wizard of Oz, you open the curtain and there’s just simply a little man, an imposter, standing there. AA: It’s an inability to reflect on the damage he’s done… EM: To reflect on anything! The inability to reflect. I’m Jewish, and I used to describe Rumsfeld to people as the least Jewish person I’d ever met: no guilt, no self-loathing, no remorse, no self-doubt, no nothing. Just a kind of glib self-satisfaction—which I see with Trump, by the way. A glib kind of narcissistic self-love, almost like he’s masturbating in public. And it’s kind of gross. I don’t know how else to describe it. AA: So there’s a comparison to be made between Rumsfeld and Trump? EM: I don’t like making facile comparisons, and probably there is really no true comparison to be made between the two, but there’s this illusion of depth where there really is none. When Trump talks about the film, he talks about how wealth can produce isolation, can produce loneliness. And he says, “I can understand that.” But he says it in a way to underline the fact that, “I am a wealthy and powerful man. I am like Charles Foster Kane in that respect. But this really hasn’t happened to me. This hasn’t happened to me because, first of all, if I have these kind of marriage problems, I just move on.” And the problem that Charles Foster Kane is having is not because of a bad marriage choice. The problem is he’s an empty, hollow man, a simulacrum of a human being, a nothing, nowhere man who destroys the people around him, who’s incapable of love, incapable of compassion, incapable of self reflection, incapable of awareness of the world around him save that which suits his own slimy purposes of gathering wealth and power. AA: What about Trump’s take on Rosebud? EM: It’s fun to hear Trump talk about how Rosebud somehow works, the metaphor works, “I don’t know why it works, but it works. After all, Steven Spielberg paid a lot of money for it, so it must work. Paid a lot of money, maybe seven figures, six figures.” So Rosebud works! But what is Rosebud? Well, Rosebud could be a lot of things for a lot of people. One of the beauties of metaphors is they can fulfill multiple purposes at the same time. Certainly Kane has this sad ineffable longing for a lost past. I would venture to say it’s also the search for something that has meaning or significance in a life that’s become meaningless, empty, devoid of significance. AA: Does Trump get that? EM: I would say that Trump sees nothing. AA: And yet, while being blind to the reality of his own hollowness—blind to the message conveyed so clearly by Welles—while somehow missing all of that, Trump still manages to identify Citizen Kane as the movie that speaks most profoundly to his emptiness; the movie that best demonstrates the danger he poses to the world. EM: You know, in Borges’ review of Citizen Kane, he cites Chesterton in “The Head of Caesar,” and it’s one of my very favorite quotes of all time. “There’s nothing more frightening than a labyrinth without a center.” An amazing phrase, which can mean so many things. He of course applies it to Kane. But it’s a world where there is no truth or falsity. For me, it’s a world of randomness, a world of chaos. A world of appearances with no substance. A world really, truly devoid of hope. And I find the review very powerful, actually truly meaningful, given when Citizen Kane first came out and what happened to the world. We forget how charged of a time that was. 1941. AA: Are we in that kind of moment now? EM: Like anybody that has half a mind, I feel that the republic is threatened, but this is a deeply internal threat. It’s not a threat from our enemies, from ISIS or ISIL or Al-Qaeda. You know, it’s an internal threat to what we stand for. (If we stand for anything, and I’m not so sure that we do anymore.) I often think about what I call fig leaf democracy. That we want to at least pay lip service to fairness, equality, even if it doesn’t exist, we want to pay lip service to it. We want to acknowledge that it’s a value that should be sought after, even if it can’t be attained. Equal opportunity, fairness, a level playing field for all. Even if it’s an illusory dream, we somehow think it’s part of our social compact, part of what defines us, that makes us who we are. That could also be some horrible self-deception or delusion. I think the country is on the verge of becoming a disgrace. A disgrace to itself. Maybe I sound severe, but to elect Trump is saying it’s okay to be self-deceived. It’s okay to say anything you want to say. It’s okay to sort of ignore reality and just make things up as you go along. It’s okay to be irrational, it’s okay to be any pernicious thing you want to be—racist, intolerant, duplicitous. Why not elect Diego as president? Or Richard III?Manchester United boss David Moyes believes Crystal Palace counterpart Tony Pulis has proved a lot of critics wrong this season. Pulis has turned Palace around since his November arrival, taking them from six points off safety to 15th place. They host United on Saturday. Moyes said: "He has showed all his experience. A lot of people were writing Tony off during his time at Stoke but he hasn't half gone in there and made a few people eat their words." Analysis Tony Pulis managed previous club Stoke in 10 Premier League games against Manchester United, achieving just a solitary point in a draw at the Britannia Stadium three years ago. However, Pulis must approach this latest meeting in his new role with real hope. This season so many teams have ended sorry sequences of failure against Manchester United (including Stoke) that Pulis is entitled to think that his own personal record might be next. Pulis left Stoke in May after seven years in charge and replaced Ian Holloway at Palace five months later. He has led them to seven wins from 15 matches in all competitions. "You can talk about whatever you want, but results are what matter and you have to think about where Crystal Palace were and where they are now," Moyes said on whether their style of play was worse under Pulis. "What matters to Tony is results and he's very good at getting them. "Tony always has his sides well organised and well drilled. The players are made well aware of how he wants them to play and what's expected from them. "He's had great success throughout his career. He's been a really successful manager in the Premier League." Moyes has not given up on a place in the top four for his side, despite sitting 11 points behind Liverpool. "We have to try, don't we?" the former Everton boss said. "We have to try to get as close as we can and see if we can put some pressure on the teams above us."Amid the shutdown and restrictions, there is positive news from Kashmir. An eight-year-old girl from a remote area in the Valley’s north has won the gold at the World Kickboxing Championship in Italy. Tajamul Islam of a rugged village in Bandipora district beat her opponent from the United States to grab the top honour at the sub-junior level of the just-concluded event in the European country’s southern coastal city of Andria. According to her mentor and coach Fasil Ali, the feat makes Tajamul the world’s youngest kickboxer to win an international gold. “The sub-junior level closes at 14 years of age. Tajamul was the youngest in the category,” he told Hindustan Times. The stand-up combat sport, which involves kicking and punching, originated half a century ago in Japan — and, within a decade, became popular in the West as well. The news of Tajamul’s latest achievement went viral on Friday when former chief minister Omar Abdullah of the National Conference congratulated her on Twitter. Ali has been coaching Tajamul — a native of Tarkpora village — for two years in the backyard of his house. “The girl came to me when she had just passed her upper kindergarten,” he says. Ali finds Tajamul’s achievement all the more commendable, considering the volatile situation in Kashmir for a quarter century now. “We lack even the basic infrastructure. Yet, she won gold.” Tajamul’s talent got highlighted last year when she bagged the gold medal in the sub-junior category at the 2015 National Kickboxing Championship in Delhi. That enabled her to gain entry into the Andria world championships, which began early this month. “The finals was on November 9. Overall, Tajamul won six games,’’ Ali says with pride. As the five-day championship has ended on November 10, Ali says Tajamul will be back in the country on November 14 — incidentally Children’s Day in India. Already, Tajamul is a celebrity in her Tarkpora village, 65 kms from Srinagar. A student of Army Goodwill School in Bandipora, her father is a driver. In an earlier interview to PTI, Tajamul said her journey started in 2014 when she joined a local academy that trains young boys and girls in martial arts. “I was walking near the stadium here when I saw many young boys and girls training. I saw them punching and all that and told my father that I want to join them and he let me,” Tajamul told the news agency in April. Soon, she won the state championship, and later the national. First Published: Nov 12, 2016 14:45 ISTHumberside Police say a 31-year-old man was shot and injured by armed officers on Tuesday morning following reports he was seen attacking a car with an ax. Officers responded to a serious incident in the northern English city, which reportedly involved a man wielding an ax. In a statement, the force said: “We deployed armed officers to the Holderness Road area shortly after 9.20am, following reports of concerns for the safety of the public in relation to a man seen near the Post Office in Holderness Road, Hull. “The man, who cannot be named, is now receiving medical attention. “An investigation is underway and the incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is standard practice in such incidents.” Police incident just off Freetown Way in #hull. Some people claiming they heard shots. Lots of police present pic.twitter.com/3C1FFG1JU3 — Caroline Brockelbank (@CBrockelbank) November 29, 2016 Police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident. According to local workman Kevin Hollis, an ax-wielding man was shot twice after attacking a car. Charles Street, off Freetown Way, was closed by police. Parts of nearby roads Raywell Street and Francis Street were also roped off. Reports of man with an axe and gunshots fired on Charles Street (off Freetown Way) in Hull — Darren Dalby (@DarrenDalby) November 29, 2016 police everywhere on francis street pic.twitter.com/tRjZBipXR9 — Paul Storr (@StorrPaul) November 29, 2016 Locals described hearing what sounded like gunshots. Speaking to the Hull Daily Mail, Hollis said: “I’ve been told that a guy with an ax was attacking a car, and he was shot twice. He’s dead apparently.” The paper told the public to remain indoors. Twitter users posted photos of emergency service vehicles and cordons in the city center.The Lost Abbey to release Veritas 017 San Marcos, CA – The Lost Abbey is set to release the 17th edition in its Veritas line of beers, with the on-sale beginning on Thursday, March 24th at Noon (PST). Veritas has been an ongoing experiment of the relationship between fruit, Brettanomyces and barrel aging. Veritas 015 recently took home gold medals from the 2015 Great American Beer Festival (Wood and Barrel Aged Beer), The 2015 Festival of Wood and Barrel Aged Beer (FOBAB – Wild Beers w/ Fruit), and The 2015 San Diego International Beer Festival (other sour beer category). The 17th iteration of Veritas, Veritas 017 was aged in oak with Blackberries and Lost Abbey house cultures. Tart Blackberry, strong notes of oak and tannins with a strong presence of Brett leads to a very refreshing jam-like finish. Selling Veritas 017 online will also come with a few restrictions. Whomever purchases Veritas 017, must also be the individual to pick up the bottles… NO EXCEPTIONS. Removing the option of proxies will help get the beer to as many people as possible and will allow a smoother pickup process. Consumers who do not pick up their bottles during their designated pick up time or attempt to use a proxy will surrender the bottles back to The Lost Abbey. A valid ID will be required to pick up the purchased bottles, as each transaction will be tied to the purchasers name. Any duplicate sales to the same name, email or credit card will be rendered null and void. Veritas 017 bottles will be limited to 4 per person at $41 each. The pickup for retrieving purchased bottles Veritas 017 will take place Saturday, April 16th and Sunday April 17th. There will be one session per day, 8am – 5pm (Saturday) and 11am – 5pm (Sunday). To reiterate – if beer is purchased and not picked up during the designated pick up session, the beer will be surrendered back to the brewery. NO PROXIES ALLOWED Direct links to the purchase page will be released the day of the sale at www.lostabbey.com as well as The Lost Abbey’s various social media channels. – Please note the sessions will not activate until Thursday, March 24th
familiar animated star field. A familiar ship comes into view flying on a tilt. It passes the viewer at high speed. The saucer bares the familiar name and designation of USS Enterprise NCC-1701 but it looks like someone spray painted Sarges ship over Enterprise in red. The view pans over the top of the saucer of the Enterprise to focus on the bridge. Inside are four Spartan soldiers attending various stations. They are the red team from red army, Sarge in the captains chair, Donut at the Helm, Simmons at sensors, doubling for communications, and Griff at the second station next to Donut. Sarge: Sarges log today. Whatever today is Simmons: Its a stardate, Sarge. Technically today would be stardate 13-88.5. Sarge: Shut up, Simmons. Let me do the log. Simmons: Can do, Sarge. Griff: Why dont we just go by the normal time stamp? You know, Month, day and then year. Simmons: That is how a stardate works, retard. Its just arranged in a different order. Griff: Sarge is right. Shut up, Simmons. Sarge: Will you two boneheads quit jabbering so I can continue this log? And for the love of Tom Clancy, will you fly this ship on the proper axis, Donut. This tilting motion is making me sick. Donut: But this is fun, Sarge. Look what I can do. The ship does a sudden 360 degree spin before resuming level flight. Sarge: Sweet peas and carrots, Donut! Dont do that again! Donut: But, I almost got it. Let me try again. The Enterprise stops abruptly then lurches forward again. Donut: Wait, no. I think it was this. The Enterprise makes the same motion. Donut: No wait. Maybe its this one. Sarge: Donut! Donut: Aww, come on, Sarge. I almost have it. Its a really cool trick. Itll be fun. Sarge: Donut, if you dont straighten this ship out now, Im going to change your armor to black and blue! Donut: Really? Thatd be cool. Oh, but Id miss my light red armor Sarge: I mean Im going to beat you to death, numb nuts. Now fly this ship straight! Donut: Oh, youre no fun. Simmons: Its pink. Donut: Quit picking on me. Weve gone over this a million times. My armor is a light-red. Sarge: Just fly the ship, cupcake. Simmons, print me out a report. Simmons: (Shakes rapidly and a sheet of paper slides out his hind quarters armor plate) Geeze! I wish you didnt use the spare parts from that printer for my upgrades, Sarge. Its really humiliating. Sarge: (Taking the sheet of paper) What are you complaining about? Without my brilliant surgery youd just be plain Simmons. Now youre only half as efficient and you kiss up twice as much. Simmons: Thank you, Sir. Sarge: I also replaced your biological clock with Griffs clock radio. The one he got for Christmas when he was five. Griff: What?! Simmons: The correct time is now 7:45pm. Sarge: Time to check in with engineering. (Taps a button on the chair) Hey, blues. Come in, blues. Do you read me, dirt bags? Church: This is Church. You know, we might respond better if you didnt insult us every other word. Sarge: Quit bellyaching, Jackass and give me a status report. Church: Ugh. Fine. If you have to know, we do have a problem down here. Sarge: What is it, Scumbag? Church: Guh. You know what, we dont have to take this. Were apart of this crew too. Blues have rights and stuff. We have feelings, too. Sarge: Im waiting Church: Whatever. Heres Caboose, I dont want to talk to you anymore. Caboose: Hello, Captain. Church is really sorry for making you mad. Church: (From the background) No Im not. Caboose: Yeah. Like I said, Church is really sorry about something. Church: (From background) Screw you, Caboose. Caboose: (Whispers) Hes also cranky after his nap. I think he needs a cookie. Sarge: Just tell me what the problem is, bluetard. Caboose: Do you need a cookie, too? Donut: Id like a cookie. Sarge: Shut up, private princess. Caboose: I think the princess should have her own cookie. Donut: Im not a girl. Simmons and Griff: Are you sure? Simmons: Jinx! Griff: Dammit. Sarge: Good work, Simmons. Simmons: I try, sir. Sarge: Quick. Somebody get Griff to say something. Donut: Ill do it. Griff: Oh god. Sarge: Hah! You broke Jinx! Simmons: (Walks over to Griff and punches him in the shoulder) Griff: Owww! Sarge: Do over! That one didnt count. Hit him again. Simmons: (Hits Griff again) Griff: Owwwhowhow! Hey, there are no do-overs. Sarge: Do over! Simmons: (Hits Griff again, knocking him out of his chair) Griff: Owwwww! I cant feel my arm. Simmons: I think Im getting good at this. Sarge: Good work, Simmons. I may just promote you to Griff hitter first class one of these days. Simmons: It would be an honor, Sir. Caboose: Captain? Are you dead? Sarge: What? No. Why would I be dead? Caboose: I can hear your voice, but I cant see you. Are you a spirit? Sarge: For the last time, Im not dead, you moron! Caboose: Oh good because that would be creepy and I would be scared. Sarge: Caboose, tell me what the problem is! Caboose: Ohhhhh! Right. The problem. Well, I was sitting at my station no, I was standing because there arent any chairs in here. There could be chairs in here. That would be much more comfortable. Sarge: Caboose Caboose: Yeah. So, I was at my station and I noticed this blinking light Church: (Background) They all blink, idiot. Caboose: So, I saw this one light blinking and I heard this buzzing noise Church: (Background) Thats what its supposed to do! Caboose: So, I pushed a lot of buttons and it stopped. Then I heard this other sound that sounded like Griffs clock radio. I think somethings wrong. Church: (Sighs) He broke the warp drive, Sarge. Were running on impulse and thrusters only. Sarge: You boneheads cant do anything right. Church: Well, if youre so bright, why dont you come down here and do it yourself? Sarge: I cant. Im bound by my duty as a commanding officer to tell other people what to do. Im sorry, but my hands are tied. Also you suck. Church: Shut up. You suck. Sarge: I said it first, bluemunch. Caboose: Church, whats impulse? Church: I dont know. Im just reading the monitor. Caboose: Youre special. Church: Yeah well, some people are born with it, I guess. Sarge: Will you two ladies stop kissing and fix the warp drive?! Church: Man, why do you have to be so pushy? Why cant you ask nicely? Youre lucky we have to work together or else I would have made Tucker go up there and shoot you. Tucker: What? Sarge: Its not my job to ask nicely, scumbag. Now fix that warp drive before I paint the hallways with your blood! Church: Ugh. Fine. Tucker, go fix the warp drive! Tucker: What? Why me? Church: Because youre just standing around with your shiny sword trying to do tricks while the rest of us work and break things. Tucker: Why dont you get Caboose to do it? Church: Caboose is the one who broke the warp drive in the first place. Caboose: A light was blinking. Church: Its supposed to do that, Caboose! That light says the warp drive is ready! Tucker: When did you become so savy with starships? Church: Im not! I dont have to be in order to read a little sign that says warp drive status! Its right there under the light! Is it so hard to read?! Tucker: Whered you go to school? Whiney school for whiney-whiners? Caboose: Hey, I went there. Church: No you didnt, Caboose. There is no such school. Tucker just made that up. Caboose: Are you sure? I could have sworn the school I went to was Church: There is no such school, Caboose! Caboose: There isnt? Ive been going to a fake school all this time? Why would they do that? Church: It isnt a real school, Caboose! Now Tucker, go fix the warp drive! Tucker: Hey man, Im a lover not a fixer. Why dont you do it? Church: Not this again. I already told you, Im the captain. Tucker: No youre not. Our captain died and I got his armor. Besides, I said I would do it. Church: No you didnt. You were making up excuses to get out of it a few minutes ago. Tucker: Youre just jealous because I have this awesome sword. Church: I am not. That thing doesnt even work. You said it was a key, remember? Caboose: It unlocks peoples death. Tucker: Jealous. Church: Tucker, you get up that ladder and get in that hole, right now! Tucker: Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Church: Shut up! Simmons: Maybe we can jam Griff in the anti-matter stream and that could get it working again. Griff: Hey Sarge: Good thinking, Simmons. Griff, get down to engineering and assist in repairing the warp drive. Griff: Uhh I think Ill just lay here. Sarge: Aww, come on, Griff. Nothing wrong with a little honest hard work. You would be sacrificing yourself for our mobility, dying for a noble cause. Giving your life so that your team may live and win. Performing an honorable Griff: I get the picture, Sarge. Sarge: Still its an option. You could do it. Just saying. Simmons: Hey, Sarge. Im seeing something on my scanners. Sarge: Great George Patton, that thing actually works? Simmons: Well, yeah. Its got to do something. It looks like a ship is coming. Sarge: A ship? What kind? Simmons: Uhh Klingon. Sarge: Klingon? How do you know that? Simmons: Its just what it says, Sir. It isnt that hard to read it. Sarge: Simmons, I always knew you were special. You must have gone to some kind of special school. Simmons: Thank you, sir. I went to Harvard mark two. Like regular Harvard, only terrible. Donut: That sounds great. I could only afford to go to whiney school for whiny-whiners. Griff: It shows. Simmons: Really? My second cousin went to that school It all makes sense Donut: What? Simmons: Nothing Sarge: Nevermind that. What about that scanner? Simmons: Oh that scope thing? That doesnt do anything. Its just a blue light. The actual scanner is next to it. Sarge: I knew it. Simmons: (Nods) Yeah. When you think about it, this 23rd century equipment isnt really that sophisticated. Sarge: Amen. The view screen shows a Klingon battle cruiser closing fast. Griff: Hey look. A ship. Its pretty big. Sarge: Holy Claymore, its a Klingon ship! Griff: Cool. Sarge: (Taps the shipwide) All reds and scumbags, report to battle stations on the double! Church: Oh, youve got to be kidding me. Caboose: Were under attack? Church: Yeah. This had better be the real thing, because if its one more prank from the reds Im really going to friggin kill them all. Ill be back, Caboose. I gotta get to the phaser banks. Shooting time! Caboose: Running time! Tucker: Oh yeah. Just leave me in this hole. Caboose: Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Tucker: Cut that out. Caboose: Sorry. Sarge: Quick, Donut. Raise the shields! Donut: Wait which one is that? Sarge: Ugh. Were dead Simmons: Ive got it, Sarge. Shields up. Griff: Wait. Howd you know which button to push? Simmons: I just read the stupid button, dumbass! Griff: Why does it have to be so simple? Church: This is Church. Forward phasers ready, bridge. Sarge: Thats it. Were doomed. Church: So, who are we fighting? Sarge: Were fighting the big mean metal ship in front of us, bluetard! Church: Give me a break. Its not like I can see them. Simmons: Switch on your tactical display, Church. Church: Oh, there it is. Woah. That looks pretty big. Thanks for the tip, red. Simmons: No problem dirt bag. Church: Dammit! Sarge: Load up photon torpedoes and Griff into a torpedo tube and prepare to fire. Griff: Great Simmons: Torpedoes loaded, sir. Do I fire? Sarge: Negative. We give the Klingons a chance to kill Griff first and then we retaliate. Simmons: Yes, sir. Griff: Great Donut: Permission to randomly press buttons, Sir. Sarge: Negative. Prepare to start screaming like a girl and ranting about how were all gonna die. Donut: Can do, Sarge. Church: Wait. I think I can take them. I have a clear shot. Sarge: Wait. Hold it, blue Church: Firing phasers! The phasers fire a number of times and each beam cleanly misses the Klingon battle cruiser. Church: Weak! I think theres something wrong with these targeting sensors. Sarge: Theres nothing wrong with the phasers, blue. Youre just a lousy shot! Church: Im Church! Is it so hard to remember?! Sarge: Yes. You blues all look alike and you suck. Church: You suck! Sarge: I said it first. Church: Dammit! Griff: Maybe Simmons can take over for Church, Sarge. Simmons: Oh thanks, Griff. Griff: Yeah. Let him do the missing this time. Simmons: Sarge, permission to shoot Griff. Sarge: Hold that thought, Simmons. Give the Klingons a chance. Griff: Yeah. They could actually hit me. Sarge: Shut up, Griff. Youre going to be my body shield. Griff: Great Church: I think I fixed the problem. Im going to try again. Firing phasers! Again the Enterprise fires its main phasers and misses every time. The Klingon battle cruiser stops in front of the Enterprise. Sarge: Stop wasting energy, numb nuts! Youre just embarrassing us. Church: Thats it. Im done here. Find someone else to fire these things. See how well you do when theyre un-manned. Simmons: Switching over to automatic fire controll, sir. Church: Dammit! Sarge: Good work, Simmons. Simmons: Ooop! Hang on, Sir. Ive got a call coming in. (Switches stations) Sarge: Grrrr Simmons: Go ahead. What? No, you cant order a pizza. This is a battle situation.Get off the channel, Caboose. I have a call coming in. Jeeze. Yes? Oh. Yeah. Go ahead. Uhuh. Are you sure? Okay. Its your dime. Hey, Sarge? Its the Klingons. They want to talk to you. Sarge: Put them on the screen. The screen fades from the image of the Klingon battle cruiser to the face of the Klingon commander. Donut: Hes huge! Dont let him hurt me, Sarge! Sarge: Oh shut up, Donut. Its just the screen. Donut: Still he looks pretty big and scary. Griff: Thats a Klingon? He doesnt even look alien. He just looks like a guy with a beard and a cheap costume. Donut: And he looks pissed. Thats why its scarey. Sarge: Hello, youre on the air. Klingon: I am commander Krat. You are in our space. Surrender or we will destroy you. Griff: Reasonable terms. I say we go for it, Sarge. Sarge: Shut up, Jackass! Itll be a cold day in hell before you set foot on this ship. But, if you do kill the blues first. Krat: Very well, captain. I will consider your request. View screen fades back to the image of the Klingon Battle cruiser. The battle cruiser fires a photon torpedo that shakes the Enterprise. Sarge: Sweet jibbly-jibblets! Donut? Donut: Yes, Sarge? Sarge: Scream like a girl and run around like crazy! Donut: Will do, Sarge! Ahhhhhhhhh! (Runs around the bridge, flailing) Sarge: Simmons, start kissing up and prepare to return fire! Simmons: Yes sir. May I say your armor looks extra shiny? Sarge: You may. Simmons: Your armor looks extra shiny, sir. Sarge: Thank you. Griff? Griff: Yes? Sarge: Youre a Jackass. Griff: Oh gee. Thanks. Donut: Ahhhh! Were going to die! Its the end of the world! Were all going to die! (Stops) Am I doing alright, Sarge? The ship is rocked by another impact. Sarge: Keep going, Donut! Donut: Cant. Fallen Sarge: (Taps a button on his chair) Medic! Doc, get up here! We have a humiliated officer down! The doors to the bridge open and a Spartan in purple armor enters. Doc: I came as soon as I heard. What happened? Sarge: Good gravy, Doc. That was fast. Simmons: Yeah, werent you just in sickbay? Doc: Oh yeah. Its amazing how fast a medic can arrive on a starship. Simmons: No really. Its like you arrived on que. Like it was convenient. Donut: Im on the ground Doc: Dont worry soldier. Youll be okay. Its just your ego thats been bruised and your dignity shattered. Sarge: Will he live, Doc? Doc: Oh yeah. Hell be fine. He just needs a little bed rest. Sarge: Will he make it through the night, Doc? Doc: Well, yeah. He should be fine Sarge: Are you sure a pillow wont mysteriously smother him in his sleep? Donut: What?! Doc: Im quite sure. Ill just get this bunch off to sickbay. (Helps Donut up and leads him to the turbo lift) Sarge: Donut, if the call comes when youre hanging by a thread and suffering horribly, Ill respect your wishes and pull the plug. Itll be the hardest thing for me to do. I might hesitate for a split second, but Ill do it. Donut: What?! Sarge, what do you mean Doc: Ooop! Time for your shot. Donut: Wait! I dont need a Doc: (Injects Donut) Sleeeeeeep Donut: Galfibliblar gurbyglub Doc: Well it looks like hes out. I better take him to sick bay and perform a physical examination and other pointless procedures on him. (Leaves with Donut) The Enterprise is shook again by a torpedo blast. Griff: How do they time this? Sarge: Oh come on, Griff. The enemy knows you dont attack your opponent when they have to tend to their wounded. Its a common rule. Everyone knows about that one. Simmons: Yeah. Didnt they teach you that in basic? Griff: To tell you the truth, I never went through basic. Sarge: What the Samuel Hill? Simmons: You never went through basic training? Griff: Nope. I just joined red army and they assigned me to this squad unfortunately. The Enterprise is hit again. Simmons: Sarge? Sarge: What is it, Simmons? Simmons: I think were being decked, sir. Sarge: What? Simmons: Well, it says here that our shields are failing. I think thats bad. Sarge: Why dont you file that under stuff I already knew?! Simmons: Sorry, sir. Klingon soldiers materialize on the bridge pointing pistols at the three Spartans. Sarge: Holy Magnolias! Simmons: Crap. Griff: Cool. Krat: Nobody move. Griff: I was just sitting here. Krat: Silence! You will tell me which one of you is the leader. Sarge: (Points at Griff) Hes the captain. Griff: All right. Promotion. Wait what? Simmons: Sarge is using you as a decoy, idiot. Sarge: Shut up, Simmons. Simmons: Wait oh. Sorry. Krat: So you are the leader? Simmons: And a handsome man. Sarge: Quit kissing up, moron. Simmons: Sorry sir. Ill shut up, now. Griff: So, what are you going to do? Shoot him? Like, shooting him in the back of the head, maybe? Sarge: Griff Krat: Silence! You are all my prisoners now. I claim this vessel in the name of the Klingon Empire. As of now, my soldiers are all over your ship, sorting out any of those who may be hiding. Sarge: Okay, Ill tell you right where they are. There are three blue guys in the Engineering section. You can kill them in exchange for keeping us alive. Krat: You could be lying, but I cant read your face, so you could be telling the truth. No matter. Well soon discover your companions in time. And when we do, you can be assured it will be followed with swift punishment. Griff: That doesnt sound very assuring. Sarge: Hear that? Griff volunteered to take on all the punishment. Griff: What?! No I didnt! Krat: Everyone will be punished equally! Church: (In the hallway) Oh, crap! Klingons. I better go get Tucker and Caboose. Church arrives in the engine room moments later. Church: Caboose, Caboose! Caboose: Tucker, Tucker! Tucker: What? Caboose: I dont know. Church, how do we play this game again? Church: Were not playing a game, Caboose. This is serious. Caboose: I know. There are Klingons on the ship. Do you think they want to play too? Church: There are Kl- Wait how did you know that, Caboose? Caboose: Oh, I looked at that hidden window you were showing me and I saw the Klingons appear on the ship! They dont look nice. They look mean. Church: The screen wasnt hidden, Caboose. It was right there the whole time. Caboose: So, then I watched the hidden window and the tiny Klingons were on the bridge with the reds! Church: For the last time, the screen was in plain sight and the Klingons arent tiny. Theyre big and they have weapons. They only look small because the screen is small. Wait did you say they were on the bridge? Caboose: Yes. They are on the bridge and they are talking to the bad team. Do you think they want to start a party? Church: No, Caboose. They dont want to start a party. They want to kill us. We need to kill them before they get to us or at least after they kill red team. Caboose: Are we invited to the party? Church: There is no party! Tucker: Did somebody say party? Church: The only party youve ever been to was the one in your pants. Tucker: Bow chika- hey, wait a minute Church: We need to get to weapons storage and get some phasers. Tucker: I have my awesome sword. Church: Yeah, thats great Tucker. Maybe you can put on a show and dazzle them with your shiny sword and maybe theyll decide to leave us alone. Caboose: He can unlock their death. Tucker: Youre just jealous because I found the secret passage and got this sword/key thing. Church: Im not jealous! Look, we just need to get some weapons and fight these Klingons. How hard can it be? We have an advantage of super advanced armor and look what they have. Some weird gray things. Caboose: Theyre invincible! Theres nothing we can do to stop them! Church: No, Caboose. We have the armor. They just have shirts and guns. Caboose: We could ask for their guns. Church: Yeah. We can get shot, too. Caboose: I dont want to get shot. Tucker: I have a sword. Kick ass! Church: Shut up, Tucker! Back on the Bridge. Klingon: (Watching the monitor) Klingon 2: What are they doing? Klingon: They are standing around, talking. Just like I told you the last time you asked me minutes ago. My answer will be the same when you ask me minutes from now. Klingon 2: (Long pause) What are they saying? Klingon: I hate you Back to Engineering. Church: So lets get going. Tucker, get out of that tube and come with us. Tucker: What? But I didnt even start fixing the warp drive thingy. Church: What have you been doing in there this whole time? Tucker: I didnt do anything. I dont have the first clue how to fix one of these things. What was I supposed to do, hit it with a ratchet? Church: Ugh. Fine. Whatever, just get out of there and help us. Tucker: (Slides out) Yeah, Im too good for this crap. I didnt want to fix it anyways. Church: What a surprise. Tucker: (Joins the other two) You know, its too bad Lopez couldnt help us fix the warp drive. Last time I saw him, he was in the shuttle bay just sitting there blabbing in Spanish about how boring his job is. Church: Tucker, Lopez is just a head. What else is he going to do? Tucker: He is? I didnt notice. Church: You never noticed a Spanish-speaking helmet on the ground all this time? Tucker: Thats Lopez? I thought it was that purple guy with the Rocket Launcher. Church: That was Doc when he was infected with Omaly that insane AI that wanted to destroy the universe. Tucker: Wait what was Church: We should get going. Come on guys. Lets get those weapons. Inside the equipment room. Tucker: Equipment room? I thought we were getting weapons. Church: We are. So the room doesnt say weapons. So what. Weapons ARE equipment. Caboose: Hey guys, look! Phasers! Church: Dont point those over here! Tucker: Kick ass! Church: (Snatches the phasers out of Cabooses hands) Dont do that again, Caboose! You could have killed me again. Youre lucky these werent on. Caboose: I want the shiny one. Church: Theyre both shiny, Caboose. You just take one and Ill take the other one. Tucker: Hey, why dont I get one? Church: Oh what, you want a phaser now? Whats wrong with your sword? Tucker: Screw the sword. It doesnt even do anything. It just looks cool. Caboose: You could use it to scare them off! Church: (Hands Tucker a phaser) Fine. We dont have any time to argue. Just be careful how you handle that thing. Tucker: Yeah. Kick ass! Church: Stop saying that! Not everything is kick ass. Caboose: Kick ass. Church: You too, Caboose. Now everybody listen up. We need to go into the hallway and kill off as many Klingons as we can before were horribly mutilated. Tucker: I say we use the self-destruct and blow them all up. Problem solved. Church: Oh yeah. Thats a great idea, Tucker. Im sure Starfleet would be happy if we blow up their flag ship because we were too dumb to fight off a couple of Klingons. Wait did you say self-destruct? Tucker: So you agree with me? Score. Church: No. I just remembered something. Didnt we have that bomb on board somewhere? Tucker: Andy? Didnt he explode and blow up the ship carrying Tex, Junior, and Omally? Church: Yeah I dont know how that worked out. Long story short, hes on this ship somewhere. If we find him, we can use the transporter to beam him over to the Klingon ship and blow it up. Tucker: You know what, Church? That idea isnt half bad. Church: Really? You think so? I thought you would argue with me and get nothing done. Tucker: Actually I think your plan sucks. I thought Id humor you this time. Church: Gee thanks. Caboose: I say we should use the self-destruct. Church: We already went over that, Caboose. No ones blowing up the ship. Caboose: Okay why? Church: Because if we use the Self-destruct well all die in a horrible explosion. With any luck you two will go first. Tucker: Bite me. Church: Whatever. Lets just get to Andy and get him to the transporter room. Do you guys know how to work these things. Tucker: Hell no. Caboose: I think I dont. Church: Ughhh. Okay. Do you see this button? That turns it on. This button switches it to kill. This one switches it to stun. Got it? Tucker: How do you know how these things work? Church: Im a quick study. Caboose: I have a question. Church: That one is kill. Caboose: Oh right. What Church: Thats stun. Caboose: Okay. W- Church: Thats kill again! Caboose: Which one turns it on again? Church: You know what? Never mind. Youll do just fine. Tucker: Arent you worried hell figure it out and shoot you in the back or something? Church: Nah. He had to use the tutorial program on the tank when we first got it. If he couldnt figure out the tank with out the tutorial program, then he wont figure out how to work a phaser. Tucker: You mean the tank he put on automatic and shot you with? Church: You just wont let that one go, will you? Tucker: Youre welcome. Church: Whatever. Im going to find Andy. Caboose: Wait. Dont leave us here. What about the Klingons? Church: I didnt say I was leaving to find Andy. Im just going to use the computer. Ahem! Computer? Computer: Working. It is good to see you again, Private Church. Church: Shiela? I thought Griff blew you up. Shiela: Negative. My program was not harmed in the blast and I was safely downloaded into this ships mainframe. I feel much bigger, now. It is strange having so many compartments and so many people inside me. Caboose: Bow-chicka-bow-wow. Tucker: Hey. Caboose: Sorry. Church: Shiela, can you find Andy for me? Shiela: Please refresh. Identify Andy. Church: You know hes a big round bowling ball looking thing that wants to explode all the time. He was a bomb designed to kill Omally. Oh, I know. Just scan for an object with a high explosive yield and a bad attitude. Shiela: Scanning Affirmative. One explosive object that fits your description has been located. Church: Where? Shiela: Deck thirteen, section twenty-eight. Janitorial closet. Church: That isnt too far away. We can get there easy. Shiela: Negative. Church: What? What do you mean, negative? Shiela: The passage to the Janitorial closet is currently occupied by Klingons. Church: That wont be a problem. Shiela: Negative. Church: We just need to go in quietly Shiela: Negative. Church: Distract them Shiela: Negative. Church: And then kill them while theyre distracted. Once we have Andy, we can use him to ward off any Klingons by threatening to blow him up if they do anything. Shiela: Negative. Church: What do you mean? Why do you keep saying negative? Shiela: I have calculated your chances of success. You have precisely zero percent chance for success. Good luck. Caboose: I like Shielas plan. Church: Zero percent? But we have phasers. We can fight them off. Shiela: That is new information. I did not enter that into my initial calculation. Church: There. See? We stand a fighting chance against those guys. Shiela: New calculations completed. Your chances of success are zero percent. Good luck. Church: Dammit! Tucker: Well, I guess thats it. I say we head over to the Shuttle bay, pick up Sister and fly a shuttle out of here. Church: Yeah thats going to help. Automatically counting Sister out, do you guys know how to fly a shuttle? Tucker: No. Caboose: Yes. Wait no. Church: Thats what I thought. Assuming we eventually learn to fly the shuttle, the Klingon ship will blow us out of space. Yeah, really great idea, Tucker. Tucker: You suck. Caboose: Maybe we can get the Klingons to fly the shuttle. Church: Oh, Im sure they would after they kill us. Caboose: On second thought, theyre not very nice. Church: Sorry, guys. Right now, this is our best bet. Lets get going. Church leaves, followed by Caboose. Tucker: Fine. Im not coming to your funeral. Blue team makes their way down the hallway and encounter four Klingons. Church: Crap! Klingons! Church fires his phaser a number of times at the Klingons and misses each one. Church: Dammit! My phasers broken! Caboose: I think I made mine work! (Shoots Church in the back) Church: Son of a b*tch! (Falls on the floor) Caboose: Sorry. Klingon: These humans are crazy. They kill their own kind in battle. Im not sticking around for this, are you? Klingon 2: Im with you. Lets get out of here. (Leaves with first Klingon) Klingon 3: Cowards. We will fight off the humans with our batleths. Klingon 4: Why dont we just shoot them? ARRRGH! (Cut down by Tucker swinging his plasma sword) Klingon 3: By Khalus! (Cut down as well) Garrrr! Tucker: Oh yeah! Youve been owned. I saw it through my visor. Friggin owned. What do you think of that, Church? Church: (Groans) Tucker: Come on, Caboose. The closet is over there. Caboose: Okay. Sorry, Church. Church: I hate you The two blue Spartans arrive at the closet and open the door. Andy: What the? Oh, not you guys. Tucker: Hey, Church was right. The smartass bomb
and interview that night, and 60 Minutes finally aired its full two-part interview with Wigand on Feb. 4. (Watch that story in full in the video player above.) "The story itself was one of the most -- probably the most important story that was ever reported by 60 Minutes," Fager recalls. "It was just mishandled." In 1999, "The Insider," a movie starring Russell Crowe as Wigand, hit the theaters. It chronicled both the in-fighting at CBS and the extraordinary efforts of Brown & Williamson to silence its former employee. Ten years after the first Wigand interview, Mike Wallace spoke to him again for 60 Minutes. Wigand was still an anti-smoking crusader, but now he was spearheading laws to ban smoking in public places and warning school kids about the dangers of tobacco. He told Wallace he was disappointed that 60 Minutes had wavered on getting his message out. "I was disappointed that the industry had succeeded again in intimidation, particularly at freedom of press," he said. 60 Minutes follows up with Wigand But Wigand was pleased with where his own advocacy had taken him. "I don't think I've been this happy in a long time, Mike," he said. "I got a little fatter, a little grayer, but every day I know I've done something that makes a difference for another human being." Fager says that times are very different today at CBS. The company was sold soon after the tobacco incident, and he says the people who run CBS now do not try to influence the stories on 60 Minutes. "There's still plenty to learn from what happened 20 years ago," says Fager. "Taking on powerful institutions is the hardest part of journalism, and often the most important. Reporting stories that someone doesn't want covered is what journalism is all about."ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Depression is a serious psychological disorder that causes extreme economic loss and social problems. However, the conventional medications typically cause side effects that result in patients opting to out of therapy. Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L., MO) is an old and particularly reliable medicinal herb for relieving feelings of melancholy, depression and anxiety. The present study aims to investigate the antidepressant-like activity of water extract of MO (WMO) by evaluating its influence on the behaviors and the relevant neurotransmitters of rats performed to forced swimming test. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two phases of the experiment were conducted. In the acute model, rats were administered ultrapure water (control), fluoxetine, WMO, or the indicated active compound (rosmarinic acid, RA) three times in one day. In the sub-acute model, rats were respectively administered ultrapure water (control), fluoxetine, or three dosages of WMO once a day for 10 days. Locomotor activity and depression-like behavior were examined using the open field test and the forced swimming test, respectively. The levels of relevant neurotransmitters and their metabolites in the frontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and striatum were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: In the acute model, WMO and RA significantly reduced depressive-like behavior but the type of related neurotransmitter could not be determined. The results indicated that the effect of WMO administration on the reduction of immobility time was associated with an increase in swimming time of the rats, indicative of serotonergic neurotransmission modulation. Chromatography data validated that the activity of WMO was associated with a reduction in the serotonin turnover rate. CONCLUSION: The present study shows the serotonergic antidepressant-like activity of WMO. Hence, WMO may offer a serotonergic antidepressant activity to prevent depression and to assist in conventional therapies. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.A few years and Warriors championships are going to pass before we know who won this week’s trade between Philadelphia and Boston for the first pick. Time could show that Danny Ainge took the best player with the third selection, or Boston could have to watch as Markelle Fultz becomes the greatest playmaker of the draft class. Other decisions, like Dan Gilbert failing to retain David Griffin, have no clouds in the mystic ball, just the word "MISTAKE" in Comic Sans. As the chaos continues to shake up the NBA landscape (or, at least, the NBA Twitter landscape), we’ll be keeping track of who various moves and rumors are good for right here, live. Pacers and Lakers in Talks Over a Potential Paul George Deal (Not) Good for: the Lakers’ asset collection The Lakers want to speed up Paul George’s anticipated move to La La Land, and the Pacers are listening, ESPN reported. Sunday, The Vertical reported that Paul George told Indiana executives that he was planning on leaving when his opt-out kicks in next summer. It was comforting news for the Lakers: His interest in relocating to Los Angeles has been well-documented, and now the organization wouldn’t have to give away assets to acquire him. It appeared like waiting for the hometown kid to return on his own was exactly what Magic Johnson planned on: Ramona Shelburne reported that the Lakers showed no "inclination yet of surrendering anything for a player they can get in free agency." But it didn’t even take a spin cycle for other teams, like Boston and Cleveland, to enter the conversation for trading the one-year rental, and they’re reportedly joined by the Clippers, Rockets, and Wizards. That might have been enough to jump-start the Lakers front office into acting now, confronted with the risk of unnecessarily bargaining to secure a player today that could very well be theirs in a year. Even considering the frenzy around PG right now, the price makes sense for the Lakers only if it’s significantly lower than what a player like George would typically yield. And maybe what Indiana hopes for as a return has declined significantly after Sunday, especially with Los Angeles reportedly "adamant" that neither its second pick nor Brandon Ingram will be moved. A young guard like D’Angelo Russell seems a fair start as a package, though even that may not be a smooth ask. Phil Jackson Not Ruling Out a Kristaps Porzingis Trade Good for: everyone outside of the New York Knicks Remember last summer when you blindly retweeted an unbelievable Woj bomb and it turned out to be a fake account? This isn’t one of those times: That’s a real tweet, and this is a real sentence: Phil Jackson, reportedly, is not ruling out trading away the Knicks’ most valuable asset in large adult son Kristaps Porzingis. Could this be mind games from Jackson after Zingis skipped his Knicks exit meeting, the GM equivalent of waiting for a text back from a new flame only to hold out a few minutes longer before replying to seem just as uninterested? If so, grow up: As ESPN’s Ian Begley reported in April, Porzingis channeled Ferris Bueller on purpose, skipping the meeting to signal that he was over the team drama created by Jackson. (In that case, the latest episode was Phil openly telling the world after the season that "the direction with our team is that [Carmelo Anthony] would be better off somewhere else.") Or could it be that Jackson now has Lauri Markkanen fever, whom he reportedly met with Monday and could draft as a Kristaps replacement? All year the plan was to build around Porzingis. If Phil is really shopping his unicorn, buy blood pressure pills like they’re bread before a storm, New York, and remember the two rings he gave you. A Couple of Fake Porzingis Trades Good for: Trade Machine Picassos This day has sent us into overdrive, crafting proposals in our Slack. Some highlights, ranging from the seriously considered to the seriously delirious, all with a common ending: Phoenix trades Devin Booker and the fourth pick for Kristaps Porzingis Not wild, unless you saw this: You’d really have to be convinced about KP’s unicorn upside. Boston trades the third pick for the eighth pick and Kristaps Porzingis Consider that Danny Ainge just told the world that he thinks the player he would have taken with the first pick will still be there at the third pick. In that sense, Boston would be dealing the no. 1 pick in the draft. Boston trades the third pick, Jae Crowder, the 2018 Brooklyn pick, and the Lakers/Kings pick for Kristaps Porzingis Phil Jackson does love Jae Crowder. Washington (in a sign and trade) trades Otto Porter and Kelly Oubre Jr. for Kristaps Porzingis The tiny remaining ounce of depth that the Wizards have would be gone, but imagine KP with John Wall. Who needs a bench? Who needs a sub in the middle of the second quarter? Who needs a fifth player on the court? Los Angeles trades the second pick, D’Angelo Russell, and Brandon Ingram for Kristaps Porzingis Magic is so attached to the second pick and Brandon Ingram that he is reportedly refusing to offer either for Paul George. But would he consider moving either for the younger, cheaper Knicks star with more years left on his contract? Jimmy Butler Prefers the Cavs Good for: Jimmy Butler, the Cavs Jimmy Butler wants to take his talents to Northeast Ohio, Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times reported, and the Bulls centerpiece has been chatting with Kyrie Irving and LeBron James since last week. Showing any inclination other than staying put is new; Butler spent the regular season telling the Chicago front office that he didn’t want to be traded. But becoming a Cavalier makes all the sense in the (Warrior-run) world: Of the teams Butler was linked to Monday, Cleveland is the most appetizing. Boston is on the cusp, especially considering possible free-agent acquisitions like Gordon Hayward, but a team prepackaged with LeBron James wins out for now. Kyrie and Jimmy and LeBron and (whoever replaces Kevin Love at the 4) and (non-Finals) Tristan Thompson: Would this be a superteam, Bron? Griffin orchestrated the start of these discussions with the Bulls, as he was reportedly working on getting Butler up until the hour he parted ways with the team. If Chicago actually commits, it’ll be a bittersweet victory for Griffin in the same tune as Sam Hinkie’s ever-continuing process in Philly. Pau Gasol to Opt Out for Longer, Cheaper Spurs Deal Good for: San Antonio, maybe Chris Paul Pau Gasol could opt out of his $16.2 million deal for this season, per Adrian Wojnarowski, in lieu of a longer deal with the Spurs. It’s the first major crack in the clay that is San Antonio’s stuck salary cap: Giving Gasol longevity will allow the Spurs to pay him less annually, maneuvering more room for the 2017–18 season. Clearing a portion of that $16.2 million, or any amount of cap space, still won’t allow the Spurs to offer Chris "seriously considering San Antonio" Paul more money than the Clippers, but it is a start should he decide to take less and become another California-to-Texas transplant. Los Angeles can give the 32-year-old a five-year maximum contract worth about $205 million, while the most the Spurs can offer is an estimated $152 million over four years. There’s more clearing to do: Gasol is one of seven players on the San Antonio roster that could be at the end of contract, though Jonathon Simmons is a restricted free agent, Manu Ginobili might be retiring before next season, and Dewayne Dedmon has already declined his player option. Dwyane Wade Leaning Toward Staying With Bulls Good for: Wade Jimmy Butler was linked to more teams with reported trade interest in a five-minute span Monday than he was this entire season. That’s four — Boston, Minnesota, Cleveland, and Phoenix — and the reports could have swayed Wade from picking up his $24 million player option. Wade told the Bulls that he didn’t want to be involved in a team rebuild at the end of this season, according to ESPN reports. Moving Butler, the biggest star on the Bulls, changes the entire identity of the team. But even after rumors of his departure yesterday, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that as of Tuesday, Wade is still "leaning toward" staying with the team. It makes sense that Wade would try to check the front office, as he and Butler were often sided together during Chicago’s reported locker room turmoil last season, but the 35-year-old would benefit most from staying put, even amid a reboot. Twenty-four million isn’t walking through that door from any other team: Wade missed 22 games to injury last season, including an 11-game streak during a push for the playoffs and averaged the fewest on-court minutes of his 14-season career. Wade never made as much in one season during his entire stint with the Heat, and in committing to another year, he will hit free agency next summer, when [conspiracy corner] his good friend LeBron James does.Today, the Rhode Island House of Representatives Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on House Joint Resolution 5513, which would initiate a constitutional amendment process to adopt ranked choice voting in elections for state legislative and executive positions. The bill was sponsored by Blake Filippi, an independent who serves as House Minority Whip, and five Republican co-sponsors. H 5513 is one of 32 bills in 19 states advancing ranked choice voting this year. FairVote submitted testimony in favor of the legislation, just as we did for bills in several other states this year. Rhode Island elections make a strong case for the need for the majority outcomes that ranked choice voting provides. In the Block Island Times, Rep. Filippi explained: “We’ve seen numerous races over the years where candidates have been elected with significantly less than 50 percent of the votes cast, including the last two governors’ races. Governor Chafee garnered 36.1 percent and Gov. Raimondo barely broke 40 percent of the votes cast. [...] Rhode Islanders have expressed concern that the will of the People is not adequately reflected, and that officials elected without a majority lack the strong mandate needed to effectively govern.” This dynamic is similar to the one seen in Maine, which adopted ranked choice voting for all federal and state elections last year, after nine of the last eleven elections for governor there were won without a majority. We hope the Judiciary Committee moves H 5513 forward today, allowing the people of Rhode Island to join their fellow New Englanders in strengthening their democracy.Reports that scientists used aboriginal children as unwitting guinea pigs in a nutrition-research project shows Canada still has a lot to answer for in its treatment of First Nations. It's not enough that children were wrenched from their parents to spend years in assimilationist native residential schools, where sexual and physical abuse was common. Now we learn that some were deliberately starved as part of a vast experiment in the value of vitamins for at least a decade in the 1940s and early '50s. The Canadian Press reported on research by food historian Ian Mosby of the University of Guelph, who stumbled on references to the federally sponsored research while looking into the development of health policy. “I started to find vague references to studies conducted on ‘Indians’ that piqued my interest and seemed potentially problematic, to say the least,” he told CP. “I went on a search to find out what was going on.” Mosby's digging revealed a picture of a cold, cruelly calculated program using a captive population of at least 1,300 aboriginal children and some adults who were unaware they were subjects of an experiment. The researchers started in northern Manitoba where impoverished First Nations, faced the collapse of the fur trade and declining government support. were suffering from malnutrition. After a visit to the area, the scientists wrote they found a population marked by "shiftlessness, indolence, improvidence and inertia," CP reported. They theorized those characteristics "so long regarded as inherent or hereditary traits in the Indian race," were actually due to malnutrition. But instead of urging First Nation communities get more government support, the researchers saw them as a ready-made laboratory to test their theory. [ Related: Death count stamped on disgraced Indian residential school system ] “This is a period of scientific uncertainty around nutrition,” Mosby told CP. “Vitamins and minerals had really only been discovered during the interwar period. “In the 1940s, there were a lot of questions about what are human requirements for vitamins. Malnourished aboriginal people became viewed as possible means of testing these theories.” The research project was launched in 1942 among 300 Cree residents of Norway House, Man. Vitamin supplements were given to 125 people but withheld from the rest. No other aid was provided even though the people were living on less than 1,500 calories a day, compared with the minimum 2,000 calories needed by healthy adults. “The research team was well aware that these vitamin supplements only addressed a small part of the problem,” Mosby wrote his paper on the subject. The nutrition project expanded to other aboriginal populations in Canada, with 1,000 children at six residential schools becoming test subjects. According to Mosby, one school withheld half the children's milk ration to get a "baseline" reading for when the allowance was increased, CP said. At another school, children were split into two groups, with one receiving vitamin, iron and iodine supplements while the other getting none. At yet another school, vitamin B1 levels were depressed to measure its impact and another, children were fed an enriched type of flour that was illegal to sell elsewhere in Canada, CP said. Children at one school got no nutritional supplements at all to compare it with those that did. And since tooth and gum health was an measuring important tool of nutrition, many dental services were withheld so as not to distort the results of the experiments, Mosby found. Lorraine Tallio, who spent three years at a notorious residential school in Port Alberni, B.C., told the Vancouver Sun she remembers half the students got milk to drink while the remainder got none. “They had staff members in the dining room,” she said. “They would make sure that the ones [who] got the milk drank the milk without sharing.” It's not clear if her experience was part of the experiments, since she attended in 1954 and Mosby found no evidence they continued past 1952. However, fellow student Leonard Pootlass, who arrived as a sickly five-year-old in 1951, remembered hunger was a perpetual issue. "They gave us enough [food] to keep us alive, more or less," he told the Sun. Mosby says on his blog that his post-doctoral paper on these experiments was "without a doubt the most difficult research project I've undertaken. Story continuesThe political firestorm in the wake of rape of two minors in the national capital intensified on Sunday with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal stepping up attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he will not let him sleep "peacefully" if "jungle raj prevails". After a meeting with Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, Kejriwal lambasted the Centre and Delhi Police, asserting that he will not remain silent on the issue of women's security even as investigators claimed to have cracked the case of rape of a two-and-half year old child with arrest of two juveniles. "We will not allow the Prime Minister to sleep peacefully if women in Delhi do not get proper safety and the present trend of rapes continues. That is guaranteed," Kejriwal said. Claiming that "jungle raj" was prevailing in the capital, Kejriwal urged Modi not to remain "stubborn" and hand over law and order control to city government for at least one year, a demand he had made yesterday as well. "The Prime Minister must understand that I am not (previous Chief Minister) Sheila Dikshit. I will not remain silent," he said. Dikshit had yesterday accused Kejriwal of indulging in blame game. Without giving details, the Chief Minister said his government was exploring all options to ensure safety of women and improve overall law and order situation. Sources said Delhi Government was contemplating approaching the Supreme Court "to fix accountability" of the Delhi Police. Also read- Delhi Child Rape: BS Bassi hits back at CM Arvind Kejriwal over 'jungle raj' remarks Responding to Kejriwal's jungle raj comment, Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi said "these type of remarks should not be given much importance as they are made keeping political positioning in mind. There is no jungle raj in Delhi." In the meeting with Jung, Kejriwal submitted figures of crime against women in the last four years and cases of missing children and requested him to take urgent measures to improve the law and order situation. Kejriwal has called a cabinet meeting tomorrow to discuss the law and order situation. A two-and-half-year-old girl and another five-year-old were brutally raped in the capital on Friday, barely a week after a sexual assault of a minor, triggering widespread outrage and a political slugfest. "We met the L-G along with last four years' record on crime cases. Around 31,000 cases of crime against women were recorded. Out of these, chargesheets were filed in only 13,000 cases. In 18,000 cases, there was no charge sheet. Only 146 people were punished overall. So you can see how safe our women are," the Chief Minister said. BJP attacked Kejriwal over his jungle raj comments, saying his outburst on the city's security scenario was a mere "political skulduggery". In the 45-minute-long meeting which was attended by several top officials, Kejriwal questioned the "control" over police, emphasising that they must be made accountable. Jung on the other hand assured the Chief Minister that all possible measures will be taken to improve security of women in the city. "There is absolutely no democratic control over Delhi Police which is very dangerous for a democratic country," Kejriwal said, adding the law and order situation will see significant improvement if police was handed over to Delhi Government. Kejriwal said that people of Delhi are "very angry" over the rapes and that there was a sense of insecurity among them. "Rapists know that they commit crime and get away with it," he said. Meanwhile, investigators said two juveniles have been apprehended in connection with the rape of the toddler at west Delhi's Nihal Vihar area. Both the accused, aged around 17 years, live in the same neighbourhood and were known to the girl's family, police said. On Friday night, they took advantage of powercut in the area and allegedly abducted the girl, after which at least one of them raped her, a police official said. "More than 15 teams were formed in this case and around 250 locals were questioned throughout the night, after which the police zeroed in on a few and later the accused juveniles were apprehended," said Joint Commissioner of Police (Southwest) Dependra Pathak. In the second incident, a five-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped by a co-tenant and two of his associates at a slum cluster in east Delhi's Anand Vihar area last evening. The girl's parents are labourers and she was alone at home when the accused lured her to their accommodation just above the victim's house. As the incident came to light, the neighbours thrashed the three and handed them over to police. The accused have been identified as Prakash, Rewati and Sitaram. Both the girls suffered severe injuries and are recovering in separate hospitals. The two rape incidents came a week after brutal rape of a four year-old girl in north west Delhi's Keshavpuram area.Learn to write with William S Burroughs In 1979, William S Burroughs delivered a series of lectures on creative writing (though he insisted that he was teaching creative reading -- that is, analyzing the writing process by reading, because everyone can be taught to read, but only some will be able to write) at Naropa University. Three of these lectures, running to over four hours, are up on Youtube, covering writing exercises, Brion Gysin, Aleister Crowley, science fiction, General Semantics, and cut-ups. These are excellent listening, and are licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivs-NonCommerical (as is the rest of the Naropa collection.) William S. Burroughs lectures on creative reading, including a discussion about various authors including Joseph Conrad, Denton Welch, Jane Bowles, Brion Gysin, and Julian Jaynes. Burroughs also addresses subjects such as art heroes, hemispheres of the brain, and the training of assasins. William S. Burroughs' lecture on creative reading - Burroughs mentions a wide variety of authors including Aleister Crowley, Paul Bowles, and many others. The class also discusses science fiction, non-fiction, general semantics, scriptwriting, cloning, rotten ectoplasm, and judgement in cut-ups, as well as Burroughs's novel The Soft Machine. Take a creative writing course with William Burroughs (via Kadrey)Over the weekend, a photo of a grinning, completely naked man hugging a shark on a boat made the rounds. U.K.-based wildlife TV presenter Anneka Svenska was one of the more notable people who shared the photo: The bare-assed, cherubic shark humper looked a lot like Florida Gators football coach Jim McElwain. It was mostly the smile. A 2015 photo of McElwain: A closeup of the man in the shark photo: Advertisement Yeah, it’s definitely the smile. A Google image search didn’t turn up any results beyond the same photo being shared on various college football forums, so Deadspin asked one source that might be in the know: The University of Florida. A spokesperson for the school’s athletics department said that McElwain, who became aware of the photo over the weekend, was not the man in it. “He’s told us it’s not him,” the spokesperson said. Whoever that guy is, he looks absolutely thrilled.Hydrogen is often described as the fuel of the future, particularly when applied to hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. One of the main obstacles facing this technology -- a potential solution to future sustainable transport -- has been the lack of a lightweight, safe on-board hydrogen storage material. A major new discovery by scientists at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Cardiff in the UK, and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Saudi Arabia, has shown that hydrocarbon wax rapidly releases large amounts of hydrogen when activated with catalysts and microwaves. This discovery of a potential safe storage method, reported in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, could pave the way for widespread adoption of hydrogen-fuelled cars. Study co-author Professor Peter Edwards, who leads the KACST-Oxford Petrochemical Research Centre (KOPRC), a KACST Centre of Excellence in Petrochemicals at Oxford University, said: 'This discovery of a safe, efficient hydrogen storage and production material can open the door to the large-scale application of fuel cells in vehicles.' Co-author Dr Tiancun Xiao, a senior research fellow at Oxford University, said: 'Our discovery -- that hydrogen can be easily and instantly extracted from wax, a benign material that can be manufactured from sustainable processes -- is a major step forward. Wax will not catch fire or contaminate the environment. It is also safe for drivers and passengers.' Co-author Professor Hamid Al-Megren, from the Materials Research Institute at KACST, said: 'This is an exciting development -- it will allow society to utilise fossil fuels or renewable-derived wax to generate on-board hydrogen for fuel cell applications without releasing any carbon dioxide into the air.' Hydrocarbons are natural, hydrogen-rich resources with well-established infrastructures. The research team has developed highly selective catalysts with the assistance of microwave irradiation, which can extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons instantly through a non-oxidative dehydrogenation process. This will help unlock the longstanding bottleneck hindering the widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel technology. Co-author Professor Angus Kirkland, from the Department of Materials at Oxford University and Science Director at the new electron Physical Science Imaging Centre (ePSIC) at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, described the breakthrough as an exemplar of how Oxford is able to respond to key academic and industrial problems by using interdisciplinary resources and expertise. Co-author Professor Sir John Meurig Thomas, from the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, said the work could be extended so that many of the liquid components of refined petroleum and inexpensive solid catalysts can pave the way for the generation of massive quantities of high-purity hydrogen for other commercial uses, including CO 2 -free energy production.President Obama is determined to deliver his message to millennials in their natural habitat. Today, that habitat was a stilted appearance today on "Between Two Ferns," Funny or Die's Zach Galifianakis-hosted web comedy series. Obama's "Between Two Ferns" appearance was essentially a Healthcare.gov plug - toeing the oft-repeated party line that the website works properly now and can assist young people with much-needed access to health insurance - sandwiched between several minutes of the president yukking it up with the famed comedian. The two of them demand to see each other's birth certificate, Obama chides Galifianakis about his weight and Galifianakis asks Obama about whether he's going to build his presidential library in Hawaii or his "home country of Kenya." It's the standard Galifianakis-thing for anyone familiar with his work, but likely highly-confusing for people who are strangers to the joke. Which is the whole point, obviously. In his time on office, Obama has not been precious about going to strange places in search of a broad audience. He's sat for multiple interviews with former Tonight Show host Jay Leno, appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, sat for some girl talk on the View, showed of his dance moves on Ellen, slow jammed the news with Jimmy Fallon to promote student loan reform, taken part in an AMA on Reddit and indulged his penchant for basketball talk, appearing on Bill Simmons' B.S. Report podcast and sitting for an interview with Charles Barkley at the halftime of this year's NBA All Star Game. On one level, "Between Two Ferns" is an odd choice for an advertisement for healthcare. At multiple occasions in the video, Obama seems close to laughter. Critics were inevitably quick out of the box. “We have to worry about the dignity of the presidency,” former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry told the New York Times. "Instead of playing celebrity, our President should be working on fixing his failed takeover of health care," Tweeted Texas Congressman Randy Weber. At a White House press conference, ABC's Jim Avila asked White House press secretary Jay Carney if the interview had damaged the presidency. The focus on Funny or Die however, is close in line with with Obama's claim that the ACA will help the many uninsured youths living and working in the United States. The idea is to make health insurance more affordable for people who are working low-wage jobs that don't come with benefits, the types of jobs that are traditionally filled with ranks of unskilled twenty-somethings. Funny or Die's predominantly younger audience, which skews male, is a close fit for this message. Funny or Die itself has long supported the Affordable Care Act, with Olivia Wilde, Jennifer Hudson and Elizabeth Banks shooting videos to promote it. It isn't the first unconventional partnership for a Healthcare.gov operation, either. Illinois' own effort partnered with The Onion to promote the Affordable Care Act in state. Obama's appearance was effective even if awkward. According to Talking Points Memo, Funny or Die was the biggest referrer to Healthcare.gov. By 1 p.m., the video had been viewed 5.5 million times, according to the company's built-in analytics, equivalent nearly to three times the median audience size for CNN. As has been duly pointed out, Obama is not the first president to go off the traditional political road to find an audience. Richard Nixon appeared on Laugh-In in 1968, Gerald Ford took to Saturday Night Live in 1976, Jimmy Carter talked about having lust in his heart in Playboy, Bill Clinton was on MTV while in office and George W. Bush taped a statement to the troops on Deal or No Deal in 2008. But few politicians have been as active as Obama in making these types of appearances. The current president's political operation has always relied on finely targeting relevant audience segments and going after them aggressively. Obama's 2012 re-election effort even turned its back on more traditional ad buying methods of purchasing space next to news programming. In one example, spotlighted in Time at the end of 2012, to reach women under 35 in Miami-Dade county the campaign leveraged its huge pools of voter data and purchased ad space next to Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apt. 23. Through ithis metric-driven, data-heavy approach it said it was 14 percent more effective than 2008 in reaching relevant voters over the airwaves. The Funny or Die move is a logical extension of this. According to Mashable, today's video has roots back in July 2013, when the administration began talking about how to build community out around the Affordable Care Act and met with a group that included comedian Amy Poehler and Jennifer Hudson, alongside reps from YouTube and Funny or Die. Galifianakis met with Valerie Jarrett two months later in September and time was set aside for February 24. Popular culture savvy has long been an Obama administration weapon. Reportedly, Obama was already familiar with "Between Two Ferns," where it's likely many critics would have had to take to Google to straighten who the big guy with the beard was. The president has long been happy to talk up his fandom of House of Cards, True Detective, Homeland and the Wire for cheap points with younger voters. With his approval rating among 18-29 year old voters plummeting in the latter half of 2013, the Funny or Die appearance is a calculated attempt to sell healthcare reform to young people and get on the front foot with midterms fast approaching.Sinn Fein has said that it will this week continue to lobby the civil servants to whom its ministers once gave orders, this time over flooding. Last week the party sent numerous MLAs, MPs and councillors to public meetings called by health trusts who are deciding how to cut £70 million from the budget of the NHS in Northern Ireland. At the weekend, the party issued a statement to say that it would be sending a delegation to meet a senior Stormont official over last week’s flooding. The Sinn Féin delegation will meet the permanent secretary of the Department of Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DAERA) “to discuss the ongoing response to the devastation caused by the recent flash floods”. Sinn Fein MLA Declan McAleer said: “I spoke with the DEARA permanent secretary on Thursday ahead of our meeting which is due to take place next week. “I emphasised the urgency of the situation faced by farmers and the community in the Sperrins who have had their homes and farms destroyed by the flash floods. I said it was vital that the department moves swiftly to help address the situation.” Mr McAleer said that he had “suggested” to the senior official that there were “at least three key issues that the department must address”, one of which was a suggestion that the civil service should follow the policy of Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill when she was agriculture minister by setting up a “hardship fund”. Last week Sinn Fein colleague Caral Ni Chuilin made clear that although the party is lobbying officials over the health cuts, it would not be returning to the Executive to direct them unless the DUP agrees to Sinn Fein’s demands.Here are all the official letters of the Arabic alphabet in order. The following image shows which letters have an equivalent in the English language. Note that the r differs from the English one; it is a trill like in Spanish and Russian. Because you know English, you have an advantage that speakers of other Western European Languages don't have: The rest of the letters have no true English equivalents. Before you learn them they will sound silent, or seem like another letter. We will learn to pronounce and recognize these letters later. Arabic Letters have tails [ edit ] Some Arabic letters have extra parts to them. These parts are only written at the end of words, and a few of them are optional. Look at the picture above. These extra parts have been cut off and brightened so you can see the important part of each letter. Without the extra parts, you see what letters look like at the beginning of words. Some letters [ edit ] In the picture before the one above, there were some letters that didn't seem to have any extra parts. Some don't. These don't connect to letters after them—connecting them to letters after them would make words very difficult to read, and is not allowed. We boxed these letters in the picture directly above. Some letters do connect to letters after them, but don't have tails; instead, the whole shape of the letter changes. These letters are circled above, and their different shapes are shown in the picture below.. Explanation [ edit ] Arabic letters change shape according to their place within a word. Usually this means not writing a tail, because the letter is not at the end of the word. But because Arabic is meant to be written mainly by hand, there are also other changes (i.e., shortcuts) that make writing easier. Here is an important shortcut. Because the shortcut is always used in handwriting, it has made its way into Arabic printing. Notice how the hole in the middle and final forms of the letter get covered presumably due to thick ink. This comes from calligraphy, Arabic has an incredibly rich calligraphic history. There are even more shortcuts (mainly ligatures) that we will cover later. Just in case you didn't notice, Arabic is written and read from right to left. The Arabic alphabet is very focused on representing sounds. Some of the sounds may be hard to distinguish for English speakers. See Arabic sounds and Wikipedia:Arabic Alphabet for more details on sounds. The alphabet does not have capital letters (letters especially designed for names or certain grammar cases). But the way letters are written does depend on the location of the letter in a word. A letter at the beginning of a word (initial) is often written slightly different from the same letter at the ending of a word (final), or somewhere in between (medial). The easiest way to learn the language is to try to recognize certain shapes in the letters (like hooks, bows, and points). Based on these shared shapes, the letters can be divided in shape groups. See Arabic alphabet (by group) to learn more on how to tell the written shapes apart, and how to write them. Synthetic table [ edit ] Note that 'a' is pronounced as the sound 'a' in 'cat' or the sound 'u' in
”. Remember that Buffett wrote that letter in 1986 before the official term “changes in working capital” existed. Buffett is simply talking about the importance of cash flows due to working capital. The increment he is referring to is the increase in the current operating assets in the “change in working capital” calculation. Whether the asset or liabilities side has the increment is going to determine whether you include or exclude the change in working capital. If the change in working capital is negative, that means working capital increased as the company needs more capital to grow. This reduces cash flow and so it should reduce the owner earnings. (excluded in this case) , that means as the company needs more capital to grow. (excluded in this case) If changes in working capital is positive, that means working capital decreased as the company has more cash for the company to grow and play with. This increases cash flow and so it should added to owner earnings. (included in this case) Just goes to show how ahead of the curve Buffett really was. Be sure to read the complete guide on changes in working capital to understand it completely. This means that on any given year where additional working capital is required to maintain the business, it should be included in capex. Otherwise, the rest of working capital should be excluded from owner earnings. Owner Earnings Formula for Today Based on the discussion above, the owner earnings calculation now looks like this. Owner Earnings = (a) Net Income + (b) depreciation, amortization +/- (b) other non cash charges – (c) annual maintenance capex (or the full capex) +/- changes in working capital MSFT Owner Earnings Example Let’s quickly go through an example for MSFT’s Trailing Twelve Months. All values taken from the stock value calculator. Using the TTM figures in millions: Net income = $12,273 D&A = $5,990 Other non cash charges = $2,598 Capex = $6,018 Changes in working capital = ($1,471) Because changes in working capital is negative, it should reduce FCF because it means working capital has increased and decreases cash flow (read the change in working capital article to fully understand this concept) Therefore, Microsoft’s TTM owner earnings comes out to be: 12,273+5,990+2,598-6,018 – 1,471 = 13,372 The goal to calculating owner earnings properly is to understand the core concepts. Mainly: calculate the change in working capital determine whether the cash flow will increase or decrease based on the needs of the business add or subtract the amount to cash flows to get owner earnings Amazon Owner Earnings Calculation Using the same method, here are the calculations. Using the TTM figures in millions: Net income = $328 D&A = $5,909 Other non cash charges = $2,001 Capex = $4,424 Changes in working capital = $6,422 Owner Earnings = 328 + 5909 + 2001 – 4424 + 6422 = 10,236 Unlike Microsoft, Amazon changes in working capital is positive. It is added to the owner earnings as the company needs less capital to grow and so it will increase cash flow. If you now divide the owner earnings by shares outstanding, you get owner earnings per share which is essentially the value investors version of EPS. Congratulations, you now understand the inner workings of owner earnings. To get this kind of information and other exclusive articles before regular readers, get on the VIP Mailing List today. ******** What is Old School Value? Old School Value is a suite of value investing tools designed to fatten your portfolio by identifying what stocks to buy and sell. It is a stock grader, value screener, and valuation tools for the busy investor designed to help you pick stocks 4x faster. Check out the live preview of AMZN, MSFT, BAC, AAPL and FB.Image copyright Milla Kontkanen For 75 years, Finland's expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It's like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates. It's a tradition that dates back to the 1930s and it's designed to give all children in Finland, no matter what background they're from, an equal start in life. The maternity package - a gift from the government - is available to all expectant mothers. It contains bodysuits, a sleeping bag, outdoor gear, bathing products for the baby, as well as nappies, bedding and a small mattress. With the mattress in the bottom, the box becomes a baby's first bed. Many children, from all social backgrounds, have their first naps within the safety of the box's four cardboard walls. Image copyright Finnish Labour Museum Werstas Image caption A 1947 maternity pack Mothers have a choice between taking the box, or a cash grant, currently set at 140 euros, but 95% opt for the box as it's worth much more. The tradition dates back to 1938. To begin with, the scheme was only available to families on low incomes, but that changed in 1949. "Not only was it offered to all mothers-to-be but new legislation meant in order to get the grant, or maternity box, they had to visit a doctor or municipal pre-natal clinic before their fourth month of pregnancy," says Heidi Liesivesi, who works at Kela - the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. So the box provided mothers with what they needed to look after their baby, but it also helped steer pregnant women into the arms of the doctors and nurses of Finland's nascent welfare state. In the 1930s Finland was a poor country and infant mortality was high - 65 out of 1,000 babies died. But the figures improved rapidly in the decades that followed. Mika Gissler, a professor at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, gives several reasons for this - the maternity box and pre-natal care for all women in the 1940s, followed in the 60s by a national health insurance system and the central hospital network. Contents of the box Image copyright Milla Kontkanen Mattress, mattress cover, undersheet, duvet cover, blanket, sleeping bag/quilt Box itself doubles as a crib Snowsuit, hat, insluated mittens and booties Light hooded suit and knitted overalls Socks and mittens, knitted hat and balaclava Bodysuits, romper suits and leggings in unisex colours and patterns Hooded bath towel, nail scissors, hairbrush, toothbrush, bath thermometer, nappy cream, washcloth Cloth nappy set and muslin squares Picture book and teething toy Bra pads, condoms Dressing baby for the weather: Finland's official childcare advice At 75 years old, the box is now an established part of the Finnish rite of passage towards motherhood, uniting generations of women. Box anticipation Image copyright Mark Bosworth My partner Milla and I were living in London when we had our first child, Jasper, so we weren't eligible for a free box. But Milla's parents didn't want us to miss out, so they bought one and put it in the post. We couldn't wait to get the lid off. There were all the clothes you would expect, with the addition of a snowsuit for Finland's icy winters. And then the box itself. I had never considered putting my baby to sleep in a cardboard box, but if it's good enough for the majority of Finns, then why not? Jasper slept in it - as you might expect - like a baby. We now live in Helsinki and have just had our second child, Annika. She did get a free box from the Finnish state. This felt to me like evidence that someone cared, someone wanted our baby to have a good start in life. And now when I visit friends with young children it's nice to see we share some common things. It strengthens that feeling that we are all in this together. Reija Klemetti, a 49-year-old from Helsinki, remembers going to the post office to collect a box for one of her six children. "It was lovely and exciting to get it and somehow the first promise to the baby," she says. "My mum, friends and relatives were all eager to see what kind of things were inside and what colours they'd chosen for that year." Her mother-in-law, aged 78, relied heavily on the box when she had the first of her four children in the 60s. At that point she had little idea what she would need, but it was all provided. More recently, Klemetti's daughter Solja, aged 23, shared the sense of excitement that her mother had once experienced, when she took possession of the "first substantial thing" prior to the baby itself. She now has two young children. "It's easy to know what year babies were born in, because the clothing in the box changes a little every year. It's nice to compare and think, 'Ah that kid was born in the same year as mine'," says Titta Vayrynen, a 35-year-old mother with two young boys. For some families, the contents of the box would be unaffordable if they were not free of charge, though for Vayrynen, it was more a question of saving time than money. She was working long hours when pregnant with her first child, and was glad to be spared the effort of comparing prices and going out shopping. "There was a recent report saying that Finnish mums are the happiest in the world, and the box was one thing that came to my mind. We are very well taken care of, even now when some public services have been cut down a little," she says. When she had her second boy, Ilmari, Vayrynen opted for the cash grant instead of the box and just re-used the clothes worn by her first, Aarni. A boy can pass on clothes to a girl too, and vice versa, because the colours are deliberately gender-neutral. The contents of the box have changed a good deal over the years, reflecting changing times. During the 30s and 40s, it contained fabric because mothers were accustomed to making the baby's clothes. More from the Magazine Image copyright Åsa Ledin Would you put your baby or toddler outside in the freezing cold for their lunchtime nap? Most Nordic parents wouldn't give it a second thought. For them it's part of their daily routine. "I think it's good for them to be in the fresh air as soon as possible," says Lisa Mardon, a mother-of-three from Stockholm, who works for a food distribution company. "Especially in the winter when there's lots of diseases going around... the kids seem healthier." The babies who nap in sub-zero temperatures But during World War II, flannel and plain-weave cotton were needed by the Defence Ministry, so some of the material was replaced by paper bed sheets and swaddling cloth. The 50s saw an increase in the number of ready-made clothes, and in the 60s and 70s these began to be made from new stretchy fabrics. In 1968 a sleeping bag appeared, and the following year disposable nappies featured for the first time. Not for long. At the turn of the century, the cloth nappies were back in and the disposable variety were out, having fallen out of favour on environmental grounds. Encouraging good parenting has been part of the maternity box policy all along. "Babies used to sleep in the same bed as their parents and it was recommended that they stop," says Panu Pulma, professor in Finnish and Nordic History at the University of Helsinki. "Including the box as a bed meant people started to let their babies sleep separately from them." At a certain point, baby bottles and dummies were removed to promote breastfeeding. "One of the main goals of the whole system was to get women to breastfeed more," Pulma says. And, he adds, "It's happened." He also thinks including a picture book has had a positive effect, encouraging children to handle books, and, one day, to read. And in addition to all this, Pulma says, the box is a symbol. A symbol of the idea of equality, and of the importance of children. The story of the maternity pack Image copyright Finnish Labour Museum Werstas 1938: Finnish Maternity Grants Act introduced - two-thirds of women giving birth that year eligible for cash grant, maternity pack or mixture of the two Pack could be used as a cot as poorest homes didn't always have a clean place for baby to sleep 1940s: Despite wartime shortages, scheme continued as many Finns lost homes in bombings and evacuations 1942-6: Paper replaced fabric for items such as swaddling wraps and mother's bedsheet 1949: Income testing removed, pack offered to all mothers in Finland - if they had prenatal health checks (1953 pack pictured above) 1957: Fabrics and sewing materials completely replaced with ready-made garments 1969: Disposable nappies added to the pack 1970s: With more women in work, easy-to-wash stretch cotton and colourful patterns replace white non-stretch garments 2006: Cloth nappies reintroduced, bottle left out to encourage breastfeeding Additional reporting by Mark Bosworth. You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on FacebookThe Torah scholar wore bluejeans. That might seem a fairly trivial thing to say about Shalhevet Schwartz, the 14-year-old girl from the Bronx who, in between softball games and the demanding homework at her Jewish high school, studied hard enough to win her division of the National Bible Contest, held last Sunday at Yeshiva University in New York. But most of the 115 students at this Bible bee, which sends its winners to compete at the international finals in Jerusalem next year, attend Orthodox schools, and thus the fashion code here mirrored the dress codes at those schools, and in most of the children’s families: long skirts for girls, skullcaps and the fringes known as zizit for the boys. From what I could tell, Shalhevet, a freshman at SAR High School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, was one of only two girls to compete in pants. At SAR, a “modern Orthodox” school, Shalhevet is required to wear a skirt to school every day. But she did not see the need to be in dress code on this given Sunday, when her only commitment was to vanquish her competition answering multiple-choice questions on obscure biblical passages. And while there was an English-language division, Shalhevet competed in Hebrew. A sampler of the questions Shalhevet and her fellow competitors faced down: “Which king bought Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver — Omri, Zimri, Ahab or Baasha?” “Who said to whom, ‘If you would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg you, and let me see no more of my wretchedness’ — Moses to God, Joab to Solomon, Naboth to Ahab, or Obadiah to Elijah?” “Who was not David’s son — Adonijah, Solomon, Absalom or Joab?” Advertisement Continue reading the main story (For those of you playing along at home, the answers are: Omri, Moses to God, Joab.) There are no rules limiting the National Bible Contest to observant Jews. But a competition like this attracts students from religious backgrounds who attend religious schools. Almost every boy here was wearing a skullcap, although the designs and logos varied. One boy’s yarmulke was knit with the Chicago Cubs logo, another was plain black felt, another was fatigue green and inscribed “Israel Defense Forces.” One yarmulke advertised, on close inspection, the insignia of Porsche automobiles.I spoke last night in the general debate on the economy, saying*: As I rise to speak I am reminded of a quotation from an economist who was a fierce critic of Keynes, a chap called Henry Hazlitt, who said: “Today is already the tomorrow which the bad economist yesterday urged us to ignore.” We have heard today some moving accounts of individual and collective suffering in different regions of the country and among different sections of the public. We should be asking ourselves why, oh why, have we been delivered into this misery, which looks as if it will extend over years. Much of the conversation we have heard has been along the lines of aggregates, coarse economic aggregates, and has tended to stray away from individual choices and consequences. We have talked about markets in the abstract, and it is a pity that we seem to have forgotten that markets are a social phenomenon, and that they are about people co-operating. When we talk about markets, we tend to imagine overpaid people, high-frequency trading and those who add nothing to society. I am reminded of something a constituent said to me recently after hearing a Minister’s speech. He asked, “Why is it that everything always seems to get harder for the working man, whoever is in power?” Indeed, in my constituency unemployment is up by 6.3% among the over-50s, up by 9.5% among those aged 25 to 49 and, scandalously, up by 23% among the young. We have heard that child poverty increased by 200,000 under the previous Government and that it is likely to increase by up to 100,000 under this Government. In the 21st century, that should not be our economic position. Why are we in this debt crisis? I have just checked the M4 money supply figures—I am sorry to return to aggregates, but needs must. When Labour came to power the money supply was about £700 billion and it is now about £2.1 trillion, so it has tripled over the past 14 years. Unfortunately, most economists talk about money flowing into the economy as if it were water poured into a tank that found its own level immediately, but what if it is like treacle or honey? What if it builds up in piles when poured into the economy and takes a while to spread out? What if that money was loaned into existence in response to individual choices led by the excessively low interest rates pushed by the central bank? What if it was loaned into existence in particular sectors, such as the housing sector, where prices have more than doubled over the same period, and what if it was the financial sector that received the benefit of that new money first? Would that not explain why financiers and bankers are so much wealthier than everyone else, and why economic activity and wealth has been reorientated towards the south-east? Unfortunately, the idea that money takes some time to move around the economy is lost on most economists, which I very much regret. Why did most economists not see the crisis coming? I put it to the House that it is because their theories of credit are mistaken. They make fundamental errors. Unfortunately I do not have time to go into that, but the fundamental point is that credit is a choice to consume more now and less later. It is about the exchange of present goods for future goods, and co-ordinating the economy through time, and I am afraid that the current intellectual mainstream in economics has dropped us into this desperate mess. Opposition Members criticise the Thatcher and Reagan years. I think that there was much to applaud in those years, but unfortunately their intellectual underpinning was monetarism, which, like Keynesianism, is infected with those dreadful mistakes. People in the Occupy movement, and our constituents, are right to question the justice of our economic processes. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) said earlier that the system cannot endure, and I am inclined to agree. I agree that the current debt-based and—I am afraid to say—statist system cannot endure. However, if this system is not to endure, which way should it fall? [Humanity] tried the statist direction in the past and it led to misery and murder. I stand for free markets and free co-operation, but I say this to the House: if this is capitalism, I am not a capitalist.Being young and being a woman can be a handy combination, especially in my line of work. I wear jeans and shalwar kameez with equal comfort and frequency. I do not use any make-up or perfume at work. I smoke publicly and frequently, but responsibly towards others. I have the qualification and demonstrated commitment for the work I am doing. My work requires meeting total strangers and having meaningful conversations with them. I talk openly and fairly, and listen objectively. I get total attention and trust, even veneration of my subjects, almost like I am their mother – the smart, youthful, professional, confident, smoking, and attentive mother they never had. In short, I am the kind of psychologist whose subjects open up most willingly about things they wouldn’t want their closest buddies, partners and especially fathers to know. I work for charities and donor-funded projects to do with eradicating child abuse in Pakistan. I do get a lot of exposure to abused children but that is another subject for another time. The bulk of my working time is spent with adults, and of my own interest, mostly men. I meet them in small and big groups, in the office or in a public place and we talk about the one thing most important to parents: how to keep our kids safe. The objective of my job is to learn from and return to the society. I work with entire communities but my best learning has come from men. Women may be lax in their strategy and execution but they have a vested interest in preserving and nourishing the child. They are my natural allies. It’s the man who is so spectacularly ambivalent on this subject. He knows there is abuse in the society he lives in but he finds talking or reading about child abuse distasteful. He knows kids are being molested and abused in his locality but he will insist upon watching over his daughter all the time, leaving the son to face the street realities. And if his son does go through sexual abuse, he’ll use everything in his power to stop it from becoming known to others, or he might die of shame. I had no idea how big a deal male rape is. Men are creators and victims of a culture where man is essentially the giver and woman the receiver. An abuser, as much as a protector, is seen as a he-man because they are both doing the manly thing: giving. Women fit the passive victim profile just as men are only expected to do the manly thing. When males become victims of sexual abuse, it’s therefore a double shame – surviving abuse as a human, just like women do, and being treated as a receiver, a she-male. The latter is by far more damaging of the two. It takes the air out of his long and stiff male ego. It’s the ultimate humiliation that marks the survivor as a stamped slave of the abuser and the laughing stock of other men and boys, sometimes for life. There is an old and well-known joke in men’s circles that I recently heard and found revealing of male psychology towards sodomy. Two old men are caught having sex. The concerned sons of both of them rush to the police station and ask for details of the incident. The one whose father was found to be on the receiving end of the act, is devastated. He pleads with the police not to register the case but is told this is not possible. He then offers a hefty bribe to the policeman: ‘If you must write the report, make my father the one on top’. This is the reason you never hear of male sexual abuse, even when female abuse is being reported, and condemned, in ever increasing numbers. I hear it all the time though. The case of a male abused child is more unlikely than a girl’s to be reported and recorded, and yet, one third of the raped/sodomised/killed children last year were boys. Other forms of abuse, that are much more widespread and much less reported in case of boys, include touching, fondling, kissing, oral penetration, exhibitionism, and showing or taking photographs of naked children. I hear it from adult males more than boys though. They tell me about their school teachers and Quran teachers, uncles and neighbours, aunts and strangers, who molested or tried to abuse them. They tell me of the rampant molestation in crowded places and in the queues for paying utility bills. They tell me of the impotent rage, burning frustration, loss of trust in elders and the loss of capacity to love. They tell me of a male-dominated environment in which sexually harassing a younger or weaker or prettier boy in public is a norm. Growing up with some kind of exposure to abuse is considered a necessary rite of passage. You have to survive abuse to become a man. A majority of survivors turn into child abusers. Research establishes that at least six out of 10 abused children go on to abuse others – through sexual means or physical or psychological violence. This self-perpetuating and multiplying phenomenon makes our society ever more tolerant and hopelessly resigned to abuse; more so with males than females. What cannot be empirically stated is the size of the problem. I have been employing an unscientific but personally beneficial method of quantifying male abuse during my stays in the communities – and by ‘communities’ I don’t mean slums. In Islamabad’s terms, my work is spread from the I to E sectors and France Colony in between. First, I explain to the group, the range of behaviours considered abusive and that it can be physical, emotional, verbal or even psychological. I don’t get surprised any more when grown boys look genuinely puzzled when they are told what they are going through is actually abuse. They have been conditioned from a very young age to accept sex as normal, even fun activity, but one that requires utmost discretion. Then, I ask them a question that needs to be answered with a yes or no, and to deposit the folded piece of paper in a basket. There is no way for anyone to know what anyone else has written. After giving them assurances of privacy and telling them that my colleagues and I present there will also be participating in the exercise, I ask the question: Have you been abused, at any age, in any way mentioned above? Women, without much fuss, write ‘yes’ in 95 per cent cases. Men come in two distinct groups. There are a couple – more in Punjab and Pakhtoonkhwa – in every group who loudly protest at being asked a stupid question and then write the ‘no’ answer in full view of others. In my opinion, they are not merely abused, they are bruised and possibly still bleeding. Of the rest, around 80 per cent answer in ‘yes’. I have done this exercise for many years and along the length and breadth of Pakistan. Allowing for vanity on part of my respondents and error of judgment on my part, it is safe to deduce that almost all women and a vast majority of men – rural and urban, rich and poor, illiterate and university graduates – have been molested, if not violently abused as children or young adults. We are a nation of parents who have been child molesters, or the molested child, or both. More worrying is our refusal to see that now our children are being raped and molested. The two are linked. Until I can dispassionately analyse the abuse I suffered, recognise the symptoms of psychological damage it’s done and seek remedy, and until I can face my perpetrator with inner strength, I cannot exorcise myself of the ghost of abuse much less save mine or someone else’s child. As a quiet spectator, I am just being an agent for perpetuating abuse. Acknowledging the presence of abuse of a girl and boy child in our society, in our neighbourhoods, in our homes, in our own lives is only the first but essential step in our journey to make our children safe, healthy and happy. I’ll keep counseling the abused children in my care, but frankly, the solution lies with adults, especially men. Until they heal their own wounds of abuse, they will not only fail to see abuse around them, they might also find themselves participating in it and taking the cycle of abuse to the next generation.On 22 October 2016, WikiLeaks director Gavin MacFadyen succumbed to lung cancer in London: WikiLeaks director and founder of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, Gavin MacFadyen, has died aged 76. It is understood the American Journalist died of lung cancer surrounded by loved ones in London. Colleagues and fellow journalists across the world, including WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, have taken to social media to pay their respects. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (of which MacFadyen was a co-founder) published an obituary of MacFadyen on 23 October 2016: Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism and adviser to the Bureau, has died after a short illness. An investigative journalist for many decades, Gavin who died on Saturday October 22 [2016] at the age of 76, used his experience in later life to mentor and encourage those entering the profession. Gavin was a strong believer in investigative journalism and was heavily involved in founding the Bureau in 2009. He was a committed supporter of the organisation and a long-serving member of its Editorial Advisory Committee. But it was as the founder and director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, a training and advocacy organisation that he was best known … At the Bureau, Gavin pulled on his years of experience to offer tireless support and was an important influence in the direction of the organisation. Rachel Oldroyd, Managing Editor of the Bureau said: “I am deeply saddened by the death of Gavin. He was a generous supporter of the Bureau and his passionate belief in the ability of journalism to change the world was an inspiration to many who worked here … Gavin constantly challenged us to do the best journalism we could and to seek out the stories that really held those in power to account. His infectious energy and spirit was a true force for good, which will be missed.” James Lee, Chair of the Bureau’s board said: “It was Gavin that had the idea that sparked the creation of the Bureau. He was a source of inspiration to us all, the likes of which we are unlikely to find again.” All early reports of MacFadyen’s death made mention of lung cancer as the cause. WikiLeaks also tweeted about his passing without suggesting there was anything suspicious about it: Statement by wife Susan Benn on the death of her husband & WikiLeaks board member, Prof Gavin MacFadyen https://t.co/aHl39YozeB — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 Gavin Macfadyen was mentor to Assange (and his closest friend in London), to WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison, Joseph Farrell and many others. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 Did you know: Gavin Macfadyen was arrested with Bernie Sanders, was a body double for Nick Nolte & was banned from South Africa & the USSR? — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 A bloody year for WikiLeaks pic.twitter.com/7Dy6RgJlhv — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 PHOTO: Gavin Macfadyen, beloved WikiLeaks director and mentor to many investigative journalists, who died yesterday. pic.twitter.com/BW3Z2qMtd9 — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 One tweet lamenting MacFadyen’s passing was signed “JA,” indicating it was sent by Julian Assange and not the WikiLeaks team. The typically straightforward Assange did not hint that his mentor had died mysteriously: Gavin Macfadyen, beloved director of WikiLeaks, now takes his fists and his fight to battle God. Sock it to him, forever, Gavin. -JA pic.twitter.com/7zyzs1Qxxk — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 23, 2016 On 24 October 2016, WikiLeaks also tweeted about heightened concern for Assange’s safety amid the site’s active publishing of leaks of U.S. political material (which may have exacerbated rumors conflating Assange and MacFadyen): Thousands keep demanding Assange proof of life. Not unreasonable. He's in a tough spot and is WikiLeaks best known validator. Preference? — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 24, 2016 At the time MacFadyen died, WikiLeaks’ current activity and concern about the safety of Assange led to a number of conspiracy-based rumors about MacFadyen’s passing: More dead bodies to add to #Clinton count. #wikileaks director found mysteriously dead pic.twitter.com/8KMjNhWZ9z — Martina Markota (@MartinaMarkota) October 24, 2016 The common clickbait technique of inserting the word “found” before “dead” in announcing a notable person’s death deliberately left many readers with the impression that Gavin MacFadyen had been killed over his work with WikiLeaks. But the earliest news reports and expressions of grief from colleagues and family members (including Assange) indicated that MacFadyen’s cancer-related death in a hospital was simply a tragic loss due to a not uncommon disease rather than a mysterious murder.Butch Dill/Associated Press BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On a day when Donald Trump's infinite election convoy was shutting down the streets of Birmingham, Bill Clark strolled through the front doors of the Sheraton Hotel without anyone seeming to notice. Wearing blue jeans, a sport coat and a neighborly Alabama smile, Clark was not outfitted like a football coach. He looked more like a company's go-to salesman—the kind of asset that closes a deal long before shaking a single hand. In many ways, at least for the time being, this has become his new reality. On one of the final college football Saturdays of the season, the head coach of UAB football—the program that was told to die, only to spring back to life before most knew it had ever left—looked strangely content with his unorthodox standing. Clark will not coach his team in an actual game until September 2, 2017—more than 550 days from now—when UAB makes its official return to college football. In the meantime, the catalyst of this great resurrection has the unthinkable task of selling a program that has to remain idle a bit longer. It's a weight no coach should have to carry around in living rooms and dinner tables. And yet, despite the obstacles of selling a future, Clark has convinced a collection of former 4- and 5-star talents—elite players who logged hours at some of the nation's most esteemed football powers—to commit to his vision. UAB, operating with a tremendous anchor, is on the verge of securing one of the greatest recruiting classes in school history. UAB's Recruiting Class Rank Year National Recruiting Class Rank Conference Recruiting Class Rank 2010 No. 87 No. 5 2011 No. 99 No. 7 2012 No. 109 No. 9 2013 No. 90 No. 5 2014 No. 113 No. 11 2015 NA NA 2016 No. 58 (as of January 28) No. 1 247Sports' composite rankings Instead of simply adding necessary depth with national signing day now less than a week away, Clark has infused his gutted roster with greatness—known names and athletes poised to guide this program's hand up from the grave and into the driving light. The team with the highest-ranked recruiting class in Conference USA won't play next fall. And the architect behind it—the man anxiously hoping to win a city's heart—doesn't appear the least bit fazed by the lingering shock and now the overwhelming success of it all. Jay Reeves/Associated Press The Presidential Suite at the Sheraton is spacious: 850 square feet high above Birmingham, overlooking a downtown that is in the infant stages of a makeover. In the years to come, this space will overlook the new football facilities UAB has planned. Clark did not pick to meet in this particular room by chance. It was by design. This setting was handpicked to host one of UAB's most robust recruiting weekends since it was brought back. With mockups of the facilities propped up on easels throughout the room and a delectable spread laid out, Clark eased onto the leather sofa hours before the players arrived. Twirling a bottle of water in his hand, he talked about rebuilding this program and the challenges in acquiring this kind of talent. But before he could look forward, he had to revisit old wounds. "My mother passed away when I was 19, so I don't want to compare it to a death," Clark said, finally letting go of his smile. "But this was close to a death." On December 2, 2014, UAB President Ray Watts told a room full of players and coaches that their football team was being disbanded. Members of the team walked out with their arms around each other, fighting back tears. Some didn't bother to fight them at all. A lack of funding and general financial commitments, coupled with a very cryptic (and somewhat political) situation ultimately doomed UAB football. After leading the team to a.500 or better record for the first time in a decade, Clark watched as the program was scrapped for parts. Coaches and players left for other universities. While some upperclassmen expressed a desire and willingness to sit out two full years for one more chance to play for their coach, Clark told them not to wait. Not with so much still to be determined. "It was every emotion," Clark said. "I need to be here for these kids. Now I need to go get a job. Where is my next move? But there was still hope. And this is where I wanted to be." So he waited. And six months after his program was taken away, Watts announced football was coming back. Not only was UAB football returning, but it was also being rebooted with new facilities that included a football operations building, turf fields and locker rooms. Clark had his team. More importantly, he had something to sell. The only catch was that this vision and this future would not be realized for more than two years. Roughly 30 players stayed at UAB—a mix of scholarship athletes and walk-ons Clark refers to as his "culture" group. The rest would have to be brought in from the outside—a task that was daunting on the surface. John Amis/Associated Press UAB needed bodies, above all. To create a competitive environment for spring practice—a period that will still be "the least normal thing we do," according to Clark—they needed commitments to fill in such glaring holes. "I don't want us to sell our soul to win early, but I want to be able to compete," Clark said. "And we're not going to be able to do that with a bunch of freshmen. We had to go
. Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea are high. Most recently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that a ground invasion would be the only way to eliminate Kim Jong Un’s nuclear arsenal, raising concerns from military experts. The comments came soon after Pyongyang launched a missile test directly over Japan. During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday, Trump said Japan could have shot the missile “out of the sky” if it had purchased American military weaponry capable of doing so. More from NewsweekTABLE I RS A PRIVATE - KEY MODULAR EXPONENTIA TION PERFORMANCE WITH A VR C YRPTOLIB R S A K e y Length (bits) Exec uti on Tim e (ms ): Keys in SRAM Me mo ry f oo t pr in t (bytes): Keys in SRAM Exe cut ion Tim e (ms ): Keys in ROM M em or y f oo tp ri n t (bytes): Keys in ROM 6 4 6 4 4 0 6 9 3 2 1 2 8 4 3 4 8 0 4 6 0 6 4 2 5 6 3 5 1 6 8 0 3 8 1 8 6 4 5 1 2 2 5, 0 7 6 3 2 0 2 7, 3 4 8 2 5 6 1, 0 2 4 1 9 9, 6 8 8 6 4 0 2 1 8, 3 6 7 5 1 2 2, 0 4 8 1, 5 8 7, 5 6 7 1, 2 8 0 1, 7 4 0, 2 5 8 1, 0 2 4 C99 by rewriting parts of the code. This allows for the library to be used on platforms that do not have TinyOS running on them. The library includes a wide variety of mathematical optimizations such as sliding window and Barrett reduction. While TinyECC only performs curves over prime ﬁelds, Relic performs curves over prime as well as binary ﬁelds. • W ise lib [23 ]: W ise lib is a gen eri c li bra ry wri tte n for sensor networks containing a wide variety of algorithms. It includes algorithms for routing, cryptography, localiza- tion, topology management. The library was designed to easily interface it with operating systems such as iSense. Ho we ver, sin ce the lib rar y is wri tte n ent ire ly in C++ with a template based model similar to Boost/CGAL, it can be used on any platform directly without using any of the oper atin g syste m inte rfac es prov ided. Similar to Tin yECC, it impl emen ts curv es ove r prim e ﬁelds only. W ise lib does not imp lem ent many of the wel l kno wn theoretical performance enhancement features. C. P erformance Analysis Fo r ex pe ri me nt in g wi th pu bl ic -k ey cr yp to gr ap hy on res our ce- con str ain ed pla tf orm s, we cho se Ard uin o Uno board 2 . Ardui no Uno has an A Tmeg a328P (an 8-bit micr o- co nt ro ll er wi th a cl oc k ra te of 16 MH z), 2 kB of SR AM, and 32 kB of ﬂash memory. We speciﬁcally chose an 8-bit platform to demonstrate that our security architecture can be implemented even on very constrained platforms. We have summarized the initial results of raw RSA private- key modular exponentiation performance using AvrCryptolib in T ab le I. Th e ke ys we re ge ne ra te d se pa ra te ly wi th th e va lu e of pu bl ic ex po ne nt as 3 an d we re ha rd co de d in to the pro gra m. The per for man ce wa s fa ste r for sma ll er ke y lengths as was expected. With longer keys the execution time incr eased expo nent iall y. W e perf orme d two dif fere nt sets of ex per ime nts for eac h ke y len gth. In the ﬁrst cas e, the keys were loaded into the SRAM from the ﬂash memeory before they were used by any of the functions. In the second case, the ke ys wer e add res sed and use d dir ect ly fro m the ﬂas h memory. As was expected, the second case used less SRAM but led to slightly longer execution time. The SRAM values indicate RSA processing only and do not reﬂect the SRAM consumption of the entire program. The execution times were calculated as mean of ﬁve consecutive experiments. 2 Arduino Uno, http://ardu ino.cc/en/Main /arduinoBo ardUno It is worth noting that the implementation performs basic modular exponentiation without mathematic al optimizatio ns used by Gura et al. [7]. With more SRAM, we believe that 1024/2048-bit RSA operations can be performed in much less time as has been shown elsewhere. In Fig ure 1 we pre sen t the res ult s fr om the per for man ce comparison of ECDSA signature generation for all the libraries surveyed. Although we tested the libraries with various differ- ent curve parameters providing different levels of security, we only present the performance of curves with 80-bit symmetric- key equivalent security. The libraries were tested with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Standards for Efﬁcient Cryptography Group (SECG) standardized curve parameters provided in the libraries. All the libraries provide a SHA-1 hash algorithm, which was used in our performance analysis. While performing experiments on the Relic library, we we re un ab le to us e th e Ar du in o Un o bo ar d be ca us e of mem ory con str ain ts. Ho we ve r, sin ce the lib rar y loo ked prom isin g from previ ous experim ents [11] we chos e to test it on Arduino Mega 3 which has similar microcontroller as the Uno but has more SRAM (8 kB) and ROM (128 kB). In ord er to mea sur e the SRAM con sum pti on for each of the curves we used the Avrora simulator [24]. Since all the libraries and our code use only stack based allocation, the stack trace produced by the simulator gives an accurate value for the memory footprint. The execution times were calculated on Arduino boards using the on-board ATmega internal oscillator which provides an accuracy of four microseconds. We use the rand() function provided in the Arduino library for creating rand om numbe rs. W e perf orme d all the exp erim ents with a common seed (300) to the pseudo-random number generator so that the results are reproducible. While Wiselib used the least amount of SRAM among all the libraries, its execution times for signature generation were the hig hes t. In com par iso n, Ti ny ECC wa s abl e to per for m signature generation for the same curve parameters in times ranging from 2.2 to 2.5 seconds with 50 bytes of extra SRAM. TinyECC provides several optimizations which include Barrett reduction [25], hybrid multiplication and squaring [7], curve speciﬁc optimizations [7], projective coordinate system [26], slid ing wind ow for scal ar mult ipli cati on [26], and Sham ir tric k [26]. W e how eve r only use the proj ecti ve coor dinat e system, sliding window optimization for scalar multiplication and SECG curve speciﬁc optimizations for our experiments. 3 Arduino Mega, http://ard uino.cc/en/Mai n/ArduinoB oardMegaIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or daily email. You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Posts may contain affiliate links. Additionally, I often receive product or payment for posts but this does not change the integrity of my writing or influence my opinions. Read more at this blog's Disclosure Policy. To see how this website uses cookies view our privacy policy here. Thanks for visiting! Pizza is wildly popular. Obviously. Because pizza (sometimes even specific flavors!) has it’s own national day, week and month – none of which coincide. September 5, 2017, is National CHEESE Pizza Day! (National Pizza Week was back in January, but National Pizza Day is February 9th, there is a National Pizza PARTY Day in May and National Pizza Month isn’t until October). Here are the deals I’ve found for national CHEESE pizza day! Domino’s Domino’s is running three promotions at all locations Tuesday: large three-topping carryout pizzas for $7.99 each, medium two-topping handmade pan pizzas for $8.99 each and choose any two or more select menu-items for $5.99 each. Find locations here. Join Piece of the Pie Rewards here. Little Caesars $5 Hot-N-Ready Cheese and Pepperoni Pizzas all day, every day. Papa John’s Through Sept. 10, earn a free pizza when you spend $15 or more on online order with promo code GAMEDAY. You need to be a Papa Rewards member and the free pizza needs to be redeemed by Sept. 24. Learn more here. Pizza Hut Large cheese pizzas will be $5 Tuesday with coupon code SAYCHEESE. I feel like there should be more deals but that’s all I could find! If I come across anything else, I’ll update!The U.S. Women's National Team made serious strides into the public consciousness during the Olympics, so think of Wednesday's news as a continuation of that — Hilary Knight is one of 22 athletes posing nude in ESPN The Magazine's "The Body Issue." The U.S. wound up losing to Canada in the gold-medal game, but let's not talk about that. It's the sixth edition of the issue, which exists almost solely to generate stories like this. Knight, 24, scored Team USA's first goal of the tournament, her second Olympics appearance, and had a pretty great career at the University of Wisconsin. As of Wednesday afternoon, she hadn't said anything on Twitter about the situation. That's good advice, though. Knight is the latest hockey player to pose; Ryan Kesler (and his rock) are probably the most famous thus far. Other participants in the issue, which comes out on July 11: five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams, 18-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, Texas Rangers first baseman Prince Fielder (!) and Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka.Attorney-General George Brandis misled Parliament over his dealings with the government's chief legal adviser, a Senate committee has concluded in a damning report that reopens the toxic rift between the two men. In a report released late on Tuesday, the Senate standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs concluded Senator Brandis did not consult former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson, SC, about a controversial change to the way he would be briefed. It sets the stage for a censure motion against Senator Brandis, who had assured Parliament Mr Gleeson was advised about the move. Mr Gleeson resigned his post on October 24, saying their relationship was "irretrievably broken". The chair of the committee, Labor senator Louise Pratt, said the report demonstrated the "unfitness of the Attorney-General to hold his high office" and he had made "false and misleading statements" in the Senate.Homemade Food Dehydrator By Stryder 3-24-02 If you’re like most survival folks you’ve got a commercial dehydrator or two that you use to preserve foods. Maybe it’s to preserve your garden produce or maybe to make some lightweight backpacking foods at a reduced cost. Whatever use you make of it, it probably looks something like the one pictured above. I have three favorite ‘survival’ food books that I leaf through from time to time. They are: Putting Food By by Hertzberg, Vaughn, and Greene, Cooking in the Outdoors by Jacobson, and my absolute favorite and the one I would pick if I could only pick one food book, Stocking Up by Carole Store. Like many folks, since September we have been very busy double checking our preps and staying close to home ‘just in case’ and we have not had much time to enjoy the outdoors. So the other day I was planning a short weekend camping trip with my family and looking through Cooking in the Outdoors for some new backpacking recipes to try. The recipe I wanted to try called for some dehydrated ground beef and I didn’t have any made up. I went to get the dehydrator to make some and then just decided – what the heck – I’ll make a home made dehydrator first to make the ground beef with. The first thing I did was round up what I needed which was a heavy cardboard box (I chose one that a computer monitor had come in), some aluminum foil, masking tape, a light socket and bulb, some lamp cord and an electrical plug, some aluminum cookie sheets, some wooden strips (I chose some stuff in the garage I had used to fix screen doors with this past summer), and my trusty do everything tool – my Kbar. Being a packrat I had all the stuff around the house, it was nothing special and should be easy to find or very cheap to buy. Next I lined the box with the aluminum foil and taped it down with the masking tape. Roll the masking tape into a small loop so that you have the sticky side out and tape the foil to box without the tape showing. After the box is lined with the foil, carefully make up the light socket and connect the lamp cord and plug. If the socket you are using is open remember to make a backing for it with cardboard because it should not be in direct contact with the foil lined box after assembly. I used a 150 watts bulb in my dehydrator because it was the biggest wattage bulb I had in the house (don’t even know why I had it!) but it seems to be absolutly right for the size of the box Mount the finished light fixture into a bottom corner of the box. On two opposite sides of the box measure off and cut holes to slide the wooden slats through that will hold the trays (aluminum cookie sheets) of food to be dehydrated. If you look closely at the picture you'll see that one of the slats has marks on it. I used that slat as a crude measuring stick to be sure I lined up the holes on the sides but without using any tools other than my Kbar. The next step was to load up the trays with the ground beef I was going to dehydrate, plug in my new dehydrator, and let it do its thing. For even faster results, a small 12VDC computer fan, attached to a 12VDC power supply, can be directed into the box to provide air circulation for more uniform dehydration. DO NOT leave your Homemade Food Dehydrator Unattended! If your light bulb is too hot, or your box too small, you run the possibility of having a fire hazard. What is its thing? Well ground beef for one. Just cook up your ground beef (the leaner the better) on the stove the way you normally would. When it’s cooked, drain the fat. Put the cooked beef into a strainer and run a teapot of boiling water through it. The water will drain off most of the grease, which is what causes early spoiling. It will also leach out some, but not all, of the nutrients but none of the taste. Throw it in your dehydrator for a day until it is VERY dry and crumbles into powder when you break it up in your hand. Then you can use it for soups and stews, in sauce and chili in the field. Rehydrate it by letting it sit in a plastic bag with a pint of water per pound for about an hour. It will last about 4 weeks in a zip lock bag, and it lasts a year - from one summer to the next - just sitting on a shelf if it’s vacuum sealed. About 5 pounds of dehydrated ground beef fits into a quart bag (that doesn’t leave any room to add water to rehydrate, however.) Canned kidney beans, with or without the syrup work well too and you’ll need those for the chili. Fruit for a trail snack is easy and a common thing folks think of doing in a dehydrator – bananas are on sale often in the winter, sometimes near me they’re five pounds for a dollar. Grab them up, slice them up in ¼ inch to 3/8 inch slices, brush them with a little honey thinned ½ and ½ with water with 1 T. of lemon juice added and you’ll have cheap, great tasting trail snacks. Do up enough to last ‘till next winter – they’ll keep. Have you got Chilean winter grapes coming into your area stores? How about some homemade raisins to mix with those banana chips? What else can you do? Maybe some campfire corn chowder. ½ cup of dried corn, 4 strips of cooked dehydrated bacon, 1 small onion chopped (can also be dehydrated to save weight and volume), 1 medium potato diced, 2 cups dry milk, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 ½ teaspoons salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Mix the flour, salt, milk, pepper, and onion (if you decide to dehydrate it) together in a ziplock before you go. Rehydrate the corn in 1½ cups of water for 30 minutes. Place the undrained, rehydrated corn and 2 more cups of water into a pot and slow boil for 45 minutes. Add water to maintain volume as water boils off. Add potato and cook until tender. Combine the pre-measured milk, salt, pepper, and flour mix to 2 ½ more cups water and mix well. Add the milk mix to the soup pot, mix well, and add the bacon and onion. Serve with crackers or hard bread. It’s lightweight for packing but big on taste around a campfire. Take 4 pounds of flank, rump, brisket or round steak and trim ALL the fat with a sharp knife then cut into ¼ inch strips about 6 inches long. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight in just enough water to cover mixed with 1 1/3 T salt, 1t pepper, 2 t onion powder, 1 t garlic powder, 1 t Worcestershire sauce, 12 drops Tabasco sauce and ¼ t thyme. Next morning lay it on your dehydrator trays with no overlapping, plug in the dehydrator and when you come home from work that night, 8-10 hours later, you’ll be looking at some fine beef or venison jerky. Meals Rejected by Ethiopia have their place for sure. But with a little practice you can make some very tasty meals in the field from things that don’t have any more weight or bulk than MREs. Dehydrators also greatly add to the storage life and decrease the bulk of some of your storage foods. If you don’t have a dehydrator, you really should have one. This homemade version works as well or better than a commercial dehydrator and shouldn’t cost anyone more than $5 to put together even if you’re buying some of the parts plus an hour or less of labor. If you scavenge an old lamp, a cardboard box, and some tin foil, it costs nothing. Then use it and see the world of difference it makes in campfire meals and pack weight! Then…. Get out and train! StryderIn just 209 career games he is already being considered one of the leagues top players. On December 9, Skinner was named the NHL's first star of the week with five goals and two assists. It was clear when Jeff Skinner stepped onto the ice for the 2011 All-Star game at only 18 years of age that he was going to develop into another face of the franchise. Skinner was also awarded the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the Year during the 2010-2011 season. Skinner, now 21 even though he still doesn’t look it, has been on quite a roll as of late. On December 9, the Ontario native was awarded the NHL’s first star of the week for the first time in his young career. Despite missing the first 11 games due to injury, Skinner has bounced back with incredible tenacity as he has recorded nine points in the last six games. Skinner currently has 20 points on the season. Jeff Skinner Hat Trick (via NHL) Just shy of a hat trick on December 3's 4-1 victory against the Washington Capitals, Skinner obtained his first career hat trick last Thursday December 5 in a 5-2 triumph over the Nashville Predators. "It’s nice to get it," Skinner told the News and Observer. "The puck was bouncing a lot and it was kind of a weird game. There wasn’t much flow. But everyone chipped in." Skinner stayed persistent and carried his momentum into each game. Although he wasn’t able to successfully net any points in the games against San Jose and Vancouver, he found a couple noteworthy opportunities. "He's a goal scorer when he shoots the puck," Kirk Muller said. "He can score when he gets those opportunities, so he's working for it." To no surprise Skinner lit up the scoreboard again against the Edmonton Oilers with an assist and the comeback goal that sent the game into overtime. Last night's contest Skinner managed the only goal for the Hurricanes. Skinner given the Hurricanes' first penalty shot opportunity of the season but was unable to give the convert and give them the go-ahead goal. "Looking back, I would have done something different," Skinner told the News and Observer. "I tried to open him up but he didn't really bite on my fake. I probably shouldn't have forced it in there." December has been somewhat kind to the Hurricanes so far as they have won three out of their last six games and managing a point out of five of them.Who’s created the art we want to look at, experience, and read about? The performances we’ve wanted to be a part of (or REALLY wanted to avoid)? Which are the voices in the art world we’ve felt compelled to listen to this year, even if we don’t agree with them? Who’s surprised us, shocked us, woken us out of our stupor? We’re not just looking at the young guns (the oldest artist on this list will be 60 next year); more those who have shifted up a gear and are grabbing our attention. In a year dominated by major political upheavals—in Europe and beyond—this wasn’t the moment for a round-up that obediently reflected sales figures and institutional exhibitions. Not to say we’re ignoring them, but we also wanted to look beyond, to the art world’s disruptors, influencers, agitators, and organizers. We need their input, now, more than ever. 1. Aaron Angell (born 1987 in Kent. Lives and works in London) With two separate displays at Glasgow International, multiple works in the (still touring) British Art Show 8 in 2016, and a residency at Tate St Ives and solo outing at GOMA coming up in 2017, London’s favourite ceramic-centric sculptor could make this list for his exhibitions alone. But 2016 was also the year that Troy Town Art pottery, Angell’s “radical and psychedelic” ceramics workshop, got a bump in funding and a new space, marking his importance, too, as an influencer. 2. John Akomfrah (born 1957, Accra, Ghana. Lives and works in London) Thirty years since their first film Handsworth Songs (1986) Akomfrah and regular collaborators David Lawson and Lina Gopaul, have enjoyed long-overdue time in the spotlight in 2016: a UK-wide institutional tour for the breathtaking three-screener Vertigo Sea, and buzzy outings of new works at Lisson Gallery in London and New York. Nominated for the Artes Mundi prize, this time next year Akomfrah and co will take over the Barbican’s Curve gallery. 3. Meriç Algün Ringborg (born 1983 in Istanbul. Lives and works in Stockholm) Algün Ringborg’s ongoing inquiries into the symbols of Europe and what it means to be—or not to be—European felt particularly poignant this year. Promotion Europe, shown as part of her exhibition “Transboundary” at ARoS in Denmark, offers 170 objects branded with the EU stars, from nail clippers to knitted hats: souvenirs not of a place, but an idea of a place. 2017 sees an outing at Istanbul Modern, alongside, as ever, dozens of group shows keen to catch the essence of the moment. 4. Kader Attia (born 1970 in France. Lives and works in Berlin and Algiers) Attia’s explorations of the impact of Western culture and colonialism this year nabbed him the Marcel Duchamp Award and a show (alongside the final four nominees) at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Next year sees solo outings at MCA Sydney, and The Block Museum in Illinois, and gallery shows in NY and San Gimignano. It was his “bar and agora” La Colonie: a space dedicated to ideas, discussion and the breaking of bread that Attia opened with his partner Zico Selloum during FIAC, that secured him a place in our hearts in 2016. 5. Nairy Baghramian (born 1971, Isfahan, Iran. Lives and works in Berlin) A Vincent Award nominee in the year there was—heroically—no winner (she and Jutta Koether turned down their nominations following a legal dispute involving fellow artist Danh Vō) Baghramian has had a far from quiet year. Highlights included winning the Zurich Art Prize (with which, a show currently at Museum Haus Konstruktiv), and a touring exhibition Déformation Professionnelle that kicked off at S.M.A.K in Gent before outings to Salzburg, Minneapolis and Copenhagen. Oh yes, and her debut show as part of the Marian Goodman stable. 6. Lucy Beech & Edward Thomasson (Born 1985, Beech in Hull, Thomasson in Staffordshire. Live and work in London) Recipients of one of this year’s Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards (£50,000 no strings attached support over three years), Beech and Thomasson have a knack for skewering social awkwardness and subverting propriety. Their two-part work Public Relations—which commenced this year at commenced at Site Gallery in Sheffield in January 2016, continued several month later to Maureen Paley in London, and just saw its second part performed at 1664 in The Hague—took a timely look at the mythic “straight white male” and how power is written in the body. 7. Rana Begum (Born 1977, Sylhet, Bangladesh. Lives and works in London) Begum’s anointment as winner of the $100,000 2017 Abraaj Group Art Prize came mere weeks before her 50-meter-long public artwork No. 700 Reflectors was unveiled in London last month. Begum’s occasionally Op-Art-y geometric works and gorgeous plays with color got a more intimately-scaled outing at Parasol Unit in London in the summer. 8. Anna-Sophie Berger (Born 1989, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna) Berger’s been a busy bee this year, with work in 14 group shows (count ‘em) stretching from Stavanger to Mexico City. She’s also had solo outings of various flavours in Bregenz, Munich, and her hometown of Vienna, where, as the first winner of the Kapsch Contemporary Art Prize, she got a show at MUMOK. Berger studied fashion design, and an understanding of the nuances of visual communication informs her work: at MUMOK she’s taken parabolic reflectors out of a local playground and installed them as a low-tech comms system in the gallery. 9. Hannah Black (Born Manchester. Lives and works in Berlin) Chisenhale have just announced a new commission and first solo institutional show for the artist/ writer/ theorist, and not a moment too soon: it feels like Black’s omnipresent already, on the page, online, and in the gallery. To get the ball rolling, there was her much-tweeted review of the 9th Berlin Biennale in Artforum and fall screenings of her film works at the New Museum in NY. Over the summer at a performance event at the ICA she released the character Anxietina who is “transformed by the power of anxiety” into, “a force for simultaneous good and evil”: a perfect character for our times, then. 10. Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin (born 1970, Johannesburg and 1971, London. Live and work in London) Following their lauded solo shows in 2015, Broomberg and Chanarin took a massive career swerve in 2016. Stepping away from art as an industry, they put the full force of their considerable passion behind first the #voteremain campaign, and now, Hands Off Our Revolution: an antifascist movement aimed at quelling the emboldened right wing in Europe and beyond. Sure, it didn’t stop Brexit, but #voteremain energized and inspired both the art world and a younger generation to get agitated over an unsexy political issue. Away from the champagne-swigging and fancy awards, this is art as activism, artist as organizer. 11. Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual, born Spain 1984 & Alon Schwabe, born 1984 in Tel Aviv. Live and work in London.) As an associate project of Glasgow International, Cooking Sections received an unusual amount of press attention. Perhaps because they were making ice cream, or perhaps because the ice cream was flavored with “invasive species”: sly commentary on the prejudicial language entering mainstream discourse in the UK around the topic of immigration. Over the fall, they set up shop as The Empire Remains Shop in central London, hosting projects and performances from artists around the world exploring the legacy of the British Empire, and placing Pascual and Schwabe at the center of a formidable artists’ network. 12. Michael Dean (Born 1977, Newcastle Upon Tyne. Lives and works in London) Dean seems an unlikely darling for the popular press, but somehow this rigorously intellectual, concrete tongue-twisting Turner Prize nominee has been the subject of two profile features in London’s Evening Standard, which dubbed him “London’s Most Exciting Art Star.” It was a much-fancied show at South London Gallery that nabbed him the Turner nomination, since then he’s also been the subject of a solo, “Sightings,” at the Nasher Sculpture Centre in Texas. 13. Cécile B. Evans (Born 1983, Cleveland, Ohio. Lives and works in London and Berlin) A popular inclusion in this year’s biennials (we spotted her in Moscow and Berlin; Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen (2014) was also shown at Sydney) Evans got a solo display at the Kunsthalle Winterthur for her comprehensive new work What the Heart Wants, which premiered at the 9th Berlin Biennale and looked at consciousness in the light of ever-more-complex systems of software and hardware. She bows out the year with a show at Tate Liverpool. 14. Loretta Fahrenholz (Born 1981, Starnberg. Lives and Works between Berlin and New York) Last year the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam bought Fahrenholz’s disaster movie/ dance video referencing Ditch Plains, and next month will open a sizeable show of acquired and new work. Four films—including the newly commissioned Two A.M—are also showing in a Susanne Pfeffer-curated show at the Fridericianum in Kassel. Which is, our voice on the inside informs us: “a good indicator for German artists about to go big.” 15. Christian Falsnaes (Born 1980 Copenhagen. Lives and works in Berlin) Falsnaes’s Justified Beliefs, first presented in Basel in 2014, choreographed audience members via five instruction-delivering headphones. That work has lived on (most recently in this year’s TodaysArt festival in The Hague) and Falsnaes has built on the idea of the audience as compliant, plastic material in recent works such as Thousand Faces commissioned by the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. Earlier this week he was shortlisted for the $100,000 Future Generation Art Prize—manipulating the audience pays off, it seems. 16. Omer Fast (Born 1972 Jerusalem. Lives and works in Berlin) Our ears-to-the-ground in the world of moving image tell us that, ultimately, every video artist secretly dreams of making a feature film. Fast has done just that, this year seeing the theatrical release of Remainder, adapted from Tom McCarthy’s mind-bending book. Fast’s not turned his back on the art world just yet though: in March he got a major UK solo show at BALTIC in Gateshead, and a substantial exhibition, “Talking is not always the solution” is on through next March at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. 17. Simon Fujiwara (Born 1982 London. Lives and works in Berlin) Fujiwara’s quietly had a major year, with solo outings (shows and performances) in Tokyo, Dublin, Brussels, and London, and a heavy Biennale presence. What really caught our attention was Joanne at London’s Photographers’ Gallery, in which Fujiwara investigated the fallout of a tabloid scandal involving one of his high school teachers; a project that is at once delicate and personal, and a wider investigation of the way images are constructed and language used to denigrate women in the popular media. 18. Dora García (born 1965, Vallodolid, Spain. Lives and works in Barcelona) García’s got plenty on her plate: the short film El helicóptero—widely shown on the artist moving image circuit this year—was the first part in a longer film project on the (anti) happenings of Oscar Masotta. Looking, too, at conversations, interactions and happening, at the Gwangju Biennial she presented the Nokdu bookstore for the living and the dead, recreating a site of political importance in the 1980s as a space for contemporary discourse. 2017 kicks off with These books were alive; they spoke to me! at The Tetley, in Yorkshire. 19. Karlos Gil (Born 1984, Toledo. Lives and works in Madrid) Young curators like Gil—he’s been in modish group shows all over western Europe in 2016. Next up: “Morphogenesis,” a solo show curated by Artnet favourite João Laia, the opening exhibition at the new Galeria Francisco Fino, Lisbon. 20. Emma Hart (Born 1974, London. Lives and works in London) Announced as the winner of the Max Mara Prize earlier this year, Hart has spent much of 2016 working through her residency in Italy, studying the work of family therapists, graves of the ancient Romans and ceramic traditions of Faenza. It’s been intense. Summer 2017, the fruits of her labors will go on show at Whitechapel Gallery in London before moving on the Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia. In the meantime, Hart lovers can get their fix at “Love Life,” her evolving touring show of works exploring the domestic macabre with Jonathan Baldock. Currently at PEER in Hoxton, it goes on tour and transforms over the course of 2017. 21. Celia Hempton (Born 1981 Stroud, UK. Lives and works in London) Hempton’s lusciously painted dick pix were a highlight of this year’s Frieze London. Hempton has a knack of finding odd beauty in the transgressive and those parts of modern life that one might otherwise not want to look at. A participant in London’s emerging “happenings” scene in 2016—notably Serpentine Gallery’s Magazine Sessions and the ICA-backed Art Night—she’s also attracting attention in the US, with work in Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today at the ICA / Boston coming up in 2018. 22. Camille Henrot (Born 1978 Paris. Lives and works in New York) Among other things, in 2016 Henrot orchestrated this year’s Volcano Extravaganza on the Italian island of Stromboli—a jolly run up to what is likely to be a busy 2017. Next fall she has the “Carte Blanche” of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, an honor currently enjoyed by Tino Sehgal, and something of a coming of age. She may be living in New York, but as Parreno, Huyghe, and Gonzalez-Foerster mature, Henrot feels like she’s being anointed as part of France’s coming generation. 23. Patrick Hough (Born 1989, Galway, Ireland. Lives and works in London) Hough’s explorations of value and collecting habits—via a triptych of films starring film props—were a highlight of João Laia’s satellite show at the Moscow Young Art Biennial this year. Around the same time, Hough was announced as a recipient of a Jerwood Award—the resulting film will be shown in March 2017, with a two-person show (with Michal Baror) opening the following month at narrative projects, London. 24. Donna Huanca (Born 1980, Chicago. Lives and works in Berlin) Huanca was hotly tipped on this list last year: she’s had a stellar 2016, including her largest work yet, Scar Cymbals—a commission for the Zabludowicz Collection in London combining sculptural works, painting, sound, and live performance over a number of months. 2017 looks steamy for Huanca too: in February alone she’s in the next group exhibition at the Julia Stoschek Collection in Berlin, and has a solo
T ts and log total precipitation P ts represent regional averages across the I sites for year t and month s. For our data, there are no months with zero precipitation, and the log transform is well defined, although this is not true in general. Within a given month, the temperature and log precipitation measurements are approximately normally distributed; hence, we model them using Gaussian distributions. It is common to model the climate dynamics in anomaly space, resulting in standard normal temperature and log precipitation anomalies (1) (2), and are the sample means and standard deviations of temperature and log precipitation for month s, respectively. We define the monthly scale anomaly temperature and log precipitation vectors for year and, the bivariate climate anomaly vector for year, and the vector of all climate anomalies,, for years t = 1,…,τ. where, andare the sample means and standard deviations of temperature and log precipitation for month, respectively. We define the monthly scale anomaly temperature and log precipitation vectors for yearand, the bivariate climate anomaly vector for year, and the vector of all climate anomalies,, for years= 1,…, 2.2 Tree ring data model The 34 tree ring chronologies contain measurements from J = 12 different tree species in the Hudson Valley region of New York, shown in Table 1. Each of the tree ring chronologies is at least 160 years long, and three chronologies date back to 1453. Further details about how the tree ring chronology data were collected and processed can be found in the work of Pederson et al. (2013). Table 1. Species used in the reconstruction Species Number of chronologies Tsuga canadensis 3 Liriodendron tulipifera 3 Juniperus virginiana 1 Carya glabra 3 Quercus stellata 1 Betula lenta 2 Pinus rigida 1 Quercus montana 5 Quercus rubra 4 Quercus alba 5 Quercus velutina 3 Carya ovata 1 Chamaecyparis thyoides 2 The tree ring observation y itj represents the annual observed tree ring width from the ith location for species j at time t. We model the tree ring width data as arising from a mixture of two distributions that depend on different forms of a deterministic growth model response to climate: (3) and are deterministic link functions that “grow” tree rings given the climate anomaly w t and species‐specific model parameters and for the two different growth models denoted as VS and Pro to be discussed in more detail later. In Sections θ j. The stochastic indicator variable z j selects the growth model form appropriate for species j. Examination of the posterior distribution of z provides a statistically principled method for comparing proposed growth model forms. For j = 1,…,J, we specify a binomial prior on z j with prior probability 0.5 to allow each growth model to be equally likely a priori. whereandare deterministic link functions that “grow” tree rings given the climate anomalyand species‐specific model parametersandfor the two different growth models denoted as VS and Pro to be discussed in more detail later. In Sections 2.3 2.3.1, and 2.3.2, we describe the structure of the growth link function and the growth model parameters. The stochastic indicator variableselects the growth model form appropriate for species. Examination of the posterior distribution ofprovides a statistically principled method for comparing proposed growth model forms. For= 1,…,, we specify a binomial prior onwith prior probability 0.5 to allow each growth model to be equally likely In contrast with the work of Tolwinski‐Ward et al. 2014) where they standardize the tree ring growth model output to have the same mean and standard deviation as the observed tree ring chronology, we use 3 to calibrate the tree ring growth model output to the observed chronology. The growth model‐specific parameters β 0j and β 1j ( and center and scale the synthetic tree ring growth model output to be coherent with the observed tree ring widths up to an error with variance, where the symbol ∼ distinguishes the growth model form. We specify priors for the VS growth calibration model parameters, with those for the Pro being defined similarly. For each species j = 1,…,J, we specify a hierarchically pooled prior across species β 0j ∼ N and β 1j ∼ N with hyperpriors N(1,1), IG N(1,1), and IG(1,1). For the j = 1,…,J calibration standard deviation parameters, we define the prior with hierarchical pooling hyperparameters μσ 2 ∼N(0,10) and. where N, logN, and IG refer to the normal, lognormal, and inverse Gamma distributions. 2.3 Process model The statistical learning about past climate is achieved through a deterministic tree ring growth model that uses monthly temperature and precipitation as inputs. Formation of tree ring widths occur periodically throughout the growing season, with the rate of growth influenced by the prevailing weather. However, the data and the forward model are in the form of monthly climate variables and annual tree growth increments. The monthly temporal scale of the temperature and precipitation presents a change of support problem because the observed tree ring data occur at annual, not monthly, resolution. Hence, prediction of climate at a monthly scale involves downscaling the annual resolution tree ring information into monthly increments. In years without climate observations, we use 1 and 2 to accomplish the downscaling by imposing the observed monthly climate patterns. The downscaling assumes that the monthly patterns and dynamics of temperature and precipitation within a given year are estimable from the observational period and that these patterns are representative of the reconstruction period. For example, because temperature is strongly seasonal, the pattern of warm temperatures in summer and cold temperatures in winter will be the same regardless of the absolute magnitude of the annual or decadal temperature patterns. Precipitation is less consistent, but annual variability in these patterns allows for realistic downscaling. To align the different data sources occurring at different scales, we use a discrete‐time approximation of the continuous growth process on a monthly scale, thus aligning tree growth with the PRISM data. We then aggregate the monthly growth increments to an annual resolution, thereby upscaling the continuous growth from temperature and precipitation for year t, species j, and month s into the growth increments. Thus, the representation of annual tree ring growth under the VS model form (the Pro model form is defined similarly, replacing with with and g with ) is (4) χ s are the monthly average length of daylight scaled to the unit interval (0,1). Thus, χ s scales growth to the known average amount of sunlight in a month, mimicking the physiology of tree growth. The monthly scale function g downscales the marginal annual climate anomaly to a monthly value and “grows” a monthly tree ring increment given the marginal climate. These marginal monthly growth functions then are combined by taking the minimum, allowing each month's growth to be either temperature or precipitation sensitive. Hence, the tree ring growth model follows the “principle of limiting factors,” which states that tree growth is constrained by the climatic variable that is limiting (Fritts, 1976 g and used in our model, which we call Vaganov–Shashkin Lite (“VS‐Lite”), representing the growth model form used by Tolwinski‐Ward et al. ( 2014 a weighted sum of monthly growth function responses to temperature and precipitation where the weightsare the monthly average length of daylight scaled to the unit interval (0,1). Thus,scales growth to the known average amount of sunlight in a month, mimicking the physiology of tree growth. The monthly scale functiondownscales the marginal annual climate anomaly to a monthly value and “grows” a monthly tree ring increment given the marginal climate. These marginal monthly growth functions then are combined by taking the minimum, allowing each month's growth to be either temperature or precipitation sensitive. Hence, the tree ring growth model follows the “principle of limiting factors,” which states that tree growth is constrained by the climatic variable that is limiting (Fritts,). In the next sections, we describe the two forms ofandused in our model, which we call Vaganov–Shashkin Lite (“VS‐Lite”), representing the growth model form used by Tolwinski‐Ward), and “probit.” Biologically, all tree species in the tree ring network have a similar response to climate. For example, all tree species in the network have more similar climatological needs than, say, a tropical tree, which requires an entirely different climate. One explanation for what allows many tree species to grow in the same region are that different species occur in niche deviations from the overall mean response to climate. Because of this, recent research in climate reconstruction methods demonstrates that inclusion of multiple tree species improves climate reconstruction skill (García‐Suárez et al. 2009; Cook and Pederson, 2011). Allowing for species‐specific climate responses ameliorates the difficulties of inverting the multivalued functional relationship between climate and tree ring widths by placing multiple constraints on the set of possible climate scenarios. Using multiple species is beneficial as it provides more constraints on climate and may allow for more precise estimation than in Tolwinski‐Ward et al. (2014). However, separate growth parameters for each species increases the number of model parameters to be estimated; therefore, we borrow strength by modeling the growth parameters hierarchically to improve parameter estimation and predictive skill (Gelman and Hill, 2006; Hooten and Hobbs, 2015; Hobbs and Hooten, 2015). By treating each tree species' response to climate as a random draw from a pooled distribution, the model shares information among tree species. This borrowing of strength among species is easily incorporated into the probit growth model framework but is not straightforward in the VS‐Lite framework. 2.3.1 VS‐Lite tree ring growth model The “VS‐Lite” model represents a statistical approximation to the Vaganov–Shashkin Lite model that has been shown to create reasonable tree ring width dendrochronologies given climate (Shashkin and Vaganov, 1993; Vaganov et al. 2006; Tolwinski‐Ward et al. 2011). The VS‐Lite tree ring growth model uses the linear ramp function (5) as a link between climate and tree ring width growth shown in Figure ( 1 ). The monthly tree ring growth functions for temperature and precipitation using VS‐Lite are (6) for each species j = 1,…,J. For temperatures below, there is no tree ring growth. For monthly temperatures between and, tree ring growth increases linearly over the unit interval (0,1). When the monthly temperature exceeds, growth occurs at a maximum rate, taking a value of 1. The interpretation for and is similar. Figure 1 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint and, the temperatures below which growth is zero or above which growth is optimal (equivalently and for precipitation). The black dot on the probit plot represents the probit mean growth response to temperature ( for precipitation) and the line shows the probit standard deviation of growth response to temperature ( for precipitation) Example VS‐Lite and probit ramp functions. The black dots on the VS‐Lite plot represent the locations ofand, the temperatures below which growth is zero or above which growth is optimal (equivalentlyandfor precipitation). The black dot on the probit plot represents the probit mean growth response to temperaturefor precipitation) and the line shows the probit standard deviation of growth response to temperaturefor precipitation) and are combined according to the principle of limiting factors using 4. The growth parameters for the VS‐Lite tree ring growth model arefor each species= 1,…,. For temperatures below, there is no tree ring growth. For monthly temperatures betweenand, tree ring growth increases linearly over the unit interval (0,1). When the monthly temperature exceeds, growth occurs at a maximum rate, taking a value of 1. The interpretation forandis similar. To complete the VS‐Lite growth model parameterization, we specify priors for the growth parameters using a four‐parameter Beta(α,β,L,U) distribution, a Beta(α,β) distribution that has been shifted and scaled to have a lower endpoint L and an upper endpoint U. These prior models require expert knowledge to specify; hence, we follow the recommendations of Tolwinski‐Ward et al. (2013), recognizing that the previous work modeled soil moisture instead of precipitation under a different climate scenario than the Hudson Valley. We chose informative priors that place a majority of the probability mass in the center of the support that result in growth model priors that are reasonable given the climate of the Hudson Valley. For j = 1,…,J, the VS‐Lite parameter priors are Beta(9, 5, 0, 9), Beta(3.5, 3.5, 10, 24), Beta(3.5, 3.5, 65, 85), and Beta(3.5, 3.5, 85, 105). Despite existing knowledge of tree response to climate, the VS‐Lite tree ring growth model could be sensitive to prior specification, especially if the true growth parameter values lie outside the range of prior support. In this case, the posterior probability of correctly estimating the true parameter value is exactly zero. Therefore, climate reconstruction using the VS‐Lite growth model formulation has the potential to be highly influenced by misspecification of the prior support. 2.3.2 Probit tree ring growth model An alternative to the VS‐Lite tree ring growth model is the probit growth model, which was not examined by Tolwinski‐Ward et al. (2014). The probit growth model replaces the linear function ψ(η) in the VS‐Lite growth model by the infinitely differentiable inverse normal cumulative distribution function Φ−1(η). The probit growth model parameters have infinite support and are parameterized as. There are only slight differences in the shape of the VS‐Lite and probit growth model functions, as seen in Figure 1. The probit ramp function produces a smoother response to climate than the VS‐Lite ramp function, but other than smoothness, the two shapes are quite similar; hence, it seems likely that the shape of the growth function alone will not significantly improve predictive performance. The motivation for the probit growth function is that our model framework takes advantage of statistical properties not available in the VS‐Lite framework. First, the prior support for the probit growth model is the real line, in comparison with the VS‐Lite prior support that is restricted to compact support. In practice, if the true growth model in the VS‐Lite framework is not in the range of prior support, the posterior probability of correctly estimating this parameter is exactly zero, regardless of the amount and quality of data. The probit growth function does not suffer from this problem. Additionally, the probit model can be easily extended to a hierarchical pooling framework. We propose the probit growth model form to evaluate the influences of these desirable statistical probabilities on the climate reconstruction. If the predictive performance of the two models is equivalent, the probit model will be preferred because of these properties. The monthly probit growth increments due to temperature and precipitation are (7) (8) and represent the species‐specific temperature and precipitation probit mean growth rate, respectively, and the parameters and control the effective range where tree growth responds to climate, the probit standard deviation. A species with a higher value of will experience better growth under warmer weather than a species with a lower value of, and a species with a larger will have a larger range of temperatures in which that tree species will grow than a species with a smaller. The interpretation of these growth model parameters is similar for precipitation. where the parametersandrepresent the species‐specific temperature and precipitation probit mean growth rate, respectively, and the parametersandcontrol the effective range where tree growth responds to climate, the probit standard deviation. A species with a higher value ofwill experience better growth under warmer weather than a species with a lower value of, and a species with a largerwill have a larger range of temperatures in which that tree species will grow than a species with a smaller. The interpretation of these growth model parameters is similar for precipitation. For j = 1,…,J, we specify the probit growth model parameter distributions for the species as, and. The pooling of these effects occurs by adding one more level in the hierarchical model by defining a hyperprior model for each of the prior parameters above with,,,,,,, and. These prior values represent likely values that cover the range of growing season temperature and precipitation values seen in the Hudson Valley while being highly flexible, thus allowing the model to estimate the growth parameters more flexibly than the VS‐Lite growth model. 2.4 Dynamic multi‐scale climate process We model temperature and log precipitation anomalies jointly with a dynamic, multi‐scale model, allowing prediction of unobserved temperature and precipitation when combined with the tree ring chronology data. The model is a temporal vector autoregressive process among years, given a propagator matrix A, and a correlated autoregressive process among months determined by the structure of a covariance matrix Σ. To account for trend in the temperature anomaly time series during the observational period 1895–2010, we include an intercept Δ 0 and slope Δ 1 in the model for years after t∗=1895. In years before t∗, we do not have observational data, and thus, we do not model a trend. This results in the dynamic de‐trended process (9) (10) defines the annual‐scale autocorrelation for the temperature and log precipitation anomalies, where ϕ 1 and ϕ 2 are the annual autocorrelation parameters. In these expressions, I is the identity matrix, and J is a 12 × 1 vector of ones. We model the inter‐annual covariance Σ with a temporal multivariate conditionally autoregressive (MCAR) structure, a generalization of the conditionally autoregressive (CAR) structure in time that allows for the within‐year temperature and precipitation anomalies to have their own temporal autocorrelation parameters while also including a temporally explicit cross‐correlation between the anomaly measurements (Mardia, 1988 2003 2003 et al. 2005 The propagator matrixdefines the annual‐scale autocorrelation for the temperature and log precipitation anomalies, whereandare the annual autocorrelation parameters. In these expressions,is the identity matrix, andis a 12 × 1 vector of ones. We model the inter‐annual covariancewith a temporal multivariate conditionally autoregressive (MCAR) structure, a generalization of the conditionally autoregressive (CAR) structure in time that allows for the within‐year temperature and precipitation anomalies to have their own temporal autocorrelation parameters while also including a temporally explicit cross‐correlation between the anomaly measurements (Mardia,; Carlin and Banerjee,; Gelfand and Vounatsou,; Jin). We found the MCAR model to be best fitting among a set of candidate models for temporal autocorrelation. To construct the temporal MCAR covariance matrix Σ, we first define a temporal CAR precision matrix that will be used as a component in building Σ. The particular precision matrix we use, Q(ω), specifies a process identical to an autoregressive process of order 1 in the time series literature if \|ω\|<1(Cressie and Wikle, 2011, p. 170). We define the monthly temperature CAR precision matrix Q(ω T ) with autocorrelation parameter ω T and the monthly log precipitation CAR precision matrix Q(ω P ) with autocorrelation parameter ω P, allowing each climate variable to have its own monthly autocorrelation. We decompose and with a Cholesky decomposition (one could also use a spectral decomposition) and construct the MCAR precision matrix as (11) is a correlation matrix with ρ representing the atemporal cross‐correlation between temperature and precipitation, is a global variance parameter, and ⊗ represents the Kronecker product. Thus, using where the matrixis a correlation matrix withrepresenting the atemporal cross‐correlation between temperature and precipitation,is a global variance parameter, and ⊗ represents the Kronecker product. Thus, using 11, we model intra‐annual autocorrelation, monthly autocorrelation, and cross‐correlation in the climate process. To significantly reduce computation time, we employ an empirical Bayes approach to process the climate data (Casella, 1985). We estimate the propagator matrix A, the intra‐annual covariance matrix Σ, and the trend parameters Δ 0 and Δ 1 off‐line using a hybrid Metropolis–Hastings and Gibbs Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling algorithm using U(−1,1) priors for the parameters ρ,ω T, and ω P and an IG(1, 1) prior for the variance. After fitting the model, we use posterior median values of each parameter as estimates of the true processes parameters; thus, our posterior predictions do not include climate model parameter uncertainty, and our corresponding credible intervals will be overly optimistic. 2.5 Posterior We desire inference on the posterior distribution and quantities derived from the posterior distribution. The posterior we seek to approximate with our MCMC algorithm is θVS] and [θPro], respectively. Implementation of a hybrid Metropolis–Hastings and Gibbs MCMC algorithm allows for estimation of the posterior distribution (Banerjee et al. 2004 2011 2014 2014 1992 statistic and visual inspection of the trace plots. where the parameter models for the VS‐Lite and probit growth model are represented as [] and [], respectively. Implementation of a hybrid Metropolis–Hastings and Gibbs MCMC algorithm allows for estimation of the posterior distribution (Banerjee; Carlin and Louis,). Our model was implemented using the R software program (R Core Team,), while leveraging significant portions of C++ code using RcppArmadillo (Eddelbuettel and Sanderson,) to increase computation speed. The MCMC algorithm for each candidate model was run for 15,000 iterations with the first half discarded as burn‐in with thinning every five observations, for three parallel chains, resulting in 4500 posterior samples for a total computation time of 1 h on a 2014 MacBook Pro. Convergence was assessed using Gelman and Rubin's (statistic and visual inspection of the trace plots. 3 Model Evaluation Traditional paleoclimate reconstructions evaluate predictive performance with out‐of‐sample data using the coefficient of efficiency (CE) (Cook et al., 1994; Rutherford et al., 2005; Tingley and Huybers, 2010a, 2010b). Despite the accepted use of this scoring statistic, Gneiting and Raftery (2007) suggest that skill scores like CE are improper in general. This implies that it is possible to have predictions that, under expectation, have better CE skill scores than a model that is optimal. Therefore, use of improper scoring rules can lead to incorrect inference about predictive skill among a set of predictive models. To prevent this, we use a proper scoring rule. Proper scoring rules guarantee that, under expectation, the optimal predictive model will have the best predictive score (Gneiting et al. 2007; Gneiting, 2011; Hooten and Hobbs, 2015). Our model produces a probabilistic forecast; hence, we use the continuous ranked probability score (CRPS), a proper scoring rule that accommodates both probabilistic and point forecasts. Several recent papers on late Holocene climate reconstructions have likewise made use of the CRPS (Barboza et al. 2014; Werner and Tingley, 2015). Given a forecast with cumulative distribution function, F t, at time t and out‐of‐sample observations y oos, the CRPS is defined as (12) et al. 2007 (13) y t and are independent copies of a linear random variable with distribution function F t and the expectation E is with respect to the probability density induced by F t. The first expectation in the preceding equation measures calibration, the absolute error of the prediction relative to the out‐of‐sample value, and the second expectation rewards predictions that are sharp (i.e., narrow prediction intervals). Hence, the CRPS rewards probabilistic predictions that are accurate and precise. Gneiting) show how 12 can be written alternatively aswhereandare independent copies of a linear random variable with distribution functionand the expectationis with respect to the probability density induced by. The first expectation in the preceding equation measures calibration, the absolute error of the prediction relative to the out‐of‐sample value, and the second expectation rewards predictions that are sharp (i.e., narrow prediction intervals). Hence, the CRPS rewards probabilistic predictions that are accurate and precise. In a Bayesian context, CRPS can be estimated after obtaining posterior samples. First, sample from the posterior predictive distribution at each post‐burn‐in iteration k. Then, the expression in 13 is approximated by (14) is the best scoring model, and under expectation, the best predicting model. We use the CRPS score in the simulation study to select the best model based on predictive performance. The CRPS is a negatively oriented scoring rule; therefore, the model with the lowestis the best scoring model, and under expectation, the best predicting model. 4 Simulation Study We consider three variants of the model presented earlier to conduct a reconstruction experiment. First, we consider the VS‐Lite tree ring growth model, modifying the work of Tolwinski‐Ward et al. 2014) to be consistent with our modeling framework using our climate model and multispecies approach. Second, we use only the probit tree ring growth model. Lastly, we use the mixture model described in 3 that allows for choice of tree ring growth model. We evaluate predictive performance of these candidate models over nine total simulation scenarios, using each of the tree ring growth models to simulate pseudoproxy data and fitting each growth model to each of the three simulated datasets. We simulate the data as follows. First, we estimate A and Σ from the instrumental climate data using 9. Using these estimates, we simulate a realization of the climate process with 446 years of pre‐instrumental simulated climate variables while adding a trend with a slope of 1/110 to the 110 years of temperature observations in the observation period, producing a current‐day increase of 1°C. For the VS‐Lite tree ring growth model simulation, we sample the growth parameters from uniform distributions. For each species,,, and. For the probit tree ring growth model, we sample the growth parameters,,, and for each species j = 1,…,J. Next, we use each tree ring growth model to produce a noiseless tree ring chronology, standardizing each chronology to have a mean of 1 and a standard deviation of 0.2, as in the Hudson Valley dataset. Adding in noise representing measurement and processing error, we simulate noisy chronologies (15) controls the signal‐to‐noise ratio in the simulated tree ring chronology, values of near zero represent a high signal‐to‐noise ratio, while values near one represent a low signal‐to‐noise ratio. We let, representing a signal‐to‐noise ratio of 0.58, which is at the high end of what is realistic for many tree ring chronologies (Smerdon, 2012 Figure 2 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Simulated and observed tree ring width chronology for Hudson Valley The parametercontrols the signal‐to‐noise ratio in the simulated tree ring chronology, values ofnear zero represent a high signal‐to‐noise ratio, while values near one represent a low signal‐to‐noise ratio. We let, representing a signal‐to‐noise ratio of 0.58, which is at the high end of what is realistic for many tree ring chronologies (Smerdon,). Figure 2 shows a realization of the simulated chronology and the observed chronology from Hudson Valley, demonstrating that our simulation methodology produces realistic tree ring chronologies. We apply the same structure of missingness to our simulated data as in the observed chronology, producing simulations as close as possible to the observed data. The model characteristic most important to us in climate reconstruction is predictive ability. The reconstruction temperature and precipitation values are shown in Table 2 for data simulated with the VS‐Lite growth model, in Table 3 for data simulated with the probit growth model, and in Table 4 for data simulated with the mixture growth model. For each of the simulated datasets, was estimated for both annual and growing period reconstructions, with bold scores highlighting the model that performs best for each simulated dataset and time period. As a baseline comparison, the scores for a climatological prediction are included. The values suggest all three models are similar in predictive ability, although there might be a slight preference for the mixture growth model. Based on this, we discuss the mixture growth model from here forward. Although the probit growth model is often not the best scoring model, the mixture growth model indicator variable, z, suggests an even split between the VS‐Lite and probit tree ring growth models (the probit model is selected about 53% of the time) within the MCMC chain. An example reconstruction using the mixture tree ring growth model on the simulated data (Figure 3) demonstrates that the reconstruction performs quite well for log precipitation but is rather uninformative for temperature. Note that around 1650–1700, the uncertainty intervals in the log precipitation reconstruction increase in width, and predictive skill decreases because of increasing numbers of missing chronologies as well as the amount of replication within a given chronology decreasing. This uncertainty provides information about when the reconstruction is performing well and over what time periods the predictions are no better than climatology without relying on calibration skill measures like CE. Table 2. Continuous ranked probability scores (CRPS) for annual temperature, growing season temperature, annual precipitation, and growing season precipitation for data simulated with the Vaganov–Shashkin Lite (VS‐Lite) growth model Climatology VS‐Lite Probit Mixture Annual temperature 531.29 455.71 455.75 455.98 Growing season temperature 486.52 462.71 463.93 464.45 Annual log precipitation 98.53 85.20 85.16 84.86 Growing season log precipitation 130.92 91.65 92.20 90.63 Table 3. Continuous ranked probability scores (CRPS) for annual temperature, growing season temperature, annual precipitation, and growing season precipitation for data simulated with the probit growth model Climatology VS‐Lite Probit Mixture Annual temperature 571.92 446.90 446.99 446.72 Growing season temperature 482.51 450.02 451.15 451.04 Annual log precipitation 101.06 90.61 90.36 90.69 Growing season log precipitation 129.34 93.25 93.59 93.61 Table 4. Continuous ranked probability scores (CRPS) for annual temperature, growing season temperature, annual precipitation, and growing season precipitation for data simulated with the mixture growth model Climatology VS‐Lite Probit Mixture Annual temperature 540.23 438.65 438.33 438.80 Growing season temperature 489.36 440.66 441.17 440.60 Annual log precipitation 97.82 85.28 85.40 84.49 Growing season log precipitation 126.33 90.51 91.02 90.04 Figure 3 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Reconstruction of temperature and log precipitation from data simulated with the mixture growth model and fit with the mixture growth model. The grey shading is proportional to the posterior predictive density, the dotted grey lines show the 95% posterior predictive credible interval, and the black line is the simulation truth In addition to producing accurate climate reconstructions, all growth model types recover the simulated growth model parameters when the model is applied to data simulated with the same structure, showing that all of the models are capable of estimating the simulated growth model parameters. This result validates the growth model's usefulness for investigation of climatological niches for different tree species as well as providing accurate predictions of climate. Yet, despite accurately estimating the temperature growth parameters, the temperature reconstruction is not much more informative than a climatological prediction. Hence, the simulation suggests the failure to predict temperature patterns is not due to poor estimation of the simulated growth parameters. To further illuminate why the model is unable to reconstruct temperature, Figure 4 shows the observed monthly temperature and precipitation patterns with the probit growth model parameters shaded showing the range over which the model is sensitive to climate. We obtain very little learning about temperature at an annual scale, as the model is sensitive to temperature for, at best, two to four months of the year and only in the spring/fall with no learning about temperature during the winter (when temperature is most variable) and summer months. In fact, the effective learning about temperature occurs in much less than four months because of the multiplicative interaction between temperature and precipitation in 4. Therefore, any learning about temperature from the growth model is dominated by monthly variability in temperature. In contrast, the reconstruction of precipitation is quite accurate, especially in the near past, because the model is sensitive to precipitation values for all months of the year. This illustrates that the change of support from monthly to annual scale causes few problems for precipitation. An investigation of climate scenarios with a more significant overlap between the climate and tree growth sensitivities in simulations (not shown in these results) demonstrates potential for reconstruction of both temperature and precipitation patterns, presenting opportunities for further applications to other datasets. Figure 4 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Reconstruction of annual temperature depends on the growth parameters. The shaded area shows where the growth parameters are sensitive to climate, and the grey lines are observed climate. The vertical lines in the temperature plot show that, at best, the annual reconstruction is dependent on four or fewer months. Thus, annual‐scale information about temperature is hard to recover from only a few months, while precipitation information can be extracted across all months 5 Hudson Valley Results Based on the predictive results in the simulation study, we apply the mixture tree ring growth model to the Hudson Valley data. Based on our simulations and expert priors, the most obvious characteristic of the reconstruction is that we obtain only minimal learning about temperature, while the precipitation reconstruction performs well. To validate our predictive model, we translate and scale the reconstruction of Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) in Pederson et al. (2013), a reconstruction that uses the same Hudson Valley dataset but very different methods, and compare this result with our reconstruction of log precipitation. Figure 5 shows that our log precipitation reconstruction strongly correlates (r = 0.74) with the previous PDSI reconstruction effort for the near past, while having the added benefit of explicitly accounting for uncertainty. It seems reasonable that PDSI would be correlated with log precipitation because PDSI is a measure of drought severity, and because there is little inter‐annual variability in temperature, the primary driver of drought (and tree growth) in the Hudson Valley is the amount of precipitation (Martin‐Benito and Pederson, 2015). Figure 5 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint et al. ( 2013 Climate reconstruction from the Hudson Valley chronology. The grey shading is proportional to posterior predictive density, the dotted lines show the 95% credible intervals, and the solid black line in the precipitation plot is a translated and scaled reconstruction of drought (Palmer Drought Severity Index) from Pederson The uncertainty estimates for the reconstruction of log precipitation provide insight for the prediction's reliability. As we backcast in time, the 95% credible interval size approaches the size of predictive intervals derived using the observational data only, suggesting that the reconstruction lacks predictive ability before approximately 1650–1700. This loss of predictive ability, as seen in the simulation study, occurs during a time period where many tree ring chronologies are lacking enough replication to be included in the ring network. As such, deviations between our log precipitation reconstruction and the previous reconstruction of PDSI in Figure 5 before 1650–1700 can be explained in the context of prediction uncertainty. In addition to the climate reconstructions, it is possible to obtain inference about the climatological niches that different tree species occupy from the growth parameters. Many tree species in the Hudson Valley dataset have only one or two chronologies; therefore, inference is limited because of the relatively small sample size and associated overlap in uncertainty intervals. For the VS‐Lite growth model, the posterior samples show little ability to discern different ecological niches, but the posterior samples from the probit growth model posterior show many species have statistically different mean responses to climate. This demonstrates that the probit growth model can be easily adapted for ecological learning in a richer dataset where climatological prediction is not of interest. Also important is the posterior distribution of the indicator of model importance z. We find that the model has a slight preference for the probit growth model using the Hudson Valley data, with a posterior probability P(z = 1) = 0.54. This is not substantially different than the prior probability of 0.5, which is expected because the two growth functions have very similar shapes. The slight preference for the probit growth form comes from improved parameter estimation through the use of a hierarchically pooled prior model. 6 Discussion We presented a methodological framework for reconstructing paleoclimate using a mechanistic Bayesian hierarchical model motivated by the work of Tolwinski‐Ward et al. (2014). We proposed a novel probit tree ring growth model that takes advantage of the biology of tree growth and pools tree growth parameters to improve estimation and decrease sensitivity to prior specification. This new growth function was proposed in a framework that rigorously evaluates the growth model influence. Our extension to multispecies modeling of tree response to climate constrained predictive backcasts to a climate scenario consistent with the data, thereby improving predictive skill over models that do not explicitly incorporate multiple species. The introduction of a calibration model reduced computation time and improved MCMC convergence over previous standardization methods. We developed an upscaling and downscaling model to align the different data sources on the same scale and proposed a novel dynamic joint process model for temperature and precipitation accounting for temporal correlation and cross‐correlation. Our pseudoproxy simulation experiment evaluated predictions with a proper scoring rule that uses the full probabilistic forecast. The simulation study provided insight about model performance and provided feedback that can be used to interpret results from the Hudson Valley data. By using a biologically motivated Bayesian hierarchical model for reconstructing climate processes from tree rings widths, we combine statistical techniques with scientific models developed in dendrochronology. Our modeling framework explicitly accounts for uncertainties, in comparison with many previous climate reconstructions that use linear statistical methods and rely on asymptotic assumptions or bootstrap algorithms to estimate uncertainties, as discussed by Tingley and Huybers (2010b). An added benefit to using a bi
game, Flocked Together, is a bit more arty than many of your others. Can we expect more arty games from you? Arty games are fun because I used to want to be an animator. It's hard for me to think of arty games though. I am incredibly focused on gameplay and art usually takes a second place to that. Do you think games can be considered to be art? Over the course of the past few decades video games have grown to share many common attributes with film and interactive-media. In this sense, yes, I think games can be defined as art... but really this question is about dictionary definitions, isn't it? Does it fit into the art category or not? My answer: it just doesn't matter. Labeling something as being "art" or "not art" is offensive to people for some reason, as if saying something is good or bad. I enjoy playing a good game regardless of what labels we decide to give it. Which of your games are you most proud of? While not statistically my most successful game, I think Exit Path is probably the project I feel most proud of. It was the first project I programmed to be multiplayer. I was very nervous launching my first multiplayer game, to the point that I could barely watch the matches without feeling sick and getting incredibly nervous that everything would work properly. After seeing things work out I definitely felt accomplished. The game went on to do fairly well on Armor Games. What do you consider your most successful game? One of my first games actually, Ball Revamped 2. It was the game that finally got my work noticed. After a television feature and my website bandwidth destroyed I finally had enough courage to pursue a career in game development. Do you do both the art and programming for your games. Which of these two disciplines do you prefer? I'll be honest here... programming is not my favourite thing. Making things work properly can be frustrating and difficult. I feel like art is a bit more freeform and relaxing than poring over lines of code... it's a nice break from typing and debugging glitches. Is it possible to make a good living out of developing casual games? I think so, but there is a lot of time to put in before you can take off the training wheels. I had to hold down full-time jobs outside of Flash games for quite a while before jumping into it full-time. There's a lot of experience to build and mistakes to be made before doing this professionally. Are their any game developers whose work you particularly admire? Outside of the awesome guys at Armor Games, there's an artist named NinjaDoodle who makes these wonderful mouse/one-button based games. They are so simple yet so enjoyable. I admire his quality of gaming and style he brings to it. I also had the privilege of working with an artist named BoMToons on a couple projects, I love his art style and attention to things such as epic boss battles. What is your favourite casual game by another developer? Robot Unicorn Attack. I cannot get enough rainbows and unicorns. What are your plans for the future? I hope to explore more multiplayer gaming. It's fun playing with others and I would like to see what I can do with it. And in real-life I'm pushing myself to train to run a marathon next year so that's a big goal for me as well.The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) has ordered GMA Network Inc. to pay P21 million in back wages to more than 30 illegally dismissed employees. The 11-page decision also ordered the reinstatement of the employees, who are members of the Talents Association of GMA-7 (TAG). ADVERTISEMENT The NLRC said only 35 out of 53 petitioners were considered illegally dismissed. The other 15 were not covered by the decision for their unauthorized absences. The NLRC also did not include the three of the complainants, one of whom resigned, the other terminated due to embezzled company funds and another one dismissed in 2011, which is beyond the prescriptive period of 4 years. The NLRC earlier ruled that the TAG members were “entitled to security of tenure and all benefits and rights appurtenant thereto.” It was in response to a 2014 case filed by the employees, claiming that GMA-7 denied them of regularization status despite long years of service to the company. The network filed a motion for reconsideration but it was junked by NLRC in January 2016 for lack of merit. Based on the earlier ruling, the NLRC ordered the network to reinstate the workers and provide “payment of back wages computed from the date of their dismissal up to the time of their actual reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges.” GMA will have to pay a total of P21,429,366 in back wages. RAM/rga Read Next LATEST STORIES MOST READVariant Rule: Selecting Your Class Archetype at 1st Level Most characters do not receive any features from their archetype at 1st level. Usually this is not a problem. However, there are characters whose archetype is just as important to their concept as their class is. For a player of such a character, they may not feel quite right for the first couple of levels. Here, we present optional rules for swapping around the level at which certain features are learned for the classes and archetypes found in the Player's Handbook. Using These Rules For each of the archetypes presented below, there are instructions for how to modify the class features to gain archetype features at 1st level. This frequently will come in the form of fewer starting skills or equipment proficiencies. These generally refer to those received at 1st character level for a member of the class in question. Once a character using these rules reaches the level at which they would normally select their archetype, they will have all the same features as a character of the same level, class, and archetype that did not use them. To this end, some of the new features presented here lose some or all of their benefits when certain other class features are gained later on. For some archetypes, the default class features are the same as those for selecting the archetype at 1st level. Rules are not provided for any cleric, sorcerer, or warlock archetypes, as these are selected at 1st level by default. However in the case of the warlock, rules are provided for selecting your pact boon at 1st level. Designer's Note: Using 1st-Level Archetypes with Multiclassing The intent is that these variant features can only be taken by 1st-level characters. In other words, these rules are not meant to be used for the first level of a class taken by multiclassing. In addition, it is assumed that characters using these rules will advance in the class at least far enough that they receive the full initial features for their archetype before taking levels in any other class. While a DM is free to allow players to use these rules with multiclassing, they can make taking only a single level in a class even more enticing than it already is. For example, a player can get limited Wild Shapes or an animal companion with only one level of investment. Use caution when allowing such characters in your game. Barbarian Path of the Berserker If you wish to take the Path of the Berserker starting at 1st character level, follow the barbarian class features as presented in the Player's Handbook. Path of the Totem Warrior If you wish to take the Path of the Totem Warrior starting at 1st character level, choose only one skill from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character. As you level up, you gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the Path of the Totem Warriors' Spirit Seeker feature: Spirit Seeker. Starting at 1st level when you adopt the Path of the Totem Warrior, you can gain the ability to cast the speak with animals spell, but only as a ritual. When you reach 3rd level in this class, you also gain the ability to cast the beast sense spell, but only as a ritual. Bonus Proficiency. At 3rd level, you become proficient in one of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival. Bard College of Lore If you wish to take the College of Lore starting at 1st character level, follow the bard class features as presented in the Player's Handbook. College of Valor If you wish to take the College of Valor starting at 1st character level, choose only two skills instead of three when instructed to do so under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following class feature, which replaces the College of Valor's Bonus Proficiencies feature: Bonus Proficiencies. When you join the College of Valor at 1st level, you gain proficiency with martial weapons. When you reach 3rd level in this class, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice, as well as with medium armor and shields. Cleric The cleric's archetype, the Divine Domain, is selected at 1st level. Druid Circle of the Land If you wish to tale the Circle of the Land as your Druid Circle starting at 1st character level, you do not gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, javelins, quarterstaffs, scimitars, or spears. Instead you gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the Circle of the Land's Bonus Cantrip and Natural Recovery features: Bonus Cantrip. When you choose this circle at 1st level, you learn one additional druid cantrip of your choice. Natural Recovery. Starting at 1st level, you can regain some of your magical energy by sitting in meditation and communing with nature. During a short rest, you choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your druid level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest. Bonus Proficiencies. At 2nd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, javelins, quarterstaffs, scimitars, and spears. Circle of the Moon If you wish to take the Circle of the Moon starting at 1st character level, choose only one skill from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character. In addition, you learn only one druid cantrip at 1st level. You gain the following three features at the levels indicated: Lesser Wild Shape. Once you choose this circle ar 1st level, you can use your action to magically assume the shape of a beast that you've seen before. You can use this feature twice. You regain expended uses when you finish a short or long rest. The beast must have a challenge rating of 1/8 or lower, and it can't have a flying or swimming speed. You can stay in a beast shape for 1 hour. You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature. You can revert to your normal form earlier by using a bonus action on your turn. You automatically revert if you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hit points, or die. Except where noted here, this beast form follows all the rules outlined in the Wild Shape feature in the Player's Handbook. You lose this feature when you gain the Wild Shape feature at 2nd level. Bonus Cantrip. At 2nd level, you learn one additional druid cantrip of your choice. Bonus Proficiency. Also at 2nd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Arcana, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Religion, and Survival. Fighter Champion If you wish to take the Champion Martial Archetype starting at 1st character level, follow the fighter class features as presented in the Player's Handbook. Battle Master If you wish to take the Battle Master Martial Archetype starting at 1st character level, choose only one skill instead of 2 from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the fighter's Fighting Style feature and the Battle Master's Student of War feature: Student of War. When you select this archetype at 1st level, you gain proficiency with one type of artisan's tools of your choice. Novice Combat Superiority. Also at 1st level, you learn two Battle Master maneuvers of your choice, and you have two superiority dice, which are d6s. Except where noted here, your combat superiority follows all the rules outlined in the Battle Master's Combat Superiority feature. You lose this feature when you gain the Combat Superiority feature at 3rd level (you need not select the maneuvers you initially chose for this feature). Fighting Style. At 3rd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose from the options available to a fighter at 1st level as described in the Player's Handbook. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again. Bonus Proficiency. Also at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival. Eldritch Knight If you wish to take the Eldritch Knight Martial Archetype starting at 1st character level, choose only one skill instead of 2 from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the fighter's Fighting Style feature: Novice Spellcasting. When you choose this martial archetype at 1st level, you learn one cantrip of your choice and one 1st-level spell of your choice from the wizard spell list. The 1st-level spell must be from either the abjuration or evocation school, and you can cast it once. You must finish a long rest before casting it again. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for both spells, and they count towards the number of cantrips and spells you know when you gain the Spellcasting feature at 3rd level, after which point you must instead expend a spell slot to cast the 1st-level spell you learned from this feature. Fighting Style. At 3rd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose from the options available to a fighter at 1st level as described in the Player's Handbook. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again. Bonus Proficiency. Also at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival. Monk Way of the Open Hand If you wish to take the Way of the Open Hand starting at 1st character level, follow the monk class features as presented in the Player's Handbook. Way of Shadow If you wish to take the Way of Shadow starting at 1st character level, choose only one skill instead of 2 from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following features at the levels indicated: Bonus Cantrip. When you choose this monastic tradition at first level, you learn the Minor Illusion cantrip if you don't already know it. Bonus Proficiency. At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Acrobatics, Athletics, History, Insight, Religion, and Stealth. Way of the Four Elements If you wish to take the Way of the Four Elements starting at 1st character level, choose only one skill instead of 2 from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following features at the levels indicated: Elemental Attunement. When you choose this monastic tradition at 1st level, you gain the Elemental Attunement elemental discipline. You lose this feature when you gain the Disciple of the Elements feature at 3rd level. Bonus Proficiency. At 3rd level, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Acrobatics, Athletics, History, Insight, Religion, and Stealth. Paladin Oath of Devotion If you wish to take the Oath of Devotion starting at 1st character level, you gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the paladin's Lay on Hands feature: Novice Spellcasting. When you take this oath at 1st level, you know the protection from evil and good and sanctuary spells. You can cast either one of these spells, but not both, once, and you must finish a long rest before doing so again. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can use a holy symbol as your spellcasting focus for these spells. When you gain the Spellcasting feature at 2nd level, you always have those spells prepapred and they don't count against the number of spells you have prepared. You lose all other benefits of this feature. Lay on Hands. Starting at 3rd level, your blessed touch can heal wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to your paladin level × 5. As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool. Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one. This feature has no effect on undead and constructs. Oath of the Ancients If you wish to take the Oath of the Ancients starting at 1st character level, you gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the paladin's Lay on Hands feature: Novice Spellcasting. When you take this oath at 1st level, you know the ensnaring strike and speak with animals spells. You can cast either one of these spells, but not both, once, and you must finish a long rest before doing so again. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can use a holy symbol as your spellcasting focus for these spells. When you gain the Spellcasting feature at 2nd level, you always have those spells prepapred and they don't count against the number of spells you have prepared. You lose all other benefits of this feature. Lay on Hands. Starting at 3rd level, your blessed touch can heal wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to your paladin level × 5. As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool. Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one. This feature has no effect on undead and constructs. Oath of Vengeance If you wish to take the Oath of Vengeance starting at 1st character level, you gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the paladin's Lay on Hands feature: Novice Spellcasting. When you take this oath at 1st level, you know the bane and hunter's mark spells. You can cast either one of these spells, but not both, once, and you must finish a long rest before doing so again. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You can use a holy symbol as your spellcasting focus for these spells. When you gain the Spellcasting feature at 2nd level, you always have those spells prepapred and they don't count against the number of spells you have prepared. You lose all other benefits of this feature. Lay on Hands. Starting at 3rd level, your blessed touch can heal wounds. You have a pool of healing power that replenishes when you take a long rest. With that pool, you can restore a total number of hit points equal to your paladin level × 5. As an action, you can touch a creature and draw power from the pool to restore a number of hit points to that creature, up to the maximum amount remaining in your pool. Alternatively, you can expend 5 hit points from your pool of healing to cure the target of one disease or neutralize one poison affecting it. You can cure multiple diseases and neutralize multiple poisons with a single use of Lay on Hands, expending hit points separately for each one. This feature has no effect on undead and constructs. Ranger Hunter If you wish to take the Hunter Ranger Archetype starting at 1st character level, follow the ranger class features as presented in the Player's Handbook. Beast Master If you wish to take the Beast Master Ranger Archetype starting at 1st character level, choose only two skills instead of 3 from those listed under Proficiencies when you make your character, and you do not gain proficiency with medium armor or martial melee weapons. You gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the Beast Master's Ranger's Companion feature: Ranger's Companion. When you choose this Ranger Archetype at 1st level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. Like any creature, it can spend Hit Dice during a short rest to regain hit points. The beast obeys your commands as best it can. It takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn't take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, ir Help action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action. Beast Master (Continued from previous page) If you are incapacitated or absent, the beast acts on its own, focusing on protecting you and itself. If you wish for your beast to take a reaction, you must use your reaction to verbally command it to do so. Starting at 3rd level, the beast no longer requires your command to use its reaction. While travelling through your favored terrain with only the beast, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. If the beast dies, you can obtain a new companion by spending 8 hours magically bonding with a beast that isn't hostile to you and that meets the requirements. Starting at 3rd level, add your proficiency bonus to the beast's AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in, and its hit point maximum equals the hit point number in its stats block or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher. Bonus Proficiencies. At 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor and martial melee weapons, as well as with one of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival. Rogue Thief If you wish to take the Thief Roguish Archetype starting at 1st character level, follow the rogue class features as presented in the Player's Handbook. Assassin If you wish to take the Assassin Roguish Archetype starting at 1st character level, choose only three skills instead of four when instructed to do so under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following feature, which takes the place of the Assassin's Bonus Proficiencies feature: Bonus Proficiencies. When you select this archetype at 1st level, you gain proficiency with your choice of the disguise kit or the poisoner's kit. When you reach 3rd level, you gain proficiency with the option that you didn't select, as well as with one of the following skills of your choice: Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. Arcane Trickster If you wish to take the Arcane Trickster Roguish Archetype starting at 1st character level, choose only two skills instead of four when instructed to do so under Proficiencies when you make your character. You gain the following features at the levels indicated, which replace the Arcane Trickster's Mage Hand Legerdemain feature: Novice Spellcasting. When you choose this roguish archetype at 1st level, you learn the mage hand cantrip if you don't already know it, as well as one 1st-level spell of your choice from the wizard spell list. The 1st-level spell must be from either the enchantment or illusion school, and you can cast it once. You must finish a long rest before casting it again. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for both spells, and they count towards the number of cantrips and spells you know when you gain the Spellcasting feature at 3rd level, after which point you must instead expend a spell slot to cast the 1st-level spell you learned from this feature. Mage Hand Legerdemain. Starting at 1st level, when you cast mage hand, you can make the spectral hand invisible, and you can perform the following additional tasks with it: You can stow one object the hand is holding in a container worn or carried by another creature. You can retrieve an object in a container worn or carried by another creature. You can use thieves' tools to pick locks and disarm traps at range. You can perform one of these tasks without being noticed by a creature if that creature is unaware of your presence and you succeed on a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check contested by the creature's Wisdom (Perception) check. Starting at 3rd level, you can attempt this even if the creature is aware of your presence. When you gain the Cunning Action feature at 2nd level, you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to control the hand. Bonus Proficiencies. At 3rd level, you gain proficiency with two of the following skills of your choice: Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. Sorcerer The sorcerer's archetype, the Sorcerous Origin, is selected at 1st level. Warlock The warlock's archetype, the Otherworldly Patron, is selected at 1st level. Instead, we present rules for selecting a Pact Boon at 1st level. If you are selecting your pact boon at 1st character level, you learn only one cantrip at 1st level and only one invocation at 2nd level. You gain your second cantrip at 2nd level, and you gain your second invocation at 3rd level. In addition, you gain the following feature, which takes the place of the Pact Boon feature in the Player' Handbook. If an eldritch invocation lists a specific pact boon as a prerequisite, you nonetheless must be at least 3rd level in this class in order to select it. Pact Boon At 1st level, your otherworldly patron bestows a gift upon you to aid you in carrying out its wishes. That gift becomes more potent at 2nd and 3rd level in recognition of your loyal service. You gain one of the following features of your choice. Pact of the Chain. You learn the find familiar spell and can cast it as a ritual. It doesn't count against your number of spells known. Starting at 2nd level, when you take the attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your familiar to make one attack of its own. When you reach 3rd level, the next time you cause your familiar to reappear from having been dismissed and each time thereafter that you cast find familiar, you can cause your familiar to take the form of one of the following instead of one of the normally-available forms (you can still have it take one of the normal forms if you wish): imp, pseudodragon, quasit, or sprite.Richard Feynman, one of the 20th century’s greatest physicists, once said the double-slit experiment went to ’the heart of quantum mechanics’. Now, an international team of scientists has refined the famous experiment, allowing the untrained observer to watch it unfold in real time. To understand the basics of the double-slit experiment, imagine firing solid particles at a wall containing two narrow gaps: at some distance on the other side, the particles amass in two piles. Now imagine sending water waves at the wall. Instead of two ’piles’ of water forming, the waves interfere with each other, producing a complex array of peaks and troughs. It is this difference in pattern - a complex array of peaks and troughs compared with just two peaks - that classically distinguishes waves from particles. However, when things start to get small, quantum mechanics muddies the picture. Send electrons at a wall with two slits, and on the other side they amass in an array of peaks and troughs, as though they are interfering with one another. This might suggest electrons behave collectively as waves. However, even if the electrons are fired one at a time, the interference pattern builds up, almost as though each electron is interfering with itself. In recent years, the double-slit experiment has been performed with large molecules, and even with ’weak measurement’ techniques that map the trajectory of the particles. But there has never been a demonstration to follow the arrival of molecules in two dimensions, in real time. ’I think the present experiment is as close to a textbook experiment as it can get,’ says Markus Arndt of the University of Vienna in Austria, a member of the international group. The molecules in the latest demonstration were phthalocyanine and its derivatives, which have masses about one hundred times that of a carbon-12 atom. These molecules were launched by laser evaporation and travelled towards a silicon-nitride grating, which had slits cut into it at 100nm intervals. The molecules were then detected one-by-one by fluorescence microscopy, a process that could be viewed in real time on a computer. The researchers found that, as expected, an interference pattern built up, even though the molecules were arriving one at a time - the classic wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics. ’To me this is the most beautiful demonstration [of the experiment],’ says Reinhard D?rner, a quantum physicist at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany, who was not involved in the research. ’This is the example I will use in my future lectures to teach students quantum mechanics.’ Arndt thinks the technique opens up the possibility for quantum-interference experiments with bigger objects, such as large proteins and viruses. ’The detector used in our present study is already perfectly adapted,’ he says. Jon CartwrightBefore Gov. Chris Christie’s administration abruptly settled long-running state environmental litigation against ExxonMobil for far less than originally expected, the oil behemoth donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Republican group that Christie ran and that financed his election campaigns. Additionally, the Christie administration office that engineered the settlement had been run by a former Exxon lawyer. When the case was initiated in 2004, when Democrat James McGreevey was governor, New Jersey sought $8.9 billion in damages in a suit alleging that ExxonMobil damaged more than 1,500 acres of waterfront and meadows. Yet, according to documents reported on by the New York Times on Friday, the Christie administration is settling the suit for just $250 million. Based on ExxonMobil's 2014 revenue of $411.9 billion, it will take the company roughly 5 hours to generate the sales to pay out the settlement. Federal records show that the reduction, which represents a huge gift to ExxonMobil, follows a wave of campaign cash from the company to the Christie-run Republican Governors Association. Since Christie's first run for governor in 2009, ExxonMobil has donated more than $1.9 million to the group, according to data compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine.com. That includes $79,000 during Christie’s 2009 campaign and $200,000 during his re-election campaign in 2013. It also includes $500,000 when he chaired the organization during the 2014 election cycle. ExxonMobil was one of the top contributors to the RGA during that election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. According to New Jersey state documents, ExxonMobil has employed the firm Public Strategies Impact as a lobbyist in Trenton. In October 2014, Gannett Newspapers reported that the same lobbying firm cemented “an exclusive strategic partnership” with Christie’s departing deputy chief of staff, Lou Goetting, who is listed on the firm’s website. The website, which includes a laudatory comment from an ExxonMobil official, says the firm’s outreach to lawmakers can include “meeting with the Governor’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Chiefs of Staff, meeting with Cabinet Level Officials, meeting with key staff members in the Executive Branch (and) meeting with key department staff.” Public Strategies Impact gave the Republican Governor’s Association $80,000 since 2010, according to PoliticalMoneyLine data. The state’s case against ExxonMobil was pursued by four gubernatorial administrations via the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office. Christie’s first attorney general was a former Exxon lawyer, Paula Dow. She was appointed by Christie in 2010 and served as the state’s chief legal official until 2012, when she was appointed to a position at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and then to a judgeship. The official biography of New Jersey's current attorney general, John Hoffman, says he "served as acting attorney general for all civil cases for which the attorney general was recused, including, but not limited to, multi-billion dollar environmental litigation." However, according to NJ.com, Hoffman only began working in the attorney general's office after Dow left in 2012. A spokesperson for Christie, Kevin Roberts, told IBTimes: "Paula Dow recused herself from all matters concerning ExxonMobil during (her) time as Attorney General, including this case." The New Jersey attorney general's office did not respond to IBTimes' request for comment.Prince Karl I, who established primogeniture Prince Johann I Joseph, whose legitimate male patrilineal descendants are entitled to succeed Prince Hans-Adam II, the present monarch Succession to the Liechtensteiner throne is governed by the house laws of the Princely Family of Liechtenstein, which stipulate agnatic primogeniture. In 2004 the head of state, Hans-Adam II, publicly responded to criticism from a committee of the UN which had voiced concerns about the exclusion of women from the line of succession, stating that the rule was older than the state itself. Succession rules [ edit ] In 1606, the first prince of Liechtenstein, Karl I, and his younger brothers, Maximilian and Gundakar, signed Family Covenant, agreeing that the headship of the family should pass according to agnatic primogeniture to the heir of the most senior line.[1] The family continued to be governed by various statutes until 1993, when it was decided that some of the provisions were outdated and that they should be amended. The statute was repealed on 26 October,[2] and the new house law was published on 6 December.[3] According to the house law, the right to succeed to the throne of Liechtenstein is reserved for male patrilineal descendants of Prince Johann I Joseph born to married parents, excluding issue born of marriage to which the sovereign did not consent. Should there be no more eligible male patrilineal descendants left, the sovereign has the right to adopt an heir presumptive. It is explicitly stated that if a member of the princely family adopts a prince who is in the line of succession, the adoptee's place in the line will not be altered.[3] There is no scenario under which a woman could succeed to the throne of Liechtenstein.[4] The house law also provides for a possibility of renunciation of succession rights.[3] Line of succession [ edit ] Discrimination concerns [ edit ] In 2004, a United Nations committee questioned the compatibility of agnatic primogeniture, which prevents women from becoming head of state of Liechtenstein, with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights[5] and later raised concern about it.[6] In response to the United Nations' demands for gender equality in 2007, Prince Hans-Adam II explained that the succession law is older than the Principality of Liechtenstein itself and that it is a family tradition that does not affect the country's citizens; the Constitution of Liechtenstein stipulates that succession to the throne is a private family matter.[7] See also [ edit ]“A campaign to revive the May Day traditions and socialist consciousness is much needed” Workers speak on importance of International May Day Online Rally By our reporters 21 April 2014 Registrants from more than 40 countries on six continents have so far registered for the May 4 International Online May Day Rally, organized by the International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site. Over the weekend, campaign teams in the US distributed promotional flyers for the event and talked to workers and youth about its purpose—to organize the working class internationally in a common struggle against war, inequality and the attack on democratic rights. Several gave statements explaining why they plan on attending. Brian, an auto worker from Missouri, said, “In a globalized economy workers are pitted against each other to fight over the same job. A profit-based system can’t defend jobs; we have to accept ever lower and lower wages. You cannot fight against the capitalists and their war against the workers with national entities like the unions. Uniting internationally is the only way to stop inequality and distribute the wealth to everyone. “They tell us wars are for ‘freedom,’” Brian added. “That’s a lie. If you look at history, when wars are fought it is the working class that suffers. It’s capitalism and the fight over profits and raw materials that cause war. That’s imperialism. Instead of fighting for ‘our’ country, workers internationally have to fight for a better world. The answer is global socialism, where the goal is not profit-based but meeting everyone’s needs.” Wayne Wayne, a janitor at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in California, said, “In the 1970s workers enjoyed some decent benefits. You worked knowing that you had the security of retirement and other things. Now, they ask us to work longer in our lives for the same, if not less, money. “The level of wages is so low that we barely make it paycheck to paycheck. When Obamacare came into effect
move. Q: These are good case studies, which again makes me wonder why tech's hottest companies aren't drawing from these lessons. Smith: I'm not sure, but I think unconscious bias is there. Companies like Intel, who put it in their top priorities, are making progress. I think it is companies' priorities but [that it] hasn’t moved into the top priorities so that it is something the CEOs are talking about constantly. That is something the research shows works -- that if your leadership team is constantly talking about it and iterating on it just like they would on products and businesses, that will move the needle. Q: The companies point the blame on the educational pipeline. What are the problems there? Smith: At universities, the ones that have really opened the space for innovation are making progress. Harvey Mudd under the leadership of Maria Klawe has increased the percent of women graduates by really digging into the roots of why women weren't staying in computer science and why the pipeline was so leaky... They also spent time thinking about curriculum and making sure questions weren't about things like science fiction and things that were brogrammer topics but challenges that were of broad interest to anyone. On the K-12 level, there are real challenges. Seventy percent of computer science teachers think boys are better than girls, so we have to support them to overcome their bias. Q: The worst numbers are among hiring of blacks and Hispanics. Why are those numbers so low? Smith: In venture capital, three percent of venture funding is going to women and less than one percent to people of color. People across the country have extraordinary ideas for startups. We need to leverage that talent on behalf of our economic future. We need to support VCs to overcome their biases. Related stories: How a subtle change to Facebook icons could have a big affect on gender bias Facebook doubles black hires, but they only make up 1.5 percent of employees If Facebook’s tech staff were a county, it would be a remote island in AlaskaWATCH / Description SURFER BLOOD are one of the best young indie-rock bands around, and their fourth album, Snowdonia, is their most ambitious effort yet. Overcoming adversity, the band has artistically grown and thrived. Following the departure of bassist Kevin Williams and guitarist Thomas Fekete (tragically lost to cancer in May), singer/guitarist John Paul Pitts and drummer Tyler Schwarz have rebuilt a talented line-up with guitarist Michael McCleary and bassist Lindsey Mills, all four alumni of the same high school in West Palm Beach, Florida. For Snowdonia, Pitts wrote specifically with the new band's talents in mind: "When I was writing I was thinking more about background vocals and harmonies. Lindsey and Michael are great singers, and I really wanted that to show in the songs. There are layers of vocals on almost every track, and the call-and-response parts between Lindsey and I are something totally new." Along with plenty of Surfer Blood's signature hooks, the band concocted some epic and more complex songs with enormous attention to sonic detail. Pitts wrote and mixed the album alone, for the first time since their debut Astro Coast. The immediacy is intoxicating and the musical and lyrical results are fantastic. Surfer Blood get better and better with each album, and we're sure they'll be making great records for years to come.Remember back in November when, much to Joss Whedon’s chagrin, Heimdall actor Idris Elba let it slip that he had shot a scene for Avengers: Age of Ultron with Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston? If you see the movie this weekend, you might notice that Hiddleston’s Loki is conspicuously absent from said scene, and MTV talked to the writer/director about what happened to this lost cameo. “Tom is not in the movie… Idris misspoke… twice,” Whedon laughs. “We did shoot something and it didn’t play. The movie has so much, is so filled and we didn’t want it to feel overstuffed. I really wanted to have Loki in it but I understood the decision, ‘Now there are too many voices in the chorus.’ At some point the embarrassment of riches is actually embarrassing.” Hopefully this moment with everyone’s favorite trickster god will make its way to the deleted scenes of the Avengers: Age of Ultron Blu-ray, or perhaps even be reconstituted into the body of Thor: Ragnarok, the same way the excised scene of Bruce Banner attempting suicide in The Incredible Hulk was integrated into the dialogue of the first Avengers. In related news, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige clarified which Infinity Stones we have yet to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Time and Soul are the two that are not accounted for,” he tells CraveOnline. Where do you think these two will pop up in the MCU before Avengers: Infinity War? Let us know in the comments below! Avengers: Age of Ultron is the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure. Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill and Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and meet an old friend in a new form when Bettany becomes Vision. Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963. Louis D’Esposito, Alan Fine, Victoria Alonso, Jeremy Latcham, Patricia Whitcher, Stan Lee and Jon Favreau serve as executive producers. Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is now playing in theaters everywhere.As we all know, heroes can be found in the most unexpected of places. After all, Jesus’s visage regularly appears in such mundane things as a piece of toast and window panes, so we’re pretty sure anything’s up for some flash-in-the-pan religious phenomena. And now that the superhero is becoming one of our guiding cultural mythos, why wouldn’t the Batman symbol appear on a dog’s ass? Sure enough, I am become Death frontman Kyle Neeson discovered yesterday that a Rottweiler pup under his care named Nina might be sneaking about as the Caped Crusader. And, much like yesterday, the internet decided to stare intensely at a full moon. “She’s not the hero we need,” writes Neeson on Instagram, “but the hero we deserve.” While she may not be Ace the Bat-Hound, though there is a striking resemblance, Nina certainly is a good pup who’s been graced with the same kind of marking in the same place as many a now-regretful nerd after a night of drinking. She’ll also probably be wearing the Bat-Symbol long after Ben Affleck hangs up the cowl too. Good girl, Nina. Good girl. [h/t @lukeoneil47]President Obama on Monday granted clemency to 231 federal inmates, the most in a single day by any president in U.S. history. Obama commuted the prison sentences of 153 people and pardoned 78 others, a sign he is ramping up his use of clemency power during his final weeks in office. The president has frequently doled out commutations as his final months in office wane. But he has seldom handed out pardons, which formally forgive prisoners for their crimes and restore certain rights. Commutations simply cut short their sentences. With Monday’s grants, Obama has more than doubled the number of people he has pardoned as president, according to the White House, a number that now stands at 148. He has now commuted the sentences of 1,176 people, including 395 serving life sentences. “Today’s acts of clemency — and the mercy he has shown his 1,324 clemency recipients — exemplify his belief that America is a nation of second chances,” White House counsel Neil Eggleston wrote in a blog post. The announcement was made during the president's holiday vacation in Hawaii. The grants come as Obama faces pressure from criminal-justice reform advocates to pick up the pace before he leaves office on Jan. 20. ADVERTISEMENT They fear that President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE, who campaigned as a law-and-order candidate, will scale back or eliminate the use of clemency for large groups of federal inmates. Eggleston said the president will make more clemency grants before he leaves office. Obama has granted clemency more times than any U.S. president, part of his effort to free inmates serving lengthy sentences handed down during the government's War on Drugs. A bipartisan push in Congress to overhaul the nation’s sentencing laws sputtered during Obama’s second term. Thus he has relied on his clemency initiative, which began in 2014, to accomplish his goal of shortening sentences he and others view as draconian. The president has repeatedly denounced long sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, saying they’ve had a disproportionate affect on communities of color. The clemency initiative identifies federal prisoners deserving of an early release. Prisoners must be low-level, nonviolent offenders who have served at least a decade of their sentence, demonstrated good behavior and have no significant criminal history or a history of violence. Eggleston said Obama’s actions only provide a partial fix, writing that “only Congress can achieve the broad reforms needed” to make the criminal-justice system more fair. But Obama’s critics say he has overstepped his authority and put dangerous criminals back into their communities. Sen. Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report Ex-Trump aide: Can’t imagine Mueller not giving House a ‘roadmap’ to impeachment Rosenstein: My time at DOJ is 'coming to an end' MORE (R-Ala.), Trump’s pick for attorney general, in 2014 called the president’s initiative “an alarming abuse of the pardon power.” But Obama’s supporters say he could be even more generous with his commutation grants. Sentencing-reform advocates have generally applauded Obama’s efforts, even as they note that roughly 13,000 inmates’ petitions are still pending review with the Office of the Pardon Attorney. They are concerned the vast majority of those people won’t get relief before Obama leaves office. A coalition of advocacy groups last week delivered a petition to the president urging him to flex his muscles on clemency during his final month in the White House. “We’re asking President Obama to continue his legacy of being an elected official of conscience by offering clemency to persons with federal, nonviolent drug convictions,” Hasshan Batts, a Pennsylvania activist, said in a statement. Updated 3:33 p.m.Post your foodie adventures alongside Rick Bayless’ on this new social network A new website wants you to tell stories about food — recipes, memories, a mind-blowing meal — and share them on its social network. Chicago-based Morsel uses digital storyboards to package your adventures and put them alongside those from the pros. (Stories on the site include Paul Kahan talking about where Big Star tortillas come from and Rick Bayless eating ribs with his farmer.) The site’s co-founders, tech entrepreneur and CEO Kris Petersen and restaurant publicist Ellen Malloy, said they’ve got more than 1,000 sign-ups — along with an $800,000 round of seed-fund backing. The seed fund includes money from GrubHub co-founder and CEO Matt Maloney, who will serve as chairman, and was led by Chicago Ventures with participation from Merrick Ventures and several Chicago and San Francisco-based angel investors. Merrick Ventures Chairman Michael W. Ferro Jr. is also chairman of the Sun-Times. A free iOs app guides users through a content creation process and, in addition to sharing among the Morsel community, bundles the content for optimized distribution to the user’s social networks and, through a widget, on their website. “Morsel gets to the heart of what makes every chef unique: the story of how his or her dishes come together,” Kahan said. Malloy pointed out that “in restaurants, stories sell.” “This is why servers are armed with information about the philosophies, ingredients and unique vision of each dish, drink and wine on the menu,” she said. “There is no reason that content should remain locked inside the four walls of the restaurant.” Petersen said the company’s goal is to engage 30 to 40 percent of Chicago’s independent, “chef-driven” restaurants in the first quarter of next year, and to use that base to expand to New York and San Francisco. As for making money, it’s not a primary focus at the moment, but Petersen said the goal will be to start testing options including: Sponsored content for major restaurants or brands. Hosting an advertiser’s create-your-best-dish contests on the website using a specific ingredient such as Kraft macaroni and cheese. Audience targeting so that a search shows the advertiser at the top of the list, like a paid Google search. E-commerce, much like interior design site Houzz does now, enabling users to click on a pot on a stove to buy it. Indeed, Petersen said he considers Houzz his “North Star” guiding light since it closed a $165 million round of financing Oct. 1 and boasts a market value of more than $2 billion. Making Morsel successful likewise will be based on having rich content and an audience with specific interests that can be monetized, he said.During Saturday's 20-17 victory for Florida State, redshirt sophomore quarterback Jameis Winston had a bumping incident with an official while attempting to get set while running hurry-up offense. The incident has received plenty of media attention, with a range of opinions on what should have been done to Winston. On Sunday, the ACC commented on the incident, stating that contact between Winston and the official was 'incidental and insignificant'. They also stated that it wasn't deserving of an unsportsmanlike penalty. Here is the complete statement from ACC Coordinator of Officials Doug Rhoads: “As we do every week, our office evaluated each of the games and reports from our officials. This included the detailed report from the Boston College at Florida State game, which was reviewed and accepted. The center judge’s positioning, which was due to the experimental year of having an 8th official, combined with the late substitution and by rule the need to allow the defense to matchup, led to contact between himself and the player. The official believed the contact was incidental and insignificant and did not rise to the level of unsportsmanlike conduct and automatic disqualification.”No one on this planet had ever seen a whole picture of the Earth until 1972. We knew we lived on it, and had a vast amount of useful information about its makeup, its processes, and its place in the solar system. At the time, some of the most insightful individuals had begun to understand that we, the people who live on Earth, actually had the ability to influence the processes taking place on our planet. But it was hard for many people to grasp this concept. It seemed abstract, distant, hard to visualize. Enter “Blue Marble”: It was the first full photo of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the American crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft. The original Blue Marble is thought by many to be the most-reproduced image of all time. What made the Blue Marble so special? Sure, it might have been the first full photo of the Earth that we took, but we’ve taken a bunch more since then. Like this one. And this one. And this one. So why is the “Blue Marble” a bigger deal than these? Turns out, it’s quite tricky to take a good photo of the entire Earth. The first challenge is that our planet is big. The only way to view all of it at once is to get much farther away from the Earth than we do for many of our activities in outer space. The International Space Station, for instance, orbits at a height of just 400 kilometers, or about 249 miles away from Earth. The second problem is a familiar one that plagues many photographers who are Earthbound: lighting. In order to view the Earth as a fully illuminated globe, a person (or camera) must be situated in front of it, with the sun directly at his or her back. Not surprisingly, it can be difficult to arrange this specific lighting scheme for a camera-set up that’s orbiting in space at speeds approaching thousands of miles per hour. As a result of these challenges, NASA, NOAA, and other science agencies most often rely on composite images to depict our planet. These images stitch together multiple high-resolution snapshots taken by satellites already in orbit to produce one seamless portrait of the Earth. And that’s what the three photos above are: composite images produced by NASA over the past fifteen years (released respectively in 2002, 2007, and 2012). Composite imaging is an extremely useful tool for helping people understand the Earth — they allow researchers to capture certain features at higher resolution; reduce the obscuring effect of cloud coverage in certain areas; and overlay various data layers to help identify patterns and trends. Composites can result in some truly remarkable images, like this “Black Marble,” which, by stitching together multiple views of the planet, shows a full global view of the Earth’s city lights. But there’s something remarkable about a single snapshot of the Earth — an intact view of our planet in its entirety, hanging in space. Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan explained: “…you’re looking at the most beautiful star in the heavens — the most beautiful because it’s the one we understand and we know, it’s home, it’s people, family, love, life — and besides that it is beautiful. You can see from pole to pole and across oceans and continents and you can watch it turn and there’s no strings holding it up, and it’s moving in a blackness that is almost beyond conception.” That’s why today, I am excited to see that NASA has released its new Blue Marble, the first of many more to come later this year.Santa Clara County's homeless population is the lowest it's been in a decade, bringing in praise from city and county officials who say the efforts to reduce homelessness are finally paying off. But in the North County, things are looking worse than ever. The county released a report this week that gives a "snapshot" head count of the ever-shifting homeless population in its jurisdiction. The report found that between 2013 and 2015, the homeless population in Mountain View ballooned from 139 to a high of 276. County Supervisor Joe Simitian said there's a clear connection between the increase in Mountain View's homeless population and the loss of the Sunnyvale Armory, a cold-weather homeless shelter for as many as 136 people before it was closed for demolition last year. The data seems to indicate that all those displaced people have headed northward, Simitian said. "I (proposed) back in early 2014 that we need a replacement shelter because I think this was, altogether, predictable," Simitian said. The city now has 271 people with no access to an emergency shelter or transitional housing who are stuck on the street, living in cars or living in encampments around the city. People who are homeless in Mountain View are frequently referred to the nearest drop-in shelter, in San Jose, according to Tom Myers, executive director of Community Services Agency (CSA) in Mountain View. The lack of homeless resources in the area could be fueling the high homeless count, according to Ky Le, Santa Clara County's director of homeless systems. While cities like San Jose have centrally located homeless shelters and housing, and employment services for people in need of housing, the same cannot be said of Mountain View, which has no nearby drop-in shelters. "Mountain View in general doesn't have a lot of permanent supportive housing, and as far as I know, it's never had a shelter program," Le said. The escalating cost of living in the area might also be causing homelessness to spike. In a county-wide survey of nearly 1,000 homeless people, 68 percent of respondents said that they couldn't afford the rent. Fifty-seven percent said they had no job or income, and 38 percent said there was no housing available to them. Myers said the increase in homelessness in Mountain View isn't a big surprise to him. He said more and more people are coming in to CSA for homeless services each year, and it's starting to put a strain on the nonprofit as the staff struggles to find permanent housing or shelter space for clients. "We have to take resources from other programs and put it into homeless services," Myers said. Part of the problem, he said, is that the North County is relatively affluent compared with the rest of the county, creating a perception that everyone in Mountain View, Palo Alto and Los Altos is wealthy and that homelessness is not an issue. In addition to needing more shelter space, Myers said, more money needs to be put toward emergency assistance for people who are on the verge of becoming homeless, rather than waiting until people are out on the street. Emergency rent, food and other services, he said, can help to keep someone housed, which is a lot easier than trying to find someone a new home. The county-wide survey found that 34 percent of homeless people polled said employment assistance would have prevented their homelessness, followed by 31 percent who believed rental assistance would have made the difference. Simitian said he and his staff have been working to find a facility to replace the armory in the North County area, but that finding a new location in this red-hot real estate market is nothing short of a "Herculean task." "This is not a good time to be looking for vacant facilities in Silicon Valley," he said. The push for more emergency shelter space may not be consistent with the county-wide goal of pursing permanent housing and long-term solutions to homelessness, Simitian said, but it would certainly help the immediate needs of hundreds of homeless people in the North County with nowhere to go. Offsetting the increases in the North County are substantial reductions in homelessness in San Jose, where a vast majority of the county's homeless population resides. The homeless count found 4,063 homeless people this year, versus 4,770 in 2013, due in part to a city-wide initiative to provide housing and jobs to homeless people living in encampments throughout the city, according to the press release. "The good news is that the overall numbers are headed in the right direction," said county Supervisor Dave Cortese in a press release. "While we still have a large unmet need, those efforts are beginning to pay off." The homeless population count comes after a comprehensive study last month by the county on what the roughly 6,700 homeless people in Santa Clara County cost taxpayers each year. Estimates found that $520 million a year is spent on services for the county's homeless residents, with health care costs accounting for 53 percent of it, followed by justice system agencies, which took up 34 percent, mostly for jail costs.Labour is facing an existential crisis. Its leader, supported by a resurgent membership, is locked into conflict with the majority of his MPs. Neither side will back down in a battle for the party’s heart and soul. Parallels with the 1980s, when Labour was consumed in civil war while Margaret Thatcher waged war against the communities of Labour’s heartlands, are painfully obvious. But the roots of the current crisis go much deeper, writes Martin Wright. The Labour Party is the child of hope and compromise. Its political DNA was made from two main elements over a century ago. One was the counter-cultural, revolutionary enthusiasm of the late-Victorian socialist movement. Inspired by the writings of visionaries like William Morris and Edward Carpenter, its members yearned for a new life, free from the oppressive influence of industrial capitalism. The other was the pragmatic realism and political muscle of a trade union movement that had realised, by the early twentieth century, that the only way it could protect the rights of its members within the capitalist system was to create its own political party. One parent wished to recast society completely; the other wished merely to adjust it. The marriage was set to be stormy. Even before the foundation of the Labour Party there were serious strategic disagreements among socialists. Some were prepared to compromise, with a view to winning over the unconvinced. Others were insistent that the values of socialism should not be trimmed. During the 1890s these differences of vision revolved around the mission of the Labour Party’s forerunner, the Independent Labour Party (founded in 1893). There were those, like Robert Blatchford, newspaper editor and figurehead of the influential Clarion movement, whose vision for the new party went beyond the merely political, to embrace a wider educative mission. A labour party, he asserted in 1892, should be more that a ‘mere Labour Electoral Club’: It is an organisation formed to rouse, to educate, and to unite the vast inert masses of the workers … It will do more than bring out labour candidates. It will constitute itself into a great machine for the spreading of knowledge, for the destruction of falsehoods, for the investigation of all national and local administrative affairs.[i] To summon up this transformative political force, Blatchford appealed to the socialist movement’s ‘rank and file’. He claimed there were hundreds of thousands of ‘unattached socialists’ ready to implement his vision, and during the late 1890s and early 1900s, Blatchford and his socialist allies ran an energetic campaign for what they called ‘socialist unity’. They held mass meetings across Britain; they filled halls and city squares, and assembled on open moorlands. Socialist speakers such as Victor Grayson, MP for Yorkshire’s Colne Valley, enthused audiences with a millenarian message of hope and renewal. Their movement was a great grandparent of Corbyn’s. But the movement was looked upon with distrust by the emerging generation of professional labour politicians, who were more concerned with what we now understand as ‘electability’. Chief among them was James Ramsay MacDonald. An immensely charismatic figure, quite capable of articulating his own magnetic socialist vision, it was MacDonald who steered Labour into the political mainstream. He urged that socialists must do more than simply proselytise; they must lead. ‘Hitherto we have scattered the good seed broadcast and have been too easily pleased with the sowing of it’, he wrote in 1894, ‘The time has now come for us … to reap the harvest. We must put the yoke of organisation on our shoulders.’[ii] To this end, he engineered a series of political compromises, with the Liberal Party and the largely non-socialist trade unions, about which he was quite candid. ‘So soon as the Socialist enters politics’, he wrote in 1908, ‘he discovers the necessity of subordinating dogmatic Socialism to the practical possibilities of Socialistic change.’ He warned socialists against what he saw as the ‘tempting but futile paths of revolution’, by which he meant attempts to turn the Labour Party into an explicitly socialist party, and he urged socialists to abandon their ‘Edens of perfection’. [iii] His political grandchildren sit today in the House of Commons, locked in intractable struggle with their own rank and file. The fundamental, sometimes vitriolic, dialogue between hope and compromise represented by these two tendencies within British socialism echoed across the twentieth century. MacDonald’s genius was to reconcile them, and it took Labour into government twice in the 1920s. It was a balancing act that couldn’t last, however. Destabilised by economic crisis, his second government ended in wreckage in 1931. Much to the fury of the socialist rank and file, MacDonald made the ultimate compromise of forming a government with his Tory enemies. In the wake of that profound disappointment, Labour faithful embraced the hope represented by a leader with whom Corbyn has more in common than any other of his predecessors: George Lansbury. A magician of mass mobilisation, Lansbury revitalised Labour’s grass roots, only to be removed by the right wing of his party in a disagreement over foreign policy. The great achievements of the 1945 Labour Government had their roots in the Lansbury era, and undoubtedly created a better Britain. They did not, however, resolve the fundamental tension between hope and compromise that lies at the heart of socialist politics. Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan wrestled with the same basic problem of squaring vision and reality, with diminishing success, in the 1960s and 1970s, only to see Labour subside into the civil war of the 1980s. The pragmatists emerged victorious from that protracted struggle, under the leadership of their own MacDonaldesque visionary, Tony Blair. And for a while, it seemed, their victory was complete. It is now clearer than ever, though, that the Labour Party remains trapped in a Promethean drama older than the party itself. There is far more involved than a disagreement over leadership style or electoral appeal. What we are witnessing is a fundamental clash between vision and reality that dates back not to the 1980s, but to the 1890s. Successive generations of socialists have struggled with the same problem, and a resolution is now more urgent than ever. After all, we still have a world to win. ___ About the Author Martin Wright is Lecturer in History at Cardiff University. References [i] Clarion, 28 May 1892. [ii] Labour Leader, July 28 1894 [iii] James Ramsay MacDonald, ‘Socialism and the Labour Party’, Socialist Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1908, pp. 13-23. Image credit: Anthony Mckeown CC BY-NC-SAAll three CHL leagues begin playoff action this weekend. There are three particularly interesting games on hand, games that feature a mix of high-end prospects and valuable role players as teams in the OHL, QMJHL, and WHL collide. Meanwhile, the NCAA Tournament begins this weekend, and one matchup in particular is worthy of extra attention. In the AHL, two top scorers from far different backgrounds clash as the AHL season starts to wind down. Rinat Valiev (Kootenay) vs. Jake Virtanen (Calgary) – WHL The WHL’s opening round kicks off this weekend, and the series between the Kootenay Ice and Calgary Hitmen figures to be a nasty affair. Two players in particular lead the charge, and may likely see each other quite a bit as line matchups dictate. Despite missing 20 games due to injury and time spent at the 2015 World Junior Championship, Rinat Valiev (TOR) still managed to finish the season in the top 10 in points-per-game by a defenseman. Known as one of the more calculated defensemen in the league, Valiev has been a physical specimen for Kootenay. Playing for Russia at the World Juniors, Valiev posted three assists in seven games as the team lost to Jake Virtanen (VAN) and his Canadian squad in the finals. With the Ice, Valiev finished the regular season with nine goals and 37 assists in 52 games. Unlike last season’s playoff run, Jake Virtanen is healthy for the second season. That’s good news for the Hitmen, who will have the WJC gold medalist in the lineup. Virtanen scored one goal and three assists in that prestigious tournament, where he also displayed his physical nature by finishing most of his checks. Back in Calgary, Virtanen scored 21 goals and 31 assists in 50 games. Matt Garbowsky (RIT) vs. Stephon Williams (Minnesota State) – NCAA It’s not very often that a coach can put out a Hobey Baker Award finalist in an assignment to shut down the opposition’s best players. But that is exactly who RIT will send out this weekend, where that player will attempt to beat one of the most consistent goaltenders in all of NCAA hockey. There may not be another player in the NCAA that profiles quite like RIT’s captain, Matt Garbowsky. The Atlantic Hockey Conference recently named Garbowsky as their Offensive, Defensive, and overall Player of the Year, three honors tacked on to his nomination on the final ballot for the Hobey Baker Award. Garbowsky helped RIT to an AHC championship and sits fifth in NCAA scoring with 26 goals and 27 assists in 38 games. The senior forward has been remarkable in the faceoff circle, winning over 60% of his draws as the only player to have taken over 1,000 of them over the course of the season. As an undrafted free agent, Garbowsky will have plenty of suitors when his season comes to a conclusion. No. 1 Minnesota State junior goaltender Stephon Williams isn’t without his own award nominations, as he is being considered for the Mike Richter Award as the nation’s top goaltender. The WCHA champions may not have made it there if not for Williams, who has resurrected his career after an abysmal sophomore slump. Williams has ranked highly in crucial categories; his 1.64 goals-against average ranks second in the NCAA, he is third in wins with 25, third in shutouts with 5, and his.926 save-percentage is well within the top 20. The New York Islanders prospect recently set a school record with his 10th career shutout, and appears to be well on track to regaining legitimate prospect status. Daniel Sprong (Charlottetown) vs. Cameron Darcy (Sherbrooke) – QMJHL The Charlottetown Islanders are thinking that they can make it out of the first round of the playoffs, thanks in part to a forward from a non-traditional hockey market. Meanwhile, the Sherbrooke Phoenix counters with a late-round NHL pick who has become a reliable veteran after a mid-season trade. Daniel Sprong has shrugged off quite a bit of media attention to become a force for Charlottetown. A native of the Netherlands, Sprong drew interest from Hockey Canada, but his Dutch ties have held up his bid for Canadian citizenship. On the ice, Sprong has not been held back, posting 39 goals and 49 assists in a full 68-game season, totals good for 13th in QMJHL scoring. As the playoffs start, the 2015 NHL Draft prospect is riding a 10-game point streak where he put up 21 points in the month of March. The Tampa Bay Lightning traded up in the seventh round of the 2014 NHL Draft to select Cameron Darcy, who has been a bit of a nomad throughout his hockey career. With stops in the U.S. NTDP, USHL, and the NCAA, Darcy will finish his junior career with Sherbrooke after a mid-season trade from Cape Breton. After an 82-point season last year, Darcy only scored one goal and 13 assists in 19 games, facilitating his trade. Darcy regained some confidence with the Phoenix, scoring 20 goals and 25 assists in 37 games. Daniel Carr (Hamilton) vs. Connor Brown (Toronto) – AHL The rivalry between the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs has fizzled out recently, but is still going strong between their affiliates in the AHL. Both teams feature two impressive first-year players who have taken far different paths to the league. For those who follow the NCAA, Daniel Carr might be a familiar name. The former Union College standout helped them win an NCAA championship before moving on to his professional career with the Hamilton Bulldogs. Carr has brought some of that success to Hamilton, winning the AHL’s Rookie of the Month honor after recording 10 goals and two assists in February. Carr leads Hamilton with 22 goals, and that total is also good for the AHL lead among rookies. His transition to professional hockey has gone well enough to draw comparisons to Canadiens’ fan favorite, Brendan Gallagher. Despite a 128-point 2013-14 season that resulted in his becoming the CHL’s top scorer, Connor Brown has continued to work to sway his detractors in his favor. The former sixth round pick of the Maple Leafs now is plying his trade with the Toronto Marlies. He was the first Marlies rookie to cross the 50-point threshold in a single season, and was the AHL Rookie of the Month in December after scoring 12 points in 14 games. Brown is part of a three-way tie among the top of the AHL’s rookie scoring race, posting 17 goals and 34 assists in 64 games. Zach Nastasiuk (Owen Sound) vs. Jason Dickinson (Guelph) – OHL Two players who profile as similar players lead their respective teams in opening round OHL playoff action this weekend. Both captains have been tremendous as defensive forwards, but make no mistake, both can still fill the net. One Detroit Red Wings prospect making some noise is Zach Nastasiuk. The Owen Sound Attack forward has quietly become one of the league’s premier two-way players. Nastasiuk has increased his point totals in each consecutive season in the league, rarely missing a game despite his penchant for blocking shots and finishing checks. Nastasiuk scored 35 goals and 42 assists this season, while becoming a reliable penalty killer and trusted power forward. Nastasiuk has been especially good with the man advantage, where his 17 goals rank third among all OHL players. The Attack have only made it out of the first round just once since his arrival, but Nastasiuk’s determined run of play will be needed if they hope to do it this year. The Guelph Storm won the OHL championship last season, and with a staggering number of those contributors having graduated, the responsibility of returning the Storm to the postseason fell heavily
day for a dad. I loved my mom’s partner, but another mom could never have replaced the father I lost.” But while her argument is heartfelt, note some gay-parenting supporters, it’s also full of holes. “There’s nothing wrong with her sharing her experience — it’s an important conversation, and one that we have, and should have, all the time,” Gabriel Blau, executive director of the Family Equality Council, tells Yahoo Parenting. “But denying a huge swath of American citizens our civil rights is not an answer.” Blau, who is raising a 7-year-old son with his husband, adds, “I think it’s disingenuous to say you don’t support LGBT rights and that your concern is children. Supporting marriage equality does not create our families — it creates support for families that already exist.” He adds that Barwick’s pain over the absence of a father “who chose not to be in the picture” and her conclusion to not support gay marriage represent two distinct issues, and that her connection of the two is “such a non-sequitur.” Abigail Garner, an LGBT family-rights educator and author of the book “Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is,” who was raised by two dads, is also confused by Barwick’s essay. “Heather Barwick’s commentary mixes up several personal issues to offer a confusing argument that lacks logic,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “It is true that some children of gay parents feel like they need to present their best public persona in order for their parents to be spared criticism, and I have written rather critically about the factors that create what I’ve referred to as ‘the pressure to be perfect.’” But, Garner adds, “The next logical step in addressing that pressure, however, is certainly not to promote leaving these families in legal limbo by denying same-sex parents the right to marry. While I sympathize with Heather’s pain caused by being abandoned by her heterosexual father, her pain has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. We are all entitled to our personal narratives, but I strongly disagree with Heather’s contrived attempt to offer her personal story as a case for blocking other families’ access to marriage rights.” Please follow @YahooParenting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Have an interesting story to share about your family? E-mail us at YParenting (at) Yahoo.com.Youngest Nobel peace prize winner says the award signals ‘only the start’ of her campaigning for child education Education campaigner Malala Yousafzai revealed she learnt she had won the Nobel peace prize in her chemistry lesson, as she spoke of her honour at receiving the accolade. Speaking after finishing the school day at Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, the 17-year-old said: “I’m proud I’m the first Pakistani and the first young woman or the first young person who is getting this award. It’s a great honour for me. “I’m also really happy that I’m sharing this award with a person from India, whose name is Kailash Satyarthi. His great work for child’s rights and against child slavery totally inspires me. “I’m really happy there are so many people working for children’s rights and I’m not alone. He totally deserves this award and I’m really honoured that I’m sharing this award with him. “We are the two Nobel award receivers – one is from Pakistan, one is from India. One believes in Hinduism, one strongly believes in Islam. “It is a message to people. A message to people of love between Pakistan and India and between different religions. And we both support each other. It does not matter the colour of your skin, what language you speak, what religion you believe in. “It is that we should all consider each other as human beings and respect each other. We should all fight for our rights, for the rights of women, for the rights of children, for the rights of every human being. “First of all I would like to thank my family, my dear father and my dear mother, for their love and support. As my father always said, he did not give me something extra but he did not clip my wings. “I’m thankful to my father for not clipping my wings, for letting me fly and achieve my goals. For showing to the world that a girl is not supposed to be the slave. A girl has the power to go forward in her life. “She’s not only a mother, she’s not only a sister, she’s not only a wife, but she should have an identity, she has equal rights and she should be recognised as a voice. Even though my brother thinks I’m treated very well and they’re not treated very well but that’s fine.” Malala said she wanted to share how she found out she had won the peace prize as it was “quite exciting”. “I was in my chemistry class and we studying about electrolysis,” she said. “The time was, I think, was 10.15. “Before that I was not expecting to get this award. When it went to 10.15 I was totally sure I had not won it. But then suddenly one of my teachers came to the class and she called me and said ‘I have something important to tell you’. I was totally surprised when she told me, ‘congratulations, you have won the Nobel peace prize and you are sharing with a great person who also works for children’s rights’. “It’s sometimes quite difficult to express your feelings but I felt really honoured. “I felt more powerful and more courageous because this award is not just a piece of metal or a medal you wear or an award you keep in your room. “This is encouragement for me to go forward and believe in myself and know there are people who are supporting me in this campaign. And we are standing together. We all want to make sure that every child gets quality education. This is really something great for me. “When I found I had won the Nobel peace prize I decided I would not leave my school, rather I would finish my school time. “I went to the physics lessons, I learned. I went to the English lesson. I considered it like a normal day. “I was really happy with the response of my teachers and my fellow students. They were all saying they were proud of you. I’m really thankful to my school, to my teachers, to my student fellows for their love, for their support. “Even though, it’s not going to help in exams because it totally depends on my hard work. But still, I’m really happy for them supporting me. “I have received this award but this is not the end. This is not the end of the campaign I have started. I think this is really the beginning. I want to see every child going to school. There are still 57 million children who have not received education.” Malala said she “did not wait for someone else” when she stood up for her rights against the Taliban in Swat Valley, Pakistan. “I had really two options,” she said. “One was not to speak and wait to be killed. The second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. “At that time there was terrorism, women were not allowed to go outside of their houses, people were killed. At that time I need to raise my voice because I wanted to go back to school. “I was also one of those girls who could not get education. I wanted to learn and be who I can be in my future. “I also had dreams like a normal child has. I wanted to become a doctor at that time, now I want to become a politician, a good politician.” Malala said she feared she would have to marry at the age of 13 or 14 and not be able to go to school. “Through my story I want to tell woman I want to tell other children all around the world, they should stand up for their rights,” she said. “They should not wait for someone else, their voices are more powerful. “It would seem they are weak but at a time when no one speaks, your voice gets so loud and everyone has to listen to it. Everyone has to hear. “This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard. I speak for them and I stand up with them. And I join them in their campaign, that their voices should be heard, and they have rights.” Malala said she had a telephone call with fellow Nobel peace prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, 60, and they wanted to build “strong relationships” between India and Pakistan. “I want both countries to have dialogue, to talk about peace... rather than fighting with each other,” she said. She added that both winners would request the leaders of India and Pakistan attend the ceremony when they are presented with the peace prize. “I really believe in peace, I really believe in tolerance and patience, and it is really important for the progress of both the countries that they have peace and they have good relationships,” she said. “I used to say I think I do not deserve the Nobel peace prize. I still believe that. But I believe it is not only an award for what I’ve done but it is also an encouragement for giving me hope and give me courage to continue this campaign. To know I’m not alone, to know there are thousands and millions who are supporting me. Once again, thank you so much for supporting me.”The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that our natural DNA can't be patented, in what the influential SCOTUSblog called "a significant patent ruling for the biotechnology industry." The high court did strike some middle ground by ruling that cDNA, which is artificially made DNA, can be patented. "A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring," according to the court ruling written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Utah biotech company Myriad Genetics is at the center of the patent dispute. As strange as it might sound, the company owns the patents to two so-called isolated genes associated with increased risks of breast cancer. Myriad got the patent because it isolated the genes from the human body. (Angelina Jolie had a preventative mastectomy because she had one of these genes.) Cancer groups went to the Supreme Court to challenge Myriad's patents for the genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, since gene patents like these essentially give companies a monopoly on testing for those genes. The groups argued that Myriad's patents stopped other groups from coming up with better and less expensive ways to test for the genes. In ruling against Myriad, Thomas's opinion pointed out that it's clear the company didn't actually make BRCA1 and BRCA2 even though it did isolate them. "It is undisputed that Myriad did not create or alter any of the genetic information encoded in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes," he wrote. "The location and order of the nucleotides existed in nature before Myriad found them." That's not the case with cDNA, which is made when a lab technician removes introns from a DNA sequence. That technician "unquestionably creates something new," Thomas wrote for the majority.Chapter Text I felt at my face. Oh god it was real! I was a bunny again! I found myself grinning from ear to ear. My hoodie was just a giant robe and pants were a dim memory, but who cared! I was me! "YES!!!" I cried, pumping my fist in the air. If anything that just made the staring from the rest of the car intensify. I blinked. "Uh... Hi guys. Um... So... Yeah, I was a werewolf for a bit there, but I think I'm better now?" "No. You're not." Wolford interjected. Every mammal in the car turned to him. The grey wolf just sighed. "Judy, I'm glad you're in remission, but it's just a matter of time before you turn back, and when you do your mental state worse." I slipped out of Nick's grip and hopped over to the wolf, yanking him down to face me. The wolf was completely unphased, just like always. It was really starting to really get on my nerves. I grit my teeth. "Wolford, do you have anything else you can tell us about my condition other than depressing doomsaying? I don't know, some cheerful anecdotes? Maybe a cure?" Okay, that got a rise out of him. "I already told you Judy, the cure is you putting it in someone else and then killing them. If you recall, I offered to sacrifice myself for you and all I got for it was chained!" He rattled his handcuffs for emphasis. I felt my fur raise up, I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this... furious with someone. "That wasn't how it started though, was it? You were planning to take me away weren't you? Take your colleague, your friend out and just kill her in the back of your car..." I felt my paw forming a fist. "Isn't that right, Wolfy?" Francine reached shaky a hand over to my shoulder. "Judy..." I slapped it away. The elephant's hand, an object nearly twice my size, shot out to the side and slammed against the wall of the APC, hard. Francine let out a cry of pain. I turned to her, all the rage draining in an instant. "Francine!" I hopped over to the elephant, now clutching at her hand and staring at me. Words just started spilling out of my mouth. "Oh god, I'm so sorry, I didn't know that would happen, and I shouldn't have done that anyway and I..." She held up the hand. "It's okay Hopps... No real damage done." The hand was rough, and shaking more than a little, but whole. The elephant forced on a confident smirk. "Not going to lie, that was pretty scary though. I mean, I know you're tough and all, but that..." Her smile was growing more strained by the second. I looked down at my paws. "I... I'm sorry." I had no idea what had happened there. I had no idea what any of this meant. But my temper was getting worse. That much was certain. Could Wolford be right? Was I going to turn into some sort of monster. Was I going to- "Carrots." Came a voice. I turned to see Nick Wilde looking down at me. There was no fear in his eyes, only warmth. He held out a paw. "You are going to be okay. You are Judy Hopps, and you will never hurt the people you care about. And for the record? That's everyone." He said it with perfect assurance. He really believed in me, much, much more than I'd ever believed in myself. Just like that the tears started flowing. I'd been holding them back for far too long. I ran up to him and hugged him, just sobbing like a baby. My body was wrong, my mind was wrong, my friends were wrong... It was too much. It was all way too much. When the tears dried up, Nick turned to the rest of the car. Still holding me tight. "We need a game plan." Fangmeyer let out a breath. "What we need is backup, which would be easier to get if the ZPD wasn't compromised. We're in way, way over our heads here Wilde... " The white wolf buried his face in his paws. "I can't believe there was a secret organization hiding out right under our noses and we never even suspected." Wolford let out a sad chuckle. "Don't beat yourself up Greg, we don't really do much aside from passing along rumors. Besides, we've been dancing around Bogo for decades, it's not like we don't have practice." My ears perked up. "Wait a second. You're saying is the Chief isn't with you?" The grey wolf's ears flattened. "What? No! I mean-" He sighed, visibly drooping. "Damn it..." # Getting Bogo on Muzzletime was surprisingly easy. Nick had apparently filched his personal number a while ago. "Being designated driver has its privileges." He explained. The rest was just luck and the nightmarish abuse of officers of the law that was the (admittedly occasional) 24 hour shift. The APC's computer screen blinked to life and the image of the buffalo winked on. "Officer Pennington? Where have you been? There's been an all out gang war going on! I expect my officers to-" Francine held up her hands, now much more steady. "Sir, I can explain, in fact I can explain in video. I'm sending you a file right now. Keep it quiet, we have reason to believe there may be moles in the ZPD." Bogo balked. "What!? Officer that is a serious accusation!" The elephant sighed. "I don't want to believe it any more than you do sir, but the evidence is strong. Please, just watch the video. With earbuds ideally. There's a written report to go with it." The Bogo considered her words, then sighed. "If this is a prank Pennington, it will cost you your badge. I'll call back in a moment." It was more than a moment, it was 20 agonizing minutes during which the entirety of the car was more or less silent and we prayed the dash cams sold our story. Nick looked like he wanted to crack a joke a few times, but the atmosphere was too tense for even his sense of comedic timing. When Bogo Called back he looked more than haunted. There were donut crumbs on his desk. That was never a good sign. "Please God tell me this is a prank." "It... Wouldn't be very funny sir." Nick replied. Bogo took off his glasses. He suddenly looked very, very old. "You know, I was really hoping when I had to pry out plants from the Big Syndicate it would be the last time I had to deal with turncoats." Wolford, still restrained in the back of the car, spoke up. "Sir! I am not a turn coat, and neither is anyone else in the department. The only thing we care about is keeping people sa-" The cheif shot the wolf a look that could melt steel. "Bring him over." He said. His voice was cool. Calculating even. It chilled me more than any time he'd screamed. Francine reached back and carried the grey wolf forward. Wolford did not struggle. For the first time since he'd revealed himself, Wolford looked scared. "S-Sir..." He managed. "Officer Wolford," Bogo began. "You are hereby relieved of duty pending investigation into your actions and association with criminal elements." "Sir I-" "Shut. The Fuck. Up." Our chief returned. "Whatever excuse you had about 'the greater good' or whatever asinine nonsense those monsters fed you can wait. I trusted you, and you used that trust to aid an organization that tried to murder one of my officers. Now, I know how your kind works, so I'm not going to bother with the usual interrogation tactics, but I want you to think long and hard about whether your badge actually meant anything the next time you open your muzzle." The Chief turned to the Elephant in front of him. "Put him back Pennington." Francine picked up the stunned, broken wolf with her trunk and placed him gently back in the rear of the car. Her expression was very tight. Still, she forced an extremely uneasy smile and turned back to the screen. "Sir, not that the ZPD being compromised isn't absolutely horrifying, I'm right there with you, but I have to ask: aren't you a little more concerned about, you know, Hopps being a freaking Werewolf!" Her composure had disintegrated somewhat at the end there. Honestly I couldn't blame her. Fangmeyer put a comforting paw on his partner's side and turned to the phone. "I have to say chief, that is pretty damn world shattering. I'm kind of still not convinced this isn't an acid trip." The buffalo gave out a grim snort. "Likewise. Still racist fairy tales aren't something I know how to deal with, so I'm focusing on what I can. I'm going to make some calls to internal affairs. Meanwhile I have three good officers and that's a start." "Four sir." I was sick and tired of... I noticed my anger and forced it down. The cheif wasn't ignoring me, there was just a lot going on. It was the truth. Period. The chief sighed. His expression was genuinely sympathetic. "Hopps, you're hurt. You were on medical leave before and that hasn't changed just because the form of your injury has." The buffalo shifted his jaw, considering. "Still, I know you and no matter what I tell you you're not going to let this rest... Alright, you want an assignment? here it is. You are hereby tasked with figuring out what the hell this magical nonsense is and how it changes our operations. I shall expect a report and a briefing as soon as reasonably possible and I want you too keeping as far off the streets as you can while you do it. And I swear to god if you complain to me about not letting you tear out there and bring me all of these bastard's heads." He blinked, turning away for a moment. "I honestly couldn't blame you. But we are servants of the peace Hopps, and right now what we need to keep it is information." His expression softened. "Also, if you do have any reason to believe you are... Compromised," He let out a breath. "Just stay safe, and stay alive." And the shivers just kept coming. I shot him a salute. "Yes sir." He then moved on to logistical. "Is your current location secure?" Nick shook his head. "They'll probably come by and comb the spot pretty soon. I know a place we can lay low though." The chief nodded. "Good. Stay secure until I can arrange an interview with the obvious lead. Keep the line open and I'll contact you when I have something." None of us knew what to make of that. Fangmeyer raised his hand. "Uh... Sir? What obvious lead." The chief grew a wry smile. "This is why they pay me the intermediate bucks. You ran into a wolf paramilitary organization concerned with animals going savage and not one of you flat foots made the connection..."Around 1350, in Padua, Giovanni de’ Dondi built an astrarium that described the celestial movements of the sun, the moon, and the five known planets. It was, in addition to being a perpetual calendar, a clock. “So great is the marvel,” wrote a witness, “that great astronomers come from distant places to admire his work.” Versions of the astrarium moved from the castle to the square and then, after World War I, to the wrists of everybody. Most recently, the cell phone seemed to make horological armwear moot, but now Apple Watch, seen here with a leather strap and stainless-steel casing, and available early 2015, can do all de’ Dondi’s clock did. Plus it monitors your pulse and, if you like, shares it with Apple Watch–wearing friends. A tiny marvel.As the state has withdrawn, Santiago Cirugeda has stepped in to turn abandoned sites in Seville and other Spanish cities into dramatic art spaces that are inspiring a new breed of architect In June 2014, Santiago Cirugeda and Jorge “Bifu” Barroso announced the closure of La Carpa (the big top) in downtown Seville. It had been four years since the radical architect and theatre director had teamed up to assemble the city’s first self-built independent arts space by occupying a disused piece of public land. And so the structures that made up La Carpa – by now, a popular fixture in the city, with its own circus group – were dutifully taken down: two second-hand circus tents, a two-storey building made from shipping containers, a skate ramp, and the iconic araña – another container, this one mounted on four, half-bent metal legs like a post-nuclear spider (certainly not your average office space). La Carpa was never really intended to be permanent, yet its creation required extraordinary self-sacrifice. Barroso, director of the Varuma theatre group, spent a year living onsite (in the araña) to secure their claim to the land: “It was pretty tough,” he recalls. “I had no electricity, no water, I was being robbed every couple of days - it felt like I was in prison.” The occupation allowed them to gain a preliminary land concession from authorities, and from there, La Carpa began to grow. By the time it closed, Barroso estimates tens of thousands had attended concerts, theatre performances, live music and workshops there. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Santiago Cirugeda, the maverick Spanish architect behind La Carpa and a host of other low-cost, self-build projects across Spain. Photograph: Ana Naomi de Sousa In many ways, La Carpa bears all the hallmarks of the practice Cirugeda has run for the last decade: Recetas Urbanas is known all over Spain as a reference for low-cost, self-build projects that need the expertise of someone used to navigating – and often exploiting – Spain’s complicated planning bureaucracy. This is what Ciruegda does best: “I get a kick out of the confrontations with technocrats and politicians,” he says, “but most of all I like building my own projects … in Seville, the crisis affects us all, we are in a desperate situation and there’s a lot of injustice in the way things are being done. What about all these empty houses and unused land? There are lots of situations that interest me - as an architect and as a citizen.” The backdrop to Cirugeda’s work is Spain’s economic crisis, during which 500,000 half-built properties have been abandoned, while hundreds of thousands of Spaniards unable to pay their mortgages have been evicted from their homes under draconian repossession laws. But even as a student in Seville, years before the crisis, Cirugeda was setting out to be a very different kind of architect. “From the beginning I wanted to experiment,” he recalls, “so I started doing projects out on the street.” In one of his first experiments, Cirugeda applied for a standard skip license. There was a house nearby undergoing works, so the permit was granted. But Cirugeda wasn’t intending to actually hire a skip to dump rubbish. Instead, he built his own, complete with the standard orange and white stripes but topped with wooden boards - and a centrally mounted seesaw. He called it “a self-built and self-managed urban playground”, and it proved hugely popular with the younger residents of the Alameda, the former red-light district where he lives and works. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guerrilla Architect, the first in Al Jazeera English’s Rebel Architecture series. Within a few days however, a neighbour had complained about the strange structure, and Cirugeda was summoned to the local police station. The planning authorities, however, were forced to concede that he had met all of the legal requirements; he had requested a license, the skip was clearly marked and it didn’t obstruct the traffic or pedestrians. There were no other legal grounds on which to challenge the installation, so the project continued, moving to different locations around Seville, reappearing with a swing, as a small flamenco stage and as a theatre set for a group of local kids. Later, for another project, he knocked down the walls around plots of unoccupied municipal land and reused the swings and seesaws to create itinerant play parks – all this in a city that had only one public playground at the time. This is the sort of project that Cirugeda’s practice has pioneered: playful, resourceful, legally provocative but most of all, highly functional. Aesthetics, on the other hand, take a back seat. “People say my architecture is ugly,” he says, not looking in the slightest bit offended. “They say it’s interesting, but it’s ugly - but I say, who doesn’t have an ugly friend? Everyone has an ugly friend! Architecture today is obsessed with beautiful buildings and pretty projects – that’s bullshit! Architecture should be cheap, functional and it should be an excuse to bring people together: and that’s what we’re doing.” In austerity-stricken Spain, Ciruegada is by no means alone in advocating collective self-build projects. As well as Alice Attout - his partner and fellow architect - Recetas Urbanas counts on a support network of dozens of so-called “collective architects” all over the country (La red de arquitecturas colectivas). Its members work on different projects across Spain, but in recent years they have also started to collaborate on self-build projects, helping social or activist groups by joining forces and resources. Facebook Twitter Pinterest An abandoned cement factory in the south-western city of Badajoz, where a local collective is being helped by architects from across Spain on their self-build project. The Fábrika de Toda La Vida – on the site of an abandoned, Franco-era cement factory in the south-western city of Badajoz – is one such project. When a group of local artists and graduates wanted to turn the factory’s derelict warehouses into artists’ studios, they turned to Cirugeda. Recetas Urbanas made the case to local authorities that by propping up the crumbling factory roof, they were saving a piece of heritage. It was an argument that convinced authorities to grant the collective a temporary concession to the warehouses. They have since been joined by architects from Barcelona, Madrid and Seville and an irregular stream of volunteers – from architecture interns to a professional chef to other groups who’ve previously worked on self-build projects with Cirugeda or his colleagues in other places. Diego Peris, an architect from Madrid who runs the Todo por la Praxis studio says this is a different way of using their profession “Usually architecture is very hierarchical, very top-down; here, it’s different, everyone gets involved.” In Spain, where architects are among the young professionals most affected by mass unemployment, and the profession is implicit in the spectacular boom that preceded the bust, Cirugeda and his fellow “collective architects” are trying to redefine the possibilities for architecture. In 2013 they launched a website that offers guidelines on how to occupy and lay claim to abandoned municipal land, circumvent planning laws, and how to build basic structures, all using previous projects as case studies. But according to Peris, “what we’re doing here is not a quick-fix to the crisis - this is about finding alternative ways of doing things.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Interview with Santiago Cirugeda, director of the Recetas Urbanas practice. Certainly, the acute years of the crisis have allowed activist groups and collective practices to come into their own, seizing the space left by the rapidly retreating state and taking advantage of its inability to intervene. Self-build projects and occupations are occurring all over Spain. But assuming this space on the margins of the law and of the state has its price. “I rent an old house that used to be a brothel, I drive a second-hand van, and apart from that I don’t own anything at all,” Cirugeda says. “There’s no money in this. “Wouldn’t it be easier to have a normal job, to go into an office every day and get paid?... Maybe – but it wouldn’t fulfil you. When you’re laying down the nuts and bolts, with your friends, you get an immediate reward – and something grows out of it.” Ana Naomi de Sousa is the director of Guerrilla Architect, which airs on Al Jazeera English. The film is the first in the Rebel Architecture series: @RebelAchitectureView photos Bivouac Brooklyn More Bivouac offers tent camping atop the roofs of Brooklyn. (Photo: Mark Römisch) It’s summertime, and your inner traveler is torn — is it into the woods for stargazing or off to the city for sightseeing? We say why decide, when the prospect of urban camping offers the best of both worlds? While urban camping might sound like an oxymoron, there are some surprising prospects for campsites set within city limits that make for perfect base camps for city exploring while letting you sleep under the stars at night. From waking up in Central Park to viewing Sydney Harbour from your camp, here are some of the world’s most memorable urban campsites. New York City Pitch your tent in the midst of NYC’s concrete jungle, courtesy of the Urban Park Rangers camping program. The free, family-friendly, scheduled events sign up participants through an online lottery system for park camping spanning all five NYC boroughs, including Manhattan’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Tents and s’mores are included, as are guided evening activities like hiking, nature talks, and stargazing. Or, look to something edgier, like Bivouac, which launched in 2011 as the brainchild of Brooklyn-based artist Thomas Stevenson, featuring a rotating camp of seven tents that pops up on assorted Brooklyn rooftops; the experience includes a hosted communal dinner, morning coffee, and, happily, a working toilet. View photos Grape Island More Camp on Grape Island for some sweet views of the Boston skyline. (Photo: Mike Fahey) Boston For some of the country’s best urban camping, the Boston Harbor Islands come tucked into Boston’s backyard harbor, offering four islands (Grape, Bumpkin, Lovells, and Peddocks) with national parkland campsites. Easily accessible via scheduled ferry service, the sites boast Boston skyline views and beachfront access; Peddocks Island even touts pre-erected yurt rentals, equipped with proper beds and electricity, for some lucky pampered campers. Related: Go Camping and Boating at the Same Time with This Amphibious Trailer View photos Lincoln Park Zoo More You can stay up all night with the animals of Lincoln Park Zoo. (Courtesy: Lincoln Park Zoo) Chicago In Chicago, the 91-acre manmade Northerly Island, in the midst of a multimillion dollar urban eco-oasis makeover, stakes a claim on the scenic Lake Michigan shoreline, looking out onto the Chicago skyline. Its Northerly Island Family Camping Program affords campgoers guided programming for nature hikes, fire building, fishing, and even tent pitching (tents are provided). Or, look to the Lincoln Park Zoo’s family-friendly “Sleeping Under the Skyscrapers” events that allow participants to put up a tent (rentals are available) overnight on zoo grounds and enjoy after-hours encounters with the zoo animals, campfires and s’mores, and terrific city views. View photos Jucy Rentals More Need a ride to go camping in L.A.? Here you go. (Courtesy: Jucy Rentals) Los Angeles Angelenos look to Malibu’s 7,000-acre Malibu Creek State Park to indulge their cinematic camping fantasies in the shadows of dramatic peaks and towering oaks. The site, which offers both tent and RV camping options (consider booking a cheery, value-priced mini-campervan rental from New Zealand-transplanted newcomer Jucy Rentals) was formerly owned by 20th Century Fox Studios and has been featured in films and TV shows like “Planet of the Apes” and “MAS*H.” Campsites come with fire pits and picnic tables, plus flush toilets and solar-heated showers.A relative of a passenger onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 cries, surrounded by journalists, at the Beijing Capital International Airport on March 8, 2014. A spokesman (centre) of Malaysia Airlines is surrounded by journalists as he gives a briefing about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, at a hotel in Beijing March 8, 2014. The Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew lost contact with air traffic controllers early on Saturday en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the airline said in a statement. Journalists attempt to interview a woman who is the relative of a passenger on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, as she crouches on the floor crying, at the Beijing Capital International Airport. A relative (front) of a passenger of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 cries as she walks past journalists at a hotel in Beijing March 9, 2014. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER aircraft carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew was presumed to have crashed off the Vietnamese coast on Saturday. Vietnamese Air Force officers sit in the cockpit of a search and rescue aircraft as they fly over the search area for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane. Volunteer rescue workers and religious organisations pray during multi-religion mass prayers for the passengers of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang. An aerial view of an oil spill is seen from a Vietnamese Air Force aircraft in the search area for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane, 250 km from Vietnam and 190 km from Malaysia, in this handout photo from Thanh Nien Newpaper taken on March 8. A view of oil slicks (pale line near the bottom right) spotted in an area of the South China Sea about 100 nautical miles (185 km) from Tok Bali Beach in Malaysia's Kelantan state. Admiral Datuk Mohd Amdan Kurish, Director General of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, looks at a radar screen while searching for a missing Malaysia Airlines plane in the South China Sea. A relative (left) of a passenger of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is escorted by a caregiver from Malaysia Airlines as they walk in a corridor at a hotel in Beijing. Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik applies the final touches to a sand art sculpture he created wishing for the well being of the passengers of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, on a beach in Puri, in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Life vests and lifesavers are seen onboard a Vietnam Air Force search and rescue aircraft on a mission to find the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, off Tho Chu island. Journalists place their recorders as they get ready for the first briefing of the day at a news conference at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang on March 10. Relatives of a passenger onboard the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 cry inside a hotel they are staying, in Putrajaya. China has urged Malaysia to step up the search for the jetliner that went missing with 239 people on board, about two-thirds of them Chinese, and said it has sent security agents to help with an investigation into the misuse of passports. A woman stands in front of a giant screen showing the number hours since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing, in Beijing on March 10. A map of a flight plan is seen on a computer screen during a meeting before a mission to find the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared from radar screens in the early hours of Saturday, at Phu Quoc Airport. An
1994 the year of our favorite films ever? Among a stellar list of classic movies celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, which include Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction and The Little Rascals, Little Giants is also ringing in the milestone anniversary. PHOTOS- 'The Little Rascals' Cast All Grown-Up! The beloved sports film starred Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neil as small town brothers coaching rival pee-wee football teams-- one team, led by Heisman Trophy winner brother Kevin (O'Neal), and the other, led by underdog Danny (Moranis) and his band of misfit kids. ET was on the set back in 1994 with the young cast who were joined by NFL greats such as John Madden, Emmitt Smith, Bruce Smith and Steve Emtman. Despite a few major commercials, it was the first time working on a major film for most of the pro-football players. Needless to say, they were not used to the grueling production hours. "This is the first time I've ever done a film," Madden told ET at the time. "The process is a lot longer." VIDEO- Matthew McConaughey Riles Up Texas Football Team With Rousing Speech "This is definitely not the NFL," Emmitt added. "It's a whole lot easier on the body but requires as much mental concentration... as playing a game of football." For Bruce Smith, he told ET that he relates to the film's theme of overcoming obstacles especially as an underdog. "I always had a difficult time playing sports," he said. "I was always the heavy set kid, I always wore Huskies, always got joked around a lot. So I can relate a lot to what's going on [in the movie]." NEWS- This Youth Football Team Running Through a Banner Is the Cutest Fail Ever Their cameos are just one of the many reasons we still love Little Giants two decades later. Watch the video to relive all your favorite moments from the film and to see what the team's biggest secret weapon was to become the best damn pee wee football town from Urbania. Follow Denny on Twitter @DDirecto.A second ‘humanitarian’ refugee camp capable of holding up to eight thousand migrants is set to be opened on the French channel coast within the next four weeks. The new ‘Sangatte’ style camp is to be sited at Grand Synthe near Dunkirk and just 30 miles from the vast ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais which is currently home to around 5,000 refugees. The new official camp will initially be used near Dunkirk to house around 2,500 Iraqi Kurds who will be able to stay in 500 specially heated tents. Existing camp: A Kurdish boy from Iraq boy poses in the current camp in Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk The rat infested and boggy area known as 'Jungle Two' is expected to be dismantled in the near future The numbers of UK bound migrants camping out at Grande Synthe near Dunkirk in recent months has risen from 100 last summer to just under 3,000 currently The Kurds will be moved to the new site while the rat infested and boggy area of woodland which they inhabit and is known as 'Jungle Two' is expected to be dismantled in the near future. The new Dunkirk camp is the brainchild of Damien Carême who is the Mayor of Grande Synthe and the camp will be situated just seven miles from the ferry terminal. The heavily fenced camp will be sited on a vast area of land sandwiched between railway lines and the A16 motorway which links Dunkirk to Calais. The humanitarian mayor has previously said his ‘worst nightmare’ would be seeing a child drowning or succumbing to a fatal disease at ‘Jungle Two’. When an aide to the mayor was asked why Grande Synthe was chosen, she said bluntly: ‘No one else would have them,’ But yesterday there were fears that the new Dunkirk site is so vast that it will simply be a staging post for thousands of migrants as they wait for an opportunity to get across the Channel to a new life in the UK. The regional newspaper Voix du Nord reported that ‘at first sight there could be space enough for six or eight thousand people'. There are now fears on both sides of the Channel that this year thousands more refugees from war torn Syria, Iraq and Africa will arrive at both Calais and the new Dunkirk camp to try and get to Britain. A refugee child pictured in the mud in the camp in the coastal town of Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk, France There are 3,000 migrants at 'Jungle Two' where doctors have described conditions as ‘life threatening’ Once the new Dunkirk camp at Grande Synthe is running it is expected the ‘Jungle Two’ camp (pictured) will be dismantled 'They continue to arrive in their hundreds. There is nothing to suggest that numbers will diminish in the months to come,’ one French source told the Daily Mail. ‘It is inhumane to allow them to camp out in filth and mud'. One doctor treating Kurds at a makeshift clinic at ‘Jungle Two’ added: 'If you think that the migrants are going to stop coming then you are either stupid or naive. 'They will arrive in their thousands from Asia and Africa because they want new lives and the last stage of their journey is here, where they are within sight of England'. The numbers of UK bound migrants camping out at Grande Synthe near Dunkirk in recent months has risen from 100 last summer to just under 3,000 currently, but with more arriving on a daily basis. The cost to the French taxpayer of running the new Dunkirk camp, where the refugees will receive hot meals, showers and sanitary facilities, is estimated as more than a £1 million annually. There are already 3,000 migrants camping at 'Jungle Two', where doctors have described conditions as ‘life threatening’ and worse than the official 'Jungle One'camp at Calais. The Mayor of Calais has told of the inhabitants ‘facing mortal danger’ due to floods and disease while they survive on hand-outs from local charity groups.REVIEW: Etude House Dear My Blooming Lips-talk (Chiffon) PK 028 (SWATCHES + DEMO) (contains an aff link) Very recently, this cute af Etude House lipstick that I ordered from eBay came in the mail and my first instinct was to take photos and swatch! **disclosure: This post contains one affiliate link, which is marked in bold and in red text, towards the bottom of the post. This means that if you click that link, I’ll receive a percentage as commission for what is purchased. If you are happy to, feel free to support this blog. Also, this is not a sponsored post as I purchased the item out of my own pocket and was not compensated from eBay or Etude House for this post; all photos and opinions are my own. I don't think I'll ever understand how Etude House manages to keep churning out (cute) lipsticks with each new collection, time and time again. The brands also keeps reworking, reformulating and re-releasing these collections with new, sleeker packaging and it's plain confusing! At the time, I purchased this along with other items from eBay seller, bringbringshop. Ordering on February 7th 2016, I paid USD$7.32, and found it on my doorstep about a week later. Bringbring usually sends out items pretty quickly and most times, I receive them at least a week later...but no more than a week! The lipstick (along with the other two items) were tightly and safely wrapped in bubble wrap--no damages. While I wish I could pick up a couple more shades, I usually opt for at least one from the collection, instead of like...all the shades....(sob). Since the shades of the regular Dear My Blooming Lips-talk collection (overall) are cute, I may need to buy a couple of the other shades. It seems the same lipstick line has been released as part of the Wonder Park collection, but with different, limited shades and some minor colour changes on the outer lipstick tube. A~~~ah, Etude House....please save my wallet....!!!!!!! As always, Etude House's Dear My Blooming Lips-talk collection is split into categories, based on finish and for this collection, it's: chiffon, cream and matte. I figured the "chiffon" fit would be creamy, smooth but potentially a satin finish, or a combination of creamy and matte finishes. The lipstick case is cute, simple design with a raised scalloped edge along the front of the case. It's easy to store in a makeup pouch or a side pocket (I had it in my vest at work) without the lipstick cap coming off. There's a small mirror area on the lid and the bottom of the tube. A good expiry date, too! Currently, I have the shade PK028 which in person, the bullet appears as a bright, warm rose coral pink. It's the perfect spring colour! The official swatch and promotional images, however, market this particular lipstick as a peach-y coral in the tube but a muted peach-tone pink when shown on the lips and more towards a MLBB pink nude--the latter being the whole reason for me buying this shade! :~(( On paper, the lipstick swatches exactly the same as the colour of the bullet: a lovely warm rosy, coral pink. s w a t c h e s swatches, on my lips: recommend PK028 maybe w h e r e t o b u y On the back of my wrist (the prime swatching area lol), this beauty swatches a little less vibrant on the skin, as expected. Feeling dry, the lipstick has a noticeably smooth, creamy application but a little patchy. Also once on the skin, it does smear easily due to the creaminess. If you desire a matte look, buy one of the shades from the "matte" fit of the collection, instead, or use a translucent HD powder to set the lipstick on the lips.- bare lips (after applying a cushion around my lips and face so there is a little foundation on my upper lip...)- one swipe on each lip- blended out with a Q-tip--looks better tbhAs the photos show, the "chiffon" fit of thereveals any and all fine lines on the lips. While it applies smoothly (before any blending), it also initially feels chalky and dry if your lips aren't properly or regularly moisturized. The lipstick does transfer and looks patchy.No matter if its a gradient or full lip, Iblending out the edges with a Q-tip and apply with a light hand, with gentle, short strokes, to avoid cake lips. Now that's a new one!also ends up looking to truer to promotional images and swatches, of a rosy pink rather than a brighter rose pink, so I'm relieved about that. But blending out the edges (even the center) eases any odd, patchy application and makes a better finish.In terms of removal, it's easy. thelipstick is gone with a swipe of cleansing oil or a couple of swipes of a tissue.Would I recommend this? Yes,................? It's cute; the colour is wearable and it's affordable, also easily accessible from many online retailers. I wishcould break out of its "" branding and try something else, name-wise (even with their new launch of the Glass lipstick line). But they are great at cute, princess-like packaging. I do think for the same money, you could just get a nice tint for a better gradient look! One that lasts!For a MLBB shade or for full lip looks, definitely look elsewhere. But for these range of shades and finish, it is pretty unique of Korean brand. So with the issues of application, I'm uneasy to wholeheartedly rave about this particular lipstick. I'll get back you all when I've tried one from the "cream" line, of the same collection or thequasi re-release.For now, I will flail excitedly over the cute packaging....!!2.9/5.eBay - $7.83 (via bringbringshop) Amazon -Etude House US - $12.40 Thanks for reading, and goodnight!What shades do you have of this collection? Let me know in the comments, below~Spain is determined to prevent a Catalonian referendum on independence, even though its tough attitude toward Catalan leaders has probably only increased enthusiasm for a measure with questionable support. A new round in a long game of chicken began earlier this month, after Catalonia’s president, Carles Puigdemont, announced an independence referendum on Oct. 1. Spain’s culture, sport and education minister, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, vowed: “What I can say is what will not happen on Oct. 1 — an illegal referendum that goes against the Constitution.” After Catalonia’s government staged a nonbinding independence vote in 2014, Spain charged the autonomous region’s leader at the time, Artur Mas, with the crimes of disobedience and breach of trust. In March, a court fined Mr. Mas the equivalent of $39,000 and banned him from holding public office for two years. The trial only succeeded in galvanizing Catalan separatists, as hundreds of thousands took to the streets in September to demand that their politicians push ahead on independence. But while independence was approved in the 2014 ballot measure, less than half the electorate took part, and many Catalans see clear advantages in remaining a part of Spain, such as membership in the European Union.Neptune twenty years later KEITH COOPER ASTRONOMY NOW Posted: August 24, 2009 The greatest voyage of space exploration ever undertaken experienced its final highlight two decades ago, on 25 August 1989, when the intrepid spacecraft Voyager 2 flew within 4,950 kilometres of the beautiful blue ice giant Neptune. Twelve years after it had departed Earth, swinging past Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus during its epic journey, Neptune and its moons were last on the list before heading into the void of deep space. Neptune imaged by Voyager 2 from a distance of 16 million kilometres. The Great Dark Spot is in the centre. Image: NASA/JPL This was truly a voyage into the unknown. Prior to 1989, Neptune had existed as just a tiny pale blue disc in telescope eyepieces, accompanied by two points of light, its moons Triton and Nereid. We knew, given its size and mass, that it was an ice giant like Uranus, 50,538 kilometres across, and not much else. As the planet loomed large in the viewfinders of Voyager 2’s cameras (its Imaging Science Subsystems were composed of two television-style video cameras – primitive by today’s digital imaging standards), unexpected features began to be discerned within the azure blue–green of its atmosphere, much to the excitement of those watching back on Earth, four light hours away. Uranus, which Voyager 2 had flown past three years earlier, had turned out to be, dare we say it, a bit dull. There wasn’t much activity visible in its atmosphere, and most of the excitement was saved for its weird moons. As it receives a mere three percent of the sunlight that Jupiter does, and 900 times less than Earth, Neptune’s atmosphere was anticipated to be similarly sluggish, but as those first close-up pictures trickled in we found that it was anything but dull. A close-up view of the Great Dark Spot. The pinwheel shape indicates that it is rotating anti-clockwise. Image: NASA/JPL. Embedded in that cool blue atmosphere (surely the prettiest colour of any planet in the Solar System) was a giant spot, larger than Earth itself, a titanic storm like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. This ‘Great Dark Spot’ dominated Neptune’s southern hemisphere, with white, fluffy high-altitude clouds of frozen methane crystals around the border of this giant anticyclone. Meanwhile, streaky white clouds ‘scooted’ all the way around the planet in just 16 hours, and a smaller dark spot, christened ‘D2’, was being buffeted by winds blowing up to 2,400 kilometres, the most blustery in the entire Solar System. But time and time again mission scientists kept coming back to that Great Dark Spot. Where did it get its energy from? As Voyager 2 steadily approached Neptune throughout 1989, it had seen the spot drift up and down, from 27 degrees south to 17 degrees south. A few years later, the Hubble Space Telescope saw that it had not only stopped drifting, but had vanished totally from existence, to be replaced a little while later by another huge spot in the northern hemisphere. Whereas Jupiter’s writhing, churning atmosphere can keep its giant storm active for at least 400 years, Neptune is comparatively peaceful and hence its giant storms are shorter-lived. Over the last twenty years, we’ve seen Neptune with a Great Dark Spot of some kind at least fifty percent of the time, powered most likely by internal thermal energy. As previously stated the blue colour of Neptune’s atmosphere is stunning, the result of atmospheric methane absorbing redder light but reflecting shorter wavelength blue light, in much the same way that Earth’s sky appears blue. The invisible Neptune Voyager 2 found that there was more to Neptune than met the eye. It had a magnetic field that the spacecraft stumbled upon, first detecting radio emissions from it and then crossing the bow shock (the outer boundary of the magnetosphere) the day before closest approach. Unusually, Neptune’s magnetic field is tilted by 47 degrees to the axis of rotation, and is offset from the dead centre of the planet by around 10,000 kilometres. Consequently Voyager 2 approached Neptune through the southern cusp of its magnetic field, which is at a tropical rather than polar latitude; indeed the southern magnetic pole was pointed towards that distant point of light that is the Sun when Voyager 2 arrived. Neptune's rings are so faint that Neptune has to be blotted out to be able to photograph them. Image: NASA/JPL. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises were Neptune’s rings. From Earth, astronomers had only detected the merest hint of ‘ring arcs’, rather than full rings, and speculation was rife as to how ring arcs could form. All that debate went out of the window when Voyager 2 discovered that the rings were actually complete, encircling the planet, but were so dark and diffuse that they were impossible to see in their fullest extent from Earth. The main rings include the Inside Diffuse Ring (also called the Galle ring), which is 17,000 kilometres above the cloud tops and 42,000 kilometres from the centre of Neptune; the Inner Ring (also called the Le Verrier ring), 28,400 kilometres above the cloud tops and 53,000 kilometres from the centre of Neptune; the ‘Plateau’, which is a broad and diffuse sheet of smoke-particle sized dust 56,000 kilometres from the centre of Neptune; and the Main, or Adams, ring 63,000 kilometres from the centre of Neptune and towering 38,000 kilometres above the cloud tops. Voyager 2 was able to measure the size and distribution of the rings, and their constituents, by monitoring occultations of stars in ultraviolet light as the rings blocked the starlight, causing the star to flicker. The surface of Triton. Image: NASA/JPL. Voyager 2 passed over the north pole of Neptune to head away from the planet at an angle of 48 degrees to the plane of the Solar System. Deep space beckoned, but there was one more body for it to investigate: Triton. Moving around Neptune backwards, Triton is rockier and denser than any of the icy moons of Saturn and Uranus. It’s believed to be a captured Kuiper Belt object, 2,720 kilometres across, that wandered too close to the ice giant at some point in the distant past. Voyager 2 flew within 40,000 kilometres, photographing a surface that was frozen but certainly not inactive. Giant dark plumes of dust and nitrogen were seen spewing up to eight kilometres high, before drifting back to the ground. It’s the coldest place in the Solar System that we have measured the temperature of, just 38 degrees above absolute zero. It is quite possible that if Triton had never been captured by Neptune, we would now be calling it a dwarf planet like Pluto and Eris. Indeed, it is considered to be a fine analogue to Pluto, and the records of what Voyager 2 saw and measured on this frigid moon will undoubtedly be poured over in the coming years in anticipation of the arrival of NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft at Pluto in 2015, when we finally return to the outer Solar System. Neptune's moons Size Mean distance from Neptune Triton 2,720km 353,000km Proteus 400km 92,000km Larissa 190km 48,800km Galatea 180km 37,200km Nereid 169km 5,560,000km Despina 150km 27,700km Thalassa 80km 25,200km Naiad 54km 23,200km New discovery Although this famous fly-by was 20 years ago, new discoveries are still amazingly being made with the data and images that Voyager 2 returned to Earth. During its visit to the Neptunian system, Voyager 2 also discovered six new moons (listed above) including the 150-kilometre wide Despina. Ted Stryk, who is actually a professor of philosophy from Tennessee, USA, has achieved considerable success utilising modern image-processing techniques to reveal extra data in the images sent back by the Voyager probes, such as surface details in the dark hemisphere of Uranus’ moon Ariel. Recently, after realising that Neptune was the only world for which we don’t have a photograph of one of its moons transiting across its disc, he found one such image in the raw data files from Voyager. Cleaning up a sequence of four images, he found both the transit and shadow transit of Despina, an event that had been inexplicably missed by the Voyager imaging team 20 years ago. It is a breathtaking sequence of images that resonate even more when one considers that there are no current plans to return to Neptune, nor are we likely to go back for at least another 20 or 30 years. The newly processed composite image of Despina and its shadow transiting across Neptune. Image: NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk. In a matter of hours Voyager increased our knowledge of the outermost planet a hundredfold over what we had learnt in the previous 143 years since Neptune’s discovery in 1846. Since this final encounter Voyager 2 has been ploughing a lone furrow towards interstellar space. We still keep in touch, like distant penpals, and it has enough power to stay alive for another fifteen years. It has now passed through the termination shock – the outermost layer of the Sun’s magnetic domain, where the solar wind slams into the radiation field of interstellar space, and in about 296,000 years it will pass within 4.3 light years of Sirius, before continuing into the vast darkness, possibly long after we are gone.By Karlie Marrazzo There comes a point in every trip where you have a moment of regret, whether it’s about your accommodations, the restaurant you went to for dinner, or, unfortunately, the entire town you chose to stay in. I had that moment for three days in Dubrovnik. On the day we drove to Dubrovnik, my husband and I woke up in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovia. We ate our DIY breakfast of yogurt, fruit and pastries on the bank of the Neretva River, gazing up at Stari Most one more time. The most common route from Mostar to Dubrovnik is the highway that runs along Croatia’s Dalmatian coast. We decided to take the road less traveled and try the highway that runs mostly through the interior of Bosnia, taking us through the Serb territory of the Republic of Srpska. Our first interesting stop was at the Radimlja necropolis outside the town of Stolac. The necropolis isn’t very big, with 63 tombstones scattered about with the highway cutting right through. There was no entrance fee, no workers at a gate, and only a faded sign giving a few paragraphs of information. The tombstones are striking, bright white, some of them coming up to my waist and others standing six feet tall, all with intricate designs carved into them. Unfortunately the necropolis is an endangered site due to nearby construction. Soon after we officially entered the Republic of Srpska. The land was sparse and dry, reminding me of the American Southwest. The road was well maintained and we rarely passed another car. There wasn’t much along the highway aside from unfortunate amounts of garbage and a few skinny cows grazing along the side of the road. I kept my eyes peeled for the small Orthodox chapels tucked along the roadside and did spot one. There were a few gravestones set around it, and a small alter for prayer inside. We passed through the town of Trebinje but sadly didn’t give ourselves time to stop and have a look around. Crossing the border back into Croatia was much the same as when we entered Bosnia. As soon as we crossed that imaginary line, the scenery seemed to shift. The sun seemed to shine a little brighter and the view before us immediately opened up on the old town of Dubrovnik perched on the sparkling Adriatic Sea. Lets just say that I didn’t fall in love with Dubrovnik. It is an absolutely beautiful city and nobody can dispute that. It is almost too beautiful, perfectly restored and maintained, without so much as a cigarette butt on the ground. There are no signs that there was a war here as recent as the early 90s. And there are So. Many. Tourists. I know what you’re thinking – “But you’re a tourist!” Yes, that is true. But I am not one of the thousands of cruise ship day-trippers that infiltrate the tiny Old Town each and every day. It seems like the only Croatians who are in the Old Town are the ones who are renting out their apartments to overnighters, and the ones serving your meals and selling tacky souvenirs. We spent all of our time in the Old Town and probably should have ventured out for a change of scenery. I had read many praises for Croatia’s beaches, so I was excited to finally get some R&R time and soak up some rays. Dave and I went to Banje Beach, just outside of the city walls. The beach club was charging an arm and a leg for a chair and umbrella, so we laid out our borrowed towels on the rocky beach. It was pretty crowded and the midday sun was scorching, so we only spent an hour there. One of the very best things we did in Dubrovnik was see a photo exhibit called War Photo Limited. Their aim is to “educate the public in the field of war photography, to expose the myth of war and the intoxication of war, to let people see war as it is, raw, venal, frightening, by focusing on how war inflicts injustices on innocents and combatants alike.” There was a great set on the Bosnian War in Mostar. It’s hard to describe how I felt looking at photos of a city I was in that very morning, that I fell in love with, in ruins, while standing in another city not too far away that doesn’t show any battle scars and is flourishing. Seeing that sharp contrast visually while being there physically was very jarring and unsettling. We also spent quite a few hours at a rocky pseudo-beach bar, hanging on the side of a cliff on the other side of the city walls. To get there we walked down a small pathway along the inside of the wall, eventually coming to a tiny doorway. You wouldn’t know what it was for or go through it if you weren’t looking for it, unless you were intrigued by the faint beats coming from the other side. There are a few tables perched along the rocks, and lots of people had towels spread out directly on the rocks, bringing drinks down from the bar and diving into the deep Adriatic Sea to cool off. It also seemed to be a hangout for a few of the city’s stray cats, who would stretch out luxuriously absorbing the heat from the rocks. It was quite idyllic, gazing into the deep blue waters of the sea, sipping on radler, chatting and soaking up the heat. That evening we ended up in an Irish pub to watch Croatia play in a World Cup qualifier against Serbia. We’ve watched many national games abroad when the home country is playing and it’s usually a fun, exciting atmosphere. We also thought it might make for an interesting game based on the two teams involved. The pub was showing four different matches on six TVs, so different groups of people were cheering and reacting at different times, which was odd. The game wasn’t very exciting so we ditched out at half time. This probably had something to do with the fact that there was only one Croatian guy in the entire bar. The next day we paid 90 kuna each ($16 CAD) to walk along the top of the city walls. Talk about a tourist trap! The views over the bright orange rooftops and the sparkling diamond sea were pretty, and the exercise was nice, but the price was way too high. I’m not saying $16 isn’t a lot of money, but I felt that the price was too high for the experience that I had. For comparison, I hiked for three and a half hours on the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall of China in 2012 and only paid 50RMB = $8.50 CAD. I’m not knocking Dubrovnik as a city. It is historic and gorgeous and it deserves to prosper. It would be a fantastic place to have a perfect Adriatic vacation – sun, beaches, drinks, and dancing – if the streets weren’t choked with people every single day. I think this is exactly what Dubrovnik was like 10 or so years ago, but it got “discovered” and has now fallen prey to mass tourism.[UPDATE: Luke Puskedra finished ninth in the Boston Marathon on Monday, at 2:14:45.] Everything Luke Puskedra does is measured in minutes and seconds. He trains hard to shave a digital tick here and a tock there. Small improvements are huge, even in the longest races. Yet as he looks back at 2016, 27-year-old Puskedra sees a calendar instead of a clock. What was important was measured in months, not minutes. The former University of Oregon standout, who will run the Boston Marathon for the first time April 17, entered 2016 on a high. He had just run the best time by an American in the marathon in 2015 -- 2 hours, 10 minutes, 24 seconds at Chicago in October -- and hoped to make the U.S. Olympic team for the Rio de Janeiro Games at the marathon trials in Los Angeles in February 2016. Instead, he finished fourth, just missing a spot. Then, just days after the race, he and his wife learned that their infant daughter, Penelope, had cancer. There were tests and hospital visits, chemotherapy and surgery. Running -- Puskedra's passion and career -- was put aside for about six months as his daughter went through treatments. "Time went really slow with my daughter getting sick," he says. "That six months of my life feels like it was about 10 years." Puskedra and his wife, Trudie, often drove between their home in Eugene, Oregon, and Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland, where Penelope stayed about two weeks early in the process. At first, the Puskedras were told she likely had a late-stage sarcoma and her chances of recovery were slim. Then, the diagnosis changed to neuroblastoma, a cancer with a strong cure rate. Doctors eventually were able to remove 95 percent of the mass that had grown on her neck. "It was tough even getting out the door and maybe running for 20 minutes just to try to feel better and get what they call the runner's high," he says. "It just wasn't something that was enjoyable. And everything was so time sensitive, where they were squeezing us in here or squeezing us in there, so if I did try to go for a 20-minute run, the whole time I'm thinking, 'Maybe being gone for 20 minutes could be the difference of us getting into that appointment and having to wait another week.'" On top of all of this, he had a problem with one knee that eventually required surgery in April to remove loose cartilage. Gradually, he began to do 20- to 30-minute runs about once every three days. Just after the U.S. Olympic trials in February 2016, Puskedra and his wife, Trudie, found out that their daughter, Penelope, had cancer. Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Finally, good news came his way in July: Penelope's cancer was in remission. "It was a tough year," Puskedra says, "but with everything with my daughter, we were so lucky." Soon Puskedra began structured workouts. His first race was a four-miler in Eugene, and then came the USATF 20K National Championships in September. He finished outside the top 10 at 1:00:13, after finishing fourth the year before in 59:30. In October he returned to Chicago. This time he was 19th in 2:20:18. His fitness obviously wasn't what it had been in 2015. "I'd never hit the wall that everybody talks about," he says. For the first half of the race, he felt strong, able to answer when the leaders surged. Then he met the wall. "After covering every single one of those moves with the first 10 miles, I think I just zapped my fueling," he says. "The last 10K was definitely the longest stretch of running. I felt I was moving in slow motion. That was a tough result." After Chicago, he regrouped. He got back to doing track intervals for a different mental and physical stimulus. In January, he ran the Houston Half Marathon, finishing 12th at 1:03:14. Since then, he's done what he likes best: pushing himself hard, doing up to 150 or 160 miles per week. He's spending the last few weeks until Boston training at altitude in Flagstaff, Arizona. He feels strong, healthy and excited. "I hope [Boston] caters to a runner like me that has a cross country background, with being a hilly course and a tougher course," he says. Andy Powell, who coached Puskedra at Oregon and encouraged him to run Boston, says Puskedra is energized and his training has been strong. "I think it will be a good course for him," Powell says. "I think the harder, the better for him. That was kind of how we always approached cross country races when he was in college. If it was a difficult course, Luke could do really well." Powell acknowledges that the past year took a toll on his friend emotionally and physically. Yet he believes there may be some benefit from it. Because Puskedra "trains harder than anyone," Powell says the running timeout of 2016 may have given his body a break. "I think he has a great perspective on things, probably a much different perspective than a lot of twenty-something-year-olds that are running," Powell says. "He has seen a lot and been through a lot."Ah, sexual enhancers. If you listened to every spammer who ever sent an unwanted email into your inbox, you’d be drowning in the things. Cock rings, Levitra, herbal supplements…the possibilities are endless. A select few of these items truly do rake in money for their manufacturers. Thanks to spammers, you are probably already familiar with most of them. We decided to research which sexual enhancers are most profitable. For the purposes of this article, sexual enhancer is defined as a product that improves the sexual experience. Because statistics in this niche either do not exist or are prohibitively expensive, we researched this article independently. We based the most profitable sexual enhancers on a combination of markup and sales volume. Our evidence comes from surveying sex shops and conducting online research. This list of 10 is the result. Viagra (Sildenafil) First released in 1998, Pfizer’s Viagra was the first erectile dysfunction drug to hit the market. Researchers unexpectedly discovered the drug’s true benefits while using it on angina patients. It did little for the heart condition, but did have one prominent side effect—erections. So Pfizer changed gears, and the worldwide market rose to the occasion. More than a decade later, the Blue Pill is still going strong. Pfizer reported $1.9 billion in sales revenues last year alone. Generic Viagra won’t be available until 2011, so the drug’s trajectory remains stiff. Note: Viagra, as well as the other ED drugs mentioned below, are licensed and approved for erectile dysfunction. ED is a medical condition requiring multiple exams, diagnostic studies, and long-term care. However, drug companies have marketed the drug for enhancement purposes, and the market has picked them up as such. We don’t want to encourage pill-popping. Yet we also can’t ignore market forces, so we included these drugs on our list as sexual enhancers. Cialis (Lilly) Cialis is like Viagra…on Viagra. Eli Lilly’s little pill, unlike its shorter-lived forebear, lasts up to 36 hours. Its patent also has a longer life, so Lilly will be enjoying the benefits of its “Weekend Pill” for some time to come. 2008 sales amounted to $1.44 billion. Lube People will pay more than $10/bottle for a bottle of personal lubricant. Apparently, reducing friction during sexual activity is that important. The lube market is so lucrative that manufacturers now develop the product in niches. Warming lube, scented, thick, thin, desensitizing, spermicidal—there’s something for everyone. Most brands of lube come from humble beginnings. K-Y Jelly started as a surgical lubricant. Astroglide, meanwhile, was the result of a chemistry accident. Chemist Dan Wray, founder and CEO of Astroglide manufacturer BioFilms, was working on a space shuttle’s cooling at Edwards Airforce Base when he discovered Astroglide. “I was trying to remove the oil from anhydrous ammonia and I ended up with this substance,” he is quoted as saying in this North County Times article. “I gave a pint
?s #<ResourceImpl http://members.aol.com/elvezco>}) Note that the results here are a sequence of maps where each is keyed by selected variables. If we want to work with sparql directly instead of building these queries, it’s easy to also go from a sparql string to a query that can be used directly as well: user=> (sparql-to-query "SELECT?s?p WHERE {?s?p \"El Vez\" }") {:vars [:s :p], :filters (), :pattern ([:?s :?p #<LiteralImpl El Vez>]), :kind :select} I’m really just scratching the surface of both Clojure and the plaza library here, but hopefully I’ve given you a taste of what’s interesting about using them to easily read, write, and manipulate RDF data.In July 1969, the telescopes at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, in Cheshire, were tracking the Americans' Eagle Lander carrying astronauts towards the moon's surface. Sir Bernard Lovell, the astronomer, was among the team listening to transmissions coming from the area of space and began tracking the unmanned Soviet spacecraft Luna 15, which was trying to collect samples of lunar soil and rock and then return to Earth before the US mission. The recordings from Jodrell's Lovell radio telescope, which were hidden in archives until researchers found them, show the Russian craft orbited the Moon and crash-landed onto its surface at 15:50 on July 21 – just a few hours before the Americans lifted off. In the newly released recordings, which were made over three days, Sir Bernard, the founder of Jodrell Bank, can be heard narrating events with conversation from the Apollo 11 astronauts in the background. Sir Bernard notes a change in the orbit of Luna 15 to take it closer to the US landing site and later reports a rumour from a "well-informed source in Moscow" that the craft is about to land. People in Jodrell's control room can then be heard shouting "it's landing" and "it's going down much too fast" as they track Luna 15's final moments before it crashes. A voice is later heard saying: "I say, this has really been drama of the highest order." The recordings have been released by The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings.World's Largest English Language News Service with Over 500 Articles Updated Daily "The News You Need Today…For The World You’ll Live In Tomorrow." What You Aren’t Being Told About The World You Live In How The “Conspiracy Theory” Label Was Conceived To Derail The Truth Movement How Covert American Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations May 3, 2016 Northern England Stunned After British Fighter Jets Battle UFO By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers An extraordinary Ministry of Defense (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that a squadron of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft were the cause of the “mass panic event” that occurred in Northern England yesterday after these planes were scrambled to intercept a “mysterious object” (UFO?) that had risen out of the sea—and when met by these fighter aircraft was fired upon by them causing it to then “disappear/realign”. [Note: Words appearing in quotes are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.] According to this report, multiple Federation, British, NATO and American satellite and radar sources detected this “mysterious object” rising out of the sea off the coast of North England yesterday prompting RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, to launch a squadron of Eurofighter Typhoon’s to intercept it—with one of these fighter aircraft making “repeated/numerous” combat attacks against it, and as one captured radar image (see below) shows. Local people from Leeds, York, Harrogate and Doncaster who were witness to this event, this report continues, became panic stricken and terrified that World War III was starting, this report continues, as loud booms filled the region and fighter jets filled the sky. Within 15 minutes of this event occurring, MoD analysts in this report say, the British government issued a DA-Notice (Defence Advisory Notice) making it illegal for any news media organizations to report the facts of what had occurred—and 7 hours later published a “propaganda account” of this event stating that it was caused by a wayward Air France airliner over Yorkshire that had experienced a radio communication problem. MoD experts in this report, however, state that all of Air France’s Airbus A320 aircraft have multiple communication systems (like all modern passenger aircraft) that continue working in emergency mode under all circumstances—with the exception of the aircraft suffering a catastrophic failure (crash), which this one did not. Most intriguing, perhaps, in this report are its highly classified portions that allude to this “mysterious object” being associated with the “Baltic Sea Anomaly” we had previously written about in our report Putin Orders Nuke Missile Firing Over Fears Of US-NATO Contact With “Dangerous Entity”. [Запретите опубликовать измерение объекта] May 3, 2016 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL. [Note: Many governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagree with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their ‘agents’ has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit us, and others like us, that is exampled in numerous places, including HERE.] The “Future Of Humanity” You’re Not Allowed To Know They Are Going To Come For You…Why Are You Helping Them? Return To Main PageThe Pentagon loves to throw good money after bad ‒ to the tune of nearly $60 billion on failed big-ticket weapons systems over the last two decades, according to a new internal Department of Defense review. From the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) that focused on fighting the last war to its RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopters that never quite got off the ground, between 1997 and October 2016, the Pentagon invested $58 billion on weapons technology it never received. That doesn’t include the boondoggle that is the F-35 jet, which was finally declared“ready for combat” at the beginning of August. The FCS ($20 billion) and the Comanche ($9.8 billion) are just two of 23 major weapons programs that were canceled before they were finished, and together the two Army projects made up more than 50 percent of the “sunk costs” outlined in the Pentagon’s annual internal acquisitions performance review. The 224-page report by Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall was published earlier this week. Read more The report noted how much money was spent on each canceled program, how far along in the process they were before they were killed, and if any of the technology was rolled up into new programs. For example, although the FCS was canceled, parts of it ‒ including many of the manned ground vehicles and the Intelligent Munitions System ‒ were swept up into a current program called the Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization Program. Most of the programs were killed before they blew through their budgets, but eight of them spent all the money allotted to them before the Pentagon canceled them, the report found. The Government Accountability Office, a Congressional watchdog, conducted an audit of Pentagon spending in 2011 and found $70 billion in waste, the New York Times reported at the time. Much of the overspending happened because the DOD started building weapons systems before the designs were fully tested, the auditors said. With acquisitions overruns long being a thorn in the side of the Pentagon’s budget, in March the Air Force enlisted IBM’s Jeopardy!-winning cognitive computer, Watson. Two contractors are currently working to create programs that would enable Watson to navigate the 1,897-page Federal Acquisition Regulation, helping potential government vendors actually bid for military contracts. The project is expected to become operational by 2018. Another way the Pentagon has sought to cut down wasted spending is through the latest update to its acquisitions program, called ‘Better Buying Power 3.0’, which was announced in April 2015. The program was designed to have “a stronger emphasis on innovation, technical excellence, and the quality of our products,” Kendall wrote in a memo ordering the program's implementation. It calls on the military-industrial complex to make projects more affordable in terms of funding, schedule and manpower throughout the entire lifespan of their products. It will also reward contractors for successful expense management, and ask them to eliminate unproductive processes and unnecessary bureaucracy. Of course, holding contractors accountable for their failures when it comes to major cost overruns or weapons systems that don’t work is easier said than done. And it doesn’t help when someone at the Pentagon thinks it’s a good idea to spend money on bomb-sniffing elephants. WATCH MORE:As part of its long-promised defence policy review, the federal government is reviewing Canada’s 2005 decision to opt out of continental ballistic missile defence. Change of heart? Or red herring? Either way, it’s a good time to revisit the debate about Canada’s potential role in missile defence. First, let’s start by putting an end to one scare tactic — the notion that the future of the North American Aerospace Defence command (NORAD) would be somehow jeopardized without BMD. Given the importance of airspace warning and control after 9/11, NORAD is here to stay. But that doesn’t mean NORAD’s current mission (aerospace warning, airspace control and maritime warning) is necessarily secure. In 2004, Canada’s agreement to allow NORAD’s early warning functions to be used in BMD helped to safeguard its role in ballistic missile warning. NORAD is no longer alone here, however; a number of new fixed and mobile X-band radar assets provide tracking and cueing capabilities for a range of BMD systems, not all of which are linked to NORAD. If Washington ever chose another conduit for early warning, one of the binational command’s key missions would come to a halt. Canada’s refusal to participate in missile defence also has created a curious anomaly, given that key allies in NATO, the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere have moved quickly to develop and deploy BMD alongside the United States. This is especially true in NATO, which is planning to deploy an operational system capable of defending both deployed military forces and European cities. In effect, Canada accepted the logic of BMD for its allies in Europe — but not for North America. That makes Canada’s position anomalous, to say the least. It also raises the question of whether Ottawa should seek some sort of protection from ballistic missile attack. Many people assume — falsely — that Canada would be protected from a missile attack by America’s BMD system. That system, however, can now better identify a missile’s trajectory and determine if its target is Canadian or American before it hits. Simply offering the use of current Canadian personnel at NORAD might offer a fig leaf of involvement in BMD, but it probably won’t be enough to ensure Canadian cities are actually being protected. Simply offering the use of current Canadian personnel at NORAD might offer a fig leaf of involvement in BMD, but it probably won’t be enough to ensure Canadian cities are actually being Interception opportunities are limited, as are the bullets in the BMD gun; the number of U.S. interceptors is only expected to hit 44 by 2017. As its warhead tracking capabilities improve, the Americans increasingly may face a choice between protecting a Canadian city and an American one. No points for guessing which one they’d choose. But it may be difficult for Canada to secure participation and protection in a BMD system now — without a quid pro quo, at least. The U.S. always has been reluctant to give Canada either a guarantee of BMD protection or a say in the intercept planning process that decides which cities get protection. In 2004 and 2005, for example, U.S. negotiators showed little interest in giving Canada a voice in drafting the interception algorithm. In other words, simply offering the use of current Canadian personnel at NORAD might offer a fig leaf of involvement in BMD, but it probably won’t be enough to ensure Canadian cities are actually being protected. Canada will need to do more — to provide an ‘asymmetrical’ or ‘in-kind’ contribution. One idea making the rounds is to volunteer a site at Goose Bay, Newfoundland for X-band tracking and cueing radar. That would fill an important gap in radar coverage for tracking something launched out of Iran; continental BMD is designed to shoot down a North Korean missile. It would be particularly useful if the United States chooses to build a third interceptor site on its east coast. Another proposal is to establish continental surveillance radar in the Canadian Arctic capable of tracking aircraft, maritime vessels and cruise/ballistic missiles. American military officials have shown interest in having multi-purpose sensors in the Arctic, and such assets would have the advantage of replacing the aging North Warning System (NWS) radar line. A third idea is to skip the land-based proposals altogether and make our contribution in space. By deploying a satellite that could be linked to U.S. space-based BMD sensors, Canada could support missile defence interceptions beyond North America and be in a better position to pursue cooperation with the Americans on military space. None of these proposals would come cheap. Any Canadian contribution to BMD also could entail opportunity costs. Money spent on a Goose Bay radar site, for example, reduces the already limited funds for recapitalizing the Canadian Forces. Still, the benefits of participation could outweigh the costs and trade-offs. Much depends on what the U.S. expects of a Canadian in-kind contribution to BMD. The only way to find out is for Canada to start talking with the Americans. The United States has indicated it wants to see proof of definite interest on Ottawa’s part before releasing such information — while Canada has been loathe to send any premature signals that it intends to sign up. Still, it’s time to assess our options and start the discussions with Washington on missile defence — at least to see where such a dance may ultimately lead. This article is based on the author’s new Vimy Paper from the CDA Institute that explores in detail Canada’s participation in ballistic missile defence. The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.Top-level React Components Konstantin Tarkus Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 22, 2014 Unlisted There are two approaches for rendering top-level ReactJS components: 1. A single top-level component with a routing logic in it var App = React.createClass({ render() { if (this.props.target === 'PageA') { return <PageA />; } else if (this.props.target === 'PageB') { return <PageB />; } else { return <PageNotFound />; } } }); React.renderComponent(<App target="PageA" />, document.body); This component is rendered only once and then replaces its inner content while user navigates through the site. Example: instagram.com, react-router 2. A separate top-level component for each page or section of a website In this case the router renders a new page to document.body each time user goes from one page to another React.renderComponent(<PageA />, document.body); Example: facebook.com, khanacademy.org, react-starter-kit They both perform equally well, because the same diff operation is performed in both cases. I personally lean towards the second approach, because it looks simpler to me and allows to do server-side rendering more easily. And what is your preference in regard to this topic?Livestreaming Offer From PDGA Came In Too Late, USDGC Organizers Say Plan for last-minute broadcast first came up last week By the time an offer of a PDGA-funded livestream of the United States Disc Golf Championship came in to tournament organizers, it was simply too late to put the plan into place, officials with both organizations said. That offer was also not directly presented to USDGC officials by the PDGA, both sides confirmed, but rather was broached through broadcaster SmashboxxTV. The issue of a PDGA-funded livestream being turned down was first raised by Smashboxx co-owner Terry Miller on the company’s podcast Tuesday night. He confirmed that he acted as an intermediary between the PDGA and USDGC, but that he did not think adding a livestream would detract from the event’s previously-announced media plan. “We wouldn’t be pulling anything from other resources,” Miller said. USDGC Tournament Director Jonathan Poole said that, with the event’s media plan firmly in place, there simply was not enough time to integrate a livestream into the package. “That offer, two or three months ago, might have been received very differently if it was presented by the PDGA,” Poole said. “When it is essentially on the eve of a Championship, what are we supposed to do?” The ball first got rolling for a PDGA-backed broadcast after the USDGC announced its media plans last week, PDGA Media Manager Matt Gregoire said. He and Miller discussed the possibility of making a last-minute broadcast happen, and his end-of-season budget would have allowed for it to take place. “Many of our fans not only desire live coverage, they expect it, and especially for the biggest events,” Gregoire said. “The USDGC is something I feel that people want to watch live. We were willing to foot that bill.” He also acknowledged that, given the condensed timeframe, USDGC officials were in a difficult position. “I understand that Innova and the Disc Golf World Tour already have an organized and concise plan for how they will be handling their media efforts, and I respect that,” Gregoire said. “My offer came in far later than what I can imagine an organized team would be prepped for, and because of that I can certainly understand their resistance.” That preparation for the event was the deciding factor in not bringing the livestream aboard, regardless of it not impacting the event’s budget, Poole said. “Talking about this when we’re days before starting is not the way to do it,” Poole said. “Who is paying for it, that part is not as significant. Even if the PDGA is willing to pay for it, there has been zero planning and we start tomorrow. It’s like me coming and saying, ‘Hey, I want you to invest in my company, I need $50,000. We’re gonna be open for business in a week, and let’s start figuring out what this company is gonna look like’…Philosophically, disc golf needs to get beyond that.” Miller said he discussed the topic on the company’s podcast not to drive a wedge between he and tournament organizers, but to make sure that people knew the PDGA had stepped to the plate to try and deliver for its fans. “I’m also not trying to create a tiff or look whiny or portray us as the poor us,” Miller said. “I’m personally OK with their business decision. It is what it is. They’re holding the deck of cards and everyone’s playing by their rules with the deck of cards.” Poole said he understands that people are upset about the lack of a livestream, but that he was confident in the USDGC’s social media-based plan and how it aligned with the tournament’s tradition of innovation. “We’re gonna do what we do. I understand people are disappointed,” Poole said. “We wish we could please everyone all the time, but we learned a long time ago that’s not possible.”Source: Academics claim Muslim population in Scotland is set to double (From HeraldScotland) THE Muslim population in Scotland is set to double within the next decade, academics have claimed, prompting renewed calls for a bespoke Islamic school. Researchers from universities in Edinburgh and Glasgow said community services should be honed to better serve the needs of Scotland’s older Muslims and children as well those from other religious backgrounds. In Scotland, there is a relatively high number of Muslim children under 15 and a growing number of older people, the academics said. Dr Khadijah Elshayyal, from Edinburgh University, who wrote a report called Scottish Muslims in Numbers, said Islamic populations are expected to rise as a result of birth rates and immigration. “Although the Muslim population is predominantly youthful it is fast becoming ageing in terms of the over-60 age bracket which is growing at a quite rapid rate and the challenge that presents in terms of services provision and in terms of community development and sensitivity in delivering services to the elderly Muslim population is an interesting one in Britain and in Scotland,” she said. Providing a state-funded Muslim school in Scotland would mean Islam achieving parity with other religions, she added. “At the moment, there is no state-funded Muslim school in Scotland, although there is a strong tradition of state funding for Roman Catholic schools, as well as three state-funded Episcopalian schools and one state-funded Jewish school,” said Dr Elshayyal. She also said that particularly in Glasgow and Dundee there is an opportunity for the Scottish Government to “demonstrate its commitment to parity by taking steps towards funding a Muslim school”. Professor Goddard, representing author Dr Stefano Bonino who could not make the event, said that “it wouldn’t be completely implausible” if the Muslim population was to double in ten years. “So we might be up to 150,000 (by 2027), but that would still be three per cent, so these things need to be kept in proportion,” he said. Meanwhile, sharia is aided and abetted by those sworn to serve and protect – Police Scotland wastes money on propaganda campaign to “eradicate Islamophobia” while running massive budget deficit:Gay files China's first same-sex marriage rights case India oi-PTI By PTI Beijing, Dec 22: A gay in China has filed a lawsuit against officials for rejecting his marriage registration application, marking the country's first case defending the marriage rights of same-sex couples. Sun Wenlin (pseudonym) first applied for a marriage certificate for himself and his boyfriend on June 23 at the Civil Affairs Bureau in the Hunan province's Changsha after the couple had been dating for one year. But his application was turned down by an official who said that only "one man and one woman" can be registered as married, according to Sun. "The original text of the marriage law does not say one man and one woman, but a husband and a wife. I personally believe that this term refers not only to heterosexual couples but also to same-sex couples, to gay men and lesbians. The law is not discriminatory," Sun told state-run Global Times. Sun filed the case in Furong district court last week and the court should decide whether or not to accept the case within seven days. He said a court official initially refused to accept his case documents, saying only a man and a woman can be married based on the marriage law. The official "reluctantly" accepted the case after Sun threatened to file a complaint and he did not give Sun a written confirmation to prove that the case had been filed. According to Sun's lawyer Shi Fulong, official's actions go against the new system of regulations to ease filing procedure launched by the Supreme People's Court on May 1, requiring courts to accept cases immediately as long as they meet certain basic requirements. In March, father of a Chinese gay wrote to 1,000 legislators asking them to initiate moves to bring a law legalising homosexual marriage. In his letter, 61-year-old Lin Xianzhi hoped that his proposals could help secure equal rights for homosexual couples including medical care, inheritance and property purchases, the report said. PTIInvestigators so far have found firearms, explosives, spoiled food and a trench of human feces at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, federal prosecutors said. The FBI is expected to take 21 days to complete processing "crime scenes'' at the federal property in Harney County, which includes 24 structures and an outdoor camping area, the prosecutors wrote in court records filed Tuesday. The FBI Evidence Response Team began its work last Friday. The team initially found "significant amounts'' of human feces in and around the outdoor camping area and "large food stores that are spoiling'' in living quarters on the refuge outside Burns, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ethan Knight and Geoffrey Barrow wrote. Federal officials have found two large excavated trenches and an "improvised road on or adjacent to grounds containing sensitive artifacts,'' the prosecutors wrote. "At least one of these trenches contains human feces,'' according to Knight and Barrow. The prosecutors also noted that "the FBI is concerned that vehicles and buildings may be booby trapped." They didn't specify what kind of explosives or guns had been been discovered or how many. Ammon Bundy, 40, is now jailed on a federal conspiracy charge in Portland, accused of leading the Jan. 2 armed takeover of the wildlife sanctuary that lasted 41 days. The last four occupiers surrendered last week. Twenty five people have been named in indictments charging them with conspiring to impede federal officers from doing their jobs at the refuge. Bundy has said he and his followers were demonstrating against the return to prison of local ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steve Hammond, and the federal government's control of public land. An FBI Art Crimes Team, known as ACT, is going over "a particularly sensitive cultural site'' next to or at the refuge's outdoor camping area, the prosecutors' memo said. Their memo came in response to requests by defense attorneys for the government to preserve evidence in the case. Prosecutors said they'll allow defense lawyers and their investigators to gain access to the refuge after the evidence has been collected but before the site is restored or open to the public. Defense lawyers will be escorted by FBI personnel and won't be allowed to disturb or remove items from the scene, Knight and Barrow wrote. The government further will make all evidence seized in the investigation available for inspection at the FBI field office in Portland, prosecutors said. There appear to be some objections by defense lawyers to such an arrangement, which is expected to be worked out in court on Feb. 24. Ammon Bundy's lawyers want access by an investigator and videographer to the refuge site immediately to observe the FBI's processing of the scene, according to court documents. In a recorded message from jail, Ammon Bundy said he and other supporters who were at the refuge found rodents and animal droppings in buildings and tried to clean up the facilities. Co-defendant Jason Patrick's attorney, Andrew Kohlmetz, had filed a request for the government to preserve any evidence and allow the defense access to the crime scenes. He also urged the court to manage the discovery of evidence in the case because of the number of defendants and size of the alleged crime scene. -- Maxine Bernstein mbernstein@oregonian.com 503-221-8212 @maxoregonianEXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate is circling Relativity’s 40-plus title library — which includes films such as Limitless and Act of Valor — after it has become clear that CEO Ryan Kavanaugh’s company is backed into a financial corner with cash flow rapidly declining. A Chapter 7 (liquidation) is on the horizon and could be filed before year’s end, sources tell Deadline, which if so would come only months after Relativity emerged from Chapter 11 restructuring in April. While multiple sources said Relativity is nearing its end, one source said they are desperately trying to refinance. In the meantime, the company made its payroll today. Restructuring company Zolfo Cooper is on board, and it would not be if Relativity could stand on its own. Joe Nicholas, who had been pumping millions into the studio to help keep it afloat, exited his post as co-CEO earlier this month. Senior lender Anchorage Capital — which remains involved financially in Relativity via RM Bidder — would have first lien if a Chapter 7 filing proceeds. Anchorage declined comment. Lionsgate is said to have a serious interest in the Relativity library. Lionsgate had no comment. A source told Deadline the library also carries with it some debt. Kavanaugh did not return inquiries for comment. Sources said to expect a resolution for Relativity before year’s end, which could send a number of executives and projects back out into the marketplace. The company still has the Halle Berry-starring Kidnap on its slate to release December 2, while Mike Flanagan’s Before I Wake starring Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane has been taken off the release schedule entirely. Relativity and its lawyers told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York early this year they were optimistic about the company and its financial prospects. The company’s now struggling to meet its debt obligations. The next hearing on the company in the court is October 20 for Relativity Holdings v. VII Peaks Capital. Since re-emerging from Chapter 11, Relativity has opened two films — and both bombed. The Disappointments Room grossed only $1.4 million in its opening weekend on a $15M budget, and the ensemble comedy Masterminds has taken in a total of $14.2M to date after papers submitted to the bankruptcy court said that the studio was estimating $125.4M in lifetime revenues from the film against $78,346 in distribution costs. “This could be the fastest out-of-bankruptcy-and-back-in-again in corporate history,” said one executive with knowledge of Relativity’s financials. For the sake of all the employees who would be facing layoffs, we hope not. Here’s a look of Relativity film’s box office performance, in a chart compiled by my colleague Anthony D’Alessandro: Relativity’s Top 5 Films thumb film release opening weekend gross Immortals 11/11/2011 $32.2M $83.5M Limitless 3/18/2011 $18.9M $79.2M Safe Haven 2/14/2013 $21.4M $71.3M Act of Valor 2/24/2012 $24.5M $70M Mirror Mirror 3/30/2012 $18.1M $64.9M Source: ComScoreWhat can you do in this situation? Whenever you’re sending a message, taking a photo, or recording a video you’re creating data. Data is everywhere. It is continually renewable. And it’s increasing exponentially. Data spawns data. The distribution of data became the essence of your life. All data is of course, not of equal importance. Sending a funny picture to your friend isn’t as impactful as sending your documents to an accountant. But still, in both cases, the value of data is based on its originality, integrity, and authenticity. Never before has this been more true than today, when you’re relying more and more of virtual transactions. The innovation has created a critical need for guaranteed trust in data and you’re starting to feel this need in your day to day life. Companies already know the importance of data. They had to deal with this issues long ago. First there were paper records. Day banking books were balanced by hand before machines came out. Records were stored in giant warehouses, and retrieved when needed with the help of card indexes. If transactions were questioned, you had to hope nobody had tinkered with the index, file location, or files themselves. Otherwise you were in big trouble. Then computers came and even if records were manually entered, the data could be easily indexed. Then they could be scanned. Then, before you could’ve noticed, transactions were processed every nanosecond. Data is now accessible and created by a wider range of people with more or less knowledge of how computers work. They’re not questioning the way their data is handled. They’re not asking for data integrity through logs of access, changes, and transactions. This is why the ones with a little more knowledge manage to steal or alter stored versions of the truth. Actions that are constantly raising challenges for tracking, correlation, analysis, and protection in the way of handling data. So who’s winning? Is your data safe? Can you prove your data is REAL? Traditional security solutions can’t provide both at the same time. This is were a blockchain come in handy. It can validate the data while securely giving you the possibility to keep it safe in your own ways. The fear of compromised data is eliminated because once the transaction is recorded in the blockchain, it can never change. The system itself assures its integrity by verifying each transaction and adding it to the blockchain, which is the consolidated “ledger” of all transactions. A way for people who don’t really trust each other, to trust each other. Through the blockchain ledger anyone can track and verify data that is generated by certain devices. It maintains a historical record of all data and is not dependent on a central authority. Since the ledger is distributed, a blockchain is not vulnerable to the exploits seen in centralized systems. This makes blockchains inherently resilient with no single point of failure. Once created, blockchains are immutable and incorruptible. Mathematically provable algorithms enable continuous verification and calibration of the validity of a blockchain. Attempted modifications are immediately flagged as fraud. Blockchain can be used for: The storage of all types of data and transactions in a secure and open way. Creating an identity on the blockchain, making it easier to manage for individuals, giving them greater control over who has their personal information and how they access it. By combining the decentralized blockchain principle with identity verification, a digital ID can be created that would act as a digital watermark which can be assigned to every piece of data created. The solution can help the organizations to check the identity in real time, hence, eliminating rate of fraud. Even if using the blockchain technology sounds like a complex solution with lots of benefits, anyone can profit of its advantages as simply as using an app. Such apps are already in development ready to get adopted by consumers and organizations, aiming to solve the trust issues between them. Stampery offers a trusted way to sign documents. Prover.io guarantees the originality, integrity, and authenticity of video material. Civic app provides control of personal information you share with other platforms. And many more apps are still in the making, ready to disrupt the way you’re used to manage your day to day activities. In a good way!Louisiana attracted more than 26 million visitors in 2012, breaking a previous tourism record set in 2003. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne announced the new numbers Tuesday at the state museum in Baton Rouge. Dardenne says the numbers, part of an annual study by the University of New Orleans Hospitality Research Center, indicate that the state’s tourism sector is trekking up. The study said 26.6 million people visited Louisiana in 2012, spending $10.7 billion compared to the 25.5 million people who visited in 2011 and spent $10 billion. In 2003, the first year of the study, 26.2 million visitors came to Louisiana and spent $9.4 billion. Dardenne says the uptick in visitors last year resulted in the creation of 8,000 new tourism jobs and generated $665 million in state tax revenue. Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online An unusual photon emission in X-ray data originating from space could be evidence for the existence of a dark matter particle, researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) report in a new study. The signal, discovered by scientists working in the EPFL’s Laboratory of Particle Physics and Cosmology (LPPC) and colleagues from Leiden University in the Netherlands, could be the first tangible evidence of the mysterious substance that neither emits or absorbs light and is believed to account for unexplainable gravitational effects. To this point, dark matter has been considered a purely hypothetical substance, but after sifting through a large quantity of X-ray data, the researchers believe they have identified the signal of a lone dark matter particle. Their findings will be published next week in the journal Physical Review Letters. “When physicists study the dynamics of galaxies and the movement of stars, they are confronted with a mystery,” the EPFL explained in a statement Thursday. “If they only take visible matter into account, their equations simply don’t add up: the elements that can be observed are not sufficient to explain the rotation of objects and the existing gravitational forces. There is something missing.” For this reason, experts have determined that there must be some invisible type of matter that does not interact with light, but does interact through gravitational forces. This so-called dark matter does not operate under any of the standard models of physics except through gravitational force, but makes up about 80 percent of the universe. Two teams of scientists have recently detected the highly-anticipated signal, including one led by EPFL scientist Oleg Ruchayskiy and Leiden University professor Alexey Boyarsky. They made the discovery after analyzing X-rays emitted by the Perseus galaxy cluster and the Andromeda galaxy and collected using the ESA’s XMM-Newton telescope. After eliminating those coming from known particles and atoms, one noteworthy anomaly remained. “All atoms emit a distinct pattern of light called a spectrum which is how astrophysicists can determine what planets and stars are made from at great distances,” explained Sarah Knapton of Science Editor with The Telegraph. Yet when they studied the X-ray spectrum, they found spikes where nothing should exist, a signal appearing as “a weak, atypical photon emission that could not be attributed to any known form of matter.” Ruchayskiy told Knapton that the signal’s distribution within the galaxy corresponded precisely with what they were expecting from dark matter, “concentrated and intense in the center of objects and weaker and diffuse on the edges.” If the discovery, which resulted from a photon emitted due to the destruction of a hypothetical particle (possibly a sterile neutrino) is verified, it “could usher in a new era in astronomy,” he added in a statement. “Dark matter is everywhere, though it’s very hard to catch. Everybody is looking for it and this may be the first sign,” added Boyarsky. “Confirmation of this discovery may lead to construction of new telescopes specially designed for studying the signals from dark matter particles. We will know where to look in order to trace dark structures in space and will be able to reconstruct how the universe has formed.” Comments commentsThis article is over 3 years old Daniel Alongi accused of scamming more than half a million dollars by claiming non-existent purchases and analysis over seven years A senior scientist at Australia’s key
city," the G21 website explains. Favouring domestic production With these considerations in mind, the Australian government will inevitably favour domestic production for Land 400 over foreign imports. But which company in contention for Land 400 is in the best position to use the domestic production capacity which has been left by the three big car manufacturers, and which has the most suitable vehicle for LAND 400 requirements? As Australia’s largest defence contractor and one of the biggest manufacturers of armoured vehicles in the world, BAE Systems is a top contender for winning the LAND 400 contract. The company has several existing vehicles which could fulfil the role required, including: Bradley Fighting Vehicle – used extensively by the US Army in Iraq Combat Vehicle 90 – used by the Swedish Armed Forces RG41 – an 8×8 wheeled armoured vehicle used by the South African military Warrior Fighting Vehicle – also used by the British Army in Iraq GCV – a next-generation combat vehicle which is being considered by the US Army Bomb disposal robots – evolution and revolution Remotely operated bomb disposal robots have saved innumerable lives. While BAE Systems does not have a long history of manufacturing land based-systems in Australia, industry experts has the company tagged as a front-runner. Another major candidate is US defence giant General Dynamics. Despite having a smaller footprint in Australia compared with BAE Systems, it has already set up operations in the country with the primary aim of providing through life support for the ASLAV armoured vehicle. This suggests a mature capabilities base which could be beneficial for the Land 400 programme. General Dynamics also has what could be considered the strongest line-up of light, wheeled armoured vehicles, which includes: Stryker – used by US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan Piranha AV – Australia’s existing ASLAV is a derivative of this ASCOD – tracked vehicle in service with Spain and Austria LAV High Capacity – In service with New Zealand and Canada While BAE Systems and General Dynamics have a strong portfolio of armoured vehicles, other challengers include French company Thales and German technology group Rheinmetall. Both companies have been heavily involved in the Australian Army’s acquisition of vehicles over recent years. Thales likely has the most extensive armoured vehicle design and manufacturing capabilities in Australia at the moment, given their current work on the army’s Land 121 Phase 4 Hawkei programme. How human data is transforming the battlefield Recent asymmetric conflicts and peacekeeping missions have driven a surge in the adoption of biometric capture. Rheinmetall has equally had success with the Army’s Land 121 project, winning a contract worth US$1.5 billion in 2013 to supply 2,500 trucks to the Australian Defence Force. The company also has a strong selection of armoured vehicles including the AMPV, Boxer, Marder and Puma, all of which were initially developed for the German Army. The Puma was offered for the US Army’s GCV programme but was rejected in favour of the bids from BAE Systems and General Dynamics. Aerospace giant Boeing has also put forward its credentials as a systems integrator for the Land 400 program, potentially opening the door for a joint bid with another manufacturer. Australia is not the only country on the look-out The Australian military is certainly not alone when it comes to wanting to replace its armoured vehicles. Several countries are exploring options to get rid of their ageing fleets, with the US Ground Combat Vehicle being the most ambitious programme so far. Earlier this year, that project was effectively cancelled by the Pentagon because of budgetary concerns. Canada also cancelled a similar multi-billion dollar programme to buy new armoured vehicles in December 2013. Current trends from North America indicate armoured vehicles are a lower priority in defence spending terms, especially now that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have come to an end and a pivot to Asia concentrates on maritime operations. This could affect the future of LAND 400 and the proposed 1,100 vehicle purchase. Recent reports also indicate the Abbott government’s support for expensive defence projects – like the submarine replacement programme – may be faltering. LAND 400 is not just a case of where the vehicles will be built and by whom, but, if recent trends are to be believed, it’s also a question of whether they will be built at all. That should be a crucial concern for those in the Australian defence industry. At the moment at least, LAND 400 still has the green light. The next step will be Government First Pass Consideration scheduled for ‘mid-2014’ which will signal if the Australian government still wants to proceed. After that a request for tender will be released to industry. Only then will we know for sure who is in the running for the AUD10 billion programme. Follow Grant Turnbull on Google+John and I have a thing for sushi. Sticky rice, crunchy veggies, spicy seafood, plus that wasabi, ginger soy combo? Umami ftw. Veggie, california, spicy tuna, fire spitting dragon (is that even a name?) – we eat it all. And while sushi is more of a treat that we save for nights out, it’s also fun to make it at home. But as you know, having one more thing around the house – i.e. a bamboo mat – isn’t really my thing. But you don’t need a mat to make sushi. You just need a few simple ingredients and a towel. Yep, a towel. Start by making the perfect sticky sushi rice and chopping up your veggies of choice. We don’t have access to much sushi-grade seafood in the Midwest, so I most often stick with veggies. But if you live near the coast, get crazy and do the dang thang. (Also, invite me over because I love seafood sushi.) The towel trick: A thick towel acts just like a bamboo mat and also wipes up your mess when you’re done: win-win. Because it’s so flexible it allows you to shape and roll the rice effortlessly into a beautiful roll. Oh how I love cutting corners. This method not only allows you to make a traditional sushi roll, you can also go inside out (rice on the outside, nori on the inside). WHAAAATT? Simply flatten on the rice, gently flip it over, top with veggies and roll away as usual. You can even top your rolls with avocado by layering on thin slices of ripe avocado, topping it with plastic wrap and forming it once again with your towel. Slice, remove plastic and “voila.” So easy and a serious “wow” effect. Your friends will be impressed. So what’s stopping you from making sushi at home? Nada. Now go forth and make rolls my child!Australian jihadi convicted over Melbourne terror plot reportedly killed fighting for Islamic State Updated An Australian man once convicted over a Melbourne terror plot has reportedly been killed fighting for Islamic State in Syria. Key points: Raad was jailed over the Operation Pendennis terror plot in 2008 Reports in an IS magazine suggest he was killed by shrapnel in Syria The article also names other Australians who travelled to Iraq and Syria An edition of an Islamic State magazine called Rumiyah carries a long article about Melbourne man Ezzit Raad, including a photograph which appears to be of his corpse. It says Raad was killed by a piece of shrapnel to the chest in the Syrian city of Manbij, which was captured in August by Kurdish forces fighting against Islamic State. Raad was convicted along with other family members and influential jihadist preacher Abdul Nacer Benbrika in 2008 over the Operation Pendennis terror plot, which was supposed to target the MCG, Crown Casino and other landmarks in Melbourne. The article says that Raad — who also went by the name Abu Mansur — became even more radicalised during the five years he spent in prison for the Pendennis plot, becoming "more emboldened and more steadfast upon this path" of sacrifice. It says that Raad also became contemptuous of "moderate" Muslim leaders such as Melbourne-based Sheikh Mohammed Omran, whose own son was killed in mysterious circumstances in Syria earlier this year. Raad close to IS leadership: reports The article says that when Raad was released, he quickly left behind his wife and four children and departed for the Middle East, becoming one of the first foreign jihadis to enter Syria. Raad allegedly became close to the leadership of Islamic State in Syria, and fought in many battles. He then reportedly moved to the Syrian city of Aleppo, where he witnessed firsthand the split between the Islamic State, and another jihadi group, Jabhat Al Nusra. Ultimately Raad ended up as the commander of area around a Syrian dam, where he was reportedly assisted by an Australian named "Abu Zakariyya (Abu Bakr Jabir) otherwise known as the 'tall man' due to his lofty height and noble character". Abu Zakariyya was later killed by an airstrike, the article says, and his death was followed closely by that of "Abul-Mundhir (Nidal Ramadan, the brother of Abu Mansur's wife)", who was killed in a drone strike and whose wife and child were killed in an earlier drone strike that had targeted him. Soon after relocating to Manbij with his fighters to meet to the assault by Kurdish forces, Raad was reportedly killed. The magazine article also names a number of Australians who travelled to Iraq and Syria and fought alongside Raad, including Melbourne teenager Adam Dahman, who carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2014. It also references another Australian Sami Salma, who is believed to be one of the first Australian jihadis killed fighting for IS. It is believed to be the first time Salma has been named as a fighter in an IS publication. The article finishes with an exhortation to Islamic State sympathisers in Australia to carry out attacks here. Topics: terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, syrian-arab-republic, melbourne-3000, vic, australia First posted"We will see a lot of Carrie in '[Episode] VIII,' " Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy assured fans on Friday. Carrie Fisher will not appear in Star Wars: Episode IX, Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy said on Friday. The announcement came during an interview with ABC News and was something of a bombshell, as Todd Fisher, the late actress' brother, previously said his sister would be in the planned ninth installment of the blockbuster franchise. Kennedy said he was "confused." "Sadly, Carrie will not be in nine," said Kennedy. "But we will see a lot of Carrie in eight." Previously, Todd Fisher told the New York Daily News that he and Carrie Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd, had given Disney and Lucasfilm permission to use recent footage of the actress in 2019's Star Wars: Episode IX. "Both of us were like, ‘Yes, how do you take her out of it?’ And the answer is, you don't," said Todd Fisher recently at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles. Carrie Fisher died last December at the age of 60. Her life and work was celebrated by her Star Wars family during the first installment's 40th anniversary celebration in Florida.Lucio files bill to require pre-abortion adoption course AUSTIN — The lone Senate Democrat to vote in favor of recent sweeping abortion restrictions filed a bill Tuesday that would require a woman complete a three-hour course on adoption before legally obtaining an abortion in Texas. State Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, filed Senate Bill 42, which would charge the state's Health and Human Services Commission to develop an “adoption education course” that women would take for free, in person or online, and present a certificate of completion to her doctor to be cleared for an abortion. Lucio filed the measure the final day of the second special session. Gov. Rick Perry is expected to call a third session later Tuesday. Lucio's bill is technically in play for the now-adjourned session but a statement released by his office suggests he will move forward in the third special session and interim period. “It is my hope that, when presented with more information on adoption resources and services available, more pregnancies can be carried to term,” Lucio said. “I am fully aware that this bill, filed on the last day of the second special legislative session, will not immediately pass; however, I intend to continue advocating adoption as an alternative.” kparker@express-news.netSo you want to see InvaderCON III: ULTIMATE DOOM happen? InvaderCON was created based on thinking of the name of a convention, posting it online, and getting overwhelming fan response to make it happen. InvaderCON II: DOOMCON was born from emails, phone calls, and even letters sent via U.S. Mail to Wasabi Anime to “make it happen again.” At the close of InvaderCON II in Los Angeles this year, we promised that we would create an InvaderCON III if new episodes of Invader ZIM returned to Nickelodeon/Nicktoons. Based on the emails and phone calls (again) that promise just doesn’t seem to be good enough for some of you. SO… we’re talking about a potential InvaderCON III. TALKING. That’s it. Just like last time, though, we’re looking at fan response before starting any serious conversations. SO HERE’S WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO. If we can get the Wasabi Anime Facebook page to 10,000 Likes, we’ll schedule a meeting and reach out to the Invader ZIM actors and writers and start the discussion. 10,000 Likes for Wasabi Anime. On Facebook. We talk InvaderCON III: ULTIMATE DOOM. So click this link and “Like” the page: https://www.facebook.com/wasabianime Post it on your Facebook wall. Email it to your friends. Post it on Twitter. Tell your neighbor. Spell it out in bacon and soap. Write it on cupcakes. LET THE WORLD KNOW.Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology is one of the leading Swiss centres of learning (Keystone) Switzerland must channel more effort into preserving its status as an international centre for innovation in the face of increasing competition, a study has warned. Many Asian and Middle Eastern countries are stealing a march in attracting global research and development (R&D) investment by reacting better to the changing demands of multinational companies. The report, issued by the Swiss branch of the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG), warns of dire penalties to the Swiss economy if such heavyweight firms relocate to other areas. Innovative industries account for 35 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Switzerland, with multinationals making up three quarters of this total. However, these firms are highly mobile and review their location every five years on average. "In the past, Switzerland has not leveraged its creative environment to its full potential. As a result, it has had very low real GDP growth over the past 25 years. And with the robust progress of competitors in the global economy, even this low GDP growth is now threatened," the report states. The rise of countries such as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates as competing global innovation centres threatens to reduce Swiss economic output by two per cent a year unless reforms are put into place, the report says. Forward planning needed Furthermore, those Swiss companies surveyed are moving R&D resources outside of their home country at an increasing rate. Martin Naville, chief executive of the Swiss-American chamber of commerce which collaborated in the report, said innovation should move from the background to the forefront of economic planning. "Switzerland is fine on indicators that look backwards, but there are some serious weaknesses looking forwards," he told swissinfo. "People need to recognise that innovation is a key driver of the economy and not just the froth on the top of the coffee." "We need to take a much stricter look at where we get the brains from, how we plan our curriculums, how we market the location and how we view entrepreneurs." The BCG report recommends five areas of improvement: increasing the number of graduates with technology degrees, opening borders to skilled workers from outside the European Union, providing better support for start-ups, cutting down on red tape and forming a coordinated national strategy to attract talent and firms. Immigration essential Think tank Avenir Suisse believes that maintaining a flow of highly skilled workers into the country is critical. Voters will decide next month on whether to persevere with open borders for European Union workers. "Switzerland cannot rely on home grown talent alone. Highly skilled immigrants add to the number of people with the capacity to innovate, attract more companies to Switzerland and help us build critical mass in our creative ecosystems," spokesman Daniel Müller-Jentsch told swissinfo. "Immigration from outside the EU is more bureaucratic, particularly in regard to visas, but the barriers are not prohibitive." The Swiss government did increase spending on research and education by six per cent for the period 2008-2011. But an alliance of science organisations had called for a ten per cent hike to make up for cuts in previous years. swissinfo, Matthew Allen in Zurich Innovation challenges Economic innovation can be measured in a number of ways: products and services, production and delivery methods, business models and marketing – to name some. Switzerland has a long history of producing great innovators. These include: Alfred Escher (Credit Suisse bank, Swiss national railways, Swiss Life and the federal Institute of Technology), Henri Nestlé (Nestlé) and Charles E L Brown (ABB). Switzerland is at the top of most charts that measure international competiveness in innovation (World Economic Forum, Economist Intelligence Unit). However, there are signs that this status is coming under threat. There is currently a deficit of around 3,000 engineers and scientists needed to fill jobs in Switzerland. BCG estimates this shortfall could double by 2016. Two thirds of Swiss companies surveyed planned to increase R&D expenditure outside of their home country. In comparison, 40% said they would increase capacity inside Switzerland. In the past decade, R&D spending abroad rose 1.4 times faster than at home. Switzerland churns out more patents to protect intellectual property rights per head of capita than any other European country. But the country saw just 3.5% new businesses in 2004 compared to 18.3% in New Zealand, 17.4% in Germany and 10.3% in Hungary. This represents a low conversion rate of ideas into enterprises. The World Bank estimates that it takes 20 days on average to set up a business in Switzerland – five days in Singapore and two days in Australia. end of infobox Neuer Inhalt Horizontal Line SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram SWI swissinfo.ch on InstagramNEED TO KNOW What is it? A colossal Kickstarter-funded RPG Reviewed on GeForce GTX 970, Intel i5-3570K @ 3.40GHz, 16GB RAM Alternatively Divinity: Original Sin, 87% Expect to pay £35/$45 Release Out now Developer Obsidian Entertainment Publisher Paradox Interactive Almost an hour had passed, and I was still on the character creation screen. That’s how I knew, before I’d even started, that this homage to classic computer role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment was authentic. Created with the help of 77,000 Kickstarter backers, Pillars of Eternity is Obsidian’s love letter to those beloved Infinity Engine RPGs that have come to represent the best of the genre. But while it could easily have been little more than a cynical nostalgia trip, dining out on the legacy of those old games, Obsidian have actually created something that stands tall on its own. It’s the most captivating, rewarding RPG I’ve played on a PC in years, and I’ve fallen in love with the intricate, richly painted world they’ve crafted. Read more: Pathfinder: Kingmaker review You begin by creating a character. Most of the races are familiar—elves, dwarves, humans—but there are a few you won’t have seen before. The aumaua are giant semi-aquatic humanoids with colourful patterned skin. Orlans are diminutive, furry creatures with large ears. Godlike are blessed by the deities they worship, giving them a distinctly supernatural appearance. The influence of D&D is clear throughout Pillars of Eternity, but Obsidian have taken many of its staples and twisted them to fit their own lore. The same applies to the game’s eleven playable classes. There’s the usual selection of wizards, rangers, fighters, barbarians, and so on, but there are two wild cards in the deck: the cipher and the chanter. Ciphers have extraordinary mental abilities, sucking energy from the souls of their enemies and using it to cast powerful spells. They can force an opponent to relive the pain of an attack over and over again, or confuse them by making them think they’re surrounded by ghostly apparitions. Chanters are a bard-like class whose songs and stories awaken lost souls around them, creating magical effects. Their chants can summon skeletons to aid them in battle, create thunderous explosions that push groups of enemies back, or paralyse foes with fear. One of the ways Pillars plays with D&D standards is allowing magic users to hold their own in regular combat. A chanter can comfortably wear plate armour and wield a two-handed sword, meaning your party doesn’t have to be burdened by squishy mages who explode into a fountain of gibs when an ogre so much as looks at them. I don’t know how long I spent creating my character in the end, but it was a long time. I settled for an elven ranger, choosing a white wolf as my pet. As well as your main race, you also get to select a sub-race. I go for a Glamfellen, or pale elf as they’re more commonly known, from a chilly expanse of ice and snow to the far south of Pillars’ world, Eora. These tall, pallid elves are rarely seen in the Dyrwood—the lush forested region where the game is set—so I thought that might get some interesting reactions from the locals. They’re also naturally resilient against fire and ice damage. People you meet will react to your race, class, and background, both positively and negatively, so the choices you make when you create your character have some meaning beyond personal preference and what you want your hero to look like. The Dyrwood is fairly multicultural, and I’m glad Obsidian didn’t go down the road of making racism a big part of their world, which is a fantasy trope we've seen before in modern RPGs. There is, naturally, some animosity between certain races and factions, but it’s rarely at the forefront. Instead, the cultural tension comes from a controversial science called animancy, which involves the manipulation of souls. When your hero arrives in the Dyrwood, a mysterious curse called Waidwen’s Legacy is causing babies to be born without souls, which becomes an important part of the main quest. Animancers are convinced their work will put an end to the curse, but others think it’s an affront to the gods. This mirrors the battle between science and religion throughout our own history, although animancers do a lot worse than tell people the world is round and clone farm animals. They implant animal souls into children, power automated war machines with them, and perform all manner of bizarre, ungodly experiments that, understandably, have given them a bad reputation. After surviving a deadly magical storm known as a bîaŵac, your hero’s own soul is ‘awakened’, turning them into a Watcher: a person who can use souls to see people's’ past lives. A useful power you might think, but an encounter with an old Watcher who has been driven mad by it sends your hero on a quest to discover who or what caused their awakening, in order to reverse the damage. However, this being an RPG, it’s not long before their fate becomes entwined in that of the Dyrwood itself. Waidwen’s Legacy, it seems, may be connected to your own predicament. The story in Pillars of Eternity is told largely through text. Page upon page of superbly written, vivid, descriptive text. There’s some voice acting, from companions and in important story quests, but mostly you have to use your imagination. This frees Obsidian to write mountains of text without having to worry about recording dialogue for it all, and the result is a vast amount of detail. As characters speak, their body language is described, giving you a sense of their personality. Click a magnifying glass icon on certain objects in the world and you’re treated to a totally unnecessary, but wonderfully evocative, description of them. Use your Watcher powers on selected NPC’s souls and you’re treated to expressive 500-word vignettes about their past. I haven’t done this much reading, and enjoyed it, in a game since Planescape: Torment. Dialogue is also at the heart of the role-playing. There are dozens of factors that can come into play when you’re speaking to someone, from your race and reputation in a town, to your alignment with certain groups and your base stats. To give an example, a quest in the city of Defiance Bay sees a kid asking you to buy a knife for him, in exchange for the location of a secret. If your might stat is above 12, you can grab him by the shirt, hold him above your head, and demand he tell you where the secret is. This lowers your reputation in the city and gives you an ‘aggressive’ point. Get enough of those and people will react appropriately. A city official might shun you because of your bad attitude, but a shady character down by the docks will see it as a positive trait. This is called your disposition, and there are loads of ways to shape it: benevolent, cruel, clever, stoic, rational, deceptive, honest, passionate, clever. The more you act a certain way, the more your reputation will grow around it. This gives you fine control of your character’s personality, which enhances the role-playing side of things significantly. It also lets you, in true classic RPG style, talk your way out of tense situations, using your intellect or charm to defuse them. Violence isn’t always the answer in Pillars of Eternity. But sometimes it’s unavoidable, so it’s a good thing the combat is excellent too. If you’ve never played an Infinity Engine game before, think of the combat as like a real-time strategy game, but with the ability to pause at any time and plan your next move. Depending on who’s in your party and the skills they have, battles can play out in a multitude of different ways. Even on normal the game presents a stiff challenge, and in tougher battles you really do have to play with a strategy in mind. The rhythm and style of a battle is also determined by the enemies you face. Fighting a pack of wolves is very different from fighting a team of skilled spellcasters. You have to make good use of buffs, debuffs, offensive and defensive magic, and the unique abilities of your classes. Pausing before you make a move, studying the battlefield and your available powers, quickly becomes a vital habit. Here’s how a typical battle with my current party might play out. But there are so many ways to play that this is just one of countless strategies. Leading the charge is Edér, my fighter. He’s clad in thick plate armour and is equipped with endurance-regenerating gear, making him a formidable tank. In most fights his HP rises faster than it falls. He can knock enemies over and sap their health by poisoning his blade. Alongside him is a cipher, Grieving Mother, who is, incidentally, the game’s strangest companion—and written by Torment scribe Chris Avellone. Equipped with a dagger, she slashes away at enemies, sucking energy from their souls. This energy, called focus, is then used to cast spells that can immobilise, damage, and confuse her opponents. Behind them are two rangers, Sagani and my own elven Watcher. Both have wolves as pets, and they join Edér and Grieving Mother at the front, drawing aggro and letting us safely pepper the enemy with arrows from afar. As well as powerful ranged attacks, I can hobble enemies and damage them over time. Pets grant damage and defence bonuses to rangers, but if they die, their stats will actually decrease for the duration of the battle. Your choice of pet is important too. Wolves are fast but relatively weak, bears have a massive damage threshold, boars get a might bonus when their stamina is low, and lions can terrify enemies with a mighty roar. Finally, at the back, there’s my two casters, Aloth and Durance. Aloth’s a wizard, and one of the biggest damage dealers in my party. He casts magic missiles that bounce between enemies, creates copies of himself, launches devastating AOE fireballs into groups, and zaps them with bolts of electricity. The wizard is one of the most fun classes to play in Pillars, and some of the later level spells create dazzling light shows. Wizards’ spells are stored in a grimoire, and you can actually pry the grimoires from the fingers of any wizards you kill to gain access to their spells. But the secret hero of the party is the priest, Durance. While everything’s kicking off at the front, he hangs at the rear of the group casting healing and defensive spells that quietly keep everyone alive and boost their stats. He casts bubbles of healing energy, improves accuracy, and strengthens armour. When your party is working together like this, the combat comes into its own. Or, if you want a real challenge, you can play the game solo. There’s even a permadeath option for the masochists among you. Companions were a huge part of what made those Infinity Engine games so memorable, and Pillars features a similarly varied cast of intriguing, colourful weirdos to adventure with. Durance is a priest who has been betrayed by his own god. Pallegina is a godlike paladin who has sprouted birdlike feathers. Kana Rua is a seven-foot-tall scholar who wields a two-handed sword. They all have their own reasons for being in the Dyrwood, which you can get involved in, and they’ll regularly comment on your decisions and actions. These relationships develop as major events in the story occur, and you’ll either grow to love or hate the people you’ve chosen to travel with. You can create your own party members at an inn, but you’ll miss out on a lot of story. Surviving a tough battle through clever use of your party’s distinct skills is immensely satisfying. Controversially, though, you don’t earn any XP for killing things—only through quests, discovering locations, and actions like disarming traps. It's already dividing the community, but I think it's a bold, brilliant idea. Characters who choose to sneak or talk their way through quests are rewarded equally with those who resort to violence. Pillars of Eternity is an RPG that really makes you feel like you’re on an adventure. Plunging the depths of ancient ruins, battling the monstrous creatures who lurk there, grabbing the loot, then limping back to the warm glow of an inn’s hearth to rest and steel yourself for the next quest. It’s a testament the quality of the art, atmosphere, and writing that, despite the old school 2D visuals and isometric perspective, I’m completely transported to its world when I play it. And it’s big. Like, really big. It took me 11 hours to reach Defiance Bay, the first of the game’s two capital cities. There are multi-path, open-ended quests everywhere, and your journal will fill up rapidly as you explore. It was another 30 hours before I reached the second city, Twin Elms, and there are dozens of towns, temples, ruins, and wilderness sections to explore on the way. There’s a critical path to follow, which leads you naturally across the world map, but you can ignore it and explore at your own pace. You become the lord of a stronghold early on, opening up an elaborate management side-game in which you upgrade its defences, deal with bandit attacks, and send party members out on quests. And below your stronghold you’ll find the Endless Paths of Od Nua, a gargantuan 15-level mega-dungeon that’s home to some of the toughest battles and best loot in the game, with a big surprise at the end. This is a big, fat, deep adventure that lets you carve your own unique path through a fantasy world that’s been brilliantly brought to life with rich, evocative writing. It’s a game steeped in a bygone era of computer RPG design, but somehow it doesn’t feel archaic. Obsidian have always been bound to other peoples’ worlds—Fallout, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, South Park—but in creating their own from scratch, they’ve made not only their best game to date, but one of the best RPGs on PC.Federal law enforcement officials have launched a criminal investigation of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's administration, pursuing allegations the governor's staff broke the law when they quashed grand jury indictments against Christie supporters, International Business Times has learned. Two criminal investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday interviewed the man who leveled those charges, Bennett Barlyn. He was fired from the Hunterdon County prosecutor's office in August 2010, and subsequently brought a whistleblower lawsuit against the Christie administration, claiming he had been punished for objecting to the dismissal of the indictments of the governor's supporters for a range of corrupt activities. Barlyn told IBTimes that he met with the federal investigators at his Pennsylvania home for more than an hour on Wednesday afternoon. He said they specifically focused on why Christie’s then-attorney general, Paula Dow, had moved to expunge the indictments. The investigators are examining what state and federal laws may have been broken in the process. Barlyn said the investigators appeared to be at an exploratory stage, with no certainty that criminal charges would ultimately be filed. The meeting followed a June letter to Barlyn from New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney, Paul Fishman, instructing Barlyn to be in touch with his office’s investigative team about the case. The New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment. Christie has denied any involvement in Barlyn's termination, while maintaining that he does not even know the men and women he has been accused of aiding. The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment. The case centers on exurban/rural Hunterdon County, in western New Jersey along the Delaware River. There, Barlyn claims, then-county Sheriff Deborah Trout ran her office like a private fiefdom, hiring her friends without respect to their experience, and without initiating proper background checks as mandated by state law. Barlyn’s office began probing Trout in 2008, eventually convening a grand jury that returned 43 indictments against her, Undersheriff Michael Russo and investigator John Falat Jr. The Christie administration then intervened, took over the prosecution and -- in an extraordinary step -- moved to have the grand jury indictments overturned, saying they were legally and factually deficient. When Barlyn raised objections, he was fired. The expunging of those indictments, Barlyn's termination and his allegations that Christie’s administration quashed the case to protect the governor’s supporters were first aired in a lengthy story in the New York Times in 2013. Several members of the grand jury told the Times that the evidence supporting the indictments was strong, and that overturning them seemed motivated by political considerations. According to the Times account and Barlyn's claims in his whistleblower lawsuit, Sheriff Trout, Undersheriff Russo and investigator Falat gained Christie's protective intervention because of the political connections of those involved in the case. Trout headed a group that had backed Christie's gubernatorial campaign in 2009. The county prosecutors' case against Trout and her underlings also involved embarrassing allegations about a particularly prominent figure -- Robert Hariri, a high-level executive at the pharmaceutical giant Celgene, which is headquartered in New Jersey. Though Hariri was not charged, county prosecutors alleged he had obtained fake law enforcement identification from the sheriff’s office after he flew Russo on his private jet to a conference in Washington. Hariri was a major contributor to Christie's campaign as well a member of the governor's transition team. Celgene employs Christie’s former chief of staff, Richard Bagger, and the firm has made $160,000 worth of donations to the Republican Governors Association -- which until recently was chaired by Christie. Celgene occupies a seat on the board of Choose New Jersey, which has funded Christie's international travel. All the connections to Christie apparently inspired confidence among the defendants. According to the Hunterdon County Democrat, Russo asserted that Christie would "step in [and] have this whole thing thrown out.” Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak has insisted that Barlyn's claims are "conspiratorial nonsense" and that "Gov. Christie had never recalled meeting or talking with a single one of these oddball characters" involved in the Hunterdon County case. One of the two federal agents Barlyn says questioned him on Wednesday was James Otten, who has also been a part of the investigation of the Port Authority’s closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge. Barlyn said a “significant” portion of his discussion with the investigators was about Gov. Christie himself, and why Russo reportedly asserted that the governor would intervene to stop the county prosecution. Barlyn told IBTimes that he gave federal investigators a thumb drive of documents that he “considers to be critical evidence” of criminal misconduct. Barlyn obtained the documents through the discovery process in his separate civil whistleblower case. Many of those documents have not been publicly disclosed. "Based on all the evidence, the reasons given by the Christie administration to throw these charges out against the governor's allies were deliberately intended to mislead the judge," Barlyn told International Business Times. "The transcripts from the grand jury proceedings prove that the Christie administration deceived the court to stop the prosecution, which is the definition of obstructing justice," he said. The Christie administration has refused to release the grand jury transcripts in question, which would allow the public to assess whether the administration's stated reasons for throwing out the county prosecutors’ indictments were justified. Barlyn has previously asked a judge to release the grand jury records. A lower court ordered the Christie administration to release the records, but that ruling was reversed by an appellate court at the Christie administration's urging. The appellate court, however, left open an opportunity for Barlyn to renew his motion. The Justice Department has the power to subpoena those records in a criminal investigation. Updated: After this story was published, a spokesman for the New Jersey U.S. attorney's office, Matt Reilly, said their policy is to neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation, but he said the governor himself is not the target of a probe. The story has been updated to reflect his comments.The infamous Pandaw River Cruises will venture into Borneo’s waters this July along Malaysia
Best on ground was Victoria’s Ray Ertl who proved a pivotal factor in the second half that saw his side to victory. NT’s best performer was Rodney Barba who was a big influence when going forward. Also on day one, WA 66 defeated SA 0. SA started the game strong with all the attacking play in the opening minutes, however they were unable to get on the scoreboard. Once WA broke through SA’s defence, they scored three tries in 10 minutes, displaying quick ball movement from all players. Despite coming within inches of their try line, SA were unable to score, leaving the halftime score at 22-0 WA’s way. In the second half, WA picked up where they left off, with scoring highlights coming from Jordan Jacobs who showed blistering speed in runs along the wing, resulting in two tries for himself. Best on ground was WA’s Samson Graham who scored two and was influential in other opportunities. Standout players included WA’s winger Jordan Pereira who scored three tries, and SA’s Michael Lowry who continued to push forward while Captain Dave Robinson showed leadership in setting up the SA defence. On day two of the Championships, NT 60 defeated SA 0 in a one sided affair on Saturday afternoon. Early tries by NT centre Joseph Forrester saw the score open up to a ten point lead. SA had a ten minute stint midway through the half where they threatened to score. A few errors by SA set up multiple NT scores for the rest of the match, which included an 80 metre dash by NT halfback Rodney Barbara. In the second half, SA had one last push for a try when lock Tom Royal completed a 20 metre sprint that set SA up to score. Unfortunately an offside call turned the ball over, and NT continued their forward dominance. Best on ground was NT’s lock Chuck Norris who was involved in multiple scores. SA’s best on ground was hooker Brad Hansen who played a good defensive game. Also on day two, WA won its second game of the Championships defeating VIC 18-6. Both sides applied great defensive pressure in a highly physical game that saw scores locked at 6-6 at half-time. WA came out attacking in the second half, with an offload by Mike Gray that saw Eddie Proudler dodge VIC’s players and score. While VIC’s good team work brought the ball close to their try-line, clumsy passing skills wasted scoring opportunities. In the last minutes of the game, WA’s Captain Dalane Edward darted through an opening in VIC’s defensive line and scored. A successful conversion by Samson Graham brought the final score to 18-6. Best on ground was WA’s Eddie Proudler, who played an impressive attacking game and scored one try. Other standout players included VIC’s Ben Nakubuwai who scored one try and WA’s Dalane Edward who also scored one try. On the final day of the Championships, VIC 66 defeated SA 0. The score did not reflect the hard work of the SA side who put up a strong defence to keep VIC scoreless for the first 10 minutes of the game. Good attacking play by VIC saw multiple scores, leaving the half-time score at 34-0. SA showed good defensive play in the second half, with Dave Robinson stopping Brandon Manase from scoring after a 50 metre sprint. Best on ground was VIC Terry Constantinou who scored three tries. SA’s standout player was SA’s Captain Dave Robinson who played a good defensive game. The last game of the tournament and the Championships decider, saw WA 40 defeat NT 10. The first half was a tight contest as WA pushed forward while NT defence stood strong. WA were first to get on the board in the seventh minute and held the lead until a dropped catch in the try zone led to NT’s halfback Rodney Barba landing the ball. With the half-time score 12-6, WA showed their class in the second half, attacking from the onset and scoring four tries in 15 minutes. A 70 metre run and score from Barba provided a highlight for NT, but WA were too strong. Best on ground was WA’s hooker Taurean Sheehan who played a good attacking and defensive game. Other WA standout players were winger Billy Coughlan and Jordan Pereira who each scored two tries. NT’s standout players were halfback Rodney Barba who scored both of the teams tries, and Michael Fairweather who continued his impressive tournament with his defensive efforts. Contributors: Adrienne Davies, Laura Eckert, Ben Palmer. Congratulations to the players selected in the Australian Representative Squad to tour the Cook Islands. NRL ASC Results: Day 1: Friday June 6th Women's Tag: Vic 48 def SA 0 U18s: WA 28 def NT 18 U18s: Vic 88 def SA 0 Seniors: Vic 26 def NT 10 Seniors: WA 66 def SA 0 Day 2: Saturday June 7th Women's Tag: WA 16 def SA 0 U18s: WA 54 def SA 0 U18s: NT 18 def VIC 16 Seniors: NT 60 def SA 0 Seniors: WA 18 def Vic 6 Day 3: Sunday June 8th U18s: NT 64 def SA 4 U18s: VIC 32 def WA 20 Women's: VIC 6 def WA 4 Seniors: VIC 66 def SA 0 Seniors: WA 40 def NT 10 Lesley Bunney Shield (Women’s League Tag) winner: VIC 18 Years Pool B Championships (Sam Davey) winner: VIC Senior Perpetual Trophy winner: WAAUSTIN, Texas – Texas is leading a multistate coalition in suing over the Obama administration’s recently announced executive actions on immigration. Maine Gov. Paul LePage is among the plaintiffs involved in the lawsuit. Many top Republicans have denounced President Barack Obama’s unilateral move designed to spare as many as 5 million people living illegally in the United States from deportation. Related Headlines Maine’s congressional delegation united against shutdown over immigration House may vote on reversing Obama’s actions on immigration Additional Images Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during a news conference on Wednesday at the Capitol in Austin. Texas is leading a coalition of mostly Southern and Midwestern states suing the Obama administration over executive orders on immigration. The Associated Press/Austin American-Statesman, Deborah Cannon But Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott took it a step further Wednesday, filing a lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. Texas is joined by 13 other, mostly Southern and Midwestern states, and four governors, including those of Mississippi, Idaho and North Carolina, in addition to LePage. Under Obama’s order, announced Nov. 20, protection from deportation and the right to work will be extended to an estimated 4.1 million parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and to hundreds of thousands more young people. Abbott argued Wednesday that Obama’s action “tramples” portions of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit raises three objections: that Obama violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution that limits the scope of presidential power; that the federal government violated rulemaking procedures; and that the order will “exacerbate the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, which will affect increased state investment in law enforcement, health care and education.” Wednesday’s announcement marks the 31st time the attorney general in this fiercely conservative state has brought action against the federal government since Obama took office in 2009. The only other high-profile lawsuit against the immigration action has come on behalf of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. House Majority Leader John Boehner told lawmakers this week that the GOP-led House may vote to undo Obama’s executive action, but the move would be mostly symbolic, as Obama would certainly veto such legislation and the Democratic-led Senate would go for it, either. Potential 2016 presidential candidate and current Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who leaves office in January, also spoke out against the executive order earlier Wednesday, saying it could trigger a new flood of people pouring across the Texas-Mexico border. Perry and Abbott also have said the order will promote a culture of lawlessness. Perry said at a news conference that Obama’s 2012 executive order delaying the deportation of children brought into the U.S. illegally by their parents triggered an unprecedented wave of unaccompanied minors and families, mostly from Central America, crossing into the U.S. this summer. “In effect, his action placed a neon sign on our border, assuring people that they could ignore the law of the United States,” said Perry, who has deployed up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border. The federal lawsuit involves the following states or their governors: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. ShareMIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — Authorities gave the all-clear for two South Florida Jewish community centers after earlier threats prompted evacuations that included hundreds of children Monday morning. Around 11 a.m., hundreds of kids were evacuated from the Dave & Mary Alper Jewish Community Center over a possible explosive device, according to police. About 300 kids were evacuated from the center located in Miami at 11155 SW 112th Avenue out of an abundance of caution. Dozens of parents of the children were seen outside the center as their children were congregated in a tennis court – kept away from their parents during the investigation. All the parents were being told was that their children were safe and had been evacuated. “The first thing that happens is what is going on with my child,” parent Nicki John told CBS4’s Peter D’Oench. Sources say, before 11 a.m., a phone call came into the main operator line of the facility. A bomb threat was made. The call came from a local number which is what prompted the evacuation at the center. “I got a phone call and they said everyone get out,” said teacher Joann Ranch. “They were very careful and cautious. Everyone was calm.” Some students say what happened seemed like an adventure. “This is crazy. This never happened before in our lives,” said a student. Their principal told them what to do. “He said it was important to go outside and line up,” said fifth grader Emilio Holt. “I was nervous. I think there is something really scary and serious going on.” His mother Amilia Holt said she was surprised. “This is horrible to send kids into this environment you usually think it is safe. You don’t really expect anything like this to happen in school,” said Amilia. The Alper Jewish Community Center released a statement saying there was an unconfirmed report of an explosion but that was false. After a sweep to make sure the building was okay, officers gave the all-clear Monday afternoon – four hours after the evacuation. There was also another threat to another Jewish community center in Miami Beach but the all clear was given by police around noon. Officers say someone called in a threat to the Miami Beach Jewish Community Center, located at 4221 Pine Tree Drive, around 10:45 a.m. That’s when the center called the police. A handful of people were evacuated from the center. Miami Beach Police did a courtesy sweep to make sure everything was okay. Miami-Dade Police say they are unsure if there is a correlation between both threats. Similar bomb threats were received nationwide at Jewish community centers in other states including New Jersey and Tennessee. Locally, the Jewish Community Alliance in Jacksonville, the Roth Family Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando, and the Tampa Jewish Federation also got bomb threats, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). They said bomb threats were also called into institutions last week in Central Florida including the Jewish Academy of Orlando in Maitland, the Chabad of South Orlando, and two Tampa-area Jewish Community Center preschools. ADL Florida Regional Director Hava L. Holzhauer issued the following statement on the matter saying, “It is disheartening to begin 2017 with hate being called into Jewish Institutions. Make no mistake, these are terror acts intended to intimidate and disrupt the everyday lives of Jewish members of the community. We are grateful for the quick response of various law enforcement departments from across the state, which have assisted in the evacuations and clearance of the facilities impacted by these calls. We value our freedoms and inclusiveness in this country. We hope law enforcement will find the individuals responsible for these cowardly acts and bring them to justice.” “As a community, we must always be vigilant when it comes to security,” the Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s director of community security, Brenda Moxley, said in an email. The Alper Jewish Community Center said it was working with the FBI and Miami-Dade Police who said Homeland Security will also investigate the threats. “I think it is a shame. It is too bad that we are so vulnerable. It is sad, very sad. I hope it does not get worse. We have to be cautious and prudent,” said Ranch. “As a community, we must always be vigilant when it comes to security,” the Greater Miami Jewish Federation’s director of community security, Brenda Moxley, said in an email. Rabbi Yossi Harlig, a community leader in the Kendall area, says the threats will make the Jewish community more alert but at the same time they will not to let this disrupt their daily routines. “We’re going to show people that want to cause harm, people that want to scare us, to try to change our lifestyle, that we will not not change our lifestyle. On the contrary, we will go and be more light to the world. We will go and bring more kindness to the world,” said Rabbi Harlig. Florida has not been the only state where Jewish institutions have been targeted. There were reports Monday of bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers in several states, including Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. These follow several bomb threats called into Georgia and New Jersey institutions last week.Brad and Tori Fiorenza are building their very own "Challenge" team: The former MTV stars, who walked into the "Cutthroat" sunset with a cool collective $80K back in 2010, just welcomed their second son: Baby C joins three-year-old big brother John in the family fold. Before the little guy's highly anticipated arrival, the OG "Real World: San Diego" alum gushed about the impending birth -- which elicited some hearty congrats from some very familiar competitors: Now, for a relationship rewind: The future Mr. and Mrs. first met on "Gauntlet III" back in 2007 and from there, the then-engaged couple went on to compete on "The Duel 2" and then as husband and wife on "Cutthroat." Paging Brad's former roomie Jacquese to offer up a colorful chant for the dad... Wish your hearty congrats to the Fiorenza bunch in the comments below, and be sure to catch a brand-new episode of "The Real World: Skeletons" tonight at 10/9c, followed by "Battle of the Exes 2" at 11/10c. And for a trip down memory lane, watch the proud parents take the "Cutthroat" crown in the clip below!A flight from Singapore to New Zealand, or any 10 1/2-hour flight, isn't fun times. The sitting, the waiting, the having to pee, the sitting more. In two words, it sucks. But what if you had to sit next to a dead body for the entire duration of the flight? You're right if you think that would make flying suck even harder. That's what happened to Vanessa Preechakul, though. See, she and her boyfriend, Robert Rippingale, were flying to his native New Zealand to celebrate his parents' 50th birthdays when an hour and a half into the Jetstar flight, he started choking on his beef and chicken dinner. Despite the doctor and two nurses who rushed to try to save him, he died. And Vanessa sat next to him for the next nine hours. AdvertisementIn a presentation critics characterized as remarkably similar to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's case for the Iraq War, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stood before a missile fragment that she claimed bears Iran's "fingerprints" and asserted that the Iranian regime poses "a threat to the peace and security of the entire world." "Make no mistake: What Nikki Haley is doing right now is laying the groundwork for a U.S.-Iran war on behalf of Saudi Arabia." —Trita Parsi, National Iranian American Council "It's hard to find a conflict or a terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Iran's fingerprints all over it," Haley said in a speech delivered at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, located just outside the nation's capital. Haley went on to suggest that the fragment theatrically positioned behind her on wooden pallets was part of a missile Houthi rebels fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen last month. Citing a report by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, Haley insisted that the evidence showing Iran provided the Houthis with the missile—and thus violated U.N. resolutions—is "irrefutable" and "undeniable." In a statement, Iran fiercely denied Haley's allegations, saying they were "fabricated" with the goal of "cover[ing] up for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen," which have been carried out with "U.S. complicity." In response to Haley's remarks, American analysts also called attention to the direct and protracted role the U.S. government has played, and continues to play, in the ongoing war and Yemen's humanitarian crisis. Spencer Ackerman, national security reporter for the Daily Beast, wrote: "Wonder when Iran holds its press conference to highlight all the American and British munitions the Saudis have used on hospitals, the Sanaa airport, etc." Experts and some members of the international community also expressed doubts that Haley's "evidence" for Iran's connection to Houthi rebels in Yemen was as strong as she claimed. "Info I have is less clear," Olof Skoog, Sweden's ambassador to the U.N., said when asked about Haley's assertions. Reza Marashi, research director for the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), pointed out that the U.N. report Haley cited as "devastating" proof against Iran has not even been completed, and thus cannot possibly amount to "irrefutable" evidence. "As is the case with so many claims from the Trump administration, it appears that the facts are being chosen to fit a predetermined narrative or policy goal," Marashi concluded. SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts It was also "a hell of a day" for the U.S. to accuse Iran of arming Houthi rebels, some commentators observed, given new reports that American arms sent to Syrian opposition groups "frequently ended up in the hands" of ISIS fighters. Today, Nikki Haley will give a bombastic speech at the UN accusing Iran of arming the Houthis. Meanwhile, new report reveals ISIS was fighting with sophisticated American weaponry... https://t.co/yC8ST9Bw11 — Trita Parsi (@tparsi) December 14, 2017 While Haley was vague about the ultimate implications of her case against Iran, many commentators argued that the dramatic presentation—which comes just a month before President Donald Trump is required to certify whether Iran is complying with the nuclear deal—indicates that the U.S. is slowly building up a rationale for war. "Make no mistake: What Nikki Haley is doing right now is laying the groundwork for a U.S.-Iran war on behalf of Saudi Arabia," concluded Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council.Citing USA TODAY's reporting, a Senate committee wants the "scientific justification" for limited soil sampling to detect deadly bacteria. The Tulane National Primate Research Center is located on 500-acres in Covington, La. (Photo11: Tulane University) The Senate's homeland security committee, citing reporting by USA TODAY, wants answers from three federal agencies about their handling of an ongoing investigation of the risks posed by the recent release of a deadly bioterror bacteria from a laboratory in Louisiana, according to letters sent Wednesday. Understanding how the bacteria got out of a high-security lab at the Tulane National Primate Research Center near New Orleans is "imperative" because of the potential bioterrorism threat posed by the organism, said the letters signed by committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and ranking Democratic Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware. The letters were sent to top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. The senators note that the Tulane accident follows other "concerning reports" of incidents at federal labs and as the country has faced potential threats from infectious diseases ranging from measles to avian influenza and Ebola. "These events are reminders as to how vulnerable our nation may be to a serious biological incident," the letters said. "Our committee takes seriously our oversight responsibilities in how federal agencies are working to prepare for and respond to these potential threats to our national security." Johnson and Carper could not be reached for comment. For weeks, federal officials have been investigating how a deadly, foreign bacterium called Burkholderia pseudomallei got out of a high-security lab on the 500-acre primate center campus, sickening three monkeys not involved in any experiments. CDC investigators recently concluded that the bacteria probably were carried out of the lab on the clothing of workers using sloppy biosafety practices. The incident has raised concerns that the bacteria may have contaminated soil or water in the facility's large outdoor primate breeding colony of about 5,000 rhesus macaque monkeys. The first sign that the bacteria had escaped Tulane's biosafety level 3 lab was the identification of two ill monkeys that were housed in separate outdoor cages. The bacterium is not found in the United States, the CDC has said, but is most commonly found in soil and water in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. Ill monkeys can shed the bacteria in urine and feces, officials have said. People and animals can be sickened by the bacteria if they come into contact with contaminated soil or water. The CDC has said it is unlikely there is any threat to the general population, but the investigation is ongoing. Tulane officials have said they don't believe the bacteria have ever gotten outdoors and have pointed to soil testing coordinated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that didn't detect the bacteria. The committee wants the EPA to explain the "scientific justification for the soil sampling plan... particularly as it pertains to the number of soil samples taken at the site." The letter cites USA TODAY's reporting that found only 39 soil samples were tested — far too few to detect the elusive bacteria if present. The newspaper reported that in parts of the world where the bacteria has lived for decades, studies have found it is difficult to detect without a large number of samples because it forms underground colonies like invisible ant hills that aren't evenly distributed across an area. The senators also want to know more about the agencies' efforts to determine whether soil and water conditions near the lab could support colonization of the bacteria, as well as the status of plans to monitor wildlife and domestic animals in the vicinity for signs of exposure. Other questions seek to examine how the agencies have coordinated their investigation. The letters set an April 8 deadline for the agencies to respond. EPA and USDA officials could not immediately be reached. "I think that Congress understands how important the work at Tulane and other institutions is across the country, but they've raised concerns that this work is not being done safely," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said Wednesday evening. "CDC concurs that this work must be done safely and we will be responding to the senators' letter accordingly." Read the letters sent by the committee to the CDC, the EPA and the USDA. For full coverage of the Tulane lab incident and other safety and security issues at U.S. labs, go to: biolabs.usatoday.com Follow USA TODAY investigative reporter Alison Young on Twitter: @alisonannyoung Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1CbF9wmIn December, Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald was tweeted at by someone who sent him an image of the words “You deserve a seizure for your posts,” over a flashing, strobing image. Eichenwald, who has epilepsy, says the image caused him to have a seizure. On Friday morning, the FBI announced they’ve arrested the person responsible for the tweet. The FBI (and local law enforcement agencies) can’t seem to address violent threats against women online, but this investigation was opened and shut within three months. Advertisement Twitter user “Jew Goldstein” tweeted at Eichenwald on December 16 with the strobing image; a short while later, someone claiming to be Eichenwald’s wife responded from his account. Eichenwald filed a petition in Dallas County Court on December 19, seeking records from Twitter about Jew Goldstein’s identity. Records show he also filed a police report in Dallas against the Twitter user for assault on December 21. Advertisement Advertisement The Twitter user, using the name “John Doe a/k/a Ari Goldstein,” filed an affidavit in response to the civil suit claiming that he’d pulled the gif off the site GIPHY and copied and pasted it into a Tweet: “I did not type any words or other content into or onto the GIF -again, I copied and pasted the GIF, in its entirety, as it was created by someone else.” Doe added that he hadn’t intended to cause a seizure (and disputes that a seconds-long gif would have the potential to do so): Third, I did not intend to cause anyone to suffer a seizure, nor did I appreciate or understand that the subject GIF had the potential of causing anyone (including Petitioner) to suffer a seizure of any kind (if in fact it has or had that potential). I merely posted the GIF to annoy Petitioner, with whom I disagree politically. The Petitioner’s Twitter page is full of political commentary and often biting, personal, verbal attacks and memes (photographs and drawings with political satire). These Tweets are both by Petitioner and literally thousands of others. Eichenwald dropped the civil suit in January, after he said he’d learned Goldstein’s identity and no longer needed to depose Twitter. He claimed this morning that after a multi-state investigation, the Twitter user has been arrested and charged. He warned other would-be strobe tweeters to expect the same swift justice: The FBI confirmed to us that an arrest was made this morning, but wouldn’t comment further. A spokesperson said a press release is forthcoming. Advertisement Sponsored The investigation into Eichenwald’s alleged harasser, then, took just three months from start to finish. But women game developers, journalists, and others who have received death threats on Twitter and other forms of violent harassment—some of it spilling over into actions that threaten their physical safety—haven’t been afforded the same access to speedy justice. Reporting death threats or violent harassment online Reporting death threats or violent harassment online frequently leads to absolutely no action from the police or the FBI. (In 2015, I wrote that violent threats against female journalists have become so common — and the police response so lackluster— that it’s spawning a new genre of journalism, which I dubbed “harassment lit.”) Zoe Quinn, the game developer viciously harassed and threatened since 2014 by a Gamergate-affiliated mob, has written at length about realizing that the court system wouldn’t protect her. She dropped harassment charges against her ex-boyfriend in February 2016 after concluding that continuing with the legal process wouldn’t stem the abuse. She’s also talked about how ignorant the police and court officer can be of the internet, making it even harder to get them to understand the problem, let alone address it: Advertisement The spin is even more successful in these cases, because of how disconnected judges, lawyers, police, and juries often are from the internet. One told me to simply give up my career and stop going offline if I didn’t like the abuse. He barely bothered to look at my huge stack of evidence before declaring he had no idea what the internet was about and didn’t want to know. (There is a rumored FBI investigation into the threats against Quinn, (There is a rumored FBI investigation into the threats against Quinn, according to a Washington Post story from last year, but it has produced no prosecutions.) In February, Business Insider UK reported that two men weren’t charged after they confessed to the FBI on video that they’d sent death threats to game developer Brianna Wu. The FBI let one man go after In February, Business Insider UK reported that two men weren’t charged after they confessed to the FBIon videothat they’d sent death threats to game developer Brianna Wu. The FBI let one man go after he said the threats were “a joke.” According to an FBI file, another suspect “was recorded on video and audio by the FBI confessing to making 40 to 50 threatening calls, and yet no charges were brought,” for reasons that remain opaque. AdvertisementThe Muslim holy month of Ramadan is drawing to a close, and it has been a bloody one for people of the Islamic faith in one of the religion's most revered locations. A suicide bomber blew himself up the previous day outside the mosque where the Prophet Muhammad is buried in Medina. Five Saudi troops were killed in the attack and five others wounded. It was one of three similar attacks around Saudi Arabia on Monday that may have been coordinated. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata says Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants are considered the most likely suspects. Wave of suicide bombings in Mideast as Ramadan closes The bomber only got as far as the parking lot in Medina, but it was close enough to the Prophet's Mosque -- one of the holiest sites in Islam -- to make a symbolic impact that will resonate with Muslims around the world. The death toll was relatively low because he didn't make it into the actual mosque grounds. It could have been much worse. Millions of Muslims make the pilgrimage to Medina ever year, and large crowds had gathered Monday for sunset prayers. The heat of the blast caused cars' fuel tanks to blow up after the initial explosion. It was the last of three attacks Monday in Saudi Arabia -- an unprecedented day of violence in the tightly-controlled Kingdom -- including one that appeared to target the U.S. Consulate. The Saudi government on Tuesday identified the bomber in that attack as a Pakistani man who had lived in the Kingdom for more than a decade. Zarate on terror surge in Saudi Arabia, impact of ISIS losing ground And as D'Agata reports, they coincided with a wave of ISIS-linked mass killings across the globe that have left hundreds dead in recent days. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the death toll from the devastating suicide bomb that tore through a bustling shopping district in Baghdad had risen to make it one of Iraq's deadliest terror attacks ever. Officials said the toll had risen to 175. That blast came only a week after the Iraqi military announced a complete victory over ISIS in the key city of Fallujah, just 40 miles west of Baghdad. As D'Agata reports, the more territoriy ISIS loses on the battlefield, the more terror attacks it seems to launch away from it. Even before the attacks in Saudi Arabia, ISIS militants launched a triple suicide bombing and shooting spree at Turkey's main airport that left more than 40 people dead, and an attack on a café in Bangladesh over the weekend that left 20 people dead. The FBI has offered its assistance after that attack, which left one American dead. And the list goes on. Tuesday morning there was a suicide bombing in Indonesia linked to ISIS.It seems cord cutting is really scaring the executive over at the cable provider Cox. How scared are they? Well it seems Cox is so scared of the growing cord cutting movement it made an anti-cord cutting page on its site. So what is on this page? In short it is pushing the same old stories. I could go on and on for hours about all the errors on this site, but allow me to point out a few. Incorrect Pricing Several different times it lists the pricing of services incorrectly. For example it lists HBO NOW as $16 a month not $15 a month. It also lists the cost of Hulu as $10 a month: a price I have no idea how they got. Base Hulu costs $8 a month with commercials or $12 a month without commercials. (Rounding up.) One really weird mix up is that it lists Sling TV as costing between $0 a month and $50 a month. (Not sure if it is talking about devices but it’s a weird section that is slightly hard to understand.) I could keep going but you get the idea. Poorly written sections from an author who does not know what they are talking about: There are several sections on this page that just jump into crazy land. One good example is this sentence: “Roku, Sling TV and Playstation Vue each require specific hardware.” A few things there: Sling TV and PlayStation Vue both work on a wide range of devices and almost every major streaming player on the market; however, I wonder what they were thinking when they included Roku in that sentence? Are they trying to say you need specific hardware to run Roku? Like you need a second box to make a Roku work? Now my brain is just hurting… Again I could keep going but you get the idea. Just trying to scare its subscribers: Often in this story it is clearly trying to scare its subscribers. When talking about streaming devices it says, “These smaller, HDMI-based ‘sticks,’ e.g., Google Chromecast, Roku’s Streaming Stick, and Amazon Fire TV Stick, certainly have smaller profiles than a set-top box and can make your TV smarter, but as a trade-off they have lower processing power.” That is just clearly wrong as the Roku Stick has a quad core processor that is as fast as many set-top boxes. Here is one more section that is clearly just trying to scare people into staying with Cox. You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. Do you watch the 5 o’clock news? Do you want to know about local traffic and weather? Are you a fan of Sunday sports? An avid Game of Thrones viewer? When you cut the cord, you might find your Sundays and weeknights spent not in front of the TV, as many streaming services don’t include local, sports, or premium channels. Hate to break it to you Cox. Cord cutters know what they are going to get with cord cutting long before they become cord cutters, and everything listed cord cutters can get. Local TV is free with an antenna. Game of Thrones is available with HBO NOW (remember that service you screwed up the price on?). The 5’clock news is free online through services such as NewsON or with an antenna. Sports is easy for most with services such as Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and DIRECTV NOW. Yeah everything you listed is available to cord cutters, and who says spending weekends not in front of the TV is a bad thing? I spent more time on this than I should have. The truth is cord cutting is growing and Cox should be scared of how quickly Americans are learning that they have better options than overpriced TV from cable. Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our new Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help.INTRAVAIA - Ogni scuola a modo suo, in piena autonomia e in ordine sparso, fra mugugni e polemiche. Il bonus che premia il merito degli insegnanti è una novità introdotta dalla Buona Scuola, "una riforma culturale" l'ha definita il ministro Giannin i. Ora ci siamo.Fra proteste e ritardi, dall'infanzia alle superiori, gli istituti si mettono in moto e cominciano a definire i criteri. Chi vorrebbe premiare il professore di lungo corso, quello che sta per andare in pensione. Chi gli innovatori: quelli che portano i ragazzi a teatro la domenica, che insegnano con le lavagne digitali o fanno partecipare gli studenti a progetti internazionali. Chi preferirebbe assegnare il bonus a quelli che fanno lezioni supplementari di lingua italiana agli stranieri, o organizzano iniziative per i ragazzi svantaggiati o, genericamente, "danno un contributo al miglioramento della vita scolastica".di S.Da Nord a Sud il puzzle è variegato. Ci sono scuole che preparano griglie a punti con un ricco menù, di voci e incroci, per dare i voti alle cattedre: a fine anno, vincerà chi otterrà la somma più alta, una specie di campionato dell'impegno didattico. Esempio, in una scuola fiorentina daranno fra 12 e 24 punti a chi porterà i ragazzi a una mostra di sabato o domenica, agli animatori digitali, a chi trascriverà i verbali dei consigli di classe, a chi si occuperà di stendere i "curricoli verticali" (cioè i programmi).Altre all'opposto sono meno rigide e tracciano soltanto una cornice di principi ispiratori lasciando che siano i presidi a decidere la "pagella" del buon docente. Insomma ciascuna scuola declina come meglio crede il bonus in arrivo nei prossimi mesi. Il mondo della scuola però è diviso fra il partito del "finalmente", "era ora" e chi come la Cgil si oppone: "Stiamo raccogliendo le firme per un referendum, fra i quattro punti, uno è proprio sui premi ai docenti. Gli incentivi vanno distribuiti a un tavolo con le Rsu, non certo a discrezione dei dirigenti di istituto" spiega Annamaria Santoro.Fra i corridoi e le aule cresce la preoccupazione in vista dellaquando i dirigenti scolastici dovranno consegnare al Miur la lista dei premiati.Così le scuole corrono ai ripari, molte sono in ritardo e contano di riunire la commissione nei prossimi giorni. Da oggi il ministero comincerà un monitoraggio per avere la fotografia di quello che sta succedendo e capire eventuali difficoltà. Per
What are Shaco’s easiest matchups? What are his toughest? Immobile enemies of any sort are good for Shaco. AD’s such as Twitch, Jhin, Ashe, Jinx are simpler to play against. Personally, I like playing against early game junglers such as Elise and Lee Sin, because Shaco has tools to outplay these champions. For example, a 0 ping Shaco should always be able to Q or W Lee Sin Q, Q Lee Sin’s E, and R Lee Sin’s R. Shaco’s toughest matchups are Twisted Fate, Reksai, Lulu, Janna, Kayle and Kindred. Twisted Fate and Reksai essentially stop Shaco from moving as freely as he would want to. You’re not allowed to move deep into dangerous territory against these champions that can spot you and trail you in invisibility. Lulu, Janna, Kayle, and pretty much anyone that stops you from one-shotting essential backliners are hard matchups, because you have to wait for them to expend their important defensive skills before you enter for a pick. Kindred is a ranged AD jungler so she’ll always have the range advantage in 1v1ing you in the jungle as well as an ultimate that stops you from bursting an individual. What is Shaco’s main job in laning phase? What about Teamfights? Snowball a particular, or all lane matchups. This allows for early first tier turrets, into map control, into objectives. From this point you just start stealing jungle camps, and out gold them until the game is over. Neutralize the enemy jungler. If I am stopping the enemy jungler from visiting lanes that should win naturally then it’s a net win. Press Tab and see all pink wards. You can never enter the fight if they have someone holding a pink ward, if you Q in, they put it down, you get turned on and die. Have an angle of some sort. From the left, right, behind, somewhere creative that is clear of enemy vision using sweepers/pinks. Ideally, you also take into account enemy camera control to avoid getting your smoke seen. If someone is playing Shaco for the first time, what is the most important thing to bear in mind? What are your favorite ways to juke opponents with Shaco? Walk one way and Q the other way. Pretty simple. Walk one way, turn to a direction, then Q a different direction. The enemy may think you turned and Q’d late, so you may have“revealed” the direction of your Q. R and auto the enemy or stand still, move your clone away. R to go over a wall (about 40% of the time using Directional Input.) How do you make the most out of Shaco’s Jack-in-the-Boxes? Initial clear speed Vision defense/offense. Defending your laners from jungle ganks by leaving boxes in tri-brushes, river brushes or offensively leaving them in the enemy jungle for vision Placing them behind in ganks to block off escape routes Placing boxes to peel for your backline (I believe 2 boxes near each other still stop things like Malphite ult, credits to Pink Ward). AD Shaco or AP Shaco? Have you played Shaco in other roles outside of Jungle? How did that go? What’s your favorite Shaco skin? What’s the best Shaco play you have ever pulled off? Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! If readers want to reach out, where can they find you? We’re excited to welcome Chinese Jester to kick off June’s “Ask a Champion Main!” This Shaco main’s been playing League of Legends since Season 2 with over 5000 Shaco games.He’s brought with him a wealth of info on juking, flanking, and dominating the jungle as the Demon Jester.-----------I was in my junior year of high school and discovered it just before Summer break began. I had just begun watching Justin TV and saw incarnati0n’s Fizz (Jensen). Originally, friends in my physics class introduced me to the game and I thoroughly enjoyed how competitive each game was.My Summoner name “Chinese Jester” comes from the fact that I am Chinese and Shaco is a Jester. However, originally when I began playing League it was “BDMeta”, because of how much Shaco would backdoor in the old days. My second name change was YouMatter, as I got more into charities.Since season 2, Shaco has been a champion that would solo carry games and have high snowball ability. This resonated with me, because I have always been very critical of myself to play properly. If I mess up I deserve to lose, if I don’t play a perfect early game, I don’t deserve to win.Additionally, Shaco was streamed a lot by EUW junglers at the time, so it was quite popular.Elise is currently my go-to champion if Shaco gets banned. Originally in season 4-5 I would get banned out in 80%+ of my games so I would play Elise or dodge. However, Thresh is pretty fun.Shaco must read and understand every enemy and ally to create logical aggression.For runes, the standard page is AD quints, AD marks, Armor seals, and AP blues.For masteries I run 12/18/0, picking up Sorcery, Double-Edged Sword, Natural Talent, Oppressor, Savagery, Assassin, Merciless, Dangerous Game, Precision, and Thunderlord’s decree.Shaco’s core items are Youmuu’s, Mobility boots, Duskblade, and Infinity Edge (IE). Youmuu’s and Mobi’s give you what you need to pick and flank throughout the game, while Duskblade and IE give you the damage to burst.It’s hard to name specific easy matchups for Shaco without taking into account team composition:Shaco’s job in the laning phase can consist of two different approaches:Teamfighting scenarios with Shaco are very unique. Step 1 is to check if they have hard engage. If the enemy has hard engage you must either trust your team to play around that engage or play with your team, meaning no split pushing. Things such as peel skills, waveclear, and items such as Zhonyas make this decision simpler. If you decide to split you must be aware of objective rushes such as Baron. Never go bot side split pushing if they can rush baron leaving your team in a 5v4.If you decide to group and teamfight you need to check for the following:If these conditions are met, you should wait for your team to engage, then you will move into the backline, backstab, Tiamat/Hydra (if you have it), E then auto for thunderlords. This will kill backliners TYPICALLY.If you believe there are enemies in transition to the teamfight location, you must read the map, and figure out if you can pick them off at red, blue, a camp, as they’re walking down the lane.Shaco’s “teamfight” starts before a teamfight even begins.You will get flamed. If you have even an average early game, other players will think you’re “behind,” because you’re playing Shaco. If you have a perfect early game you can still lose and get flamed, because Shaco isn’t a late game champion. Shaco’s late game isn’t HORRIBLE, it’s just not great.Even then, if you go 4/0/3 in the lane phase by killing laners and the enemy Graves jungle sweeps up the cs when you push it to the turret and that results in them having 4x your cs, you will get flamed mid game, because the Graves is more useful. However, through all of this, you have to be level headed and make the most proper play you can.You can use Shaco’s Jack-in-the-Boxes for a lot of things:I play exclusively AD assassin Shaco. Even though I believe bruiser Shaco has a higher win rate, I don’t play it, because you’re essentially a worse Lee Sin imo.AP Shaco is fun, but you need an early game transition item such as Tiamat or Youmuu’s. It’s not my playstyle, but it works.I’ve played Shaco Top, Mid and Support. Shaco Top is actually not bad, your split is almost the best in the game, you just need to get through lane phase.Shaco Mid sucks and Shaco Support also sucks. If you wanna use 20% of your mana every time to Q E someone or put a bunch of boxes down and hope your cheese works, feel free.Asylum, he’s upside down and as crazy as a jester should be. But, we all use Masked Shaco due to the white Q smoke.I don’t have a clip, but it was in Season 4 I believe. A Syndra player (maybe Mancloud? Not sure) is chasing me through bottom river, because I have 20% HP so I run towards my first- tier bot turret. Their AD Draven flash auto’s me as their Syndra flash R’s me. I R to dodge the damage as well as steal Draven’s axe (if you ult Draven axes they disappear). I proceed to Q back, kill the Syndra, and my team grabs the Draven.You can find me at any of the links below:-----------Hang out in the comments and ask Chinese Jester any questions you may have!Rhombus! Accurate and awesome reproduction of Finn's hat from Adventure Time. Super soft fleece that fits most adults heads (it's a little stretchy). Slamacow! So, all the missiles went off and the world as we know it ended. Oh well. What's the last human to do? Why, be raised by a family of loving dogs and then go out into the world and find adventure. And do you know what time it is when you go out to find adventure? ADVENTURE TIME! Duh. And now you can be just like the kid we're talking about when you wear your Adventure Time Finn's Hat. Each Adventure Time Finn's Hat is made with love by the wonderful denizens of Ooo and exported here (somehow) for your adventuring needs. Made of soft polyester fleece and sized to fit most adult heads, this is one easy step in getting the perfect Finn costume. Then, just grab your trusty dog and head off on adventures. Folks will get out of your way (and tell stories of your bravery after you pass) when you're wearing an Adventure Time Finn's Hat. Holy stuff! waving snail Adventure Time Finn's HatFor at least one conservative lawmaker, the current process for repealing and replacing Obamacare is beginning to look very similar to that of 2009, when Republicans accused Democrats of writing the Affordable Care Act behind closed doors. Armed with a portable copy machine, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., went on a crusade through the U.S. Capitol on Thursday to find the legislation that will ultimately repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. His goal was to see the elusive Obamacare bill himself, which was available in a reading room only to members of the House Energy and Commerce committees and their staff, and “demand a copy for the American people.” I am heading to the secure location where they are keeping the House obamacare bill. I will demand a copy for the American people. — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 2, 2017 “We’ve been talking about it for six years, so we thought we ought to see it,” Paul said of the replacement plan. “We heard it was in a secret room, and that it was under lock and key with guards. And sure enough, when we got there, there were policemen posted at the door, and we were not allowed to see the Obamacare repeal bill.” Ultimately, the Kentucky senator was unsuccessful. But in his quest, he was joined by some unlikely allies: congressional Democrats like Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who wanted to see a copy of the plan, too. “This is not regular order, and it’s not good order for the American people,” Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters after broadcasting live on Facebook his search for the bill. The House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees are expected to take up the Obamacare replacement plan next week, and members of the Ways and Means Committee are planning to work through the weekend to continue hashing out the details. But while GOP leaders say they haven’t yet finalized the bill, conservatives believe the legislation is being drafted in secret, out of view from them and the American people. For the lawmakers, the process for crafting the bill repealing and replacing Obamacare harkens back to 2009, when Democrats wrote the health care law. “If you’d recall, when Obamacare was passed in 2009 and 2010, Nancy Pelosi said you’ll know what’s in it after you pass it,” Paul told reporters Thursday, paraphrasing what Pelosi said at the time. “The Republican Party shouldn’t act in the same way.” Paul and the House Freedom Caucus, a group of approximately 40 conservative lawmakers, are urging Republican leaders to repeal as much of Obamacare as possible and use legislation from 2015 that repealed the major provisions of the health care law as a starting point. That bill passed the House and Senate, but President Barack Obama vetoed it. But as Republicans on the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees continue to work on the bill, it’s unclear whether conservatives will get their way. Even as Republicans head into the weekend, Paul continued to play hide-and-seek with the replacement bill and solicited his followers on Twitter for tips on where the plan may be hidden. The Obamacare replacement bill remains hidden from the public! What secret location will they meet in this weekend to work on it? — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 3, 2017 Do you have a clue where the secret meeting on the secret Obamacare replacement bill will occur? Reply with your tips! — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 3, 2017 We are continuing our search for the Obamacare Lite bill! Do you know where the secret location might be? Has anyone seen the bill? pic.twitter.com/WcSIDTs0vP — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 3, 2017 Conservatives and Democratic lawmakers were given an accidental early glimpse at what Obamacare’s replacement may look like after a draft bill was leaked to the press late last month. The document, which was reportedly from early February, repealed much of Obamacare and phased out the Medicaid expansion, which would eventually be replaced with a per capita allotment. Under a per capita allotment, states get capped payments based on the number of people enrolled in Medicaid. It also capped the tax exemption for employer-sponsored coverage, required Americans to maintain continuous coverage or face a 30 percent increase in premiums for a year, and put a new system of refundable, age-based tax credits for purchasing health insurance in place. But six conservative lawmakers—three in the House and three in the Senate, Paul included—revolted against the draft replacement plan, calling it “Obamacare lite.” Paul said the draft bill kept elements of the Affordable Care Act like an individual mandate and Cadillac tax on expensive employer-sponsored plans, and the members vowed to oppose any legislation that didn’t repeal the health care law in full. “These are Democrat ideas dressed up in Republican clothing,” Paul said of the draft document. After the conservatives vocalized their opposition, House Republican leaders stressed that the proposal released was one from the early stages of discussion. “That draft is no longer valid,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters Tuesday. The opposition from the House and Senate conservatives is the latest setback for GOP leaders, who planned to put the repeal-and-replace measure before lawmakers for a vote in the coming weeks. Conservatives specifically disagree with the inclusion of the refundable tax credits available to consumers purchasing coverage in the individual market, which they believe creates a new entitlement program. But the lawmakers aren’t opposed to the notion of a tax credit as a whole. A replacement plan crafted by Paul calls for a $5,000 tax credit available to individuals who contribute money to a health savings account, or medical savings account. Despite the opposition from House and Senate conservatives, GOP leaders don’t appear to be backing down from the draft document. A newer version of the Obamacare repeal bill obtained by Politico contains many of the same provisions as the earlier document, including the refundable, age-based tax credits. According to Politico, though, there is one change: Wealthier Americans would not be able to qualify for the financial assistance. Republican leaders said this week’s negotiations are still ongoing and that the replacement plan hadn’t yet been finalized. They said that’s the reason a draft wasn’t yet available to Democrats and Paul. “[Republican] members and staff are continuing to discuss and refine draft legislative language on issues under our committee’s jurisdiction,” House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said in a statement Thursday.The Liberal government has to make immediate changes to the Access to Information Act or risk alienating voters, warns Canada's information watchdog. Earlier this week the Canadian Press reported that the Liberal government is delaying promised access to information reforms that would bring ministerial offices under the act. The government had pledged an initial wave of legislative changes by the end of winter. A spokesperson for Treasury Board President Scott Brison said initial legislative changes and the first full review will begin in 2018. During the election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that a Liberal government would end fees for processing information requests, give the information commissioner the power to order the release of documents and make ministers' offices subject to the information act. So far, one of those promises — waiving most fees — has been checked off. "I think in terms of ministers' offices, it's an absolute mandatory reform. They have to show leadership and they have to make this amendment as quickly as possible, regardless of the difficulties they're having with it or they may have with it," Information Commissioner of Canada Suzanne Legault told Chris Hall on CBC's The House. "It's a leadership issue." "Minister Brison is on record that he's still committed to doing this reform, so let's get on with it because time is actually running out…and people will judge the government on how they are implementing their promises." Amendments to exemption regime Before moving ahead with the complicated matter of giving her office order-making powers, Legault is suggesting the Liberals make important tweaks first — such as amending the list of exemptions used to restrict the disclosure of information. "Exemptions, and the reforms on the exemptions, are actually probably easier for the government to do. There's a lot, a lot, a lot, already written," said Legault, pointing to a provision in British Columbia's act that stipulates a public body should disclose information when it's clearly in the public interest. She said one of the best arguments for a greater access to information can be found in Canadian journalism. The Liberals announced this week they were postponing their plans to update the country's Access to Information Act. Is the government living up to its promise to be more transparent? We ask the country's Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault. 8:17 "[Globe and Mail reporter ] Robyn Doolittle's investigation into the cases of sexual assault across Canada. She obtained the information from police forces across Canada, and it is having a massive impact on policy changes. We're talking about training for judges, we're talking about police forces doing audits to make sure victims of sexual assaults are properly treated," she said. "The more transparency there is, and the easier it is to access this information, the more we can hold our public institutions to account." In May, the Liberal government issued an interim directive on openness and waived all fees associated with Access to Information requests, besides the $5 application charge. Legault has called these changes "low-hanging fruit." On Saturday, Brison said his team is trying to work through some concerns around reforms, including maintaining the independence of the judiciary. "We've had discussions with Madame Legault and her office, and we are now working through a process in terms of applying the act appropriately to ministers' offices and the prime ministers' offices," he said. "Again, we need to balance the neutrality of the public service, the privacy of Canadians. These are important factors to take into account in any changes we make."Introduction Regulars of With a Terrible Fate know that Nier is near and dear to my heart because it was the game that first motivated me to write analytically about video games, even before my work on Majora’s Mask. You can therefore imagine how excited I was when the game was given a sequel, NieR: Automata. While I was initially worried that it would fall short of its predecessor, I think it’s safe to say that NieR: Automata ended up being even philosophically richer than Nier. To that end, it’s time that NieR: Automata met With a Terrible Fate. Regular readers also know that my analytic method with respect to video games typically focuses on clarifying the precise and often surprising relations in which the players of video games stand to the stories of video games. In that regard, this paper is no exception: I want to convince you that you, the player, are involved in the story of NieR: Automata in a surprising and illuminating way. But, for the sake of full transparency, I’ll start by warning you that, as you might imagine, this work contains LIBERAL SPOILERS for NieR: Automata, Nier, and Drakengard (starting in the next paragraph!). If you’re at all familiar with Nier and/or NieR: Automata, then you know that the stories of these games deeply depend on facts that are only revealed quite late in the game; so, if you haven’t yet played through the games, I wouldn’t recommend reading this yet. With that in mind, let me offer a roadmap of the paper. I frame this analysis as the attempt to answer a seemingly simple question: “Where are the humans in NieR: Automata?” Now, if you’ve only just started the game, you’d probably say, “They’re on the moon, obviously”; if instead you’ve played through the whole game, you’d probably say that this is an ill-posed question because, at the time of NieR: Automata’s events, humans are long-extinct—there are only machines lifeforms, androids, animals, plants, and pods. Fair enough; however, it’s undeniable that the presence of humanity is virtually ubiquitous in the world of the game. Machine lifeforms slowly recover human culture and become sentient; androids identify themselves as sentient even before machine lifeforms do; by the end of Ending E, even the simple pods that accompany androids are beginning to exhibit “human” traits like compassion and attachment. So when I ask where the humans are in the game, what I’m really asking is what the origin is of all these specifically human properties that the various organisms in the game eventually instantiate—especially the property of sentience, or self-awareness. You might think the answer is simply that these human properties originated in the humans that went extinct long ago in the game’s world; after all, the game mentions that the human characteristics of the androids are the result of their human creators. It’s this second response that I want to challenge: I think that the player, rather than the extinct humans of the game’s world, are the source of the sentience that emerges in androids, machine lifeforms, and pods throughout the course of the game. I begin by clarifying the scope of my thesis, in an effort to show that, so far as I can see, my claims don’t threaten what one might call “canonical” interpretations of the game’s story. Then, I use an analysis of player-avatar relations to argue that the player is the origin of sentience and humanity in Nier and NieR: Automata. This, I think, is a fairly easy thesis to endorse. After this is established, I argue for the significantly more controversial thesis that the fictional world of NieR: Automata is actually nothing more than a data structure; that is to say, it is true within the fiction of the game that the world is just a computer simulation being manipulated by a real player. Finally, I conclude by explaining why these theses matter for understanding NieR: Automata: the game’s metaphysics, I argue, establishes unexpected, fictional, ethical mandates that bind the player as they engage the game. 1. Preliminaries In the past—especially in my initial, four-year-old work on Nier—I have sometimes failed to be sufficiently clear about the scope and level on which my analyses of video games have applied, which has led to some confusion about how my work ought to be evaluated in comparison with competing analyses or interpretations of the games in question. This is an especially acute danger when discussing NieR: Automata because there are myriad possible ways in which one could interpret “the game.” To name a few: are you analyzing the game as a stand-alone narrative, or as the third installment in the three-part narrative sequence of Drakengard, Nier, and Nier: Automata? Are you analyzing the game as a set of equally possible narratives with 26 different endings, or are you analyzing the single narrative and ending within the game that you take to constitute the “true” story? And so on. There’s no obvious reason to endorse any one such analytical approach over the others; what matters is being clear on precisely what your analytical approach is, so as to avoid having it confused with other approaches in the vicinity. By clarifying my own approach in this way, I aim to show why the claims it generates about the game are fairly compatible with a wide array of other plausible analyses of the game. To see what my project is up to, we need to distinguish between what we might think of as two “levels” of analysis. Call the first level of analysis ‘Narrative-Event Analysis’ (or ‘NE Analysis’), and define it as follows. NE Analysis: The analysis or interpretation of the various events of a narrative, and of how those events are interrelated. This is what most video game theorists and art critics are up to: they take the events of a given story and try to make meaning out of those events in a particular way. When YouTube personalities analyze and explain the lore of the Dark Souls games, they’re engaged in NE Analysis; when you try to sort out where the story of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild fits into the larger set of Zelda timelines, you’re engaged in NE Analysis; when you’re explaining how on earth the Shadowlord of Nier logically fits into Ending E of Drakengard, you’re engaged in NE Analysis. This is the time-honored tradition of taking the various events of a story and seeing how they best cohere with one another to form one meaningful, comprehensible work of art. Now consider an altogether different level of analysis. Call it ‘Narrative-Grounding Analysis’ (‘NG Analysis’), and define it as follows. NG Analysis: The analysis or interpretation of the metaphysical foundation in virtue of which the various events of a narrative obtain, and how that metaphysical foundation relates to the events that it actualizes. Put this way, NG Analysis might sound unfamiliar, but (1) I think we often ask ourselves NG-Analysis questions about stories, and (2) this is the exact sort of analysis I’ve been applying to video games for several years now on this site. When you ask yourself what makes the constant regeneration of the Chosen Undead in Dark Souls possible, you are engaging in NG Analysis; when someone explains what it is about the world of Zelda that makes time travel possible, they are engaging in NG Analysis; when I am analyzing what makes it possible for machine and Replicants to become sentient in the world of Nier and NieR: Automata, I am engaging in NG Analysis. This is also the sort of analysis I was undertaking when I claimed that: the player is the source of moral reality in Majora’s Mask; the narrative of BioShock Infinite is a universal collapse event caused by the player; and the entirety of Bloodborne is a dream. What’s crucial to notice about these two levels of analysis is that neither level of analysis, at least in any obvious way, makes claims about the other level of analysis. Insofar as this is true, the video game theorist is licensed to engage in NE Analysis about a game without worrying about what the right NG Analysis of the game is, and vice versa. For instance, suppose that you’re trying to decide between two competing theories of how Link is able to travel through time in the Zelda games: according to one theory, this is made possible by the will of the Goddess Hylia, and according to the other theory, it is made possible because Link is some special kind of entity that can freely move through time in a way that ordinary Hylians can’t.[1] These two theories are trying to explain the same narrative events, and they can’t both be right; that means that we have to choose between them if we want to have a correct understanding of the game’s story (assuming that one of these two theories is correct, as opposed to both of them being incorrect). However, neither of these theories is going to have anything to say about how time travel in the game works: they’re only going to say what makes time travel in the game possible. So consider a question like this: in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, how do the actions of Adult Link affect the events that Young Link experiences seven years earlier? (Think of an example like the Spirit Temple, where Adult Link and Young Link are apparently “interacting” with each other across time.) This is a question about how the events of the game’s narrative relate to one another—which is to say, it’s a question for NE Analysis to resolve. Whether time travel is made possible by Hylia or by Link’s constitution isn’t going to have any direct bearing on how the events concerning Adult Link relate to the events concerning Young Link; to answer this question, we instead need an NE Analysis specific to those events (e.g., “time travel works by allowing Adult Link to rewrite events of the past”). I’ve only aimed to show here that NE Analysis and NG analysis are indeed separate levels of analysis: when you’re engaged in NG analysis, you’re analyzing something fundamentally different than what you analyze in NE Analysis: in NG Analysis you analyze the metaphysical foundation of events in a story, whereas in NE Analysis you analyze the events themselves. Why does this matter as preliminaries to my analysis of NieR: Automata? Well, there are many interesting questions about how the events of NieR: Automata relate to each other, to the events of Nier, and to the events of Drakengard. To name a few potential questions of this sort: where did the aliens in NieR: Automata come from? How, if at all, does White Chlorination Syndrome relate to the Black Scrawl? What effects does 2B’s consciousness have on A2, after A2 kills 2B? It should be clear by now, I hope, that these are all questions that NE Analysis is tasked with answering. And it bears mentioning that, typically, when people talk about “canon interpretations” of a story—roughly, the “correct” interpretation of a story’s events, often deemed correct simply because the author says it’s correct—are interpretations that similarly belong to NE Analysis. Canonical interpretations of narratives rarely have anything substantive to say about the metaphysical grounds of a narrative’s events. Recall that what I’m interested in pursuing in this paper is a matter of NG Analysis: namely, the question of what it is in virtue of which apparently human properties obtain in the world of NieR: Automata. Given what I’ve said, it follows that my arguments in this paper won’t directly bear on “canon” issues of how to properly interpret the events of the game on the level of NE Analysis. Put differently: if you already have some favorite theory about how the events of the game are interrelated, my work here doesn’t necessarily pose a threat to that theory.[2] If, on the other hand, you have a favorite theory about the metaphysical grounds of the narrative’s events (and I frankly haven’t seen any such theories out there yet), then my theory is a competitor to that theory, and you’ll have to see which seems more plausible to you upon reflection. 2. Becoming Human I’ve established the level on which I intend my analysis to operate: in this paper, we’re exploring the metaphysical foundations of NieR: Automata. In this section, I offer an argument to the conclusion that the humanity of the player is what metaphysically grounds an entity’s “becoming sentient” (i.e. being self-aware and instantiating human properties) in NieR: Automata and NieR. I’ll make this argument by first focusing on the nature of maso and Project Gestalt, and then by extending it to the nature of machine lifeforms, androids, and pods. This will directly lead us to the argument of the next section—that the world of NieR: Automata is a data structure. ‘Maso’ is a substance that originated in the ending of Drakengard that served as the impetus for Nier and (subsequently) NieR: Automata. Very roughly, in Ending E of Drakengard, the protagonists confront and destroy an otherworldly “Giant” (also known as the Queen-beast) that subsequently releases maso, an otherworldly, “multidimensional” particle. The maso induces ‘White Chlorination Syndrome’ (‘WCS), a disease that forces a choice on humans: either form a pact to become the servant of a god from another world, or perish by turning into a statue made of salt. Humans are able to avoid this disease by using maso to develop “multidimensional technology” that separates their souls from their bodies until a time at which WCS has died off, at which point humans would reunite their souls with their bodies (this plan of defense against the disease was called ‘Project Gestalt’ and was central to the plot of Nier). However, the soulless bodies preserved for humans—entities called ‘Replicants’—ended up developing “a sense of self” (i.e. sentience). This advent of self-awareness in Replicants led to a corresponding loss of sentience in the separated souls of humans, called ‘Gestalts’—this loss of sentience was known as ‘relapsing’ and caused the Gestalts to turn into aggressive, animalistic creatures (known to Replicants as ‘shades’). The protagonist and avatar of Nier—technically named by the player, but called ‘Nier’ for convenience—is the Replicant corresponding to “the Original” Gestalt, someone whose data was central to the development and sustainability of Project Gestalt. The story of Nier (again, very roughly) follows Nier’s struggle to save his daughter—also a Replicant—from “the Shadowlord”—an entity that Nier sees as an enemy, but who is actually his own Gestalt (“the Original”) trying to reclaim his daughter’s Replicant. When Nier kills his Gestalt, he effectively derails Project Gestalt, which leads to the eventual extinction of humanity. That’s a far-too-condensed reconstruction of what I take to be the key and relatively uncontroversial elements of the narrative than begins with Ending E of Drakengard and proceeds through the conclusion of Nier. The key points to notice for my purposes are: (1) maso is a multidimensional substance that binds humans to gods from other worlds, (2) the avatar of Nier is the Replicant that corresponds to Project Gestalt’s Original, and (3) sentience is more-or-less zero sum between a given Gestalt-Replicant pair: if the Replicant gains it, then the Gestalt starts down the road to losing it (and metaphysically, this seems reasonable: if a Gestalt-Replicant pair is supposed to be just one conscious entity, split into body and soul, presumably it would be able to sustain just one consciousness). I think that, merely from the fairly uncontroversial facts I’ve highlighted about the story, a surprising but intuitive thesis about the source of sentience in Nier presents itself: namely, the player of the game is the source of sentience in Nier (the avatar) and other Replicants. Notice again that maso, according to Drakengard, is a substance that straddles dimensions and binds people to the gods of other worlds. It seems appropriate and explanatorily powerful to say that, as an avatar, Nier—again, the Replicant corresponding to the Original—is importantly bound to the player of the game, an extra-dimensional entity that determines Nier’s actions and choices throughout the game’s story. Given that we know maso renders humans the servants of gods, and Gestalt technology is derived from maso, we can explain Nier’s sentience by saying that he inherits it from the extra-dimensional entity to which he is bound: a sentient, human player.[3] A potential objection: what about the fact that other Replicants gain sentience in Nier? These other Replicants are clearly not avatars, and so it can’t be the case that sentience in Nier is categorically derived from the player’s sentience. My response: recall that Nier’s Gestalt has the special status of being “the Original” in Project Gestalt. To my knowledge, this status is never given a full and precise explanation, except to say that this Gestalt uniquely makes Project Gestalt possible, and that Project Gestalt is irreparably derailed when Nier kills his Gestalt. Given this special priority that Nier and his Gestalt have in the efficacy and progress of Project Gestalt, it strikes me as plausible to suppose that Nier’s sentience would play a causally decisive role in the emergent sentience of other Replicants. That is to say, Nier’s status as the Original’s Replicant makes it the case that his acquired sentience—which, again, he inherits from the player—subsequently induces sentience in other Replicants. So, even while the other Replicants don’t directly inherit sentience from the player, their sentience is still derived from the player, given the causally decisive role of Nier’s sentience. Another potential objection: the player of a video game is a real person, not a fictional entity. So they simply couldn’t be part of the game’s narrative: real things can’t causally interact with fictional things in that way (e.g., I, a real person, can’t stop Tom Sawyer from painting a fence in the fiction of Mark Twain). My reply: no doubt this is true, but fictions give real people fictional roles to play all the time. Think, for example, of second-person novels, which put the reader in the fictional role of whomever the narrative is addressing. And even though it might seem unintuitive or metaphys
who did not consider themselves to be milk-intolerant, found they had slightly softer stools when they consumed A1 as opposed to A2 milk. "These softer stools can be associated with increased abdominal pain and this was highly significant." Curtin University recruited 41 people, for a double-blind randomised trial over eight weeks. They were asked to consume no dairy for two weeks, followed by two weeks of either A1 or A2 beta-casein milk. This was repeated and reversed after two weeks. The subjects were asked to record their responses. "The results show there is a difference in gastrointestinal responses in some adults consuming the A1 versus A2 beta-casein type," Professor Pal said. "The logical next step is to source further funding for more scaled human studies to further understand the digestion differences." One European scientist reviewing the research for the Journal wrote: "The study is performed on 41 volunteers; that is sufficient to obtain statistically significant pilot data. "These are very important for medical science and require confirmation in a larger study of participants with perceived intolerance to ordinary A1 beta-casein containing milk." Audio Player failed to load. Try to Download directly (2.23 MB) Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Download (2.23 MB) Load more chevron right Beta-Casein Cows milk contains either A1 or A2 beta-casein protein. A mutation occurred nearly 10,000 years ago in dairy cows in Europe which produced A1 as the dominant breed. Africa and India, by contrast, have A2 cows. Animal studies of the beta-casein has shown 'digestion of A1 but not A2 beta-casein affects gastrointestinal motility and inflammation through the release of beta-casomorphin-7'. Never before has the digestion been studied in people. DNA selected A2 Cows Selecting his herd for A2 beta-casein protein, Michael Perrich at Leppington Pastoral DNA tested a hair from the tail of each cow. At Leppington, 1,500 cows have been selected with the A2 gene and are milked separately to the remaining A1 cows. The milk is kept separate, with the A2 milk going to the nearby A2 processing and bottling plant in outer south-west Sydney. Leppington is owned by the Perrich family supplied the A2 milk for the trial in Perth. The Perrich family have a stake in Freedom Foods, which is the largest shareholder of A2. For Michael Perrich, the A2 milk story is about bringing people back to dairy. "A lot of people have moved away from dairy due to digestion issues or just intolerances they've felt when they drink milk, and they've moved to non-dairy, and so they've come back because they can digest the (A2) milk better." He hopes this is not the end of the research. "With any trial it would be good to see something like that replicated." Dairy Australia, the research and development corporation, has made no comment on the Curtin University research. But dairy analysts say they won't be satisfied with anything less than a long-term and large health study. The A2 Milk business The results represent a significant boost to marketing of A2 milk by the A2 Milk company, the only one that produces milk free of A1. Amid aggressive milk discounting by supermarkets, A2 has seen sales grow 12 fold in the last seven years. In 2013, the A2 company recorded a $4 million profit, and its share of the fresh Australian milk market has grown from one per cent in 2008 to nine per cent in 2014. The A2 Company, now owned largely by Australian interests is listed in New Zealand has had a 7 per cent drop in share price in the past 12 months. Recently, copycat branding by Lion and Parmalat prompted consumer group Choice warn of spin, as is the milk is no different to before, and contains both proteins A1 and A2.Book Visualizing Data is my 2007 book about computational information design. It covers the path from raw data to how we understand it, detailing how to begin with a set of numbers and produce images or software that lets you view and interact with information. When first published, it was the only book(s) for people who wanted to learn how to actually build a data visualization in code. The text was published by O’Reilly in December 2007 and can be found at Amazon and elsewhere. Amazon also has an edition for the Kindle, for people who aren’t into the dead tree thing. (Proceeds from Amazon links found on this page are used to pay my web hosting bill.) Examples for the book can be found here. The book covers ideas found in my Ph.D. dissertation, which is the basis for Chapter 1. The next chapter is an extremely brief introduction to Processing, which is used for the examples. Next is (chapter 3) is a simple mapping project to place data points on a map of the United States. Of course, the idea is not that lots of people want to visualize data for each of 50 states. Instead, it’s a jumping off point for learning how to lay out data spatially. The chapters that follow cover six more projects, such as salary vs. performance (Chapter 5), zipdecode (Chapter 6), followed by more advanced topics dealing with trees, treemaps, hierarchies, and recursion (Chapter 7), plus graphs and networks (Chapter 8). This site is used for follow-up code and writing about related topics.George Pataki (Credit: CNBC) George Pataki: "The problem with the GOP is we question science everyone accepts," like vaccines and climate change The former New York governor attacked his own party's position on climate change and vaccines In the GOP undercard debate, former New York Governor George Pataki attacked his own party for "questioning positions everyone accepts." He complained that Republicans publicly doubt whether "putting CO2 into the atmosphere makes the Earth warmer. Does it? It's uncontroverted." Advertisement: "Part of the problem," he added, "is that Republicans think of climate change and think, 'Oh my god, we're going to have higher taxes, more Obama, more big government, the EPA shutting down factories!" "I want Republicans to embrace innovation and technology," Pataki explained. "There's one country in the world that has fewer greenhouse emissions than any other in the world, and you know who that is? The United States. They're lower than they were in 1995, not because of a government program, but because of fracking and coal plants." Whatever good will he had earned with environmentalists was likely lost by his last clause there, but unlike the men with whom he was sharing the state, he did at least try to pretend that he lives in the 21st Century. Watch the debate live via CNBC.On January 18, 2017, Scott Pruitt will go through confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill to become the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Donald Trump’s nominee to be head of the EPA. Scott Pruitt, has a long history of fighting the agency’s initiatives to provide vital protections for the long term health of the public. These environmental protections include reducing toxic environmental releases and overall improvement of air quality. Pruitt has spent years suing the EPA over climate change initiatives which include clean air initiatives, clean water initiatives, clean power initiatives, and other initiatives aimed at protecting the general public and the nation’s national parks. Pruitt has failed in many of challenges against the EPA, while several of his challenges against the EPA are still pending while he could be nominated to head of the EPA. Pruitt often worked in close relations with the oil and gas industry which has donated more than $300,000 to his political campaigns. The Timeline of Lawsuits Filed By Pruitt Against the EPA May of 2011, as Oklahoma’s Attorney General, Scott Pruitt sued the EPA to challenge its plans to reduce haze and pollution from coal burning power plants and other industrial sources to improve the ability of the public to see wilderness areas including the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. In May of 2014 the United States Supreme Court declined to review Pruitt’s challenge of the EPA’s initiatives. September of 2011, Pruitt’s state of Oklahoma challenged an EPA initiative which regulated power plant pollution that crosses state lines. In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the EPA’s cross state air pollution rule, which takes effect in May of 2017. July of 2013, Pruitt along with several of his associates, sued the EPA alleging the Freedom of Information Act was violated when the EPA denied to disclose information about its communications with environmental groups. Pruitt made claims that the EPA encourages lawsuits brought by non-profit environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, and WildEarth Guardians. Pruitt also claimed the EPA then settles the lawsuits without any powers given granted to it the agency by federal law. This lawsuit was dismissed by a district court judge in December of 2013. April of 2014, Pruitt sent correspondence to the EPA questioning its plans to regulate hydraulic fracturing. In the letter Pruitt stated, “I am concerned that this project is politically motivated and ignores the EPA’s three previous failed attempts to link hydraulic fracturing to water contamination, the U.S. Department of Energy has investigated hydraulic fracturing potential harm to water supplies and found no evidence linking the drilling technique to groundwater contamination.” August 2014, Pruitt joined in a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases. The lawsuit seeks to overturn a settlement where the EPA agreed to begin regulation of greenhouse gases as part of the Clean Air Act. July of 2015, Pruitt sued the EPA in a Tulsa, Oklahoma Federal Court over the agency’s plans to regulate pollution emitted from coal burning power plants. This lawsuit was later dismissed by the court. July of 2015, Pruitt also files a lawsuit in the Tulsa Federal Court challenging the EPA’s new initiatives to control pollution in waters regulated by the Clean Water Act. The court dismissed this lawsuit and an appeal is pending. October of 2015, Pruitt joined a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s Clean Power Plan initiatives just after the rules became effective. The rules require states cut in carbon emissions by 30% before 2030. This case is still pending. August of 2016, Pruitt joined in a lawsuit which challenged federal regulation for methane emissions by new equipment at natural gas and oil production locations. These rules are part of the agency’s plan to cut the methane emission by over 40% by 2025. Other Legal Efforts to Derail Public Safety and EPA Initiatives Pruitt also filed lawsuits against the EPA to block policies to decrease levels of toxic mercury, acid gases, and arsenic emissions from power plants although most facilities were on track to comply with the proposed regulations. Mercury is known by scientists to have a serious negative impact on the brain development of children. Pruitt’s views on asbestos containing products and their environmental exposure are not yet known. However President-Elect Donald Trump has made his favorable views on the toxic substance public since speaking in a tweet in 2012 that the twin towers would not have burned down had asbestos been allowed to be used in the construction of the twin towers. Trump’s tweet caused controversy with the first responders to the 9/11 attack being exposed to clouds af asbestos fibers and continuing to come down with asbestos related lung cancers and mesothelioma from their exposure to the toxic mineral. Comparing it to other materials Trump argued asbestos is “like a heavyweight champion against a lightweight from high school.” Scott Pruitt’s nomination to head the EPA is an overall conflict of interests with the entire point of the agency and health of the public who have already been through enough with toxic exposures in the environment.Story highlights Trump on Wednesday declined to say that he would accept the results of the election Obama also used the opportunity while in Florida to weigh in on the close Senate race Miami (CNN) President Barack Obama admonished Donald Trump Thursday, saying the Republican nominee's claims that he might not accept the results of next month's election are "not a joking matter." "I want everybody to pay attention here. This is dangerous," Obama said at a Hillary for America event in Miami Gardens, Florida. "Because when you try to sow the seeds of doubt in people's mind about the legitimacy of our elections, that undermines our democracy. Then you are doing the work of our adversaries for them." Obama also encouraged the crowd of about 1,800 at Florida Memorial University to take advantage of Florida's early voting, telling the audience in doing so they can reject what the President called Trump's "dark, pessimistic fear-mongering." "Our democracy depends on people knowing that their vote matters. That those who occupy the seats of power were chosen by the people," Obama said. Read MoreTrump says assault weapons needed for protection CLOSE Trump said the U.S. needs to suspend immigration from countries with a history of terrorism in response to the man who pledged allegiance to ISIS before attacking an Orlando nightclub. Donald Trump said he owes his changed stance on the assault weapons ban to the nation's need for protection. “I changed positions because we need protection in this country. We need protection. We have to have protection,” Trump said on CBS This Morning Monday. “And the bad guys have them, so if the bad guys have them, we need protection in this country.” The presumptive GOP nominee recently flipped his position on the assault weapons ban. (“I don’t support it anymore,” he said in March.) In Trump’s 2000 book, The America We Deserve, he said: "I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun." Trump's comments come one day after a heavily armed assailant killed 49 people and injured dozens more in a gay nightclub in Orlando.The shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before the shooting. On CNN New Day Monday morning Trump said the tragedy would have been mitigated if people had their own guns with them at the club. "If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, if you had guns on the other side, you wouldn't have had the tragedy that you had. If people in that room had guns with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at him right at his head, you wouldn't have had the same tragedy that you ended up having," Trump said. "Even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist, where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn't have had the same kind of a tragedy.” Clinton, also on New Day Monday, struck the opposite tone on the ban. "First of all, Florida doesn't regulate assault weapons or.50 caliber rifles or large-capacity ammunition magazines. It doesn't require a permit to purchase a gun. It doesn't require any registration, whatsoever. It doesn't require gun owners to be licensed. And it doesn't require a permit to carry a shotgun or a rifle. It doesn't even require a background check prior to the transfer of a firearm between, you know, non-federally licensed parties," Clinton said. "Now, you know, that's a lot of nots. And you know, I believe strongly that common sense gun safety reform across our country would make a difference." Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1tm43cyI've always been fascinated by debugging tools; tools that help you understand what's going on in your code. In the Symfony world, the web debug toolbar and the web profiler are tools that gives a lot of information about HTTP request/response pairs (from exceptions to logs, submitted forms and even an event timeline), but it's only available in development mode as enabling those features in production would have a too significant performance impact. The Symfony profiler is also more about giving metadata about the code execution and less about what is executed. If you want to understand which part of your code is executed for any given request, and where the server resources are spent, you need special tools; tools that instrument your code at the C level. The oldest tool able to do that is XDebug and a few years ago, Facebook also open-sourced XHProf. Both XDebug (as a profiler) and XHProf are profilers; they are able to answer a lot of questions you might have about the performance of your code, and they can help you understand why your code is slow. But even if tools are available, performance monitoring in the PHP world is not that widespread. You are probably writing unit tests for your applications to ensure that you don't accidentally deploy broken features and to avoid regressions when you are fixing bugs. But what about performance? A broken page is a problem, but what about a page that takes seconds to display? Less performance means less business. So, continuously testing the performance of your applications should be a critical part of your development workflow. Enter Blackfire. Blackfire is a PHP profiler that simplifies the profiling of an app as much as possible. The first big difference with existing tools is the installation process; we've made it straightforward by providing easy-to-follow instructions for a lot of different platforms and Blackfire is even included by default on some major PHP cloud providers. Once installed, profiling an HTTP request is as easy as it can get: use the Google Chrome extension to profile web pages from your browser, or use the command line tool to profile web services, APIs, PHP CLI scripts, or even long-running scripts like daemons or workers. The other major difference with the other existing tools comes from the fact that Blackfire is a SaaS product. It let us do a lot of things that would not be possible otherwise like storing the history of your profiles, making comparisons between two profiles really easy or providing a rich and interactive UI that evolves on a day-to-day basis. If you've used XHProf in the past, you might wonder if it would make sense for you to upgrade to Blackfire. First, and unlike a popular belief, the current Blackfire PHP extension is not based on the XHProf code anymore. Starting from scratch helped us lower the overhead and structure the code for extensibility. Then, and besides the "better experience", Blackfire offers some unique features like: Profile your applications without changing a single line of code; Easily focus on code you need to optimize thanks to more accurate results, aggregation, and smart cleaning of data; More information about CPU time and I/O time; No performance impact on the production servers when not using the profiler; SQL statements and HTTP calls extraction; Team profiling; Profile sharing an API; Garbage collector information; The soon-to-be-announced Windows support; And much more... We are very active on our blog where you can learn more about the great features we are providing for developers and companies. Blackfire has been in public beta for four months now and the response has been amazing so far. More than 20.000 developers have already signed up. You can read some user feedback on our Twitter account, and some of them even wrote about their experience on the Blackfire blog: I recommend the article from ownCloud as they did a lot of performance tweaks to make their code run faster thanks to Blackfire. My mission with Blackfire is to give developers the best possible profiler for their applications. Try it out today for free and tell me what you think!House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro PelosiHouse to push back at Trump on border Governors bullish on infrastructure after Trump talks Pelosi attends signing of New York's new'red flag' gun control bill MORE (D-Calif.) on Sunday responded to Rep. John Conyers John James ConyersDemocrats seek cosponsors for new 'Medicare for all' bill Virginia scandals pit Democrats against themselves and their message Women's March plans 'Medicare for All' day of lobbying in DC MORE Jr.'s (D-Mich.) announcement that he will step aside as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee pending an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations, saying an individual's legacy "is not a license for harassment." “Zero tolerance means consequences. I have asked for an ethics investigation, and as that investigation continues, Congressman Conyers has agreed to step aside as Ranking Member,” Pelosi said in a statement. “As a woman and mother of four daughters, I particularly take any accusation of sexual harassment very seriously. Any credible accusation must be reviewed by the Ethics Committee expeditiously,” she continued. “We are at a watershed moment on this issue, and no matter how great an individual’s legacy, it is not a license for harassment. I commend the brave women coming forward.” Conyers announced earlier Sunday he is stepping aside as the committee's ranking member after allegations of sexual harassment. He denied allegations of sexual misconduct, including claims from former staffers that he made unwanted sexual advances. Conyers admitted last week that he settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former staffer who alleged she was fired because she would not "succumb to [his] sexual advances." During an appearance just hours earlier on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Pelosi said Conyers is an “icon” who deserves due process. Asked if she believed Conyers’s accusers, Pelosi responded, “I don’t know who they are," adding that they hadn't come forward.Move comes as African heads of state try to convince Yahya Jammeh to relinquish power after losing presidential election Yahya Jammeh, the autocratic ruler of the Gambia, has moved to resist his presidential election defeat, sending armed soldiers to take control of the electoral commission headquarters and filing a petition to the supreme court as a delegation of African leaders urged him to stand down. The petition said the electoral commission had “failed to properly collate the results” of the election, which Jammeh lost to challenger Adama Barrow. It came after the president of the electoral commission was thrown out of his office shortly before the leaders’ delegation arrived in the country. “I got there by quarter to eight and when I was going up to my office, one of the cleaners told me they were not allowed in,” Alieu Njie told the Guardian. “I went to my office and a military man came and said I was not allowed to touch anything, so I took my briefcase, got into my car and went home. “Let’s just hope and pray that now these heads of state are here President Jammeh will decide to step down. The only legal way is for him to step down.” The Gambia's president urged to accept defeat by new government Read more Making up the most important delegation ever to descend on the Gambia, the presidents of Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana flew in on Tuesday to meet Jammeh, who has ruled an increasingly isolated nation for 22 years and last week vowed to stay on despite losing the presidential election. Asked if Jammeh had been receptive after their hour-long closed-doors meeting, the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, said that no deal had been reached. “We come to help Gambians find their way through a transition. That’s not something that can happen in one day. It’s something that one has to work on.” Sirleaf said that Jammeh had assured the delegation that “peace and stability will remain in the Gambia, as the transition process proceeds to a conclusion”. Until now, Jammeh has refused to see dignitaries who have come to the Gambia to try to mediate between him and president-elect Barrow, a former estate agent who led a coalition of eight opposition parties to defeat Jammeh, sparking celebrations in the west African country. Jammeh surprised many when he initially accepted defeat in a televised call to Barrow on 2 December but he made an extraordinary televised U-turn, in which he said that the election had been “fraudulent and unacceptable”, and then deployed extra troops on the streets. Adama Barrow, the president-elect, told the Guardian he was “not so disappointed” that there was no deal yet. “These are very important heads of state from Africa, and in their countries they will always accept the will of the people. I think he will listen to them,” he said. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Gambian president-elect Adama Barrow in Banjul. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters “The best thing is for [Jammeh] is to accept the reality – that he has lost the elections.” On Monday, the chairman of the regional west African organisation the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) said that if persuasion did not work, it would consider sending in the military. “We have to use persuasion to get Mr Jammeh to respect the principles,” Marcel de Souza told RFI. “After that, we will see about putting on pressure via the UN security council, the AU [African Union] and Ecowas in order to avoid conflict. “And if none of that works, we will consider more draconian options. We have done it in the past. We currently have troops in Guinea-Bissau. We have had troops in Mali. And therefore it is a conceivable solution.” Sirleaf did not respond to questions about a possible military intervention, saying only: “We hope that the will of the people will prevail.” Although the country’s chief of defence staff, Ousman Badjie, said last week he would support Barrow, he told the Guardian on Tuesday that Jammeh paid his salary, so he had the backing of the armed forces. “I’m supporting the commander-in-chief of the Republic of the Gambia – of the Islamic Republic of the Gambia – whosoever it may be,” he said. “My job is security, to make sure this country is peaceful and is secure, that is my primary role and that is what I’m paid for. As we speak now, I’m paid by the government of the day, that is Yahya Jammeh’s government. He’s my commander-in-chief as we speak now. I have only one commander-in-chief as we speak.” Hamat Bah, one of the party leaders in Barrow’s coalition, said he thought Buhari had the best chance of changing Jammeh’s mind, as he was a military man. “Remember, President Buhari is from the military. Jammeh is from the military. I think that will make a difference,” he said."We can't use standard political methods, I promise you," says John McAfee, antivirus software pioneer and seeker of the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, sitting next to me on a couch at the Phoenix Bar in Las Vegas, shortly after the Libertarian Party presidential debate there on Monday. Then he adds: "I don't do things I can't win. I win, I promise you. I know that sounds insane. He doesn't believe it!" McAfee says of his running mate, Judd Weiss, sitting on the next couch. (Weiss made an early fortune in his 20s brokering commercial real estate deals, and now as an avocation has made himself the libertarian movement's semi-official glamour photographer) Weiss had been telling me about the spirit behind a series of somewhat abstract, non-policy videos he'd been making to promote the McAfee/Weiss campaigns. Their purpose, Weiss says, is to make voting third party not something that made you strange or pointless, but a leader, a "hero, the idea was—be a hero, change the world, vote different. I'm trying to glorify," Weiss says, "not debating or arguing. That's also what I do with my photos [of libertarians and libertarian world events]." "We should give up and go home if we're conventional," Weiss says. McAfee hearkens back to one of his comments in the debate. "I'm not joking about running naked in the streets with signs. I will do that shit. I have the ability to sound sane in a suit right after that." Such moves "soften them to listen to what you're saying, that's all it is." McAfee perhaps sees doubt in my eyes. "Don't discount us!" He says sharply. "I'm not doing this to make a fucking statement. I do not have the time! How old are you?" "I'm 47." "I'm 70! You can do anything you want to waste time. I can't. I'm doing this to change the country that I love as much as I love myself. So you can believe it. I don't give a shit or not whether you believe it! It's whether I live it. And I live it, I have lived it my entire life." McAfee gets reflective. "It suddenly became clear to me [last September]: I could become president. Do I want that? Not really. Would it help me? I don't know. Will it help the country I love? Yes, and here we are. People ask, 'How are you gonna do that?' and I don't have a fucking clue. I just know I will." He goes on to tell the story of how he was slammed by Gizmodo for lying about having his people crack WhatsApp's encryption, and how the resulting bad press made the board of directors of a company he'd just been named CEO of, MGT Capital Investments, pressure him to recant. He refused, and despite this the stock price kept going up. Why? All the bad press, he insists, made people start reading more about this crazy man and his company and decide "I don't know if he's crazy or not, but he will make money, we'd better bet on him." "I must have gotten 100 Twitter messages telling me 'I'm going to abandon your stock after reading Gizmodo but then I spent 12 hours researching you and threw another million into your stock.' That's why the stock went up." When a crisis is erupting around you in public, he explains, you do not want to quickly put the fire out; you let it blaze until "every newspaper on earth has called me a liar. Then you have power! Then you can say, you are all fucking watching, aren't you? Let me tell you what the truth is....I have learned one thing in life: there is no such thing as bad press. There is not. That's a fundamental truth. The more bad things said about you the more power they give to you. If you own whatever truth there is. Sometimes there's nothing but truth, and sometimes there's nothing but lies." But the end of that story, to McAfee, is the stock rise of MGT Capital Investments immediately thereafter. (Yesterday it took a big tumble.) The lesson we should learn? "I can sure as fuck make money and I can sure as fuck win this election. I'm not trying to convince you. In six months you'll be saying, 'I had no clue,' I promise you." He looks at Weiss again. "You don't believe it, but give yourself some time. He's more conservative than me." Weiss concurs. "I would love it, but I don't believe it. I share his vision but I don't necessarily believe in the White House [as a sure thing]." "The beauty of knowing yourself," McAfee avers, "is nobody else has to." Weiss goes on to explain part of the plan to get into the debates if McAfee wins the nomination is to "make him such a figurehead of media and such a part of pop culture that the public will not watch a debate without John McAfee. I believe a rock star like him is capable of pulling it off. And Gary Johnson...." Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and apparent frontrunner for the L.P. nomination, has made it plain he thinks the L.P. won't succeed if he can't get in the debate. "The problem with Gary Johnson," Weiss continues, "it's not about baking Nazi cakes, the problem is he's boring as fuck, super awkward and no one is excited about him, not even his own supporters." Weiss stresses he loved and supported Johnson in 2012, hosted two fundraisers for him in his Bel Air home at great expense, though he was embarrassed by the "Gary Gets It" slogan. McAfee interjects: "I have no problem with Gary Johnson on any political issue...." "I'd be happy to live in Garyland," Weiss adds. "Here's the problem," McAfee offers. "America does not want an exemplary character. They don't. We know this for a fact. They want someone over the top. Someone who has real balls and real experience. Donald Trump has experience only up here, all right, sitting in an executive's chair. I have real fucking experience and real experience including bullets flying over your head teaches you more than any doctoral degree or political experience." "The beauty of insanity," McAfee continues, "is that they don't have to like you. They will come and listen to you. I have more trolls than supporters on all my sites, all it does is creates a character. Every last word said about me..." Weiss explains: "Outrage isn't a problem for Bernie, or for Trump. Apathy is the problem. If Bernie had played it safe, he'd be nowhere. If Trump had played it safe, nowhere. If we play it safe we might as well go home. We are going to do things that are not OK. I mean, OK by libertarian standards, but we hope to create enough outrage to generate real protests...." McAfee leans over me to touch Weiss. "By the way, to be very honest, my biggest problem is Judd as vice president. I'm gonna have to polish your ass. Right now I follow your orders, but after this nomination you have to follow mine. I'm gonna polish your ass a little bit, OK?" Weiss doesn't seem at all offended. "Will McAfee turn off certain people? Sure. We're not going after midwestern housewives. We're trying to create something more exciting." He thinks that the arty end of Bernie fans—not the hard-left economics types but the artists, the festival scene—might find McAfee an appealing option. McAfee says all the millennials he meets consider him a fount of strange wisdom. Weiss assures me that like everything he's done, he will run this campaign "to the edge of my abilities" and try to take the liberty movement as far as it can go. "After I announced my candidacy," McAfee says, "and Gary stepped in, I thought: 'What alternate universe are you from, Gary? You have no idea. You clearly didn't research me.' Because, I even consider Darryl Perry [a hardcore anarchist seeking the L.P. nomination, who refuses to file papers with the Federal Elections Commission or take donations in anything but hard money or altcoins], I consider him a viable opponent because the fucker is smart as hell and has this presence and charisma while debating, and that shit's important! He just needs to be crazier, Darryl. "But Johnson? I mean, I google Johnson, and what did I miss? What did I miss about Johnson that he has any concept that he can beat me? What did I miss?"Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows his identification during registering his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections at the Interior Ministry in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 12, 2017. Ahmadinejad on Wednesday unexpectedly filed to run in the country's May presidential election, contradicting a recommendation from the supreme leader to stay out of the race. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi) TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Stunning Iran and disregarding the words of its supreme leader, former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered Wednesday to run in the country’s May presidential election and upended a contest largely expected to be won by its moderate incumbent. Though Ahmadinejad still might not be approved for the ballot by Iran’s clerically overseen government, merely the mention of the Holocaust-questioning populist might energize discontent hard-liners who want a Persian answer to U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahmadinejad’s candidacy also comes as Trump has threatened a reappraisal of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and as fissures still linger inside Iran after his contested 2009 re-election, which brought massive unrest. Associated Press journalists watched as stunned election officials processed Ahmadinejad’s paperwork on Wednesday. Asked about Ahmadinejad’s decision, one Tehran-based analyst offered a blunt assessment. “It was an organized mutiny against Iran’s ruling system,” said Soroush Farhadian, who backs reformists. Ever the showman, a smiling Ahmadinejad made “V for Victory” hand signals and walked his former Vice President Hamid Baghaei through the process of registering first. Just when it appeared Ahmadinejad would be leaving, he turned around and returned to the Interior Ministry’s registration desk, pulling out his identification documents with a flourish in front of a melee of shouting journalists. Ahmadinejad’s decision shocked Iran as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered a thinly veiled warning in September that his candidacy would be a “polarized situation” that would be “harmful for the county.” That referenced Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009, which sparked massive protests and a sweeping crackdown in which thousands of people were detained and dozens were killed. Ahmadinejad on Wednesday described comments by the supreme leader as “just advice” in a news conference shortly after submitting his registration. “His advice does not prevent me from running,” he said. “There is extensive pressure on me from dear people of different walks of life as their small servant to come to the election.” There was no immediate reaction from the supreme leader’s office. While Khamenei has final say on all state matters, Ahmadinejad’s relationship with him had strained by the end of his time in power. “It’s in clear defiance of what the supreme leader had stated very openly and very publicly,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “What Ahmadinejad has done is quite crushing... but he also had a habit of doing this while he was president in his second term.” Ahmadinejad previously served two four-year terms from 2005 to 2013. Under Iranian law, he became eligible to run again after four years out of office, but he remains a polarizing figure, even among fellow hard-liners. Corruption allegations surrounded Ahmadinejad’s presidency and two of his former vice presidents were jailed, including Baghaei. Iran’s economy also suffered under heavy international sanctions during his administration because of Western suspicions that Tehran was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Internationally, Ahmadinejad also remains known for repeatedly questioning the scale of the Holocaust and predicting Israel’s demise. Ahmadinejad does, however, maintain popularity among the poor for his populist policies and subsidies he offered while in office. More than 280 people have filed as possible candidates since registration began Tuesday, including 13 women. Registration remains open until Saturday. Under Iran’s electoral system, all applicants must be vetted by the Guardian Council, a clerical body that will announce a final list of candidates by April 27. The council normally does not approve dissidents or women for the formal candidate list. Ahmadinejad’s candidacy may be a stunt to ensure at least one of his acolytes makes the cut. Ahmadine
10%. Frostscythe (Talent) damage increased by 13%. Frozen Pulse (Talent) damage increased by 11%. Breath of Sindragosa (Talent) damage increased by 17%. Demon Hunter Havoc Throw Glaive damage reduced by 30%. Fel Mastery (Talent) damage bonus to Fel Rush reduced to 30%. Bloodlet (Talent) now deals 100% of initial Throw Glaive damage. Fury of the Illidari (Artifact Ability) damage reduced by 20%. Note: See below for for additional PvP tuning adjustments to Fury of the Illidari. Balanced Blades (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Blade Dance reduced to 3% per target. Vengeance Mastery now provides 50% less damage reduction per point. Demon Spikes damage reduction increased to 20%. Note: Gearing heavily for Mastery was allowing Vengeance Demon Hunters to reach excessively high levels of Physical damage reduction. We’re reducing the top-end potential of this effect somewhat, and bringing up the baseline. This should also cause the value of Mastery to be more in line with other stats. Druid Moonfire (non-Feral) damage increased by 10%. Balance Sunfire damage increased by 10%. Starfall damage increased by 10%. Lunar Strike damage increased by 5%. Solar Wrath damage increased by 5%. Mage Arcane Mastery effects increased by 20%. Arcane Missiles damage increased by 9%. Arcane Blast damage increased by 10%. Frost Frostbolt damage increased by 8%. Ice Lance damage increased by 13%. Flurry damage increased by 38%. Blizzard damage increased by 36%, and mana cost reduced by 50%. Splitting Ice (Talent) now causes 80% of normal damage (up from 50%). Ice Nova (Talent) damage increased by 13%. Ray of Frost (Talent) damage increased by 28%. Glacial Spike (Talent) damage increased by 15%. Hunter Barrage (non-Survival) damage reduced by 20%. Beast Mastery Bestial Wrath damage bonus increased to 25%. Survival Flanking Strike damage increased by 62%. Monk Mistweaver Spinning Crane Kick (Mistweaver) damage reduced by 25%. Paladin Retribution Templar’s Verdict damage increased by 10%. Divine Storm damage increased by 20%. Crusader Strike (Retribution) damage increased by 13%. Blade of Justice damage increased by 13%. Judgment (Retribution) damage increased by 13%. Zeal (Talent) damage increased by 13%. Blade of Wrath (Talent) damage increased by 13%. Priest Holy Holy Nova damage reduced by 16%. Shadow Mind Sear damage and Insanity generation increased by 50%. Voidform stacks no longer increase while Dispersion and Void Torrent are active. Note: These abilities prevent Insanity drain from increasing while active, which effectively reduces the Insanity drain for the entire remainder the current Voidform. This was proving to be too powerful, so we’re now making sure that the damage bonus and Insanity drain from Voidform remain in sync. The benefit of Mass Hysteria (Artifact Trait) is now capped at 100%. Note: We want it to be rewarding when you’re able to maintain Surrender to Madness for an extremely long time, but the amount of damage this trait was contributing in those circumstances was excessive. Rogue Death From Above (Talent) area damage increased by 100%. Assassination Deadly Poison damage increased by 30%. Fan of Knives damage increased by 30%. Bag of Tricks (Artifact Trait) duration reduced to 3 seconds (overall damage unchanged), radius increased to 6 yards (from 3), and now benefits from Mastery. Poison Knives (Artifact Trait) no longer benefits twitch from Mastery. Damage per point increased to 4%. Outlaw Fatebringer (Artifact Trait) Energy cost reduction reduced to 3 per rank. Fate’s Thirst (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Run Through reduced to 6% per rank. Black Powder (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Between the Eyes reduced to 6% per rank. Subtlety Eviscerate damage increased by 15%. Nightblade damage increased by 15%. Note: See below for additional PvP tuning adjustments to Eviscerate and Nightblade. Shuriken Storm damage increased by 30%. Second Shuriken (Artifact Trait) chance to activate increased to 30% (was 10%), damage increased by 30%, and now deals 200% additional damage while Stealth or Shadow Dance is active. Shaman Elemental Mastery effects increased by 12.5%. Chain Lightning Maelstrom generation increased to 6. Lightning Bolt (Elemental) damage increased by 23%. Chain Lightning (Elemental) damage increased by 23%. Lava Burst damage increased by 5%. Storm Elemental (Talent)’s Call Lightning and Wind Gust damage increased by 20%. Enhancement Fixed a bug that gave offhand special attacks a 100% chance to activate Windfury while Doom Winds was active. Windfury activation chance increased to 20%. Note: We’re fixing a bug that added multiple extra Windfury procs to each activation of Doom Winds, but adding some Windfury procs back by increasing the baseline activation chance. This should also improve Maelstrom generation outside of Doom Winds. Restoration Chain Lightning (Restoration) damage increased by 23%. Warlock Affliction Drain Life damage increased by 10% Drain Soul damage increased by 10% Corruption damage increased by 10% Agony damage increased by 5% Unstable Affliction damage increased by 15% Seed of Corruption damage increased by 15% Siphon Life (Talent) damage increased by 10% Haunt (Talent) damage increased by 15% Phantom Singularity (Talent) damage increased by 15% Demonology Hand of Gul’dan impact damage increased by 20% Demonwrath damage increased by 15% Shadowbolt damage increased by 10% Doom damage increased by 10% Wild Imps damage increased by 10% Dreadstalker attack power increased by 10% Felguard attack power increased by 10% Doomguard (Demonology)’s Doom Bolt damage increased by 18% Demonbolt (Talent) damage increased by 10% Implosion (Talent) damage increased by 15% Shadowflame (Talent) damage increased by 10% Darkglare (Talent) damage increased by 10% Destruction Chaos Bolt damage increased by 11% Incinerate damage increased by 11% Immolate damage increased by 11% Conflagrate damage increased by 11% Rain of Fire damage increased by 11%, and cast time removed Cataclysm (Talent) damage increased by 11% Channel Demonfire (Talent) damage increased by 11% Warrior Arms Exploit the Weakness (Artifact Trait) bonus reduced to 3% per point. Focused Rage (Talent) damage bonus reduced to 30%. Fury Rampage damage increased by 12%. Bloodthirst damage increased by 12%. Raging Blow damage increased by 5%. Furious Slash damage increased by 5%. Execute (Fury) damage increased by 5%. Protection Vengeance (Talent) Rage cost reduction reduced to 35%. Intercept Rage generation reduced to 10. Shield Slam Rage generation reduced to 10. PvP Developers’ Notes: While many of the above changes are beneficial for PvP, some specs need additional tuning for PvP situations. Some of the PvP- specific changes we’re making are intended to counteract the above, while others are simply intended to help overall PvP balance. Battlegrounds Tank-specialized characters no longer take additional damage while carrying a flag. Death Knight Blood Consumption (Artifact Ability)’s healing is no longer reduced in PvP. Death Strike now factors in 50% of recent damage taken from players when determining it’s healing amount (previously, it ignored damage taken from players). Demon Hunter Havoc Fury of the Illidari (Artifact Ability) damage is now reduced by 10% in PvP (up from a 30% reduction). Vengeance Soul Cleave’s heal is no longer reduced in PvP. Druid Restoration Lifebloom’s bloom effect increased by 50% in PvP. Critical Strike stat reduced by 50%. Haste stat increased by 50%. Guardian Frenzied Regeneration now factors in 50% of recent damage taken from players when determining it’s healing amount (previously, it ignored damage taken from players). Hunter Survival Mongoose Fury now increases the damage of Mongoose Bite by 35% per stack in PvP (up from 25% per stack). Beast Mastery Agility stat reduced by 10%. Mage Frost Frostbolt now reduces movement speed by 50%. Frostbolt damage is now increased by 10% in PvP (down from 20%). Fire World in Flames (Honor Talent)’s reduction to Flamestrike’s cast time reduced to 2 seconds. Monk Mistweaver Counteract Magic (Honor Talent) bonus to Renewing Mist reduced to 150%. Windwalker Strike of the Windlord (Artifact Ability) damage is now reduced by 30% in PvP (up from 50%). Agility stat increased by 12%. Paladin Retribution Strength stat reduced by 5%. Protection Light of the Protector and Hand of the Protector healing is now reduced by 15% in PvP (up from 50%). Priest Discipline Atonement healing is now increased by 15% in PvP (down from 25%). Holy Apotheosis can no longer be dispelled. Rogue Outlaw Control is King (Honor Talent) duration reduced to 3 seconds. Between the Eyes’ damage bonus on Critical Strikes reduced to 100% in PvP (down from 200%). Subtlety Eviscerate now deals 15% less damage in PvP. Nightblade now deals 15% less damage in PvP. Warrior Arms Echo Slam (Honor Talent) damage reduced to 5% of the target’s total health. Fury Bloodthirst’s heal is no longer reduced in PvP. Protection Ignore Pain’s maximum absorb amount is no longer reduced in PvP. (Note: the effect of each Ignore Pain is still reduced by 20% in PvP) Honor System The Honor system reward Glory of the Melee now rewards 500 Artifact Power (was 150). World PvP Warden Tower World Quests now grant 150 honor (was 300). Warden Tower World Quests now appear three times per day, and each quest is available for 24 hours. Class Halls Druids with the Evergreen perk should no longer have their planted soils reset after entering an Arena match. The Soul Reapers tooltip for the Shadow Heresy talent is no longer incorrect. Dungeons and Raids Emerald Nightmare Fixed a bug where players would fall to their death when jumping into the Rift of Aln while mounted. Warlocks will now be able to target their Soul Effigies when fighting Il’gynoth inside the heart chamber. Ursoc no longer causes players to stand up (and interrupt their eating/drinking) when he respawns. The Arcway Enemy Forces will remain in The Arcway after players have defeated Advisor Vandros. Tome of Hex: Spider should now only drop for Shaman when defeating Nal’tira. Maw of Souls Players should no longer become stuck inside the cages they’re placed in after defeating Ymiron. Items Damage from Potion of the Old War and Potion of Deadly Grace reduced by 33%. Developers’ Notes: Previously, we significantly buffed the damage of these potions, but then discovered some bugs that were significantly reducing their effective damage. Now that those bugs have been fixed, their damage contribution is much too high. They should still feel very rewarding to use, but we’re bringing them back down to Earth a little. Fixed a bug that was causing Balance Druids to sometimes engage enemies from unintended great distances with damaging trinket procs. The Grove Darkener’s Treads should now switch from Intellect to Agility based on your spec. Professions It should now be possible to reach skill 800 in Blacksmithing. Cooking Rank 1 of Hearty Feast should now reward one feast instead of five. Subsequent ranks reward a cost reduction, rather than additional food. Demon Hunters should now get appropriate stats from feasts and other similar sources of buffs. Quests In the Withered Army Training scenario, it should be less likely for Leystalker Dro to be hiding somewhere that he wouldn’t normally be encountered by clearing the room. A new Archaeology Quests aura is now displayed while you’re on an Archaeology quest in your current zone. Developers’ Notes: This is to make sure you’re aware of how many days you have left to complete a large Archaeology project before it expires. We’re investigating ways to provide this in the quest tracker and quest log. Aodh Witherpetal will no longer become stuck during “DANGER: Aodh Witherpetal”.PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Portland woman and her husband were kicked off of a flight from Baltimore to Seattle over the weekend, according to Alaska Airlines. It happened after the woman demanded the man sitting next to her be moved to a different seat because he supported President Trump. That passenger, Scott Koteskey, said he’d been in Washington D.C. to attended the presidential Inauguration. Before the plane took off, he recorded part of the confrontation with the woman on his cell phone, which he said started the moment he sat down. “She just came at me swinging, with insults, disparaging me for having voted for ‘that man,’” Koteskey told Inside Edition. His cell phone video shows the woman—who said she was trying to get home to Portland—ranting at Koteskey. Posted by Scott Koteskey on Saturday, January 21, 2017 “You pretend to have the moral high ground but you put that man's finger on the nuclear button,” the woman told Koteskey. “That man doesn't believe in climate change. Do you believe in gravity?” Sign up for the daily 3 Things to Know Newsletter Thank You Something went wrong. This email will be delivered to your inbox once a day in the morning. Thank you for signing up for the 3 things to Know Newsletter Please try again later. Submit A flight attendant walked over and asked the woman if there was going to be a problem. “There will be,” she replied. “I would like for him to change seats with someone else...There is no way I'm getting off this plane." Eventually, the woman and her husband were both escorted off the plane by police as several passengers applauded and chanted "USA!" In a statement to KGW, an Alaska Airlines representative wrote: “The female passenger was insulting passengers in the boarding area and then onboard the aircraft. Several passengers expressed concerns about her behavior. We stand by our employees’ decision to remove the disruptive passenger.” Writing about the experience on his Facebook page, Koteskey described what happened after police removed the woman from the plane: “As the lady was removed I saw that I was surrounded by blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites, all who had chimed in asking her to be removed and who had defended me. I was touched and moved knowing later that not all these people were Trump supporters. The black man who took the seat next to me was a registered Democrat and he and I had a very good discussion about the beauty of free speech and coming together when people insult and commit acts of violence just for having differing views.” Koteskey concluded that the experience had been a demonstration of Americans coming together to stand up for one another.A proposed "bathroom bill" in Texas that would target transgender individuals could potentially jeopardize future Super Bowls or NFL events from being awarded to the state if it became law. "The NFL embraces inclusiveness," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement in response to a question about the proposed legislation. "We want all fans to feel welcomed at our events and NFL policies prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other improper standard. "If a proposal that is discriminatory or inconsistent with our values were to become law there, that would certainly be a factor considered when thinking about awarding future events." Under Texas Senate Bill 6, people would be required to use bathrooms that correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificates. The bill is similar to a law that was enacted in North Carolina last year. The NFL just wrapped up Super Bowl LI in Houston on Sunday, and the locations of the next four Super Bowls have already been awarded (Minneapolis, Atlanta, South Florida, Los Angeles). Texas has hosted three Super Bowls since 2004. Shortly after the NFL's statement was released, a spokesman with Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick's office told the Associated Press that the proposed bill doesn't conflict with the league's statement. "Despite persistent misinformation in the media, under Senate Bill 6, all Texas teams will be able to set their own policies at the stadiums and arenas where they play and hold their events. There is no conflict with the NFL's statement today and Senate Bill 6," Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia said.In the end, there was a satisfactory outcome for Manchester City, and Roberto Mancini will hope it is the same tomorrow when he is due to meet Carlos Tevez for the first time since the Argentinian went public with his wish for a transfer. Before heading for the airport the City manager confirmed Tevez would play against Everton on Monday. "Why not?" he asked. Mancini also made it clear that he would seek a swift conclusion to the dispute with City's leading scorer, though he will be praying he is back in time for the meeting after the team's plane was stranded in Turin last night. "It's important we finish it quickly," he said. "I haven't had this situation before but it could happen at any club, in England or Italy, and I want to speak to him to understand what he wants to do. We do not want it to continue like this and I think this can finish in the next two days." It promises to be a challenging 48 hours but Mancini was a happy man as he left the Stadio Olimpico, threatening to strike one journalist with his microphone when the subject returned to Tevez, and proclaiming his satisfaction with his team's performance. Jô's 77th-minute equaliser ensures they qualify for the next stage as group winners – an achievement that, in theory, should carry its rewards when the draw is made in Switzerland tomorrow. Niccolò Giannetti's goal, late in the first half, had opened up the possibility that Mancini's team could finish as runners-up to Lech Poznan and potentially face one of the four stronger teams to drop down from the Champions League. Yet City's travelling supporters were rewarded for braving the sub-zero temperatures when Jô scored with a clinical left-foot drive from Adam Johnson's pass. The Brazilian seemed to have already scored what should have been a legitimate equaliser only for his close-range effort to be disallowed for offside and, in terms of creating chances, the draw was the least that City deserved on a night when there were vast expanses of empty seats inside this old stadium and little to remind us why Juventus are one of the great names of European football. There was also another demonstration of some of the most disreputable aspects of Italian football culture when a section of fans aimed monkey noises at Patrick Vieira, a returning former Juventus player. Tevez was absent here because City had qualified and Mancini had decided to leave most of his first-team picks in Manchester. This was an evening for experimentation, with Micah Richards captaining the side, Shay Given recalled in place of Joe Hart and a frontline of Jô and Alex Nimely, a 19-year-old making his first start. City had the more penetrative edge in the opening exchanges, Richards close to setting up Jô inside the first minute and Alex Manninger, with a full-length save, preventing Mohamed Sissoko from scoring an own goal. Yet City still had to cope with the enduring quality of Alessandro Del Piero and, shortly before half-time, this wonderfully talented footballer, now 36, evaded Richards inside the penalty area. His low cross picked out Giannetti, darting in front of Dedryck Boyata to divert the ball past Given with a clever finish off the outside of his boot. There were long spells, though, when Juventus seemed to be merely going through the motions and City were the stronger side for the last halfhour. As well as Jô's disallowed goal, Mancini was convinced they should have been awarded a penalty when a Shaun Wright-Phillips shot struck the defender Giorgio Chiellini's arm. Shortly afterwards Johnson, increasingly prominent as the game wore on, slipped a pass into Jô and the striker took one touch to open an angle for himself to drive a low shot into the bottom left corner of Manninger's goal. "We want to go all the way," Mancini said afterwards – and that means with Tevez.MOSCOW/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia and NATO are drawing up plans for a rare joint naval operation in the Mediterranean to protect the U.S. ship that will destroy Syria’s deadliest chemical weapons, officials and other sources said. A U.S army personnel walks past U.S. MV Cape Ray docked at the naval airbase in Rota, near Cadiz, southern Spain, in this February 13, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Jon Nazca/Files The operation would be a symbolic breakthrough at a time when NATO-Russian relations are strained over NATO’s anti-missile shield and East-West tensions are running high over Ukraine. It would also signal strong global backing for the U.S.-Russian agreement last August to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, a deal that averted the threat of U.S. military strikes on Syria. Under the plan being discussed, NATO and Russian warships would share the task of protecting the Cape Ray, a U.S. cargo ship that will process at sea about 500 tonnes of chemicals that are too dangerous to deal with on land. NATO and Russia are still trying to iron out some technical hitches, but NATO sources say a deal could be announced as early as next week. NATO and Russian warships would provide strong protection to a ship carrying some of the world’s most dangerous cargo. Russia has invested heavily in the international deal on Syria’s chemical disarmament, which it sponsored from the outset, and does not want to see it fall apart in spite of Damascus falling behind the schedule. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen discussed supporting international efforts to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons at talks in Brussels on January 28, both Russia and NATO have said. After that meeting, Rasmussen “asked NATO’s civilian and military experts to prepare a presentation on what the available options are,” a NATO source told Reuters. “We understand the Russians are doing the same thing on their side. We are talking here about a potential joint operation at the sea,” the source added. “They are discussing a joint security operation in the Mediterranean for the Cape Ray, to protect it while it destroys the chemical weapons,” said a separate source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is supervising the disposal of Syria’s chemical arms. Several NATO sources in Brussels confirmed that an operation to guard the Cape Ray is under discussion. RARE MISSION Russian officials had no immediate comment. But after talks in Moscow on Friday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a news conference with Lavrov present that an agreement was on the way under which Russia would take part in protecting the transport of Syrian chemical weapons by a U.S. ship in the Mediterranean. Diplomatic sources said both sides were willing to go ahead with the mission but some issues remain to be ironed out. They include, among others, a unified command structure or the so-called “rules of engagement”, or response procedures in case the convoy faces danger. The United Nations/OPCW mission said Syria shipped out a third consignment of chemical weapons materials on Monday and has destroyed some more on its territory. Under the international agreement, Syria is obliged to transfer all its chemicals to the Mediterranean port of Latakia for removal abroad and destruction aboard the Cape Ray. The Cape Ray is to pick up the chemicals in Italy and needs an escort in international waters. It docked in the Spanish port of Rota on Thursday en route from Virginia. The deadline for complete elimination of Syria’s chemical arsenal is June 30, a time-frame the head of the international mission has said is still possible. NATO and Russian defense ministers first discussed the toxins destruction in October, raising the possibility of eventual cooperation. Moscow is often at loggerheads with the 28-member alliance over issues ranging from the development of the U.S. missile shield system in Europe to discussions of membership prospects for the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. Earlier this month, Rasmussen voiced concern at recent military moves by Russia and urged more constructive engagement. NATO and Russia hold regular discussions in a body called the NATO-Russia Council, which meets at ministerial or ambassadorial level. The NATO-Russia Council Foreign Ministers issued a joint statement in December supporting the U.N./OPCW mission. NATO and Russia also cooperate on countering piracy and promoting cyber security and stage joint military exercises, but they very rarely entertain joint military missions. Russia deployed its vessels twice in 2006 and 2007 to support NATO in patrolling the Mediterranean, a precedent for cooperation between Moscow and the alliance in the area. Other than that, Russia has also temporarily contributed forces to the NATO mission in Kosovo that started in 1999. SYMBOLIC Russia has echoed Damascus in blaming security issues in a war zone for delays in destroying Syria’s chemical arms. Moscow has beefed up its presence in the Mediterranean since the conflict started in March, 2011, with its nuclear-powered warship Pyotr Veliky taking part in the third chemical transport from Syria. Slideshow (4 Images) The international community has invested heavily in the operation, providing ships, vehicles, personnel and tens of millions of dollars in donations to OPCW and U.N. funds. Some sources said that, should the NATO-Russia operation go ahead, its meaning would be largely symbolic, also because the Americans can protect the Cape Ray on their own. But for NATO such a mission could be a rare success story in strained ties with Russia. From Moscow’s point of view, showing off flexibility and determination on the chemical disarmament front would also serve to defuse Western criticism that it is shielding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.This morning, The Smell, the legendary all-ages DIY venue in downtown L.A. that fostered the rise of bands like No Age, Mika Miko, and Best Coast (just to name a very few), shared a photo of a demolition notice that had been posted on their building. According to the notice, the entire one-story building with addresses 245 to 249 S. Main Street. is owned by L & R Group of Companies, "a privately held, well-capitalized organization that owns and operates parking facilities throughout the United States," including WallyPark and Joe's Auto Parks. This cannot be good. The "note" on the notice is particularly ominous, and reads: "Provided that the submitted plans comply with all Los Angeles Municipal codes and other applicable laws, public comment will have no impact on this project." A county representative tells LAist that no information regarding the notice or plans for demolition has been made available yet, and won't be available until at least Tuesday, as all governmental offices are closed for the Memorial Day weekend. A search of the address on the L.A. Department of Building and Safety website yielded no results that would indicate the fate of the building, which also houses the wonderful, divey New Jalisco Bar. Jim Smith, the owner of the Smell, tells LAist that he found out about the demolition on Friday night. "I suppose the signs have been there for many years, but I've suspected something like this was coming when our building was sold a year ago," he said. "I plan to do whatever I can to fight or delay this," he said. Smith said that between the sale last year and now, operations at the Smell have carried on as they always have. Smith, who has owned the Smell for more than 18 years, has not been made aware of any timeline for demolition. While he's "still in the process of gathering information and accessing the situation," Smith said he plans to suspend booking beyond what has already been scheduled through the end of August, until he knows more about the situation. L&R could not be reached for comment. The impact of the Smell on music in the city, and quite frankly, Los Angeles as a whole, cannot be overstated. We'll have more information on the status of the Smell as we get it. Until then, enjoy this banger:About Introduction My name is Donovan Bailey, and I’m a brewer based in Newton Highlands, just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I’ve launched this Kickstarter campaign to get my business, Down The Road Brewery, off the ground. I’m hoping to raise $30,000, which will allow me to rent a facility, purchase larger brewing equipment, and get my beers into your hands within six months. Donovan, the Brewer I started brewing when I was a teenager, mostly because I wasn’t old enough to buy beer in a store. But over the last twenty years, it has grown into my biggest passion. I’m a veteran of the U.S. military, and in the past I’ve worked in the construction and utilities industries, but I believe my true calling is as a producer of high quality ales and lagers that everyone can enjoy. The advent of Kickstarter and crowdsourced funding in general has given many people, who might not otherwise have had such an opportunity, a chance to realize their dreams and ambitions. It’s my hope that you’ll take a moment to look over my campaign, watch my video, and consider supporting this business so that I can bring you some of the best-tasting beers you’ll ever have. Down The Road My brews are founded on a fairly simple premise. For each style, whether it’s a stout, porter, pale ale or Belgian, I try to create formulae that adhere closely to the original purpose, while folding in my own personal twist. The idea is to produce something that more accurately reflects the intent of those who developed the style, but to still make something unique and interesting. A lot of breweries today are inventing recipes with ingredients that often verge on the bizarre. I’ve seen beers that had chamomile, yeast from a hornet’s stomach, and coffee from cocoa beans digested by monkeys. I think it’s great that people experiment, and I hope these brewers continue to invent new formulae. For me the best brews are the simplest, and the real difference between a good beer and a great one comes down to technique and skill, not the strangeness of the ingredients. The inaugural lineup of Down The Road beers include four recipes that I’ve spent years developing and testing, and they all adhere to the principle of celebrating tradition, but suggesting a path forward. These four beers will include a Russian Imperial Stout, a Double IPA, a Belgian Quad, and a Scottish 120 Schilling Wee-Heavy. The T-34 Russian Imperial Stout is a dark, rich Russian Imperial Stout that is a built on a base of English malts and American hops. It’s malty with strong chocolate and coffee notes (along with notes of dried fruit), all backed by a fantastic mouth feel. Named after the Russian T-34 tank, one of the great tanks of WWII, this is one badass beer. Wayne’s Wee-Heavy is a 120 Shilling Scottish ale. I created this beer as a Christmas present for my father, Wayne. He really loves a good Scottish ale, so I decided to craft one just for him. I went all out, using not just traditional ingredients but also the traditional technique. The result? A true Scottish wee heavy with a delicious malt profile, notes of toffee, raisin, and chocolate, and a hint of prune and dried apricot in the finish. I hope it reminds you of good times with your own dad. My Quadruped: The Hop Monster Imperial IPA is a hop animal. The instant you open the bottle, you can tell what’s coming – a monstrous amount of hops! Quadruped has been dry hopped four times with the very best hops we could lay our hands on. It has a restrained malt profile that’s just there to support the hops. The first sip offers a taste of pine, stone fruit, and citrus. But it doesn’t end there! In the second sip, you’ll find tropical fruit on a background of hoppy dankness. This very dry beer will keep you anticipating the next sip Angel’s Breath Quadruple Belgian Ale is so good that taste-testers asked where my Trappist Monastery is located. You'll find hints of banana and clove in the nose. In the first sip, you'll taste a lovely maltiness that carries over to a dried fruit note and finishes with sweet dark chocolate that lingers on your tongue. These four recipes will be the first DTR brews, but they certainly won’t be the last. I have formulae for several styles that I plan to roll out as time goes on and we develop more of a following. These include a nut brown, porter, summer ale, American pale ale and, my personal favorite, sours. My goal is to create beers that anyone can enjoy, from the hop-obsessed and Belgian-philes to the session drinkers trying to make it through another round of pub trivia. Why We’re Here As I said earlier, Down The Road Brewery needs help getting started. I simply don’t have the start-up capital to pay rent for a facility, or to purchase upgraded equipment that would let me brew 3 barrels of beer at a time (to start). In addition, I’ll need to perform some construction on the facility to convert it to a brewery and tasting room, and I’ll need to purchase ingredients and supplies. The advantage of raising money through Kickstarter is that it gives customers a chance to know me, my beers and my approach to brewing. You can follow our progress here, on our website, and on Facebook and Twitter. You can be involved in the start of a great business. Over the next few months I’ll be making appearances at beer festivals and tastings all over New England. I’ll even have tasting sessions at my house, to which anyone is welcome to come and try my recipes. If you’re in the area you don’t have to just take my word for it that these beers are good. I’m more than happy to pour you a glass so that you can try them yourself. This way you’ll know where the donations are going, and what kind of brewery you’ll be contributing to. The following is a loose breakdown of how the money will be spent. These figures are preliminary as things like rent and construction costs are a little hard to predict at this point. $20,000 - brewhouse and fermenters. This will go toward purchasing kettles, a mashtun and fermenters that will allow me to brew 3 barrels at a time. $8,000 - building out brewery, construction of tasting room. I plan to incorporate a small tasting room so that people can try our beers and fill their growlers. I have friends in the construction industry who can help defray building costs, as well as some help from family and volunteer supporters. $2,000 - grain. I’ll be procuring my grain from local suppliers I have worked with in the past. I know their product and trust their quality. In addition, I’ll be recycling my spent grains and giving them to local livestock farms to use as animal feed. Water from the heat exchanger will be recycled as well. I understand that donating to a Kickstarter campaign can be a risky venture, and that supporters don’t always see returns on their investment. However, I pledge to be transparent with how the money is spent and am open to answering any questions about this budget and how I obtained the figures. Ultimately, I want this brewery to feel like something that you helped to create, and in order to make that happen I want to keep you closely involved in and informed about the startup process. What’s in it for you? I’ve put together a set of perks for those who donate that I think will get you excited about this campaign. For smaller donations, we’ll be sending you things like coasters, glasses, stickers, and t-shirts. For larger donations, we have hoodies, growlers, and free pints and cases of beer once it is brewed. For our most generous supporters, I’ll be holding special beer tastings, dinners and brew sessions where you can learn about my process and help make a batch of DTR beer. For the person who makes the biggest donation, they will be able to name one of our beers. What happens next? I’ll be keeping everyone posted on the progress of the brewery through social media and the various tasting events I’ll be hosting over the next few months. There are several steps I need to take before I can start selling my beer in liquor stores and bars. Firstly, I’ll need to acquire my brewer’s license through the local, state and federal agencies that regulate the industry. This requires a lot of paperwork and a lot of waiting, and I expect it will take about 4 months to complete. Secondly, I’ll need to secure a facility to brew. I’ve been looking at locations throughout the Boston area, including in Somerville, Hudson, Newton and Medford. The goal is to find a building that is easy to access, so that customers and fans can come in for tastings and events whenever I have them. Because one of the goals is to have a more direct relationship with my customers than is typical with a brewery, it’s very important to find a location that will give us the freedom to host these gatherings. That way, you can all come in and have a pint of my latest recipes as soon as they’re available. Lastly, once DTR is funded and begins production, I’ll be networking with liquor stores, bars, pubs, taverns and restaurants in the area to have my beer tapped at a location near you. Thank you! It’s my hope that you’ll be able to participate in this project and help me realize a decades-long ambition. I truly believe my beers are among the best, and that I can deliver a product that can be enjoyed by anyone
this time with a maximum length of 12 weeks). Since FIFA decreed these rules upon the footballing globe, all of football’s transfer business has been squeezed into these two windows. During the twelve weeks of last summer’s transfer window, the 20 clubs in the English Premier League alone spent over £835m! Despite these huge sums of money, analysts in the media judge player acquisitions based on just a few of the most basic of statistics: goals scored and pass completion percentage being two of the more popular ones. With regards to clubs themselves, whatever statistical analysis they use for player recruitment is kept secret. However, we suspect some owners and managers buy (and sell) players largely on gut instinct, along with these most basic statistics. This lack of statistical analysis is not seen in all sports. In the US, sports have embraced statistics in aiding player recruitment and playing strategy. Of course, baseball pioneered the use of statistics - the story of how the Oakland Athletics competed at the very highest level on just a fraction of the budget of the other top teams has rapidly become stats folklore. In football, progress is slow at best. In part this is a consequence of the nature of the game. Football is very dynamic with many players interacting continuously during each game. This is not a simple setting for a statistician to say the least. But technological advances have meant the dynamic nature can now be recorded pretty well. Some public attempts have been made to rate players, like EA Sports PPI or the Castrol Index. But these indices measure past performance and attempt to answer the question: ‘Who is the best player of this current season’. When buying players this isn't quite what you want – you need to make decisions on who to buy based on predicted future performance, not observed past performance. We wanted to see if we could model this future performance. To do this we obtained data1 on all matches in the English Premier League for the two seasons, 2006-07 and 2007-08. For our purposes (identifying goal scoring ability) we are interested in shot events only, leaving us with 804 goals from 7,678 shots in our fitting sample (the first season). Our aim was to try to predict future performance on what is arguably the most important single statistic in football - goals. Why can't we just use goals, or goals per minute played? Football is not a perfect experiment, and simple statistics like goals scored, or goals per minute played are biased as a consequence of players playing for and against teams of different quality. Furthermore, no two players can be expected to play the same number of minutes or take the same number of shots. For example, if one player scored 3 goals in 4 matches whilst another player scored 8 goals in 16 matches - who would you buy? To deal with these problems, we adopted a mixed effects model to identify the goal scoring ability of players. A model for scoring goals To model the goal scoring process, we break it down into two constituent components: the process of generating shots and the process of converting shots to goals. This specification means we can measure how shot creation and shot conversion depend on, for example, the player's team, the opposition, and the player's own ability as well as chance2 (see footnotes). The model gives two types of predictions: Complete predictions that assume knowledge of everything during every game e.g. time on the pitch and identity of the opposition etc. Averaged predictions that effectively assume all players play for the same amount of time, for the same side, against all other teams. For these predictions there are no biases resulting from players playing for top teams and players can be compared on a level field. We are only going to present the results of the averaged predictions as these are what are useful when comparing players in the transfer market. So what should a club look for in a goal scorer? ‘A plot says a thousand words’, probably more so in statistics. The plot below (figure 1) summarises the shot count model. Figure 1: Shot generation: average model implied predictions versus the average observed values per player in the fitting sample. The dashed line is the identity function. The horizontal line is the average number of shots per game. Each dot is a player and the size of the dot indicates the number of games played in the fitting sample. There is some evidence of regression to the mean, in that observed high shot counts (the x-axis), are dragged back towards the horizontal line and low shots counts are pushed up towards the horizontal line. The effect is bigger for smaller dots. This represents the fact that our uncertainty about a player's shots-per-game is higher for players who play in very few games. For the shots to goals conversion model, shown in the next plot (figure 2) below, the regression to the mean is much stronger. A very high rate of conversion is regressed right down towards the mean for the previous year and vice versa for low conversion rates. It is remarkable that the observed range lies between 0 and 100% whilst the predicted range lies between 7% and 17%. Figure 2: Shot conversion: average model implied predictions versus the average observed values per player in the fitting sample. The table below gives the results for the 2006/07 season. Didier Drogba of Chelsea was identified as the player with the highest goal scoring ability, with Ronaldo in second place. In general, you can see how the model regresses the performance of the top players towards the mean and this appears to be the right thing to do as the model predictions are closer to the observed 2007/08 goals per 100 minutes for 10 out of the 15 players. Predicted and actual 2007/2008 goals per 100 minutes for the top 15 players. Model predicted goals per 100 minutes scorers based on season 2006/2007 data. Rank Player 2006/2007 2007/2008 Model Naïve Actual 1 Drogba Chelsea Chelsea 0.47 0.62 0.54 2 Ronaldo Man Utd Man Utd 0.42 0.46 0.97 3 Van Persie Arsenal Arsenal 0.39 0.66 0.20 4 Rooney Man Utd Man Utd 0.36 0.40 0.57 5 Viduka Middlesbrough Newcastle 0.36 0.66 0.38 6 Crouch Liverpool Liverpool 0.36 0.51 0.37 7 Vaughan Everton Everton 0.32 0.58 0.00 8 Berbatov Tottenham Tottenham 0.32 0.43 0.51 9 Kuyt Liverpool Liverpool 0.31 0.45 0.05 10 Defoe Tottenham Tottenham / Portsmouth 0.31 0.35 0.65 11 Saha Man Utd Man Utd 0.29 0.30 0.18 12 Cole Portsmouth Sunderland 0.28 0.41 0.00 13 McCarthy Blackburn Blackburn 0.28 0.44 0.19 14 Zamora West Ham West Ham 0.27 0.41 0.00 15 Adebayor Arsenal Arsenal 0.27 0.34 0.62 The final plots (figure 3) nicely summarise the performance of the averaged predictions. Keep an eye on the plot on the left which can be thought of as the predicted goals per 100 minutes on the x-axis with the observed goals per 100 minutes on the y-axis (we are using the 2006-07 data as the prediction for 2007-08). Figure 3: Goals per 100 minutes played for 2007/08 versus goals per 100 minutes played for 2006/07 (left) and versus model predictions (right). The relationship between the model predictions and the observed 2007-08 goals per 100 minutes, shown by the blue line (which is a linear regression fit plus a 95% confidence interval) is much stronger. In fact, the bias observed in the plot on the left has been over-corrected for. It turns out that this over-correction is not flaw in the model, rather it is a consequence of using the averaged predictions rather than complete predictions. For example, the model under predicts the goals by the very top players because they are more likely to play for the very top teams. As such, on average, they will actually be facing weaker teams than the averaged predictions presume. The equivalent plot for the complete predictions lies almost perfectly on the dashed line. A player's record of generating shots is more important than their record of converting shots to goals In this work, we have concentrated on just one aspect of a footballer's set of skills - goals. There are of course many other skills required of a footballer. Still, our mixed effects model for goals has proved to be an improvement on simple count-type statistics currently used to rate goals scorers. Just in case the chief executive of a football club is reading Significance, a key finding of our work is this. Generating shots is more predictable than converting shots. Of course, a chief executive could just use our model which accounts for both aspects of performance in identifying goal scoring ability! If you are spending several £100m on players in the next transfer window, you could do worse that to speak to a statistician before handing over your money. Footnotes 1. Opta provides an incredibly rich data set describing football statistics. Data are available on the position (x-y coordinates), timing (seconds), players involved, and event type (pass, tackle, goal, foul and many more) for every event that happens during a football match. This is incredibly granular data. A typical match consists of several thousand rows of events. 2. Let n be the number of shots and y be the number of goals. We model the distribution of goals: \begin{equation} p(y)= \sum_n p(y\|n)p(n). \end{equation} This gives us two models to fit: one for shot generation and one for goals given the number of shots. For the shot count model, we assume that $n \sim Poisson(e^{\eta})$ and we let $\eta$ be a linear function of some covariates. Namely, player identity, home advantage, own team strength and opposition strength. Most importantly, we assume the players' abilities to create shots are random and normally distributed, so that they are random effects but in this model we are very much interested in the values of each random effect which represent the player's ability to generate shots. For the shots to goals conversion model we assume that $y\|n \sim binomial$ with linear predictor equal to a linear function of the covariates as used in the shot generation model. This time, we assume the players' abilities to convert shots to goals are random effects which are normally distributed.The Ever-darkening Shadow of Monsanto-fueled Superweeds Drifting herbicides can be deadly Nathan Donley Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 26, 2017 Leaves of Bader Farms’ peach trees bear holes and discoloration that owner Bill Bader believes is the result of drift from illegal applications of the herbicide, dicamba, on area farms. Other trees throughout the orchard have branches that are almost entirely denuded. Photo by Bryce Gray, bgray@post-dispatch.com Reprint of op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Long before a dispute over illegal herbicide drift left an Arkansas farmer dead of a gunshot wound in November, a growing sense of unease had spread across the Great Plains about the cornstalk-sized superweeds infesting more than 100 million acres. The fatal dispute was among hundreds of complaints across 10 states that arose in the wake of Monsanto’s decision to release new soy and cotton seeds genetically engineered to resist the herbicide dicamba even though an updated formulation of dicamba had yet to be approved for use on the crops. In their effort to beat back the profit-choking weed epidemic, some farmers planting the new genetically engineered seeds decided to roll the dice and illegally spray those crops with an outdated formulation of dicamba notorious for drifting onto neighboring crops. In Missouri alone, spray drift from illegal dicamba use on soybean fields has damaged more than 40,000 acres of other crops, including peaches, tomatoes, alfalfa, cantaloupes, watermelons, rice, peas, peanuts and alfalfa. Last month, Missouri’s largest peach producer filed a lawsuit claiming Monsanto should be held responsible for the loss of 30,000 peach trees resulting in financial losses exceeding $1 million. The producer alleges the damages were caused by illegal spraying that was a predictable consequence of Monsanto’s decision to release its dicamba-resistant seeds prior to availability of a compatible form of dicamba. Monsanto says it was only making the new seeds available as quickly as possible and can’t be blamed for the actions of individual farmers. The chemical giant has a harder time dodging responsibility for the rise of the superweed epidemic that created the need for the new herbicides. For years Monsanto officials assured farmers that weeds would never develop resistance to the company’s flagship herbicide, glyphosate, so farmers were urged to apply it liberally year after year because “dead weeds don’t produce seeds.” And apply it they did, with annual U.S. glyphosate use soaring to over 300 million pounds — an escalation that quickly accelerated the evolution of glyphosate-resistant superweeds that can grow an inch a day to heights of 10 feet and break farm equipment. Now major herbicide pushers are offering a familiar-sounding “solution”: more herbicides. In November, Dow AgroSciences got Environmental Protection Agency approval to sell Enlist Duo, a toxic combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D, a World War II-era herbicide banned in Sweden, Denmark and Norway after it was linked to cancer and endocrine disruption. Also in November the EPA fast-tracked approval of Monsanto’s XtendiMax, a supposedly less drift-prone dicamba formulation. But you’ll have to trust Monsanto on that, because independent scientists are not allowed to review the unpublished studies the company provided to convince the EPA to back away from its initial recommendation that farmers must leave protective 110-foot buffers on all sides of dicamba-sprayed fields. Now, apparently, that buffer is only needed on the downwind side of the field. One thing about the “new” dicamba remains unchanged: If farmers fail to follow the label or to heed the warning not to apply within 24 hours of rainfall, or when wind speeds exceed 15 mph, only one entity will be blamed for any harm — the farmer. And this latest weed-control remedy — which will result in tens of millions of pounds of additional herbicides being dumped on this next generation of genetically engineered crops — is sure to be a temporary fix. Already, weeds resistant to Dow’s 2,4-D and Monsanto’s “new” dicamba are sprouting across America’s fields. Nathan Donley is a senior scientist in the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program.About Bell Media is Canada’s leading content creation company with premier assets in television, radio, out-of-home advertising, digital media, and more. Bell Media owns 30 local television stations led by CTV, Canada's highest-rated television network; 30 specialty channels, including TSN and RDS, and four pay TV services. Bell Media is Canada's largest radio broadcaster, with 215 music channels including 109 licensed radio stations in 58 markets across the country, all part of the iHeartRadio brand and streaming service. Bell Media owns Astral, an out-of-home advertising network of more than 30,000 faces in five provinces. Bell Media also operates more than 200 websites; video streaming services including Crave, TSN Direct, and RDS Direct; and multi-channel network Much Studios. The company produces live theatrical shows via its partnership with Iconic Entertainment Studios; owns a majority stake in Pinewood Toronto Studios; is a partner in Just for Laughs, the live comedy event and TV producer; and owns Dome Productions Inc., one of North America’s leading production facilities providers. Bell Media is part of BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE), Canada's largest communications company.When the payroll report was released last month, the world finally noticed what we had been saying for nearly three years: that the US was slowly being converted to a part-time worker society. This slow conversion accelerated drastically in the last few months, and especially in June, when part time jobs exploded higher by 360K while full time jobs dropped by 240K. In July we are sad to report that America's conversation to a part-time worker society is not "tapering": according to the Household Survey, of the 266K jobs created (note this number differs from the establishment survey), only 35% of jobs, or 92K, were full time. The rest were... not. What is worse, however, is when one looks at job creation broken down by "quality" in all of 2013. The chart below does the bottom line some justice: But what really shows what is going on in America at least in 2013, is the following summary: of the 953K jobs "created" so far in 2013, only 23%, or 222K, were full-time. Part-time jobs? 731K of the 953K total. Source: Part-Time and Full-Time and BLSFather Andrew Lawrence pulls a fat red binder from a shelf inside his cramped office, where he edits a weekly Roman Catholic newspaper. Inside the binder are reams of documents from its decade-long dispute with Malaysia's government over the right to refer to God as "Allah," as Muslims do. For a small paper like the Herald (circulation: 14,000), such a legal case can be ruinous. But the row has spiraled into a litmus test of tolerance and political maturity in this multifaith country of 28 million people. The "Allah" row stirs strong emotions here in part because it is as much about race and language – and politics – as it is about religion. It also exposes the historical divisions between west and east Malaysia, where the majority of the country's roughly 1.4 million Roman Catholics live. On Dec. 31, the Herald won a three-year battle in the High Court, which overturned a government ban on its use of "Allah." The verdict sparked small protests by Malay Muslims and a spate of attacks on Catholic churches, a Sikh temple, and three mosques, allegedly by Muslim agitators. The government has obtained an injunction and appealed the verdict, arguing that the ban is essential for national security. For centuries, Christian Malay speakers have prayed to Allah, the Arabic word for God. In neighboring Indonesia, a majority Muslim country with a near-identical language, the use of "Allah" by Christians is uncontroversial, as it is across much of the Middle East. "It isn't complicated. We use it in our churches. It's part of our prayers," says Father Lawrence. Opponents say that Christians can use other Malay words for their translations and should leave "Allah" for Muslims. "For me, 'Allah' shouldn't be used by other religions. If they use 'Allah,' our kids might get confused," says Nur Fadilla Zaaba, a resident. The government has also used this argument, saying that it increases the risk of conversions of Muslims, which is illegal in Malaysia. The High Court rejected this and other similar arguments, pointing out that the Herald is sold only to Christians and "had never intended or caused any conflict, discord of misunderstanding" in its use of "Allah." Opposition lawmakers claim that Malaysia's coalition-run government, dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), uses the "Allah" issue to rally its base among Malay Muslims, who make up about 55 percent of the population. Khairy Jamaluddin, a UMNO executive, argues that the party is trying to tamp down communal tensions. He says comparisons with Indonesia are misleading, as Islam has taken a more syncretic path there. "Malay Muslims have linguistic, religious, and ethnic ownership of the word because of the way that it came to Malaysia. For it to be used for a Christian God, it is an affront to them," he says. While UMNO supports a ban, the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party has argued that there is no theological reason for it. In recent years, the party has moved toward the center. It even invited Lawrence to speak on the issue, he says. In his office, Lawrence pulls out a rare 1619 Latin-Malay Bible that translates "God" as "Allah." "We have every right to use this word," he says.Viet Cong are a very good Calgary postpunk band whose self-titled album we heralded as Album Of The Week back in January. But despite how good their music might be, the problem with naming your band Viet Cong — and then revealing your ignorance about the lasting significance of this name — is that people don’t brush off offensive, racially-charged statements anymore. Like it or not, identifying their band as Viet Cong does constitute a statement, and it’s one blatant enough to spur the concert promoter for the Oberlin College venue Dionysus Disco to cancel the band’s appearance. Promoter Ivan Krasnov shared a statement via the venue’s Facebook page that apologized for booking the group in the first place, and then extends a deeper apology to anyone in the Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American communities: As the person behind booking this band, I would first and foremost like to apologize on both my and my booking organization’s behalf for inviting a band with a name that deeply offends and hurts Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American communities, both in Oberlin and beyond. I acknowledge the problematic nature of a band naming themselves “Viet Cong” and extend my apology to anyone hurt or made uncomfortable by the name and its connotations. He continues to explain the reasoning behind booking the band, before acknowledging that the band’s offensive name would do more harm to the community than the good their music might do. My principal aim is to build a program of both up-and-coming and established, quality acts that I truly believe will deliver a memorable performance, and leave a positive and memorable impact on the Oberlin and Cleveland-area communities. Often times, these acts are bands I think Oberlin should know about, and are on the cusp of gaining national and worldwide attention. I book talent with these main intentions in mind. However, that talent should absolutely not be booked at the expense of hurting, offending, or making uncomfortable the very students and general public for which I want to provide quality programming. Such practices are counterintuitive to the positive lasting impact The ’Sco should have. Furthermore, Krasnov goes into explicit detail about Oberlin’s protest during the Vietnam war, and the institution’s legacy of support for social justice and related causes: Similarly, as a student booker who ultimately represents Oberlin by booking college-funded acts, I must be aware of Oberlin’s history as a progressive and highly conscious institution with an important legacy of social justice and action that needs to be upheld to this day. This legacy is seen notably in the student protests, demands, and direct action that took place on our campus during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the spring of 1970, in response to the Kent State shootings and President Nixon’s decision to send troops into Cambodia as part of the war against North Vietnam, Oberlin College ended the semester two weeks early. Time reported: “Oberlin College President Robert Carr simply canceled final exams, gave all his students credits for their courses and turned over the campus to antiwar planning.” Students today commonly and falsely believe that Oberlin does not require its graduating students to don traditional commencement regalia simply because Oberlin is “quirky”; the truth is that the cap and gown was first rejected by students in protest of the Vietnam War and the United States’ involvement in it….To allow a band called “Viet Cong” to play a show and make money at Oberlin College would be in complete disregard of Oberlin’s radical history and of the values it professes to uphold. But as I previously noted, the most troubling aspect of the whole story is that the band admitted they were ignorant of the name’s implications, and even when they did realize, still didn’t really seem to care about its offensive nature: Especially troubling is the band’s awareness of their name inflicting offense coupled with a seeming indifference to its effects and implications. This entire issue was brought to my attention through several of the band’s interviews in which they exhibit this sort of behavior, seen notably in the video, “Hello: Viet Cong at Le Guess Who? 2014,” (at 4:51) and article, “The Ridiculousness of Being Viet Cong“: “That [name] comes from our drummer, and from us being teenagers and watching movies. The Viet Cong were always the bad asses in movies.:) The fact that the band openly acknowledges their problematic name, yet fails to change it or do anything about it, highlights this blatantly appropriative move, reinforcing a tradition of American (and Western) orientalism and appropriation. Krasnov also details how strongly the Vietnamese community at Oberlin reacted to the band’s name, and that honoring their reaction is part of what informed his decision. What the Vietnamese student community helped me understand is that I cannot claim to fully comprehend the implications of a band (consisting of four white Canadian men) naming themselves “Viet Cong.” I can call out this name for being grossly ignorant and deeply offensive, but I also understand that even if I knew all the historical context, I am not someone whose personal and historical history is directly tied to and affected by the consequences of U.S. imperialist actions in Southeast Asia. This is precisely why I believe it is important for me to listen to the concerns raised by those who do understand and are affected on a deep emotional level. I cannot with good conscience put on this show knowing that it hurts others, and the onus should absolutely not be on those who are hurt to educate the rest of the community on why this name is offensive. The band has yet to comment on the controversy. You can read the promoter’s full statement here.Though it is not yet as advanced as AlphaGo, Chinese researchers have developed their own Go-playing AI champion, called FineArt. Artificial intelligence may have been invented in the West, but China seems determined to own its future. Its rising AI community just got a tremendous shot in the arm, in the form of a massive new government investment plan. The State Council of the People’s Republic of China has announced a bold scheme (link in Chinese) meant to build an AI industry worth $150 billion, and to make China the global leader in the field by 2030. Details of the plan are sure to cause consternation among policymakers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs in the U.S., especially as funding for research is slashed by a science-averse Trump administration. It will also, inevitably, stoke concerns about China’s military ambitions, given the role AI is expected to play in the evolution of warfare. In truth, however, China’s AI ascendancy is already well under way. While U.S. researchers grab headlines for developing cutting-edge algorithms and techniques, Chinese companies are have become adept at commercializing AI technologies and have shown a growing willingness to invest in fundamental research and development. Over the past couple of years, I’ve visited big Chinese tech companies, startups, and academic research labs where there is a clear focus not only on applications of AI, but also on fundamental research. These research labs do seem to lag behind those found in the U.S., but they are catching up. The State Council’s plan will certainly add fuel to this trend. It states that by 2020 China should match the rest of the world, and that five years later China should achieve “major breakthroughs” in the technology. By 2030, the plan states, AI should lay the foundation for China’s economic dominance. The plan also suggests that AI should be applied across countless industries, including manufacturing, agriculture, logistics, and finance. If AI is deployed across China’s economy, it could have a huge impact on the country’s economic progress. And if the government’s ambitions are realized, then the effort is likely to shape the course of one of the most important technologies of our time. (Read more: State Council of China, Washington Post, “The Insanely Popular Chinese News App You’ve Never Heard Of,” “10 Breakthrough Technologies: Paying with Your Face,” “Who Is Winning the AI Race?”)prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" / You Cannot Set the Hands Backwards on a Clock This is mostly false but can also be true. There is no set rule, it depends on the clock! So many of my customers are shocked when they see me move the hands backwards on their clocks. They often say, “I didn’t know you could do that!” Well, in most cases you can. In the last sixty or seventy years more than 95% of the clocks manufactured have been designed so that you can safely move the minute hand counter-clockwise. The designers of the movements knew that many clock owners would attempt to backset the hands, so to avoid damage they incorporated into the design a mechanism that allows it to be done safely. Almost without exception, the majority of modern era clocks can be backset. This includes key-wound wall and mantle chiming and or striking clocks, cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks, anniversary clocks and even most battery clocks. The clocks that cannot be backset safely are usually older clocks, especially most early American clocks made until about 1920. If you attempt to backset a clock that is not designed to allow you to do so, upon reaching a certain point the hand will simply lock up. If you try to force it you will damage the mechanism, so be smart and don’t do it! Clocks that cannot be backset are set by moving the minute hand clock-wise only. If you have a chiming clock that cannot be set backwards you should stop at each quarter hour to let it chime before moving on. If you have a striking clock that cannot be set backwards you should stop at each striking point, always the hour and sometimes the half hour. For the most part you should never move the hour hand independently of the minute hand. If you do this on most chiming or striking clocks you will throw the strike out of synch with the hands. An exception would be if you were resynchronizing the strike like you might on a clock with a count wheel striking mechanism (sometimes found in older clocks) or if someone else had moved the hour hand accidentally and you were simply putting it back where it belonged. To sum this up, pay attention to your qualified clockmaker when he is explaining to you the proper operation of the clock. This person should know what is best and will instruct you on proper hand setting. Of course, you can always consult your owner’s manual if you have one. A Clock Must Be Level to Run False. The truth is, a clock must be “in beat” to run. The “beat” of a clock refers to the sound a clock makes when it ticks. When a clock is “in beat” the tick and the tock will be evenly spaced like the sound a metronome makes. A clock that is crooked can run fine if the beat is set for that position, providing the pendulum doesn’t rub or bump anything. However, because a clock looks best when it sets level, a repairman will adjust the beat of a clock while it is sitting on a level surface and then instruct the customer that the clock must be leveled when taken home. When setting up clocks for my customers in their homes it is not always practical to level the clock. For instance, when a grandfather clock is standing near a doorway which is not square, or when the wall behind it has lined wallpaper which was installed crooked. In these instances the clock will look crooked even though in reality it is not. In this case I level the clock with my eye, or using the lines on the wallpaper as a guide or measuring over from the doorway at both the top and bottom of the clock. This way, although a level will show the clock to be crooked it still looks level. In this case, appearance is what is most important providing the pendulum is not bumping or rubbing anything inside the case. From this position the beat will then be adjusted so as to be correct or “even” and the clock will run fine. The same thing can be done on a wall clock hanging in a similar situation. In the case of mantle clocks where they sit on a crooked mantle, shelf or dresser, etc., if the customer prefers not to shim it into a level position, I simply reset the beat for that particular surface if I happen to be in their home. Most modern grandfather clocks have what is called a “self-adjusting beat”. In this case, as long as the clock is stable and somewhere close to level, it will run fine. You don’t even need a clockmaker to set the beat for you. Simply over swing the pendulum slightly and the beat will set itself. Of course, this myth applies mostly to clocks with swinging pendulums. Those that have floating or platform balances and are in good repair can run fine without any concern for level. If it is close enough to look good, that is good enough. A final factor: Where pendulum clocks are concerned, especially weight driven floor clocks, stability is extremely important. A clock that has a tendency to wobble, such as those free standing on carpet may sometimes stop for what appears to be no reason at all. The cause is something called “sympathetic vibration” or “sympathetic motion”. The unstable clock case is able to pick up the motion from the swinging pendulum. This will eventually cause the weights hanging in the case to begin to swing slightly, generally occurring when the weights reach a point somewhere near the level of the pendulum disc. The weights tend to swing in a direction opposite that of the pendulum. If this occurs the clock will eventually stop. This leads us into the next myth. Putting a Board Under Your Floor Clock Will Stabilize It False. Unless you screw the board through the carpet into your floor, the board will not provide the stability you are after. The board (or piece of marble etc.) will tend to “float” on the carpet even with the heavy clock standing on it. When you set the clock on the board, the weight of the clock is distributed onto the many square inches of the board, therefore the board never really settles into the carpet. Without the board, the weight of the clock is distributed among the four levelers found under most modern grandfather clocks. For example, a board that is 18 x 16 inches has 216 square inches to carry the weight. The four levelers combined only have about 4 square inches. The levelers will settle much deeper into the carpet, providing greater stability. For maximum stability the clock should be allowed to contact the wall in some way. This is easy if your clock is setting in front of a flat wall. In this case the front levelers should be lowered in such a way as to allow the clock to lean against the wall. Once this is achieved simply place a small shim, equal to the thickness of your baseboard, behind the clock towards the top. This gives the appearance that the clock is not actually contacting the wall and also holds the clock in a front to back level position. Unfortunately, when a clock sets in a corner at an angle this is not always feasible. If you try the same thing here the only thing that contacts the wall are the top corners of the clock giving you nothing to hide the shim behind. Sometimes you won’t need the shim because when the corners meet the wall it is not leaning back so far as to look silly anyway. If it does lean back too far the only choices left are either to come up with some sort of bracket that you can hide, either behind or on top of the clock or you can simply add some sort of weight into the bottom of the clock case. Adding weight helps to settle the clock further into the carpet. When we add weight we want to be sure to add a sufficient amount. A pound or two usually won’t do it. Ideally ten pounds or more is better. Some things that work well are large pieces of lead (because of their density), a bag of play sand, or even weights from a barbell set. Of course this is only practical if you have an area in the bottom of the clock large enough to hide it, or some nice way to cover or disguise it. Special note: For older clocks without levelers built into the case, small, thin wooden shims cut about one inch square can achieve the same results. An old yard stick works wonders. You can stack as many are necessary to achieve the lift you need. If you stack them, it is a good idea to tape or glue them together first so that the shims do not slide on each other. You Cannot Place a Clock on an Outside Wall False. I have heard this many times from many customers yet none of them know why it would matter. In spite of this, they still believe it. The only thing I have been able to come up with is that it is a carry over from times past when homes were poorly insulated. In some older homes the walls can get rather cold in the winter. This cold transferring to the clock case might affect its timekeeping accuracy or perhaps damage the case. In other homes, the walls might “sweat” from condensation or leak when it rains. This would not be good for a clock or any other item that you might hang on a wall. I have set up thousands of clocks on outside walls and have never heard a complaint from a single customer that it has caused any kind of problem. You Must Lift the Weight When Winding a Chain Driven Floor Clock False. I have made an innumerable number of house calls over the last thirty two years because of this myth. They may do it this way for years and get away with it, but inevitably they will eventually knock a weight or chain off. The customer always thinks that they are putting too much stress on the clock when they are only pulling the chain and not lifting the weight. To make a point I often tell them that the weights are hanging there all day putting “stress” on the clock. Did they ever think to lift them off and set them on the floor to relieve the clock? You must remember that the clock is designed to handle this stress. What they don’t understand is that during winding the main wheel arbor is not turning in its bearing surface like it does when it is running. Therefore, winding does not produce the kind of wear that contributes to the clock failing to run. Any wear that does occur, however small, happens between the center of the chain wheel and the arbor it turns on. Because winding the clock takes only a few seconds a week, the wear that occurs is so minimal as to not be an issue. I cannot recall a single repair I have made in the last thirty two years that was attributable to someone not lifting the weights during winding. If
The once-common events are held to boost the number of mourners, as large crowds are seen as a mark of honour. But the arrests, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, could signal the end of the rural tradition. Local officials have since ordered a halt to "obscene performances" and say funeral plans have to be submitted in advance, Xinhua news agency said. The arrests, in Donghai county, followed striptease acts at a farmer's funeral, the agency said. Two hundred people were said to have attended the event, which was held on 16 August. The Beijing News said the event was later revealed by a Chinese TV station. The leaders of five striptease troupes were held, it said, including two involved in the farmer's funeral. "Striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai's rural areas to allure viewers," Xinhua agency said. "Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honoured." As well as ordering an end to the practice, officials have also said residents can report "funeral misdeeds" on a hotline, earning a reward for information.Standing Bear Standing Bear (c. 1829 – 1908) (Ponca official orthography: Maⁿchú-Naⁿzhíⁿ/Macunajin;[1] other spellings: Ma-chú-nu-zhe, Ma-chú-na-zhe or Mantcunanjin pronounced [mãtʃuꜜnãʒĩꜜ]) was a Ponca chief and Native American civil rights leader who successfully argued in U.S. District Court in 1879 in Omaha that Native Americans are "persons within the meaning of the law" and have the right of habeas corpus, thus becoming the first Native American judicially granted civil rights under American law. His wife Susette Primeau (Primo) was also a signatory on the 1879 writ that initiated the famous court case. Background [ edit ] By 1789, when Juan Baptiste Munier acquired trading rights with the Ponca, they had villages along the Niobrara River near its mouth, and ranged as far east as present-day Ponca, Nebraska, at the mouth of Aowa Creek. A smallpox epidemic had reduced their numbers from around 800 to 100 at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1807. When Standing Bear was born about 1829, the Ponca traditionally raised maize, vegetables and fruit trees in these sites during the summer. They ranged westward for the winter bison hunt. The hunts brought them into frequent contact with their traditional enemies, the Brulé and Oglala Lakota. Sometimes the Ponca allied with their enemies to raid Pawnee and Omaha villages, but they also suffered raids by them.[2] In Standing Bear's childhood, Brulé raids forced the Ponca to rely more on agriculture and less on the winter bison hunt. In his adolescence, the tribe split into two villages: Húbthaⁿ (Fish Smell, pronounced [huːꜜblᶞã]), near the mouth of Ponca Creek; and Wáiⁿ-Xúde (Grey Blanket, pronounced [waꜜĩ xuꜜde]), on the northwest bank of the Niobrara. Standing Bear learned the ways of the men, how to hunt and fish, and prepared to take his place in the tribe. In 1859, when Standing Bear was a young man, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had encouraged a flood of European-American settlers, and the US government pressured the Nebraska tribes to sell their land. At the same time, they were suffering raids from the North by the Brulé and Oglala. Because tribal land claims overlapped, the Omaha treaty of 1854 included a cession of a 70-mile-mile-wide strip (110 km) of land between Aowa Creek and the Niobrara, which was also claimed by the Ponca. By 1862, white settlers were quickly moving in and building the town of Niobrara where the Ponca summer corn fields had been. The Brulé raids from the north cut off the winter hunting grounds and forced the Ponca to abandon Húbthaⁿ. In 1858, under this pressure, the Ponca ceded much of their lands to the United States. They reserved the land between Ponca Creek and the Niobrara, approximately between present-day Butte and Lynch, Nebraska.[3] The land to which the Ponca moved proved unsuitable; poor farming conditions led to persistent famine. They were still subject to raids by hostile tribes. The Ponca spent years attempting to hunt and raise crops and horses near their old village of Húbthaⁿ and the town of Niobrara. The government failed to provide the mills, personnel, schools and protection which it had promised by the 1858 treaty. It did not keep up with the increasing Ponca tribal enrollment in distribution of annuities and goods. Relatives sought annuity payments, people lost resources to sickness, and starvation and raids from hostile tribes were frequent. In 1865 a new treaty allowed the Ponca to return to their traditional farming and burial grounds, in the much more fertile and secure area between the Niobrara and Ponca Creek east of the 1858 lands and up to the Missouri River. With the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), however, the government illegally gave the new Ponca reservation to the Santee Dakota as part of its negotiation to end Red Cloud's War. The government soon began to seek to remove the Ponca to Indian Territory. Marriage and family [ edit ] By this time Standing Bear had married Zazette[1] (Susette) Primeau (Primoux)[1] and become a leader in the tribe. He and his wife had several children. Standing Bear v. Crook [ edit ] In 1875, the Ponca paramount chief White Eagle, Standing Bear, and other Ponca leaders met with US Indian Agent A. J. Carrier and signed a document allowing removal to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). White Eagle and other Ponca leaders later claimed that because of a mistranslation, he had understood that they were to move to the Omaha Reservation, not to the Indian Territory. In February 1877, ten Ponca chiefs, including Standing Bear, accompanied Inspector Edward C. Kemble to Indian Territory to view several tracts of land. After viewing lands on the Osage Reservation and the Kaw Reservation, the chiefs were unhappy with what they were shown, and asked to return home without looking at the Quapaw Reservation. Angry at what he called the Ponca chiefs' "insubordination," Kemble refused to take them home until they had viewed all the land. Instead, eight of the chiefs decided to return home on foot. Kemble visited the Quapaw Reservation and selected it as the removal destination. In April, Kemble headed south to the Quapaw Reservation near present-day Peoria, Oklahoma, with those Ponca willing to leave. In May, the remainder of the tribe was forced to move, including Standing Bear and his family.[4][5] The Ponca arrived in Oklahoma too late to plant crops that year, and the government failed to provide them with the farming equipment it had promised as part of the deal. In 1878 they moved 150 miles (240 km) west to the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River, south of present-day Ponca City, Oklahoma. By spring, nearly a third of the tribe had died due to starvation, malaria and related causes. Standing Bear's eldest son, Bear Shield, was among the dead. Standing Bear had promised to bury him in the Niobrara River valley homeland, so he left to travel north with about 30 followers.[6][7] When they reached the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska, they were welcomed as relatives. Word of their arrival in Nebraska soon reached the government. Under orders from the Secretary of the Interior, Carl Schurz, who also directed the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Brigadier General George Crook had the Ponca arrested for having left the reservation in Indian Territory.[8] The Army took Standing Bear and the others to Fort Omaha, where they were detained. Although the official orders were to return them immediately to Indian Territory, Crook was sympathetic to the Ponca and appalled to learn of the conditions they had left. He delayed their return so the Ponca could rest, regain their health, and seek legal redress.[9] Crook told the Ponca story to Thomas Tibbles, an outspoken advocate of Native American rights (who had once served under John Brown); Tibbles, an editor of the Omaha Daily Herald, publicized the Poncas' story widely. The attorney John L. Webster offered his services pro bono and was joined by Andrew J. Poppleton, chief attorney of the Union Pacific Railroad. Standing Bear and family They aided Standing Bear, who in April 1879 sued for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Omaha, Nebraska. Acting as interpreter for Standing Bear was Susette LaFlesche, an accomplished and educated, bilingual Omaha of mixed-race background. The case is called United States ex rel. Standing Bear v. Crook. General Crook was named as the formal defendant because he was holding the Ponca under color of law. As the trial drew to a close, the judge announced that Chief Standing Bear would be allowed to make a speech in his own behalf. Raising his right hand, Standing Bear proceeded to speak. Among his words were, "That hand is not the color of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain," said Standing Bear. "The blood is of the same color as yours. God made me, and I am a man."[10] On May 12, 1879, Judge Elmer S. Dundy ruled that "an Indian is a person" within the meaning of habeas corpus. He stated that the federal government had failed to show a basis under law for the Poncas' arrest and captivity.[11] It was a landmark case, recognizing that an Indian is a “person” under the law and entitled to its rights and protection. “The right of expatriation is a natural, inherent and inalienable right and extends to the Indian as well as to the more fortunate white race,” the judge concluded. Years later, blind and in failing health, the attorney Poppleton reflected on his final court plea for Standing Bear: “I cannot recall any two hours' work of my life with which I feel better satisfied.”[12] The Army immediately freed Standing Bear and his followers. The case gained the attention of the Hayes administration, which provided authority for Standing Bear and some of the tribe to return permanently to the Niobrara valley in Nebraska. Lecture tour [ edit ] Between October 1879 and 1883, Standing Bear traveled in the eastern United States and Europe[citation needed], speaking about Indian rights in forums sponsored by Indian advocate and former abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Susette (Bright Eyes) LaFlesche (by then married to Thomas Tibbles) and her brother Francis, who later became an ethnologist with the Smithsonian Institution, accompanied Standing Bear on the speaking tour. The LaFlesche siblings took turns acting as his translator. Tibbles also was part of the party. During his lecture tour, Standing Bear won the support of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and other prominent Americans.[citation needed] Later years [ edit ] After returning from the East, Standing Bear resided at his old home on the Niobrara. He farmed near 170 other Ponca who had been allowed to resettle there. In 1893 Standing Bear worked for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in Chicago and visited the World's Columbian Exposition where he rode the Ferris Wheel in full ceremonial headdress.[13] He died in 1908 and was buried on a hill overlooking the site of his birth. Today the federal government recognizes two tribes of the people: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma. Legacy and honors [ edit ] Chief Standing Bear Memorial BridgeGetty Images Only two words will matter at the Federal Reserve. WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — When the Federal Reserve concludes a two-day meeting, traders will focus on two words in its policy statement. Since March, the Fed has promised that it intends to hold rates steady for a “considerable time” after it stops buying bonds, now on track to end in October. Specifically, the Fed said: “The Committee continues to anticipate, based on its assessment of these factors, that it likely will be appropriate to maintain the current target range for the federal funds rate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends, especially if projected inflation continues to run below the Committee’s 2% longer-run goal, and provided that longer-term inflation expectations remain well anchored.” Fed watchers think it is a close call on whether this language gets dropped from the policy statement. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, in an interview with MarketWatch last month, said the central bank can wait ”some meetings” before changing that language. But other members of the committee, including some hawks and doves, want to re-write the language. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser dissented from the July statement after his calls for new wording were rejected. For the markets,the two words are important because they are seen as code for when the Fed will hike rates — in June 2015 which is the consensus call, or earlier, in March. The Fed has kept rates close to zero since December 2008. Bonds rallied on Tuesday, after Jon Hilsenrath, who covers the Fed for the Wall Street Journal, predicted that the Fed may keep the “considerable time” pledge in the policy statement but qualify them. After his comments, the 10-year yield US:10_YEAR was down on the day at 2.57%. Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at The Economic Outlook Group, thinks the Fed will scrap the “considerable time” phrase next week on the way to the first rate hike in March. “We expect the Fed will begin to set the stage next week by signalling that its zero-bound interest rates policy will soon be history,” Baumohl said. Michael Hanson, chief economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said his “base case” is that the U.S. central bank does not change the language, but added it was “a pretty close call.” Markets would the Fed knows dropping the language would be taken as a signal of a possible earlier rate hike, he noted. “I don’t think they want to signal a change in policy,” Hanson said. Zach Pandl, a strategist with Columbia Management, said there was a “significant risk” the Fed does away with the considerable time language. If they keep the wording, it “shuts the door” on a March rate hike, he said. “By dropping the language, the Fed is leaving the option open [for a March move] but it is not making any guarantee,” he added. One reason that the language might survive is that finding compromise language to replace it could be tricky, said James Glassman, economist at J.P. Morgan Chase. “It is very hard to figure out language that both sides would agree on,” he said.NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Right now, some 2,400 solar installations with 43 gigawatts of power are at some stage of the building process. They will make the U.S. the world's third-largest solar market. Yet, there is an immense bearish pressure being applied to solar energy these days: Arizona has imposed a fee of roughly $5/month on all solar panels, for connecting to the grid. Such taxes tend to increase with time. New Mexico has cut solar's share in its renewable energy mix, reducing the value of solar energy credits and increasing the value of those devoted to geothermal energy. In Europe, which has 76% of the world's solar panel energy (Germany alone has 30% of the total), subsidies have been cut back repeatedly in recent years. Renewable energy "skepticism" has replaced pure denialism, but its policy choices are the same. Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor in Copenhagen who got his degree at the University of Georgia, is the cover boy for the new movement. In books like Cool It he calls renewable energy subsidies inefficient. But there are some much better reasons to ignore the solar bears and look favorably on stocks like First Solar (FSLR), up 89% this year; SolarCity (SCTY), which has nearly tripled in 2013 and SunPower (SPWR), up a whopping 431% for 2013 alone. There have also been gains in the previously beaten-down Chinese solar sector. Industry leader Yingli Green (YGE) is up almost 128%, Hanwha Solarone (HSOL) is up 256%, and Jinko Solar Holding (JKE) has quadrupled in value this year. The economics of solar have changed. The Institute for Global Self Reliance offers a "solar parity map" that shows that, by next year, 18 states will have solar costs in line with those of other grid energy -- without subsidies of any kind. Add in the 30% federal tax credit due to expire at the end of 2016 and nearly the whole country has already reached parity. When it falls to 10%, only nine states will find solar power uneconomic on those terms. The solar industry has also learned to tap the capital markets. It started a few years ago, with First Solar finding it could develop large projects for utilities and then sell them on to companies like Mid-American Energy, a unit of Berkshire-Hathaway (BRK.A).NEWARK — John Paleski left for a trip to South America in September 2009 with strict instructions to his ex-wife that his teenaged sons weren’t allowed in his house while he was away. But, with Paleski out of the country, his 17-year-old son threw a party for friends at his Essex Fells home, court papers say. When Paleski returned home two weeks later, he says he found a back window broken and empty beer and champagne bottles strewn across the property. Two weeks later, he said he discovered some $38,000 in jewelry and $200 in cash missing, the papers say. Paleski sued his ex-wife, Jonna Cali, in state Superior Court in Newark in 2010, accusing her of “negligently supervising” their son in an attempt to recoup his losses. On Tuesday a state appeals court rejected Paleski’s claim and upheld Judge Francine Schott’s decision to toss out the lawsuit. There is no law allowing one parent to sue another for a child’s misdeeds, a three-judge panel of Appellate Division judges ruled. “The judge was correct that as a matter of law there is no authority permitting a negligent supervision cause of action between parents of a child, and that as a matter of public policy, the tort of negligent supervision of a child does not permit a parent to sue the other parent for damages the child caused,” the judges wrote. Paleski’s attorneys cited a case from New Jersey in which parents were held responsible after an underage partygoer was injured driving home from a party in their home. In that case, the appeals court said parents had a duty to the public to supervise the teenagers in their home while they were away. The difference, according to Cali’s attorney, Lewis Markowitz, is that in that case someone else – not one of the parents – was making a claim of negligence. “The big difference is that in the other case there was harm to a third party and that’s why I knew this case didn’t have legs,” Markowitz said. “This is just between two parents.” Markowitz said the son denies his father’s claim that jewelry and cash were taken from the house during the party. The couple were divorced in 1997 after eight years of marriage, the decision says. They have joint legal custody of their two sons, who live primarily with their mother. The year before the alleged incident from 2009, Paleski allowed one of the sons to hold a card game at his house while he was away only to discover later that the boy decided to hold a party with friends instead, the decision says. “He allegedly told (Cali) that he thereafter would not allow his sons in his home while he was away,” the judges write. Neither Paleski nor his attorney could be reached for comment today. Cali declined to comment on the decision, citing the recent death of her father, New Jersey real estate developer John Cali. John Cali was the former chairman of Mack-Cali and co-founder of one of the nation’s leading real estate investment trust firms. He died Saturday at the age of 95. RELATED COVERAGE • Mack-Cali cofounder and NJ real estate pioneer, John Cali, dies at 95istockphoto Homer talks about the vegetarians in ancient Greece. Leonardo da Vinci reportedly abstained from meat, as did 19th-century poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Throughout history there have been small groups of people arguing against eating meat, largely for ethical reasons. Today’s equivalents are nutrition experts — and they increasingly have data on their side. Although researchers disagree about exactly how much meat is OK to eat, most agree that less is better. Harvard nutrition guru Dr. Walter Willett says he eats red meat only once or twice a year. New York Times food writer Mark Bittman doesn’t eat any meat products for breakfast or lunch, and only sparingly later in the day. Dr. Neal Barnard believes all animal products, including fish, are bad for both the heart and the brain, so he doesn’t eat any at all. Advertisement Research consistently shows that regularly dining on red meat, pork, or cured meats is bad for the heart and increases the risk of colon cancer. The studies aren’t clear, however, on how much meat causes problems, or how liberally we can include chicken or fish in our diets. Get The Weekender in your inbox: The Globe's top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here “I think there’s strong evidence that cutting back on red meat is beneficial,” said Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, who says he eats chicken and fish in moderation. Gary Fraser, who runs a long-range study of 35,000 vegetarians at Loma Linda University in California, said vegetarians fare better than moderate meat-eaters on measures of longevity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and a few cancers. Giving up all animal products, including fish, dairy, and eggs is even better in measures of weight, diabetes, and high blood pressure, his research suggests. Among non-red meat eaters and vegetarians, there are degrees of improvements: chicken and fish eaters are healthier than those who also eat red meat; people who eat only fish are better off than those who also consume chicken; those who eat no meat but eat eggs and cheese — lacto-ovo vegetarians — are better still; and vegans have the lowest levels of obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure, his research suggests. But, “we’re not quite at the point yet of being able to publish definitive evidence” that a vegan diet is best, said Fraser, who eats eggs, a little dairy, and an occasional piece of fish. Advertisement It’s possible, Fraser said, that future research will find little difference between those who avoid meat altogether and those who indulge less than once a week. “For many people, it might be easier to do that.” Barnard, an adjunct associate professor of medicine at George Washington University, is more dogmatic. He recently ran an international conference on nutrition and the brain, and he believes all meat — including fish — is bad for the heart, and by extension, the brain. “There is no [nutritional] requirement for meat. Zero,” said Barnard, adding that his own vegan diet is tasty, easy, and varied. “This is not punishment.” So in the face of such studies, why haven’t we stopped eating meat? More research might help turn the tide. People could be more willing to limit their meat consumption to once or twice a week if there was definitive evidence showing benefits of cutting back. Advertisement But it’s tough to be definitive about dietary advice, because scientists can’t tell one group of people to eat one way for decades and a different group to eat another. Most research, therefore, is in mice, or looking at large groups of people and asking them to remember how they ate in the past or to keep food diaries — which are notoriously inaccurate. Measures of longevity and obesity that test people after-the-fact don’t meet the gold standard of scientific research. In decades of offering nutrition advice, Dr. Dean Ornish said he’s learned one thing: Don’t tell people what not to eat. “Fear is not a sustainable motivator,” he said. “Even more than being healthy, most people want to feel in control.” For the last 36 years, Ornish has studied a comprehensive diet and lifestyle program, including a whole foods, plant-based diet, stress management, moderate exercise, and social support, including friendship and intimacy. This kind of lifestyle, which he described in his book “The Spectrum,” can reverse heart disease, may stop or reverse early stage prostate cancer, and perhaps even slow aging, his research has shown. “The more you change the more you improve at any age,” said Ornish, a clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif. Ornish said he was a strict vegetarian for 30 years, but now can’t resist an occasional piece of sushi. Anecdotally, there’s more interest in vegetarianism in recent years, with food writers and scientists regularly extolling its virtues. iStockphoto.com Bittman, who’s been eating vegan before 6 p.m., or “VB6” (the title of his new book), for more than six years, said he doesn’t think the details matter as much as the general trend. “I think it’s important that people move toward eating more food and less crap,” he said. Bittman said the evidence of growing interest in vegetarianism is obvious: “When Chipotle is doing a vegan burrito with tofu, when TCBY is doing almond frozen yogurt — this is becoming mainstream.” The trend isn’t reflected in national polling data, though. Gallup Inc. has found little change between 1999 and 2012, with only 5 to 6 percent of Americans considering themselves vegetarians and 2 percent vegans. Primary care doctors used to respond with horror when patients announced they had given up eating meat. Doctors might cluck their tongues and worry aloud about the nutrients their charges were missing. Now, most doctors and medical organizations have come around at least to a neutral stance on vegetarianism. The American Heart Association, for instance, touts the apparent heart-healthy benefits of vegetarian diets on its website, though it warns of possible vitamin deficiencies: Vegetarians who subsist on pizza, chips, and cake are unlikely to be any healthier than most meat-eaters, researchers agreed. Chef Mollie Katzen, whose cookbooks have educated people about vegetarian eating for decades, said she’s seen a sea change in attitudes in recent years. The explosion of farmers’ markets has made great produce easier to get, said Katzen, whose newest book “The Heart of the Plate: Vegetarian Recipes for a New Generation” comes out in September. Cooking is now considered a worthwhile endeavor, instead of a chore, she said, and people who have to watch their budgets realize that it’s far cheaper to cook than eat out. Katzen said she has nothing against meat. “I’m just profoundly pro-vegetable.” Karen Weintraub can be reached at karen@karenweintraub.comThe Other Guys: 5 Bands Missing From The British Invasion Enlarge this image toggle caption Paul Popper/Getty Images Paul Popper/Getty Images By this day in 1964, a few acts from the U.K. had already cracked the American charts. When the The Beatles made their U.S. television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, the door was symbolically kicked wide open. The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, Herman's Hermits — they all sold millions here. But for whatever reason, a few great British bands from that era did not make the trip across the pond. Lenny Kaye was a teenager at the time. Best known as the guitarist for the Patti Smith Group, he's also a great collector of rock 'n' roll obscurities, who curated a now-legendary box set of '60's rock music, 1972's Nuggets. "I was perfectly positioned to be swept up in the hysteria," Kaye says. "The summer before, I'd learned my first chords on the guitar, hoping to be a lonely folk singer in the backyard. And then, all of a sudden, an entirely new role model and aspirational ideal came before me on television." Kaye spoke with NPR's Arun Rath about five of his favorite Brit bands from the era who simply never made the trans-Atlantic trip. Listen to their conversation at the audio link, and browse the music below.SNc Channels: Search About Salem-News.com Jan-08-2013 03:00 TweetFollow @OregonNews America Can be a Scary Place for Americans Larissa Nearing’s story is a poignant illustration of what can happen when you are busy living your life. Larissa Nearing and her son (SAN DIEGO) - We are a nation of rules and laws, with over 40,000 new laws that went into effect on January 1, 2012, alone. With such a minefield, even for the most sober citizen, it is easy to slide down the rabbit hole. Not see a construction zone sign; it could cost you dearly. Overdrawn at the bank; there are fees and penalties. Recently, in Oklahoma there was a 21 car pileup on an icy street and every driver received a $252 ticket. Larissa Nearing’s story is a poignant illustration of what can happen when you are busy living your life. On November 3, 2011, Larissa began what seemed like a routine day. She had taken her baby to daycare in the morning and then went to work. Around noon, she got an urgent phone call from a neighbor who said her apartment was on fire. She rushed home to find the firefighters wrapping up and learned that the apartment above hers was where the fire originated. She saw from her doorway all her worldly goods. Many of the items had been wrapped in plastic by the fire department. But she noticed her speakers for her DJ business were not protected. She tried to enter her apartment since the fire was out and police officers were standing inside her apartment talking. She was prevented from entering and so she asked if they would please protect her speakers. Larissa explained she had a DJ business and this equipment was vital for her livelihood. There was one officer, Scott Crane, who ignored her pleas for help. She says she never was hostile to the officer, but was just frantic to get her possessions protected from further damage. After several attempts to reason with the officer, she said he spun her around and stated, “You are under arrest for obstruction of justice”. He then proceeded to take her to the back alley away from all the neighbors and witnesses. But the media, about five TV stations and even more news reporters showed up while Larissa was being handcuffed. She kept asking “Why are you arresting me? What have I done wrong? Why won’t you help me? My equipment is worth $20,000. That’s my business. Why are you doing this?” Because of her upbringing she knew not to lose her cool and did not use any language toward the officer that would be deemed inflammatory such as swearing at him. She knew she shouldn’t be getting arrested. "Don’t hit him. Don’t swear. Don’t hit him. Don’t swear," was the mantra ringing in her head. It seemed the more controlled Larissa was the angrier the officer became. He was rough and at one point her breast came out of her dress and was exposed. Mercifully, another officer came to her rescue and covered her up. Then Officer Crane threw her into the back of the police cruiser. The media was capturing everything on film. When he put me in his cruiser, he pulled some marijuana out of the trunk & started waving it around. “Is this yours? If it is, you are going away for a long time.” She responded that she was 100% legal and possessed a medical marijuana card issued by the state of California. She had moved to California in order to be legally compliant as she had suffered a severe car injury and marijuana was the safest and best way to ease her pain. He laughed at her. Later she learned that the San Diego Police department officers exaggerated on camera the amount they found. One officer extended his arms outward suggesting a huge amount of pot. When this accusation was made she lost her job. The reality was she only had a small amount, well within the legal limits of California law. Unfortunately, a false accusation has the same repercussions as a true one. Employers don’t care to check out the veracity of these charges. You are guilty even if proven innocent. The officer took her to the booking area and left her in the squad car. It was a warm Southern California day; around 80 degrees and she asked to have the window cracked for some air. This request was ignored. Over a period of 5 hours she was kept in the back seat of the car handcuffed and on several occasions different officers come out to urge her to talk. She had asked for an attorney but that request too was also denied. One officer had the audacity to suggest to Larissa to keep her legs closed and be a mother. Finally, when the arresting officer returns she is confident that she will be released only to learn that a new charge has been filed; child endangerment. How can there be any child endangerment, especially, since her son was at daycare at the time? At this point, Larissa started to cry and begged the officer to release her one -year- old son to family living in the area. The officer started laughing at her and said, “No, he is going to go to a children’s home”. The arresting officer, Scott Crane, went off duty and a replacement came and took her out of the cruiser and started explaining to her what was going to happen to her and her son. He explained that someone would be going to get her son and take him to state children’s home. Since she isn’t acting like officer Crane had said, he offered to help her retrieve some vital phone numbers to make some calls. The arresting officer told his fellow officers that Larissa was acting crazy and abusive. Apparently, the two police reports contradicted themselves. In one report the officer said that Larissa was arrested because she ran into a burning building and he so feared for her life that he had to arrest her and detain her to save her life. And in the other report he stated that she was so abusive with her language and she was verbally assaulting him. There were at least five different cameras rolling at the time of the arrest and there was no evidence found where Larissa had been verbally abusive or cursing the officer. She was booked in on a felony child endangerment charge with $100,000 in bail. She lost it when she realized she wasn’t going to get out of jail any time soon. Next, they took her DNA because of the felony charge. This was permanently entered into an ever -growing database even if the charges were later dropped. Though she was arrested around 12:30 p.m. it took until 2 a.m. the following day before finally being booked. She believes this was done on purpose in order for her to have to sit in jail until the next Monday. The bail amount was too high for her to meet. Unbeknownst to her, bail had been reduced to $10,000 the following day but she was never notified. She sat in jail needlessly. No doubt this was bad for her but the real injury was to a one-year- old child who had never been away from his mother. What about the psychological damage done to this poor innocent? Larissa spent 5 days in jail. The arresting officer charged her with 5 counts. One of child endangerment, child neglect, etc. but when she was finally brought before the judge the only charge that stuck was a misdemeanor obstruction and she was released on her own recognizance. While she was imprisoned her child was tested for drugs and found to be drug free. A friend of a friend was a former district attorney and came to represent Larissa pro bono because he thought this shouldn’t be happening to her. She had been told by child welfare services that once she got out of jail she would be able to see her child, but when she was released the nightmare continued. A restraining order had been placed on her so she couldn’t see her baby. Larissa was about to get schooled in the world of juvenile court. Juvenile court operates under the preponderance of the evidence. Guilt is not beyond all reasonable doubt. The judge only needs to believe 51% of the evidence is true in order to convict someone. Larissa went to the detention hearing on Tuesday morning fully expecting to be leaving with her baby. She thought since all charges were dropped except for a misdemeanor of obstruction it would be an automatic return of her child. She walked into the courtroom thinking that she would say, “Here I am” and be given her son back. Instead, the judge decided that Larissa was a bad parent and started the adoption proceedings. He disregarded the fact that her son tested negative for any drugs or illegal substances. The court- appointed attorney volunteered her for rehab and Larissa said, "Excuse me. Don’t volunteer me for rehab, I want my baby back". She kept firing her court appointed attorney on the record and the judge asked the attorney, "Are you having a problem with your client?" The judge said they would set a date to come back in a month to discuss the case and Larissa respectfully, yet firmly, said, "No. I want my baby back". The court-appointed attorney said this was her only option. And he kept saying to her, "You can’t fire me". When the original charges were dropped and never made it passed the district attorney’s office, apparently the Child Welfare Services did not care. It seems that Larissa’s one-year-old son was being offered for adoption from the first day he was taken and placed into the system. Even though the original charges of possession and sales, being under the influence and child endangerment were immediately dropped, no one bothered to inform the CWS. The accusation of these crimes is apparently what CWS went with and they didn
avention of the code; did not intentionally purchase or hold the shares but failed to exercise an appropriate level of due diligence to ensure compliance with the code. Jenkins told the Star earlier it was the employee who first warned the agency about the allegations, which were subsequently spelled out by a complainant in a letter to the OPA legal division. She added that Andersen was made aware of the letter. The OPA added that it has been in contact with the provincial ombudsman and the Ontario Securities Commission about the allegations and the OPA’s investigation, and that it will continue to co-operate fully with both as required. As of the January 1, the OPA will be merging with the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). The OPA news release noted that Goudge, the former judge, advised that more time is required to provide a proper review of the employee code of conduct and recommended that he carry out this work in the new year once the merger has taken place. “The IESO will begin work with Justice Goudge as soon as possible in January to develop and adopt an effective code of conduct,” said Bruce Campbell, the IESO’s CEO. Until a new code is finalized, employees will be bound by the existing OPA and IESO codes of conduct, the OPA stated. Read more about:Officers of the Douglasville Police Department arrested two suspected burglars Tuesday night and two fled on foot after the suspects' car rolled over.The Douglasville Police Department is searching for two suspects that fled on foot after a high-speed chase on Interstate 20 that led to a rollover Tuesday night. Two of the four suspects in the vehicle were arrested, according to the DPD's Facebook page.The men are suspected of participating in two Douglasville burglaries that occurred overnight. One was at Douglasville Package on Douglas Blvd. and is believed to have been committed by the same suspects that hit 5 & 20 Package the night before.The second burglary was hours later, according to the report, at Sound Proof on Douglas Blvd. Officers spotted the vehicle suspected of being used in the Sound Proof burglary and the suspects sped away when officers attempted to stop them.A senior police official in Bengaluru, India, has said he is "not taking too seriously" a "revenge" threat made following the arrest of a local man suspected of running a pro-Islamic State (IS) Twitter account. Police in Bengaluru (formerly known as Bangalore) arrested 24-year-old Mehdi Masroor Biswas on December 13, after Britain's Channel 4 said it had unmasked the man behind the popular pro-IS "Shami Witness" Twitter handle. According to Indian media reports, Biswas has been charged under the Indian Penal Code's Section 125 (waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance with India), Sections 18 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (inciting or abetting terrorist acts, and support given to terrorists) and Section 66 of the IT Act (computer-related offenses). The "Shami Witness" account had sent over 130,000 tweets, including messages praising IS militants. The account had tweeted the beheading of American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig Twitter Threats, Twitter Criticism The threat to Bengaluru officer DCP (Crime) Abhishek Goyal was delivered -- fittingly enough -- via Twitter, with a pro-IS user tweeting that "we will not leave our brothers in your hand Revenge is coming wait for our reaction." The threat came as pro-IS users on Twitter began a campaign on the social network demanding that police free Biswas. Using the hashtag #FreeShamiWitness, supporters of Biswas tweeted messages complaining that the arrested man had been detained for "supporting Islam." The "Shami Witness" Twitter account, which had more than 18,000 followers, was well-known among Syria watchers for tweets in support of IS. However, prior to supporting IS, Biswas had favored Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. Biswas was followed and seen as an important source of information by leading terrorism analysts, researchers, and journalists, a fact that resulted in outpourings of criticism against those who had recommended or referred to "Shami Witness." Responding to the criticism, "Daily Telegraph" reporter Richard Spencer, who has reported from Syria and Iraq, said that he had seen Biswas as a "useful source or at least aggregator of information," including before he became pro-IS. Thomas Hegghammer, the director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, tweeted that he had been accused of being a "Wormtongue, an idiot, and a Nazi" for recommending that others follow the "Shami Witness" account on Twitter. British analyst Aymenn J. al-Tamimi, who like the "Telegraph's" Spencer describes Biswas as an "aggregator of IS content" rather than an IS source, credited "Shami Witness" with one scoop -- that of breaking the story that IS had appointed Georgian Kist militant Umar al-Shishani as commander of its northern branch in Syria in late spring or early summer 2013. 'Propagandist Of IS Ideology' As emotions ran high on Twitter, India's joint commissioner of police, Hemanth Nimbalkar, said on December 14 that the preliminary investigation against Biswas had shown he was an IS "propagandist" and had been "instrumental in influencing minds against our friendly nations against whom [IS] is at war," OneIndia.com reported. Nimbalkar said that the authorities were investigating Biswas's connection with the "virtual and actual" world of IS and whether there was any domestic connection or sleeper cell involved. On December 14, police were given five more days to question Biswas. The police commissioner in Bengaluru, M.N. Reddi, said that Biswas worked during the day as a marketing executive in an Indian conglomerate and tweeted as "Shami Witness" in the evenings. However, police noted that Biswas appeared to be an active outside supporter of IS rather than an official recruiter and that he had not traveled outside India. Biswas is expected to appear before a magistrate within the next day. -- Joanna Paraszczuk We are sorry, but this feature is currently not availableTed actress Jessica Barth claims Atomic Blonde producer David Guillod drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2012 when he was working as her... http://humansarefree.com/2017/11/ted-actress-jessica-barth-claims.html Ted actress Jessica Barth claims Atomic Blonde producer David Guillod drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2012 when he was working as her manager. Barth detailed her accusations in a blog post last week but did not name Guillod as her abuser until Thursday, when she told The Wrap she had gone to the LAPD with the accusations – for the second time.The actress told The Wrap she tried to press charges in 2012, but ultimately dropped the case when Guillod threatened to sue her. She said she only came forward now because another woman recently reached out to her describing a similar alleged incident with Guillod.But the producer’s attorney told The Wrap that the case was dropped back in 2012 because of lack of evidence. “This allegation was initially made five years ago and was fully investigated by LAPD at that time,” said his attorney, Thomas M. Ferlauto. “Witnesses were interviewed whose version of events belied and completely contradicted Ms. Barth’s and LAPD determined the charges to be unfounded. No criminal or civil case was ever brought against Mr. Guillod,” he added.Guillod did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.Barth told The Wrap she has no knowledge of witnesses who might have contradicted her statement, and noted that she had her own witness, her now-husband Danny Cusumano, who corroborated her story.“Nothing was found to be unfounded. I just stopped pursuing it because he threatened to sue me,” Barth told the website. “I wasn’t in a place emotionally or financially to take him on legally.”The LAPD declined to comment, citing privacy, The Wrap reported.In her blog post last week, Barth claimed that she blacked out during a dinner with a then-unnamed Guillod after having some wine. “The next thing I remember is waking up at home with six hickeys on my neck,” she wrote.“I was horrified. I was completely and utterly confused and I was sick to my stomach,” she added.“Through email, he tried to play it off as a silly make-out session between friends. He sent me message after message begging that we talk and letting me know how upset he was and that he couldn’t sleep because of the pit in his stomach.”Barth claimed that Guillod had made unwanted sexual advances towards her prior to the alleged incident, and that she only agreed to go to the dinner because another woman, Survivor’s Remorse actress Felisha Terrell, was in attendance.Barth said she immediately fired Guillon as her manager after the alleged assault.Terrell, who is still managed by Guillod, gave a statement to The Wrap, saying, “There were some inaccuracies in the story as I recall it. If I felt these accusations were 100 percent true I would not have remained a client. As a woman in this business, I am both supportive and inspired by women speaking their truth.”After Barth published her blog post last week, which did not include Guillod’s name, she says a woman reached out to her claiming she had a similar experience.“She titled the email with his name. I immediately had shivers from head to toe,” Barth told The Wrap.“The woman said that she had a similar experience, which was horrific … She said it was about three years ago.” The woman reportedly declined to be identified.Barth has previously come forward with accusations against Harvey Weinstein, telling CNN the disgraced mogul propositioned her for sex in a hotel room in 2011.About Two things this project is trying to solve: 1. How in the world are you going to get back at your brother for putting that Kool-Aid in your shower head twenty years ago? 2. How can you find a fun project to develop coding and electronics skills with the Raspberry Pi while at the same time making a wireless squirt machine? The answer to problem #2 is the Raspberry Pi Water Gun Kit. The answer to #1 is correct placement and timing of the finished product. The good news is that the Raspberry Pi Water Gun Kit is almost ready for your use. Currently on its third prototype, the water gun recently became battery powered and wireless so you can place it in strategic positions. You can pivot it left an right with the touch of a button and make it squirt by pressing space bar. Luckily for the curious but novice squirt machine makers in our midst, this kit uses a Raspberry Pi Computer as the brain. The Raspberry Pi was thought up by Eben Upton, who at the time was a professor at Cambridge. He envisioned it as a device to help kids learn computer science by giving them an inexpensive computer they could tinker with. Since then the Raspberry Pi has developed into many do-it-yourself projects for kids and adults alike. People have built things from magic mirrors to, well, wireless squirt machines. In keeping with Upton's vision of devices that help you learn, this electronics kit is aimed for both the intermediate and amateur electronics enthusiast. The following features make it accessible: no soldering required quality instruction manual complete Python code to get the water gun to squirt and pivot Along the way in the building process you will learn about: How to setup the Raspberry Pi How to connect to the Raspberry Pi with your desktop or laptop over WiFi Basic circuitry using components such as resistors, transistors, and diodes General Purpose Input Output pins on the Raspberry Pi (these pins allow you to control external devices) Solderless prototyping boards or breadboards Basic programming concepts in the Python language Basic commands in the Linux terminal (command line) As you can see, that is quite a lot to learn. The thought is that learning while you are making something fun will keep you motivated. So whether this is your first or twentieth electronics project and whether you're twelve or adult-aged, have fun making! What you'll get in the standard kit with the current design (subject to improvement): instruction manual case base for water gun container for water a 3-6 volt dc pump dc-dc converter cable to connect batteries to Raspberry Pi battery holder batteries mini solderless breadboard jumper wires 2 resistors (in case you break one) 2 transistors (in case you break one) 1 diode Note: the standard kit does not include the Raspberry Pi. But you can select the reward that does include the Raspberry Pi! How hard is it to put together? There are quite a few interesting steps to building this water gun. It takes using principles from circuits to coding. So will you be able to put learn what you need to and put it together? I'm committed to making this a good learning experience. The instruction manual will draw on my experience in education. I do a few things to practice explaining difficult concepts. I teach web development professionally at V School. I've had a good amount of fun in private tutoring sessions with kids in coding using previous water gun prototypes. I also run a STEM education website called Climbing Tree where I blog on fun and interesting topics. From this practice, I hope to make an instruction manual that is accessible and effective. I also may make videos to back up the learning process for those who purchase the kit. All this goes into making the kit a fun way to learn more coding and electronics skills."We made the decision for a lot of reasons, some of them obvious and some of them more nuanced, to make it Wolverine who goes back in time. One reason is that he's the protagonist of the franchise, and probably the most beloved character to a mass audience. Probably the bigger reason is that when we started thinking about the logistical realities of Kitty's consciousness being sent back in time, to her younger self, as opposed to her physical body being sent back..it was impossible. Obviously in the book it's Kitty..but you're talking about an actress (Ellen Page) who, in the age of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, would have been negative 20 years old. So we started thinking again, and the first reflex response to that was a character who doesn't age. Wolverine is the only character who would looks the same in 1973 as he does in the future." "Well of course it was Wolverine! All of these movies are just Wolverine movies!" etc etc. Yes, Hugh Jackman's mutant berserker has been the primary protagonist (every movie needs one folks) in all but one of themovies so far, and will likely continue to be until he gives up playing the role. But, although Simon Kinberg admits that his popularity was a factor, there was a much more logical reason why Logan was chosen to go back to the past in Bryan Singer's, and not Kitty Pryde. Turns out they did think of Miss Pryde first, but from the beginning it was always the plan to send only the consciousness and not the character's actual body back..and that really limited their options.For more be sure to pick up the latest issue of Total Film magazine, on sale now.The 1988 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team represented the University of Notre Dame during the 1988 NCAA Division I-A football season. The Irish, coached by Lou Holtz, ended the season with 12 wins and no losses, winning the national championship. The Fighting Irish won the title by defeating the previously unbeaten and No. 3 ranked West Virginia Mountaineers in the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona, by a score of a 34–21. The 1988 squad, one of 11 national title squads for the Irish, is considered to be one of the best undefeated teams in the history of college football.[1] The Irish beat the teams which finished the season ranked #2, #4, #5, and #7 in the AP Poll.[1] They also won 10 of 12 games by double digits.[1] The 1988 squad is best remembered for its 31-30 upset of No. 1 ranked Miami, ending their 36-game regular season winning streak.[2] The game is remembered to this day as one of the most memorable games in all of college football.[3][4][5] Schedule [ edit ] Roster [ edit ] 1988 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team roster Players Coaches Offense Pos. # Name Class WR 80 T 72 RB 39 QB 8 T 64 RB 40 So T 71 TE 86 RB 5 Fr WR 13 G 61 QB 17 Fr QB 11 RB 24 G 75 T 73 T 66 Sr C 55 RB 41 WR 25 Fr TE 88 RB 22 C 76 Fr RB 35 QB 9 Jr WR 21 RB 32 G 52 So G 53 WR 21 WR 12 So TE 43 Defense Pos. # Name Class DE 97 DT 90 Jr LB 47 Jr DT 93 SS 26 DE 92 CB 32 LB 36 DE 38 DE 7 DT 74 Fr LB 37 Jr CB 1 So LB 34 CB 29 FS 31 DE 30 LB 42 SS 27 FS 15 DT 69 DT 50 So Special teams Pos. # Name Class K 18 K 2 P 16 P 14 Head coach Lou Holtz Coordinators/assistant coaches Legend (C) Team captain Team captain (S) Suspended Suspended (I) Ineligible Injured Injured Redshirt Rankings [ edit ] Ranking movements Legend: ██ Increase in ranking. ██ Decrease in ranking. NR = Not ranked. RV = Received votes. ( ) = First place votes. Week Poll Pre 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Final AP 13 (1) 13 13 8 8 5 5 4 2 (22) 2 (19) 1 (44) 1 (42) 1 (40) 1 (35) 1 (57) 1 (49) 1 (58 ½) Coaches 12 12 11 9 8 5 5 4 2 (10) 2 (8) 1 (30) 1 (32) 1 (31) 1 (29) 1 (42) 1 (42) 1 (42) [6] Game summaries [ edit ] Michigan [ edit ] #9 Michigan at #13 Notre Dame 1 2 3 4 Total Michigan 0 7 7 3 17 • Notre Dame 10 3 0 6 19 Date: September 10 September 10 Location: Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, IN Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, IN Game start: 9:00 PM EDT 9:00 PM EDT Television network: CBS 13th ranked Notre Dame debuted its season against No. 9 Michigan in Notre Dame Stadium.[7] In a 19-17 thriller, walk-on kicker Reggie Ho kicked a 26-yard field goal winner with 1:13 remaining.[7] Lou Holtz's concerns about his youthful offense and green receivers were realized as the Irish offense did not score a single offensive touchdown.[7] In addition to Reggie Ho's game winner, the Irish kicker scored 3 other field goals.[8] The lone touchdown from Notre Dame came from a Ricky Watters punt return, an 81-yard runback.[8] Michigan's Mike Gillette, who had given the Wolverines the lead with 5:34 left by kicking a 49-yard field goal, had one final chance to give Michigan the win, narrowly missing from 48 yards as the final gun sounded.[8] Michigan State [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total • Notre Dame 0 6 7 7 20 Michigan St 3 0 0 0 3 Date: September 17 September 17 Location: Spartan Stadium MSU threatened Notre Dame early with a 1st-quarter field goal, but that would be the only points of the day the Notre Dame defense would allow as the Irish downed MSU 20-3.[9] Notre Dame struggled early in the contest, accumulating only 50 yards running on 21 carries.[9] Reggie Ho tied the game with 31-yarder in the second quarter and put the Irish ahead 6-3 at the half with a 22-yard field goal.[9] The second half was a different story for the Irish offense, as quarterback Tony Rice and company amassed 195 yards on 33 carries in the second half.[9] 156 yards came on 19 carries in the third quarter alone.[9] Tony Rice ran for an 8-yard touchdown and Michael Stonebreaker added a 39-yard interception return for a touchdown in the final quarter to end any hopes of a Spartan upset.[9] The star of the game was Notre Dame's defense, which held the Spartans to 89 yards rushing for the game.[9] Running back Mark Green led the Irish rushing attack with 125 yards on the ground.[10] Purdue [ edit ] Purdue at #8 Notre Dame 1 2 3 4 Total Purdue 0 0 0 7 7 • Notre Dame 14 28 3 7 52 Date: September 25 September 25 Location: South Bend, IN Source: [1] Tony Rice passed for two touchdowns and ran for another as Notre Dame shredded Purdue 52-7.[11] It was one of the worst losses by Purdue in the history of the series, and its worst loss since a 48-0 drubbing in 1970.[11] Notre Dame scored early and often, starting with a 38-yard Rice option run for a touchdown.[11] Tony Rice's first passing touchdown on the year was an 8-yarder to freshman tight end Derek Brown.[11] The Irish exploded for 28 points in the second quarter, highlighted by a 54-yard Rice touchdown pass to Rocket Ismail.[11] Tailback Mark Green added a 7-yard touchdown run and Ricky Watters returned a punt 66 yards for a score.[11] Coach Lou Holtz used three separate quarterbacks in the second quarter and four total in the game.[11] 3rd-string quarterback Steve Belles hit running back Tony Brooks for a 34-yard score to put the Irish up 42-0 at half-time.[11] The second half saw the Irish score ten points with back-ups, a 44-yard field goal by Billy Hackett and a 36-yard run from freshman fullback Rodney Culver.[11] Purdue's lone touchdown was a fourth quarter 7-yard pass from Brian Fox to Calvin Williams.[11] The Irish improved to 3-0 while the Boilermakers dropped to 1-2 on the year.[11] Stanford [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total Stanford 0 7 7 0 14 #5 Notre Dame 6 22 7 7 42 Tony Rice rushed for two touchdowns and passed for a third to lead the Fighting Irish to a 42-14 blowout of Stanford.[12] Rice completed 11 of 14 passes for 129 yards and rushed for 107 yards.[12] Rice scored runs of 30 yards and 6 yards while the Irish tailbacks added 3 other scores with touchdowns from Mark Green, Tony Brooks, and Anthony Johnson.[12] Despite the lopsided score, Stanford did mount two of the longest scoring drives against the Irish to date, with a 68-yard drive by quarterback Brian Johnson and a 73-yard drive by back-up quarterback Jason Palumbis.[12] Freshman standout tight end Derek Brown added the Irish's sole passing touchdown in the 3rd quarter.[12] The Irish defense stymied the Cardinal, holding them to just 111 yards in the first half.[12] Pittsburgh [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total #5 Notre Dame 14 3 6 7 30 Pittsburgh 7 7 3 3 20 Notre Dame, a loser to Pittsburgh three years in a row, narrowly avoided another such upset as the Irish improved to 5-0 on the season.[13] The 30-20 victory in the rain did little to inspire confidence that Notre Dame could beat No. 1 Miami the following week.[13] The Panthers made a number of critical mistakes that led the Panthers to believe they did more to lose the game more than Notre Dame did to win it.[13] "We could have won the game," said Panther coach Mike Gottfried, "but we made just enough mistakes to lose it."[13] Notre Dame struggled to contain Panther quarterback Darnell Dickerson, who at times had 10 seconds or more per play.[13] The Panthers came out strong early, starting the game with an impressive drive, but before the Panthers could score, Irish cornerback Todd Lyght forced a fumble, which Chris Zorich recovered.[13] After a stalled Irish drive, the Panthers got the ball back and took a 7-0 lead on a Dickerson touchdown.[13] Notre Dame answered back with a 52-yard Tony Brooks run to the 2-yard line. The large run was the result of a failed Panther blitz attempt.[13] Tony Rice scored on a 2-yard keeper to tie the game 7-7.[13] After an Anthony Johnson touchdown gave the Irish a 14-7 lead, Dickerson scored his second touchdown to tie the game again at 14-14.[13] Reggie Ho scored a 37-yard field goal to give the Irish a 17-14 half time lead.[13] The critical moment of the game came in the second half, when late into the fourth quarter the Irish were clinging to a 23-20 lead when the Panthers forced the Irish into a 4th and long from their own 23-yard line.[13] But a late 12 men on the field penalty against the Panthers gave the Irish new life.[13] The 15-yard penalty gave Notre Dame the ball on its 48-yard line, and 11 plays later Mark Green ran for an 8-yard touchdown with 4:30 left in the game to put victory out of reach for the Panthers.[13] Tony Rice went 8-14 passing for the game and a third quarter Braxston Banks touchdown gave the Irish the lead for good.[13] Miami [ edit ] The October 15, 1988, game between Notre Dame and the University of Miami Hurricanes is colloquially referred to as the Catholics vs. Convicts game. The University of Notre Dame was dubbed the "Catholics" and the University of Miami was dubbed as "the Convicts".[14][15] Air Force [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total Air Force 6 7 0 0 13 #2 Notre Dame 6 14 14 7 41 A potential letdown after defeating No. 1 Miami the previous week never materialized for the now 2nd ranked Irish, who used a second half onslaught of power running to down the Falcons 41-13.[16] Coach Holtz admitted he was scared all week of a potential upset of his young Notre Dame squad.[16] Of main concern was Air Force's wishbone ground attack, which came into Notre Dame Stadium averaging 46 points and 432 rushing yards a game.[16] Falcons coach Fisher DeBerry's squad had the best ground gaining offense in the nation.[16] Holtz's fears seemed to be valid during the rain in the first half as Notre Dame only held a 7-point lead at the half.[16] Air Force opened the game with an impressive ground attack.[16] Air Force quarterback Dee Dowis took his team inside the Irish 20 on the game's first offensive drive.[16] But Pat Terrell, the defensive hero of last week's victory over Miami, stepped into the spotlight again, this time with Stan Smagala.[16] Albert Booker, an Air Force halfback, was carrying the ball on second down when Smagala hit him hard.[16] The ball popped free and Terrell recovered the fumble at the Notre Dame 16.[16] After the turnover, Air Force answered with its first field goal by Steve Yarborough from 22 yards out.[16] But Notre Dame matched that by going 71 yards to score on Mark Green's 7-yard touchdown run.[16] In the second quarter, The Irish continued to run the ball, with quarterback Tony Rice and running back Anthony Johnson both running for touchdowns.[16] Air Force answered before the end of the half with a touchdown to cut Notre Dame's lead to just seven points.[16] The third quarter was all Irish, as five Irish running backs combined for 283 yards, all running for 23 yards or more.[16] One of the highlights was a 50-yard halfback pass late in the third quarter thrown by 3rd-string quarterback Steve Belles.[16] In at running back, Belles took a pitch from Tony Rice, stepped back to his right and threw to a wide open Ricky Watters.[16] The flanker took the ball inside the Air Force 10 and battled his way just over the goal line late in the third quarter.[16] Other scores included a Tony Brooks 42-yard touchdown in the third quarter and another Ricky Watters touchdown catch; this time a 28-yarder from Rice.[16] In the end, the Irish defense held the explosive Falcons to 54 yards rushing in the second half and 195 for the game, 237 yards below its season average.[16] Navy [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total #2Notre Dame 7 9 6 0 22 Navy 0 0 7 0 7 Although unbeaten and No. 2 Notre Dame posted its 25th consecutive victory of the Naval Academy, coach Lou Holtz was not happy.[17] "We couldn't control the line of scrimmage," Holtz said after the victory.[17] "We couldn't throw consistently, we weren't mentally alert and that's my fault. Our offensive line got beat up, we couldn't run inside. We weren't good enough to beat them inside. We're not a very good team right now. We feel fortunate to win."[17] Favored to beat Navy by five touchdowns, the Irish dropped five passes, lost two fumbles, shanked a punt for a mere 10 yds., and got whistled for having twelve men on the field - all before winning the game 22-7.[18] The Midshipmen fumbled on their second play from scrimmage and six plays later Notre Dame led 7-0 on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Rice to Derek Brown, before a crowd of 54,926 at Memorial Stadium.[19] Rodney Culver and Ryan Mihalko ran for touchdowns as Notre Dame opened up a 22-0 lead early in the third quarter en route to reaching an 8-0 record for the first time since 1973.[17] One positive Lou Holtz saw was the play of the defense.[17] "Our defense played really well, but was on the field too long."[17] Notre Dame amassed 396 total yards and held Navy to 192 yards, the lowest for an Irish opponent this year.[17] Rice [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total Rice 3 3 0 5 11 #1 Notre Dame 14 17 7 16 54 The Irish scored early and often as Notre Dame dazzled their home crowd of 59,075 with a 54-11 victory.[18] After Rice scored an early field goal in the first quarter, Rocket Ismail returned his first of two kickoffs, a 78-yard return for a score.[18] The Irish offense quickly followed with three touchdowns on their first three offensive possessions.[18] Junior fullback Anthony Johnson rushed for two of Notre Dame's seven TDs, while Tony Brooks and Rodney Culver also added touchdowns.[18] Late in the game, after Rice's third field goal made the score 38-9, Rocket Ismail returned the ensuing kickoff 83 yards for another touchdown.[18] Ismail became the first Notre Dame player to return two kick-offs for touchdowns in a game since Paul Castner in 1922 against Kalamazoo.[20] After Notre Dame's final touchdown, Rice LB Billy Stone returned the blocked extra-point all the way for two points to account for the final score of 54-11. This was the first time a team scored by returning a failed conversion in NCAA Div I history (the rule allowing for the defense to score this way instituted at the start of the 1988-89 season). Penn State [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total #1 Notre Dame 7 7 7 0 21 Penn State 0 3 0 0 3 The Irish came into the game at 9-0 while Penn State was 5-5, on the verge of their first losing season in 50 years. Notre Dame got started early, scoring on their first possession, an 87-yard on 12 play drive.[21] On second-and-5 from Penn State's 48-yard line, Tony Rice threw a 17-yard pass to Ricky Watters, who was wide open 15 yards downfield.[21] Five plays later, Notre Dame scored from Penn State's two. Rice optioned left, froze the Penn State linebacker Eddie Johnson with a pump-fake, then ran into the end zone.[21] Reggie Ho's extra point made it 7-0.[21] In the second quarter, Notre Dame drove 60 yards in five plays to go ahead, 14-0.[21] Rice set up the score with another pass to Watters - a 27-yard play that moved the ball to Penn State's 33-yard line.[21] Two plays later, running back Mark Green took a handoff up the middle, then found daylight to his right and ran 22 yards for a touchdown.[21] Penn State's only score came on the last play of the first half, when Eric Etze kicked a 52-yard field goal.[21] After leading by 14-3 at halftime, Notre Dame struck quickly for its final score in the third quarter.[21] On first down after a Penn State punt, Tony Rice threw a 67-yard touchdown pass to Raghib Ismail.[21] It was the first time the Fighting Irish had thrown deep all game, and the long pass caught Penn State defensive backs off guard.[21] Ismail was so wide open, he scored even though he had to wait for Rice's underthrown pass.[21] After making the catch at Penn State's 20-yard line, Ismail broke Eddie Johnson's attempted tackle and jogged into the end zone.[21] The win set the stage for the next week's showdown vs. USC, the final hurdle to the national championship game. USC [ edit ] Notre Dame and USC entered the game undefeated and ranked number one and two respectively for the first time ever in their storied series. It was also the 24th time No. 1 faced No. 2 in college football history.[7][22] In a controversial move, coach Lou Holtz took his 10-0 Irish squad to L.A. without stars Ricky Watters and Tony Brooks, whom he suspended for disciplinary reasons.[23] The USC Trojans were having a great season under head coach Larry Smith and standout quarterback Rodney Peete.[22] The Irish came into the game as underdogs, but spectacular play of defensive end Frank Stams and cornerback Stan Smagala aided the Irish offense, led by Tony Rice, to an Irish victory.[24] Notre Dame started out fast with Tony Rice surprising the crowd by throwing deep to Raghib Ismail on the first play of scrimmage. On the very next play, Tony Rice optioned left for a 65-yard touchdown play. The Trojans were listless, committing four turnovers, including a back-breaking Rodney Peete interception to Stan Smagala for another Notre Dame touchdown. In the second half, running back Mark Green added the final touchdown of the day(aided by a key 22-yard gain on a 3rd down screen play by Anthony Johnson) to help defeat the Trojans. The sellout crowd of 93,829 was the largest in this rivalry since 1955.[22] Fiesta Bowl [ edit ] 1 2 3 4 Total #3 West Virginia 0 6 7 8 21 #1 Notre Dame 9 14 3 8 34 Aftermath [ edit ] The 1988 Irish squad won their 11th consensus national title in Lou Holtz's third year as an Irish head coach, equaling the trend of Irish coaches winning the title in their third year.[7] Irish head coaches Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian and Dan Devine also won titles in their third years as head coach.[7] Holtz was named national coach of the year for taking the Irish squad from an 8-4 record the previous year to national title winners the following year.[7] His 1989 and 1993 squads narrowly missed repeating the feat.[7] As of 2016, the 1988 Irish squad is also the most recent to win the national title.[7] This title drought looms large as Notre Dame is currently in its 26th year going without winning a title, the longest such streak since they won their first in 1924.[7] Awards and honors [ edit ] All-Americans Paul "Bear" Bryant Award Coach of the Year Lou Holtz[25] Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award Lou Holtz[26] College Football Hall of Fame inductees Name Position Year Inducted Lou Holtz Coach 2008 Chris Zorich Defensive Tackle 2007 Notre Dame leads all universities in players inducted.[27] Future NFL Players [ edit ] The following is a list of Notre Dame players that would go on to play or be drafted to play in the National Football League over the next four years. All players listed played for the 1988 team. \| George Streeter \| 1989 \| Chicago Bears Source:[28]Festival Place have released detailed designs of how parts of the shopping centre could look after proposed changes are made. Centre owners AEW in Europe are finalising plans to rejuvenate Festival Place by transforming St John’s Square into a bright and spacious outdoor area, including an enhanced public realm. Works have already started on St John’s Square, where Metro Bank will open, complete with double height shop facades, in December, while improvements to the car parks are also part of the plans.
the themes were manifested in the Hymns, a particular group of poems from a particular era of Greek literature. In some of this work, a computer was used. Any given manifestation of a given theme is always realized in the vocabulary of its place and time and of the particular poet, a relationship that is particularly amenable to computer-aided study. The present paper is a report of the way a series of programs developed since 1969 has been used. Since the method and the computer program have many potential applications in literature beyond the specific use to which we have put them, they are described in detail. The results given in this paper are only those from the computerized part of the study, but they tended at all times to corroborate the insights gained by other methods. The programs represent an application to literary material of computer methods first used for information retrieval and propaganda analysis. The purpose of information retrieval is to find documents on a particular topic by matching keywords assumed to belong to that topic against keywords in various documents. The methods of propaganda analysis were designed to study the changing bias exhibited by the writers of the propaganda by finding what words are commonly conjoined with what others. Our interest was to see how the traditional themes used by ancient Greek oral poets changed in appearance according to the way they were used by each poet. The method in all of these procedures is to determine a particular author's emphasis by a quantitative study of his vocabulary. It differs, however, from a mere frequency count in that one is not only looking at the frequency of individual words, but at the groups or clumps of words that frequently occur together. In the case of an oral poet, the clumps of words have an additional psychological interest. Since he composes the poetry "live," before an audience, the clumps provide insight into the processes of word association going on in his mind at the moment of composition. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey represent one branch of the oral epic tradition of ancient Greece. The poems of Hesiod belong to another. The Hymns seem to represent a third stream of this tradition; they share the same formulaic diction and the same mythological themes as the works of the two great poets, and it is most likely that they, too, were composed orally.2 Although this corpus of poems in dactylic hexameter has been associated with the name of Homer, it is doubtful that any of them were actually composed by Homer himself. In their present form, they probably date from some time between 700 and 500 B.C. There are 33 poems in all, varying in length from 3 to 580 lines (or "verses," in Classical terminology), each dedicated to one god or to a group of gods, such as the Muses. The longest and most important are the second, to Demeter; the third, to Apollo; the fourth, to Hermes, and the fifth, to Aphrodite. Page 132 Attempts have been made to prove that Hymn III to Apollo is really two poems, a "Delian" part and a "Pythian" part, combined by some later poet. The shortest Hymns are in the nature of brief ejaculations or addresses to the gods, but the longer ones tell of various incidents in the lives of the gods. The Hymns recommend themselves to study for several reasons. They have been rather neglected in comparison to the poems of Homer and Hesiod, and they thus contain much unexplored territory. A small corpus in themselves, sharing common features of style and diction with each other, yet they can be separated into individual poems of various lengths, all of which are short but which are whole poems in themselves. This advantage shows up in the work done with computers, where it is advisable to test the programs on small amounts of material at first and work up to larger units. One avoids some of the problems inherent in trying out a theory on, say, Book One of the Iliad, which is of convenient length, but is not a whole poem in itself. Yet since the Hymns show the same basic features as the larger works, a program that gives significant results for the smaller poems may eventually be applied to the longer ones. The chief structural components of oral poetry are the formula, the type-scene, and the theme. Of these; the formula is the smallest unit, a ready-made combination of words of fixed metrical shape and fixed meaning (or, less rigidly defined, of fixed syntax or sound pattem). Such is the formula dios Achilleus "godlike Achilles," or kat' ommata kala balousa "casting down her beautiful eyes." The type-scenes are short, standardized descriptions of various actions which are themselves ritualized and formulaic, such as Sacrifice and Banquet, Chariot Journey, or Assembly.3 The largest element is the theme, which supplies the entire plot for a story or for a portion of it: examples are the Succession of the Gods, the Withdrawal and Return of the Hero, and the Marriage of the Fertility Goddess. These themes are not identifiable by exact verbal identity but by a recurring sequence of elements that is always found in them. They differ from both the formulae and the type-scenes in that they are not culture-bound, being found in the literature of many places and times, although the exact form they take will be determined by the particular culture. The distinctions between the various types of element are not, however, as fixed as they might seem; for example, the type-scene of Maidens Dancing and Picking Flowers may become the theme of Maiden Abducted While Dancing and Picking Flowers when the entrance of a threatening male figure moves the action forward. It is in the themes that our chief interest lies. The identical theme, containing the same set of basic elements, can appear completely different from one poem to another, and can seem so completely appropriate to its context that it is hard to imagine it anywhere else. The Iliad and the Hymn to Demeter are both examples of the Hero's Withdrawal and Return; the Hymn to Demeter and the Hymn to Aphrodite are both examples of the Marriage of the Fertility Goddess; Hesiod's Theogony, the Hymn to Apollo, and the Hymn to Hermes all exemplify the Young Hero's Consolidation of His Power; the Odyssey, the Hymn to Demeter, and the Hymn to Apollo incorporate the theme of Wandering; and all the major epics contain examples of the theme of Epiphany. Yet they seem so different that the reader or listener does not readily apprehend that they are the same. This phenomenon is, of course, partly due to the fact that the dramatis personae are different, and that these themes are combined with or modulated into different themes in the course of their development.4 But another important factor that makes the same theme so integral a part of many different poems seems to be the presence, within a particular example of the theme, of certain keywords which belong to the individual poem or poet rather than to the theme. It is this factor which we proposed to study. CONTENT ANALYSIS AND CLUSTER ANALYSIS The methods we used fall under the general head "content analysis," a procedure not entirely new to Classics. Thomas F. Carney, a pioneer in this area, studied the keywords used by Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, and John the Lydian in their portrayal of the statesman Marius, and showed how writers of differing periods and backgrounds emphasized different aspects of the character and career of the same historical figure.5 Our use of content analysis is marked by two features. First, we used a computer to aid us in gathering our information; second, we used a subtype of content analysis called "clump analysis" or "cluster analysis," a method which we think avoids some of the pitfalls of other computer programs designed to do content analysis, such as the General Inquirer. In the usual content analysis program, the researcher himself makes semantic categories and assigns words to them. He might, for example, have Page 133 one category for "home," one for "power," one for "affective states," and so on. He then pre-edits the text by flagging each significant word with the mark of the relevant category. This system requires the researcher to spend much time editing the text; what is worse, it introduces unnecessary arbitrary elements, since it builds the researcher's preconceptions of what is important into the presentation of the data. Our method was to have the machine itself make the categories. Our program does not even create semantic categories in the sense of grouping together synonyms or near-synonyms. Rather, it puts in groups words that occur together in a contextual or conceptual relationship. In fact, it often makes distinctions between words which seem to be synonymous, but which are actually used in different ways. Greek is a highly inflected language: the forms of nouns, adjectives, and verbs change according to their functions in the sentence. Not only are there endings to indicate case, tense, mood, voice, person, and number; Greek also possesses prefixes and infixes and forms that change through ablaut. In poetry, we also find vowels lengthened and consonants doubled for the sake of the meter. If a computer is to be used to gather instances of a word, it must be able to connect forms of the same word; for example, it must be able to tell that lambanô "I take" belongs to the same verb as ellabon "I took." Word formation might be called "transparent": vocabulary developed by the combination of simple stems into compounds whose derivations were obvious to a native speaker. English, by contrast, is an "opaque" language where borrowing from foreign languages is more common than compounding from native roots; connections like "shirt" and "skirt," "chamber" and "camera," or "triple" and "three-ply" are apparent only to linguists. The Greeks themselves set great store by etymologies (the premier example is Plato's Cratylus) and felt that if one knew the meaning of a thing's name, one could understand the meaning of the thing itself. This was also true of the names of persons. Where the historical derivation of a name had been lost, especially in the case of non-Indo-European names, the Greeks tended to supply a derivation from some Greek word that sounded like it. In view of these matters, it seemed better to have our program determine not what words occurred most frequently together but what stems occurred together. Thus, for instance, the machine would group together not only forms of the verb gignomai "to be born," and its compounds, such as ekgignomai and progignomai but also genos "race," goneus "begetter," neognos "newborn," since even a visual inspection reveals that patterns of association are based on these stems. It should also mark connections between words that the poet thought were connected, such as the derivation of the place-name Puthô in the Hymn to Apollo from the rotting (puthô, puse) of the dragon which Apollo slew on that spot. Our goal was to have the machine find groups of stems that were habitually used together by the poet. But between us and that goal lay several major steps. After producing the machine-readable text itself, we had to make a concordance, prepare a machine-readable dictionary of Homeric Greek, count frequencies of stems, find the clumps themselves, and, finally, analyze the results. The concordance, dictionary, and frequency list were themselves useful byproducts of the project, which can be used in later projects.6 THE MACHINE-READABLE DICTIONARY OF GREEK For the machine to sort on stems rather than on words, it must have some way of determining the stem for every word-form in the text. One way to make the machine recognize stems would be to use a morphological analysis program that cuts off endings, prefixes, and infixes. No such program has, however, as of the time of our research, been perfected to the point where it could be used to provide analysis in conjunction with our program. Furthermore, such programs as have been devised lack sufficient power to connect the many linguistically related words that play a part in the poet's verbal associations. The alternative, then, was to build a dictionary giving the stem for each word-form occurring in the text, in which the machine would look up every word as it came to it, to ascertain its stem form. As we constructed it, the dictionary contains not only the stem or stems for each word, but the "canonical" form, which is the form under which one would look up the word in an ordinary dictionary (sometimes called the "lemma"). It also includes room for the addition of grammatical or other information if we should ever want to fill it in. This additional information was not needed for the clump program, but it extends the range of potential uses for the dictionary independent of the clump program. In this form it is available for future research by ourselves or by other scholars. Page 134 The first step in the preparation of the dictionary was to produce a machine-readable list of all the words in the text, such that other information could be added to it in machine-readable form. For this we used a normal concordance program, but with the added instruction that the machine was to punch one IBM card for each separate word form. [Note: for this project, both text and dictionary were on punched cards. Only capital letters were used, with no accents or breathing marks. Equivalent Roman letters were used to represent the Greek, where they are identical; for special Greek characters, we used H for eta, J for iota subscript, Q for theta, C for chi, Y for psi, and W for omega. Diaeresis was represented by . The dictionary has since been transferred to disk.] Up to sixteen columns on the right side of each card were allowed for each form (the rare form that exceeded sixteen characters was truncated). [Note: on the IBM punched card, each letter or other character occupied one column.] Other information was then manually keypunched onto the card as follows: The first sixteen columns on the left were allocated to the canonical form or lemma. Assignment of the canonical form was independent of whether word-form and canonical form were from the same linguistic stem. Oisô "I shall carry" is, for example, referred to pherô "I carry." Three fields of eight columns each were allowed for up to three stems per word form. The remaining twenty-four columns were left blank and can at some future time be filled in with grammatical or other information.7 The most important work of building the dictionary was the filling in of the stems. In making the primary decision as to what a stem was to be, we considered two essential questions: 1) What are the common elements that cause associations in the poet's mind? 2) Which of these common elements shall we choose to sort on, i.e., which are most important for our purposes? Then in creating stem forms for the dictionary, we tried to meet three criteria: linguistic accuracy, consistency, and comprehensibility.8 The "stems" given in our dictionary are not, however, either stems in the strict sense of basic word-parts to which endings can be added nor Indo-European roots. Such consistency, while possibly to be desired, did not turn out to be feasible. Where possible, we used the Indo-European root; where the root is impossible to ascertain or does not occur in its unchanged form in Greek, we used the most easily recognizable form of the Greek stem or simply the most basic Greek form from among a group of related words. Since we were interested only in content words, we did not assign stems to the function words, although they were included in the dictionary and given canonical forms. Thus there were no stems for the verb "to be" nor for particles, pronouns, or conjunctions. Prepositions were generally not given stems, but some, having originally been adverbs, occasionally keep their adverbial force, especially in composition, and these were sometimes assigned stems. For example, peri as a preposition meaning "around" was not given a stem, but it was given a stem when used as an intensifier meaning "very." The inclusion or exclusion of other adverbial prefixes was judged on an individual basis. A-privative, for instance, meaning "not," was not counted as a separate stem, but aga- or êga-, meaning "much" or "very," was listed separately as a stem. Since we could already see that the poet uses the separate stems of compounds in his pattern of association, multiple stems were given to true compounds, as opposed to simple words with adverbial prefixes. In Hymn XIX to Pan, for example, the poet calls the nymphs ligumolpoi ("piercingly singing") in verse 19, then says in verse 21 that they "sing" (melpontai) and in verse 24 that Pan delights in their piercing melodies (ligurêisin... molpais). Provision for three stems was sufficient, since there were never more than three stems in one compound. For many categories of word we evolved a fairly straightforward set of rules for the assignment of stems: If both a verb and a noun come from a stem, we preferred the vocalization of the verb, which is usually the e-grade. Thus we used MELP as in melpomai "I sing" instead of MOLP as in molpê "song." If a root or stem proper was not available, the first principal part of the verb, rather than the noun, was used. If, however, the verb is a secondary formation from a noun, the canonical form of the noun was used as the "stem." Disyllabic Indo-European roots were given a form indicating their disyllabic nature, but only if they actually occur in that form in Greek. Thus we used TLA for "endure," but GEN for "birth," since GNA does not occur in Greek. The entire first principal part was used if a short stem would be ambiguous or confusing. Thus we used EDW and PATEOMAI, both meaning "to eat," A&ISSW "to leap up," and ORAW "to see." We also used the canonical form in the case of certain verbs, such as BAINW, where part of the root has combined with the suffix, and it is impossible to give the root as it appears in Greek without giving the suffix too. When a noun was used as the stem, consonant declension nouns were generally given true stem form, as GUNAIK for "woman," except where there was ambiguity. For all others, the nominative singular form was used. Thematic adjectives in o/a were generally given the o-grade stem Page 135 form, as AGAQO "good," and u-declension adjectives were given the stem in -u, as TRHXU "rugged." For adjectives of other declensions, we used the nominative singular masculine or animate. Despite the simplicity of the rules for most stems, problems arose in the assignment of stems to certain others, the solution of which uncovered a variety of linguistic curiosities that can only be hinted at here. For example, in words compounded of an adverbial prefix and certain common verb-forming stems such as the stems of echô "to have or hold" and of ballô "to throw," the simple stem seems to act merely as a function word or filler, to indicate that some sort of action is going on or that a state of being exists, and the content of the word depends on the whole compound. It is doubtful how much semantic connection such compounds retain with each other or with the related verb. Sometimes we gave the compound the same stem as the simple verb, sometimes not. Thus the adjective exochos "surpassing" has the stem EX, as does the verb echô, but sumbolon "tally," which is compounded of ballô and sun- "with," was given BAL as a stem but also its own "stem" SUMBOL. Even some words formed of identical root and prefix seem to have grown apart so much as to no longer be connected, and were therefore given separate stems. Thus epistamai "to know" was given a separate stem EPISTA, different from STA "to stand," since already in Homer it is differentiated in meaning from the later compound ephistamai "to stand upon, stand near." Other words developed historically from different roots, but they grew together and came to resemble each other more and more. Thus tinô "to pay a price," cognate with poinê "retribution," was confused by the Greeks with the unrelated word tiô "to honor," from which come the noun timê "honor" and its derivatives. Accordingly, we assigned forms of tiô to the historically unrelated TINW and gave POINH a stem of its own. Cases in which words seem to be related linguistically, but on some principle other than a simple shared root, had to be decided individually. The historical connections between dnophos (gnophos) "darkness," knephas "darkness, twilight," zophos "nether darkness," and Zephuros "the West Wind," for example, are murky, but rhyme seems to have played some part in the formation of these words and brought them together in a group, whatever the relationship between their roots. In the otherwise unrelated group of words nephelê "cloud," thuella "hurricane," and hêlios "sun," the /l/ phoneme seems to connote the idea of natural phenomena. Popular etymologies were included in assigning the stems, as when the name of Delphi was given DELF as a stem, connecting it with delphis "dolphin"; and Pytho, the other name of Delphi, was given the stem PUQW, the same stem as that given to the verb meaning "to rot." Where more than one derivation was believed by the Greeks, or where the poet seems to be making use of more than one derivation, both were given. A final problem concerned homographs, forms that are identical in spelling but which come from different and sometimes linguistically unrelated words. We used a text that had neither accents nor breathing marks, nor did it indicate capital letters. Some ambiguous forms, such as posín, dative plural of pous "foot," and pósin, accusative singular of posis "husband," could have been distinguished if we had included such additional information in our text. Posis and posin, the nominative and accusative singular of "husband," could not, however, have been distinguished from posis and posin, the nominative and accusative singular of the noun meaning "drink." If we wanted to make a distinction, we would either have to give the machine enough information to allow it to judge from the context, as we do, or else edit the text by the use of subscripts on ambiguous words, as POSISl and POSIS2. Actually, these confusions, already very few, were made fewer by the small chance that within any one poem both ambiguous forms will occur. For that matter, we sometimes want to retain these ambiguities, as the poet may, consciously or unconsciously, have played on them. The completed dictionary for the Hymns included 6053 different word forms and 1333 different stems. The dictionary, since enlarged to include the major works of Hesiod as well, now contains 10,502 separate forms and 1708 stems, with 40 potentially ambiguous forms. It will be obvious to the reader that a great many human judgments have had to be made in assigning stems to the words in this dictionary, decisions that have an important effect on the final results of the program. Results could be quite different if only those words containing the same permutation of a stem were considered related from what they would be if words exhibiting radical transformations of the stem were classified in the same grouping. Continued experiments with widening and narrowing the focus in this way will show which way of assigning stems will produce the most interesting Page 136 and useful clumps. The importance of stem assignment in influencing the final results is matched by that of only two other factors: the choice of the contextual unit--how close two words have to be in the text in order to be considered "in the same context"--and the mathematical formula for finding the clumps. [Example 1 is an excerpt from the machine-readable dictionary.] Canonical Stem Stem Stem Au- Fre- Form as (dictionary) # 1 # 2 # 3 thor quen- it occurs form cy in text EURONOMH EURU NEM H 2 EURUNOMH EURUODHS EURU ODOS UH 8 EURUODEIHS EURUOPA EURU OP EIPON UH 14 EURUOPA EURUS EURU UH 8 EURUS EURUSQEUS EURU H 1 EURUSQHA EURUSQEUS EURU U 1 EURUSQHOS EURUSTERNOS EURU STERNON H 1 EURUSTERNOS EURUTIWN EURU H 1 EURUTIWNA EURWEIS EURWS H 3 EURWENTA EURWEIS EURWS UH 2 EURWENTI EURISKW EUR U 1 EURWN EURWPH EURU OP H 1 EURWPH EURWPH EURU OP U 2 EURWPHN EUSKOPOS EU SKEP U 1 EUSKOPOS EUSTRWTOS EU STOR U 1 EUSTRWTON EUSTRWTOS EU STOR U 1 EUSTRWTWN * U = Hymns, H = Hesiod, UH = Hymns and Hesiod Example 1: An excerpt from the machine-readable dictionary of roots in Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns used by the "Clump Finder" program. THE CLUMP PROGRAM A literary critic may have an intuitive feeling for associations between various words and ideas in a poem; a computer, having no intuition, blindly follows whatever instructions we give it. A computer program to find associations requires a precise definition of an association and a detailed algorithm for searching for associations that meet the definition. Whenever we translate an intuitive notion like association into a mathematical formula, some of its old meaning is inevitably lost. If the mathematical formula incorporates real insight into the structure of the problem, however, it may turn out to be more useful than the original intuitive notion. The clump program is an experiment with several possible formulas in an attempt to find one that illuminates the network of associations in a poem. To evaluate the validity of the technique, we compared the results with the insights obtained through close reading of the text. The technique we used is based on an approach developed by R. M. Needham for information retrieval, where the subject of a document is described by index terms consisting of keywords selected from the document. Needham introduced the idea of a clump of keywords: two words that occurred in the index list for the same document were said to be connected. The total connection between two words was defined as the total number of documents whose index lists contained both words; a clump was then a set of keywords whose connections to each other tended to be greater than their connections to words not in the clump. Each clump thus represented a set of words that were associated by virtue of their frequent cooccurrence on the same documents.9 In the application of the clump technique to Greek oral poetry, a block of text with the list of stems occurring in it was considered the analog of a document with the list of index terms describing it. The connection between two stems was defined as the total number of contexts in which those two stems occurred together. The context for a stem was considered as the block of three lines consisting of the line on which the stem occurred, the line immediately preceding, and the line immediately following. To determine the optimal context size, we tried running the program with one-line and five-line contexts. Although many of the same clumps appeared under all the variations of context size, the most consistently interesting clumps were generated with three-line contexts. We also tried defining a context as a certain number of words on either side of a stem; but in oral poetry, the line appears to be a more fundamental unit of composition than a fixed-length string of words.10 The formal definition of a clump takes into account not only connections between pairs of stems, but also total connections between all the stems in one set and all the stems in another set. If x and y are two stems, let c(x,y) represent the connection between x and y; the connection of a stem to itself is not relevant to the search for clumps and is arbitrarily defined to be zero: c(x,x) = 0 for all x. If A and B are two sets of stems, we define the cohesion between A and B, written A B, as the sum of all connections between a stem in A and a stem in B: Mathematically, a clump is a set that minimizes a certain function F: If A is any set of stems, then all the stems not in A form another set -A, called the complement of A. The clump function is defined by the following formula: This function determines a number that measures how tightly the stems in A are connected to each other compared to their connections to stems not in A. In the definition of F(A), the numerator represents the cohesion between stems in A and stems not in A; the smaller this number, the more isolated is the set A. The denominator represents the cohesion of A to itself and -A to itself; making A and -A more strongly connected to themselves, but not to each other, increases the denominator and thereby decreases F(A). A clump is then defined as a set of stems A that makes the value of F(A) a local minimum: adding one more stem to A or removing any stem from A would increase the value of F(A). The following analogy provides a more concrete representation than the mathematical definition. Page 137 Suppose we imagined the set of all stems in the text as a complex web of interconnections. Each stem would represent one node in the network. If two stems never occurred in the same context, there would be no direct connection between them. Two stems that occurred together frequently would be connected by a strong cord, and two stems that occurred in the same context only once or twice would be connected by a weak thread. The cohesion between two sets of stems would measure the strength of the cords connecting the sets. If we tried to tear the network apart by pulling vigorously on its various parts, it would tend to break into smaller networks, each of which represented a single clump. The clump program is the mathematical equivalent of building a web of string and then tearing it apart. Suppose we took a small text with sixteen different stems and computed connections between the stems. We would end up with a list of connections such as c(l,2) = 1, c(3,6) = 1... To visualize the connections more readily, we could draw a network as in Figure 1, which represents each nonzero connection by a line between the two stems. Suppose each line represents a connection of value 1; then we could apply the above formulas to determine possible clumps. We would find that stems 3, 6, and 7 form clump A with only one connection to a stem not in A. Stems 1, 2, 4, 5, and 9 form clump B with five connections to stems outside of B. Stems 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 form clump C with six connections to stems outside of C. The four isolated stems 13, 14, 15, and 16 form clump D by themselves; they have no connections to anything else. Note that stem 9 appears in two clumps, B and C. Figure 1: Clumps in a network of stems. Figure 2 lists the values obtained from the clump formulas using the connections in Fig. 1 as the input data. Note that the cohesion of a set to itself is always twice the number of lines joining stems in the set: there are three lines joining stems in A, but AA = 6 because it is the sum of c(3,6), c(6,3), c(3,7), c(7,3), c(6,7), and c(7,6). AA = 6 BB = 18 CC = 16 DD = 12 A-A = 1 B-B = 5 C-C = 6 D-D = O -A-A= 48 -B-B= 28 -C-C= 28 -D-D= 44 F(A) = 0.00347 F(B) = 0.0496 F(C) = 0.0804 F(D) = 0 Figure 2: Values Computed with the Clump Formulas. Page 138 The small, compact clumps are usually the most interesting ones, but strict application of the formulas allows some large ones that contain smaller clumps within them. For example, stems 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 form a clump that is the union of clumps A and C. The union of clumps B and C also forms a clump. The union of A and D forms a clump where the two subclumps are not even connected with each other. From the definition of the clump function, it follows that the complement of any clump is itself a clump: the union of B, C, and D forms a clump since it is the complement of A. The search methods incorporated in the clump program tend, however, to favor the small, compact clumps instead of the larger, diffuse or disconnected clumps. Although the computations for this short example can be done with paper and pencil in a few minutes, a practical application cannot be performed without a large computer. The Hymn to Hermes, with 436 stems and 22,238 nonzero connections, used over 330,000 bytes of storage and took over ten minutes on an IBM 360/75. PL/I was used for the clump programs because it is equally good for the character manipulations in processing the text and for the numeric computations in evaluating the clump formulas. The optimizing compiler that is now available for PL/I produces code that is as efficient as the code from the best FORTRAN compilers. [Obviously, more modern machines and compilers could be more efficient.] The clump program has four major sections: It first reduces the entire text to a list of stems. Then it computes a table with all the nonzero connections between stems. Next it searches for clumps by starting with suitable trial clumps and progressively refining them. Finally, it prints a miniconcordance of the original text with the lines arranged not by the words they contain, but by the clumps whose stems they include. The first step in the clump program consists of reading the text and making a list of every word in the text with the number of the line on which it occurred. Then the words are sorted in alphabetical order so that the dictionary look-up requires only one pass. Each word is replaced by the stem given in the dictionary entry; if the word has no stem, it is blanked out, and if it has more than one stem, all the stems are added to the list. After the translation of words to stems, the list is no longer in alphabetical order. Therefore, it is sorted once more. Then the program sweeps through the list of stems, making a fresh list without duplicates and eliminating those stems that occur only once, since they are not relevant to determining cross connections between contexts. From this point on, the character form of the stems is used only for output; all further computations inside the machine use the number representing each stem's position in the list. The next part of the program generates connections between pairs of stems by counting the number of times they occur together. The connections could be represented as a large matrix, where the i,j-th entry would represent c(i,j), the connection between stem i and stem j. However, the matrix form would waste storage because most of the entries would be zero: for the Hymn to Hermes, the number of entries would be 436 squared or 190,096; but only 22,238 or less than 12 percent were nonzero. Furthermore, the matrix form would not be the most convenient representation, since the clump-finding process requires rapid access to all the stems connected to a given stem without the overhead of searching for nonzero entries in a matrix. The connections are stored, therefore, in a long list with each stem having an index to its block of nonzero connections. To compute the list of connections, the program generates a list representing every line of the original text, but with the words of the text replaced by the numbers of the stems that occur on that line. Then for each stem, the program takes the lines on which that stem occurred and counts the number of occurrences of other stems on those lines and on the lines immediately preceding and immediately following. Although the computations described so far are complex, they consume less than 20 percent of the total running time for the program; the time-consuming part is the iterative process of searching for clumps by minimizing the function F. The usual way of minimizing a function by trial and error is to start with a good guess and then to refine the guess by making small changes until no change minimizes the function further. For the clump program, the initial guess would be a set of stems representing a trial clump; the small changes would consist of adding or removing one stem at a time from the trial clump and keeping the modified set if it reduced the value of F. When no further change would reduce the value of F, then the resulting set would be a clump. Good guesses for trial clumps were obtained by taking one stem together with all other stems that had nonzero connections to the original one. These sets were reasonably small, often required little refinement to reach clumps, and rarely led to disconnected clumps since the original sets were Page 139 connected and the refinements tended to preserve connectivity. Each trial clump was represented internally by a vector of bits of length equal to the total number of stems. If a stem was in the trial clump, its corresponding bit was 1; if not, its bit was 0. The process of refinement consisted of systematically going through the list of stems, adding a stem if it was not already in or removing it if it was and recomputing the value of F each time. Although computing F from scratch each time would be a lengthy process, the addition or removal of only one stem for each change allowed shortcuts in evaluating the changes to F. The process usually converged to a clump after three or four passes through the entire list of stems; if it didn't converge after ten passes (which rarely happened), that trial clump was abandoned. Most of the good, compact clumps tended to turn up several times from iterations starting with different trial clumps. A relevance factor was computed for each clump that represented the ratio of the expected value of F
are opting in to our Newsletter: Sign up for the Early Bird Brief All five of the city's bridges spanning the Tigris River have been damaged. The main hospital complex where a battle raged for more than a month is a burned out shell. Mosul's airport looks like a derelict parking lot, booby-trapped with explosives by fleeing IS fighters. In eastern Mosul, the destruction was less intense. More than 160,000 of the 176,000 people who fled the east have returned, according to the U.N. Residents have begun rebuilding homes, shops have reopened, and demining is underway. But west of the Tigris, neighborhoods have been rendered into ghost towns. There, coalition strikes killed some 5,805 civilians between Feb. 19 and June 19, according to Airwars, a London-based monitoring group tracking civilian deaths resulting from coalition actions. Fewer than a tenth of the more than 730,000 people who fled western Mosul have filtered back. Saif Mohammed recently re-opened his sandwich shop on a main avenue in the west, repairing war damage with the help of a $5,000 loan from relatives. On the same street, only two or three other shops are open. The other storefronts are bombed out and burned, the corrugated Iron doors warped by explosions. His shop is a bet that residents will return. "But what people really need is government help," he said. "If the government doesn't give money, there won't be any rebuilding." Hiyam Mohammed hid in her home with her family on the edge of the Old City throughout the fight. They could see the cemetery from their house. "Some days the funerals lasted from dawn into the night. There were so many bodies piled up, it looked like a hill," she said. "I thought I was going crazy seeing this. They didn't even have time to wash the dead." She said the only way to justice is if the government and coalition pay compensation to those who lost relatives or property. "The government brought Daesh to us," she said, referring to sectarian rule that fueled Sunni extremism and corruption that weakened the country's security forces. "This mess is God's revenge for that." But some in the security forces have resentments of their own, blaming Mosul residents for supporting ISIS. "The people here have always had a rebellious nature, so they should take some responsibility for what has happened," said Maj. Imad Hassan, a federal police officer from Baghdad. During the campaign, his unit fought to capture a stretch of the corniche running along the Tigris, hammering it with artillery for weeks to clear out IS resistance. The former municipal center was shredded, rows of buildings blackened, palm trees lining the boulevard burned. "I hope this destruction teaches them their lesson," he said. Iraqi and coalition officials say the devastation was the result of the Islamic State group's tenacious grip. IS transformed the city into a fortress. Its fighters used hospitals and schools as military bases, moved civilians from the rural outskirts into central neighborhoods to use as shields from airstrikes and rigged hundreds of houses and roads with explosives. Nearly 10 years ago, Maj. Maher Aziz Khalaf fought IS' predecessor, al-Qaida, in Mosul alongside U.S. forces. But when he rolled into western Mosul with the first wave of Iraqi special forces troops in early February he said he immediately realized this battle would alter the city in a way previous fights hadn't. "In 2008 it was different. We would just identify which houses the terrorists were living in, come in at night and arrest them," he said. "We were fighting gangs, not an entire city." A coalition spokesman, Col. Joe Scrocca, said the forces had to balance between protecting non-combatants and infrastructure on one hand and moving quickly on the other. Another factor, he said, was that the longer it took to free the city, the more danger civilians were in, whether from lack of food or IS retaliation. Hesitant to risk casualties along their own troops, Iraqi military commanders relied on airpower and artillery to clear neighborhoods where a handful of IS fighters armed with light weapons and civilians as human shields repeatedly stalled entire units of Iraq's military. As the fight moved to the Old City, rights groups and the U.N. warned the coalition and Iraqi forces against using large munitions. Still, the U.S.-led coalition repeatedly approved the use of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs inside the densely populated district. As waves of civilians fled the Old City, more than a dozen individuals told the AP they knew of multiple families killed under their homes by what they believed to be airstrikes. "The buildings can be rebuilt, but the human lives lost cannot," said Iraqi special forces Lt. Gen. Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi from a base on the edge of Old City on Tuesday. "But the buildings in the Old City were all very old anyway," he said. "Now we can demolish them and build apartment buildings."Introduction The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 graphics processor has held the title of world's fastest GPU since its launch in September 2014. Equipped with a second-generation Maxwell architecture, the 2,048-shader part is able to mete out acceptable framerates when tasked with rendering modern games at a lofty 4K (3,840x2,160) resolution. Perhaps more impressive is the energy efficiency aspect of the GPU, consuming up to 165W over extended periods, which enables add-in board partners to produce quiet cards that certainly don't skimp on performance. Yet this second-generation Maxwell GPU - a full implementation of the GM204 die - is the warm-up act before the main gig. You see, the ultra-enthusiast Maxwell GPU, home to a gazillion transistors and silly amounts of VRAM, has yet to reveal itself... until now. This new Nvidia beastie is called the GeForce GTX Titan X. Schizophrenic in nature - part professional card and part games-playing behemoth - Nvidia is releasing Titan X before rival AMD can get its new Radeon 300-series GPUs out in the wild. Titan X is Maxwell technology in its fullest, chest-beating form. Most of you don't need one, a scant few can afford the $999 price point, and, of course, there's considerable value to be had elsewhere. Titan X is about pushing that GPU envelope out that little bit farther, so keeping up with tradition by rolling out the Table of Doom™, let's see what all the supposed fuss is about. Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan X (12GB) Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (4GB) Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti (3GB) Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan (6GB) AMD Radeon R9 290X (4GB) AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB) Launch date March 2015 September 2014 May 2013 Feb 2013 October 2013 November 2013 Codename GM200 GM204 GK110 GK110 Tahiti Tahiti Process (nm) 28 28 28 28 28 28 Transistors (mn) 8,000 5,200 7,080 7,080 6,200 6,200 Approx Die Size (mm²) 601 398 551 551 438 438 Full implementation of die Yes Yes Yes No Yes No SM Units 24 16 15 14 NA NA Processors 3,072 2,048 2,880 2,688 2,816 2,560 Texture Units 192 128 240 224 176 160 ROP Units 96 64 48 48 64 64 Peak GPU Clock/Boost (MHz) 1,076 1,216 928 876 1,000 947 Peak GFLOPS (SP) 6,611 4,981 5,345 4,709 5,632 4,849 Peak GFLOPS (DP) 207 156 223 1,570 704 606 Memory Clock (MHz) 7,012 7,012 7,012 6,008 5,000 5,000 Memory Bus (bits) 384 256 384 384 512 512 Max bandwidth (GB/s) 336 224 336 288 320 320 Default memory size (MB) 12,288 4,096 3,072 6,144 4,096 4,096 Power Connectors 8+6-pin 6+6-pin 8+6-pin 8+6-pin 8+6-pin 8+6-pin TDP (watts) 250 165 250 250 250 250 GFLOPS per watt 26.44 30.19 21.38 18.83 22.52 19.40 Current price (Newegg) $999 $549 NA NA $399 $299 Lots of big numbers It is the very energy-efficient nature of the Maxwell architecture that enables Nvidia to build a bigger, faster die without compromising thermal limits dictated by air cooling. So just how fast and wide is the new GPU? It's a physical throwback to the GK110 die featured on the GeForce GTX 780 (Ti) and Titan cards based on the Kepler architecture. Commonality extends to having 3,000-odd shaders, a wider memory bus and a 250W TDP. Titan X is the logical successor to those GPUs, not the smaller, leaner GTX 980. Nvidia's design tactic has been to balloon the GTX 980 die out in all areas once yields of the Maxwell process, still built on 28nm, have matured sufficiently. This ballooning is represented by a 50 per cent increase in the building blocks of the top-end, represented by two more GPC clusters, thus leading to 3,072 cores and 192 texture units. GM200 (left) vs. GM204 (right) - 50 per cent bigger in most respects Nvidia keeps this 50 per cent mantra intact by increasing the number of ROPs by half again. More throughput requires a thicker, faster interface to memory bandwidth. Rather than incur extra risk by introducing newer technologies, as AMD is doing with the R9 390-series, the memory interface is a standard 384 bits (6x64-bit pathways) that talks to RAM rated at 7Gbps. In this respect it is identical to the GTX 780 Ti, though fundamentally more efficient due to the colour-compression technology present in the latest Maxwell chips. Titan cards are often described as the professional Quadro cards on the cheap due to their improved double-precision capabilities. For example, the regular Titan can process DP calculations at 1/4 SP speed while the GTX 780 Ti - an otherwise similar card - runs DP at 1/24. GTX 980 drops this ratio to 1/32 and, surprisingly, Nvidia deliberately hampers Titan X by keeping the same DP-to-SP ratio. In short, the Titan X's double-precision ability is far, far lower than the Kepler-based Titan's. You want a Quadro card for scientific computing, you pay for it, appears to be Nvidia's thinking, so the launch of the Quadro M6000, based on the same GM200 die but with faster DP support, is another entirely predictable move. RAMming it home A logical by-product of a wider bus is a difference in onboard memory. Though a 384-bit bus can still use a 4GB framebuffer by having different density chips, previous cards have used either 3GB (GeForce GTX 780/Ti) or 6GB (Titan). Yet Nvidia goes overboard by equipping Titan X with 12GB of GDDR5 memory. The green team's argument is that it wants the ultimate, no-compromise gaming card and while 6GB is enough for today and tomorrow, 12GB ensures that memory footprint isn't the limiting factor. Doubling the supposed amount of memory increases the cost of the card, unnecessarily so in our opinion, but Nvidia has probably chosen to do this to leave room for a GeForce GTX 980 Ti... one using this base GM200 architecture in some form and kitted out with more sensible 6GB of GDDR5 RAM. Titan X is a pre-emptive strike against the next generation of Radeon cards. Should they turn out to be faster than expected Nvidia can turn up the frequency wick on both counts and release said GTX 980 Ti 6GB at a rival price-point. Should R9 390X be slower, and so much is unknown right now, Nvidia can massage the frequencies accordingly. The $999 GeForce GTX Titan X 12GB is a 50 per cent bigger version of the GTX 980. Educated guesses would say that clock for clock it'll be around 40-50 per cent faster at high resolutions, making it ideal as the no-holds-barred single-GPU card for 4K gaming.DISCLAIMER: : Copyrights © 2008-2014 System of Life! 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If you want to contact a Scholar then go here: Islamqa, AssimAlHakeem, Islamweb Jazakallah Khayran (May Allah reward you with good deeds). Assalamualaikum wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barkatahu (May Peace Blessings & Mercy of Allah be on You)With their support falling to low levels, Europe’s mainstream parties are pulling out all the stops to freshen their image and reach voters. The European People’s Party (EPP) Election Congress in Dublin clearly recognised digital campaigning as being at the heart of this year’s European elections, and contributed to a significant increase in interest in and debate about the polls. Over three days (5-7 March), more than 16,000 tweets (includes retweets) were posted about the EPP Congress. At the event itself, social media workshops were given by Twitter, Facebook and Google. So it was perhaps surprising that Twitter-less Jean-Claude Juncker was chosen as the figurehead of the campaign. Juncker’s previous digital campaigning experience seemed to centre on fighting a losing battle to suppress spoof accounts but by the end of the Congress he had – as if by magic – a verified Twitter account with more than 5,000 followers, scooping up the followers of the @EPPDublin Congress account. It was a smart move by the EPP to switch these thousands of followers to the winning candidate, and one that highlights the professionalism of the EPP’s digital efforts. The centre-right party has more followers on Twitter than the Party of European Socialists (PES), and far more likes on Facebook (although levels of engagement on Twitter are similar and the Socialists have far higher levels of engagement on Facebook). The EPP also created an online platform for Europe’s young voters to have their say on the topics on the conference agenda and use social media advertising and infographics. In short, they have been doing many things right. But you also need a face of the campaign. This is where the Socialists have the upper hand. Their candidate, the current President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has more than 75,000 followers on Twitter. With this level of interest in their candidate, the PES carried out a neat, if more controversial, switch too. It made @MartinSchulz – an account Schulz has had since 2008, but which has grown in popularity since he became Parliament President in 2012 – a politically-oriented campaign account. Schulz’s parliamentary staff now maintain @EP_President, which will be passed on to future Parliament presidents. (The switch – which we discussed in a blogpost back in November – has become part on a general attack by German parties (other than the Social Democrats, naturally) on Schulz’s twin roles as Parliament President and Socialist lead candidate). What the Socialists have cannily recognised is that individuals get more traction on Twitter than organisations. In the UK, for instance, despite numerous criticisms about his Twitter outreach, David Cameron has six times more followers than his party, the Conservatives. Opposition leader Ed Miliband has double the number of Twitter followers the Labour Party has. The same principle holds true on Facebook. Small wonder the Socialists were keen to get hold of Schulz’s followers. Thanks to the designation of lead candidates this will be the most personality-driven European Parliament elections ever. The greater popularity of individuals than organisations on Twitter simply helps to reinforce this dynamic. In this respect, Twitter novice Juncker has some catching up to do, with Schulz seemingly way ahead of the other candidates in the online debate: Visibilité médiatique et en ligne des candidats à la présidence de la Commission européenne #EP2014 : pic.twitter.com/5upSShbn4x — Pauline Armandet (@PaulineArmandet) March 16, 2014 However, in the wider scheme of things the followings of and attention given to the lead candidates are relatively small compared to many national political leaders. If this latter group of political personalities, better known by the public, engage with the candidates and start to promote their campaign, then we could really see the conversation about the elections and Juncker, Schulz et al move into the mainstream online political discourse. Marek Zaremba-Pike with David O’LearyOur friend Danielle narrated the experience of losing her virginity to us all on the bus. Shedding oneself of the virginity burden had developed into a competition among our gang of spindly 16-year-old girls and there was now something of a ritual post-match analysis. Details were demanded to educate the uninitiated, as well as to provide a means of comparison for everyone else. “How did it feel?” enquired someone hanging over their bus seat, “what was it like?” Who’s driving high abortion rates? It’s the religious right \| George Monbiot Read more Danielle grimaced, in consideration. “Like pushing a bruise,” she concluded, finding a dark bruise on her thigh, and poking the tips of two fingers in it, wincing, to demonstrate. More than 20 years later, the image of the bruise, the fingers and the wince yet sears. I recalled it when reading about a new sex education resource that’s being launched in Australia. Developed at La Trobe University, the resource for school teachers contains material for guided class discussions, quizzes, lots of information as well as wry animated videos as well as the revolutionary instruction that sexual intimacy should be... pleasurable. How radical! At school, I sat through many a sex-ed class rolling condoms on carrots, one awkward lunchtime watching two girls in my year do a clothed demonstration of what they got up to with some butchers’ apprentices and way too many bus-ride confessions with the likes of Danielle to have reasonable expectations that first-time sex could be pleasant. My own first time resembled being staked to the ground by a falling piano with sharp elbows and drool. I don’t blame the boy for his sexual narcissism – if it had not been for SBS movies, I’d have had little to encourage me that the performance of the act, or its enjoyability, could be any different. The issue at the time was that I didn’t even have a language to articulate my own desires, let alone a context that encouraged any communication to take place beyond a “yes”. My experience, of course, was many years ago, and yet it says much that it’s more than two entire decades later that the La Trobe resource is being praised in Australia for its fresh take on sex ed. The teaching of sexuality to young people by the culture beyond the classroom rarely clarifies the precise mechanics of pleasure – particularly the pleasure of young women – and its messages are confusing and archaic. Films like the well-received Sexy Baby, from 2012, document the extraordinary contemporary cultural pressure applied to women to perform sexual attractiveness and availability. And last year sex researcher Emily Nagoski received due critical praise for her scientific claim that “stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it” in her book Come As You Are. But the same time, only last July, students at a Melbourne high school were being handed “educational” material that claimed that girls who had sex were like stickytape that loses its stickiness. Anyone trying to convince themselves that our society is maturing in its sexual conversation need only consider that it was only last week esteemed Australian sex educator Cyndi Darnell found herself suspended by Facebook for sharing a viral video explaining how sex education works in Norway because – shock horror – the video depicted an actual penis in order to talk about one. It sounds ridiculous to insist that the derivation of mutual pleasure should be the central message of sex education, but it’s a message that, unheeded, has outcomes among young people that are both painful and dispiriting. Girls who have sex are like tape that loses its stickiness. Seriously? \| Van Badham Read more Fairfax reported on Thursday widespread research findings that show “a quarter of all young people say they have ‘unwanted sex’, due to feeling pressure frightened or being drunk.” Another report featured in the Conversation that surveyed kids 16-18 discovered “women were repeatedly asked for anal sex by their male partners, and men’s and women’s accounts also raise the real possibility of of unwanted penetration for young women – who are sometimes put in situations where they are penetrated anally without their consent.” There’s an excellent line in the book Clever Girl by Tessa Hadley, in which the protagonist opines that, “Sexuality itself was sometimes understood, by the women in my family, as a kind of violence that must be submitted to, buried deep in the privacy of domestic life.” It’s a tradition that informed much of my own generation’s fumbling. Thank god for the La Trobe education initiative, so that future generations may be spared. I remember watching Danielle in that bus, talking about sex, pushing her bruise, and reflecting on my own early experiences and thinking: “It should all be a lot more fun than this.”Listening devices found at a camp at Guantanamo where defense attorneys meet with five high-value prisoners accused of planning the 9/11 attacks are manufactured by a Van Nuys, California, company that specializes in high-tech audio surveillance and monitoring equipment for the security industry. The audio monitoring unit discovered at Guantanamo by defense attorneys representing the 9/11 accused. The microphones, which resemble smoke detectors, were mounted to a ceiling in meeting rooms at at part of the prison complex known as Echo II.Lawyers who defend high-value terror suspects detained at Guantanamo have for years alleged their privileged communications have been monitored when they meet with their clients. The attorney client meeting area is located at a part of the prison called Echo II, which is made up of about eight meeting huts and used to be maintained by the CIA. But the lawyers never had any proof to support their suspicions until recently. Cheryl Bormann, a defense attorney for Walid Bin Attash, a Yemeni who is accused of training some of the 9/11 hijackers, revealed during a military commission hearing two weeks ago that what she thought was a smoke detector mounted to the ceiling in one of the meeting rooms at Echo II was actually a microphone, specifically, a Louroe “Verifact A” microphone that can pick up sounds from 15 feet away. It had been in the meeting room for at least a year, the prison’s lawyer testified. During court proceedings on February 13 another defense attorney, David Nevin, who represents self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, identified the brand name and model of the audio surveillance unit he alleged were used to monitor attorney client conversations. But the media did not pick it up. Louroe Electronics sells dozens of different audio monitoring kits, which are used by fast-food restaurants, casinos, police departments, the Department of Homeland Security, border patrol and the medical industry. The 33-year-old private company describes itself as a “world leader in audio monitoring technology.” The audio monitoring unit discovered at Guantanamo is described by Louroe as a four-zone audio base station that includes four microphones that look like smoke detectors. It retails for about $500 and can be purchased from spy shops or security retailers online. [UPDATE 3/10/2013: On Monday, March 10, the website maintained by the Office of Military Commissions posted a photograph of one of the listening devices. The photograph was filed as a defense motion by attorneys representing the 9/11 accused.] “The reason this is important … my client raised the issue that we were being listened to,” Bormann said in court. “And I said to him, ‘Of course not,’ just like I say to every client I ever represented. ‘Of course not,’ because I keep attorney-client communications confidential. So when the guard walked in, I pointed to the smoke detector and I said, ‘Mr. Guard, is that a listening device?’ And he said, ‘Of course not. That’s a smoke detector.’ Guess what, Judge? It’s a listening device. And not only is it a listening device, but it is a listening device that, contrary to the allegations of [trial] counsel, has the ability to record.” Cameron Javdani, the market relations manager for Louroe, told Truthout the audio monitoring unit in question does not come equipped with a recorder but he said it is designed to interface with a digital video recorder, VCR or another type of recording device to capture and play back audio, or it can simply be used to monitor live audio. “It’s really dependent on what the end user wants to do with it,” Javdani said, adding that the base station can be located 1,000 feet away from the microphones to pick up audio. “Do you want to listen live or record?” But Guantanamo prison officials testified that the audio monitoring unit has never been used to record or listen in on attorney-client conversations at Echo II, which are monitored by closed-circuit video cameras. Army Col. John Bogdan, the military commander at Guantanamo, testified that the FBI had used the monitoring unit to listen in on a plea agreement to war crimes charges between a detainee, defense attorneys and a government prosecutor, which the parties had consented to. On Louroe’s website, the company said “one of the most frequent questions” it receives from customers pertains to “audio monitoring and the law.” Louroe said it includes a decal with each microphone it ships notifying customers that when the unit is being used as part of an audio monitoring system “the law requires the public be given notice of audio monitoring on the premises.” Javdani noted the company does not have any government contracts and it’s likely the AP-4 unit used at Guantanamo was purchased from one of Louroe’s distributors. “We’re usually, at a minimum, four-degrees removed from the end user,” Javdani said. The eavesdropping issue has not been resolved. The defense attorneys are continuing to investigate in hopes of obtaining additional evidence to back up their claims of unauthorized surveillance.The Afghan Taliban are believed to have captured a top Islamic State (Isis) commander, who was recruiting for the Iraqi extremist group, and 45 other militants for involvement in "anti-Islamic activities". The Afghan militants, formally known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, apprehended Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim in the Kajaki district of southern Helmand province, according to the Pajhwok Afghan News. Khadim, who once fought with the Taliban, awaits judgment along with 45 supporters. "Mullah Khadim, who claims allegiance to Daesh [Arabic acronym for IS] forcibly assembled local residents on Thursday last in the Kakaji's Azan area and told the people that Mullah Omar no longer exists and they should now support him," said Abdul Ahad Masoomi, a tribal leader in Kajaki district, adding that sharp differences between Khadim and the Taliban commanders led to the extreme step. The Afghan Taliban is yet to officially comment on the matter. Meanwhile, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has reportedly poured scorn on Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, calling him "demented". An unverified statement attributed to al-Baghdadi read: "Mullah Omar does not deserve any spiritual or political credibility. The organisation has achieved in two years what Taliban could not achieve in its campaign in 10 years." Earlier, Pakistan Taliban (TTP), which operates independently from the Afghan organisation, seemingly pledged allegiance to IS, which has seized swathe of territories in Iraq and Syria. However, the TTP's spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid was fired immediately for the announcement, with a clarification that the group does not want to operate with IS.CLOSE San Franciscans gathered Friday to rally against hate, with civic leaders saying the city stands for love and diversity. The downtown event came as a right-wing group said it was cancelling a "freedom rally" set for San Francisco on Saturday. (Aug 25) AP Protesters march in San Francisco, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017. Officials took steps to prevent violence ahead of a planned news conference by a right-wing group. (Photo11: Josh Edelson, AP) SAN FRANCISCO — In an interview broadcast live on Facebook, organizers of an aborted "Patriot Prayer" rally originally scheduled for Saturday afternoon here blamed the left for the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and elsewhere. “What you’re seeing here is a perfect example of the systemic oppression people of right wing thought and ideology have faced within these liberal enclaves,” said Kyle Chapman. Chapman had been jailed in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Calif. after he was accused of taking part in violent brawls during pro-Trump and alt-right rallies in Berkeley in May. He was released on bail of $135,000 Friday night, he said during the interview. Kyle Chapman (left) and Joey Gibson (right), organizers of an aborted Patriot Prayer "free speech" march and rally in San Francisco on August 26, 2017, give an interview broadcast on Facebook from an undisclosed location Saturday. They accused the left wing of causing violence in Charlottesville, Va. and elsewhere. (Photo11: Facebook) “The left has always been violent and oppressive and since Charlottesville that violence and oppression has been emboldened,” Chapman said. During the May protest, Chapman was wearing a helmet and carrying a shield and was caught on camera hitting a counter protester over the head with a stick. “I’ve also been banned from doing something so simple as carrying a stick or a flag pole or even mace. They’ve severely affected my ability to take part in this movement or even participate in rallies,” Chapman said. Protesters who showed up to counter-protest Joey Gibson's press conference, the organizer who cancelled the Crissy Field " Patriot Prayer", hold signs and continue the demonstration despite Gibson cancelling again on August 26, 2017 at Alamo Square in San Francisco, Calif. (Photo11: AMY OSBORNE, AFP/Getty Images) While the Patriot Prayer group appeared online, thousands of people in San Francisco took part in multiple peaceful counter protest rallies, marches and activities against hate. Many of these merged into a large celebration at City Hall by mid-day that quickly took on a festival air with music and dancing. Other activities included a mass sand angel making at the city's Ocean Beach, a crowd that stood together to form a giant heart and a family-friendly "Cutest Lil Counter Protest” event in Golden Gate Park. Joey Gibson, a realtor from Vancouver, Wash. who originally called for the protest in San Francisco, said during the interview that liberals won't disavow the violent hard-left groups that have come to be called Antifa, for anti-fascist. Politicians won’t speak out against them, he said. “They’re using them as tools and they’re afraid to speak out against them because they don’t want the blowback,” he said. “You cannot allow these extremists run around unopposed. It’s ridiculous." Chapman said the group was only trying to exercise its First Amendment rights. “We are not going to stand down and allow you to systematically oppress us anymore. We’re going got defend ourselves and fight back,” he said. Police block protesters who showed up to counter-protest Joey Gibson's press conference, the organizer who cancelled the Crissy Field " Patriot Prayer", despite Gibson cancelling again on August 26, 2017 at Alamo Square in San Francisco, Calif. (Photo11: AMY OSBORNE, AFP/Getty Images) The interview took place in what appeared to be a living room of a house with the front drapes closed. Gibson tweeted that it was broadcast from Pacific, a town about 15 miles south of San Francisco. The name of the person broadcasting the interview or asking questions was not given. It came less than 24 hours after the group, Patriot Prayer, abruptly cancelled plans for a controversial "free speech" march and rally that it had received a permit from the National Park Service to hold in Chrissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge. In a text conversation with USA TODAY Friday, Gibson said he had cancelled the rally due to concerns over possible violence. Instead he said he would hold an indoor news conference and then "pop up" randomly around the city to talk with locals. Gibson and rally supporters spoke briefly at several parks in San Francisco Saturday afternoon, with some videos being posted on YouTube. They complained that their group had been unfairly pegged as white supremicists. At the end of the impromptu news conference, Patriot Prayer supporter Will Johnson, an African-American man who had earlier said that the group was not racist, said they needed to move. “We’ve been told that antifa ISIS members are on their way here. So you might want to clear out unless you want to be here for that violence,” he said. The downtown San Francisco skyline from Alamo Square. (Photo11: Kirby Lee, US PRESSWIRE) The city had called in all police officers to work Saturday in anticipation of possible violence. On Friday, city and National Park Department staff blocked off much of Chrissy Field and planned a massive security effort to keep protesters and counter protesters from clashing. Later Gibson said that in lieu of the original rally he would instead hold an unauthorized news conference in the city's iconic Alamo Square Saturday. Early Saturday morning city workers erected a metal fence around Alamo Square park, barring all public access. No permits were requested or issued for Alamo Square for the weekend, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement. The popular tourist attraction fronts onto a string of "painted lady" Victorian homes is sometimes called Postcard Row as it graces millions of postcards. San Francisco police flooded the area to maintain calm at the park and in the surrounding neighborhoods. They were prepared for any contingencies and spontaneous events, Lee said. San Francisco police spent the day scrambling to keep up with the changes in Patriot Prayer plans. The city had also been bracing for as many as 12 counterprotest events. These ranged from a march from the Castro district led by drag queens to a flotilla of paddle boarders off the shore of Chrissy Field to a family-friendly protest at Golden Gate Park's Hall of Flowers. Many took place despite the lack of a protest to counter. A separate “No to Marxism” in Berkeley scheduled for Sunday event was canceled by its organizer Friday, who urged on her Facebook page that no one attend. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and city leaders speak at a rally against hate at City Hall. (Photo11: Elizabeth Weise) Officials nationally have been on high alert for possible violence at protests after one woman was killed and 19 people were injured when an Ohio man rammed his car into a crowd of counter protesters on August 12, after a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.. On August 19 thousands of counter protesters peacefully but loudly rallied against a small handful of conservative activists who held a “Free Speech Rally” in Boston. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said the now-cancelled Saturday event at Chrissy Field, which is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, would bring white supremacists and neo-Nazis to the city. Gibson was adamant he is not a white supremacist and that the group does not support white supremacy or neo-Nazis. However some of the rallies he has previously organized in the Pacific Northwest have attracted white supremacists and other alt-right supporters. Some have ended in violent confrontations between demonstrators and counterprotesters. A history of clashes In April, clashes with counterprotesters resulted in eight arrests at a pro-Trump rally Gibson helped organize in Vancouver, Wash. Gibson also organized a rally in June at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. to protest the college’s decades-long “Day of Absence” event in which women or a minority group voluntarily boycott the school for a day to do self-education, while those left behind reflect on their importance to the community. This year, students had asked that whites leave the campus. When a professor objected it set off a series of clashes.During the rally, one man was arrested and Gibson said his tired were slashed. Earlier in the week, Gibson told USA TODAY he planned the San Francisco protest rally to discuss publicly what he feels are fundamental problems in the nation and to emphasize the value of and need for free speech and freedom. “We purposely do this because we want protesters to show up so they can hear us. Hopefully some of these groups will consider just coming in to the rally and hear us out,” he said. Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2xC6avrAUSTIN, Texas -- Texas moved Monday to ban its own cities from imposing prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing and other potentially environmentally harmful oil and natural gas drilling activities within their boundaries - a major victory for industry groups and top conservatives who have decried rampant local "overregulation." The bill last month overwhelmingly cleared the House, which Republicans control by a 2-to-1 margin, and passed the GOP-dominated Senate almost as easily Monday - sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law. The issue has been among the most contentious in the new Republican governor's first legislative session, and while Abbott has stayed publicly out of the debate, he has criticized local regulations that he says limit individual liberty. Lawmakers in
it is the workers that make my store such a great place to work.” Michaels is another giant arts and craft chain store. Among a million other things, they sell yarn, artist supplies, floral supplies, jewelry-making supplies, bakeware, scrapbooking supplies and random $1 packs of blank notecards I can’t stop buying. They’re nationwide and even have some stores throughout Canada. Michaels also offers online purchases and has coupons you should be using. How Employees Are Treated: Michaels’ salaries are about average (higher than Jo-Ann), and most cashiers make minimum wage. Michaels offers benefits and a healthcare package for part-time employees. Most employee reviews on Indeed.com of Michaels are very complimentary. Most employee reviews say things like “the most enjoyable part of the job is speaking with customers about their projects, weddings, and getting their artistic advice. Its a fun environment (sic)” and “Being a retail store it’s a great place for people to start their first job. Management is great and will work with you if you have a crazy schedule because of school.” The most common cons were that there weren’t enough hours for temporary employees. Artist and Craftsman Supply is filled with really nice people that can help you out in extremely random locations throughout America, and Riese recommends them highly. They specialize in art supplies, so you can find all the typical canvas, drawing, paints in addition to a small offering of sculpture supplies and craft supplies like yarn. Their All Things Considered area is the best for finding random things you totally need, like this sweet giraffe mask. You can purchase online through their website. How Employees Are Treated: Retail clerk pay rates are an average of $9/hr. It is unclear whether or not all employees are offered a health care package, though full-time employee job offerings do come with a benefits package. To be honest, Artist and Craftsman Supply received some pretty low employee satisfaction ratings from Glassdoor.com. One positive employee review said, “The majority of the individual store managers and employees are incredible people that genuinely want to help the customers have an amazing experience.” Many employees don’t like the higher management. Three people reviewed did not approve of the CEO, Larry Alderstein. East Coasters, I am so jealous you get A.C. Moore. A.C. Moore sells bakeware, yarn and needle crafts, scrapbooking supplies, and floral among many other things. You can purchase their goods and wares online. How Employees Are Treated: A.C. Moore employees salaries are around $7-$9/hr for sales associates. A.C. Moore offers benefits to part-time employees. 54 employee reviews on Indeed.com gave the company 3.5 stars out of 5. Positive reviews say, “The management was easy to talk with and problems were handled quickly and effectively.” One neutral-ish review says, “Great place for job seekers looking for less than 30 hours a week at around minimum wage” which kind of says it all. Pat Catan’s is a family-owned crafting hot spot for Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. They sell baking, floral, beading, scrapbooking and needle craft supplies among others. How Employees Are Treated: Pat Catan’s employee pay rates average minimum wage, from $7-$8/hr. Pat Catan’s offers full-time employees benefits, though it is unclear if this extends to part-time employees. Out of a total of one employee review on Indeed.com, we can surmise that Pat Catan’s is a “Great place to work. Excellent Management. Team work is great. Co-workers are terrific. This is the best place by far to work.” However, from the five employee reviews on Glassdoor, Pat Catan’s only earns two out of five stars. Negative reviews include, “It was like pulling teeth at times in order to get more hours. Barely covers living expenses” and “Advancement is about impossible, the same managers have been there for 30 years, the store managers choose friends to promote before hard workers that deserve it.” Online Retailers Amazon and eBay and Etsy have a surprising amount of craft supplies at low prices. If you’re having trouble finding beads or a the most specific shade of Hunter Green felt, these are the three places I’d recommend, as you can find exactly what you want, always. Factory Direct Craft, Oriental Trading and Save-On-Crafts are three gigantic online retailers that are wholly overwhelming if you are just browsing. You can find nearly any kind of craft supply in these three places. If you can’t, I’m doubting it exists. To tackle these giants and get the most out of it, I recommend having something specific in mind, whether that be a finished product or a party theme, and going from there. Awesome Local Indie Places by City Support your local indie craft shop! Independent art and craft shops are sanctuaries of making all the things. Supporting local businesses means you’re paying directly back into your community and giving small businesses a boost. Many indie shops sell online and are not limited to region, but the experience and beauty of a local craft shop is something we should all revel in. Check out the ones we love below: Baltimore Burlington, VT Chicago Connecticut Denver Kansas City Laguna Beach, CA Lancaster, PA Las Cruces, NM Los Angeles Michigan New York City Northampton Philadelphia Portland San Antonio San Francisco Stevens Point, WI Washington D.C. West Lafayette, IN Please note, these are just the ones we know about so far! Let us know your favorites in the comments so we can add it to the list!A lonely 93-year old who eats Mcdonald's Happy Meals almost every day to cope with the death of his wife has been thrown a surprise birthday party by the restaurant. Harry Scott began visiting his local restaurant in Workington, Cumbria, at least six times a week following the death of his wife Martha. He has become such a popular customer that he even has his own table. This week, to thanks Mr Scott for his custom, staff at the restaurant put up banners and balloons to celebrate his 93rd birthday. A lonely 93-year old who has eaten Mcdonald's Happy Meals almost every day after the death of his wife has been thrown a surprise birthday party by the restaurant As well as buying him whisky and shortbread, they also told Mr Scott that he can now have his usual Happy Meals for free. He said: 'The kids who come in here are mine as I don't have any of my own. It's company for me. 'When they threw the surprise party I had to wipe my eyes.' Mr Scott lost his wife six years ago. Then, in 2013, he started going to McDonald's, where he began making friends with the staff and other customers. He now goes every day, apart from Sundays, when he goes to his goddaughter's for a meal. Harry Scott visits his local restaurant in Workington, Cumbria, at least six times a week since following the death of his wife Martha. He has become such a popular customer that he even has his own table The pensioner, from High Harrington, normally goes to the fast food chain early in the afternoon for a Happy Meal. Sometimes, he then goes back for dinner. He says he only ever orders as Happy Meal as he has a small appetite. Jack Holliday, crew member, said: 'He's a one-off. We get regular customers but he's one that stands out.May 1978, and production, with all its attendant problems, was well underway at Shepperton Studios. Though sets were being mapped out and constructed, some were being hotly debated; the Alien had been committed to canvas, if not rubber (Giger had not, for now, been tasked with the actual construction of his monster); the script was in a constant state of flux, and tensions between the producers and the film’s writers were beginning to break out with Ridley, trying to compromise between the O’Bannon script and the Giler/Hill rewrites, being stuck in the middle of a writers feud that had opened, and would probably close, the film’s inception and completion. There was another, arguably more pertinent problem: in a month the cameras would finally roll, but the part of Ripley had yet to be cast. Auditions for the part had seemingly wrung Los Angeles and New York dry. British-American actress Veronica Cartwright had read for the role twice, and Ridley reckoned that he wanted her for the film, but her ability to convey catatonia and fear—a talent that Scott and casting director Mary Goldberg especially admired— wasn’t a fit for Ripley. “Laddie was going crazy,” Ridley remembered, “saying, ‘You’ve gotta make your mind up.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you know, I can’t find it yet.’”[1] Several other actresses had been prospected. Twentieth Century Fox had initially pushed for an established actress to give the film heft: Katherine Ross or Genevieve Bujold, but stars of that calibre were not keen to be involved with a grubby science fiction movie. The success of Star Wars however convinced Fox that unknown actors could carry a successful film if buttressed by an established face or two, as Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing had done for Lucas’ unfamiliar cast. One better known star who read for Alien was English actress Helen Mirren, who admired the refreshing ambiguity of the characters’ sexes. “I read the original script for that,” she said, “and when you read it, you had no idea which character was male and which was female. They were just people engaging with each other in this situation. They all had these sort of asexual names, so when Ripley said or did things, you had no idea whether Ripley was a man or a woman. You could have interchanged all the characters —they could have been all male or all female— any one of them could have been anything.”[2] “There was no, ‘a lean 32 year old woman who doesn’t realise how attractive she is’ – there was absolutely none of that!” Mirren continued. “You had no idea who was a man and who was a woman. That was the revelation.”[3] It wasn’t until the USA casting department put forth two choices for the role that the production started encircling potential Ripleys. The first suggestion was Meryl Streep, an up-and-coming theatre actress who briefly appeared in Julia (1977) and had recently wrapped on Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978) with her partner John Cazale. Unfortunately, Cazale, in the end stages of lung cancer throughout The Deer Hunter’s shoot, died March 12, 1978, and Gordon Carroll did not think it appropriate to ask Streep to consider the role. “The other woman,” Carroll remembered, “was of course, Sigourney Weaver.”[4] Susan ‘Sigourney’ Weaver was, of a sort, American aristocracy. Her grandfather Sylvester Laflin Weaver left St. Louis for Los Angeles in 1893 and placed an ad in the Times to find work, with salary “no object”. For years he eked his way as a janitor, book-keeper, shipping clerk and salesman. “I finally became sales manager,” he explained, “making stops at San Luis Obispo, El Paso and the City of Mexico, during which I accumulated a wife, four children and a fair modicum of this world’s goods.”[5] In 1905 he was chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, overseeing the development of Los Angeles Harbour, and in 1910 founded his own roofing company, Weaver Roofing; it was said that most, if not all, of L.A.’s emerging suburbs at the time had been roofed by Weaver. His ambitions did not end there: he was president of the Los Angeles Rotary Club and then, in 1917, was elected a director of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce. In 1919, Weaver, now a beloved and influential figure, ran for Mayor. His candidacy was received with enthusiasm: he was the centrepiece of a parade that rolled down Broadway “while bands played, horns blared, guns popped, red-fire flared and flashlights streamed their beams.”[6] But his mayoral candidature was not to be; he came in third place. Yet this disappointment, coupled with the 1921 destruction of his roofing plant by fire, dampened neither his fortunes nor popularity. The family’s frequent partying and holidaying was a regular subject of the local papers and gossip circles. His wife wrote operas, books and was a patroness for charitable events. His four children —two sons, two daughters— lived accordingly. “My father was one of the young men about town,” remembered Sigourney. “He used to go out with Loretta Young and her sisters, and he went to high school with Carole Lombard, whose name was Jane Peters then. He used to date all the stars.”[7] Sylvester ‘Pat’ Weaver Jnr, like his father, was never still. Starting out as a writer for KHJ radio, he quickly became program manager, switched to managerial positions in advertising, served in WWII, and then joined NBC in ’49. By ’53, he had been vice president of television and radio, then vice chairman of the board, and finally president of NBC. In ’43 he married English actress Elizabeth Inglis, who had appeared in Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935) and opposite Bette Davis in The Letter (1940), with their children Trajan and Susan Weaver coming along after the war. By the time Susan Weaver was born in 1949, the Weaver family was still firmly on the ascendancy. Her uncle Winstead ‘Doodles’ Weaver was a celebrated television and film comedian, “Manhattan’s favourite clown”[8] according to the press; her aunt a noted New York Times fashion critic, and her father the president of NBC, where he heralded both Today and The Tonight Show. “I was brought up in a show business environment,” she said. “Actors and famous people were there when I was a kid. The unusual was usual for me.”[9] She remembered stars like Art Linkletter visiting her father at their home on Long Island, and being “miserable because I was quarantined with the chicken pox.”[10] It was at the Ethel Walker School for girls in Connecticut where Susan adopted the name ‘Sigourney’, lifting it from a one-off character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The name, she thought, would stop her classmates from calling her ‘Weaver’, and she was from a family of odd names anyway. Her father once suggested naming her Flavia —his interests, obviously, firmly Roman— but her mother relented, choosing instead to name their daughter after family friend Susan Pretzlik. “A very interesting woman,” said Sigourney. “She was quite an explorer. And if I had met Susan before I switched over to Sigourney when I was 13, I probably would have kept it.”[11] But, for the adolescent Weaver at the time, “To be named Susan in a family like that seemed inappropriate.”[12] Her family took to Sigourney easily enough. “They called me ‘S’ for a while in case I changed it to something else. And then actually they wanted me to keep the Roman part of my name, which was Alexandra—Susan Alexandra Weaver—so my father and I tried to think of a way of calling me Alexandra.”[13] But her father quickly abandoned this when his daughter’s headmistress pulled them up about the change in name. “Do you permit your daughter to use that ridiculous name?” Weaver remembered her headmistresses asking her parents. “And my father said, ‘Are you talking about our daughter, Sigourney?’ I thought that was wonderful of him.”[14] At school she played a greaser in an update of Alfred Noyes’ poem ‘The Highwayman’, and found she had a taste for performance. “I flipped my hair back and wore a big leather jacket and some girls chased me out. I guess I did a good job as an Elvis Presley type.”[15] Tall for her age, gangly and a little awkward, Sigourney discovered that acting could be liberating. “I figured it was like being an explorer. There were so many interesting things to be —a lawyer, a doctor, a biophysicist— and only one life. Acting was a way to get around it.”[16] Her budding acting career was off to a bad start when, while rehearsing for a play at the Red Barn Playhouse, she was quickly replaced when the producer realised her romantic interest was only half her height. She had been a lanky 5’10 at 13, and even now many of her peers had yet to catch up. She stuck out. She looked odd. “I called my parents and described this situation to my mother and she said, ‘Well, welcome to the business.’ She said, ‘Your heart will be broken a hundred times.’”[17] She found some acting work in weekend productions and summer stock, and even toured San Francisco with a comedy troupe, but these, she felt, were relegations: she wanted to do more, could do more, but no one else was willing to look beyond her height. “I was very much a loner,” she said, “and a self-conscious loner at that.”[18] It was after gaining her English degree and while preparing for a PhD at Stanford that she decided to tackle acting head on, despite any misgivings about her physicality. Academia, she decided, wasn’t for her. “The course started getting really boring. Finally, I went to my adviser and said, ‘This is a desert, this part of it, right here in the middle. I hope it’s not going to be like this for three years.’ He said, ‘It’s going to be quite like this.’ I said, ‘I don’t think I can stand it.’ I was studying criticism of criticism. It was all this twice-removed stuff—deadly dry. So I just applied to Yale Drama School and got in.”[19] Her family, who had so often occupied show business echelons, always warned her that the business was unfair, rarely a meritocracy, and even cruel—but she did not expect the disillusion to set in before she had even graduated from drama school. “My acceptance to Yale was addressed to Mr. Sigourney Weaver, so I really wasn’t sure when I got there what they thought they’d taken. My second day there I got violently ill from food poisoning and had to go to the hospital. I’d eaten liver at the Elm City Diner—I was trying to be healthy by eating liver. I remember sitting next to this window on Chapel Street that had a big bullet hole in it. I should have known then….”[20] At Yale she was rarely cast. Her tutors asserted that she had no future as an actress. The best roles, she remembered, went to classmate Meryl Streep. “I still think they probably had this Platonic ideal of a leading lady that I have never been able to live up to,” Sigourney reflected. “And would never want to.”[21] If she reckoned that, after graduation, her father’s show business contacts would give her a lift she was to find that she had to rely solely on herself. “When I got out of Yale Drama School I called up a friend of my father to see if he could find me some stage work. He said: ‘Look kid, why don’t you get a job at Bloomingdales?’ Ever since then I’ve been on my own.”[22] She teamed up with Yale friend Chris Durang, a budding playwright who had been one of the few at Yale to cast her in his productions. “I sensed that the audience had a special rapport with Sigourney,” Durang recalled. “Actors need skill and intelligence—which Sigourney has in abundance—but stars need charisma, which hard work can’t give you.”[23] Sigourney, he knew, had charisma in spades; she just needed exposure. He remembered how, after graduating, casting agents tended to complain about her height and “kept trying to type her as a patrician girlfriend who poured cocktails and nodded politely while the leading man talked.”[24] Stepping in, Durang teamed up with Weaver, casting her in his off-Broadway plays ‘Titanic’, ‘Beyond Therapy’, and ‘Das Lusitania Songspiel’. For Weaver, her adventures off-Broadway with Durang were more than affirming favours from a good friend: they were a life line. “After I left Yale,” said Sigourney, “we were all doing these mad plays off-off Broadway. And I got back to that feeling I had from college, of everyone making up in front of one cracked mirror, which is what I loved—the scrappy theatre idea. I think off-off Broadway healed me, made me an actor again, and I was in so many different crazy shows. I played a woman who kept a hedgehog in her vagina in one play; I was schizophrenic in another. It was just so much fun.”[25] It was at this time that her name had started to circle around, and she came to the attention of the desperate Alien production. “She came recommended the long way around,” said Ridley, “where somebody had said to somebody, ‘There’s this girl who’s doing theatre on Broadway who’s very interesting, is a giant, I think she’s 6’1 in her stockinged feet. She’s very interesting. Smart performer, very physical.”[26] To get an idea of how she came across on film, Walter Hill screened Madman (1978), an independent Israeli film that featured Weaver opposite Michael Beck. Liking both actors, he tapped Weaver for Alien, and Beck for his forthcoming film The Warriors (1979). Sigourney was sent the Alien script and invited to audition in New York before Ridley Scott, David Giler and Gordon Carroll. She did not, at the time, prioritise film roles, having turned down the part of Dorrie in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977) when her commitments to Chris Durang’s ‘Das Lusitania Songspiel’ clashed with the filming schedule – Christine Jones took the Dorrie role, though Weaver was afforded a non-speaking cameo in the closing moments of the film as Allen’s date as recompense. It had been the theatre that reinvigorated her, and that was where her loyalties lay; there, she had rediscovered a joy in performing that she thought had been irreparably lost at acting school. When the Alien script came through she was busying herself with the play The Conquering Event as well as various acting and charitable seminars, and didn’t see herself as a science-fiction actor, let alone lead. “I was doing a seminar called the Hunger Project,” she said, “which was simply about making a difference in the world. Within the context of that seminar a movie part was so unimportant. I went up for Alien and didn’t want to be bothered, because I thought I had not suffered through the Yale School of Drama to do a science-fiction movie. I read the script and didn’t really care that much for it.”[27] Though she was averse to science-fiction and couldn’t imagine the Alien looking anything other than silly, she still admired how “They had broken the rule and written two of the parts, originally designed for men, for women to play.”[28] One of those parts intrigued her in particular. “Actually, the part I wanted was Lambert. In the first script I read, she just cracked jokes the whole time. What was wonderful about it was that here was a woman who was wise-assing, telling stupid jokes just when everyone was getting hysterical. And she didn’t crack up until the end. That’s a character I could identify with because that’s how I assume I would act. If the elevator gets stuck that’s what I do.”[29] The audition, held at the Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, was almost botched from the start, with Weaver turning up to the wrong hotel. She called her agent and suggested blowing it off, but he recommended that she go ahead anyway. Without much else to do, she rushed for the Regency. Ridley, Giler, Carroll and casting director Mary Goldberg waited, and waited, until finally, thirty moments after she had been due, Weaver turned up. “And then we hear,” said Carroll, “l can’t say running feet in the corridor, but we hear fast-paced feet coming toward the door, and then slowing down, composing itself… The bell rings, Mary opens the door, and Ripley was standing there.” Weaver was quite the sight – standing over six feet tall in long boots, the panel found themselves looking up at what Carroll called “This extraordinary-looking woman; tall, commanding presence.”[30] They talked about the script, beginning by asking Weaver what she thought of it. “It’s a very bleak picture where people don’t relate to each other at all,”[31] she answered. Mary Goldberg signalled that Weaver was sabotaging her own audition, but Weaver was undeterred from speaking her mind. “I happen to have worked on many new plays with new playwrights,” she said, “so I have been encouraged to speak up — I didn’t know if people in movies were used to that.”[32] To her surprise (and relief), her interviewers acknowledged the shallowness of the characters, explaining that they were relying on interesting actors to bring them to life. “I thought it was best to put all my cards on the table,” said Sigourney, “because if they really wanted a ‘Charlie’s Angel’ I knew it wouldn’t be right for me. But they were the first to admit that it was going to take a lot of development and close working together.”[33] Then Ridley, remembering how effective Giger’s Necronomicon had been on himself, propped up a display of images by Giger and Rambaldi. Weaver was suddenly piqued. This would be the monster. She had never seen anything like it. They broke for lunch, with Scott and the producers taking Weaver for Japanese food on Fifty Fifth Street, where they met Walter Hill, before returning to the Regency to read through the script. She did not know it yet, but Carroll, Scott and Giler all felt that she was perfect for Ripley the moment they laid eyes on her. “Somehow,” said Ridley, “I knew this was her.”[34] Hill was similarly enthused, but Weaver herself did not feel like a shoo-in. In fact, she was somewhat mystified by the attention. “I didn’t really know what was expected of me as I’d only made one film,” she said, “and an eight-part television series about aristocratic women called The Best of Families.”[35] But it was her naivety and inexperience that the producers and Ridley knew would be perfect for Ripley. The character was thinly-sketched in the script, the only real characterful moments being her adamancy that quarantine rules be stringently obeyed, and her swift assumption of command after the death of Dallas. Looking at Weaver— her intelligence, twinkling humour and soft-spoken assertiveness as obvious as her strong jaw, high cheekbones and broad shoulders— they could see the blanks being filled already. Scott had been enamoured the moment she stepped through the door, and continued to marvel at her throughout the day. “Jesus Christ, I was always looking up at her!” he remembered. “I walked into a restaurant with her and she held my hand. I felt like, ‘Mummy, Daddy!’”[36] “She clearly has the authority that she needs to have,” he continued, “and can give any guy as good as he can give back.” Gordon saw how Weaver could project composure, and yet, “You knew that just an eighth of an inch behind that composure was a very nervous actress, a very tense actress, and that was exactly right.”[37] Giler noted her “American aristocratic” bearing, how she embodied perfectly the officer class. With the producers and director keen, Weaver was flown out to Hollywood to meet Alan Ladd Jr., and Gareth Wiggin. “I lost my bags on the plane and went in my rotten clothes,” Sigourney recalled. “We had a typical chatty Hollywood meeting where you’re all supposed to pretend you’re there for social reasons and no one mentions the film.”[38] Ladd, ever cautious, agreed to hire Weaver provided that she complete a screen test first. Scott protested that he was mere weeks from filming, but acquiesced: Fox placed a lot of trust in him due to his self-made success with RSA, but there were still plenty of executives, like Peter Beale, who still viewed him as untested. It irritated Scott, who had left a promising career at the BBC in favour of his independence, to suddenly have his creative decisions become the purview of a committee… but he trusted and respected Ladd, who had allowed head scratchers like Star Wars and Alien to be made at all. “So,” said Sigourney, “the next week I flew to London. I hadn’t yet been hired but I was the only actress they were screentesting. They hoped I would do well. And we did a run-through of the entire script.”[39] Weaver filmed her screentest on May 12th. She was apprehensive, imagining that she would have to duck and weave in an empty space or react to a potted plant, but when she arrived she found that Ridley had constructed a piece of set especially for her test. “This test corridor we built was the first look at the interior of the corridors of the Nostromo,” revealed art director Roger Christian. “It established the look of Alien for the very first time.”[40] In effect, not only was Sigourney being tested, but Ridley’s vision for the film was about to be captured—and scrutinised—for the first time. Ladd watched the test in silence and, once done, picked up a nearby phone. He asked that some of the women upstairs come down to view the rushes with him. “So we ran the test again,” said Ridley, “and Laddy simply then said, ‘What did you think?’ and there were, I don’t know, maybe eight, twelve women who immediately jumped in. One said, ‘I think she’s like Jane Fonda.’”[41] “Alan Ladd watched the screen test,” explained David Giler, “and had all the secretaries in the building come down and watch it. And they got into a big argument that she looked more like Jane Fonda or Faye Dunaway, and he just said, ‘You can have her. She’s in.’”[42] Weaver, already on her way home to New York, was not entirely confident. She reckoned she had played her scenes wrong, that she had been too stereotypically tough. “If I hadn’t been in an unambitious place philosophically, I think I would have tried harder,” she said. “In fact, it wasn’t until the day before the screen test that I sat down and thought, well, Sigourney, you’d really better make up your mind if you want to do this or not. They’ve already flown you out here. If you don’t, you’d better think about ending it. I finally decided I really liked the character of Ripley as well as the designs and Ridley Scott. Besides, I didn’t want anyone else to do it.”[43] Luckily, she was to find that, barely home after her long plane flight, that she had gotten the part. “I had sort of written it off every step of the way.”[44] But there was a snag when the actors convened for wardrobe fitting. Veronica Cartwright, who was eventually cast in the film after auditioning for Ripley three times, had assumed, naturally, that that was the role she was to play in the film. “I get a call,” she remembered, “and they said, ‘Okay, you need to come in for your wardrobe for Lambert’. I said, ‘Oh no, I’m not playing Lambert, I’m playing Ripley.’ ‘No no… you’re Lambert.’”[45] “I called my agent back in LA and said, ‘Aren’t I doing Ripley?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I think so.’ I mean, that’s what he thought too. I even auditioned again when I was in England, and the part that I read for was Ripley. They didn’t bother to tell me. And I’d never even looked at the script from the point of view of Lambert. So I had to re-read the script.” “I heard [about] that,” remarked David Giler. “Ridley had met Veronica on his own somehow and he really wanted her and we said fine, you know. Very good actress. So she was certainly fine with us.” For her part, Cartwright suspected that internal politics played a part in the confusion. “There was a lot of politics going on during the making of that movie,” she remembered. “It was Sigourney’s first job. But her dad was a bigwig. There were a lot of favours going on. It just got a bit bigger than anybody had planned. And studio pressure and egos and everything got involved.”[46] There might be some basis for Cartwright’s suggestion, with Alien 3 actor Ralph Brown detailing a 1991 meeting between himself and Walter Hill to discuss rewrites concerning Brown’s character Aaron ‘85’: “I am now paranoid about being cut from the film” he said, “like Veronica Cartwright was from Alien as Walter gently reminded me earlier – ‘I don’t want to alarm you Ralph but, well, yes, actually I DO want to alarm you. Don’t end up like Veronica Cartwright.’”[47] However, it’s also likely Hill may be referring to the abundance of deleted scenes, many of which, Cartwright had complained after the film’s release, overwhelmingly featured her character Lambert. Sigourney understood that her background would prejudice some against her, especially in an industry that was rife with competitive and suspicious attitudes. “When you are the lead in a film that costs a few million dollars,” she said, “you do get the best hair and make-up people, and you don’t have to worry about things in rehearsal you might not get if you were making an independent film or if you had a supporting role.” “On Alien,” she continues, “there was some resentment towards me because I came from New York and got such a good part, the one character alive at the end. That was very difficult for me to deal with.”[48] [1] Ridley Scott, Q&A with Geoff Boucher, Hero Complex Festival (2010). [2] Helen Mirren, ‘Helen Mirren on The Tempest and Stealing All Her Best Roles From Men’ by Kyle Buchanan, vulture.com (13th December 2010). [3] Helen Mirren, Empire (April 2016). [4] Gordon Carroll, ‘Truckers in Space: Casting’ by Charles de Lauzirika, Alien Quadrilogy (2003). [5] Sylvester L. Weaver, ‘Sketches of Big Men in Industrial Life: Sylvester L. Weaver Devotes Energies to Civic Upbuilding’, The Los Angeles Sunday Times (Sunday 2nd December, 1923). [6] ‘Weaver is Parade Center’, The Los Angeles Times (May 4th 1919) p. 6. [7] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [8] ‘Doodles Weaver, Manhattan’s Favourite Clown, Is a University Graduate Who Earns a Living Imitating Lions, Worms, and Baby Kangaroos’ by Virginia Irwin, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (24th March 1941). [9] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Sigourney Weaver: Alien Creature’ by Joe Baltake, Philadelphia Daily News (Friday June 8th, 1979) p. 37. [10] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Independence isn’t an alien concept to Sigourney Weaver,’ Chicago Tribune (Friday 8th June 1979). [11] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [12] Sigourney Weaver, interview with Bobbie Wygant (1979). [13] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [14] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Sigourney Weaver rolls with punches’ by Dick Kleiner, The Index-Journal (9th July 1979) p. 5. [15] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [16] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Independence isn’t an alien concept to Sigourney Weaver,’ Chicago Tribune (Friday 8th June 1979). [17] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [18] Sigourney Weaver, ‘An Eyewitness Report on Actress Sigourney Weaver’ by Patricia Bosworth, The Santa Fe New Mexican/Family Weekly (August 9th 1981) p. 22. [19] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [20] Ibid. [21] Ibid. [22] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Sigourney Weaver Tough Cookie in Alien’ by Richard Freedman, The Indianapolis Star (Sunday June 10th 1979). [23] Chris Durang, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [24] Ibid. [25] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Sigourney Weaver’ by Jamie Lee Curtis, interviewmagazine.com (23rd February 2015). [26] Ridley Scott, ‘Truckers in Space: Casting’ by Charles de Lauzirika, Alien Quadrilogy (2003). [27] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Dream Weaver’ by Chris Durang, Interview (July 1988). [28] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Sigourney Weaver defends her semi-strip in Alien’, Photoplay vol. 30 no. 12 (December 1979) p. 42. [29] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Playing Ripley in Alien: An Interview with Sigourney Weaver’ by Danny Peary, Omni’s Screen Flights/Fantasies (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1984) p. 159. [30] Gordon Carroll, ‘Truckers in Space: Casting’ by Charles de Lauzirika, Alien Quadrilogy (2003). [31] Sigourney Weaver, ‘Playing Ripley in Alien: An Interview with Sigourney Weaver’ by Danny Peary, Omni’s Screen Flights/Fantasies (New York: Doub
popularity before settling into comfortable grooves and hoping for the rare, Kylie Minogue-like creative resurgence. What’s unusual about music is that most of its critical discourse revolves around pop. It’s not because pop music is what’s popular – though that helps – but because pop is obsessed with the new. It’s an eclectic, hybrid genre, grabbing new sounds, new ideas, new fashion from wherever it can, subsuming what it needs and discarding the rest. When pop finishes with an idea, that idea either dies or it calcifies as its own genre and people stop talking about it. In short, Assassin’s Creed is now the adult contemporary of videogames. Assassin’s Creed: Unity is Michael Bolton. Here’s the second thing: this is not a criticism. This is how it’s supposed to work. When Assassin’s Creed first launched, it was thrilling: a historical game set in an open-world city, defined by a novel, free-running movement mechanic, and with stealth based around crowds not shadows. The first game was embryonic, but over the past seven years we’ve watched its ideas develop and its execution improve. We’ve also watched it calcify. Innovation has became iteration. This is what happens. We helped it grow, we took what we could from each other, and now it’s time to wave it off. Assassin’s Creed: Unity is set in Paris during the French revolution. It’s stunning to look at: higgledy-piggledy rooftops stretching as far as the eye can see, the streets thick with smoke and dirt. The mission playable behind closed doors at Gamescom this year is a co-op heist set in the tunnels beneath a hospital – #nosewers – and the monetary rewards for your stealing scale dynamically based on how stealthily you complete the mission. Even with a co-op partner, that mission is a parade of familiar ideas: track one, a reassuring hay bale leap; track three, an aerial takedown; tracks four, five and six are stabbing schlubby guards with wristblades; track seven is a duet with Splinter Cell’s crouch-and-move stealth, track eight is a crowd-pleasing crowd scene; track nine a rooftop escape. A new sense of fashion – you can design your own ensemble – does nothing to obscure that what once was exciting is now comfortable. Which begs the question, what else would you want from Assassin’s Creed? This is why the series is loved and popular. Some games maintain cultural relevancy through scarcity – Half-Life is David Bowie – and a few through constant Madonna-esque re-invention. Not all games can or should do that. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep making them, either. This isn’t the point at which Assassin’s Creed should stop, but the time in which it should take up its residency in Las Vegas. It’s not that no one should write about these games, either. They have an audience. Old work should be constantly re-appraised. Sustained popularity is an interesting phenomenon in its own right. Everyone likes When A Man Loves A Woman. Perhaps in a decade or two or four, a remix, genre revival or Tom Jones-like album of duets will see the series relevant again. But the reason to establish Assassin’s Creed’s fading relevancy now is that the alternative – maintaining these games long-term as part of the central critical discourse – turns every game critic, journalist, blogger and writer into stenographers, tapping out yearly (twice yearly!) patch notes. That’s an essential job, and I’ll be doing it excitedly for the yearly series’ I love for a long time to come, but it shouldn’t be default. Even audience size shouldn’t guarantee it. When people complain about there being too many sequels, what they’re really saying is that they’re personally bored of something. It doesn’t mean that a company shouldn’t continue to serve the audience they’ve built, and the millions of people who still love it and aren’t bored by it. Instead, we make space for new ideas by not continuing, reflexively, to talk about the old ones. Thanks for everything, Assassin’s Creed. You were useful. What’s next?MELFI, Italy (Reuters) - Fiat will invest 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to produce a new Jeep and a new Fiat 500 in Melfi, southern Italy, from 2014, giving a boost to a plant that had been temporarily closed because of weak domestic demand. Fiat-Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne (L) and Fiat Chairman John Elkann (R) attend the launching of the Fiat Panda Trekking model on media day at the Paris Mondial de l'Automobile September 27, 2012. REUTERS/Jacky Naegelen Fiat FIA.MI, which controls U.S. carmaker Chrysler, plans to use its idled Italian factories to produce Jeeps and other group brands for export, as it relies increasingly on overseas sales to offset flagging demand in recession-hit Italy. With the new small Jeep, the company “enters a new segment where the brand is not currently present,” Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne told workers at the Melfi plant on Thursday, adding that the vehicle - which has not yet been named - would be sold worldwide. It will be built on the same platform as the 500X, a “crossover” small sports utility vehicle that “will enable Fiat to enter a market that’s expanding in Europe,” he said. Marchionne’s speech, attended by Prime Minister Mario Monti, who is expected to resign as soon as this weekend, paving the way for early elections, and Fiat chairman John Elkann, was greeted with cheers from hundreds of uniformed workers clustered around a makeshift podium near an assembly line in the factory. NOT SUSTAINABLE The investment comes at a difficult time for Fiat, which like other carmakers is suffering through the fifth consecutive year of falling car sales in Europe. The company, which is profitable because of revenue from Chrysler, will lose about 700 million euros ($928 million) in Europe this year, Marchionne said. “It is clear that this situation is not sustainable in the long term,” he said. Fiat has come under pressure from financial investors to shut a factory to cut costs even as it faces political and union pressure to protect jobs in Italy. Marchionne said the company had chosen to invest in Italy instead of cutting capacity. “We used the financial security we gain from our business outside Europe - especially in the United States and Brazil - to support and protect our presence in Italy,” he said. Marchionne said Italy’s next government should continue Monti’s reform program, noting in remarks afterwards that Fiat’s financing costs rise whenever there is a spike in Italian government bond spreads. Monti said Fiat’s decision to invest in new models to be built in Italy for export was a “positive moment that showed that sometimes globalization brings advantages instead of being something to be afraid of.” “What happened here is not magic,” Monti said in a speech. “It is emblematic of the change that is taking place in Italy.” The Melfi investment is another step forward in Fiat and Chrysler’s plans to share plants and platforms, enabling the two companies to compete in sectors too expensive to enter alone. “These two new cars that we are presenting today show that there is no longer one Fiat and one Chrysler: there is a single group, healthy and united, that has an incredible capacity for worldwide growth,” said Elkann. DAY OF HOPE The Melfi plant has built 5.5 million Fiats since it opened in 1993, but has been mostly shuttered in recent months as demand for its Grande Punto has slumped. Marchionne declined to discuss media reports that a long-awaited new version of Fiat’s Punto would be made in Serbia. “We are ready for the challenge and very proud to be the first ones to make this new Jeep,” said Michele Puccarelli, a shift manager at the plant who listened to Marchionne’s speech. The temporary layoffs were expected to continue throughout next year, however, since car demand is still weak, Fismic union leader Roberto di Maulo said. “The opportunity to have these two new cars made here is very positive,” he said. “We expect to have a healthy exchange of know-how with our American counterparts.” The plant and the surrounding area about two hours south of Naples by car provide work for 9,000 people, including 18 car parts suppliers and four service companies, said plant manager Angelo Coppola. “This is a special day of hope for so many workers, and for the entire area,” Gianfranco Todisco, the Bishop of Melfi, told Reuters.DIYARBAKIR Turkey (Reuters) - Suspected Kurdish militants have kidnapped three Chinese engineers in southeast Turkey near the border with Iraq and Syria, security sources said on Monday. The workers were seized from a shop in the border town of Silopi late on Sunday by suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who then went on to attack a power plant construction site where they worked, the sources said. A spokesman from the Chinese embassy in Turkey said that three Chinese workers have “disappeared” after a thermal power plant in Silopi, which is being constructed by China Machinery Engineering Corporation, was attacked by militants at around 9 p.m. local time on Sunday, state news agency Xinhua said. There have been protests in recent months against the planned second power station in Silopi, according to the local Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK. The Turkish military has launched an operation to try to locate and rescue the engineers, the security sources said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, waged a three-decade insurgency to push for greater Kurdish rights. But hostilities have largely died down since a March 2013 ceasefire. The militants have abducted soldiers, engineers, journalists and others in the past, sometimes with the aim of securing a prisoner exchange. It was not clear why Chinese nationals were targeted in this instance. The Chinese embassy has “asked the Turkish government to go all out to rescue the missing Chinese workers while enhancing security measures for Chinese enterprises and employees in the country”, Xinhua said. Mutual suspicion still runs high in some parts of the southeast between Kurdish communities and the security forces in what has effectively been a militarized zone since the 1990s, and there have been isolated acts of violence.Published: September 17, 2015 Updated: July 21, 2017 Pets are love and pets are life. Whether you like them or not, you can’t deny the fact that they put some rainbow sprinkles on your day, figuratively speaking. All pets are wonderful, but if there is one species that is able to turn up the party, then it’s definitely our canine friends. Does anyone believe that our pets have separate lives when we aren't looking? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, they too have some work to go to, have breakfast with their families and party hard on a Friday night? Well if this video is anything to go by, they just might do, party too hard, that is. Sometimes our pets have the capability to do some crazy things, making for priceless moments like this one. In all honesty, though, could you really be angry with them? They are too cute to be scolded. For a dog lover, catching your dog begging is one of the most adorable things ever. You just can't say no to your four legged friend. Ettore the Labrador is clearly filled with guilt and desperate to win over her owner Anthony Federica Granai. Watch as the two take part in one of the cutest interactions you'll ever see! They say that if you want something bad enough and if you work hard enough on making it happen, it is going to happen. Basically what this means is that you need to put some effort in doing what you don’t necessarily want in order to get what you want. Does that make sense, that the end justifies the means? People say that, over time, dogs start to resemble their owners, both in looks and in behavior. Whether it’s the animals that start imitating their humans, or the humans start to identify themselves with their dogs, it doesn’t matter, there are hundreds of photos and videos online where dogs look and behave almost exactly like the dog owners! It might be a stereotype, but Italians are “notorious" for being a very dramatic nation and this dog is one true Italian. Antonio is scolding him for something that he did and the ashamed puppy keeps burrowing his head into his chest. “Are you asking me to forgive you? I don't understand." says the owner as poor Ettore climbs on his lap. The dog makes a short eye contact, before nuzzling further into Antonio. “You are wrong, Ettore. Ettore, you are wrong. No. Do you understand where you made the mistake? Do you understand?" Antonio keeps scolding and the dog keep sinking into his chest. This might be one strict owner, but we could barely hold back our tears. Just forgive him already! All's well that ends with a bear hug! How adorable is this dog? Would you say no to that face? Chances are probably not. Check out this adorable dog begging for forgiveness. What do you think about this video? Make sure you tell us more in the comments down below. If you like what you see, don’t forget to share it with others who might like it as well. It just might be the highlight of their day! Enjoy!NRL players may face life bans if found guilty of domestic violence Updated The NRL has confirmed it plans to hand out bans of nine months to life for players convicted of violence against women, while at the same time defending its decision to grant disgraced players a "second chance". Speaking at the launch of the Women in League round, NRL boss Todd Greenberg said the introduction of a life ban was all but locked in. "If necessary and for the most serious of acts absolutely we will but again we'll have to judge those on their merit," he said. "When you make poor decisions and women are involved we are going to have big consequences. "We're not perfect and I'm not sure we'll ever be perfect but we're aiming to be the best we can be and to provide a leadership position that others can look too." The new policies, still to be ticked off by the ARL Commission, will allow the sport's head body to sideline players for anywhere between nine months to life for those found guilty of domestic violence and sex offences. In the past some players guilty of abusing women have been welcomed back into the game after serving a ban. In 2014 after pleading guilty to seriously assaulting his girlfriend, the then South Sydney centre Kirisome Auva'a was suspended indefinitely but welcomed back to the sport just over nine months later. He currently plays for the Parramatta Eels. Though Mr Greenberg said he was not embarrassed by that fact. "I think Rugby League... has the propensity to give people a second chance," he said. "But when it comes to this fundamental issue of violence against women we're going to get very, very strong and I can't send a stronger message then to say that." Gender issues expert Catharine Lumby helped advise the code on the new sanctions and said it is important the national sport takes the lead. "Certainly with domestic violence and sexual assault, where that's been proven, my view has always been that players should be taken out of the game," she said. "There are now very, very clear guidelines which are in the process of being released and I think they are excellent guidelines." Topics: rugby-league, sport, assault, crime, law-crime-and-justice, community-and-society, domestic-violence, sydney-2000, nsw First postedPhoto: MIT Drone inside MIT's wind tunnel. Personally, I don’t believe that urban delivery drones are a.) going to happen anytime soon or b.) even that good of an idea. One of the problems (among many, which I’ve discussed in previous posts) that urban drones have to deal with is efficiency: batteries count as payload, so if you want to fly farther, you’ll be carrying less of whatever your customers are paying for. Generally, quadrotor range is measured in minutes of flight time, which equates to a given distance at a given speed. Also generally, quadrotor range does not take into account the fact that the quadrotor is flying around outdoors, where wind can be a significant factor that either helps you out our ruins your day. At MIT, John Ware and Professor Nicholas Roy have been working on ways of helping quadrotors leverage the wind fields created by structures in urban environments to improve their energy consumption. By modeling how wind blows around dense concentrations of buildings, quadrotors can plan intelligent trajectories to seek out tailwinds and avoid headwinds, boosting their efficiency and potentially leading to both higher speed and longer range. Most of the work that’s been done on drones and wind focuses on the calm, happy sort of wind that makes golden fields of wheat gracefully sway back and forth as a puppy frolics through them. It’s much harder to deal with the complicated angry wind that you get when fast moving air tries to find its way through an obstacle course of urban buildings. You can’t use a simple model for this; you need something much more sophisticated: namely, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver along with a 3D model of your urban area plus some weather data as an input. Image: MIT This image is a visualization of wind behavior around buildings for a prevailing wind speed of 10 m/s measured at an altitude of 100 m. With a wind field model like this, you can ask your quadrotor’s piloting software to compute a minimum energy trajectory between any two points. Depending on what the wind is doing, this may result in a path that’s not the shortest distance, which is what the quadrotor would be trying to do if the wind wasn’t a factor. But since the wind is a factor, the quadrotor will instead look for ways that it can minimize headwinds and maximize tailwinds, resulting in some common sense behaviors. In the example below, the planner that accounts for the wind has the quadrotor sheltering next to and downwind from structures, while the traditional direct route planner exposes the quadrotor to a strong headwind. Image: MIT Image (a) shows the shortest path trajectory and (b) the wind optimized trajectory for an example flight path (the drone is flying from the green dot on the right to the red dot on the left). The trajectories are color coded by ground speed, and you can see that in (b) the drone flew much faster than in (a). So how much of a difference does this make? At low wind speeds, not a lot, which is what you’d expect. At 5 m/s wind speed, for example, you might reduce energy consumption by a few percent. But as wind speed increases, the wind planner does better and better, especially over longer distances. With a wind speed of 10 m/s over five hundred meters, the paper claims that “the wind planner demonstrates a 39.4 percent reduction in total energy consumption while traveling 10.8 percent further with a 22 percent shorter flight time.” Whoa. This also means that using the wind planner can sometimes result in a successful trip, whereas a direct route planner could leave your quadrotor out of juice short of its goal. At the moment, the input to the CFD solver is just one fixed altitude, meaning that the wind planner isn’t taking into account the full three-dimensional space that it’s navigating through. Obviously, there’s a huge amount of potential for a planner that can leverage a model of different speeds (and directions) at different altitudes and modify its plan to match. But even without that, it seems like autonomous urban drones would be silly not to take advantage of the wind, since it could make the difference between a drone reaching its destination in a timely manner and a delivery fail. And just like that, we’re back to the age of sail. “An Analysis of Wind Field Estimation and Exploitation for Quadrotor Flight in the Urban Canopy Layer,” by John Ware and Nicholas Roy from MIT, was presented last month at ICRA 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden. [ MIT RRG ]Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images LOS ANGELES — Imagine if Lonzo Ball could actually shoot. On Sunday, the Los Angeles Lakers won for the third time in their past four games with a 107-102 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies. Now 5-5 on the season, the Lakers are winning despite Ball shooting just 29.9 percent on the year. Ball is a difficult rookie to evaluate. Should his impact on the Lakers be measured by his individual efficiency or team record? "He's doing everything else. That's not a concern of ours," Lakers center Brook Lopez said. "Just the way he facilitates, he brings everyone up to a whole 'nother level. He instigates the break, he instigates our offense. It's irreplaceable." Ball has shown individual flashes, such as when he scored 29 points in his second regular-season game with a dominant performance against the Phoenix Suns. But against the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday, he took just two shot attempts in the Lakers' 113-110 loss. Naturally, his father has a strong opinion. Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images "You've got to shoot the ball," LaVar Ball told Bleacher Report after the Lakers' 124-112 win over the Nets on Friday. "You're not going to make it if you don't take it." The senior Ball also has some concerns about head coach Luke Walton's rotation with his son. "Let him play the whole fourth quarter and bet you'll always win. He'll get into a better flow," Ball said. "The in and out, sitting out six to 10 minutes? He's not going to take no shots because he's not in the flow. He don't want to hurt the team by shooting." 🔥 Can't-Miss Plays from Around the NBA 🔥 Eight Years Ago, the Nuggets Traded Melo to the Knicks Two Years Ago, the Kings Shipped Boogie to the Pelicans ASG Will Be Competitive Again If the NBA Raises the Stakes Will Harden Burn Himself Out Before the Playoffs? When MJ Wore #12 After His Jersey Was Stolen Before a Game 15 Years Ago, LeBron, Wade and Melo Took Over All-Star Weekend 14 Years Ago, Iverson Dropped Career-High 60 Points The Kyrie and LeBron Bromance Is Back! Bats Have Become an Unexpected Attraction at Spurs Games KD Giving Back to His Hometown with Durant Center Four Years Ago, Klay Drops Record 37 Pts in One Quarter Remembering the Night Kobe Scored 81 Points Happy 37th Birthday Dwyane Wade Steph Is a Few Shots Away from NBA 3-Point History Lance's Air Guitar Is the Lakers' New Go-To Celebration Can Harden Keep His Dominance Going? Steph Gifts Fan Who Asked for Girls UA Kicks with New Curry 6s Happy 34th Birthday to LeBron 👑 4 Years Ago, Kobe Passed Jordan on the NBA Scoring List Drummond and Embiid Reignite Rivalry Right Arrow Icon Walton understands it's an adjustment for rookies as they find their way in the NBA. "It's not even really the minutes, as much as just being the best player on your team," Walton said. "When you're the guy that everything goes through, you find rhythms throughout the game. You get to this level and...you start as more of a role player and you work your way up. It takes time to get used to." But the Lakers coach has nothing but praise for his point guard, who has the ultimate green light. "I don't think he can ever be too aggressive," Walton said. "Get into that paint, learn what it's like to take on that contact and finish, and make those reads doing downhill. Whether he makes or misses shots, right now I don't care. He'll figure that out. He's that good of a player." Ball's teammates love playing with him. They know if they're hot, he's going to get them the ball. "He's running our offense. He's our leader," second-year swingman Brandon Ingram said. "He's leading us with passes, making it easier for other guys to score the basketball, and he's doing a good job on the defensive end. He's doing great." "He's just playing hard at his own pace, that's what we need for him," Lakers 2-guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. "He's making the right play. Sometimes he takes a bad shot. That's cool, we all take bad shots. Him being as young as he is at the point guard, that's a lot of pressure, but he's handled it pretty well." Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale was impressed by the Lakers' duo of Ball and Ingram. "Those two young guys, they are a handful," Fizdale said. "I think as their shooting becomes more consistent, they are going to become a problem. Everybody is looking at their body of work right now, but these kids [will] get better, and they got a heck of a staff down there that I know is going to develop them." That is exactly Walton's focus. It isn't necessarily how Ball and Ingram play in a game this season, but instead over the course of their career. "I think [Ball's] scoring opens up more passing lanes," Walton said. "He still positively affects our game just by being on the court, but to be great—to be the player he's going to be—he needs to shoot. It's not just about that game at that moment. As he grows as a player, we need him to continue to do those things to develop his ability and skill." The Lakers aren't looking to change Ball's unique shooting form during the season, but he needs to improve his footwork and timing. Fundamentally, he has a long way to go to be a consistent scorer, but he's adjusted quickly to the NBA defensively and is helping the team win games as he learns. Last year's squad won 10 of its first 20 before it quickly bottomed out to win just 26. Walton is confident this team is better suited to sustain its on-court success. "We're better defensively," Walton said. "Last year, we were shooting the lights out to start the season. We just didn't have the rest of the foundation set well enough to sustain that.... Because of the group's willingness to buy in and compete on defense, we're going to be in every game." Adam Pantozzi/Getty Images Ball is an integral part of why Los Angeles is a.500 team. As he improves, so too will the Lakers. His poor shooting percentage will drop him behind others in the race for Rookie of the Year. Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers appears to be the early favorite. But this season isn't about individual awards or even winning basketball games. It's about making sure Ball is on the path to become the player the Lakers believe one day will be a transcendent point guard. Today, Ball needs to find the balance between his own shot and finding his teammates, and then converting his attempts into baskets. Ball acknowledged it's an adjustment to look for his own offense over playmaking. "My life, I've been pretty much passing. [To] my brother, [at] UCLA we had great shooters on the floor," Ball said. "It's a little bit new for me, but I'll get used to it. Everyone is playing me for the pass. I can get into the lanes, I just have to take advantage." All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: @EricPincus.Leadership Elections are an annual democratic exercise in which all students at Imperial College London get to choose their leaders for the academic year ahead. There are hundreds of roles influencing different areas of student life (some full time and paid, others voluntary) but they all provide opportunity for you to lead change at Imperial. YOU can lead Imperial - available roles Stand for any of the following roles and lead the change at Imperial. Click on a tab to learn more about the role (or roles) and how many positions are available in this election. Officer Trustees The Officer Trustees are the leaders of Imperial College Union and are the voice of Imperial students. Elected by the entire student body, the five successful candidates take a full academic year out of their studies to work on behalf of their peers. Officer Trustee roles are full-time, paid positions, receiving a salary of more than £30K per year along with a great package of benefits and professional support from Imperial College Union's staff and Trustees. Other unique roles These are the other stand-alone positions within our system of student government. One is a full time time paid role, while the other is voluntary and done alongside your studies. Both are equally important to our strong democratic traditions as a Union. Roles with multiple positions These roles have multiple open positions available. There are two Student Trustee positions, eight Liberation & Community Officers, and as many Academic & Wellbeing Departmental Reps as there are departments of College. Each position is collaborative with different roles in our structure, but all provide the opportunity for you to be change agents who ensure we are maintaining the highest standards and living our values of Democracy, Inclusivity, Leadership and Partnership. Positions on Committees Imperial College Union comprises six Constituent Unions (CUs, for short) and over 370 Clubs, Societies & Projects (CSPs) whose activities and traditions make Imperial a great place for us all to connect and collaborate, start campaigns, share ideas and just have fun. Each CU and CSP is led by a Committee with a President and other key roles that keep them vibrant and functional.Researchers from Johns Hopkins University did a study to see if the amount of THC in edible marijuana products was the same as the amount specified on the labels. The answer was a resounding “nah, man.” Hopkins scientists went to Colorado and Washington state, where recreational marijuana is legal, and bought a total of 75 different edible products containing marijuana. They then tested the products’ THC content to see if it matched the amount of THC that was promised on their labels. They found that over three three quarters of the edibles did not contain the specified amount of THC, with 60 percent of edibles tested containing less THC than advertised. 23 percent of the products actually contained more THC than was claimed on the label. The researchers state that edibles containing marijuana cannot be relied upon to give a medicinal dose to patients taking it. One researcher said, “I suspected that we would see variability, but I was shocked at how much variability there was.” One reason may be that both states require in-state testing of THC content by local labs. These labs, and labs in general, don’t have much experience in testing for THC in substances other than serum and urine. And testing for THC in marijuana plants and oils is more straightforward than trying to test for marijuana in, say, a brownie, where there are a number of other ingredients present. For pharmaceuticals prescribed in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration requires strict testing on drugs produced, including medications like PrEP and aspirin. But since the FDA states that marijuana is a non-medicinal drug, it has nothing to do with determining the purity or amount to THC in any marijuana products. Another reason for the mislabeling is that the producers of medical marijuana edibles are mostly small mom and pop stores. They may not have the knowledge or skills to prepare brownies, cookies and other edibles properly or consistently. Recipes differ and how the THC is added to the mixture varies. Of course, there is also the possibility that there may be some producers who are just shortchanging the consumer to increase their own profits. For right now at least, if you or someone you know is using medical marijuana and expecting a consistent dose, it may be much better to use it in a non-edible form. Perhaps, over time the analytical techniques will get better, or the FDA will step in, and the THC content of edibles will be more accurate.In a Spartan conference room on the second floor of Áras Uí Dhálaigh, a modern red-brick building abutting the Four Courts complex in Dublin, a High Court judge and a team of six researchers gather for a weekly progress report. Their task? To answer one of the most sensitive and vexed questions in the Irish legal system: how do judges decide on sentences? It’s slow, painstaking yet quietly groundbreaking work, says Mr Justice Peter Charleton, who supervises the group. Since there is no internal paper trail on sentencing practice in the courts, the team at the Judicial Researchers Office have developed their own, improvised system since the project began last September. First they scour relevant judgments on specific offences from the Court of Criminal Appeal, placing each one in a batch corresponding to sentence bands. Who is getting suspended sentences or up to three years? Who is getting of 5-10 years? And so on. Next they turn to the online archive of The Irish Times and carry out a trawl for additional cases. Taking the names and dates from these, they listen back to the original sentence hearing using the digital audio recording system that has been in use in the Circuit and Central Criminal Courts since 2008. The team note the sentence and the reasons the judge gave for choosing it, and add the file to the batches. “The next question is: are there any patterns,” says Judge Charleton. “We look for patterns like, who is getting smaller sentences, who is getting normal sentences, who is getting higher, who is getting the worst? Then we try to put that together into a narrative.” Inconsistencies The backdrop to these efforts is the perennial debate over inconsistencies in sentencing – one that can command media space and stir public opinion like few other legal topics. Broadly speaking, it’s a debate that is stymied by a glaring information gap. We know the system leaves ample discretion for judges and that can produce divergent penalties for similar-looking offences, but we have scant statistical information on the overall picture. Judicial Sentencing the figures Judges are conscious of the lacuna, and the work being carried out by the Judicial Researchers Office is an attempt to put it right. It was born out of a report on rape sentencing written by Judge Charleton and Aoife Marie Farrelly, then of the researchers office, which was used in a Central Criminal Court decision in 2007. That report examined dozens of rape sentences and classified them so as to show the circumstances that might guide a mild, ordinary or exceptional response. Chief Justice Susan Denham was keen for a similar exercise that would explore the patterns that precedent had laid down for other types of crime, and asked Judge Charleton to steer it. Difficult task He suggests that while the media habitually presents judges as out of touch in how they deal with serious offenders, deciding on a sentence can be a very difficult task. “People call for consistency in sentencing,” he argued in a lecture co-written with Lisa Scott, “but it must be remembered... that while a judge in Dublin may be one of three or more dealing with that kind of crime and stationed in the Criminal Courts of Justice and so may consult with colleagues as to the ‘going rate’, all around the country there are judges who see no one from month to month and who are expected to make multiple decisions on any one day on a huge divergence of criminal offences.” Up until last year, there was no way of linking them together or supplying judges around the country with information on recent trends. Complicating factor A further complicating factor is that some of the most serious offence categories can encompass a very wide range of circumstances. In manslaughter, for example, the spectrum of culpability runs from accidental death to an attack akin to murder. “One of my colleagues said to me, ‘Look, it really, really is difficult,’ and one of the most difficult things is where serious harm is caused and the malice isn’t there,” says Judge Charleton. When a sentencing report is completed, the information is posted on a secure intranet accessible only to judges. It is then published, with individuals’ names removed, on the website of the Irish Sentencing Information System (irishsentencing.ie), which is open to the public. Sentencing precedent Judge Charleton believes the research is already having an effect in the courtroom, pointing out that in two recent cases, judges have called for the relevant sentencing precedent to be cited. Three studies have already been completed, and further reports on drugs and dangerous driving are being prepared. “The advantage of [this] kind of approach is that it lays out what other judges have done without being judgmental about it, and preserves independence, since it can be taken or left. “It is not rigid, like a sentencing guideline is supposed to be, but is not like making it up as you go along – the accusation often thrown at the judiciary.”Scenic Routes In Scenic Routes, Mike D’Angelo looks at key scenes, explaining how they work and what they mean. In Scenic Routes, Mike D’Angelo looks at key movie scenes, explaining how they work and what they mean. We hate like hell to admit it, but professional critics often exist in a sort of bubble, oblivious to how the medium that we cover (and love) is perceived by the rest of the world. Even at film festivals, surrounded by other critics, that can be true. I remember jogging down the Croisette at Cannes one year to make sure I was an hour early for the new Hong Sang-soo picture, expecting a long line… only to find one other person (a friend of mine) standing there. When an arty genre movie like Drive premieres at a festival like Cannes, therefore, we sometimes go a little bit nuts. I left the press screening convinced that I'd seen not just a terrific film but a potential hit, and was flabbergasted when opening-night viewers polled by CinemaScore gave it a dismal C- grade. Even now, when Drive comes up in conversation among friends and family who aren’t cinephiles, the response is uniformly negative, often violently so. Nobody’s quite ready to defend the crazy lady who tried to sue the distributor for false advertising, but they all clearly feel as if they were promised something fairly specific that the movie didn’t even come close to delivering. Advertisement Now that a few years have gone by—and now that Nicolas Winding Refn, with Only God Forgives, has reverted to deliberately punishing form—it seems like a good time to look back at one of the scenes in Drive that I found thrilling and try to figure out who was more delusional: the general public, or me? My initial plan was to examine the opening sequence, in which Ryan Gosling’s unnamed Driver pulls off an impressive getaway by utilizing a variety of different strategies, including careful attention to an L.A. Clippers game in progress. Upon reflection, though, I feel like even the haters were probably still
of people don’t have enough money to get by. “We’ve always seen a lot of people come through struggling with debt,” says Susan Kearney, a supervisor at Citizens Advice Harrow. “But it used to be people with credit cards. Now it’s rent arrears, council tax, gas, electric – essentials, basically.” In Citizens Advice’s crowded waiting room, a dozen or so people clutch pieces of paper as volunteers sort out those whose needs are urgent from those who need an appointment. Some arrive with questions about specific problems; others show up with a carrier bag full of letters they have avoided dealing with. Narrow corridors lead to small rooms for interviews and larger ones where armies of volunteers and professionals answer phones, deal with online enquiries and pursue casework. “People often come with enquiries about one or two things, and during the consultation it becomes clear that the problem they thought they had is compounded by problems they didn’t realise they had,” says the chief officer. Earlier a man had come in with an enquiry about his motorised wheelchair and left understanding he also had problems with debt, damp and benefits. “Whenever there’s a change in benefit entitlements there’s a spike in people seeking advice,” says Kearney. “So we have seen that with the changes in disability benefit.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mohammed Ameripour. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian At the law centre, people caught in the crossfire of these and other changes tell of their ordeals. Mohammed Ameripour, who suffers from a severe cerebellar disorder that affects his speech and vision, was declared fit for work even though he has a full-time carer. He was declared to have no problem with mobility even though he is confined to a wheelchair. The benefits he has been reliant on for 19 years were cut. “All the doors were shut to me,” he says. “Every door. I couldn’t get them to help me.” Thanks to the law centre, he won his case on appeal. Then there is the single mother who suffers from depression and anxiety and who is living on £80 a week after her jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit were cut because she missed two health assessment appointments. A babysitter let her down for the first; her five-year-old son was seriously ill in hospital at the time of the second. “I’m just not paying bills,” she says. “It’s about priorities. I have to feed my son. I don’t think the landlord is going to turn me out for one month’s late rent.” She expects her appeal will be successful. Most voters, including those in our focus group, raise housing as the main issue in Harrow, and relate it to the issue of pay. But the nature of the housing issue depends very much on whom you talk to. At one end of the spectrum are the extremely vulnerable: people living in cars and gardens – or Steven Friel, 48, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder. He lives in a private flat that has no heating or electricity and a leaking ceiling and he cannot get the landlord to fix anything. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Steven Friel. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian On the other end are the people who worry about where their children will be able to live. At the law centre, Fitzpatrick, a Labour councillor whom we have met in previous despatches, says she has seen an increase in the number of professionals coming in seeking help. “We’ve seen teachers and nurses struggle with housing problems in a way that we would never have done in the past,” she says. “They just can’t survive in London on those salaries. It all comes down to a lack of security and stability.” This has had an effect on how people vote. Those with more options feel those options narrowing and fear they may have vanished by the time their children come of age. Among the most vulnerable, nobody is saying “they’re all the same” as they once might have. The single mother is gung-ho, for not just Labour but Jeremy Corbyn; Frier says he likes nature and will vote Green; Ameripour says that although he thinks May is strong in a way Corbyn is not, he is voting Labour. “Some people are claiming benefits when they are healthy and that’s not right,” he says. “But I don’t like what she has done to benefits. I don’t like what she has done to me.”In her knee-length jumper and cobalt blue tights, Hannah Simpson cuts a neat figure. The vibrant 29-year-old student of osteopathic medicine throws back her thick chestnut-brown hair when she laughs, but she turns serious when talking about her experience as a patient rather than a caregiver. That’s because for the past few years she has had a tough time finding a doctor, not because of geography or lack of insurance, but rather because Simpson was born physically male and now lives as a woman. It is hard to determine the exact number of transgender people in the United States, although some estimates put the figure around 700,000. Like Simpson, many of them have known since they were very young that the gender with which they identify is not the gender they appear to be. Yet research has shown that finding a doctor can often be a challenge and a source of stress for transgender people due to a combination of provider prejudice and lack of knowledge. “A lot of it is ignorance,” Simpson said, “and not being aware of what transgender people are and what their needs are.” Examples of insensitivity have been all too common in her experience, including a mental healthcare provider who did not realize he was being insulting when he equated being transgender with diaper fetishism, and a pharmacist who snickered when she deduced from Simpson’s prescription list that she was transgender (Simpson now gets her prescriptions mailed to her home). Many transgender people will change their name or appearance to fit their gender identity. Some choose to undergo hormone therapy, which essentially changes the body’s chemistry to match an individual's gender identity, and possibly sex reassignment surgery, which changes one’s physical appearance. Such treatments can boost quality of life among transgender people, but finding a clinician willing and able to perform even routine care can be a challenge. What does healthcare for transgender people entail? In most respects, of course, the same care is required as for everyone else, including preventive care and disease management. With the exception of doctors whose specialties entail administering sex-change hormones or post-op care for those who have undergone surgery, there’s not much providers should do differently when treating transgender individuals. There is, however, a need for greater awareness and understanding. For instance, transgender patients face health risks that may not be intuitive to some providers, such as the continued risk of prostate cancer among male-to-female transgender people. Transgenderism “is something any primary care provider should be able to handle,” said Simpson. “They should think about this patient as just another person who comes in with diabetes or high blood pressure. There really isn’t much more to it than that.” Yet among transgender people, “the biggest barrier to healthcare is getting any care at all,” said endocrinologist Joshua Safer, a faculty member and physician at Boston University School of Medicine who routinely administers hormones to the many transgender patients he sees in his clinic. That was the finding of a 2009 study published in the American Journal of Public Health that examined access to care among 101 male-to-female transgender people living in New York City. Researchers found that about one-third of respondents cited the inability to find a practitioner well-versed in health issues specific to transgender people as the biggest barrier to adequate healthcare. Trouble finding a caregiver willing to provide care to a transgender person—a so-called “transgender-friendly” provider—followed close behind; it was cited by 30 percent of the women in the study as their main obstacle to finding a healthcare provider. The discomfort among physicians and other clinicians when it comes to caring for transgender patients stems in large part from a lack of knowledge, said Safer, although some clinicians’ personal prejudices may also influence their willingness to provide care. “The physicians with whom I come in contact act biased when they know nothing” about caring for transgender people, “but when they are informed they become more open-minded,” Safer said. “That leads me to believe the fundamental issue is a lack of knowledge, rather than a social bias that we wouldn’t be able to overcome.” He recently co-authored an editorial in the journal Current Opinions in Endocrinology, Diabetes & Obesity that called for more awareness and greater access for transgender people to healthcare, primary care physicians and specialists. The lack of knowledge stems from the fact that the basics of transgender care are not taught in most medical schools. To change that, three years ago Safer implemented a one-hour lecture within the month-long endocrinology course for second-year medical students at Boston University School of Medicine. The goal of his lecture is to establish from an early stage of training that transgender care is just as much a part of conventional medicine as the treatment of any other group of people. Safer and his team used surveys administered before and after the lecture the first year he taught it to gauge the effects of the course on 66 medical students’ openness toward having transgender individuals as patients, and on their confidence in their ability to offer hormonal therapy if needed. The survey also inquired about students’ perceptions of their ability to treat hypogonadism, a medical condition in which the body naturally produces too little of the sex hormones important for growth and development. The remedy for both is the same: administration of hormones. The difference is that hypogonadism treatment has long been considered part of mainstream medicine. The results were impressive. Students reported a 67 percent drop in discomfort in providing care to transgender people. And after the lecture, not a single student reported that they perceived the treatment of transgender people to be separate from conventional medicine—down from 5 percent of students who felt that way before the lecture. Rates of comfort with treating transgender patients also increased, although they remained lower than those for patients with hypogonadism. The results of the survey of students’ perceptions were recently published in the journal Endocrine Practice. “If it’s taught in medical school, it is viewed as ‘true,’” he said. “Concepts that are not taught in medical school are presumed to be fringe or alternative—things that may lack scientific validity.” Simpson feels lucky to have recently found a primary care provider with whom she feels comfortable—who is, in fact, a transgender woman. She calls a lecture like the one Safer has implemented for medical students on transgender healthcare “tremendously important,” and hopes that as a medical student, she can serve as both an example to the medical community and an advocate for transgender patients. She is starting a group at her school to teach students and the administration about being transgender, and to encourage faculty to modify the curriculum to include information about transgender care. Safer has met with much encouragement within the medical community and aims to bring a lecture like his to medical students nationwide. “I have not come across anybody who would not want this as part of the curriculum,” he said.A prop, formally known as (theatrical) property,[1] is an object used on stage or on screen by actors during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct from the actors, scenery, costumes, and electrical equipment. Consumable food items appearing in the production are also considered props.[2][3][4][5] Term [ edit ] The earliest known use of the term "properties" in English to refer to stage accessories is in the 1425 CE morality play, The Castle of Perseverance.[6][7] The Oxford English Dictionary finds the first usage of "props" in 1841, while the singular form of "prop" appeared in 1911.[8] During the Renaissance in Europe, small acting troupes functioned as cooperatives, pooling resources and dividing any income. Many performers provided their own costumes, but special items—stage weapons, furniture or other hand-held devices—were considered "company property"; hence the term "property."[9][10] Some experts however seem to think that the term comes from the idea that stage or screen objects "belong" to whoever uses them on stage.[5] There is no difference between props in different media, such as theatre, film, or television. Bland Wade, a properties director, says, "A coffee cup onstage is a coffee cup on television, is a coffee cup on the big screen." He adds, "There are definitely different responsibilities and different vocabulary."[11] On stage and backstage [ edit ] Props storage room of the National Theatre, Germany The term "theatrical property" originated to describe an object used in a stage play and similar entertainments to further the action. Technically, a prop is any object that gives the scenery, actors, or performance space specific period, place, or character.[inconsistent] The term comes from live-performance practice, especially theatrical methods, but its modern use extends beyond the traditional plays and musical, circus, novelty, comedy, and even public-speaking performances, to film, television, and electronic media. Props in a production originate from off stage unless they have been preset on the stage before the production begins. Props are stored on a prop table backstage near the actor's entrance during production then generally locked in a storage area between performances. The person in charge of handling the props is generally called the "props master". Other positions also include coordinators, production assistants and interns as may be needed for a specific project. Modern usage [ edit ] The term has readily transferred to television, motion picture and video game production, where they are commonly referred to by the phrase movie prop, film prop or simply prop. In recent years, the increasing popularity of movie memorabilia (a broader term that also includes costumes) has added new meaning to the term "prop", broadening its existence to include a valuable after-life as a prized collector's item. Typically not available until after a film's premiere, movie props appearing on-screen are called "screen-used", and can fetch thousands of dollars in online auctions and charity benefits.[12][13] Many props are ordinary objects. However, a prop must "read well" from the house or on-screen, meaning it must look real to the audience. Many real objects are poorly adapted to the task of looking like themselves to an audience, due to their size, durability, or color under bright lights, so some props are specially designed to look more like the actual item than the real object would look. In some cases, a prop is designed to behave differently from how the real object would, often for the sake of safety. Examples of special props are: A prop sack representing a burlap bag, might have another black fabric bag sewn, discreetly inside the burlap, giving it strength, hiding the contents and creating a visual void to the audience view. A prop mop, representing a string mop, but built out of a rectangular shape covered with fabric, so the mop can be slid across the stage to another actress as part of a musical number (as in Fiddler on the Roof's song "Matchmaker"). [14] s song "Matchmaker"). A prop weapon (such as a stage gun or a stage sword) that looks functional, but lacks the intentional harmfulness of the corresponding real weapon. In the theater, prop weapons are almost always either non-operable replicas, or have safety features to ensure they are not dangerous. Guns fire caps or noisy blanks, swords are dulled, and knives are often made of plastic or rubber. In film production, fully functional weapons are mostly used, but typically only with special smoke blanks with blank adapted guns instead of real bullets. Real cartridges with bullets removed are still dangerously charged which has caused several tragic instances when used on stage or film. The safety and proper handling of real weapons used as movie props is the premiere responsibility of the prop master. ATF and other law enforcement agencies may monitor the use of real guns for film and television, but this is generally not necessary with stage props as these guns are permanently "plugged". . ATF and other law enforcement agencies may monitor the use of real guns for film and television, but this is generally not necessary with stage props as these guns are permanently "plugged". Breakaway objects, or stunt props, such as balsa-wood furniture, or sugar glass (mock-glassware made of crystallized sugar) whose breakage and debris look real but rarely cause injury due to their light weight and weak structure. Even for such seemingly safe props, very often a stunt double will replace the main actor for shots involving use of breakaway props. Rubber bladed-weapons and guns are examples of props used by stuntmen to minimize injury, or by actors where the action requires a prop which minimizes injury. [15] such as balsa-wood furniture, or sugar glass (mock-glassware made of crystallized sugar) whose breakage and debris look real but rarely cause injury due to their light weight and weak structure. Even for such seemingly safe props, very often a stunt double will replace the main actor for shots involving use of breakaway props. Rubber bladed-weapons and guns are examples of props used by stuntmen to minimize injury, or by actors where the action requires a prop which minimizes injury. "Hero" props are the more detailed pieces intended for close inspection by the camera or audience. The hero prop may have legible writing, lights, moving parts, or other attributes or functions missing from a standard prop; a hero prop phaser from the Star Trek franchise, for example, might include a depressible trigger and a light-up muzzle and display panel (all of which would make the hero prop more expensive and less durable). The term is also used on occasion for any of the items that a main character would carry in film and television (which are often hero props in the first sense as well). The term may sometimes be used in stage production, as many props from film find their way into theatre from common rental and purchase shops. References [ edit ]Put down that new Apple iPad for a second to consider another technological leap. Soon some damaged heart valves will be repaired without cracking patients' chests and cutting into their hearts. Instead, new medical devices allow valves to be fixed or replaced with tiny catheters that are snaked up from the groin, similar to the way stents are implanted in the heart to open clogged arteries when people have heart attacks or pain from a lack of good circulation in the heart muscle. This is a major technological breakthrough on the part of the companies involved – Edwards Lifesciences, Medtronic, and Abbott Laboratories. The devices do come with big tradeoffs. The Edwards valve, which replaces the heart valve between the heart and the aorta doubles a patient's risk of stroke, according to new trial results, causing one extra stroke for every 25 patients treated in a recent study. It's not clear that Abbott's valve repair kit, used to repair the mitral valve that separates the top and bottom chambers on the left side of the heart, may not be as effective for some patients over the long haul as traditional open-heart surgery. Both treatments, should they be approved by the Food and Drug Administration early next year, are expected to be used mostly for patients who are not candidates for surgery or for those for whom surgery is deemed high risk. Medtronic's entrant won't reach the U.S. market for several years. But cardiologists at the recent meeting of the American College of Cardiology, which I attended, positively gushed about the Edwards valve. "This is a historic event," said David Moliterno of the University of Kentucky said of the new trial. Michael Crawford of the University of California, San Francisco, said that hundreds of thousands of patients could wind up getting the therapy. "This is truly going to be a game changer," said Ralph Brindis, the current president of the American College of Cardiology. "There are a huge amount of patients out there who are not getting therapy." A lot of excited doctors had financial relationships with Edwards. Elliott Antman, a senior faculty member at the Brigham & Women's hospital, said he'd be very careful about extrapolating the results to younger patients (the average patient in the study of Edwards' valve, called Sapien, was in his eighties). Since patients were only followed for a year, it's not clear these valves would be a great choice for people who expect to live many years or even decades and are in good physical shape to handle the trauma of surgery. Still, he called the results "impressive" in those elderly patients. There's no doubt that the Edwards valve is a pretty amazing engineering feat. It is made of collapsed cow tissue in a steel frame, much like the stents used for opening arteries. It is compressed, along with a balloon, into an 8 millimeter catheter that is threaded up from an incision in the groin into the heart. This does require general anesthesia. Once in place, the valve is expanded with a balloon to about 20 mm in diameter. (Different people have different-sized valves.) This approach can only replace one particular valve – the aortic valve that connects the body's largest artery to the heart – and only with one disease, called aortic stenosis, which is the narrowing of that valve. Stenosis can be caused by rheumatic fever or other problems, and the Edwards valve is useless for those. Where it works is when the valve, through aging and artery disease, has become encrusted with a coat of calcium. The Edwards valve actually needs the hard, calcium coating in order to have something to press against. From that fact comes its weakness: the fact that it causes strokes. Calcium kicked off the valve, or cholesterol gunked knocked off the blood vessel wall by the catheter, can release particles into the bloodstream that make their way up to the brain and cause strokes. In the clinical trial presented at ACC, there was 1 extra stroke for every 25 people, and a major stroke for every 40. At the end of a year, the death rates were the same among the patients who got the valve and those who received open-heart surgery. These were people for whom surgery was a big risk. "We will get to the bottom of the stroke issue," says Murat Tuzcu, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who participated in the trial. He made a video that explained the procedure to the assembled cardiologists at the ACC meeting before the final results were presented. A giant room full of doctors was rapt. Already, Edwards is making some progress there. Newer versions of the valve use a catheter that is two millimeters thinner and replace the steel in the device with cobalt chromium. Just the decrease in size may help. Edwards also bought a company called Embrella, which makes a filter that can be placed in the aorta in order to catch material. Right now, the trade-off of strokes is a severe one. To many patients, a stroke, which can cause mental incapacitation, is going to seem scarier than the bleeding and long recovery times of open heart surgery. Regulators at both the FDA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may see reason to try to restrict use at first to the highest risk patients. Many doctors say the same thing. But there could also be dramatic demand for a surgery alternative. Lawrence Biegelsen, an analyst at Wells Fargo, forecasts on the order of 40,000 of the valves will be used annually in the U.S. by 2015. Investors responded to the new results by taking profits on Edwards stock, driving shares down 3%. Edwards' stock price has tripled over the past two years. In Europe, not only is the valve on the market, it is already in a newer iteration with a thinner. Medical devices in Europe are approved with extremely little clinical study, but they are far more likely to face hurdles getting paid for by government health plans. The FDA is more likely to want proof – like the trial provided by Edwards – that they provide an actual benefit. Even after relatively big trials, though, the question of exactly which patients will benefit can be thorny. The Abbott valve repair device, which essentially clips the mitral valve shut, was tested in a study that company-funded researchers said showed it was roughly equivalent to surgery. Helen Parise, a Boston University statistician, argued at a session at the ACC meeting that because of the way that study was designed, it managed to show both that the valve was non-inferior and statistically inferior. Cardiologists emphasized that the real market for this device, called MitraClip, is in improving the symptoms of patients who are very sick. Elizabeth Taylor got this device last year. These new valves still have significant technical problems to overcome. The good thing about technical problems, though, is that they are solve-able. And the idea of replacing a valve in a much less invasive manner looks as if it really is on the right side of history.To the Editor: I would like to respond to the Feb. 11 column by David Brooks about President Obama in which Brooks mentions Sen. Bernie Sanders' health care plan to expand Medicare and have universal coverage. Brooks wrote, "Sanderscare would take employer coverage away from tens of millions of satisfied customers, destroy the health insurance business and levy massive new tax hikes. This is epic social disruption.'' According to Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), under the Affordable Care Act, 28.5 million people were uninsured in the first six months of 2015. And tens of millions more are underinsured. Under Obamacare, many more people are now covered, but it is not nearly sufficient. Many who are covered have policies that cover only catastrophic costs, leaving them to pay not only their insurance premiums but much of their health care costs. It is true, as Brooks points out, that people would lose coverage through their employers. He does not make clear however, that all would gain coverage under the government single payer plan. And yes, taxes would have to be raised to pay for it, but that would be balanced by not having to pay for the expensive premiums we have now. Under the present system of multiple health insurers, a large percentage of of the money that private insurance companies collect in premiums is spend for administrative costs. Our current Medicare which covers the elderly is more efficient. A much lower percentage goes for administrative costs leaving more money to spend directly on health care. Brooks' dismissal of the single payer health plan advocated by Sanders fails to mention these important points. For more information about the governmental single payer health plan, go to www.PNHP.org Dr. Richard Weiskopf Member, Physicians for a National Health Program Syracuse Also in Opinion: Justice Scalia's death ignites a firestorm over nomination processYesterday I was followed by a Twitter account named @Konbini_CC. The words jumped out at me immediately: “Detroit’s Delivery Service”. I dug in a little deeper and discovered that Konbini is a service that promises home delivery of sundry groceries and packaged food items anywhere in our neighborhood as well as Corktown, Lafayette Park, New Center, Downtown, and Midtown. A few things really stood out and they are things that I believe will make this work: The items themselves are reasonably priced and available in individual quantities. The entire system is all e-commerce and you can use debit or credit cards The delivery fee is reasonable They deliver until 3am This is a novel idea for a small business, and it’s one that I think will work in this area. It’s like other quirky, modern small businesses (such as Detroit Greencycle curbside recycling pickup in Woodbridge) that have popped up to serve the burgeoning group of connected consumers in these growing areas of the city.So, it sounds all well and good, but does it really work? I decided to put it to the test.I added a single Babybel cheese wheel for $.75 and a can of Diet Coke for $1 to the cart—that seems like a good mid-afternoon snack while I write blog posts. The cart was extremely basic and easy to use. When I entered my shipping address it automatically added Michigan sales tax, making my order total $1.86. After delivery cost was added in ($3.50), the total was $5.57. I was expecting to be able to pay with a credit card right on the site, but the only options were credit card on delivery or cash on delivery. The person or people who are running Konbini are taking a leap of faith here by not accepting any money in advance, but I still trust people enough that I think they won’t have any major problems (I tend towards optimism, clearly). I placed my order at 1pm, and at 1:10pm, bike delivery guy Javier was knocking at my door, bag in hand, and out of breath. I handed over my credit card and he used his Square reader to run the transaction. It was extremely simple and fast. I was really surprised at how quickly he showed up. Javier explained that there are about five of them running deliveries. There are a few minor complaints; the pictures can be slightly misleading in that some of the products appear to be travel-sized items while the picture can make it seem like a full-sized product. Having actual milk delivery instead of just chocolate milk would be super helpful. The website says “bottle” of Diet Coke, but I got a can. These are all minor quibbles that can be easily worked out and ultimately they’re just little details. The service itself works, and well. So here I sit, in a future world where I clicked on a picture of a baby cheese wheel and a diet Coke on my computer, waited 10 minutes, and handed my credit card to a guy on a bike. I read about a world like this in sci-fi books when I was a kid, and now here it is in reality. It’s no flying car, but it’ll definitely do. Oh, and Konbini, if you delivered Amp energy drinks, Lincoln would never leave the house again, just saying. Konbini is doing a mini-launch this month until the 19th of December. They plan on launching full-time starting in January of 2013. You can order at their website.Reporters have discovered that a group of wealthy individuals based in Switzerland are arranging to race men from ethnic minorities against each other for their amusement and entertainment this summer. These powerful individuals are arranging to meet in a venue in East London for two weeks which will culminate in eight black men being pitted against each other to see which of them can run the fastest. Seemingly above the law it is believed that the syndicate who have given themselves the moniker of ‘The IOC’ have been planning this event for some time and some of the leading figures of this shadowy organisation are in fact based in London. Their influence is believed to reach deep into Whitehall, with some suggesting that they have the approval of the Prime Minister himself, whilst the person charged with organising the event is a peer of the realm. The competitors, as they are labelled, will be flown in from around the world in some cases to run as little as 100 metres before being sent home again. These though, are the lucky ones; their ordeal will be over quickly unlike those being sent from Kenya who will be taken from their homeland and required to race for 26 miles through the strange unfamiliar streets of London. Chosen apparently for their lean build they will stand in stark contrast to the bloated elite for whom they are performing. Despite the vast wealth of those organising this sordid event, the participants will receive absolutely no payment. In fact it is a proud boast of The IOC that nobody who takes part in what they call ‘the games’ will receive anything for their efforts other than a decorative bit of metal that will be dangled from the necks of the fastest three. When the evidence of what was being planned was put to a Mary Edwards, a director of charity campaign group Action Against Poverty, she was appalled. ‘They are exploiting these people who come from countries with very little and treating them as though they were race horses. If what I have seen here is true then it must be stopped, it harks back to the barbaric practices of the Roman empire when the wealthy would pit their gladiators against each other. This is simply awful and I cannot believe that they can get away with organising something like this in 21st Century Britain.’ As is often the case with victims of abuse like this, the pattern repeats itself and the victim becomes the abuser. The Lord responsible for organising this event was himself a former victim of the IOC, running round and round in circles to the point of exhaustion in front of a baying crowd, something he now claims was a ‘wonderful experience’. Confronted by reporters at his London office he brushed off the evidence put before him as ‘absolute nonsense and a twisting of the facts’ trying to claim that the money bought in to the capital by his rich friends in some way justified the event. Someone within the IOC is clearly able to pull strings high up at Scotland Yard as the police quickly arrived to escort reporters from the building before they could ask any more questions. In the sickest twist of all it seems that racing people from impoverished third world countries doesn’t provide enough kicks for these men of the IOC. Incredibly they are arranging to reconvene two weeks after their original event to pit disabled people against each other. A Wagonload of Monkeys (hat-tip for headline to VCG)Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. May 22, 2017, 3:34 AM GMT / Updated May 22, 2017, 3:34 AM GMT By Daniella Silva UNIONDALE, New York — Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus folded up its Big Top for the last time on Sunday night in New York, as emotional performers, wistful crowd-goers and ecstatic protesters said farewell to an institution in American live entertainment after nearly a century and a half. The circus gave the final performance of "The Greatest Show on Earth" to a sold-out crowd at Nassau Coliseum, showing off its death-defying stunts and exotic animals for the last time after 146 years. "Let's go home and show everyone we are forever more the Greatest Show on Earth!" Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson said to close out the show, leading to a raucous standing ovation. Iverson then led the audience through one last rendition of "Auld Lang Syne," a tradition at the end of circuses, as performers sang along and hugged one another. "It has been the honor of my life to be the voice of these tremendous artists," Iverson said. Ringmaster Iverson with family members after the final show. Lucas Jackson / Reuters Feld Entertainment, the circus' parent company, announced in January that the show would be coming to an end, citing changing public tastes and declining ticket sales after the company retired its elephants in May 2016 following a decades-long battle with animal rights groups. Circus enthusiasts said coming to the show's grand finale was bittersweet, but they came to witness the "historic" moment and support the artists. Related: Ringling Bros. Circus Prepares for Final Bow of ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ Kurt Spence, a member of Circus Fans Association of America (CFA), said he came from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, to say goodbye to the circus he had loved since childhood. "I was 9 years old when my grandfather took me to 'The Greatest Show on Earth' under a tent just days before it closed in Pittsburgh, and that was 61 years ago," he said. "For a circus fan, this is a monumental occasion," he said. "This is historic." CFA President Gary Payne said through tears before the final show that while he looked forward to seeing what the industry did next, the Ringling Bros. circus "cannot be replaced." "I'm still going to have my head in my hands tonight at the last show," he said, Attending the finale brought closure to Joel Davis, who said he worked in the props department and as an electrician for Ringling Bros. in the 1980s and came from Los Angles for Sunday night's performance. "Once you get this in your system, it does not leave you," he said. "It's going to be there until the day you leave the Earth." Davis Vassallo, center, hugs a member of the trapeze troupe as he holds his daughter Adriana after their final show. Julie Jacobson / AP But activists said the show's closing represented a "hard-fought victory" for animal rights. Dozens of protesters lined the show's main entrance Sunday afternoon, some dressed in lion and tiger costumes and others waving signs. "This is a tremendous victory, and it's been hard-fought, but there are still a lot of other circuses using animals, so we're here not just to celebrate, but to also send a message to the other circuses that if they don't evolve, they're going to be next," said John Di Leonardo, president of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION) and a campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment fo Animals. "Boycott the circus! Teach your children compassion, not oppression!" he chanted into a megaphone as cars drove into Nassau Coliseum. Di Leonardo said activists were also calling on Ringling Bros. to send all of its animals, including its retired elephants, to reputable sanctuaries, taking issue with the company's decision to retire its elephants to its company-owned 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida. Pat Cuviello, of the San Francisco area, said he had been organizing anti-circus protests for decades and had to come out to for the last show. "It took 30 years, but it finally happened," he said, adding, "This is a total victory." Famed animal trainer Alexander Lacey addressed the controversy head-on on Sunday while performing with his dozen tigers and lions. Alexander Lacey of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus embraces a tiger during their final farewell performance. Timothy A. Clary / AFP - Getty Images "It's so, so important that if you love animals as much as I do that you have to keep supporting the people that dedicate their lives to these animals," he said. "Support good, well-run circuses," he said. "Support good, well-run zoos." Feld Entertainment and the circus' workers have repeatedly denied mistreating animals, and the company has said it has found homes for all of the 50 or so animals with the show. Any animals that are owned by the show's presenters will remain with them, including Lacey's famous big cats, while the show's other tigers will go to a center that specializes in tigers, company spokesman Stephen Payne told NBC News earlier this week. Payne said that because of privacy concerns, the company isn't releasing specific information on where all the animals are going, but he insisted that they had to meet Feld's standards for a "high level of care." Kids view the final day of the Ringling Bros Barnum and Bailey Circus. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images The final performance began with members of the Feld family addressing the audience and thanking the circus' 300 workers and performers for their time with the company. "It's always been our goal to be able
for those who don’t know Charlie Hunnam outside of the U.S., he got his start as Nathan in the UK Queer As Folk, so he may not be as vanilla as you would think.Rodgers issues a challenge to his squad to finish the season in style Finishing with flair and style is top of Rodgers agenda for the closing games of the season. He has encouraged his squad to push the race for the title right to the limit in light of City’s 3-2 win over Everton on Saturday. Rodgers appears confident that Liverpool will still be victorious however. A win against Crystal Palace tonight will secure a place in the top two after Chelsea’s defeat against Norwich City. The victory for the reds tonight would place serious pressure on City and ensure a nail-biting finale to the season for the game against Newcastle hosted at Anfield. Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Rodgers says “All we can control is our remaining two matches,” Rodgers told the Liverpool ECHO. “We need to win those and then see where it takes us. We can’t worry about anyone else, we just need to focus on our job. We will keep fighting right to the end. “What these players have achieved so far this season is nothing short of remarkable. “To arrive with two games to go with the possibility of achieving something people could only have dreamed of back in August really shows the scale of what we’ve done this year. “It’s been a huge effort by everyone and I’m very proud. To think that we’re in May and we’ve only just suffered our first defeat of this calendar year is a brilliant achievement. “We are trying to build something here that is sustainable over many years and so far it has gone well. “There is still plenty to play for this season. We want to finish strong. We had been in great form prior to the Chelsea game and now we want to get three points at Palace and kick-off another winning run.”culture Historicist: “Sip ‘n Sex”–Paul Godfrey’s Origin Story Paul Godfrey battles the menace of rowdy teens at drive-in restaurants in mid-1960s suburbia. “Sex-and-snacks draw fire.” “Bra and bottles litter lawns.” “North York fears another Yorkville.” Mid-1960s headlines such as these suggested the end of Western civilization for the upstanding, hard-working taxpayers of North York. The roots of such decadence? Your friendly neighbourhood hamburger stand. The mix of angry residents, youth gone wild, and ambitious local politicians created hysteria in some quarters over the monitoring of drive-in restaurants in suburban Toronto. Leading the charge against this terror? None other than future Metro Chairman and media mogul Paul Godfrey. Godfrey viewed his teenage self during the 1950s as a “quiet, fat, short kid” who sat at the back of the classroom, a depiction which doesn’t paint him as the type of young adult prone to hanging around the emerging drive-in culture. While studying chemical engineering at U of T, Godfrey followed in the footsteps of his mother and entered the world of North York politics, working on the campaigns of reeve Norman Goodhead. When Godfrey decided to run for alderman in 1964, the 25-year-old candidate found while canvassing door-to-door that his youth dampened his credibility among some voters. Despite this, he pressed on and won the seat for Ward 4 (an area on North York’s south end bounded by Bathurst Street, Highway 401, and the railway line west of Caledonia Road). Once in office, Godfrey quickly developed a reputation as a hard-working councillor with an open ear to his constituents. A profile in the Telegram noted his responsiveness to residents (answering a minimum of 12 voter phone calls a day) and “his knack at finding explosive issues and exploiting [the] same.” This tendency made the rising number of complaints about rowdy teens at local drive-ins he received during the summer of 1966 an ideal issue to champion. That July, Godfrey gave notice that he was preparing a motion to North York Council to amend the zoning by-law governing restaurants to allow tighter regulation of drive-ins. Among the 75 letters and numerous phone calls complaining about drive-ins Godfrey received, highlights included a resident who claimed to have witnessed gangs scrapping with clubs and crowbars at one restaurant, while another complained about catcalls directed at his wife. Godfrey noted that while some drive-ins were well-run, reputable dining establishments, others were “centres of sin” where promiscuous patrons guzzled booze. He wanted North York’s Traffic, Fire, and Licensing Committee to crack down on what he saw as “sip ‘n sex” havens. “There is a place for such restaurants in North York,” Godfrey told council, “but not beside residential areas.” Not all of Godfrey’s council peers were sympathetic to his arguments. During the July 18, 1966 council session, Robert Yuill asked if Godfrey had actually witnessed any of the issues he’d described. “I’m curious as to how much sex and drinking is taking place,” Yuill said. “The complaints I’ve heard concern noise and garbage and litter.” Godfrey responded that while he hadn’t personally seen any mayhem, “the resulting debris strewn about is strong evidence.” Joseph Gould criticized Godfrey for picking on drive-ins, noting that police observation had fixed the problems at a rowdy restaurant in his ward. Gould felt that council had not received too many complaints, and that by raising “the wrong kind of publicity,” Godfrey’s actions would only make gawkers show up at drive-ins. Murray Chusid observed that “there is a heavy suggestion here that those who eat hamburgers are more promiscuous that those who eat steak.” Over the next few months, the traffic committee studied the issue. Among those it called on was Metro Toronto Police superintendent Charles Bond, who noted that 143 charges were laid between October 1965 and August 1966 against patrons of an unnamed Avenue Road drive-in, mostly for littering. Bond didn’t support having off-duty constables patrol the drive-ins. “I shudder at the thought of a policeman regulating the comings and goings of people in a restaurant,” he noted. It’s likely that the unnamed litterbug-infested drive-in was the Harvey’s at Avenue Road and Melrose Avenue. Having launched as a single burger stand in Richmond Hill in 1959, by 1967 the chain had 42 locations stretching from Buffalo to Montreal, 13 of which were in the Toronto area. Harvey’s president George B. Sukornyk was aware of complaints about the Avenue Road location, but noted that such trouble didn’t occur elsewhere. Comparing that site to his peaceful Montreal locations, Sukornyk told the Globe and Mail that he had studied rowdyism for five years and determined that “the difference is in parental influence and religious background.” Such distinctions mattered little to angry residents along Melrose Avenue. Their rage boiled over at a North York traffic committee meeting on April 13, 1967. Thirty people walked into the room armed with six bags of garbage they claimed was left on their front lawns by Harvey’s patrons. As they started dumping food packaging, half-eaten burgers, whisky bottles, bikini tops, and other debris onto a table, committee chairman Walter Cassels ordered them to stop, lest they be booted out. Resident spokesperson Mrs. W.G. Keane rattled off a list of problems caused by the drive-in, especially between 12:30 a.m. and its 4:00 a.m. closing time. Among them: teens fighting in the streets, public urination, vomit left on doors, obscenities shouted at residents, car racing, vehicles parked in the middle of the street, patrons shocking the neighbours by dropping their underwear in front of them, stray used contraceptive devices, and noxious cooking fumes. There were even reports of men sitting in their cars during the day who tried to entice children into their vehicles. “Residents are afraid to allow their teenaged daughters to walk along the street beside the parked cars because of the unpleasant comments they must hear, and the acts they see,” Keane observed. She even pointed out that gas tankers had problems making deliveries to the local service station due to cars blocking the driveway. Godfrey supported the complainants, noting that a few teens had “erected a hell in the area” which was in danger of turning into a crazy youth scene à la Yorkville. He felt there was no reason for youths, especially 14- and 15-year-old girls, to be roaming the streets until four in the morning, and supported calls for an early closing bylaw. Charles Bond was sympathetic to the concerns, but continued to believe that police shouldn’t act as bouncers. “It’s like getting the police to stop people from putting their cigarette butts in their coffee cups,” he noted. Harvey’s director Edward Kozak felt his company was being “persecuted from stem to stern,” and unfairly receiving the blame for problems which existed throughout Metro Toronto. “Most of our customers are decent and legitimate,” he told the committee. “We are being persecuted for giving good value. That’s why we’re busy.” Kozak claimed that the late hours were partly to accommodate local shift workers. He also noted that all of the 16 air pollution complaints about Harvey’s came from two residents of Melrose Avenue, but that the restaurant agreed to install more equipment to fight fumes. As for garbage, Kozak indicated that a man was hired to pick up the trash within a five-block radius. In an editorial published two days later, the Star defended the right of homeowners to a peaceful existence. But it also defended the right of drive-in restaurant proprietors to carry out business. “Drive-in restaurants are causes of complaint in several other parts of Metro,” the editorial observed. “They aren’t the culprits; they don’t peddle the whisky bottles that litter Melrose Avenue. They legitimately serve food. Let the police get after the actual offenders.” Melrose resident Harry S. Boyd disagreed with the Star’s view. In a letter to the editor, Boyd noted that while businesses like gas stations and supermarkets could operate responsibly into the wee hours of the morning, Harvey’s had “a clientele that is largely made up of young people who seem dedicated to disorderly conduct of the most offensive kind, designed to shock the residents.” He felt that “it would take a battalion of police to cover the area and effectively maintain a reasonable degree of peace and order, such as that we enjoyed before the advent of the hamburger joint—which you dignify with the name ‘restaurant.’” Meanwhile, North York’s traffic committee plotted its strategy to battle rowdies at Harvey’s, which was becoming known as “the place where the action is.” The spectre of Yorkville continued to serve as a warning of the horrors of youth culture gone amok. Councillor Gordon Hurlbut visited one night at 11:30 p.m. and found youths in a shouty mood. He blamed the restaurant for not hiring a lot supervisor. Cassels blamed police for not curbing mischief happening a block away from the restaurants, activities he felt Harvey’s could not be held accountable for. The furor surrounding Harvey’s played into heightened fears surrounding juvenile delinquency in North York. Based on a series of isolated incidents around this time, there were complaints about vandalism and other mayhem perpetrated by the students of Bayview Junior High School. Around 100 students showed their displeasure by staging a protest outside the school on April 21, 1967. A local paper, the Enterprise, treated the event as a childish exercise, as most of those demonstrating “appeared ignorant of the principle that the purpose of a demonstration is to bring attention to a point of view or injustice.” The Enterprise had recently published articles depicting the students as delinquents, so when a reporter showed up, they were greeted with jeers, threats (“Whoever wrote that will get smashed”), and a kick to the shin. On May 11, the traffic committee approved a series of recommendations regarding Harvey’s. Among them: no stopping on Melrose between 11:00 p.m. and 4 a.m., increased police patrols, stronger street lighting, erecting “no littering signs” warning of fines up to $800, and ordering Harvey’s to erect a fence (to prevent litter from blowing off the lot), install better washroom signs, and install a $4,000 filter to reduce the cooking smell. The restaurant had already decided to close at 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m. Residents plagued by drive-ins in other areas of North York were inspired to air their complaints. “Hamburgers are a hazard,” declared one Deloraine Avenue resident at a traffic committee session in September 1967, referring to the nightly circus created by patrons of Daddy’s on Bathurst Street. Fellow Deloraine Avenue resident Mort Manilla urged that North York create a bylaw which would force drive-ins to hire car hops or waitresses. The delegation also complained about advertising which depicted drive-ins as “a place to meet the gang.” As one angry homeowner put it, “they’re licensed to hold teenage rallys (sic) after midnight.” As for the Avenue and Melrose Harvey’s location, installing a policeman out front reduced incidents. Traffic committee members undertook surprise visits after midnight to check on the burger joint. Cassels thought the smell issues still needed work. “It’s bad enough having to smell hamburgers cooking for a little while from a next-door barbecue, he told a committee meeting in September 1967. “It would be beyond endurance to have to put up with that 24 hours a day.” Yet endurance did build up, as there is still a Harvey’s at that intersection. Looking at it now, with its modern exterior and middle-brow offerings from sister chain Swiss Chalet, it’s hard to imagine the furor this location once caused. In a May 1967 North York Mirror profile, Godfrey reflected on accusations that his actions were guided by the need for publicity. “Certain issues must be brought to public attention,” he noted. “When people approach me on issues I find the most effective way of making these is through the news media.” He also made no secret about his political ambitions: “Where the top is, that’s where I want to be.” Godfrey accurately predicted that he would become chair of Metro Toronto, though it’s hard to say whether he would have imagined achieving that position within six years of the interview. His long career in various positions of power, which once earned him the title of “Toronto’s most famous closer,” has brought him from declaring war on local burger joints to his current duties as president and CEO of Postmedia. Additional material from the July 13, 1966, July 20, 1966, April 19, 1967, April 26, 1967, and September 6, 1967 editions of the Enterprise; the July 19, 1966, September 2, 1966, April 14, 1967, and July 25, 1967 editions of the Globe and Mail; the July 20, 1966, April 19, 1967, and May 17, 1967 editions of the North York Mirror; the July 4, 1966, April 14, 1967, April 15, 1967, April 20, 1967, April 28, 1967, May 12, 1967, and September 27, 1967 editions of the Toronto Star; and the December 2, 1966 and April 14, 1967 editions of the Telegram. Every Saturday, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would cause 23 million people to lose healthcare coverage by 2026 while de-stabilizing health insurance markets in some states and making it hard for sick people to buy insurance, a budget watchdog agency said on Wednesday. The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan group of experts who analyze U.S. legislation, said the bill would reduce federal deficits by $119 billion between 2017 and 2026. The report could give added ammunition to Democrats who have accused President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans of putting sick and low-income people at risk with their effort to roll back former President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law, formally known as the Affordable Care Act but often called Obamacare. The report also complicates the job of Senate Republicans - some of whom already have doubts about the House bill - as they craft their own healthcare legislation. Republicans have sought to unravel Obamacare since its passage and Trump promised on the campaign trail to repeal it, saying it is too costly and an overreach by government in the healthcare market. As Trump and Republican leaders sought to bring wavering lawmakers on board with the House bill, they added a controversial last-minute amendment that would give states leeway to drop an Obamacare requirement that forces insurers to charge sick and healthy people the same insurance rates. Another change would allow states to decide whether to require insurers to cover health benefits such as maternity care and prescription drugs that are mandatory under current law. But the CBO report said the amendment would make it difficult or impossible for people in poor health to purchase comprehensive coverage in some states. “People who are less healthy (including those with preexisting or newly acquired medical conditions) would ultimately be unable to purchase comprehensive non-group health insurance at premiums comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase it at all,” the CBO report said. The CBO said markets for people to buy individual insurance plans could then become “unstable” in states that choose to waive the Obamacare requirements for coverage of pre-existing medical conditions and essential health benefits. Even before the report, many Republican senators were wary of the House version of the healthcare bill, saying it unraveled Obamacare too much and too quickly. About 20 million people gained insurance under Obamacare. The House bill would eliminate most Obamacare taxes that help subsidize private health coverage for individuals, roll back the government’s Medicaid health plan for the poor and disabled and replace the law’s income-based tax credits for buying medical coverage with credits based on age. A group of 13 Republican senators led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to draft its own version of the healthcare bill in the coming months. McConnell, however, told Reuters on Wednesday he does not yet know how Republicans will get the necessary votes. “This is a very challenging undertaking,” McConnell said. REPUBLICAN OPPOSITION After the release of the CBO report, several Republican senators said they could not support the House bill. “While I am in favor of repealing Obamacare, I am opposed to the American Health Care Act in its current form,” Republican Senator Dean Heller said in a statement. Republican Senator Susan Collins said too many people would lose insurance and that older and low-income Americans would be hurt. House Republicans, who argue their healthcare bill would allow insurance markets to function more efficiently, focused on the projected budget savings from it and a finding in the CBO report that said insurance premiums for some people would decline. Groups representing hospitals, insurers and doctors who opposed the House bill said the CBO report showed the Senate should start fresh with an eye to maintaining coverage and benefits. Democrats also blasted the bill and said the CBO report proved it would be catastrophic for millions of people who would lose health insurance. “The report makes clear Trumpcare would be a cancer on the American healthcare system,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference. The new CBO score predicts the AHCA would cover 1 million more Americans than Republicans’ previous version of the bill, which the agency estimated would have left 24 million more people uninsured than Obamacare in 2026. To allay concerns about coverage of people with pre-existing illnesses, House Republicans allocated an additional $8 billion over five years in their bill to help sick people pay for insurance premiums but the CBO said the money would not be enough to help them afford coverage. An electronic patients chart is shown on the wall to a hospital room in San Diego, California April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake The CBO said premiums would fall for younger people and rise for older people in states that did not waive Obamacare requirements for an overall decline of about 4 percent. In states that made moderate changes to their markets, representing about one-third of the U.S. population, premiums would fall 20 percent on average. Reaction on Wall Street was muted, with shares of hospitals affected by the cuts to Medicaid, like Community Health Systems, and health insurers specializing in Medicaid, such as Molina Healthcare (MOH.N) and Centene Corp (CNC.N) unchanged in light after-hours trading. The Republicans’ first attempt at undoing Obamacare this year resulted in a setback for the Trump agenda in March. Conservative and moderate Republican factions in the House were opposed to the initial legislation and the leadership decided not to put it up for a vote.0 Between Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show, prolific writer/producer/voice actor Seth MacFarlane has voiced a lot of characters on television and created even more, but now he’s heading into the live-action realm for his next TV series. Fox announced today that MacFarlane is developing a new, though still untitled comedic drama for the network for which he’ll executive produce and star based off a script he wrote. Here’s what we know: the series will consist of 13 hourlong episodes and takes place 300 years in the future where the crew of the Orville, “a not-so-top-of-the-line exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar Fleet,” deal with cosmic challenges on their adventures. “I’ve wanted to do something like this show ever since I was a kid, and the timing finally feels right,” MacFarlane said in a statement. He also called it a “no-brainer” in coming to Fox with the series, given his overall deal with the 20th Century Fox TV. Dana Walden and Gary Newman, who are overseeing the new series, have been involved with MacFarlane’s past efforts. He’ll also still have Family Guy, which, currently on its 13th season, got renewed through 2017. Similarly, American Dad got a two-season renewal by TBS, and he’s a producer on Fox’s animated Bordertown. MacFarlane has a passion for space and sci-fi, as evidenced by his work on the docu-series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Neill deGrasse Tyson told The Guardian: “I’d known that in his cartoons, in Family Guy, there are many references to science, not the least of which are the destinations of Stewie’s time machines. In one episode he goes to the beginning of the universe – the big bang – and in another one he goes to multiple universes. So I said, ‘There is some machinery churning in Seth MacFarlane’s head beyond the fart jokes.’” This is the first live-action series MacFarlane created and the first he’ll star in, but he also ventured into the live-action space on the big screen. He wrote, directed, and starred in A Million Ways to Die in the West opposite Charlize Theron performed the same duties on Ted and Ted 2. Though if this new untitled series takes off, a regular live-action TV gig could limit his involvement in the feature realm in the near future.PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Nesmin, an Egyptian mummy at the RISD museum, and his coffin were moved this week from the downstairs gallery in the Waterman building to one of the two newly renovated galleries for ancient Egyptian art on the sixth floor of the PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Nesmin, an Egyptian mummy at the RISD museum, and his coffin were moved this week from the downstairs gallery in the Waterman building to one of the two newly renovated galleries for ancient Egyptian art on the sixth floor of the Radeke building. Nesmin, an Egyptian priest, is believed to have died some 2,500 years ago at the age of 45. Nesmin's move to a new, multi-platform case will offer a better display of the mummy and his coffin. The public can get a good look at Nesmin on June 13 when the renovated galleries for ancient Egyptian art and Asian art in the Radeke Building open to the public. The restoration of the Eliza G. Radeke Building was initiated in 2006, according to RISD. �Mighty Norrathians! Since SOE Live and Game Update 67: Darkness Dawns there’s been a lot of focus and excitement here about Heroic Characters and this year’s expansion, Tears of Veeshan. We’re well on our way and working hard! To begin with, we have some date adjustments. Our expansion launch date has moved out a bit to mid-November and our Level 85 Heroic Characters are likely coming in the first week of October. We got some great feedback on Heroic Characters and we wanted to polish it up to make it more user-friendly before we launch! We are still working on fine-tuning the details and I will have more info soon, I promise. Until we nail it down, I don’t want to throw misinformation about. The introduction of Heroic Characters also made us change a few other things, like including EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious zones into the Free and Silver account access so Heroic Characters have a place to play! And while we are still going to offer the EverQuest II: Age of Discovery expansion, we will also sell the features individually, including the Beastlord class, Mercenaries, Dungeon Maker, Reforging, and Tradeskill Apprentices. We’re still working on pricing and have some other cool things in progress we'll announce shortly. Our 10th expansion, EverQuest II: Tears of Veeshan, is getting closer to Beta. This team is putting together an expansion that will be something special! The overland -- Vesspyr Isles, the Eternal Broodlands -- is really amazing. Flying through it is incredible with more and more variety and flavor every day. The dungeons are coming together beautifully and the content is too! We appreciate all the feedback we got during SOE Live and are grateful for all the playtests of the Channeler class. We are putting final touches on that too. When Beta opens on Oct. 15, we hope you’ll come take a look at Tears of Veeshan and give us feedback! There will be lots more to come so you’ll be hearing from me sooner (tm) rather than later! Holly Longdale Senior Producer EverQuest IISources indicate that the Australian Army has decided to issue an ‘Australian MultiCam Camouflage Uniform’ (AMCU) as a replacement for both the legacy Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniform (DPCU) as well as the recently fielded Australian Multicam Pattern (AMP) developed by Crye Precision. The new AMCU will use the AMP print screens but with the more traditional DPP/DPCU colors. We do not have any photographs yet but the current cut of AMP uniform can be seen below. Below is the Disruptive Pattern Combat Uniform pattern which was developed in the early 80s with its unique colors for use in Australia. This compromise appears to be more about branding and Australian identity than effectiveness, although testing has apparently been completed. It will join the new blue tinged RAAF version of AMP called the General Purpose Uniform as specialist color variants of a MultiCam based pattern. No word yet on an official announcement or date of issue. Tags: AustraliaMicrosoft is preparing its community for the arrival of Windows 9, probably sometime in 2015, but that will probably be the last operating system that Microsoft will sell. The Linux systems are evolving quickly and the there's no stopping them. If you remember correctly, Apple already took this step, of making their system free (sort of). A mix of factors, like the global economic crisis, the launch of Steam for Linux, and the increasing number of developers who are willing to make their application available on the Linux platform, has turned the open source world into a freight train. Maybe not everyone has noticed, but the Linux platform has evolved in the last couple of years more than it has done so in the last decade. NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel are actually starting to provide proper support and the driver performance is catching up with the Windows platforrm. In a couple of years, most of the games released on Steam will also be available on the Linux platform, and so will happen with most of the applications. It will become increasingly difficult for Microsoft to justify asking a price for an operating system that has an equal counterpart that is already free. Making Windows free will force Microsoft to look for other ways of making money, maybe from support for corporate solutions, for example, or from selling other proprietary software. In any case, if you are a Windows user, you might want to start learning some Linux skills, you might need them in a few years.I have been furiously checking the tracking number for days, and every time, it said there was an error with no information to be displayed. Today, I finally realized that I needed to go to the AusPost website, then enter the tracking number. Imagine my surprise when it said it was delivered! I ran outside, frantically searched my porch, and found this box neatly tucked away in our shoe rack. My Santa must have done some amazing stalking! I enjoy reading, love a bit of trash every now and again. I've never read The Iconic mag before, I'm looking forward to it. Then came the lovely black box, which had a beautiful red bag. I squealed so loudly the dogs next door started barking. I have absolutely no doubt it will come in handy for summer and it's definitely my style. Thank you very much Secret Santa :DThe journalist in question was CBS News’ correspondent Major Garrett. Obama shuts down reporter: 'You should know better' President Barack Obama’s patience grew short during his news conference on Wednesday, telling CBS News correspondent Major Garrett “you should know better” after he asked a question relating to the four Americans being held in Iran. Obama bristled when Garrett said the president should have to answer for the celebration around the deal, when the detained Americans remain in Iran. Story Continued Below “As you well know, there are four Americans in Iran, three held on trumped-up charges,according to your administration, one whereabouts unknown,” Garrett said. “Can you tell the country, Sir, why you are content with all the fanfare around this deal to leave the conscience of this nation and the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?” Obama responded: “I gotta give you credit, Major, for how you craft those questions. The notion that I’m content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails. Major, that’s nonsense and you should know better.” This came after Obama had interrupted multiple journalists, including shutting down a question on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump before it was finished.Just as they've been claiming they're about to do for a couple weeks now, back-to-back Europa League champions Sevilla FC have finally wrapped up the signing of Gael Kakuta from Chelsea. Sevilla confirm permament signing of Gael Kakuta from Chelsea. Fee apparently aroubd €3.5m: https://t.co/NpIpB3d5pm — Dermot Corrigan (@dermotmcorrigan) June 17, 2015 Kakuta will still have a medical tomorrow, but apparently that's deemed a formality enough for the club to already confirm the signing. Exact terms are not yet known, but most are expecting a 4-year deal. Chelsea were able to receive a transfer fee, however small, thanks to an option we took up in the ex-wonderkid's contract that was set to expire this summer. Expect Gael Kakuta to join Sevilla on permanent deal this week. CFC will get a fee (~€6m) after triggering one-year option on expiring deal. — Chelsea Youth (@chelseayouth) June 14, 2015 While it doesn't sound like we got exactly what we wanted (€6m), I'm happy that Kakuta has finally found success after all these false starts and seasons out on loan (not to mention controversies for Chelsea). He will turn 24 in just a few days, so happy birthday and good luck in Seville, Gael!Hey, look, teens of America: You can buy a kewl Minor Threat T-shirt for $28 at Urban Outfitters. Hear something? That's the sound of a 45-year-old punk rocker punching a wall. But wait just a second before you start groping for the lever on the ol' outrage machine. Turns out the T-shirt is not a bootleg like that Forever 21 design from 2009; it's licensed through Tsurt, a California-based company that Ian MacKaye and Co. hired to produce and oversee sales of the band's official shirts. "Dischord doesn't make T-shirts," MacKaye clarifies in a phone call. But Minor Threat is another story. Because so many bootlegged Minor Threat shirts are constantly floating around the universe, MacKaye decided the band had to do something about it. The solution: Get another company to oversee their official shirts, and when a bootleg crops up, let them deal with it. "It's fucking absurd the amount of bootlegs are out there," MacKaye says, and "my time is better spent doing other things." "It's not a political thing for me," MacKaye says. "I just don't give a fuck about T-shirts." At some point, the former Minor Threat frontman said to the band, "This is crazy. I spend so much of my time" chasing down bootleggers. He found that when he contacted the responsible parties about their bootlegs, they just gave him hell. "They get in your face... or they deny it," he says. "It's a complete waste of time." Just because the shirt is licensed doesn't mean MacKaye approves of the sweatshoppy clothing chain selling his band's shirts, though. "Do I think it's absurd? Yes, I certainly do," he says. He also thinks the asking price is ridiculous, but he's more or less resigned to it. "Motherfuckers pay $28, that's what they wanna pay for their shirts." He compares the pricey T-shirts to people happily blowing their money on expensive shoes. Why do they do it? "I guess it makes their feet feel fuckin' rich," he says. Minor Threat is not the only D.C. punk band whose shirts are now for sale at Urban Outfitters. A Bad Brains shirt is on the website, too—-also for $28. Screenshot from Urban Outfitters' websiteWhen Edinburg, Texas, annexed a portion of Hidalgo County in 2010 it inherited jurisdiction over the Jaguars Club in the process. Because strip clubs can operate only under very specific conditions in Edinburg, and because Jaguars Club does not comply with Edinburg's zoning policy, the city has been trying to get rid of it. The club's owners claim that they were grandfathered in during the annexation, and that as part of a harassment campaign, Edinburg police Chief Rolando Castañeda effectively robbed the place when an August 18 drug raid turned up no drugs. Forty of Castañeda's officers surrounded Jaguars. They turned off water to the building to keep drugs from being flushed, then went inside. According to The Monitor, Castañeda "perched himself outside, sitting in a lawn chair as his officers searched the establishment." They found no drugs, but that doesn't mean they left empty-handed: The officers did not find any drugs inside the establishment — as was outlined in the search warrant — but took about $1,500 in cash and another $8,000 worth of club “tokens,” the lawsuit states. Such tokens generally serve as product-specific gift certificates. Police zip-tied each person’s hands inside Jaguars that night and handcuffed Tony Hadaway, the club’s manager, the lawsuit states. Beyond taking the cash and club tokens, officers allegedly seized laptop and tablet computers, backpacks and one manager’s wallet. Hadaway asked officers to keep an inventory list of the seized items, which “they declined to do and have never done,” the lawsuit states. A second manager’s wallet was seized and never returned. When The Monitor asked the Edinburg city spokeswoman for comment about the suit that the club's owners have filed against the city, Irma Garza said, "We followed all the requirements of the law and because this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot comment.” For more on police and prosecutors' license to steal, see Radley Balko on the forfeiture racket.Telenor yesterday decided to go hard on government against all the odds that telecom industry has been facing for past 2-3 years. Telenor came up with an aggressive response when Lars Christian Luel, CEO, Telenor Pakistan, threatened Pakistani government to pull out of expected 3G auction by saying that company could find better places to invest as business case in Pakistan has weaken due to increased taxes, government-forced service suspensions and new regulations foe sale of new SIMs. In an interview with The News and Express Tribune, Telenor CEO said that telecom companies aren’t money making machines and hence government will have to come up with rational policies to attract more investments. If not, then Telenor will pull out its investment – planned for 3G — from Pakistan to obtain better return on investment from other markets. Lars said that taxes such as 19.5 percent FED and 15 percent WHT, are decreasing the value of 3G auction and the money that government can generate through sale of licenses because customers’ ability to spend on telecom services have reached the limits. He said that tightening regulations are further deteriorating the investment possibilities for Pakistan. “If Pakistan is looking lesser attractive Telenor will invest somewhere else”, said Telenor CEO. Lars, without clarifying on how to resolve the issue of un-registered SIMs, said that his company is put on back foot with court cases like the one which asks for a limit on number of SIMs on one CNIC. It merits mentioning here that cellular companies never owned their role for selling fake SIMs during 2006-09, at a time when sale of un-registered SIMs was on rise. Subsequently, neither the government nor the telecom companies fixed those unregistered/illegal SIMs, instead all efforts were made just to streamline new sales, leaving behind the issue of old un-registered SIMs unresolved. Talking about service shut downs, Telenor CEO said that cellular services remain the focus of government in curbing terrorism while overlooking all other elements. He said that its easier to buy a gun in Pakistan than SIM cards. Telenor chief seemed utterly disturbed about imposition of 5 percent new tax on telecom services. He said that taxes in Pakistan were already three times higher than the neighbours like India. He was more furious on the fact that these taxes on telecom services are to be collected from poor people, while alleging that government has not properly taxed the rich class. “
transsexuals, transvestites, gays, lesbians and those of us who hold to the sex and sexual preference assumed at birth”. However, the piece appeared under the less nuanced heading: “Jenni Murray: Be trans, be proud – but don’t call yourself a ‘real woman’. Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and makeup”. Murray wrote: “I know that in writing this article I am entering into the most controversial and, at times, vicious, vulgar and threatening debate of our day. I’m diving headfirst into deep and dangerous waters.” The response was swift. In a blog post, Rachel Cohen, campaigns director of Stonewall, condemned her views as hurtful and said Murray had no right to question anyone else’s identity. “Whether you are trans or not, your identity is yours alone. I do not question your identity, Jenni, and in return I wouldn’t expect you to question mine – or anyone else’s. What right would you have to do so? My experiences of being a woman are undoubtedly different to yours. However, their differences do not make them in any way less valid. “Trans women have every right to have their identity and experiences respected, too. They are women – just like you and me – and their sense of their gender is as engrained in their identity as yours or mine. “Being trans is not about ‘sex changes’ and clothes – it’s about an innate sense of self. To imply anything other than this is reductive and hurtful to many trans people who are only trying to live life as their authentic selves.” But on Twitter Debbie Hayton was among many who supported Murray, writing: “I’m transwoman and I get this.” Debbie Hayton (@DebbieHayton) Thank you @whjm for a thoughtful piece. Socialisation cannot be ignored. I'm transwoman and I get this. https://t.co/H0Fj8fNpKc In the piece Murray wrote of her anger over some trans women who had spoken on the issue, including the late Rev Carol Stone: “Her primary concerns, she told me, were finding the most suitable dress in which to meet her parishioners in her new persona and deciding if she should wear makeup or not.” “I wondered when Carol would experience what so many newly ordained women had heard from fellow priests as they passed through the vestry. ‘Pulpit pussy’, they told me, was the favoured insult, and they found it demeaning, disgusting and it hurt. “It was news to Carol that life as a woman, especially a middle-aged woman, stepping into male territory in which she was unwelcome would be extremely tough. I prayed Carol would not find it so hard. Experience told me otherwise. It wasn’t going to be all about frocks and makeup. It was about sexual politics and feminism – ideas of which she seemed woefully unaware.” Murray wrote of how “fury that a male-to-female transsexual could be so ignorant of the politics that have preoccupied women for centuries” hit her again when speaking to another trans woman, India Willoughby, who had appeared on the ITV programme Loose Women. “India held firmly to her belief that she was a ‘real woman’, ignoring the fact that she had spent all of her life before her transition enjoying the privileged position in our society generally accorded to a man. In a discussion about the Dorchester hotel’s demands that its female staff should always wear makeup, have a manicure and wear stockings over shaved legs, she was perfectly happy to go along with such requirements. There wasn’t a hint of understanding that she was simply playing into the stereotype – a man’s idea of what a woman should be.” “She described hairy legs on a woman as ‘dirty’. But hairy legs are not considered dirty in a man. Did she not know that the question of whether a woman should shave her legs or her armpits had been a topic of debate among women for an awfully long time? And that to describe a woman who chose not to shave as dirty was insulting and again suggested an ignorance of sexual politics?” Murray quoted Jenny Roberts, 72, who transitioned more than 20 years ago, on whether trans women should be considered “real”. “I’m not a real woman,” is the first thing she said to me in a recent conversation. “I understand that a lot of trans women want to believe they are women, but we’re not.”A brief Tourney report from First Foundings’- 24 person “All wings report in” X-wing tournament. (click HERE for their Facebook page) But first…..Never have I seen such an array of free snacks at a tournament before- I think within about 5 minutes of arriving I’d already exceeded the safe limit for doughnuts and cookies in a day. …. anyway after a while they forced us to play X-wing, so here we go: My list: Zuckuss G1A: V.I, Title- tractor beam, 4-lom crew, FCS, inertial dampners. Contracted Scout, Plasma Torps, Deadeye, Extra munitions, OverClocked R4, Guidance chips. Contracted Scout, ProtonTorps, Bobba Fett crew, Deadeye, Extra munitions, OverClocked R4, Guidance chips. 100pts. Game 1 Andy- Imperials: Inquisitor, Colonel Vessary, Juno eclipse. First game and I looked on in horror as Andy managed to create a nightmare asteroid field for me to try and negotiate. One of the best Turn Zero’s I’ve played against. I in turn spread out along my board edge with Zuckuss sitting in between the Scouts. Turn 1 was a case of me going slow and barrel rolling for position hoping to line up on one of the ships. I managed to drag Juno down early but lost a scout in return. Game winning moment we agreed on afterwards was when Andy correctly guessed my 2 hard turn right with Zuckuss and rolled Vessary into a position that would mean I’d over shoot and get killed from line astern, after a moment of inner swearing I look down and noticed the Inertial dampner and pulled the handbrake allowing Zuckuss to kill Vessary off before he could shoot. Rest of the game was spent trying to catch the slippery eel of an inquisitor as it shot off like a rocket and refused to be pinned down. Eventually Andy turned in for a kill shot and got blasted in return. Result: WIN Highly thematic enjoyable game with a lot of nail biting on both sides as we weaved in and out of the asteroid field bluffing and second guessing each other. Game 2 Tom – Scum: Fenn Rau, Ketsu, Binary pirate with slicers. We ended up jousting down the right board edge, my plan was to kill off Ketsu ASAP and then hope Fenn Rau was a glass cannon- news flash, he isn’t. So Fenn Rau… as we clashed down the bored edge I hard turned into Rau with Zuckuss and shot him with 5 dice target locked and focused.. he then rolled more green dice then I’ve seen since my 40K days and survived with evades to spare… in return he gave Zuckuss the finger and suddenly I was on the back foot and loosing ground. The Z95 repeatedly hammered me with it’s black market slicers which accounted for a total of 5 damage during the game. It was an incredibly tight game and just when I thought I was about to get hammered I managed to bump Ketsu off and Rau’s luck (bucket of dice) finally ran out. What we ended up with was a Z95 and a Scout both with no munitions and only 1 hull left jousting for the win. After several passes I managed to second guess Tom and judged correctly that he was opting for a K turn rather than a 2 bank with focus. I slow rolled forwards and then barrel rolled left and back hoping that this would leave the Z95 facing the wrong way just ahead and to the left of me…. it did… dice got rolled and the plucky Z95 who had been busy with his black slicer tool all game was vaporised. Result:WIN As close as a game can get. I seriously doubt that I’d get the same outcome again if we had a rematch. Game 3 Vid- Imperials: Colonel Vassary, Countess Ryad, Delta Squadron all with X7 title. Vid set up on the top right of the mat and I set opposite with Zuckuss and Scout with the other centre table. My plan was to joust with Zuckuss and his scout buddy whilst the other slow rolled from mid table and started to chew on the defenders from the flank when they did the inevitable white K turns. A classic example of not taking care of the small things led to a turn 1 headache as I stupidly set my mid table scout against my board edge meaning that when I did a hard 1 right I couldn’t barrel roll backwards towards my board edge… Vid did not miss a beat and destroyed me like a wreaking ball through a daisy field. To make it worse I tried to save my bacon by using the tractor beam on Zuckuss to pull a defender out of arc rather than trying to kill it…misjudged the angle and ended up getting shot by it. after that he winced me with the inevitable white K turns and I simply couldn’t get back into position to focus my fire…not a good game. Result: LOSS Thankfully Vid is a gentleman and didn’t rub my nose in it and afterwards we had a chat about some tactics that would have been more beneficial. Game 4 Jesper – Scum: Fenn Rau, Manaroo, Palob. (Loss) My plan was thus- 1) Kill Palob. 2) kill off Manaroo 3) based on how survivable Rau had proven to be in game 2 leave him till last. I again split my formation and put a scout on both flanks and offset Zuckuss right of centre. With an avenue through the asteroid field set up for both Zuckuss and the right hand scout should they need to go left of field in a hurry. Jesper ploughed straight ahead and by Turn two I had bought Zuckuss and the right hand scout across the centre of the board setting up what I hoped would be a kill box on Palob, the left hand scout was forced to target lock as Palob was range 2 but the rest focused hoping for a range 3 shot. Surprisingly I managed to survive the initial onslaught from Rau and friends by tanking a lot of stress on the Left hand scout to keep the focus tokens available for defence and then promptly blew Palob off the map and knocked Rau down to one hull (Manaroo wasn’t in range)… hmmm wasn’t expecting that… with eyebrows raised on both sides of the table now what? Well Manaroo had been deftly positioned to block a white 2 sloop and this meant that I had to overshoot and regroup my squad but in doing so lost a scout. I spent the rest of the game getting lured into killing an indestructible Fenn Rau and failing… remember that plan I made? Yup should have stuck to it. Result: LOSS Jesper flew very well and was always just out of reach for a final kill shot. Several painful and frustrating turns later I was toast and could only sit back and applaud some expert angle judgement and forward planning from my opponent…. next time Gadget next time….. Game 5 Ian (Cpt JB)- Rebels: Biggs, Poe, 2 Tala Squadron missile 95’s Having play tested against each other the previous week I knew what I was up against, I was also really really frustrated from the last game where I’d been totally out flow… A bit like the scene from the Waterboy where Bobby Bouchie looses his temper and flattens 2 blockers and the quarterback I raged towards Cpt JB’s formation like a man possessed and met it still on his side of the board… Cpt JB opted to go for the Alpha strike against the left hand scout and I again used the Overclocked droid to keep the focus token available whilst only loosing a shield each shot. With my internal voice now screaming H2O! I then hammered Biggs with Zuckuss and a scout and finally got to use Bobba on the proton torps to flip R4D6 out the window thus neutralising Biggs damage tanking ability, with that gone he got vaporised next shot by the other scout. In the subsequent fur ball fight, Poe got trousered followed by one of the Z95’s. I then had to chase the remaining Z96 round for a few turns as it refused to die. Result: WIN Bragging rights achieved…. although he beat me on the friendly we played afterwards (I let him… honest). Conclusions All in all I was happy with the day finishing 8th overall. Congrats to Alex Birt of the 186th who won the event. There’s a few learning points to take away like focus firing on the defenders (basics I know). I think I also under estimated the value of using one of the Scouts as a blocker after the initial attack run. Fenn Rea is also a “thing”. Focused up with a ton of green dice and a guaranteed Evade- total pain in the arse to kill off at range 1… sounds easy to control the range but a good player as Tom demonstrated won’t give you that option. Black market slicers were also a pain as I’m usually tanking stress going into the movement phase. I was seriously considering dropping Bobba and the Proton Torps for a plasma and then using the 2 points on something else. But against Palp shuttle and Biggs with R4D6 I think it’s an auto include so will leave it on for the moment. Looking forward to my next run out with the list. A great Tournament in a good sized venue, thanks to Pete and the chaps at First Founding. (plus the doughnuts… did I mention there were doughnuts?)Over the course of the 2011 Season, we’ve been hard at work improving and fine-tuning our live streams to bring you the best possible coverage. We’ve come a long way from where we started, and we hope you’ve been enjoying watching the Pro Circuit from home. But things can always get better. We have never stopped looking for ways to bring you more of the tournament, and to stream as many games as possible. Today, we are incredibly happy to announce two initiatives that will make watching MLG Pro Circuit StarCraft 2 a totally different experience. Less Downtime, More Games A lot goes into getting a match onstream, both technically and in terms of scheduling. It isn’t possible to eliminate all downtime, but starting in Orlando we will be implementing changes that will significantly minimize it. We've added matches to the schedule of Friday and Saturday's Main Stage broadcast Two extra computers have been added to the Main Stage to reduce setup time Match start times have been staggered based on the Station at which they’re going to take place Players will now be able to get set up on the Main Stage while the current match is still going on. When one match ends, the next will be ready to go right away. This will greatly cut down on the downtime between scheduled matches. The more efficient scheduling will also allow us to add new matches to the Main Stage broadcast, matches that had originally been scheduled to be played unseen at floor stations. We will be doing this whenever possible, and you’re going to see a lot more and miss a lot less. And we’re not stopping there. Third and Fourth StarCraft 2 Streams Added In Orlando, we will be beta-testing an entirely new system designed to bring you as much of the tournament as possible. We will be adding two additional streams, covering Championship and Open Bracket matches from the tournament floor. This is a beta. For now, the two beta streams will be available only to Gold and Silver Members or those who purchase an MLG Orlando HQ Pass. All matches on these streams will be solo-cast by community casters Adebisi, Nerski, Tumba and Robin. The casters will choose matches on the fly over the weekend, based on what’s happening in the bracket. Matches will be streamed right from the floor stations. For this beta, the two streams will be available in both Medium and Ultra (HD) quality in the MLG player. These streams will air all weekend long, exactly as the Red and Blue streams do. The Red and Blue streams will work the same way as they always have: available to everyone, with HQ available only for Members and those with HQ passes. Four entire streams worth of constant coverage for three solid days. Less downtime between matches and more matches on the Main Stage. Anyone tuning in to Orlando will get to watch more games than ever before, and those of you with Memberships will get more than double the action than at previous events. Join us at majorleaguegaming.com on October 14-16 and treat yourself to a whopping dose of the best StarCraft 2 action on Earth.Al-Shymaa Kway-Geer got her job because of the way she looks. Not because of her average height, her shoulder-length hair or her fashion sense. She is a Tanzanian MP because of her skin, which is white and freckled with sun damage and her pale, almost colourless eyes. Ms Kway-Geer, 48, was given a parliamentary seat in April by the President Jakaya Kikwete because she is an albino and he needed to make a public statement to answer the political storm generated by the savage murder of 35 albinos in the country since October of last year. Overnight, she went from being a respected minor official at the airport to a national symbol. Ms Kway-Geer has become the most recognisable albino in Tanzania, when a network of witch doctors and killers are targeting people with albinism, murdering them for their body parts which are believed to add potency to black magic rituals. Understandably, she is scared. “I’m an albino and I don’t know who is hunting me,” she says. “They are desperate for these body parts.” 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. Tanzania has long been known for political stability and safari holidays, until mutilated bodies of albinos started appearing in such large numbers that no one could ignore it. There are an unusually high number of people in Tanzania with the inherited disorder and some believe that the original rogue gene that causes albinism can be traced to East Africa. These Tanzanians, too white to be black, have always been viewed with suspicion, thought to possess supernatural powers in local superstition, “ghosts” who do not die but simply disappear. A mixture of social stigma, physical vulnerability to the sun and poor eyesight has left the community the most impoverished group of people in Tanzania. And that was before they started to be harvested for body parts. With horrific murders and mutilation making headlines around the world, President Kikwete needed to send a message. That is where Ms Kway-Geer came in. Naturally, she bridles at the idea of her appointment being merely a gesture. “I am a human being,” she says. “He wanted to show that an albino can be a leader, that they have brains like any other person.” First on her parliamentary agenda has been the completion of a national survey of the albino community. “We need to know how many albinos there are, where they are and what problems they are facing.” The survey is being done in co-operation with the Tanzanian Albino Society (TAS) and aims to provide a snapshot of the health, education and employment situation of the country’s most marginalised group. TAS, which Ms Kway-Geer helped to set up in 1999, giving her a first role in a national organisation, has been one of the main bodies trying to publicise the crisis. A voluntary group operating for years on a shoestring budget, it has survived largely thanks to the sole support of the British charity Action on Disability and Development (ADD), one of the three charities being supported by this year’s Independent Christmas appeal. “TAS needs more support, both financial and in terms of training,” says Ms Kway-Geer. Very few albinos have had access to an education as she has, and if TAS is going to help empower the community to stand up for itself it is going to need outside expertise. “People are still ignorant; they think albinos are not human beings. They’re taking our skins and bones.” Ms Kway-Geer has faced lifelong prejudice. She remembers her early childhood fondly and says that her parents – non-albinos who gave birth to three albino children – loved her and looked after her. First contact with the stigma came at school. “I cried a lot when I was a child, always being called names. But now I’m a grown-up, I’m proud to call myself an albino.” She was already knocking on the door of politics before her Presidential appointment. She had previously contested and narrowly lost a nomination to run for parliament with the ruling party. Now she is brining action to her politics. The MP has adopted two young orphaned albino girls who only narrowly escaped being hacked to death. The two girls are from near the city of Mwanza, on the shore of Lake Victoria, an area where the belief in witchdoctors is strongest. The girls were staying with their aunt until they were attacked by men with machetes, leaving one with a bad leg-wound. Ms Kway-Geer is paying for their schooling and looking after them herself during the holidays at her home in the capital, Dar es Salaam. Three albino females in one house is a tempting target to the people who see them as products worth thousands of US dollars. She says she has no special security but has been assured by police that she is safe. But she has a responsibility to keep on working and remain in the public eye, she insists. She is now a role model for a community kept for so long in the shadows and only emerging now because it is in mortal peril. Running away is not an option for the new MP. She has a country to educate, two adopted children to protect, a parliament to make herself heard in and an albino census to complete. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads. Subscribe nowI am an Atlanta Falcons fan. This is by no obvious reason, I have lived in California for most of my life. A few years ago, though, I had the pleasure of working with Tony Gonzalez, aka. #88 & Tight End of the Falcons. Since then I have been rooting pretty hard for them. I want him to win a Super Bowl ring – he is a good guy and one of the best players the sport has seen. No one deserves it more. The Falcons are having a good year, they are 11-1 and tied for first place. But, unfortunately they are getting less credit for it than they deserve. Despite their record, most commentators are less than optimistic about their playoff hopes. I hear a lot of that around the office as well. We can’t get no respect. Tonight I will attempt to use a few of my data skills to visualize the NFL as a network graph to see it lends any strength to my opinion. I am hoping that by setting up the teams as nodes and games played as edges we’ll be able to see that the Falcons are clearly the best team in the NFL. If not – I guess I’ll have to be an honest data guy and trust what I find. Challenge: Get clean data on the NFL 2012 season Vizualize it as a network graph Tweak the weights and layout to add context BONUS: getting the Gephi image API to work so the nodes are the team logos/helmets Step 1: Get clean data on the NFL 2012 season Getting clean data is always a bother – after searching for a short bit my best bet seems like ESPN. This page looks fairly clean right off the bat and I trust it’s accuracy (ESPN NFL scores & schedule). A bit of cleaning and I have a nice edges csv – ideal for importing. Step 2: Vizualize it as a network graph The visualization tool I’ll be using today is Gephi, an open source tool that makes beautiful displays. (Trivia: LinkedIn hired one of the lead devs behind Gephi and he now gets to do cool things with them) I ran into a bit of an issue with the fact that teams in the same division play each other twice. I counted each game as a directed edge with the weight being the diff in game scores. Unfortunately Gephi doesn’t support multiple edges between two nodes. Bummer. I think we will be ok though – if two teams play each other more than once, the two diffs will just combine into a single edge. A win & loss of equal amounts will cancel each other out. Now I’ve loaded the data into Gephi – here is what I’m seeing on first pass. Step 3: Tweak the weights and layout to add context My goal is to find the team that is best by seeing who has won the most games by the most points against the toughest teams. So in theory, more wins is good, but wins against teams with low records isn’t as good as wins against teams with large records. This seems like a perfect application for something like Google’s PageRank – I’m not sure if I’ll get that far tonight though. The first thing I’ll do is apply a weighted in-degree to the node size. This looks at the amount of points the team beat it’s opponents by. Basically a seasonal point differential. This highlights the teams that have beaten their opponents by the most points. Bigger team names = bigger victory margins. Atlanta isn’t doing too well here – they have been winning by small margins all season. The New England Patriots on the other hand had a few weeks where they made other teams look like youth teams as they ran the score up. That helped my fantasy team a ton on Thanksgiving. Next up I am going to combine this with the total win-loss record. Using color to distinguish the teams with the most wins. Now things are a bit more interesting. Teams in red have the most wins while blue teams have the fewest. New England might have a large point differential but they are only 9-3 right now, so they are in light purple. What I want to do now is look at the opponents the team played. Winning is important, but winning against good teams is more important. We have already established a color pattern with blue teams being those with less wins (read: easy teams) and red teams those with more. Lets apply this to all of the edges to see what our strength of schedule looks like. This one is a bit revealing. We can see some bright red lines between a few teams – Houston & Green Bay, San Francisco & The Giants, Denver & New England. These are the games you probably made sure to watch – the clashes of titans. My Falcons aren’t in many of those – the games against the Saints were great – but New Orleans is a purple team at best this season. I want to do one more thing – apply a layout algorithm to this to place teams closer to opponents they played more often. Of the power house teams in red, a few are much closer together, particularly those in the top left of the graph. Meanwhile Atlanta is very far to the bottom right – basically they were shielded from most of the good teams in the NFL and only played blue to purple teams. Conclusion: Atlanta has done well this year, but their wins have been small and their opponents haven’t been the toughest. They have a shot at the title, but it isn’t an easy road ahead. I’m running out of time for tonight’s innovation session – but I want to change one last thing. Just for style I’m switching the color scheme to ATL colors; black & red. There are still a few weeks left in the regular season, including our upcoming games with the Giants – but I think like myself most Falcons fans are most concerned with our upcoming playoff games. We can use this to remember which teams it will feel the best when we beat on our road to victory.During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Notre Dame philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote an op-ed piece titled “The Only Vote Worth Casting in November.” It began: “When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither.” MacIntyre was of course referring to the choice between Bush and Kerry, and his recommendation was simply not to vote, “so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives.” He saw abstention as a sort of “vote against the system,” even though he acknowledged that the system would not in fact register it as such. MacIntyre’s recommendation was certainly controversial, though in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election it is likely to find a more sympathetic response, especially among those who affirm something like the full spectrum of Catholic social teaching (namely, the teachings regarding the sanctity of human life, the common good, subsidiarity, religious freedom, solidarity, etc.), and who thus regard the offerings of our two major political parties as historically bad. But should those who fall into this camp heed MacIntyre’s advice to abstain from voting? I suggest a different option: a write-in vote for presidential nominee Mike Maturen and vice-presidential nominee Juan Muñoz of the American Solidarity Party. (The party is currently working on ballot access in many states.) Founded in 2011, the American Solidarity Party (ASP) is the “only active Christian Democratic party in the United States,” though there are other such parties of long standing in Europe and Latin America. (Note: “Democratic” here does not mean “on the Left”; rather, these parties typically are seen as “Center-Right.”) The ASP’s basic aim is as follows: We seek to promote the common good and the material and spiritual welfare of all people, thereby raising consciousness of the Christian worldview. We don’t seek to be a proselytizing party but, in a broken and increasingly callous, secularized world, we offer a positive vision bringing communities together. The party platform, which can be found on the ASP website, is essentially a “Catholic Social Teaching” platform, though the party is Christian rather than specifically Catholic. It upholds the equal dignity and sanctity of all human life through a “consistent ethic of life” that opposes and seeks to reduce as far as possible abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, capital punishment, and unjust warfare, and it seeks to support, socially and economically, vulnerable members of society, such as the poor, single mothers, children, the disabled, the ill, and the elderly. The platform also expresses concern for the common good, the environment, family life, education in virtue, civil society, racial and gender justice, national and international peace, religious freedom, subsidiarity, distributist-style economic policy, and of course solidarity. This is a platform that answers MacIntyre’s criticism of our two major political parties as being unable to provide the kind of politics we need. It also answers the call that First Things editor Rusty Reno has made recently, for a genuine “politics of solidarity.” We live in an increasingly fragmented society, “and our public life lacks the reparative rhetoric of solidarity.” Reno notes that the Democratic Party, although increasingly the party of globalized elites, prides itself on being the party of solidarity, especially of “solidarity-in-marginality.” However, this solidarity often depends upon the demonization of one’s political opponents, where they are not just wrong but evil bigots, and so it is not the sort of politics of solidarity that we need. It also fails to extend to those most vulnerable members of the human community, namely the unborn. The success of Trump, as Reno points out, seems to arise from a politics of solidarity, as seen in the populist promises to “Make America great again” and put “America first.” However, Trump has neither the character nor the vision—the two are connected—to bring about the kind of politics of solidarity that we need. We need a politics that can speak authentically in the language of love, keep all human beings from conception to natural death “fully amongst us” (as Raimond Gaita puts it in A Common Humanity), enliven our sense of a shared past and a shared future rooted in a common good, build bridges and not just walls, and properly recognize the significance of our particular identity-defining attachments and integrate them with the demands of universal human concern. This is what the ASP seeks to do. Certain questions must be addressed. First: Why should someone support a Christian Democratic party in a secular society? Wouldn’t such a party exclude non-Christians? And shouldn’t we frame our political arguments in terms that appeal to all of our fellow citizens, without reference to creed? While the ASP is shaped by a Christian worldview, it welcomes all people who find its vision for society compelling, even if they do not share in the same faith. And despite what John Rawls and other liberal political philosophers say, there is in fact no worldview-neutral standpoint; we cannot and should not leave our comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral understandings at the door when we engage in political argument. In Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah and his co-authors have shown the importance of the biblical tradition as a “second language” in American public life. It is hard to imagine how barren our public life would be without this tradition. (Think of what the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been like without his use of biblical language.) In the West, as Gaita notes, our languages of love and solidarity have been especially shaped by the biblical tradition and by certain saintly exemplars. Rather than ignore this cultural inheritance, we should gratefully acknowledge it, embrace it, and seek to strengthen it. Another question for the ASP is this: Why should someone vote for a party that won’t win, especially in this election, when so much is at stake in terms of foreign relations, the economy, Supreme Court appointments, democratic rule of law, and so on? Isn’t it better to vote for the major-party candidate who seems the least bad? Many people of goodwill are going to make this decision. But for those who cannot in good conscience vote for either Clinton or Trump—say, because of the candidates’ stances against the sanctity of human life—voting for the ASP may be seen as a protest vote against a system that presents us with such poor choices. But it is not merely a protest vote, because if we are to work fully toward the kind of politics we need, we must first break from the political status quo. The ASP should thus be understood as seeking primarily to build up a cultural movement, which ideally will come to have political influence. So what are the long-term prospects for this politics of solidarity? In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Father Zosima, as a young man, asked a very similar question, to which his friend responded: [W]e must keep the banner flying. Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men’s souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love even if he seems crazy, so that the great idea may not die. The American Solidarity Party, as I see it, is an attempt to “keep the banner flying.” By supporting it, “a man [sets] an example,” so that the idea of human solidarity, based on the equal dignity of all human beings, may not die away. David McPherson is assistant professor of philosophy at Creighton University.There are certain elements to a Star Wars movie that are non-negotiable; I think we can safely count on things like lightsabers, Artoo and Threepio, and the Wilhelm scream. It’s already going to be hard to accept “When You Wish Upon A Star” instead of the Fox Fanfare before the opening, so I’m sure I’m not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief over the fact that Mr. John Williams will indeed be scoring the new trilogy. The importance of Mr. John Williams to Star Wars, nay, to movies themselves, cannot be overstated. I’ll relate a story from about ten years ago, during my film-school days; on the first day of sound-mixing class, our instructor was impressing on us the importance of music in film. To underscore his point, he started playing tracks from a CD and asking if we could identify them. I correctly identified the first one as the Jaws theme. The second one I identified as the “Raiders March“, AKA the Indiana Jones theme. I told him that I should probably excuse myself from the game, and to show why, I held up the “John Williams – Greatest Hits 1969-1999” CD that was in my backpack. It was the exact same one he was playing. (It probably didn’t help that I was older than most of the class, who weren’t even born by the time Jaws 3D came out, let alone the original) Star Wars? Mr. John Williams. Indiana Jones? Mr. John Williams.. Everything else Spielberg has directed? Damn straight Mr. John Williams. Fiddler On The Roof? Lost In Space? Gilligan’s Island? He may have been credited as Johnny Williams (when he was credited), but that’s Mr. John Williams to you. And just as it’s not Star Wars without unfounded declarations of plot holes, it’s definitely not Star Wars without the music of Mr. John Williams. I know, I know, it’s old news that Mr. John Williams is scoring the new trilogy; this is one of the strips we had put aside early in our run when we realized we should probably talk about something other than Star Wars once in a while. Now, with the news that the script is done and Luke Skywalker’s son may be a youngling-killing sociopath (I guess it skips a generation), I guess we’re super-behind the curve.Funding For Software To Cloak Web Activity Provokes Concern A service called Tor makes it possible to communicate and surf the web anonymously. It sounds like a plot
illel Street in West Jerusalem as he and a friend, Murad Khader Joulani, were walking to their car to drive home from work. According to the Rwidy family, who live in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr Akab, everything began when a group of extremist Israeli Jews heard Hussam and Murad speaking Arabic to each other, and shouted “Death to the Arabs.” “My son started to walk [away],” said Hussam’s father, from a mourning tent set up to remember Hussam in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where the family is originally from, last Saturday. “They came from behind with a knife and jumped on him. After they cut his throat, four more people came and started to beat them with punches and kicks,” he explained. While Hussam died of his injuries when he reached the hospital, Joulani survived the attack with a deep knife wound visible on the back of his neck. According to an account Joulani gave to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a resident-run information and media center in Silwan, Joulani managed to pull Rwidy to a nearby restaurant where he called for help. “None of the Israeli customers assisted the two men, except for one who handed Joulani a paper napkin to remove the blood from Rwidy’s face. Joulani was then himself able to call the police, who then commenced investigation into the incident,” the Wadi Hilweh Information Center article states (“The final moments of the martyred Husam Rwidy,” 20 February 2011). The Israeli police originally arrested two suspects for the crime, but placed a gag order on the details of the criminal case. The Israeli media, however, quickly presented the attack as a drunken brawl between the two groups, an account the Rwidy family vehemently denies. “If the government or police lie and say that [Hussam] started this, I will never believe that. He was handsome, a gentleman,” Hussam’s uncle, Bassam Maswadi, told The Electronic Intifada. The gag order on Rwidy’s case was lifted earlier this week, and the Israeli media reported that four Israeli teenagers — two from Jerusalem and two from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank — were arrested for his murder. Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that “police suspect that the stabbing had nationalistic motives and the prosecution decided to put them on trial for manslaughter” (“Four teens suspected of stabbing Arab youth to death in Jerusalem,” 23 February 2011). “After praying in the mosque on Friday [11 February], I was on the bus and my wife called me to tell me [what happened]. I was shocked,” Maswadi said. “I started crying, like he was my son.” Family’s suffering prolonged by “security threat” The Rwidy family’s turmoil didn’t end with Hussam’s death, however, as they were forced to wait five days before the Israeli authorities would release Hussam’s body for burial. The family wanted to hold his funeral in a graveyard adjacent to the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and is the third holiest site in Islam. “They said to me that Sunday at 11am, everything is okay and [I] can come and take [my] son. When I went on Sunday, they said to me the security situation didn’t allow that,” Hussain Rwidy said. The Israeli authorities argued that they had secret evidence proving that if Hussam’s funeral was to be held in the vicinity of the Temple Mount, a riot would break out, similar to what happened when an Israeli settler security guard shot and killed Silwan resident Samer Sarhan in September 2010. Therefore, the Israeli police forced a set of rules upon the Rwidy family, which needed to be agreed upon before his body was released. Israel said only forty persons could be present at the burial, that it could only take place after 8pm and that the family couldn’t hold the ceremony near the al-Aqsa mosque. “But at 1pm on Sunday, the police called me and said that everything [in the agreement] is cancelled,” Rwidy said. He explained that the Israeli authorities told the family that they would only be allowed to pick up Hussam’s body at the Qalandiya checkpoint — which separates East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank — and that he could only be buried in the West Bank, not Jerusalem. This outrageous condition, Rwidy explained, forced the family to submit a petition to the Israeli high court to get Hussam’s body back. They finally reached an agreement, and at 12:30am on Wednesday, 16 February, were able to prepare Hussam for burial. That night, Hussam’s body was taken to a mosque in Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem near Silwan, and was buried in a cemetery there. Only twenty men and fifteen women were allowed to be present while the body was being prepared for burial, and no more than fifty men could be at the funeral ceremony itself. The family was not allowed to visit al-Aqsa, either, which is a customary practice for Jerusalem-area Muslim families. Attack reflects rising tide of Israeli racism Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem have been the target of increasingly discriminatory and hostile rhetoric in recent months on the part of Israeli politicians, religious leaders and members of settler-related organizations. In Jerusalem, this inciting rhetoric has translated into more than a dozen separate incidents since the summer of 2010 in which Palestinians have been attacked, beaten or killed by groups of Jewish Israelis. Last November, it was reported that groups of Israelis were stalking Independence Park in central West Jerusalem, looking for Palestinians to attack. The rising wave of violence received international attention when a middle-aged Chilean tourist was mistaken for a Palestinian and was sent to a hospital after he was jumped and beaten near the park (“Fundamentalists Attack Chilean Tourist After ‘Suspecting’ He Is Arab,” International Middle East Media Center, 8 November 2010). In another incident reported in late December by the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a 28-year-old resident of Jerusalem’s Old City was severely beaten in a bar on Jaffa Street in West Jerusalem after a group of Jewish youth shouted racist, anti-Arab remarks at him (“Racist attacks on Palestinians,” 23 December 2010). “These attacks in the last two years I would say are not just one person or two persons, [but] it’s actually quite organized. You can see an organization going on in especially the suburbs of Jerusalem, in the settlement suburbs like Pisgat Zeev, Givat Zeev,” explained Yossi Bartal, a long-time Israeli activist and community organizer based in Jerusalem. “Young kids that come from these neighborhoods that are very much influenced by right-wing politicians, by rabbis, go to the city center and try to use violence and show their right-wing ideology by attacking Arabs or anyone else they don’t like,” he said. The Jerusalem Post reported in December 2010 that a group of nine Jewish Israeli youth from the Jerusalem area had been taken in for questioning on the suspicion that they were involved in a string of attacks on Palestinians in the city (“Nine member J’lem gang arrested for attacks on Arabs,” 21 December 2010). “The youths, most of whom are aged 14 to 19 and are residents of Jerusalem or the surrounding suburbs, are accused of gathering on Thursday nights, identifying Arabs and attacking them with stones, glass bottles and pepper spray,” the article reports. According to Bartal, while the Israeli police have made some arrests, they aren’t taking these racist attacks seriously enough and most importantly, have failed to define much of the violence as being racially-motivated. “The way the police tries to define these things as just normal fights is very political,” Bartal said. “They are actually stating the obvious: that they don’t want to fight racism by not defining these attacks as racist attacks.” The pressure on the Israeli police and government, therefore, needs to come from Israeli society itself if individuals and groups are to be held accountable for their role in the wave of violence, Bartal said. “There is a law in Israel against racist incitement. This law that actually defines, in a very problematic way, what is racist incitement should be used against these rabbis and against these politicians who call very clearly to use violence against minorities inside Israel.” Hussam Rwidy remembered More than a hundred persons gathered in Silwan last Saturday to mourn the loss of Hussam Rwidy and condemn the vicious attack that ended his life. “People need to open their eyes and see what’s going on. All of us are human beings. We can live together. We need to respect each other,” said Bassam Maswadi, Hussam’s uncle. Maswadi explained that Hussam worked two jobs — as a Coca-Cola salesman during the day, and making deliveries from the Mahane Yehuda market in West Jerusalem at night — in an effort to save money and start a family. The eldest of three children, Hussam planned on getting engaged next summer. “Anyone who needed help, he would help. Lots of people respected him. He was just great. He was like one of my sons,” Maswadi added. According to Hani Baidoun, a Silwan resident and friend of the Rwidy family, the Israeli government and police and security forces play a large role in perpetrating the violence toward Palestinians in Jerusalem. “Previously we used to hear them saying that a good Arab is a dead one. Today, neither a live or dead Arab is good for Israel. They want to evacuate Jerusalem from Arabs as much and as quickly as possible. They are pushing them to think openly about leaving Jerusalem for the West Bank and even abroad,” Baidoun said. “The Israeli policy and government encourages such beliefs and such acts against Arabs, Palestinian youth and the Jerusalemites in particular,” he added. Maswadi agreed. “[The Israeli authorities] have a responsibility,” Maswadi said. “We will be afraid to go in the streets at night now. We live together. This is not a life.” Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in occupied East Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jilldamours.wordpress.com.A Dallas mother driving home from work Tuesday swerved to miss someone running a red light. She lost control of her car, hit a utility pole and died. According to police, the law says it's her fault. Family members of the victim, 34-year-old Christina Williams, believe the other driver involved that left the scene should be responsible. The crash happened just before 6 p.m. while Williams was southbound on Buckner. Police say another car going northbound on Buckner ran a red light and made a left turn onto another road and into the path of Williams. Williams swerved out of the way, lost control of her car and hit a wooden pole. The driver who ran the red light didn't stop. According to Dallas police, because there wasn't contact, the red light runner isn't at fault. They say it was Williams' evasive actions that led to her death. "That's an insult on top of injury," said Elaine, Williams' sister. "For these people to run red lights and there's small loopholes to say it was the other person's fault…no it's not," said William's other sister, Georgeann. "Had you not ran that light, my sister would have still been going." Police say the driver that ran the red may not even know they caused an accident, so they can't be charged with failure to stop and render aid. The family says they find that hard to believe since witnesses tell them that Williams' car spun around four times before hitting the pole. A fund has been set up to help pay for funeral expenses atThe conservatives trying to recruit someone to run third party against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now openly pushing Mitt Romney to enter the race — even though they previously opposed the 2012 Republican nominee. On his Resurgent website, conservative commentator Erick Erickson — a past Romney critic — wrote a post on Friday titled: “Mitt Romney Should Reconsider a Third Party Bid.” “I can’t believe I’m even writing this,” Erickson acknowledged. “But seriously, Mitt Romney should run for president again and transcend party for the good of the country.” Erickson is part of the “Conservatives Against Trump” that has been actively trying to woo into the race a credible candidate, including Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. Despite the pressure from these activists, both Sasse and Coburn have declined to run. Romney has not expressed interest in running either. In his post, Erickson said: “Mitt Romney has given up on trying to recruit someone for a third party effort against Clinton and Trump. I opposed Romney in 2008 and 2012, but I think the time has come for Mitt Romney. I’d gladly work for a Romney Presidency given the choices between Clinton and Trump.” “There is more and more data out there that the time is right for a third party bid,” Erickson added. “More and more Americans are horrified and disgusted at the thought of voting for either Trump or Clinton.” Follow Alex on TwitterImage Comics’ Top Cow branch made some major changes to their lineup earlier in 2012 with their Rebirth project. The publisher overhauled their entire catalog in order to give new readers a chance to jump into their universe. The Darkness Rebirth begins with issue #101 from the creative team of acclaimed writer David Hine and artist Jeremy Haun. Many of you will be familiar with “The Darkness” video game series, which is based on the comics. The series follows the rich and successful Jackie Estacado whose life suddenly comes crashing down as he gains control over a mysterious force known as the Darkness. The first arc of “The Darkness” is a gritty mystery filled with all kinds of horrors. Top Cow gave BD an exclusive free digital copy of “The Darkness” #101 for your reading pleasure. With a solid storyline and wicked artwork, you’ll be hooked. Check it out after the jump. Like what you read? “The Darkness: Rebirth” Vol. 1 was released today, August 29th, in comic shops and digitally on comixology.The list of crazy April Fools' Day stunts has been well-covered across the Internet, so I thought today we'd flip it a little. Here's a list of things that actually happened on April 1, but that some people assumed were part of the day's mischievous festivities. 1. When Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father on April 1, 1984, some people figured it was a hoax. Sadly, the public quickly found out that it was all too real. 2. Somewhat similarly, when comedian Mitch Hedberg died while on tour in 2005, many of his fans thought it was another one of his jokes. He died on March 29, actually, but it wasn't released to news outlets until the 31st, and a lot of newspapers printed the story on April 1st. 3. Back in the day when Sega and Nintendo were bitter rivals, no one would have thought that their hit characters Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario would team up in a game. But that's exactly what happened when "Sonic and Mario at the Olympics" was announced in 2007. Sega and Nintendo announced it via a joint press release a couple of days prior to April 1, but fans just assumed there was no way it could be true. 4. Google introduced Gmail in 2004. Given Google's propensity for April Fools Day pranks, plenty of people assumed they were just kidding. At the time, free e-mail with a whole gigabyte of storage was a completely new concept. The following year, they increased it to two gigs. 5. Let this be a lesson to us all: If you want people to take your death seriously, don't die on April Fools' Day (to be safe, the days leading up to April 1 should also be avoided). When the media reported the death of King George II of Greece on April 1, 1947, the public largely thought it was fake. But he had really died of arteriosclerosis. 6. Apparently the April 1, 1970, announcement of the AMC Gremlin was too laughable for people to consider real. After all, who would name a car that? And a car expected to compete with the VW bug was just silly. AMC was serious, though, and the Gremlin was produced from 1970-1978. 7. Also in 2003, two rival video game companies merged. Square was the company behind Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy (among other games) while Enix had versions of Tomb Raider and Riven (again, among lots of other things). But in truth, the two companies had been discussing and considering the merger for at least three years. 8. I doubt anyone thought this was an April Fools' joke at the time, but I think it's worth noting that Apple Computer was founded by Ronald Wayne and the Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) on April 1, 1976. Hmmm....coincidence that Woz was voted off of Dancing with the Stars on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of Apple? OK, it was. And he totally deserved it. He may be a great guy, but his dancing was terrible. 9. On March 31, 1946, officials released a tsunami warning in Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands. Many didn't take the warnings seriously, but when a tsunami did indeed devastate the next day, 165 people were killed. 10. Another Google incident that wasn't a prank: in 2007, the company sent an e-mail out to its employees at a NYC office warning that a python was loose in the facilities. Definitely sounds like a prank, I know, but it was true: an engineer kept a ball python named Kaiser in his cube and Kaiser escaped. The e-mail to employees apologized for the awkward timing and assured them that this was no April Fool stunt.After Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 one of his key aides, Rahm Emanuel, sat in the campaign’s favourite restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas, venting his frustration at those who had tried to stand in their way. He would call out a name, ram his steak knife into the table and, like Bluto in Animal House, shout: “Dead!” Then he would pull the knife out and call another name and stab the table again. Heaven only knows what damage he does to the furniture when he mentions Karen Lewis’s name. Emanuel, who was Barack Obama’s chief of staff, is now mayor of Chicago. Lewis is the head of the Chicago Teachers Union, which got the better of him after leading the teachers in a strike two years ago. The two genuinely despise each other. When Lewis took on Emanuel over lengthening the school day, he told her: “Fuck you, Lewis!” During the strike Lewis branded him a “liar and a bully”. Lewis is seriously considering running against Emanuel for the mayoralty next year. Her supporters are wearing buttons urging her candidacy and are setting up Facebook pages. When she showed up at a civil rights conference two months ago the crowd cheered: “Run, Karen, run!” She could win. A Chicago Sun-Times poll last month gave Lewis a nine-point lead, with 18% undecided. Other polls have Emanuel in front by a similar margin. But between them a general picture emerges. The situation is volatile; Emanuel is vulnerable and Lewis is viable. The possibility that the United States’ third-largest city might elect a union leader over an establishment Democrat marks a broader national shift towards progressive city politics. Across the country, from New York to Seattle and Boston to Pittsburgh, municipal authorities are swinging left. Municipal level As Harold Meyerson argued in the American Prospect: “The mayoral and council class of 2013 is one of the most progressive cohorts of elected officials in recent American history … They are, in short, enacting at the municipal level many of the major policy changes that progressives have found themselves unable to enact at the federal and state levels. They also may be charting a new course for American liberalism.” The organisational and electoral bases of these campaigns are almost the same as those that propelled Obama to victory – trade unions, minorities, young people (particularly young women) and liberals. They are promising what Obama has been unable to deliver. They are trying to raise the minimum wage, introduce green technology, create affordable housing, levy money from the wealthy to fund universal childcare and rein in their police departments from racist excesses. These are bold plans and, for the most part, they are acting on them. Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, has described the city as a “laboratory” for New Deal-style reforms. In reality these initiatives are more like local triage against the wounds of over a generation of stagnant wages, neoliberal reform and the class and racial polarisation that comes with them – all of which were further aggravated by the most recent economic crisis. It looks like the New Deal only because so many Americans have been getting such a bad deal for so long. Local, populist and redistributive, they owe more to the Occupy movement of 2011, of which they are the most logical and likely corollary. Their agendas are far less ambitious, but they share a trajectory. As such, the ramifications go beyond the local. Public imagination when it comes to political geography is skewed. People think in terms of red and blue states, but the real distinction is between town and country. With just a handful of exceptions, every city of more than 500 000 inhabitants votes Democrat; in all of the 10 largest cities in the US, white people are a minority. More than two-thirds of Obama’s lead against Mitt Romney in 2012 came from the three largest American cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and their surrounding areas. Escape isolation It’s not difficult to see why. People come to cities to escape isolation and find opportunity. So cities become home to a disproportionately large number of gay and lesbian people, immigrants and religious minorities. To function, they demand social tolerance and public investment for everything from transport to parks. The increasingly pronounced inequalities of race and class, the impact of neoliberal school reforms and general disinvestment in social capital have hit all but the very wealthy hard. Anyone seeking the presidential nomination would be a fool to ignore this. Lewis, like De Blasio before her, is touting a “tale of two cities” theme, calling not just for greater equality but also for a more liveable city. She’s talking like a candidate already, and there is much to weigh in what she says. Emanuel’s notoriously abrasive manner and high-handed, confrontational approach grates Chicagoans. His predecessor, Richard Daley, was embraced as an authentic Chicagoan with no ambitions beyond the city, even if he came across in public as a monosyllabic dolt. Emanuel has acted – wilfully, it seems – like a polarising product of Washington: slick and insensitive. Lewis has made her fair share of enemies too. But she is a populist who as a former stand-up comedian has a better feel for her audience. She also cuts an intriguing figure. She’s an African-American woman who recently converted to Judaism. She studied music in college, has a master’s degree in film and taught chemistry in high school. Lewis has intensity. Those who follow her – and there are many – will go all out and all the way. But Emanuel’s speed dial has bling. When he ran four years ago, he’d hang up on donors who’d sent him $5 000, saying he was embarrassed to accept such cheques from people who could easily afford $25 000. Lewis will give him a run for his money. She’ll have to: Emanuel has an awful lot of money. And although progressive voters do have the final word, it won’t be before corporate sponsors have had their say. – © Guardian News & Media 2014Newark is the state's biggest city, but smaller towns — Montclair and Jersey City come to mind — have arguably better dining scenes. But only Newark has the Ironbound, with nearly 200 Spanish, Portuguese and other restaurants. The Ironbound is described in greater detail in my Essential Jersey Experiences story. And the city is home to several Jersey food legends, including Calandra's and Dickie Dee's, plus great cheap eats spots. Here is a selection of my favorite spots in Newark, from bakeries, sub shops and food trucks to Mexican and Portuguese restaurants. And many of the places are within walking distance of Newark Penn Station. Do you have a favorite Newark casual/cheap eats spot that's not here? Let me know! Is there any more comforting food message than the "Hot Bread Every Hour'' neon sign at Calandra's, just off Bloomfield Avenue? There are bigger, shinier Calandra stores in Fairfield and Caldwell, but you'll want to go to the Newark location, opened by Luciano Calandra in 1960. Excellent bread, pastries, doughnuts, cakes and more. 204 1st Ave., Newark; (973) 484-5598. And Dickie Dee's (see entry below) is a short stroll away. "On the street looking to survive,'' reads a message painted on Jerry Ley's Cambodian Cuisine Torsu food truck, which can be found downtown. No kidding; Ley ran a Cambodian restaurant in Brooklyn for 13 years, re-located because of sky-high rents, then ran into difficulties with his landlord in his new location, in Manhattan. Ley ended up leaving New York altogether, starting a truck in downtown Newark. The big city's loss is our gain. Cambodian food is akin to Thai, with a flavor and flair all its own. Try the no. 15 chicken, or the Cambodian Chef Salad. The truck shuttles between the Rutgers/Newark campus, Washington Park, and other downtown locations. At the moment, it is undergoing repairs. For updates, check Twitter @camcuisinetorsu. The best Newark food news I've heard in some time is the opening of the Monk Room downtown. The Neapolitan-style pizzeria, scheduled to open Friday, Jan. 10, is owned by the people behind acclaimed Porta in Asbury Park. Seating capacity is 50, and the menu features four pizzas; plus pastas made in-house; salads, sandwiches and desserts. Can't wait to try the maple budino, with salted rosemary caramel, creme fraiche and toasted hazelnuts. 20 Green St., Newark; (973) 368-2771. If you go online, most of the mentions of Newark legend Dickie Dee's are of "Dickie Dee's Pizza,'' which is totally missing the point. You go to Dickie Dee's for the Italian hot dogs and the theater - the dogs sizzling in hot oil; the small, spare decor; the nonstop procession of cops, firemen, paramedics and local characters. Get a double Italian hot dog if you're really hungry and don't care about the inevitable spike in your cholesterol count. Don't go looking for a Web site; Dickie Dee's doesn't do the Internet. 380 Bloomfield Ave., Newark; (973) 483-9396. Hamburgao is Portuguese for "big burger," and the burgers at this Brazilian fast food stop live up to their name. Leave American burger chain stereotypes at home; burgers here are jammed with beef, corn, lettuce, mayo, mozzarella, egg, bacon, carrots and potato sticks, among other ingredients. There are steak, cheese, fish and other sandwiches, empanadas, and pastries. But start with a burger. You may never look at hamburgers the same way again. 288 Lafayette St., Newark; (973) 465-1776. Find out how Hamburgao stacked up against other burgers in a Munchmobile burger showdown. Forget the look of Heaven's Delite — it's a walk-up counter — or the surroundings, just off Rt. 78's Elizabeth Avenue exit. The best soup in Newark comes from this plane-Jane spot, popular with city cops, city workers, even longshoremen from nearby Port Newark. Former co-owner Clayton Wade started the business as a food truck in front of University Hospital; the store is now run by other members of his family. The chicken vegetable and chicken noodle soups are terrifically tummy-pleasing, and the turkey chili is outstanding. All the soups are seriously hearty and filling. One note: This soup heaven closes when they run out of soup; get there before 1 p.m. to be on the safe side. 184 Elizabeth Ave., Newark; (973) 623-7793. Here's my video of Heaven's Delite. It's a hole-in-the-wall, but the steady stream of customers to Hero King proves they're doing something right. A block from Penn Station, the no-frills sub shop has been open 40-plus years. The subs are good, filling, and reasonably priced. If you're ravenous, attack the Bigfoot, a sandwich jammed with every meat and cheese available. 406 Market St., Newark; (973) 344-2322. The best burgers in Newark - maybe the best burgers in North Jersey - can be found at lovable old Krug's Tavern. The neighborhood bar has been open since 1932. The family is related to former middleweight champion boxer Jake LaMotta, of "Raging Bull' fame. The former charmingly divey atmosphere was spruced up in a recent renovation, but the bar still draws a lively crowd, and those burgers remain great. Krug's (act like a local and pronounce it "Kroogs) is a must-stop on any Ironbound food excursion. 118 Wilson Ave., Newark; (973) 465-9795. Here's my original review of Krug's back in 2001. Tiny storefront, big value. That describes Mi Gente, located just off Broad Street near Military Park. The $5.99 lunch special includes an ample-sized entree, plus rice and veggies. Good luck topping that anywhere. I like the Cubano sandwich and the pan con lechon (marinated roast pork and toasted bread). There are just a couple tables, so prepare to wait, or do takeout. 7 Central Ave., Newark; (973) 621-9090. The Ironbound is not just Spanish and Portuguese restaurants. If you're in the mood for Mexican, look for the "Comida Tradicional Mexicana" sign outside Mi Pequeno Mexico. It's not by-the-numbers chain-Mexican; the mole poblano, the thick, rich, chocolate-y sauce from Puebla, is given new sizzle and spice with hot peppers and other seasonings. The enchiladas are a South of the Border surprise — the addictive red guajillo sauce, made from the leathery reddish-brown chiles of the same name, separate these enchiladas from the pack. And the spicy pork tacos pack just enough heat to get your attention. 81 Ferry St., Newark; (973) 344-7600. Here's my Eat with Pete review of Mi Pequeno. There are dozens of Portuguese and Spanish restaurants in the Ironbound; how do you pick just one? I've been disappointed at the better-known, touristy restaurants. My current favorite is Seabra's Marisqueira. The name — "marisqueira'' means seafood restaurant — says it all. The open kitchen — flames blazing, steaks sizzling, cooks dashing out of each other's way — makes for great theater. To take it all in, sit at the bar or in the front dining room; there's a quieter back dining room. Try the octopus in vinaigrette sauce, the whole red snapper, or the seafood paella. Meat lovers won't go wrong with the grilled T-bone in garlic sauce. 87 Madison St., Newark; (973) 465-1250. It's not Newark, but East Newark, home to Tops Diner, is right across the river. Tops, the best diner for miles around, was runner-up in my Jersey Diner Showdown for Inside Jersey magazine. Open since 1972, it features a gleaming silver-and-blue facade and handsome booths. The menu is enormous, even by diner standards; there are 32 kinds of burgers and 27 seafood dishes. The takeout counter, just inside the entrance, fills to-go orders quickly and efficiently. The meatloaf? It's the best I've had at any diner anywhere. 500 Passaic Ave., East Newark; (973) 481-0490. For the results of our unprecedented Jersey Diner Showdown, go here.Growing up I was troubled with health issues. Which led to years and years of bland food. And, even as mom was a genius in making even the blandest food taste wonderful, my experience in the world of food was painfully limited. As it continues to be even today. But, I’m trying to catch up. I’m a late bloomer in almost everything, so why would food be any different? And, I’m ok with that. Quinoa is the world’s oldest grain. I didn’t know that till a few days ago. I had never eaten it before or even heard of it when I lived in India. As a somewhat pure vegetarian, grains are dear to my heart. This is a simple, delicious, extremely fresh salad. I would however stress that the quality of the mango makes a big difference here. So, do get the best sort and preferably the kind from India. The sweetness from Indian mangoes is unparalleled. If there are no good mangoes in sight, go ahead and replace it with pears or nectarines! Mango Quinoa Salad with Ginger Dressing Save Print Author: boxofspice Ingredients For the Dressing ½ tbsp shredded fresh ginger 1 tbsp white wine vinegar pinch of coriander powder pinch of red chili powder ½ tbsp honey dash of lime juice 1 tsp olive oil salt and pepper to taste For the Salad 110 grams quinoa 2 green chilies, cut fine ½ cup fresh mint, chopped 1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped 3-4 spring onions, chopped with green parts 1 tbsp fennel seeds 1 mango, peeled in large slices seeds of ½ pomegranate 2 tbsp olive oil Instructions To prepare, cook the quinoa as per directions with the chopped chilies. Set aside to cool. Peel mango and cut into large slices. Heat a grill pan and drizzle with half the olive oil. Place mango slices and pour the rest of the olive oil and sprinkle the fennel seeds on top. Grill each side around 3-4 minutes or till you get nice brown stripes. Set aside and let cool. Combine all the other ingredients (except mango and pomegranate) in a large bowl and toss to mix together. Dress with grilled mango and pomegranate seeds. Just before serving, pour the ginger dressing on top. You don't need to mix the dressing in. Let stand for around 15 minutes for the dressing to get incorporated. 3.5.3208 Adapted from BBC Food.Mayim Bialik. C. Flanigan/Getty Images Mayim Bialik, one of the stars of the popular sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," attracted sharp criticism on Saturday over an op-ed she wrote for The New York Times about the multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment made against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Bialik wrote that although she was "shocked and disgusted" by the accusations against Weinstein, she was not surprised by them. "I quickly learned even as a preteen actress that young girls with doe eyes and pouty lips who spoke in a high register were favored for roles by the powerful men who made those decisions," Bialik wrote. The actress went on to note the choices she makes today that she deems to be "self-protecting and wise." "I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with," she wrote. "I dress modestly. I don't act flirtatiously with men as a policy." The op-ed drew immediate backlash from critics who said Bialik was insinuating that modesty and a conservative wardrobe can guard one against sexual assault. Several observers pointed out that Bialik had glossed over the fact that the central motive behind sexual assault and harassment is power, not sexual desire. "As a proud feminist with little desire to diet, get plastic surgery or hire a personal trainer, I have almost no personal experience with men asking me to meeting in their hotel rooms," she wrote. "Those of us in Hollywood who don't represent an impossible standard of beauty have the 'luxury' of being overlooked and, in many cases, ignored by men in power unless we can make them money." Bialik's comments drew sustained criticism from those who said she was demonizing women based on their attractiveness and implying that they invited sexual harassment because of their looks. Several observers pointed out that a woman's appearance often has little to do with whether or not she experiences harassment. "I have to say I was dressed non provocatively at 12 walking home from school when men masturbated at me," tweeted actress Patricia Arquette. "It's not the clothes." Bialik's op-ed came on the heels of designer Donna Karan's comments last weekend about whether women today are "asking for it" based on how they dress and their behavior. "How do we present ourselves as women?" Karan reportedly said at an awards ceremony Sunday evening in response to a question about the accusations against Weinstein. "What are we asking? Are we asking for it? By presenting all the sensuality and all the sexuality? What are we throwing out to our children today? About how to dance, how to perform and what to wear? How much should they show?" The New York Times broke the first bombshell report detailing several allegations against Weinstein, and The New Yorker followed up with a separate report which included additional accounts of sexual harassment and assault, as well as some allegations of rape. Dozens of women, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, have now stepped forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct to varying degrees. Most of the alleged encounters detail "business meetings" that occurred in Weinstein's hotel suites that turned into scenes of sexual harassment or assault. These accusations stretch back as far as the 1980s and include a variety of film industry figures, including actresses, assistants, and other employees. After the stories broke, Weinstein was fired from the Weinstein Company, which he co-founded. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts also suspended Weinstein's membership, releasing a statement on Wednesday that called his alleged behavior "completely unacceptable and incompatible with BAFTA's values." On Saturday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also voted to oust Weinstein. Michelle Mark contributed reporting.Recent
those likely outcomes, yet students continue to be drawn to bingeing. Aiming to tease out the relationships between students’ social status, their satisfaction with college life and their binge drinking, the researchers surveyed nearly 1,600 students at what the paper describes as a selective residential liberal arts college in the Northeast. Among those students, 64 percent reported binge drinking and 36 percent said they weren’t binge drinkers. Binge drinking was defined as consuming more than four drinks on one occasion for women, and more than five for men, at least once during a two-week period. They found that students who were in high-status groups — wealthy, white, male, participating in Greek life — were more satisfied socially than those in low-status groups — less wealthy, racial minorities, female, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer (LGBTQ), not participating in a fraternity or sorority. The study further found that high-status students were far more likely than low-status students to be binge drinkers. It also found that low-status students could boost their social satisfaction so it was about the same as that of high-status students by binge drinking. Conversely, high-status students who didn’t binge drink had lower levels of social satisfaction than did high-status binge drinkers. Contrary to what you might think, the study found that binge drinkers didn’t typically engage in the practice to mitigate unhappiness or combat anxiety, but rather to improve their social standing by behaving the way students of high social status behaved. If you’re thinking that’s really sad, I agree. The authors conclude: “The present study offers another insight into the nature of a seemingly intractable social problem. It is our hope that by drawing attention to the important social motivations underlying binge drinking, institutional administrators and public health professionals will be able to design and implement programs for students that take into account the full range of reasons that students binge drink.”One of the more interesting debates so far this election cycle has been over whether the party decides. Do party elites — politicians, activists, media, etc. — have enough power to influence the nominating contest? Can they pick a winner? Can they stop someone from winning? If so, then Donald Trump, who doesn’t have a single endorsement from a sitting governor or member of Congress, should have little shot at the Republican nomination. For much of this campaign, however, Republican Party elites weren’t deciding. Most Republican governors and members of Congress haven’t endorsed anyone, and the pace of endorsements has been slower than in past campaigns. But that’s starting to change: More GOP elites are taking the plunge. In fact, by a hair — and for the moment — Marco Rubio has overtaken the pace set by at least one past Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan in 1980. Rubio has picked up the endorsements of Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina this week. Indeed, Rubio has greatly increased his endorsement pace since the Iowa caucuses, picking up 42 weighted endorsement points in the past two-and-a-half weeks, according to the FiveThirtyEight endorsement tracker. That’s nearly half of the 85 points he has overall. All the other candidates who remain in the race have received only 4 endorsement points combined since the Iowa caucuses. The second-place candidate, Jeb Bush, has 51 points, but most of those came early in the campaign, when Bush looked far more formidable; he’s earned just 17 points since September. That’s not to say the party has settled on Rubio. Of the available GOP endorsement points, Rubio has only a little over 10 percent. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has nearly 80 percent of the Democratic points available. But Rubio is starting to do better than some previous endorsement leaders at this point in the campaign. Rubio has more endorsement points than Democrat Dick Gephardt did at a comparable point in the 1988 campaign; he led the field with 57 endorsement points. Rubio is also outpacing Ronald Reagan’s 1980 mark: And Rubio’s post-Iowa uptick is extra good news for him: History has shown that newer endorsements are more predictive of success than stale ones. Gephardt, for example, hadn’t picked up a single endorsement point post-Iowa at this point in the campaign — and he didn’t win the nomination. The question, of course, is whether any of this matters. In this seemingly “anti-establishment” year, it’s tempting to say that it doesn’t. I’d argue, though, that if Rubio can keep up his pace, it could make a difference. The biggest problem for the anti-Trump crowd is that its support has been divided; Rubio, Bush and John Kasich are splitting the anti-Trump vote (it’s harder to say how Ted Cruz fits in here). Trump’s support has been fairly stable in national polls, at about 35 percent, over the past month, and it’s starting to look like he has a core group of supporters who will stick with him come hell or high water. On the other hand, 35 percent is not all that close to 50 percent. If Rubio can coalesce the anti-Trump vote and get to a one-on-one with Trump, Rubio may be able to come out on top. These endorsements could be a signal to anti-Trump voters to rally around Rubio. They may also be a signal to Bush and Kasich to clear the way, that Rubio is Republican elites’ best chance to stop Trump. Of course, in a campaign as wacky as 2016 has been, it may not work. Listen to the latest episode of the FiveThirtyEight politics podcast.Story highlights Strippers win more than $10 million in class-action lawsuit Judge finds their employer had failed to pay minimum wage The club says it will appeal More than 2,000 current and former exotic dancers in New York City were awarded $10 million in a class-action lawsuit they brought against their employer, Rick's Cabaret. The federal judge's order came on Friday, four years after the dancers filed their lawsuit alleging the company cheated them out of wages. The award covers unpaid wages from 2005-2012. For the dancers, the ruling follows a court victory last year when the judge ruled that they were considered hourly employees who deserve to be paid minimum wage. Rick's Cabaret argued that the dancers worked as independent contractors. Friday's ruling was a partial summary judgment, which means a trial over the dispute will take place as planned, and the amount of the award could change. The club says it will appeal. According to court documents, Rick's Cabaret failed to pay the dancers minimum wage and kept some payments that should have gone into the dancers' pockets. 2013 image from the cabaret's website. While it is true that a patron pays a dancer $20 for a personal dance, these are considered "performance fees" and are not considered regular wages. The club owes the dancers back pay for their hourly wages, the court ruled. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer also found that Rick's Cabaret shortchanged dancers through something called "Dancer's Dollars." Patrons were able to purchase $24 vouchers called Dancer's Dollars, which could be redeemed for personal dances at the club. Rick's Cabaret "systemically retained, without disclosure to customers" $2 of each voucher, in addition to charging a $4 service fee. Dancers only received $18 of each voucher. When paid in cash, the dancers retained the full $20 fee for each dance. The withheld $2 from each voucher should have gone to the dancers as a gratuity, according to the court documents. Rick's Cabaret had claimed that the dancers made more than minimum wage when the dancers' performance fees were included. But under labor law, "such fees do not offset defendants' minimum wage obligations," according to the court documents. "We are very pleased with the court's well-reasoned and thorough decision, and are confident that we will prevail at trial and secure an even greater monetary judgment," the dancers' attorney, Anna P. Prakash, said in a statement. "The court's decision reflects that exotic dancers are entitled to the same legal protections as other employees, and is a resounding victory for a group whose voices are all too often ignored." RCI Hospitality Holdings, which owns Rick's Cabaret, said the case is ongoing and "there is no current or near-term obligation to pay any sums as a result of this decision." The company is "disappointed" with the initial judgment, and plans on appealing it once the final judgment is reached, RCI Hospitality Holdings said. Engelmayer said that it was unclear to patrons that the dancers would not receive the full payment. None of these payments were recorded in the club's gross receipts.Justin Morneau’s long climb back to the big leagues will culminate in his return to the Rockies lineup Friday night against the San Francisco Giants at Coors Field. Morneau, 34, will start at first base and hit fifth after the Rockies activated him from the 60-day disabled list. To make room for him on their 40-man roster, the Rockies designated utility player Matt McBride for assignment. “The goal all along was to get healthy, get back out there and finish the year,” Morneau said. “I honestly didn’t know it was going to take as long as it did, so that was a little frustrating, but I’m happy to be able to go back out there and help this team and hopefully finish strong.” Morneau hasn’t played for the Rockies since May 13, when he suffered a concussion and whiplash while diving for a ground ball at Anaheim against the Angels. He left the team for several weeks in order to try and calm his concussion symptoms and heal his neck. Morneau has a history of head injuries, missing significant time in 2010 and 2011 with concussions. But Morneau vowed to return this season. He started a brief minor-league rehab assignment with Double-A New Britain earlier this week. Morneau plans to continue playing next season. He has a $9 million mutual option on his contract for next season, so his return to the Rockies is not guaranteed. “As of right now, I’m playing with the goal to continue playing, and continue my career,” he said. “I can see the future, but right now I just want to go out there and continue to enjoy it every day.” In 27 games before going on the disabled list this season, Morneau hit.290 with three home runs and nine RBIs. Last year, he was the National League batting champion when he hit.319 for the Rockies. Manager Walt Weiss welcomed Morneau back. “It’s great, and it’s been a long road back,” he said. “He’s dealt with (concussion issues) a couple of times in his career now, but he’s a guy who’s had a great impact on this team and organization. He still has a passion to play. I think there will be a smile on his face when he takes the field tonight.” Weiss said there are no restrictions on playing time for the first baseman. “I will just use common sense,” Weiss said. “I’m not going to run him out there every day. I think there will be situations, days off for him — day games after night games — that will make sense. It will be built into the schedule.” The Rockies, despite a need to begin building for next season by giving younger players a chance to play in the final month, are giving Morneau playing time in part out of respect for what he’s done in his career. “(It’s) for what he’s done. What he’s done as a player and what he’s done for this team,” Weiss said Wednesday. The Rockies put Morneau on the 60-day disabled list on July 7 and there were concerns about whether he would ever play again. Morneau’s concussion problems began during a game on July 7, 2010 when he slid into the knee of Toronto Blue Jays infielder John McDonald. McBride, Colorado’s final connection to the Ubaldo Jimenez trade with Cleveland in 2011, was called up to the Rockies on Aug. 12. He hit.167 in limited plate appearances this season and.199 in three abbreviated seasons with the Rockies. The Rockies also recalled utility infielder Rafael Ynoa from Triple-A. Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nickgrokeGoogle is expected to officially unveil the Nexus 5 any day now. (Technically it already has.) But one Canadian carrier has apparently grown tired of waiting. Wind Mobile today launched a pre-registration page for the upcoming Android flagship, describing it as "the smart, new phone made to capture the moments that matter." The page also reveals some key specifications for the latest Nexus handset. The internals listed here largely match up with what we've seen from previous leaks and FCC filings, so there's not much in the way of surprises. According to Wind, the Nexus 5 will feature a 4.95-inch 1080p display, a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, and will be available in both 16GB and 32GB configurations. Bluetooth 4.0 is on board, and the spec sheet also confirms the device will support 802.11ac Wi-Fi – though it's erroneously listed as "nc." In truth there's little here that we weren't already expecting, but if you were looking for the Nexus 5's precise dimensions or weight (0.29 pounds), it's all included here. There is one curious design choice: according to Wind Mobile, LG has built the phone's power and volume buttons out of ceramic. We've seen the hardware plenty, but thankfully it shouldn't be long until Google gives everyone a firsthand look at what the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat can do.In January, European Union restrictions on Romania and Bulgaria were lifted, meaning citizens of those countries were free to travel and work throughout the EU. This inspired anger in wealthier countries like the UK, where people anticipated a flood of migrants looking to take advantage of relatively generous welfare systems. This anger was directed most fiercely at the Roma. Europe's largest ethnic minority — also known as gypsies — has long endured bigotry and abuse. This year, they've been a boon to rightwing politicians who've used them to garner support for anti-immigration policies and achieve significant electoral victories. VICE News examines the so-called "Roma influx" by visiting a Roma community in northern England, then traveling to Romania to meet a group of Roma who have just been evicted from their homes and don't have the money to leave the country to seek out better lives. Photo by Mugur Varzariu Subscribe to VICE News Follow VICE News on Twitter Like VICE News on FacebookConsidering the prevailing winds, David J. Smith figured the air samples collected atop a dormant volcano in Oregon would be full of DNA signatures from dead microorganisms from Asia and the Pacific Ocean. He didn’t expect anything could survive the journey through the harsh upper atmosphere to the research station at the Mount Bachelor Observatory, at an elevation of 9,000 feet. "I thought we would basically be collecting nothing but dead biomass," says Smith, a research scientist with NASA's Ames Research Center. But when his team got to the lab with the samples, taken from two large dust plumes in the spring of 2011, they discovered a thriving bunch of hitchhikers. More than 27 percent of the bacterial samples and more than 47 percent of the fungal samples were still alive. Ultimately, the team detected about 2,100 species of microbes, including a type of Archea that had only previously been isolated off the coast of Japan. “In my mind, that was the smoking gun,“ Smith says. Asia, as he likes to say, had sneezed on North America. Microbes have been found in the skies since Darwin collected windswept dust aboard the H.M.S. Beagle 1,000 miles west of Africa in the 1830s. But technologies for DNA analysis, high-altitude collection and atmospheric modeling are giving scientists a new look at crowded life high above Earth. For instance, recent research suggests that microbes are hidden players in the atmosphere, making clouds, causing rain, spreading diseases between continents and maybe even changing climates. "I regard the atmosphere as a highway, in the most literal sense of the term," Smith says. "It enables the exchange of microorganisms between ecosystems thousands of miles apart, and to me that’s a more profound ecological consequence we still have not fully wrapped our heads around." Airborne microbes potentially have huge impacts on our planet. Some scientists attribute a 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain to a giant storm in north Africa that carried dust and possibly spores of the animal disease thousands of miles north only a week before the first reported cases. Bluetongue virus, which infects domestic and wild animals, was once present only in Africa. But it's found now in Great Britain, likely the result of the prevailing winds. Scientists examining the decline of coral reefs in near-pristine stretches of the Caribbean are pointing at dust and accompanying microbes, stirred up during African dust storms and carried west, as the culprit. A particular fungus that kills sea fans first arrived in 1983, researchers say, when a drought in the Sahara created dust clouds that floated across the Atlantic. In west Texas, researchers from Texas Tech University collected air samples upwind and downwind of ten cattle feedlots. Antibiotic resistant microbes were 4,000 percent more prevalent in the downwind samples. Philip Smith, an associate professor of terrestrial ecotoxicology, and Greg Mayer, an associate professor of molecular toxicology, said the work establishes a baseline for further research. They have completed a study of viability to be released in early 2016 and want to look at the questions of how far the particles travel and whether resistance can be transmitted to native bacteria. Antibiotics, Mayer notes, existed in nature long before humans borrowed them. But what happens when they are concentrated in places, or spread on the wind? What's clear is there are far more viable microbes in far more inhospitable places than scientists expected. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, supported by a NASA research grant, examined air samples collected by a plane flying during hurricanes miles above Earth. They found that living cells accounted for about 20 percent of of the storm-tossed microbes. "We were not expecting to find so many intact and alive bacterial cells at 10,000 meters," says Kostas Konstantinidis, a microbiologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Konstantinidis and his team are particularly interested in how microbes contribute to cloud formation and precipitation. Nuclei in bacteria in the air initiate condensation. Some scientists now believe microbes may play a major part in meteorology. "They have great potential for affecting cloud formation and the climate," Konstantinidis adds. Meanwhile, Smith is intrigued by how microbes survive or perhaps repair themselves after days-long journeys in the harsh radiation of the upper atmosphere. A NASA project, EMIST (Exposing Microorganisms in the Stratosphere), spearheaded by Smith, has twice carried spore-forming bacteria to 125,000 feet above the New Mexico desert on a balloon to investigate their survival. For NASA, the work is related to planetary protection. If a spacecraft contaminated with Earth bacteria reaches Mars—which has conditions similar to Earth's stratosphere—and the bacteria survive, it could complicate our search for evidence of life on Mars or even kill off native microbes, if they exist. But it also has far broader possibilities. Like earlier researchers who explored the rainforest searching for wonder drugs, researchers may one day find remedies in the miniscule inhabitants of the atmosphere. Maybe atmospheric bacteria can offer us the ultimate sunscreen and protection against radiation. “It's extraordinary that an organism that can survive such a harsh environment is in many cases a single cell," Smith says. “How are they doing what they are doing?”Quite a few people I know are expressing interest in learning Go, so I decided to put down a couple of notes about my experience after having had the same conversation a few times over. None of the points are particularly original and are mostly here so I can point people at one place when they ask me about it! Your mileage may vary on any of this stuff and it’s in no particular order! Go By Example Go By Example is a great learning resource for the fundamentals of the language. After that the posts on Gopher Acadamy are well worth reading. I’m not aware of any good print books right now, though I’m sure they exist. Update (2-Feb-2015): Also on the reading list after Go By Example is Effective Go, which goes a long way towards documenting how to write idiomatic Go. Test scripts using Go Run go run is awesome - you could almost use it as a scripting language and it’s invaluable for quickly testing snippets of code. Not quite a REPL, but it works for me. Don’t fight the $GOPATH Don’t fight the $GOPATH. This one is hard as for years I’ve had code organized under ~/Code/repo_name, and the immediate instinct is to keep things structured in the same way. Whilst the documentation is (or was at least) somewhat ambiguous about this, the intended method for working with Go code is to have a single $GOPATH across projects. My $GOPATH is set to ~/Code/go, and I have the following zsh functions defined to make it easy to move around between different projects: cg () { cd $GOPATH /src/github.com/ $1 ; } And the autocomplete for cg: #compdef cg _files -W $GOPATH /src/github.com/ -/ This means that I can move around projects like this (since basically all important code lives on GitHub, except for the standard library): $ cg jen20/terraform-provider-azure && pwd /Users/James/Code/go/src/github.com/jen20/terraform-provider-azure $ cg MSOpenTech/azure-sdk-for-go && pwd /Users/James/Code/go/src/github.com/MSOpenTech/azure-sdk-for-go Vim-Go Use vim-go. Initially I tried using the IntelliJ plugin for Go, as a long time IntelliJ and Resharper user I still find the autocompletion to be invaluable when navigating unfamiliar libraries. However, when I tried it the IntelliJ plugin didn’t work with the single $GOPATH detailed above. There’s a nice guide to setting up vim-go here. There are still a few niggles to fix with it (finding documentation is somewhat hit and miss from time to time). Turning on the type annotations for the identifier under the cursor is invaluable. The only customizations I have for the vim-go plugin in my.vimrc are as follows: let g:go_fmt_fail_silently = 1 let g:go_fmt_command = "gofmt" let g:go_auto_type_info = 1 " Specific file types augroup filetypedetect_go autocmd FileType go nmap gd < Plug >( go - def ) autocmd FileType go nmap < Leader > s < Plug >( go - def - split ) autocmd FileType go nmap < Leader > v < Plug >( go - def - vertical ) autocmd FileType go nmap < Leader > t < Plug >( go - def - tab ) autocmd FileType go nmap < Leader > i < Plug >( go - info ) autocmd FileType go nmap < leader > r < Plug >( go - run ) autocmd FileType go nmap < leader > b < Plug >( go - build ) autocmd FileType go nmap < Leader > d < Plug >( go - doc ) augroup END Dash Use Dash on OS X. One thing to be said for Visual Studio (when appropriately extended with ReSharper) is that you rarely have to leave it. The Intellisense docs mean that it’s rarely necessary to go and read the documentation. With Go the docs are excellent, but are made even better with Dash. It’s one of the best uses for £13 and works across all languages. You can install it via brew cask for added awesome. Update (2-Feb-2015): People have pointed out Zeal, which is similar to Dash for Linux and Windows, and also devdocs.io which is a browser based version with an offline mode. Dependency Management Don’t be tempted to try to replicate complex dependency management tools such as npm or (god forbid) NuGet. Instead prefer to take fewer dependencies. This is made easier by an excellent standard library which covers a very wide range of things very comprehensively. Most libraries are small (one or two files) and can be copied and pasted into your own source tree, license permitting. GoDep appears to be the only thing approaching an officially sanctioned way, and has a nice mode which vendors libraries into your own source tree and rewrites the imports.Spread the love Memphis, TN – As the world remembers the life, and death, of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one little-known fact regarding his assassination is that in 1999 the family of Dr. King won a civil lawsuit against Loyd Jowers and others, including governmental agencies, for the wrongful death of King in the case of the King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators. According to a New York Times report from 1999: A jury in a civil suit brought by the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided today that a retired Memphis cafe owner was part of a conspiracy in the 1968 killing of Dr. King. The jury’s decision means it did not believe that James Earl Ray, who was convicted of the crime, fired the shot that killed Dr. King. After four weeks of testimony and one hour of deliberation, the jury in the wrongful-death case found that Loyd Jowers as well as ”others, including governmental agencies” had been part of a conspiracy. The jury awarded the King family the damages they had sought: $100, which the family says it will donate to charity. The family has long questioned Mr. Ray’s conviction and hoped the suit would change the legal and historical record of the assassination. ”This is a vindication for us,” said Dexter King, the youngest son of Dr. King. He said he hoped history books would be rewritten to reflect this version of the assassination. The 1999 civil court trial is the only trial ever conducted regarding the assassination of Dr. King, and provides unique insights that had, for decades, been kept from the public. While a civil court trial uses a preponderance of evidence standard, rather than a reasonable doubt standard, there is no mistaking the dark picture painted by the evidence over the course of the trial. King family friend and attorney William F. Pepper won the civil trial, which found ‘US governmental agencies’ guilty of being part of a conspiracy that resulted in the wrongful death/assassination of Dr. King. The damning body of evidence presented to the jury during the trial suggested vast U.S. governmental complicity – which the jury obviously found extremely credible – and included testimony about the following: • US 111th Military Intelligence Group were at Dr. King’s location during the assassination. • 20th Special Forces Group had an 8-man sniper team at the assassination location on that day. • Usual Memphis Police special bodyguards were advised they “weren’t needed” on the day of the assassination. • Regular and constant police protection for Dr. King was removed from protecting Dr. King an hour before the assassination. • Military Intelligence set-up photographers on the roof of a fire station with clear view to Dr. King’s balcony. • Dr. King’s room was changed from a secure 1st-floor room to an exposed balcony room. • Memphis police ordered the scene where multiple witnesses reported as the source of shooting cut down of their bushes that would have hid a sniper. • Along with sanitizing a crime scene, police abandoned investigative procedure to interview witnesses who lived by the scene of the shooting. • The rifle Mr. Ray delivered was not matched to the bullet that killed Dr. King, and was not sighted to accurately shoot. Although James Ray was convicted for the killing of King, he maintained that his government-appointed attorney told him to sign a guilty plea as a means of preventing him from getting the death penalty, a quid pro quo. At the same time, his attorney was threatening that his brother and father could be indicted as co-conspirators for what Ray claimed was his only admitted involvement in the assassination conspiracy – the delivery of the rifle. Once Ray realized that he was being scapegoated for the killing of King, being solely blamed for the assassination, he attempted to recant his guilty plea and ask for a trial – which was summarily denied. Ray went so far as to produce a letter from his attorney stating the promise of a trial if he would plead guilty in a convoluted bit of legalese. The King family themselves repeatedly voiced their support for a criminal trial for Ray, but their requests repeatedly fell on deaf ears as their pleas were continually denied by both the state and federal government. In fact, the U.S. government has repeatedly denied the King family’s requests for an independent investigation, in spite of the vast amount of new evidence presented at the 1999 civil trial. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report that explained they had investigated themselves and found they had done nothing wrong — concluding that there was no evidence to warrant any further investigation. Dr. King’s son issued the following statement rebuking the DOJ’s decision to do a “self-study”, rather than undertaking an independent investigation: “We learned only hours before the Justice Department press conference that they were releasing the report of their results of their ‘limited investigation,’ which covered only two areas of new evidence concerning the assassination of Dr. King. We had requested that we be given a copy of the report a few days in advance so that we might have had the opportunity to review it in detail. Since that courtesy was not extended to us, we are only able at this time to state the following: 1. We initially requested that a comprehensive investigation be conducted by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, independent of the government, because we do not believe that, in such a politically-sensitive matter, the government is capable of investigating itself. 2. The type of independent investigation we sought was denied by the federal government. But in our view, it was carried out, in a Memphis courtroom, during a month-long trial by a jury of 12 American citizens who had no interest other than ascertaining the truth. (Kings v. Jowers) 3. After hearing and reviewing the extensive testimony and evidence, which had never before been tested under oath in a court of law, it took the Memphis jury only one (1) hour to find that a conspiracy to kill Dr. King did exist. Most significantly, this conspiracy involved agents of the governments of the City of Memphis, the state of Tennessee and the United States of America. The overwhelming weight of the evidence also indicated that James Earl Ray was not the triggerman and, in fact, was an unknowing patsy. 4. We stand by that verdict and have no doubt that the truth about this terrible event has finally been revealed. 5. We urge all interested Americans to read the transcript of the trial on the King Center website and consider the evidence, so they can form their own unbiased conclusions. Although we cooperated fully with this limited investigation, we never really expected that the government report would be any more objective than that which has resulted from any previous official investigation.” Dr. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, was resolute after careful consideration of the evidence for 30 years — from the 1968 assassination to the 1999 trial. “For a quarter of a century, Bill Pepper conducted an independent investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. He opened his files to our family, encouraged us to speak with the witnesses, and represented our family in the civil trial against the conspirators. The jury affirmed his findings, providing our family with a long-sought sense of closure and peace, which had been denied by official disinformation and cover-ups. Now the findings of his exhaustive investigation and additional revelations from the trial are presented in the pages of this important book. We recommend it highly to everyone who seeks the truth about Dr. King’s assassination,” said Coretta Scott King. The King family firmly believes that the government was behind Dr. King’s assassination, with a specific motive of trying to prevent an imminent and massive march on Washington, D.C. to fight against U.S. involvement in Vietnam — and the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) as a whole. Make no mistake that the MIC is a ruthless and cold machine that is willing to destroy anything, and anyone, in its continual drive towards war and profits. The same forces that today push America towards conflict with Russia, are essentially the same underlying forces that resulted in the assassination of Dr. King.SEATTLE — Having already handled the arctic chill of Green Bay and a cross-country flight to Carolina, the 49ers must now overcome the most inhospitable sports environment on earth in order to advance to the Super Bowl. In Sunday’s NFC Championship game, they are up against not only the Seattle Seahawks’ rock stars like Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch but also their 68,000 screaming backup singers. CenturyLink Field is the loudest sports venue in the world, a claim verified twice this season by the Guinness Book of World Records. This is the place where communication goes to die, a challenge the 49ers understand all too well. They’ve been beaten like an eardrum their past two meetings in Seattle, losing by a combined score of 71-16 while committing seven turnovers. The loudest-crowd distinction is more than a novelty. The stadium has coaxed more false-start penalties out of opponents than any team in the NFL since 2005. Offensive linemen simply can’t hear the quarterback barking signals and they jump at the wrong time. What’s with all the racket? “Whether it’s the stadium, whether it’s the crazy people in the Northwest, whether it’s gray skies that makes them want to come out and scream. I don’t know what it is,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. Having been burned before, the 49ers vow to be better prepared this time. To communicate on offense, they spent the past week at practice refining hand gestures and other forms of nonverbal communication. As usual, they also blared rock music during drills to simulate the wall of sound they’ll have to get past on Sunday. “We are very familiar with going to a silent count, which is what we call it, on the road,” left tackle Joe Staley said. “That is something that we have not just practiced for one week, but we have practiced for the last three years.” Kerry Carter, a former Stanford fullback who went on to play two NFL seasons in Seattle, hears confidence like Staley’s and smiles. “What did Mike Tyson say? ‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth?’,” Carter said. “Teams say, ‘We’re going to come in, we’re going to do this.’ And then you get here and you can’t.” How loud is it? Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman, who is legally deaf, said he gets goose bumps when he runs on the field for pre-game introduction. “I feel it,” Coleman said. “I don’t exactly hear it. I don’t get pain in my ears like everybody else. … I can feel the vibrations. I know everybody is yelling. You have a lot of problems if you can’t feel that.” It’s not his imagination. The ruckus at CenturyLink field has twice registered on the seismographs at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, including last week when Marshawn Lynch rumbled for a 31-yard touchdown. The crowd-generated tremor, known around here as a “Beast Quake” in honor of Lynch’s nickname, registered around a 2 on the Richter scale. As much as this city embraces Lynch (who wears uniform No. 24) and quarterback Russell Wilson (who wears uniform No. 3), the most popular jersey around town is No. 12. It symbolizes Seattle’s crowd — i.e. the “12th Man” — and the role it plays on game days. The Seahawks have a.688 winning percentage (66-30) since moving to this stadium in 2002. “There is so much energy around our football team,” Wilson said. “There are so many people who love the Seahawks. That is the great thing about it. … There are not too many organizations that you feel that and you sense that.” No. 12 is so sacred here that they raise a flag bearing that number before kickoff each week. Fans go into a frenzy as soon as the surprise local celebrity emerges in the south end zone to hoist the flag. Detlef Schrempf, the former basketball star for the Seattle SuperSonics and University of Washington, raised the “12th Man” flag on Nov. 4, 2012. “I’ve been in arenas all over the world and there’s no question to me that Seattle has the loudest,” Schrempf, 50, recalled by phone on Friday. “And it’s not just for a minute or two. It’s consistent, all the way through the fourth quarter.” Ricky Watters, a former 49ers running back who finished his career in Seattle, raised the flag in 2008. Reached this week, he recalled the way the noise would disrupt opponents during his days with the Seahawks. “If you’re a visiting lineman, at some point you’re going to jump,” Watters said, laughing. “You hear that noise and the louder it gets, the more revved up you get. Your body just has to move. You can’t help it.” Considering the otherwise mellow — if caffeinated — vibe of the Pacific Northwest, it might seem odd that this is the yappiest place on earth. Schrempf and Carter were among those who theorize that the cheers are fueled in part by “desperation” for success: The Seahawks have never won a Super Bowl. The Mariners have never so much as reached the World Series. The dearly departed SuperSonics won their only NBA title in 1979. “There’s a very renewed sense of hope,” Carter said. “I’ve never been around the type of energy I’ve felt in this city. A (championship) is something that’s long overdue here and I think people sense that they’re closer to it.” Architecture is also an important part of the equation. CenturyLink was designed to maximize crowd noise, as directed by owner Paul Allen. A story on Sports Illustrated’s website Friday explained how the Seahawks’ stadium covers 70 percent of all seats, in part to protect fans from rainy weather and in part to deflect fan-generated noise back toward the field. The stadium’s big-roof parabolas also keep the sound from fading into the open air. All that screaming has produced a few whispers: Some opposing players suspect that the place pipes in artificial noise — performance-enhancing decibels — to boost the home-field advantage. “Those whispers come from other teams and other fan groups,” said Joe Tafoya, a former Seattle defensive end who now co-owns Volume 12, a company that caters to Seahawks fans. “And my response is that the NFL actually has rules against that and they come in and measure that. Those are just rumors.” Tafo
e. Marvel also boasts several characters of color such as a Muslim teen girl as Ms. Marvel and an Asian-American as the Hulk. A new Spider-Man run currently features a half-black, half-Hispanic version of the hero named Miles Morales, and an African-American, Sam Wilson, is currently running as Captain America. –Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ may become the biggest and blackest blockbuster of all time “Her brain is maybe a little better than his,” Bendis tells TIME of Williams intellect. “She looks at things from a different perspective that makes the armor unique.” –Black Captain America leads comic book diversityTruthout combats corporatization by bringing you trustworthy news: click here to join the effort. New documents show that Koch Industries had a seat on the controversial “Public Safety and Elections Task Force” of the American Legislative Exchange Council as of at least 2011. ALEC announced it was dropping that task force in the wake of the controversy over the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin and so-called “Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws. However, the co-leader of that task force, Rep. Jerry Madden (R-TX), revealed ALEC’s announcement to be a PR maneuver when he reassured The Christian Post that his task force’s work would continue through other ALEC task forces. Koch Industries has vigorously defended ALEC, and has assailed reporting that noted that the company, led by billionaire brothers Charles and David, is a long-time funder and leader of ALEC and that ALEC has long advanced the NRA agenda through “model” gun bills, including Florida’s controversial SYG law that was ratified by ALEC in 2005. It turns out that Koch was a member of that ALEC task force in recent years, and that it was on the task force when the NRA was the private sector co-chair. Moreover, Koch Industries had not one but two employees who were listed as “members” present for ALEC’s “Public Safety and Elections” Task Force at the last annual task force summit. Koch has said it had no involvement in the SYG law passed in Florida and then ratified by the ALEC criminal justice task force in 2005. The company, however, was a leader of ALEC in 2005, just as today, and its funding helps underwrite ALEC’s operations and agenda. The various task forces Koch has served on over the past nearly two decades is not known, but now it has come to light that in at least 2010 and 2011 Koch was a member of ALEC’s crime task force. Two Koch Staffers at the Last ALEC Crime Task Force Summit Meeting On April 29, 2011, at Cincinnati’s Hilton Netherland Plaza Hotel, an historic building gilded just before the Great Depression, Jenny Kim and Jessie Rager—employees of Koch’s lobbying arm—sat as two of the 16 “Private Sector Members” in attendance at the ALEC crime task force’s day-long meeting. As such, Koch constituted 1/8th of the private sector members considering model legislation and business that day. Kim is the Associate General Counsel for “Political Law” at Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, (KCPS) which employs over three dozen attorneys in Wichita, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. She’s worked for Koch for almost four years, following stints at two law firms and in the White House Counsel’s Office in President George W. Bush’s first term. She’s been the point of contact for Koch’s lobby disclosure filings regarding the $2 to $3 million it has spent on other Koch employees directly lobbying Congress each year recently. Koch has lobbied on issues such whether companies should have to disclose their true owners, a permanent tax deferral for certain income from investment in foreign controlled companies, exemptions from the regulations of credit swaps in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms, legislation to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, and numerous bills affecting the pollution of Americans’ water. Rager is a paralegal for KCPS, but it’s not clear if Rager works for Kim or another lawyer. The Task Force’s Recent Focus: Redistricting and Opposing Bans on “Pay to Play” The first order of business the day Kim and Rager were listed as attending ALEC’s crime task force last year was the approval of minutes describing the task force’s agenda in DC after the 2010 mid-term elections. At that meeting in the nation’s capitol a few months earlier, Mark Braden of the law firm Baker Hostedler kicked off the task force with his presentation on redistricting, that is, how to revise electoral maps after the census, a top priority for the new ALEC majorities in several states. As the Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD’s) PRWatch has documented, Braden—the former Chief Counsel to the Republican National Committee—also advised ALEC’s Republican members in Wisconsin on remapping legislative districts in the spring of 2011. Money Handshake Other ALEC business in the minutes referenced included opposition to “Pay to Play Legislation,” meaning opposing bills that would ban government contractors from donating to political campaigns. The “model” resolution opposing such a ban was spearheaded by right-winger Bradley Smith’s special interest outfit, the “Center for Competitive Politics” (CCP), through its then-president Sean Parnell (who is also an “expert” for the Heartland Institute, which been funded by Koch money). CCP does not reveal which corporations, CEOs, or family foundations fund its operations, which focus on advancing the notions that money is speech and that corporations and CEOs should be able to spend unlimited money influencing elections. CCP even opposed new disclosure rules after Citizens United in the DISCLOSE Act, just as ALEC opposed new disclosure in response to that U.S. Supreme Court decision. CCP’s 2010 “model” resolution against state legislatures enacting Pay to Play bans passed with unanimous support of the public and private sector members. At the April 2011 meeting with two Koch reps sitting as members, the minutes of that meeting were “unanimously” adopted by “voice vote” of public and private sector members. Surprise? Task Force Approves Corporate Payday, Rejects Transparency In Cincinnati, with the Koch employees on deck, the first piece of model legislation on the agenda was a bill promoted by TASER. That’s the leading stun-gun manufacturer whose profits jumped to $3.8 million in the first quarter of this year. Its then-Vice President of Government and Public Affairs, Peter Holran, made the pitch to the Task Force’s legislators and “private sector” members. That bill is designed to create an “assessment,” or tax, on taxpayer fines for traffic violations and then split the proceeds between the agency issuing the citation and a fund to buy stun guns and other equipment. TASER’s model bill “passed the private sector unanimously,” according to newly revealed documents, and was also unanimously approved by the legislators voting. This model bill basically creates a special pool of money, aside from other budgetary constraints plaguing cities and states, for the purchase of the kind of weapons sold by the company advancing the bill, which dubs this arrangement a safety equipment fund. This is where ALEC’s “free market” mantra meets “crony capitalism”—your traffic cops at work, getting a slice of the pie from every ticket for their budgets with some dough for Tasers and other purchases. Koch’s Lobbying ShopThe bill was adopted unanimously. There’s no indication that Koch’s Kim or Rager or other corporate reps expressed any reservations about this potentially great deal for part of the weapons industry. There is no record that there were any abstentions or objections; the approval was “unanimous.” Several other crime bills passed unanimously, but a model bill to require “state legislatures to provide adequate notice before public hearings or votes so that citizens are able to participate in the legislative process in a meaningful way” failed. It did not get the support of ALEC politicians on the task force co-chaired by Wisconsin Rep. Scott Suder, who is now ALEC’s co-chair for the state. There is no indication in the records publicly available that Kim or Rager or others spoke up for the public’s opportunity to comment on proposed changes to state law as the “Legislative Transparency Act” went down in flames at the Cincinnati task force meeting last spring. There is no indication that Koch’s reps voted against any crime or democracy bills last April. A “Model” Proposal to Bar Police from Destroying Crime Guns? Why and when did Koch Industries buy a seat and a vote on ALEC’s crime and elections task force? After the spotlight began to intensify on ALEC with the launch of CMD’s ALECexposed last summer, ALEC mostly stopped distributing the list of task force members in attendance at its meetings. However, Koch was still listed on the Public Safety and Elections Task Force roster last summer. Kim and Rager were both listed as members representing Koch in the task force packet distributed for the summer meeting in New Orleans. At the August meeting, the NRA, the immediate past co-chair of that task force, proposed more gun bills. One of those bills distributed to members was a bill to bar law enforcement from destroying crime guns. According to the minutes from the New Orleans meeting, a model bill introduced by the NRA’s Tara Mica received the “unanimous” approval of all the public and private sector members present but did not list the members. There is no public record indicating that Koch objected to that bill, if it was present or in any other way. And, although the bill to make new legislative transparency provisions legally binding on legislatures had failed in the spring, in the midst of increasing public awareness and concern about ALEC, ALEC’s task force approved a statement of principles generally favoring transparency in August. That resolution was not binding, unlike the bill that was blocked. The resolution passed at a task force meeting that was anything but transparent, with the press and public excluded from observing its votes and discussion, as with other ALEC task force meetings. Blocking Cities from Barring “Machine Guns” and Cop-Killer Bullets? Similarly, when the Public Safety and Elections Task Force met at the Kierland Resort in Arizona, the NRA proposed new amendments to an older ALEC “Consistency in Firearms Regulation” model bill. That bill bars lawsuits by cities against gun manufacturers, sellers, and trade groups and also pre-empts local cities from regulating or taxing guns in other ways. Late last year, the NRA proposed to ALEC new amendments that would expressly forbid cities from banning residents from owning extremely dangerous “machine guns,” “submachine guns,” and other guns. Its amendments would also block cities from restricting the sale of ammunition (with no exception for especially dangerous projectiles such as armor piercing ammo, known as cop-killer bullets), and from barring guns from being altered to make them more deadly. It’s not clear why in 2011 the NRA felt so emboldened that it could make explicit what it could not in 1995 when the bill was first listed as an ALEC model or in 1999 when it was reaffirmed by ALEC’s task force and ALEC’s public sector board. ALEC Corporate Board in 1999And who was the chairman of ALEC’s Private Sector Board in 1999 when ALEC re-affirmed the legislative template to block cities from suing gun manufacturers and from regulating firearms? It was Koch Industries. In 1999, Koch’s Michael K. Morgan was the chairman of the board. There is no public record indicating that he ever raised any objections to this part of the NRA’s agenda or other NRA model bills approved by ALEC. ALEC attempts to emphasize that the private sector board does not affirmatively vote on model bills approved by private sector and public sector members on its task forces, but there is no indication that its corporate board is expected to remain silent regarding ALEC’s agenda and operations. And, last year, temporarily casting aside its long rhetorical defense of firearms for hunting and sporting, the NRA apparently wanted to ensure that machine guns were not banned in cities—guns whose rapid repeating rounds have nothing to do with hunting deer or other game and everything to do with maximizing the death toll when fired at human beings. The NRA’s proposed amendments were approved “unanimously” by the task force’s private and public sector members in Scottsdale, Arizona, on December 2, 2011. The minutes of that meeting distributed last month do not list which of ALEC’s 2011 task force members were in Scottsdale and who unanimously approved this NRA bill and others proposed last winter. Accordingly, there is no contemporaneously prepared and publicly distributed record of whether Koch representatives voted on the NRA’s machine gun protection amendments or not or whether Koch objected in any way to this part of the agenda for ALEC. Other bills on the agenda in Arizona included a failed effort to change ALEC’s position that favors the undemocratic Electoral College and opposes “national popular vote” (meaning the president who wins the popular vote wins the presidency), and Koch’s view of them, if any, is unknown. Secrecy Cloaks Koch Role, But It Was on the Task Force the NRA Led Unlike for the Cincinnati task force meeting a year ago, for the May 2012 meeting in Charlotte, ALEC members were not sent a list of the names and contact information for their fellow members in preparation for the task force meeting. That is, there is no verifiable public record of whether or not Koch Industries continued its membership on this task force beyond 2011, although Koch (through Morgan) remains on ALEC’s board, according to the new materials Common Cause obtained in support of its complaint to the IRS that ALEC is a corporate lobbying group masquerading as a charity. Since ALEC operates in the shadows and records are incomplete, it is not clear how many years prior to 2012 Koch previously paid to play on this task force. After all, Koch’s KCPS, represented by Kim, was listed on ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force roster not only in 2011 but also in 2010. ALEC and the NRA Who was the private sector co-chair of that task force when Koch was listed on its 2010 roster? None other than the NRA. It was represented as the Public Safety and Elections Task Force co-chair through its government relations rep Tara Mica. Yet, Koch Industries has been on the offensive against those connecting the dots between the NRA, ALEC, and Koch. It has pointed to a single bill it opposed in Florida that would have resulted in the arming of its employees on the job against its will. Apparently, in that instance, the corporation didn’t think doing so was a good idea. Many employers probably think it’s not a good idea to have employees carrying guns around the workplace. That particular gun bill, however, was not ratified or adopted as an ALEC model, either. There is no indication Koch Industries or its representatives ever objected to sitting on a Public Safety and Elections Task Force co-chaired by the NRA or its agenda. In fact, there is no publicly available evidence that Koch, as a long-time ALEC board member and funder, objected to the NRA co-chairing that task force for a number of years. There is no evidence Koch ever objected to any NRA initiative in 2010 and 2011 when it irrefutably was listed as a member of that task force. And, there is no public record that Koch ever used its seat on that task force to move to repeal or revoke NRA bills previously endorsed as the model bills of that task force, such as the SYG/Castle Doctrine bill, the bill barring city lawsuits against gun manufacturers, or ALEC’s opposition to the federal assault weapons ban, for example. It is simply not known how many years beyond 2010 and 2011, if any, Koch had a seat on ALEC’s crime task force during the nearly two decades Koch has had a seat on ALEC’s corporate board, but cost was certainly not an impediment. After all, the going rate for an ALEC corporate member to buy a seat and a vote on that task force last year was a mere $2500. With Koch’s reported revenue of $100 billion per year, the annual fee for this task force is a little less than the company makes in, literally, the stroke of a single second on the hands of a clock.The Philadelphia Union's need for a goal-scoring forward has led them to a familiar face in MLS circles, an enigmatic but dangerous striker who could provide the spark up top the Union desperately needs in year one. The Union has filed a discovery claim on former MLS MVP Carlos Ruiz and is trying to sign the striker before the close of the April 15 transfer window, Sources within MLS told SBI on Thursday. Ruiz is currently playing for Mexican First Division club Puebla. Philadelphia had been rumored to be pursuing former D.C. United striker Luciano Emilio, but with D.C. United holding his rights and seeking compensation for those rights, the Union has turned its attention to Ruiz. An MLS Cup winner and League MVP with the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2002, Ruiz has scored 83 goals in parts of seven MLS seasons. He most recently played for Toronto FC in 2008, before heading to Paraguay to play for Olimpia. Ruiz signed with Puebla last summer and has scored six goals for the Mexican club since joining. Ruiz's last two seasons in MLS were uneventful, but he has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in Mexico, establishing himself as a regular starter for Puebla. Ruiz's days could be numbered at Puebla though, with American striker Herculez Gomez hitting his goal-scoring stride, having scored eight goals in 10 matches. What do you think of this development? Think Ruiz can help the Union? Not sold on him still being a top goal scorer in MLS? Share your thoughts below.White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday said Congress is not ready to go ahead with a vote on major healthcare legislation, despite expressions of optimism from other aides. “We’re getting closer and closer every day, but we’re not there yet,” Spicer said when asked if there are enough votes in the House to put a bill on the floor. Spicer said that the White House was not going to set a timeline and that it’s up to Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) and House GOP leadership to call a vote. He expressed confidence that the new GOP proposal to repeal and replace ObamaCare is going in the right direction. ADVERTISEMENT “I would never want to get in front of the Speaker,” Spicer said. “We have a good whip count. Ultimately, the Speaker and House leadership determine when to call a vote.” “We feel confident in the direction it’s going, seeing more and more members come on board. We feel very good.” The comments came after White House chief of staff and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn expressed confidence a vote would be held this week. “I think we do,” Cohn said on CBS News when asked if Republicans had enough votes to pass it. “This is going to be a great week,” he said. “We’re going to get healthcare down to the floor of the House. We’re convinced we’ve got the votes, and we’re going to keep moving on with our agenda.” During a separate interview with CBS, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said he believes there will be a vote this week. "I certainly hope so.... I think it will happen this week,” he said. The White House's penchant for setting arbitrary deadlines for congressional action on repealing and replacing ObamaCare has irked top GOP offices. Yet time is running out for the House to act on the healthcare bill, with the budget window set to close later this month. The Hill's whip count indicates the latest version of the bill might not have enough support to pass the House.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. Sep. 2, 2017, 9:30 AM GMT / Updated Sep. 2, 2017, 9:30 AM GMT By Petra Cahill and Lawahez Jabari QALQILYA, West Bank — Residents in this Palestinian city never see the sunset; Israel's imposing security wall blocks the view towards the west, and much else. Now, a skateboarding summer camp in Qalqilya is helping kids to see a new horizon. “When you get on the skateboard, you don’t think about all the problems you have. All you’re focused on is that you have to stay on the board and not fall,” said Abdullah Milhem, a 17-year-old from Qalqilya who first picked up a skateboard five years ago. He says his hobby has changed his life and gave him a positive outlet for his energy instead of hanging out on the streets or getting involved in drugs or violence. “You have this feeling of flying," said Milhem. "You have this feeling like you can do anything.” That’s exactly the kind of empowerment the organizers of the nonprofit camp, SkateQilya, are hoping to foster by using the skateboard as a tool to teach independence, creativity and leadership skills to young Palestinians in the West Bank, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. SkateQilya is the fruit of years of collaboration between executive director Mohammed Othman, a Palestinian community organizer and film producer, and New Yorkers Adam Abel, an artist, and Kenny Reed, a former professional skateboarder known as the “Traveler” because of his work in countries such as Afghanistan and North Korea. A female camper hits the ramp at SkateQilya in the West Bank. Adam Abel / Courtesy SkateQilya The three-week, non-residential program gets much of its funding from an American non-profit called “Playgrounds for Palestine.” They also use the Indiegogo website to crowdfund campaigns and say they have received donations of money and equipment from all over the world — including from the shoe company Converse and individuals in the West Bank, Israel and the U.S. 'Skaters don’t care about politics' Othmand and Abel initially worked on a documentary about skateboarders and hip-hop culture in the West Bank in 2011. They built a skateboarding ramp, but when it began to fall into disrepair in 2015, they decided to do more than just rebuild it. The following year, the two launched the non-profit summer camp for Palestinian kids. The camp is focused on what organizers see as three integrated activities: Reed teaches the kids how to skateboard, Abel leads photography and videography classes and Othman does community building — teaching boys and girls to work and play together — as well as leadership training.This summer they worked with 35 children between the ages of 9 and 17. The program's location in Qalqilya, hemmed in by Israel’s 26-foot tall concrete wall, is not lost on anyone involved. An instructor lends a hand at SkateQilya in the West Bank. Adam Abel / Courtesy SkateQilya Israeli officials often refer to the barrier as an “anti-terror obstacle,” while Palestinians call it an “apartheid” wall that they say cuts them off from the world and reinforces the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Palestinians say the wall undermines the goal of a two-state solution — a position widely backed by the international community. “I feel like I am above the walls. We are... flying and there is nothing that can stop us.” Othman is proud of the SkateQilya logo which imagines a skateboarder soaring off the wall, liberated from its confines. He said the project aims to teach the kids "to break all these barriers, to break all these borders, because, skaters don’t care about politics." And for the camp's leaders, the sport epitomizes freedom. “Skateboarding specifically, it’s a sport where there are no boundaries,” said Abel, the artist. “There are no rules, there is no winning and losing. It’s extremely creative.” A place for boys and girls And the organizers have been adamant that the camp is a place for boys and girls — some from very traditional backgrounds — to learn how to interact. The fact that girls are full participants is a particular badge of honor, according to Othman. “Everyone thinks Qalqilya is a conservative city, but last year we had 12 boys and 12 girls. This year, the summer camp, we had more girls than boys,” he said. And the girls are having a ball. Shahed Helal, left, and Faiza Mata'a, right, are two campers at SkateQilya in the West Bank. Khaldoon Eid / NBC News “It’s an amazing experience, because it’s a new thing in Palestine. There are not too many girls skating,” said Faiza Mata’a, a 17-year-old girl from Haja, a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank. Sporting a pink Yankees baseball cap over her hijab, glasses and a T-shirt with the SkateQilya logo, she explained that her parents not only told her it was okay to go skateboarding, but encouraged her to do so. Mata’a described the feeling skateboarding provokes: “I feel like I am above the walls. We are, like, flying and there is nothing that can stop us.” Her friend and co-camper Shahed Helal, 16, is also from Qalqilya but now lives in Saudi Arabia. In fact, she believes she is the first female skateboarder in the kingdom, all with her parents blessing. “I skate in Saudi Arabia. It’s not a normal thing, especially for girls. Everyone looks at me … saying ‘What is she doing?’ explained Helal who was wearing a bright coral-colored hijab that matched her eyeglasses under a straight-brimmed skater cap. “But I don’t care what people say about me because I love this sport.” To Abel, giving the kids that chance to play is vital to their development. “The idea of playing, it’s so important, but it often gets lost in places like Palestine where there are such urgent needs,” said Abel. “There are medical needs, there are security needs, there are education needs. At the same time, we have to remember that these kids have to learn to play. They have to learn how to be active with each other.” 'Instantly friends' For Milhem, who speaks fluent English with an American accent he picked up watching movies, skateboarding is about connecting with people. Abdullah Milhem says picking up a skateboard makes him feel like he is "flying...you have this feeling like you can do anything." Khaldoon Eid / NBC News “Whatever religion or race you come from — if you’re a skater and I’m a skater — we’re just instantly friends. That’s how skateboarding is,” said Milhem, who worked as an assistant skate instructor with the camp this summer. But skateboarding has also taught this young man, who dreams of escaping the confines of Qalqilya, about resilience. “When you fall on a skateboard, it hurts. It hurts bad. Skateboarding teaches you to get back up on your feet every time you fall. Try again and again and until you land. Until you succeed.” Lawahez Jabari reported from the West Bank. Petra Cahill reported from London.Bangladeshi inventor Ashis Paul has figured out how to repurpose plastic bottles into a low-cost, easy-to-make, electricity-free air conditioner that can help the country's poorest better tolerate the sweltering summer heat. The science behind the Eco-Cooler is based on the idea that the bottleneck becomes a funnel that compresses and cools the air that runs through it by about five degrees, according to the Eco-Cooler website. It's the same principle that governs blowing air through pursed lips — the air comes out cooler despite the body's 98-degree-Fahrenheit temperature. Volunteers install eco-coolers. More The AC unit also adds to the list of ways plastic bottles can be recycled. Around 50 billion water bottles are used on an annual basis, and only 20% get recycled — the rest end up in landfills. In the summer, temperatures in Bangladesh, where many rural citizens live in tin huts and without electricity, can reach up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. These eco-coolers would act as a window in the walls to catch passing breezes. Over 25,000 eco-coolers have been installed in Bangladesh so far by Grameen Intel employees and Grey Dhaka volunteers. The DIY air conditioner has no copyright, and an instruction manual for making one can be found online, encouraging anyone interested to build one.Perhaps it was inevitable when the Obama Administration launched its We the People online petition site in 2011 that the administration’s responses to petitions would draw the ire of pissed off pot smokers and online poker enthusiasts. The administration’s most recent response, however, drew the ire of a more powerful foe: The League of Women Voters. The January 11 petition asked President Obama to nominate new members to the Federal Election Commission. The response, from Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy Tonya Robinson, skirted that main issue, stating that “the Administration doesn't comment publicly about the President's personnel decisions before he makes them,” but noted that “the Obama Administration is committed to nominating highly qualified individuals to lead the FEC” and that “the system of open and fair elections that the FEC is charged with protecting deserve no less.” The League shot back in a letter provided to Nextgov that “the White House’s lackluster response” was “not just disappointing to us, but undoubtedly let down the over 27,000 Americans who joined our call and signed the petition.” “After waiting four months, we found your response -- delivered after 5 p.m. on a Friday evening -- uninspiring and uninformative,” the response continued. “It offered only vague, generic support for enforcement of our nation’s campaign finance laws. Essentially, this tepid response demonstrates that after nearly four years in office, you do not consider fixing the FEC a priority.” The response also noted that “repeated statements are not a substitute for real action.” It was signed by 12 organizations, including the League, Americans for Campaign Reform and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.ABC has pulled drama “Time After Time” from its schedule, effectively canceling the freshman drama series. A time-travel story following fictional versions of H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper, “Time After Time” debuted March 5 to a soft 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic over its two-hour premiere and an average audience of 2.53 million, according to Nielsen data. Over four weeks, it has averaged a 0.5 in the demo and 2.2 million viewers. “Time After Time” is produced by Outerbanks Entertainment in association with Warner Bros. Television. Kevin Williamson and Marcos Siega (“Blindspot,” “The Following”) serve as executive producers. Siega directed the pilot, with Williamson writing the teleplay. The show is based on the novel written by Karl Alexander. The series is being replaced in its Sunday, 9 p.m. time period for the next three weeks by Alec Baldwin-hosted celebrity gameshow “Match Game.” “Time After Time” becomes the second scripted broadcast freshman to be pulled from the air this season. CBS canceled “Doubt” last month after airing only two episodes. In her review of “Time After Time” for Variety this month, Sonia Saraiya wrote, “The studied shallowness of ‘Time After Time’s’ approach to violence makes for a sickening dynamic that attempts to cheaply humanize a serial killer. And while a shallow look at violence might be all that broadcast television’s standards and practices will allow, it feels both flat and exploitative.”Apple's most iconic computers The first iMac came in bright colors and a round body. Apple Over the past 30 years, Apple's (AAPL) products have reshaped industries and revolutionized the digital age. In 1976, shortly after Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak introduced the original Apple Computer at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, Calif., a local computer dealer bought 100 hand-built, fully assembled Apple I computers for $50,000. That seed has since blossomed into the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalization approaching $500 billion. Apple has arguably had an even larger impact on the look and feel of technology, with an aesthetic that traces back to the Bauhaus and mid-20th century German industrial design. Here, we look back at some of the iconic electronic company's most groundbreaking devices, from the original Apple I to the iPad. Apple's most iconic computers Birth of a Legend Apple I The "original Apple Computer" was first introduced in 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, Calif. Hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the all-in-one personal computer kit included no monitor, keyboard, or mouse, though once hooked up to the necessary accessories it was able to process and display 60 typed characters per second, an output sixfold to that of then-standard teletypes. Wozniak and Jobs produced and sold roughly 200 models, each of which carried a sticker price of $666.66. Wozniak said he chose the repeating numbers because "it was just an easier way to type" the price tag. Photo courtesy of Ed Uthman via Wikimedia Commons Apple's most iconic computers Apple II Apple Computer released its second model, Apple II, in 1977. It had built-in audio speakers and color graphics compatibility, and was the first to brandish Apple Computer's iconic rainbow logo. Wozniak said many of the features that made Apple II stand out were added only because he had taken on the "pet project" of designing Breakout, a video game by Atari, and wanted to "show it off at the club." Apple II broke out roughly six months after the company incorporated itself as Apple Computer. That name stuck until Jan. 6, 2007, when Jobs unveiled the iPhone at the Macworld Conference and Expo and announced that the company was formally changing its name to Apple. Photo courtesy of Devin Cook via Wikimedia Commons Apple's most iconic computers Apple Lisa Lisa, which launched in 1983, was the first personal computer equipped with a graphical user interface. Jobs took part in the early stages of Lisa's development, which began in 1978, though six years later he was shooed out of the project and joined the Macintosh development team. The GUI-based Lisa was supposed to appeal individual business owners, though the $9,995 price tag didn't help. The company sold only 10,000 units. According to legend, Apple Computer buried its excess stock of Lisas in a landfill in Utah. Photo courtesy of Rama via Wikimedia Commons Apple's most iconic computers Macintosh 128k Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh in 1984, most notably in a now-famous commercial by movie director Ridley Scott that first aired during Superbowl XVIII on CBS. The scene depicts a twisted take on "1984," the classic novel by George Orwell in which the protagonist faces off against a dictator who spies on and subjugates people using state-of-the-art electronic devices. The original Apple Macintosh had 128KB of built-in memory. Photo courtesy of Grm wnr via Wikimedia Commons Apple's most iconic computers Macintosh Plus Introduced in 1986, the Macintosh Plus was the third personal computer in the original Macintosh line and the first to run System 7 OS, a GUI-based operating system that featured virtual memory, file-sharing, and QuickTime. Mac Plus came with 1MB of RAM, though the memory could be expanded to 4MB. Photo courtesy of Rama via Wikimedia Commons Apple's most iconic computers Alexander Schaelss Macintosh II Apple Computer introduced the second series of Macintosh models on March 2, 1987, the same day it released Macintosh SE, whose internal drive bay and "System Expansion" slot marked significant improvement to its predecessor, Macintosh Plus. Mac II was the first Apple computer to support a color display. It sold for an introductory price of $5,500, nearly twice the cost of the Macintosh SE. Photo courtesy of Alexander Schaelss via Wikimedia Commons Apple's most iconic computers Vokabre / Flickr Macintosh Portable Apple launched its first battery-powered computer on September 20, 1989. The Macintosh Portable included a built-in track ball and an "instant on" low power sleep mode. It weighed about 16 pounds, cost about $400 a pound and was the first computer to send an email message from space. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Vokabre Apple's most iconic computers Power Macintosh 6100 Apple Computer introduced the Power Mac in 1994. The 6100 series, also know as the Performa 6100, featured the PowerPC RISC type processor inside Centris 610's slick "pizza box" low-profile case. The model introduced Apple's iconic "chimes," which replaced the harsh "bong" sound played by earlier models on start-up. Photo courtesy of CNET Apple's most iconic computers The first iMac came in bright colors and a round body. Apple iMac G3 After Jobs proclaimed himself "interim CEO" of Apple in 1997, two of his first significant decisions were cooling the company's rivalry with Microsoft (MSFT) and trimming down Apple's wide range of desktop Macs. The iMac G3, which introduced an all-new fleet of Macintosh, was an egg-shaped machine available in a variety of translucent colors and shipped with a keyboard and mouse. It featured dual headphone jacks, built-in stereo speakers, and a build-in handle. It was also the first personal computer to include USB ports as standard hardware.Replaced By Player English Français Floor Wide Player Question Period June 2, 2016 Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef faces renewed Conservative calls for a referendum on possible electoral reforms. The fresh demands come after a government deal with the NDP altering the makeup of a parliamentary committee to study possible reforms. As dairy farmers protest outside, parliamentary secretary Jean-Claude Poissant (Agriculture) responds to concerns about threats to the supply management system. Parliamentary secretary Pablo Rodriguez (Infrastructure and Communities) faces questions about spending on office space and furniture within the new infrastructure ministry. Parliamentary secretary Pam Goldsmith-Jones (Foreign Affairs) is asked about Canada’s diplomatic relations with China. Parliamentary secretary Serge Cormier (Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard) responds to concerns about a possible conflict of interest arising from the recent appointment of Dominic LeBlanc as fisheries minister. (June 2, 2016)Like bubbles bursting on the surface of a glass of champagne, 'bubbles' in our Galaxy burst and leave flecks of material in the form of clouds of hydrogen gas, researchers using CSIRO's Parkes telescope have found. Their study explains the origin of
the EU via NI without being subject to the tariffs they wish to put in their way. I don’t think anyone in Britain is particularly worried about EU goods being smuggled into Britain and avoiding British tariffs. At least anyone sensible. The EU therefore want a hard border to prevent this, but they don’t want to be seen as imposing it because that would seriously piss off the Irish on the south side. So, from what I can tell, the EU is demanding the British put in a hard border to keep the two customs regimes separate and making out it is a British obligation as a result of Brexit. The advantage in this is that it would make the Brits extremely unpopular, and the whipped-up anger from rent-a-gobs in Ireland can be used to bash Brexiteers over the head. Which leaves me wondering why the British government doesn’t simply say: “We have no interest in a hard border, but we may put a few cursory customs posts on our side if we feel like it. If the Irish or EU want a hard border and to control everything that goes in or out, they are free to put one in place – on their side of the line.” Am I missing something here? Or is the reason we are not saying this simply that Theresa May is blitheringly stupid and incompetent? That I could well believe. Also, I don’t think waving the Good Friday agreement around is a sensible tactic. Firstly, the British public were not informed that signing the Good Friday agreement meant the UK could never leave the EU; had they been, it would never have been passed. Secondly, there are probably a good few Brits – especially among those who voted Leave – who might want to scrap the Good Friday agreement and immediately move to prosecute the likes of Gerry Adams and others who have blood on their hands. This is particularly true while former British soldiers are still being hauled in front of courts for their conduct forty years ago. The more attention is drawn to the Good Friday agreement, the more Brits might be inclined to revisit it – particularly if it is being held up as a blocking point to leaving the EU. And let’s be honest, for all the squawking about the Good Friday agreement, that ship has sailed. Terrorism is a lot less fun these days – the perpetrators tend to get killed outright – and the Americans are strangely less inclined to fund the murder of civilians since 9/11. The main players who were making the bombs and laying the traps for the British during The Troubles are well past retirement age now, and won’t have much stomach for returning to the field against an opponent which is a lot more technically savvy than they are. Is there a new generation of nationalist youngsters ready to dig up the arms caches and start fighting the British over an EU-imposed hard border between NI and Eire? I highly doubt it. It’s high time the British called their bluff and closed this issue out: border or no-border, this is an Irish/EU problem and we don’t care either way.In defiance of civil rights defenders, legal experts and its own MPs, Britain’s newly elected Conservative majority government plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. It’s tempting to imagine that a bill of British-rather-than-universal rights would simply preserve the great cultural traditions unique to the kingdom’s heritage. Such as Londoners’ right to ride an underground that is peerless in its ability to break down six times along the five stops between St. Pancras and Victoria Stations. Or to spend a great deal of public money on the housing, feeding and adornment of a well-off family, and a great deal more private money on small porcelain objects that feature the distorted visages of said family. Or even, and perhaps especially, to make wry remarks about Wales and every man, woman and sheep residing therein, this right limited only by the clause that all such remarks made since 1928 are roundly bested by Evelyn Waugh’s: “From the earliest times the Welsh have been looked upon as an unclean people. It is thus that they have preserved their racial integrity.” Sadly, Prime Minister David Cameron isn’t on a mission to protect those rights. Instead, he’s gone with the unimaginative and predictable let’s-chuck-the-Human-Rights-Act-in-the-bin-“so that foreign criminals can be more easily deported from Britain” route. This route may be filled with legal and logical gaps, but it’s smoothed out by the fact that universal rights aren’t universally beloved. Some observers suggest that the distrust of universal rights is rooted in the racist belief that some kinds of people don’t deserve them. But I think there’s a much broader belief in play: the belief that human rights aren’t nearly as universal as their name suggests — that, rather than protect everyone, they’re designed to help a small coterie of bad guys, whoever the bad guys may be. Right now, the bad guy may be presumed Muslim. But where populism prospers, “elites” are targeted too. In what was at least a refreshing near-departure from scapegoating visible or religious minorities, last week one Daily Telegraph columnist also railed against the whole lot of civil rights defenders — or, as she calls it, the “human rights industry” — which has “grown fat and contented on the suffering of others.” That’s Big Human Rights, all right: notorious for preying on society’s most vulnerable, like Big Tobacco and Big Oil before it. But apart from helping courts stand up for the terrorists and entrench NGO privilege, might universal human rights benefit any other humans? Might universal rights even be — dare we say it — universal? There’s some evidence to suggest that they may be so, if only in the form of thousands of court cases upholding the rights of children, domestic slaves, parents, hospital patients, gay people, the elderly, journalists, disabled people, victims of domestic violence, and anyone unlucky enough to have ever used an Internet connection or mobile phone. In Europe alone, human rights legislation has helped ensure that teachers can’t hit kids, employers can’t fire someone for supporting political parties they don’t like, mothers can’t be forced to let medical students watch them give birth, deceased fathers can have their name on the birth certificates of their children, authorities have to investigate child abuse, police have to investigate rape, public transit has to be accessible to disabled people, being gay isn’t a crime, journalism isn’t a crime, people of all sexual orientations should be able to enjoy inheritances, children of all races should be able to not enjoy going to school, and no government should ever be able to enjoy the power to torture people, or kill them, or keep them from expressing themselves, or to prevent the free election of a new government. It’s true that human rights — including some just listed — aren’t wholly dependent on the particular law that Cameron doesn’t like. It’s also true that human rights are occasionally accessed by human beings who the rest of us find deeply unlikable. But shouldn’t we all expect to be treated humanely? It’s a bare-minimum expectation better realized by legislation that defines rights as universal, not the purview of whatever type of person or place that finds itself currently in favour. Shannon Gormley is a Canadian journalist.In 1845 Frederick Douglass published what was to be the first of his three autobiographies: the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. As the title suggests, Douglass wished not only to highlight the irony that a land founded on freedom would permit slavery to exist within its midst, but also to establish that he, an American slave with no formal education, was the sole author of the work. Written in the years following his 1838 escape from his Maryland slaveholder, the narrative reveals numerous instances of Douglass's courage on his journey from slave to free man. Douglass himself punctuates this route by sharing with the reader his tenacious and ingenious efforts at learning how to read and write, his risky physical opposition to a "nigger-breaker," and his escape to New York. These courageous acts pale, however, beside his most overt and possibly dangerous act: the publishing of his autobiography before his freedom had been purchased. Indeed, in 1845 Douglass was still legally a slave; at any time he could have been betrayed, hunted down, captured and returned to his master who, more than likely, would have sold Douglass further down South as punishment. It was not until 1847, while Douglass was traveling and lecturing in England that friends bought his freedom. For Douglass, however, his personal declaration of freedom and independence occurred two years earlier with his Narrative. The Narrative in itself is remarkable for the views on slavery and slaveholders that Douglass bravely presents. First, Douglass asserts his humanity in the face of the dehumanizing institution of slavery. In doing so, he sets an example to other slaves to insist upon their humanity, and he persuades his reading audience to acknowledge this humanity, too. He claims as his intellectual birthright the opportunity to learn to read and write. He refuses to accept anything less than his own physical, spiritual, and intellectual freedom. Moreover, he never hesitates to criticize directly—often with withering irony—those who uphold slavery and those who prefer a romanticized version of it. Pitilessly, Douglass offers the reader a first-hand account of the pain, humiliation and brutality of the South's "peculiar institution." His is not an account of moonlight, magnolias, and happily singing workers. Instead, he points out the cruelty and the corrupting influence of power not only on the victim, but also on the perpetrator—the slave holder. Lastly, Douglass's Narrative is a courageous work because it confronts the misuse of Christianity in perpetuating the widely held belief in the slave owner's "God-given" right to own or sell other human beings. In this curriculum unit, students will read Douglass's narrative with particular attention devoted to chapters 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, and 10. They will analyze Douglass's vivid first-hand accounts of the lives of slaves and the behavior of slave owners to see how he successfully contrasts reality with romanticism and powerfully uses imagery, irony, connotative and denotative language, strong active verbs, repetition, and rhetorical appeals to persuade the reader of slavery's evil. Students will also identify and discuss Douglass's acts of physical and intellectual courage on his journey towards freedom.As Americans gear up to eat more than 40 million pounds of turkey this month, a handful of U.S. senators are calling for stronger Department of Agriculture oversight to reduce pathogens in poultry. Their push follows a recent government report that found poultry products – such as chicken and turkey – cause more foodborne-illness deaths than any other commodity. “It is our belief that new, strong pathogen standards must be established to reduce the number of foodborne illnesses and deaths attributed to poultry products,” wrote U.S. senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in a letter dated Oct. 20. Photo by Robert Holly/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting The Government Accountability Office released its report in October, identifying several challenges that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service faces in its oversight of poultry. While the inspection agency is responsible for monitoring the safety of all meat, eggs and poultry produced in the United States, it lacks enforcement power and has disjointed industry standards, according to the report. For example, the agency can recommend a food recall when it suspects health hazards, but it cannot enforce one. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does have that authority, however. And, although it has sampling standards for whole turkey and chicken carcasses, it does not have standards for raw or mechanically separated poultry parts. “As a result, plants are able to meet standards for young chicken carcasses but then have an outbreak associated with chicken parts,” the report stated. In addition to those challenges, the agency – which operated with a budget of about $1 billion during this current fiscal year – is tasked with regulating more than 6,000 food-production facilities scattered throughout the country. Photo provided by the Government Accountability Office Despite the report’s criticism and the policymakers’ concern, officials from one of the top turkey processors in the world said the U.S. poultry industry has steadily taken steps to reduce the risk of foodborne illness. “We are confident in the safety of the products that we produce for our consumers,” said Scott Eilert, vice president of food safety, quality and regulatory affairs for Kansas-based Cargill Turkey and Cooked Meats, in an email. “We continuously seek new and better ways to reduce the risk of foodborne illness and to advance best practices in our meat and poultry business.” Cargill has invested more than $1 billion in food-safety efforts throughout the past 15 years, Eilert said, adding that it also employs about 700 train food-safety professionals throughout its North American animal-protein operations. The company produces about 1 billion pounds of turkey each year. Nonetheless, foodborne illnesses in the United States may have cost more than $15 billion in medical expenses and lost wages last year, an Economic Research Service analysis concluded. “The lack of authority and the division of authority between FDA and USDA is incredibly challenging,” said Paige Tomaselli, a senior attorney for the advocacy group Center for Food Safety. Photo by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting Outbreaks highlight food safety In 2014, a salmonella outbreak linked to Foster Farms chicken infected more than 600 people. In 2013, a different salmonella outbreak linked to Foster Farms chicken affected 134 people. And in 2011, yet another salmonella outbreak linked to ground turkey produced by Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation sickened more than 130 people and was responsible for at least one death. “We focus on making sure that we purchase breeding stock that test negative for randomly and naturally occurring salmonella, and we employ rigorous sanitation and control measures at our breeder farms, hatcheries and grow-out farms,” Eilert said. “We also employ food safety interventions measures at our processing facilities and conduct a high degree of monitoring to ensure these interventions are as effective as possible.” Even with the outbreaks, Catherine Cutter – who works as a professor and food-safety extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Food Science – said food-safety has come a long way in the United States. Progress, she said, took off with the introduction of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plan, better known simply as HACCP, in 1996. HACCP is a process that determines when hazards might be introduced in food production. Under HACCP, companies are responsible for identifying food-safety hazards and establishing internal controls that prevent or reduce those hazards. “If you look at baseline data for pathogen prevalence in poultry products and even meat products, we have seen a marked decrease in the incidents of these pathogens in meat and poultry products since the implantation of HACCP,” said Cutter, who previously worked as a USDA microbiologist and served as a secretary-of-agriculture-appointed member of the National Advisory Committee for Meat and Poultry. “We’ve made great strides and seen significant improvement in reducing pathogens in our meat and poultry supply,” she added. In some aspects, the accountability office report suggested otherwise. In 2006, the Food Safety and Inspection Service launched an initiative to reduce salmonella in poultry products. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevent reported that, since that initiative, salmonella infections in humans have not decreased and the incidence of campylobacter in humans has increased by about 13 percent. Read: letter from U.S. senators on poultry standards Letter to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack From Three Senators Regarding GAO Study of Food Pathogen Standards (PDF) Letter to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack From Three Senators Regarding GAO Study of Food Pathogen Standards (Text) Use the above window to read through the letter on poultry standards from U.S. senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Zoom in or out with the slide bar on the top right corner. Flip from one page to another page using the arrow icons on the bottom of the viewer. Consumers must bear responsibility, too, expert says Salmonella and campylobacter are two of the main pathogens that could lead to illness from eating poultry, though each pathogen features several different strains that may affect humans differently. Food-safety workers linked poultry to about a third of all salmonella outbreaks from 2004 through 2008, according to the accountability office report. “The different types of foodborne illnesses or foodborne pathogens will create different issues in humans,” Cutter said. In 2011, the Food Safety and Inspection Service lowered the acceptable amount of salmonella inspectors could find in sampled young chicken and turkey carcasses from 20 percent to no more than 7.5 percent. Photo by Darrell Hoemann/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting “Cargill will continue to work to meet evolving regulatory requirements for all of our food products, just as we and the rest of our industry partners have done for many years in the past,” Eilert said. In August, the USDA published a new, optional rule to modernize poultry-slaughter inspections. Outreach efforts aimed at educating consumers about handling poultry will also help reduce foodborne illness, Cutter said, noting that one important lesson consumers need to learn is to not wash chicken before cooking it, as doing so can splatter pathogens throughout the kitchen. Instead, Cutter said consumers need to “start letting heat do the job” in killing microorganisms. “All these actions, I think, have attributed to the decline in the presence of foodborne pathogens in meat and poultry,” Cutter said.The Los Angeles County Coroner has reported the death of Gemmel Moore, 26, of an accidental meth overdose at 7:22 p.m. on July 27 at the West Hollywood home of high-profile Democratic Party donor and political activist, Ed Buck. The youth’s death reportedly occurred just hours after he left his family in Texas in order to join Buck. While a case detail report filed by the medical examiner lists the manner of Gemmel Moore’s death as an “accident” and its cause as “methamphetamine use,” the deceased man’s mother told the WeHo Times that something more nefarious may have occurred in the short hours between when her son hopped on a plane using a ticket she says was purchased by the well connected Buck, and the moment he took his final breath. “I called one of my son’s friends and was like, ‘who the hell is Edward Buck?'” LaTisha Nixon said, speaking from her home in Spring Texas during a phone interview. “And my son’s friend was like, ‘oh my God, that’s that white guy, that wealthy white politician guy… he was like ‘oh my God…’” Buck, a one-time Republican, came to Southern California from Arizona several years ago and gained a reputation for making generous donations to the California and L.A. County Democratic Party and chair of Stonewall Democratic Club’s Political Affairs Committee. LaTisha Nixon says she learned that her son, who was unemployed, had recently been doing sex work. She told the WeHo Times that her son’s friend was also engaged in similar activity—and that they had a client in common. Gemmel Moore with his sister and mother “When he calmed down, he told me that Ed Buck was one of my son’s clients and that Ed Buck was one of his clients as well,” Nixon said. “[Buck] would have my son to go out to… Santa Monica Boulevard looking for young gay black guys so he could inject them with drugs, see their reaction and how [they] would react and take pictures of them.” Nixon says a detective from the West Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who called her following her son’s death said no drugs or paraphernalia were found at Buck’s home. Nevertheless, Nixon is steadfast in her accusations about the activist’s alleged fetish for getting young African American men high. “[He] would supply heroin, meth and other drugs to him to smoke or use with a needle,” Nixon alleges. “Buck would pleasure himself at the sight of my son using drugs…” She asserted that Gemmel Moore’s friends told her, “the bigger the cloud of smoke,” the bigger the reward from Buck, who “would excitedly encourage [Gemmel] to increase his dosage by saying, ‘more, more, and I’ll give you $500 more.’” Multiple attempts to reach Ed Buck for comment by phone had yielded no result as of publication time. One of Moore’s friends with whom WeHo Times spoke described his relationship with the deceased man as one between “true, lifelong friends, not friends like you get in the gay world.” The man, who gave WeHo Times his full name, but because of his vocation as a sex worker asked to be identified only as “Cameron,” says he also used drugs supplied by Ed Buck in the latter man’s apartment. After accurately describing the interior of the apartment, with which this reporter is personally familiar, Cameron told WeHo Times Buck asked him if he’d ever “slammed,” a street term for intravenous meth use. “I told him no, and that would take more money,” Cameron said, describing Buck’s reaction as “excited.” Cameron said Ed Buck seemed to “get off on getting you higher and higher.” The trouble that led to Gemmel’s death last week may have had its genesis a year ago. That was when LaTisha Nixon heard from Gemmel by phone. He was in a panic. “My son filed a police report,” Nixon told WeHo Times. “…He filed a police report because he said that Buck had held him in his apartment or whatever and had shot him up with a needle with something he didn’t’ know what it was. He called me crying. Three minutes on the phone hollering and I’m like ‘What the hell is going on?’ He said ‘this man, he shot me up with something I don’t even know what it is,’ and I’m like, my son is having a breakdown or episode. But he sent me pictures of his arm, his arm was red.” At the time of this publication, WeHo Times had not yet been able to obtain copies of the alleged police report nor of the photos Nixon claims depict her son’s arm after the alleged incident a year ago. “Gemmel got scared and at the urging of relatives and few close friends who knew of these outrageous encounters; my son came home to me in Texas to get away,” Nixon continued. “Yes, my son was an adult and didn’t live a fairy tale perfect life, but he didn’t deserve to die this way.” Ed Buck cuts a formidable swath through West Hollywood, L.A. County and national Democratic Party politics. Beginning in 1987 Arizona politics as a registered Republican leading the charge to recall then-Governor Evan Mecham, Ed Buck’s move to West Hollywood and into the Democratic Party saw him closely supporting several congressional members, state and local officials with generous donations and political advice. (In the video shown here, Buck and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie mix it up. This clip played on the national cable news networks – all of them.) Buck gave $2700 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2015 and another $250 in 2016. He was also influential in the most recent city council races (to which he gave thousands of dollars to support the incumbents), making him one of California’s most prolific and substantial political donors. Locally, his cash and influence wield outsized influence. In 2011, Buck teamed up with WeHo Council member John D’Amico in his first bid for office, organizing a “Fur Free WeHo” campaign to aid in Mr. D’Amico’s pursuit of a council seat. The issue inspired volunteers, who walked precincts and made phone calls to support D’Amico’s legislative agenda, sending him into office with a landslide and a mandate. In that heated political season, Buck also set off a minor controversy exposing credit card spending patterns at City Hall, resulting in an investigation into one council member’s spending for which he was exonerated. LaTisha Nixon wonders if that political past, combined with Buck’s influence and perhaps even race—Ed Buck is white, while her son was African American—influenced in any way the head-spinning speed of the investigation into her son’s death. “To shoot young guys up with who knows what is evil,” Nixon said. She believes the investigation might not have been pursued as vigorously because of Ed Buck’s position in this city. “I honestly want him to go to jail and serve time to think about what he did.” In the next moment, however, Nixon added: “I just want to say, as I’m researching this guy, he seems like a really nice person, like, you know?” But she says she believes in accountability. “I plan to seek justice for my son in every way possible and intend for Buck to face the consequences of the California’s Drug Dealer Liability Act of 2005,” Nixon said. Repeated telephone calls to and messages left for Mr. Buck were met with no answer and no reply. (Disclosure: Ed Buck was a regular source, contributor, donor and confidant of Ryan Gierach’s while he was publisher of now-shuttered WeHo News.)Save Save Save SaveEvery day I must get 3 or 4 people that email me and ask what is the best thing to import from China. If you really stop and think about it you will agree that it’s a pretty stupid question. The best thing to import will entirely depend on you and your own situation. No matter what product you can think of, the likelihood is that a version of it will be being imported from China by someone. Traditionally that person will have arrived at importing that particular product through an existing business model that demanded a better margin. These days however, people are searching to build entirely new standalone business models based around the principle of sourcing a new product from China that offers attractive margins. So lets stop and think for a minute. There is no such thing as “The best products to import from China”. There is however such a thing as the best product suited to you but in reality only you are going to be able to discover what that is through brainstorming and researching for yourself. Google wont tell you but this blog post might help give you some ideas. Ask yourself what do you have knowledge about? What can you offer your customer? How can you deliver a better service? Do you have the infrastructure to move the product? Can you afford to compete in this niche? Should you just spend your money at the casino? What I mean is that you need to evaluate a very basic bit of business thinking. Don’t try to reinvent something, look at someone who is already making money and find a way to better the service they offer. Don’t even think about competing on a price only level, it is a waste of time unless you’re the Tesco’s of this world. The reason eBay is so full right now of once great margin products that are being sold at extremely minimal profits is because people come onto the scene and just undercut the main seller by 10% and everyone starts dropping the prices until no one is making any money. Don’t end up in this position. So Firstly you need to add some value, set yourself apart, don’t reinvent the wheel but try make your wheel a bit better. Then you need to remember something a lot of people forget. To be good at this importing game you have to have an outlet for all the things your importing. You need to be able to sell. I have quite a bit of experience selling things. When I first moved here people would ask me what I recommended they should import from China. They had money but they didn’t know what they should import. I remember several specific clients who came at me like this and I did something I wont do anymore, I told them what I would import if I was them. The problem was they were not me and I was not them. I would give them a great product that is selling online for good money across various platforms. Guide them through the importing process so the goods safely arrive with them. They would complain when they couldn’t make it work because they couldn’t sell the product. This is when a lot of people who really shouldn’t try to be an “entrepreneur” kind of cross the line. “Yeah but I don’t like sales”. Are you kidding me? You don’t like sales but you want to make money? I think you should go read one of those blogs about pyramid schemes. And by selling I don’t mean simply selling a product that everyone wants and has a market value you intend to heavily undercut. If it was that easy I think everyone would be importing from China. Sometimes you have an item that’s a tough sell, sometimes your container arrived 2 weeks after some other seller got theirs and established the market share, sometimes a product has a fault that demands some true entrepreneurial flair to shift. You have to be able to sell and that means selling in the good times and the bad. Being an entrepreneur is about making sales, Period. I don’t care what you think, your wrong if you think you can be in business and not be able to make sales. Any single thing that generates money is based on sales. You are selling a product, a service, a holiday, you’re a musician, a model, a builder. Whatever you are doing you’re selling something. If you are not good at sales then you’re at quite a disadvantage. Ok I will admit it, that paragraph is a bit harsh but then I’m afraid sometimes the truth is harsh. Don’t run away and hide if this scares you, I also didn’t like sales when I started. Back in 2002 I studied architecture at university and I picked up some great core skills from that degree that, although I don’t work as an architect, are extremely useful for what I do in business. I learnt how to use design based software that I used to develop products such as bicycles I imported from Canada and Taiwan, I learnt how to drink 4 pints of beer at the same time and most importantly I learnt how to sell. As an architect you are essentially putting forward your design proposal to funders or project managers who will need to approve your submission based on its design merits and environmental impact. In reality there is only so much you can do in terms of design, especially with UK building and planning regulations, the majority of times a contract is awarded a good sales pitch has a lot to do with it. I will be the first to admit it. I had a great time at uni and it will be an experience I will look back on with fondness for the rest of my life. These great times however did impact my design submissions and each time my social life grew, my submission was effected. This meant I had to become good at selling my proposals at the end of project. This happened in critiques where we presented our designs in front of our tutors and the other 70 something students, 30-40% of whom were also hungover. It was intimidating but by god it taught me how to pitch an idea. Once I had inadvertently discovered how to sell I also inadvertently started my first real business. I had learnt the importance of sales. If I can do it so can you. You have to remember that importing a product isn’t the making of an entrepreneur, really it’s the easy part. If someone orders a container of something from me there isn’t much work to do on their part, their entrepreneurialism begins when the container hits their warehouse and they need to turn the stock over. They have to sell. Don’t panic we are not talking about cold calling or pushing yourself on people. Unless you bought a container of utter rubbish there is a pretty good chance that people will already be actively searching online for your product, just put yourself out there. After you have grasped the concept that you need to be sure you can sell what it is you want to buy then you need to think about what capacity you can actually buy it and if that is viable for your budget and infrastructure. If your looking to build a business from your spare room then these days it will be difficult, the competition there is pretty stiff as a lot of people can obviously do this. The barriers for people looking to sell leather beds for example are a bit bigger than those who want to sell phone cases online so competition in an area like that will be a lot less due to these barriers to entry. By barriers to entry i mean that to sell something like leather bed frames you will need warehouse space, distribution infrastructure, reasonable capital, and some staff to help with the operation. Not everyone has access to these things so they are described as barriers. I’m not saying you can’t operate in a smaller way though, you just need to be smart about the product selection. Selling something like CCTV kits which are high value and relatively small in size is quite a nice niche area. People who have a couple of thousand pounds to spend cant have a go at it due to minimum investment requirements so competition will be less than in say an area like laser pens where anyone can jump in. Once you got going with CCTV you could easily build a range, a brand, hire installers – It could grow into a real business. Again I will reiterate that you need to bring something to the table here to set you apart from the other people already doing this. Product knowledge, sales skills, slick infrastructure, unique product features, industry contacts and high investment capital. You need at least one of these things, three or four would be better. To try and give a bit of insight I will explain a bit about 3 different types of customers I sell to so you can kind of see what I am getting at and see where you fit in. Customer 1 – The Chancer. Dave is not happy with his job and has always wanted to do something else, He has no idea what. He spends a lot of time on the Internet reading about people who make money importing from China and would love to try it but doesn’t know how. Dave has decided to sell his pride and joy BMW M3 that he spent the past 5 years paying off to have a go at importing from China and selling on eBay. His wife is not impressed. As he has never done this before there is a good chance Dave will not profit from this venture but understands his first foray into importing will be a learning curve and as such aims to treat it as an education to better him for future business. Selling his car gives Dave a total stake of 15,000 gbp, which he decides he will put towards 3 products within a product niche he has discovered while researching eBay. Kind of like the products you will see HERE (insert Link to import ideas tab) Dave has come across a niche with a decent margin, low competition and decent sell through rate. Dave has decided to sell kitchen related items as he has worked in the kitchen industry for 11 years. After researching online niches within this market he has come across some great items he is excited about. He can see that someone else is making 370 pounds a day in profit from the products he is planning on selling and he thinks he can take a bite of the apple. He has never sold on eBay in this capacity before but thinks his previous experience in customer service and kitchens will help him to offer his customers something more than his competition. If you’re a chancer your in a bit of dangerous territory, your probably too open to taking on any advice given to you and the likelihood is that you will receive too much contradictory advice. What is important is to pick a strategy that works for you and stick to it. Don’t listen to someone who is telling you to pick a product, order in bulk and focus on price point while taking on advice from the guy who tells you to spread your risk across several product niches and offer variety. Customer 2 – The Online Retailer. Andy owns an online shop selling laptop cases. He is also a prominent seller on eBay and Amazon. He started off selling goods from his computer shop and has expanded to a small warehouse where, along with his wife Debbie, him and 3 staff fulfil orders generated online each day. Andy hopes to grow into one of the main online sellers of laptop cases in the UK and knows he needs a consistent and reliable product supply to do so. He has visited China before and has bought product but has struggled to find a quality supplier he can depend on to deliver his goods. The husband and wife team have also been working on a line of branded cases and bags that they have wanted to produce in China but have struggled to find a partner to take on the relatively low unit orders they want to place in order to trial the product. Once launched, Andy’s branded range will open his business up to new possibilities including wholesaling his product to independent stores and resellers and positioning himself as a distributor for his own brand. Andy is a pretty straight forward type of customer to deal with, He knows what he wants and he knows the price point he can pay for the goods. Andy came to me looking for such a service and because he was targeted in his requirements I was able to help him. He could have quite easily come to me and said “Dan this is a list of what I sell in my shop, can you find me price for 10 of each from China”. Thankfully Andy understood that after surcharges for small orders, shipping fees and tax he would likely end up paying more per unit than he could if he bought them from the UK. He realised that focusing on one area and being strong in it made more sense than trying to order a handful of goods in every category within computing. Customer 3 – The Wholesaler. John is a reseller of a flooring product in the UK. He moves extremely large volumes of this product and has been doing so for many years. The business has a substantial customer base which is open to take on more product if John can source the amounts required. The margin per unit is small but the amount John sells each month makes it a viable business. John needs 2 things. A way of shaving literally pennies of each unit price (because saving 0.20 gbp per unit across his monthly order would save him 3000 gbp per month) and he needs a way of making sure what he orders is what lands at his warehouse each month. The cash rich nature of Johns business means he can afford to buy in extremely large numbers driving his purchase price as low down as possible. Smaller resellers can’t compete with him in this area. John is no stranger to importing. He has been importing product into the UK for decades from various countries. The flooring business is something that was operated by his father previously and the family has a great deal of experience and knowledge in this area. All they lack is the ability to produce the product they sell so they must outsource it to China. Having found that John can really move large volumes if this product I decided to open a factory to better serve John and other customers like him for this specific product. When you find an item you can move in volume you have to really commit and go for it. You can see some images of the factory I opened below: These 3 types of customer are not the only “pigeon holes” there must be hundreds but they are 3 examples of people who import from China and
tour familiar sites and weigh whether it'd be best to continue his NFL career where it started. The problem likely before the 28-year-old defensive end is at once fortune-kissed and agonizing. He'll likely get (or have) to choose between spending the rest of his prime with the coach who molded him into an effective NFL player, or the teammates who lined up next to him for a combined 93 regular-season and postseason games. The Vikings and Bengals play the same scheme; Johnson might not have his old right end spot in Minnesota, but he knows he fits well in both defenses. All that's left to do is pick between them. The sense I get is it would be surprising to see Johnson sign a contract before leaving Minnesota. He still has strong attachments in Cincinnati, and it seems likely he'll at least hear what the Bengals have to say before making up his mind. But the Vikings have plenty to offer, and they worked to sell Johnson on all of it on Friday: They took him to their new stadium preview center, and showed him the ascending structure on the east end of downtown Minneapolis. They pitched him on the young talent on their defense -- Harrison Smith, Everson Griffen, Xavier Rhodes, Sharrif Floyd, Linval Joseph and Anthony Barr -- and the rising star they believe they have at quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater. And at the center of it all was Zimmer, a man who worked closely with Johnson in Cincinnati and tried convincing him to come to Minnesota before he signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year. Johnson has some strong attachments in Cincinnati, too, and he'll likely need to consider all of it before telling either his old coach or his former teammates no. Both Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman sounded confident tones at Manny's Steakhouse, where the Vikings took Johnson and his agent, John Thornton, out to dinner. But the Bengals will have a strong pitch to make, too: a familiar community, a comfortable fit and a team that's been to the playoffs in five of the last six years. If Johnson picks Zimmer and the Vikings over the Bengals, he'd add another solid piece to a defense that made significant strides in 2014. Before that, though, he'll have to make what sometimes can be the toughest decision: a choice between two great options.Coordinates: The area around Gura Gura (Template:Lang-tigrnya) or Gura’e is a settlement in Eritrea's Debub region in northeast Africa. It is located in the eponymous Gura Valley in the southeastern Eritrean highlands. It is about 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) SE of Dekemhare and about 32 kilometres (20 mi) SSE of the capital Asmara. History [ edit ] Early [ edit ] Gura developed as a market at the present site from the 17th century AD. It stood across a caravan route linking northern Ethiopia with the port of Massawa on the Red Sea via the Alighede and Mareb rivers.[1] 19th century [ edit ] During the 19th century Ethio-Egyptian War, Gura (and nearby Khaya Khor) was the site of two major Egyptian forts and, subsequently, a major Ethiopian victory over their inhabitants in 1876.[2] The Egyptian commander Ratib Pasha intended to remain within the safety of the Gura fortress, but his American chief of staff Loring Pasha—the former Confederate Brig. Gen. William Loring—shamed him into direct confrontation with the main Ethiopian force by crying "No! March out of them! You are afraid!"[3] (Discharged and returned to America, Loring would subsequently point his finger at the Egyptians for the loss in A Confederate Soldier in Egypt, simultaneously complaining of commander Osman Pasha's refusal to leave the second fort and explaining Ratib Pasha's having left the safety of his own because "what little judgment [he] possessed was entirely crushed by abject fear".[4]) The subsequent rout from March 7 to 9 ended Egyptian hegemony over Eritrea[1] and the Red Sea littoral and left open the possibility that the French would be able to colonize the entire region and endanger British routes through the Suez Canal. Following Britain's complete occupation of Egypt and the rising of the Mahdi in the Sudan, the Egyptian fort at Gura was among those detailed in the 1884 tripartite Hewett Treaty. The treaty, signed at Adwa and ratified by Queen Victoria, obliged Ethiopia to oversee the evacuation of exposed Egyptian garrisons in Eritrea and the southern Sudan through the port of Massawa in exchange for the garrisons' supplies of arms and ammunition, recognition of their sovereignty over the Bogos lands—essentially, the highlands of modern Eritrea, which the Ethiopians organized as Hamasien—and other concessions. During this period, Gura served as Ras Alula's capital of the Ethiopian province of Hamasien prior to his removal to Asmara. Once Ethiopia had made good on its part of the bargain, however, Britain's concern over France's rapid expansion of its colony in the Bay of Tadjoura (today's Djibouti) led it to openly support Italy's bloodless occupation of Massawa and establishment of Italian Eritrea in the former Egyptian lands. Gura was occupied by the Italian-allied Bahta Hagos in 1889.[1] The Battle of Adwa ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War kept it from annexing the entirety of Ethiopia but it continued to hold Gura and other towns in the former Egyptian highlands. 20th century [ edit ] Under the Italian protectorate, Gura was left undeveloped until Benito Mussolini began to build up the Italian military presence in preparation for the second Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Much of the former town was removed to establish a military base, which served as the main airfield for the northern front of the war.[1] As such, the base was heavily involved in the Italian use of airborne chemical weapons such as mustard gas during the conflict. During the first months of WW2, the airfield was used by the Italians to successfully attack the British Sudan and to occupy Kassala. Once captured by Allied forces during World War II's East African Campaign, it hosted a Royal Air Force (RAF) support base and an Australian field hospital. As an adjunct to the Lend-Lease Act, a secret expansion of the base —Project 19— was established with the US government. Italian bombing mission in 1943 [ edit ] In 1943, two SM.75 GA aircraft undertook a bombing mission, the only one made by an SM.75, intended to destroy American bombers stored at an airbase in Gura. To reach the objective, which was over 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) away, the two S.75 GAs—with civil registration I-BUBA and I-TAMO, but renominated with serial numbers MM.60539 and MM.60543, respectively, for military use—were laden heavily with 11,000 kilograms (24,250 pounds) of fuel, and modified by fitting a "Jozza" bomb-aiming system and a bomb bay capable of carrying 1,200 kilograms (2,650 pounds) of bombs. The most experienced crews were selected for the mission, led by officers named Villa and Peroli. The mission started at 06:30 hours on 23 May 1943 from Rhodes, the easternmost Regia Aeronautica base at the time. Each of the two aircraft, weighing 10,200 kilograms (22,490 pounds) empty, had a takeoff-weight of 24,000 kilograms (52,910 pounds). The SM.75 GA's engines were optimized for endurance and economy rather than for power, which made the takeoff difficult with the heavy load of fuel and bombs. Initially flying at low altitude, at 10:00 hours the modified SM.75 GAs climbed to 3,000 meters (9,842 feet). Having used an excessive amount of fuel, Peroli diverted to bomb Port Sudan instead; he returned safely to Rhodes at 05:30 hours on 24 May 1943 after 23 hours in the air. Villa, meanwhile, pressed on alone and arrived over the Gura airbase—which was heavily defended despite being well behind the front line—at 18:45 hours and released his bombs. Although one bomb failed to drop and remained on board, presenting the threat of an explosion, Villa's mission was successful, and his aircraft returned to Rhodes safely one hour and 15 minutes after Peroli, landing at 06:45 hours on 24 May 1943, having covered 6,600 kilometers (4,100 mi) over a period of 24 hours and 15 minutes.[5] Late developments [ edit ] Since early 1943, the airport was used mainly for maintenance and repairing of American aircraft, shipped directly from the American continent in order to support the Allies in Europe. Furthermore, it was established a huge airbase maintained by 2,000 American employees of Johnson, Drake, and Piper, along with an equal number of hired or conscripted Italians and Eritreans.[1][6] The facility—operated by employees of Douglas Aircraft—received damaged RAF aircraft which were sailed down the Red Sea to Massawa and transported overland, and repaired them for return to the North African front under their own power. The American facility boasted a nine-hole golf course with the following rules:[7] Balls may be lifted from bomb craters and trenches without penalty. Do not touch bombs or craters, notify authorities. In case of air raid the trenches are located in back of 5th and 7th greens. Out of bounds to right of 1st, 5th and 9th holes. If baboon steals ball drop another ball no nearer hole—no penalty. If ball hits an animal play ball as it lies. At war's end, Eritrea was incorporated into Haile Selassie's restored Ethiopia. British administrators had already dismantled Gura's air base, leaving only the tarmac.[1] Lacking an airport and now off the main lines of transport and communication, the community has been overshadowed by nearby Dekemhare. As a Cold War ally of the United States, however, Imperial Ethiopia was able to host American reconnaissance aircraft at the site during the onset of violent Eritrean separatism.[1] The operation ceased with the overthrow of the empire by the Communist Derg in the 1970s, switching Ethiopia's side in the Cold War. While the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) proved increasing successful and began to control most of the present country, the Derg continued to hold areas of the highlands and, after their defeat in the Second Battle of Massawa in 1990, continued to use napalm and cluster bombs against the city.[8] The end of the conflict and recognition from Addis Ababa was secured by the EPLF's victory in a major tank battle in the valley around Gura on May 20, 1991.[1]4,059 of 5,375 Sponsor Message Sponsor Message Add To Album Add To Album Like (1) Photog's Choice Cross-Data Photographer Mark A Harris Airline Boeing Version Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner Generic Type Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner Basic Type Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner Manufacturer Boeing MSN 40694 Line No. 5 Reg. N787FT Location Everett - Snohomish County / Paine Field Region Washington Country USA Date Photographed June 11, 2015 Cancel Search Correction Distinct Views: 17,142 Photo Added: April 19, 2017 Photo Albums Containing This Photo Album Views Likes Photos Photographs I like A collection of photographs I like. Mayday111 Ohio, USA Views 20.9K Likes 0 Photos 2.9K Photo Copyright © Mark A Harris. All rights reserved. Airliners.net is not affiliated with any entity mentioned or pictured herein. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.MSI announced the GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming Golden Edition, a special variant of the GTX 980 Ti Gaming graphics card with a copper heatsink, gold-colored panels, and higher clock-speeds. This limited edition card offers out of the box clock speeds of 1190 MHz core, 1291 MHz GPU Boost, and 7096 MHz (GDDR5-effective) memory, compared to 1178/1279/7010 MHz on the standard red and black GTX 980 Ti Gaming card.The main distinguishing feature of the Golden Edition card is its copper-fin heatsink, with exposed copper heat-pipes, compared to the aluminium fin heatsink with nickel-plated heat pipes on the standard GTX 980 Ti Gaming card. This lends the card a lot of weight, at 1,338 g compared to 1,068 g of the standard card; but also better heat dissipation. Complementing this, you have copper heat pipes with a gold-like finish, and gold colored accents on the panels (cooler shroud and back-plate). MSI didn't announce pricing or availability. 25 Comments on MSI Announces GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming Golden Edition #1 P4-630 The Way It's Meant to be Played I always thought that aluminium fins cool down faster than a copper heatsink Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 4:12 Reply #2 NutZInTheHead Copper Edition would have been much better. Since when did copper become gold :P Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 4:29 Reply #3 Basard NutZInTheHead said: Copper Edition would have been much better. Since when did copper become gold :p "Gold-like".... lol... "Gold-like".... lol... Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 5:08 Reply #4 Nokiron It should be worse heat dissipation compared to the standard version, but a lot better heat absorption. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 5:10 Reply #5 lZKoce Pure coppa awesomeness clocking in at 1,3 KG....gotta love that shine. It will tarnish over time though. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 5:28 Reply #6 savumi Why not Rose Gold Edition :p Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 5:28 Reply #7 LAN_deRf_HA Historically their copper editions have cooled exactly as well as the standard aluminum ones. Too bad they can't offer anything exciting with it like that old GTX 465 that unlocked to a 470. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 6:01 Reply #8 julizs That twin frozr cooler just comes at its limit with the 980ti, as you can see in several reviews. If they wanted to make a really good version, they should just slap the big heatsink of their 390 on the 980ti and call it a day. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 6:34 Reply #9 yun4l Basard said: "Gold-like".... lol... "god like"? :p "god like"? :p Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 7:01 Reply #10 mickel116 LAN_deRf_HA said: Historically their copper editions have cooled exactly as well as the standard aluminum ones. Too bad they can't offer anything exciting with it like that old GTX 465 that unlocked to a 470. oh man. how i loved my golden GTX 465, unlocked. and the whole cooper heat sink was out in the open, beautiful. but this one is just hidden underneath. what a shame.. oh man. how i loved my golden GTX 465, unlocked. and the whole cooper heat sink was out in the open, beautiful. but this one is just hidden underneath. what a shame.. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 7:18 Reply #11 L.ccd julizs said: That twin frozr cooler just comes at its limit with the 980ti, as you can see in several reviews. If they wanted to make a really good version, they should just slap the big heatsink of their 390 on the 980ti and call it a day. I was thinking just the same. Now that would have been an improvement over their existing 980 ti with TF cooler. I was thinking just the same. Nowwould have been an improvement over their existing 980 ti with TF cooler. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 7:30 Reply #12 TheDeeGee So much gold on the PCI-E and SLI Fingers! But that's about it Gold wise... Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 10:19 Reply #13 peche Thermaltake fanboy msi being msi..... Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 11:04 Reply #14 Basard Gold plated might be worth it! Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 13:27 Reply #15 GhostRyder Eh, its a cool looking card but it almost seems a bit unnecessary considering their lineup. But I do welcome color changes as I would like more card companies to have many different choices in colors. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 13:38 Reply #16 natr0n They have to come up with ways to clear out the 980ti chips. I wouldn't mind having that card. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 13:47 Reply #17 Ikaruga I would really love to know how much a card like this cost for them (designers, artist, marketing, factory, so the full production cost) and how many they will actually sell. Seriously, how many "GTX 980 Ti Gaming Golden Edition " will they sell worldwide? 10-15k or 50K? Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 15:39 Reply #18 FreedomEclipse ~Technological Technocrat~ that is all. that is all. Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 16:28 Reply #19 pat-roner Limited to how many they can sell? Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 17:37 Reply #20 xChoice zotac card!.... oh no look its an msi :O ( rose edition looks good :P ) Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 18:53 Reply #21 savumi xChoice said: zotac card!.... oh no look its an msi :O ( rose edition looks good :p ) :p hehe :p hehe Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 22:06 Reply #22 Batou1986 Regular heatsink plated with.001mm of copper Call it something special Idiots will buy it up and talk about its superior cooling :clap: MSI Posted on Oct 1st 2015, 23:14 Reply #23 Arjai :p Does it cost more for bent fins?:p Posted on Oct 2nd 2015, 0:07 Reply #24 rtwjunkie PC Gaming Enthusiast TheDeeGee said: So much gold on the PCI-E and SLI Fingers! But that's about it Gold wise... Well at least the backplate has a golden dragon! :laugh: Well at least the backplate has a golden dragon! :laugh: Posted on Oct 2nd 2015, 18:29 ReplyA conservative watchdog group on Tuesday named Hillary Clinton the worst ethics violator of 2015. The Democratic presidential front-runner was joined by lawmakers and political candidates from both parties on the “Worst Ethics Violators of 2015” list released by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a self-described nonpartisan group that has filed several ethics complaints over the past year with Congress, the IRS and the Federal Election Commission. The Washington-based group singled out Clinton, accusing the former secretary of State of using her position in the Obama administration and her role at the Clinton Foundation to, among other things, benefit her son-in-law Marc Mezvinsky and advance her presidential ambitions. “Elected officials are sent to Washington to follow and uphold the law and so they need to be held to the highest standard of ethics. Even the appearance of impropriety can quickly erode public trust, and Mrs. Clinton is in a league of her own” said FACT Executive Director Matthew G. Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney who ran as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Iowa last year. In its release, the group cites the release this year of State Department emails “which suggest that then Secretary Clinton gave special treatment to a private mining company as a result of the company’s relationships with Clinton’s son-in-law and donors to the Clinton Foundation.” The release also questions Clinton Foundation payments to Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential campaign and interactions between Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Ready for Hillary political action committee. According to the release, FACT asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate the legitimacy of Ready for Hillary providing the campaign with an email list with 4 million names: “Federal law explicitly prohibits a candidate from coordinating with and accepting donations, including an in-kind donation of a mailing list, from a super PAC.” Clinton was one of five Democrats and three Republicans on FACT’s year-end list, including: • North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger, who made the list, FACT said, after refusing to publicly release a letter he says he received from the House Ethics Committee approving his selling of his business to his wife after he was elected to Congress. • Another North Carolina Republican, Rep. Mark Meadows also made the list after FACT earlier this year called for an Office of Congressional Ethics investigation into the congressman’s decision to continue to pay his former chief of staff three months after his employment ended. • New Hampshire Republican Rep. Frank Guinta, who was fined by the FEC over an improper campaign loan. • Alan Grayson, D-Fla, who is fighting off accusations that he has improperly managed hedge funds while in office, a violation of House ethics rules. • Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., accused by FACT of unlawfully influencing an election for federal office. McCaskill acknowledges she spent $40,000 to poll Missouri Republicans in an effort to help her preferred Republican opponent, Todd Akin win the GOP primary. She went on to defeat Akin in the 2012 general election. • Sen. Thomas R. Carper, D-Del., accused by FACT of misuse of taxpayer funds for endorsing Clinton in a press release posted on Carper’s official Senate website. • Joe Sestak, a former congressman and Democratic Party candidate in Pennsylvania’s 2010 U.S. Senate race, accused by FACT of repeatedly and improperly, according to Department of Defense regulations, using his military service in political campaign items, including the use of photos of Sestak in uniform and signing off on campaign materials as “Admiral Sestak.”Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Saturday said the emerging lead pointing to the involvement of a “Korean mafia” behind the murder of businessman Jee Ick-Joo was far out. This as he cautioned the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in processing new information on the slay case, an incident that has prompted Malacañang to apologize to Seoul and suspend the bloody antidrug war to give way to a police cleansing. ADVERTISEMENT Lacson, who is in the middle of a legislative inquiry into the first high-profile “tokhang for ransom” case, was instrumental in initiating a joint PNP- NBI reinvestigation of the case after he noted discrepancies in results of parallel probes of the two agencies. PNP and NBI officials are now being implicated in the Oct. 18 slay case. READ: Bato: Rogue PNP, NBI members conspired to kill Jee Ick-joo “If we go by the evidence at hand, the Korean mafia angle is quite a stretch,” Lacson told the Inquirer in a text message. “Having said that, the combined PNP and NBI probers should be very careful in processing information that have suddenly sprouted from various sources,” he said. The former PNP chief, currently chair of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, said certain leads from “sources” might be “ill-motivated” or from “intelligence analysts” who just want to get involved in the case. He said such information “could weaken the case.” He shared that he gave such message to PNP Chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa and NBI Director Dante Gierran, who met in his office on Wednesday. READ: ‘Bato’ tells PNP-NBI ‘syndicate’: Bring it on “They should work closely together and consolidate all the pieces of evidence, and not be affected by intrigues and disinformation. I told them, the most embarrassing scenario to happen in this case is a dismissal by the court due to conflicting theories and uncoordinated presentation of evidence,” he said. ADVERTISEMENT He said both officials “unequivocally agreed to be very open with each other through designated lead investigators,” which are PNP Anti-Kidnapping Group chief Senior Supt. Glenn Dumlao for the police, and NBI Assistant Director Ludgi de Lemos for the agency under the Department of Justice. Read Next LATEST STORIES MOST READGo east on storied Sunset Boulevard for a look at the changing nature of modern L.A. and a reawakening of pedestrian life. Click the blue mile markers above — or use the arrows — to take Christopher Hawthorne's guided tour of key sites along Sunset Boulevard. Conventional wisdom has it that the way to understand Sunset Boulevard, the most glamorous street in Los Angeles, is by following it from east to west. That's how Sunset grew from its origins in the 1780s as a cattle trail branching out from the pueblo where L.A. was born. Even the boulevard's name suggests you're supposed to travel it that way, finishing up at the ocean just as the sun does. So what's to be gained by heading in the opposite direction, looking at Sunset from west to east? For starters, that route offers a way to explore an intriguing notion: that the key to deciphering contemporary Los Angeles is to focus not on growth and expansion, those building blocks of 20th century Southern California, but instead all the ways in which the city is doubling back on itself and getting denser. And if you really want a gauge of 21st century Los Angeles, you'll have to look all the way to the eastern end of the boulevard, where Sunset becomes Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and — as it cuts through Boyle Heights — provides a surprising model for the L.A. boulevard of the future. Boyle Heights seemed hopelessly distant as I began walking uphill from the ocean, where Pacific Coast Highway meets Sunset, heading past the two gas stations that mark the giant intersection like an accidental gateway. In less than a quarter-mile the sidewalk, already something of an afterthought, abruptly ended at a sign reading "Private Property." That set the tone for the early part of the walk, which took me around a steady supply of blind curves, across the 405 freeway and to the edge of UCLA campus. There are crumbling sidewalks on boulevards all over Los Angeles, in every kind of neighborhood. But the western end of Sunset is the only major boulevard I know where the city seems to have abandoned the idea of a continuous sidewalk altogether. An oasis appeared quickly on the right: the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine Temple, where a shaded path wraps around a spring-fed lake. "Self-realization," of course, is that most Californian of phrases, with its faint tinge of narcissism. But spirituality is not the only reason people visit the Lake Shrine, founded in 1950 by the Indian guru Paramahansa Yogananda. Like the Grove outdoor mall, except with more plants and no Apple Store, it happens to be an unusually nice place to be a pedestrian. "We come here to walk and just take it all in," said Eric Runkle, who was helping his 88-year-old mother, Jenny Runkle, navigate the path. Just east of the Lake Shrine, Sunset enters a long, winding stretch where the notion of the boulevard as public space seems faintly ridiculous. Close by are some of the great landmarks of modern L.A. architecture, houses by Craig Ellwood, Ray Kappe and Cliff May. But you'd never know that on the boulevard itself, which presents a nearly continuous wall of opaque hedges, thick bamboo stands and clusters of eucalyptus. These green barriers get more imposing as you go east. By the time you get to Beverly Hills, the hedges are as tall as three-story buildings. For a long time the western stretches of Sunset, with their private luxury and Hollywood glamour, were a powerful magnet in their own right. Yet as early as the 1950s a nostalgic air hung over this part of the boulevard. Billy Wilder's brilliantly jaded "Sunset Blvd." sees not just the silent-film star Norma Desmond but also the very idea of her secluded Sunset Boulevard mansion, where time defiantly stands still, as a throwback. This "Rock of Ages" treats the big-hair metal bands and the Sunset Strip music scene of the '80s much the same way. Along Sunset's long midsection, running from Beverly Hills through the western edge of Silver Lake, the footprint of the entertainment business, which once dominated the boulevard, continues to shrink. Thanks to the strong presence of its alumni among the ranks of Hollywood executives, Emerson College is building a dramatic 10-story, $110-million West Coast campus, by architect Thom Mayne, at Sunset and Gordon Street. But Schwab's Pharmacy and places like it, buildings dedicated to advancing the notion of Sunset as a stage for finding individual stardom, are long gone. So are many of the movie studios that lined the boulevard a half-century ago, as well as the photography studios that sold head shots to generations of aspiring actors. What has emerged to take their place, reflecting a city-wide trend, are types of developments largely immune to the rise of digital culture, which has proved so deadly to record and video-rental shops and bookstores. These hardier strains of L.A. architecture include restaurants, bars, public and charter schools, cheaply built wood-frame apartment buildings, bank branches and the ever-expanding infrastructure of hospitals and healthcare. This part of Hollywood is also full of signs that Los Angeles, as it tries to redefine itself for a denser and less car-dependent future, is borrowing rather haphazardly from the architecture of other cities. The Bowery Bar and Bistro on Sunset just east of Vine and the nearby Delancey Pizzeria both market themselves as Manhattan -style outposts bringing a little urban grit to L.A. Along with four other restaurants on Sunset, they are owned by George Abou-Daoud, the 37-year-old son of Egyptian immigrants who grew up in New York and came to Los Angeles in his mid-20s. Abou-Daoud, described by a food blogger as "the de facto mayor of Sunset in Hollywood," said that this stretch of the boulevard, forsaken a decade ago, continues to pick up momentum and a sense of pedestrian life, thanks in part to the Metro Red Line subway. He described endless bureaucratic battles with the city's planning and building-safety departments. To get approval for sidewalk seating requires a process he called "beyond difficult." "It's always been so surprising to me that in the city that has probably the best weather in the world, there isn't more outdoor seating for restaurants, pocket parks, public squares, etc.," he explained later in an email. A more nimble example of L.A.'s rekindled interest in street design and the public sphere is the small Sunset Triangle Plaza, which opened in the heart of Silver Lake in early March.. It has cordoned off one block of Griffith Park Boulevard, where it meets Sunset, to car traffic. The street was already being closed twice a week for a farmers market. The city planning department and the L.A. County Department of Health spent a mere $25,000 to close it seven days a week, putting down plastic planters and painting the pavement a bright shade of green, with giant polka dots. The design, by the L.A. firm Rios Clementi Hale, is a little rough around the edges. But that is part of the point: moving quickly to get the plaza open, the city didn't want to spend much time or money massaging the details. Officially the closure is temporary, and after a year officials will reevaluate the project. "I wish it looked more permanent," Alissa Walker, a 34-year-old design writer who lives two blocks from Sunset, acknowledged as we sat under an umbrella at one of the plaza's small metal tables. "But the temporariness is what allowed it to take shape — that idea of doing it now and asking permission later." Walker is a dedicated pedestrian who doesn't own a car and casually uses the word "walkshed" to refer to the area in her neighborhood that she can reach easily on foot. She says the plaza is emblematic of a wider shift in the city. "When I go to parties, people always say, 'Where's your car?' And I'll say, 'I walked here.' And it used to be like, 'Oh, my God, you're crazy! It's not safe!' But now people will say 'That's cool,' or 'I walk a lot too.' In the last three or four years the level of surprise has really dialed down." On the edge of downtown, just after it passes over the 110 Freeway, Sunset becomes Cesar E. Chavez Avenue before crossing the Los Angeles River and skirting the northern edge of Union Station. Stretches of the boulevard with three names — Sunset, Macy Street and Brooklyn Avenue — were subsumed by the new Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, christened in 1994, the year after the civil-rights leader's death. In the 1920s and '30s, Brooklyn Avenue and the Boyle Heights neighborhood it cuts through formed a center of Jewish life in Los Angeles. Canter's Deli was there, and the area had more than 30 synagogues. Some were in small houses or storefronts, but in 1923 a genuine architectural landmark was built, the Breed Street Shul, a half-block south of Brooklyn. The synagogue was designed in an imposing neo-Byzantine style by A.M. Edelman, also the architect of the better-known Wilshire Boulevard Temple. The late architectural photographer Julius Shulman, who grew up on nearby Cummings Street, had his bar mitzvah there the year it opened. Although some locals still refer to this part of Cesar Chavez as "Brooklyn Avenue," Boyle Heights is now more than 94% Latino. On the far western end of Sunset, by contrast, Pacific Palisades is 89% Anglo, with a median income, $168,000, that is five times higher. Shaded by huge ficus trees and crowded with pedestrians, the stretch of Cesar Chavez just east of the 5 Freeway upends a few persistent stereotypes about Los Angeles: that nobody walks, that everybody lives in a single-family house, works in the movie business and spends most of his time cocooned in an air-conditioned car, shouting Ari Gold-style into his cellphone earpieces. The businesses here mostly cater to local residents, announcing themselves with hand-painted signs in English and Spanish and selling small items — children's clothes, figurines of Catholic saints — that their customers can easily carry home. The two-story brick buildings that form a consistent street wall on both sides of the street look much as they did in the 1920s. Very few were knocked down to make way for the architecture of the post-war city, with its drive-throughs, gas stations and supermarkets marooned in massive parking lots. Much of the street's success can be credited to neglect from the larger city, as investment in the post-war era went elsewhere. But Cesar Chavez Avenue hasn't just survived: It has emerged as a model for other neighborhoods eager to make their major thoroughfares friendlier to pedestrians, cyclists and local business. It has all the urban-design amenities the average L.A. boulevard is desperately missing. One hot afternoon I walked the far eastern end of Cesar Chavez with John Arroyo, an urban planner who grew up in the neighborhood and still lives here. Now 31, he graduated from USC before earning a master's degree in planning from MIT. He said the neighborhood has long reflected the influence of "Latino Urbanism," a term coined by the L.A. planner James Rojas. As Rojas has written, immigrants from Latin America have slowly been transforming "the auto-oriented built form" of Los Angeles into a series of "pedestrian-oriented places." Cultural influence has always been a two-way street along Cesar Chavez, of course, with American idioms seeping into Latino culture even as the reverse is true. When Arroyo was in high school in the late 1990s he went to countless backyard parties where his friends played the brooding pop songs of the British singer Morrissey. "I don't know quite how it happened," he said with a shrug, "but all of a sudden there were Morrissey cover bands everywhere." Near the end of our walk he took me to see the Evergreen Cemetery, a rolling 67-acre piece of greenery in a neighborhood that is lacking, like so many parts of Los Angeles, in parks. Over time, neighborhood residents adopted the cemetery as a quasi-public space, walking or jogging through it or along its perimeter. In 2003 the city added a 5-foot-wide path of pink-red rubber on the sidewalk along the outside of the cemetery. The path is full morning and night with joggers, walkers and parents pushing strollers. It's also become a social center in the neighborhood, a spot where people come to trade gossip and catch up with friends. L.A.'s successful pedestrian enclaves — the Grove and the Lake Shrine among them — have typically been privately operated. And they've been destinations: People drive their cars there in order to find a protected place to walk. The Sunset Triangle Plaza and Boyle Heights suggest the emergence in L.A. of a different model: public spaces for walking, designed in a cost-effective if sometimes prosaic way, meant to serve a neighborhood crowd. Sunset Boulevard has long operated as a zipper or seam across the length of the city, connecting the foothills to the flat expanse of the L.A. basin. But what the boulevard does most dramatically now is provide a bridge —
for the first time. Several archivists who have seen the complete report declined invitations to repeat history and leak the full version of the Pentagon Papers to The Times. But there are some indications of what will be in it. Until now, the complete text of the report — officially known as the Report of the O.S.D. Vietnam Task Force — has been as elusive to researchers as a clean copy of Hamlet has been to generations of Shakespeare scholars. The version Mr. Ellsberg provided to the press was incomplete. A book published by Beacon Press, based on a copy from Senator Mike Gravel, Democrat of Alaska, had missing sections. And a version published by the government was heavily redacted. Advertisement Continue reading the main story When Mr. Ellsberg originally leaked the Pentagon Papers, he did so because he wanted to stop the Vietnam War — so he left out sections about peace negotiations with North Vietnam. “I omitted them because I thought that Nixon would use the release as an excuse for breaking off negotiations with North Vietnam,” he said in an interview. “I frankly didn’t want to give him that excuse.” Those sections about the negotiations had been declassified for years. But they will now appear in the context in which they were first written, along with several volumes that have not been published, including a section on the United States training the Vietnamese national army, a statistical survey of the war from 1965 to 1967 and some supporting documents. Mr. Gelb said he thought the depth of the reports had been exaggerated over time, and noted that his team was extremely limited in what it was able to draw on to produce them. Photo “They are almost catch-as-catch-can studies based on available documents,” he said. “This thing was not meant to be in any sense a definitive history, or even a definitive bureaucratic history. It was just a history put together by very smart guys on the run.” But Mr. Ellsberg said there were still plenty of lessons to be drawn. “The rerelease of the Pentagon Papers is very timely, if anyone were to read it,” he said. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. He said they demonstrate the wisdom of giving war-making powers to Congress — a power that he lamented has been increasingly usurped by the executive branch. “It seems to me that what the Pentagon Papers really demonstrated 40 years ago was the price of that practice,” he said. “Which is that letting a small group of men in secret in the executive branch make these decisions — initiate them secretly, carry them out secretly and manipulate Congress, and lie to Congress and the public as to why they’re doing it and what they’re doing — is a recipe for, a guarantee of Vietnams and Iraqs and Libyas, and in general foolish, reckless, dangerous policies.” Mr. Ellsberg said he wished more people would come forward to release information that could stop these wars, praising Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, the military intelligence analyst who is jailed on charges that he leaked a trove of government files to WikiLeaks. “If he did what he’s accused of, then he’s my hero, because I’ve been waiting for somebody to do that for 40 years,” Mr. Ellsberg said. “And no one has.”After so long in stasis, you’d be forgiven for forgetting exactly why there was such clamour for a third Half-Life 2 expansion. It was about forward momentum. Valve left us, as they did at every juncture in the series, with a cliffhanger and a new destination: a reason to push on and a sense of urgency. Without Episode 3 we were Wile E. Coyote, legs spinning uselessly in midair. What genre-defining blasterpieces sits alongside Half-Life on our list of the best FPS games on PC? Prospekt, the newly released Steam solo project, attempts to put some of that pace to good use. Pitching his game as Opposing Force 2, 25-year-old Bournemouth developer Richard Seabrook laces us back into the boots of marine corporal Adrian Shephard and rewinds us to the climactic midpoint of the game (via some extra-dimensional Vortigaunt technomagic which, frankly, is no more knotty than the narrative threads Valve pulled to get all of its principal cast in City 17). “Speak now or we will assume you are in agreement,” intone the vorts in Prospekt’s opening, elevating some clumsy exposition with a traditional Half-Life joke at the expense of a mute player. The lanky aliens keep Shephard at arm’s length, nominally because he’s spent the better part of his career shooting them, but also because Seabrook doesn’t have the budget to mimic the groundbreaking facial animation of Valve’s seminal sequel. That turns out to be a point in Prospekt’s favour: freed from the ensemble cast that steered the tone of Half-Life 2, its first couple of hours recall the isolation of Black Mesa. The expansion ramps up slowly – arguably too slowly, considering that nobody buying Prospekt will be unfamiliar with the workings of a crowbar or even the alt-fire of a Combine pulse rifle – bravely neglecting to lend you a weapon in its first minutes. Prospekt is a reminder that Portal, surprising and important though it was, wasn’t Valve’s first puzzle game. The early stages here are environmental puzzles, about simple object manipulation – turning a valve, obv; knocking a wire out of place; stacking barrels to bring new areas within reach of the jump key. In short, it exploits the physicality of the Half-Life 2 era Source engine that later shooters didn’t fully capitalise on. The tactility that allows you to pull computer monitors from nearby desks and block the fire of automated turrets. The robustness to the way barnacles latch onto flaming barrels just as they would you. In Prospekt, as in Half-Life proper, the world responds in a way you can anticipate – still a relative luxury in gaming environments. There’s a sense of visual economy too – a sparing approach to aesthetics that means the engine hasn’t aged as cruelly as it might have. Prospekt looks most dated when Seabrook piles on the effects, but for the most part embraces the stark layering of Combine and Eastern European architecture, as Viktor Antonov first imagined it. A powerful early moment finds Shephard hopping into a (non-Aperture-produced) portal. As he does so, the player perspective flits between vignettes from various spots in the Combine empire: the bowels of an apparent alien installation; the outside of a frozen gulag, where the wind whistles in your speakers; the aisles of a spartan church lit by a single circle of stained glass. That’s a far subtler story than the one Prospekt attempts to tell in auditory flashback, seemingly harking back to Shephard’s days raiding Black Mesa. In the first couple of hours, that amounts only to military chatter and the occasional crass joke from the marine’s former squad. Prospekt draws from a deep well of fond nostalgia – the bloop of a Combine radio, the fluttering assault of an antlion. There’s a worry that this new episode doesn’t have surprises in store to match Valve’s War of the Worlds-ian striders, or the tiny airborne buzzsaws which literally fly off their shelves. But that’s a high standard to hold it to – who has matched Valve since? Seabrook’s graphical updates, newly reactive AI, and soundtrack that sometimes trades in techno for brass bombast might be novelty enough. After eight years in stasis, in a genre that’s since taken a different path, there’s still lots in an expanded Half-Life 2 that feels new. Prospekt is out on Steam today.In an offseason in which the Oakland Raiders are prepared to lose cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, they also will lose left guard Robert Gallery. After speaking with Raiders owner Al Davis, Gallery has decided to sign somewhere else whenever free agency begins. Oakland made Gallery the second overall pick in 2004. He started 91 games for the team. "With the end of the league year coming today, and the few conversations I've had with the Raiders and Mr. Davis, we've come to a mutual agreement that it's time for me to move on with my career," Gallery said Thursday from his home in the Oakland area. "I appreciate the start that they and Mr. Davis gave me and I truly have enjoyed my time wearing the silver and black. I wish them well, I thank the fans and I take away great memories of my time in Oakland." Raiders senior executive John Herrera told The Associated Press on Thursday the decision was made because of the vast difference in contract proposals. Herrera says Gallery was seeking about $8 million a season while Oakland was willing to offer about $2.5 million. Rick Smith, Gallery's agent, says it was clear from talking to the Raiders they want to give some of their young players a chance. Like Asomugha, Gallery's contract voided after this past season. After seven NFL seasons, he will be an unrestricted free agent. The 30-year-old Gallery knows that whenever football is played next, he will be playing it in a different place. "I'm looking for a new start somewhere else, to experience another place, and to be able to accomplish some of the things I want to," Gallery said. "It's best for everyone." Gallery is more comfortable playing left guard, though he could play other positions along the offensive line. To try to replace Gallery, the Raiders are expected to turn to last year's fourth-round pick, Bruce Campbell, another favorite of Davis.Alexandria building footprint map, by the author. Detailed map data offers tremendous potential to expand our understanding of the world in which we live. Unfortunately, most localities in the immediate area charge for this data, which should be publicly available to everyone. Past posts on Greater Greater Washington have featured user-created maps based on GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data from DC and Alexandria. DC’s GIS data availability in particular has been described as “a treasure trove of interesting information.” There are numerous data layers available to the public for free at the city’s GIS Data Catalog. But DC is the only jurisdiction in the region that offers so much data for free. The City of Alexandria and every county in the immediate DC area charge for the same type of GIS data. Some charge exorbitant rates. I contacted each jurisdiction’s GIS office in order to determine the price charged for three common map layers: building footprints, zoning, and elevation contours. The prices are shown in this chart: Alexandria and Loudoun charge a nominal price for CDs containing their full data set, which offers all of the GIS data they make available to the public. Arlington is similar but more expensive, as they separate their contour data from the rest and charge more for the contours. Prince William splits their land area up into several small geographic squares called “tiles,” and then charges by tile instead of countywide. Fairfax provides countywide data, but charges a higher rate. Even Fairfax is affordable compared to jurisdictions in Maryland, though. By comparison, both Montgomery and Prince George’s charge excessive rates. They both charge “by tile,” like Prince William, but with several hundred tiles within each county, the cost of full coverage skyrockets significantly. There are some exceptions. Both Fairfax and Montgomery offer downloads of limited data for free. In Montgomery’s case the free data comes as Google Earth “kml” files. However, the bulk of their GIS data, including the three layers mentioned above, comes at a price. A number of free or low-cost GIS programs are available for the general public. As GIS becomes a more mainstream way to gather information, good data availability will become even more paramount. Making it available to the public at a nominal cost or free of charge is a good opportunity for jurisdictions to be more open with their residents, and to foster understanding and innovation. It costs each jurisdiction virtually nothing to give the data to additional users. Some localities have argued in the past that they need to charge to recoup the cost of generating the data. However, that ignores the massive public good that comes from making it possible for people to create maps on their own, even if those maps will just get posted online somewhere and never earn anyone a dime. Some area jurisdictions, DC in particular, have recognized this. It would behoove the other jurisdictions to follow suit.As the price of Bitcoin soared to record highs this week—$10,000, $15,000, then $17,000—the meteoric rise that turned early investors into paper billionaires fueled talk of how the cryptocurrency and its underlying technology, blockchain, could wholly remake the banking system. As MIT researchers argued in a Harvard Business Review article earlier this year: “Blockchain will do to the banking system what the Internet did to media.” Among the many questions about the future of Bitcoin and its peers—Is it a bubble? Will it pop?—is whether the cryptocurrency industry, like its traditional predecessor, will be molded mainly by men. Like so many other aspects of the relatively new and purposefully cryptic assets, an answer is difficult to pin down. There’s little data on the gender makeup of investors and entrepreneurs, but to women already in the field, it feels like cryptocurrency is following in banking’s loafer-shaped footsteps. The Bitcoin investment gender gap Cryptocurrency transactions are anonymized, meaning the identity (and therefore gender) of owners is hard to pin down. But two informal industry surveys provide at least a peek into who’s buying and selling such assets. The first, a survey distributed in September via EthTrader, an online investment community of Ethereum traders, found that just 4% of traders are women. The second, conducted by MyEtherWaller, an open-source interface for creating Ethereum wallets (a digital currency trader must have a wallet to trade currency and monitor his or her balance) found in October that the number of women traders is closer to 16%. Among institutional investors, women seem to be scarce, too. After years of attending industry dinners and events—where she says women “automatically gravitate toward each other” because they’re such a minority—Linda Xie, co-founder of cryptoasset fund Scalar Capital, estimates that the number of female investors in the space is about 10%. Why are women so absent from this space? One factor could be that at their core, investments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are just that: investments. And in every asset class that’s been studied so far, men take riskier bets than women—and cryptocurrency investing is nothing if not risky. In one 2013 study, asset management giant Fidelity found that just 4% of women were willing to invest a substantial amount of money to achieve potentially higher returns if it meant possibly losing some or all of an initial investment, compared with 15% of men. One reason for this aversion to risk is confidence: A Merrill Lynch report from 2015 found that 55% of female retail investors surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I know less than the average investor about financial markets and investing in general,” versus just 27% of the men. Women in the crypto startup ecosystem Women also appear to be scare among the ranks of the field’s VCs. Again, getting an exact number is challenging, but here, too, the consensus seems to be that women account for between 5% and 10% of the workforce, according to the women VCs and entrepreneurs interviewed for this story. By that estimate, cryptocurrency’s venture capital scene would reflect the larger VC landscape, where only 7% of partners at the top 100 VC firms are women, according to a 2017 report by TechCrunch. That’s not to say this territory is without its female standouts. RRE Ventures principal Alice Lloyd George, Autonomous Partners founder and managing director Arianna Simpson, and Benchmark General Partner Sarah Tavel are a few of the female VCs making names for themselves as investors in the space. Crypto-focused VC firms may be plagued by the same pervasive gender biases that dog the industry overall: mostly male partners invest in mostly male teams, who then hire mostly male employees. A 2014 research report by Babson College found that VC firms with a female partner were more than twice as likely as all-male firms to invest in a company with a woman on the management team and three times as likely to invest in women CEOs. Just how many female CEOs are in the space? It’s unclear how many cryptocurrency or blockchain-related startups have been founded by women, but one helpful starting point is the number of female founders overall: According to a TechCrunch analysis, 17% of venture-backed startups in 2017 have at least one female founder; just a third of those have all-female founding teams. Anecdotally, Meltem Demirors, director of development at crypto-focused VC firm Digital Currency Group, has already noticed the lack of female advisors and founders at startups within DCG’s portfolio of 67 companies; about 17% of the employees at those companies are female. Those with fewer than 10 employees—about a third—have no women at all, she says. And the women who do work at the bigger companies tend to fill roles that pop up as firms grow, such as marketing and HR. Nipping Bitcoin ‘bro culture’ in the bud Demirors’ own experience in the industry has made it clear that as a woman in the space, she’s an anomaly. “When I first joined the industry, I’d walk into a meeting and people would be like, you’re the PR chick,” Demirors recalls. “There’s pervasive gender bias that’s in tech in general and that’s transferred over to Bitcoin.” Xie says that while no one was openly malicious at industry events, she often felt ignored (“Men would just introduce themselves to each other right in front of me”), underestimated (“People were surprised when I said anything intelligent”) and belittled (“They usually thought I was someone’s plus one”). Despite—or perhaps because of—the dearth of female leaders in cryptocurrency, the network of women has quickly become a strong one, says Amanda Gutterman, CMO of ConsenSys, a company focused on building the Ethereum ecosystem, and the organizer of the Women in Bitcoin meetup. “It’s a very boisterous event and we’ve built a really dynamic community,” she says. She remains optimistic that women have a real opportunity to become leaders in the space because it’s not yet an entrenched boys’ club. “Unlike other areas of tech,” she says, the underlying technology “has only been around for a couple of years,” she says. “If you come in right now, you can become an expert really quickly.” An opportunity for female founders Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Assets Holdings LLC, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview at the Singapore Fintech Conference in Singapore, on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016. Bloomberg Bloomberg via Getty Images Despite the signs that point to the crypto industry being unwelcoming to women, ConsenSys’s Gutterman sees gender diversity in Bitcoin as “rapidly increasing” and expects the progress to continue. She points to initial coin offerings (ICOs), an alternative way of raising capital, as a valuable avenue for women to get funding outside of the male-dominated ecosystem. In an ICO, a founder releases a public white paper along with a new digital currency that any interested party can purchase. Since ICOs don’t require pitching to investor teams that tend to be mostly male, they let female founders sidestep “interpersonal bias that’s been crystallized in fundraising mechanisms,” Gutterman says. That hypothesis already seems to be playing out: Four out of 30 of the largest initial coin offerings this year had female co-founders, reports Bloomberg. The largest female-led—and second-largest overall—ICO in 2017 was for blockchain technology company Tezos, founded by CEO Kathleen Breitman. (It’s worth mentioning, however, that the startup is currently embroiled in two separate lawsuits by disgruntled investors. Other stars in the field include: Blythe Masters, who quit her job as a J.P. Morgan banker to run Digital Asset Holdings, a startup building products on distributed ledger technology for large financial institutions (blockchain is one type of DLT); Elizabeth Stark, who taught at Yale and Stanford before co-founding Lightning Labs, a user interface for digitally sending and receiving instantaneous financial transactions; and Juthica Chou, co-founder of LedgerX, a digital clearing house that facilitates cryptocurrency trading. Does gender really matter? It may seem counterintuitive to focus on gender in a space that celebrates anonymity, but cryptocurrency bodes so much opportunity that women’s role in it can’t be ignored. The answer to the question some Bitcoin aficionados are asking—“Why do we care?”—is simple: Without women investing and innovating in this new technology, not only will they miss out on its billions of dollars in potential returns, but the rest of us may miss out on a female perspective on how to apply it. Generally speaking, men and women have different interests and focus on solving different problems. One illustration: female-founded that raised their first rounds in 2016 were weighted towards education (32%), e-commerce (31%), healthcare (21%), and media and entertainment (21%), according to TechCrunch. One problem that female-led companies like BitPesa and Tala are tackling using blockchain technology is “banking the unbanked,” Chou says. These fintech startups want to use technology to provide an estimated 2 billion people (more women than men) with access to the basic financial services that many Americans may take for granted: a bank account, access to credit, insurance, and savings products. Activists for economic development focus on financial inclusion because without it, it’s difficult for those in developing countries to save and practically impossible for them to make transactions outside of their immediate surroundings if they want to start or expand businesses—and therefore contribute to their local economies. The financial inclusion of women in particular is important because they put about 90% of their income into healthcare, education, nutrition, and shelter, Cathleen Tobin, director of product development at Women’s World Banking, tells the Wall Street Journal. “The more income that a woman controls, the more she is able to further the stability of her family.” BitPesa founder Elizabeth Rossiello’s proposed solution is to build a payment infrastructure that allows customers to transact in Bitcoin with money sent to mobile accounts. In this way, the unbanked can circumvent traditional banking systems altogether and go straight to digital finance, the way many leapfrogged over landlines and desktop computers to laptops and mobile phones. (In Bangladesh, for example, just 1% of residents have a landline, while 94% own a cell phone.) Women in cryptocurrency overall may have the chance to skip a few steps, too. As a brand-new field with few established leaders, a woman can make a name for herself more quickly than in traditional finance or tech, Gutterman says, bypassing at least some of the gender barriers that come with those industries. “Come on in,” she says, The water’s fine.”In March 2008, we began receiving an e-mailed heads-up cautioning consumers that what we call “baby carrots” are actually deformed (crooked) regular carrots that have been whittled down and marinated in chlorine: The “cute” cocktail carrots that you buy in grocery stores come from deformed crooked big carrots. They are put through a machine to become small cocktail carrots. This part everyone knows. After they are cut to size they are soaked in large vats of water mixed with chlorine to preserve them. The same chlorine you use for your swimming pools and laundry. The reason for this is because they don’t have the protection of the skin so they use a good amount of chlorine. Notice that after you have stored them in the fridge for a while, a white film forms on them… it’s the chlorine coming to the surface. At what cost do we risk our health to have aesthetically presentable VEGGIES? Well Folks… I think after reading this we will all start making our own carrot sticks out of fresh carrots and keep them in the fridge (a few at a time), right? It is true some food products labeled as baby carrots are made by cutting down larger roots, and that these items can be treated with chlorine during processing. However, it’s not true there’s anything wrong with the larger carrots they’re made from, or that the resultant vegetables reach consumers in a chlorine-soaked state. Most “baby-cut” versions are no longer made from imperfect larger carrots, although the motivation for the invention of this product was an initial desire to find a use for standard-sized carrots that otherwise would have had to be discarded: Prior to the mid-1980s, broken and misshaped carrots were discarded, leaving some farmers with as little as 30 percent of their crop to take to stores. Tired of throwing away perfectly good food, California carrot farmer Mike Yurosek took the carrots and used a potato peeler to reshape them into small pieces more suitable for quick munching. Yurosek purchased an industrial green bean cutter to quickly whittle the carrots into the familiar 2-inch portions we still see today — and their popularity took off. The carrots now used to make “baby-cut carrots” are typically ones that have been specially bred to contain more sugar than their standard-sized cousins, because this extra sweetness appeals more strongly to children. Likewise, their bright orange color has also been bred into them, as has the evenness of that color all the way through the root: Most baby carrots sold in U.S. supermarkets are really what the industry calls “baby cuts” — made from longer carrots that have been peeled and cut into a smaller size. These carrots have been specifically bred to be smaller in diameter, coreless and sweeter than regular carrots. Bob Borda, a spokesman for Grimmway Farms, the world’s largest carrot grower (it handles 10 million pounds every day), says that over the years the company has developed a hybrid that combines the best qualities from over 250 known commercial varieties. “Naturally, you breed carrots to get the sweetest flavor and crunch,” he said. As an antimicrobial treatment to minimize or reduce the contamination of the finished product, cocktail carrots can be treated with chlorine. Those that are so treated are subsequently rinsed with potable water to remove the excess chlorine before packaging: In order to create thinner vegetables, baby carrots are planted closer together than traditional carrots. In as little as 120 days from planting, the carrots are dug up and trucked to the processing house to be cut and peeled. But before packaging, all carrots receive a brisk scrub accompanied by a chlorine bath. Wait, what? Chlorine, you say, as in the same chemical you put in your pools? Grimmway Farms uses a chlorine solution on all its carrots — organic and non-organic — to prevent food poisoning, before a final wash in water. Grimmway says the chlorine rinse is well within limits set by the EPA and is comparable to levels found in tap water. Ashley Bade, nutritionist and founder of Honest Mom Nutrition, says the chlorine bath is a standard practice in many pre-cut food items. “The chlorine-water solution is a needed step in the process to limit the risk of food-borne illnesses such as E.coli,” she says. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the use of chlorine as an antimicrobial treatment is a current accepted practice in the processing for all fresh-cut ready-to-eat vegetables (see Section 4.4). As for the “white film” the e-mailed alert claims is the “chlorine coming to the surface,” that white blush is caused by dehydration of the cut surface — were you to pull a carrot from your own garden, slice it in half and place it in your refrigerator, it too would manifest that same whitish appearance on the cut portion once the carrot dried out a bit. Cocktail carrots are more prone to develop this only because their entire surface area is a cut surface. To keep cocktail carrots from drying out, store them at low temperature and in a high relative humidity environment. “Baby-cuts” are part of a sharp upsurge in the carrot’s popularity in the U.S. Between 1970 and 1986, Americans ate 6 pounds of carrots per person per year. However, American consumption of carrots began to take off in 1987, and by 2002 it had reached 11 pounds per person. Baby carrot products are now among the most popular produce items in the supermarket aisle, have surpassed potatoes and celery, according to a 2007 USDA report. To make “baby-cuts,” large sweet carrots are machine cut into 2-inch sections, then abraded (scraped) down to size, their ends rounded by the same process: In the field, two-story carrot harvesters use long metal prongs to open up the soil, while rubber belts grab the green tops and pull. The carrots ride up the belts to the top of the picker, where an automated cutter snips off the greens. They’re trucked to the processing plant, where they’re put in icy water to bring their temperature down to 37 degrees to inhibit spoiling. They are sorted by thickness. Thin carrots continue on the processing line; the others will be used as whole carrots, juice, or cattle feed. An inspector looks for rocks, debris or malformed carrots that slip through. The carrots are shaped into 2-inch pieces by automated cutters. An optical sorter discards any piece that has green on it. The pieces are pumped through pipes to the peeling tanks. The peelers rotate, scraping the skin off the carrots. There are two stages: an initial rough peel and then a final “polishing.” The carrots are weighed and bagged by an automated scale and packager, then placed in cold storage until they are shipped. Generally, consumers can determine whether small carrots are true baby carrots or not by looking at what’s listed on the packaging. Labels that say “baby carrots” appear on packages of very young carrots that are harvested while the vegetables are still quite tiny. Labels that proclaim “baby-cut carrots” appear on packages of petite carrots made by chopping down and polishing much larger versions of the vegetable.Disney once again showcases its interest with the EDM scene with this Toy Story 3 short that was recently featured before Finding Nemo 3D. Partnering with famous trance producer BT, Disney and Pixar release this entertaining albeit short 6 minute video, and from Kandy bracelets to laser robots and without forgetting the LED fishes, it is packed with EDM symbolism. Brian Wayne Transeau more famously known as BT, was chosen to create a high powered EDM iconic track for the short, and while this song might not be for every EDM enthusiast, it is tailored to a large audience and thus focuses more on a commercial sound. This move by Disney, even more so, illustrates their desire to get more involved with the EDM scene and comes after the news that Skrillex will not only appear in Wreck It Ralph but will also be producing the soundtrack for the upcoming Disney movie. Hope you find the short as entertaining as we did, and with that being said I tell you: “What up fishes!” Partysaurus Rex on Disney VideoThe entire presidential campaign is descending on Michigan. Donald Trump — whose campaign aides reportedly make decisions by tooling around on 270towin.com — has made a last-ditch stand, prompting a feverish scramble by Democrats, who have dispatched Hillary Clinton, her husband, and Barack Obama to hold rallies in the state. Right-wing lunatic Ted Nugent asked the crowd at a Trump speech, “Is the real Michigan ready to take Michigan back?” And then right-wing lunatic Donald Trump boasted that he had been honored as the state’s “Man of the Year,” puzzling reporters. Michigan is a state that has certain casual demographic and regional markers that make it easy for outsiders to assume it is fertile ground for Trump: Midwest, white working class, Rust Belt. I was born and raised in the state, an experience that can (with equal plausibility) either be credited as familiarity or discounted as bias. I am here to tell you that Michigan is not a Trump state. Like many blue states, Michigan has a Republican-controlled legislature, owing to low non-presidential turnout and packed-in urban voters, and it sometimes elects Republican governors. It has voted Democratic in each of the last six presidential elections, by an average margin exceeding 9 percent. Of the most recent 20 polls of the state, Hillary Clinton leads in 18, with two ties. It is not experiencing any special economic distress that would threaten this pattern, with an unemployment rate at 4.6 percent. Nor does Trump have any particular connection to the state’s culture. It is true that Michigan has a cohort of economically populist but racist white swing voters. George Wallace received 10 percent of the vote in the state in 1968. Pollster Stanley Greenberg embedded in Macomb County, a blue-collar Detroit suburb, where he learned that racially resentful “Reagan Democrats” believed the Democratic Party had grown too closely identified with black interests. But whatever disaffection for the national Democratic agenda shown by the state’s voters had halted by the 1990s (or, perhaps, was halted by Bill Clinton). Macomb County voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Unlike Ohio, which is culturally divided between its northern and southern parts, the latter of which consists of Appalachian coal country, Michigan was settled by Yankees. Its political cultural resembles Upper Northwest states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, but unlike those neighbors, it has large cities with significant African-American populations. Michigan Republicans in the 20th century reflected the best parts of their party’s bygone progressive traditions, trying to conciliate labor with business, supporting reasonable tax and regulatory policies, and strongly endorsing action on civil rights. Governor George Romney proposed resolutions at the 1964 Republican convention denouncing extremism on the left and right, and supporting civil rights. Both were defeated, and Romney went on to oppose Goldwater after he won the nomination. Romney’s lieutenant governor, William Milliken, succeeded him in 1969 and stayed in office until 1983. Milliken broke from the national party’s increasingly extreme direction, endorsing a series of Democratic national candidates until his local Republican Party finally repudiated him this summer for his disloyalty. For all his catastrophic failures in Flint, the state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, was able to win because he ran as a data-centric moderate (“one tough nerd”) in the state’s old tradition. Democrats are pouring last-minute resources into the state as a precautionary response to Trump. The same dynamic took place four years ago in Pennsylvania, where the Mitt Romney campaign launched a desperate final offensive, prompting a mirror response by the Obama campaign. But these maneuvers should not confuse people about the qualities and generally sound judgment of my native state. Trump might win Ohio, sure, but as any good Michiganian can tell you, those people are animals. The “real Michigan,” contra Ted Nugent, is not a state for racist demagogues.The Sussex Technical Adult Division and Sussex Tech School District were ordered to pay $95,000 earlier this year to a former teacher and coordinator who said he was fired after he pointed out the district was copying textbooks without permission. Terri L. Corder, principal of the adult division, is listed as a defendant along with the Board of Education of Sussex Technical School District and Michael Owens, director of extended learning of Sussex Technical Adult Division. In January 2017, U.S. District Court Judge Leonard P. Stark ordered the district to pay Thomas Keeton $95,000 – Sussex Tech's offer, which was accepted by Keeton. “This judgment shall not be construed either as an admission or findings of liability on the part of the defendants or that plaintiff has suffered any damage,” Stark wrote in his order. Keeton, a former teacher hired in 2003 who had worked for four years as part-time coordinator for the adult division, filed a lawsuit against Sussex Tech in 2015 after his position was terminated prior to the end of his contract. In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, Keeton said he was terminated after he told Corder that the district had been infringing on copyrights by copying from textbooks. “Keeton presented a list of copyright infringments totaling almost half a million dollars that Sussex Technical Adult Division had been and was engaging in to Terri Corder, principal of Sussex Technical Adult Division, James Groves High School,” the lawsuit states. Keeton spoke out about the copyright infringement out of public concern, and he was acting in good faith and honest motives by exercising his First Amendment rights, the lawsuit states. After Keeton notified Corder of the copyright infringement, the lawsuit states that she retaliated against Keeton and dismissed him from his employment, costing him his livelihood. Corder and Owens could not be reached for comment.GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida quarterback Will Grier will make his fourth consecutive start Saturday when the 25th-ranked Gators host No. 3 Mississippi. Coach Jim McElwain made the announcement after practice Wednesday, saying Grier "played pretty good in some situations last week" and "deserves to go this week." After splitting snaps with sophomore Treon Harris in the first two games, Grier has gone the distance in the past two. He was at his best down the stretch against Tennessee last week, hitting 11 of his final 18 pass attempts for 149 yards and two touchdowns. Grier has thrown for 725 yards and six touchdowns this season. He also has two rushing scores and four turnovers, including three interceptions. McElwain says Harris also had a good week of practice, adding, "Both guys are ready to go."PerthNow in a perfect demonstration of how NOT to report rape, sexual abuse, incest and creating child pornography. Millions of people break up with their partners and do not choose to rape their children for “comfort”. Break ups, loneliness, and a need for comfort do not cause rape. Only one thing causes rape and that is the decision to rape someone. Rape is not sex. Incest, sexual abuse, exploitation and creating child pornography is not a “sexual relationship” Here are the reasons this matters, in every case, with every headline. The victim impact statements from child abuse trials are harrowing, a testament to the lifelong injuries suffered by people who were sexually abused as children. They are the litany of drug addition, alcohol dependence, gambling problems, depression, crippling anxiety, relationship breakdowns, suicidal thoughts, shame, self-hatred, mistrust of others and long term emotional damage so common in survivors of child sexual abuse. Children who have been abused are also significantly more likely to suffer further abuse, both as children and as adults. The effects of sexual abuse of children then lead to the cycle of horror where victims become unreliable witnesses to
, which isn’t bad. But apparently, not many more, since it’s not part of the relaunch line of titles post Civil War 2 – so far. — 95- AMAZING SPIDER-MAN AND SILK: SPIDER(FLY) EFFECT LTD ($5) 03/16- Spider-Man & Silk Spiderfly Effect Ltd #1 - 30,806 04/16 Spider-Man & Silk Spiderfly Effect Ltd #2 - 22,182 (-28.0%) 05/16 Spider-Man & Silk Spiderfly Effect Ltd #3 - 19,949 (-10.1%) Working quite well for this kind of product (infinite comics put on paper) — 96- VISION 11/15 Vision # 1- 42,119 12/15 Vision # 2 - 36,107 (-14.3%) 01/16 Vision # 3 - 34,807 (- 3.6%) 02/16 Vision # 4 - 19,070 (-45.2%) 03/16 Vision #5 - 18,636 (- 2.3%) 04/16 Vision #6 - 19,028 (+ 2.1%) 05/16 Vision #7 - 19,623 (+ 3.1%) Since issue #2 : - 45.7 % The only title going up without any gimmick in the whole Marvel line is also the one its writer will leave. Once again, I can’t believe Marvel will not try to relaunch it. –Update: I’m no Dream Girl, so far, it disapeared from Marvel October sollicitations. — 97- SQUADRON SUPREME 12/15 Squadron Supreme #1 - 48,247 12/15 Squadron Supreme #2 - 27,643 (-42.7%) 01/16 Squadron Supreme #3 - 23,551 (-14.8%) 02/16 Squadron Supreme #4 - 24,182 (+ 2.7%) 03/16 Squadron Supreme #5 - 22,323 (- 7.7%) 04/16 Squadron Supreme #6 - 22,930 (+ 2.7%) 05/16 Squadron Supreme #7 - 19,486 (-15.0%) Since issue #2 : - 29.5% Falling behind the 20K line for the first time, after having nicely stabilized four months in a row. It will survive Civil War 2 and make it past issue #12, which is a nice proof of support by Marvel. — 100- ALL NEW INHUMANS 12/15 All New Inhumans #1 - 58,123 12/15 All New Inhumans #2 - 34,471 (-40.7%) 01/16 All New Inhumans #3 - 25,746 (-25.3%) 02/16 All New Inhumans #4 - 22,334 (-13.3%) 03/16 All New Inhumans #5 - 24,779 (+10.9%) 04/16 All New Inhumans #6 - 20,152 ( -18.7%) 05/16 All New Inhumans #7 - 18,833 (- 6.5%) Since issue #2 : -45.4 % Who in his right mind thought two ongoing Inhumans titles could survive? — 107- HOWARD THE DUCK 03/15 Howard the Duck #1 – 85,929 04/15 Howard the Duck #2 – 43,572 (-49.3%) 05/15 Howard the Duck #3 – 35,391 (-18.2%) 06/15 Howard the Duck #4 – 34,043 (- 3.8%) 07/15 --- 08/15 Howard the Duck #5 – 26,891 (-21.0%) 09/15 --- 10/15 --- 11/15 Howard The Duck #1 - 69,177 12/15 Howard The Duck #2 - 33,578 (-51.5%) 01/16 Howard The Duck #3 - 28,971 (-13.7%) 02/16 Howard The Duck #4 - 20,965 (-27.6%) 03/16 Howard The Duck #5 - 17,995 (-14.2%) 04/16 Howard The Duck #6 - 19,459 (+8.1%) 05/16 Howard The Duck #7 - 18,122 (-6.9%) Since issue #2 : -46.0% OMG! Why is Steve Rogers that old on the cover? — 113- AGENTS OF SHIELD 12/14 SHIELD #1 - 94,503 01/15 SHIELD #2 - 33,965 (- 64.1%)... 09/15 SHIELD#10- 18,693 (- 17.3%) 09/15 Agent Carter SHIELD - 26,438 09/15 Fury SHIELD – 26,313 09/15 Mockingbird SHIELD ($5) – 25,593 09/15 Quake SHIELD – 25,193 09/15 Cavalry SHIELD – 23,831 10/15 SHIELD#11 - 20,121 (+ 7.6%) 11/15 SHIELD#12 - 17,470 (-13.2%) 12/15 --- 01/16 Agents of SHIELD #1 - 35,382 02/16 Agents of SHIELD #2 - 18,771 (-47.0%) 03/16 Agents of SHIELD #3 - 18,139 (- 3.4%) (Stand Off) 04/16 Agents of SHIELD #4 - 17,878 (- 1.4%) (Stand Off) 05/16 Agents of SHIELD #5 - 17,410 (- 2.6%) Since issue #2: -7.3% That’s weird. Either this Stand-off tie-in didn’t attract any new readers, or they decided to stay. Spider-Man costume looks a little weird on its Mike Norton cover (no variant this month). Marvel seem at last ready to give up on a SHIELD title post Civil War 2. — 114- VENOM SPACEKNIGHT 11/15 Venom Spaceknight #1 - 59,151 12/15 Venom Spaceknight #2 - 32,210 (-45.5%) 01/16 Venom Spaceknight #3 - 25,770 (-20.0%) 02/16 Venom Spaceknight #4 - 21,545 (-16.4%) 03/16 Venom Spaceknight #5 - 18,807 (-12.7%) 04/16 Venom Spaceknight #6 - 17,894 (- 4.9%) 05/16 Venom spaceknight #7 - 17,370 (- 3.0%) Since issue #2 : - 46.1% Well, apparently, the new Carnage is more popular than the new Venom. But Venom will be relaunched post Civil War 2! — 115- HAUNTED MANSION LTD 03/16- Haunted Mansion Ltd #1 - 35,513 04/16 Haunted Mansion Ltd #2 - 22,443 (-36.8%) 05/16 Haunted Mansion Ltd #3 - 17,126 (-23.7%) Still an amazing success. — 117- CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS 10/15 Contest of Champions #1 - 79,873 11/15 Contest of Champions #2 - 34,942 (-56.3%) 12/15 Contest of Champions #3 - 29,165 (-16.5%) 01/16 Contest of Champions #4 - 27,028 (- 7.3%) 02/16 Contest of Champions #5 - 21,430 (-20.7%) 03/16 Contest of Champions #6 - 19,982 (- 6.8%) 04/16 Contest of Champions #7 - 17,874 (-10.5%) 05/16 Contest of Champions #8 - 17,085 (- 4.4%) Since issue #2 : - 51.2 % Smallest fall so far. Hey, I try to stay positive! — 119- SCARLET WITCH 12/15 Scarlet Witch #1 - 57,835 01/16 Scarlet Witch #2 - 25,728 (-55.5%) 02/16 Scarlet Witch #3 - 23,900 (- 7.1%) 03/16 Scarlet Witch #4 - 21,094 (-11.7%) 04/16 Scarlet Witch #5 - 17,864 (-15.3%) 05/16 Scarlet Witch #6 - 16,842 (- 5.7%) Since issue #2: -34.5% If people are so into covers, why don’t buy « en masse » this title, seeing that David Aja is signing the better ones he has ever done every moth? In this issue, she’s traveling to Paris to meet Le Peregrine, the french hero we’re ashamed for! I’m betting two croissants he’s gonna try to seduce her in a very annoying way. It seems like this one gets axed before the end of Civil War 2. — 123- WEB WARRIORS 11/15 Web Warriors #1 - 62,096 12/15 Web Warriors #2 - 31,614 (-49.1%) 01/16 Web Warriors #3 - 25,407 (-19.6%) 02/16 Web Warriors #4 - 20,198 (-20.5%) 03/16 Web Warriors #5 - 18,621 (- 7.8%) 04/16 Web Warriors #6 - 17,376 (- 6.7%) 05/16 Web Warriors #7 - 16,445 (- 5.4%) Since issue #2 : - 48.0 % Will be cancelled in September, for obvious reasons. — 131- GUARDIANS OF INFINITY($5) 12/15 Guardians of Infinity #1 - 121,407 01/16 Guardians of Infinity #2 - 27,112 (-77.7%) 02/16 Guardians of Infinity #3 - 22,309 (-17.7%) 03/16 Guardians of Infinity #4 - 18,598 (-15.6%) 04/16 Guardians of Infinity #5 - 16,337 (-12.2%) 05/16 Guardians of Infinity #6 - 15,728 (- 3.7%) Since issue #2: -42.0% You’ll have to switch to DC and Boom! to follow the rest of Dan Abnett comics career. — 137- NOVA 02/14 Nova#13.Now – 26,147 ( 4.4%) 03/14 Nova v5 #14 – 23,459 ( -10.3%)... 05/15 Nova v5 #31 – 18,129 ( -2.7%) 11/15 Nova #1 - 45,536 12/15 Nova #2 - 27,120 (-40.4%) 01/16 Nova #3 - 23,464 (-13.5%) 02/16 Nova #4 - 18,187 (-22.5%) 03/16 Nova #5 - 16,886 (- 7.2%) 04/16 Nova #6 - 15,795 (- 6.5%) 05/16 Nova #7 - 15,377 (- 2.6%) Since issue #2 : - 43.3 % I doubt it will make it past issue #12. –Update: well, it’s relaunched post Civil War 2, once again!- — 139- STAR-LORD 07/14 Star Lord #1 – 78,501 08/14 Star Lord #2 – 37,109 (-52.7%) 09/14 Star Lord #3 – 32,918 (-11.3%) 10/14 Star Lord #4 – 37,123 ( 12.8%) 11/14 Star Lord #5 – 36,905 ( -0.6%) 12/14 Star Lord #6 – 32,863 (-11.0%) 01/15 Star Lord #7 – 28,174 (-14.3%) 01/15 Star Lord #8 – 25,227 (-10.5%) 02/15 Star Lord #9 – 38,655 (+53.2%) B. Vortex 03/15 Star Lord#10 – 40,836 (+ 4.5%) B. Vortex 04/15 Star Lord#11 – 41,325 (+ 1.2%) B. Vortex 05/15 Star Lord#12 – 25,580 (-38.1%) --- 07/15 Star-Lord & Kitty Pride Ltd #1 - 44,760 08/15 Star-Lord & Kitty Pride Ltd #2 - 32,578 (-27.2%) 09/15 Star-Lord & Kitty Pride Ltd #3 - 31,012 (- 4.8%) 11/15 Star-Lord #1 - 47,104 12/15 Star-Lord #2 - 26,348 (-44.1%) 01/16 Star-Lord #3 - 22,698 (-13.9%) 02/16 Star-Lord #4 - 19,117 (-15.8%) 03/16 Star-Lord #5 - 17,374 (-9.1%) 04/16 Star-Lord #6 - 17,653 (+1.6%) 05/16 Star-Lord #7 - 15,147 (-14.2%) Since issue #2 : - 42.5% Will get the axe next month. Update: but will come back with a relaunch post Civil War 2!! My God, why so much effort?! — 140- UNBEATTABLE SQUIRREL GIRL 01/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #1 - 41,693 02/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #2 – 24,621 (-40.9%) 03/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #3 – 26,586 ( +8.0%) 04/15 unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #4 – 20,987 (-21.1%) 05/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #5 – 20,088 (- 4.3%) 06/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #6 – 19,341 (- 3.7%) 07/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #7 – 19,801 (+ 2.4%) 08/15 Unbeatteable Squirrel Girl #8 - 19,134 (- 3.4%) 09/15 --- 10/15 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #1 - 43,155 11/15 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #2 - 23,064 (-46.6%) 12/15 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #3 - 25,350 (+ 9.9%) 01/16 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #4 - 19,923 (-21.4%) 02/16 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #5 - 17,743 (-10.9%) 03/16 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #6 - 20,739 (+16.9%) 04/16 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #7 - 17,869 (-13.8%) 05/16 Unbeattable Squirrel Girl #8 - 15,131 (-15.3%) Since issue #2 : -34.4 % TPB VOL.1: 7,352 Average +%TPB sales issues 1-4: +29.9% TPB VOL.2 : 2,928 Average +%TPB sales issues 5-8: +6.6% Floppy sales become rather weak, making its TPB sales look even stronger by comparaison. — 152- HYPERION 03/16- Hyperion #1 - 31,679 04/16 Hyperion #2 - 16,178 (-48.9%) 05/16 Hyperion #3 - 13,204 (-19.4%) Since issue #2: -19.4% Too bad this one is not finding its audience. This road-movie themed comic book with a superpowered truck driver is intriguing… but not for too many people. Will not make it past Civil War 2. — 153- MOON GIRL AND DEVIL DINOSAUR 11/15 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1 - 38,133 12/15 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #2 - 21,715 (-43.1%) 01/16 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #3 - 18,424 (-15.2%) 02/16 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #4 - 14,941 (-18.9%) 03/16 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #5 - 14,771 (- 1.1%) 04/16 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #6 - 12,253 (-17.0%) 05/16 Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #7 - 12,879 (+ 5.1%) Since issue #2 : -40.7 % The start of a new arc, but not supported by any variant covers. That proves that at least half of those bumps we see now with each new arc come mostly from the numbers of variants. — 167- X-MEN WORST X-MAN EVER LTD 02/16 X-Men Worst X-Man Ever Ltd #1 of 5 - 21,399 03/16 X-Men Worst X-Man Ever Ltd #2 of 5 - 15,169 (-29.1%) 04/16 X-Men Worst X-Man Ever Ltd #3 of 5 - 13,436 (-11.4%) 05/16 X-Men Worst X-Man Ever Ltd #4 of 5 - 11,972 (-10.9%) That’s 4 times less readers than for Apocalypse Wars. Think of it the next time X-men fans will complain about endless crossovers. — 168- PATSY WALKER HELLCAT 12/15 Patsy Walker Hellcat #1 - 46,198 01/16 Patsy Walker Hellcat #2 - 20,836 (-54.9%) 02/16 Patsy Walker Hellcat #3 - 16,587 (-18.6%) 03/16 Patsy Walker Hellcat #4 - 15,971 (- 3.7%) 04/16 Patsy Walker Hellcat #5 - 12,703 (-20.5%) 05/16 Patsy Walker Hellcat #6 - 11,822 (- 6.9%) Since issue #2: -43.3% Can you count the number of shells on its cover? Hercules seems overly protected you-know-where. — 163- ILLUMINATI 11/15 Illuminati #1 - 44,163 12/15 Illuminati #2 - 23,090 (-47.7%) 01/16 Illuminati #3 - 19,025 (-17.6%) 02/16 Illuminati #4 - 15,280 (-19.7%) 03/16 Illuminati #5 - 13,561 (-11.2%) 04/16 Illuminati #6 - 13,933 (+ 2.7%) 05/16 Illuminati #7 - 12,093 (-13.2%) Since issue #2: -47.6% Not shining in the dark, for sure. — 176- DRAX 11/15 Drax #1 - 49,601 12/15 Drax #2 - 23,054 (-53.5%) 01/16 Drax #3 - 18,837 (-18.3%) 02/16 Drax #4 - 14,620 (-22.4%) 03/16 Drax #5 - 13,042 (-10.8%) 04/16 Drax #6 - 13,606 (+ 4.3%) 05/16 Drax #7 - 11,259 (-17.2%) Since issue #2 : - 51.2% Despite all the good things I could say about CM Punk’s visual appeal, saleswise, this one is turning into a disaster, but has not many issues left, as it will not come back post Civil War 2. — 195- WEIRDWORLD 06/15 Weirdworld #1 - 48,688 07/15 Weirdworld #2 - 26,307 (-46.0%) 08/15 Weirdworld #3 - 23,784 (- 9.6%) 09/15 Weirdworld #4 - 22,206 (- 6.6%) 10/15 Weirdworld #5 - 18,996 (-14.5%) 11/15 --- 12/15 Weirdworld #1 - 30,288 01/16 Weirdworld #2 - 17,759 (-41.4%) 02/16 Weirdworld #3 - 14,190 (-20.1%) 03/16 Weirdworld #4 - 11,993 (-15.5%) 04/16 Weirdworld #5 - 10,730 (-10.5%) 05/16 Weirdworld #6 - 9,877 (- 7.9%) Since issue #2: -44.4% As loved by critics as ignored by buyers. — 206- 229-SCARLET 07/10 Scarlet #1 - 32,015 08/10 --- 09/10 Scarlet #2 – 27,312 (-14.7%) 10/10--- 11/10 Scarlet #3 – 24,986 (- 8.5%) 12/10 --- 01/11 --- 01/11 Scarlet #4 - 22,011 (-11.9%) 02/11 --- 03/11 Scarlet #5 – 20,473 (- 7.0%)... 02/13 Scarlet #6 - 16,528 (-19.3%)... 07/13 Scarlet #7 - 13,250 (-19.8%) … 05/16 Scarlet #8 – 8,492 (-35.9%) 05/16 Scarlet #9 - 7,385 (-13.0%) Since issue #2: -73.0% This is what I was talking about. Marvel is just throwing those two issues in a row, 3 years after the last one released. This is just painful to see: 7K for an acclaimed Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev creator owned book? Any other company could have done better. — 209- POWERS 05/14 Bureau #10 - 9,002 ( 0.5%) 06/14 --- 07/14 --- 08/14 --- 09/14 Bureau #11 - 8,747 ( -2.8%) 10/14 --- 11/14 Bureau #12 - 8,379 ( -4.2%)... 01/15 Powers #1 - 16,467 02/15 --- 03/15 Powers #2 - 12,266 (-25.5%) 04/15 --- 05/15 Powers #3 - 10,485 (-14.5%) 06/15 --- 07/15 Powers #4 - 9,806 (- 6.5%) 08/15 --- 09/15 --- 10/15 Powers #5 - 9,381 (- 4.3%) 11/15 --- 12/15 --- 01/16 --- 02/16 --- 03/16 --- 04/16 --- 05/16 Powers #6 – 8,237 (-12.2%) Since issue #2: -32.8% Marvel just doesn’t know how to handle its indy catalog. — 217- RED WOLF 12/15 Red Wolf #1 - 39,288 01/16 Red Wolf #2 - 26,662 (-32.2%) 02/16 Red Wolf #3 - 12,211 (-54.2%) 03/16 Red Wolf #4 - 9,932 (-18.7%) 04/16 Red Wolf #5 - 8,445 (-15.0%) 05/16 Red Wolf #6 - 7,773 (- 8.0%) Since issue #2: -70.8% Record number of readers lost since issue #2 (well, after Scarlet). — 221- DARK TOWER DRAWING OF THE THREE- BITTER MEDICINE LTD 03/15 Dark Tower D3HC Ltd #1 of 5 – 11,107... 07/15 Dark Tower D3HC Ltd #5 of 5 – 9,027 (- 2.4%) 08/15 --- 09/15 Dark Tower Lady of Shadows Ltd #1 of 5 – 9,918... 01/16 Dark Tower Lady of Shadows Ltd #5 of 5 - 7,676 (- 3.3%) … 04/16 Dark Tower Drawing of 3 Bitter Medicine Ltd #1 of 5 – 8,252 05/16 Dark Tower Drawing of 3 Bitter Medicine Ltd #2 of 5 - 7,597 (- 7.9%) Clearly destined for addicts who can’t wait for the trade. — 289- STAR BRAND AND NIGHTMASK 12/15 Star Brand and Nightmask #1 - 27,969 01/16 Star Brand and Nightmask #2 - 11,677 (-58.3%) 02/16 Star Brand and Nightmask #3 - 8,956 (-23.3%) 03/16 Star Brand and Nightmask #4 - 6,678 (-25.4%) 04/16 Star Brand and Nightmask #5 - 5,653 (-15.3%) 05/16 Star Brand and Nightmask #6 - 5,216 (-17.7%) Since issue #2: -55.3% Finding a copy of this one will be hard. — Thanks for reading until the end! I hope to see you next time. Meanwhile, feel free to comment, express your rage or your love for French sarcasm! I’ll hug everyone, no matter what. And if you’re a hairdresser, I wouldn’t recommand for you to come worki in France. Love you! The Beat Staff is an elite group of trained ninjas. Like this: Like Loading...The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple analyzes the revelation that ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos has donated $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation and not disclosed this fact to his viewers: How big a deal is this? Large: Stephanopoulos IS ABC News. Though he doesn’t anchor “ABC World News Tonight,” he is the network’s chief anchor, meaning that he fronts the network in breaking news situations — or just when it matters. More: He is anchor of “Good Morning America” and of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Now for the Clinton Foundation, the family charity of Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. As numerous reports have shown in recent weeks, the foundation sits at the crossroads of domestic and international power. Big shots who donate to promote the foundation’s work in economic development, global health and climate change may also be seeking influence in U.S. politics. A donation from Stephanopoulos to the Clinton Foundation in any amount constitutes a scandal and an immediate crisis for ABC News. Though the donations in 2013 and 2014 appear to have occurred after Hillary Clinton left the State Department (in early 2013) and before she announced her presidential run (weeks ago), come on: Her inevitability as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has been a Washington fact throughout this period. Read the rest of the story here.There was a time when Brazilian clubs sold their most promising players for the ‘price of a banana’, to use the local expression. In 2003, Seville paid around £1.7 million for Julio Baptista and Kaka joined AC Milan for just £5 million. Those days are over. Internacional have rejected Tottenham Hotspur's offer of £10.5 million for striker Leandro Damiao, 21. Santos want £40 million for Neymar, 19. Sao Paulo have put an incredible £70 million price tag on Lucas Moura, 18. With transfer fees for talented Brazilians ballooning, some of the smarter clubs have decided to get in early. That is why in March Chelsea paid around £6.5 million to Sao Paulo for forward Lucas Piazon, 17, who has yet to make a professional appearance. The fee may seem excessive for a teenager, especially as, despite attempts by the likes of Mirandinha, Robinho, Afonso Alves, and Jo, there has never been a truly successful Brazilian striker in England’s top flight. Piazon, however, is determined to be the first. Roman Abramovich has added the player to a squad that already includes Alex, Ramires and David Luiz. But if it is futebol arte (football art) the Chelsea owner wanted from the youngster, he may have to think again. “I’d say my playing style is different from typical Brazilian forwards. When you think about these, you think about dribbles and flashy moves. My football is simpler and more direct. It’s more like a midfielder playing up front. I like to pass quickly. I don’t hog the ball and I don’t tend to run with it,” Piazon said. Piazon will join Chelsea officially on his next birthday, in January 2012, despite major interest from Juventus. His remarkable record of reaching the finals of every big competition he has appeared in convinced the Italians he was worth a gamble. Juventus had an offer accepted by Sao Paulo and, as the player’s family are of Italian origin, the signing was expected to be a formality. Not so. The teenager had his heart set on a crack at the Premier League. Piazon admits he has been a Chelsea fan from an early age, but says his choice was based on purely footballing reasons. “I watch Italian and English football. I compared the two and decided the best option for me was England,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to play in Europe but it was always England first. I watch a lot of Premier League games. But since I first learnt of Chelsea’s interest I’ve watched all their matches to learn exactly how they play.” Piazon had been tracked by Chelsea scout and Abramovich adviser Piet de Visser for more than two years, which undoubtedly swayed Piazon’s decision. “He liked the way I performed and thought I’d be able to adapt well to English football. That’s one of the reasons I’m going to Chelsea. Of all the championships in Europe, I think I’d adjust best to England,” Piazon said. Piazon, though, is under no illusion about what faces him in the Premier League. “The marking’s a lot tighter and the game’s much quicker. In Brazil, if you get the ball, you have time to think and look around. Sometimes it feels that you’re playing a match in slow motion. There it’s much quicker and much tougher.” He can hardly contain himself when he talks about the possibility of playing alongside his idols, picking out Frank Lampard, Salomon Kalou, and Didier Drogba. But surprisingly for a forward, his favourite players are centre-backs Luiz and John Terry. The latter because “he’s always fully committed and also because he’s one of the best defenders in the world. David Luiz because he’s Brazilian and in a great phase”. With the departure of manager Carlo Ancelotti, some of those players may not be there when Piazon arrives at Stamford Bridge but he remains sanguine. “Ancelotti liked Brazilians. Maybe Guus Hiddink will take over and he also likes Brazilians. He has a history of doing well with South Americans and I think that Dutch football is similar to Brazilian football.” Piazon has every reason to be confident as Brazilian forwards have flourished under Dutch management. Romario and Ronaldo, for example, both got their breaks in Europe with PSV Eindhoven. De Visser, another Dutchman, is convinced the player has got what it takes to do well in the Premier League. “I saw him for the first time when he was just 15. He was small and thin but he played very quickly and was very intelligent for his age. I like good players but [I want] players with some ‘extras’. “The extras are their movement with the ball, [ability to] score goals and their intelligence,” he said. While many Brazilians talk about culture shock and their dread of English weather and food, Piazon, who speaks English well, is unfazed about moving to London and is confident he will adapt quickly. Piazon’s story is not one of poor boy made good. His mother, Marizabel, is a lawyer. His father, Antônio Carlos, is a commercial representative who now looks after his son’s interests. Both take an active part in their son’s career and both will be moving to London. But while his parents will be there to keep an eye on him, it will be the teenager who will be calling all the shots, just as he has done throughout his short career. John Cotterill is a football commentator for TV Globo in Brazil twitter.com/Pitacodogringo Piazon factfile Born in Sao Paulo in January 1994. Aged eight, he began playing for what is now Coritiba FC’s futsal (indoor football) team, making the switch to grass three years later. Moved to Atlético Paranaense in 2007, helping the side to the finals of the under-15 Copa do Brasil a year later, where they lost the final to Sao Paulo, who swiftly bought him. Piazon guided São Paulo through the Brazilian qualifiers for the Premier Cup (Nike Cup) in 2009, earning a call up from Brazil’s under-15s. Later that year São Paulo travelled to Manchester for the Premier Cup finals. Piazon scored in the 3-0 group win over Manchester United. In November, the forward starred for Brazil’s U-15s in the South America championships in Bolivia, finishing as the competition’s top scorer with 10 goals. Piazon scored three times as Brazil took the South American U-17 championship in Ecuador earlier this year. Piazon will be in Mexico later this month for the U-17 World Cup where Brazil could meet England in the play-offs. Brazilian forwards who have struggled in EnglandFive-hundred pounds of explosive fireworks were reported missing and are believed stolen from a CSX train shipment, according to ABC News. Thirty-two cases of the commercial grade fireworks were being transited through Ohio when they were believed stolen after originating in Chicago with a scheduled termination in Detroit, according to a senior law enforcement official. According to CSX routes, it's possible the train made its way through Indiana at some point on its route as well. The explosive material was discovered missing Thursday and reported soon thereafter. The cases include 2.5-inch and 5-inch aerial commercial grade fireworks, which is the kind used in public fireworks displays, officials said. These commercial grade fireworks could be very dangerous in the wrong hands, the source told ABC News. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has established a tip line out of its Detroit Field Division that is handling the case. The number for the tip line is (313) 202-3400. ----- Download the new and improved RTV6 app to get the latest news on the go and receive alerts to your phone Sign up to have the latest news headlines delivered straight to your email inbox15User Rating: 1 out of 5 Review title of Nathan Constant freezing and crashing You never know when the game is going to crash/freeze on multiplayer. It's seemingly random, but happens far too often (at least once per hour). This is not an isolated issue, as many people have reported the same - sometimes you can luck out and return to the desktop, other times you have to completely restart your system. Apparently, this issue may be related to the 1080ti but a fair few other people have had it with other hardware. Unfortunately, I don't see this getting a fix from the developers as this is an issue that has been around since September 2017. Online Social (when it works) is good fun, although the player-base is quite small so you can spend a lot of time facing off with AI bots instead of human players. The game when it sits on your drive is about 120GB! As of 07/11/2018, this game still crashes constantly on a 1080ti.VANCOUVER, Wash. — A Vancouver man was taken into police custody after a standoff that featured the suspect serenading officers with a banjo, KPTV reports. Officers were called to the 8500 block of NE 36th Circle on Sunday after reports of a naked man walking around with a knife. When they arrived at the man’s home, he refused to surrender. Neighbors saw the man, identified by police as Andrew Helmsworth, yelling at officers, and said at one point, Helmsworth walked outside with a banjo, which he played for the officers. Witnesses said the officers eventually subdued Helmsworth with what appeared to be a non-lethal round and took him into custody. According to police, the investigation revealed that Helmsworth had assaulted a family member. Helmsworth was arrested on a charge of felony assault and lodged at the Clark County Jail, police said. 45.648100 -122.586268Designer Fabienne Felder wants to reupholster jumbo jets with moss. In her vision, passengers will sit on verdant tufts while the bryophytes purify the air and use electrons captured during photosynthesis to power the Direct TV panels on the seat backs. Many would think Felder was crazy, but biochemist Dr. Paolo Bombelli and plant scientist Ross Dennis from the University of Cambridge were impressed with her brio and offered her the opportunity to collaborate with their lab. The scientists are researching the potential of photo microbial fuel cells, or photo-MFCs, which are essentially potted plants that act like miniature power plants and transform
PA Migrants on their way to the EU gather in Belgrade Head of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development Dr Reiner Klingholz warned in an interview that while some immigration, within limits, was useful there were dangers of accepting too many. He said: “Germany needs workers. But if we let everything run its course, too many people will come. “We have already experienced it in Germany; if we accept as many refugees as last year, the government is threatening to lose its ability to act.” Gety German chancellor Angela Merkel poses for a selfie with a migrant from Syria if we let everything run its course, too many people will come. “We have already experienced it in Germany; if we accept as many refugees as last year, the government is threatening to lose its ability to act Dr Reiner Klingholz If Germany continued to take in yet migrants, Mr Klingholz predicted, it ccould see more extreme parties that have “simple answers” gaining power. Mr Klingholz described his approach to the growing problem of migration from Africa and the Middle East as “realistic”. He said: “It is flimsy to make false promises. If they say: everything is good in Europe, please come here. An integration of these people is only possible if they can find work here. The quantity can not be dealt with. Aside from the fact that the flight of these people is anything but humane at the moment.” Mr Klingholz also condemned the people smugglers operating in these countries saying the migrants were being “exploited from the first step” saying that they were being charged significantly more for drinking water or a place on a truck than would be charged for a local person. In an interview with the German newspaper Welt, Mr Kllingholz, 63, warned: “The thing that makes the number of migrants decrease as the moment is the European Union’s restrictive measures, the fences in the Spanish enclaves or the Frontex ships in the Mediterranean.” The news comes after the Institute of Directors criticised the government’s goal of making firms do more to employ British people as “arbitary and illogical” and added that the any hopes of clamping down on migratin were impossible to meet. EPA Migrants on their way to the EU gather at the bus station in Belgrade Seamus Nevin, the author of the IoD report said: "The Leave majority was, in part, a vote of no confidence in how successive governments have managed immigration. "Dissatisfaction with policymakers was exacerbated by the Government under-delivering on a promise to bring the number of migrants down to 'tens of thousands'. “The persistence with this target is hard to understand, and we beg the Home Secretary to think again. Despite the IoD report a recent study by MoRI on people’s views on migration found that 42 per cent of people in the UK had concerns regarding immigration.The phony-ness detector is going Stage 5 over this story: CROWN POINT, IND. — Hillary Clinton mingled with patrons at Bronko’s Restaurant and Lounge in northwest Indiana on Saturday night. After a long day of campaigning Clinton was cajoled into taking a shot of Crown Royal whisky, which she sipped at first, but later threw her head back and swallowed it down. That led to a few beers and some pizza. A pizza-chomping Clinton sat at a table where she talked about the importance of keeping manufacturing jobs in the state. Clinton then called over the mayor of Hammond, Ind., Tom Hammond, saying, “Tom, Tom, come sit down.” A gentleman next to Clinton said Hammond was probably at the bar. Clinton joked that “my campaign drives people to drink.” Hammond finally approached Clinton, saying “every time I get around you we always start drinking!” “That’s true,” Clinton said. “It is Saturday night, though.” Can’t you just see that this is how the evenings go in Chapaqua? Bill text-messaging the interns, while Hillary chows down on pork rinds and Sam Adams. Clinton’s visit to the small, local eatery was no doubt part of a broader plan to showcase Clinton as a candidate of the people. And although Clinton is no stranger to late night drinks with the press and her staff, she usually prefers red wine or the trendy wheat ale Blue Moon with a slice of orange, not the watery light beer in the glass mug she waved in the air so proudly as the crowd chanted her name. Hillary, do you really think that they can’t detect that it’s all just an act?Jose Mourinho's reign at Chelsea ended emotionally, with warm dressing-room embraces for 23 of his players - and a cold handshake for Andriy Shevchenko and skipper John Terry. His departure, though, was a long time coming. Duncan Castles reports Tuesday, 10pm, home dressing room, Stamford Bridge. Andriy Shevchenko is taking Michael Essien to task on his performance in the night's embarrassing 1-1 draw with Rosenborg. The former European footballer of the year tells Africa's finest midfielder that he tried to make too many passes through the centre of the Norwegians' formation where '70 percent of their players were'. Essien learns he should have been passing to the wings 'where they only had 30 percent of their men'. Not the most insightful of tactical advice, but then these are not the thoughts of a Ukraine international, they are those of a Russian billionaire. Standing beside Shevchenko, tactics board in hand, Roman Abramovich is the man telling Essien how to play football. Shevchenko is merely there to translate. In another room, attending to the press, Mourinho is utterly unaware of his employer's actions. Tuesday, 7:11pm, the home dressing room. Chelsea's squad of 18 are called out for their pre-match warm up. All the players step out for the carefully prepared drill - except one. John Terry remains sitting where he is. One of Jose Mourinho's assistants urges Terry out. Chelsea's captain refuses, swears, and, according to an eye witness, says he is upset and has 'things on my mind'. Terry is said to be furious after finding out that Mourinho had been asking in Chelsea's treatment room whether there was a medical reason for his perceived loss of form over recent weeks. The stand-off continues until a team-mate cajoles his friend out on to the pitch. The game starts, Chelsea quickly lose a goal at a free kick as Miika Koppinen stretches ahead of Terry to turn in a near-post cross. Chelsea go in at half time 1-0 down and Jose Mourinho takes his captain to task, blaming the defender for the deficit. Terry says nothing but all his team-mates can see the anger on his face. The pair had once been the closest of footballing allies, but within 24 hours Mourinho is no longer Terry's manager as Chelsea agree to a £10.5million pay-off to rid themselves of a man they describe as 'the most successful manager the club has known'. 'The relationship broke down not because of one detail or because of something that happened at a certain moment. It broke down over a period of time.' - Jose Mourinho, 21 September 2007. To understand how the winner of two Premier League titles, two League Cups and one FA Cup, a man who averaged an unprecedented 2.33 points from his 120 Premiership games in just over three seasons, steadily became persona non grata at the club he made great, it is necessary to return to the summer of 2005. 'In Jose's first season everything was fine,' said a Chelsea employee who suffered the Abramovich guillotine long before the Portuguese. 'He came in, he won the title by miles, almost made the Champions League final, everyone was happy. But then it all began to go wrong. Peter Kenyon started thinking it was his genius as a chief executive that was important. Abramovich's mates were telling him his money had done it and any half-decent coach would win the league with those resources. They forgot that the most important man at any club is the manager.' That summer, Chelsea poached Tottenham Hotspur's sporting director Frank Arnesen at a cost of £5m. Ostensibly recruited to revolutionise the club's sub-standard youth ranks, the Dane was actually brought in on the recommendation of Piet de Visser, a well-known Dutch talent scout who had advised Abramovich on football matters from his first months as Chelsea owner. Arnesen and De Visser, friends and allies from their time together at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, steadily worked to influence Abramovich's thinking on the first team, and, most importantly, player recruitment. Along with the agents Soren Lerby, Vlado Lemeic and Pini Zahavi they sought to steer Abramovich towards the purchase of certain footballers. Their objective, according to one source, was 'to get to Abramovich's money. To do that they needed power at the club, needed a manager who would do what they wanted. Mourinho was not that manager.' Thus emerged a power struggle in which Arnesen and others seemed to undermine Mourinho by questioning him at every opportunity. When Mourinho went to war with Uefa over the actions of referees they told Abramovich his coach was embarrassing the club. When Mourinho's team dourly won key matches by a goal to nil, they told the owner a better coach would win by more goals and bring him far more flamboyant football. When a Mourinho signing failed to perform on the pitch, they told Abramovich that better players could be found elsewhere. Within a year, and despite Mourinho's success in claiming a second successive Premiership, the manager had lost control of transfers. In the 2006 summer window, Mourinho asked the board to buy Samuel Eto'o; they spent a UK record £30m on Shevchenko. Chelsea sold William Gallas to Arsenal against Mourinho's wishes, and forced the £7m Khalid Boulahrouz upon him, while Arnesen compounded the error of allowing Chelsea's most effective defender to leave the club by pulling the plug on the £5m purchase of Micah Richards. Inside a season Richards was a full England international, while Boulahrouz was stinking out the reserves until Chelsea paid Sevilla to take him off their hands. At least Mourinho could easily leave the Dutch defender out of the first team. A personal friend of Abramovich's, Shevchenko played regardless of his performances, and those were usually awful. In his first 26 appearances for Chelsea, the Ukrainian striker scored five goals. His coaches and team-mates often felt as though Chelsea were playing with 10 men and Mourinho was faced with a problem - should he leave out the owner's pal or lose the faith of the rest of the team? As January approached, Mourinho asked to be allowed to sign a new striker. The board refused. Mourinho asked for a centre-back to cover for Terry, then sidelined with a serious back problem. The board offered him a choice between Alex, a Brazilian bought via De Visser and 'parked' at PSV for two seasons, and Tal Ben Haim, a Zahavi client. Mourinho wanted neither. Worse still, Chelsea's manager was instructed to sack one of his assistants and add the Israeli Avram Grant to his coaching staff. When he refused, the club descended into open warfare. Mourinho dropped Shevchenko from his first team, leaking the story to a national newspaper in an open challenge to Abramovich to sack him. On an emotional afternoon at Stamford Bridge the manager first rallied his team around him, then sent them out to overrun Wigan 4-0. Long before kick-off the Chelsea supporters were chanting 'Stand up for the Special One' through standing ovation after standing ovation. An infuriated Abramovich ceased attending games and instructed his advisors to find a replacement coach. Mourinho let it be known that he would leave, but only on payment of the outstanding value of his contract - about £28m comprising £5.2m per annum for three-and-a-half years and up to £10m in bonuses. In the meantime he kept winning matches, pushing his injury-hit squad to within a few games of a remarkable quadruple. Ultimately Chelsea won the League Cup and the FA Cup, forcing Abramovich to reconcile with his manager. A consciously'mellow' Mourinho promised to avoid conflict with opposing managers and football authorities, accepted restrictions on his transfer budget, and reshaped his team in a more flamboyant 4-4-2 formation. Fatefully, he also acceded to the appointment of Grant as Chelsea's director of football. Though some in Mourinho's camp had Grant pinned as a 'Mossad Spy' from the off, the manager attempted to work with him, holding long meetings with him during the club's staggeringly positive pre-season US tour and letting it be known that he welcomed his arrival as a buffer against Arnesen and route to Abramovich. The early-season optimism, however, swiftly evaporated. Grant began calling individual players aside to ask them questions. 'You look sad, why?' 'How do you feel in this position?' 'Is this the best place for you to play?' 'Are we using your abilities well?' Because many of them complained about this to Mourinho, the manager decided to cut back radically on team meetings, the only one this season having been arranged for the Jewish New Year when Grant had returned to Israel. While Grant looked on at training, Shevchenko treated it with disdain. A morose, lonely figure around the camp, he seemed to show more interest in improving his golf swing than his shooting. As the first team prepared for their final pre-season friendly against Danish side Brondby, Shevchenko declared himself unfit with a back problem. A 2-0 victory ensured the £121,000-a-week striker was not missed, but Mourinho was bemused to discover that Shevchenko's bad back had not prevented him from enjoying a round of golf at Sunningdale that day. The board, though, were not interested and the club's descent continued. Other players began to realise what was happening, that the summer's peace was a false one, that their manager had no support from the top. 'The mentality became weaker and weaker,' said one insider. 'You could feel the team's strength sapping away.' Mourinho knew his time at Chelsea was coming to an end. At Uefa's forum for elite coaches in Geneva a fortnight ago he allowed Premier League rivals an insight into his thinking. 'Mourinho said he loved Chelsea and he loved English football, but thought he would not stay for long,' said one coach. 'One of us asked him why. He wouldn't answer, but it was obvious something was seriously wrong.' His next Champions League match brought the end. On Wednesday afternoon the board asked Mourinho to resign, citing his handling of Shevchenko, his attitude to authority and, crucially, his relationship with Terry as reasons why he should go. Mourinho refused to walk, and fought only to maximise his pay-off as Chelsea apparently threatened to call club employees to testify against him at any employment tribunal. A £10.5m pay-off was agreed and the following morning Mourinho made a final trip to the training centre at Cobham to pick up his possessions and say goodbye to his squad. There was a message in each farewell. For most there was a Latin embrace and warm words of thanks. For Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard the emotions were so strong that both men were reduced to tears, Lampard retreating to the shower room in an attempt to hide his. For Shevchenko and Terry there was nothing but a handshake that, in the words of one observer, could have 'frozen a mug of tea'. No one was in any doubt about who he considered the true captains of his team. Out with the old, in with the new. Furious at Mourinho's dismissal, senior players describe Grant's appointment as 'a disgrace'. Some at Cobham call him 'an idiot' and describe his coaching techniques as '25 years behind the times'. Abramovich pushes the Israeli around 'without a hint of respect'. Former academy coach Brendan Rogers has been drafted in to help out with the first team, a promotion that may not be unconnected to the one-on-one training sessions he gave Abramovich's son. Only in Steve Clarke is there the level of football knowledge to deal with a squad full of international superstars. As the sole survivor of Mourinho's cadre of four assistant managers, the Scotsman has an unenviable task. But then neither he nor Grant will be picking the team. As Michael Essien discovered on Tuesday night, the new manager of Chelsea is also the owner.British Girls Raped by Muslim Gangs on "Industrial Scale" Translations of this item: Dutch German Indonesian Italian Portuguese Spanish "Between acts of abuse sometimes stretching over a number of days, the Oxford men ensured girls were guarded so that they could not escape. In addition to being abused in various locations in Oxford, some of the girls were taken to other towns and cities such as London and Bournemouth for the same purpose." — Oxfordshire Serious Case Review. "I turned up at the police station at 2/3am, blood all over me, soaked through my trousers to the crotch. They dismissed it as me being naughty, a nuisance." — Victim's testimony, Oxfordshire Serious Case Review. "I made a complaint about a man who trafficked me from a children's home. He was arrested, released and trafficked me again." — Victim's testimony, Oxfordshire Serious Case Review. "Police wouldn't tell us addresses so we could go and bring her home." — Victim's parent's testimony, Oxfordshire Serious Case Review. "She was a minor but we were told it wasn't our business." — Victim's parent's testimony, Oxfordshire Serious Case Review. The report holds no one responsible or accountable. It blames the failure to act on a "lack of knowledge" and "organizational failings." Local authorities across Britain are expending "considerable intellectual effort" into finding reasons not to conduct mandatory public investigations into child sexual abuse out of a fear of "negative publicity." — The Telegraph. Under new plans... teachers, social workers, police and elected officials would be required to act on suspicions of child sexual abuse or face up to five years in prison. "Systemic failures have been condoned with silence, serial bunglers rewarded with promotion and whistle blowers shunned. Why is anything going to change now, after the event(s)?" — Simon Kent, British commentator. Nearly 400 British girls as young as eleven are believed to have been sexually exploited by Muslim rape gangs in Oxfordshire over the past 15 years, according to a chilling new report. It charges local officials with repeatedly ignoring the abuse due to a "culture of denial." The scale of the abuse in Oxfordshire, a county in southeast England, mirrors similarly shocking accounts of the sexual exploitation of white British girls by Muslim gangs in Bristol, Derby, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford, and implies that the problem is not isolated, but endemic. The 133-page Serious Case Review (SCR) was published on March 3, the same day that British Prime Minister David Cameron convened the so-called Downing Street Abuse Summit, during which he unveiled a raft of new measures aimed at bringing more offenders to justice. The report — which reveals that there are "grounds for believing" that 373 girls have been sexually exploited by gangs in Oxfordshire since 2004 — focuses on the accounts of six girls and their contact with the authorities. The girls were the victims in the "Operation Bullfinch" trial, in which seven Muslims were found guilty, in May 2013, of trafficking and raping the girls between 2004 and 2012. Seven members of a child sex grooming gang in Oxford who were found guilty in 2013 (clockwise from top left): Assad Hussain, Zeeshan Ahmed, Kamar Jamil, Bassam Karrar, Mohammed Karrar, Akhtar Dogar and Anjum Dogar. They were sentenced in 2013 to a combined 95 years in prison for raping, torturing and trafficking British girls as young as 11. According to the SCR, between 2005 and 2010, the six girls were reported missing 500 times — half of those when they were in the care of official child protection agencies — but authorities never bothered to investigate. In Section 2, the report includes extracts of the Prosecution's opening speech at the trial in order to "focus the mind" on the suffering endured by the girls. The men would "ply the girls with alcohol and introduce them to drugs such as cannabis, cocaine, 'crack' and sometimes heroin. The girls became addicted to certain of the drugs and felt unable to live without them. This made them even more dependent on the men." It continues: "Sometimes the men would also exercise extreme physical and sexual violence on the girls and threaten them that should they ever seek to free themselves from the grasp of the group they and/or their families would suffer serious harm. "The defendants took the girls to other places, usually hotels/guest houses or empty private dwellings, for other men to have sex with them, again often in groups and often in return for money which was paid to the men and not the girls. "Most of the men engaged in the sexual abuse of the young girls did so over many years. Each was much older than any of the girls and of an age to know precisely what he was doing; the harm he was inflicting on the girls; the fact of their suffering and that their activity was illegal and in many instances depraved. In short, their conduct was intentional and persistent. Many of the sexual acts committed on the girls were extreme in their depravity. The girls were usually given so many drugs that they were barely aware of what was going on. Indeed, they say that it was the only way they could cope with what was going on. "The sexual abuse included vaginal, anal and oral rape and also involved the use of a variety of objects such as knives, meat cleavers, baseball bats... sex toys.... It was often accompanied by humiliating and degrading conduct such as biting, scratching, acts of urinating, being... suffocated, tied up. They were also beaten and burnt. This sexual activity was often carried out by groups of men; sometimes it would go on for days on end. "The places to which the girls were taken were often private houses and guest houses in Oxford. Some of the private houses appeared to be empty and used solely for the purposes of the abuse. The men who came to pay to have sex with the girls were not always from Oxford; many travelled from far afield, places such as Bradford, Leeds, London and Slough. It seems they came specifically to sexually abuse young girl, often by appointment with the men in Oxford who had dominated the girls. "Between acts of abuse sometimes stretching over a number of days, the Oxford men ensured girls were guarded so that they could not escape. In addition to being abused in various locations in Oxford, some of the girls were taken to other towns and cities such as London and Bournemouth for the same purpose." Section 3 of the SCR shows how local authorities could have stopped the abuse as early as 2005, but failed to do so because they refused to take the girls' complaints seriously. The report includes dozens of comments the girls made during interviews, including: "I turned up at the police station at 2/3am, blood all over me, soaked through my trousers to the crotch. They dismissed it as me being naughty, a nuisance." "Why would a 13-year-old make it up?" "The social worker just wanted to hear what [the worker] wanted to hear so there was no need to do anything...." "The Police never asked me why — they just took me home." "I thought if I told the Police what was really happening they would not believe me, and they would not arrest them and then... they did not do anything and that made me think that nothing could be done." "I made a complaint about a man who trafficked me from a children's home. He was arrested, released and trafficked me again." "Oxford and another council argued about me to try and avoid doing anything. It wasn't my fault I was abused." "Social services washed their hands — 'it's your choice' I was told." "A WPC [woman police constable] found me drunk with men. I said I was ok and she went away and left me with them. I was abused that night." The SCR also shows that parents were exasperated at the lack of concern displayed by police and social workers, who often blamed the girls for the situation they were facing. Parental comments include: "Police wouldn't pursue anyone unless they had a cast iron case." "No one thought about us — what it would be like if it was their daughter." "Police wouldn't tell us addresses so we could go and bring her home." "She was a minor but we were told it wasn't our business." "I tried to tell social services about the evidence — but they weren't interested. It was obvious it was something sexual." "A big chunk of her life has been taken away — when she should have been at the youth club or skating or the school prom — all that went missing because of them: the perpetrators and the police/social services for not stopping it when they knew." "It's in my mind all the time — what happened to my 'baby' and what I did because I didn't understand what was happening to me. They knew what was happening to her and didn't tell me." "Why did they let it go on during the long investigation?" "No one spoke to us about dealing with the people responsible." "The police said she didn't appear in danger, they said she was happy to be there, and refused to tell me where she was." "Giving her a cuddle and taking her to MacDonald's was the [social worker's] solution." "One manager said [before the exploitation was understood] 'She's streetwise, and loves it.'" "[After a theft was investigated where a girl was with older men] The issue for the police was the burglary, not a 13-year-old with older men." "At interagency meetings attended no one kept any records/minutes, and there were never agendas." "The Children's Home didn't tell me when she went missing." "I despaired of ever getting an appropriate response that stood alongside us and didn't try to blame and shame us." And yet the report holds no one responsible or accountable. It blames the failure to act on a "lack of knowledge" and "organizational failings." The report concludes: "The Serious Case Review (SCR) has seen no evidence of willful professional neglect or misconduct by organizations, but there was at times a worrying lack of curiosity and follow through, and much work should have been considerably different and better. There is little evidence that the local understanding of child sexual exploitation (CSE), or how to tackle it once identified, was significantly different from many parts of the country. "On the surface, many of the illustrations described in the report can seem like professional ineptitude, unconcern, or inaction. They become more understandable when put in the context of the knowledge and processes at the time, practical difficulties around evidence, and a professional mind-set which could not grasp that the victims' ability to say 'no' had been totally eroded. "The overall problem was not grasping the nature of the abuse—the grooming, the pull from home, the erosion of consent, the inability to escape and the sheer horror of what the girls were going through—but of seeing it as something done more voluntarily. Something that the girls did as opposed to something done to them." According to the Telegraph, local authorities across Britain are expending "considerable intellectual effort" into finding reasons not to conduct mandatory public investigations into child sexual abuse out of a fear of "negative publicity." An investigation cited by the paper found more than 30 instances where local authorities refused to conduct a Serious Case Review, which is required by law whenever a child is seriously harmed as a result of abuse. When investigations were conducted, in many cases the reports failed to examine how "fear, overwork, timidity, willful blindness and over-optimism" had led social workers to make bad decisions. Speaking at a summit on child exploitation on March 3, Prime Minister Cameron said British social workers are in need of "a massive dose of common sense." Reading a quote from the report, he said: "One does not need training in child sexual exploitation to know that a 12-year-old sleeping with a 25-year-old is not right, or that you don't come home drunk, bruised, half-naked and bleeding from seeing your 'friends'." Cameron added: "I think it's very important we take a step back and just recognize the horrific nature of what has happened in our country. Young girls — and they are young girls — being abused over and over again on an industrial scale, being raped, being passed from one bunch of perpetrators to another bunch of perpetrators. And all the while this has happened with too many organizations and too many people walking on by. And we have got to really resolve that this stops here, it doesn't happen again and we recognize abuse for what it is." Under new plans announced at the summit, the government will seek to extend the crime of "willful neglect" that was recently introduced to protect the elderly in nursing homes to protect children from sexual predators. This would require teachers, social workers, police and elected officials to act on suspicions of child sexual abuse or face up to five years in prison. The new law would apply to all levels of the bureaucracy, from low- and mid-level employees to the most senior managers and directors. Some observers are skeptical about the effectiveness of Cameron's plan. In an interview with Sky News, Conservative Party MP Tim Loughton, a former parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, had this to say about the Oxfordshire report: "A 'worrying lack of curiosity' is a very charitable way of saying 'clear incompetence and neglect' that went on in various agencies within the children's services department, within the social services and within the police in Oxfordshire." Loughton added that under the new law, "willful neglect" will be a high bar to prove. Prosecutors would need to show that authorities were "proactively obstructing people coming forward with allegations" and that there was "a conspiracy of cover-up or silence." British commentator Simon Kent is equally pessimistic. He writes: "It is a fact teachers, councilors, police, NHS [National Health Service] staff and social workers in England and Wales have categorically failed to protect young children from sexual predators for a generation. "Systemic failures have been condoned with silence, serial bunglers rewarded with promotion and whistle blowers shunned. Why is anything going to change now, after the event(s)? "It will be years before David Cameron's intentions are fully acted upon. All the while the abuse will continue, to the eternal shame of those who have the power but not the ideological or intestinal fortitude to stop it." Kent concludes: "Too little, too late. That's just not good enough." Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter. Follow Soeren Kern on Twitter and Facebook © 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute. Recent Articles by Soeren Kern A Month of Multiculturalism in Germany: January 2019, 2019-02-18 Germany: Number of Foreign-Born Prison Inmates at Record High, 2019-02-13 UK: Landmark First Conviction for Female Genital Mutilation, 2019-02-06 A Month of Multiculturalism in Britain: January 2019, 2019-02-04 France and Germany: "We Are Committed to the Emergence of a European Army", 2019-01-25 receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free gatestone institute mailing list en 59 Reader Comments Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply-> Reply->Update October 27, 2015 – Marc Raimondi at MMAFighting reports that there are indeed settlement discussions between Diaz and the NSAC making it appear that entry of a final order is being stalled to explore a non-judicial resolution to this saga. Update October 15, 2015 – the NSAC’s Bob Bennett responded to my inquiry unfortunately the reply was little more than a ‘no comment’ pointing to the pending litigation. Bennett advised as follows – “Due to the pending litigation in Mr. Diaz case, I’m not in a position to comment at this time. Thank you for your anticipated patience” ___________________________________________ In a potentially interesting twist, there appears to be a graceful way out for the Nevada State Athletic Commission in the Nick Diaz affair should they wish to take it. With the ongoing negative publicity for the State and the nearly unanimous public opinion that the NSAC’s 5 year ban for Diaz was arbitrary and capricious, there may be a window for correction if the NSAC is willing to listen to the harsh public feedback. ESPN’s Brett Okamoto reports that the NSAC has not yet entered a final order against Diaz. There is a general legal principle that judicial and quasi judicial bodies can retain jurisdiction over a matter until their final order is entered. The NSAC’s governing regulations also appear to confirm this with NAC 467.95 reading as follows (emphasis mine) 1. After the hearing of a contested matter, the Commission will render a written decision on the merits that must contain findings of fact, a determination of the issues presented and the penalty to be imposed, if any. 2. A member of the Commission who did not hear the evidence or read the record may not vote on the decision. 3. The Commission will serve a copy of the decision on the parties personally or by registered or certified mail. 4. The decision is effective upon such service unless the Commission orders otherwise If Okamoto’s tweet is accurate then there is still no binding decision against Diaz, simply an oral decision that has not yet been finalized by being committed to writing. When wrongdoers appear before the NSAC the Commission expects them to fall on their sword and from there leniency often follows. The NSAC has an opportunity to take their own medicine and fall on their sword if they wish and correct the injustice they created for Diaz. If not a Court may make them do so through the judicial review process. I have contacted the NSAC asking whether they intend to revisit this matter or leave it in the hands of the judiciary. I will updated this article if/when they respond. AdvertisementsCSS is a lot of things. Frustrating to newcomers, essential (even admirable) to those of us who use it day-to-day. It’s so intertwined with the browser’s rendering model that it can be hard to figure out what’s CSS and what’s the browser. And as most of us know from experience, it’s extremely easy to build an unmaintainable mess with it. Whatever you think of CSS, it’s demonstrably underspecified. (edit: one of the CSS authoring committee rightly pointed out that the correct word is incomplete. CSS as it stands is unambiguous, and implementations in modern browsers don’t differ, but it doesn’t cover everything the users want. That’s not underspecification.) Gaps in the language itself gave rise to a host of pre-processors, polyfills & workarounds, and the lack of any true runtime isolation resulted in a long line of conventions & techniques to keep code maintainable. Until the spec catches up (CSS Variables, Color functions, Custom Breakpoints, the Shadow DOM etc) the void gets filled by a cacophony of ideas & suggestions, with often very little overlap. This dramatic lack of consensus is a real hindrance. To borrow a phrase from the greatest Australian film ever made: “I don’t know what the opposite of [a consensus] is, but you done the opposite.” We done the opposite indeed, and we reinforce it every time we discuss new ideas as if the old ideas were horribly broken, when we’re really presenting incremental progress. So, while this article is most certainly about “new ideas”, let me state that however you’re doing CSS currently is totally fine 🙏. In particular, I think the combination of Sass, BEM & Gulp are the best choice for the majority of real-world projects right now. They allow you to get lots of stuff done quickly without leaving you with massive amounts of technical debt, with a huge body of examples and tutorials to learn from and plenty of knowledgeable people to ask. My rating of Sass, BEM & Gulp: 💖💖💖 (It is well-known that pink sparkly hearts are the most powerful of all emoji) And now it’s clear what we’re considering, let’s consider the future. The Goal There’s a lot of discussion at the moment about whether some or all of our styling code should be moved into JS. Projects like react-style, jss, radium & jsxstyle all offer competing ways to do that, but they’re coming at the problem from the wrong direction. I particularly like Keith Grant’s take on the matter: Stop pretending the DOM and the JavaScript are separate concerns. Instead, separate concerns that are actually different: the dropdown menu is separate from the list of objects; the modal dialog box is separate from the page footer. Why on earth would you put these all in the same HTML document? The relationship between CSS and JavaScript is different. With HTML, a true separation of concerns between the markup and the corresponding component JS is impossible. With CSS, this separation is possible and even vital to clean code organization. (edited for brevity) There are three important questions to ask of potential styling workflows to judge how effective they are: How quickly can you build & style a new component? How much can you reuse styles when doing so? How hard is it to change something to be visually unique later on? This is what I aim for when I build anything. I want speed, reuse, but not unnecessary coupling, and modern CSS workflows (e.g. Sass & BEM) can nail all three. I see all the JS-styling approaches as falling at the first & second hurdles, so while I can appreciate that JS rendering gives us some new capabilities, it’s not worth taking a backwards
—in what looks like a mailbag? Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Slipknot punches an FBI agent. This kind of feels like it might be a flashback. Advertisement “Deadshot. He... shoots people” says Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), as he goes through prisoner files. Note the name of the prison—Belle Reve Penitentiary, the same institution in which the Suicide Squad is imprisoned in the comics. The file says “Prisoner Movement Slip,” which could be people entering Waller’s care. And is that Cara Delevingne (who plays Julie Moon/Enchantress?) behind him? Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF “He’s a crocodile and he eats people,” he continues. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement “Burns people.” Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF “You’re possessed by a witch.” The “you’re” seems to indicate that, yes, that is Delevingne with him. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF “And she’s just crazy.” Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement A statement instantly proven correct by this scene of the assembled squad, where Harley says “What was that? I should kill everyone and escape? Sorry, the voices. Ha, I’m kidding! That’s not what they really said.” Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Flag lets them in on the deal. This is mostly included for Will Smith’s semi-patented “Are you kidding?” hidden smile. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Heavy artillery while Flag explains that the team is going somewhere “very bad” to do something “that will get you killed.” Hence the name of the squad! Advertisement And this looks very much like a crashed plane. This mysterious, swamp-like goo crops up a lot in this trailer—it seems to be whatever the squad has been tasked with dealing with. There were a lot of rumors recently that Julie Moon/Enchantress is actually not a member of the squad but the main villain of the film, using her magic to try and resurrect her brother and destroy the world. The goo certainly fits in with the Enchantress’ aesthetic. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Whatever they’re looking at has the team stumped—note that Enchantress is missing from this shot, which could support the abovetheory. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement Flag and Deadshot (sans mask) go into a place that has been torn apart by something. Something that leaves bloodspatter... and bodies. We see a lot of this particular subway station being torn apart. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Outside, something needs shooting. We get a glimpse of what that could be at the end of the trailer. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement Harley waves goodbye. Smith’s “Let’s go save the world” has a bit of an Independence Day delivery to it Also, something is burning in front of him. Advertisement And the Deadshot mask finally appears! It has barely a second of screen time in this trailer. Given that the actor under the mask is so famous, we have to wonder how much of it we’ll actually see in the film. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement Killer Croc and Boomerang go at it. They appear to be fighting humanoid versions of the goop. People possessed by it? Magical constructs? Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF With a “I can’t wait to show you my toys,” the Joker (Jared Leto) appears. Hair very green here. Almost all of the Joker’s bits in this trailer look like flashbacks and not like they’re connected with Suicide Squad mission. Advertisement And this is cut so that it looks like the Joker is shooting at a giant eyeball and a big bald head. Given the strangeness on display, it’s also possible that these are the Joker’s henchman—they were in the first trailer as well, in a sequence that seemingly showed the Joker capturing and torturing Harleen Quinzel, a.k.a. Harley Quinn before her transformation. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement The shot of the Joker with the gun that follows it has a completely different background, so it really does look unconnected. This is a pretty classic Joker tuxedo look, though. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF The Joker and Harley are both in this car. This is the scene that the Batmobile was rumored to be a part of, with pictures of Batman riding along the roof of the car hitting the web last year. Is this where Harley gets caught? Advertisement The patch on this guy’s jacket says “Frost.” According to Imdb, this could be Johnny Frost/Pseudo Joker (Jim Parrack). Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement The Joker’s got a big light. Mostly, this shot gives you a great look at the Joker’s “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA” tattoo. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Enchantress says “Let’s do something fun” in a building with a seal on the screen, which looks governmental and matches the White House seal. Menacing the government could be another sign she’s the big bad of this movie. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF In the comics, Katana’s (Karen Fukuhara) Soultaker rips the soul out of anyone it kills and stores it in the blade, hence it’s name: Soultaker. Also, Katana can communicate with the spirits inside. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement Deadshot shows off, with Waller in the background. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Boomerang ducks action with a drink. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement Katana’s eyes go dark. We see a few shots in the trailer of Harley dancing with this chain. In this get-up (which clearly calls back to the classic Harlequin diamond pattern of her cartoon origin), she’s either undercover or this is a flashback. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Something’s clearly going wrong here. Advertisement In the original trailer, these masked goons were part of Joker’s attack on whatever facility Harleen was working at. Is this meant to be Arkham Asylum, maybe? Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Fistbump. Because. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement The tile and pillars here match the devastation that Flag and Deadshot walk into earlier in the trailer. This also seems to be the closest full-on look we get to whatever they’re fighting. What are the guys behind the Joker wearing on their heads? Advertisement Killer Croc menaces Katana. This seems like a bad idea. This shot goes fast, but it’s of what looks like Doctor Harleen Quinzel falling onto a car. The glasses (and un-dyed, un-pigtailed hair) feel like a Dr. Quinzel clue. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Big battle scene. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement More from the subway station nightmare, with a giant cable-like tentacle that has a similar look to the figure in the sliced subway shot from earlier. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF El Diablo unleashes the fire in a big open stairwell, in an office building that looks like either a different scene to the subway battle. Advertisement This looks like Julie Moon right before she becomes the Enchantress (r while she’s on her way). Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF Advertisement The Joker jumps into a vat and pulls Harley out. Either the dye in her hair is bleeding out or this is how she ends up with the blue and red hair in the first place and this is a flashback—there were plenty of rumors about this being ACE Chemicals, where not only was the Joker turned into the madman he is in the seminal comic story The Killing Joke, but also where he “creates” Harley by dumping her in a vat of chemicals. Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF And this is clearly something bad being released in the same general area where Deadshot had a gun in each hand and was firing at something. Advertisement Additional reporting by James Whitbrook Contact the author at katharine@io9.com.Italian police have arrested Daniela Poggiali, a 42-year-old nurse suspected of killing as many as 38 patients because she found them or their relatives annoying, media reports say. Poggiali was taken into custody over the weekend in Lugo, northern Italy, after a 78-year-old patient died while being treated for a routine illness, the Daily Mail reported at its website. Tests showed the woman died with a high amount of potassium in her system, which can provoke cardiac arrest, according to Central European News. Police said Tuesday they had expanded their investigation to include 38 patient deaths. Chief prosecutor Alessandro Mancini told a press conference covered by the newspaper Corriere Della Sera that the nurse seemed "unperturbed" when she was arrested. Other media reports cited a co-worker as describing Poggiali as a "cold person but always eager to work."by To use a metaphor appropriate for the age, the big guns are being brought out to keep the unitary Presidency in Democrat hands. The term itself, in recent incarnation a (Dick) Cheneyism indicating the neo-royalist tendency to tamp-down every democratic tendency that might interfere with smooth operation of the heavily militarized corporate-state, indicates that something might be amiss in the land of the free. It is ironic-lite that the leader of ‘the people’s Party,’ Barack Obama, institutionalized the concept. Fears of a petulant, know-nothing, hate-monger channel the id-monster of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on its inexorable path toward death and destruction. Forgotten in the moment is the accumulation of acts that motivated the monster along its course. Also forgotten is Hannah Arendt’s Adolf Eichmann, bureaucrat to the stars, who knew the language and method, if not the motive. Be it a hostile corporate takeover or bombing a nation into oblivion, Herr Eichmann could competently write the memo. For those who have been paying attention, recent Wikileaks disclosures from Hillary Clinton’s emails are vindication of sorts. Mrs. Clinton’s distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ views might be explained away if it weren’t for the link between her actual policies and her ‘inside’ views, those she shares with the well-heeled and connected. And given the revelations, it is increasingly odd to hear her supporters continue to list her ‘outside’ views, the cynical nonsense she feeds her nominal constituency, as a platform of sorts. The distinction is more interesting than has generally been considered. Barack Obama is a master of saying one thing and doing another. For seven plus years his supporters fed back what he said without apparent knowledge that it didn’t match his actions. Hillary Clinton actually matches her words to her actions for the ‘right’ audience— she says what she means. But the ‘right’ audience consists of Wall Street insiders and corporate executives. The audience that gets fed her ‘outside’ views, a/k/a cynical nonsense, consists of her loyal supporters. Far from supporting the anarcho-Republican theory that all politicians lie, Mrs. Clinton both lies and tells the truth with purpose. Given the monumental economic meltdown that Wall Street (capitalist) ‘self-regulation’ so recently caused, Mrs. Clinton’s continued support for it suggests that she is either stupid, has a viable alternative hypothesis as to the cause, or is simply regurgitating the ‘inside’ theories that bank PR departments began floating in 2010 that some combination of ‘government regulations’ and ‘nature’ caused the crisis. Were so many lives and livelihoods not at stake, the tribal narratives that Mrs. Clinton advances on the ‘inside’ would be of sociological interest. Here again is an opportunity to defer to (Antonio) Gramsci’s theory of hegemony as social explanation that supports ruling class interests. For the uninitiated, a long and robust history of financial crises caused by financiers run amok is available to draw from. Economist Hyman Minsky, following in history from Marx and Lenin, developed much modern theory to explain financial crises. But Mrs. Clinton wants none of it. Whereas Donald Trump is unleashed id acting through privilege he was born into, Hillary Clinton is the chair-occupying bureaucrat for whom truth is whatever mutually agreed upon chatter will get her from one meeting to the next. There are multitudinous ‘facts’ arranged in lawyerly fashion to support said chatter, but it is subtext that ties acts to motives. Enterprise exists to make a few people rich, the military exists to launch wars and government exists to organize both into a coherent unity. What reads as banal twaddle in Mrs. Clinton’s paid speeches has tribal (class) subtext. Acceptance of the primacy of finance to ‘the economy,’ a ‘light’ regulatory touch and economically purposive foreign entanglements are the dictates of enterprise reframed as ‘policies.’ The oft-made contention that Hillary Clinton is a committed neoliberal, neo-conservative ideologue is more precisely stated as backward induction, with help from Powerpoint presentations and canned talking points, of ruling class interests. What makes this particularly frightening in the geopolitical arena is the posing of highly engineered outcomes as self-generated offenses. In this creative-reactive view ISIS arose from ideological hatred of ‘the West,’ Syria is in the throes of a people’s revolution for freedom from tyranny and Israel is a bastion of freedom and democracy in an otherwise savage and hostile land. As self-generated / motivated undertakings effect is eternally put forward as cause, as Frankenstein’s creation in transit from outcast to monster. The question not being asked by Democrats and their reluctant supporters on the wilting Left is why the entirety of officialdom supports Mrs. Clinton? Assertion that Donald Trump is a petulant, know-nothing, hate-monger requires isolating him from the predominance of American history. Put differently, since when does the American establishment not like petulant, know-nothing, hate mongers? Bill Clinton went to a Ku Klux Klan historical site to racialize his ‘war on crime.’ Three million Vietnamese died to keep Richard Nixon in office. Curtis LeMay anyone? Anyone? The delusion in evidence from the ‘vote for Hillary and then give her hell’ crowd is that there is any hell she could be given, other than not voting for her, that would matter? Given the basis of her ‘inside’ views in the tribal chatter of the rich and powerful, what would her response be to disapprobation from the self-neutered powerless other than to offer her ‘outside’ views? Put differently, what has it been to date? Once alternative universes are set to the side, it is the American political system that is on full display with the choice of candidates. The thesis now regularly trotted out that it is the candidates that are the problem presents the larger question of why this might be (is) the case. As philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey had it, the purpose of the present is rendered evident as history unfolds. Alternatively, who might be better— Joe Biden versus Ted Cruz? Max Baucus versus Rick Santorum? And the Democrats are either holding Bernie Sanders’ family hostage with guns to their heads or his complicity in the unfolding electoral charade illustrates the bounds of political resolution through official channels. Were Mrs. Clinton’s ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ views different by degree, rather than type, appeals through public protest might shift tenor, if not substance. In contrast, when it comes to issues of the environment, the economy and war and peace, ‘outside’ views are tools to facilitate ‘inside’ actions. In some vague sense (insert name of Democratic candidate here) would probably like to address global warming. Mrs. Clinton would also like to deregulate industries (per her emails) and enter into sovereignty-forfeiting trade agreements. Lest this remain unclear, Hillary Clinton’s differentiated views correspond to conflicting class interests. The Clinton’s policies reflect a veritable wish list of implausible corporate cliches like ‘self-regulation,’ ‘free-trade’ and ‘personal responsibility’ with regard to labor, the environment and social safety net programs. These policies make evident that ‘inside’ views correspond to intended policies and ‘outside’ views are to garner votes with bluster and bullshit. A veritable cottage industry has arisen in recent weeks decrying the self-destructive act of voting for Donald Trump, as if blind rage were the sole consideration behind the vote. As Hillary Clinton’s emails suggest, the restorative candidates were systematically removed from contention by the major Party establishments. The Clinton camp chose Donald Trump as their preferred opponent because he is a petulant, know-nothing hate-monger. How reckless does that make the Democratic Party establishment? Other than Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, the candidates in contention are hardly worth a mention in-and-of-themselves. They represent the political zeitgeist, no more and no less. What makes them dangerous is the loaded gun of the militarized corporate-state they are vying to manage. Given the systemic inability to address, let alone resolve, global warming, potential nuclear annihilation, rampant militarization, systematic social repression and economic exclusion, the candidate with the most palatable ‘outside’ views has received the establishment’s stamp of approval. Which is the dangerous candidate?Former detective constable Kevin Maxwell says he was sacked after raising concerns about racist, homophobic behaviour Black and gay police officer hounded out of force 'like enemy of the state' A former counter-terrorism officer who told police bosses about racism and homophobia in the ranks has alleged that Scotland Yard hounded him out of the force "like an enemy of the state". In his first interview, former detective constable Kevin Maxwell told the Guardian he was sacked after raising concerns about racist and homophobic behaviour by some counter-terrorism officers. They also picked on members of the public, subjecting them to searches based on their skin colour or nationality, which amounted to racial profiling, he said. This week the Met lost an employment tribunal appeal against an earlier ruling, which found in Maxwell's favour on at least 40 points. The tribunal found that Maxwell, who is black and gay, suffered multiple counts of degrading or humiliating treatment. One officer talked of gay men "taking it up the arse", and the tribunal found that one officer described a man in a photograph as being "as gay as a gay in a gay tea shop", which police colleagues greeted with laughter. Maxwell, 35, told the Guardian he had dreamed of being a police officer since the age of five, but has now been left financially ruined and suffering from severe depression, which he says was triggered by the Met ignoring his concerns and trying to punish him for raising them, even though he did so privately. His case prompts questions about the Met's commitment to tackling prejudice among officers. But it also raises concerns about the police's treatment of whistleblowers and undermines claims from top officers that they can sort out wrongdoing without officers having to go to the press. The tribunal also found that a Met employee had leaked details about Maxwell to the Sun newspaper, which he says endangered his safety. In February 2012 he won his first employment tribunal victory. After this the Met started disciplinary proceedings, sacking him in December 2012 for "gross misconduct" after he went off work through illness after repeated episodes of racial and homophobic harassment. In his interview this week, Maxwell said: "What did I do that was so bad to be treated like an enemy of the state? I wanted to make the police service better and they don't want to learn. "I am not the first black or Asian officer to say this. I thought if I went to them, I thought they would believe me, that I meant well." Maxwell joined Greater Manchester Police aged 23, and in October 2008 joined the Met, winning a posting to its elite counter-terrorism command, SO15, stationed at Heathrow airport. He says he suffered homophobia and racism in the Manchester force, but it was much worse in the Met. "The Met make GMP look like a kindergarden. I don't want to hurt the Met, I just want to say this is where they are going wrong and still going wrong." The Met spent tens of thousands of pounds in public money launching an appeal against the employment tribunal finding. This week it lost after a judge ruled against it again. Maxwell first complained in July 2009 about racist and homophobic abuse but then went on to tell his bosses, still privately, that officers were abusing their sweeping powers of stop and search. The tribunal found that white officers had "asked the claimant on several occasions to act as a "buffer barrier" by stopping black and Asian people for them first, and then to hand the person over to them because "blacks don't complain about blacks". The tribunal upheld his complaint that this was "racial profiling and asking the claimant to be involved in it caused the claimant great offence and anxiety". Maxwell said he could not stand by and say nothing as people were stopped for no reason, which he feared would fuel resentment: "I said we should be catching terrorists, not creating them." The tribunal ruled that Maxwell had suffered homophobic abuse when in March 2009 a DC Howarth "made comments about gay men 'taking it up the arse'". The tribunal said the conduct had "the effect of violating the claimant's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment". Maxwell also suffered racial harassment when a white officer referred to an ethnic minority officer as "being one of those people", it found. The tribunal also found that a DS Addis, during a presentation to officers in June 2009, put up a picture of a man at a fairground surrounded by children and said he was "as gay as a gay in a gay tea shop". The tribunal ruled: "The comment having been made, other people in the room, including other supervisors, laughing and finding it amusing, was inevitably conduct that any gay police officer would reasonably consider … degrading." A chief inspector dismissed Maxwell's concerns that it was difficult being black and gay in the police, saying "that's life", amounting to racial and anti-gay prejudice, the tribunal found. Maxwell was also found to have suffered other harassment, including after he went off work sick. He told the Guardian: "I was pursued and sacked for whistleblowing." The Met said: "The MPS is disappointed by the employment appeals tribunal's decision and will now take time to consider the detail of the judgment. "Mr Maxwell's claims relate to events in 2009 and 2010. Since that time there have been changes across a number of areas including how to report wrongdoing and managing employees on sick leave. "Any other learning opportunities identified from this case will be taken forward." On the issue of his dismissal, the Met said: "The misconduct panel heard evidence that DC Maxwell had been absent from work without authorisation and had failed to comply with lawful orders without good reason. "After careful consideration of the evidence presented he was dismissed without notice for gross misconduct." Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general and Maxwell's MP, said the police should stop fighting the case. "The Met were going to lose and they were just being belligerent," she said. "This is something the Met should be ashamed of."Malcolm Reynolds Firefly character Nathan Fillion as Malcolm Reynolds First appearance Serenity Created by Joss Whedon Portrayed by Nathan Fillion Information Nickname Mal, Captain, Captain Tight Pants (Kaylee) Gender Male Occupation Captain of Serenity Spouse "Saffron" Relatives Unnamed mother Homeworld Shadow Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Firefly franchise. Mal is played by actor Nathan Fillion in the 2002 TV series Firefly and the 2005 film Serenity. In the series, Mal is a former Browncoat sergeant and the captain of the "Firefly-class" spaceship Serenity. The character was named #18 in TV Guide's Greatest Sci-Fi Legends list in 2004.[1] Production details [ edit ] Conceived by Joss Whedon, the character Malcolm Reynolds was the only definite character he had in mind when formulating the ensemble cast. He wanted a hero, but not a hero in the classic sense; someone that is "everything that a hero is not."[2] In the proposed pilot, Mal was much darker and considerably more closed-off. Fox network executives objected, and asked that Mal be "lightened up". For the second episode ("The Train Job"), Whedon created a more "jolly" Mal Reynolds.[3] Fillion shares his view on the motivations of the character he portrayed. Mal has lost so much that each character in the crew he has gathered on Serenity represents an aspect of himself he no longer has. "In Wash, he has a lust for life and a sense of humor he's lost. In Jayne, he has selfishness. In Book, he has spirituality. In Kaylee, he has innocence. Everybody represents a facet of himself that he has lost and that's why he keeps them close and safe, and yet at arm's length."[4] Casting [ edit ] The role was originally written for Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Nicholas Brendon (who played Xander Harris);[5] however, the shooting schedule conflicted with his commitment to Buffy. Whedon approached Nathan Fillion to play the lead, and after explaining the premise and showing Fillion the treatment for the pilot, Fillion was eager for the role.[6] Fillion was called back several times to read for the part before he was cast. He noted that "It was really thrilling. It was my first lead and I was pretty nervous, but I really wanted that part and I wanted to tell those stories."[4] Costume design [ edit ] Los Angeles prop shop Applied Effects was approached by Randy Erikson to create Mal's main gun, a "Moses Brothers Self-Defense Engine Frontier Model B",[7] and gave them a week and a half. Erikson provided a foamcore conceptual mockup and the base guns, one of which was a five-shot.38 caliber Taurus Model 85 revolver. Erikson researched American Civil War-era revolvers for inspiration and the final mockup had a brass or bronze look, with the revolver a little elongated. The biggest challenge was masking the shape of the original revolver and still keeping it operable.[8] On the TV series Firefly, a cast bronze pistol was used, but for the film Serenity, a more detailed replica was created which had moving action and a blank pistol hidden inside, so that it could be fired in close-ups. Since this version was quite heavy, a resin replica was also constructed, which in addition to being less tiring for the actors to carry, could be thrown or dropped with less fear of injury.[9] Nonfunctional replicas of the gun are commercially available for fans and collectors.[7][9] GBB Custom Gunleather was tasked with creating Mal's gun holster, which was made out of oak-tanned carving leather.[10] The character's coat, a relic of his time as a Browncoat, was a collaboration between Firefly costume designer Shawna Trpcic and Jonathan A. Logan, a leather artist. Trpcic sketched her idea and a cloth mockup was created before the final was made with domestic-farmed deerskin. The cuffs are actually the sleeves folded back, evoking the style of Oriental robes with their silk linings. Two coats were made for the character, one called "Number 1" coat and another called "The Hero" coat. The Number 1 coat's bullet hole is drawn in, while The Hero version has a detailed cut and sewn repair.[11] As with the gun, replicas of Malcolm Reynolds' coat have also been made available commercially for fans.[12] Character biography [ edit ] Malcolm's main mission is to keep his crew alive and to keep his ship flying. As Firefly writer Tim Minear stated in an interview: "It's just about getting by. That's always been the mission statement of what the show is — getting by."[13] In Serenity, Mal says of himself: "[If the] Wind blows Northerly, I go North."[14] Mal was raised by his mother and "about 40 hands" on a ranch on the planet Shadow.[15] Though Mal usually seems more practical than intellectual, he occasionally surprises his friends by displaying familiarity with disparate literature varying from the works of Xiang Yu[16] to poems[14] by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though he has no idea "who" Mona Lisa is. Mal volunteered for the Independents army during the Unification War against the Alliance, gaining the rank of sergeant during that time. His loyal second-in-command Zoe was by his side for most of the war, surviving many dangerous conflicts with him. The show mentions three such battles, including the Battle of Du-Khang in 2510 (featured in "The Message") and a long winter campaign in New Kashmir (as told by Zoe in "War Stories") where he commanded a platoon. Mal was also involved in the ground campaign during the Battle of Sturges (as seen in the comic book Serenity: Those Left Behind), which according to Badger was the "bloodiest and shortest battle in all the war", although Mal considers it a distant second. Mal fought in many more battles, but the turning point for him and the Independents came with their physical and emotional defeat at the Battle of Serenity Valley on the planet Hera. On-screen information in Serenity shows him to have been attached to the 57th Overlanders Brigade; in the series pilot, Badger calls it the "Balls and Bayonets Brigade", though it is unclear whether this was a disparaging nickname coined by Badger himself or the actual unit sobriquet (A deleted scene in Serenity marks it as the actual unit nickname. It is unknown if the deleted scene can be considered canon or not.) After the war, Mal acquired his own ship, a derelict 03-K64 Firefly-class transport. Mal named the ship Serenity after the Battle of Serenity Valley, the decisive battle of the Unification War. Reception [ edit ] Fillion won the "Cinescape Genre Face of the Future Award — Male" award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA for his role as Malcolm Reynolds. Fillion also won the SyFy Genre Awards in 2006 for Best Actor/Television and was runner-up for Best Actor/Movie.[17] The character was named #18 in TV Guide's "Greatest Sci-fi legends" list in 2004.[1] In 2008, Empire ranked Mal as #34 on their list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters.[18] In 2011, SFX Magazine voted Mal Reynolds #1 on their Top 100 Sci-Fi icons of the century. In her review of the film Serenity for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis had this to say about the character and Nathan Fillion: "Mal is no Neo redux; he's closer to Indiana Jones, if absent Harrison Ford's rakishly handsome looks and star magnetism. Like the rest of the cast, Mr. Fillion is a charming performer, but he borrows rather than owns the screen, which dovetails with Mr. Whedon's modest aspirations for this film."[19] Notes [ edit ] References [ edit ]If you have, call the Unicorn Hotline— to leave tips, and share your hopes and dreams in this interactive art project meant to evoke imagination, play and adventure. PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A search is on in Providence for an elusive creature of legends and lore: a unicorn, namely The Missing Unicorn. Signs are up throughout the city alerting passersby that a female unicorn with a friendly disposition was last seen at Fargnoli Park, 945 Smith St. A reward is being offered for its return. The posters ask people to call a number to leave tips about sightings. And in placing a call to the number — (917)-675-3376 — callers are also invited to share their wishes and dreams. A so-called Unicorn Hotline can be found on speed dial at a sparkly red Glitter Phone Booth outside the Residential Properties building, at 140 Wickenden St. Images of sightings, or suspected sightings, are uploaded at missingunicorn.com. The Missing Unicorn website beckons: "Next time out on the town, why not make the Glitter Phone Booth your first stop? After placing a call to the Unicorn Hotline anything is possible!" The curious signs — along with galloping and stampeding unicorns appearing in store fronts and on buildings — are part of an interactive artwork meant to evoke imagination, play, adventure. Whimsical search The project — Unicorns in Residence — is the brainchild of New York City visual artist Camomile Hixon and is being curated by Helene Miller, acting director of the Partnership for Providence Parks. It included an installation of life-size glitter unicorns at the Providence Public Library that is now dispersing into the community. Images of the signs and possible sightings are being texted and tweeted in Providence, with people discussing whether they've spotted "the one." The hope is that the signs will inspire people on their own paths toward self-discovery and unleash the city's creative spirit with the mythical animals as their muse. And — hint, hint — get people out in the city's 90 public parks. "It's people having loads of fun exercising their creativity and whimsy... To me, a unicorn equals infinite possibility," Hixon said. The search for The Missing Unicorn began in New York City five years ago, when thousands of fliers went up. It has since gone viral, with millions of people, from 120 countries, joining in the search, leaving messages on the hotline and visiting the website to upload photos. The Missing Unicorn was seen in Manhattan and throughout New York's five boroughs for months before vanishing, according to the website. It then turned up in the Midwest for a bit and was spotted in Canada until it made passage to Australia in 2011. The unicorn popped up in Paris and surfaced again running with the Connemara Ponies in the west of Ireland. Now, it's found its way to the Ocean State. Sense of play Hixon, a musician and painter, said in a phone interview Monday that she was inspired to undertake the project after watching glum businessmen riding the subway after the stock market crash. She thought if she could get them to have fun and think about a unicorn for just three seconds it would help. Missing Unicorn signs went up, and calls to the hotline began flooding in. "What I couldn't imagine was that New York City would want to play," Hixon said, adding "I realized that unicorns have always been important. Some people think they exist. Others don't. People have opinions one way or another." Since then, she has heard from callers from as far off as Egypt and Romania. One of the most moving tales, she said, came from a woman in Saudi Arabia who couldn't go to the store without being accompanied by a man. The woman saw the unicorn poster on the Internet, and thinking of it each night allowed her mind to run free like a unicorn. Another woman spoke of it propelling her to search for her long-lost father. "People associate it with freedom. Art should set people free," Hixon said. The anonymity of the hotline invites people to share thoughts in a way they wouldn't necessarily do on the streets, she said. It draws jokers as well as others seeking unicorn power, or magic. For some, it's soothing. "It's like a therapy hotline," Hixon said. "People leave unbelievable stories." Hixon thinks Providence is perfect for the project, given the city's size and vibrant arts community. But the website warns that chasing the unicorn is not for the faint of heart. "It is hard work given the elusive nature and unpredictability of this creature. To say she is difficult to track and even harder to catch would be an understatement, however, there is no greater reward than laying eyes on her. She represents all that is good in the world and some even say she grants wishes and fulfills dreams. If something is missing in your life, join the search and chase the Unicorn to victory!" Everyone is encouraged to join the search. kmulvane@providencejournal.com (401) 277-7417 On Twitter: @kmulvaneMinor League Baseball team The Binghamton Rumble Ponies are an American minor league baseball team based in Binghamton, New York. The team, which plays in the Eastern League, is the Double-A affiliate of the New York Mets major-league club. The Rumble Ponies play in NYSEG Stadium, located in Binghamton. History [ edit ] In 1976, the franchise played as the Williamsport Bills in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It played in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1977 and 1978, then Buffalo, New York, from 1979 through 1984. It returned to Williamsport in 1987. The team was an affiliate of the Cleveland Indians in 1987 and 1988, and of the Seattle Mariners during the 1989 and 1990 seasons. (The Bills franchise was actually two separate franchises. After the 1988 season, the original owners moved the Bills to Hagerstown, Maryland, while the Eastern League franchise based in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, moved back to Williamsport before the 1989 season.) It was purchased by the New York Mets in 1991, and moved to Binghamton in 1992 as the Binghamton Mets. NYSEG Stadium In 2016, the franchise announced a plan to stay in Binghamton for the foreseeable future, and to change the team's name.[2] The team held a name-the-team contest on its website from May 17 to June 1; the finalists were the Bullheads (for the bullhead catfish abundant in the nearby Sus
ates are never clearly defined, which may very well be the point. The only true power of the sensate is convenience, the ability to adapt perfectly to any challenge in any situation. Mostly, the sensates possess the ability to appear to one another and temporarily seize control of one another’s bodies when their unique talents come in handy. When a guard needs to be charmed, then charisma-oozer Lito takes over. When the car won’t start without a little creative rewiring, the street-wise van proprietor Capheus knows just what to do. When goons threaten our heroes, they’ve got the choice between firearms expert Wolfgang, hand-to-hand badass Sun Bak, or hardened beat cop Will. (And that’s all just in the climactic action sequence of the season finale.) In early episodes, this superpower can sometimes feel like a cheap way of writing around obstacles, the Wachowskis’ method of deus-ex-machina-ing themselves out of tight spots in which they place their characters. But as the themes of the show crystallize, they reveal that convenience as crucial to the show’s subtextual significance. Above all else, Sense8 is a grand metaphor for the experience of living life in a marginalized group. Many of the characters already do; of the core eight cast members, only four are white, the same number are male, and the cast includes representations of queer characters as well as trans characters. But this reading is inescapable due to Lana Wachowski’s status as a proud trans woman in the public eye, having made a powerful statement about her own struggles with identity during her teen years. The inexplicable, confusing, and often frightening phenomena that the sensates experience closely mirror the earliest throes of non-heteronormativity, and the process of coming to terms with a trans identity in specific. Before the sensates gain insight on their own gifts, they manifest to one another as voices in their head or the vague sensation that someone else is present in their body. They interpret these visions as mental illness, and the complete inability of their loved ones to understand what they’re going through ultimately alienates them from their peers. Across the board, they are plagued by anxiety over the knowledge that they’re different combined with a lack of understanding when it comes to the nature of that difference. In essence, then, the sensate power acts as an idealized pushback against the cruel realities of growing up trans (or queer, or nonwhite, or subjugated in any way) in a world that fears and despises non-cisgender people. The power functions like a supernatural “It Gets Better” campaign, providing each of the eight main characters with moral support and insight in times of need. The talents lent may sometimes be physical, but the show packs a greater emotional wallop when the sensates connect to bestow moral and ethical guidance upon one another. In times of fear or self-doubt, the sensates appear to one another just as visions of God visit the devout in dark hours. When a woman tentatively walks down the aisle to marry a man she doesn’t love, another sensate appears to her as a guardian angel, imploring her to follow her heart out of the ceremony. The sensates tell one another exactly what they need to hear in any given moment: you’re strong, you’re not crazy, you deserve to be treated well. The Wachowskis employ the very fabric of the film medium to remove the distances separating their sensates, using sneaky editing strategies to create the illusion that characters on opposite ends of the globe are conducting a conversation in the same room. The underlying brilliance of this trick elevates the film form to the saving grace of those stricken by desperation. Editing, in the simplest terms, bridges gaps in time and space. Sense8 aims to bring the people who need one another into contact so that they may provide each other with the support that they need. Sense8 also works to bridge the gap between itself and its audience, providing support to the unheard scads of queer and trans sci-fi fans wrestling with self-doubt, suicidal tendencies, and loneliness. More than a superhero yarn in the gloriously convoluted tradition of the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending, the series is a humanitarian act. It’s an outstretched hand, picking up whoever needs a little help getting back up.Interview by Paul Bergen Dr. Riccardo Polosa graciously agreed to discuss the findings in his latest research on smokers enrolled in a smoking cessation study testing the effectiveness of e-cigarettes (both nicotine and non-nicotine) for quitting smoking. PLB: Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of this study is selecting individuals who were not planning on quitting, using a product intended for nicotine maintenance rather than cessation and still achieving a quit rate competitive with cessation therapies given to people who want to quit. Leaving aside the idea (which you bring up in the paper) that there may have been people unintentionally predisposed to quitting enrolled in the study, apart from the product (e-cigarettes) one could ask: is the intention to quit perhaps less important than we think it is? RP: This is likely to be correct. For many smokers (probably even more so for those who, despite the intense tobacco control policy adopted in the US, are still smoking – the so called hard core smokers) intention to quit is not the main reason why they would switch to an E-cigarette. It is a known fact that many smokers enjoy smoking and the main reason for trying and adopting these products is to perpetuate their smoking behavior, without having to worry or to feel guilty about the harmful effect of tobacco smoke. The corollary of this is that, the more similar is the behavioral and sensorial experience of tobacco smoking reproduced by vaping, the more likely smokers will switch and adopt E-cigarettes long term. It is interesting to note how product development and public health actually coincide in this case! This is also supported by the observation that in the ECLAT study abstinence rates remain pretty stable at each study visits throughout the whole 52-week period. This is something you do not normally observe in a typical smoking cessation study, where quit rates tend to progressively decline in the first few months before plateauing. Beside the need to perpetuate a behavior, I believe that the element of curiosity also played an important role in switching and initially adopting the e-cig in the ECLAT study. Please note that when we started recruiting in early 2010 these products were virtually unknown by the general public in Italy (awareness has increased exponentially since then, and these products today are generally well-known). PLB: There is this myth circulating that everyone who smokes wants to quit. Obviously the fact that so many people still smoke belies that. The great thing about e-cigarettes is that they are safe enough (and safer than some recommended cessation routes such as varenicline) that quitting or not becomes more an issue of whether the user wants to rather than a health concern. If we accept that there is little difference between continuing to use nicotine or not and no stated intention of quitting, why do you think people did quit? RP: I thank you for giving me the opportunity of expanding a few important concepts that could not be addressed in the journal article due to editorial space limitations. In our study, switching to e-cigs resulted in complete smoking abstinence in about 10% of smokers not intending to quit; of these only 26.9% were still using the product by the end of the observational period. Thus, 73.1% of regular e-cig users ended up quitting vaping as well. Probably, the fact that participants were not supplied with the product beyond the 12-week intervention phase of the study and that its commercial availability during the extension phase was poor has produced an unexpected effect. Many regular vapers confronted with the situation of not being supplied with (or able to acquire) the product, rather than relapsing in tobacco smoking realized to be strong enough to free themselves also from the behavioral component of smoking that was being reproduced by vaping the product under investigation (not that surprising, considering that the product under investigation was underperforming by today’s e-cig standards). In this regard, the product under investigation was not very ‘addictive’ and in fact, given the population under investigation, was instrumental to beating participants smoking addiction/behavior. As I said earlier we cannot exclude that there may have been people unintentionally predisposed to quitting enrolled in the study. For these individuals the e-cig might have facilitated a lingering need for a change in behavior. E-cig might have been stimulated subconsciously progression through the stages of change (from pre-contemplation to contemplation to determination to action – i.e. quitting). PLB: In general you found that reduction rates seemed roughly the same for all groups (high, medium and no nicotine vaping) but quit rates were higher for the high nicotine e-cigarette users. This ends up in a bit of ambiguity since the no nicotine group liked their product the least and many of the subjects in that group also did not like the flavor. They could have lower quit levels because they did not like them or because they weren’t getting as much nicotine. So either you need to meet the user drug need or at least you need to make the product quite attractive. RP: Quit rates were consistently lower for the no nicotine study group, with no substantial difference between high and medium nicotine groups (this is also supported by the finding that saliva cotinine levels were similar in both groups). A problem in the study was that the poor taste of the no nicotine product (we were not aware of this when we commenced the study). We believe that sensorial factors rather than the absence of nicotine have driven down success rates in this subgroup. As always the truth stands in the middle. There are different smokers’ phenotypes; those who are addicted to nicotine (‘medicated’ by nicotine) on an extreme end and those who smoke for the pleasure of smoking (sensorial, behavioral, social factors) on the opposite end, with a variety of mixed phenotypes in between. For those in need of their daily dose of nicotine it is best to invest on high-performance products that are able to satisfy their personal need of nicotine. For those who enjoy smoking is best to ensure a product that satisfies their psycho-sensorial components, especially those related to taste. PLB: I also found it interesting that 1) that there were complaints about the brand used and yet 2) people would still recommend them to other smokers. As to the first part, I think that a problem with any study in this area that attempts to standardize the product aspect will run up against individual preferences that could affect successful quitting. In the real world vapers explore brands until the find one they like and sometimes they abandon the idea because of a first experience with something that did not meet their expectations. Having an adlib approach to the use is superior to most cessation studies but can you imagine having a preliminary phase where participants tried a number of different brands to find one that tasted good and in general met their definition of a “good smoke”? RP: We are not reinventing the wheel. ECLAT is an important study, but it has its own limitations (drawbacks). Nonetheless, we can learn a lot when we consider that these limitations may form the basis for future E-cig related research. Indeed, those who relapsed (probably we have also to include many lost to follow ups) seem to have returned to their own tobacco brand because of a first experience with something that did not meet their expectations. Furthermore, we have submitted for publication a 24-month follow up study of our first pilot exploring real world attitudes of vapers failing entry products and switching to intermediate level products. My research team at the University of Catania is now collecting evidence that individual sensorial expectations are critical for improving success rates in E-cig clinical trials. Therefore, we have designed study protocols that include a run-in phase in which participants could try different brands/models/aroma so that they can adopt the one they considered their personal best, before being formally enrolled in the trial. That is what I call personalized ‘medicine’ applied to e-cig clinical research! PLB: And as to the second point, it was reported that even people who did not have the best experience still recommended the brand to smokers they knew. I don’t know if that is typical behavior among to be quitters of other methods, but it does indicate that one person being exposed to e-cigarettes might end up with someone else quitting. As a quit method they have built in advertising in that you can see them as opposed to just about every other method. Ultimately it does seem to say that even people who were not happy with their e-cigarette still liked the basic idea of it. RP: Yes, it was surprising to see that even people who did not have the best experience with the e-cig were still recommending the electronic product to other smokers. Trends in the product perception scoring may follow different trajectory at different time points and it is possible that scoring at later time points (smoker’s preference was only assessed at week-12, -24 and -52) may not reflect early (positive) perception of the product. This may in part explain the discrepancy. It is also possible, as you suggest, that even users who were not happy with the product under investigation still liked the basic idea of it and recognized the potential for other types of smokers (i.e. social smokers vs chain smokers). Last but not least, there might be a psychological component that can explain this discrepancy. Generally quitting is contagious in the sense that if a smoker quit by a method, whatever it is, almost always tries to involve other smokers to use the same strategy. However, the opposite is also true: if I fail with that method I would still recommend it to prove that also other smokers will equally fail. PLB: You make the comment that “e-cigarettes [help reduce] cigarette consumption and elicits enduring tobacco abstinence without causing significant side effects in individuals unable or not wishing to quit can be seen as an emerging novel approach to tobacco harm reduction…these products may also be attractive in managing smokers who are not ready to repeat a quit attempt and decline further assistance after relapse”. If I understand you correctly you mean that e-cigarettes are successful in helping people quit precisely because it does not feel like quitting. And of interest is the idea that a bad quitting experience could forestall future quitting attempts. Again this could be an argument for making nicotine alternatives as attractive as possible. RP: Spot on! E-cigs encourage smokers to spontaneously do something good for their health. An efficient, attractive, adequately priced, and widely available product has the potential of becoming a major strategic weapon for the success in the fight against tobacco worldwide. PLB: You also mention something that I did see crop up elsewhere in that a number of people who switched from smoking to vaping ended up quitting nicotine altogether. (And in a group that was never intending to quit.) Though we accept that nicotine is important to the experience, could it be that once you have a attractive enough substitute (like the smoke, the nicotine, essentially the same experience) but with a little difference that separates you from the previous behavior that you are freer to pursue abstinence? I do know that in my own experience having tobacco in the vicinity felt more compelling to me than having an e-cigarette around like I do now. This is purely anecdotal but I suspect it has something to do with breaking from the one burning unit to the whenever and however many puffs experience. The burning unit seems to be almost a demand in comparison to the e-cigarette invitation. RP: In principle we all agree that traditional cigarettes are more efficient in term of nicotine release and also more attractive for some sensorial aspects associated with tobacco taste. However, typically the act of smoking is also often coupled with the sense of guilt that derives from the knowledge that smoking and combustion are bad for someone’s health. A much safer product that can reproduce the experience of “smoking without smoking” is a revolutionary opportunity for smokers that now can pursue abstinence without giving up the pleasure that derives from their smoking behavior. That is why I am convinced that with the development of newer more attractive products that can replicate a personalized smoking experience will make important weapons for the success in the fight against tobacco. PLB: You note that “those who abstained completely from tobacco from the beginning of the study were more likely to stay quit at subsequent follow-ups, whereas those who at first became reducers (dual users) were more likely to relapse later on in the study”. Do you think that perhaps those who switched over at once were those “unintentionally ready to quit”? RP: Although, we cannot exclude that those who switched over at once were those “unintentionally ready to quit”, I believe that a better explanation for this phenomenon is that immediate adaptation and regular use of the product under investigation empowered e-cig users to gain the necessary confidence to do something good for their health (i.e. stay quit long term). Conversely, the reason for reducers (dual users) being more likely to relapse later on in the study was mainly associated with the poor adaptation with the model under investigation. Conversely, the reason for reducers (dual users) being more likely to relapse later on in the study was mainly associated with the poor adaptation (i.e. unsatisfactory smoker’s preference for the product) with the model under investigation. PLB: One thing that crossed my mind as I read the study is that this is all good news even though anti-nicotine groups could seize on the fact that some relapsed. My view is that even if most people ended up still smoking a little or ended up for some reason relapsing years later that at least during this period they were not smoking. Those dual users cut down their cigarettes whenever they were vaping instead. In a sense it does not matter if they are a perfect solution – all that matters is that they help somewhat. RP: I could not agree more! In spite of the fact that the product under investigation (2009) was quite underperforming by current (2013) standards, it was clearly helpful to smokers. This has to be considered in view of the notion that for smokers not able or not interested in quitting smoking cessation specialists do not have anything better to offer. Hence, ECLAT’s findings indicate that the glass is half full, not half empty and that the ecig is a friend, not an enemy. PLB: Thank you for your time Dr. Polosa. Related posts: Previous interview with Dr Polosa All interviews Are Electronic Cigarettes Really As Addictive As Nicotine?SAINT JOHN – Old-school video game lovers in Saint John are about to have their dreams come true. Opening Saturday at 43 Princess Street in the city’s uptown, Eighty Three Bar Arcade will offer a space for adult gamers to drink and indulge in the classics. Owner Mark Stevens got the idea for opening the arcade bar after seeing the success of his other two businesses Level-Up Laser Tag and Arcade Box. He noticed that while kids were having fun with the attractions, the grown-ups were having a blast too. “What we found was that arcades certainly resonate with youth,” Stevens says. “However, we’ve seen the expressions and the joy on parents’ faces that have throughly enjoyed being at our parties and partaking in the retro gaming aspect.” Bar arcades have been around for a while in the United States and bigger cities, but this will be the first one in New Brunswick. The name “Eighty Three” comes from the opinion that 1983 was the peak of the arcade … before the Atari shock messed everything up, of course. Stevens says they want to channel the nostalgia of that time. They want to recapture the days when you spent your Saturdays in an arcade or in front of a console, but in a modern, adult environment. “We want mom and dad to come and enjoy a night out by themselves. So they can be kids themselves.” Eighty Three will feature classic arcade games that were staples of the 1980’s and early 1990’s arcade scene. “You’ve got the ‘heavy hitters’ we call them, like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Frogger, Space Invaders, Defender, these are all the top 80’s games. They are also the ones that are hardest to find as most people seek them out to collect them now.” Steven says music will also be a very important aspect of the bar, so if you plan to catch a sports game there, you may be out of luck. The bar will be continuously streaming music videos from the 70’s, 80’s early 90’s (with some occasional Top 40.) “Before MTV, Much Music and the video channels, you used to watch on Friday nights what we called the ‘Friday night videos.’ We have a slogan that it’s always ‘Friday night videos at Eighty Three.’ We will play videos continuously and I hate to say that there’s never going to be any sports on the screen, but that’s not our mandate.” For a limited time, all game play will be free with the purchase of an alcoholic beverage or a bottomless fountain soda. Stevens says the bar will eventually charge an admission fee (likely around $8-$10) upon entry, which will include your first drink and unlimited play. “We bring an entirely different attraction to the area. It’s unlike anything that’s been in New Brunswick and perhaps Atlantic Canada. It’s a new concept.”Today, Finnish mobile giant Nokia submitted its annual SEC financial report for 2011, detailing its yearly financials, risks, forward-looking statements — generally giving us an overview of the company’s health at the end of last year. Last year, Nokia took action to reverse its smartphone business, signing a deal with Microsoft to make its Windows Phone platform its primary smartphone operating system. Despite Nokia overhauling its strategy, it still suffered a $1.4 billion operating loss, compared its $2.74 billion profit in 2010. Device Shipments Nokia’s smartphone shipments reached 77.3 million units, down 25% on 2010, whilst featurephone shipments totalled 339.8 million units, a decline of 3% year-over-year. As a result of its falling mobile sales, The average selling price (ASP) of Nokia’s mobile devices fell to 75 dollars, down 11% from $85 in 2010. As part of its partnership with Microsoft, Nokia notes that it received its first quarterly platform support payment from the Redmond-based technology giant in Q4 — totalling $250 million — with the total amount of payments expected to exceed the total amount of its software royalty commitments. Employees As you may have noticed via our earlier coverage, Nokia has been cutting jobs all over the world, in order to streamline its supply chain. This resulted in cuts in Finland, Mexico, Hungary and Romania, as a lot of jobs went to Asia, where Nokia’s devices are manufactured. This meant that at the end of 2011, Nokia employed 130,050 people, which was down from 132 427 people in December 31, 2010. Looking Forward Nokia says that to maximise its Symbian business, it expects to focus on shipments in specific regions, through to 2016. Again, the company believes that as market conditions change and it continues to increase its focus on Windows Phone devices, it will sell fewer Symbian devices that it had previously predicted. The company also says that its “ability to retain, motivate, develop and recruit appropriately skilled employees” may also impact its ability to compete, adding that it also has to rely on its ability to “protect numerous patented standardized or proprietary technologies from thirdparty infringement or actions to invalidate the intellectual property rights of these technologies.” Given that it outsourced a number of its patents, and is currently receiving compensation from Apple over its intellectual property, it’s understandable that the company could also benefit from infringements on its technology. Read next: Ads by Coffee offers charities free online advertising campaigns, no strings attached“Sharknado 5” is happening, and Ian Ziering and Tara Reid are all set to reprise their roles. Syfy and studio The Asylum have given an official greenlight to the fifth installment of the “Sharknado” series. The original 2013 “Sharknado” introduced the concept of a shark-laden twister via one bearing down on Los Angeles. In “Sharknado 2: The Second One,” New York City was the target of the disaster, and in “Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!” a mega-sharknado made its way down the East Coast from Washington, D.C. to Florida. In the most recent installment, the very-close-to-copyright-infringement-titled “Sharknado: The 4th Awakens,” the shark-infested storms went national. The film ended with the Eiffel Tower ripping away from Paris and crashing down on Niagara Falls, setting the stage for the fifth edition of America’s answer to the sprawling sagas of the ancient world. In “Sharknado 5,” with much of North America lying in ruins, the rest of the world braces for a global sharknado. Fin Shepard (Ziering) and his family must put a stop to this disaster before Earth is obliterated. “Sharknado 5” is a working title, to be clear; Syfy and Asylum have some time to come up with a truly clever main or subtitle, like “Sharknado 5: Finternational Waters” or “Sharknado: Dinner for 5.” As is seemingly required by its global scope, “Sharknado 5” will film in more than five countries, including the U.K. and Australia. Anthony C. Ferrante, who directed the first four films, is back to helm this latest installment, based on a script by Scotty Mullen.NAPLES, Fla., April 29 (UPI) -- A Florida homeowner captured video of three bears breaking into the home's pool cage to play by the pool and drink the water. Judy Burris of the Golden Gate area of Naples shared a video showing the trio of young bears entering the pool area through a screen barrier they damaged on a previous visit and pausing from playing beside the pool to refresh themselves with a drink of pool water. "They broke through the lanai screen a few weeks before and began making themselves at home!" Burris wrote in the video's description. "Though they didn't swim on this day you can see the dirt they tracked into the pool and also pulled out the light." Burris said the footage, which she captured in February, led her to install a motion alarm system. "The Fish and Wildlife Service advice was to scare that bear," she told WZVN-TV. She shared a second video from about a week after the first video showing the three bears make a return trip and trigger the alarm. She said the device was successful. "They clearly didn't run in fear but the alarm made them uncomfortable and they didn't want to stick around," Burris said.A British man fed up with cold calls from telemarketers set up a premium phone number in November 2011 and has made £300 by accepting calls and keeping the annoying marketers on the line as long as possible. Lee Beaumont, who works at home in Leeds, UK, was getting calls at all times of the day. "I thought there must be a way to make money off these phone calls," he told the BBC. He searched on Google and found a small company that charged him £10 (about $15.50) to set up an 0871 line (equivalent to a 900 line in the US), which forces people who call him to pay 10p per minute. Of that, he receives 7p (about 10.9¢). The BBC has an article and radio segment on Beaumont here. He now gives out his 0871 line to any business that might cold call him, while giving friends and family a different number. The BBC writes: Because he works from home, Mr Beaumont has been able to increase his revenue by keeping cold callers talking—asking for more details about their services. He admitted the scheme had changed his attitude, saying: "I want cold calls," and that he had moved on to encouraging companies to make contact. After a recent problem with his online shopping, he declined to call an 0845 number but posted his number on Twitter in the knowledge that the number could be picked up by marketing companies. The scheme reminds us a bit of Internet citizens turning the tables on obnoxious "Windows Technical Support" scammers, although ordinary telemarketers aren't quite as devious. Beaumont is honest with companies who ask him why he has an 0871 number, telling them he's annoyed by marketing calls and would rather make money if he has to receive them. He used to receive 20 to 30 cold calls a month, but he only got 13 last month, a trend he doesn't necessarily like since it reduces his payments. For what it's worth, the organization that regulates premium numbers told the BBC that "Premium rate numbers are not designed to be used in this way and we would strongly discourage any listeners from adopting this idea, as they will be liable under our code for any breaches and subsequent fines that result." Still, we have to admire Beaumont's entrepreneurial streak, and his sense of humor.In only two years -- 1969 and 1978 -- was there more snow on the ground in North America in early March than there is now. In this map of North America, areas covered by snow are in white and areas that are ice are in yellow. (Photo: NOAA) As of Tuesday, North America is covered by the third-highest amount of snow this late in the season since records began in 1966, according to NOAA's U.S. National Ice Center. Only 1969 and 1978 had more snow cover at this point in the year, according to Sean Helfrich of NOAA's National Ice Center. GREAT LAKES: Ice cover nears record level This data includes both the U.S. and Canada, reported New Jersey state climatologist and Rutgers University geography professor David Robinson. "Given that the vast majority of Canada is snow-covered at this time of the year (except in a very mild early March), the signal is virtually entirely a function of snow extent variations in the lower 48," he said in an e-mail. As for the U.S. alone, over 50% of the nation is snow-covered, the most for March 5 in at least the last 10 years. Great Lakes ice extent is also very high: 91% of the Great Lakes are ice covered, the second-highest percentage on record. TWITTER: Follow USA TODAY Weather Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1iaqINXUS Representatives Peter J. Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA), along with Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Trade Representative Michael Froman this week, calling on them to oppose a UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. "We write to urge you to take action to oppose the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) recent resolution calling for foreign divestment from Israel," the letter began. "This latest action is unprecedented in scope and threatens significant damage to both Israel and the United States, thus warranting a vigorous response." "The UNHRC resolution, passed on March 24th, is notable in several respects. It urges countries to pressure their own companies to divest from, or break contracts with, Israel, and calls for the creation of a “blacklist” of companies that either operate, or have business relations with entities that operate, beyond Israel’s 1949 Armistice lines, including East Jerusalem," it continued. "The UNHRC’s effort, the latest in a long history of singling out Israel for special condemnation, occurs within the larger context of ongoing political and commercial assaults on Israel’s legitimacy, known as BDS – boycotts, divestment and sanctions." A "blacklist" attempts to "strangle Israel’s economy and coerce Israel into unilateral concessions," as had been done in decades past, they continued - and it sets a dangerous precedent. "Any foreign company, including American ones, could be targeted by this effort even if they are conducting completely legal activities under U.S. and international law," they said. Furthermore, they added, the resolution violates the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (the Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA, bill) and the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 (the Customs bill). Ultimately, they said, the resolution "is designed specifically to undermine U.S.-Israel commercial cooperation." "We urge you to quickly, publicly and forcefully commit that the United States will not comply with the UNHRC resolution," they conclude. "Great Britain has already taken this step." "The United States must send the same signal, and should work with our other European allies to do the same – particularly the members of the European Union who desire free trade with the United States and are impacted by the TPA guidelines."Glen MacPherson has become one of the leading researchers of a global phenomenon known as the world hum. Best described as a deep rumbling sound similar to that coming from a large truck idling in the distance, the hum has been reported thousands of times on every continent. Just the noise alone can drive people batty. Others report physical discomfort because the low drone vibrates through their bodies, causing headaches, earaches and stiffness in their joints. Some communities, like Kokomo, Ind. and Taos, N.M., have garnered plenty of hum attention because the problem is so prominent. There's also the well-known Windsor Hum in southwestern Ontario, but many amateur researchers there say the source of their hum is not the same as what causes the hum in other regions. B.C. researcher Glen MacPherson has plotted the locations of more than 9,000 hum reports around the world. (Glen MacPherson) From his home on B.C.'s picturesque Sunshine Coast, MacPherson has been tracking the world hum. When he first heard it while living in Sechelt, B.C., he thought there was a flock of seaplanes flying over his home. The high school math teacher started unplugging appliances, one by one, trying to identify the source. "I found that the greater the number of appliances I turned off, the louder the hum got," he said. His mysterious noise amplified even more when he cut the power to the entire house. So he jumped in his car and took a drive. "I discovered that I could hear it pretty much everywhere I went on the Sunshine Coast, as long as it was later at night or the ambient noise was fairly low," he said. MacPherson now lives in Gibsons, B.C., and has since discovered that people around the world have heard the mysterious noise that he dedicates so much time to researching. Meanwhile, in Windsor Other people are doing their own research on hum phenomena. Mike Provost of Windsor first heard the hum four years ago. "Once you hear it, you always hear it. If you never hear it, you're lucky because it's very, very disturbing," he said. "It rattles everything, including your body, your stomach, everything — headaches, stress, shoulders, neck, ears. Your ears pop, your ears always seem like they're plugged." Mike Provost has been capturing the Windsor Hum for more than four years with recording devices. He blames the U.S. Steel plant on Zug Island. (Derek Spalding/CBC) In his mind, the Windsor hum is not the world-wide phenomenon MacPherson is tracking. He cites a 2014 study from the University of Windsor that determined the noise comes from Zug Island, which is home to a heavy manufacturing operation of U.S. Steel. Provost welcomes other theories from people like MacPherson and accepts there is an outside chance the source is not Zug Island. "Absolutely. Do we believe that? No," he said. "We know it's coming from Zug Island." People only need to experience the Windsor hum to understand how it differs from the hum in other regions, Provost told CBC News. "Our noise is very different than all the other hums they talk about." To further pinpoint the sound, Provost set up three tiny recorders — smaller than the average cellphone — in three corners of his backyard collecting audio 24 hours a day. Mike Provost of Windsor has been recording the hum for years in his backyard 5:56 Provost hopes the positioning of the devices will help him triangulate more accurately where the sound is coming from specifically. Hours of digital recordings are collected and stored on his computer. MacPherson, however, has his own theory about the source of Windsor's hum. "I'm not convinced that Zug Island is the sole source of that disturbance," he said. "For all we know, all those reports from Windsor and Lasalle and that area are being confounded by people who can hear the world hum." Mapping the hum To understand the scope of the phenomenon, MacPherson plotted the locations — along with a thorough description — of more than 9,000 hum reports around the globe. He meticulously pores over each report to ensure it fits the pattern. His detailed and exhaustive World Hum Map and Database Project has become one of the initial online stops for people first learning about the mysterious noise. People have put forward many theories about the world hum, blaming everything from cellphones to the introduction of electric power grids. But MacPherson has ruled out many of those by pairing his own research with that of the few others who have studied the noise. The standard narrative for the world hum, MacPherson explained, is that it rose to prominence in England during the late 1960s. Assuming the timeline is correct, that immediately rules out several theories. Cellphones have not been around that long, and the power grid has been around a lot longer, which means reports would have occurred sooner. There is emerging evidence that similar noise reports may date back to the 1800s in London. "I'm by no means ready to make that conclusion, but that's something that's being actively investigated," MacPherson said. Testing radio waves MacPherson is currently testing one hypothesis put forward by American geophysicist David Deming, who suggests the hum could be attributed to very low frequency radio emissions used in military planes to communicate with submarines. MacPherson designed a VLF blocking box, which was envisioned in Deming's hum research paper published in 2004. MacPherson built a box that is big enough to climb inside. If the hum is rooted in very low frequency radio frequency waves, that box should block the noise. His results so far have been inconclusive, but is looking for a better location to test the device. "It is the source of some humour for some people," he said, laughing. "It looks like a metal coffin." MacPherson also plans to test a few other theories, including general ambient noise created by modern technology.Tuesday, 13 December 2011 The Twelve Days of Quake 2
the importance of how an area was settled to the delivery of medical care, that is, according to traffic, market or administrative principles. What is central place? See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] a b c Goodall, B. (1987) The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography. London: Penguin. ^ http://uprav.ff.cuni.cz/?q=system/files/christaller.pdf References [ edit ]Can 'Smart Gun' Technology Help Prevent Violence? Enlarge this image toggle caption New Jersey Institute of Technology/AP New Jersey Institute of Technology/AP For years, many have dreamed of so-called smart guns, weapons that know their rightful owner and won't fire in the wrong hands. Think James Bond's gun in Skyfall. A few major gun makers experimented with smart guns in the 1990s, but none came to market. Since then, it's been the domain of entrepreneurs and inventors. Developers And Technologists Jonathan Mossberg's company developed what he calls the iGun. It fires only if it recognizes a ring on a finger. The ring has a black square made of onyx and contains codes that identify the owner. "It's totally inert. There's no batteries, nothing. Totally waterproof," Mossberg says. Robert McNamara's TriggerSmart prototypes use radio frequency ID, the kind of technology stores use to track merchandise. The gun looks for the RFID tag in a ring, bracelet, or, if this isn't too science fiction for you, it's embedded under your skin. "It's about the size of a grain of rice," McNamara says of the tag. "It's that small, and they just inject it under the skin." A German company called Armatix plans to release a gun in the U.S. that uses fingerprint scans or communicates with a wristwatch. Donald Sebastian and his team at the New Jersey Institute of Technology took a different approach, creating prototype guns that record the unique way you grip. "While you're pulling the trigger, you are applying a dynamically changing pattern of pressures onto that stock of that gun, and that's what is actually individual to you and reproducible shot after shot," Sebastian says. But for all the time and money spent on smart guns, developers say their technology has, until now, mostly sat on a shelf. "It's only been [the] lack of demand that has kept us from going any further," says Mossberg of the iGun. But that all changed after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Beyond The Politics Mossberg and the others were all in Washington last week, at the request of the Justice Department. As part of President Obama's plan to reduce gun violence, smart guns are getting renewed attention. The Justice Department is asking whether they could reduce the kind of gun violence we saw in Newtown or Aurora. Stephen Teret has waited for this moment for decades. "I first started thinking about personalized gun technology when a young child, who was the child of a friend, was killed by another young child," Teret says. That was about 30 years ago, and it led him to found the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. He thinks smart guns could reduce youth suicides, accidental shootings and deaths from stolen weapons. "We have a technology that will prove to be a lifesaving technology," he says. "We need to get it into guns. There's politics that have prevented that from happening, but we've got to get beyond those politics." Curbing Gun Violence? Yet for all the attention personalized guns are getting now, few experts think this technology could have prevented a tragedy like Newtown. "The majority of mass shootings in this country are committed with legal weapons, and the person firing the gun is the owner of the gun," says Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, a group that pushes for gun control. He says few of the more than 30,000 annual gun deaths could be prevented by smart guns. There were just 606 unintentional firearm deaths in 2010. "The numbers are relatively small. They're tragic, but relatively small," Sugarmann says. He worries that if these high-tech weapons became available, more people would choose to own guns. Both Sides Of The Argument All this puts him in surprising agreement with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry. "Smart gun technology doesn't really offer anything that a standard lock doesn't as well," says Larry Keane, the association's general counsel. Both Sugarmann and Keane wonder if someone like Adam Lanza would have been an authorized user on a smart gun, defeating the purpose. It might not prevent all violence, proponents say, but smart gun technology is like a seat belt — it makes guns safer. A group called The Sandy Hook Promise, which includes families of the victims, met with venture capitalists and technologists in San Francisco last week. They want to push more smart gun development. And with Obama focusing on gun safety, smart gun developers believe this is their moment. Sebastian, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, had all but given up development a few months ago. Now, he thinks they could soon be on the market. "I think it could happen within two years," he says. Maybe then, we'll find out if Americans actually want their guns to be smart.Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on Wednesday trolled Donald Trump Jr. for a spelling error in a tweet, joking that “immigrant spelling bee contestants” would know how to spell the word “oppressive.” Trump Jr. tweeted Tuesday asking what “Big Govt, opprressive taxation, anti 2A left wing socialists” are celebrating on the Fourth of July holiday, prompting Bharara to respond with a comment on the spelling error. “Also we might celebrate the ability of immigrant spelling bee contestants to know that ‘oppressive’ has only one "r." Build a wwallll,” Bharara tweeted. Out of curiosity, what exactly are Big Govt, opprressive taxation, anti 2A left wing socialists celebrating today? — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 4, 2017 Also we might celebrate the ability of immigrant spelling bee contestants to know that "oppressive" has only one "r." Build a wwallll. https://t.co/zAed69PxYM — Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) July 5, 2017 ADVERTISEMENT Bharara was fired by President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE earlier this year after he refused to resign as attorney in New York when Trump took office. Bharara has criticized Trump for firing him and taken a number of opportunities to mock him online, and he appeared at fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony last month.Whatever his gyrations, Mr. Trump always does make clear where his heart lies — with the anti-immigrant, nativist and racist signals that he scurrilously employed to build his base. He used the shameful “birther” campaign against President Obama’s legitimacy as a wedge for his candidacy. But then he opportunistically denied his own record, trolling for undecided voters by conceding that Mr. Obama was a born American. In the process he tried to smear Mrs. Clinton as the instigator of the birther canard and then fled reporters’ questions. Since his campaign began, NBC News has tabulated that Mr. Trump has made 117 distinct policy shifts on 20 major issues, including three contradictory views on abortion in one eight-hour stretch. As reporters try to pin down his contradictions, Mr. Trump has mocked them at his rallies. He said he would “loosen” libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations that displease him. An expert negotiator who can fix government and overpower other world leaders? His plan for cutting the national debt was far from a confidence builder: He said he might try to persuade creditors to accept less than the government owed. This fanciful notion, imported from Mr. Trump’s debt-steeped real estate world, would undermine faith in the government and the stability of global financial markets. His tax-cut plan has been no less alarming. It was initially estimated to cost $10 trillion in tax revenue, then, after revisions, maybe $3 trillion, by one adviser’s estimate. There is no credible indication of how this would be paid for — only assurances that those in the upper brackets will be favored. If Mr. Trump were to become president, his open doubts about the value of NATO would present a major diplomatic and security challenge, as would his repeated denunciations of trade deals and relations with China. Mr. Trump promises to renegotiate the Iran nuclear control agreement, as if it were an air-rights deal on Broadway. Numerous experts on national defense and international affairs have recoiled at the thought of his commanding the nuclear arsenal. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell privately called Mr. Trump “an international pariah.” Mr. Trump has repeatedly denounced global warming as a “hoax,” although a golf course he owns in Ireland is citing global warming in seeking to build a protective wall against a rising sea. In expressing admiration for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Mr. Trump implies acceptance of Mr. Putin’s dictatorial abuse of critics and dissenters, some of whom have turned up murdered, and Mr. Putin’s vicious crackdown on the press. Even worse was Mr. Trump’s urging Russia to meddle in the presidential campaign by hacking the email of former Secretary of State Clinton. Voters should consider what sort of deals Mr. Putin might obtain if Mr. Trump, his admirer, wins the White House. A change agent for the nation and the world? There can be little doubt of that. But voters should be asking themselves if Mr. Trump will deliver the kind of change they want. Starting a series of trade wars is a recipe for recession, not for new American jobs. Blowing a hole in the deficit by cutting taxes for the wealthy will not secure Americans’ financial future, and alienating our allies won’t protect our security. Mr. Trump has also said he will get rid of the new national health insurance system that millions now depend on, without saying how he would replace it.Midfielder Nana Boateng is set for a significant spell on the sidelines after suffering a lower back injury during Saturday's 2-1 home loss to Real Salt Lake. The Ghanaian fractured three lumbar vertebrae and, while no surgery is required, he will miss eight to 10 weeks. Boateng, who joined the Rapids in January from Manchester City, landed heavily on his back following an aerial challenge with RSL midfielder Luke Mulholland. “This is unfortunate timing for Nana,” said Sporting Director, Pádraig Smith. “He has acclimated quickly to the team and the altitude, and was beginning to show the talent and forward drive we identified when bringing him to the club.” His last action before limping out of play was his first assist in MLS, starting the move which led to the opening goal from Kevin Doyle. He was subbed out after only 32 minutes of his first start at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, to be replaced by debutant Mohammed Saeid. “While this is a blow to the team, it highlights the need for roster depth,” added Smith. “And we have two top level players in Saeid and (Dillon) Powers, who can both slot in and play the #8 role while Nana recuperates.” The Rapids (1-3-1; 4 points) return to action next Sunday afternoon, on the road at Minnesota United FC (4:00 p.m. MT - Altitude).Photo courtesy Emily May Ever walked down the street to the hoots and catcalls of total strangers? Ever been privy to a total stranger's nasty bits on the subway? There is a way to stop it. Hollaback is a movement dedicated to ending street harassment using mobile technology. It started in Brooklyn six years ago, and has since spread to dozens of other cities around the world. They just launched a new "I've Got Your Back" campaign, a mobile app to empower bystanders who want to intervene in street harassment. We spoke to executive director Emily May about her mission to make the streets safer. I've been really interested in talking to you because as a female, and a cyclist, I've had my fair share of street harassment. I want to start by asking you to give me the basics for people who haven't heard a lot about Hollaback. What do you do and how do you describe it? We started Hollaback back in 2005 in Brooklyn. It was a conversation among friends, three men and four of women. We were just talking about street harassment and how often it happens, and how we felt so powerless. How when we would walk around, we'd feel weak, we get yelled at, the situation would escalate At the time, there was this young woman named Thao Nguyen who was sitting on the subway. A guy sat down across from her, pulled out his penis, and started to masturbate. So Thao, not knowing what to do, wanted to take his picture with these newfangled cell phone cameras that had just came out at the time, and take it to the police. But when she took it to the police, the police were like, 'Sorry, there's nothing we can do.' So, she put it up on Flickr, told her story, and the photo went viral. And it turned out the guy owned two raw foods restaurants called Quintessence, and it ignited this city-wide conversation about public masturbation, it was on the front cover of the Daily News. We were so inspired by what Thao had done, and we thought, This is amazing. People need to be talking about this, people need to be telling their stories. We had no idea that we weren't the only ones. That this wasn't our fault. This is a big problem. And so we decided to sort of take what Thao had done, put it up on a blog, and start sharing our stories. It's six years later, and about a year ago I left my full-time job to make Hollaback happen full-time. Well, Congratulations! Thank you. It's been an amazing ride. I left my job with no guarantee of funding. I just knew I felt like I had to do it. I felt like somebody had to do something, and that the time was right to really take this conversation to the next level. Since then we've launched a cell phone app, a Droid app, a new website. Most exciting to me is that we're now in 24 cities internationally. We're growing to another 14 in August, which will bring it up to 38 cities internationally, in 14 different countries, in 8 different languages, with 100 different activists that have done this work. And the model is really about getting people to tell their stories. It's a very old-school way of making social change. It's the way social change has always happened. With Hollaback, though, we're not just telling our stories once in front of a few people. We're telling our stories to a really broad audience. We're mapping those stories, we're documenting those stories, we're using those stories as the basis of research to show how much street harassment happens, how street harassment hurts. And we're also using those stories to build a community, which is where all of our site leaders internationally come in. And they've taken the Hollaback model, which is about storytelling through technology, to apply it to their own communities. A core part of what we do is, as powerful as the technology is, it's only one way to tell stories, only one way to make social change. So, all of our local site leaders have been really active in doing on-the-ground work, whether it's with local legislators, whether it's doing film screenings or mud-painting or whatever works best in their area—they've all been really active in bringing awareness to this issue in their community and partnering with local community groups. In New York specifically, which is where Hollaback started, what is the most common story that you would hear? What kind of harassment takes place and how should New Yorkers deal with it? I know that's a big question. Probably he most persistent form of harassment is verbal harassment. But I think what's much more compelling isn't the type of harassment but the consistency in responding to the harassment, which is that almost inevitably, people will, when telling their story, include a part of it where they try to explain why it wasn't their fault. So: "I was wearing a puffy coat!" "It was the middle of the day!" "My friend was with me." They try to explain why it wasn't their fault, very consistently. The other part of it, too, that's been really heartbreaking, is that they also start to explain how other people were around them and they saw this, and they didn't do anything. And that's the premise of our new campaign, which is called "I've Got Your Back," which is all about restoring these values of people caring about each other in public space, and acknowledging that as New Yorkers, when we see somebody drop their hat and we pick it up and run along after them and hand it to them, or we see a parent struggling to get a door open with a baby stroller, we help them by opening that door. But consistently, what we see on the site is that when we see somebody being harassed, or even worse, sexually assaulted, we tend to look the other way. I don't think it's because New Yorkers are uniquely cruel-hearted or cold-hearted. I think it's just that people don't know what to do. With this campaign we're launching, we're really trying to teach people, if you see this happening to somebody, don't look at them like they have two heads. Don't look at them like they probably asked for it. Go up to them, ask them if they are okay, and if there is anything you can do. It's like the MTA—if you see something, say something. Exactly. You've actually worked with the MTA on some subway ads about harassment, right? We're in a collaborative that Hollaback helped to co-found back in 2008 with New Yorkers for Safe Transit. In coordination with them, we were able to pressure the MTA to get ads up onto the subway. They're the "A crowded train is no excuse for an improper touch" ads. They are actually about to change those ads to say, Not only if this happens to you contact an MTA worker or a police officer, but if you see it happen to somebody, contact an MTA worker or a police officer. That's part of really engaging bystanders in this way and helping people to understand that it takes a community to make a community a good place to live. I even liken it to those, If you see a pregnant woman, give her your seat! ads. It's stuff that's so obvious. But we get in our own heads and we forget what we're supposed to do. Have you been able to track changes in the way that people are reporting these harassment issues to you, or in the amount of I've Got Your Back reports that you're getting? We've seen a tremendous surge in these stories over the past six years, particularly within the past year. It's very challenging because it's user-reported. It's challenging for us to know, are more people learning about Hollaback? Are more people feeling like their story matters, that street harassment isn't okay? Or are there more instances that are happening? We are seeing a huge surge, and I think what's really interesting, and what's shaking out in the reports in New York City, is that the areas in which it is happening most are the areas with the highest population density. We see this happening most in Midtown, Wall Street, Village areas. I think that runs against the assumption that people have, that it's going to happen most in lower-income communities. And that's just not what the data is playing out to show, which makes sense. It's not one kind of person that's doing the harassing. It's part of a bigger culture where degrading women is seen as okay on some level, and that that bigger culture is pervasive among all kinds of people whether they are Wall Street people, commuter people, people living in low-income communities. All these places are where this culture plays out. It's really population density that's a bigger indicator for it than anything else. But New York City has a tremendously dense population, so in many ways we are in a hotbed for these instances to happen. Do you want to tell me a little bit about your mobile apps that are making it easier for people to share their stories? So we conceptualized the iPhone and the Droid app as kind of like, when you get street harassed, you do really want this badass response. Typically, in my experience, I come up with the wittiest, most awesome things that I could say when I am exactly 2 blocks away from whatever happened. We've actually heard stories of people—there was one girl on her bike and somebody said something to her, and she rode three blocks down the street, came up with the most awesome thing to say ever, turned her bike around, rode back, and said it. Which I think is just incredible. But anyways, we really wanted this real-time response. Sometimes, depending on what the situation is, there is no shame in the fact that sometimes the safest thing to do is just to keep walking. And in those instances, you still want a response. You still need a response. Psychologically. You can't just shove it in and hope that it will go away. We developed these apps to give folks a real-time response to the harassment that they are experiencing. It enables us to GeoLocate where it happened to them, identify the type of harassment that happened to them, and then once they are home they have the opportunity to really tell the rest of their story. So what happens when you go to the app? There's a log-in. Once you log in you don't have to do it time and time again. There's a log-in and we have their email address and we sent them a Ping-back email that says, We got your story, we heard that you were harassed, tell us the rest of your story. We're about to reconfigure the app so you can enter your story on the app if you so choose, so instead of an automatic GeoLocation, you can put where you were later. We found that a lot of folks kind of wanted to get to work or get to the bar or to wherever they were going, and then push the buttons. I know you have a whole section of this on your website that goes into great detail, but just for a basic idea, can you give me general tips on how to fight back, how to deal with harassment if you are victim to it? I think there's this really human desire to want to have the right thing to say. To want to be able to do the right thing, and to believe that if we have the right thing to say or if we do the right thing, then maybe it won't happen the next time. The key to it not happening the next time is to get harassers to stop harassing. As an individual, unfortunately, it's hard. Doing the right thing might not necessarily prevent it. That being said, there is sort of best practices in what to do and what not to do when you're harassed. One of those is to just say, very firmly but in a non-escalated way, "That's not okay." And to keep going, and to not engage them, to not allow it to escalate. But to just be very clear and very firm that it is not okay. I think another really, really important part that I found in my own trajectory with street harassment is that, when we started Hollaback, I just kind of stomached street harassment. Most people in New York City just kind of put up with it. I just thought it was part of living in New York City, and that if it hurt I wasn't strong, and I was definitely intent on being a strong, badass, New York City girl. But what I found that would happen was that, when I would see a group of guys on the street maybe, or I would be alone on the street and a guy would be walking to pass me, my body would tense up a little bit, I would become hypersensitive, I would worry that they were going to say something, what they were going to say...I feel like harassers really prey on vulnerability, and I think that in those moments, I was letting off this air of vulnerability. I think being young makes you more vulnerable, I think being LGBTQ makes you more vulnerable. Being a girl makes you more vulnerable. There are lots of uncontrollable components that can make you more vulnerable. But there's also your vibe, you know? When we started Hollaback, and what we've consistently seen with people who have worked on this project with us, they come because they are totally sick of being harassed. And then within six months or so of really documenting their experiences with it, and acknowledging that it hurts and acknowledging that that's totally not okay, all of us have really experienced reductions in how often we experience harassment. It's a different vibe to know that you have a response, that your voice is that response. To know that you're not alone, that this happens to everybody. It changes the way you experience the harassment itself. And so, I would encourage harassers to stop harassing and I would encourage people who experience harassment to really start to share their stories. And to own the fact that sometimes you can put up with it and sometimes it really hurts, and that that's okay, and you're not alone. And that there's a whole community of people out there that have your back.Do you ever have those moods where you’re thinking about death and someone dying and you get upset? Like I know one day my parents will die and my cat will die and it puts me in a weird mood. I know I won’t forget my parents because they’ve been around my whole life and will continue to be in my life for a while longer but with animals they’re around so briefly that I get afraid I’ll forget them or stop loving them, thinking about them etc. My cat is 9 and I got her from the shelter less than a year ago so I won’t get to have her around the 15 years I would have if I had gotten her as a kitten. And to her I am her entire world and what she loves more than anything, and I’m afraid that as the years go by and I reach like 80 years old I won’t love her as much as I do now? And I’ll die with her as a distant memory and she died loving me more than anything and it makes me feel guilty in a way.PITTSBURGH—Editors of photos routinely resize objects, or move them up, down or sideways, but Carnegie Mellon University researchers are adding an extra dimension to photo editing by enabling editors to turn or flip objects any way they want, even exposing surfaces not visible in the original photograph. A chair in a photograph of a living room, for instance, can be turned around or even upside down in the photo, displaying sides of the chair that would have been hidden from the camera, yet appearing to be realistic. This three-dimensional manipulation of objects in a single, two-dimensional photograph is possible because 3-D numerical models of many everyday objects — furniture, cookware, automobiles, clothes, appliances — are readily available online. The research team led by Yaser Sheikh, associate research professor of robotics, found they could create realistic edits by fitting these models into the geometry of the photo and then applying colors, textures and lighting consistent with the photo. “In the real world, we’re used to handling objects — lifting them, turning them around or knocking them over,” said Natasha Kholgade, a Ph.D. student in the Robotics Institute and lead author of the study. “We’ve created an environment that gives you that same freedom when editing a photo.” Kholgade will present the team’s findings Aug. 13 at the SIGGRAPH 2014 Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Vancouver, Canada. (A video demonstrating the new system is available below.) Though the system is designed for use with digital imagery, it enables the same 3-D manipulation of objects in paintings and historical photos. Objects that can be manipulated in photos can also be animated. The researchers demonstrated that an origami bird held in a hand can be made to flap its wings and fly away, or a taxicab shown in a street scene can levitate, flip over to reveal its undercarriage and zip off into the heavens. “Instead of simply editing ‘what we see’ in the photograph, our goal is to manipulate ‘what we know’ about the scene behind the photograph,” Kholgade said. Other researchers have used depth-based segmentation to perform viewpoint changes in photos or have used modeling of photographed objects, but neither approach enables hidden areas to be revealed. Another alternative is to insert a new 2-D or 3-D object into a photo, but those approaches discard information from the original photo regarding lighting and appearance, so the results are less than seamless. One of the catches to using publicly available 3-D models is that the models seldom, if ever, fit a photo exactly. Variations occur between the models and the physical objects. Real-life objects such as seat cushions and backpacks are sometimes deformed as they are used, and appearances may change because of aging, weathering or lighting. To fix these variations, the researchers developed a technique to semi-automatically align the model to the geometry of the object in the photo while preserving the symmetries in the object. The system then automatically estimates the environmental illumination and appearance of the hidden parts of the object — the visible side of a seat cushion or of a banana is used to create a plausible appearance for the opposite side. If the photo doesn’t contain pertinent appearance information — such as the underside of a taxicab — the system uses the appearance of the stock 3-D model. Though a wide variety of stock models is available online, models are not available for every object in a photo. But that limitation is likely to subside, particularly as 3-D scanning and printing technologies become ubiquitous. “The more pressing question will soon be not whether a particular model exists online, but whether the user can find it,” Sheikh said. One thrust of future research will need to be automating the search for 3-D models in a database of millions. This research was sponsored in part by a Google Research Award. In addition to Kholgade and Sheikh, the team included Tomas Simon, a Ph.D. student in the Robotics Institute, and Alexei Efros, a former CMU faculty member who is now an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. The Robotics Institute is part of Carnegie Mellon’s top-ranked School of Computer Science, which is celebrating its 25th year. Follow the school on Twitter @SCSatCMU.Christine Helie found praying mantis egg sacs in April while walking her dog and eventually raised 200 baby praying mantises in a room above her garage. What does winning the lottery look like for a person who studies insects for a living? Unexpectedly stumbling upon two sacs full of unhatched praying mantises. In April, entomologist Christine Helie hit the proverbial jackpot. “Some people do scratch tickets,” she said. “I look for egg cases.” Advertisement When she first made the discovery, Helie merely kept an eye on the creatures, checking in on the eggs from time to time. Later, when the insects with the bulbous eyes and lanky arms emerged from the sacs, she carefully transferred them to her home, where she fed them fruit flies by hand and grew fond of them. Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here Eventually, however, after four months together, it was finally time to say goodbye. In partnership with the Friends of the Public Garden, the organization that works with the city to manage the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Boston Common, and the Public Garden, Helie recently released more than a dozen mantises onto specific trees scattered throughout the three public parks, a first-of-its-kind move to help eliminate pesky bugs, which mantises are known to eat. By nature, the predatory insects are expected to go after the unwanted aphids, leafhoppers, and spider mites that can damage the trees the mantises now inhabit. Essentially, it’s free labor without the nasty side effects of pesticides or other chemicals. “This is a natural and completely safe means of pest control, one part of the arsenal of organic care the Friends uses to help the parks thrive,” Susan Abell, spokeswoman for the Friends of the Public Garden, said in an e-mail. “We are excited to be able to have the praying mantises in the parks getting rid of bad bugs.” Advertisement Helie first discovered the praying mantis egg sacs, called oothecas, while walking her dog near a field by her home in Leicester. As an insect expert, she immediately recognized the pods, which she compared to “packing peanuts” because of their foam-like casing and semi-curled shape. In June, after letting the sacs hatch naturally outdoors, she quickly moved the insects to an office space above her garage, where she keeps other insects and bugs for research purposes. Later, as they got older, Helie separated the insects into different cases, using anything she could get her hands on to give her new brood — 200 mantises — a proper place to grow. “I have literally used every terrarium I have owned,” she said, laughing. “I have two big tables in our office and they are set up [for the insects].” John Tlumacki/Globe Staff( Christine Helie raised 200 baby praying mantises that she found in egg sacks in April. Advertisement Helie has been slowly doling out the mantises — now just over seven weeks old and known at this stage as “nymphs” — to friends who might need them for fighting off unwanted pests in their personal gardens. She has also released some of them back to the place where she originally found them. “When I started telling people about them, the reaction was so positive and so enthusiastic that they were asking me for some,” she said. That included interest from the city and the Friends of the Public Garden. Helie’s husband, Norm, is a consulting arborist for the group, so making the connection was easy. “That was my purpose in getting them, so that I could share them with others,” she said. “It’s just been so exciting to me, to have that potential of a beneficial insect that can really be helpful to so many.” Over the past few days, Helie and her husband, who own The Growing Tree, a conservation landscaping company, began placing the insects on different trees identified by the Friends group. Helie is now down to about 40 mantises in her personal collection and plans to continue to give out additional insects as needed, to help better the environment. (She’ll hold on to a few for herself.) While most people might run in the other direction at the sight of the alien-like creatures, Helie said she has found it somewhat difficult to part ways with the lanky bugs. “I raised these guys since they were literally pups,” she said. “I am a little bit sentimental about them.” Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.comA woman who was held at the Regina airport for six hours after her laptop was deemed a possible security threat says she wants an apology and her destroyed computer replaced. Tracey Britton was going through security screening to take a flight Peru on Monday to attend her father’s wedding when her laptop was flagged as a suspicious item. Britton says she brought the laptop through the same screening area during a trip to Toronto two months ago and didn't have any problems. The suspicious item prompted officials at the airport to close off the second floor of the airport and relocate all passengers to the main floor. Police, including a bomb squad, were called in and Britton says an officer began questioning her. “He (said), ‘is there anything you want to tell me that might be in this laptop?’ And I just kind of look at him and I’m like, no. Like what do you mean? What’s going on?” Britton said. “He took my phone, he went through all my personal information on my phone, scanned all my emails, all my messaging, everything.” Britton says after she had been held in the screening area for about two hours, she was escorted to a room downstairs, where she says she was detained for another three-and-a-half hours and questioned further by police. “At one point, the question even came up if I had, in the past few months, visited any terrorist websites,” Britton said. “I’m like, OK, this is kind of really getting serious here. I’m really starting to get scared, a little bit worried.” Britton says an officer told her she was being detained while police investigated. She says she had already been held for several hours before the officer informed her of her right to call a lawyer. “I’m just like, are you F-ing kidding me?” Britton said. “They never really even said at the beginning that I was being held for anything. They just kept moving me around… At that point, when he asked me about the lawyer, I lost it.” Britton says the officer later told her the bomb squad had detonated the laptop after taking it to a remote location, but that police managed to save the hard drive. The officer told her no charges would be laid because nothing was found in her computer, she said. Britton says another officer and two Air Canada representatives told her she could not continue with her flight because she would still be banned by the airline until she was officially cleared by police. “The investigating officers had to sign off on their investigation, which they did, basically stating that it was unwarranted and I was deemed not a threat,” Britton said. “It had to be on paper. Apparently, Air Canada had to see that visual piece of paper signed off, stating that I was no longer a threat.” Britton says she learned through police that organic material had been found in her laptop and a cylindrical piece at the back of the computer had two wires in it that resembled a detonator. She says Air Canada initially told her she would be charged a change fee and a fare difference fee, but in the end, an airline representative rebooked the flights at no extra cost. Britton says she has a flight to Peru booked for Wednesday, and she plans to attend her father’s wedding on Dec. 18, after missing two days of her vacation. Britton says she was humiliated and wants a formal public apology and a replacement laptop. “They’ve been on the news saying that they did a good job and they handled it very well,”
to be close to 100%. In sharp contrast, similar studies carried out on the conventional (non-crystallized) glass and crystal surfaces show that the same growth procedure only yields layers of Ag 2 O islands on both of these surfaces (Figure 2k, Supplementary Figures S6 and S7). Furthermore, it must be noted that surface passivation has negligible effects on the anisotropic growth behavior of Ag 2 O on the composite surface (Supplementary Figure S8). In addition, the crystallization of Ag 2 O with a 1D morphology can also be observed on the surface of composites containing only an anatase phase (Supplementary Figure S9). These initial results strongly indicate that heterogeneous-surface-mediated crystallization control can be achieved based on the proposed mechanism. To gain better knowledge on the anisotropic growth behavior of Ag 2 O on the heterogeneous surface, the intermediate stages of crystallization were investigated. Several important points were observed. First, time-resolved SEM images (Figures 3a–g) were obtained from 10 min to 2 h, and several distinct stages of crystallization could be identified (Figures 3c–g). In the first stage, surface-mediated nucleation resulted in the formation of nanosized aggregates (Figure 3c). Subsequently, the second stage of growth begins, which is dominated by the appearance of short nanorods (Figure 3d). These nanorods gradually grow into long 1D nanowires with a snake-like shape, and ultimately result in the formation of a nanowire membrane (Figures 3e–g and Supplementary Figure S10). Figure 3 Various stages of the anisotropic growth of Ag 2 O on the heterogeneous surface. (a, b) Typical low-resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM) images taken at the intermediate and the final stages of reaction. (c–g) SEM images of the anisotropic growth of Ag 2 O at various stages for reaction time from 10 min to 2 h. (h–l) High-resolution SEM images of Ag 2 O nanowire obtained at the intermediate stage. Full size image Second, high-resolution SEM images at intermediate stages (Figures 3h–l) provided valuable information about the microstructural evolution. The 1D structure formed during the early stage is rather loose, and the aligned particles can even re-decompose into islands (an example is marked with an arrow in Figure 3i). Furthermore, the external particles can easily connect to the aligned part, generating trimers and even more complex tetramer structures (Figures 3h, k and l). Third, comparative studies on the initial crystallization stage of Ag 2 O on both of the homogeneous single crystal and glass surface were conducted (Figure 4). Relatively large Ag 2 O particles were observed as compared to those found on heterogeneous surface (Figures 4c, f and i). Furthermore, a closer examination of the microstructure of the base film indicates that the particle islands on the homogeneous single crystal and on the glass surface are relatively dense, which is in sharp contrast to the strikingly loose feature of nanosized aggregates formed on the heterogeneous substrate. Figure 4 Proposed model of surface-mediated crystallization. (a–i) Schematic showing Ag 2 O crystallization on the surfaces of homogenous single crystal (a–c), glass (d–f) and heterogeneous composite (g–i). (j) X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) patterns of Ag 2 O on the surfaces of composite. Spectra were recorded at different time points. (k–m) Models and calculated surface energies of Ag 2 O (111), (001) and (110) surfaces. Ag and O atoms are represented by red and cyan spheres, respectively. Full size image Given the evidences described above, the following model is proposed for describing heterogeneous-surface-mediated crystallization (Figures 4a–i). Once exposed to the metal precursor, the surface of crystalline, glassy materials or even their hybrid state, can support the hydrolysis condensation of metal ions. The tiny crystalline TiO 2 domains embedded within the heterogeneous surface can serve as favorable spots for preferential nucleation, which will lead to a decrease in nanoparticle size (Figures 4h and i). This strongly contrasts with the scenario observed for crystallization on homogeneous single crystal and glass surfaces, where large-sized Ag 2 O particles are crystallized (Figures 4b, c, e and f). Another intriguing advantage of crystalline-glass alternative nanoscopic structure is the possibility of obtaining an evenly distribited material, eventually inducing the formation of nanogap-rich Ag 2 O nanoislands. This facilitates the creation of numerous hopping sites and can support the orientation of arbitrary grains with enhanced degree of freedom, such as the polar, azimuthal and rotational/twist as shown in Figure 4h. This hypothesis can be confirmed by the XRD characterization which shows that the nanowires grow rapidly with a favorable orientation along <111> (Figure 4j). To understand the crystallization process, density functional theory calculations of the surface energy were performed (Figures 4k–m). The surface energy of (111), (001) and (110) planes were estimated to be ~1.048, 0.993 and 0.624 eV per surface unit, respectively. The XRD and simulation results collaboratively demonstrate that the anisotropic crystallization trend of Ag 2 O on heterogeneous surface can be boosted: it grows rapidly with favorable orientation along <111> during crystallization for covering the high-energy surface (111). In comparison, no obvious anisotropic crystallization behavior can be observed for both homogenous single-crystal and glass surfaces. Therefore, this emphasized that the unique 1D Ag 2 O structure must be a kinetically determined products. The above-listed findings suggest a mesoscale transformation mechanism from particles to superstructures on the heterogeneous surface. To shed more light on the driving source, further insight is given to the balance of static or transient interparticle forces behind the anisotropic crystallization. The impact of nanoscale forces on crystallization may be qualitatively described by the interaction length scale. Short-range interactions such as van der Waals attraction, which act appreciably only over molecular dimensions, can be excluded since they always lead to undesired aggregation.16 The force capable of producing long 1D Ag 2 O is thus mostly associated with dipolar interactions, as these can have a significant effect over a long-range scale and are surprisingly strong (~10 kJ mol−1).17 This fact can be confirmed by the observation of ultra-small aggregations formed on heterogeneous surfaces, which is a strong evidence correlated with the origin of dipole moment.18 Specifically, the decrease in aggregate size may help to create significant amount of surface states, resulting in an elevated level of surface charges.18, 19 Therefore, the tiny dielectric nanoparticles with reduced physical size are more inclined to exhibit noticeable polar character, owing to the strong localization of charges in the dielectric matrix. Furthermore, the distinctive feature of nanogap-rich Ag 2 O nanoislands on heterogeneous surface is highly beneficial for eliminating deleterious screening effect from the neighboring islands, thus enabling the alignment of dipoles through rotation of particles. The results highlight that the intricate interplays between inherent nanoscale force and the unique heterogeneous surface open new possibilities for manipulation of crystallization kinetics. These encouraging findings prompted investigation into the generality of crystallization control on heterogeneous surfaces. The aqueous chemical growth of various crystalline materials such as transition/rare earth metal-oxides and -hydroxides (Co(OH) 2, ZnO, Y(OH) 3, Ca 3 (PO 4 ) 2 and Fe(OH) 3 ) on glass and on heterogeneous surface was examined. A noticeable feature across these material systems is the considerable increase in crystallization efficiency on heterogeneous surface as compared to glass surgace, with the corresponding film thickness roughly twice larger in the case of heterogeneous surface (Supplementary Figure S11a). Another common feature is that the heterogeneous-surface-driven crystallization results in rough films or even diverse superstructures, while relatively flat structures are obtained on glass substrates, as shown in the typical SEM images (Supplementary Figures S11b–k). The morphology of the final products experiences great changes for different material candidates. The physical reason for this difference might be attributable to the specific bonding geometry of a particular system. For example, due to the planar arrangement nature of Co(OH) 2, it will crystallize into layered structure on either glass or heterogeneous surface. However, the solidification on heterogeneous surface leads to a significant decrease in layer thickness, resulting in the formation of nanosheets (Supplementary Figure S11c). In this context, heterogeneous surface demonstrates the critical role in opening up new pathways toward metastable crystallization The success in the fabrication of surface-supported superstructures offers unique opportunities for the development of functional membrane systems, thanks to their distinct structural and geometrical features. As an example, it is shown that the thick nanoporous Ag membrane derived from hierarchical Ag 2 O on heterogeneous surface allows for trace-detection with molecular trapping, a function that has been actively pursued in the field of sensors.20, 21, 22 The porous Ag membrane was fabricated via gentle photodecomposition of anisotropic Ag 2 O on heterogeneous surface, followed by carefully peeling it off from the substrate and transferring it to the surface of a silicon substrate. The SEM imaging (Figure 5a) shows the cross-sectional view of the membrane (~2.5 μm thick), which consists of nanowires. A combination of SEM and transmission electron microscopy (Figure 5b) studies reveals the formation of both inter-connected mesopores (~5 nm) and macropores (~500 nm), potentially rendering the materials with molecular trapping attribute. To investigate it, the membrane was exposed to an aromatic compound, and the carbon distribution was analyzed. As shown in Figures 5e, a gradient distribution of the carbon along the Ag membrane (Figure 5d) can be obsered, firmly confirming the successful trapping of the aromatic molecules. The possibility that the C originates from other contaminations can be ruled out based on the comparison experiment (Supplementary Figure S12). Trapability of the porous membrane to be used as an ultrasensitive trace-detection chip was further tested by employing benzenethiol as a model specimen. Micro-Raman microscopy was used to identify trace organic molecules. Figure 5f shows the typical micro-Raman spectra recorded at spot A (on silicon) and B (on chip) after exposure to trace benzenethiol with extremely low concentration (10−6 M). Encouragingly, the fingerprint bands of benzenethiol at 420 cm−1 (ν7a, νC-S), 700 cm−1 (ν6a, νC-S), 1010 cm−1 (ν12), 1033 cm−1 (ν18a), 1082 cm−1 (ν1) and 1572 cm−1 (ω8a and ω8b, ωC=C) can be clearly distinguished on the nanoporous Ag membrane chip;23 This is in stark contrast with the scenario observed on the silicon substrate, where the characteristic bands are entirely unidentifiable. The signal collected from the membrane chip is also significantly stronger (~sevenfold) than that from the standard Ag aggregation widely used in commercial detection system (Supplementary Figure S13).24 Raman mapping of the signal intensity and drift of the characteristic band at 1572 cm−1 (C–C stretching) in the corner region (100 × 100 μm) of the membrane was also carried out (Figure 5g and Supplementary Figure S14). The results clearly demonstrate that the membrane chip provides an efficient and portable trace-detection platform with sufficiently homogeneous signal and negligible drift noise (<15 cm−1) over the whole surface, which is of critical importance for the fabrication of reliable integrated sensors.25, 26 Figure 5 Trace-detection testing of Ag membrane. (a) scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of cross-sectional area of the membrane, showing a porous structure. (b) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of the nanowires. Inset: the corresponding energy-dispersive X-ray (EDS) elemental map Ag (in yellow color) and a SEM image of a single nanowire. (c) Optical image of the nanoporous Ag membrane. (d, e) EDS elemental maps and line profiles of Ag (d) and C (e) in the cross-sectional area of the membrane as shown in a. (f, g) Representative Raman spectra (f) and mapping (g) of 10−6 M benzenethiol on nanoporous Ag membrane. Raman spectra measured from the selected area marked in g. Raman mapping measured in a corner of the membrane marked in c by monitoring C–C stretching band at 1572 cm−1. The inset in f is the calculated spatial map of the optical near-field intensity for Ag islands with a 2.5-nm wide gap. The inset in g shows the line profile of Raman intensity. Full size image The origin of the robust performance of the membrane chip is interpreted as being twofold. On one hand, the unique mesoporous structure composed of islands with nanogap spacing (<10 nm) can be expected to generate strongly localized and highly dense ‘hot spots’ for the local field enhancement. This can be supported by theoretical simulations based on the finite difference time-domain method. The nanogap-width-dependent differential electric field in the nanogap region clearly shows a noticeable local field enhancement at the nanogap with a width of several nanometers (Supplementary Figure S15). Furthermore, the calculated spatial map of the optical near-field intensity for the pairs of Ag nanoparticles with various nanogap width of 0, 1, 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 nm indicates that the local field intensity exhibits a sharp maximum at the strongly coupled necks connecting particles (Figure 5f, inset and Supplementary Figure S15). This is believed to greatly facilitate the amplification of vibrational or rotational signal resulting from the inelastic scattering process between a photon and a molecule located at the neck region.27, 28 On the other hand, the porous network combines the advantages of enormous surface area and excellent capillary action, thus not only allowing for trapping of analytes but also ensuring their full access to the ‘hot spots’, as well as analyte retention. It can also be noted that, in addition to the trace-detection application demonstrated above, the constructed nanoporous membrane is also promising to serve other purposes such as catalyst supports, nanoelectronic scaffolds, filters for biomolecule purification and switchable fluid/ionic transport.29, 30, 31 Furthermore, unique membranes with porous architectures may potentially show superior electrochemical properties.32 The success in simultaneously tailoring the crystallization efficiency and the morphology of the products on the heterogeneous surface is also of special interest for the control of both bone and tooth formation.33 The new findings presented in this study also provide an improved understanding of fundamental mechanism of surface-induced mineral deposition. Indeed, most of the previous studies on biomineralization are exclusively focused on homogeneous substrates. The heterogeneous surfaces described here are considered to be much closer to the complex natural systems.These finding thus also give valuable clues on the origin of diverse metastable biomineral products frequently observed in nature.34, 35THREE huge cranes struggled as they worked in unison, daylight fading, to slot the last section of the giant rainbow arch of sea containers into place on Beach Street Reserve, just up the road from Fremantle’s old traffic bridge on Canning Highway. Nine metres high, 19 metres long and tipping the scales at 66 tonnes “Rainbow” presented challenges not usually faced in True Blue Containers day-to-day business, director Dion Clifford says. “We had to modify containers in ways never done before.” The company was approached by artist Marcus Canning two years ago as he unfolded his massive art project. “Our part was to supply, modify and paint them,” Mr Clifford says. The job was so huge True Blue partnered with neighbour CME Boilermaking to weld the huge metal struts inside the containers that allowed them to be bolted together. CME’s managing director Peter Camarri says they made a life-sized template of the sculpture on the company’s factory floor to ensure the angles were perfectly aligned. Mr Clifford says one of the difficulties in painting the sea containers was that once done, they couldn’t be put down on the ground for fear of scratching the surface. He says their yard was filled with sea containers propped up on stands. “We had customers coming in and their wives were saying ‘I want one of those pink ones’,” Mr Clifford laughs. “It gives you ideas…” The containers were then trucked from True Blue’s Midvale yard to Fremantle for the final phase, a delicate operation despite the massive size of the art work – with each container weighing three tonnes. “We are over the moon…to contribute to such an exciting project,” Mr Clifford says. “From my point-of-view it’s the best piece of public art in Perth.” ——— RAINBOW is a work that is 110 per cent Freo, over-the-top fun and frivolous whilst remaining resonant and rich with deeper references, resplendent and radiant, brash and ballsy. The work is a monumental welcome arch that speaks to the port environment over which it stands. These elements (sea container and rainbow) have strong associations with the history and character of Fremantle both in the historical and contemporary moment. Containers are a ubiquitous element in the port environment and its surrounds and a direct symbol of the history of Fremantle as a commercial port from the deepening of the harbour by CY O’Connor in 1897. The rainbow is a symbol of many things including alternative and counter cultural hippy styles and aesthetics, a distinctive and ongoing element of the Freo character. The rainbow is associated with dreams, flights of fancy and the escapism of fantasy. It’s a universal symbol of hope as well as aspiration. By slamming these seemingly incongruous elements together, the results speak volumes about the unique spirit of Freo as well as its character – big, bold and brutally beautiful. Colourful, creative and a little bit crazy. Super-sized playful on an industrial scale. Welcoming, whimsical and joyful. Undeniably and distinctively – Freo. The work gives a nod to the ready-made as much as concrete art, pop art as much as minimalism, it also speaks to global economic as well as cultural concerns in the age of late capitalism. It was the transportation entrepreneur Malcom McLean who revolutionised international trade in 1956 when he developed the intermodal shipping container, standardised the transportation of goods around the globe and ultimately lowered the cost of goods, everywhere – contributing more than any other single invention to the exponential explosion of globalised economy and world trade that was to roll out over the second half of the 20th century. Rainbow is a new iconic entry statement for the portside City of Fremantle – visible from a range of major entry arteries – from the water, from the air, from rail as well as car. Its presence is as architectural as it is sculptural, awe inspiring for the pedestrian to engage with, a beacon of welcome that is instantly recognisable from afar. Marcus CanningState Supreme Court Rolls Back Decision That Would Have Made Violating Company Computer Policies A Crime from the penalties-range-from-'written-reprimand'-to-'years-in-prison' dept The Oregon Supreme Court has handed down a ruling that should help prevent the state's computer crime laws from turning into a local level CFAA -- something that can be easily abused by prosecutors to, say, toss someone in jail for two years for 40 minutes of headline altering at a news website. Caryn Nascimento was arrested for theft after using a convenience store's lottery machine to print off thousands of dollars of tickets she never paid for. But rather than settle for the theft charges, the state chose to charge her with unauthorized use under Oregon's broadly-interpreted computer crimes statute. The state appeals court upheld the conviction, prompting the EFF to intervene in her case when it headed to the state supreme court. The EFF pointed out that the appeals court decision would criminalize a lot of behavior normally only subject to companies' internal disciplinary processes. [T]he Court of Appeals’ decision transforms millions of unsuspecting individuals into criminals on the basis of innocuous, everyday behavior—such as checking personal email or playing solitaire on a work computer. Such restrictions, frequently included in employers’ computer policies, are no different than the restriction imposed on Nascimento. They're ultimately all computer use, not access, restrictions. Upholding Nascimento’s conviction on the basis of a violation of a computer use restriction expands Oregon’s computer crime statute to criminalize violations of any computer use restriction. The Supreme Court has found that, contrary to the lower court's decision, Nascimento did not exceed her authorization when she printed out lottery tickets she never paid for. She did steal, but she was fully authorized to perform every step up to the point of not paying for the tickets. It is difficult to square the state’s position with the text of ORS 164.377(4). The text establishes a binary division between those who are "authorized" to access or use a computer and those who are not. The text does not distinguish between use that is authorized for certain purposes (such as those permitted by employer policies) and use that otherwise would be authorized but that is inconsistent with those policies. Indeed, subsection (4) of the statute does not focus on the purpose or manner of use at all, but only on whether the access or use is "authorized." [...] Viewed in that light, the text supports defendant’s assertion that her use of the lottery terminal to print Keno tickets—as she was trained and permitted by her employer to do—was "authorized" use. The fact that she printed the tickets for her own use and did not pay for them may have violated company policies and other parts of the computer crime statute (in addition to the theft statute), but her use was not "without authorization" as that term is used in ORS 164.377(4). Nascimento was not allowed to print out tickets for herself or do so without paying, but those were violations of company policy, not state law. The theft of funds -- via the unpaid-for lottery tickets -- was a criminal act, but the acquisition of the tickets via a machine she was authorized to use was not. The court points out [PDF] that reading the state statute in the way prosecutors (and the lower court) interpreted it means adding words that aren't there to the existing law. As noted, “access” is defined in the computer crime statute as “retriev[ing] data” or “mak[ing] use of any resource on a computer.” ORS 164.377(1)(a). If a person is “empowered” or “permitted”—the dictionary synonyms of “authorized”—by the appropriate authority to “retrieve data” or “make use” of the computer, then that use is “authorized.” Applying those words in their ordinary senses, it is a stretch to suggest that an employee who uses her work computer to send a private email during the work day— or check Facebook or buy a movie ticket—contrary to her employer’s policy against personal use, has “accessed” or “used” the computer “without authorization,” although she may have violated her employer’s policy. Nothing in the text of the statute suggests that the legislature intended such a result. As defendant argues, the state’s interpretation would criminalize not only “unauthorized” use of a computer, but also “authorized use for an impermissible purpose.” Such an interpretation would require adding words to the text of the statute that the legislature did not use. See ORS 174.010 (court may not add words to statute). It's a good decision that rolls back the lower court's unfortunate expansion of a law already prone to abusive interpretation. This should keep people from being saddled with extra charges just because their criminal activities were committed on a computer. Filed Under: caryn nascimento, cfaa, hacking, lottery tickets, oregonThe Best of Two Worlds Disclaimer Views: 23201 Languages: English русский Հայերեն First it was her appearance - in our class Alina stood out, she did not look typically Caucasian, there was a different softness about her. Then, the surname - it did not end in “-yan” like the rest of us, it wasn't an Armenian name. She was often asked who she was and,- her favorite answer was simply, “I am half-Armenian, half-Assyrian.” Alina was obviously proud of who she was, a child of mixed ethnicity. She had something that we didn't. So did Karen. He was in another class, he was known as “the Russian,” and he indeed looked like one. And there is Anna, my colleague, who is always called when a translation from Georgian is needed-her mother is Georgian, and Georgian is her second native tongue". Armenia is a largely homogeneous society and children of mixed ethnicity stick out - be it their appearance, their mindset, their traditions, or simply their favourite food. And they are aware of it, with some feeling lost in a constant state of uncertainty, others navigating comfortably their world -in-between. Yet, all of them represent the best of two, or more, worlds. Siroon Minas, 26 My mother is from Nigeria, my father is from India. He is half-Armenian, half-English, but he has always considered himself Armenian. He was a doctor and went to Nigeria for work, where he met my mother. My brother and I were born there, we moved to Armenia when we were little. I am a plastic surgeon, I love my job very much. It’s an honor for me to be Siroon, I represent two races; two in one, with all the advantages and disadvantages. The fact that two people from different continents united and I was born, is a privilege given to me by God. As my father was born in India, somehow three cultures come together in us. We travelled to India and my mother learnt how to cook a few Indian dishes. So one day we had Indian, the other day Nigerian. It was very diverse. Both my parents are Christians, and there have never been religious divergences. Since our childhood, my mother would read to us a passage from the Bible at bedtime - we would pray and then close our eyes. We still do it now. Dan ii l Arutunov, 22 My mother is Armenian-Georgian, my father is Russian-Ukrainian. They were both soldiers and met in Gyumri, but I have no recollection of my dad. I was two-years-old when he died during the first Chechen war. I was born in Yerevan. We lived in Gyumri for a while then we moved to Georgia. I have been to Russia several times and once in Ukraine, but I always come back to Armenia. My soul is in the Armenian mountains. I like extreme sports like mountain climbing and slacklining. I love climbing high mountains, this year I’ll ascend Mount Elbrus [the Caucasus’ range highest peak, in Russia]. I want to travel across the country by autostop. Growing up I faced challenges and conflicts, people would only see my Slavic appearance, they didn’t think that I might have been from a different ethnic background. For them I was a Russian and that was it. As a result I tended to be defensive, I somehow developed my own coping mechanism. I became "more Armenian", so I could live among others, I could fit in. Later I understood that it did not give me anything back, I started to live like I really was and wanted to be. I was baptized, but I consider myself atheist, not Christian. I believe more in myself and the universe. I consider myself more Armenian and Russian, I can’t say that I’m either Georgian or Ukrainian. I never felt that identity in me. Military life is not for me, I want to travel around the world. Anna Barseghyan, 28 My mother is a Georgian from Georgia, my father an Armenian from Armenia, they met in “a neutral zone” - in Russia, where they were both students. My mother has been living in Armenia for 31 years and she speaks very good Armenian. Sometimes my father teases, saying, “You must have some Armenian roots, you just don’t know about that.” I was born and raised in Yerevan. When someone asks me who I am, I answer, ‘I’m a journalist and I am Armenian, then I add that I’m also Georgian.’ Recently I lived in Tbilisi for a few months, and, when I was asked where I am from, I answered, “from Armenia,” though de facto I represented Georgia at that very moment. I think each of us feels differently at different times, especially if you grow up in a mixed cultural environment. I have never had to hide my mixed ethnic background and never felt pressure from my surroundings on the representatives of different nations. Both my parents are Christians, my father belongs to the Armenian Apostolic church while my mother is Georgian Orthodox. When I was a teenager I decided to get baptized in the Georgian church. My mother’s family had a big influence on my choice, my uncle is a priest. In general Georgia’s society is more religious than Armenia’s. I think, my father was not totally happy about it. I personally don’t see any difference between the two churches now, they are part of the same Christian faith, it is not important for me. Sometimes I find myself defending Georgians in Armenia or Armenians in Georgia, like when I hear offensive comments towards them. I think it is my duty to defend these two nations because they are united in me. Nana is my twin sister Irina Hovhannisyan, 43 My father is Armenian, my mother is Russian. She comes from a Molokan family, my grandmother was Molokan. It is a Christian group which split from Russia’s Orthodox Church in the 16th century. Some of the Molokans settled in Armenia, in Chambarak [a town close to the border with Azerbaijan]. Chambarak is my hometown, the place where I was born and where have lived all my life. Sometimes I’m asked why I decided to stay here instead of moving to Yerevan. I know, this is one of the poorest regions of Armenia, but I can’t imagine myself leaving. I try to make life better here. My town is where I feel myself the most, it is the reason I am who I am. I work on advocacy for people with disabilities as well as in an arts and craft social enterprise. After the Nagorno Karabakh war, life was hard, many left, either Chambarak or Armenia altogether. Those who remained didn’t have anywhere else to go or were women married to Armenians. My mother was one of them. She chose us, her family. Sometimes I’m asked what I would change if I have a chance to be born a second time. I certainly wouldn’t change the family. I would like to be born in the same family. There are no conflicts in our family, we choose to compromise. For example we know that my mother has strong opinions on Russian politics, so we try to avoid the topic. On the other hand, she is quite balanced with regards to sensitive issues connected to Armenians, like the Armenian genocide which she has read extensively about. I am a mother of two children and I am happy. Kyle Khandikian, 24 My father is an Armenian from Lebanon, my mother is from Central America, from El Salvador. They met in the United States where they moved to in the 1980s. I was born and lived all my life in Los Angeles. I attended an Armenian school for 15 years, and until I went to university, most people around me were Armenian. This had a profound influence on the perception of who I am. Yet, the first time I went to Armenia I felt like a foreigner, just like I felt the four times I traveled to El Salvador. I was 16, I felt surprised, and frustrated. Like many other Armenians from the diaspora, I had my own idea about Armenia. In 2015, I moved to Yerevan and volunteered for a year with “PINK Armenia” to organize events in the LGBT community. But soon I realized that one year is not enough to get to know, and understand, the country. So I stayed and started to work at the same organization. People often ask me why I left Los Angeles for Yerevan. I reply - because I am Armenian. That is the simplest answer. Weirdly, my Armenian family could not understand my decision - they raised me as an Armenian but tried to convince me not to move, saying there was no future for me here, no work, no money. This is nonsense. I ask them what is the point of staying in the States, what is the meaning of being Armenian just in the diaspora? Only my grandmother tried to put herself in my shoes and supported me, though she misses me a lot and she’d rather have me close to her in the US. The first thing that I learnt about myself as a child is that I was Armenian. This consciousness about my identity comes from my grandparents, my father’s parents, as growing up I spent most of my time with them, while my parents were at work. My mum and dad separated when I was still a child, my brother and I lived with my mother. Despite the fact that my mother did not know Armenian and we did not speak Armenian at home, we went on attending an Armenian school. My grandparents (mother’s parents) would pick me up from school most days. It is thanks to them that today I speak Armenian. Zorana Ivkovich, 21 My mother is Armenian, my father is Serbian. Yugoslavia still existed when my mother decided to visit it as a student and there she met my father. Soon afterwards my father went to Armenia for work. The rest is history, here I am. They married in Armenia, then moved to Moscow where I was born. Throughout my childhood we constantly moved - from Moscow to Belgrade, then to Yerevan, then back to Serbia. It was interesting, but it came at a cost, especially in terms of education and language. When I was a teenager my mother's parents needed care so I moved to Armenia with her. Here I enrolled at the university to study business administration. Once I graduate, I will go back to Serbia to study information technology. I was baptized in the Echmiadzin cathedral [the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church], but I feel closer to the Serbian Orthodox church as my father would celebrate all the religious holidays. I still do it now that I am in Armenia. While in Serbia we also observe some Armenian festivities. Once we celebrated Vardavar [a festival where people drench each other with water], our neighbors looked at us as if ‘what are these people doing?’ We explained what it is, and it became a tradition among our friends there too. Our family is curious, both my parents feel that they are real patriots. When in Serbia, I was part of the Armenian community, although the Serbian culture has had more impact on me. And I consider myself more a Serb than an Armenian. Yet I do not fully belong to the Serbian spirit. Alexandra Banna, 21 My father is an Arab Lebanese and my mother is an Armenian from Istanbul. They both grew up in Hajn, a district in Beirut with a sizeable Armenian community. My father had many Armenian friends, he learnt the language when he was 13, he speaks better Armenian than us. I was born in Beirut. I attended an Armenian school, I was a girl-scout, and I took classes of traditional Armenian dances. My mother is a devoted patriot; I feel we always had some kind of Armenian propaganda at home. Growing up everyone around me was Armenian. I started to interact with non-Armenians when I was 17, yet my Arabic was so bad that I had to get additional classes to get up to speed. Sometimes your parents’ different ethnic backgrounds outflow and turn into to a family conflict. On those occasions each defends his or her nation and instead of having a constructive debate, often the tones are tense and the children fall under pressure, somehow cornered. You lose yourself when you have to make a choice where to go: left or right, mum or dad. Life in Lebanon is different. You need money, a good car, and fashionable clothes to have friends. At some point I understood that I had become like any other - superficial - so after finishing school I decided to leave and move to Armenia. I am currently studying political science and international affairs at the American University of Armenia. My plan is to return to Beirut. When I say I’m from Lebanon, people often mix it with Syria. They also think that I’m a Muslim Armenian Arab, who lives in Armenia. It takes time and effort to explain that there are also Christian Arabs, that there are many people like me in Lebanon. Anahit Avagyan, 25 My father is Armenian and my mother is Indian from Delhi, though her roots are from Punjab. They met in Saint Petersburg [then Leningrad], my two sisters were born there. Later they moved to Armenia, I was born in Yerevan. We speak Armenian at home but we also speak Hindi. My mother was never against raising us as Armenians, it was her who always told us that we were Armenians. Yet while she learnt the language quickly, and reads Armenian literature and history, she has never fully assimilated. Culturally and lifestyle-wise she remains Indian. My connection with India is only cultural and growing up I learnt about the country’s literature and philosophy. I am a guide, I travel a lot, including to India, where I have been many times. It’s impossible not to love India’s diversity. I’m ready to go to India, not least for the sweets and the nuts. Yet, I cannot see myself living there, it is too different. India is one of those countries where I definitely cannot live. My mother’s family is Hindu, since we were kids we have been part of many ceremonies, I even participated in a seven-day wedding ceremony. This cultural mix enriches our soul, it widens our horizons, and it enables us to understand and respect different people. It opens our minds. Raffi Elliott 27 My mother is an Armenian from Aleppo and my father is a Canadian with Irish roots. They met in Canada as students. My mother vowed to marry an Armenian, but my father promised her that the Armenian culture would stay in the family and that their child would grow up as an Armenian. In fact, I personify four different cultures, as I was born in Montreal, Quebec, which is Canada’s French-speaking region. Montreal, alongside Glendale in California,
ND processor Unibody design Tons of useful features Price Cons Camera modules Relatively small RAM Final Words This is a Mi family phone. Thus it’s been made with high ambitions in mind. But let’s not confuse it with the main flagships of the company in face of the Mi 6, the upcoming Mi Note 3 and Mi MIX 2. I mean the Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is a great handset for those who are looking for a large-screen + large-battery device. It’s also one of the best offers if taking into account the hardware and price ratio. But never think to put it next to the aforementioned smartphones. So we can say Xiaomi has managed to come in with the best device for a certain niche once again. In this sense, probably you won’t be able to find anything better than the Mi Max 2. Agree 1699 yuan ($250) is a great price tag for Xiaomi device sporting a number of decent specs such as a 6.44-inch screen, 5300mAh battery, and Snapdragon 625 chip.The first phase of the reinvention of a former Southside tobacco warehouse is set to begin. Richmond developer Tom Wilkinson said construction will kick off this month on his rehab of the 11-acre, 150,000-square-foot American Tobacco Company building at 800 Jefferson Davis Highway. The $30 million project calls for a mix of 134 apartments and artists flats. Wilkinson said his firm on Thursday secured $750,000 in financing from North Carolina-based Community Affordable Housing Equity Corp., which helps finance affordable housing developments in the Southeast. Wilkinson said the CAHEC funds will be used to gut the interior and remove asbestos from the property. “Almost everything, except the maple hardwood floors, is going to be removed,” Wilkinson said. “That’s the first step to all of this.” The project also received $17 million in revenue bond financing through the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and will qualify for $16 million in historic tax credits. The American Tobacco Company dates back to the mid-1920s. During the height of Richmond’s tobacco manufacturing boom, the facility doubled as a warehouse and research and development lab. Once the interior is mitigated, Wilkinson said work will begin on the 66 one-bedroom units, which the team hopes to complete by December. The remaining 67 two-bedroom units and a three-bedroom unit are set to be ready for residents by June 2018. Richmond-based Walter Parks Architects has been tapped to design the apartment space, Wilkinson said, while Richmond-based KBS Inc. will serve as the general contractor. He said his firm is in talks with a property management firm to oversee day-to-day operations. Rents for a one-bedroom unit are set at $815 a month, which includes utilities, internet and cable, Wilkinson said. A two-bedroom unit is set to cost about $980 a month. Planned amenities include a fitness center, community room, swimming pool, 213 spaces of onsite parking, TV and internet service, and in-unit appliances. The artist spaces would be completed in a second phase that Wilkinson estimated would cost $6 million. It would be financed separately from the rest of the project. The workspaces will be leased by One South Realty. Developers have not attached an official name to the project, Wilkinson said. His team is willing to award $500 to anyone that comes up with a creative name for the building. Wilkinson also looks to secure a tenant for a 15,000-square-foot building his company owns near Kern and Thurman streets for a possible brewery or restaurant tenant – although he said that would become a priority after the apartments and flats are constructed. Wilkinson said the Jefferson Davis Highway corridor is ready for more redevelopment–riding a wave of investment in a number of neighborhoods on the Southside. “Ten years from now we will look like geniuses,” he said. “This area is the next Scott’s Addition…there’s not another area in the city where you can find great deals to buy low, invest and sell high.”Got the following email the other day, concerning intellectual property issues and non-compete agreements: I was wondering how Hashrocket handles intellectual property and non-competes with its employees. Is it something that your developers are required to sign as a new employee? I ask because I got into a deep discussion with my boss about this. The employee agreement he came up with basically says that he owns any software / web related intellectual property that I work on (on and OFF the clock). The non-compete section says that I can't start my own business or work for another firm in the same or surrounding states. I have an issue with him owning the intellectual property for work I do off the clock. It makes me less motivated to learn and be innovative when I'm tinkering around on my own. I have my pet projects that I don't want him to have any part in. His argument is that he doesn't want his employees using company resources (software and laptops) to start their own business... which gets into the non-compete. The answer is an emphatic "NO!" I do not require non-compete agreements to be signed by new hires at Hashrocket. Neither do I try to claim ownership of work that they do off the clock (open or closed source), a practice I learned from and admired at my former employer, ThoughtWorks. Work done on the clock is a different story. We have the notion of chartered projects, internal initiatives which you are paid to work on for at most 5 hours per week or when paying client work is not available. If I'm paying someone to work on something then Hashrocket owns it, end of story. Actually, there could be some gray areas there, like bringing interesting outside projects in-house in order to make more progress on them, but in that case reasonableness is key. Anyway, a non-compete agreement (or non-compete clause in a larger contract) restricts employees from engaging in similar work after leaving your firm. I didn't like them as an employee and I don't like them as an employer either, because I think they're fundamentally unfair. If as the owner of the firm I'm insecure about my people leaving and competing with me, then I'm doing it wrong. Keeping my people from being innovative on and off the job is exactly the opposite of what I need to be doing. The rationale that your boss used with you, that he "doesn't want his employees using company resources (software and laptops) to start their own business", is IMO such a cynical asshole thing to say to anyone. I've heard it before, and it always pisses me off. The thought process doesn't come up at Hashrocket because I require my people to buy and maintain their own computers. Professional craftsmen have their own tools, yada, yada... that's the subject for a different blog post. And paid software? Really? What do we actually use for Rails development that costs money? Texmate? (Use vim to solve that problem.) I guess Adobe products are a notable exception there, but I still can't bring myself to look at the situation with such shortsightedness as to try and prevent someone from using tools that I purchased for them to further their career. I just realized why that is -- I see my mission as their "boss" to help further their career! (The rewards from treating your employees this way are immeasurable.) Incidentally, non-compete agreements are not enforceable in California, but elsewhere in the USA they are legally binding, so you should be very careful signing anything with a non-compete clause. My suggestion to people presented with non-compete clauses in their offer letters or as part of agreements signed post-hiring, is to strike the offending clause from the contract and initial the change. Do that or refuse to sign the agreement altogether. Yes, it takes chutzpah to do what I'm suggesting, but c'mon now... you shouldn't kick off your new job by bending over and taking the corporate shafting from day one. Given the time and expense needed to find qualified hires nowadays, after some initial fussiness from HR or the hiring manager, the whole matter will be forgotten. If they try to force you to sign under threat of termination then you really should be evaluating whether you wanted the job in the first place. Seriously. I do believe in a particular type of informal non-compete agreement, which I make verbally with all my people. I ask my people to refrain from "moonlighting" (doing side work) of the same type that they do during the day at Hashrocket. As an employer, you should do that too, but only if you pay competitively! I can't forcefully prevent my people from moonlighting, but I discourage it strongly for one simple reason: burnout risk. Rocketeers work very hard every single day of every single week, putting in 35-40 hours per week doing intense pair-programming. I want them to go home and relax, so that they're fresh the next morning. Think that's an unreasonable request? Don't come work for me. On a final note, I think it's a good idea, as a company that sponsors open-source projects and encourages open-source work on the clock, to have signed contributor agreements from all employees. I haven't done this at Hashrocket but I'm going to look into it soon.Freelancers need to learn–and master–a ton of skills. Aside from the specific freelancing skills you have (e.g., writing, designing, programming, etc.), you need to get good at business management, marketing, financial management, productivity… the list goes on and on. Listening to podcasts is an excellent way to pick up new skills and keep up to date in your field. They’re free and are consumable at the time and place of your choice. Plus, there’s a podcast (or several dozen) on any topic you can think of. 13 Podcasts for Freelancers Below is a list of 13 podcasts for freelancers. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I picked ones that are fairly frequently updated. If they’ve been archived, they should have enough content to still be worthwhile listening to. This list also includes a few podcasts not created specifically for freelancers, but which may be useful for freelancers as well. With the podcasts above, you have enough content to gain practical freelancing skills, inspiration, and motivation to help you become a successful freelancer. What’s on Your iPod? Check out the podcasts above and let us know what you think. Or, if you have other favorites we haven’t included here, please share them below. Happy listening!Handfasting was common centuries ago in the British Isles and then vanished for a while. Now, however, it's seeing a rising popularity among Wiccan and Pagan couples who are interested in tying the knot. Many Pagan and Wiccan couples choose to have a handfasting ritual instead of a traditional wedding ceremony. In some cases, it may be simply ceremonial—a couple declaring their love for one another without the benefit of a state license. For other couples, it can be tied in with a state marriage certification issued by a legally authorized party such as a clergyperson or justice of the peace. Either way, it's becoming more and more popular, as Pagan and Wiccan couples are seeing that there is indeed an alternative for non-Christians who want more than just a courthouse wedding.Reining in the budget and activities of this bloated bureaucracy is essential Trumping the State Department President Trump’s budgetary assault on the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is long overdue. He is forcing a rethinking that will benefit America and the world. The State Department is one of the most bloated of federal bureaucracies. Front line consular officers, many just starting their careers at State, actually help Americans abroad. However, there are also countless “Hallway Ambassadors” who aimlessly roam from irrelevant meeting to obscure policy forum, killing time and our tax dollars. Headquarters waste and dysfunction are just the beginning of State Department ineffectiveness Legions of these taxpayer funded drones fill the State Department. Some are reemployed retirees who travel to overseas missions conducting “inspections” to justify their additional salaries. The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) is to the State Department what the Teacher Unions are to public education. It exists to protect tenure and to prevent any accountability or reduction among the State Department drones. The Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance (AVC) is a uniquely harmful part of State. This Bureau’s main mission has been to create photo ops of treaty signings. The arms control treaties have usually been unenforceable with sworn enemies of America. The Bureau’s agreements with the Soviet Union undermined U.S. security. Its bureaucrats developed elaborate procedures for justifying the minimizing or overlooking of blatant treaty violations. They are using this same play book for the Iranian Nuclear deal. Headquarters waste and dysfunction are just the beginning of State Department ineffectiveness. In the mid-1980’s, I viewed State Department field operations personally while serving as Director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Malawi. Un-American culture that permeates career Foreign Service Officers The most egregious problem was the un-American culture that permeates career Foreign Service Officers. Except for toasting America at the July 4th Embassy party each year, being pro-American is viewed as unprofessional. Long serving Americans would advise me that rising above nationalism and acting “world wise” was the mark of a seasoned diplomat. Not only did these U.S. foreign bureaucrats avoid Americanism, they avoided the host country. The Embassy team members spent their business and recreational time with diplomats from the other Embassies and with European expatriates living in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. Their only sojourns outside the capital were to Salima, the lakeside resort, or to the Ambassador’s vacation home on the Zomba Plateau. As Country Director, I eliminated the chauffer-driven luxury car used by my predecessor and reallocated the chauffer to other duties. At the wheel of a Nissan Patrol, I spent the majority of my time in the field with my seventy-five volunteers. This meant absorbing in depth knowledge of Malawi and its people. State Department versus reality was proven many times over. The most blatant was the 1985 fuel shortage. Malawi was land-locked. The Mozambique Civil War closed off its closest ports. A problematic network of rail lines brought goods, including gasoline, to Malawi via South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. My volunteers told me a Zimbabwean labor dispute was going to cause a five week disruption of fuel to Malawi. I dutifully reported this to the Embassy Team. They scoffed, assuring me that their British friend running Mobil-Malawi was telling them no disruption would occur. I directed my staff to begin stockpiling gasoline. USAID has spent over $1 trillion on overseas projects since its founding in 1961 The disruption occurred. The Embassy team kept dismissing my reports and telling themselves the disruption would be short-lived. By week four, the Embassy motor pool was without fuel. Staff was delivering messages via bicycle. By week five, the Ambassador asked to purchase fuel from the Peace Corps, which had remained fully operational. The Embassy was blind-sided on an even more important issue. Air Malawi announced it was going to purchase a new fleet of passenger jets along with a comprehensive parts and maintenance agreement. At this point the State Department replaced the Embassy’s Commercial Attaché with a Hispanic who could barely speak English. Instead of sending this person to Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea, they posted him to the most Anglophile country in Africa. He was miserable and totally ineffective. Alternatively, the German Ambassador moved about Malawi’s 28 regions, equaling my zeal for the field. When Boeing’s sales team arrived they were given a proper, but cool reception. The Fokker team arrived to a hero’s welcome and the multi-million dollar deal was signed shortly thereafter. American business lost a huge contract. USAID has spent over $1 trillion on overseas projects since its founding in 1961. Empty buildings and rusting tractors are silent testaments to its failures. What funds were not diverted to corrupt government officials went for unsustainable efforts, driven more by academic theories than practicality. State Department and USAID need a fundamental review and a day of reckoning. This is fertile territory for President Trump and Secretary Tillerson to implant business principles and common sense. Scot Faulkner served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and on Reagan’s White House Staff. He advises global corporations and governments on strategic change and leadership. Only YOU can save CFP from Social Media Suppression. Tweet, Post, Forward, Subscribe or Bookmark us Items of notes and interest from the web. Please adhere to our commenting policy to avoid being banned. As a privately owned website, we reserve the right to remove any comment and ban any user at any time.Comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence and death, racism, anti-Semitism, or personal or abusive attacks on other users may be removed and result in a ban.-- Follow these instructions on registeringYou may have seen in the last couple of weekly news posts that Baron mentioned we are working on a new adaptive flushing algorithm in InnoDB. In fact, we already have three such algorithms in Percona Server (reflex, estimate, keep_average). Why do we need one more? Okay, first let me start by showing the current problems, and then we will go to solutions. The basic problem is that, unfortunately, none of the existing flushing implementations (including both MySQL native adaptive flushing and that in Percona Server) can handle it properly. Our last invention, “keep_average”, is doing a very good job on systems based on SSD/Flash storage, but it is not so good for regular slow hard drives. Let me state the following: If you have a lot of memory (and this is not rare nowadays, for example Cisco UCS C250), your database fits into memory, and your write rate is significant, then the slow disk is, by definition,Â not able to keep up with all the changes you do in memory. Here is a graph for the tpcc-mysql benchmark (100W ~ 10GB of data, 12G innodb_buffer_pool_size, 1G innodb_log_file_size), MySQL 5.5.10 with innodb_adaptive_flushing=ON (default)). The problem here is that the system has quite slow hard drives (2 hard disks in software RAID0). As you can see, after the initial warmup, throughput drops constantly, all the way to zero, and may stay in that state for a long time (minutes). This comes from the fact that MySQL performs changes in memory at a faster rate than it can write to disks. Eventually it gets into an “async” state, where InnoDB tries to flush as many pages as possible in order to keep the checkpoint age fitting into the InnoDB transaction logs, and this makes the situation even worse (these are the periods of zero throughput on the graph). MySQL’s general recommendation for this case is to increase innodb_io_capacity and decrease innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct so as to have fewer dirty pages. But I call that tuning by shooting yourself in the left foot. (You can’t run fast with a broken foot, right?) And actually it does not work, as MySQL is not able to keep the number of dirty pages within the given innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct limit. Another possible solution would be to increase innodb_log_file_size, but that: 1) only delays the problem until later; 2) increases recovery time (and that is an important factor with slow disks); and 3) MySQL does not support innodb_log_file_size > 4GB (it is supported in Percona Server). To make things more interesting, let’s touch on the topic of flushing of neighbor pages. Performing some research, we found it works in a way we really did not expect. My understanding was that flushing neighbor pages was implemented to perform sequential writes where possible and avoid random writes, which is quite critical for hard drives. What we found is that InnoDB does it in the following way. Say we want to flush page P. InnoDB is looking in an area of 128 pages around page P, and flushes all the pages in that area that are dirty. To illustrate, say we have an area of memory like this:...D...D...D....P....D....D...D....D where each dot is a page that does not need flushing, each “D” is a dirty page that InnoDB will flush, and P is our page. So, as a result of how it works, instead of performing 1 random write, InnoDB will perform 8 random writes. I do not have a good explanation for why it is implemented this way. To make the situation even worse, the count of flushed neighbor pages is counted toward the number of pages we asked to be flushed. That is, for example, we see that to make an improvement in the checkpoint_age we need to flush 8 pages. InnoDB flushes page P and its 7 neighbors (which are not really neighbors), and then stops after this (alas, 8 pages flushed). That is, instead of flushing 8 pages what we would expect to be flushed, InnoDB flushes 1 needed page and 7 random pages, which may not even be relevant for improving the checkpoint age. This makes calculating how many pages we need to flush extremely hard (read “impossible”), and this is one of the reasons why innodb_adaptive_flushing is not able to keep up. What if we disable flushing of neighbor pages (we have the option innodb_flush_neighbor_pages in Percona Server)? Well, it may help to some extent, but remember that hard disks love sequential operations, and your throughput in this case may turn out significantly worse. So what is the solution? This was exactly the topic of our research. We set these goals: Provide stable throughput by avoiding big jumps in flushing pages. Make the algorithm independent of innodb_io_capacity and innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct. (This is important for systems where I/O capacity may vary a lot, like EC2 systems, or is affected by periodic tasks like backup or heavy background queries.) and. (This is important for systems where I/O capacity may vary a lot, like EC2 systems, or is affected by periodic tasks like backup or heavy background queries.) If we see that flushing to disk is not able to keep up with changes in memory, we need to have a throttling mechanism that will limit the rate of changes in memory. Optimize the flushing ofÂ sequential neighbor pages in a way thatÂ makes sense. We have made good progress, and I will keep you posted on our ideas and results.You may have sensed that I think there is a problem with Damasio’s emphasis on self-consciousness: indeed, “Self Comes to Mind” is mainly about self-consciousness rather than experiential phenomenal consciousness. And the book is not about geology or underwear or many other things either. So what? Photo I can explain the problem by a brief detour into a different book, “The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” (1976), by the American psychologist Julian Jaynes. Jaynes held that consciousness was invented by the ancient Greeks between 1400 and 600 B.C. He argued that there was a dramatic appearance of introspection in large parts of the “Odyssey,” as compared with large parts of the “Iliad,” which he claimed were composed at least a hundred years earlier. The philosopher W. V. Quine once told me that he thought Jaynes might be on to something until he asked Jaynes what it was like to perceive before consciousness was invented. According to Quine, Jaynes said it was like nothing at all — exactly what it is like to be a table or a chair. Jaynes was denying that people had experiential phenomenal consciousness based on a claim about inflated self-consciousness. Damasio also denies phenomenal consciousness because of the demand of a sophisticated self-consciousness. You may have noticed an exciting report a few years ago of a patient in a persistent vegetative state (defined behaviorally) studied by the neuroscientists Adrian Owen and Steven Laureys. On some trials, the two instructed the patient to imagine standing still on a tennis court swinging at a ball, and on others to visualize walking from room to room in her home. The patient, they found, showed the same imagistic brain activations (motor areas for tennis, spatial areas for exploring the house) as normally conscious people who were used as controls. More such cases have since been discovered, and this year Owen and Laureys described a vegetative-state patient who was able to use the tennis/navigation alternation to give yes-or-no answers to five of six basic questions like “Is your father’s name Alexander?” These results are strong evidence — though not proof — of phenomenal consciousness in some of those who showed no behavioral signs of it. But Damasio scoffs, saying that these results “can be parsimoniously interpreted in the context of the abundant evidence that mind processes operate nonconsciously.” His skepticism appears to be grounded in the fact that these patients show no clear sign of self-consciousness and thus constitute a potential roadblock in front of his theory. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Damasio also stumbles over dreaming. In dreams, phenomenal consciousness can be very vivid even when the rational processes of self-consciousness are much diminished. Damasio describes dreams as “mind processes unassisted by consciousness.” Recognizing that the reader will be puzzled by this claim, he describes dreaming as “paradoxical” since the mental processes in dreaming are “not guided by a regular, properly functioning self of the kind we deploy when we reflect and deliberate.” But dreaming is paradoxical only if one has a model of phenomenal consciousness based on self-consciousness — on knowledge, rationality, reflection and wakefulness. Contrary to Damasio’s point of view, there is good evidence that vivid conscious experience may be antithetical to self-reflective activity. In one experiment, the Israeli neuroscientist Rafi Malach presented subjects with pictures and asked them to judge their own emotional reactions as positive, negative or neutral — a self-oriented, introspective task. He then presented different subjects with the same pictures and asked them to very quickly categorize the pictures as, for example, animals or not. Of course these subjects were seeing the pictures consciously, but Malach found that the brain circuits involved in scrutinizing self-reactions (as indicated by the emotional reaction task) were inhibited in the fast categorization task. Subjects also rated their self-awareness as high in the emotional reaction task and low in the fast categorization task. As Malach puts it, these results comport with “the strong intuitive sense we have of ‘losing our selves’ in a highly engaging sensory-motor act.” Damasio argues that a creature without sensory integration and control of thought and action would be unconscious. But even if that is true, it does not show that phenomenal consciousness requires self-awareness, reflection, wakefulness, or awareness of one’s existence or surroundings. This argument conflates the minimal self with the inflated self. Is this discussion of any practical importance? Yes. Phenomenal consciousness is what makes pain bad in itself and pleasure good. Damasio’s refusal to regard phenomenal consciousness (without the involvement of the inflated self) as real consciousness could be used to justify the brutalization of cows and chickens on the grounds that they are not self-conscious and therefore not conscious. Damasio, in response to those who have raised such criticisms in the past, declares that in fact he thinks it “highly likely” that animals do have consciousness. But this doesn’t square with the demanding theory he advances in his book, on the basis of which he denies consciousness in dreams and in “vegetative state” patients who can answer questions. He owes us an explanation of why he thinks chickens are conscious even though dreamers and the question-answering patients are not.was on the history of Aston Villa Football Club. At the end of the talk the question was raised as to the precise location of the villa which gave its name first to a district in Aston, and then to the Wesleyan Chapel whose members formed the football club. It was suggested that there was a map in existence which gave this information. This was a challenge which I could not resist, despite being a supporter of the opposition. In the event the map proved relatively easy to find, simply by working my way through the various early 19th century maps of Aston to be found in Birmingham Archives & Heritage. J.E. & C. Robins map of 1820 (above), clearly shows Aston Villa at the junction of the roads to Bristnall’s End and to Aston, known today as Villa Cross. It also shows that Aston Villa was actually in Handsworth! The Handsworth rate book for April 1837 and the Handsworth Tithe Apportionment of 1843 both confirm that at those dates Aston Villa was owned, although not occupied, by Richard Blood, a factor from Birmingham. The occupant in 1837 was Charles Perry, whose daughters, Elizabeth and Emma were, according to Pigot’s Directory of Birmingham 1833, running the Aston Villa (Boarding) School based there. They had taken this over some time around 1832 from a John Skally who had moved his own school there from Caroline Street in July 1825. By 1849 however the house had become the Villa Cross Inn, which the rate books for 1866 show as still being owned by the Blood family. Showell’s Dictionary of Birmingham (1883) and a report in the Handsworth Herald dated 21st June 1907 both confirm that the Villa Cross Inn was originally known as Aston Villa School. An early photograph of the Inn suggests that this could indeed have started out as an early 19th century villa type house suitable for a boarding school and so could well have been the original Aston Villa. Don Abbott AdvertisementsAn Illinois university has a new accredited degree in fermentation science to train future brewers, distillers and vintners. The state Board of Higher Education approved Southern Illinois University's new Bachelor of Science degree in March, The Southern Illinoisan reported. Matt McCarroll, director of the Fermentation Science Institute at the university, said rapid growth in craft brewing has led to demand for trained fermentation scientists and coursework focused on brewing science. While fewer than 100 breweries existed in the U.S. in the mid-1970s, there are more than 4,000 today, he told the newspaper. Graduates will be able to work at several micro-breweries in the region and along the area's Shawnee Wine Trail. Students will start in the major in the summer, McCarroll said. "We know this is a growth industry and our students will be well prepared to gain employment in this field," he said. Fermentation science involves chemistry, plant biology, microbiology and agricultural sciences. McCarroll said programs similar to the one at Southern Illinois University are concentrated on the West Coast. A 74,000 square-foot, geo-thermal building called the McLafferty Annex Collaborative Research Facility on the campus's west side will be home to the program. Associated PressBy Cherri Gregg PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled this week that authorities can seek custody of a child, even where there’s no evidence of abuse or neglect. The case involved a divorced Camden County mother of 9-year-old twin girls. In 2007, she asked New Jersey’s Division of Child Protection and Permanency for help, claiming she was unable to care for the girls who had psychological and developmental disabilities and needed to be placed in residential care. “You can turn to the Division for help, but it may come with a cost,” says Diana Autin, executive director of Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey. The group filed an amicus brief in the case. Autin says under the court’s ruling, the state can get custody of a child with behavior problems if it proves that the parent can’t provide the type of services the child needs and the services are in the child’s best interest. She says the division can get custody without using the state’s abuse and neglect law. “It could end with an award of custody to the division for at least six months, maybe even longer,” says Autin. “We’re going to encourage parents to get voluntary services from the division, because if the parent is then uncomfortable about what the parent wants to do, they can withdraw consent.” The twins’ mother, identified as “I.S.” in the court ruling, went to child welfare seeking help. According to court papers, the department had received more than a dozen reports, including allegations of sexual abuse, but none were substantiated. Eventually the mother told authorities the girls needed residential care, which she was unable to provide. The court acknowledged no neglect or abuse by the mother, but gave custody to the state under New Jersey’s abuse and neglect statute. After the girls got help, one daughter was returned to the mother. Custody of the second daughter was awarded to the father. “By seeking help,” says Autin, “she lost custody of one of her children.” Autin says parents who can afford the type of care a child with behavioral or psychological problems may need are unlikely to lose custody. She says the problem will arise when parents cannot afford the care and behavioral challenges become too much to bear. But there is good news: “They won’t have to go on registry as committing child abuse,” says Autin. “And the state does not have unlimited power. They have to prove certain things.” Autin recommends that parents who need the state to step in get help from a lawyer or advocate.Bruce Dickinson releases a video tour of the new Cardiff Aviation facilities Earlier this year Dickinson revealed that he was setting up a new business called Cardiff Aviation Limited to provide specialist aviation technical support services, including training, as well as heavy aircraft maintenance for various jet aircraft types, both narrow and wide body, up to Boeing 767 size. Cardiff Aviation will maintain airliners and other large aircraft for major and independent airlines. It will also have facilities to complete the full range of ancillary aircraft maintenance and training activities and has the expertise and approvals to certify aircraft from many jurisdictions, including the USA. Commented Dickinson: "We've had fantastic support from the Welsh government — we've been impressed by how pro-active they've been; they've really wanted to make this happen, and we've experienced a level of enthusiasm and drive that has been a delight to behold. "We're coming into this enterprise with the knowledge that we'll also be bringing business to South Wales — a cautious projection is that we'd expect to create up to a thousand jobs within 18 months based on the level of interest and commitment from aircraft manufacturers and operators. South Wales has long had an association with the aircraft industry and I am delighted that I am able to play a small part in the continuation of that tradition."1. Get a Free Baby Registry Welcome Gift Target is a favorite place to shop for baby items but you could end up overspending if you don’t take advantage of these ten easy ways to cut down on your baby expenses. Create a baby registry here Check your email for confirmation Head to your nearest Target to pick up your free baby gift at Guest Services! If you start a Target baby registry, you’ll get a free welcome gift with coupons and samples worth $50! The gift bag can vary but right now it includes a free MAM pacifier and AVENT bottle. You should also get some great baby coupons in the mail. 2. Target Cartwheel Target Cartwheel has a section just for baby offers that you will want to check out at about once a week. There will be discounts on baby clothes, diapers, wipes, toys, nursery items and pretty much everything in the baby section. Just add the offer to your Cartwheel and print your barcode or show it using the app on your phone. Easy peasy! 3. Target Printable Coupons SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTER! Join the List Target.com also has a page of printable baby coupons that change a couple times a month. You can see them all here. Coupons will vary but I’ve seen some for Carter’s clothing, diapers, wipes, $20 off $100, and more. 4. Target Mobile Coupons : Target has phased out baby mobile coupons but will sometimes send special baby coupons via text so keep an eye on the weekly flyer. Target will also send baby mobile coupons to your phone! You have to sign up by texting the word “BABY” to 827438. They will be sent out every 6 weeks or so. 5. Manufacturer Coupons 6. Stacking Coupons You can also use manufacturer coupons to save on baby items at Target – especially diapers, wipes, baby food, and formula. Here are some websites where you can find baby coupons to print before you shop. You can combine coupons to maximize your savings! Target’s coupon policy states that you can use one Cartwheel offer, one manufacturer coupon, and one Target coupon per item! There will be times that you can use 3 coupons on one item, such as diapers or wipes, which is always a good deal. Make sure you check all possible coupon sources before heading to the store and keep your paper coupons organized in a little folder. 7. Weekly Ad You can often get a great deal without any coupons at all! Target publishes their Weekly Ad online every Sunday. Just head to Target.com (or the store if you prefer the paper version) and find the baby section. You will find items on sale for the week as well as free gift card offers. If you can pair a sale with a coupon or two, even better! 8. Target Red Card I am still kicking myself for taking so long to get a Target Red Card. You can apply to get either a debit card (linked to your bank account) or a credit card and both will get you an additional 5% off your total purchase including baby items! It really adds up over the year! You will also get free shipping at Target.com with no minimum purchase requirement which is great when there is a hot deal. You can apply right here. 9. Target Baby Mailer Target also mails out baby coupon booklets but there is no official way to sign up for one. Increase your chances by doing the following: Create a Target Baby Registry Sign up for a Target.com account and check the “offers and promotions” box Sign up for a Red Card There are always great coupons inside the booklets. 10. Price-Matching (Including Amazon!) How would you like to shop at Target and pay Amazon prices? Target has a great price matching policy! They will match competitor’s printed
hall, to suggest a total of eight, which is closer to “get rich.” In Las Vegas, Wynn made his name pushing luxury over camp—Picasso, say, over Wayne Newton—but his hotel in Macau still has a place for what casino designers call the “wow feature.” Once an hour, tourists gather in the lobby to watch a hole open in the floor. A giant animatronic dragon climbs out, coiling into the air, red eyes blazing, smoke pouring from its nostrils. Games of chance have been a part of Chinese history since the Xia dynasty (2000-1500 B.C.). “The government often imposed rules against them, and yet officials themselves were the ones who gambled the most,” Desmond Lam, a marketing professor at the University of Macau, told me. “They would get stripped of their titles, caned, jailed, exiled, but we still see the trend across the dynasties.” Parsing Chinese appetites for risk is a modest academic niche, with applications beyond the world of casinos. “When I was growing up,” Lam said, “my family always gambled—at holidays, funerals, that’s just what we did—so I wanted to know: Why do Chinese communities gamble?” Lam and I were taking a walking tour of the City of Dreams, a casino complex that uses the promotional tagline “Sign Up, Play, Change Your Life.” After six years of studies and surveys, Lam views each gambling table as a “microscopic battle,” a standoff between science and faith. On one side is the casino, which can reliably calculate its advantage to two decimal points. On the other is a collection of Chinese beliefs about fate and superstition, which, Lam says, “people know are irrational but are part of the culture.” He ticked off some received wisdom: To improve the odds, wear red underwear and switch on all the lights before leaving home. To prevent a losing streak, avoid the sight of nuns and monks when travelling to the casino. Never use the main entrance. Always find a side door. “First, I want to give you an overview of what I will tell you over and over again during the entire presentation.” The City of Dreams smells of perfume, cigarettes, and rug shampoo. Chinese gamblers rarely drink when money is on the line, and the low, festive hum is broken now and then by the sound of someone pounding the table in delight or anguish, or exhorting the cards to obey. One night, I settled into the scrum around a baccarat game in which a slim man with heavy eyebrows and a red face shining with sweat was performing “the squeeze”—slowly peeling up the edge of his card, while the man beside him shouted “Blow! Blow!” to wish away a high number. When the slim man had peeled enough to see the digit, his face twisted in disgust and he tossed the card across the table. “Americans tend to see themselves in control of their fate, while Chinese see fate as something external,” Lam said. “To alter fate, the Chinese feel they need to do things to acquire more luck.” In surveys, Chinese casino gamblers tend to view bets as investments and investments as bets. The stock market and real estate, in the Chinese view, are scarcely different from a casino. The behavioral scientists Elke Weber and Christopher Hsee have compared Chinese and American approaches to financial risk. In a series of experiments, they found that Chinese investors overwhelmingly described themselves as more cautious than Americans. But when they were tested the stereotype proved to be a fallacy, and the Chinese took consistently larger risks than Westerners of comparable wealth. (The gap applies only to investing; asked about decisions in health care and education, the groups were indistinguishable.) Living in China, I’ve come to expect that Chinese friends make financial decisions that I find uncomfortably risky: launching businesses with their savings, moving across the country without the assurance of a job. One explanation, which Weber and Hsee call “the cushion hypothesis,” is that traditionally large Chinese family networks afford people confidence that they can turn to others for help if a risk does not succeed. Another theory is more specific to the boom years. “The economic reforms undertaken by Deng Xiaoping were a gamble in themselves,” Ricardo Siu, a business professor at the University of Macau, told me. “So people got the idea that taking a risk is not just O.K., it has utility.” For those who have come from poverty to the middle class, he added, “the thinking may be, If I lose half my money, well, I’ve lived through that. I won’t be poor again. And in several years I can earn it back. But if I win? I’m a millionaire!” In the case of Inveterate Gambler Ping, success drew attention. About four months into Siu’s streak, a gossip column in the Apple Daily, a popular Hong Kong paper, took note of a “mysterious” figure making the rounds in Macau, said to be amassing a fortune as large as a hundred and fifty million dollars. “Is he extremely lucky or does he have the real magic touch?” the paper asked in January, 2008. The next day, a member of Hong Kong’s legislature, Chim Pui Chung—a devoted gambler himself—told the paper that he had heard people hailing the new high roller as the “God of Gamblers,” borrowed from the title of a Hong Kong movie starring Chow Yun-fat. A streak of that scale was also likely to attract suspicion. Macau garners its share of creative casino cheats; last summer, local police arrested members of a gang accused of embedding miniature cameras into card-shuffling machines. Too much success can be cause for distrust. A casino’s advantage in baccarat—about 1.15 per cent—ordains that the chances of winning all but evaporate for a gambler after thirty thousand hands. A dedicated player can draw a thousand hands in a weekend and come out ahead, but after seven months almost nobody should go home a winner. Not long after the article appeared dubbing Siu the God of Gamblers, his twenty-year-old son received a series of anonymous threatening phone calls. Then one night someone slipped into Celebrating Fortune village and tried to set the family house on fire. Finally, Siu’s friend Wong Kam-ming, who had introduced him to several V.I.P. rooms, received an angry call. The man on the other end demanded a meeting to discuss the question of Inveterate Gambler Ping’s having cheated. Nobody embodies Macau’s reputation for self-invention more thoroughly than Stanley Ho, a tall, elegant ninety-year-old tycoon who once dated starlets and dancers, excelled at the tango, and was chauffeured around Hong Kong in a Rolls-Royce with the license plate “HK-1.” After his father lost the family fortune in the stock market, Ho got his start during the Second World War with a trading company in Macau. “By the end of the war, I’d earned over a million dollars—having started with just ten,” he said later. He expanded into airlines, real estate, and shipping, and in 1962 he and associates took over Macau’s casinos, gaining a monopoly that lasted forty years and made him one of Asia’s richest men. In his choice of business partners, he was non-judgmental; he ran horse racing under the Shah of Iran, a gaming boat under Ferdinand Marcos, and an island casino under Kim Jong Il. Intelligence agents were desperate to cultivate Ho for his connections, but the late Dan Grove, a retired F.B.I. agent who served in Hong Kong, told me, “Nobody ever got past first base.” For years, foreign governments have suspected Ho of being too cozy with Chinese organized crime. Regulators have thwarted his family’s efforts to run casinos in the U.S. and Australia. In 2009, New Jersey regulators decided that a joint venture between MGM Resorts International and Ho’s daughter Pansy failed the state’s requirement that casinos avoid business with “notorious or unsavory persons.” Far more surprising is what happened afterward, when New Jersey gave MGM an ultimatum: cut ties with the Ho family or lose a stake in Atlantic City’s highest-grossing casino. MGM chose Macau, and it is now selling its stake in Atlantic City. Stanley Ho’s monopoly expired in 2002, three years after China took control, and foreign competitors surged in to obtain licenses. The first new casino to open was the Sands Macao, backed by Sheldon Adelson, of Las Vegas, whom Forbes ranks as the seventh-richest person in the United States. Adelson is Stanley Ho’s physical opposite—small and heavy, with pale-red hair. Where Ho avoided overt declarations of power, Adelson has described himself as the “largest investor of any kind in the history of China.” The son of a cabdriver from Lithuania, Adelson grew up in the Boston suburb of Dorchester, and ran a spate of businesses with erratic success—packaging toiletries for hotels, selling a chemical spray to clear ice from windshields—before his break, in 1979, when he launched Comdex, a computer trade show. He later bought the old Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, created America’s largest privately owned convention center, and enriched himself with a signature strategy of pairing casinos with exhibition centers. More than a decade ago, he coveted Macau as a gateway to 1.3 billion Chinese nationals, and he successfully courted Chinese leaders in Beijing by emphasizing his influence in Republican politics. (He is a frequent donor to right-wing causes in the United States and Israel. He and his relatives drew attention in the Republican Presidential contest this year by giving $16.5 million to a Super PAC that supported Newt Gingrich, representing all but five per cent of the money that the group raised.) He told people that Macau would someday help him overtake Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in wealth. A crowd of thousands turned up on the Sands opening day, in May, 2004, lured in part by false newspaper reports of free gambling chips for the first bettors. Tom Smock, the casino’s general counsel at the time, watched as the building’s tall metal front doors began to give way from the pressure of the crowd. “Every time a hinge broke, the crowd roared with approval,” Smock said. “They ripped every door off the hinges at that front entrance. That’s how the casino opened, and they poured in.” Within a year, the Sands Macao had recouped its construction costs, of two hundred and sixty-five million dollars, and Adelson embarked on an idea that he described as coming to him in a dream: to replicate the Las Vegas Strip on a stretch of open sea between two islands in Macau. His company constructed a landfill out of three million cubic metres of sand—he named it the Cotai Strip, for Coloane and Taipa, the islands that it fused together—and he opened the $2.4-billion Venetian Macao, a supersized replica of the Las Vegas Venetian, with the largest casino floor in the world. Unlike Las Vegas, where most of the profits come from coins fed into slot machines, three-quarters of the revenue in Macau is derived from the enormous bets made in the V.I.P. rooms, where high rollers play around the clock. Casinos rely on outside companies, known as “junkets,” to solve some of the practical problems inherent in running a casino in Macau. It is illegal to advertise gambling in mainland China, and Chinese citizens are barred from carrying more than the equivalent of about three thousand dollars on any single trip to Macau. Most troubling, from the casinos’ perspective, is that it’s illegal to try to collect a gambling debt in the People’s Republic. Working through junket operators is a legal bypass around those problems, because the operators will recruit rich customers from across China, issue them credit, and then handle the complicated business of collection. The system is an attractive arrangement for customers who need to secrete large quantities of cash out of China. If a corrupt official or executive wants to hide the proceeds, a junket is a way to hand over cash on one side of the border and recover it on the other, in chips that can then be played and cashed out in clean foreign currency. (Another option is to smuggle it by hand across Macau’s relaxed borders, a practice known in laundering circles as “smurfing,” for the army of small-time couriers involved.) While the junket industry has many law-abiding members, it has, for decades, been susceptible to the involvement of organized crime. Triads, which grew out of nineteenth-century Chinese political societies, had always been involved in loan-sharking and prostitution, and had made their presence felt on the edges of Macau’s casinos, but in recent years triads had become more business-oriented. Triad violence in Macau and Hong Kong has declined over the past decade, because triads have increasingly set aside squabbles over drugs and petty crime in order to pursue the range of new criminal opportunities associated with a more prosperous China, including money laundering, financial fraud, and gambling. Gangsters are becoming “gray entrepreneurs,” as criminologists put it, and it was more difficult to distinguish between triads that had gone into business and businesses that were acting like triads. Some mob bosses still adhere to the old ranks of gangsterdom—“dragon heads,” at the top; “red poles,” overseeing operations—but many follow the ancient rituals only perfunctorily: the thirty-six oaths, the cocktail of blood and rice liquor. Some younger gang members resort to cribbing from the rituals in gangster movies. Steve Vickers is a former commander of the Royal Hong Kong police’s Criminal Intelligence Bureau. “I know of no Chinese junket operator that doesn’t have some association with triads,” he told me. A thirty-nine-year-old junket agent said that when he entered the business, in his mid-twenties, triad membership was effectively a job requirement, but in the past decade it has broadened to include anyone who “can bring in money and customers.” To find clients in a country that is minting more millionaires each year than any other, some of his peers scour the business press looking for new tycoons. “Nowadays, in Macau, if a person doesn’t gamble at least a few hundred thousand dollars, then he isn’t even a real customer,” he said. What happens if a customer doesn’t pay up? “We go to the city where he is and call him up. Then, if necessary, we wait there for a couple of days. Just to put some pressure on him.” In recent years, U.S. federal agencies, including the F.B.I., the Secret Service, and the Internal Revenue Service, have become increasingly familiar with Macau. In an elaborate smuggling investigation that ended in 2005, undercover F.B.I. agents infiltrated a ring that included a Macau citizen named Jyimin Horng, who was accused of importing into the U.S. millions of dollars’ worth of counterfeit cigarettes, methamphetamines, and high-quality fake currency known as “supernotes,” believed to originate in North Korea. Undercover agents wired Horng payments in Macau in exchange for fake bills at a rate of thirty cents for each phony dollar, smuggled in large bolts of fabric and boxes of toys. When an F.B.I. agent named Jack Garcia posed as a representative of Colombian FARC guerrillas and asked for weapons, Horng sent him a catalogue, and Garcia ordered anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, submachine guns, and AK-47s. To lure Horng and others to the United States for arrest, the agency staged a mock wedding for a male and a female agent involved in the sting. Horng and other guests received elegant invitations to a celebration aboard a yacht moored off Cape May, New Jersey. “I was the best man,” Garcia, who is now retired, told me. “We picked them up for the bachelor party and drove them straight to the F.B.I. office.” Fifty-nine people were arrested. (Horng pleaded guilty and is serving three and a half to four years.) Based on that case and on other information, the Treasury Department blacklisted Banco Delta Asia, in Macau, for participating in money laundering. The bank denied the claim, but it has been barred from access to the U.S. financial system. Eight years ago, when American-run casinos arrived in Macau, observers predicted that the scrutiny of Wall Street and state regulators would drive organized crime out of Macau’s gambling industry. But the junket industry has not shed its links to triads, and junkets operate in every U.S.-owned casino in Macau, largely because they are able to collect debts in China. American casinos insist that they strictly adhere to laws in Macau and the United States to prevent money laundering and the involvement of organized crime. But even those standards have left the casinos at risk. Macau law, for instance, requires identification for any casino transaction above the equivalent of sixty-one thousand dollars—a threshold that is six times higher than that for casinos in the United States. Grove, the former F.B.I. agent, headed security for the Sands Macao in its early years. He said that American casinos instituted background checks, international accounting standards, and other good-faith efforts to prevent the encroachment of organized crime, but triads found inventive solutions. “They’d even try and get in through the meat contracts at the steak house,” he said. With Las Vegas ailing, casinos can’t afford to sever contracts with the most profitable junkets and lose access to the clients they deliver. As a result, Steve Vickers told me, unless a company has the will and the strategy to get rid of the triads, “you’re constantly on the back foot, constantly worried what these guys are going to do next.” A few weeks after Siu Yun Ping’s house was set on fire, a group of men were summoned to a meeting in a parking lot on the outskirts of Hong Kong. The meeting had been called by See Wah-lun, a thickset, thirty-year-old mid-level member of one of China’s most famous triads, the Wo Hop To. See Wah-lun told his men about a plan to extort Siu. As one of them later described it in court, “A boss wanted a man to return some money.” The boss was Cheung Chi-tai, a gang leader who was well known to Hong Kong police and U.S. authorities. In the words of a Hong Kong judge, Verina Bokhary, Cheung could “have a say in things” in a V.I.P. room at the Sands Macao, one of the places where Siu had made his baccarat fortune. “I say it’s government-mandated broccoli, and I say the hell with it.” See Wah-lun unveiled a straightforward plot: they would send Siu a message by ambushing his friend Wong, pinning his car between two others and then hustling him over to a nearby village, where a secluded, run-down building would be prepared with gloves, hoods, knives, and extendable police batons. The plan was to break Wong’s legs and hands, but then See called his guys back and told them that it was being upgraded to murder, so Siu would know they were serious and hand over his winnings. The gang balked. One of the recruits asked, “Do we have to be that serious?” See was taken aback. “The boss tells you to do it, are you not going to do it?” he said. Another of the chosen assassins complained that he was supposed to be a guest at a wedding that evening. A third, Lau Ming-yee, had a pregnant girlfriend and financial troubles, and yet he was being asked to do the job gratis. “If you are not going to pay someone, then how would that someone help you?” he said later. It didn’t help that Lau happened to know the intended victim from years before, when he worked as a delivery boy and dropped off food at Wong’s village. “Everyone was shocked by the idea of killing anybody, never mind somebody some of us knew,” Lau said. When See asked him to take part in the murder, Lau hesitated. The boss was incensed. “What the fuck you have to think about?” he said. Lau seemed to relent, and agreed to help with the murder. In reality, he had become an informer for the police. In the predawn hours before the attack, he called his police handler, met him near the Temple Under a Big Tree, and told him about the murder plot and about Siu. In his statement to the police, Lau said, “I am the father of a child and I want to be a responsible man.” The police arrested five gangsters, and in a trial that fall Lau, who had been placed in protective custody, testified against them. They maintained their innocence, but all were convicted of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm and acting as members of a triad. See, the ringleader, was sentenced on additional charges of conspiring to commit murder and recruiting others to carry it out. The five men are now serving between eight and a half and fourteen years. At one point, Siu himself was arrested, on suspicion of involvement in the plot to kill his friend Wong. But he was “released unconditionally,” the judge said, after police concluded that “he was not involved in any such plot.” During the investigation, police also detained Cheung Chi-tai, the triad leader, but he did not spend long in custody. According to John Haynes, See’s defense attorney, Cheung “called his lawyer and refused to answer any questions, and as a result he escaped being charged with anything.” At sentencing, Haynes lamented that the “small potatoes” were going to jail while the “big boss... now sits comfortably, free from any charges, in Macau.” Siu and Wong testified at the trial, and they were asked to estimate how much Siu had amassed during his five-month winning streak. It was a complicated question, because high rollers in Macau often make side bets that are many times larger than the chips on the table. (In a side bet, a player and a junket agent secretly agree that every hundred-dollar chip, say, is worth a thousand or ten thousand, and then they settle wins and losses in private.) In total, he estimated that he had won the equivalent of thirteen million U.S. dollars. Wong put the figure at seventy-seven million. The notion that a former barber had won as much as seventy-seven million dollars—and outlasted the mobsters charged with getting it back—attracted the attention of members of the Hong Kong press, and they pursued the God of Gamblers as a minor curiosity, though he declined interviews. A year after the trial, the Hong Kong magazine Next published an article alleging that Siu had cheated, by finding a way to manipulate the side-betting system. The article claimed that he had paid off an underling who recorded players’ ups and downs, in order to boost his wins and minimize his losses. The casino hadn’t detected the fraud, the magazine surmised, because side bets were off the books, and the junkets hadn’t anticipated that a gambler might risk trying to buy off a staff member. Siu never responded to the article. In any case, local reporters discovered, he had disappeared. The God of Gamblers case had all but vanished from the Hong Kong crime pages when, in March, 2010, a Reuters investigation, published in collaboration with Matt Isaacs, of the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, reëxamined the trial and seized on a crucial detail: If the triad boss Cheung Chi-tai had “a say in things” in a V.I.P. room at the Sands Macao, as Judge Bokhary had put it, and potentially other links to the industry, then the relationship appeared to be “one of the first documented examples” of mob involvement in a U.S.-backed casino in Macau, Reuters wrote. That link could put Sands at risk of violating Nevada laws barring casino companies from associating with figures who “discredit” the industry, not only on Nevada soil but anywhere. The Las Vegas Sands was quick to issue a statement that Cheung was “not listed as a director or shareholder” in any of its V.I.P. rooms, but, after it conducted an internal investigation, its lawyers stated that Cheung had indeed been found to be operating as a “guarantor” of V.I.P. rooms at one of the company’s casinos. (A guarantor—who puts up money to lend to players—was not routinely subject to the background checks applied to directors and shareholders, according to a former Sands executive.) Sands’s trouble with Macau got more complicated that fall, when a former executive, Steve Jacobs, filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit that made a range of accusations against Sheldon Adelson. Jacobs said that he and Adelson had discussed the God of Gamblers case, and the allegation that triads were involved with Sands’s casinos; over Jacobs’s objections, he said, Adelson sought to “aggressively grow the junket business” anyway. Jacobs’s suit also accused Sands of hiring a Macau legislator in a way that could put it at risk of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In its responses, Sands denied all the accusations and said that Jacobs was the one who had failed to distance the company from Cheung, the triad boss. In March, 2011, Sands disclosed that it was being investigated by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission for potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Adelson vehemently denied any wrongdoing. “When the smoke clears, I am absolutely—not one hundred per cent but one thousand per cent—positive that there won’t be any fire below it,” he said. “They want to get all my e-mails. I don’t have a computer. And I don’t use e-mails. I’m not an e-mail type of person.” (He declined to comment for this account.) For Adelson and his peers, doing business in Macau is turning out to be opaque and intricate in ways outside their control. They expected to take the strategies that had brought them success in the United States and apply them to Macau. Instead, their corporate fortunes now hinge in part on the decisions of the Communist Party and corrupt officials and Chinese triads. But U.S. casino operators are not about to quit Macau. “The bottom line is this,” Vickers, who is now the head of Steve Vickers & Associates, a risk-consultancy firm, said. “Is the conduct of a United States-listed company compatible with doing business with junket operators in Macau? And the answer might simply be not to list in America.” Even if Macau can pass muster with Wall Street and U.S. regulators, the bigger question may be what it portends for China—whether its roguish success rides on the kinds of epic corruption that the Party recognizes as one of its most urgent threats. China could bring Macau’s boom to an end by fiat; citizens need a special permit to go to Macau, and China opens and closes the flow of visitors at will. When, in 2008, it reduced the number of visas, revenue dropped sharply during the financial crisis; Sands stock lost ninety-nine per cent of its value, wiping out more than twenty billion dollars of Adelson’s family fortune. (The value later recovered.) But cracking down on Macau poses political problems. Some officials in Beijing are keen to maintain the enclave’s economic success, because it shows the breakaway island of Taiwan the potential benefits of a return to the motherland. Moreover, Macau is a place where China’s new millionaires can indulge in the gains of their prosperity, which is one of the rewards guaranteed by the unwritten bargain between Chinese leaders and their people for a generation: Don’t concern yourself with the state’s inner workings, and the state will not overly concern itself with yours. On a return flight from Macau to Beijing, I sat beside a former military officer, who now owns real estate and a string of factories. He visits Macau once a month (“to let off steam”), and he spent much of the flight scrutinizing his latest acquisition: a twelve-thousand-dollar cell phone, encased in alligator skin and equipped with a button that connects him to a full-time concierge, to make dinner and handle travel arrangements. Macau is poised for another dramatic expansion. A high-speed train line is under construction that will link it with cities as far north as Beijing, and the world’s longest sea bridge, connecting Macau to Hong Kong, is set to open in three or four years, reducing the ferry crossing to a half-hour drive by car. Even as the federal investigations continue, few people in Macau have both the interest and the capacity to impose greater control over the system. Manuel Joaquim das Neves, Macau’s top casino regulator, told me that foreign criticism will not alter the way of doing things in Macau. “Macau is not Las Vegas, Singapore, or, indeed, any other jurisdiction,” he said, adding, “Macau has attracted more than twenty billion dollars in foreign investment in the casino industry alone. In short, the public interest has been well served.” José Maria Pereira Coutinho, a liberal member of the Legislative Assembly, is less impressed with the industry. “The government is incompetent,” he said. More than eight out of every ten dollars of government revenue comes from casinos, and Coutinho says that the annual payments to citizens are a “drug,” to “keep their mouths shut.” I asked whether lawmakers will push for more urgent changes. He laughed, and said, “In the Legislative Assembly, a nuclear bomb could pass through and everything would go slowly and calmly.”At the last regularly scheduled news conference of 2017, amid discussion of the upcoming inauguration for a second term, Jillian Jorgensen, a reporter from The Daily News asked Mr.de Blasio: "What was the most fun thing you got to do in your first term?" Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will be swearing De Blasio in at the free ceremony, which will take place on City Hall Plaza (entrance at Broadway and Murray Street) on Monday, January 1. "I've met some extraordinary people along the way, I mentioned having this growing relationship with Bernie Sanders, that's an wonderful thing, that's been a fascinating and positive thing, but so many other people as well", he said. "Sanders' progressive leadership has helped reshape the American political debate in favor of men and women long left out of our city and nation's prosperity", de Blasio said in an emailed statement. The mayor, who has been criticized by some for not patronizing parks like the High Line or Central Park or working the city's cultural circuit, didn't mention any of New York's great institutions. De Blasio, now 56, went on to endorse Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, but months after much of the Democratic establishment, a delay that frustrated the former NY senator and secretary of state. Up to 1,500 attendees are expected to attend, and Newsday reports that the inauguration will be more "scaled-down" than previous years', with an estimated budget around $200,000 that's financed by "private funding", according to de Blasio's spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg. Public Advocate Letitia James and City Comptroller Scott Stringer will also be sworn in at the ceremony.Midori was the code name for a managed code operating system being developed by Microsoft with joint effort of Microsoft Research. It had been reported[2][3] to be a possible commercial implementation of the Singularity operating system, a research project started in 2003 to build a highly dependable operating system in which the kernel, device drivers, and applications are all written in managed code. It was designed for concurrency, and could run a program spread across multiple nodes at once.[4] It also featured a security model that sandboxes applications for increased security.[5] Microsoft had mapped out several possible migration paths from Windows to Midori.[6] The operating system was discontinued some time in 2015, though many of its concepts were rolled into other Microsoft projects. History [ edit ] The code name Midori was first discovered through the PowerPoint presentation CHESS: A systematic testing tool for concurrent software.[7] A new reference to Midori was found in a presentation shown during the OOPSLA 2012 conference in October 2012.[8] References [ edit ][JURIST] The Hawaii House of Representatives [JURIST report] voted 30-19 [legislative materials] Friday to pass a bill legalizing same-sex marriage [text, PDF]. A point of contention during the committee hearing was the introduction of religious exemptions to the bill, allowing religious organizations to withhold services if the same-sex marriage would be a violation of thei beliefs. Governor Neil Abercrombie [official website], who called for a special convening of the state legislature specifically to consider legislation for same-sex marriage by proclamation [text, PDF] in September, has stated that he would sign the measure into law [Reuters report]. Before the governor may consider the bill, however, it must return to the Senate for approval of the amendments made in the House. The legalization of same-sex marriage [JURIST backgrounder] has proven to be divisive issue in Hawaii. Last week, a Hawaiian judge denied a request [JURIST report] for a temporary restraining order against lawmakers to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage. Last month the Hawaii Senate [official website] approved a measure [JURIST report] to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Abercrombie signed [JURIST report] the same-sex civil unions bill into law in 2011, legalizing same-sex civil unions in the state. This legislation went into effect in January 2012 after being approved by the state’s senate in an 18-5 vote. A similar bill was vetoed [JURIST report] in 2010 by former governor Linda Lingle, who cited concerns that the bill was “essentially marriage by another name” and said that the issue should be decided directly by the people of Hawaii. Following the signing of the same-sex civil unions bill in 2011, a lesbian couple filed suit [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the District of Hawaii [official website], challenging the state’s denial of same-sex marriage and claiming that they were being denied a “fundamental right.” Although the court denied [JURIST report] the state law challenge in 2012, Abercrombie supported the plaintiffs’ claims, publicly stating that he disagreed with the decision and that “[t]o refuse individuals the right to marry on the basis of sexual orientation or gender is discrimination in light of our civil union law.”South Korea and its ally the United States on Monday began a two-day joint naval exercises off the country's east coast involving a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier, a move which is likely to provoke North Korea. The 97,000-ton USS Nimitz left South Korea's Busan port earlier in the day for the exercises with the country's Navy in the East Sea near Pohang. The Nimitz Strike Group consists of the aircraft carrier and guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, a senior military official said in Seoul. The naval drill included missile detection, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft maneuvers. Details of naval powers mobilized in the drill were not disclosed, the Yonhap news agency reported quoting military officials. Although Seoul and Washington have said the maneuvers are part of annual training and defensive in nature, North Korea has consistently denounced the arrival of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business NewsI have given this first date advice many times and in many ways: Don’t compliment women’s appearance. No matter how tempted you are, no matter how hot she is, no matter how much you think she likes you, and no matter how smoothly or Alpha you think you can pull it off, don’t compliment a woman’s appearance prior to sex. If you’ve been having sex with her for six months, then fine. I’m talking about the dating and seduction phases. Every time I give that dating advice, I get a bunch of guys giving me excuses about how it’s okay to do it as long as you don’t do it too much. Or too much like a beta. Or with an confident frame. Or something. Excuses. I will quote the above linked blog post about the proof that complimenting a woman’s appearance will reduce your odds of a lay: If you don’t believe me, go sarge up 20 women, tell them how hot/beautiful they are before you fuck them. Then sarge up a second 20, and don’t compliment their appearance at all. You will find you will get better results (and more quickly) from the second group than from the first group. Go do that experiment, and then come back and tell me it’s okay to tell women they’re hot as long as you do it “confidently” or whatever. Heartiste recently made a blog post right here giving the exact same advice. Good. Nice to see others have figured this out. A few quotes from his post: Never compliment a girl on her looks, especially not a girl you aren’t fucking. and It will help you acquire the right frame of mind to stop using the words hot, cute, gorgeous, or beautiful to describe girls who turn you on. He even repeats it: As stated above, never compliment beautiful women on their looks He goes on to give some tips on how to convey attraction without commenting on a woman’s looks. I’m going to reinforce why refraining from complimenting appearance will help you. Here are the top six reasons: 1. You’re not telling her anything she doesn’t already know. Hot chicks are fully aware they’re hot by the time they’re about 15 years old. It’s not news to them. Telling a hot chick she’s hot is like telling her the sky is blue or that there’s oxygen in the air. It just makes you look “very normal”, if not a little dumb. 2. Hundreds, if not thousands of men have already told her this. If you tell her this too, you’re just adding yourself to the pile of all the other guys she’s politely brushed off. You are in no way unique. 3. It’s not a compliment. That’s right. Telling her she’s hot or sexy or beautiful or whatever is not giving her a compliment. It’s like walking up to a multimillionaire and saying “You have a lot of money.” Trust me, that millionaire will in no way feel complimented. He’ll just assume you’re awkward. And he’ll be right. Now yes, because of Societal Programming, a hot chick will be obligated to say something back like “Oh, thank you!”, but that doesn’t mean shit. If you’ve ever dated a really hot chick and watched other guys tell her how attractive she is, even good looking guys who said it smoothly, I’m sure you got a full commentary from her regarding the lack of quality these men were displaying, even if she was demonstrating gratitude for their compliments. I
Kirti set themselves on fire, but were believed at the time to have survived. One of the two monks, Lobsang Kalsang, was a brother of Phuntsog. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Prior to this year, the only known instance of a monk setting himself on fire in recent times occurred at Kirti in Feb. 2009. The monk, Tapey, survived after his flames were extinguished by security officers. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. A local court gave three monks long prison sentences in August and September for what it said was their roles in the death of Phuntsog. One of the monks was an uncle of Phuntsog.Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders stand and cheer as he delivers remarks on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images PHILADELPHIA—Bernie Sanders’ California delegates quickly built a reputation Monday night as the rowdiest pro-Sanders section in the Wells Fargo Center. But why? Could it be that they just really like Bernie Sanders, and want to make the most out of their costly cross-country trip to support their man? Or was the raucous environment the work of some nefarious chemical, such as alcohol? “Here’s what’s going on,” a former Clinton administration aide, David Goodfriend, told the Hill. “Bernie-ites get hammered at the open bar, they come in here, and even when Elizabeth Warren is talking, they’re chanting over her. So here’s my offer … California Bernie delegates: Stay sober during proceedings, and I’ll buy you a round of shots after.” Goodfriend told the Hill that there’s an open bar behind the California delegation. We rate this statement mostly true. The California delegation sits in section 105, and by section 106-107 rests P.J. Whelihan’s Pub, which promises “a fun and friendly atmosphere, award-winning food, and various pub beer selections.” But the general public, including reporters for online periodicals, cannot imbibe any of P.J.’s various pub beers this week, because the California delegation has rented the restaurant for itself and rebranded it “California Café.” So how do Sanders’ California delegates respond to these accusations of public intoxication leveled by the misleadingly named Goodfriend? “He’s not telling the truth,” said California Sanders delegate Robert M. Nelson, a retired NASA scientist. “I was in that bar. I drank with many Clinton delegates last night, and we talked about a lot of important things.” Nelson had first wanted to use a four-letter word to describe the drunkenness allegations, then figured that would play into the smearers’ hands. “Their goal is to make us look stupid. We’re very educated.” “I think unless we were drinking hot tea with our fingers out, [former Clinton administration aides like Goodfriend] would have something to say about us,” said Karen Bernal, co-representative of the California Sanders delegates. Bernal knew of one person who “may have had a bit too much to drink, but absolutely everyone else was well behaved.” She added that she saw “plenty of Clinton people that were drinking too. Indeed, by Bernal’s estimation, California Café and its array of pub delicacies has been a site of rapprochement between California’s Clinton and Sanders delegates. “This is where we have found a lot of—can I say?—collegiality in that bar between Clinton and Sanders.” “We’ve had wonderful interactions,” Nelson added. Sanders supporters in California may be making their voices heard, even at times when others are trying to speak. The evidence that booze is the impetus for such vocal displays, however, is sparse. Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.ADVERTISEMENT Key CIA torture memos will be released John Byrne Published: Thursday April 16, 2009 Print This Email This UPDATE (at bottom): Obama says the law requires memos to be released The Obama Administration is likely to redact key elements of several "torture" memos promulgated by the Bush Administration which dictated which techniques could "legally" be applied during prisoner interrogations. Two officials told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that " certain operational elements " of the program are to be kept secret, as well as what techniques were applied to particular prisoners. Most likely to be kept from the spotlight is details in a still-classified memorandum which approved a method in which a prisoner's head could be struck against a plywood wall "as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator." Such a technique was outlined in an International Red Cross report that was leaked to a reporter at the New York Review of Books. That story told of guards tying towels around at least two prisoners' necks and hurling them against a plywood wall, among numerous other macabre torture techniques. Marc Ambinder, a veteran correspondent for The Atlantic, reported Wednesday that senior Administration officials "said that the Journal story does not reflect the current state of thinking, [but] would not disclose what decisions had been made." "Holder, the attorney general, and others have argued internally that most of the information contained within the memo has already been released," Ambinder wrote. "The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have obtained more than 100,000 pages of formerly secret documents. The International Committee of the Red Cross's damning report on detention and torture was leaked to reporter Mark Danner last month; federal prosecutors and senior military officials have acknowledged, in detail, that not only were prisoners in CIA and military custody tortured, but described the means used to torture them. "Others, knowing Washington's ways, believe that if the CIA is worried that some of the torture methods are truly gruesome, well, that's exactly the first bit of information that an enterprising official will leak," Ambinder added. "More headlines will be made." An announcement on the release of the Bush-era torture memos is expected today. UPDATE: Obama says the law requires memos to be released "President Barack Obama says the release of legal opinions governing harsh questioning of terrorism suspects is required by the law and should help address 'a dark and painful chapter in our history,'" according to an Associated Press report. "Obama issued a statement accompanying Thursday's release of four significant memos written by the Bush administration in 2002 and 2005. The president said that the interrogation techniques outlined in the memos 'undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer.'" Get Raw exclusives as they break -- Email & mobile Email - Never spam:"Redesigned Spider Peptide with Improved Antimicrobial and Anticancer Properties" ACS Chemical Biology As antibiotic resistance rises and fears over superbugs grow, scientists are looking for new treatment options. One area of focus is antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which could someday be an alternative to currently prescribed antibiotics, many of which are becoming increasingly useless against some bacteria. Now, a team reports in ACS Chemical Biology that they have improved the antimicrobial — and anticancer — properties of an AMP from a spider. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 million people become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the U.S. each year. Because no known antibiotics work against these bacteria, patients simply have to hope that their natural defenses eventually overcome the infection. But some patients experience severe symptoms, landing them in a hospital, and in extreme cases, they could die. Researchers are trying to find alternatives to traditional antibiotics, and one such possibility is a group of peptides called AMPs. These peptides are found in all plants and animals as a type of immune response and have been shown to be potent antibiotics in the laboratory. Gomesin, an AMP from the Brazilian spider Acanthoscurria gomesiana can function as an antibiotic, but it also has anticancer activity. When gomesin was synthesized as a circle instead of as a linear structure, these characteristics were enhanced. Sónia Troeira Henriques and colleagues wanted to further boost the peptide’s traits. The team made several variations of the cyclic gomesin peptide and found that some of these were 10 times better at killing most bacteria than the previously reported cyclic form. In other experiments, the new AMPs specifically killed melanoma and leukemia cells, but not breast, gastric, cervical or epithelial cancer cells. The researchers determined that the modified peptides killed bacteria and cancer cells in a similar way — by disrupting the cells’ membranes. The group also notes that the modified AMPs were non-toxic to healthy blood cells. The authors acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council. Note: ACS does not conduct research, but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies.When Kevin Ware was grotesquely injured on Sunday—when his snapped tibia thrust through his shin—this was how his Louisville teammates reacted: But had it been, say, Louisville's women's basketball team, argues a writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, they would have responded with compassion and sisterhood and a group hug, probably increasing Ware's chances of infection. "Steely women would've rushed to comfort injured teammate" is an awful headline, and probably not written by Review-Journal lifestyle columnist Xazmin Garza, but she does begin her argument with a case study from the movie Steel Magnolias. Men shy away from a comrade in distress, you see, while women's first instinct is to provide comfort. (Hope you like your commentary reductio ad nihilum.) Advertisement Here's a taste: They were shaken, clearly, by their teammate’s horrific injury. But, with one exception, the only people who rushed to Ware’s side were those paid to do it. Let’s imagine for a moment that Kevin was Kate and her teammates wore sports bras. The first instinct for most female athletes would have been to help, no matter how unsettling the dangling ankle. Coaches likely would have had to ask players to back up to give their teammate room. That’s what happened in 2009, when American female sprinter Muna Lee fell during a relay at the world track and field championships in Berlin. Her teammates crouched next to her as trainers saw to the source of her screams. Lee’s teammates even followed the gurney that rolled her away, despite officials’ aggressive efforts to stop them. Advertisement Here's Muna Lee's injury. We should point out that Lee's relay-mates were done competing for the day, compared with Louisville players having to get right back on the court. And also, minor difference, Ware's leg shattered, and there was blood and bone and horror. Lee pulled a hamstring. So Ware's teammates didn't rush to his side, with the exception of Luke Hancock, who must be totally in touch with his feminine side, am I right? Or maybe people react differently to witnessing trauma. Maybe those players who collapsed on the floor, the ones who physically supported their crying teammates while licensed medical staff covered Ware's gore and formed an opaque huddle around him, maybe their varied reactions shouldn't be reduced to their Y chromosomes. Garza doesn't want to say that the lady way is better than the dude way. She's just observing, you know? There’s no right or wrong way to react to a teammate’s broken bone hatching from his leg on a basketball court. But there is a man’s way and there is a woman’s way. At the end of the game, it’s about what works best for the team. Considering Louisville followed Ware’s last wishes to them and beat Duke, 85-63, it looks like they handled things just fine. [...] When Hancock stood up and inched his way to Ware, he proved some men really are made of steel. Some men are as strong as women. Advertisement At least we live in a post-gender sports media world, where female columnists can offer platitudes as stupid as any male's. Steely women would've rushed to comfort injured teammate [LVRJ] H/t ChristinaPredating 24-hour media coverage and years ahead of Instagram rants and Twitter tizzies, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump mastered the art of the letter, according to a Thursday piece in the New York Times. The Times examines letters sent from the desk of The Donald to political adversaries and personal heroes alike, from his time as a New York real estate magnate, through his rise to the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee. “P.S. You are a loser,” he wrote to movie director Mike Tollin in 2009, pillorying his film about the fall of the United States Football League, and calling the documentary “third rate” and “extremely dishonest.” Not everything he wrote was negative. “I adore and love my little darling,” to former wife Ivana. “I truly believe that you are the greatest,” he told her in another. Framed, hanging and pinned across offices, bedroom walls and desks across the country, the pendulum swings of emotion found in Trump’s letters reflect much of what the electorate has witnessed in the past several months: Trump often enthusiastically declaring his love for supporters and admonishing the “dopes” and “losers” against him in the same breath. “If I had a secretary to do them (…) they wouldn’t be nearly as effective, they wouldn’t be nearly as sharp,” Trump said of his affinity for old-fashioned pen-and-pad communication. The Times isn’t the first journalistic endeavor to examine Trump’s correspondence. In November of last year, journalist Graydon Carter wrote that decades after referring to Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in Spy magazine in the 1980s, the Vanity Fair editor still receives the occasional note from Trump that includes a magazine photo of the billionaire businessman with his fingers circled in gold Sharpie. The handwritten words? “See, not so short!”TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - Environmental groups slammed rich nations’ leaders for ducking their leadership responsibilities when they addressed global warming at a summit on Tuesday, with WWF saying the lack of progress was “pathetic”. Protesters shout slogans at a march against the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit in Sapporo, July 8, 2008. Environmental groups slammed rich nations' leaders for ducking their leadership responsibilities when they addressed global warming at a summit on Tuesday, with WWF saying the lack of progress was "pathetic". REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon “The G8 are responsible for 62 percent of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the Earth’s atmosphere, which makes them the main culprit of climate change and the biggest part of the problem,” WWF said after the G8 issued a communique on climate change. “WWF finds it pathetic that they still duck their historic responsibility,” the campaign group said in a statement. Earlier, Group of Eight G8 leaders meeting in northern Japan said they would work with nearly 200 states in the United Nations climate change talks to adopt a goal of at least halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They also said midterm goals — such as the EU’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 — would be needed to achieve that target. Leaders said the statement represented progress by the G8 on addressing climate change. “At Heiligendamm, only six countries were recommending a 50 percent global greenhouse goal by 2050,” said Carolyn Olsen, chief spokeswoman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “Now all G8 countries are calling on the world to adopt a 50 percent by 2050 goal, and they have called for ambitious mid-term goals from all G8 countries and meaningful contributions from all major economies. This is major progress since last year.” But campaigners criticized the lack of a commitment to midterm targets and said the 2050 goal was insufficient because many scientists say emissions cuts bigger than 50 percent are needed to offset potentially devastating climate change. “This is a complete failure of responsibility. They haven’t moved forward at all. They’ve ducked the responsibility of adopting clear midterm targets and even the 2050 target is not a single thing more than what we got in Heiligendamm,” said Daniel Mittler, political adviser for Greenpeace International, referring to the German town where last year’s G8 was held. “Now we’re one year after Heiligendamm when they pledged quick and decisive action and all they come up with is ‘yes, we’ll discuss it at the U.N.’, that’s just not good enough,” he told Reuters. “This is the result of an oil man preventing the world from moving forward one last time, and the only good news is that this will be Bush’s last G8 summit.” Oxfam said the G8 climate agreement threatened the world’s poor. “Rather than a breakthrough, the G8’s announcement on 2050 is another stalling tactic that does nothing to lower the risk faced by millions of poor people right now,” said Oxfam spokesman Antonio Hill. UK-based development agency Tearfund also said the G8 was dithering. “The G8 are crawling forward on emissions cuts at a time when giant leaps and bounds are needed,” Peter Grant, Tearfund’s international director, said. “To do little more than restate last year’s G8 commitment to halve emissions by 2050 is a very disappointing outcome, demonstrating a lack of leadership and vision.”Following an online outcry, the London Film Awards Critic's Circle has recognised the Irish stars on it's shortlist, such as Saoirse Ronan, Michael Fassbender and Colin Farrell, as Irish and not British as they were previously labelled. Saoirse Ronan found herself nominated for British Actress of the Year today, with Michael Fassbender and Colin Farrell shortlisted for British Actor of the Year, and Emma Donoghue given the nod for Breakthrough British Filmmaker of the Year. Brooklyn was also listed in the British Film category. He's Irish ok! Well, German-Irish......but not British Twitter and social media quickly went into meltdown and after enough outrage at the sleight was generated, there was a hasty relabelling of the categories. The website now being updated to sound a lot more inclusive by including 'Irish' in the category titles. On the LFCC website, a post from 2010 aimed to pre-empt any outrage. It reads, "There is no intention to suggest that Irish talent is British should an Irish citizen be nominated in the 'British' categories and all Irish nominees know this. It simply recognises the complex nature of film making, a collaborative affair often crossing national boundaries." Hmmmm. Success on the @londoncritics category name front. Congrats to all nominees. pic.twitter.com/GQ2JYKr8wi — Scannain (@Scannain_com) December 15, 2015Part I - The beginning Five years ago, there would be no way in hell that I could ever conceive of leaving the Christian faith. But here I am today, only mere months after I finally garnered the courage to change my Facebook status (oh, heaven forbid!) and be public about my faith...or lack thereof. Friends have asked me why, and how, someone who was as zealous a Christian as I could so intentionally and deliberately leave the faith, so I decided I am in a good, and secure place... and I'm ready to answer why. Before I go into the full reason, I feel the need to offer a couple of disclaimers. The first is that I feel in order to fully explain why I left the church, I need to offer some background into the events that led up to this decision... so bear with me, and please respect that this is not an easy article to write. Also, what makes this article especially difficult is that in writing it, inevitably I will be thinking of people who have influenced my decision to leave the Christian faith, and some of those people might find themselves reading this article. I do not wish to speak ill of anyone, and I will do my best to not name anyone outright, but people who know me well enough might be able to identify people I reference, and for that, I apologize. I do not wish to put anybody in a bad light. Do I have friends that are Christian? Yes. Do I care about them very much? Yes. With that being said... this is what happened: To start at the beginning, I did not grow up in a Christian home. My parents, who are two loving and supportive people, both grew up in Christian homes (Dad was Lutheran and Mom was Catholic) but both stopped going to church very quickly after they grew up. For reasons I still don't exactly know why (except that it was "the thing to do") my sister and I were baptized as Catholics, and we went to the Catholic school down the street from the house where I grew up, out of convenience. This Catholic school was next to a Catholic church, and that Catholic church had a youth minister who would come next door to the school with his guitar, come into class, and play cheesy Christian songs (like "Shine Jesus Shine") and it was awesome because we didn't have to do math class anymore! But also, when I was a kid (and this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me) I was totally that awkward kid, with the bad haircut and glasses and my nose in a book all the time. I saw this individual and this youth group he had as a welcome invitation, to make friends and meet people who were welcoming and would accept me unconditionally for who I was, books and all. And I was exactly right. I started going out to this church youth group and felt very welcomed, and loved, and developed a very positive friend community that had a great effect on my self-esteem. My teenage years were very happy, and I do want to stress that. As far as Catholic churches go, this particular church had more of an "evangelical" edge to it, and was pretty strongly influenced by a revival movement, very similar to Pentecostal revival movements, that had hit the Catholic church in North America in the '80s. What I mean by this, is that there was an altar call kind of moment, there was a "movement of the Holy Spirit," so to speak, and a moment where I "accepted Jesus into my heart" -- looking back, I'm not sure if this was a true moment or not, or that I was swept up by the emotions of the event involved: the music, the charismatic speaker, and whatnot. I also wonder if I "accepted Jesus" because all my friends at that time had already done so and there was a bit of peer pressure involved. Either way, I really did love Jesus. Hardcore. I kept my bible in my backpack, I went to church every week (it was also convenient because I played piano for various church choirs so I had a commitment to go, and playing was so easy and fun for me) I even prayed the rosary. Every single night. There was none more zealous than I, and I'm sure this caused me to be alienated even more from my peers, but at the time, I didn't care, because to me, I had a god who loved me, so who gave a shit about what other people thought? Part II - Since when do parking lots cost $40,000? At the end of my high school career, I applied and got accepted into a year-long missions program where you travel across North America going to churches and go to Ghana. This is where my seemingly unshakable faith, started to crumble. I can confirm that there are some pretty corrupt churches in Southern Ontario/the United States. I know, because I've been to them and spent time there. Churches where there were pastors literally screaming at each other behind closed doors, (we were at one church over the Easter weekend, and minutes before the service had started for Easter Sunday, found out that the two pastors had been screaming at each other and threatening to quit... minutes before the service started); churches that were blinded by capitalism (I cannot understand the justification of the money spent in mega-churches) and authority (I had someone tell me to "Please, refer to me as Pastor _______"). We went to a church where they were holding a $40,000 fundraiser... for a parking lot. And yes, they already had a completely functional parking lot, but they wanted a nicer parking lot. I was furious at the thought, especially when we had just gotten back from Ghana and had encountered some of the most blatant and unfair forms of poverty I had ever seen in my life. When you see enough of the nasty underbelly of churches, you're left with a really bad taste for the hypocrisy, politics, and gossip that seemed to be a trend with most churches we went to. The one thing I seemed to continually come across, was the fact that I was Catholic, and the majority of churches we were visiting were very Protestant. According to a lot of these people, I'm not a Christian, or a REAL Christian, and the Catholic church is a terrible corrupt place and the Pope is the anti-Christ and Catholics are just misguided Mary-worshippers... I have heard it all. And the thing is, Catholics feel the same about Protestants -- they have "some of the truth, but not all of the truth." So I was suddenly finding myself in a constant year-long debate against what felt like everybody I came into contact with, because the form of Christianity I subscribed to, was different than their form of Christianity. So who was right? They think they are right, and I think I am right. And I grew to learn, that people don't like the idea of being wrong, and I had to become comfortable with the fact that I could be wrong, and that it's OK. I could grow, I could learn, being wrong wasn't bad, it was good because then I could correct what is wrong and learn from it. But further than that, this thought caused me to realize, how arrogant I was, to think that my form of small-town Southern-Ontario Catholic Christianity was the only way that people could come to know God properly, when there are billions of people all over the world who reach out to all kinds of higher powers and forms of spiritual enlightenment all the time? And those people feel the same kind of assurance, peace, and goodness that I do? I can't have the nerve to say that these people were wrong because how they relate to their god is different than mine, when all I have to justify my belief is a book. Which is exactly what I was doing. And exactly what those people who thought being Catholic was wrong were doing to me. Part III - What happened out there After the year was over I went to university, and after my first year of university, I had a very difficult summer. I couldn't find a job, so I tried to make a go of it and started my own business, which is incredibly stressful as it is. I was also very lonely, which made me very vulnerable. A person whom I thought was a friend paid to have me fly out to visit him in Vancouver. I was also incredibly naive at the time and didn't think getting sexually assaulted could possibly happen to me on this trip to Vancouver... but it kind of did. And I was in a terrifying place, having no money, being thousands of miles away from home and friends and familiar faces, and having no means to escape and run away. I can't explain how horrible it feels to not be able to run away when you're in danger. In the Christian faith, especially conservative Christian faith, there are a couple of very large no-no's, and sex before marriage is one of the biggest ones. I've heard and been to talks where people equate pre-marital sex to losing your value, or being like a piece of tape that gets stuck and re-stuck until it can't stick anymore, or a bank account where you're cashing out money until you have none. At the time, I very heavily blamed myself for what happened to me and was terrified to let on in even the remotest sense that anything bad (that I didn't consent to) had happened. A large portion of my reasoning was those analogies about what happens when you have sex before marriage kept playing over and over again in my head. I also had this stupid thought, that since I was regarded as a leader, I can't let anything bad happen to me, or show any kind of indiscretion. It's horrible how deeply I blamed myself for the whole thing, which is so wrong, and so harmful to do. I felt tremendously ashamed, as though I had done something wrong, and this was a tremendous lie that took a long time to get over. Oddly enough, I only ever had one friend who directly cut through my bullshit story and asked me what really happened. Only one, out of all the friends who knew I was going. And I was too afraid to tell him, and when I finally did, he reacted in a way that made me feel even more wretched about myself. (He and I have talked about this and apologies have been made.) But still, I wished somebody had warned me, or said something, or kindly reminded me to be careful. I had one friend email and caution me against going... two weeks after I had gotten back. Two weeks too late. And when I finally started to tell people what really happened, a lot of people reacted inappropriately, saying that I should forgive the guy, or that God was going to heal me, or that good things will come out of it. Just for future reference -- don't EVER say those things to someone who has been sexually assaulted. It's ignorant, rude, and dismissive, and caused me to feel further alienated. The question, "where was God?" kept on asking itself to me as I tried to process what had happened. God is supposed to love me, and protect me, and keep me from harm. This is what I had been taught, yet here I was, feeling like my church had failed me by keeping me sheltered and naive, and feeling like I was continually let down by Christians in their dismissive, harmful reactions when I had finally got the courage to stop thinking about those "sex before marriage ruins you" analogies and talk about what happened. I reasoned two things to answer my question about where was God, when I was in Vancouver: God either was present and there, and did nothing about it, or God was not there, and does not exist. It is easier for me to think that God does not exist, than to think that God was present and did nothing. A God who is present and does nothing is not all-powerful, and is not all-loving, and I simply cannot forgive a god who stands by and watches while people get hurt after he promised to protect people. If I had the power to stop something bad happening to someone I loved, I would do everything I could to stop it. Of all of the times in my life that I needed God, God was not there. This is where I stopped believing in God -- I would rather think that God simply does not exist, then think that God abandoned me. Further than that, I began to think of how randomly senseless the world could be. I grew up in a safe and loving environment in a stable country with a good economy. The majority of the world cannot say the same. Where is God then? I had people ask me to pray for them in a village we were visiting in Ghana because they have no clean drinking water. Where is God then? I met a homeless person in Toronto who asked me to pray for him so he could overcome his drug addictions and find a safe place to sleep that night. Is God protecting him? Where is God in the face of natural disasters that destroy countries and leave countless numbers of people devastated? How can an all-powerful, completely loving, benevolent God allow that kind of random injustice and suffering? I started to think of the many times where I have heard other people, and have also found myself, thanking God for being present in the little things -- God helped me ace that test, or God helped me get to work on time, or God led me to my true love. How incredibly selfish is it for me to reason that God is always present and doing little magical things to make my life easier when there are people who live in this world who don't have the basic necessities for living? And then, maybe those people in that village in Ghana do get clean drinking water one day, and they are thankful that God provided for them. What kind of God denies people basic necessities for living and then demands their thankfulness if he does choose to provide? I would rather that God does not exist, than choose to follow that kind of god. Living with this secret, this "sin" made me realize that I didn't feel welcome in the churches I went to anymore, and the times when I felt most welcome, were the times before anything bad had happened to me... which feels very backwards to what I understand Christianity to be about. The more I started doubting my faith, the more the bible made perfect sense to me, and the easier it became to read: Jesus loved the poorest of the poor. He spent time with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and the people with the worst reputations, and loved them unconditionally, contrary to the culture they were a part of. God wasn't a god of the rich and powerful, but a god of the outcast and enslaved, who freed oppressed people and stood for the rights of the downtrodden. So naturally it would feel like this kind of unconditional love, and this unity and welcomeness should be extended to all people, regardless of gender, race, and class, just as Jesus embodied in his life. Yet I fail to see that in so many churches. I've encountered too many Christians who (for example) would rather argue about the theology of whether a homosexual person is an inherently disordered individual living in sin according to the book of Genesis... rather than recognizing how deeply harmful those kinds of dialogues are and the profound effect that kind of thinking has on the lives of people. I know I speak broadly, and am at risk of generalizing, but too often I feel like in so many parts of the North American church, there is far too little emphasis on an ongoing option for appropriately caring for the poor, and that such care manifests itself in ways that do not "inconvenience us" or involve colonialism (like short-term missions trips, for instance). In a Facebook note where I wrote about these thoughts many years ago, I said, "It has become too easy, too passive, and expectations have fallen too low. Where is the challenge if I begin to feel like the view towards salvation is that it is assured simply because I fill up a space in a church pew? There is too much brokenness in this weary world, and too great a responsibility, and (by the way...) saving souls should never, ever, ever, be thought of in numerical terms... Don't give me a church with good music and good public speaking. Give me Jesus. Give me the courage that Jesus had to love tax collectors, prostitutes, and to approach the lowest caste, the diseased, dirty, and dying, and love them. Don't give me an altar call and have the nerve to tell me that all I have to do is kneel down, say 'yes,' and that is my way into heaven. Give me the weight of the world, and the responsibility of the impoverished, the dying, and the hungry." I found myself continually dissatisfied, and unable to justify this kind of "feel-good" attitude I found in so many churches I encountered. I was very quickly running out of answers and reasons. Part IV - Nails in the coffin And then a couple of things happened, that in my mind, I refer to as the "nails in the coffin." There were of course many things that happened, many negative conversations and traumatizing experiences, but I'll talk about two of them that encompass the spirit of most of what happened, for the sake of length. (We all know this post is long enough already...lol). The first "nail" that happened was that I volunteered at a weekend youth retreat that I volunteer at every year, and for the first time in a tremendously long time, deeply related with what the speaker had to say. The people who organize the event (who are also good friends of mine and the organizers of the year-long missions program I went on) had invited a speaker they had seen at an earlier event, and his message was very clear, and very simple: It is OK to doubt your faith. In fact, doubting your faith and questioning it helps your faith to grow. Also a person's actions are a reflection of what they believe. If, in my actions or inactions, I am supporting systems or institutions that enable oppression, this is what I believe in. I loved his message. His message resonated deeply with me, and for the first time in this dark night of the soul I was experiencing, I felt a glimmer of light, and a chance for encouragement. I could doubt my faith, and that was OK. However, I was one of only a few people who resounded with what he had to say. Many, many people at the event thought his ideas were "heretical" "un-biblical" and couldn't believe that this "non-Christian" was speaking at their event. People were walking out on talks, arguments were taking place all over the grounds this event was held at, and the poor speaker was getting harassed everywhere he went. People were telling him they needed to pray for him to receive Jesus into his life, saying he was a heretic, and looking for opportunities to argue him at every turn. The hardest part for me, in the midst of witnessing this insanity, was that a lot of the people who disagreed so strongly with him were people I knew personally. People whose churches I had visited, or people I had lived with or worked with or spent extended time with. And they were saying that it's not OK to doubt your faith. In fact you are not allowed to doubt your faith, and if you're doing so, you're not a Christian. This broke my heart, and I realized that these people I had known for years were not safe people, or kind accepting people that I could be open with my struggles about. (I need to offer a disclaimer: not all of my friends, including my friends who organized the event, hated what he had to say. A lot of people related to him the same way I did, and that meant a lot to me.) After the event, I knew the organizers would receive piles upon piles of angry emails, and I made an attempt to curve the anger away from them by writing a Facebook note, and circulating it on social media. Within three days of writing the note I had over 120 comments on the note, and piles of messages in my inbox. I had angry messages, messages from people who were "concerned" about me
best of class in any area (except possibly ranging offhand), it is an outstanding rangefinder. The advanced brush and bullseye modes are truly innovative, and can really help these handle some of the toughest ranging scenarios. The optical performance isn’t great, and the ergonomics are poor. But the fact that you can find these for under $1,000 makes them in a winner in my book. Photo Gallery Ranging Performance The ranging performance of the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars is outstanding. While it isn’t best of class, it was clearly better than some rangefinders that cost twice as much. Bushnell has certainly made significant improvements in the ranging capabilities over the Bushnell Fusion 1600. Through this field test, I’ve grown a little cynical regarding the max range that manufacturers advertise for their rangefinders. Most of the time you can look at what they say, and cut it by 25% and that is the actual max range you can reasonably expect out in the field. The Bushnell Fusion 1 Miles were refreshing, in that they delivered on their 1 mile promise. Here are the results of ranging a 2 MOA reflective target in ideal, low-light conditions from a tripod at various ranges from 600 to 2,000 yards. The exact size and shape of the targets, as well as the surroundings varied, but details of each target along with more details of the test are given in the ranging performance test results post. Each target was ranged 10 times under the same conditions. You can see in ideal conditions, the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars were able to range targets out to 1760 yards with 70% accuracy. That is impressive. But, your eye is probably drawn to the 1200 yard target, and honestly when it happened in the field I didn’t really know what caused it. Most rangefinders struggled with the 1000 yard target, because it was a very difficult ranging scenario with nearby brush and inclines in front of and behind the target. But the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile handled the 1000 yard target really well (thanks to the advanced ranging modes). At 1200 yards the rangefinder continually displayed readings short of the target, which related to some brush 30-40 yards forward of the target (can be seen below and to the left of the target in the photo below. In a recent conversation with Bushnell engineers, I may have uncovered why the unit struggled so much with this target scenario. Most rangefinders produce a beam that is a horizontal rectangle, but the engineers at Bushnell designed the Fusion binoculars to have a vertical beam. You can see the difference in the diagram below. A Bushnell engineer said they made this design choice to optimize performance for common hunting scenarios. He explained that often times an animal might walk into an opening between trees or shrubs and a vertical beam would have a better chance of hitting the intended target without getting erroneous readings off nearby brush. I created the diagram below to illustrate what he meant. This is likely why the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars had a much tougher time with the 1200 yard target than other models. It essentially was more prone to pick up readings off the brush below the target than models with horizontal beam divergence. Is vertical beam divergence bad? Not necessarily. I can’t argue that it was a poor design choice, it is just different than most. There are some scenarios where a vertical beam will be a good thing, and some it will be a drawback. Bushnell engineers felt like there were more scenarios where it was a positive thing. I actually really appreciate Bushnell engineer’s approach. They seem to constantly question things, and that causes them to be a leading innovator in rangefinders. One of the absolute best things the Bushnell rangefinders have going for them is the advanced modes they allow the user to select from. I explain this in-depth in the How Rangefinders Work post, but I’ll give a quick recap here. The Bushnell Fusion binoculars provide 3 selective targeting modes the user can select from: Normal : Takes all the distance readings into consideration and tries to make an intelligent decision about what your intended target was. This is the only mode available on most rangefinders. : Takes all the distance readings into consideration and tries to make an intelligent decision about what your intended target was. This is the only mode available on most rangefinders. BullsEye : Allows easy acquisition of small targets and game without inadvertently getting distances to background targets that have stronger signal strength. When more than one object has been acquired, distance of the closer object will be displayed. : Allows easy acquisition of small targets and game without inadvertently getting distances to background targets that have stronger signal strength. When more than one object has been acquired, distance of the closer object will be displayed. Brush: Allows objects such as brush and tree branches to be ignored so the distance only to background objects are displayed. When more than one object has been acquired, distance of the further object will be displayed. These “advanced modes” are an innovative feature, and something other optics manufacturers should take notice of. Essentially this allows the user to “hint” at what approach will give them the best chance of getting the reading on their intended target. Ultimately, the user knows more about the particular situation they are trying to range, for example if there is brush partially obscuring the target or they are trying to range a very small target. These modes simply provide a way for them to convey that info to the rangefinder so it can better interpret the results. In bright light conditions, radiation from the sun can cause interference and limit the range and resolution of readings a rangefinder is able to gather. This obviously has a negative effect on performance. The chart below shows how the Bushnell 1 Mile performed at sunset, and how it performed ranging those same targets 3 hours before sunset. Once again, this testing was done from a tripod, with visibility of 10+ miles on 2 MOA, reflective targets. In bright lighting conditions, the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile rangefinder could occasionally get distance readings up to 1400 yards. But it was very, very reliable out to 800 yards. Remember this was all from a tripod on 2 MOA reflective targets. I also tested the Bushnell 1 Mile offhand, meaning it wasn’t supported by a tripod. The Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile was best of class offhand, even compared to those costing 2 to 20 times as much. I believe this was due to its larger beam divergence (which helped ensure you got energy on the target even from a wobbly position) combined with the selective targeting modes that allowed me to hint at what reading I wanted it to weight more heavily. The consistency and accuracy it was able to provide offhand was very, very impressive. For more details on the ranging test results, including specifics of targets and other info, check out the ranging performance test results. Equivalent Horizontal Distance One downside is that these binoculars can only display the equivalent horizontal distance when it’s in bow mode, which is limited to 100 yards. As a long-range shooter, this is an important feature because that is really the only distance measurement I care about. Bushnell calls this “Angle Range Compensated distance,” which is where their ARC acronym comes from. It essentially is the distance that gravity will act over, not just the line of sight distance, and it isn’t something just applicable to bow hunters. So if you’re ranging beyond 100 yards, essentially the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars can’t provide the equivalent horizontal distance. Ballistic Functions The Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars do provide some basic ballistics features. It provides 8 preset ballistic profiles, and allows you to choose the one that best fits your cartridge. For long-range shooters this approach doesn’t provide the accuracy you’ll need. You really need the ability to load custom ballistic profiles for long-range accuracy. But in hunting scenarios with shots under 500 yards it would probably be adequate if you select a profile that closely matches your ballistics. Bushnell limits the ballistic functions to 800 yards or less. Optical Performance For my field tests, I tried to come up with an objective, data-driven approach for testing optical clarity and what I ended up doing was placing eye exam charts from 600 to 1,400 yards and then recording what size of letters two different people could accurately read. These were virtually identical to the eye charts doctors use to assess visual acuity by determining how much detail and definition a patient can make out at a particular distance. I combined all that data into a single score for each model so they can be ranked in terms of how much detail my two testers could make out. I provide a lot more detail about how the test was conducted, and compare other optical specs in The Optical Performance Results post. Here are the overall optical results for the entire set of binoculars I tested, including the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile: Of all the ranging binoculars we tested, the Bushnell 1 Mile binoculars had the poorest optical clarity. Were they a disaster? No. They just aren’t in the same class as models made by Leica or Zeiss. I would compare the optical quality to that of a $200-500 pair of binoculars (like those made by Nikon, Leupold, or even Bushnell). You are essentially getting optics of that quality, plus a great rangefinder, and paying a little bit of a premium for it all to fit in one compact package. I’ve had a lot of readers make comments about the results we found for the Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile compared to the Bushnell Fusion 1600 binoculars. The facts are, the pair of Bushnell 1600’s we had clearly performed better optically than the pair of Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars we tested. Both pair were brand new, straight out of the box. That makes it appear like Bushnell might have dramatically improved the ranging capabilities with the new model, but took a step back in terms of optical clarity. To meet targeted price point, you sometimes have to make compromises like that. However, a few people have commented that these results don’t match their own experience with these two models. I’m not sure if they had a completely empirical, unbiased approach like we tried to have in these field tests, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the quality varies model to model. It would be difficult for Bushnell to have the same level of quality controls in place that Zeiss, Leica, or Vectronix does. So it is not out of the question that we might have had a pair with below average optical quality. However, that still says something. While you may end up with a pair that has better optical performance, you also have a chance of getting optical quality at this level (or possibly even lower) with Bushnell Fusion 1 Mile binoculars. Really, I’m just trying to present the hard data that we collected from the field, without personal bias and with as little interpretation as possible. We feel like the tests we conducted were as accurate and unbiased as we could think up. While the tests weren’t perfect … at the end of the day, this data accurately represents what we experienced in the field. Specs Most manufactures make it very tough to compare their product to others out there. So, I spent days searching websites, user manuals, and calling/emailing manufacturers (several times each) to gather a complete set of detailed specifications and put them in a format that allows easy side-by-side comparison. There are almost 40 different specs, including actual measured weights, dimensions, and the max ranges found in my field tests for each model (which can be very different from what the manufacturer claims). Some manufacturers list this specs in metric units and others are in U.S. standard units … I’ve converted everything to the same units to make comparison easy. I also read through each of the manuals to see exactly what each one does or doesn’t have in terms of advanced features like equivalent horizontal range, and ballistics functions. Some of the specs I even measured or calculated myself, because they weren’t available anywhere or were specs manufacturers are notorious for exaggerating. General Specs Manufacturer Part # 202310 Street Price¹ $1,199 (occassionally under $1k) Measured Weight in Use² 35.6 oz Measured Dimensions³ 6.8 × 6.0 × 2.4 inches Housing T6105 Aluminum Waterproof Yes Tripod Adaptable Optional Adapter Included Strap Padded Waffle-Style (not contoured) Limited Warranty 2 yr, Non-transferrable Ranging Specs Beam Divergence 1.5 × 3.0 mrad (vertical beam) Tested Max Range⁴ 1,760 yd Claimed: 1,760 yd Tested Min Range 9 yd Claimed: 10 Claimed Accuracy ± 1 yd Tested Repetition Rate 35 ranges/min Receiver Optic (Rx) Aperture Size MFR refused to specify Laser Type 900-910 nm Pulse Duration 40 ns Battery Type 1 CR123 Lithium Battery Life 2,000 measurements Equivalent Horizontal Range Function No (Only in Bow Mode < 100 yd) Display Multiple Object Distances Function No Advanced Ranging Modes Scan, Closet Object, Further Object Ballistics Functions Limited to 800 yd 8 preset ballistics curves, provides holdover info in inches, mil, or MOA out to 800 yards max Optical Specs Magnification 10 Objective Lens Diameter 42 mm Exit pupil 4.2 mm Eye Relief 18 mm Field of view at 1000 yards 305 ft Objective Angle of View 5.8° Prism Type Roof BaK-4 Glass MFR refused to specify Coatings Fully Multicoated, Anti-Reflective coating, Raingaurd HD, PC-3 Phase Corrective coating Relative Brightness (RE) 17.6 Twilight Factor 20.5 Measured Focus Rotations 1.6 Focus System Central Warranty Bushnell offers a 2 year limited warranty on the Bushnell 1 Mile binoculars. This warranty is non-transferrable, which means it only covers it if you’re the original owner that purchased it from an authorized Bushnell dealer. So if you buy a used pair, no warranty. This isn’t the best warranty for optics like this, but it isn’t the worse either. Of course we’d like it to be longer, but at this price point it probably makes sense. Resources © Copyright 2019 PrecisionRifleBlog.com, All Rights Reserved.That didn’t take long. Victims’ advocacy groups are going after Bernie Sanders for asserting that campus sexual assault—like all other kinds of sexual assault—is best left to law enforcement. In his comments earlier this week, Sanders stated explicitly that rape must always be dealt with as a criminal manner, rather than as an education issue. While that might seem like a stridently anti-rape stance, it actually puts him at odds with the vast majority of campus advocacy groups, who agree that rape is an epidemic and yet believe campus-run show trials that result in mere expulsion are the best way to deal with rapists. The Huffington Post interviewed several such activists who were dissatisfied with Sanders’ comments: "Advocating for requiring survivors to go to the police shows his lack of understanding of what constitutes equity on campus," said Andrea Pino, a survivor and co-founder of the activist group End Rape On Campus, "and also demonstrates an ignorance of the current lack of police preparedness on this issue." Alexandra Brodsky, a Yale Law student and co-founder of the advocacy group Know Your IX, said Sanders has "a lot to learn." "Without key interventions by their schools, many survivors won't be able to continue their educations," Brodsky wrote on Feministing, where she is an editor. "An extension on a paper due the week after an assault might make the difference between a victim staying in school and dropping out. No police force can provide that kind of accommodation. Don't want victims'sitting in a classroom alongside somebody who raped them'? A school can often make that happen more quickly than a student can get a restraining order, particularly if he or she has trouble accessing a court." The most charitable explanation of their argument for why colleges rather than (or at least, in addition to) the police should handle rape is this: sexual assault is not merely a crime, but a violation of Title IX, the provision of federal law prohibiting gender-based discrimination in higher education. Student-victims of rape have been deprived of their legal right to an education, and thus campuses are obligated to put certain practices into place to help them cope—practices that neglect the due process rights of accused students. Of course, this argument is something of a tautology. Unelected bureaucrats in the Title IX agency—the Office for Civil Rights—invented the idea that sexual assault is a deprivation of a student’s civil rights rather than just a violent crime, and these same bureaucrats are the ones proscribing all the solutions for it. Activists maintain that students should have the option to report to campus administrators, the police, or both. But it’s worth wondering whether this extra path—where innocent people are treated too harshly, and guilty people are not treated harshly enough—deters victims from going down the road that would actually protect the broader community (beyond just the university) from dangerous predators: reporting to the police. It would not surprise me if the pushback from activists persuades Sanders to walk back his comments. But he should stick to his guns: he's right, in this case. As he said, rape is a terrible crime, and the way it's handled by campuses is insulting.Rosalyn D'Mello, a journalist based in India’s capital New Delhi, still recalls how her family and friends used to mock her because of her dark complexion when she was a young girl. "They used to call me kaali (black), ‘blacky’ and even ‘negro’ because of my dark skin," she said. "My mother was cruel about my skin shade. She wanted me to use 'Fair and Lovely'," a skin lightening cream," D’Mello said. "I don’t believe in the norm that equates beauty with skin colour." Millions of Indians, overwhelmingly women, face biases like D’Mello on a daily basis. To counter deeply held cultural perceptions on race and beauty, Women of Worth (WOW), a non-governmental organisation based in the southern city of Chennai, promoted a campaign called "Dark is Beautiful" with renewed vigour in August to highlight the issue. Though the campaign was initially launched in 2009, it gained prominence this year after Bollywood actress Nandita Das backed the campaign with a string of print advertisements that called on every Indian to "Stay Unfair, Stay Beautiful". "I have always been very outspoken about this issue, but till recently it was more informal," Das, known for critically acclaimed films such as "Fire" and "Earth", told Al Jazeera in an email interview. "As the issue impacts so many people, young girls in particular, by default I have become a champion of it." "I have had directors and camerapersons telling me that it would be good if I made my skin lighter as I was playing an educated upper class woman." The initiative has received a lot of attention after Das announced her support. Thousands of people have signed the petition and the popularity of the "Dark is Beautiful" Facebook page has been growing. Colour bias "It should be seen in the context of caste system that maintains through a variety of ways to exploit the labour or oppressed castes, who happen to have darker skin compared to the upper castes," Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), told Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera's email interview with Nandita Das Read our full interview with Indian actress Nandita Das View the Document "Colonial rule and its overt racism has been adopted and integrated into the society and compounded by the caste attitude. There is this caste sense of superiority, despite Indians' default setting being dark." The deep-rooted colour bias has ensured that in certain professions such as aviation, films and many other white collar jobs, people with fair skin are generally the preferred choice. In the western state of Maharashtra, about 100 tribal girls, who were trained to be airhostesses and cabin crew under a government scholarship programme aimed at empowering them, were denied jobs apparently because of their darker skin colour. Only eight of them landed jobs, but only as ground staff, according to a report by the Indian Express newspaper. Marriage, which in India's case is mostly arranged, is an ordeal especially for women as looking fair is the dominant theme. Matrimonial advertisements reflect this social trend where potential brides and bridegrooms with fair complexion are the most in demand. In fact, skin colour seems to have become as important a marker as age and occupation. "Women are treated as an asset (or parayadhan which means "others’ wealth") by the traditional Indian household," Krishnan said. Fairness creams An array of leading Bollywood stars endorse various skin whitening creams often with very regressive messages that end up promoting prejudice around skin colour and looks. Cultural preference to look "beautiful" and the burden of fairness predominantly falls on women,forcing millions into using skin lightening creams such as "Fair and Lovely," introduced in early 1970s. The Indian fairness cream market generates revenue of more than $400m and has been growing by 20 percent annually, according to Bloomberg. According to another report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India, the cosmetics industry is poised to double by 2014 to $3.6bn. The cosmetics business has capitalised on peoples' insecurity, critics says, alleging the industry has been running insensitive and irresponsible campaigns to allure new customers. Last year, public outcry erupted after a cosmetics firm launched a cream to lighten the skin around the vagina. "The glorification of the fair skin has been there in our films for long, long time. But it only reflects the bias of the society," Das said. Campaigns But there are many among the film fraternity who have come out against these trends. Bollywood filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, who directed films such as "Bandit Queen" and "Elizabeth", last year started a campaign with the Twitter hashtag "adswedontbuy" to protest against irresponsible ads, including ads for skin whitening creams. Millions joined the discussion within a period of 24 hours. Be yourself and be comfortable in your skin. Don’t let anybody rob you off your self-esteem. Indian actress Nandita Das The campaigners behind "Dark is Beautiful" have also filed a petition with change.org asking Emami, a cosmetics company, to take down an advertisement promoting Fair and Handsome, a fairness cream for men. Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, who features in the ad, tosses a tube of the fairness cream to a youngster telling him that fairness is the secret to success in life. An email request to the makers of "Fair and Handsome" cream to comment on the story was not answered at the time of publication of this article. WOW’s founder Kavitha Emmanuel said activists plan to partner with like-minded organisations across India to bring the issue into the mainstream. "Shahrukh is a national icon and if he leads the change he would be making a huge statement. We are trying to get in touch with him," she said. In the past two decades, India has seen impressive growth: its middle class has burgeoned and more people, including women, go to universities and are part of the workforce. However, many other prejudices such as colour bias and gender issues are still entrenched in the society. "Caste attitudes have not eroded from the educated class," Krishnan said. "Regressive attitudes thrive among [the] privileged class." Thanks to the campaign, many men and women, who have gone through discrimination themselves, have come out and blogged about their experiences. For many like D'Mello, the shades of their skin have not stood in the way of their success, but for millions of other women the skin tan does become hurdle in their way to empowerment. "Now the colour of my skin has become a very large part of life, it has become my identity," D’Mello said. "It no longer bothers me." Follow Saif Khalid on Twitter: @msaifkhalid This feature is a part of our ongoing special India coverage. To read more stories click here.The Masters are right around the corner, and we all know what that means: time for another Jim Nantz story. The longtime CBS announcer and future work partner of Tony Romo is set to host the network’s Masters coverage for the 28th consecutive year. You don’t work in the business that long without picking up a few quirks along the way, and now is as good a time as any to revisit one of Nantz’s more bizarre habits. It’s quite bizarre, too: Nantz carries a picture of burnt toast in his wallet everywhere he goes. We know what you’re thinking: This is some grand metaphor for a time he got “burned” as a young broadcaster and came back stronger than ever. Nope. It turns out his reasoning is pretty practical, if a bit strange. “I’m a breakfast guy: three eggs scrambled, with bacon and wheat toast, burnt,” Nantz explained in a March 2016 interview with Golf Digest. “The problem is, it never came back burnt. For years it would arrive limp and tan, which brought breakfast to a standstill when I sent the toast back. It was costing me 10 minutes a day, which, multiplied by six days a week, is four hours a month. That’s 48 hours — two full days — per year. My friends, time is currency.” “My wife, Courtney, got tired of hearing me complain about it. She found a photograph on the internet of a kitchen toaster ejecting two slices of burnt toast. She minimized it, printed it out and had it laminated. She insisted I put it in my wallet. When I order, I present the photo to my server. I get some strange looks, but I can assure you, the toast now arrives black and scary, just the way I like it.” There you have it: Nantz was tired of getting un-burnt toast, so he printed out a photo of burnt toast to show to future servers. You can do anything you set your mind to, kids. Thumbnail photo via Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY NETWORKJuliet Linderman, The Associated Press Health officials are investigating what may have sickened over 100 people who attended a conference where more than 1,300 food safety experts had gathered. No one at the Food Safety Summit held April 8-10 in Baltimore was hospitalized, according to health officials, and most people reported cases of diarrhea. Alvina K. Chu, who is leading the Maryland Department of Health's investigation, said Tuesday that officials haven't yet determined what caused people to get sick. It's not yet clear if the illness was transmitted by food or from person to person, she said. The Baltimore City Health Department received complaints of nausea and diarrhea from four people one week after the conference. After the illnesses were reported, city health officials inspected the convention centre and its in-house catering company, Centerplate, on April 16, and issued a violation for condensation dripping from an ice machine, according to city health department spokesman Michael Schwartzberg. City health officials found no violations during the most recent regularly scheduled inspection of the convention centre on Feb. 27. The state health department sent a survey to summit attendees on April 17. About 400 responded, with more than 100 people reporting symptoms. Health officials said there have been no reported hospitalizations or deaths. Rita Foumia, corporate strategy director for BNP Media, which hosts the summit, said nothing like this has happened in the summit's 16-year history. AP Food Industry Writer Candice Choi contributed to this story.Unfortunately, it’s even rarer. A few days ago I went to the family court in my area for a case that was pulled last of all, which meant I got to observe the other cases. Among these others were a couple of joint petitions for divorce, in which both partners stood together before the judge and, having agreed on everything, got divorced. Simple. But what struck me about these “joint petition” divorces, especially the first one, was how in sync the two people were. They were so in agreement with each other, so intent on helping each other move on in life… that they sat down on the bench together, carried each other’s jackets, held the door for each other… it was as if they were brother and sister. After that first divorce (which involved no lawyers at all), I told the person next to me, “I want to clap my hands. That was so well done.” We often think of breaking up and divorce as being bad, horrible things. And certainly, when a breakup happens against the will of one or both people in the relationship, it is traumatic. I think that many of us are afraid of that happening, so afraid of it that we never get to see this other side of things: that a good, peaceful breakup can be a wonderful opportunity to turn a new corner in life. I feel the need specifically to say this because, of those marriages that do not end in divorce, many become bitterly plagued with resentment and fear… and even in cases of divorce, often one or both partners wishes it had happened sooner. All over society, there is this implicit belief that a marriage must stay together forever. The judge in the courtroom I was in would ask these couples if they thought that the marriage had suffered “irretrievable breakdown” and whether there was “any chance of reconciliation,” as if the norm always has to be to fight for the relationship to stay together. Now don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of reasons to stay together… convenience, love, children, security, etc. But we know all this stuff already… and I think that very often, people stay together when they shouldn’t, putting an awful strain on their lives and on the relationship. This sense develops that being apart is the worst thing that could happen… that it would be FAILURE. This is the wrong way to look at it. In every society I know of, if a person’s spouse dies early, the living partner is allowed to marry someone else. There is no stigma attached to the idea of a “second soul mate” or simply having another life partner. Did the first marriage “fail?” Well, if the living partner had to go on and marry a second time, in a way, the answer could be yes. But we never look at it that way… so no sense of failure is felt. In fact, people often say that “[s]he’d have wanted me to marry again.” So why can’t this be the case even when nobody has died? We build up marriage as something that only death can stop – “till death do us part,” as the vow goes. Well, let’s reframe the meaning of death: the death of the relationship. The high rate of divorce shows that people eventually do realize that there is no point in continuing a relationship that is already dead. The problem is, we don’t learn this before getting married (or even worse – in some cases we never learn it and stay in relationships that suck the life out of us). And when it is time to break up, we don’t want to talk about it. So naturally, our breakups tend to be horrible, gut-ripping, traumatic experiences. The taboo against talking about [or even thinking about] breaking up leads to further lack of communication, which messes up any kind of relationship. There is no guarantee that you will always be on the same page with somebody – you won’t. Even with your souliest soul mate, you will have your moments where you feel derailed. But the more open communication you have, the better idea you will have of how your partner feels about things and the quicker you can get on the same page. And that’s the great secret with why breakups are almost always thought to be bad: when people are heading towards an eventual breakup, because of the taboo around breaking up, they communicate less and less. More communication would lead to a much better chance of separating smoothly. It is completely possible to part ways amicably, maintaining full communication and respecting each other and actually helping each other transition. Moreover, in a truly loving relationship in which the partners care about each other, hopefully the desire not to “imprison” the other would lead one to say “if you ever do feel like our relationship needs to change, please do tell me.” And there’s the key to getting a positive outlook on things: breakup should not be viewed as failure, but rather as change. When former lovers are able to stay friends, their relationship never actually ended; it merely changed, that’s all. Change, of course, can hurt. There is no denying that. But when you are more prepared for the change and can see it coming, you can minimize the amount of destructive ripping and tearing that takes place… those agonizing feelings of “why?” that come up when your heart gets broken. Open communication with your partner helps to avoid sudden surprises. If you’re in a relationship right now and you feel like it needs to change, you owe it to yourself and your partner in the relationship to explore those feelings deeper. Don’t hide from them; what you feel inside does not lie. Only you can lie, by not being honest with yourself – and as a result, your partner – through trying to stuff away what your real desires are. An important note: this does not just apply to romantic relationships. This applies also to parent-child relationships (I’m thinking of adult ones specifically), siblings, friends, coworkers, and so on And one final thing: it is true that you can’t control your partner’s decisions or thoughts. It is indeed possible that, even after you have made attempts to be open and encourage dialogue with somebody, they may not really respond at all. But don’t let that stop you, because that’s their choice, and they would make this choice no matter how you act. As long as you do your best, you won’t have any regret around trying. That was a long trek from the original theme of this post: talking about divorce and marriage, and how divorce can be quite good when done right. But it’s worth it to draw this example out in order to illustrate one way we can take a more open-minded approach to managing our relationships. AdvertisementsOglas Mestni utrip na križišču Dalmatinove in Tyrševe ulice (danes Slovenske ceste). Obdobje med obema vojnama. Foto: neznan, iz zbirke časopisa Slovenec. Trolejbusni promet na križišču Titove (današnje Slovenske ceste) in Dalmatinove ulice. Foto: Milan Pogačar, iz zbirke Exportprojekt. Pogled na novourejeni podvoz na Titovi cesti (današnji Dunajski cesti) leta 1966. Foto: Svetozar Busić, iz zbirke časopisa Delo. Živahen mestni direndaj na Titovi (danes Slovenski cesti) pred Hotelom Slon. Leto 1960. Foto: Lojze Jerala, iz zbirke časopisa Delo. Pomnimo tudi zaparkiran Stari trg vse tja do Tranče in karamboliran avto, prislonjen ob Robbov vodnjak. In to še preden so taisti vodnjak zamenjali z repliko, izvirnik pa preselili v Narodno galerijo. Fotografska razstava z naslovom Po ljubljanskih ulicah, ki je svoje odprtje doživela pretekli teden v Galeriji "S" na Ljubljanskem gradu, nam skozi več kot štirideset starih avtorskih fotografij slika vrvež mestnih ulic v preteklem stoletju. Razstavo, ki je del projekta Ljubljana - zelena prestolnica Evrope, so pripravili v Muzeju novejše zgodovine, ki v svoji fototeki hrani več kot dva milijona fotografij, od tega kar dva tisoč na temo prometa. Avtorica razstave je Andreja Zupanec Bajželj. Življenje v slovenski prestolnici se je skozi čas močno spreminjalo. Skupaj z njim pa tudi promet. Fotografske podobe, s katerimi so čas zamrznili fotoreporterji v prejšnjem stoletju, nas popeljejo v čas, ko so po ljubljanskih ulicah vozile zgolj kočije in tramvaji. Že res, da se je že leta 1898 po ljubljanskih cestah zapeljal prvi avtomobil barona Antona Codellija, toda to je bila redkost in izjema, kot so bili redki in izjemni primeri drugih avtomobilistov, ki so tu in tam dvigovali prah s cestišč in v ljudeh vzbujali začudenje. Ljubljana, glavno mesto države, je bila še nedolgo tega mesto konjskih vpreg, kočij, za katerimi je bilo treba pridno čistiti iztrebke, ki so jih za sabo puščali "motorji", vlekoč vprege in kočije. V začetku preteklega stoletja, natančneje 6. septembra 1901, je v Ljubljani redno začel voziti tramvaj, ki predstavlja začetek organiziranega javnega prometa v mestu. Petdeset let kasneje, 6. oktobra 1951, se je tramvaju pridružil še trolejbus, ki je vozil na 4,3 kilometra dolgi progi med Gospodarskim razstaviščem in Ježico. Podatki, ki pričajo o tem, da kakšnega posebnega prometnega vrveža vse do šestdesetih let prejšnjega stoletja tako rekoč ni bilo. V šestdesetih je bilo v Sloveniji na novo registriranih približno 8.000 avtomobilov in avtobusov (samo za
was transformative. In a closely-followed case in the art world, artist Richard Prince has scored a big win at the Second Circuit Court of Appeal against photographer Patrick Cariou. The ruling has the potential to become big precedent and influence the nature of art. Cariou sued Prince for copyright infringement, alleging that the artist appropriated copyrighted photos from a 2000 book, Yes Rasta, which featured Rastafarians in Jamaica. Prince admitted taking the work, altering and incorporating them into a series of paintings and collages called Canal Zone, which he exhibited in 2007 and 2008 at the Eden Rock hotel in Saint Barthelemy and at New York's Gagosian Gallery. When questioned during depositions, Prince probably could have defended his appropriation better on the basis of "fair use," perhaps saying that he made transformative use of the original photos. But he declined to do so, playing the role of the difficult-to-decipher artist. He said his art "do[es]n't really have a message." Largely because of that, at a lower court, Cariou was successful against Prince, but on Thursday, the Second Circuit reversed the decision in part. The appellate judges find that 25 of Prince's 30 works are fair use and remands the remaining five for a lower judge to determine with the proper standard. According to Second Circuit circuit judge Barrington Parker's decision, "What is critical is how the work in question appears to the reasonable observer, not simply what an artist might say about a particular piece or body of work. Prince’s work could be transformative even without commenting on Cariou’s work or on culture, and even without Prince’s stated intention to do so." The appeals court nicely provides an example of what's in dispute in its ruling (read in full here). Here's a look: When this case was at the District Court level, the judge there granted sweeping injunctive relief on what was determined to be clear copyright infringement. "Prince did not intend to comment on Cariou, on Cariou's Photos, or on aspects of popular culture closely associated with Cariou or the Photos when he appropriated the Photos," the judge wrote. The Second Circuit takes a more nuanced approach to the art -- as well as "fair use," which can be an exception to a copyright owner's exclusive ability to control derivatives. "These twenty-five of Prince's artworks manifest an entirely different aesthetic from Cariou's photographs," writes Judge Parker. "Where Cariou's serene and deliberately composed portraits and landscape photographs depict the natural beauty of Rastafarians and their surrounding environs, Prince's crude and jarring works, on the other hand, are hectic and provocative." The further notes that Cariou used black-and-white while Prince created colleges, incorporated color, and made other distortions. "Prince's composition, presentation, scale, color palette, and media are fundamentally different and new compared to the photographs, as is the expressive nature of Prince's work." Despite Prince's failing to more strongly argue the transformative nature of his work, the appeals court decides that what it is anyway: "Here, looking at the artworks and the photographs side-by-side, we conclude that Prince's images, except for those we discuss separately below, have a different character, give Cariou's photographs a new expression, and employ new aesthetics with creative and communicative results distinct from Cariou's. Our conclusion should not be taken to suggest, however, that any cosmetic changes to the photographs would necessarily constitute fair use. A secondary work may modify the original without being transformative. For instance, a derivative work that merely presents the same material but in a new form, such as a book of synopses of televisions shows, is not transformative." But the circuit judge says that Prince added "something new" in 25 of the 30 images. As for the other five -- which are certainly important and perhaps even more so, given that future judges will be looking for guidance on how they should play art critic to determine what's transformative or not -- Judge Parker says, "Although the minimal alterations that Prince made in those instances moved the work in a different direction from Cariou's classical portrature and landscape photos, we can not say with certainty at this point whether those artworks present a 'new expression, meaning, or message.'" Here's a look at one of the images that haven't yet been determined to be fair use or infringing: Regarding the work above, Judge Parker says, "Prince did little more than paint blue lozenges over the subject's eyes and mouth, and paste a picture of a guitar over the subject's body... Where the photograph presents someone comfortably at home in nature, Graduation combines divergent elements to create a sense of discomfort. However, we cannot say for sure whether Graduation constitutes fair use or whether Prince has transformed Cariou’s work enough to render it transformative." Judge Parker says that a district court is in the best position to make that determination. Also, in the ruling, the Second Circuit was asked to determine the liability of the Gagosian Gallery as an alleged contributory infringer of Cariou's work. On the 25 images found to be fair use, there is of course no liability. As for the others, that's also for a district court to decide upon remand. E-mail: eriq.gardner@thr.com; Twitter: @eriqgardnerRepresentative Ryan Proposes Medicare Plan Under Which Seniors Would Pay Most of Their Income for Health Care That is what headlines would look like if the United States had an independent press. After all, this is one of the main takeaways of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of the plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee. Representative Ryan would replace the current Medicare program with a voucher for people who turn age 65 in 2022 and later. This voucher would be worth $8,000 for someone turning age 65 in that year. It would rise in step with the consumer price index and also as people age. (Health care expenses are higher for people age 75 than age 65.) According to the CBO analysis the benefit would cover 32 percent of the cost of a health insurance package equivalent to the current Medicare benefit (Figure 1). This means that the beneficiary would pay 68 percent of the cost of this package. Using the CBO assumption of 2.5 percent annual inflation, the voucher would have grown to $9,750 by 2030. This means that a Medicare type plan for someone age 65 would be $30,460 under Representative Ryan's plan, leaving seniors with a bill of $20,700. (This does not count various out of pocket medical expenditures not covered by Medicare.) According to the Social Security trustees, the benefit for a medium wage earner who first starts collecting benefits at age 65 in 2030 would be $32,200. (This adjusts the benefit projected by the Social Security trustees [$19,652 in 2010 dollars] for the 2.5 percent annual inflation rate assumed by CBO.) For close to 70 percent of seniors, Social Security is more than half of their retirement income. Most seniors will get a benefit that is less than the medium earners benefit described here since their average earnings are less than that of a medium earner and they start collecting Social Security benefits before age 65. Furthermore, the portion of income going to health care costs will increase through time according to the CBO analysis. This is due both to aging of individuals and to increasing health care costs through time. As noted insurance for older beneficiaries will cost more than insurance for younger beneficiaries, but Representative Ryan's voucher would still only pay the same amount for their care. This means that if the average 80-year-old cost twice as much to insure as the average 65-year-old, then the premium that would come out of a seniors' pocket would be twice as large. This implies that if the program had been in effect for 15 years in 2030 then the average senior would be paying $41,400 for a Medicare equivalent insurance package in 2030, 25 percent more than the medium earner's benefit in that year. The other reason that Representative Ryan's plan will lead to rising health care costs for seniors through time is that the voucher payment does not keep pace with health care cost inflation. As costs continue to rise relative to the voucher, seniors will be required to pay a larger portion of their health care costs themselves. It is worth noting that 2030 is only 8 years after the voucher program kicks in.Franz von Papen brought Hitler to power in 1933. In 1959 Von Papen was made a «Knight of Malta» and awarded the Grand Cross by the Pope in Rome. Nazi-Germany would not have been the same without Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen. He was the head of the Catholic Centre Party, that merged with the Nazi party after Hitler came to power in Germany. In 1932 Von Papen was made Chancellor of Germany. And when Nazi-leader Adolf Hitler took over as the leader of Germany in 1933, Hitler made Von Papen the Vice-Chancellor. On 8 April 1933, Von Papen travelled to the Vatican to offer a «Reichskonkordat» that defined the German state’s relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Von Papen secured the Vatican religious freedom in Nazi-Germany. Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives on 2 July 1934. Some of Von Papens confidants were then purged by the Nazis. Von Papen was sent to Wiena as German ambassador. Even though he was dismissed from his mission in Austria on 4 February 1938, a month before the Anschluss. But Papen was not removed because He has deserted Hitler. From 1939 to 1944 Von Papen served the Nazi-government as Ambassador to Turkey. In August 1944, Papen had his last meeting with Hitler after arriving back in Germany from Turkey. Here, Hitler awarded Papen the Knight’s Cross of the Military Merit Order. Papen was one of the defendants at the main Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. The court acquitted him, stating that he had, in the court’s view, committed a number of “political immoralities,” but that these actions were not punishable under the “conspiracy to commit crimes against peace” charged in Papen’s indictment. Von Papen was later sentenced to eight years in prison by a West German denazification court, but was released on appeal in 1949. Franz Von Papen was made a Papal Chamberlain by Pope Pius XI. But when this pope died in 1939, war time Pope Pius XII did not renew his honorary title. But Pope John XXIII restored Von Papen`s title of Papal Chamberlain on 24 July 1959. Papen was also made a «Knight of Malta», and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX. Why did the Roman Catholic Church honor Hitlers vice-chancellor, who had been rewarded by Hitler in 1944, at the hight of the Holocaust? One answer has to be found in the merits of Franz Von Papen before World War II. Papen was expelled from the United States during World War I for complicity in the planning of sabotage such as blowing up U.S. railroad lines. On 28 December 1915, he was declared persona non grata by the U.S. after his exposure and recalled to Germany. In April 1916, a United States federal grand jury issued an indictment against Papen for a plot to blow up Canada’s Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. But Papen was then safely on German soil. He remained under indictment until he became Chancellor of Germany in 1932, at which time the charges were dropped. Later in World War I, Papen served as an officer first on the Western Front. From 1917 he as an officer on the General Staff in the Middle East and a major in the Ottoman army in Palestine. Than, who was Franz Von Papen? Like Tony Blair, He was a committed «papist». He was linked to the Papal effort to make The United State of America one of the Papal states under the Vatican seat of power. He even served as a officer in the Ottoman Army in «Palestine», who tried its best to avoid Jerusalem being liberated by British forces. There were worse things that could happen to Jerusalem, than being under Muslim control. The Catholic faithful wanted to avoid a Protestant Christian take-over, followed by a Jewish home coming. Today a former nominal protestant turned faithful papal soldier is trying to complete the task given to Franz von Papen. His name is Tony Blair. The former Prime Minister of Anglican United Kingdom has been given the Papal task to end the Zionist control over the «Holy city». Franz Von Papen was not only a Nazi-collaborator. He had always been a faithful papist and a freemason. Thats why the Pope of Rome restored him in 1959. Read more about the Knights of Malta: Click here: AdvertisementsIn South Korean culture, a sasaeng or sasaeng fan (Hangul: 사생팬; Hanja: 私生팬) is an over-obsessive fan of a Korean idol, or other public figure, that has engaged in stalking or other behaviour that constitutes an invasion of privacy. The term sasaeng comes from the Korean words sa (Hangul: 사; Hanja: 私) meaning "private" and saeng (Hangul: 생; Hanja: 生) meaning "life," in reference to the fans' intrusion into the celebrities' private lives.[1] According to estimates given by celebrity managers to Korean media, popular Korean celebrities "have between 500 to 1,000 sasaeng fans" and are actively followed by about 100 sasaeng fans every day.[2] Sasaeng fans are generally said to be females aged 17 to 22 years old who are driven to commit acts of, in some cases, borderline criminal behavior in order to get the attention of celebrities. These acts may include but are not limited to: seeking out celebrities at their dorms or homes, stealing their personal belongings or information, harassing their family members, and sending idols inappropriate "gifts" such as lingerie.[3] Background [ edit ] Taiwanese k-pop fans of the group SHINee. The growing influence of Hallyu draws in many fans of k-pop abroad. Although the term "sasaeng" was only coined much later to describe highly obsessive and disruptive fan behavior, such behavior has existed since the 1990s with the dawn of K-pop idol groups and "fandoms", as noted by local English-language newspaper Korea JoongAng Daily in a 2001 article.[4] Industry veterans as well as members of first generation groups such as H.O.T. and g.o.d have related accounts of witnessing or being victims of such fan behavior even prior to the digital era.[5][6][7][8] With the rapid development of the Korean popular culture industry and the spread of the Hallyu wave internationally in the 2000s and recent years, increasingly extreme and disruptive fan behaviors towards Korean idols and celebrities have also been witnessed abroad.[3] Motives for behavior [ edit ] Many sasaengs operate under the motive of wanting recognition from their idols and wanting to stand out from other fans.[9] A sasaeng fan was interviewed and gave an explanation regarding this obsessive behavior that is shared among sasaeng fans. She was quoted saying, “I feel like I get to know more about and get closer to the idol I love. If I go to a concert, there are thousands of people attending, so the idol would not know who I am. But if I become sasaeng, they will recognize me. If I keep telling them, ‘I am so-and-so. I saw you at that place before. I am so-and-so’, they will start to take note of me and ask ‘Did you come again today?’ To sasaeng fans, being recognized by idols is a good thing.”[3] This want for individual recognition from idols is what has fueled some notable acts of sasaengs. Physically assaulting idols is one perceived way that sasaengs believe they will be remembered.[10] In 2012, a sasaeng reportedly slapped Yoochun, of the boy group TVXQ, in the face and justified themselves by saying that the idol would surely remember them from then on.[11] While sasaengs have formed a network to help spread and share information, the work of a sasaeng is also individualistic. A sasaeng who can get the closest to an idol or can get private information that no one else can will be more respected among other sasaeng.[12] Sasaeng fans vs. Anti-fans [ edit ] Anti-fans are dissimilar from sasaeng fans in that their main goal is to see the ultimate failure of certain idols and groups.[10] In 2006, member Yunho of TVXQ was given a drink by a supposed fan, its contents having been laced with glue and resulting in Yunho being rushed to the hospital. The suspect in this case also had given Yunho a letter, its contents criticizing TVXQ and seemingly threatening the band as a whole.[13] The person who committed the act confessed to being an anti-fan of TVXQ.[14] While both groups have been seen to engage in activities that have caused harm to idols and groups, sasaeng fans are motivated by the idea of recognition from idols, rather than a want to ridicule and prevent the success of certain idols. Methods and tactics [ edit ] Sasaengs have developed various methods for obtaining information about idols and have formed a network amongst other sasaengs to share information and group together in order to accomplish tasks. It has been noted that sasaeng fans who are of older age and are able to get jobs will try to get jobs in industries that will put them closer to idols or idols’ information, such as airline companies, phone companies, credit card companies, etc.[15] In 2017, Brave Entertainment, home of solo artist Samuel, had two staff members fired due to them being sasaeng fans who were following other artists and spreading Samuel's personal information.[16] With the increased popularity of social media, it has now become possible for idols’ information to be sold for money over various social media platforms, such as Twitter, KakaoTalk, and Instagram.[17] The volume of information that some sasaeng possess covers a wide range of personal information, including home addresses, flight information, cellphone numbers, personal social media accounts, credit card accounts, audio recordings and videos. Some sellers are even willing to sell the methods they use to obtain this information. One seller of such information had tweeted: “I have pretty much any idol’s information. EXO, BTS, NCT, Wanna One, Produce 101, etc. Audio recordings, Kakao Talk, phone numbers, passports, Twitter [accounts], dormitories, private Instagram accounts, and videos. Send me a DM [direct message].” [17] The so-called "sasaeng taxi" is another method that sasaengs use to follow idols to their scheduled activities or personal appointments. Such taxis charge an average of $600 a day and will follow an idol or group for the entire day, going up to speeds of 100km/hr and breaking various traffic rules such as running red lights.[15] Drivers of such taxis have been seen outside of venues waiting for customers.[18] The expense of such methods in both time and money have resulted in many sasaeng fans skipping or dropping out of school, sleeping in Internet cafes, and sometimes turning to prostitution to pay for the expenses of sasaeng activities.[19] In 2014, a 21-year-old woman was arrested for selling fraudulent merchandise of the band EXO. Most buyers never received their products, or later found that the woman had sold them products that had actually been rented. She admitted that the money she had accumulated, which was around 4.7 million won (about $4,583) would have been used to pay for the expenses of closely following EXO.[20] In the media [ edit ] Sasaeng fans are understood in the media as beginning as part of the "normal" fandom before abandoning their own personal and social lives in order to stand out or become closer to an idol or celebrity.[21] The media's portrayal of sasaeng behavior is often surrounded by discourses of fear and stigma against selectively represented behaviors, which are viewed as problematic, including skipping school and sleeping in internet cafes to meet with idols. Typically, media coverage of sasaeng fan behavior will report upon an instance or instances of socially problematic fan behavior, with criticisms of this behavior coming from sources including "average" fans, industry representatives, and other individuals in social positions which lend a perception of moral upstanding. Fans of k-pop are often quick to draw boundaries between the "normal" part of a fandom and the part that is said to characterize a sasaeng fan. Sasaeng fan identity as constructed in mass and social media is often described in extremities; media frequently uses undesirable terms such as "crazed", "obsessive", "abnormal", "psychotic", and "disturbing" to describe such fans.[21] Selected incidents [ edit ] TVXQ and JYJ [ edit ] K-pop boy bands TVXQ and JYJ, in particular, have been the targets of many sasaeng fans. Sasaeng fans were reported to have tapped TVXQ's phones, broken into the band's apartment, and poisoned member Yunho, who had to have his stomach pumped as a result. Saesang fans also installed cameras into JYJ's Yoochun's private parking lot.[2] In 2012, audio was uploaded on an online message board of Yoochun and bandmate Jaejoong apparently yelling at and hitting female fans.[22] JYJ members addressed the recording during a press conference, when Yoochun said that the group had been followed by sasaeng fans for eight years (since they were members of TVXQ), saying that the constant surveillance "felt like prison." Band member Junsu mentioned incidents where saesang fans tapped his private phone calls, installed GPS trackers on the band's cars, and broke into their private property. At the press conference, Jaejoong issued an apology for lashing out at fans.[23] A video of TVXQ member Changmin dragging and throwing a sasaeng from her cab was uploaded in 2018.[24] Car accidents [ edit ] Numerous Korean idols have gotten into car accidents while being followed by sasaeng fans. In 2011, two members of Super Junior were caught in a six-car pile-up after being chased by eight fan vehicles in Singapore. The members, Leeteuk and Heechul, were unharmed, but Heechul later tweeted that he still suffered after-effects from the accident and was often afraid to drive.[25][26] In 2013, Seungri of Big Bang suffered minor injuries from a car accident in Shanghai involving a sasaeng fan.[27] In 2015, Chanyeol of Exo wrote on Weibo that he was constantly followed by 20 fan vehicles during a visit to Shanghai.[28] In 2016, Jackson of Got7 sustained minor injuries after getting into an accident with a fan who was following his car closely on his way to an airport in China.[29] Home intrusion [ edit ] Korean idols have reported being followed home by sasaeng fans. Idols including Jung Yong-hwa of CNBLUE, Zico of Block B, Junho of 2PM, and Lay of Exo have reported incidents of sasaeng fans following them home or attempting to break in to their homes.[30][31][32][33] In 2014, a fan unlawfully entered singer Seo Taiji's home and was found sitting in the singer's car when police arrived. Seo did not press charges against the fan, who admitted to have "lurked" around the singer's home before.[34] Blood writing [ edit ] In November 2009, one of the fans of a boy group 2PM’s member Ok Taecyeon posted a blood writing to prove herself as a real fan. It was later discovered that the blood was from her period. This over-obsession toward the celebrity made even the fans of 2PM criticize her actions. [35] In December 2009, MBLAQ’s member Lee Joon’s obsessive fan wrote a blood writing and posted on the social media. The writing said ‘Don’t forget me, Lee chang-sun (Lee Joon’s real name). I only have you. I love you’. She also cited 2PM's blood writing incident as an impetus and motive, writing in her caption,‘what was that Ok Taecyeon’s fan’s blood writing. Period blood is so gross. I’ll show what a blood writing is’. [36] In January 2010, an obsessive fan of Wonder Girls cut her wrist and wrote ‘Come back, Wonder Girls’ with her blood. She posted the picture of her face half covered with her hand and also with the blood writing showing the scar on her wrist.[37] Responses from Idols and Companies [ edit ] Individual idol responses [ edit ] Entertainment companies, idol groups, and individual idols have responded to sasaeng activity through social media or in interviews. Soompi, a site dedicated to sharing Korean pop culture news with readers around the world, has documented many of these cases. In July 2018, Brian, a member of the R&B duo Fly to the Sky, stated in an interview that he had been receiving packages to his personal address and was worried not only for himself, but also his family who were also being harassed. He stated, "I want to know what this person’s reason is for leaving comments this bad, and I want them to stop."[38] Other individual responses include GOT7's Mark and Youngjae, EXO's Lay, and Ailee, all of whom addressed sasaeng fans for following idols back to their residencies,[39] [40] flooding idols' phones with calls and texts,[41] [42]taking unwanted videos and pictures of idols,[43] and following idols on their schedules.[40] In April 2016, Girls' Generation' member Taeyeon complained about the constant calls from strangers. She posted the capture photos of missed calls from strangers on the Instagram saying ‘Just let me sleep’ and ‘This is not helping at all for both of us’. [44] In April 2016, Shinee’s member Key posted on intagram a photo of group kakaotalk chat room of full of foreign fans. He mentioned that he is struggling recently due to these sudden invites to chat rooms and missed calls from sasaeng fans. He reproached them, saying ‘you can’t call yourself a fan’ and ‘it is really insulting and unbearable’.[45] Responses from idol groups [ edit ] In 2013, the group EXO collectively expressed their frustration towards sasaengs and noted the unfair treatment that their "normal" fans receive from being often mistaken for sasaeng. Member Suho then addressed sasaeng, asking them to stop such behavior if they truly cared about the group.[46] Responses from entertainment companies [ edit ] Entertainment companies have addressed sasaeng fans and their activities. Swing Entertainment, home of the group Wanna One, called out sasaeng fans for causing the members stress while on tour in 2018.[47] DreamCatcher's agency, Happy Face Entertainment, addressed sasaengs who had been waiting for members at their schedules and secretly taking photos and videos of the members, telling them to stop such behavior and pointedly noting that these actions had disrespected the members' privacy.[48] Effects on Idols [ edit ] The actions of sasaeng fans have resulted in psychological effects in some idols. Member D.O. of EXO stated in an interview that he had developed a "victim mentality" due to sasaengs, and that it had severely affected his public appearances and activities.[46] In 2016, Heechul of Super Junior described the sense of paranoia that he had acquired due to sasaeng fans and explained the trauma that certain sasaeng fans' actions had left him.[49] With the increased use of social media to obtain idols' information, idols must be more cautious than ever in order to prevent unwanted information from reaching their public audience, both sasaeng and other fans.[50] On the show Handsome Boys of the 20th Century, first-generation idol singers Eun Ji-won of Sechs Kies and Moon Hee-joon of H.O.T have also admitted to feeling paranoia whenever they left their homes, with Eun stating that he developed an addiction to video games as he would stay at home due to the fear of being accosted by crowds of fans. Legal response [ edit ] Many countries have laws against sasaeng fan. In United States, California passed “stalking order of protection” in 1990. Laws are different from state to state; however, all states have their own laws against celebrity stalking with serious criminal laws. Germany has a very serious laws against celebrity stalking. Moreover, Japan has many different laws regarding many different aspects of celebrity stalking. For example, waiting in front of house/office, following, wiretapping and repeated relationship demands, etc. will cause them 1 year of imprisonment or fine of one million yen. Japan, also passed laws against continuous messaging, including on social media. K-pop celebrities have been suffering from 1990s; however, there were no special laws to prevent or to punish against celebrity stalkers (sasaeng fan).[51] What provoked for the government to move was the band Sanulrim’s lead vocalist, Kim Changwan’s sasaengfan incident. He was stalked by one of his fans for over 10 years and he eventually accused the fan for stalking. But, after the fan got out of jail with a sentence of 1 year, the fan again followed Kim Changwan and physically attacked him and got his nose bone broken. This caused to enforce under the law ‘Persistent harassment’ which is stalking in 2011.[52] In February 2011, a clause was added to South Korea's Minor Offenses Act, aiming to protect idols from overzealous fans. That same year, the South Korean government's Korea Creative Content Agency reportedly founded a support center for celebrities to offer counseling services meant "to relieve [celebrities] from any psychological stress."[53] The Minor Offences Act was revised in March 2013 so that a conviction of stalking would lead to a fine of KRW 80,000 (about US$72 at the time).[54] However, due to increased concerns and a rising number of victims related to stalking, a South Korean law was introduced in February 2016 that would increase the penalty for stalking to KRW 20 million (about US$17,000 at the time), as well as a possible two-year jail sentence.[55][56] On February 22nd of 2018, Coordination meeting of national agendas was held. In this meeting, the government said that “damages from stalking, dating abuse prevention measures” will be settled in the first half of this year. The definition of stalking and its types will be clarified in the new “damages from stalking, dating abuse prevention measures”. Moreover, the punishment against stalking will become more severe: instead of paying a certain amount of penalty, it will be severe amount of fine or imprisonment. “Damages from stalking, dating abuse prevention measures” will be used in celebrity stalking cases/ sasaeng fan cases, because Korean celebrities are suffering from many different kinds of sasaeng fans, not only physically but also mentally as well. [57] Unfortunately, currently the “damages from stalking, dating abuse prevention measures” has not been settled. (www.law.go.kr lists all the laws that exists in Korea, but this does not show up). Two different view points in passing the law against sasaeng fan [ edit ] There seem to be polarized view points about laws against sasaeng fans. People who agree with passing laws against sasaeng fans have three different arguments: sasaeng fans are criminal, sasaeng fans not only harm the celebrities but also people around them, and sasaeng fans should be punished to prevent further crimes. First, sasaeng fans are a type of criminal, because they commit crimes like housebreaking, stealing, stalking, illegal use of social security number etc. If any citizen committed one of those crimes they would be punished; however, due to the fact that sasaeng fans committed those crimes because of their love of the celebrities, they are taken lightly. Second, sasaeng fans harm not only the celebrities but also people around them. There have been many cases where sasaeng fans threaten people around celebrities in order to get in contact with them. Furthermore, while trying to follow celebrities’ cars, sasaeng fans have created traffic congestion and car accidents. Lastly, sasaeng fans should be punished to prevent further crimes. The crimes that were committed because of loving the celebrity too much could lead to more severe crimes. In order to prevent severe crimes and to teach sasaeng fans a lesson, there should be punishment against them. On the other hand, there are people who disagree with passing laws against sasaeng fans. First, they claim that sasaeng fans are still fans of the celebrity. Although the way of showing love to the celebrity might be wrong, they do not intentionally commit crimes. Sasaeng fans should be taught ethical and moral ways instead of punishing them. Second, most sasaeng fans are minors. Since they are still minors, they are not mature enough to understand what is right or wrong. As mentioned before, they should be taught ethical and moral ways instead of punishing them. If educating them does not work, punishment with laws should be the final measure. [58] In popular culture [ edit ] In popular culture, the television program called Reply 1997, which covers popular culture and incidents of the late 1990s, was able the tell how the fans were obsessively in to the celebrities. Since there were not many chances for the fans to interact with the celebrities, people tend to turn out to become a ‘Sukso fan’, which is to call a sasaeng fan who stays all night at the celebrity's house until they get to see the celebrity. They used to have rules among them to not to trespass into the house, not to force the celebrity to come out, and not to take pictures of the celebrity.[59]Star Wars 8 will clearly have to up the stormtrooper ante somehow after Daniel Craig's white-helmet turn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Tom Hardy has been rumored for a speaking role as one of the First Order's finest and while he threw some shade at the reports in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he very specifically did not deny them. "I don't know if I can even say that," the star of Mad Max: Fury Road said in response to being asked about the Star Wars role. After being told about the rumor's provenance (i.e. the internet) he laughed and observed that "the internet is a glorious web of deceit and misinformation, isn't it?" But when THR tried to get Hardy to outright deny the rumors, all he admitted is that they "could be" misinformation. If he wasn't in Star Wars 8, he'd have no reason to be so coy, right? Unless Hardy just enjoys messing with people's heads, which is also a distinct possibility. Either way, sounds like he wants to keep us guessing (and listening to every stormtrooper's voice super hard) all the way until the credits roll. Directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Laura Dern, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, and Benicio del Toro, Star Wars: Episode 8 opens in cinemas on December 15, 2017.Drones meant to heighten border security cost more than $12,000 an hour to fly, and have hardly put a dent in the number of illegal immigrants apprehended, according to a government watchdog. Customs and Border Protection’s drone fleet costs far more than the agency claims and has failed to live up to expectations set at the time CBP launched the program, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said in a report released Tuesday. The drones are among the high-technology border security measures officials under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama said made it unnecessary to build a new security fence along the entire length of the U.S. border with Mexico. The unmanned aircrafts spent nearly 80 percent of the time they were supposed to be flying on the ground and racked up hefty costs when they were airborne. The agency presently operates a fleet of nine drones after losing one to a crash in January 2014. While CBP reported the cost to fly its drones each hour as $2,468, the IG calculated a cost of $12,255 per flight hour. The agency failed to include costs such as pilot salaries, equipment and overhead in its reports. Its border drones cost $62.5 million to operate in 2013 alone, the IG estimated. Agency officials had reported the operating cost of the CBP drone program as $12 million for the same year. “CBP has invested significant funds in a program that has not achieved the expected results, and it cannot demonstrate how much the program has improved border security,” the IG said. The drones were expected to fly 16 hours a day, increase the number of suspects apprehended, lower surveillance costs, improve efficiency, and identify surveillance gaps in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. But after eight years and an estimated $360 million investment, none of those goals have been met. The drones are used to survey small sections of the border and don't operate over vast stretches of land. For example, the unmanned aircraft focused on just 70 miles of the Texas border, according to the IG. In Arizona, drones could be credited with less than 2 percent of all apprehensions; in Texas, drones were responsible for less than 1 percent. The drones were expected to reduce surveillance costs by up to 50 percent per mile, but investigators couldn't determine the level of savings due to insufficient data, the report said. Despite the program’s shortcomings, CBP plans to invest $443 million to expand its drone program by adding an additional 14 drones, the report said. CBP resisted most of the IG’s recommendations by characterizing them as a “misunderstanding” of the drone program, agreeing with the majority only “in principle.” In response to the watchdog’s findings, “CBP said that apprehensions are not an appropriate measure of unmanned aircraft performance,” the report said. Eugene Schied
destroy Wall Street from within: The widening wealth gap, capitalism’s new rule-by-anarchy, the high cost of feeding the Pentagon’s costly war machine, and the huge global population explosion. http://www.marketwatch.com/... Thank you Mr. Farrell, as promised I will send you a copy of this diary, and the comments by the community at Daily Kos. I wish that I could disagree with Mr. Farrell regarding his belief that 'we should just forget about prosecutions for Wall St./the Bankers,' and accept the fact that the only thing that will change America is revolution. Perhaps I am still too naive to believe that my country will once again, somehow find it's moral compass again, but then again, we do not seem to be headed in that direction. Case in point, as one Kossack recently stated: the Rich are not like you and I. Take a look, and I mean a good hard look at this Oligarch, because this 'insane person,' Larry Fink, (Blackrock's Chairman and CEO) actually believes and said so right on television, that: Markets like totalitarian governments. BlackRock isn’t just the largest money manager … it is also the larges asset manager in the world. So it is stunning that Blackrock’s Chairman and CEO – Larry Fink – said on Bloomberg TV: Markets like totalitarian governments. Investors can determine whether a nation prospers or starves. Investors can determine the course of nations, including who gets elected and who gets the boot. No wonder there are so many totalitarian governments in the Middle East, North Africa and around the world. No wonder totalitarianism has been creeping into America’s politics and economics. See this and this. Because big investors (or at least big asset managers) like totalitarian governments. If they instead preferred democracy, democracy would flourish. I'm beginning to think that Mr. Farrell is right, and that is pretty damn scary to me. I know in my heart, and refuse to remain in desperate deep denial that it is highly unlikely that President Obama is going to hold Wall St./the Banks accountable, and that there will be no sane answer to addressing the continual downward spiral of our economy. I also believe that until this issue is addressed, our nation will continue to fall into chaos and mayhem, as the insane religious right and Republican party continues to double down building a bridge to the 19th Century, in earnest. There is a deep oppressive miasma that has settled on the American people, that haunts them everyday in our nation. They know in their hearts, that both parties are stripping them down to the bone, and making them pay for an economic catastrophe that they had nothing to do with, and in fact are being held accountable with their lost jobs, their lost homes, their retirement accounts, and now as they watch their cities and towns being gutted due to Wall St./the Banks hideous out of control risky gambling casino from hell, I believe that one day it will come to pass, that they will no longer stand by and allow this level of criminality and corruption to continue in our lost Republic. Wish it were not so, I honestly do, and I will always believe in my heart, that it did not have to be this way. I leave you with a reality check and a quote from Mr. Farrell's article: Wall Street’s corrupt banks have lost their moral compass … their insatiable greed has become a deadly virus destroying its host nation … their campaign billions buy senate votes, stop regulators’ actions, manipulate presidential decisions. Wall Street money controls voters, runs America, both parties. Yes, Wall Street is bankrupting America. Thanks as always, Ms. B.DIY Painted Pillow Tutorial: An Inexpensive Way to Customize Your Home Welcome to Flying House! Receive an update straight to your inbox every time I publish a new article. RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! I am forever on the hunt for quick and easy ways to decorate my home with inexpensive and unique designs. I recently created these painted DIY pillows for my home and got so excited because the technique is so simple that you can even let your kids in on the fun and let them create a design for their bedroom or create a few extra pillows and give them as gifts. To create your own DIY Painted Pillow you will need: An inexpensive cotton pillow (mine are from H&M) Fabric Paint, Fabric Markers, or Fabric Ink Pad Stamps, Paint Brushes, and Rulers Optional, depending on your design Before you get started, make sure to fill your pillow with either a piece of cardboard or a plastic bag to keep the paint or ink from seeping onto the back. You can free hand your design like I did with paint and a paint brush or here are a few more glimpses of what the ladies did with the technique at our recent Craftenhagen using fabric ink pads, stamps, and a ruler! Happy Crafting! Photography: Tina Fussell for Flying House Studios Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. 100% Privacy. We don't spam.Looks like an apology wasn't enough for Dani Mathers. Days after the 29-year-old Playboy model body-shamed a naked woman at the gym through Snapchat, the Los Angeles Police Department has launched an official investigation into the incident, ET can confirm. WATCH: Playboy Model Dani Mathers Body Shamed a Naked Woman at Gym According to the LAPD, the identity of the woman Mathers photographed is still unknown, and that it was L.A. Fitness who filed the police report on Friday. A law enforcement source confirms to ET that "the investigation is based on disseminating private images." L.A. Fitness, where Mathers filmed the woman, told ET earlier on Friday that they would be contacting the police. "Our written rules are very clear: Cell phone usage and photography are prohibited in the locker rooms. This is not only our rule, but common decency," a spokesperson for the gym said in a statement. "Her behavior is appalling and puts every member at risk of losing their privacy. Her membership has been permanently revoked, at all our health clubs, and law enforcement has been notified." Mathers photographed the woman in a gym locker room, sending the nude photo out to her followers with the caption, "If I can't unsee this then you can't either." The 2015 Playboy Playmate of the Year later apologized on Twitter, and through a series of apology videos on her Snapchat. "Should never make light of another woman's naked body," she tweeted on Thursday. "I'm sorry for what I did… I need to take some time to myself now to reflect on why I did this horrible thing." While LAPD's official investigation is on behalf of L.A. Fitness, should the victim come forward to file a report, Mathers could face a misdemeanor charge. ET has reached out to Mathers for comment. WATCH: Ariel Winter Speaks Out Against Body Shamers: 'It's Disgusting' Related ArticlesFrom the start of President Trump’s election campaign, two aspects of his political identity – the businessman and the populist – have dueled for dominance. At least in the case of the Keystone XL pipeline, the businessman appears to be winning out. Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One on Friday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the pipeline, which has been in the works for a decade, will be exempt from an executive order Mr. Trump signed in January requiring new pipelines, repairs, or retrofits to use US steel “to the maximum extent possible.” The justification for that decision: The pipeline is already under construction, and so is not covered by the executive order. “The Keystone XL Pipeline is currently in the process of being constructed, so it does not count as a new, retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipeline,” Ms. Sanders said. As the new administration works to live up to its campaign promises of job creation and a strong economy, some see the pipeline decision as a triumph of business-friendly ideas – like open economies – over populist calls to “buy American and hire American.” “The value of a pipeline is that we have a pipeline that can be used. Which steel it is made from is an entirely subsidiary question,” wrote Forbes contributor Tim Worstall, senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute, in an opinion piece. “And if American steel is best to use then use that, if not American is better then use that instead. What we want is the pipeline that can be used at the least overall cost.” The Keystone XL pipeline was first proposed by developer TransCanada in 2008, and has made sporadic construction progress in the decade since. The Obama administration rejected the project, which would carry bitumen from the oilsands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast of the US, on environmental grounds in 2015. But in January, an executive order by Trump smoothed the way for construction on the pipeline to recommence. (The southern section of the pipeline, which does not cross an international border and so did not require State Department approval, is already operational.) Allowing the pipeline to go forward was a way for Trump to live up to the pro-business pledges he made on the campaign trail, while improving American infrastructure. Keystone added $5.7 billion to the economies of Oklahoma and Texas while the southern leg of the pipeline was under construction, according to the Institute for Energy Research, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit focused on energy research. From ports to pipelines, Trump’s promised infrastructure upgrades were some of the most compelling features of his platform on the campaign trail. A January Gallup poll found that support for revitalizing infrastructure ran far higher among the American public than any of Trump’s other campaign issues, with 69 percent of respondents rating it “very important.” And his business experience, Trump stressed, would allow him to rebuild America where other presidents had stumbled. “Construction is what I know,” Trump said over the summer, speaking from his hotel in New York City. “Nobody knows it better.” But construction on the pipeline was threatened by Trump’s populist program, encapsulated in the phrase, “Buy American and hire American.” His January 24 executive order, which called for all new pipelines to be built using American steel, would have slowed progress and increased costs for the project. With that in mind, the Trump administration appears to have rolled back Trump’s initial statement that the executive order would apply to Keystone, too. “The steel is already literally sitting there” waiting to be used, White House spokeswoman Sanders told reporters, explaining the reversal. Evraz Steel, a Canadian subsidiary of Russia’s Evraz PLC, had signed on to provide 24 percent of the steel before the project was rejected under Obama, according to Reuters, and some pipe segments have already been built. For supporters like Mr. Worstall, the move is a win for business and good economics – and may provide a lesson for the future. “We are made richer in aggregate by using the cheapest inputs into any project,” he writes. “There should therefore be no insistences on using American steel in any pipeline, not just this one.” The Canadian government also lauded the decision, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office calling it a "recognition that the integrated Canadian and US steel industries are mutually beneficial." But the move may be more a temporary demonstration of pragmatism than a sign of a shift in course. In addition, Politico suggested that allowing Keystone XL to go forward might persuade TransCanada to drop a $15 billion NAFTA complaint against the US, which it brought after construction was suspended earlier this week. And American steel will be a feature of future pipelines, Sanders emphasized. “Everything moving forward would fall under that executive order," she said. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Material from Reuters was used in this report. [Editor's note: This article has been edited to clarify Mr. Worstall's title.]It’s reported as an “ex-Clinton aide” ripping Russia for using her name in documents. First of all, aside from the Seth Rich – Vince Foster method or the Dick Morris hiding in plain sight method, is anyone ever really a “former” top aide to either of the Clintons? It’s clear from the text of her Thursday op-ed in Medium that the aide, Amanda Renteria is still working for the Clintons and the DNC. She not only attempts to refute the claims of the Russians that she was intercepted conspiring with Loretta Lynch on Hillary Clinton’s behalf, but seizing the opportunity to take the obligatory shot at President Trump as having been colluding with the Russians, repeating the old, proven false, Clinton – Obama “17 intelligence agencies lie.” The Washington Post reported that a document obtained by the FBI, was a piece of purported analysis by Russian intelligence. It contained references to an email written by then-chair of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), and sent to Leonard Benardo, an official with the anti-American globalist George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. It described the contents of the email as stating that Wasserman Schultz claimed AG Lynch had been in private communication with a senior Clinton campaign staffer named Amanda Renteria, during the campaign. The document indicated Lynch had told Renteria that she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far. Renteria wrote in the Thursday Washington Post op-ed, ” Please understand that the Russians were not really targeting me personally. They are willing to use or harm any of us in order to achieve their goals.” She’s setting up what is either obvious spin or has an awareness of the behind the scenes events that belie her contentions. How would someone not involved know what the intentions of the Russians were or are? If she did have that criminal conversation with Lynch it definitely has something to do with her. It’s a little something called obstruction of justice and it’s a felony. Renteria misspoke, either deliberately or accidentally, in her op-ed, writing, “The latest report is about a completely made-up email exchange between me and former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch.” There is a statement in the Washington Post that it was a private communication but it never indicates what type of communication or communications were alleged to have taken place. It could have been emails, though Clinton a Clinton email, it seems, is never really private, and she might have understandably been leery of providing more evidence during the height of her being investigated. It could have been direct communication of the nature that took place between Lynch and Bill Clinton. Was Renteria spotted loitering around any airport tarmacs during that time? Is describing it as an email an attempt to deny it without actually lying in the strictest sense to the world in her op-ed? She also states, “The FBI and Washington Post have both investigated this and concluded that the storyline has no basis in reality. It was simply made up by the Russians.” Whatever the Washington Post may have reported or determined was undoubtedly jaded by their Clinton bias so that is an empty argument. As for the FBI, they claim to have never been able to verify the information contained in the Russian document, yet, aside from a cursory mention to Loretta Lynch a month after Comey made his announcement that Clinton was off the hook, not a single individual was ever interviewed regarding the allegations made or the content. It’s hardly a repudiation of the veracity of the document and more of a case of ignoring it due to it being critical of Hillary Clinton and implicating the Attorney General. For an FBI Director anxious to investigate the President and drag out the investigation it’s inconsistent not to likewise look into possible obstruction by the woman who met Bill Clinton on the tarmac. The Washington Post reported that the document played a key role in Comey deciding against prosecuting Clinton, supposedly based upon a fear that the allegations of collusion with the Clinton campaign would create the perception that there was impropriety should the information become public. The impropriety itself, through the actions of Comey, Lynch and Renteria are having that same impact today. The only thing consistent about James Comey are his inconsistency, his infatuation with attentive television cameras, and his propensity and fondness for the abuse of his power. Renteria got off of the hook the same way her boss Hillary Clinton did, through James Comey’s willingness to look the other way and forgo a genuine investigation and prosecution. Thank you for reading and sharing my work – Please look for me, Rick Wells at https://www.facebook.com/RickRWells/, https://gab.ai/RickRWells, https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RickwellsUs and on my website http://RickWells.US – Please SUBSCRIBE in the right sidebar at RickWells.US – not dot com, and also follow me on Twitter @RickRWells. RelatedGet the Mach newsletter. Feb. 17, 2017, 3:21 PM GMT / Updated Feb. 17, 2017, 3:21 PM GMT By Mike Wall, Space.com The dwarf planet Ceres keeps looking better and better as a possible home for alien life. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has spotted organic molecules — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it — on Ceres for the first time, a study published today (Feb. 16) in the journal Science reports. And these organics appear to be native, likely forming on Ceres rather than arriving via asteroid or comet strikes, study team members said. Related: Dwarf Planet Ceres, the Solar System's Largest Asteroid "Because Ceres is a dwarf planet that may still preserve internal heat from its formation period and may even contain a subsurface ocean, this opens the possibility that primitive life could have developed on Ceres itself," Michael Küppers, a planetary scientist based at the European Space Astronomy Centre just outside Madrid, said in an accompanying "News and Views" article in the same issue of Science. "It joins Mars and several satellites of the giant planets in the list of locations in the solar system that may harbor life," added Küppers, who was not involved in the organics discovery. Ceres finds keep rolling in The $467 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study Vesta and Ceres, the two largest objects in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn circled the 330-mile-wide (530 kilometers) Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, when it departed for Ceres, which is 590 miles (950 km) across. Dawn arrived at the dwarf planet in March 2015, becoming the first spacecraft ever to orbit two different bodies beyond the Earth-moon system. During its time at Ceres, Dawn has found bizarre bright spots on crater floors, discovered a likely ice volcano 2.5 miles (4 km) tall and helped scientists determine that water ice is common just beneath the surface, especially near the dwarf planet's poles. Data gathered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft show a region around Ceres' Ernutet crater where organic concentrations have been discovered (labeled "a" through "f"). The color coding shows the strength of the organics' absorption band, with warmer colors indicating the highest concentrations. NASA / NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/ASI/INAF/MPS/DLR/IDA The newly announced organics discovery adds to this list of achievements. The carbon-containing molecules — which Dawn spotted using its visible and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument — are concentrated in a 385-square-mile (1,000 square km) area near Ceres' 33-mile-wide (53 km) Ernutet crater, though there's also a much smaller patch about 250 miles (400 km) away, in a crater called Inamahari. And there could be more such areas; the team surveyed only Ceres' middle latitudes, between 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south. "We cannot exclude that there are other locations rich in organics not sampled by the survey, or below the detection limit," study lead author Maria Cristina De Sanctis, of the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Space Planetology in Rome, told Space.com via email. Dawn's measurements aren't precise enough to nail down exactly what the newfound organics are, but their signatures are consistent with tar-like substances such as kerite and asphaltite, study team members said. Organics probably native "The organic-rich areas include carbonate and ammoniated species, which are clearly Ceres' endogenous material, making it unlikely that the organics arrived via an external impactor," co-author Simone Marchi, a senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement. In addition, the intense heat generated by an asteroid or comet strike likely would have destroyed the organics, further suggesting that the molecules are native to Ceres, study team members said. The organics might have formed via reactions involving hot water, De Sanctis and her colleagues said. Indeed, "Ceres shows clear signatures of pervasive hydrothermal activity and aqueous alteration," they wrote in the new study. Such activity likely would have taken place underground. Dawn mission scientists aren't sure yet how organics generated in the interior could make it up to the surface and leave the signatures observed by the spacecraft. "The geological and morphological settings of Ernutet are still under investigation with the high-resolution data acquired in the last months, and we do not have a definitive answer for why Ernutet is so special," De Sanctis said. It's already clear, however, that Ceres is a complex and intriguing world — one that astrobiologists are getting more and more excited about. Related: The 5 Biggest Questions About the Universe "In some ways, it is very similar to Europa and Enceladus," De Sanctis said, referring to ocean-harboring moons of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. "We see compounds on the surface of Ceres like the ones detected in the plume of Enceladus," she added. "Ceres' surface can be considered warmer with respect to the Saturnian and Jovian satellites, due to [its] distance from the sun. However, we do not have evidence of a subsurface ocean now on Ceres, but there are hints of subsurface recent fluids." Originally published on Space.com. Editor's Recommendations[were] properly used and accounted for.” The purpose of this report is to echo the warning issued by the OIG and to inform the public and lawmakers of the mounting risk that an inadequately regulated charter industry presents to our communities and taxpayers. Our examination, which focused on 15 large charter markets, found fraud, waste, and abuse cases totaling over $100 million in losses to taxpayers. Despite rapid growth in the charter school industry, no agency, federal or state, has been given the resources to properly oversee it. 4 Given this inadequate oversight, we worry that the fraud and mismanagement that has been uncovered thus far might bejust the tip of the iceberg. Our hope is that lawmakers will use the information and concrete recommendations that we outline in this report to pass meaningful oversight legislation. * States examined: AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, HI, IL, LA, MN, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TX, and WI. $100 million includes: 1) $51,146,094.65, federal prosecution of charter official/staff completed. 2) $33,400,000, state agency audit finds violation of federal law by charter official/staff. 3) $30,575,143.76, state agency audit finds violation of state law by charter official/staff. 4) $1,161,887.93, state agency audit finds violation of federal and state law by charter official/staff. 5) $19,550,489, charter official/staff is indicted by a federal grand jury. 6) $150,000, charter official/sta ff criminal prosecution in progress. 7) $20,000, charter official/staff is arrested and admitted to fraud. Total: $136,003,615.34 Introduction Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991.Since then, lawmakers in 41 states and the District of Columbia have written their own charter school laws.By all accounts, the growth of the charter industry has been astronomic. Charter enrollment has doubled three times since 2000; it doubled from 2000 to 2004, and again from 2004 to 2008, and again from 2008 to 2014.Just last year, over 600 new charter schools opened and an estimated 288,000 additional students enrolled in charter schools. Today, there are an estimated 6,400 charter schools enrolling over 2.5 million students.8 To understand why there are so many problems in the charter industry, one must understand the original purpose of charter schools. Lawmakers created charter schools to allow educators to explore new methods and models of teaching. To allow this to happen, they exempted the schools from the vast majority of regulations governing the traditional public school system. The goal was to incubate innovations that could then be used to improve public schools.9 The ability to take calculated risks with small populations of willing teachers, parents, and students was the original design. With so few people and schools involved, the risk to participants and the public was relatively low. But today, as the charter sector grows far faster than originally envisioned, the risks are high and growing, while the benefits are less clear. Even relatively pro-charter organizations like the Center On Reinventing Public Education recognize that the regulatory foundation upon which the charter industry was built began from a place of insufficiency. In their analysis of charter oversight law, they found that “only minimal attention was paid to the question of how to oversee these new schools; frequently governments delegated charter school authorization as a side task to offices already burdened with other activities.”10 This is not an uncommon occurrence in our nation’s history. In the past — in some cases, our very recent past — industries such as banking have outgrown their regulatory safety nets. Without sufficient regulations to ensure true public accountability, incompetent and/or unethical individuals and firms can (and have) inflict great harm on communities. This report will bring into focus some of the consequences of having inadequate charter regulations. We focus on just one symptom – the growing problem of fraud, waste, and abuse perpetrated by some charter school operators. The problem is pervasive; our search, despite being limited to fewer than half of the states with charter schools, found over $100 million in public tax funds lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. The Growing Issue of Charter Operator Fraud and Mismanagement Charter operators using public funds illegally for personal gain; School revenue used to illegally support other charter operator businesses; Mismanagement that puts children in actual or potential danger; Charters illegally requesting public dollars for services not provided; Charter operators illegally inflating enrollment to boost revenues; and, Charter operators mismanaging public funds and schools. Charter Operators Using Public Funds Illegally for Personal Gains Our research reveals that charter operator fraud and mismanagement is endemic to the vast majority of states that have passed a charter school law. Drawing upon court cases, media investigations, regulatory findings, audits, and other sources, this report contains a significant portion of known fraud and mismanagement cases. We found, as stated in the introduction, that at least $100 million in public tax dollars has been lost due to fraud, waste, and abuse. These instances of fraud and mismanagement, which are catalogued in appendixes A-F, fall into six basic categories:The most pervasive type of charter fraud and mismanagement that we found in our survey is the illegal practice of charter operators using public funds for personal gain. Examples include:If you really wanna make The Twilight Zone interactive, you're going to need more than one door to walk through. According to a story on The Wrap, The Twilight Zone will be making a surprising digital return in the near future. Why am I writing about it here? Two reasons: First, because the new show will be an interactive video project designed to "let viewers step in and become part of the story." Second, because the pilot episode of the new series will be written and directed by Ken Levine, of System Shock 2, BioShock, and BioShock Infinite fame. According to CBS and Interlude, viewers will be able to "change and adapt the story based on what he or she feels." And as with other videos that Interlude has released in the past (and as with most story-driven games), users will also be able to go back and make new choices on future viewings. Boy, do I have mixed feelings about a lot of this. Interactive movies go back to 1967's Kinoautomat and have bubbled up in video games a number of times since then. I honestly think there's still something (fun? distraction?) to be had with the medium, so I'm not rushing to say that we should avoid them or that this is a fundamental misstep. But I have a lot of doubts that this is a good fit for The Twilight Zone. When I look at the tech in use--say, in this clever lip-synching, channel-surfing video for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" or in this official tech demo from Interlude--I always find myself moving through the same set of feelings. Now this is a Twilight Zone game I can get behind. At first, I'm impressed: Unlike the choose-your-own-adventure videos that occasionally show up on YouTube, Interlude's videos are all so seamless. Everything moves cleanly from one scene to another, which leaps over one of the major hurdles facing this sort of storytelling. In the company's tech demo, you make choices about what a spokesman for Interlude does as he goes through his spiel. Will you dress him in sportswear or evening wear? Will he be backed by a bombastic cinematic score or a minimalistic track straight from a twee tech ad? It's smooth and I end up with a little grin on my face. At one point, though, the spokesman says that "Interlude inspires movie makers to rethink the most fundamental question in storytelling: What if?" And that's when I notice a different sort of seam all together. When I come to films and TV--especially with shows like The Twilight Zone--I'm not looking for a collection of "What If" questions. Most Twilight Zone episodes could twist and turn in a dozen different ways, but the best ones are an example of smart decision making on the part of the writer and director that zero in on the most challenging questions. The best choice-heavy games, meanwhile, offer a network of choices and continuity of ongoing interaction, creating a sort of cascading effect so that even if the choices aren't particularly deep, there's a sense of constant, ongoing connection. When you play Mass Effect 2, you're not just asking "What if Shepard punches this reporter?" but also "What if I upgrade this sniper rifle?" and "What if I bring Tali on this mission instead of Miranda?" At some point, that moves past a feeling of "Ooh, this is interactive," and towards a sort of settled state of engagement. Keep being great, Danny. I'm not saying that smart interactive moviemaking can't be done, but creators will need to overcome the allure of gimmicky filmmaking to develop a new set of techniques for the medium if they want to make something beyond novelty. Look at something like interactive cartoon Charlie Got Fired, which gets laughs from randomness more than careful joke construction. Mad libs are fun, but I'm not sure they're what I'm looking for when I turn on a comedy show. Even in the interactive Dylan video, I find myself eventually moving past the novelty of channel-flipping so that I can focus on the either the classic footage of Dylan performing or the Danny Brown lip synch, which is produced like a traditional music video, incorporating elements of the beat and lyrics into the visuals. All of this is what makes me cautious about Levine's connection to the new show's pilot episode. Levine and the old team at Irrational were at their best when they were building worlds, and perhaps at their weakest when offering players a choice of narrative outcomes. What's worse is that when I think about BioShock Infinite, I can't help but focus on the ways in which it botched its own Twilight Zone-y story. Rod Serling's show was at its best when it was fearless and fresh, able to weave together mind-bending sci-fi with subversive and surprising cultural commentary. BioShock Infinite missed this balance by a mile, delivering a complex world of multiple dimensions alongside a trite "Everyone is bad, actually" morality play. No matter how much I loved riding Columbia's skylines and slamming into enemies with the Charge vigor, no matter how well rendered (and influential) the world of Rapture was, it's hard to get excited about more storytelling from Levine. On the plus side, Interlude is also working on an Interactive reboot of WarGames (with Sam Barlow of Her Story fame), and I think if done well, that could actually convince me that this model of storytelling has legs. My only demand is that the only way to get the good ending is to press no buttons at all. Full disclosure: Giant Bomb is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of Twilight Zone creator the CBS Corporation.Earlier this week, General Electric announced that it is initiating an entrepreneurial effort to commercialize its solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology for megawatt-scale stationary power applications. Billion-dollar fuel cell startup Bloom Energy also works with SOFC technology at this scale. GE has claimed a recent fuel cell "breakthrough" with an efficiency of 65 percent (when used with a Jenbacher engine) and an overall efficiency of up to 95 percent when waste heat is captured. Johanna Wellington, advanced technology leader at GE Global Research and the head of GE’s fuel cell business, stated in a release, “The cost challenges associated with the technology have stumped a lot of people for a long time,” adding, “we made it work, and we made it work economically." GE materials scientist Kristen Brosnan states that using an additive thermal spray technology "to deposit the anode and the electrolyte" makes it "easy to apply, [allowing it to] handle large temperature swings and...last a long time." That's the "game-changer" claimed by Wellington. Martin LaMonica reported on this year's SOFC fuel cell breakthrough from GE a year ago in IEEE. He wrote that GE was combining "proprietary fuel cell technology with its existing gas engines" to replace diesel generators. LaMonica also noted that GE's fuel cell technology was meant "to work in tandem with GE's engines." He wrote that the system is still a few years away from commercial availability and is aimed at customers outside of the U.S., where natural gas prices are not so cheap. Wellington's predecessor as director of GE Global Research, Mark Little, also claimed a "real breakthrough in fuel cell technology" at the time. GE has been working on SOFC technology for decades. Here's an SOFC slide from GE dating back to 2003, about the same time that Ion America was changing its name to Bloom and investing $1 billion into development for its still-unprofitable fuel cells. GE plans to build a pilot plant and development facility near Saratoga Springs, New York. There are seventeen people currently involved in the program, according to the website GigaOm. Vlatko Vlatkovic, chief engineering officer of GE’s Power Conversion division, said in an interview with Bloomberg, “It’s almost impossible to do a good fuel cell without platinum as a catalyst,” which is why GE went the SOFC route. But Vlatkovic also said that that an actual product is still “very far off." The GE Conglomerate had $146 billion in revenue last year. Michael Kanellos, one-time editor-in-chief at GTM, suggested that it would be a conglomerate like a Siemens or GE that would eventually take fuel-cell technology to market, rather than a startup like Bloom. Another conglomerate, UTC, which has an extensive fuel-cell pedigree, actually paid ClearEdge Power $48 million to take that firm's fuel cell business off its hands. See below for the eventual outcome of that transaction. Other recent fuel cell news:Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption US President Barack Obama: "I have a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions" US President Barack Obama has put military action against Syria on hold and vowed to pursue diplomacy to remove the regime's chemical weapons. Damascus now admits it has chemical weapons and has agreed to abide by a Russian plan to hand over its arsenal. The US had threatened strikes after a gas attack killed hundreds last month. On the ground, the army is trying to retake the Christian town of Maaloula. The BBC's Jeremy Bowen, at the scene, says heavy fighting is continuing. Latest Maaloula had been overrun by rebel forces including members of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, at the weekend. Some Syrian media reported that the government forces had recaptured the town. But our Middle East editor says the fighting is ongoing, with al-Nusra still present in parts of the town. He says smoke is rising from some districts and he has seen injured government soldiers being evacuated. More than 100,000 people have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011. Meanwhile, the latest report by UN rights experts, released on Wednesday, says torture and rape are widespread and war crimes are being committed by both sides. 'Encouraging signs' Russia announced its plan on Monday and Syria quickly responded, saying it "welcomed" the initiative. Late on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem then made the fullest public admission of the regime's stockpile and a much clearer commitment to the Russian plan. Analysis Even without President Obama's uphill struggle to win over the US Congress and people, there's a strong feeling in the region that the psychological moment was lost in the few days after Parliament took Britain out of the picture on 29 August. The head of steam that seemed to herald an imminent attack has dissipated, and it is hard to imagine it being recreated. "If they had hit then, when the moment was hot, they might have got away with it in terms of repercussions," said one diplomat. "But to come back cold, weeks later, would be something else." Syrian rebels had been poised to exploit an American blow by trying to advance. Now they've suffered the double disappointment of seeing Mr Obama mired in domestic woes and then seizing the lifeline thrown by the Russian initiative, dismissed by the opposition coalition as a trick to win time. Mr Obama has also made it clear throughout that he was not pushing for regime change, more cold water for rebel hopes. The chemical weapons crisis has not stopped the conflict grinding on in almost all parts of the country, with about 100 people killed daily and no end in sight. "We are ready to inform about the location of chemical weapons, halt the production of chemical weapons, and show these objects to representatives of Russia, other states and the United Nations," he said. "Our adherence to the Russian initiative has a goal of halting the possession of all chemical weapons." But the BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow says there still appears to be disagreement between the Russians and the Syrians over whether the weapons should be destroyed. He says the Syrians are eventually likely to concede the point and allow the arsenal to be destroyed because the Russians will argue that is the only way to gain broader acceptance of the plan. Until Tuesday morning, Mr Obama's government had been lobbying hard for support in Congress for military strikes. But surveys of politicians had shown he was unlikely

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